Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany February 1-2, 2025
“A Confident Witness” Jeremiah 1:4-10, 17-19
Rev. John R. Larson Ascension Lutheran Church Littleton, Colorado
You ever wonder, “What is God up to?” In your life. Right now. When things seem to be troubling you, you wonder, “What is God up to?”
When I read Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, that is what I see him asking. Those words in the first chapter tells us that God was up to something in this man’s life. Jeremiah says, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:4) Then a few verses later a persistent God said, “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.” (Jeremiah 1:7)
And do you know what Jeremiah said? Now this is the John Larson paraphrase of the original Hebrew – he responded to God in this manner, “Leave me alone!! “Take a hike!!” “No, I’m not going to do that.” Other translations put it this way, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” (Jeremiah 1:6) Real experts in the Hebrew language think that Jeremiah was only a teenager and he was being asked to do grownup things. To this young man God said, “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you.” (Jeremiah 1:17) This call was beyond him. He wasn’t qualified. He hadn’t been trained. “Go away, Lord!!”
When I think of someone talking back to God I think of Moses. God needed someone to be the leader of God’s people and take them from slavery in Egypt to their promised land. God told Moses that he was the man for the task. God showed Moses miracles that God alone could do. God wanted Moses to know that he had the Lord God on his side, and with God on his side he couldn’t fail. But Moses didn’t like where God was leading him. In Exodus 4 we read, ‘O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and teach you what to say.’ And after witnessing the miracles, after the explanation of God’s presence and power, Moses only had one word to say back to God – ‘O Lord, please send someone else to do it.’ (See Exodus 4:10-13)
Just like Moses, Jeremiah didn’t want to be the voice from God to the people. Life would have been easier if God had not burdened them with this calling. But God is persistent. He doesn’t take “no” very well. Now God came with promises that should have settled Jeremiah, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” (Jeremiah 1:8) Then we read, “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now, I have put my words in your mouth.’” (Jeremiah 1:9)
What is God up to? In Jeremiah’s life? Well, he was told that he had been chosen to be the voice of God even before he was born. I guess when you hear something like that it makes you know that you have a divine purpose in life. But God wasn’t just building him up, God was going to use him for all those people in the country of Israel. They would hear God’s voice through him. They would be given that chance to repent and change. They would be forgiven and given new life through God’s grace. God was up to something!! Something big!!
Later in Jeremiah he speaks those words that so many of you know and treasure. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” What is God up to – in your life?
Elizabeth Achtemeier, a wonderful Presbyterian theologian, wrote this, “He (God) consecrated him, that is God set Jeremiah apart for his specific divine purpose. It makes us wonder if God had a specific plan in mind when he created you and me. I don’t think that the Lord forms us human beings in our mothers’ wombs just willy-nilly, for no reason at all. No. The Lord God looks over all the ways of the world and forms his plans, and then he creates particular human beings like you and me to be his agents in carrying out those plans. So it was with Jeremiah. Apparently so it is also with us, even though the tasks to which we are called are not those of prophets.” (Emphasis, January 28, 2001, page 42)
What tasks does God have for you? What is the divine calling that God has for your life? At work. At home. Among friends. At school. On the soccer field. We are not on earth just to bide the time before God takes us to heaven, we have a purpose. Jesus spoke of it this way, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
Being a confident witness of God to this world is a difficult task. When you speak of the ways of God some people will not like it. They may not like you. Young Jeremiah was told, “See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:10) Building and planting are good and positive. I bet everyone would love to do that. But this young man was told to do some hard things – he was to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow. Those things would get you in trouble.
In Jeremiah 20, some time after Jeremiah got his initial marching orders, Jeremiah has a complaint for God:
O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:7-9)
Like Jeremiah you have a divine call, a holy purpose. God put you on earth for as long as He gives you breath, to speak His word, live His word, bear the burdens of others, love those who are quite unlovable, point others to the hope that exists in Jesus Christ.
Years ago, maybe 25 years or so, I got to hear a man speak and how he spoke has stuck with me for all these years. He wasn’t a preacher. He was a football coach. He had coached the University of Colorado football team from 1982 until 1994. That man died about three weeks ago, on January 10.
I had the chance, along with a bunch of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastors to hear Bill McCartney, speak. It was like being in a locker room at halftime. There wasn’t any cussing, no four- letter words. But he was excited about the person who could give us weary pastors some hope. He was excited about the person who could change the lives of folks who had gone the wrong way and didn’t know the way back. He was excited about what lay ahead for us and for them. He was excited about Jesus.
McCartney wasn’t a Lutheran. Maybe he was an Evangelical or a Pentecostal. But he had the Spirit of God and he wanted us to know that we had it as well.
When God called this teenager, Jeremiah, to a task that was greater than him, He didn’t send him out alone. Listen to the promise of God, “Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land – against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and I will rescue you, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 1:18-19)
Jesus, your Savior, the one who has loved you with His very life, calls for you to trust in Him for your eternal salvation and He calls you to trust in Him so your life, all of your life, would be a confident witness of God’s good plan in the life of all the people in your life. Amen!!