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Encouragement for the journey from God’s Word. Today's Scripture: Jeremiah 8:8-9:26 / Proverbs 24:27
Well, a good Friday morning. Here we are coming to the end of another week, looking forward to the weekend and working toward the Lord's Day and the day of rest, that day of set aside to just kind of forget about all the stuff of Monday through Saturday, set aside the work projects of the week and take a day that is intended for some worship and some rest and reflection.
And I hope Sunday will be that for you. Come join us in God's house on Sunday. We're continuing a study in our adult Sunday school class of the book Gentle and Lowly, the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers, and then be in God's word and together in the worship service to follow and then in the gospel of Mark Sunday evening.
So, courage would be with us on the Lord's Day. Well, today we're in the book of Jeremiah and chapter nine. Let me ask you this. Have you ever known anybody who was particularly boastful? I mean, just kind of proud and stuck on themselves?
It's kind of a rhetorical question in an election year, isn't it? You ever get tired of some of these election ads? You know, there's the ones that are just tearing down the other person, the other candidate, and then there's the ones that are touting the greatness of the candidate who's advertising himself.
Yeah, we've all known boastful people. What do people boast about? Well, I think they boast particularly about their wisdom, their power, or their wealth. So, for example, people boast about their wisdom.
They boast about how smart they are. They boast about how many degrees they have after their name and whether they've got any terminal degrees like a PhD or something of that nature. They boast about their skill at being able to get things done, to make things work, to make things happen.
So, you see people like this in the workplace and so forth. The person boasting in their wisdom may be the entrepreneur who has been successful in taking a company from nothing, non-existence, to a very successful company, and he did it.
I did this all by myself. So, people boast over their wisdom, and some people boast about their physical strength, their might, their power. This can be literal physical strength, how big their muscles are and things like that.
There are people like that. You go to some gyms where people are weightlifting, and you see these guys. It reminds me of a coach I had in high school. At that particular time, I was in track and field and had to use the weight room three times a week.
One of the coaches in our school loved the weight room. He often had these little t-shirts that were nothing but a strap kind of thing. He would do his bench presses, and he would do his lifts. Then he'd sit on the bench, and he'd do this kind of thing, looking at his muscles and feeling his muscles.
He was boasting in his might. But it can also be boasting in one's might over other people, his leadership, his position of power and authority. Then there are those who boast in their wealth, and you see enough of this as well.
Well, Jeremiah addresses that. The Lord addresses it through Jeremiah, and he says this, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, what not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches.
Well, in what then should we glory? What should we boast about? The Lord answers, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight.
Do you know the Lord? I mean, do you know him? Do you really understand him? Do you know what he is like? This is what the Lord's getting at. Do you understand what he is like? What kind of a God he is?
He is a God who exercises loving kindness. That word means steadfast loyalty to his covenant. He is a God who exercises judgment or justice. He is a God of righteousness. Do you really understand what God is like?
If so, that affects not only your perception of him, but it affects your perception of yourself, and it affects how you live in relationship to him. So if you're living your life pretty much indifferent to him, and acting Monday through Saturday as if he's really not there, and he doesn't really care, then you don't know God.
You really don't know God. The only real reason that we might have for quote-unquote glorying is if we have a real understanding of what God is like and what God likes. A God of steadfast faithfulness to his covenant, a God of justice, a God of righteousness, and that he delights in these things.
If we really understand him, we'll delight in that in which he delights, and then we will have reason to glory, to be ecstatic, not in ourselves, but in our God. So our Father and our God, I pray that you would deliver us from pride, arrogance, boastfulness about our wisdom or might, or even about our wealth.
Lord, instead, may we really understand you. May we know you. May we delight in that in which you delight. This we pray in Jesus' name, and for his sake. Amen. All right. Again, have a wonderful rest of your Friday and a great weekend, and I trust we'll see you on the Lord's Day.
Have a good day.