The God Who Takes You Back

But right now, Jeremiah, chapter three, verses one th eighteen,

let me read our sermon passage for us can read

along as I read aloud. If a man divorces his wife,

and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife,

will he return to her? Would not that land be

greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers,

and would you return to me? Declares the Lord. Lift

up your eyes to the bare heights, and see where

have you not been ravished by the waysides? You have

sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You

have polluted the land with your vile hortem. Therefore the

showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not

come yet. You have had the forehead of a whore.

You refuse to be ashamed. Have you not just now

called to me my father? You are the friend of

my youth? Will he be angry forever? Will he be

indignant to the end? Behold you have spoken, but you've

done all the evil you could, the Lord said to me,

in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what

she did, that faithless one Israel? How she went up

on every high hill and under every green tree, and

there played the horn. And I thought, after she's done

all this, she will return to me. But she did

not return. And her treacherous sister saw Judah saw it,

and she saw that for all the adulteries of that

faithless one, Israel I sent her away with a decree

of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear.

But she too went and played the whore because she

took her hortem lightly. She polluted the land, committing adultery

with stone and tree. Yet for all this, her treacherous

sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart,

but in pretense, declares the Lord. And the Lord said

to me, faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than

treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words towards the north,

and say, return faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will

not look on you in anger, for I am merciful,

declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever. Only

acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God,

and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree,

and that you have not obeyed. My voice declared the

Lord return, oh faithless children, declares the Lord. For I

am your master, and I will take you one from

a city and two from a family, and I'll bring

you to Zion. And I'll give you shepherds after my

own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

And when you have multiplied them and fruitful in the land,

and those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more

say the ark of the Covenant of the Lord. It

shall not come to mind or and be remembered or missed.

It shall not be made again. At that time, Jerusalem

shall be called the throne of the Lord, and the nation,

all the nations shall gather to it, to the presence

of the Lord in Jerusalem. And they shall no longer,

they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart.

In those days, the house of Judah shall join the

House of Israel, and together they shall come from the

land of the North to the land that I gave

your fathers for a heritage. This is the word of

the Lord. What would you say if you were married

and your spouse had left you for another. I want

to say from the outset for some of you, that

question isn't hypothetical. I recognize that, and my prayer is

that that fact would not build resistance to the truth

in this passage, but it would actually tenderize you. What

would you say, maybe not just one other person, maybe

maybe the person that you were married to was regularly

in the arms of people besides you. What would your

message be? What would your heart toward them be? Those

are the kind of questions that Jeremiah three evokes for us,

because it causes us to realize that God's message to

an unfaithful people isn't probably what our message would be,

because it comes from a heart that isn't probably what

our heart would be. His message is return, return to me,

and his heart toward the unfaithful is clear from the

very message. In fact, the key statement in this passage

is from verse twelve return. I will not look on

you in anger, for I am merciful. God's heart is

a heart of divine mercy. His message of return, that

he would take back the unfaithful, and the manner in

which he would take back the unfaithful, shows how merciful

he is. And it's the kind of mercy that causes

us to live a returned life. What do I mean

by that? Well, You may be here this morning and

say I don't even claim to know God. Well, God's

call to you is returned to him. He made you.

You may have avoided him and his ways and his truth,

but his call on you is to return to him.

But there were many here in this assembly right now,

there are many would say I have made a return

to Him and his mercy that we see right here

in this call compels us to live a returned life.

That is a life that continues on infidelity, that continues

on in our commitment, that continues on in intimacy with Him,

because the temptation to wander is always present. And our desire,

as those who have returned, is to continue living a

returned life based on this mercy that we see in

this call, and we see it in this call in

I would say three aspects, three aspects at least that

I have in my mind, that are present in this

call that shows us just how merciful God is. Three aspects.

Will look at each of them. I would say, the

first aspect is probably going to be pretty painful for us,

the second aspect is profoundly helpful, and the third aspect

is deeply hopeful. Let's look at the first one, even

though it's painful, the first aspect of God's call to return,

God's call to unfaithful people, that shows us just how

merciful he is. Is this, it's the scandal of it,

the scandal of it. Consider it. I mean, do you

realize how merciful God's heart must be to to call

back and receive returning people who have been as unfaithful

as we have been, to who have been as unfaithful

as Israel has been. He says in verse one, he's

a Let me give you an example. If a man

divorces his wife and she goes and becomes another man's wife,

would he take her back? Like God is calling back

to Israelite law, that wouldn't even be allowed, that would

be so it's beyond human acceptability. But just because it's

beyond what a human might be able to accept or

even allow, does not mean that it's beyond what God

can do when he receives those who come to him.

It's scandalous how merciful our God is. And Jeremiah goes on. Rather,

the Lord goes on, saying, you've played the horror with

many lovers. This is not just beyond the realm of

human possibility. It's mind boggling how unfaithful you have been.

Look up, see where is a place where you have

not been unfaithful to me? Where you've not given your

heart to other things. You've waited by the road, looking

to serve other gods and devote yourself to other things,

to give your heart to love instead of me. You've

polluted the land with your hoardom, he says. And I've

withheld the showers. I disciplined you, yet you had the

forehead of a whore, which is a figure of speech,

for you were stubborn in your unfaithfulness. You refused, he says.

What does he say? You refuse to be even ashamed?

You legitimately should have been ashamed of yourself, and you

refused to even feel shame. And now verse four, even

now you've called to me my father, you're the friend

of my youth. Will you be angry forever? They're calling

back to Psalm one O three. We actually read some

of Psalm one O three during our worship time. Some

one O three says things like this, God will not

be angry forever, He will not always chide, He does

not treat us. According to our iniquities. And so what

what these unfaithful people are doing are is they're taking

David Psalm some one O three and they're claiming that

scripture for themselves while doing all the unfaithful and evil

things they can. He says, you've you've talked like this,

you've claimed my promises of forgiveness while you've crammed in

as much sin as you could. God saying you've been

utterly unfaithful, and you've downplayed your infidelity. Your return to

me would be humanly scandalous. And then he goes on

in verses six through eleven, he lays this out. He says,

you know, there's blatant cheaters, and there's sneaky cheaters. And

in the days of King Josiah, did you see what

Israel had done, how she was unfaithful to me? On

every high tree, every high hill and green tree. It's

just a figure of speech for where they would worship

other gods. And if you think worshiping other gods isn't

a big deal for us, just realized that every time

that we give our heart to anything besides God and

put anything above Him, devoted to anything more than Him,

it's it's idolatry, it's spiritual adultery. These are conversations that

are very relevant to us. And God says, after that

blatant cheater Israel had done all of this, I thought

she'd returned to me. But she didn't. And her treacherous

sister Judah, the sneaky cheater, she saw it, and she

saw that for all of the adulteries of Israel. I

sent her away with a decree of divorce. You're saying,

is I brought the armies of Assyria, and they took

Israel by exile away. And I thought, okay, when the

sneaky cheater Judah sees what the blatant cheater Israel how

they were sent away by me, thought now she'll turn.

But she only turned back to me in pretense, not

with her whole heart. I mean, Israel didn't even pretend

to return to God, didn't pretend to worship him and

follow him. But Judah, especially under King Josiah, made gestures

at worship, They sang the right songs, they did ceremonies

and services that seemed to focus on God. And God says, yeah,

but it was pretend her heart wasn't in it. And

in verse eleven, the Lord says, the faithless Israel has

shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. In other words,

God would rather deal with an honest rebel than a

pretending hypocrite. Anybody who's dealt with infidelity knows that there

are two types of cheaters, blatant cheaters and sneaky cheaters. Right,

blatant cheaters, they're gonna do whatever they want to do,

and they don't care who knows, whoever they're out with,

they're going to take a picture of him posted on

social media in your face. Sneaky cheaters pretend to be faithful.

They lie about where they were, what they're thinking about,

why they're always on their phone. And the thing is,

at one point in time, we were all cheaters. We

were all cheaters. And maybe you came to God out

of a place of being a blatant cheater. Maybe you

came to God as a sneaky cheater church kid. But

praise God, wherever you came from, he received you back.

He forgave our infidelity, even paid for it on the

Cross of Christ. When we returned, he received And when

we think about it, it's scandalous. It's scandalous and The

call is to continue to live a returned life, not

to fall to temptations to give our hearts to other

things yet again, or to be devoted to other things

or adore other things besides our true spouse yet again.

And so whether or not you came to God as

a blatant cheater or as a sneaky cheater, I'm just

gonna go out on a limb here and just say,

the temptations that you are facing now is towards sneaky cheating.

And my clue is you're here. The temptations to worship

other things might look like this. Instead of living a

returned life with God in your thoughts, you let your

thought life toy with sexual sin. Right, You might avoid

doing anything you'd have to confess. You might avoid doing

anything that will show up in your browser history, But

God knows exactly where your mind goes or the kind

of sneaky cheating where you you functionally give your heart

not to God and not to his people, and not

to his ways, but to the things of this world,

the things and the experiences and the security and the

status you think that money can buy. And if your

heart is truthful, you would say it's given to those

things rather than god sneaky cheating. Nobody calls you out

on it because those things are respectable enough. Or or

this kind of sneaky cheating where you devote your time

and your attention to your own selfish pursuits. All right,

you look squeaky clean because those things. None of those

things are vices. But deep down, loving God and loving

others is not where your desire is. Your desire is

to love yourself with all your time, with all your attention,

with all your heart, mind, soullen strength, sneaky cheating, instead

of living a returned life. But if you've taken a

moment to consider your heart and the temptations your heart

faces in all of this, I would encourage you, maybe

even more so, to consider God's heart in all of this,

because his heart is revealed in this call the depth

of his divine mercy, in his willingness to take blatant

cheaters and sneaky cheaters, the depth of his divine mercy

that would be humanly just impossible. What will keep us

true when we look at those when we look at

those ways in which our heart is is tempted to wonder?

What could we contemplate that would recall our true love

and stir our fidelity devotionally and spiritually and emotionally and

affectionately the scandal of his mercy when we think about

how scandalous his grace is toward us, that he takes

back hearts even like ours, and wants them to be his,

to the point of even establishing the work of Christ

to cover our infidelity. When we consider the scandal of

that mercy and the depth of that love, it drives

us to desire to live a returned life. I want

to be with that God. I want to live a

life that is true in adoration and worship and my

thoughts and my affections. Because his mercy is scandalously deep.

That is a God I can give my heart to. Well.

Besides the scandal of it, though, there's another aspect of

God's call. It shows us his mercy, and it's this

the intimacy of it, the intimacy of it, not just

the scandal of it. The intimacy of it. I mean, consider,

do you know that a life of authentic intimacy with

God largely hinges on living in regular, ongoing repentance. Do

you realize that look at verse twelve, go and proclaim

these words to the north and say, return faithless. Israel

declares the Lord, I will not look on you in anger,

for I am merciful, declares the Lord. I will not

be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt. Only acknowledge your

guilt that you've been devoted to other things that you

haven't obeyed my voice. God's saying, I want you to

return to me, but I want you to return in truth.

I want you to return authentically. I want us to

actually have a relationship of intimacy, and that starts with

and it continues in repentance and confession and acknowledging your guilt.

I mean, how can we have a relationship of authentic

intimacy if your infidelity is something we can't be open about,

he says. In verse fourteen, Return, oh, faithless children, declares

the Lord. For I'm your master, You're my children, I'm

your husband. I'm your master. I will take you from

one from a city and two from a family. God

saying like this is going to get down to the

individual level. I desire intimacy with my people person by person,

and that always includes acknowledging your guilt. There's no real

intimacy apart from that, and it's not a one and done.

Authentic intimacy with God looks like regular ongoing repentance. When

my wife and I were getting serious about marriage, and

we've remained serious about marriage, that's true. But when we

were getting serious about marriage, one of the concerns we

talked about was fidelity, because you should, She grilled me,

and what I told her was this, you know that

vow forsaking all others. Yeah, I'm for real about that,

But I don't want to just merely manage to keep

the external requirements of that promise. I want us to

have an actual relationship of authentic intimacy. Not only do

I not want anybody else, I don't want there to

be anything between us. I don't want there to be

any secrets between us. I want to be able to

bring to you all of my fears and all of

my failures, and all of the ways, in all of

the ways in which I sin against you. I want

to be able to bring them and acknowledge them, and

have you forgive me and allow me to walk in

that grace. I want there to be real intimacy between us.

Nothing nothing between us. And that is the spirit of

God's call to you, not that you would merely and

formalistically avoid some rules that you feel like you have

to not step on, but an actual, living, authentic relationship

of intimacy with the living God. And that means regular,

ongoing repentance and the reception of forgiveness and grace. I

know that there are some who pretend at having a

relationship with God. They pretend that it's empty of intimacy,

it's empty of repentance. It's a relationship with God on

the outside, but inside they continue to deliberately go on sinning.

That's like those who in verses four and five were

hypocritically claiming the Covenant by saying, Oh, he's my father,

he's the friend of my youth, he won't be angry forever.

I know that from the Bible. I am claiming those

scriptures while going on and cramming in all the sin

they could. And what we have to realize is that

to do that while claiming the Covenant of the Cross

is an even greater hypocrisy. As it says in Hebrews ten.

If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge

of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

but a fearful expectation of judgment. If judgment came from

for those who set aside the law of Moses, how

much worse will it be for those who trample underfoot

the son of God and profane the blood of the

covenant for those who claim Christ. The author of Hebrews

is taking a magnifying glass to the warnings of Jeremiah

and saying, do not wave your hand and call yourself

God's kid while you go on deliberately sinning and not

acknowledging your guilt. Are you going to trample Christ and

his blood while pretending to be his? If so, you're

taking a covenant God designed for actual intimacy with you

and turning it into a pretense. Let me put this pointedly,

if there is no authenticity to your relationship, why would

you think there is authenticity to your redemption? Do not pretend.

But I also know that there are some who are

not pretenders. They're just discouraged, discouraged in their walk because

there is a slavish kind of fear that is in

their response to God's call for holiness. And if that's you,

if you want intimacy with God and find yourself discouraged

in your walk, let me just ask you a couple

of questions. Does it discourage you to repent often? Does

it discourage you to repent often? Because you should understand

from the Puritans, the Puritans would say, repentance is the

daily work of the Christian. It's the daily work. Every

Christian I've ever walked closely with, including myself, has had

some besetting sin struggle, something that required recurring repentance in

a long term battle, relying on the Holy Spirit to

see victory, and with some setbacks, it's a lifelong battle

to kill sin. Don't be discouraged by repenting often. It's

the daily work. It's actually a beautiful response to God's

call that he wants to be an intimate relationship with you.

You're responding to that call. I like to say repentance

is just another word for grace reception. Does it discourage

you to actually be in need of sanctification? I mean,

remember what First John says, if we walk in the

light as he's in the light, the blood of Jesus,

his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say

we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth

is not in us. If we confess our sins, he

is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse

us from all unrighteousness. Walking in the light through the

daily work of repentance is an intimate walk in God's grace.

It's beautiful. Do not be discouraged by it. Do not

be discouraged by the fact that you need sanctification. Do

not be discouraged by the fact that you still need

to grow. Do not be discouraged by the fact that

you still need to mature. God has not done with you,

and he's not giving up on you. Remember what Romans

five says, Since we've now been justified by His blood,

how much more shall we be saved by him? If

while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by

his death, how much more now that we're reconciled, shall

we be saved by His life? In other words, Jesus

is not giving up on you now. Christ's call to

you is this. Yes, he desires holiness, but he also

desires truth in the inmost parts, he desires you your

heart to walk into light with him, acknowledge your guilt.

It's part of walking with him every day. You can

trust his mercy. Do you see how deep it is?

You can trust his mercy. He did not bleed and

die to make you his while you were far off,

only to now that you're close distance him, You distance

his self because you need to grow. He's not giving

up on you. Now acknowledge your guilt and walk with

him in intimacy. Don't despair that you fail Christ so

often and so deeply. Rejoice that He receives you far

more often and far more deeply. So the call to

a returned life, for the pretender and for the discourage

is actually the same. Live acknowledging your guilt. God wants

intimacy with you, real intimacy. Live this returned life with him.

You can trust his mercy. It's scandalously deep, and he

desires intimacy. Those are the first two aspects. His call

is scandalous. His call is towards intimacy. But here's the

third aspect, and is deeply hopeful his call. Just consider

the blessing of it, the blessing of it. Think of

how he calls us to himself and extends and promises,

and is eager to show blessing, blessing. As you look

at verses fifteen through eighteen. There I mean how full

it is with the blessing that God is eager to

show to give shepherds after his own heart, that are

gonna teach you and feed you, and you're gonna multiply.

You're gonna be fruitful. There's gonna be no more arc.

My presence will just be with you. I'll gather all

of the nations. You'll know more stubbornly follow their own

evil heart. I'm gonna give you everything, he says, I'm

gonna give you everything. This is like someone telling their

cheating spouse come back to me. I'll take you back,

and when I do, I am eager to not hold

any of this over your head. Come back to me.

I am eager to fulfill all of the promises I

made to you on that wedding day. For richer, for poor,

for sickness and in health, better or worse, all of

that stuff. That's what I'm eager to do for you.

Come back. I want to grow old with you. Can

you imagine saying that to an unfaithful spouse. He takes

people back and is eager to more than keep his

side of things, and there are ways that the fulfillment

of this picture in Verses fifteen through eighteen. There are

things there that are still to come. But just consider

how God has already moved in these directions. Here are

a few of them. I'll give you shepherds after my

own heart. Who ever since the Apostles, God has been

raising up teachers for his people. He's given us the

Apostles teaching right here and the New Testament. And sure

there are still bad shepherds that come up, but there

have been some beautiful, faithful and good shepherds. And the

truth continues to spread, and His people continue to be

cared for fruitfulness, multiplication. He says, well, that's the very

language that the Book of Acts uses about the early Church. Right.

If true Israel, as Paul teaches in Romans, is all

who have come through Christ to place their faith in

the Living God like Abraham, then God has made his

people to increase and multiply. And just as it started

an axe and we read about it moving throughout the world,

it has continued to move throughout the world. His people

have been fruitful. What about his presence without the arc?

Since Pentecost, God has been profoundly present among his people

through the indwelling Holy Spirit. What about the nations gathering

same day Pentecost, People from all over were gathered together,

hearing the mighty works of God and their own languages,

and the merciful gospel of Jesus Christ has continued to

spread through all the nations ever since. What about a

changed heart? They shall no longer stubbornly follow their own

evil heart In Christ. God has taken your heart of stone,

a heart that was stubbornly committed to avoiding him and

his ways, and he's given you a heart of flesh. Yeah,

sin is still present. I hear that, and it's often

successful in tempting you to your old cheating ways. But

by his grace he has softened you to repentance. He

has given you a desire for holiness. He's given you

a desire for himself. By his grace. Your desire for

intimacy with Him is more stubborn than your desire for sin,

is it not? And there's more to come. God is

not done fulfilling his promises throughout his word. But the

point is this, God is eager to bless his people,

even though they've been unfaithful, and the fact that he's

eager to make good on his blessings, and even more

so when we have broken faith, shows you what kind

of mercy abides in the heart of this God. It's

the kind of thing that compels us to live a

returned life. It proves his heart of mercy in the

scandal of his call, in the intimacy of his call,

in the blessing of his call. Only God can have

this kind of mercy When we see his heart, our

hearts want all liver returned life.