Surrender Your Life

INTRO

Some of the best decisions in my life were actually made by the generation before me. If you look at your own life, you will probably see some of the same things. Someone made the comment to my workaholic dad that it was a shame parents had to work hard building careers at the time their children needed them the most. Then, by the time the careers had taken off, the children would be out of the house and not need much from their parents. It so convicted my dad that he quit his job and stayed home with us. For a while it was my worst nightmare, but Dad spent time with us. We collected rocks outside, and I realized later the time with Dad changed my life dramatically. During that time, my dad also fell deeply and passionately in love with the Word of God. That too sparked my love for God’s Word.

Jeremiah was a good, Christlike man long before Jesus was on the earth. His life was changed by the Word of God. When Jeremiah was a young man, King Josiah renovated the temple and discovered the lost copy of the Word of God. Josiah led a reform movement to lead people into studying the Word, a movement that changed Jeremiah’s life. In our study today, we can see that we are only one generation removed from Josiah’s reforms, and yet the people had rejected God in favor of pagan deities.

TEACHING

Jeremiah 20:1-6: If you are faithful to the Word of God, do you believe only good things will happen to you? We are hearing this belief in many of our churches today, even quoting Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you … plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” However, Jeremiah’s life shows a different outcome. When Pashhur, the high priest at the temple heard Jeremiah’s prophesy, he had him beaten and put in stocks (vv. 1–2). Jeremiah was beaten within a mile of where Jesus would be beaten; he was mocked at the same location on this earth Jesus would be mocked; he suffered for being faithful to God just as Jesus would suffer. The next morning Jeremiah was released from the stocks, and he gave Pashhur a prophetic word from God (v. 3a). Pashhur’s name would be changed to Magor-missabib “terror on every side,”¹ and he would watch as all his friends fall before the invading army of Babylon (vv. 3b–4). Further, the Babylonians would receive all the wealth of Jerusalem and all the treasures of the kings of Judah, and Pashhur and the survivors would be taken into captivity. Pashhur would even die there because he had prophesied lies against the Lord (vv. 5–6).

Jeremiah 20:7–18: Jeremiah stopped talking to Pashhur and began to speak to God, accusing Him of having deceived him in his calling. Jeremiah cried out because he was delivering God’s message faithfully yet facing daily mocking and derision from those who heard him (vv. 7–8). Not only that, but he tried not to speak God’s message any longer, “But His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones” (v. 9). Jeremiah couldn’t hold the Word of God within him without proclaiming it. Jeremiah was tired of the mocking and the abuse (v. 10), but he realized the Lord was with him “like a violent warrior” (v. 11a). Jeremiah shifted from thinking about what was happening to him to how great his Lord is. Those who mocked God would bear the consequences of God’s wrath (vv. 11b–12). Jeremiah praised the Lord (v. 13), but then cursed the day he was born (v. 14). He asked that the man who brought news of his birth to his father be cursed as well (v. 15). Jeremiah was quoting from Job 3.

These verses can actually be used for our good. When facing a bad situation, imagine what you would be missing if you had not been born—especially the joy of the Lord. You’ll quickly get back to your calling!

Jeremiah 21:1–10: There’s a huge shift from chapter 20 to 21. Up to this point, Jeremiah had preached, but no one had listened. However, King Zedekiah sent Pashhur (a different man from chapter 20) to ask Jeremiah if Babylon was going to defeat Judah (vv. 1–2). For some reason, possibly because Jeremiah had continued in obedience by proclaiming God’s message, the king wanted to hear what Jeremiah had to say. Jeremiah responded with the Lord’s message–God was about to turn against them and would actually fight with the Babylonians against Judah (vv. 3–6).

After Babylon’s victory, God would give the people in the city over to the Babylonians to be put to death (v. 7).

Jeremiah then gave God’s message to the people (vv. 8–10), warning them that if they stayed in the city of Jerusalem they would die by the sword, famine, or pestilence. God gave them an out from this judgment. They could leave the city and defect to the Chaldeans and live. Only those who surrendered would live. That’s still true today. Life comes in surrendering at the feet of Jesus. God proclaimed the Babylonians would be given the city and would burn it down.

Jeremiah 20:11–14: God proclaimed that the house of the king of Judah (and the dynasty of David), had the choice of obeying Him and maintaining his kingdom or of continuing to disobey Him and lose their rights to the throne of David (vv. 11–12).

This was a tough message for Jeremiah to deliver. Yet Jeremiah was obedient and faithful to his calling. Later Jeremiah will give encouragement, and the people will be able to accept it because they know his words come from the Lord. The key to what Jeremiah was preaching is surrender.

CLOSING

In 1904, eighteen-year-old William Borden graduated high school and was sent on an around-the-world tour by his millionaire parents. As he traveled throughout the world, Borden’s heart began to break for the lost he saw who didn’t know Jesus. On the back page of his Bible, he penned: “No reserves.”²

He decided that as a millionaire at 18, he was not going to keep anything back from the Lord. At Yale University, he began Bible study groups on campus that looked for the most incorrigible students on campus to share Christ with them. By the time Borden graduated, 1,000 of the 1,300 students at Yale were Christians. After his graduation from Yale, Borden added two more words on the back page of His Bible: “No retreats.”³

He wasn’t going to rely on his wealth or to back down from anything in his calling to be a missionary. Borden next pursued graduate studies at Princeton Seminary, and upon graduation, sailed for China to serve. He stopped over in Egypt to learn Arabic so he could work with Muslims but came down with spinal meningitis. He died within a month. It is said that after his death, it was found that he had added two more words to the back page of his Bible: “No regrets.”⁴

God calls us not to greatness, but to faithfulness. He calls us to lay down our lives. He calls us to surrender. Are you not glad for a man like Jeremiah who did his part faithfully? He surrendered his life to God even as he called upon others to surrender their lives as well.