Jeremiah 1:5 “Before you were born I set you apart.”

A comfortable life that can afford some of the finer things the world has to offer appeals to many. We don’t want to struggle just to survive. But a new generation for whom survival has never been much of a question longs for something more than material support. They what their lives to be meaningful. They want to make a difference. They are searching for a purpose.

The Lord assures everyone who belongs to him by faith that they are truly special. He set them apart for his unique purposes even before he formed their bodies to meet those purposes. But what is that purpose?

For Jeremiah it was “prophet to the nations.” That was God’s word to him. He also has a word for us: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We, too, have a role in declaring God’s praises to the world around us. It’s just that, for most of us, it isn’t as a full time prophet.

If not as a full time prophet like Jeremiah, then how? It may be through the unique gifts God has given you as a part of the body of Christ. In Romans 12 Paul reminds us that, just as the members of our body don’t all have the same function, so God has given us different gifts for working together and serving his kingdom. If you don’t have a gift for prophesying, or preaching, you might have one for serving, teaching, encouraging others, contributing monetary gifts, leadership and administration, or showing mercy. All these support ministries are important and necessary for spreading the gospel.

Or maybe God’s purpose for you in spreading the word will have more to do with your earthly vocations. You remember that Jesus told his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” I know Christians who have shared their faith because they were parents watching their children at swimming lessons and conversations with other parents led to talk about church and values; because they were post-graduate students, and their demeanor in the classroom led other students to ask what was different about them; because they were serving as election judges and some who voted stayed around to talk about the important things in life; because they were passengers on an airplane and the person sitting next to them had questions; because they were customers getting repairs at a car dealership, and their common problem led them to talk about a common Savior.

Whether you are declaring God’s praises through your service to your congregation, or whether you are inspiring the Father’s praises through the way you live and talk in your daily lives, your purpose comes with his promise. His word gives you certainty that he made you and saved you for this very purpose.

Luke 6:39-42 “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

What is the difference between the two men in the first little parable Jesus tells here? There isn’t any! Both of them suffer the same handicap. Both of them are blind. There is this possible difference to note: one of them has appointed himself a leader over the other, though he has no qualifications to do so. He can only get them into trouble.

Blindness is a picture for our natural spiritual ignorance. It is a condition into which every human is born. We are all in this boat together. We are fellow strugglers. No one is naturally enlightened and in a position to lead others under their own natural powers.

Jesus tells these parables in connection with his command, “Do not judge.” Spiritually, none of us sits in an ivory tower, far superior to all the others. There is no basis for us to conclude that, by ourselves, we are in a position to hand down judgments to our inferiors. That kind of condescending judgment of others is simply out of place for people who share the same spiritual blindness as everyone else.

Only if a blind man was himself being led by someone who could see would he be in a position to lead another blind person. Spiritually, then, we need to be students of the one who can see. So Jesus continues to the next illustration, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

When we are students of Jesus, then we have found safe spiritual leadership. But Jesus doesn’t lead us to spiritual pride and condescending judgment. Knowing Jesus is not an excuse for me to complain, “I am surrounded by idiots.” I am still one of the idiots, completely dependent on Jesus’ wisdom. We become something like our teacher only when Jesus’ wisdom keeps leading us back to the mercy of a heavenly Father who prefers forgiveness to judgment.

Jesus’ third illustration also puts us in our place. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

It hurts to get something in your eye. Even little things can threaten our vision. When I have something in my eye, I often find someone and ask them for help.

In the same way, Jesus is not saying we should not help others with their sinful shortcomings, the speck in their eye. But how can we do that properly if we don’t recognize our own sinful shortcomings? All sin is sin in God’s eyes, but not acknowledging that we have sin is like having a huge beam in our eyes. It makes it impossible for us to judge anything else correctly. There is no way we could see properly to help someone else with their sin if we don’t even understand our own. So long as we believe we are better than others Jesus warns, “Do not judge.”

So what do we do with the prideful, self-righteous beam in our eye? Removing it requires supernatural help, and Jesus is just the divine doctor to do so. He extracts the beam with his law, as his words have just been doing. He heals the wound with his forgiveness, which is always big enough to cover any job. In the process he teaches us humility, and makes us qualified to help others, now that we know our place.

Luke 6:37-38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

That last statement explains the significance of each of the little promises Jesus attaches to his commands. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “Not only is it better for others that you not judge them in a loveless and hurtful way. It is really better for you. It will bring you blessing by keeping this command. You will avoid trouble if you do what I say.”

Isn’t it true that loveless judging on one side tends to inspire loveless judging in return? Whether your political leanings are conservative or liberal, isn’t this the kind of thing that feeds the fires of passion that make reasoned discussion and debate so difficult? On a personal level, do you want to live your life under constant criticism and derision from people whom you have looked down upon? Isn’t life more pleasant when others treat you with respect and forgiveness?

Of course it is. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

These same promises can be applied to the way that God himself treats us. If we could truly live such a life of love that we never judged or condemned anyone in a selfish or hurtful way, then God would have no reason to judge or condemn us. We would actually deserve his forgiveness, though forgiveness itself would be unnecessary.

But you know how often that has happened! Our sin prevents us from uninterrupted and unending enjoyment of these promises Jesus makes here. Here, too, we need God’s mercy, and he gives it. Here, too, God’s forgiving mercy changes us into less judgmental people. Then the promises Jesus attaches to these commands teach us how good and right he is to tell us, “Do not judge.”

Luke 6:36-37 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged.”

The general attitude God wants us to have towards others– and that means everyone, whether they are nice to us or not– is to be merciful. If we aren’t sure what that means for us, practically speaking, Jesus points us to the way that our heavenly Father treats people, because he is merciful.

Consider the way that God treats people we know don’t even believe in him. Former U.S.  Secretary of Labor Robert Reich believes that faith in God is more dangerous than terrorism. Bill Nye the Science Guy says that his faith in science is like a religion for him. Has God struck them dead for their lack of faith? Obviously not. Does he make them suffer worse than all believers for actively contradicting him? These men have enjoyed greater popularity, greater power, and greater wealth than most Christians I know. “Merciful” almost seems like an understatement. Our heavenly Father doesn’t merely tolerate the existence of people like these. He has given them earthly blessings that sometimes exceed those of most others.

Consider how our Father has treated each of us. Every day we give him reason to say, “That’s it. I am sick and tired of putting up with these people. We are going to end this right here.” Don’t we? We, who have been shown such patience and mercy, get irritated with people who are just doing their job behind the cash register. The slow driver up ahead may not own the road more than you do, but he doesn’t own it less, and you are probably the one who is going over the speed limit. So much for loving your neighbor as yourself. We are rarely content with what we have, and never mind that we are critical of others. In our hearts we are critical of God for not catering more to our Champaign tastes and our insatiable desires. Money, health, relationships– we are as inclined to blame God as to trust him. So much for loving God.

So what does he do? Note that he does not excuse such behavior. He doesn’t say, “That’s okay,” or look the other way. He does not refrain from pointing such things out. He is not shy about calling us sinners. He is not too polite to say, “That was really horrible. That makes me mad. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” Only people who read the Bible with blinders on can miss this.

But he hasn’t stopped feeding us, has he? He hasn’t cut us off and stopped having anything to do with us. In fact, he has pursued us all the more. Your Father is merciful. He has said, “I will do even more for them. I will give up my Son for them. I will sacrifice his life for their sins. I will forgive them. I will keep sending them my word. I will preach to them my love. I will give them my Spirit. I will bring them to faith. I will listen to their prayers. I will help them in their troubles. I will give them eternal life. I will show them mercy.” And he does. Our Father makes good on all his promises because he is merciful.

So what does this have to do with the subject of judging? It establishes the attitude with which we approach the actions of other people doesn’t it? God’s mercy to us doesn’t just serve as an example for us to follow. How can you believe all those things about God’s mercy to you and not be changed by it? You can’t. Remembering God’s promises, his gospel promises, to us moves us to mercy and love. It is with mercy and love (not necessarily approval!) that we regard the behavior of others. There is a Christian kind of judging that flows from mercy and love. But do not judge to attack them. Do not judge to hate them. Do not judge to ridicule them, drive them away, and end all possibility of a reconciliation. That kind of judging polarizes people as enemies. It makes kindness and love nearly impossible. Your Father has been merciful to you. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Psalm 72:12-14 “For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.”

Our King, Solomon says, delivers the needy– those who have no one to help. If that doesn’t lead us to give up on our self-made plans of salvation, we need to think about these words some more. Preacher Charles Spurgeon once commented, “The proverb says, ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ but it is yet more true that Jesus helps those who cannot help themselves, nor find help in others. All helpless ones are under the especial care of Zion’s compassionate King.”

Evangelist Watchman Nee illustrates this another way. He tells the story of standing on a dock with a friend who was a strong swimmer. They were watching a man swimming a long way from shore, when this man got into trouble. Pretty soon the man was going under, coming up gasping for air, and crying for help. “Aren’t you going to help him?” Nee asked his friend. “Not yet,” his friend replied. Only after the swimmer became unconscious and stopped struggling did Nee’s friend rescue him. When Nee asked him why he waited so long to rescue the man, his friend replied, “If I would have gone out to him immediately, he would have panicked and pulled me down with him. I had to wait until he stopped kicking. Then I could save him.”

We don’t pose any danger to our King. But only after we have stopped kicking, stopped trying to save ourselves, does Jesus step in and rescue his people. Spiritually, at least, we are only struggling against him when we are trying to do it ourselves. Our King isn’t looking for our help when it comes to delivering  us. He is looking to give us his.

Why does the King take notice of such helpless people and deliver them? “…for precious is their blood in his sight.” There are some things that you or I may consider precious because they are valuable all by themselves. A rare antique or a piece of fine jewelry have value no matter where you take them. The value is in the thing itself.

The dried corsage you saved from your high school prom, or the little clay imprint your child made of his hands in kindergarten, probably isn’t going to get you much at the pawn shop. They may be precious to us because of a value we invest in them. They are precious because of their associations and the memories they give, but their value is given to them by us.

How often doesn’t Scripture remind us that we are nothing but creatively arranged particles of dust. “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” We have even given our God a daily dose of bad memories by our sins. But the King has given us value by giving us the spark of life. He has given us value by redeeming with his own life. He has loved us because he has chosen to love us, and he considers us precious in his sight.

Our need is just another opportunity to receive his love.

Psalm 72:4-7 “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor. He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more. ”

Because it is all too easy for us to feel sorry for ourselves, to blame others for problems of our own making, we need to be careful not to be too quick to declare ourselves the victims .

But honesty, and Scripture, demands that we recognize that sometimes God’s people are the victims. People do wrongfully take advantage of us. We are the targets of unjust slanders and accusations. It isn’t wrong to recognize this and ask God to give us justice. We shouldn’t take matters into our own hands. God tells us not to seek our own vengeance. But the enemies of Christ’s people are the enemies of Christ himself. “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.” If the matter isn’t resolved now, we can be sure that we will be vindicated on the Last Day. There are no ifs or maybes here. Our King will see to it.

Our King’s justice would do us no good if we were to find ourselves outside of his jurisdiction, however, or if his reign were to end. Solomon was writing 3000 years ago on the other side of the planet. But that’s not a problem for us. Our King is unlimited by time or space. “He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more.”

Solomon points us to the moon and the sun to help us get our arms around the truth that Jesus is not limited by time. The scene on the ground is changing around us all the time. Just think of the changes the place where you are sitting right now has gone through in the last hundred years. Around the world the forces of nature and the ingenuity of man are constantly changing the landscape.

But the heavenly bodies stay the same. Look up at the sun sometime later today. Step outside your door after it is dark, and look up at the moon and the stars. While the scene around your yard has changed, what you see in the sky looks the same as it did for an American Indian looking up at the sky from that spot 1000 years ago, or for Solomon looking up at the sky at night 2000 years before that. Even the sun and the moon don’t last forever, but they are the closest things to never changing and never ending we can see with our eyes.

Jesus’ reign as King is even more consistent and more enduring. What he considered good or evil in Solomon’s day is no different for us. More important, he loves us no less than he loved Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, John, the church fathers, or our own grandparents. His control of world events, or the details of our personal lives, has not slipped even a little from creation until now. As the author of Hebrews says so succinctly: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

So too, his justice is unlimited by time or space.

Psalm 72:1-2 “Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. He will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice.”

How does the justice and righteousness of this King make you feel? Does it make you want to go rushing to him for help? Or does it make you want to shy away from him instead? We have reason to fear his justice when we realize that he makes his judgments based on absolute, and not relative, standards. What do I mean by that? By nature, we are lawbreakers at heart. Since we break the law, we don’t want to be judged by whether or not we have kept the law, but by how we compare to everyone else.

When parents confront their children for fighting, how often doesn’t one of them protest, “But he started it.” In other words, don’t judge me for whether or not I am pounding on my brother. Judge me for having the restraint and good sense to let my sibling take the first swing. That’s a relative standard. I heard a talk radio host describing his first appearance before a judge for speeding. He protested that he wasn’t the only one driving over the speed limit. Other cars had even been passing him. Relative to the other drivers, he thought he was doing pretty well. The judge told him, “When you look way over in the right lane, and you see the little Honda putting along at 55 m.p.h., that will be me going the speed limit.” That judge insisted on an absolute, not a relative, standard of right and wrong for handing down justice.

So it is that when I stand before our Lord, the King, for judgment, it is just he and I. He isn’t interested in how we compare to everyone else. He has been endowed with justice. “He will judge your people in righteousness.” He has an absolute standard, a standard that says, “Whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it.” “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to everything written in the book of the law.” Not most of it. Not more than other people. “Everything written in the book of the law.” If Christ our King is just, we have reason to be afraid.

But wait a minute. Is that how Solomon sounds in these verses? Doesn’t he rather seem to be celebrating the King’s justice? We can welcome his justice because it is accompanied by his mercy. Jesus’ mercy doesn’t lead him to lay his justice aside. He doesn’t change his standards. But he did provide another way for those standards to be satisfied. The King traded his crown and royal robes for servants clothes and kept the whole law for us. Then he added ropes and chains and the trappings of a prisoner, and he took our place on death row at the cross. Justice was served on him instead of us. The prison door was opened for us to go free. We were declared just and righteous by the One who is just. No wonder we call him our King!

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Let’s say that you are an ambitious and powerful European dictator, and you would like to conquer Russia. Your army is vastly superior in numbers and equipment. Your military strategy surpasses that of the opposing generals. Your siege of Moscow is going to take you well into December and January, but what’s a little cold and snow when you have everything else in your favor?… Underestimating the power of a Russian winter would be a fatal mistake, wouldn’t it. Just ask Napoleon or Hitler what a difference it makes.

Let’s say that you are a multinational fast food chain, and you keep receiving irritating letters from a little girl in grade school about the potential dangers of your Styrofoam packaging to the environment. Someone in customer relations is given the task of sending her a few patronizing letters thanking her for her concern, but you don’t intend to do anything about it. After all, she’s just a little girl… But underestimating the power of a sweet little girl’s face to sway public opinion would be a big mistake. And today, if you order a Big Mac at McDonald’s, the box it comes in will be made out of cardboard, not Styrofoam.

Let’s say you are a member of the human race, and you want to find the meaning of life. You want to know God. You want to find some escape from death. Lined up in front of you is an impressive array of wise sages and sometimes powerful leaders offering their lists of principles and secrets for finding spiritual happiness and eternal bliss.

Then there is this quaint little story about a man who was falsely accused, tortured, and executed thousands of years ago on a cross. The story is filled with blood and suffering. It doesn’t seem very spiritual. But underestimating the power of the cross would be a big mistake.

Let’s say that you and I owed someone a debt far beyond anything we could ever pay. We’re not talking possible bankruptcy. We’re talking about a debt that makes the 22 trillion-dollar national debt look manageable. Then he not only forgives it. He so loves us that he gives his own life to pay it off. Isn’t that the message of the cross? And doesn’t that do something to us inside?

This is why the Apostle Paul doesn’t describe the gospel as a mere offer, a reasonable possibility, an option worth considering. It is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). The gospel he preached to the Thessalonian Christians came to them “not simply with words but also with power” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). And here in his letter to the Corinthians Paul affirms that the preaching of Christ crucified is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24).

The message of the cross answers the challenge because it saves those who believe. Don’t underestimate its power.

Jeremiah 26:8-9 “But as soon as Jeremiah finished telling all the people everything the Lord had commanded him to say, the priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him and said, ‘You must die! Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted?’ And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.”

The people to whom Jeremiah preached God’s law objected that the prophet was wrong to preach it to them. They were living in denial about their sins. What they needed was an honest diagnosis. That is what Jeremiah had just given them. He scatters a list of their sins across his book: oppressing the poor, having the innocent put to death and seizing their possessions, fraud and dishonesty, illicit and perverted sex, mixing the worship of the true God with false religions. All of these were symptoms of the core problem the Lord sent Jeremiah to confront on this day: “You do not listen to me and follow my law… and you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets…” (26:4-5).

The symptoms haven’t changed all that much, have they? You hear that even Christians fail to practice proper sexual values often enough. Whether TV and the internet are major contributors to the problem or merely reflect it, the problem still lies with us. Materialism makes us willing to walk all over other people for the sake of a buck, and it has been doing so for at least a century in our country. I once read an article by one of the fathers of our church, August Pieper, in which he complains that people in our country seem to assume that the purpose of life is to make as much money as you can. The article was from the 1910’s. According to one survey, the average person lies about twice each day. Over half of those seeking jobs lie on their resumes. Yet people of every political bent raise red flags about “fake news,” as though it is something we shouldn’t expect. The day is coming when no one will be able to trust anyone anymore.

These are all still symptoms of ears that don’t want to listen to God and hearts that don’t trust him. The people to whom Jeremiah preached would not have denied many of the things Jeremiah accused them of. Yes, they thought differently about sex than their prudish ancestors. Yes, they were more open minded and tolerant about religion and didn’t see anything wrong with participating in the ceremonies at other places of worship. They didn’t have anything against poor people, but business was business, and you didn’t expect them to take a loss for such a bunch of no-names, did you? They wouldn’t deny that they did these things. They just didn’t see what was wrong with them.

That’s why they objected to Jeremiah’s prognosis. “Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and ruined?” Shiloh was the place where God had lived with his people about 400 years earlier. There he took up a special, gracious presence with them. About 400 years before Jeremiah, God abandoned that place.

You don’t want God to cut off his gracious presence and blessing like that. It is a foretaste of hell. When we embrace our sins, defend them, and will not repent, eventually God says, “If you don’t want me and my ways, then go your own. But don’t expect me to come along. I will leave you alone, just as you asked.”

When we live in denial about the reality of our sins and the seriousness of their consequences, we are choosing to live in a fantasy world with an illusion of personal goodness and eternal security. When God’s law shatters those illusions of goodness, it hurts. But then we are ready to receive the real thing.

Not everything about Jeremiah’s message that day was negative. “Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people: ‘The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you’” (vs. 12-13).

The Lord did not want to abandon these people, destroy their city, or lose them eternally. He does not want to drive us further away. He wants to wake his people up. Tough love isn’t a modern invention of Christian psychotherapy or the recovery movement. God was practicing it with his Old Testament people in 600 B.C.

That is because the Lord wanted to relent and see his people prosper. He still does. He takes no morbid pleasure in seeing people suffer. He won’t promise us cross-free life. Sometimes we need our burdens, and he doesn’t want us to mistake earth for heaven. But he does want us to know the peace and security of his forgiving grace. As forgiven people he wants us to find his abundant supply. As people of faith he wants us to trust his angelic protection. He doesn’t want us to miss the benefits that come to those whose hurts have been healed by his love.

Sometimes the doctor warns, “This is going to hurt,” before he proceeds to address my problem. But I usually feel better after I go to him. A few moments of pain lead to long term relief. We feel better when God has cut us deeply with his law so that his healing grace can penetrate deeply into our souls and fortify our faith. God give us ears that hear and hearts that believe, even when his message hurts.