Finding God Within

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We explore Jeremiah's prophetic journey as a young boy called to deliver difficult messages during Israel's national crisis, drawing parallels to today's graduates facing uncertain futures. God's affirmation that he equipped Jeremiah despite his youth offers powerful encouragement for young people wondering about their purpose and ability to make a difference in challenging times.

• Jeremiah delivered his prophecy during Israel's fall to Babylon, making his message particularly difficult
• As "only a boy," Jeremiah questioned his ability to speak truth to his community in crisis
• God's response affirms that Jeremiah was equipped and supported despite his youth
• The destruction of the Temple raised existential questions about God's presence and power
• Jeremiah's revolutionary message that God would write laws on people's hearts rather than in temples
• The comforting assurance that God remains as close as our hearts during all life transitions
• Encouragement for graduates that God walks with them through all new adventures and uncertain futures

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Friends, like I said, I didn't realize how long
things went, so I'm going totalk faster than I normally talk
with these graduations, but Idefinitely want to have a
message for our young peoplethat are out there, and there
are two passages that we folksoften, we pastors often go to
when we're talking about beingyoung people and encouraging

(00:22):
young people.
One is in Timothy, but thesecond is this one here this
morning, jeremiah 1, where hetalks about I'm only a boy and
can I be a prophet.
So interesting story ofJeremiah the prophet.
So Jeremiah is offering hisprophecy at a unique time in the

(00:46):
history of the Jewish people.
In fact, the Jewish community,the nations are falling, they're
getting overtaken by theBabylonians, and so Jeremiah's
got a couple of things that makehis preaching, make his message
right now a little moredifficult.
One is he is young, asindicated obviously by the

(01:10):
passage itself.
He's only a boy, I am only aboy.
But second, this is significanttime and the message that he's
been given to share with thiscommunity is a tough message to
swallow, because the communityis falling apart.
It's not going to be a positivemessage hey, israelites, way to

(01:33):
go.
No, it's going to be somethingelse.
It's going to be talking abouthow they've made mistakes, how
they have failed.
But not only that when you'retalking about this failure,
you're not just talking abouthow you got overtaken.
But in the minds of thesepeople of early faith, the

(01:55):
question isn't always centeredaround did we fail?
Did we not do the right things?
Or maybe more significantly,maybe even more frightfully, did
God leave us?
Did God decide that we weren'tworthy of being supported
anymore and that's why we'vebeen overtaken?
How bad must we have been thatGod quit supporting us?

(02:20):
So the early mindset, the earlyfaith wouldn't necessarily
easily be able to distinguishbetween those two things Our
actions actually leading to thisplace that we're at, versus God
deciding we deserve somepunishment.
God deciding we needed to betaught a lesson of some measure.

(02:46):
So you can imagine a young boygiven this message to share with
this community.
It might feel a little bittenuous, right, he might feel
like that environmentalist outof Sweden.
That's what is she?
17, 18 now Greta Thunberg.
Now, she doesn't lack forcourage, obviously, this young

(03:19):
woman speaking out aboutenvironmental concerns, but you
can see how it might feel.
Overwhelming's a message that weneed to understand.
That comes from the Jeremiahpassage.
It's in that first chapter,verse 1, when he's talking.
God's talking to Jeremiah andsaying you're only a boy, but I

(03:43):
gave you the words you are tosay I am with you, I have
equipped you to do the thingsthat you need to do to deliver
this message to this world.
You have what you need.
This is Jeremiah, chapter 1,and God's affirmation to

(04:04):
Jeremiah to preach that message.
And I feel like it's aparticularly important message
for young people.
We as adults don't often feellike we are in control of that
much that's going on around usin this world and we wrestle
with some of that.
Younger people might feel evenmore so, even more like they're

(04:29):
being tossed to and fro,wondering exactly what they have
been given to speak in to this,what they had been given to
speak into this, so thatchallenge can be even more
difficult for young people.
But I want you to hear thefollow-up that comes in the

(04:49):
passage in Jeremiah just alittle bit later here, chapter
33, where he says but this isthe covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel.
After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law within them
and I will write it on theirhearts and I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
For us today, it's a goodmessage, it's an important

(05:14):
message, it's a comfortingmessage, but it's not one we're
too unfamiliar with.
But for those people back 500,600 BCE, that was an even more
important message, because thetemple got destroyed in that
overtaking and the temple wasthought of as the house of God.

(05:38):
That's where God lived right.
And if you were going to govisit God, if you were going to
go give sacrifice to God, if youwere going to do anything with
God, you went to the temple.
And so the concern would bewhen the temple goes down, what
does that say about God?
Did God leave, not reallytrusting the Israelites anymore?

(06:02):
Did God get beaten?
Was some other force strongerthan our God?
You can imagine how that mightbe floating through in their
minds.
And maybe even a third concernwhere do we go to find God now?

(06:22):
Where is God, if indeed God isstill here?
So when Jeremiah preaches thismessage of saying you know what,
we're not going to need abuilding anymore, because God's
coming to us on our hearts.
God's going to be with each andevery one of us in this really,

(06:43):
really intimate way, all thetime, everywhere.
Hopefully you're seeing a littlebit of why I chose this passage
for today.
As we are cheering on thesegraduates, cheering on these
scholarship recipients, we wantyou to know those that I can

(07:06):
still see out here floatingaround that, wherever you go,
whatever the new adventures thatare ahead of you, in new places
or in old places that arebecoming new, as you start to
wonder exactly who you'resupposed to be and what you've
been equipped to do to offer tothe world, I hope that you can

(07:30):
remember this passage inJeremiah, which was occurring at
an even more difficult timethan maybe we live in, that was
saying I'm with you.
Our God walks with us andalways stays as close as our
heart.
Amen, amen.