This morning, my pastor started a new sermon series. We’re discussing what it truly means to live the gospel, not just in our words but in everything we do. Something he said this morning is still heavy on my mind:
When we pick up with the Israelites in this story, they’ve come a long way. Israel had come from Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. They had settled the land, had a time of judges, and then had a period of kings. Eventually, the kingdom split in half, and would never reunite. The Babylonians entered the scene, and came in to destroy the Israelites. When we pick up in the book of Jeremiah, we see that Jeremiah was writing to the Israelites who had been carried into exile. They couldn’t understand what was happening to them. Everything they held dear to them had been destroyed. They believed God’s promise that they were his people, but exile pointed to a question growing deep in their hearts.. This isn’t how it was supposed to turn out. This God that we serve… Is he still real? Is he still powerful? Is he still in control?
It was into the chaos and painful reality of their shattered and broken dreams that Jeremiah spoke these words….
degrees of brokenness 