Sunday, December 28
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Good morning and welcome. We are glad that you are here with us this morning. Just a few quick notes as we begin. If you didn't happen to get a bulletin, there are bulletins with handouts in them on the little table as you come in. The same is true of the communion elements as we celebrate communion together in a little bit. They are there on the back table if you would like to pick those up. As we gather this morning, we are somewhere between the celebration of Christmas and the beginning of the new year. We want to be reminded this morning of God's faithfulness, the fact that God gives us rest, and a call to walk in the way that He has given us. I'm going to pray, and then we'll read together from the 95th Psalm, and then we'll begin our time of worship in song.
Father in heaven, I just thank you for the blessing of being able to gather with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We thank you for being able to worship and to celebrate. We just ask this morning that you would help us as we look to our hearts and the focus of where we are hoping and what it is we are chasing. May you point us to the path that you would have us to walk, that if our need this morning is to come in repentance, that your spirit would convict us of sin and lead us to the paths of righteousness for your glory. We just ask that if we are weary and tired and worn out this morning, that you would lead us to the place of refreshment, that you would lead us beside the still waters and the green pastures.
We thank you that you are with us even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that you are with us and that you comfort us. We just ask that you would be with us as we worship this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Our Scripture reading this morning is just a little bit longer, but we're going to go ahead and stand and read the first six verses of the 95th Psalm. So if you would, read with me. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hands are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. Let's sing "Joy to the World."
Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let her receive her King. Every hour, prepare Him room. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing.
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. No more let sin and sorrow glow. No thorns infest the ground. No more let his blessings flow. For as the curse is found, for as the curse is found. For as, for as, the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace. And makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness. And wonders of His love. And wonders, wonders of His love. Next we're going to sing "Angels We Have Heard on High," a song that invites us to join Heaven's Joy, not because everything in our lives is necessarily perfect, but because Christ has come. "Angels We Have Heard On High," "Sweetly Singing All The Rings," "And The Mountains Hear Me Cry," "Echoing The Joy of Strings."
"The Next Chance Is There." "The Next Chance Is There." "The Next Chance Is There." Shadows wide this jubilee, while your joy estranged from all. What the gladsome time has been, which inspired your heavenly song. "The Next Chance Is There." "The Next Chance Is There." "The Next Chance Is There." The Next Chance Is There." "Come to earth, we haven't seen. Hear whose breath the angels sing. Come, adore undenity. Christ, her Lord, the beautiful King." The Next Chance Is There. The Next Chance Is There. The Next Chance Is There. The Next Chance Is There. Sing in an angel's aid, hear the cries of angels' praise. Mary Joseph, let your aid follow us in lovely days. May that's just his day. May that's just his day. May that's just his day.
As we prepare to enter our time around the table, I'm going to begin with a prayer of confession and repentance. Father in heaven, we so often look to and chase things that are new instead of finding our hope and our peace in you alone. So this morning we come confessing our sin and our wandering, our hearts that are divided, chasing different things. We confess that we're tired, that we're discouraged, and oftentimes that's a result of our misplaced hope. So we ask this morning that you would forgive us, that you would restore us, that you would lead us to your good way, that you would teach us to walk in it, and that in doing so we would have rest for our souls. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. If you would, read with me from Lamentations chapter 3. Let's read together.
"But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." This is God's Word. We're going to sing as we prepare to come to the table, O come all ye faithful.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold him, born the King of angels. O come, let us adore him. O come, let us adore him. O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord. Thank you. God, all glory in the highest. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. Yeah, Lord, we greet Him. Born this happy morning. Jesus, to Thee be all glory. Thee be all glory give. Word of the fire. Now in flight. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
In Genesis, we find that in the cool of the day, God would come and walk with Adam and Eve in the garden. And that picture of walking is one that is not just found in the beginning of Genesis, but it becomes a picture of how God's people interact with God. That Enoch, he walks with God. Abraham walked with God. Throughout Scripture, we find this call to our Christian life often pictured as a walk. Paul talks about how we no longer walk as we used to walk. And probably most of us know, if we are Christians, that the call to us is to walk with God and to walk in His way. But I think probably most of us know there is a difference between knowing something and doing something. And so often, instead of walking with God, what we find ourselves doing is walking in a different direction.
The book of Jonah is a perfect example of how this works. In Jonah 1, God calls Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh. Jonah, instead of walking with God, goes in the opposite direction. He runs from God. And in chapter 2, as he is in the big fish, and he's praying in repentance, you see Jonah seeking to run back to God. In chapter 3, everything seems to be going great because Jonah is walking with God on the mission that God has given him. But then in chapter 4, you find Jonah just sort of taking the lead and running out ahead of God, looking back over his shoulders, saying, "God, why aren't you doing what I want you to do?" And so this morning, as we come to the table, part of what we are called to do is to examine our lives,
to examine how it is we are living in regards to what God has called us to do. There are so many new things that we can chase this time of year. We get new things for Christmas. We start with new resolutions a week later. And we are reminded at this table that God does not call us to something new, but to something deeper. That in Christ, God has already given us what we need. That this bread and this cup remind us that Jesus walked in the way that we walk, but he did so perfectly. He was faithful when we were not. He was obedient when we were disobedient. He was steadfast where we grow tired. And so this table is a place of evaluation, to examine our hearts and our lives and to ask ourselves where it is we are walking.
But it is also a place for the people of restoration. Not because we have all the answers, but because we know the one who does. Because God has been faithful. And so as we partake together, our goal is to fix our eyes on the goodness of God and in the gospel that he has shared with us through his Son. David writes this in his prayer of repentance in the 51st Psalm. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit." Father in heaven, as we come to this table, may you restore us with joy. That if we are struggling with sin, that you would give us the strength and the wisdom to see the way of escape that you have given to us.
That you would help us to see the forgiveness that has been poured out at the cross. That if we are struggling, and that we are weak, and we are tired, and we feel like we see all of our failures and all of our brokenness, would you help us to see Jesus? His death, taking our brokenness, and his righteousness being given to us. Help us to see that in him there is victory. Not in our strength, but in yours. So I ask that you bless this bread. Bless this cup. Restore us to joy. Strengthen us. And help us as we seek to share the good news of the gospel to the world. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's partake of the bread together. And it is in this cup we see that there is forgiveness and restoration and new life in Jesus.
And as we eat and drink, we proclaim the good news to our hearts, but we proclaim it to the world as well. At this point, the children may be dismissed to Children's Church, and we're going to move directly into our time of prayer this morning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, I was thinking of that the other day. Anybody else? Is that going to be local? It's in Park, National Harbor. Over in Maryland. Anybody else? I'd like to thank you for the moment, too. I'd like to thank you for joining us today. I would like to thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to put on here, I don't know the gentleman, but I know his mother. I haven't seen her in years, but we've kept in contact. His name is Rob Newman, and he's her son. Starting about four months ago, it started off with a new year. He had a heart attack. Then he had kidney stones, and so then he had something else, and then in his past couple weeks ago, weeks ago, he went into the hospital to get the stent removed, and when they went in to get the stent removed, they found out his intestines were blocked, and so they had to go in and do surgery on his intestine. So he's been doing, had a rough four months, and they've got prayers for Rob. I mean, it's been a tough time for him, so I'm going to add Rob.
And I talked to her, you know, via Facebook and mentioned that this is a family that believes in prayer. My family, I mean our church, and that I said, "I won't bore you with all the miracles, but we've seen them here, and we know that they exist." Anybody? And all our family that's on track, we've got an elk missing. Jay and Stuart are in Ireland, so they'll be back, I think, on the 6th of January. And Jay's going back for a month. He's going to go over and spend some time with those grandkids. All right, let's go ahead and have a prayer. Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you're here with us today, and that you brought us together to be here in your house, to worship you, and worship you through your son and what you've done for us with him.
We acknowledge that even more. God, let us continue to acknowledge that miracle of birth and that you have given to us all year round. God, we ask a special prayer today for Bill. We know he's going through some very tough times with his cancer treatments. And God, we ask that you not only give him strength, but give him comfort. And we ask for healing. We also ask for blessings on Heidi because we know that sometimes, not sometimes, but the family members going through the struggle with somebody who's ill, it takes a toll on it too. God, we ask a prayer for her. She goes in in the next couple of weeks for her surgery. God, we pray that this be a successful one. And we pray that you are with the surgeons as they go and take care of this issue for Pam, and that we ask that you guide their hands, and that we ask that it be very, like you said, a successful one. We ask that you will give Pam strength as she goes through this, and comfort. And we ask for total healing. We ask you to be with Dave as he continues to give her care and comfort during this time.
We pray it will be with Jason, dear God, and we ask that you bring him home this year. We know that his family misses him, and we ask that you bring him back, and not only home, but bring him here to be with us. Pray it will be with Andrew.
As he gets ready for this surgery, and again, be with those surgeons and guide their hands, and give Brandon Tobe a quick healing from his surgery. We pray you'll be with Rob Newman and the whole Newman family, dear God. We know that this has been a struggle health-wise for him for quite a while, and that one thing happens, and they get close to seeing closure and then another one. So God, we ask that, again, you be with the doctors as they treat Rob and give him total healing. Be with the Newman family, give them strength. We ask that you bring Rob through this in a healthy, quick way. God, we do thank you again for everything you've done for each of us today. We ask that you will be with us as we leave here. We ask that you will give us all comfort and strength and guidance so that we can go about your business. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.
This Sunday, at least for me, I always kind of feel a little bit strange. Christmas is over. We've gone through all of the build-up, all of the preparations, all of the excitement we have celebrated. We've spent time with family, friends. We've done all of those things, and now we're kind of in this in-between space, in between Christmas and New Year's. And maybe you've seen the memes about time not existing, and we're only eating cookies for the next week, trying to not do anything or go anywhere. So we may come tired, full of sugar, kind of out of rhythm because everything's not sort of the normal way that it is. Some of us may not even know what day it is. And in the aftermath of something good, sometimes we can feel pretty disoriented. But in a few days from now, and it's remarkable how quickly this shifts. We go from sort of the celebration of Christmas and that time of saying, "All right, we have some time. We can sit. We can eat cookies. We can rejoice." And then the next thing you know, we're like, "Oh, New Year's is coming. I need to change everything about my life as quickly as possible with as many New Year's resolutions." And it's remarkable, right? We go from sitting on the couch doing nothing but eating cookies to all of a
sudden, right? I've got new plans, new goals, new ideas, new systems. And this year, right? This is the refrain that always comes like, "This year is going to be different." Right? I'm going to finally, I'm going to be organized. Finally, you know, I'm going to make sure my car is inspected on time. I'm going to make sure that, you know, everything is taken care of. I'm going to finally eat healthy. We really love the allure of new. Not necessarily always pursuing. always pursuing that newness. We sure like the idea of it. And part of it is because our world has wired us to believe that by having something new, we can finally have something better. And I don't think there's anything wrong with planning or change or improvement, but there is sort of a subtle danger here. We often sort of assume that if we can get everything
where it clicks and it's right. And our difficulties are gone and our life is in order. If we can sort of move our life forward, eventually it will bring us to rest. That something new is going to fix what is wrong inside. We're not often very good at sitting in sort of those in-between places. We don't like feeling weary or disappointed or struggling. And so we look ahead and say, "Maybe if I change all this, maybe if I find something new, I will finally be settled." Scripture comes to us, not calling us to something new. And honestly, it sort of pushes against that instinct. And what we'll find is that again and again, God's people, whether they struggle with sin, they feel like they've sort of stalled and are stuck, they're tired, or they're disappointed. And oftentimes, like us, their instinct is to look
ahead for something new. But God instead calls them back to something deeper and something more wonderful. And when I say that He calls us backwards to something deeper and more wonderful, I don't mean He calls us back sort of toward nostalgia, right, where you watch an old Christmas movie that is a fond memory, and maybe you've seen the movie a million times, you're not even that excited about it. But by going back to it, it sort of revives those emotions of the first time we saw it. That's not the picture of the kind of newness, or the kind of way that God calls us back. He's not calling us backward or back to be stagnant, to not move. But He calls us back toward Himself, to walking in the way that He has already laid out for us. This is not God saying, "Try something else."
But rather, maybe you've had this experience where you're driving. I like to think I know better than the computer voice that lives inside my phone. And so sometimes it'll say, "Well, take a left turn here." And I'll go, "I know where I'm going. I'm not taking a left turn here." And then you know it'll say, "Turn around when possible." In half a mile, take the left, take a right, take another left, and turn around when you are possible. All right, my destination hasn't changed, but I've somehow gotten off the appropriate path. And what we need, as God's people this morning, isn't to chase something that's brand new, but rather to return. And sometimes that return is from sin. Sometimes it's from the weariness of trying to carry our burdens on our own. Sometimes it's back to the place where we are fully trusting in God instead of trusting in ourselves.
Back to that place of worship and walking with Him. And so this morning I want to begin with a call to return. And specifically this morning we're going to start with this, a call to return from fear, compromise, and sin. And what I mean by that is often that fear, rather than taking those fears to God and trusting that He's going to take care of us and watch over us. Just like as a child, you're less fearful when your dad says, "Hey, I'm right here with you, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you." So when you're scared, you run to your dad. Oftentimes we run to try to defend ourselves. Or maybe we struggle with everything that's so different, and so maybe a little compromise here or a little compromise there will be okay.
Or in some cases we just simply give ourselves over to sin. And for those who are living in fear and compromise and sin, there's good news that God calls his people back. And this is not just sort of a one-verse kind of thing, but there's a pattern that goes from Genesis to Revelation of God calling and bringing his people back. In fact, we first see this in Genesis, the 13th chapter. Abraham, in chapter 12, has been called by God, has followed God, and then things get really, really difficult for Abraham. And what I mean by that is there's a famine in the land. Everybody runs out of food. And Abraham, I think, is afraid and he's uncertain, and so he says, "You know what? I'm going to go to Egypt, because I have heard they have a great amount of food in Egypt."
And he looks at his wife and says, "She is very beautiful." And the king there is known for loving people, especially women who are beautiful. And if I take her to Egypt, this is going to cause some problems. Somebody is going to kill me. So we see how the fear and the compromise and the sin, and so instead of trusting God, he goes to Egypt. And his life there is filled with half-truths, lies. And as a result of Abraham not trusting and walking with God, but going his own way, plagues descend upon the house of the king of Egypt. And it ends with Abraham no longer being allowed back in Egypt. They walk him to the border and say, "Don't come back." And so Abraham has ran out ahead of God, and so I want you to see what Abraham does next.
And he journeyed on from the Negev as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. Later on, this will be the place where the tabernacle comes to stay. But listen to this, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord. After his failure, here's where Abraham goes. He goes back to the place where he had made an altar first. He goes back to the beginning. He goes back to where it all started from, and seeks God. Now let's go in our Bibles about as far as we can go the other way. We started in Genesis chapter 13, all the way to Revelation. And in Revelation chapter 2 and 3, Jesus has appeared in chapter 1 in this glorious, beautiful image of might, and power, and purity, and closeness with his churches.
In fact, the churches are pictured as candles, and there's Jesus walking among his churches, and he says, "Churches, I've got some things to say to you." And so he starts with Ephesus. In a bit of correction, he says this, "Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." And to the church at Ephesus, which was once a thriving church, rooted in the gospel, nourished by the gospel, and living out the gospel, he says, "You've got to go back to where you started. You've got to go back to the beginning." And in the next church, in the next chapter, the church at Sardis, "Remember what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent.
If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you." Hard words. And what Jesus says to both of these churches is you need to go back to where you came from. That somewhere along the way, in your fear and in your compromise and your sin, you have gone off in the wrong direction. And the call is not to chase something new that will fix all your problems, but go back to your Savior. Now, in between Genesis and Revelation, you find Jacob in Genesis 35 going back to the same place we just read, to Bethel. In fact, at the instruction of God, "Arise and go to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."
And here Jacob is called to go back to where he was at first. You see it in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy as God's people are continually restored. Naomi, in Ruth chapter 1, her and her family leave once again to escape famine, go to the land of Moab. Her husband and her children die. And so in Ruth chapter 1, she returns back home. As we read earlier in the 51st Psalm, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation, uphold with a willing spirit." The prodigal son in Luke 15 says, "You know what? I need to go back home." Perhaps my favorite in all of this is in between the Gospel of Luke and in the Gospel of John. Chapter 5. Jesus is spending time with some fishermen, and they've fished all night, and they've caught nothing.
And so Jesus says to them, "Put out of your boat, and put down your nets." And they say, "We've fished all night. We've caught nothing." And so they do so. And in that moment, Jesus miraculously causes all the fish to come into their net. One of these fishermen, a man by the name of Peter, goes, "Lord, I'm a sinful man. He's got a glimpse of the glory of God, and he's seen his own brokenness." And he says, "I can't be near you." And Jesus does something remarkable. He says, "From now on, you will catch men. You will be fishers of men." And at that moment, he calls Peter at the Lake of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee, to follow him. In John chapter 21, years have gone by, three years. And not very long before, Jesus has been arrested,
and he has been dragged from trial to trial. The high priest, the Sanhedrin, from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate. And in the midst of this, there's a moment where he walks between courtyards as Peter is emphatically saying, "I don't know who this is." And Peter runs away weeping. And in John 21, back at that same place at the Sea of Galilee, Peter's back out on a fishing boat. Jesus is on the shore. He's making them breakfast. And Peter realizes who it is and jumps in the water and runs to shore. And it's there on the Sea of Galilee, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, that Jesus restores Peter. Where he once called him to follow him and be a fisher of men, he now restores Peter to his place and says, "Feed my sheep."
Jesus calls Peter back to where he came from. And I don't know if you've ever seen this happen. You do something, and right away, this happened sometimes as a child, you know immediately that it's the wrong thing. And the person, maybe a parent, comes and goes, "You want to try that again?" Sometimes we say that to our kids, right? They do something and go, "Hey, you want to redo? You want to try it again?" Go out and come back and do it right this time. That is not what is happening. In Abraham, and in the churches in Revelation, and in Jacob, and Naomi, and David, and Peter. This is not God going, "Well, you get a couple chances, and maybe you'll get it right this time." In each case, repentance here doesn't mean starting over and doing it yourself right this time.
It means returning to the God who has made His way clear to you, going back to where you are supposed to be, called to return. And sometimes that's from fear, and sin, and compromise, and then other times, we're called to return from weariness, and disappointment, and struggle. Not every return in Scripture that we see is because of willful disobedience. Many returns come, not out of rebellion, but because God's people have focused on their own strength or their own circumstances, on their own waiting and on their own discouragement. And everything feels heavy. That's why the psalmist says, "I lift my eyes to the hills." Spurgeon, when he talks about that, says it's so easy for us to fix our eyes on the absolute wrong thing. And when the psalmist says, "I lift my eyes to the hills." Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.
He means to look past the weariness and the circumstances and the struggles and the hurts and to see the God who is over all things. And so sometimes the call to return is to return our focus to where it belongs. In the 42nd Psalm, the psalmist in the midst of struggle and weariness and a season of dryness where he feels like a deer that has been pursued through the wilderness says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God." The psalmist looks to his weary soul and says, "Hope in God." His circumstances at that point haven't changed, but his focus has. Same is true in 1 Samuel. This lady by the name of Hannah in the midst of grief and loss
and feeling like she is worth nothing, throws herself at the door of the tabernacle before God in tears and in weeping and is unable to be understood. And once that situation has been figured out with Eli the priest, you find this: "Let your servant find favor in your eyes." That's Hannah's word. And then the woman Hannah went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. Elijah, who has been faithful but now is exhausted and overwhelmed, is fed, allowed to rest, and he meets God in the quiet stillness. Several times throughout the book of Acts, God comes specifically to encourage the Apostle Paul. And in these moments, what God is doing is refocusing our attention. The call is not to do something new, but to remain faithful, to hope again, to walk the same path,
but with deeper reliance upon the Lord. God calls his people deeper, not by changing their path, but leading them further down it. And in the coming days and weeks and months and years and throughout the rest of our life, God is not calling us to reinvent our faith. He is calling us to trust him more deeply, to obey him more faithfully, and to rest in him completely. So there is a verse that is often sort of quoted warmly throughout Scripture. It's this in Jeremiah chapter 6 and verse 16. It says, "Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." And there is this picture that on the surface seems to us, like this is a pretty great picture, right?
You're standing at a crossroad, and you're going, "Which road should I take?" And God says, "Well, here's the road that you should take, and if you take that road, you will find rest." Let me give you a bit of a spoiler alert. This is not a warm, feel-good verse where we might say, "Let me get that on a coffee cup," as we'll see in just a moment. This verse needs some context. First of all, the historical context. Jeremiah prophesies through five Judean kings. He begins with King Josiah, and it's likely this is where that prophecy is made. And religiously, the religious context of this is Josiah brings great religious reform to Judah, but it's really only superficial. Jeremiah 3:10 says it this way, "Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord."
And what God is simply saying is this: "They're acting like it, but their heart is far from me." There's idolatry, there's false security, there's injustice, there's people going, "Peace, peace," where there is no peace. They treat the temple like a good luck charm. God won't do anything when His temple is with us. God's not going to judge His people. They're following traditions, but there's no true obedience. And then we come to the literary context of what's happening in this chapter. Verses 1-8, Jerusalem will be besieged, and verses 9-15, the people are corrupt. In verse 16, which we just read, there's a call to return. And then in verses 17-21, it says, "You're warned, but you're not listening to this warning." So Jeremiah 6-16 is sort of a pause in the march toward disaster. God commands them to sort of stop walking blindly toward judgment, and look at what God says,
"Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths." He says, "Stand, look, ask." So we have a little dog. He's almost a year old. He's a herding dog, partly and mostly. Cattle dog, Australian cattle dog. And so I like to take the ball out and throw it for him, because he's like a missile when you throw the ball. And after about two times of throwing the ball, I stand by the shed and I throw it down the driveway here. He'll bring me back the ball, drop it at my feet, I'll click it into the little chuck it thrower, and he's off like a missile. Like, before I've even picked that ball off the ground, he's off in the direction. And so I've been trying to catch his attention, and not throw it until he's looking at me, because I like to challenge him, right?
Sometimes I'll throw it down the back driveway. Sometimes I'll throw it down into the yard over here. And the problem is, because he's so focused on where he wants to go, he just zooms straight out to the end of the driveway and waits for me to throw it to him. I'm like, "We're not throwing it that way." And then he has to come back. And it's very much a picture of how we often live, right? We frequently rush into actions, sort of operating on autopilot. The assumption that we know what we're doing and where God would have us to go. And the first instruction here is, right, stand, look, and ask. You want to put it in terms of driver's ed, at least my driver's ed, right? Come to railroad tracks, what do you do?
Stop, look, and listen. And God said to his people, "The first thing is, stop just crashing ahead at 90 miles an hour. Stop, listen, look, ask." He then calls them to the ancient paths. Now this is not calling us back to the good old days, but rather a restoration of our covenant walk with him. The covenant way that God has laid out for his people to live. Sort of that moral and relational pattern that God has established, the faithful obedience, the justice, the humility, the worship. Think about Deuteronomy, and when I say that, I don't mean like the traditions, for tradition's sake. But in Deuteronomy chapter five, where you find God laying out his law, what we know is the Ten Commandments. In chapter six, he goes, "This comes from love." "Love the Lord your God with all your heart."
Or in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 15, where he says this, "Life and death before you." I've laid out two paths. There's life and there's good, there is death and evil, and I implore you to choose the good path. Listen to how it says, "Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, holding fast to Him, for He is your life in the length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them." When we're talking about the ancient paths in Jeremiah, they're not ancient because they're old, they're ancient because they come from God's unchanging character. God says, "Come back and choose life, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, holding on to Him for dear life."
Thus says the Lord, "Stand by the road and look. Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." There's a lot of ways we can be tired. We can be physically tired. We've physically worked hard or worked out hard, and our bodies are sore and we're tired, but maybe our mind and our heart are satisfied because we've done something and accomplished something. Sometimes we're mentally tired. We just need something brainless, right? Put on a dumb TV show and just let your brain rot. Sometimes we're emotionally tired, right? We've been around family a lot, maybe too much. We're just like tired. And oftentimes our response to this is get rid of the things making us tired, right? So if I've just worked really hard, then I need to rest from that work.
If I really exercise my brain, I need something that I don't have to think about. Maybe I just need peace without people around. Notice the call here is rest for your souls. Not based on circumstances, right? Take away your work, take away your brain troubles, take away your emotional difficulties. It's not that. It's a rest that goes deeper. Not circumstantial, but covenantial. Secure God's rule. You hear this echoed in Jesus' words, "Come to me, you who weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Sounds good. That's the call in the middle of Jeremiah, chapter 6, is stop and look and listen. Consider, don't just rush ahead. Look for the good way, the ancient way, the way that is rooted in the character and the nature of God, and in it you will find rest.
And you say, "Well, that sounds pretty great." There's a pretty tragic ending to this verse. You see, this whole time we've only been reading most of the verse. Listen to all of it. "Thus says the Lord: Stand by the road and look. Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls." But they said, "We will not walk in it." The problem isn't that they don't know. It's that they're refusing. They've heard the call, they've understood it, and they've rejected it. And that's why the judgment in Jeremiah comes. Not because God was silent, but because the people were stubbornly devoted to their own way. In Jeremiah 6:16, we see, first of all, that God's way is not hidden. That repentance means returning, not finding something new.
That spiritual rest is tied to obedience, not innovation. And that judgment ultimately comes after repeated, gracious invitations. And what you find is that after wandering, God calls us, his people, back to where they should have been all along. And these particular people say, "Yeah, we're not going to listen. We've got it all figured out on our own." And one of the things this verse does for us is it confronts sort of our deepest assumptions, because we think that if we can change enough stuff, we'll be able to rest. And God says, "No, your faithfulness in me is what brings rest." Here's the thing. Most of us don't reject God loudly. More often, we sort of quietly assume that if we can do something new, a new plan, a new version of ourselves, we'll finally get to that rest on our own.
We don't say, like these people did, "We will not walk in it. We just keep walking past it." Maybe not verbally in our disobedience, but disobedient in our ignoring and seeking our own way. Jeremiah reminds us that the ancient path is the only way, not only the way back from sin, but it's the way forward in weariness. That it brings us away from sin, and it brings us forward into rest. And to refuse it isn't just to miss God's direction, but it's to miss His rest. But the story doesn't end here. The good news is that God doesn't simply go, "Here's the path. See if you can stay on it." The good news is that God Himself steps onto this path, fulfills it, and brings the rest He promises us. If Jeremiah chapter 6 and the response to it sort of leaves us feeling exposed in our hearts, and I think it should,
it also leaves us waiting, waiting for someone who can lead us, not just show us, but lead us down this path. Waiting for the rest we can't make or manufacture. And this is where the gospel comes to grab a hold of our hearts. So instead of standing by the path, let's stand in the temple for a moment. Jesus has been born. About a week has occurred since His birth. They have brought Him to the temple. To fulfill the rules of the covenant with God to dedicate Him to the Lord. And there in the temple is a man by the name of Simeon. And he's a priest, and he's in Jerusalem. He is righteous, and he is devout, and he is waiting for the consolation or the comfort of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him.
And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And here is Simeon, and he's living in a time filled with upheaval, both politically and religiously and spiritually. And there is all kinds of brokenness surrounding him. And here Simeon has been faithful for year after year. Not scrambling for something new, but he's waiting in assurance that God is the one who fulfills what he promised. And as he's dedicating babies, taking them in his arms, you find this. He's presenting them to the Lord that as he picks up Jesus, the Spirit says to him, "This is the consolation of Israel." Listen to what Simeon says prophetically through the power of the Holy Spirit. "Lord, you are now letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." I want to zoom in on the middle just for a moment. The salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people. You see what God is not doing? He's not rushing out as if it's an emergency and an ambulance scrambling to find a way to fix things, but rather that God has been at work since Genesis chapter 3 through Abraham, through Jacob, through the time in Egypt, through the wandering in the wilderness, through the time of kings, through David, time in exile. And through the last 400 years of silence, God has been at work on a path that leads to Jesus. And when Simeon takes Jesus in his arms, he doesn't say, "Now things are finally going to change."
He says something deeper, "You are letting your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation." That salvation is already accomplished in Jesus. It's not something that's new. It's a fulfillment of what God has promised. That Jesus would be the one to bring us to the rest that is promised in Jeremiah. No situation or a place, but a person. And the person is Jesus. The good news of the Gospel tells us, first of all, the good news of the Gospel is not that you have to try harder. The good news is that Christ has walked the path perfectly for us. Where we failed, where we wandered, where we grew tired, He obeyed. He trusted and He remained faithful. We see next in the words of Simeon that it's not an easy path. As he says to Mary, "There will be a sword that will pierce your heart."
Even in dedicating the salvation for all people, a light for the Gentiles and the glory for the people of Israel, there is the shadow of the cross. And so as we stand, somewhere maybe between exhaustion and ambition, between Christmas behind us and the new year ahead of us, God is not waiting to see what we will come up with next. He's inviting us to rest in what He has done. Not coming up with ourselves a new identity, but secure in the one given to us by Christ. Not a new way to walk, but the path that is fulfilled in Christ. Not a frantic, scurrying, trying to make it better, but a quiet confidence that faithfulness and obedience and following God leads us to where we need to go. Not because everything has changed and we've been able to change it, but rather that our hope is anchored in Christ.
The call is not to reinvent ourselves, maybe before the new year comes or in the new year, but rather to go deeper and to rest because God has prepared salvation and accomplished it for His people. So we're going to pray and then we're going to respond by singing about the sure hope we have in Christ. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and for grace. Slow us down. Cause us to stop and to look at what we are chasing and what we are pursuing and how we are seeking to accomplish it and turn our eyes toward Jesus. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing Christ our hope in life and death. What is our hope in life and death? Christ alone, Christ alone. What is our only kindness that our souls to Him belong?
Christ alone, Christ alone. What is our only kindness that our souls to Him belong? Who holds our days within His hand? What comes apart from His command? And what will keep us to the end? The love of Christ in which we stand. Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope stands eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now and ever reconfess Christ our hope and love and love. The truth can cause the troubled soul. God is good. God is good. Where is His grace and goodness known? In our great Redeemer's blood. Who holds our faith when fears arise? Who stands above the storm we try? Who sings the waves that bring us now? Unto the shore of the rock of Christ. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now and then we confess. Christ, our open life reigns. Hallelujah. Now and then we confess. Christ, our open life reigns.
And through the grave will we hang. Christ, He lives. Christ, He lives. And what reward will heaven bring. Everlasting life within. There we will rise to meet the Lord. Then sin and death will be destroyed. And we will feast in endless joy. When Christ is ours forevermore. Oh, say hallelujah. Our hope is eternal. Oh, say hallelujah. Now and ever again. Now and ever we confess. Christ our hope and life and death. Oh, say hallelujah. Our hope is eternal. Oh, say hallelujah. Now and ever we confess. Christ our hope and life and death. Now and ever we confess. Now and ever we confess. Christ our hope and life and death. We are so thankful that you are here with us this morning. A couple of announcements as we get ready to dismiss. So next Sunday, we're going to begin a seven-week series through the Sermon
on the Mount. We are entitling Your Kingdom Come, echoing that prayer, the Lord's Prayer, for his kingdom to come. And what we'll see in this is that Jesus calls us into something much bigger than we often tend to live in. So we'd love for you to join us beginning January the 4th, and we'll be there for seven weeks taking us into the beginning of preparation for Good Friday and Easter, where we'll move into John 13, 14, and 15 in those weeks leading up to Easter. Next up, Sunday, January 18th, is Soup Sunday. So bring a soup to share, invite a friend, plan to stay after our service for food and fellowship together. Just a reminder, I know we're moving into January. Sometimes it's freezing rain, sometimes it's sleet, sometimes it's snow. I will take the chance to be here every Sunday, regardless of the risk to my
person. But I would encourage you to use wisdom in deciding whether you decide you're going to risk that journey. For me, I can just kind of get a sled and slide to the doors of the church. So somebody will be here, unless, of course, there's no water, no heat, and everything's frozen. But we will generally not cancel our Sunday morning service, but we would just say to use wisdom if you're going to try to drive in during winter weather. I'm going to go ahead and have a word of prayer, and then we'll read some Scripture, and then we'll sing sort of a closing line from O Come All Ye Faithful. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for the goodness that you have given to us. Help us as we reflect back on where we have come from.
We look forward to the future that as we think and as we plan, we would do so in your will, focusing on you, not running after our own way, whether that's away from you or seeking to run out ahead of you, but that you would help us to see your faithfulness and to live in it by your grace and through your power. We just thank you for Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen. From Hebrews, the 13th chapter, "Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, may he equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to him be glory, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."
So it was my prayer for you that the Lord would lead you in the good way, that he would deepen your trust in him and give you rest for your souls, and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has already walked the path for us, may he keep you, may he guide you, may he hold you fast, both now and in the year to come. Amen. We're going to sing just one verse of "O Come All Ye Faithful."
O Come All Ye Faithful, Joyful and Triumphant, O Come Ye, O Come Ye to heaven. Come and feed, O kingdom, the King of Ages. O Come, let us adore You. O Come, let us adore You. O Come, let us adore You. Christ the Lord. Amen.