I am currently working my way through the book of Jeremiah.
If you have never read Jeremiah then let me summarize it for you:The nation of Israel has turned away from God and served idols. They have fallen in love with wickedness and are no longer following God's commands or seeking His truth.
So, God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet and pronouncing the judgment that God is going to send on Israel for their sin.The majority of the book is Jeremiah doing just that speaking the Word of the Lord concerning judgment to his fellow Jews.
Here is the passage I want to talk about today--
You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return? Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, "What have I done?" Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
Jeremiah 8:4-6
God hates sin. He hated Israel's sin and He hates our sin. But what is interesting to me about these verses is that God is upset about something more than just Israel's sin. He is upset about what their sin isn't producing inside of them.
God is aware of our imperfections and He knows that we will sin. Please don't take that to mean that He is okay with our sin, but just that He knows our imperfections will inevitably result in our failure to meet his standards.
God passionately cares about how we respond to our own sinfulness. He wants us to repent.
What does it mean to repent? Repentance is simply the transforming sorrow that Christ-follower has over his or her sin.
Perhaps, the best explanation I could offer comes from the Apostle Paul--
For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (II Corinthians 7:10)
The true Christ follower will find that his or her sin produces a genuine sorrow in their heart over the evil that they have done, but this sorrow is more than just guilt. Guilt is an emotion that comes and goes. Godly sorrow, or repentance, is transformative.
A Christ follower will be driven by their sorrow to change. They will be driven to ask God for forgiveness and they will be driven to replace that sinful desire and action with righteousness.
Consider what Zacchaeus (the former thief) did when Jesus saved him--
And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." (Luke 19:8)
Zacchaeus didn't just feel guilt over his sin. He felt sorrow that transformed him.
God desperately wants his people to feel sorrow over their sin and for that sorrow to motivate them to change and return back to Him. He is LOOKING FOR IT.
Jeremiah records God saying, "I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, 'What have I done?'"
God knew Israel would sin but He was outraged by their unwillingness to feel the sorrow that leads to transformation. He remarks that "They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return."
Perhaps the most damning evidence God has against Israel comes outside of our passage in verse 12 when He portrays Israel's lack of sorrow in this way--
"Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush."
God is distraught and outraged over Israel's lack of ability to blush or be embarrassed over their own sin.
All of this brings me to the question of the day for you and for me:
Do we feel transformative sorrow over our sin?
Are we content to go on sinning?
Do we feel guilt that only lasts a minute?
Or are we driven to fall weeping at the cross and exchange our sinfulness for righteousness
