Jeremiah, the
reluctant prophet
#5
Streams of Living
Water
Rev. Ron Friedrich
July 30, 2006
(This
lesson is a compilation of three lessons.)
Jeremiah
17:5-8
(New Century Version)
5 This is what the LORD
says:
"A
curse is placed on those who trust other people,
who depend on humans for strength,
who have stopped trusting the LORD.
6 They are like a bush in a desert
that grows in a land where no one lives,
a hot and dry land with bad soil.
They
don’t know about the good things God can give.
7 "But the person who trusts in the LORD will be blessed.
The LORD
will show him that he can be trusted.
8 He will be strong, like a tree planted near
water
that sends its roots by a stream.
It
is not afraid when the days are hot;
its leaves are always green.
It
does not worry in a year when no rain comes;
it always produces fruit."
I.
The bush in the desert.
II.
The tree by the stream.
III.
The fruit of the tree.
This message
from Jeremiah echoes a message that God gave in chapter 2 of Jeremiah's
story.
Has any nation ever exchanged its gods for
another god,
even
though its gods are nothing?
Yet my people have exchanged their
glorious God
for
worthless idols!
For my people have done two evil things:
[1] They have forsaken me--
the
fountain of living water. And
[2] they have dug for themselves cracked
cisterns
that can
hold no water at all!
(Jeremiah 2:11,13, New Living Translation)
Water is very important for life. People who live in dry climates
like Israel understand how important water is. In Bible times,
people often dug large pits (called "cisterns") for collecting rain
water. This was not as good as having fresh water from a stream
or a spring. But if you didn't have a spring or river nearby,
then even stale rain water was precious.
God uses this word picture to describe His life-giving relationship
with Israel. He was their life-giving spring water. But the
people of Israel refused to love and worship God. Instead, they
looked for life in dumb idols, who can offer no life. God said
that this is the same as refusing a supply of fresh water and digging
leaky cisterns -- dry cisterns that offer only a false hope.
I.
The bush in the desert.
Now, in Jeremiah 17, God uses a similar word picture to teach more
about this principle.
"A
curse is placed on those who trust other people,
who depend on humans for strength,
who have stopped trusting the LORD.
They
are like a bush in a desert
that grows in a land where no one lives,
a hot and dry land with bad soil.
They
don’t know about the good things God can give."
For the kings of Israel, this had a really simple meaning.
Israel often turned away from God to worship idols, and to also disobey
the other nine Commandments. Because they look for their
blessings and protection from false gods and spirits, God let them
experience the natural consequences of their decision. He removed
His protection and blessing, so they could get their "blessing" from
the idols. Then, when enemy nations attacked Israel,
instead of turning back to God for help, the kings of Israel usually
made alliances (treaties) with neighboring nations and asked the
neighbors to help defend Israel. Sometimes that neighbor was
Egypt! And what did the neighboring nation get for helping
Israel? Taxes and labor. Often the kings of Israel stole
gold from the Lord's temple to pay for their defense treaties.
God's message to those kings of Israel was, "Don't look to other
nations to help you. Turn back to Me!" Two kings who
obeyed and trusted God, with wonderful results, were Jehoshaphat and
Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 17 &18 and 2 Chronicles 20).
That picture of the dry bush in the desert, and the experiences of the
kings of Israel, also apply to us. This picture applies on
two levels.
First, like the people of Israel, our foolish and wrong decisions get
into real messes. Then, instead of confessing our sin to God and
seeking His help, we figure out our own way to solve our problems,
which only makes the mess worse. We go deeper and deeper, while
we wonder why God has let this happen to us.
I have a friend who is constantly making bad choices
with her finances and her friends. The result is that she
struggles with overwhelming debt and people who use her.
The way she has tried to solve her problems is to take on more debt,
kick out her husband, and move in a new boyfriend. Once,
when she realized this wasn't working, she asked me, "What should I do?"
My response was to simply ask, "What is the right thing to do?"
She rolled her eyes, and said, "I need to be practical. God's way
won't work."
I asked her, "How do you know God's way won't work? You never
tried it."
A more serious way we live out this word-picture
in Jeremiah is when we tell ourselves that we will fix our separation
from God. We fool ourselves to think, "I can, and I will, do what I must to earn
my place in heaven." Sadly, many sincerely believe that
they are succeeding. If you ask them, "How are you doing that?",
they often answer, "I am not as bad
as some other people." Will the sins of other
people will save us?! How foolish! How unnecessary!
Just as God has a solution for the little messes we make in life, He
has a The Solution for the Big Mess that we make with our
eternity. The name of the Solution is Jesus. He took
our mess -- and our foolishness and sin that caused that mess -- and
took it to the cross. There He, in His own body and soul,
accepted the eternal consequences of our sin, so we can receive the
eternal privilege of His holiness.
In both arenas of our mess-making -- daily life and eternal life -- our
role is only to take our hands off and trust Him alone. And
that's the promise in the last part of our text...
II.
The tree by the stream.
"But
the person who trusts in the LORD
will be blessed.
The LORD
will show him that he can be trusted.
He
will be strong, like a tree planted near water
that sends its roots by a stream."
What exactly is the "stream" here? In this context, just as in
Jeremiah 2, the stream is the Lord God, Himself! And in both
texts, we receive that life-giving flow simply through faith --
trusting Him.
Jesus used the "water of life" picture twice in His ministry on
earth. Once He used this word picture with a Samaritan woman,
whose life definitely fit the description of the "dry bush." She
had been married five times, and at the time she met Jesus, she was
living with a boyfriend.
Jesus
said, "If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is
asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given
you living water... Everyone who drinks this [physical] water will be
thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never be
thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up
inside that person, giving eternal life." (John
4:10,14 NCV)
Soon she discover who He is, and she received that Living Water -- that
new life through faith in Him.
Now, I want you to notice carefully... In this word picture in
Jeremiah 17, where is
the tree? Near the stream, yes. But in the wider
landscape, where is it?
"It is not afraid when the days are
hot;
its
leaves are always green.
It does not worry in a year when no rain
comes;
it
always produces fruit."
This tree is also in the desert, just like the bush!
Both the bush and the tree feel the heat of the scorching sun and the
hot dry air. But the tree has a source of water, the source of
life, that comes through its roots.
Biology question:
Compare trees that grow in dry climates and trees that grow in wet
climates. Which has deeper roots?
If it rains a lot, and the ground is wet, a tree growing in that kind
of soil will have shallow roots. A hard wind can easily blow it
over.
But a tree that experiences long dry seasons will send its roots deep
to reach a constant source of water that doesn't depend on the weather.
A mature Christian is the same as that tree.
We experience the same troubles, the same problems that non-Christians
face. We feel the same heat from Satan and the world as the
unbeliever. We feel the same separation from God as everyone
else. But when long periods of difficulty hit, that forces us to
trust God more deeply. Our joy and our peace does not come from
our circumstances (situation), but from the promises of God.
In my junior year in college, I discovered the joy of
answered prayer. It wasn't prayer for things on my wish
list. But the prayers that God answered in dramatic ways were
prayers for God’s guidance: "What do You want me to do?" It
was
a time when the Scripture came to life. Every word seemed to jump off
the page with insight and application. It was a time of sweet
fellowship with like-minded Christians who had dedicated their hearts
and minds, their lives and their talents in wholehearted service to
Christ.
This season of thrills didn’t last forever. There came a time
when it seemed God became silent.
I read the Bible as a scheduled discipline. But the words just
lay
flat on the page. The only insights I got from the Bible were the
insights other people found and shared with me.
Prayer no longer appealed to me. There didn't seem any point to
prayer. And for quite a long stretch of time, the only way I
could get myself to pray, was to use a notebook, a journal, which
forced me, with pen in hand, to do business with God.
I still had good fellowship with other believers. But it seemed
all that I could get was the spill-over from their joy.
And God kept me in touch with people with needs, and they would report
on how God had blessed and encouraged them through whatever it was that
I had shared with them from God's Word in response to their need.
But my own spirit felt like it had dried up and I was living in a
desert.
After this had gone on for two years, I came across this text from
Jeremiah in a religious newspaper.
"The person who trusts in the LORD
will be blessed.
The LORD
will show him that he can be trusted.
He will be strong, like a tree planted near water
that sends its roots by a stream.
It is not afraid when the days are hot;
its leaves are always green.
It does not worry in a year when no rain comes;
it always produces fruit."
The text so grabbed me that I clipped it out, taped it to the closet
door in my dormitory room, and there it stayed, like a small poster,
for the rest of the year.
The picture of the tree in the getting life from the stream appears in
the first Psalm in the Bible:
Happy
are those who don’t listen to the wicked,
who don’t go where sinners go,
who don’t do what evil people do.
They
love the LORD'S
teachings,
and they think about those teachings day and night.
They
are strong, like a tree planted by a river.
The
tree produces fruit in season,
and its leaves don’t die.
Everything they do will succeed.
But
wicked people are not like that.
They are like chaff that the wind blows away... (Psalm
1:1-4 NCV)
Here the river is God's Word. The child of God receives
nourishment and life through studying His Word, and thinking about His
Word "day and night." From His Word we receive His
promises, His encouragement, His comfort during troublesome
times. From His Word we receive wise counsel for guiding us
through life's difficult decisions.
But notice in Jeremiah's word picture, the tree by the river not only
survives,
...its leaves are always green.
...it always produces fruit.
The tree by the stream feels the same heat as the dry bush alone in the
desert. But because the tree is receiving life from the stream,
the tree can provide a cool shade, shelter, and even nourishment to
other creatures.
...just a mature Christian soaking up God's Word, soaking up Christ
Himself, becomes a channel for God's comfort and nourishment to other
people who are seeking refuge from the heat of their spiritual desert.
...all the while that same mature Christian is experience his own
desert heat. God uses him to bless other people.
Where is the blessing for him?
Jesus
said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. If
anyone believes in me, rivers of living water will flow out from that
person’s heart, as the Scripture says." Jesus was talking about
the Holy Spirit.
(John 7:37-39)
The last promise offered in the Jeremiah text is a fruitful life, fruit
that can only grow from the nourishment (Holy Spirit) a Christian
receives by faith through his roots by the stream (the Word of God).
III.
The fruit of the tree
The Bible tells us that "fruit" growing in a Christian's life is a
picture of Christ's own character growing in us.
But
the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their own sinful
selves. They have given up their old selfish feelings and the evil
things they wanted to do. We get our new life from the Spirit, so we
should follow the Spirit.
(Galatians 5:22-25 NCV)
The Holy Spirit produces the fruit of
love
The World doesn’t know
this love.
The world knows lust.
The world knows love only as a warm fuzzy feeling,
without commitment.
Jesus
said, "Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his
friends." (John
15:13)
"But
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans
5:8)
It wasn't a warm fuzzy feeling that sent Jesus to the
cross.
It was love.
It wasn't the nails that held Jesus to the Cross.
It was love.
Love for you and me.
...as He took the punishment
we deserved,
so that we may receive the life that
only He deserves.
And now, as Fruit of the Spirit, Christ continues to
express His love through our lives. Love takes on a new
wonderful meaing. No longer is our motive for doing the loving
thing simply doing what feels good. Instead, Christlike love is
demonstrated when we find ourselves doing something nice for someone
when we don’t feel like it.
joy
If we believe the
messages on billboards and TV advertisements,
"joy" is found in a gambling casino!
The world understands happiness, which depends on
circumstances.
It’s what happens that makes us
happy.
But experience the fruit of joy only in knowing Christ,
and knowing that His purposes are greater than our circumstances.
Then comes joy’s cousin:
peace
"...which
surpasses all understanding." (Philippians 4:7)
The world seeks its peace in chemicals.
True peace is found in Christ.
patience,
kindness, goodness,
faithfulness,
There is that commitment word again.
gentleness,
self-control.
John
15:1-5
Jesus said, "I am the true vine; my Father is the gardener.
He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And he
trims and cleans every branch that produces fruit so that it will
produce even more fruit. You are already clean because of
the words I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will
remain in you. A branch cannot produce fruit alone but must remain in
the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit alone but must
remain in me.
"I am the vine, and you are the branches. If any remain in me and I
remain in them, they produce much fruit. But without me they can do
nothing."
Jeremiah
17:7-8
"The person who trusts in the LORD
will be blessed.
The LORD
will show him that he can be trusted.
He will be strong, like a tree planted near water
that sends its roots by a stream.
It is not afraid when the days are hot;
its leaves are always green.
It does not worry in a year when no rain comes;
it always produces fruit."