The Sixth Sunday after Easter

Jesse Jacobsen

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Last modified: (Sat Apr 30 21:49:37 2005)

Jeremiah 29:11--14

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

We have a God worthy of prayer

``Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.'' This the Bible says concerning idols, their makers, and their worshippers. All three are alike in certain ways. An idol does not see, hear, speak, or know anything. God says that anyone who trusts an idol is the same: blind, deaf, dumb, and witless. Idols used to be images of animals or people carved in wood or stone, or cast in metal. Today, some people still worship and trust in such images, but more often we find that people trust in other kinds of things: medicine, technology, machines, institutions, or riches. These also can be idols, and God still says that those who trust in them are blind, deaf, dumb, and witless.

There is another kind of idol we can't see. It sometimes masquerades under the names of God. This idol exists in the heart of anyone who thinks he is worshipping God, but is really trusting in a product of his own imagination. You might call it the idolatry of wishful thinking about God.

We want to avoid idolatry of all kinds. It's wrong, and condemned by God. It's also pointless and empty, with no advantage. Many can't tell the difference between idols and God, and would like to think that there is no difference. But those who hear God's Word know otherwise. The true God is not blind, deaf, dumb, or witless. He sees. He speaks. He knows. And as we hear in today's Divine Service, God hears. He hears those who pray to Him. Instead of an idol, we have a God worthy of prayer. He speaks His peace for us to trust. He shows His grace for us to find.

He speaks His peace for us to trust

What are you thinking about right now? There's a time in a person's life when that becomes a pretty frequent question. Maybe it's insecurity, but sometimes you'd like to know what's in another person's head. Of course, it's impossible to know. Even when we experience the same things, we usually process them differently, and often have different conclusions. It's a tribute to the Holy Spirit that we can even come together for the Divine Service.

If you can't really know what I'm thinking, and I can't really know what you're thinking unless we talk about it, then how about the angels? There are angels here right now, though we can't see them. Some --- maybe all --- of these angels have joined with us this morning for the divine service. They worship our common God shoulder to shoulder with us. So what are they thinking? There's no way for us to know, unless they tell us. We share some things with them, because we are both races of God's creatures who can think and speak. But they are still alien to us. They have no bodies. They are holy, like God. We can't understand their minds.

So humans can't know one another's thoughts, and angels are beyond us. Then what about God himself? How can you know what God thinks about you? We are all a little insecure about this from time to time, at every stage of life. But we can't know God's thoughts either, can we? He's our Creator! All the advances in science and medical knowledge in the last century, and all the knowledge of all the learned doctors in the world are less than a footnote in the library of God's wisdom. He knows what everyone on earth is thinking or dreaming at this very moment. But there's no way we could begin to understand or even know His thoughts. You have heard this before, where He said, `` `For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. `For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.' ''

We are separated from Him as creatures from their Creator. But we are also separated as the unholy from the holy, the unrighteous from the righteous. We are unholy, unrighteous. How else would you explain that a difference of opinion or a miscommunication so often starts a war here on earth? These wars occur daily between nations, between families, within families, or even within churches. Nothing shows us more clearly that we are not in heaven, and don't belong there.

But instead of sending us where we do belong, God is patient with us. He could have destroyed Judah and started over. God had considered something like that even while Moses spoke to him on Mt. Sinai. Even His own people are stiff-necked, selfish, and unfaithful. But instead of destroying them, He sent them into captivity in Babylon. That was happening even while Jeremiah wrote the words of our text. God sent them to Babylon, so that He could say things like our text through prophets like Jeremiah. God afflicted His people so that they would hear His Word, as He revealed to them the thoughts of His own omnipotent mind.

The idea of hearing God's thoughts should frighten us, if we knew the great separation between us and Him. Maybe the idea does frighten you. But what God reveals about His thoughts toward His people --- including us --- is comforting, not frightening. The God who is patient is also merciful, and worthy of our prayer. ``I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.''

God speaks peace. This peace is much deeper than the warfare on earth I mentioned a minute ago. You see, that warfare is only a symptom of the deeper problem: our separation from God. Separated from God, the human body grows old and frail, and eventually dies like a bunch of grapes that has been separated from the vine. Separated from God, the human soul becomes self-absorbed, narcissistic, egotistic. One symptom is earthly strife. Another is idolatry. Separated from God, the human will no longer wants what He wants, and avoids His Word instead of listening to it.

But when God speaks peace, He gets to the very source of our separation from Him. This is the peace that passes all understanding, based not upon our abilities or even our desires, nor upon anything we do. This peace is based upon Jesus, the Son of God, His Messiah and Christ. Jesus became the Substitute for every sinner. Where God had been patient with Israel and Judah, He finally punished their sins by afflicting Jesus with the torments of hell. The same Jesus made it possible for God to be patient with us, as He calls us to repentance. Everyone, both then and now, who trusts in this forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ, receives that peace which restores us to righteousness in God's sight.

So you can know what God is thinking, at least in part. God Himself tells us His thoughts toward us: ``thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.'' Now you see how His words have come true: ``Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.'' Truly, we have a god worthy of our prayer.

He shows His grace for us to find

He shows His grace for us to find. A lot of folks can tell you stories about finding God's grace. But maybe you don't have such a story from your own life. Some are under the impression that if you don't remember a particular time in your life when you found God's grace, then you aren't much of a Christian. But don't let that worry you. God's grace isn't always a lightning bolt. More often, it's a still, small voice. And we don't have to remember any particular experience to know that we are Christians. All we need is the Gospel, God's effective declaration of forgiveness, which He provides us richly in His Word and His Sacraments. You can trust that you are saved not because of you know or remember, or do; but rather, because of what God has done and now tells you.

This is what God says: ``And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.'' What does it mean to search for God with all the heart? Does it mean that we have to go and do something before we can be assured of His forgiveness? Must we now come forward publicly and commit our lives to Jesus, or pray that His Spirit would now enter our hearts and make us His own? No. Those are more ways of putting conditions on God's unconditional forgiveness. They are ways of adding human works to our salvation, which denies the gospel of Christ and replaces it with another gospel that has no power to save us.

This is what God wrote through His apostle about those who change His Gospel: ``But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.'' Strong words, aren't they? You can see how important is the unconditional Gospel of salvation through Jesus alone in the mind of God. That makes it very important and precious for us.

There is nothing we need to add to God's forgiveness. When we hear His message and trust that it is true, our sins are simply gone, having been nailed with Jesus to the cross. It all depends upon God, and none of it depends upon us. In fact, the message of forgiveness is true even for those who don't trust or believe it. Even their sins were covered by Jesus' death. The problem is that they reject what God has done for them.

But God wants us all to receive His forgiveness. So He is patient with us, sending us to Babylon in order that we might seek Him with all our hearts. Where is Babylon? As a Christian, you probably already know. Our Babylon is the world where we live, work, play, and worship God. As a Christian, you are a foreigner, an alien, a sojourner like Abraham. God has given each of us a life and a calling in this Babylon, but also a yearning for deliverance. The cross you bear is meant to help you in exactly this way, to help you seek God with all your heart. So God says to us in Babylon, ``And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity.''

God has made it possible for us find Him, but not with our minds or our hearts or our feelings. We can't find Him with science or with our decisions. But He made it possible by putting Himself into a box we can reach. God has made Himself available to us in His Word and Sacraments. The Jews in Babylon had His promises from prophets like Jeremiah. We have the Bible, which teaches one doctrine: Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Savior. You have found God when you hear and believe that precious doctrine from heaven.

So through Word and Sacrament, God releases us from our Babylonian captivity, and will bring us to our true home when the time is right. This is how He shows His grace for us to find. When you believe the promise He sealed unto you in Baptism, then He is your God, and you are His redeemed child. When you receive the body and blood of Jesus, then He is yours with His atoning sacrifice from which you partake. In this way, God has given Himself to us in a way we receive Him. He has provided us a Savior we can hold onto.

``Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.'' Today, dear friends, God is near. He will never be far from you again. Here is His promise: ``Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.'' Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.