Alliance Christian Church
March 23 2025
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  • He Has made Me Glad

  • Crying Out

    Jeremiah 11 “The Lord said to Jeremiah: “Hear the terms of the covenant I made with Israel and pass them on to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse. Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors to keep when I brought them out of Egypt, that place that was like an iron-smelting furnace. I said at that time, “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement exactly as I commanded you. If you do, you will be my people and I will be your God. Then I will keep the promise I swore on oath to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” That is the very land that you still live in today.’ ” And I responded, “Amen. Let it be so, Lord.” The Lord said to me, “Announce all the following words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: ‘Listen to the terms of my covenant with you and carry them out! For I solemnly warned your ancestors…”
    Introduction: Crying out to God,

    Psalm 42

    Psalm 42 NIV
    For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
    Psalm 42 is a potent example of crying out to God in our distress
    Deep calls to deep, the psalmist says.
    And yet, too often, I think we don’t talk about the importance of crying out to God.
    I think we have a fear, maybe a taboo that says don’t cry out to god, dont bother God with your problems.
    But crying out to God is exactly what the Bible shows us we ought to do.
    Narratio
    As we jump into our study on Jeremiah, we’re going to look at Jeremiah chapters 12-18 in what’s called the Confessions of Jeremiah.
    Where Jeremiah bears his soul to God in the most intimate way.
    Beginning in chapter 12, the book goes into what I call the Jeremiah Cycle.
    If you zoom out, you see that there is a repeated theme from 12 all the way to chapter 20
    And it goes like this:
    First Jeremiah preaches the message that God has given him to Judah, namely that they need to turn around and stop sinning, because Babylon is coming to bring punishment.
    Then something bad happens to Jeremiah
    Then He cries out in anguish to the Lord
    The Lord answers his prayer.
    And then he gives Jeremiah another difficult message to preach to the people.
    5 times this happens. This cycle.
    Preach a message, Bad things happen, Jeremiah cries out, God answers.
    We have time today to look at three of those cycles.
    And we’re going to explore Jeremiah’s relationship with God, looking at his ministry through the eyes of the prophet.
    If you have your bibles, turn with me to Jeremiah 12.
    Partitio:
    And we’re going to break our study into 3’s.
    3 Laments and confessions of Jeremiah, where he cries out to the lord in distress.
    3 responses by god, and
    3 takeaways from the whole thing.
    Jeremiah 12:1–4 NET 2nd ed.
    Lord, you have always been fair whenever I have complained to you. However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. Why are wicked people successful? Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives? You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. They always talk about you, but they really care nothing about you. But you, Lord, know all about me. You watch me and test my devotion to you. Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered! Appoint a time when they will be killed! How long must the land be parched and the grass in every field be withered? How long must the animals and the birds die because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? For these people boast, “God will not see what happens to us.”
    The question is one that we have been asking God for generations
    Where is your justice, God. Why do bad things happen to good people, why do good things happen to bad people.
    And we don’t have to look far in our culture to see it.
    It feels wrong to us that we know faithful people who work hard, give to the poor, they’d give you the shirt off their back. And they get sick, they lose their jobs, they suffer pain and tragedy.
    And then we turn right around and see billionaires and millionaires who cheat on their wives, cheat on their taxes. Mistreat their employees.
    Jeremiah is looking at this, and he cries out to God, where is your justice?
    And for Jeremiah it was personal, because the people he’s talking about here were making threats against his life.
    So he cries out to God a question that I bet a lot of us have asked. Why don’t you do something?
    Listen to God’s response:
    Jeremiah 12:5–6 NET 2nd ed.
    The Lord answered, “If you have raced on foot against men and they have worn you out, how will you be able to compete with horses? And if you feel secure only in safe and open country, how will you manage in the thick undergrowth along the Jordan River? As a matter of fact, even your own brothers and the members of your own family have betrayed you as well. Even they have plotted to do away with you. So do not trust them even when they say kind things to you.
    I am willing to bet that this is not the answer Jeremiah is looking for.
    Let me put this in plain English for you, Jeremiah Cries out to God about Justice, and says “God why don’t you do something” And god responds, “Why don’t you do something?”
    You think it’s bad now, you’re ready to quit now, what are you going to do when it gets worse?
    You’re racing against people on foot, and you’re tired, just wait til you have to run against horses.
    You’re walking down a clear open path now, what are you going to do when you have to walk through the Jungle?
    This is a hard teaching.
    It forces us to come to terms with the fact that even though God CAN do something about evil in the world, he CHOOSES to work through his people to accomplish his mission.
    Said another way, when we look to God and we pray, God please make a difference in the world, God looks back and says “that’s why I sent you” that’s why I redeemed you, so that you could do something about it.
    APPLICATION
    I’m a big believer of prayer PLUS action. I don’t want you to misunderstand me here. We pray to God for everything, we put our full trust and faith in him.
    But when we go to God and pray “lord I just ask that you would help those who are hungry and need food. Maybe, just maybe, God has blessed you with an abundance because his plan all along was to work through you.
    There’s the old joke, I’m sure you’ve all heard it a thousand times, about the woman who was stranded in the hurricane.
    And as the flood waters were reaching the house, and the policeman comes by and says ma’am you need to evacuate.
    And she says no no, I trust in God
    And the flood waters come up and she’s up on the roof of her house and the boat comes by….
    Our first Lament and response, Jeremiah says where is you justice, And god responds, buckle up, I called you to participate with me in the redemption of the world.
    As we continue on with the Jeremiah cycle, God preaches destruction on Jerusalem,
    In Chapter 13, God gives Jeremiah a sermon illustration about some linen loin cloth he tells him to take a fancy linen loincloth and stick it in the dirt, and he says go tell the people of Jerusalem, you’re going to be just like this loin cloth. Dirty, and ruined.
    In Chapter 14, God laments over the fact that Jerusalem is still refusing to repent and in chapter 15, Jeremiah Cries out to God again.
    At this point, you have to see the scene playing out. God gives Jeremiah difficult news to deliver, the people get angry, Jeremiah cries out, God responds, and the cycle goes over and over.
    In chapter 15 Jeremiah’s second confession to God he says go tell

    Jeremiah 15:10-18

    Jeremiah 15:10–18 NET 2nd ed.
    I said, “Oh, mother, how I regret that you ever gave birth to me! I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. I have not lent money to anyone, and I have not borrowed from anyone. Yet all these people are treating me with contempt.” The Lord said, “Jerusalem, I will surely send you away for your own good. I will surely bring the enemy upon you in a time of trouble and distress. Can you people who are like iron and bronze break that iron fist from the north? I will give away your wealth and your treasures as plunder. I will give it away free of charge for the sins you have committed throughout your land. I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For my anger is like a fire that will burn against you.” I said, “Lord, you know how I suffer. Take thought of me and care for me. Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me. Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me. Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake. As your words came to me I drank them in, and they filled my heart with joy and happiness because I belong to you, O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies. I did not spend my time in the company of other people, laughing and having a good time. I stayed to myself because I felt obligated to you and because I was filled with anger at what they had done. Why must I continually suffer such painful anguish? Why must I endure the sting of their insults like an incurable wound? Will you let me down when I need you, like a brook one goes to for water but that cannot be relied on?”
    We can look at this in two different ways:
    The first way we can look at this is by saying “oh wow, what a whiner”
    What a whiney baby jeremiah is, saying poor me, poor me. Look at all the horrible things happening to me, look at all the wonderful things I have done.
    And we would be right, in a certain respect.
    But the other way I think we ought to look at this is with some honest self reflection.
    This series, our goal is to put ourselves in Jeremiah’s shoes, and I’d be willing to bet that when times get tough we have a tendency to think this way.
    Why me God? I’ve done everything right, I’ve done everything you’ve asked and it feels like you’re not even there, like you don’t even care about what I’m going through.
    So before we point the finger at Jeremiah, I think we ought to take a look in the mirror.
    I think there’s two types of Christians in the world. The first type are those who will say they have moments where they question God’s plan, and the second type are liars.
    And when God responds, notice that he doesn’t cut in in the middle of Jeremiah’s lament over what’s going on. He let’s Jeremiah complain, but then when Jeremiah says
    Jeremiah 15:18 NET 2nd ed.
    Why must I continually suffer such painful anguish? Why must I endure the sting of their insults like an incurable wound? Will you let me down when I need you, like a brook one goes to for water but that cannot be relied on?”
    Then, and only then, does God cut in and he says
    Jeremiah 15:19 NET 2nd ed.
    Because of this, the Lord said, “You must repent of such words and thoughts! If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless, I will again allow you to be my spokesman. They must become as you have been. You must not become like them.
    Jeremiah 15:20 NET 2nd ed.
    I will make you as strong as a wall to these people, a fortified wall of bronze. They will attack you, but they will not be able to overcome you. For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you,” says the Lord.
    Jeremiah 15:21 NET 2nd ed.
    “I will deliver you from the power of the wicked. I will free you from the clutches of violent people.”
    Notice there’s two things God straighten’s out here.
    First he tells Jeremiah to repent (which I know in the world today the word “repent” can feel like a mean word, but the word literally just means “turn around”)
    change the way you’re thinking about things. You’re going down a path where you’re saying “God I can’t rely on you, you’re like a stream that sometimes has water and sometimes don’t” and God says
    That thinking has to change.
    And he says then I will restore to you the privilege of being my servant, the privilege of working for me.
    Basically the message here is, Listen, Jeremiah, it’s not about you.
    I know you think you know what’s best, I know you think you know what needs to happen, but you really have no idea.
    God’s basically telling Jeremiah, look “you work for me”
    ILLUSTRATION
    Anybody who has ever been an employee and also a manager or a boss understands.
    This weekend I sat next to a guy on a plane who ran a trucking company.
    Real small, he said he had like 3 trucks and 2 drivers.
    And we got to talking about business, and he had worked his way up from being a driver to owning his own trucks and being the boss
    And we were talking about how when he was a driver he would always complain about his boss. Oh he’s not paying me enough money, oh he won’t buy us new trucks, oh, he’s not giving us good enough insurance.
    And he was telling me how his employees now do this to him.
    Why can’t we have new trucks, why can’t we have better benefits, why do we have to drive in the winter time.
    And the gentleman on the plane was like “I had no idea, before I owned my own trucks, how much went in to it.”
    He says I have to pay insurance, I have to pay taxes. I have to pay for maintenance on all those trucks.
    If one truck breaks down, guess what, I don’t have an income, which means I can’t pay my drivers, I can’t pay my insurance.
    You get a brand new truck, and now you have the responsibility if one of your drivers gets into an accident, that’s a 200,000 liability going 80 miles an hour down the highway.
    We’re not the boss. We work for God. He sees all of the things that we just can’t see.
    And god sets Jeremiah straight on that. But then notice how he turns right around and he builds Jeremiah up
    Jeremiah 15:20–21 “I will make you as strong as a wall to these people, a fortified wall of bronze. They will attack you, but they will not be able to overcome you. For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you,” says the Lord. “I will deliver you from the power of the wicked. I will free you from the clutches of violent people.””
    This is like the owner of the semi trucks pulling his drivers aside and saying “look, you can go work for swift, or whatever, If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, but they’re not going to take care of you like i do”
    Keep working for me and I will take care of you. I’ll make sure you get a paycheck, I’ll make sure when your family is sick I’ll work with you, when you need time off I’ll work with you, when someone comes after you I’ll take the heat for you.
    And we need to know that even though we might not agree with everything God is doing in our lives, 1) he knows what he’s doing. And 2) He cares about us, and he lifts us up, and he builds us up.
    So that’s our second confession and response, Jeremiah says “why me god, why me, and God says It’s not about you. My ways are bigger, and I know what’s best for you”
    Ch 16 God gives Jeremiah a beautiful parallel of this message applied to the nation of Judah. How they’re going to suffer, that Babylon is coming ,but there will be restoration, because God cares about his people, and he knows what’s best for them.
    And then in chapter 17 Jeremiah cries out to God once again:

    Jeremiah 17:12-18

    Jeremiah 17:12–18 NET 2nd ed.
    Then I said, “Lord, from the very beginning you have been seated on your glorious throne on high. You are the place where we can find refuge. You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. All who leave you will suffer shame. Those who turn away from you will be consigned to the nether world. For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. Lord, grant me relief from my suffering so that I may have some relief. rescue me from those who persecute me so that I may be rescued, for you give me reason to praise! Listen to what they are saying to me. ‘Where are the things the Lord threatens us with? May it please happen!’ But I have not pestered you to bring disaster. I have not desired the time of irreparable devastation. You know that. You are fully aware of every word that I have spoken. Do not cause me dismay! You are my source of safety in times of trouble. May those who persecute me be disgraced. Do not let me be disgraced. May they be dismayed. Do not let me be dismayed. Bring days of disaster on them. Bring on them the destruction they deserve.”
    I don’t know about you, but when I read this, the tone has kind of changed.
    Before with the first two, Jeremiah maybe came off a little whiney. Maybe with a little lack of understanding.
    But this third one, it’s different.
    This third one sounds like someone who is just tired.
    If we jump ahead to another confession Jeremiah makes in Chapter 20, Jeremiah says
    Jeremiah 20:7–9 NET 2nd ed.
    Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet, and I allowed you to do it. You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. Now I have become a constant laughingstock. Everyone ridicules me. For whenever I prophesy, I must cry out, “Violence and destruction are coming!” This message from the Lord has made me an object of continual insults and derision. Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message. I will not speak as his messenger any more.” But then his message becomes like a fire locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. I grow weary of trying to hold it in; I cannot contain it.
    I think at this point, Jeremiah is just tired.
    Tired of always having to be the bearer of bad news
    Tired of being ridiculed,
    Tired of always making the right decision and being punished for it.
    Jeremiah 17:14 NET 2nd ed.
    Lord, grant me relief from my suffering so that I may have some relief. rescue me from those who persecute me so that I may be rescued, for you give me reason to praise!
    I think we should take an honest look in the mirror and recognize the fact that working for God’s kingdom can be exhausting.
    How often did Jesus, in the middle of his ministry, just take a moment to go be alone with God because he was just tired.
    Tired of being persecuted, tired of the Pharisees constantly questioning him. Tired of his disciples not understanding his message
    tired of going throughout the people day in and day out and seeing nothing but despair, and evil. Casting out demons, healing the sick.
    And here in Jeremiah’s case, he’s not saying he wants to quit. He truly loves God, and he truly wants to honor god, but he just wants a rest.
    And in this third confession, God doensn’t answer. At least not directly.
    Instead, the very next thing God does is give him another sermon to preach.

    Jeremiah 17:19-22

    Jeremiah 17:19–22 NET 2nd ed.
    The Lord told me, “Go and stand in the People’s Gate through which the kings of Judah enter and leave the city. Then go and stand in all the other gates of the city of Jerusalem. And then announce to them, ‘Listen, to the Lord’s Message, you kings of Judah, and everyone from Judah, and all you citizens of Jerusalem, those who pass through these gates. The Lord says, Be very careful if you value your lives! Do not carry any loads in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. Do not carry any loads out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day. But observe the Sabbath day as a day set apart to the Lord, as I commanded your ancestors.
    And basically, all the way through verse 27 is a sermon about the importance of not carrying things on the sabbath, in other words, not working on the sabbath.
    Now what on earth does this have to with Jeremiah’s confession?
    Sabbath laws ? Not carrying things on Saturday? That doesn’t make any sense.
    but it does. See in this third confession, God subtlety gives Jeremiah a message to preach about the sabbath, which was, during the Old Testament, one of God’s central themes to the people.
    God created the world in 6 days and on the 7th he rested
    God leads the people out of Egypt, and one of the Ten Commandments he gives is obey the sabbath. Rest on the sabbath.
    The sabbath, the “rest” that god gave to the Jewish people was the center point of their faith.
    What God is telling Jeremiah is “you're asking for rest? I’ve been trying to give you rest since the creation of the world”
    I’ve already given you rest, I’ve already provided you a way to find rest in your soul, and it’s called the sabbath.
    APPLICATION
    As Christians we don’t celebrate the sabbath day.
    Colossians 2:16 NET 2nd ed.
    Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days—
    In other words in the Church, one of the things that changed was that Christians are not beholden to follow the sabbath laws, or the food laws, or the holidays.
    Why?
    Colossians 2:17 NET 2nd ed.
    these are only the shadow of the things to come, but the reality is Christ!
    In other words everything that God taught the Jewish people about the sabbath rest was simply a temporary thing pointing the way to something so much bigger, so much greater.
    Christ.
    In Jeremiah’s day, the rest that the people so desperately needed was the sabbath day, but in Christ, He is our rest. He is the thing that everything in the law was pointing to.
    Matthew 11:28–30 NET 2nd ed.
    Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”
    Jesus Christ is our sabbath; Jesus Christ is our rest.
    So when we cry out to God, God I’m tired, God i need a break. God I don’t think I can keep on like this, the message to us is the same.
    I’ve been trying to give you rest this whole time.
    In Christ. Put your trust in him, rely on him, give your burdens to Him.
    Rest in Him.

    Crying Out

    Three confessions:
    God where is your Justice
    God what about me?
    God where can i find rest?
    Three responses:
    Justice? I set you apart so that you could be a light to the world
    What about me? God says my ways are bigger. You don’t see the bigger picture. Trust in me and I’ll take care of you
    Where can I find rest? God says I’ve given you rest. It’s your responsibility to receive the rest I give you.
    And I want to end with three takeaways. Just general observations from these passages.
    We have permission to Go to god with our complaints. With all of the yuck in our lives. And more than just permission, we have an obligation to take that to him.
    There some circles who would say “don’t complain to God, don’t question him” I think that’s just false.
    Time after time in scripture we see examples of extremely faithful people. Moses, David, Jeremiah, Elijah. Even Jesus, going to god with everything.
    All the yuck, all the doubts, all the anxiety all the uncertainty.
    We don’t have anything to hide from God. If you’re dealing with Doubts, if you’re dealing with uncertainty, you have every right, and every responsibility to take them to God
    And you don’t have to feel afraid, like God’s going to think any less of you.
    We should wrap our heads around the fact that God gives us what we NEED, not what we want
    Jeremiah WANTED god to just do away with his enemies
    Just snap your fingers, and make it all better
    Jeremiah WANTED god to just make all his problems go away, just give him rest by taking away alll of his troubles
    But what Jeremiah NEEDED was the encouragement he got from God.
    Encouragement that said, look I have a job for you to do.
    It’s going to be tough, there’s going to be times in which you don’t like it.
    But I will build you up. I will strengthen you.
    I will give you rest. It might not be the type of rest you want, But will be what you need.
    I think from this passage we can take away the fact that we are in a partnership with God
    Let me be clear it’s not an equal partnership.
    But it is a type of partnership.
    If you’ve been in our Tuesday night bible studies a few weeks ago, we studied a word in the New Testament called koinonia
    Koinonia is a word that sometimes gets translated as “partnership, fellowship, communion.
    It’s a word that describes an intimate relationship.
    When we have “fellowship dinner” that word is koinonia. We are in partnership with each other.
    When take communion we are in koinonia with each other, and more importantly koinonia with God.
    Jeremiah was unafraid to go to God with his fears and doubts because he was in relationship, in Koinonia with God
    God was able to give Jeremiah marching orders, to give him encouragement, to use him for his purposes because Jeremiah was in Koinonia with him.
    Here in a moment we’re going to take communion.
    And we have an opportunity to reflect upon our relationship with God.
    That intimate partnership in which he wants us to participate with him in the redemption of the world. To understand his Will, and to find rest in him.
    PRAY
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