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Writer's picturePastor Nathan Nass

A Fire in My Bones

7 You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. 8 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. 9 But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore 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. 10 I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.”

11 But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. 12 Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause. 13 Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked.

14 Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! 15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, “A child is born to you—a son!” 16 May that man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity. May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. 17 For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. 18 Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame? (Jeremiah 20:7-18)

Sometimes the Bible says really joyful things! Sometimes it doesn’t. We need both. Did you hear what Jesus said in our Gospel lesson? “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me.” (Matthew 10:21-22). That’s what life will be like for Christians. Sound good? No! Sometimes we make it seem like Christianity is all happy stuff. All joy! It’s not. I think this is one reason why people leave Christian churches. The joyful message doesn’t match reality. So Jesus tells us what to really expect: “You will be hated by everyone because of me.”

If you want to see a powerful example of that, you just have to look at the life of the prophet Jeremiah. Can you remember anything about Jeremiah? I didn’t think so! But do you know what the longest book in the whole Bible is? Jeremiah! We should know something about this guy.

God came to Jeremiah 2646 years ago and said, “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.” You’d expect Jeremiah to say, “Great!” But instead he said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child. I can’t do it!” But the Lord said, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched Jeremiah’s mouth and said, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth” (Jeremiah 1:4-9). Isn’t that cool?

After all that, you’d think Jeremiah’s ministry would be blessed! But then God told him what his message would be: “I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me” (Jeremiah 1:16). Jeremiah’s job for over 40 years was to tell God’s people that God was going to punish them for their sins. Do you think they were happy to hear that? No! What a hard job! He was a prophet of God’s truth to a society that hated it. Can you and I relate?

Jeremiah’s ministry went exactly as God said. He lived in a country filled with sin and injustice, with kings who didn’t care about anybody other than themselves. Everybody was falling away from God. Sound familiar? And Jeremiah was to preach God’s Word. Like, “‘Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me,’ declares the Sovereign LORD” (Jeremiah 2:22). Just what people needed to hear! Except, they hated him. It was so hard. Jeremiah cried so much that he’s known as the “weeping prophet.”

The people of his hometown wanted to kill him (Jeremiah 11:19). One time, God had Jeremiah’s words written down on a scroll and delivered to King Jehoiakim. Know what the king did? As the scroll was read, he cut it up section by section and threw it in the fire (Jeremiah 36:23). Another time, King Zedekiah had Jeremiah arrested, beaten, and thrown into a “vaulted cell in a dungeon” (Jeremiah 37:16). As if that weren’t bad enough, he was later lowered by ropes into a cistern where he “sank down into the mud” (Jeremiah 38:6). All that for sharing God’s Word!

Right before our lesson today, a priest from the temple heard Jeremiah prophesying, so he had Jeremiah beaten and put in the stocks (Jeremiah 20:1-2). Mocked in front of everyone. Can you imagine that? I know it feels hard to be a Christian. Our society is so divided. Christianity seems so unwelcome. People don’t want to hear. People don’t seem to care. Here’s the truth: We ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s going to get so much worse. Jesus says so! Jeremiah knows so.

So do you know what Jeremiah did? He complained. That’s our lesson today—Jeremiah’s complaint: “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me.” You wouldn’t expect God’s prophet to complain against God. But Jeremiah did. He was ridiculed all day long. Do you feel that way? “You still believe that God made the world in six days? That’s crazy!” “You still read that old Bible? How foolish!” “You think that Jesus is the only way? How close-minded!” Mocking hurts, doesn’t it?

Jeremiah knew exactly why all that ridicule was coming—because of God! “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.” Do we sometimes get it in our heads that if we just say the right things, if we just share God’s Word, life will go well? No way! Our sinful human natures hate God’s Word. Actually, if you want a nice, easy life… If you want to get along with everybody… Then you better stop being a Christian. Remember what Jesus said? “You will be hated by everyone because of me.” “The word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long.”

So why didn’t Jeremiah just stop? Just give up? Actually, he tried to! He wanted to stop. But he couldn’t. Here’s why: “If I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore 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.” What kept him going? God’s Word was like a fire in his bones. Jeremiah knew God’s Word is true. No matter how hard it was to hear and to share, he couldn’t avoid it. It wasn’t his choice to believe. It was the Holy Spirit at work. God’s Word was burning like a fire in his heart.

That’s what kept him going—the fire in his bones! But it was so hard. “I hear many whispering, ‘Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!’ All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, ‘Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” The people gave Jeremiah a nickname—“Terror on every side!” In Hebrew, that’s Magor-Missabib. That was Jeremiah—“Terror on every side!” Even his friends whispered behind his back. Everyone was waiting for him to fall. They couldn’t wait to denounce him. To get revenge.

Do you hear the whispers? They’re not so quiet anymore. You heard the Supreme Court ruling last week about homosexuality and transgenderism. What God says in the Bible is not welcome in this country. To say that our Creator God determines our gender at birth… To say that sex is for one man and one woman in a life-long marriage… Do you hear the whispers? Can you sense people waiting eagerly for Christians to fail? It’s so much easier not to mention God’s Word!

But Jeremiah, this crying, complaining prophet, has something to say to our scared hearts: “But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.” This is the comfort Christians cling to: “The Lord is with me.” Those little words make all the difference: “The Lord is with me.” Because the Lord isn’t little. “The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior.” What a great title for God: Our “mighty warrior!” That’s like the Bible’s way to say “Superhero.” You’ve got a superhero: God! “The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior.

And justice is in God’s hands. Jeremiah prayed, “Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause.” Justice is in God’s hands, and our God is perfectly just. Our world isn’t. There have been injustices done to African-Americans. There have been injustices done to unborn babies. There have been injustices done to Christians. Know this: God sees. The mighty Warrior examines all. Even if justice isn’t served on this earth, it will be. God’s got this. God knows.

So Jeremiah, right after getting out of the stocks, in the midst of all the bad stuff he was facing, couldn’t help but shout: “Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked.” God rescues! That’s Jesus’ promise to his disciples: “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). The insults aren’t the end of the story. Jesus faced them too when he died on the cross for us. But then he rose again to give us eternal life. God rescues! There’s hope. You are not alone. The crown of life is waiting for you. That is the fire burning in our bones! Amen!

At least that’s where our lesson stopped here at church. But there’s a problem. Jeremiah wasn’t done. We do this often with the Bible. We stop where it’s convenient. But you need to hear what Jeremiah says next. It’s shocking: “Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, ‘A child is born to you—a son!’ May that man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity. May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?” (Jeremiah 20:14-18). Wow.

Do you have days when you wish you hadn’t been born? Jeremiah did. Do you have days when you wonder why no one has killed you yet? Jeremiah did. Even though the Lord was with him, even though he had a mighty warrior—a Superhero!—to rescue him, Jeremiah still had days when he wished he wasn’t born. The gospel doesn’t end the sadness here on earth. The gospel doesn’t take away all the pain. The gospel doesn’t make things easy. There are days when we want to give up, when we wish we hadn’t been born, when we wonder why we’re here on earth.

So what kept Jeremiah going? You know. He had this fire in his bones. The Word of God! That still small voice that never stopped no matter what he faced. Did you know that all of Jeremiah’s prophecies came true? Jerusalem was destroyed, just like God promised. Jeremiah saw it burn with his own eyes. And yet, at that darkest moment, do you know what Jeremiah said? “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (Lamentations 3:21-24).

It is because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed… May that be the fire that burns in your heart. When other people hate you because of Jesus… When you hate you… There is a fire in your bones. When other people want you dead because of Jesus… When you want you dead… There is a fire in your bones. When other people try to silence you because of Jesus… When you want to stay silent… There is a fire in your bones. It is because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed. You didn’t choose Jesus. He choose you. He saved you. He holds on to you to the end. May that be the fire that burns in your bones today and everyday. I hope you can’t hold it in.

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