People In The Know: Knowing How to Reign

 November 23 2025

Jeremiah 22:11-16

         Well, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, we must remember to once again be on our best behavior. You know, keep your elbows off the table, you can rest later. Take your time, and savor your food, the fire will wait. And don’t use your long sleeves to wipe the gravy off of your chin, that’s what your napkin is for. And the big one, the one every family knows that no one can go there, is that Thanksgiving is no place for talking about politics or religion. All that leads to is indigestion, right? Well, in our defense, as people who are in the know about God, it should come as no surprise that wherever we are gathered that politics or religions is going to come up. I mean, there it is, in the sixth verse of the first chapter of the book of Revelation, we are told that Jesus Christ, the one who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood, he has made us kings and priests to God our Father. So, think about it, if gathered around your table on Thanksgiving are people in the know about God then if what we read is true, then everyone sitting there munching on turkey is known by God as a king and a priest. So, it just makes sense that with a group of kings and priest there is going to be something said about politics or religion, doesn’t it? 

         Now if your skeptical about thinking of ourselves being known actual kings and priests in the eyes of God, we don’t have to look any farther than the end of the fifth chapter of Romans, where Paul writes that those who have received grace from God do indeed, reign in life, grace reigning through righteousness. So, we should be curious to know just what does it mean to reign in life because we know about the grace of God?

         Well our scripture for today, once again, has at its core this same question asked so many times throughout this book of Jeremiah, which is this, “Do you know God? The people Jeremiah spoke to thought of themselves as being people in the know about God, you know, yet Jeremiah was having some serious doubts. I mean, Jeremiah knew the people in his day were living their lives apart from God, trying to go it alone, without the love of God, without the help of God and without the provision of God. This was a sure sign that the people supposed to be in the know about God, quite tragically, did not even have a desire to know about God. So the people who were to be in the know about God became quite uncertain about God, which led to a life of fear because they no longer knew where God is present, they certainly didn’t know what is God up to nor did they have a clue about where God was leading them.

         This state of uncertainty that God’s people lived in left them horribly in the dark about God. Yet all was not lost for God told them from the beginning, that every morning was the beginning of a brand new day to become people in the know about God. Every morning, God asks his people, “Do you hear me? God speaks to us that he is a God who is one, the God whose single and sole focus is his love and devotion toward us. The response God expects is for us to hear and experience from those who hear him is a love that is single in its devotion, a love solely focused back to him. God calls for our hearts to be led by love, for our souls to judge all as being worthy of life, and for us to use our resources to give life to all who need life.  

         The result of this right response to the certain, loyal love of God is that wherever the people in the know about God live and work, there will be seen people who love each other with passion and determination. There will be seen throughout the land, a justice where all people judge each other as being worthy of life. And there will be witnessed, a oneness with those who are in need of charity. You see, what Jeremiah proclaimed is exactly what matters most to God and therefore this is what what should matter most to us. You see, those who say that they know God are called to everyday, attend his school of hands on learning so that not only that we might come to know God better but also, so that through our service to someone else, they too might come to know God as well. 

         When we yield to this call of God to spend our days making him known to others just as he is known to us, then something quite interesting happens-we then come to know ourselves as God knows us. You see, we may believe that we are merely a servant of God who goes where love leads them. Yet, the truth is that when we come to God as servants we end up knowing ourselves as being the firstborn children of God. Now it is important that we know ourselves as God knows us otherwise the world we live in will end up defining just who we are. Jeremiah understood that the people who were to be in the know about God now refused to know God so now they had forgotten how God knows them. The truth is that they too, like Israel before them, were known by God as his firstborn child. Their ancestor Jacob was angered by the norms and expectations that he found as the second born child. The firstborn child like his brother Esau, were automatically given the birthright and their father’s blessing. So Jacob used deceit and cunning to take these away from his brother so that he might have what his culture said could never be his. Yet because of what Jacob did, he became estranged from his brother Esau for over twenty years. So when the time came to meet with Esau, Jacob was rightfully afraid. So he spent the night before their reunion, wrestling with God, refusing to let go of heavens hope without a blessing. Well, God gave Jacob two blessings. The first is that God gave Jacob a new name that referred to his new status conferred upon him by God, so that now instead of being Jacob the cheat and deceiver, he was to be known as being the Prince, a title given to the first born of the king himself. This is how God knew Jacob. The second blessing is that God popped Israels hip out of its socket, permanently wounding him. Now, Israel could no longer rely upon his own cunning nor his own strength but instead Israel had to lead with a limp. Israel had to learn to be led by love, judging his brother Esau as being worthy of life and therefore worthy to receive the fullness of blessing from his brother. 

         In todays scripture, we once again hear about what it means to know God, only this time the one who is supposed to know God is the king of Judah, a man named Shallum, the son of King Josiah. Jeremiah relays to his king the terrible news that he was going to be led away into exile and sadly, he was to never return. Yet Shallum was the cause of his own sorrow for he had built his palace, his very life, upon a foundation of unrighteousness and injustice. Those who worked for the king were forced to do so without getting paid their wages. You see, Shallum, had this warped idea about what it meant for him to be the king, that the office was more about lording over people instead of using his power to lift others up. Yet, this should not have happened because the duties of the king are outlined in the book of Deuteronomy. There in the seventeenth chapter we discover that God anticipated that his people would desire to have a king rule over them to be like all of the rest of the nations. God, surprisingly, does not oppose such a move but rather he insists on a few simple rules, First, the king must be one of the people of Israel. Second, God had forbidden that the king be obsessed with being a king  with many horses nor were they to be a king of many wives and much gold and silver. The king instead was to use their time to writing a copy of the first five books of Scripture, which is called the Torah, in the Hebrew language. The priests were to oversee this project to make sure the king does his homework. When he completed this assignment, then he was to keep this copy with him at all time, reading it over and over so that he might come to fear the Lord and be willing to keep all of the laws and commandments, doing what is instructed in these sacred writings. The point of being thoroughly skilled in scripture was twofold. The first was that all those scripture verses would remind the king that he should not become arrogant, believing that he was supposedly superior than the people he had been chosen from. So right from the beginning, God expected that the kings of Israel would be humble, for only in this way could they continue to receive the grace of God, his gift of loyal love. You see, God expected that the king rule the people of Israel by providing them with a living example of the right way of living with God. The name the people of Israel had for these scriptures, Torah, while often translated as being, “the law”, is actually better thought of as meaning, “the pathway for life”. The king was to be the one who publicly displayed a life that did not veer off the path set out by the commandments found in the scriptures. God understood that very much like in our day, the king had great power to influence others.

         So even though the job description for being a king is pretty straight forward, it is painfully obvious that that by the time of Jeremiah the kings who ruled the people of Israel had other ideas. They took their cue not from scripture but instead they looked at the neighboring kings who lived the high life in their beautiful, palaces all decked out in crimson and gold. The kings of Israel had come to believe that being a king meant seeing how far one would go to outdo their neighboring kings in being obscenely extravagant. So the people began to follow this path walked by their king, They too began pursue extravagant living, chasing their desires and feeding their passions. These desires and passions were satisfied by false gods found to be far more worthy to serve than the God they were suppose to be in the know about. The kings who quit looking to God forgot just how great and far reaching their influence was over those they were supposed to rule. 

         Jeremiah, of course is horribly appalled that the king believed that his rule was about keeping up appearances instead of actually leading his people to know God. Jeremiah calls the evil king, Shallum to remember his father yet I wonder if Jeremiah is here speaking is about King David. Now it does make sense that Jeremiah is calling us to remember King David because he was called a king after God’s heart, as we hear in the thirteenth chapter of First Samuel. I have always thought that this is an interesting way to speak of David especially if you study his life and look at what he did as king. I mean, he did have an affair with the neighbor lady, and after finding out that she was pregnant, he hatched a plan to murder her husband. So, yes, there was a lot of evil evident in the life of King David. Yet, there was more to David than his wrongdoings. We read of how David rescues a young man, unable to walk because his feet had been broken as a child, in the ninth chapter of second Samuel,.  Now, besides, this infirmity, what we must also know about this young man is that he was the son of David’s best friend, Jonathon. Oh, one more thing, Jonathon was the son of king Saul who ruled before David, David’s sworn enemy. So, David had much he could have used to make an excuse to not even care about this young man. Why would he want to care for someone so broken that he is going to require a lot of care and attention? Why worry over one of the last remaining family members of your sworn enemy, that evil king who had tried to kill David numerous times? Yet David refused to listen to the nay-sayers. Instead David did something rather remarkable, he welcomed this grandson of his enemy to his table. David not only gave this young man a life time estate at his home but all that had once been the former kings estate, what would normally be the spoils of war, was instead given to this young man in an overwhelming gesture of love and kindness.

         When we read of King David’s welcoming of this young man to his table, then we can understand why David was considered to be a king after God’s own heart. David did judge the cause of the poor and the needy, the poor and needy grandson of his arch enemy, and he found this young man worthy of life, instead of seeking revenge as the world does so often. So, King David was a living example of what it means to receive the grace of God, the gift of his faithful, loyal love and then allowing that love to cause him to reign through righteousness. David came to know God, to know him as being a God of faithful, loyal, love through his failures.  So when God called David to allow his heart to be led by that same love, David responded by letting the love of God guide his actions. When God called David to love him with all of his soul, David judged that this young man was indeed worthy of life. Then David demonstrated his love for God by using all that God had given to him to give this young man a home for the rest of his life. So King David was a living example of one who not only was in the know about God, but David took what he knew about God’s grace, his gift of his unfailing love and David allowed that love to empower him to reign through righteousness. You see, through the example of David those who were influenced by him were to also allow the grace of God to empower them to reign through righteousness. Is it becoming clear as to what God expects when he claims that we are to be known as his kings and priests? We, like King David, are to take what we know about God, that he is a God who freely has given us the gift of his steadfast love and allow that love to be the power that moves us to reign through righteousness. This is when we are known to God as being his kings and queens. Then, when through us reigning in righteousness, someone else experiences the steadfast love of God and they come to know God, this is when we are known to God as priests. You see, a priest is simply someone who helps someone else connect with God so that too can say that they know God, just like we do. So, being kings and queens to God, and being known as being his priests, this is what God expects from those people who say that they are in the know about him. Those who are in the know about God are to be those who not just know about God and his grace, this gift of unfailing love but we must allow what we know to influence others so that they too become people who can say that they too are in the know about God. Jeremiah understood that the people who were supposed to be in the know in his day, no longer even cared to know God, they spurned his free gift of love, no longer desiring to know the glory that comes when we reign through righteousness. Praise be to God that we know the God who sent to us our king named Jesus, the one who reigns in love, the costly gift of the love found at the cross. This grace is to result in us a life that reigns in righteousness. So, knowing this, if this does not describe our life, I wonder, can we honestly say, that we know Jesus? No, it is only when we are known to him as being kings and queens, priests to God, only then can we say that we are indeed, “people in the know”, about the God who loves us! Amen! 

People in the Know: Knowing Our Father

 November 16 2025

Jeremiah 17:1-14

         A couple of weeks ago, I got to visit with all of my siblings via a Zoom call. Now, most of the time was spent catching up with what everyone is up to at the moment, as expected, but we also had to remember the good, old days. Somehow the conversation became all about how our seven member family all squeezed into a Ford Granada. It was a stretch to call the car a six passenger vehicle, let alone being able to fit seven people. Yet there we were, every Sunday, my older brother, George was up front with my Mom and Dad, and I was in the middle of the back seat, a sister on either side and my younger brother, Jeff, straddling the hump, leaning back on my knees. So, in effect, I got to be my little bothers seat belt, holding on to him for dear life, hoping there would be no sudden stops on the way to church. Needless to say, I was envious of my older brother because it just seemed like he got to be in first class, while the rest of us were crammed into the back. It just always seemed that being born first came with a lot of perks that the rest of us second-class siblings never got to experience. Well, at least we can laugh about all of it now!

         Well, this having sour grapes about where we ended up on our birth order, this is more than a laughing matter for a lot of people, especially those we find in the Bible. So it should come as no surprise that these hurt feelings that occur through circumstances beyond our control, are what keep our hearts from being directed by love as God expects. This is what we are going to look at in this next segment in this series of messages entitled, “People in the Know”. This title describes how the prophet Jeremiah hoped the people of Israel would be, those who knew God intimately, much like a husband and wife know each other. Yet instead of finding people who were up close and personal with God, what Jeremiah found is people who had no clue who God is, where God is working nor did they even know where God is headed. Instead of living life through the abundance of God’s blessings, they, decided to live their life without any certainty, spurning the ever steady heartbeat of God’s love for us. So they no longer could call on God and expect him to show up. They no longer could depend on God to provide all that they needed, either. So, instead of faith their life was filled with fear, fear which lead them to be puffed up with pride. 

Such fear and pride ruined how the people of God worshiped God in the Temple. They offered sacrifices as a means to please the God they had no certainty about. So they developed a wrong way of thinking about God that led them to believe they could manipulate God into going along with any scheme they might concoct. Yet all was not lost for God reminded his people of how he continued to speak to them, every morning, calling his people to listen and to do what mattered most. Then his people could go out and live the day being led by a heart that loved, a soul that judged everyone as being worthy of life and the strength, or resources to share their life with others. Yet, as we hear today, there is trouble brewing deep within our hearts, something which threatens to take over our inner guidance system. Instead of a heart directed by the same faithful, loyal love God first loved us with, our hearts are found to be, as Jeremiah tells us in the ninth verse of this seventeenth chapter that we read today, to be, “…deceitful above all things.” So if we really do want to be people who know what matters most to God then we must figure out just what is Jeremiah telling us when he insists that inwardly we are very broken people.

What provides us a clue to understanding what Jeremiah might be saying to us when he tells us that our hearts are deceitful above all else, is discovering that in the Hebrew language, the word for, “deceit”, is the word, “acov”, which we know as being the same as the name, ‘Jacob”. This word comes from the act of grabbing someone from behind by their ankle in order to trip them up. It’s the same sentiment as telling someone that they’re, “going down”, or saying that someone else can take the fall for something you have done. The point is to take the honor away from someone in order to level the playing field before the watching eyes of those who matter.

 Jacob was one who wanted to trip up his older brother Esau’s to get his hands on his first-born privileges right from their birth. We are told of this birth in the twenty-fifth chapter of Genesis. There we find that Rebekah, wife of Issac, is pregnant with twins, who struggled inside of her. So she inquires of God as to what this internal trouble was all about. God tells Rebekah that inside of her were two nations, one stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. Now this had to be rather shocking because God was saying something that was unheard of, that the older child would end up serving the youngest child, a total upsetting of what one would expect. You see, the oldest male child was given special privileges because they would be expected to be in the know about the ways of their Father. The Father would put his blessing upon his first-born son as a sign that this son was the one who would keep safe the ways of his Father that had been entrusted to them.

When Jacob was born they said that his hand, even then, was grasping the heel of his brother, Esau. Jacob was always scheming always trying to figure out his brother’s weaknesses. One day he waited until his brother was hungry and tired, and then Jacob got Esau to trade him his birthrights for a bowl of stew. You see, Jacob knew that Esau did not treasure the privileges associated with his birth. Later on, Jacob, with the help of his mother, tricked his own father, Issac into giving him the sacred blessing instead of giving it to Esau. When Esau found out about Jacob cheating him out of his rightful honor, he was angry. Now Esau would have to serve Jacob, just as had been prophesied. Esau was having none of this, so he plotted to kill his brother, and Jacob had to leave the very home that had been given to him.

When Jeremiah told the people of God, that their hearts were entirely deceitful, they knew that the word Jeremiah used was to cause them to consider these stories about Jacob. While in name they were the people of Israel, they were, nonetheless, people who were like Jacob in their hearts. You see, Jacob, the cheat whose very name means deceit, had an encounter with God which changed his life, an experience so powerful that he went from being Jacob, the deceiver, to being Israel, the prince of God. So when Jeremiah says that God’s people have hearts that follow after their ancestor Jacob, he appears to be insinuating that what they are in desperate need of is an encounter with God to transform them just as he had done with Jacob. 

We find the story of Jacobs life changing encounter with God, in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis. Over twenty years have passed since Jacob cheated Esau out of his rightful blessing by their father, Isaac. Jacob is now married, to two wives, and he has grown quite prosperous. Yet he knows that he must at last confront the brother who swore to kill him. So Jacob sends word to his brother Esau that he wants to meet with him. Jacob gets word back to him, that Esau is headed his direction leading a four-hundred man army. So, Jacob is rightfully afraid, not just for himself but for his family as well. So he begins to pray, as one would expect, and he asks God for deliverance from what he believes will be a certain attack. Well, as nightfall comes, Jacob moved his family to a safe place and he finds himself alone. There in the dark he was approached by one he thought was a man. Jacob and this man began to wrestle, and they kept at it until the sun began to rise.  The man told Jacob to let him go but Jacob told him that he would not let him go until he blessed Jacob. Here we must pause for a moment to grasp what is happening here. Jacob has realized that this one he is wrestling with is connected in some way to God. What Jacob desires is to be certain that God will indeed fight for him when the time comes. Jacob believes that if he can win over this God sent warrior then God will be obliged to side with him. So Jacob believes he has prevailed and he now deserves to receive a blessing from God, just as he received a blessing from his father Isaac. So what Jacob desires is that God look on him as a first-born son who stands to receive a blessing, a seal of approval from God. Well, what brought this fight between Jacob and this heavenly warrior to an end is that the heavenly warrior touched the hip socket of Jacob, so that the hip of Jacob was put out of joint. So it appears that the only blessing Jacob received from God was that he was given a permanent limp, a permanent reminder of his wrestling match with God. Yet there was one positive outcome of this blessing. God changed Jacob’s name forever. Now instead of being known as Jacob, the cheat, he became, Israel, prince of God. You see, I believe that God understood Jacob’s longing to have the privileges that came so easily to the first-born as their culture demanded. Jacob’s solution was to cheat and deceive his way to the top even if it meant that he would be estranged from his own brother for over twenty years. God had a better answer for Jacob and his family. God would state that Jacob was now to be known as his first-born son. The mark this God’s blessing was that Jacob, now Israel, must lead with a limp, demonstrating the worthiness of being made weak by God. You see, now because of the blessing of God, Jacob now Israel, would limb out to meet his brother, unable to lead a battle charge. No, now Jacob, become Israel, would instead go forth and kneel before his brother Esau, not once but seven times, an action which spoke of the fullness of blessing Jacob offered up to his brother. Esau was so moved that he rushed toward his brother and embraced him, and they wept together as they had been apart far too long.

You see, the lesson of Jacob, the deceiver and cheat, is that the life we are born into does not have to define us. God’s deliberate choice of Jacob and his family was done as a way of showing his understanding that the norms and ways of the culture we live in are often unjust and cruel.People are right to desire something more than what their society offers them. Yet, the way out of the brokenness that we live in is not by cheating and conniving those who have been given more honor than the rest. You see, no one really is made greater by tripping someone up so that they are made less. Such actions only led Jacobs brother to hate him and want him dead. While God understands the desire for there to be equality for everyone, he alone is able to accomplish this without causing harm to the relationships we find ourselves in. You see, when we wake every morning, and we hear God call us to come and love on the world with him, asking us to have hearts attuned to love, souls willing to judge all we meet worthy of life and strength or resources always ready to be offered to those in need of life, we are to know that we do this work not as a servant of God but rather as a child of God. More to the point, as a first-born child as God, as strange as that might be. You see, in the fourth chapter of Exodus, when God calls Moses to rescue his people from Egypt, Moses is instructed to tell Pharaoh that he was to release God’s first-born son from slavery. So, even though the nation of Exodus considered these people nothing more than property which they could use and abuse, God knew them all as being his first-born child. Their struggle after God released them from slavery was for them to trust more in God’s definition of who they were instead of continuing to believe that all they were was second class goods.

You see, the curse of the world is the conventions every culture puts in place to create a sense of order, and more than that, a sense of honor to enforce that order. It is a curse to always be concerned about doing something that brings a sense of shame into your life, to always be wondering just where do we stand in the eyes of, you know, “those people”. It’s a curse to never be satisfied, to be continually striving to be more because the world you were born into has never acknowledged your true worth. This is a curse that Jacob felt in his heart just as it is the curse so many people still feel in their hearts as well. This is the curse which causes a heart to never consider to be guided by love for the only desire found in a heart infected by this curse is a desire to connive, and manipulate and deceive in order to even the score.

The good news is that God understands. God’s answer to those living under this curse of believing we are somehow second-rate is to let us be born into his world, to be born as God’s first-born child. It seems so outrageous to our ears to even say such a claim out loud, yet this is what God first proclaimed over Jacob, and then four-hundred years later to the descendants of Jacob. When we now state that we are in Jesus, his desire as found at the end of the seventeenth chapter of John, is that the glory the Father gives to Jesus will be given to all the Father welcomes home. As Jesus was loved by our Heavenly Father, before the foundation of the world, rest assured, so were we. This is what we are to know when we are people in the know about God. We are to know that our God knows us as his first-born child. Yet, as Jeremiah reminds us in this seventeenth chapter, the blessing of this declaration of God is ours only if we are willing to trust that what God states about us is the truth.. Like those ancient slaves down in Egypt, it is difficult to know ourselves as being anything than what the world has always considered us to be. What keeps us in the know about who we are in the eyes of God is for us to remember that the reason why God blesses us by calling us his first-born child, is so that we ultimately bear fruit. You see, when we trust in God and believe that in the eyes of God we are indeed to be first-born children, then we will know that such an honor comes not only with privileges but also responsibilities. As Jesus, the very Son of God, tells us in the fifth chapter of John tells us, “Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows his Son all that he himself is doing.” You see, every morning when God calls us to hear his voice, we should know that our Father is inviting us, his first-born child to come with him as he goes out to work. As we are led by love we are learning how are Father loves on everybody as difficult as that might seem. As we are called to judge everyone as being worthy of life, we can know ourselves as working along side of our Father as he brings life to the world.  As we use our resources to offer life to those who need life, we rejoice with our Father as life proves once again victorious over death. Thus we find that the heart once so devious, so like Jacob, has now become a heart that knows that it is the heart of an honored child in the eyes of God. Praise God for the healing which comes through knowing him and knowing just who we are to the God who has always loved us. Amen!                     

People in the Know:What Matters Most

 November 9 2025

Jeremiah 9:1-7, 12-13, 23-24

         As I have been studying passages from Jeremiah, I seem to find connections between what the sorrow of Jeremiah and songs with somewhat similar themes. When I meditated on this ninth chapter of Jeremiah, what came to mind is a country western song from back in the nineties. I have no clue why I remembered the song or why I even recalled this song while listening to Jeremiah. Regardless, the lyrics of the song do seem to assist us to make sense of what Jeremiah deems is so tragic.The song is called, “What matters most”, by Ty Herndon. The song is about a man whose girlfriend has left him. Now, he admits that her leaving is solely on him. You see, he knew a lot about her, the blue of her eyes, when and where she was born and even what her favorite song was. He knew what she read, her car and what clothes she liked to wear. Yes, he knew much about her but what he admits is that he had not paid attention to what matters most. So just what is it that matters most? The answer to what matters most is what mattered most to the one he loved, those dreams she dreamed behind closed doors.So, he laments, that when she walked out the door he was left with the cold facts of who she was and nothing more.He simply had not paid attention to what mattered most.

         Now this song seems to capture the same sentiment of Jeremiah because the people he spoke to were the people who were supposed to be in the know about God. Yet, they were much like this man who had lost his girlfriend because they knew much about God, yet, just like the man in the song found out much to late, they simply paid no attention to what mattered most when it came to their relationship with God. You see, much like the girl who had left her boyfriend in tears because he had never taken the time to know her dreams and longings, so too the people who were supposed to be in the know about God did not know the dreams and longings God held in his heart. You see, the people of God simply paid no attention to what mattered most to God. 

         In this series of messages entitled, “People in the Know”, we are looking at the prophet Jeremiah. The reason for this title is that Jeremiah was passionate about the people of God being those who were in the know about God. Did not God’s people remember how God used to be known by his people like a husband is known by his bride. They were to have been people who had a certainty about God for they were supposed to know God as being a God of faithful, loyal love, a God who was quick to hear their cries when they were troubled, and a God who served them by preparing all that they needed for life. Yet, this is not what Jeremiah found among the people who were to be people in the know. No longer did the people live with any certainty about the God they were supposed to be in the know about. Fear gripped their hearts leading them to become puffed up people, gripped by the bad sort of pride. They decided to live without the steady drumbeat of God’s love in their life, they no longer needed to have God fight their battles or provide for them. No, they could go it alone, and so their life was like trying to drink water out of a mud hole instead of tapping into the life-giving water that flows from the throne of God.

         Well, the turning away from God by the people of God had far reaching effects especially when it came to their worship of God. You see, if worship does not proceed from a certainty of God’s love for us, then result is that our relationship with God gets off on the wrong foot. We will offer sacrifices as a means to gain God’s acceptance and approval. Without knowing the abiding love of God, we will be uncertain of how to approach God in order to gain access into his presence, and thus the intimacy of prayer is replaced by deal making, Since the only means of knowing where we stand with God is our circumstances we will let our good fortunes indicate that we are now in God’s good favor. When we become convinced that we now have established our relationship with God then we begin to live in any way that we want because we foolishly believe that God will fulfill our every demand. 

         This way of worshipping God is what Jeremiah had witnessed when he stood at the Temple gate calling his people to come back and know God once again. The people who were to be in the know about God now were found to be breaking the very law that they had once promised to keep. The Ten Commandments were like the marriage vows for God and his bride, Israel, and now Israel had broken every one of them. This was the result of the people of God being no longer certain of the God they were supposed to be in the know about. Jeremiah lays the uncertainty of his people squarely, first at the feet of the priests, who no longer knew where the presence of God was to be found, at the feet of prophets who no longer proclaimed the purposes of God, and at the feet of the rulers, the shepherds who no longer led the people of God on the paths of God. So, the people of God no longer knew where the presence of God is to be found, they no longer remembered the purposes of God and they were no longer walking on the paths God laid out that lead us on to eternal life. 

         Well, as tragic as this was for the people of God all was not lost for as Jeremiah told his audience at the Temple, before God even asked for sacrifices for his people, God spoke to them, asking them to trust and obey his voice. When the people of God would have heard of the voice of God, they would have remembered the command God had given them, that every morning, they were to, “Hear”. They were to know that God was speaking to them from a heart overflowing with love for them. What God told them every morning was that they were to remember that he was one God. Now this to us might mean that our God is the only God out there but there is more to this knowing that our God is one God. What this can also mean is that our God is a God who is whole, undivided and single in his devotion, his love for his people. This is very similar to what the people of Israel were often called by God to have a heart that is whole, undivided and single in its devotion to God. 

         So, even though the people of God had priests, prophets and rulers who were corrupt, they nonetheless, still had their morning prayer reminding them that their God was speaking to them solely out of his love for them. Every morning God called his people to hear his voice and then respond by loving God with all of their heart, all of their soul, and with all that they had been given. So as their God is one with them they in turn were to have one devotion toward their God, a unity of their heart, soul and strength given in love to him. Yet, as good as this might sound, we may be left wondering just how we can show the love of our heart, our soul and our strength to God. The good news is that God has not left something so important to our own whims, hardly, for the way that God calls us to love him is what matters most to God. 

         You see, what matters most to God is matters most to us to brag about, as strange as that might sound. Listen to what is found in the twenty-fourth verse, of the ninth chapter of Jeremiah, “…let the one who boasts boast in this, that they understand me and know me, that I am a God of steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the land. For in these I delight…” When we hear of God’s delight, we can be certain that this is what matters most to him. You see, each new day is a day for each of us to come to understand and know the God who knows us and loves us. We come to know God, not as we come to know Math or English, by cracking open a textbook, but rather as we learn a new skill, through hands-on learning. When God calls us to love him with all of our hearts, the result is that we will love with the same steadfast love as God first loved us. When God calls us to love him with all of our soul or life, the result is that we will be people of justice, just as our God is a God of justice. And as God calls us to love him with all of our strength, the result of loving God this way is that the land will be filled with righteousness. Now we might be at a loss to see how we can get from our love of God to having a life marked by these outcomes so let’s look a little closer at each of these ways that we love God.

         Well, when we love God with all of our heart, what God expects is that we will have a heart that is attuned to the faithful, loyal love of God. In the Hebrew thought, the heart is depicted by two symbols, the inner view of a tent or house, and a shepherds crook. The idea is that our hearts are like our inner shepherd which guides our lives. So, when God calls us to love him with all of our hearts he is saying to us that our hearts are to lead with love. We are to let love, and love alone to guide what we do and where we go throughout our day.

         In much the same manner, when we hear the call of God to love him with all of our soul of life, the result of this love is going to be justice. Justice is ultimately about judgment, and making certain that our judgments are fair and equal for all people. What makes us all equals is that we all have souls, a life given to us by God. So to love God with our life is to judge others worthy of life just as God has first found us worthy of life. This means that we demonstrate the love we have for God for giving us our very soul, our life, is that we then turn and make a choice to give others life. This means that we will be constantly aware, listening and looking for where others are crying out in despair. Just as God is quick to come to our aid, so too are we to do likewise to those around us for we know that this is the way that we love God with all of our soul or life.

         So when we come at last to God’s call for us to love him with all that we have been given, what is called in scriptures as being our strength, we are not surprised that what is expected is that righteousness will be evident in our actions. As God serves us by providing for us all that we need for life, we too are to serve others who stand in need of what they need for life. We are to be those who through our generosity help others keep from being overwhelmed by their anxiety and worry. So, when God becomes made known through our actions, then people are able to have a real certainty that God indeed does love all people.

         What I have just described is what matters most to God. This is what should matter the most to us of we indeed claim to love God with all of our heart, and our soul or life and our strength, all of the stuff that God has given to us. You see, when we allow love to guide us through our day, when we judge all meet as being worthy of life, listening close for those in need of life and when we use what God has provided to us to demonstrate his love to them, we have fulfilled what God has always dreamed that we would do. You see, God’s call to love him is actually a call to make him known to those around us; this is what brings the greatest pleasure to the God who loves us. So when we live as God anticipates we will live as people who can make the outrageous claim that we know God, I mean really know him, because our life is living proof that backs up our boasting.

         You see, God tells us, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not he powerful man boast in his power, nor let the rich man boast in his riches…” God says that these very normal ways we puff ourselves up are in all reality, nothing to write home about. The reason is that they cannot do what God calls us to do. You see, those who are wise use that wisdom to set them apart from everyone else. Their wisdom separates them from the average bear. The same holds true for power and riches for in each case, when one has a lot of power or riches, these are bragged about because they are now set apart from the average. Now they stand above the crowd, looking down on others. How very different our life is when we boast of knowing God, knowing what really matters most to God. Instead, of being superheated from the rest of humanity, our actions instead unite us together. This should be expected when we are people who are led by the faith, loyal love of God for by his loyalty to us we find that we are at last able to be loyal with one another. And when we judge everyone as being worthy of life then every life takes on a new importance and value. So what we have been given to us can become an answer to someone else’s prayer. We groan in prayer as we hear the groans of those enslaved to fear who long to be set free from their anxiety and worry. We can boast that we now understand and know God because we have gone to the hands-on school that God calls us to attend every day. This is the very dream of God which flows out of his heart into our hearts, to be caught by us, and so lived out by us. When we can boast of understanding and knowing God because have lived as God first loved us, then we can say that we are indeed paying attention to what matters most to God.

         You see, when we at last know what matters most to God we can then realize why the witness of Jeremiah was such a tragedy in the eyes of God. What was so evident was that falsehood and not truth, this is what was growing strong in the land God had promised to his people. The people who were supposed to be in the know about God just went from doing evil to doing more evil. God is right in saying that the people who claimed to know him had absolutely no clue who their God is. This truth becomes more evident when God looks and he sees that everyone has to keep a watch out for their neighbor or else they are in danger of being deceived by them. Even ones brothers or sisters were not able to be trusted. No longer, Jeremiah tells us, does anyone speak the truth for they have all learned to be pretty good at lying. Th only thing that they work real hard at all day long is seeing just how crooked they can be in their dealings with each other. As these people heap oppression upon oppression in their dealings with each other it is clear that not only do they not know God, they further refuse to know God. Just like the man song found out too late, the people of God also found out too late that they should have paid more attention to what matters most to God. You see, we need to know what matters most to God and make sure that what matters most to God, matters most to us. 

         Jeremiah shows us that if we really know God, if we really are aware of what matters most to God then this will be quite evident in the way that we treat each other. Are we filling our days doing activities that raise us above the average or do we spend our days knowing God, being lead by love, judging others worthy of life and sharing life with those in need, a life that unites us together in love. We must ask ourselves everyday, to others know that I know God? Is what matters most to God really what matters most to us? Let us remember, that our lives tell the truth about us! Amen!            

People In the Know: Out of Order

 November 2 2025

Jeremiah 7:1-17

         The stuff people post on Facebook is fascinating. Quite often someone will post a math equation and see if people can come up with the right answer to the problem. Now what fascinates me is just why any one would want to do homework from eighth grade ever again. Yet, people can never seem to pass by a chance to prove that they were indeed an “A”, student in Middle School. The difficulty is not with the numbers in the equation but rather, what is difficult is remembering the order in which task must be done. Did you recall that the part in the parentheses has to be done first, and then you solve any exponents, and after that multiplication and division, and lastly, you can add and subtract. You see, only if the problem is solved in just this order will one be able to say that they have the right answer. So, knowing the order is perhaps the most important aspect of solving equations. It makes sense that if a person were to refuse to follow this order then they can’t expect to have the right answer when they are finished. 

         Well, we know that something is out of order in Jerusalem, especially in what was happening at the Temple because in todays scripture we find the prophet Jeremiah getting in the faces of those who had showed up to worship. In this segment of this series called, ‘People in the Know”, we are looking at why the people who are supposed to be in the know about God are in all actuality, law breakers. Kind of odd, don’t you think, that after attending a worship service at the Temple what the people could not wait to do is to go out and do as much against God that they could. Jeremiah was called by God to be his prophet, one raised up from the people of God who would then become the mouthpiece for God. So what God is doing by sending Jeremiah to harass worshipers on their way to go to God in the Temple is pointing out the problem no one seems to be very concerned about. I mean if you become people who seem to be worse people after coming to worship then when you arrived, perhaps you should avoid worshipping for awhile!

         Well, the people who were to know about God apparently had a different reason for worshipping at the Temple. We hear this in the words of Jeremiah who tells the people gathered for worship, ‘Do not trust in these deceptive words, “This is the Temple of the Lord, “…the Temple of the Lord, ‘…the Temple of the Lord.” They spoke of the Temple as being their possession, much like a superstitious lucky charm to bring them success no matter how awful they might treat the people around them. They could have cared less about the way they acted and what they did to others because their’s was the Temple, the Temple, the Temple. This is why Jeremiah had to point them back to what had been agreed upon when they entered into this land promised to them by God. Had they really forgotten that they were to execute justice in their dealings with each other, not showing favoritism toward some and hatred toward others? Did they skip over those sections of Deuteronomy that had laid out how the fatherless and the widows were to be cared for? I mean, why in the world do you believe that God is not going to have a problem when innocent lives are snuffed out at the hands of the powerful? Do you really believe that God placing his Temple here among you really means you can go out and do as you please? Jeremiah wants to know, just why the people in the know, seem to not know how out of order they really are.

         It seems to Jeremiah that there is too much that people just want to sweep under the rug and act like everything is ok when it is clear that just the opposite is true. Yet what God was doing through Jeremiah was not just pointing out the failures of his people but as God always does, he desires to teach his children the right way to live. Well the very design of the Temple is itself laid so that God’s people might know the right order for their lives. When the people in the know would come to worship, the right way to live would be constantly reenforced. The only thing that was required for those who came to worship is to know the right order to follow on this pathway of life embedded in the very architecture of the Temple. Just like we know that the right order of an equation is the key to achieving success in solving them, so too there is a right order for the way we are to live our life as people in the know. 

         You see, the Temple is laid out into three sections. In the section farthest from the Temple entrance is what is called, “The Holy of Holies”. Here is found a perfect cube shaped room with an entrance marked by a thick curtain. Inside this room was located the ark of the covenant, a wooden box overlaid with gold where the covenant with God was held. The top of the ark was called the mercy seat for it is there that God in his mercy restores our relationship with him. Directly adjacent to the Holy of Holies, was the Sanctuary, the holy space containing an oil lamp, the menorah and also there was an altar for incense. Also in this space was the bread of the presence, a loaf for every tribe of Israel, placed before the light. This symbolized that all of the people of Israel lived and prayed before the light of the presence of God. Well, when we move from the Sanctuary to the outer court of the Temple we find the main altar where sacrifices were offered up daily to God.

         Now in these three spaces we have God’s equation for life. The question is, just where does one begin, say if, this does indeed describe a person’s spiritual journey? You see, the beginning point of a person’s spiritual journey is determined by whether or not they know God. Jeremiah understood this, I believe, because through observing God’s people coming to the Temple to worship, he witnessed that they did not know God for they did not know the correct place to begin on their journey with God. Now, we should not be surprised that the people of God were so out of order for as we discovered last week, the people God had appointed and anointed to watch over and lead his people had become corrupt. As we heard tell, in the eighth verse of the second chapter, the priests never even asked, “Where is the Lord”, and those who handled the Law did not even know the God who had written the Law. The rulers who were to shepherd God’s people did not lead them on the path that leads to life. And the prophets spoke only for the god Baal, who isn’t even a god at all. So without anyone to tell them where the presence of God is, without anyone who would lead them on the right paths, and without anyone speaking to them the purposes of God, no one seemed to know God with any certainty anymore. To know God is to be certain about God, to be certain that we do live before the presence of God, to be certain we are walking on the path that leads to life, to be certain that the purposes of God are only always for our good; none of this certainty was found anymore in Jerusalem. Without knowing God, without being certain of where God is, without being certain of where God is going and without being certain of what God is up to in the world, the people of God were left to operate out of fear. It is this fear, this is what caused the worship of the people of God to become terribly out of order.

         The people who operate out of fear, those who do not know God, know at least that to be part of a family or a tribe meant that there is an expectation that everyone brings something to the table. The order of the world is that in order to receive love one has to first, give love. Love is only shown to those who have first made the effort to show some good intentions.Well, when a person does not know God, when they came to the Temple with their sacrifice in hand, they would have thought, wrongly, that their sacrifice was their giving a gift to God, an act of love given so that God might throw a little love their way. So it comes as no surprise that people would just treat their relationship with God just like the rest of their other relationships. They believed, wrongly, that the love of God would be given to them only after their love for him would be proved through the offering of a sacrifice. Yet, with God, such actions seem so uncertain, for just how does one know if God has gotten the message, and how do we know that our gift has indeed caused God to accepted us?

         Well, the hope is that the sacrifices prescribed by the Law, are indeed the key to secure an entrance into a relationship with God. So, now, because of the sacrifice given, one can at last, enter onto the Sanctuary, through the work of the priest. Yet now the question becomes, just what must one say when one finds themselves before a God they are not very certain about. I mean, just what words or combination of words must one say in order that God might hear your request and further, will God actually do what it is that you have asked him to do? So this time of prayer becomes a time of speaking a whole lot of words hoping that something that was said might hit the mark, moving God to act on one’s behalf. 

         Well, if one does indeed find that God has acted and ones prayers have been answered then that person begins to have confidence that they have somehow figured out how to get on the good side of God. You see, in this mindset, a person’s circumstances become proof on a person’s good standing with God. If your harvest was abundant and your house was full of kids, you were someone in the know with God. But, if you found yourself down on your luck without a penny to your name, well, you must have done something to anger God so you had better get to the Temple and see what you can do to patch up your relationship with him. Are you beginning to sense how badly things become out of order when one does not begin from a stand point of being certain about God?

         Well, if a person does begin to believe that they have God all figured out then of course, this must mean that they have to consider themselves, holy. So, of course, when the High Priest enters into the Holy of Holies, these people would consider that they were right there with him because their life is living proof that they are on good terms with God. So when they reach this level of their relationship with God, the belief becomes that since they are now certain of their relationship with God, because their sacrifices and prayers have done the trick, now they can stand before God, with a blank check in hand, knowing that God will rubber stamp any grand scheme they might have, even if it does break a few laws in the process. No longer is it about, “God’s will be done”, but rather, now it is God get busy doing what I want done. How very out of order do people become when this is the way they treat God!

         You see, beginning without certainty about where God is, or where God is going and or what God is up to in the world, you end up with people boasting that the Temple is their ticket to the stars. I mean, you sense something horribly out of order when, as God tells Jeremiah, the house that bears the very name of God now has a reputation as being hideout for a bloodthirsty gang of thugs! I mean, as God rightly points out, just how could these people who were supposed to be in the know about God be people who thought nothing of stealing, murdering others, breaking their marriage vows, going about slandering others, and finding a whole host of things as being worthy of giving their life to, and then just get up and dust yourself off and enter the Temple as if everything between you and God is A, Ok. Jeremiah wonders, “Will God save you when the time comes if you continue to act this way? Tragically, the people who lived like this actually thought that, yes, God would show up and deliver them from their troubles! God gives his people a dose of reality when he calls them to remember where they had formerly worshipped him at a place called Shilo. When the people heard this name mentioned, they had to become unsettled, because they knew that Shilo no longer even existed. It had been wiped off the map a long time ago because of the evil that the people of God had done. So if God had no problems then, washing his hands of a worship place that was out of order then why would he even hesitate to do so again?

         You see, the people who were to be the people in the know about God forgot that the very reason why God had first had the tabernacle and later, the Temple constructed. These worship areas were a gift from God to his people to be a place that would give them the certainty necessary to live in a broken world. When the people of God began to wonder just where is God, or when they would ask, where is  God headed or if they had questions about what God was up to in the world, they had these worship spaces to set them straight. Yet, as God tells Jeremiah, the people needed to let their experiences with God inform their worship of God. You see, God reminds Jeremiah that when the people came out of Egypt they were not even commanded by God to offer up sacrifices. This relationship the people had with God did not begin with the people of God offering him anything at all. No, the relationship that God has with his people begins simply with a word. The word God speaks simply calls those who hear his word to respond to God. They are to echo God’s loyal love with a loyal love of their own. So, the place where we begin in our spiritual journey is in the most Holy of Holies, the place where the holy God loves all with his holy love. The love of God is holy because his love is a love of all people. This is the certainty that the people in the know about God must build their lives upon. Only when we know that God speaks first, will we then be able to rightly enter into a place of prayer before the light of his presence. You see, our prayer is nothing but a response given in the certainty that the God who speaks to us is the God whose love is always certain towards us. So out of the love of God is to come our response of love to God, a prayer that ascends up to God like the smoke of the incense upon the golden altar of the Sanctuary.

         You see, when one comes forth from the Sanctuary, the inner closet where we pray before the face of God, they are to then know that they are to walk in the way of God. The way of God is the way of sacrifice. This is what is known by those who offer up their sacrifices at the Temple. God asks for sacrifices because in this way people remember that all we have is given to us by God. We first offer up a portion of what God has given to us as an acknowledgment of gratitude toward God for the love that he has first shown to us. Yet, our spiritual journey is not finished for after the sacrifices are given then the expectation is that the people in the know about God will offer themselves, and all that they have, to do the work of God. This is what is meant to walk in the ways of God, to walk with a heart fully given over to do whatever God asks and to go wherever God leads.

         Tragically, what God expected from his people never happened. No, the people who were to be the people in the know about God ended up refusing to even listen to God and obey him, the very essence of a love relationship with God. What Jeremiah witnessed in his day should make us wonder about our relationship with God. I hope we never begin to say, “Oh,  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”, and believe that he will deliver us even if we go and live opposed to what he died and rose again to accomplish. We must know that such a relationship with God is out of order. The good news is that while there is time we have the time to come back to God, and let him bring order to our out of order life. Amen!