October 26 2025
Jeremiah 2:4-8, 11-13
This past while my Mom has been cleaning out some cupboards at her house. She came across some of my Dad’s trophies from when he showed dairy cattle at the County fair when he was a teenager, which was quite awhile ago. She asked us kids if any of us were interested in them but for most of us they simply don’t have the meaning and value that say, my Dad placed in them. Trophies and show ribbons are just those things which cause the person who won them to remember a time when they were proud of what they had accomplished and rightfully so. As Yogi Berra was known to say, “It ain’t braggin’ if its true”. So trophies, like the ones awarded to my Dad so long ago, remind us of what we might say is the good side of pride. This is the pride we feel when we, or someone we love, has indeed accomplished a win or a victory. The mementos we are given when we claim that victory are what takes us back to those moments when we did something worth braggin’ about, because it is true.
Well, the proverbial coin always has two sides, and so, as we can expect, there is a bad side to pride. We may have heard before Proverbs 16:18, which says that, “…pride goes before a fall.” We may have even witnessed this wisdom being played out in real life when someone who was too full of themselves was brought down off of his high horse through his own arrogance. Well, it is this bad side of pride which is hidden underneath these verses of scripture that we read from the book of Jeremiah. For the next couple of weeks, right up until the beginning of Advent, we are looking at the prophet Jeremiah in this series of messages entitled, “People in the Know”. This title comes from the fact that the prophet Jeremiah’s message, given to him by God, was for the very people who were in the know about God. Only problem is is that they were no longer even aware that they no longer even knew God. They were living a terrible lie. This tragedy helps us to understand just why did we need God to give us a a Savior. Well, this morning, this necessity we have of a Savior may become more apparent as we consider the effects of the bad side of pride on our life.
The reason why the bad side of pride has been brought to our attention, is that Jeremiah has given us a rather disturbing image to consider. I mean, here is a fresh, cold mountain stream flowing off the snow melt, so bubbling and fresh you can almost taste it. Set right beside this beautiful fountain of life, there is set, in comparison, a hole dug in the dirt, that has caught some rainfall, and now has set and stagnated, so that all kinds of debris and algae, and insects are now floating on top of this foul smelling puddle. Jeremiah tells us that the people of God have left the first stream of life-giving water to drink of the puddle that has all kinds of life floating in it. We are rightfully disgusted at imagining a person even attempting to do such a thing. Yet something just this cringe worthy was going on right now with God’s people. Jeremiah is saying that it is if the whole nation of God’s people are found gathered around every stinking mud hole, slurping up this fetid, putrid, water. This wasn’t just an image that Jeremiah conjured up though; no, we can not forget that these are the very words of God who was now speaking through Jeremiah.
Well, for us to figure out what this disgusting image is referring to, we need to remember what Jeremiah has been called by God to do at this time. Last week, we may recall, as recorded at the beginning of the second chapter, God told Jeremiah, to go and proclaim throughout all of Jerusalem, that it was time for the people of Israel to remember how they used to know God. There in the days when Israel walked with God in the wilderness, she had come to know God as a bride knows her husband. The people of God had, at one time, loved God with a passionate and vibrant affection, always longing to grow in her knowing of this God who first loved her. Now, what may have escaped us when we read of Jeremiah calling the people of Jerusalem to remember how they used to know the Lord, is that the Temple took up the most space in the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is better thought as being a city gathered around the worship place of God. This worship place of God, his Temple, we are told in the eighth chapter of First Kings, we built as a house for the name of of the Lord, with the hope that all the peoples of the earth might come to know the name of God and fear him. Instead of fulfilling this hope God had when the Temple was built, we now find Jeremiah walking all along the outside of this Temple calling those who call themselves the people of God, to remember how they were the ones who are to be the people in the know about God. This is almost as tragic of a scene as watching someone drinking from a mud puddle, don’t you think?
Well, it becomes apparent then, that something has happened to the people of God, because they no longer are in the know about God and they no longer hold God to be their very source of life. The answer to this strange behavior of those considered to be the people of God is found in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, where, beginning at the eleventh verse, we hear God tell his people to, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God….”. So, here God anticipates that somewhere in the future, the people in the know about God will be found to have forgotten him altogether. This forgetting of God happens when the people of God living in the land promised to them, “…have eaten and are full and have built houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied…” God is telling his people that there is a danger that lurks when ones life is on the increase. So we should be curious and wonder, just why this might be so? Well, God goes on to explain that when all that we have is multiplied, “…then our heart will be lifted up, and you will forget the Lord your God, the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, the God who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness….” God tells his people that it is at that moment, when their hearts are found to be lifted up, this is when the God once known is now, known no more. What is here called, “…hearts that are lifted up”, is what we know as being the bad side of pride. It is this bad side of pride that becomes evident in what God tells his people next because he warns them, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” God finishes his warning by telling us of the terrible consequences if we end up forgetting God on account of the raising up of our hearts. We are told, “…if you forget the Lord your God and go and serve other gods and you serve them, and worship them then, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” So, knowing this, we can all grasp the reason why the bad side of pride is indeed so bad because it leads only to death. This is exactly what famous author, C.S. Lewis also understood because he wrote that it is pride which is the chief sin because pride is the source of all other sins. Again, we can see in his words the seriousness we must have towards the bad side of pride. Yet, even so, when we consider just how deadly this pride is, we also must wonder what causes people to, nonetheless, fall into a life where pride takes over and God is no longer known?
Well, what we do know about the bad side of pride is that it is a puffing up of ourselves, a putting on a front of superiority. In the New Testament, the Greek word for the bad side of pride, speaks of a person who is boastful and arrogant, one who exaggerates their own abilities. They are also people who have placed all of their trust in their own abilities and power. When we know that the bad side of pride is when a person begins to puff themselves up, boasting to others about what they are able to do and accomplish and perhaps even to the point of exaggeration, then we are not far from figuring out the root cause of this pride. The root of the bad side of pride, which may come as a surprise, is none other than fear, anxiety and worry. You see, it is a natural reaction to fear that we want to make ourselves to appear bigger than we really are. This comes out of our desire to protect ourselves as best we can from the danger we might face. You see this in cats who arch their backs and put their tails up, or as our dog does when she makes her hair on her back stand up like a fin. When our dog does this she wants to be seen as something bigger than the nine pound dog that she really is. The only real problem with this strategy is that when the fear subsides it is important to remember who you really are, that the puffed up version of yourself is nothing more than a reaction to fear. Herein lies the danger that God warns us about, that we will actually come to believe we are something greater than we really are. This is when we believe that we, all on our own, by our own hands, have gotten all that we possess. Forget any talk about the fact that it is God who actually gave everything to us. Talk about the danger of having a puffed-up, arrogant self!
Now, to the person who enjoys exaggerating their abilities, it may be difficult to see just what all the fuss is about. So what if we take the credit from God, where the credit rightfully belongs and place it on some person caught up in the bad side of pride? The answer is deeper than God not just getting the rightful glory for what he has done. No, what the bad side of pride does is that it removes the blessings of God from our life. No more will we have the love of our faithful God to be the drumbeat of our life. No more will we have God, close by, to call on when we find ourselves in trouble. No more will God be the servant who provides for us all that we need for life. When these blessings are taken away, then the reality of who we actually are becomes painfully apparent. You see, no one is so great that they never fail. As we may have heard before, “All people have fallen short….” Oh, those who are all puffed up about who they are will no doubt, put on a good front, but in the end they will become tired, bitter souls who are quite dead on the inside. In much the same way, there is no one so great that they will never have troubles that they alone can conquer. You see, we live in a broken world where what we face on a daily basis can overwhelm even the best of us. The arrogant, boastful person can swagger as they go out the door but make no mistake, one day they will come home defeated. So it should come as no surprise that when these people who exhibit the bad side of pride set out to find all that they will need for life, they will find that doing so has left them anxious, and worried, so obsessed about the future that they lose their today’s. In the end, a life without the blessing of God just leads people to be tired, and bitter, defeated and anxious, worried about the future, finding it ever more difficult to keep up this show they put on that they have got life handled. Can you understand why Jeremiah calls such a life lived apart from the blessing of God to be much like a person drinking dirty, muddy, stagnant water out of hole dug in the dirt? Sure, such water may keep you alive but what kind of life is it to have to get up every day and know that such a life awaits you? What makes this scenario so tragic is right there, so close by, there is this ever flowing beautiful stream of ice cold, refreshing, life-giving water that flows without ceasing which is ours to partake of. This stream is the life of blessing which flows from the God of all blessing. How wonderful to have a life where the faithful love of God is the steady drumbeat of our life, so that we can know that our failures are never final nor fatal. No, we can find our failures as opportunities for us to experience the faithfulness of God and know of the wonder of his forgiveness. How wonderful to have a life where we never have to face our troubles alone for our God is a God who knows even when the sparrows fall to the ground, and we, rest assured are greater in the eyes of God than any sparrow. Our Heavenly Father is the searcher of hearts who knows what troubles us at the very center of who we are. How wonderful it is that we have a good shepherd who makes us exclaim, “Yes, I shall not want”. He is the one who will lead me to the green pastures, and the still waters, for his name’s sake. Yes, we know the name of our God, that he is the God who stands with us, in love, always faithful.
Yet this is not what Jeremiah knew about his people for here he was walking all around this Temple shouting at the people of God to remember how they used to know God. We are right to wonder, just has happened to cause the people of God to forget their God, the very God they assumed that they already had known? Why are the people of God not drinking the fresh, cold, delicious, life-giving water of the ever flowing stream flowing from the throne of God and instead they are wallowing in the mud, drinking water barely fit to drink, and believing that they really are living the high life. Something has caused the people of God to no longer act as if they even knew God, for instead of knowing God, they have now forgotten God, caught up in their own abilities and power, a certain sign that fear has caught up with them. How has this fear infected their life, we are right to wonder? Well, Jeremiah tells us the root of the problem is found in the eighth verse of this second chapter, for their Jeremiah tells us, “The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?” Those who handle the Law did not know me. The rulers, who were like shepherds over my people, transgressed against me; the prophets spoke for the false god called Baal and they went after a life that is not worth the effort.” You see, the very people God anointed and appointed to watch over his people, no longer even knew God. The priests who served in the Temple were not even certain that God was there with them.So those responsible for bringing people into his presence, no longer even knew where the presence of God could be found. The prophets who were to speak for God now spoke for gods who do not exist. So, the purpose God had for his people was not proclaimed. The rulers who were to be like shepherds guiding God’s people on the path that leads to life now walked in paths of their own making. So, the people were no longer certain of being in the presence of God. The people were also no longer certain of the purposes of God. Neither were the people of God being led on the path of life by those God called to shepherd his people. So without being before the presence of God, hearing the purposes of God and being led on the path of God, the people became filled not with certainty, but with fear, a fear that led to them to have the pride found on the bad side of pride. But praise be to Jesus, who is our high priest who gave his life to bring us into the presence of God. Praise be to Jesus, the young and fearless prophet who declares the purposes of God to us. And praise be to Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who leads us on the path that leads to life eternal. Jesus reigns, so no longer let fear reign for we will not forget our God but live as people who truly know him! To his glory! Amen!
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