God Will Gather His People | Jeremiah 23:1-8

• Sermon Transcript

  Good morning. Well, tomorrow, all the schools are finally back in after 34 weeks of summer, it seems like it anyway, no, they're back well, in ministry, years ago, I made a decision to really try to understand people better than I do. I'm not completely ignorant of social cues and how people are and what they go through what they do, but do have to work on a little bit. And so I've studied a lot of people, a lot of personalities and things like that. Now, for some people comes easy, like my oldest daughter is like an expert in people, she'll tell you that, you know, her, her social IQ is extremely high. And she's willing to say these things, but I have about half of that maybe. So and if you study people who study personalities, the ministry is helpful to that, because we're dealing with people and their conflicts from time to time, believe it or not in church life. And there's relationship issues and things like that. So if you study people, and you study personalities, one thing that you'll notice is that people tend to favor one of two behaviors. And there's a lot of different a lot of different things you'll notice, but one thing you'll notice is that people are either organizers or gatherers, organizers, or gatherers. An organizer is constantly trying to get rid of things in their house. They have nice, neat homes, they're constantly selling things they don't need. They're taking them to the dump, they're taking them to Goodwill, they're giving them to other people, they're getting things out of their house that is an organizer, part of their organizations skill is to declutter, so they can properly organize. But the other half of people favor the opposite of that. And they are the gatherers. They're the ones who are constantly bringing things in to the home. Right, some of you all looking around at each other now, many, they're constantly buying things, many times they'll find things on sale, and so they buy them. And their goal, whether they know it or not, is to gather as many things as possible. And when you walk into a person's house, you can quickly know whether the dominant personality in the house is a gatherer or an organizer based on what the house looks like. Or perhaps both. And if you have a gather and organize are both living in the same house, we call that marriage. Usually, one will be attracted to the other. I am not a gatherer, okay, I am an organizer. But not everyone in my house is summer gatherers. And one of the biggest gatherers in my house is my four year old, he has the benefit of being the youngest sibling, the youngest child. And so not only has he gathered and accumulated an arsenal of toy guns, he keeps getting them all over more and more. And over where he pays on the who's buying the him or where they come from. But he has a new one every time he came home the other day from Walmart with a with a toy hunting rifle complete with the orange hat and orange vest. So you know, he's wandering around, you know, pretending to shoot, you know, deer, which is me and stuff like that. Alright, so he has a he is he has gathered this huge arsenal of things and toys and all kinds of things and, and he's not willing to part with any of them. Every now and then, because he's inherited all these other toys, you know, girl toys, and boy toys, you know, I'll throw one away. In fact, last night, I found this half broken Barbie doll and that Barbie doll went in the trash. You don't need that he doesn't need that. And he's going right over here, right? And so every now and then dad secretly gets rid of some of them, because you can't if you seize it, he'll say, Oh, that's my favorite toy. And truthfully, he does play with most of them. He gathers all sorts of toys, he gives them all attention, right? Even even like, when I go to work, you know, say, well, while you're going to work out who will have to that has to have a job. He has to pay the bills, you know, you like to eat and you want to place to live, right? And he's like, okay, and then the next day went to work. He says, you're going to work? I said, Yeah. He said to make money. I said yes. He said, so I'm going to have more toys. And I said, I guess why are we gatherers? Why are we organizers? Well, because God is both a gatherer and an organizer. were made in God's image. God gathers he organizes. And so we are we have some of that because God is both those things. And God is gathering people from all over the world. And he's organizing them into his church, organizing them in to his kingdom. Today we're going to look at how God gathers His people. Jeremiah 23, starting in verse one, this is written, before getting close to the fall of Judah, the fall of Jerusalem, from Babylon, God's still trying to reach out to his people still trying to get them to repent, still sending him words, and this word is from Jeremiah. First one, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people, you have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you, for your evil deeds declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them, who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and He shall reign as king, and deal wisely and so execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is our righteousness. Therefore, verse seven, Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord were when they shall no longer say, As the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but they will say instead, verse eight, as the Lord lives, who brought up and lead the offspring of the house of Israel, out of the north country, and out of all the countries where he has driven them, then they shall dwell in their own land. Heavenly Father, we thank you for today, we're gonna pray as we look at this passage, we will see your gathering heart, and how you reach all the people the world, and you put them perfectly in organization, in your kingdom in your church, Lord, and so show us what we can learn from that today. Father, I pray that my words reflect your heart, that you fill me with your Spirit and preaching that the people here today receive your word. Your spirit is here Jesus name, amen. Jeremiah was born in the town of Anath, off northeast of Jerusalem, about 627 BC before Christ came. And he was called by God as a boy, as a boy. And his calling was to be a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. During his final years, Jeremiah has called the weeping prophet because much of his ministry dealt with him mourning, the loss of Jerusalem and the destruction of Jerusalem. And the more he preached, the smaller his audience was, the more he gave God's Word, the more it shrank, you could say he preached his congregation down to nothing. So we know that response is not always a measure of success. Faithfulness, is a measure of success. And that's what Jeremiah was doing. And he spoke the word of the Lord under the last five kings of Judah, of which Josiah was the only good King, the rest were not good. And the threat of Babylon conquering Judah was getting closer and closer with every reign of King. And God gave His people warning, after warning about what was going to happen, and hopes that they would turn from their idols and their evil ways and turn to him, but they never did. And so this is the context in which Jeremiah is preaching. He gives some hope, that one day, God will bring his people back after the destruction is over. God will bring his people back. And he does that in Jesus as we know. And he will do it when Jesus comes back finally. So today, I want to give you three truths, three truths of God's gathering process. As he's gathering people to him, number one, God will gather his people under his shepherds, under his shepherds. He says the verse one Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. He's talking about the prophets and the teachers who are giving bad advice to God People, shepherds who scatter, right? He gives details of this later in the chapter is really four attributes that we see of these false shepherds and these bad prophets. There's really four attributes of them. And this is how we know we can understand a shepherd of God and this a shepherd who's playing that he is of God and they are out there today even and they will always be there. The first one is that is that they lived on godly lifestyles and on top onto some private I'm talking about and public I'm talking about that was who they were. They lived ungodly lives, lifestyles, and silicate, Jeremiah 23, verse 13. He says, in the prophets of Samaria, that's the northern country, the northern kingdom. He says, I saw an unsavory thing. They prophesied by Bale, and led my people astray. If you have prophets in preachers and teachers, who preach Jesus, but also preach that other gods are right, guess what? They're false. Right? This is what they're doing. They were saying, Oh, yes, God, but bale also he worshipped bale as well. And he cannot believe that these shepherds of God, these prophets of God, were going along and prophesying by other gods they had become pluralistic leaders. They believed that there are all different ways to satisfy god Baal can be want to be like me standing up here today and saying, you know, you can follow crying splitting, I'm okay with Buddhism, Hinduism is fine as well. So okay, for a Muslim, it's all gonna work out in the end. And there are pastors who say, things like that, believe it or not, not here and not in Southern Baptist churches, but they do exist. And this is what Jeremiah saw. But then it says in verse 14, but in the prophets of Jerusalem, he said, I've seen a horrible thing. They commit adultery, and they walk in lies, they strengthen the hands of evil doers, so that no one turns in the evil. Not only are they living on godly lifestyle, they're telling people to keep living it to keep doing how you want and living how you want and doing what what makes you feel good. That's what he saw. He says all of them, they come like Saddam to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah, which to the Jewish listener would would be the worst of the worst people imaginable. So one of the first true markers of a false Shepherd is living an ungodly lost sinful lifestyle, and encouraging God's people to do the same. God is not going to place his people under ungodly shepherds for long, some sheep may be fooled from time to time, but any sheep that follow out in the open sinful shepherds, probably not God sheep, so they live ungodly lifestyle. Secondly, they teach self centered mantras, self centered teaching. Look at Jeremiah 23, verse 16, Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the Word of God, it'll be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows their own heart, they say, no disaster shall come upon you. Just you just do you will be fine. No, know. It's not what God's Word says. Now you say, Okay, you just, you only live once you just do your thing. It's all about you. This is what we hear all day long, all day long in our own culture. It's all about what you want to do. It's all about you. Do you and pastors are not immune, unfortunately, from taking that on and saying, Yeah, that's right. Because we just want you to be happy. We want you to keep coming. We want you to keep giving, we want you to like us. So you just do what you want to do. But that is not what God's Word says. So we see that they teach self centered mantras. Also, they don't call for repentance. And then finally they're just not pointing to Jesus. They're not ever saying you need to turn from sin and go after Jesus. So Jesus tells them what would happen in verse two, here in Jeremiah says, Therefore, Thus says the Lord God, the God of Israel, concerning these shepherds who care for my people, you scattered my flock, you driven them away, you know, every now and then John. David will take his toys. They'll take a whole bucket, he'll just throw them out on the floor, scattered them everywhere. Then I gotta gather them back together in the bucket, right? That's what he says is happening. They're scattered because they're going in every which direction because they're not getting good teaching. They're not getting God's word of how to live. And he says you've not attended to them. You've just left out to their own devices. He says, but I will attend to you for your evil deeds. Whenever I see this happening in the world, and I see false teachers, clearly in ministry, because they are making money off the peak, the people of God's backs, you know, they're make, they're building their empire on things like this, and they're telling people what we know is wrong, and I get angry about it, right. But God will judge false shepherds and teachers who can leave it in his hands. We see this New Testament Look at James three, one. Now many of you should become teachers, my brothers for you know, that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. This is why I have no temptation to come here and tell you something I know is wrong. I have not tempted by that at all. I'm tempted by other things, but this is not one of them. Right? If you have a desire to teach, you claim it's of God. It would behoove you to make sure it lines up with God's word for your teacher. If you're teaching Sunday school, if you're teaching, small group, if you're teaching anything, make sure it doesn't just sound right in your own mind, make sure it lines up to the Word of God. If I ever give you my opinion, I will say this is my opinion. So we don't get confused. But God doesn't DESERT his sheep. Look at verse three. He says, Then I will gather the remnant of my flock as the remaining of my flock, the believers gathered them out of all the countries where I've driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful, and then they will multiply. And he said, and I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. So we see some some attributes here of God's remnant coming back together to come back together, and then they multiply they they grow, and it says they will fear no more. Our job as pastors is not to produce feared in you. We want you to respect the Lord and turn from sin and fear of God, but you'll never hear me preaching doomsday stuff. Because that's not what pastors do. You trust in Christ, you run to him. That's where you run. He says, they fear no more. They're not going to be dismayed. You should not come to church and leave dismayed if you do live dismayed because you have sin that you need to confess. And then you confess it to the Lord and He forgives you. Brings you back to him. He says, the shepherds will care for him. The primary way God shepherds cares for a sheep is by giving them the word. Yes, shepherds care in times of struggle, and sickness and turmoil and we do ministry to God's people when they're down and counseling when they need it and all these kind of things. But the best way you care for someone, to feed them the food they need to not get sick in the first place. God's word. Even now God is in the business of gathering his people under his shepherds. And we see this all across the world. We see false shepherds with false sheep. And we see God's shepherds, attracting God's sheep. And as God gathers His people, he's gathering them under his shepherds. Secondly, God will gather his people under his savior, will gather his people under his savior. Verse five, Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and He shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the Lord. This righteous branch is Jesus. And those who were paying attention these 600 years before the birth of Jesus knew it was coming. We see this in Luke chapter one. When Zechariah the Father John the Baptist mentions this, he says, Luke one verse 68, bless it be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. And he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of a servant David talking about the birth of Jesus, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. This messianic promises revealed here that one day there'll be a savior to unite all of God's people from all over the world. He says in verse six, in his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and this is the Named by which he will be called the Lord is our righteousness. Those who trust in this Savior Jesus are indeed saved. And those who trust in Jesus will dwell securely forever. Why? Because he's the righteous branch from the tree of Israel, but he's also God himself. But people will still Jews even reject this reality. Look at Romans chapter 10. Paul's writing about his last Jewish brethren. He says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved for a better than witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. See, there's many people who want to be godly. They have some form of religion or moralism, but they're not trusting Jesus for salvation. They're trusting themselves. Somebody says in verse three, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness. One of the the tenants of false religion is patting ourselves on the back and saying, I figured it out live like me. And that's not Christianity, Christianity is Jesus paid it all live like Him. Amen. That is the gospel. First, for for Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes. See, God gathers His people under the only name that is required for salvation, Jesus Christ. And number three, God will gather his people under his care. God will gather his people under his care, verse seven, therefore, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they, God's people shall no longer say, this kind of mantra, they used to say, As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel and of Egypt, that that was what they were kind of commanded to do and talk about how God saved us from Egypt says, they'll no longer say that they're gonna say this, as the Lord lives who brought up and lead the offspring out of the north and out of all the countries. For most of Israel's history, they were commanded. And they practice and they constantly reminded each other how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt during the time of Moses. And that's what they always talked about. They were commanded to remember those days. But Jeremiah makes a startling comment, he says, there'll be a day where they won't talk about it anymore. And the Jew would be like, what? I can't imagine that. He says, No, God's people will not will not invoke this memory of Moses deliverance anymore. They'll invoke the memory of a different type of deliverance at type where God gathered all his people from himself all over the world through Jesus Christ. That is where we talk about God is gathering all his people from all over the world, under his care, you know, there are more Christians in the world than have ever been people who claim to be Christians, I think I might be a little inflated. That's my skepticism. But anyway, that's those are the numbers. And even percentage wise, there's more than ever. Now, if you're from the American South, it doesn't feel that way. If you've lived here for more than 40 years, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like we're less Christian, have less Christian morals than we used to have in our culture, everything it feels like things are falling apart. And in the American South, it may not be in many ways, as Christianized as it used to be. And first of all, whose fault is that? The church's fault. So we need to take ownership with that. But that's a whole nother sermon together. But for the rest of the world. Missed the world. The church is growing. In there's more and more believers, because heaven is not going to just be filled with Southerners. We might have our own section but it's not gonna be just filled with Southerners. It's not gonna be just filled with Americans. We filled with people all over the world, because God created the entire world. Look at Revelation seven. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number. No one could number. You'd get tired from counting from every nation, from all tribes, all peoples, all languages, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb that being Jesus clothed and white. robes to symbolize the purity they've been. They've been saved by the blood of Christ with palm branches in our hands, crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Jesus Christ is the God of the world. And he's a God who's gathering people to himself. And he's a God, who cares? Do you know that he's just not sitting in his holy lazy boy watching the game, while his children run amok in the house. He's active. He's caring. You could see his father in Wicked. Matthew chapter 10. Verse 29, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Or maybe it's time now because of inflation, but you get the point right? Not to spare so for for a penny, they're cheap. And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. He's saying that sparrows don't cost anything but God still cares for them. Verse 30, even the hairs of your head are numbered. And in my case, yes, every number every day is are decreasing. Even your head of your hair so number fear not therefore you are more value than many sparrows, you are under such God's care as His people. You can't even fathom how much God cares for you. You think you know you might have you might relate in some way because you have a father, a father figure, and you know, they love you, but maybe not real sure how much they love you. You can't fathom the fact that God is so loving, that he counts your hair on your head every single day, he has the memorized. This is not just allegory metaphor, this is literal speech. If he didn't know how many hairs on your head, how could he keep the planets in orbit? He knows. And he cares. Because he's a god, and went to extreme lengths to save you. sent his son, form of Jesus, fully God, fully man, come to this earth to live with sinless life. The life we couldn't live, to die, our death on the cross to take our punishment on the cross take our wrath of God, our rightly deserved judgment on the cross. And then rays from the grave three days later after he died. If you believe that, God says, Welcome to the family. If you believe that you're a sinner, and you needed forgiveness, and you turn to Christ for that, and that he was raised, he says, You are my child. It seems so easy. It seems so easy on the front end. But it's so difficult for many people, but for the grace of God, we will be the same way. But for the grace of God, if you KNOW Jesus Christ, you turned to him that he served and so easy to put the hand up and say no, no, thank you. I'm going to live my own life. As we close our time today, I may ask you this question. Are you still scattered? Or is God gathered you back into his family today? If you've never received salvation from if you never believed in him, why not? Today is that you can make that decision during during our time of response you can you feel free to come down here and maybe there's something you need to get to the Lord. Maybe there's something that's holding you back in your life, maybe a lifestyle. Maybe Maybe you're maybe there's forgiveness, that you're harboring unforgiveness, bitterness, relationship, issue, whatever it is something that that you can't live free in Christ and enjoy him like you're meant to live because you're holding on to something you shouldn't hold on to. Maybe you shouldn't come down here today and say, Lord, I'm going to give this to you today. Right here in this worship service. Maybe you just need prayer. I'm fully healthy today. As far as I know, I'll be happy to pray for you. Maybe Jesus needed to give something to Lord today. Whatever God's calling you today know that he is a caring shepherd. And he's gathering you and his people unto himself. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for doing everything we've talked about the day Lord just for for being so caring for, for for sending shepherds, Lord, I thank you for the the men, the women, spiritual leaders you've put in my life. I've always pointed A towards you, I thank you so much, Lord for, for having parents and Sunday school teachers and pastors that the constantly pointed me toward you and, and it didn't tell me to to, to just do whatever I wanted to do. They pointed me towards your truth or I thank you for being the beneficiary of that grace. Oh, there's so many of you don't have that. But it's never too late. It's never too late to be that type of person for someone. It's never too late to hear that. So, Lord, we pray that you work in the lives of those that are here today. That you continue to work in our lives and Lord, if there's one in here that's never placed their faith in you that they would do so today, Lord, as you continue to gather people, to your kingdom. Father, we love you. We ask these things in Jesus name.