"The Flesh Profits Nothing"

The Flesh Profits Nothing and the Weakness of Human Self-Reliance

Good morning, you please open your Bibles to Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 10. I'm going to read verses 17 through 25. Once again, we began looking at this passage last week. And as I said then, when I studied this passage and read it over and over, the words of Jesus kept coming to mind, the flesh profits nothing.

And this seems to be the main thrust of Jeremiah's message by the Holy Spirit to the Jews. They're trying to hang on to what they have in Jerusalem. They're trying to make it despite the brokenness of their world.

They are trying to keep it all together, trying to prove that they're right in the way that they live. And it seems to me that the way in which this passage is structured, that Jeremiah by the power of the Holy Spirit takes the time to lay out for them the truth that they're not going to hang on.

They're not going to make it. They're not going to keep it together. And they're not going to get it right. They must rather look to the Lord. So let's think about Christ's very clear and liberating statement that the flesh profits nothing.

Let's go ahead and start reading in Jeremiah 10, verses 17 and following. Pick up your bundle from the ground, you who dwell under siege. For thus says the Lord, Behold, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will cause them distress that they may be found.

Woe is me because of my injury. My wound is incurable. But I said, truly, this is a sickness, and I must bear it. My tent is destroyed, and all my ropes are broken. My sons have gone from me and are no more.

There is no one to stretch out my tent again or to set up my curtains. For the shepherds have become stupid and have not sought the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

The sound of a report, behold, it comes. A great commotion out of the land of the north to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt of jackals. I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.

Correct me, O Lord, but with justice, not with your anger, or you will bring me to nothing. Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on the families that do not call your name. For they have devoured Jacob, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

Let me pray for us. Father, we come before you this morning, and as is the truth that we have here in Jeremiah 10 and in John 6, we confess the flesh profits nothing. It is your Holy Spirit who brings to us life, and nothing less than the life of Jesus Christ.

We pray, Father, this morning that you would help us to hear your words, that your truth would transform us by the renewing of our minds, that your truth would conform us to the image of your Son, that we would truly manifest your glory.

We ask that you would give us the courage to confess what the Scriptures confess, that we may praise what the Scriptures praise, and that we would live as the amen of heaven upon this earth. We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom you are well pleased.

Amen. We noted last week that we live in a culture, we live in a society, that thinks far too much of ourselves and not enough of God. We think way too much about ourselves. We do not think nearly enough upon our God, revealed to us faithfully and clearly, and always helpfully, in the Scriptures.

We are so rejoicing with the Palica people that they are receiving the Word of God in their own language. What a treasure that they would be able to hear the Word of God in a language they learned from their mothers, and then they could learn who God is.

What a blessing. Scriptures are so valuable to us. I was sitting in the waiting room at a tax accountant's office, and there was, of course, the pile of magazines, and some of them very old. One of them was the magazine of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

I forget which year it was. It was a little ways back, and there are all sorts of people on the cover that are no longer there. And the theme of it was commitment. So I decided not to read that, and I picked up a copy of The Economist, the very first time I've ever read anything out of The Economist.

And it was talking about a company whose business is launching satellites. Not one or two, not a dozen, but hundreds of satellites at a time. So they have thousands of satellites that orbit the earth, and they're very small, just a few centimeters wide and high.

And these little satellites go flying around the globe taking pictures of everything. Taking pictures of everything. The whole idea is that they have day-old information about all the populated areas on the earth.

Day-old information. They are willing to sell to all kinds of people. Sometimes they are indeed government intelligence agencies, but other times it's just companies wanting to know what does it look like out there in the China Sea.

What does it look like in the ports? How many container ships are coming through so we can evaluate trade? Looking around at other companies competing with them in the agricultural business. How are things going?

What are they planting? What kind of new equipment are they getting? Is there new construction in the oil business here or there? And so day-old information being sold to analysts, who then analyze the information and sell it to companies so they can better figure out how to make a bunch of money.

Day-old information. Satellites orbiting the earth, looking at the earth, looking at what people on planet earth are doing. I wonder with all of these eyes flying around above us, with all of this attention upon the people of planet earth, I wonder if these analysts are coming to the same conclusion as Solomon.

Vanity, vanity. All this vanity and chasing after the wind. That life lived without reference to God is meaningless. And chasing all of these priorities is like trying to snatch a faint breeze with a numb hand.

I wonder if the analysis of all of this imagery, all of this attention upon the people of planet earth is coming to the same conclusions as Jeremiah.

That we're weak.

That we're not going to hang on. We're not going to make it. We're not going to keep it together. We're not going to get it right. We don't need 10 ,000 satellites spinning around the earth to give us an accurate picture of who we are.

We have been given the scriptures. We have been given not a perspective from outer space, but the perspective of heaven itself. That we may know who we are and what really matters. And what really matters is that we confess our weakness.

We must confess our weakness before we will know God's saving strength. Last week we looked at the first confession. You're not going to hang on. That's verses 17 and 18. The spirit says to those in Jerusalem trying to hang on, you're not going to hang on.

We thought about the weakness of those in Jerusalem and the Jews. And Jeremiah is simply telling the people, you're not good enough. You're not strong enough. You're not righteous enough. You're not wise enough.

This is not going to work. But we consider this.

We consider this.

That in Christ, in Christ, we are bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord our God. And even if we can't hang on, Jesus assures us that we are in his hand and in the Father's hand, and no one is snatching us out of his hand.

It's the very opposite of exile in Christ. We are being held on to by God. Therefore, hang on. Press in and press on to all of that which we are given in Christ. Secondly, we said you're not going to make it.

Verses 19 and 22 have a parallel idea, parallel thoughts about the end. Verse 19 is a picture of someone with a mortal wound coming to the realization, coming to confess, I'm not going to make it. Verse 22 has the idea of a report, a sound that the enemy is closing in and there is no escape, and the people have to come to realize that and to confess that.

Even though we're not going to make it, we can affirm that God will still pull us through. We called the information at the beginning of the letter to 2 Corinthians that Paul relates to them that he and his companions found themselves in a situation where they're looking at one another and despairing of life itself.

They were saying to each other, fellows, I don't think we're going to make it. We're not going to get through this one. But they were in the process of obeying the Lord and obeying God. So they said, well, God who raises the dead has called us to disobedience, so let's press on to the faith of Abraham.

Now we're going to look at the third confession, which is verses 20 and 21. If there's one way to summarize it, I think it's this, that you're not going to keep it together. You're not going to keep it together.

Look at verses 20 and 21. And this picture is one that would be very familiar to the history of the Jews. It's a picture of the nomadic way of life, of tending flocks in herds and picking up a tent and pitching a tent and living life as a nomadic herdsman.

And this is a very tragic picture, beginning in verse 20. My tent is destroyed and all my ropes are broken. My sons have gone from me and are no more. There is no one to stretch out my tent again or to set up my curtains.

You're supposed to see there on the gentle slopes of the Shephela a gray-haired woman, bent over double, face in her hands, and her whole body rocking with the rhythm of her sobs.

This is Judah.

Judah is in a horrible position. Disaster has struck. You see her laying there, kneeling there. There's a few random artifacts of the home left around her. There's a pattern of old wooden pegs about her where a tent once stood.

She's got the shredded remains of some ropes in her hands. Disaster has struck. The storm has blown everything away, leaving her with the rest of the broken debris. The tent is gone. The ropes have snapped.

In fact, her sons have long abandoned their aging mother to fend for herself. Now she has nothing and she has no one. There is no one left to make the tent again in which she can live. In other words, Jeremiah is saying, there will be no one left to rebuild Jerusalem for Judah to live there.

It's a picture of absolute disaster. Why is Judah desolate? Why is Jerusalem empty? Look at verse 21. Here's the explanation.

For.

Why verse 20? Because, verse 21. For the shepherds have become stupid and have not sought the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered and all their flock is scattered. You see, if we're paying attention throughout chapter 10 of Jeremiah, stupid is code for idol worshiper.

You should go back and read all of chapter 10. Those who worship idols that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot speak and cannot walk and cannot do anything. Those who worship those things become like those things.

And so the shepherds have become stupid because they are idols. Who are the shepherds? The shepherds are those that God had anointed to lead in Israel.

To lead in Judah. Kings.

Priests.

Prophets.

Wise men. But what are they doing? They're conducting their lives without any reference to God. They're worshiping idols. Imagine a group of shepherds with a flock. They have a large flock. So there are many shepherds.

But they spend all their time staring at blocks of wood. And the sheep begin to scatter. They don't have enough food. They don't have enough water. They begin to wander and try to find the things that they need.

Because the shepherds aren't doing it. They're staring at blocks of wood. And so the sheep get scattered and the wolves close in. And so the shepherds have not prospered. The meaning of prospered here refers to those direct results of living wisely and prudently.

When we live wisely, when we live prudently, when we're going in the same flow of the way that God has made this world, the general principle is we do much better than rebelling against God. And the shepherds have not prospered.

They have not accomplished the will of God because they are idolaters. They are stupid. So they have not prospered. They have not sought the Lord. This is what keeps them from being good shepherds. This is what keeps them from doing God's will.

They have not sought the Lord. The Lord is the sovereign provider for His people. If the shepherds of God's people do not themselves seek the Lord, how will then they bring the people of the Lord to Him as well?

There are days when we just lose it. You can be honest. It's okay. There are days when I lose it. I remember it was the day before my mother's last Christmas dinner with the family. Half my family went down with a stomach bug, including my wife.

And I kept doggedly preparing in the kitchen, trying to get this thing together, trying to make sure that it happened. It wasn't that all the labor was on me. Much had already been done, but there was still work to do.

I was trying to set a table for 18 with the family china, trying to make it very special. Half the family goes sick, and I was up until the wee hours of the morning trying to get this done. And I just lost it.

There's nobody in the kitchen but God and I. And He knows better than I how weak I am. Trying to keep it all together. I'm not going to keep it all together. What are you trying to keep together? The shepherds couldn't keep the flock together.

Judah couldn't keep her world together. What are you trying to keep together? Are you trying to keep your family together? Are you trying to keep your finances together? Are you trying to keep your career together?

Are you trying to keep your schedule together? Maybe you're here trying to keep your marriage together. The shepherds were stupid because they did not seek the Lord. Let's not follow suit.

Let's seek the Lord.

Let's seek the Lord. You and I are not strong enough to keep it all together. We're not going to keep it together. We have to seek the Lord. Seeking the Lord. There's no prospering in the work of the Lord if we're not seeking the Lord.

Jesus spoke to those who were overwhelmed with trying to keep it all together. He said, Do not worry, then, saying,.

What will we eat?

What will we drink? What will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Have you sought the Lord? God has made you shepherd of something. If you're made in the image of God, you're the shepherd of something. Made in the image of God, you are to love him supremely, love others rightly, and steward the creation responsibly.

I tell my little ones, Love God the most, love each other a bunch, and take care of your stuff with joy. You're shepherding something or someone in your life. God has given some kind of responsibility to you, even if you're a little one, or you're a very professional person, maybe you're an elderly person, maybe you're just a very busy person, but God has given something and someone to you to shepherd.

Are you going to prosper in that work? Are you going to prosper in that work? If we try to keep it all together ourselves, we are not going to prosper. We must seek the Lord. Seek the Lord in prayer. Seek the Lord and turn over those anxieties and cares to the Lord.

Trying to keep it all together without seeking the Lord is like trying to follow a map that has no sense of north, south, east, or west. It makes no sense that you're going to end up going around in circles and lost.

As we think about these shepherds that became stupid and did not seek the Lord, let's just remember what a good shepherd we have in Jesus Christ. Do you know why Jesus Christ is the good shepherd? Yes, he's the good shepherd because of all his sheep he loses none.

He's the good shepherd because of all his sheep he completely provides for them. The reason why he loses no sheep and takes care of all of his sheep is because Jesus Christ is the perfect shepherd who always, always, always seeks his Father's will and delights his Father.

So seek the Lord, trust in Christ. We're not going to keep it together but we can get it together when we seek the Lord. Lastly, in verses 23 -25, it seems to me that we should confess we're not going to get it right.

Verse 23 says, I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O Lord, but with justice, not with your anger, or you will bring me to nothing.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you and on the families that do not call your name. For they have devoured Jacob, they have devoured him and consumed him and have laid waste his habitation.

The man in the man in verse 23. The first term is just kind of in every kind of man a general person. The second one is the one who has strength and fortitude.

And a plan.

But either way, a man's way is not found in his own mind or his own capacities. Not even the strong man possesses enough strength and fortitude and wisdom to, in his own mind and in his own way, achieve everything he wants in this world.

What Jeremiah confesses in verse 23 is pure wisdom. It's the true, humble confession of prudent worship. Proverbs 16 .9 says, The mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 20 .24 says, Man's steps are ordained by the Lord.

How then can man understand his way? Oh, we make so many plans. We make so many plans. We have these ideas. We have these solutions. Think that we can achieve them and then God reminds us that we are weak.

He reminds us that he is in charge. What Jeremiah humbly confesses here is just prelude to a famous picture in chapter 18. In chapter 18, Jeremiah is told to go and watch a potter at work. The potter takes some clay and he puts it on his wheel and he is moving the wheel and he is shaping the clay and here is a vessel that comes close to being finished but now it's ruined and he tosses it aside.

He takes other clay and he works with this and makes a good vessel and God's point to Jeremiah, My people are mine. My creation is mine to do with as I see fit and when I get done, it will be done right.

We are not going to get it right but it's a great encouragement if we confess that although we are not going to get it right, God in his grace as the potter and us the clay is going to get us right. He is going to get us right.

He will complete the work that he has begun in us. We come to the day of Christ Jesus when he returns. We will just see how right God gets everything. Jeremiah is praying in verse 23 and he is very personal.

He is confessing this but look at verse 24. Correct me O Lord but with justice not with your anger you will bring me to nothing. If we have been paying attention, if we have been paying attention, we go back just a few verses in this same passage and we see that Jeremiah is speaking in very personal terms to God but he has taken on the identity of all of Judah.

He speaks of sons that have left him and abandoned him but of course he never married and he had no children. But he speaks of all of Judah. He speaks for Judah as Judah and still here he is interceding.

Still here he is making supplication and he is asking God personally but also for the whole nation. Correct me but with justice. What does that mean? It has the idea of correction in measure with just the right measure.

Not condemnation in totality but justice in proper measure. Correction in proper measure. The coming disaster was unavoidable. The wound is mortal. Jeremiah is not asking God to fail to act against the sin of Judah.

He is asking God to act in a corrective measure if at all possible and not condemning and throwing everyone away. There are those who deserve the absolute hopelessness of God's final wrath. Jeremiah says those who deny God, those who abandon God, those who profane His name, those who are created in Your image, O Lord, given all these blessings, being revealed that there is a God in heaven, made clear by creation and by conscience.

And all those who deny You and abandon You, they deserve Your wrath. But O Father, correct us in measure. May there be something redemptive and restorative in this punishment that is coming.

It's interesting.

That we have an answer to this prayer. Jeremiah 46 verse 28,.

The end of the book.

O Jacob, my servant, do not fear, says the Lord, for I am with you. For I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you. Yet, I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you properly.

In the Hebrew, it's the exact same phrase. Correction in justice, the exact same phrase. A correction with measure. And God says yes. He answers yes. And by no means leave you unpunished, He says. Now, what's very interesting to me is that in Jeremiah 7 and verse 16 and also in coming up in chapter 11, God tells Jeremiah, no longer intercede for these people.

He said, I'm not going to take any more of this supplication and praying, asking me to avert my justice and punishment upon this people. Jeremiah, as a mediator, as a prophet of the people, takes on the whole identity of the nation and finds a way through.

Oh God, correct me. Correct me. But in measure. Not in hopeless condemnation. Jeremiah finds a way through. He's not denying what God has said. He's not asking God to avert all the justice and not be holy anymore.

But he's finding a way through. He's still interceding. He's still mediating for his people. He bears the grief and pain of the people we see in the earlier verses. He personally presents his woes.

Before the face of God.

And then he asks God to correct him and to preserve him. And he's still standing in for the people. He's still mediating mercy to them as their prophet. And I find that interesting because it's exactly what Christ has done for us.

It's exactly what Jesus Christ has done for us. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. He was pierced through for our transgressions. Crushed for our iniquities. And just as God has poured out his judgment on Christ for all who would trust in him as their righteousness.

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. We don't get it right. We don't get it right. Let me encourage you then to aim as carefully as Jeremiah did in his prayer. He knows God is just. He knows God is holy.

He knows the punishment is coming. He does not ask for God to deny himself. But in agreement with who God is in God's love for holiness and justice and righteousness and mercy and grace and compassion and love Jeremiah prays and intercedes.

How careful he is. How specific he is in praying. Let me encourage us. Even if we're not going to get it right let's aim right in our prayers. Let's aim right in our prayers. It's essential for us to confess our unrighteousness and hold fast to the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

That God's favor is not on us because we have done something that tickles his fancy. But God's favor is on us because we hold to his son Jesus Christ with whom he is well pleased. And we must invite God's loving fatherly correction into our lives all the while holding fast to his son Jesus Christ knowing that God is well pleased with his son and so well pleased with us we are righteous in his sight.

Important that we aim carefully in our prayers. Very often we may find ourselves praying something like this. God I didn't get it right. I'm always messing up. But I promise that I'll do such and such.

Please forgive me. No, no.

Dearly beloved.

He's not interested in the least about what kind of offering and performance you're going to make for him. That's not going to motivate his forgiveness of you. What motivates his forgiveness of you is Jesus Christ and his accomplished righteousness in his life and his death and his resurrection.

And Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the father. And he has the father's ear. You trust in Christ. You delight in Christ. And Christ intercedes for you. I hit a wall this Friday morning. I'm trying to get ready for a very small Bible conference coming up at the end of August.

I'll be gone on Sunday. And I'm trying to get ready in advance.

I just hit a wall.

Couldn't make any progress. And it was a reminder that I'm not going to get it right. But as I prayed, I was reminded strongly that except for, except for the ineffable grace of God, my life would be a flaming wreck.

The debris of my ministry and family and marriage and religion would be scattered, scorched across the short landscape of my 35 years. And that is liberating to say. It is liberating for us to confess, to give an amen to scripture and say, I'm not going to get it right.

To say, I am weak.

But he is strong. And he would have it no other way for our good and his glory. I hope that's your confession today. I hope that's your confession today. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us.

I thank you for challenging us in your word. That you are holy and you are righteous and you are good and you are powerful. You are sovereign. And it is not in our strength, not in our mind to be able to direct our own way.

We're not going to keep it all together.

Help us to seek you.

Help us to seek you in all things. Humbly confessing our dependence on you. We pray all these things, looking to your son, Jesus Christ.