Coming Home

Jeremiah 3:6-4:4

Su, my wife, grew up in Japan, and 35 years later, she still does her mental arithmetic in Japanese. And that’s because the culture you grow up in has this power to shape you.

And the same was true for Jeremiah’s day. He was born in the last decade of King Manasseh, easily Judah’s worst king. He ruled for over 50 years and his reign had it all - idolatry, organised prostitution, child sacrifice, murder, and oppression. And after 50 years those things were engrained in Judah’s national life.

And after his death, Manasseh was eventually replaced by 8 year old Josiah. And it fell to Josiah, at the age of just 18, to try and turn things around. And he began a whole series of reforms to re-establish righteousness and the rule of law and the worship of God. And he even tried to extend those reforms northwards, into what was left of the northern kingdom of Israel.

And it’s into this time that this passage speaks. Verse 6, ‘The Lord said to me in the days of king Josiah…’ 

And what the Lord says through Jeremiah tells us something sobering about ourselves, but something wonderful about God.

The Two-Fold Love of God

The love between a husband and wife, or between a parent and child can be some of the strongest, deepest, and most rewarding relationships we can experience. But they can also be some of the most costly and hurtful. Because when they go wrong, when a spouse walks out, or a child turns on us, the pain and the hurt can go deep. 

And this passage tells us that God knows exactly what that pain feels like. He knows the hurt of a faithful, loving husband whose wife has left him, and the pain of a loving, dedicated parent whose son has walked away.

You see, remember last week, in chapter 3:1-5, how Jeremiah describes Judah as being like a wife who has walked out and been sexually unfaithful to her husband. Well now, he expands that image to Israel in the north: v20, ‘Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel.’ And yet, precisely because he loves his people, God longs for her to return.

So God knows the pain of an abandoned spouse. But he also knows the hurt of the wounded father. Verse 19, “‘I said, how I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me.”’ But they had turned from following him and, again, he longed for them to turn back.

Now, think about those two images of God’s love for his people: the love of a husband, and the love of a dad, because both are carried on into the New Testament. In Ephesians 5 Paul likens Christ’s love for his people to the sacrificial love of a husband for his bride.

And throughout the New Testament we’re told that because of Jesus, you and I can become children of God, and know the love of God the Father, and call him, Abba, Daddy.

And, whether or not you realise it, you’re looking for that love. Deep down you’re looking for and need the love of God as husband, and Father. 

You see, imagine a perfect husband loving his bride. Which of us doesn’t want to experience that kind of unconditional love? To be seen and known as we really are, behind all the masks and all the layers, and yet be loved?  And which of us doesn’t want the inner sense of well-being that comes from knowing that you’re loved by a Father whose love will never let you down and never give up on you? The kind of love that you thrive under.

One of the tragic signs of child abuse is what’s called ‘frozen watchfulness’. It’s when a child who’s been abused withdraws into himself but at the same time he’s on his guard, watching for the next physical assault. And when you see it it’s heartbreaking. But compare that to the child who knows that they’re loved, that rather than being on their guard against their father, they know that their dad is on guard for them. They flourish under that love, and they throw themselves into life. 

All of us want to know the love that brings that kind of security and that kind of inner wellbeing.  The problem is we search for it in all the wrong places.

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

And here God likens Israel to a wife who's a sex addict, sleeping around with partner after partner. Verse 6, “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?” And v13, Israel has “scattered [her] favours among foreigners under every green tree.”

And the religious shrines to all these foreign gods were located on high places and in wooded areas, and in worshipping them it’s as if Israel had been sleeping with them, with god after god, thinking, ‘this god will do it for me, this god will give me what I’m looking for.’ Because that’s how idols work: if you wanted wealth you worshipped the god of money; if you wanted to be fertile you sacrificed to the god of sex; if you wanted a good harvest you prayed to the god of harvests.

And after years of being warned about such idolatry, Israel had been destroyed by Assyria in 722BC and taken into exile. And God describes Israel’s exile as like him divorcing her, v8, “I… sent her away with a decree of divorce.”

Now, in his book, How Will You Measure Your Life? Clayton Christensen, who’s a professor at Harvard Business School, he describes how numerous people you’d think we’re destined for huge success, end up with multiple broken marriages, or kids who won’t talk to them, or get caught up in some financial scandal, or even end up in jail. And you don’t want to end up like that, do you? So the question he asks is, why does that happen? So that we can learn from their mistakes. 

But, there’s a saying isn’t there: the one thing we learn from history is … what? That we never learn from history. And 100 years after Israel’s exile, Judah has failed to learn the lessons of Israel. Verse 8, “She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.” Now, when our girls were younger they were always copying Naomi our eldest. If Naomi refused to wear dresses, they refused to wear dresses. And despite the fact that Judah could see the brokenness that comes with giving yourself to idols, she’s behaved like a younger sister copying her older sibling: looking for the good life, for financial security, or political power, or a good harvest, in all the wrong places.

Now, I remember the first time I walked from Waterloo Train Station to Great Ormand Street Children’s Hospital in London. And those were the days when there were telephone boxes along the pavement. And I’d never really spent any time in London before and so I was  taken aback that inside these telephone boxes were all these cards, advertising the services of one prostitute after another. Want a good time? Call this number. Want an amazing night? Call this no. 

And that’s the offer of idols, isn’t it? Want a good life, want financial security, want the feel good of career success, then call this number, worship, sacrifice your time, your family, your life, at the shrine of this god, on the altar of making money, or career, or romantic relationships, or self-indulgence. And we do it thinking that’s where we’ll find the unconditional love, or the inner sense of well-being where we’ll thrive, where life is good.

Ok, but if those things work, if career success or some romantic relationship gives me what I want, what’s the big problem with that? Well, firstly, God commands us to have no other gods but him, that nothing else but him should take no.1 spot in our lives. And so, at its root, idolatry is disobedience to and rebellion against God. But secondly, because idols don’t work. Not in the long term. They always sell you short.

And that was Israel’s experience: v21, ‘A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons.’ Israel thought that worshipping other gods would bring freedom from God’s narrow laws, telling them how they should live - but instead they ended up slaves of the Assyrians. They thought worshipping these gods would give them bumper harvests and material wealth, and instead the nation lies in ruins. And in all the bitterness of their emptiness, they weep.

As Jeremiah says in v23, ‘Truly the hills are a delusion.’ You get into bed with these gods, thinking it’s going to be great, and it’s anything but. You throw yourself into some relationship thinking that at last you’ll find love, and you end up more hurt than before. You sacrifice your family on the altar of career thinking that once you’ve got ahead you’ll have the money and the time your wife and kids need, but once you’ve got ahead, they don’t want to know you.

And instead of giving us that deep inner sense of well-being, things we make our gods slowly eat away at us. Verse 24, “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers laboured.” Idols are like the guy who knocks at your door trying to sell you a lottery ticket, promising that if you enter you’re going to win a million, whilst his mate is round the back, breaking in and making off with all your valuables. In the long-term, idols don’t give, they rob.

So, if that’s the case, how can break the destructive cycle of looking for love in all the wrong places?

Well, imagine, how would a husband in Jeremiah’s day, have treated a wife who had run off and slept with which ever men she could get into bed with? I mean, Israel’s own law forbade a husband to take such a wife back once he’d divorced her. And yet, take her back is exactly what God says he’ll do. Verse 12, “‘Return, faithless Israel… I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful.’” 

You see, God knows that it’s only in his arms that we will ever find the inner security and well-being we’re looking for.

The one thing Israel, and you and I, need to do is repent.

Coming Home

Now, to repent means to have such a change in your thinking that the direction of your life and behaviour does a 180 degree turn. And here, that’s what God repeatedly calls his people to do: to leave their false lovers and turn back home. Verse 12, ‘Return faithless Israel’, v14, ‘return O faithless children’; v22, ‘Return, faithless sons’; 4:1, “If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord, to me you should return.”

In other words, separation from God, with all the fall-out of that in our lives, doesn’t have to be the last word; there can be a better future than being eaten up by your idols, or of facing God’s wrath that he describes in 4:4 as being like ‘fire… with none to quench it.’ 

Because Jeremiah assures them that if they do turn back they will find mercy and healing and the love and security and inner well-being they’re looking for. 

And if that was true in his day, how much more is it true for us? You see, when Jesus was criticised for being a friend of tax collectors and prostitutes, people who had run off after the idols of money and sex, what story did he tell? The Parable of the Prodigal Son, of a father longing for the coming home of his son, who had turned away and sacrificed his life at the altar of idols. And when that father saw his turning-away son turning back he ran to welcome him and threw his arms around him and threw a feast for him. And Jesus’ point is, that is how God the Father loves and welcomes his children home.

Now, maybe there was a time when that prodigal son thought, ‘I’m neck-deep in pig muck, my father will never have me back'. And maybe you think you’re too far in, that this idol has got too firm a grip on you, that your life is too entangled with it to ever be free of it, that you could never experience the love of God the Father like this. But Jeremiah, and Jesus, are saying, oh yes you can, you just need to come home.

And Jeremiah tells us what turning home looks like. Firstly, it’s got to be genuine, you’ve got to mean it. You see, Jeremiah is preaching in the midst of King Josiah’s reforms. And on the surface people are cleaning up their act, but deep down, they still love their idols. Verse 10, “Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretence, declares the Lord.”

Now there’s a saying that there are no atheists in fox-holes. That when soldiers are pinned down in a battle, and they’ve got bombs raining in on them, everyone’s praying to some god or other. Now, whether that’s true or not, there is definitely such a thing as fox-hole repentance, isn’t there? That when life goes belly up, when the Assyrians invade, or you lose your job, or your marriage is on the rocks, you can try and bargain with God, God I’ll stop doing this, or I’ll start doing that, if you’ll just save me from this mess. But, when life gets better, that repentance gets forgotten. And God is saying, if you want to know the love and security of home, you need to turn back with all your heart.

Secondly, to genuinely repent means to recognise you’re wrong. Verse 13, “Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God.” That means we stop making excuses or blaming others for the wrong decisions we’ve made. It means admitting, ‘I’m the one who’s wrong.’

Thirdly, true repentance recognises who’s right. Verse 22, “Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God.” It’s confessing, I’ve run off after idols thinking they can give me what I’m looking for, but now I see, you’re the only God who can satisfy me.

And fourthly, true repentance means getting rid of the idols. It means that as you turn towards God, you turn your back on these other things. Chapter 4:1, “To me you should return… remove your detestable things.” And what that looks like is going to depend on what the specific idol is. It might mean breaking off a wrong relationship. It might mean installing accountability software on your devices. It might mean putting in boundaries at work and taking your holidays and a weekly sabbath. Whatever it is, you’re taking practical steps to break the hold of this thing.

The problem is, to do that you’ve got to want to do that, haven’t you? What your heart loves most has got to change. And so Jeremiah gives us two pictures for the kind of heart change we need. And the first is of a farmer ploughing up a field: 4:3, ‘Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.” 

Now, why does a farmer plough up the ground? It’s so he can sow seed into it and reap a harvest, isn’t it? And Jesus told a parable about a farmer went out to sow seed, and some fell on good soil, but other fell among the thorns that Jeremiah speaks about here, which strangled what grew up. And Jesus said the seed is God’s word, and the thorns are the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things: the very stuff we’re tempted to look to as idols. 

And so it’s as we open up our hearts to hear God’s word, as James says, to ‘receive with meekness the implanted word’ (James 1:21), and let it speak to us, that the hold of these idols can be broken. Because it changes the way we see life and the world and everything in it.

But the second picture Jeremiah uses is circumcision. And Jeremiah’s speaking to a people who are already, physically circumcised, because circumcision was the mark that set them apart as God’s special people. The problem is, they needed something more than skin deep. They needed a heart, an inner disposition that knew, not just in theory, but in reality, by experience, I’m set apart for God. And in Colossians 2, Paul tells us that that inner, heart circumcision, the real, deep life change, that we all need, only comes through Jesus. 

The Promise of Better Things

And God promises that after the people have turned back, v15, “I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Now, whether or not you realise it, all of us have shepherds. They’re the people you follow, whose example you imitate, whose values you adopt, whose take on life you listen to. And it could be a parent, or an inspirational person in your life; it could be some celebrity or your favourite motivational author. Whoever it is is leading you, like a shepherd, to some pasture, to some vision of the good life, or other. But here God promises he will give his people shepherds who will lead them to him. 

And when the people of Judah returned from exile, God gave them good men like Nehemiah and Ezra who led them. But even good men like couldn’t bring about the heart change they needed, or lead them into the next promise.

Verse 17, ‘At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem.’ Now, in Jeremiah’s day, the Ark of the Covenant, that he talks about in v16, was considered God’s throne. But God says a day’s coming when people will forget all about the ark, and the city of Jerusalem itself will be God’s throne and he’ll live there. And when he does, not just Israel and Judah, but all nations will come and worship him.

But if men like Ezra and Nehemiah couldn’t bring about the heart change people needed, there’s no way they could ever deliver on that vision of a New Jerusalem. 

But then Christ came as the ultimate good shepherd after God’s own heart. And he was the one true Israelite - the only man never to worship idols. The one who remained faithful to God to the end. And at the cross he carried all our unfaithfulness, all our idolatry on his shoulders, and threw himself into the fire storm of God’s wrath in place of us. And God the Father turned away from him, and he experienced the separation from God we deserve, so that you and I might be welcomed home. He was met with wrath, so that you might be met with mercy. Because God loves you, with the love of a father and a husband, and wants you home.

And the fact that we’re from all our different national backgrounds tells you that this great ingathering of the nations has begun in Christ, and you’re a part of its fulfilment. 

But it’s also in Christ that this promise of a New Jerusalem will come true. As John saw in the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, ‘And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man…. I am making all things new.” (Rev 21:1-5).

Worship idols, and they will suck the life out of you. Repent, and worship Christ and make him the centre, and you’ll know mercy and healing and the love and inner well-being you’re searching for, and you’ll find your place in God’s extraordinary world-wide purposes in Christ. He is a much better shepherd to follow.