Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Last Saturday, the New York Times ran an op-ed piece entitled “Congregations Gone Wild.” The author, G. Jeffrey MacDonald, reported that Christian congregations are increasingly demanding their pastors dumb down the message, preaching merely to entertain or to make their congregants feel good. He recounted his own experience, when as a parish pastor about ten years ago the advisory committee of his congregation told him to keep his sermons to 10 minutes, tell funny stories, and leave people feeling great about themselves.[1]
It was the same 2600 years ago in Jeremiah’s day. In our Old Testament lesson, Jeremiah faced a “congregation gone wild.” Jeremiah fearlessly called Judah to repentance and warned that God raised up the Babylonian armies to destroy Jerusalem for its unfaithfulness to His covenant love. The people didn’t listen. They imprisoned Jeremiah and tried to kill him. False prophets told the people what they wanted to hear – peace would prevail; God would save them from the Babylonian superpower. Jeremiah answered:
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace. No harm will come to you.’ But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or hear His Word. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until He fully accomplishes the purposes of His heart.”
What sort of God do you worship? In an age of Biblical illiteracy, we should examine our opinions about God. Have laziness and boredom with God’s Word allowed you to buy into a portrait of God that isn’t true to His own self-revelation in Scripture? Do we basically take our own opinions about the world and figure since we’re so smart God probably agrees with us? Is yours the lovable “teddy bear god”? Is he a god content with some lesser place in your life? Does your god affirm bad choices and sinful lifestyles instead of demanding a complete and total surrender of self? Hebrews 12 says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”, but like the people of Judah we resist it so long as there are lying prophets to excuse us.
I’ve often thought one of the tragic things about so many unscrupulous lawyers and secular psychiatrists, and, maybe even pastors or parents, is when they embrace and excuse evil, rather than Jeremiah’s prescription: “Let the one who has My Word speak it faithfully” or St. Paul’s version: “Speak the truth in love.”
I think this is why we so often resist genuine repentance. We wiggle and squirm, refusing to be crushed under the hammer of God’s Law, refusing to fall to our knees in genuine terror and desperation before God… refusing so long as we can find one person whose life is worse than ours, one person or act that makes plausible our claim to goodness and virture.
That is, in truth, the world’s oldest temptation – to remake God in our image. We soften up the rough edges, smooth out the things about God that we aren’t comfortable with – that won’t sell. God just doesn’t know how to appeal to a mass audience. Maybe we think He needs our help, so He doesn’t come off so judgmental. We want God to be more like the hip CEO who dresses casually and hangs out at the water cooler. God needs a post-modern facelift, less solemnity, a little more touchy feely. Is that your sort of God as well? Live however you want – repentance is an old fashioned concept!
Since Jeremiah’s day, unscrupulous prophets have helped God with His change of image. You don’t have to look very far to find modern day prophets, pastors and theologians who will tell you whatever you want to hear. Do you want to have sex or live together outside of marriage? No big deal. At some point, you’ll get married and it’s all good. Do you deal ruthlessly in relations at work or carelessly in relations at home? Is money and success what moves your world, or is it love for God and selfless service toward your neighbor? Do you find it easier to enjoy life on your terms and then squeeze religion in where it’s convenient for you? Nowadays, you can probably find someone to justify those choices as long as you keep putting your check in the offering plate.
Paul warned Timothy that these days were coming: “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of people to say what their itching ears want to hear.” Despite the modern day prophets of permissiveness there is only one saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said, “If anyone teaches another Gospel than the one you learned, let him be eternally condemned.”
Dear friends, before God we must take seriously this Word and fly to it for refuge as the place God has chosen to make known His will. We must teach it to our young people so that they too will recognize the many, many false, lying prophets that parade in the guise of teaching the truth. We are easily attracted to shiny and glittering packages, but it takes Christian maturity to settle for nothing less than God’s full truth.
A serious approach to God’s Word will not allow us to make of God a toothless teddy bear that turns a blind eye to sin. God’s Word forbids sin and pronounces His judgment and condemnation upon sin. God’s Word is not a feather pillow, but our text says, “Is not my Word like fire,” declares the Lord. “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”
Hammers are used not only for construction, but also for demolition. God’s truth, which is also true in building, is sometimes you have to demolish before you can build. Apart from God’s Word, you and I would go around constructing our lives on lies. We’ll follow the way of the world and make god in our image. We construct comfortable palaces on shifting sand. Our god becomes our appetites and we build around trying to satisfy number one.
God’s Law destroys every false god we construct for ourselves. The Hammer of God’s Law pounds and pulverizes the lies of the world in which we comfort our conscience, and by which we excuse evil. You can hide your sinful treachery from your friends and family, but the hammer of God decimates any hiding place: “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the Lord.” The God who judges the living and the dead sees all and knows all. You may fool all others, but not God.
God’s Law, the Hammer of God strips us of every hope and support and false comfort in this world, none of these will stand in the day of God’s judgment, nor will any who harden their stony hearts to God’s call to repentance.
Odd as it seems to the world at large. It’s a good thing that the Holy Spirit wields His hammering Word to crush our self-reliance and destroy our false security, God will construct for us solid homes, solid places in which we can find true comfort. No shabby and worthless materials will be used for this project. Our security can’t rest on our work if it will ever be truly secure. The twin timbers of Calvary’s cross are the solid foundation upon which our lives rest. At the cross, God dropped the crushing hammer of His judgment upon the perfect Son whom He loved. In Jesus all that is false and wayward and wrong in us was judged and condemned so that the cross of Christ might be the refuge in which we find peace. The Psalmist wrote: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in time of trouble.”
God’s precious Word assures us: “There is no other foundation than that which has been laid, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”, He is the “Stone the builders rejected who has become the Chief Cornerstone.” Jesus’ blood-bought forgiveness is the only unwavering foundation that stands firmly for all eternity. Our lives, our hope, our forgiveness, our salvation, our families, our future, everything that we are is founded and rooted in Christ the Solid Rock, all other ground is sinking sand. In His sufferings, death, and resurrection, we are no longer crouching in a burned out, broken down house. But through faith in His Son, God has made you a member of His family. He has prepared a heavenly home for you. In Christ Jesus, we are not exposed and defenseless before the onslaughts of the world, but God has made you His own.
Building projects are big jobs and get more expensive all the time. In the person of His Son, Jesus paid the full price to build you up firmly on the foundation of His Cross and resurrection. The labor came at no cost to you. It cost Jesus His life, but His perfect love is freely yours. In Baptism, God anchored you solidly into the foundation of Jesus. Romans says, “We were buried with Christ through Baptism and raised with Him to new life.” By the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to build you and anchor you and stabilize you in the timeless treasure of the Risen Savior.
For any construction project to be a success, you have to strip out the old rotted worthless lumber and start over again. Thanks be to God, by the Holy Spirit’s power that’s what God’s Word does. The hammer of the Law strips away any false pride and self-reliance, until finally we have only one place to rest on Jesus Christ, the crucified and Living One. This is a solid, eternally true and faithful hope. In Him your fractured foundations are replaced. Your sin-stained walls have been cleansed in the precious blood of Jesus. “God is our refuge and strength an ever-present help in time of trouble.” Amen.
And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Synodical VP Scott Murray referred to this from The New York Times, August 7, 2010.