November 5, 2023

Friends in Christ,

I read this from Jeremiah recently:

Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared. (Jeremiah 38:20)

That sounds like pretty good news. It sounds like good advice that somebody ought to take. And, it could have been good news. It was advice which should have been taken.

Jeremiah spoke those words to King Zedekiah. He spoke that command from God after instructing Zedekiah to surrender to invading armies from Babylon. God actually told Judah’s king to surrender. He promised to protect Zedekiah from harm if he would surrender Jerusalem to threatening armies from a foreign power. Zedekiah received this message more than once, but in the end he tried to hold out during a siege. He waited for help from Egypt which never came. Eventually, he tried to sneak away by night and make a run for it. He tried to do things his own way, and it did not go well (2 Kings 25:7).

Why did Zedekiah refuse to do what God said? Maybe he felt like Babylon had no right to invade Judah. Maybe he had been told that people from Babylon worshipped foreign gods who were not gods at all. These things were true. Judah was a sovereign nation. Babylon had no right to invade unprovoked. They were not followers of the true God, and the many gods Babylon honored were not real. Yet, if Zedekiah would have claimed these arguments, they would only have hidden a deeper reason for his disobedience. Zedekiah was too proud to follow God.

Zedekiah was too proud to become a prisoner. He was too proud to surrender to a foreign power. He was too proud to give up control. He was too proud to believe there was nothing in his power which would change things. He believed in himself. He believed things could get better without surrendering. From one perspective, that makes him positive thinker and shows his grit. From the perspective of truth, that makes Zedekiah a fool.

You and I can act the fool much like Zedekiah. We can believe strongly that our situation will get better if we just wait long enough. But our belief does not have the power to create change. We can claim grit and endurance as we continue a misguided course. However, grit and endurance pursuing our own plans will not convince God to change his plans.

Last week we remembered the significance of the Reformation. The very first of the Ninety-five Theses applies here. “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Repentance is a form of surrender. Zedekiah fought against surrendering because he refused to surrender to God’s will. You and I struggle to surrender to God’s will too. We struggle when God’s will is difficult. We struggle when we have other preferences for how things might get done. We struggle with giving up control. We struggle with repentance because it’s hard for us to surrender.

Thankfully, we have a Savior who surrendered all for us. Jesus surrendered his own life without waiting for us to figure out what we would do. He surrendered his will to his Father’s plans while we were still believing in ourselves. He died for every time we’ve avoided surrendering to God’s plans.

Jesus also rose to new life, that we might live new as well. He shares his life with us, and this new life is a one of repentance. His life is one of surrender. The life we receive from him is aligned with God’s will, and it flourishes in his promise. This new life rejoices at the good news which Zedekiah missed:

Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared. (Jeremiah 38:20)

The life you receive from Jesus is a life obedient to God’s call. In his life you have the promise that God will deal well with you. He will watch over your life. He will see you through every difficulty and bring you into his good plans.

 

Here for you,

Matt Behrens, Pastor