Show Notes
Jeremiah 23:5-6
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Well, our hope is in the righteousness of God, the King of Glory, who enters into the holy places and brings us with Him. As we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we put our faith in the Lord of hosts, we put our faith in the Lord of Glory, we put our faith also in the Lord of Grace, who graciously gives to us what we do not deserve, the forgiveness of our sins in his presence and love.
Let's pray this morning and ask that God would bless us as we hear more of His Word, both read and then preached. Let's pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank youk for Your Word and the richness it has for us.
Indeed, all the world belongs to youo.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: And in your righteousness you have made all things, you rule all things.
Our sins are great, the sins of mankind, in the sinful nature into which we were born, all of these things separate us from you and righteously deserve your wrath, your justice, your punishment.
But you, who have done a great work of rescuing people from their sin, of rescuing us out of slavery, out of a dominion of darkness, and bringing us into your great kingdom, kingdom of glory and of light, you do this yourself.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Through the great works of the Incarnation of Jesus ministry, of his death, his resurrection, and of course, of his coming again.
We ask that you would help us to hear his words today and that you would give us hearts that would follow and believe, be at work in each individual soul here this morning. Lord, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Well, let's remain standing and turn to Jeremiah, one of the Old Testament prophets, one of the larger or longer prophets of the New Testament. Longer book.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So Jeremiah, chapter 23.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: I'm going to be focusing on verses 5 and 6, but this morning I'll read 1 through 7. So Jeremiah 23:1 7.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Let's hear God's word.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord.
Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people.
You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.
Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
I will set shepherds over them who will care for them. And they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called.
The Lord is our righteousness.
Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives, who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them, they shall dwell in their own land.
May God bless His word to us. You may be seated.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: So if you've been with us but maybe happened to miss last week's sermon, you might be wondering, why is Pastor Chelcha reading from Jeremiah 23? I thought we were in 1st Samuel.
And what we're doing over the course of December is we are thinking about where we left in 1st Samuel with the covenant that God made with David, and thinking about how that shows up in other portions of Scripture, particularly in connection with Jesus and his incarnation, thinking really specifically in different parts of the Bible, outside of Second Samuel, first and Second Samuel, how that covenant that God made with David gets fulfilled, spoken about, talked about in relation to our Savior. So that's what we're doing this morning and we'll be doing throughout this month.
We're beginning with Jeremiah, chapter 23.
Now, Jeremiah 23 comes in the midst of a context of curses and judgments that are coming upon God's shepherds.
Not men who cared for sheep, but men who cared for God's people, metaphorically described as God's flock.
We could call these, and they are called kings.
And throughout the book of Jeremiah, these kings are spoken against in these strong ways that we have summarized here in Jeremiah 23 with this Woe w o e to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.
This word woe, you could think of it as the opposite of bless right instead of blessed be. This is a curse upon right. This is calling down judgment. This is calling God's wrath and his anger, his just wrath, his just anger. Not on people who don't deserve it, because the Lord doesn't do that. But on these people, those who are supposed to protect and guard and guide and care for his people, that was their job. Instead, they destroyed and scattered his sheep.
They did the opposite of what they were supposed to do. Instead of protecting, they harmed. Instead of Gathering, they scattered and left the sheep put the sheep in danger.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: And so here, at the beginning of chapter 23, we have this woe on the evil men, that they will be judged and they will be held accountable.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: The Lord declares, you have scattered my flock and driven them away. You have not attended to them, because, behold, I will attend to you.
Terrifying words from the Lord should be terrifying to those who are the shepherds of Israel.
If you're a shepherd of Israel, this is always good to stop and say, when the Lord says, you have sinned, you have done wrong, what's the response?
The proper response is always faith and repentance to put your trust in him and to the promises of forgiveness that he makes. Turn to him and say, I'm sorry.
I'm turning away from my sins. I'm turning toward you, trusting that you will do what is right and that you will forgive me.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Of course, many people don't do that. And instead of coming under God's grace and his promises, they come under the just judgment for their sin.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So first is condemnation against the shepherds.
Then in verse three, we hear how God will further respond to this.
He's going to take on the job himself.
I will gather. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock, he says. And then in verse four, it says, he will raise up new shepherds who will do what they're supposed to do.
The sheep will be fruitful and multiply under this care of the Lord, and these shepherds will care for them. And the sheep will fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
Then in our focus in verses 5 and 6, we hear about this chief shepherd, this king, who is a very particular one.
Not only will God raise up shepherds to watch over his people, but this one in particular, five and six.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Turns into this extra poetic section and says this. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king.
Now, if you remember from 1st Samuel 7, this is where we are reminded. Oh, right. This is what God had promised right back to David. When this whole kingdom was established under David, he promised David that an offspring of his, a son of his, would rule and reign forever, right? So Jeremiah the prophet is referencing that here, and he says that God will fulfill that promise.
Now pause and think how encouraging that would be if you were in Israel, if you were faithful to God's people and you were feeling the persecution of people that were supposed to protect you, the evils of idolatry around you that were supposed to not even be there, all kinds of terrible things happening that maybe you had very little control over. And you say, oh, Lord, what about the promise to David? Where's that king? Where's that righteousness?
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Well, the Lord is telling them there, I have not forgotten you. I will raise up for David in accordance with my promise to him, a righteous branch.
You could think of this like a branch on a family tree, right? The chosen one promised from David, who will come and what will he do? He will reign as king. And not an unrighteous king, not a destroying king, not a scattering king, but a king who will deal wisely, execute justice and righteousness in the land. This is the king.
This is the kind of king you want. One who deals wisely, who isn't foolish, who isn't taken in by bribes, who doesn't forget his promises or not know God's law. No, he knows these things. And he executes judgment and he executes righteousness, all with great wisdom.
What will be the effect of that kind of king in Israel?
Well, verse 8 or verse 6 tells us, in his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely.
That's what everybody wants, to be saved, to dwell securely, to be in peace.
And this wonderful end of verse 6 then says this, and this is the name by which he shall be called.
The Lord is our righteousness.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: God will do it. God will do it himself, he will save. And then in verses 7 and 8, he it says, people will then at this point in time, when this great branch of David, when this promised offspring comes, this wise king is established, the Exodus will no longer stand as the thing which everybody refers to, to speak about the Lord.
Instead, this new and even better thing than what happened when God brought his people out of Exodus out of Egypt will happen.
So catch it. It's a lot of words, but catch the structure of it.
The days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say.
I'll use a quick formula here. They'll no longer say X, but they'll say Y. Okay, what is X?
It's this, as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
That's good, right? So as God did this, and then you would follow on with some statement after that. But instead people will talk about the Lord in this way, who brought up the and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them, they shall dwell in their own land.
He's saying that there's something that's coming, that is going to surpass the Exodus, a king that is going to surpass David and. And the. And Moses as a leader.
This Messiah, this Christ, this king is coming. And it's going to be good.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: They're going to wait. They're going to sing, oh, come, oh come, Emmanuel, right? This hope of not just some people, but of all the nations. This is the shepherd that is promised in Jeremiah 23.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: What happens when we reject that shepherd?
What happens when the with the God makes this promise? And then we say, I don't want to have any part to do with it.
I don't want anything to do with it. Well, if you're a shepherd, you already know what this means. It means you come under the judgment of God when you say, I will treat your people how I want to treat them, not how you want them to be treated. You come under the judgment of God when a shepherd says to God, I will not do my job. I will not care for the sheep, I will destroy them, I will scatter them. I will live according to my own pleasures and do my own way.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: You will come under the judgment of God.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Because the Lord's not going to let his sheep be destroyed. The Lord is not going to let his sheep be scattered. And that is the promise to. To the sheep. Now, the sheep who reject this promise, the sheep who refuse to follow the shepherd, will be lost, will be scattered, and will be in danger of the same judgment of the shepherds who led them astray.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: So what if instead.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: We take really seriously what God is saying here about this shepherd and this Messiah king?
What if we listen to it and we think about how Jesus fulfills these things, how he becomes this touchstone of redemption, a greater Moses.
What if in hearing about who he is, our confidence is built and we decide that we are going to follow him and none other.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: That's my hope for you this morning.
I want to talk about three things for the rest of our time here in this text.
Three things in which Christ shows us that he is this king, in which we know that Jesus is this one that is promised in Jeremiah 23.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: The first thing we want to think about is how Jesus is the one who does in fact reign with God's own righteousness.
He is the righteous branch. He is the righteous one. He also reigns with righteousness. And as the text says, he is the one who is called. The Lord is our righteousness. Right? So in many ways this text tells us that this coming king and righteousness, you Want to put an equal sign between those two things. This is who he is. This is what he does. It's what he brings forth. It's what he manifests. It's what he makes known.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Now, there were good kings in Israel. David was a good king. Solomon was a good king. There were others, but not perfect.
Moses was a good leader, right? Great leader of the people.
Not perfect. In fact, because of his sins. Because of his.
Well, because of his sins, he never even got to enter into the Promised land.
God's faithful servant, Moses.
God took his life before entering into the Promised land.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Jesus is different.
As good as the other leaders who had come. And as much as God even honored those men, burying Moses personally. And other things.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Jesus reigns with a righteousness that is equal with God.
Not a human kind of righteousness or a, you know, relative to other people, really good kind of righteousness, but perfect in every way.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: God the Son is who Jesus is. Equal with the Father and having everything that the Father has in himself. John 10:30. Jesus says, I and the Father are one.
That's an amazing statement. And it's true. I and the Father are. In John 5:19, Jesus says, Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
So if God rules perfectly in righteousness, no mistakes, no sin, nothing ever. Perfectly wise.
Exactly. Fully true of Jesus as well.
Now, Jesus says these things, and we have many, many proofs that these things are true. He's not just saying stuff.
He said these things and made lots of people upset.
But they were true.
One of the reasons, one of the many, many reasons we know that they're true is, of course, the virgin birth, that Jesus is God the Son. Turn with me, would you, to Luke, chapter one.
Luke, chapter one.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: And let's read together.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Beginning at verse 30.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Okay, I'll read verses 30 through 33, and then 35. Luke, chapter one, verse 30. And the angel said to her, that's Mary. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son.
And you shall call his name Jesus.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: And he will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his Father, David.
And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end.
Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin?
The angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy. The Son of God.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: And that happened.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Mary gave birth to that Son, who then fulfilled all the things that God had promised.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: The virgin birth, the overshadowing of the Spirit, the proclamation of the angel, the names the Son of God, the Most High, doing this work. He is called the Son of the Most High.
There's a lot that's packed in here, right?
There's a lot in this announcement that tells us this thing that's promised in Jeremiah 23, a text you'll hear later tonight from Isaiah and many other Paisley as we'll look at, tell us these promises are being fulfilled in Jesus. And did you notice too, the specific references to the covenant with David?
This one, this righteous branch here he is promised to be given the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: So Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus and the Father are one.
And so he is righteous.
He is the righteous one. He is the Promised One. And his righteousness is important not just because it makes him so great, but it makes him a perfect mediator for our salvation.
A few more verses here to pay attention to. 2nd Corinthians 5:21. I'll read it to you. For our sake he made him, I.e. jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Do you hear those connections? Because he's the righteousness of God. We can become the righteousness of God because he is able to ascend the holy hill of the Lord and dwell with the Lord forever with. We can ascend the holy hill of the Lord on his back, in his arms, on his train, by the power of his grace and his work of justification and sanctification and glorification in us. Galatians 3:13 says, he redeemed us from the curse of the law.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: By becoming a curse for us.
The righteous one who knew no sin became a curse for us. First Peter 2:22 says, he committed no sin, zero sins. Neither was deceit found in his mouth.
One more. First Corinthians 1:30. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification, redemption.
Does that sound like Jeremiah 23?
It does.
And it's not an accident.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Jesus came into this world to fulfill these promises and he is the righteous One, one with the Father always and forever. And all his actions bear this out. And because of them he's our Savior, and we become the righteousness of God. This is why we must follow him because he is and he is God's righteousness, and he reigns with God's righteousness.
The second thing I'll mention is that he is the shepherd who never fails.
He says, I myself will gather the sheep. And he does it.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Do you remember a time as a kid, I suspect most of us had this moment at some point or another where you get lost.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: And that is not a fun feeling. Maybe you're on a field trip and you're looking around for your teacher or your chaperone, who you were supposed to stay with and you thought you were with, or maybe you got away from and they're just not there. Or your mom's not there, your parents not there. Maybe you were in a grocery store, maybe you were at a theme park.
Maybe you're someplace you're not familiar.
And then you see your mom or you see your teacher, and your heart just goes, oh, I'm going to be okay, right? That great fear of being lost, of being scattered, dissipates almost instantly. Sometimes tears of joy and relief as we find the One who is our caretaker, our leader, our protector.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: That's what it feels like when people find Jesus.
That's what it feels like when they finally find a shepherd who is their savior and their protector.
Sometimes tears of relief, gratitude, overwhelming senses of safety, because he is our good Shepherd.
Ezekiel chapter 34 speaks to the similar issues as Jeremiah 23. And I'd like to read a little bit to you from there.
Ezekiel 34, 11, 7.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: The previous verses speak against God's the evil shepherds in a similar way. And then God says this in verse 11.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: For thus says the Lord God. Behold, I myself will search for my sheep, and I will seek them out, as a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. So I will seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country, I will feed them with good pasture. And on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land.
There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord.
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed. And I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them injustice.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: So if you are an evil shepherd of the Lord causing evil shepherd, causing the Lord's flock to go astray, you should be very afraid.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: But if you are one who is seeking, a shepherd seeking to flee to Christ, who sees your sins and your brokenness and your injuries and your brokenheartedness and your lostness and desperately wants to be found, he will find you. He will rescue you and bring you in.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: And he never fails.
That's the point here.
The emphasis here in Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel and many other places is that God himself will do this. I myself, I myself, I, I, I, I.
These are not the eyes of pride and of selfishness. These are the eyes of our security.
That one who is strong enough and safe enough and good enough and perfect will do it for you.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: The final thing we see, and Jesus does this, all these things, and he does the last thing, which is he delivers all these things, surpassing even the Exodus.
Now think about the Exodus for a moment.
There's a whole book of the Bible devoted to it with things that come before it, things that come after it, Psalms written about it, huge histories. This major, major moment, right?
What could possibly surpass that? The breaking of the empire of Egypt, the breaking of Pharaoh and his grip, the 10 plagues, the overtaking of the army through the Red Sea, the people coming out, God's miraculous feeding of them in the wilderness.
What could possibly be replace that?
[00:28:36] Speaker A: What we have experienced has replaced that.
The Lord taking people not just out of one country and moving them into another land, he did that.
But taking people out of all countries, from all over the world, gathering in his sheep and establishing them in a heavenly country that is forever.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Now there's a lot of ways in which that heavenly country is described. Sometimes it's described in terms of pictures of Israel.
So the dew on the grass and the ravines and the grazing land of Israel, those are pictures of heaven.
And sometimes the pictures are given in a prophetic form, as we have in the Apocalypse, the Revelation of John at the end of the Bible, where it's described in these fantastic terms of gleaming gold and giant jewels and angels.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Places where the Lord said, a place where the Lord says he'll wipe away every tear from our eye.
A place that is so beautiful and glorious, he describes it as the new heavens and the new earth. And after the old has passed away.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: And this is something that is explained and fulfilled in different ways. But it was always present and always waiting for. We're told in Hebrews 11 that the people who. Even those who came into Canaan were the people who were waiting for a better country, a heavenly one.
Our hope is the same as Abraham's hope. Not ultimately Canaan, not ultimately Israel, but the place, the permanent place that the Lord God has promised for us.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Jesus delivers this great messiah king, this righteous branch of David, fulfilling those promises. He delivers everything on a greater scale. He, of course, is a greater deliverer than David or Moses.
The scope of it is greater. Not just Israel from Egypt, but all of his people from all of the nations.
A greater fulfillment instead of temporary protection in the land forever secure and under peace.
And of course, a greater place. Hebrews 11 also says that this place is a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: That's a good house.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: The world is filled with rotten and misleading and unfaithful shepherds and kingdoms and empires.
But Jesus is different.
He's different than all of them.
He is the greater judge, a greater executioner of righteousness. He executes righteousness.
He is the one who deals wisely and perfectly. And he is our Savior. And we can trust him.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Because he reigns with God's own righteousness, because he himself will do it and will not and has not failed, and because his redemption is even greater than the Exodus.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Jesus alone is the shepherd king that everyone was waiting for and that we now know and trust in.
He is the one who has promised to David. He is the true and righteous branch that fulfills the old and does something new.
Brothers and sisters, let him carry you. Let him lead you.
Trust him.
Follow him.
Because he delivers us out of a domain of darkness and into a kingdom of light and righteousness.
Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we have sinned greatly. We have followed our own ways. We have followed our own paths.
Our sin and our sinfulness has separated us from you and from your presence. Presence.
But in your grace, in your goodness and your mercy, you have come into this world to draw in your people, to deliver these great.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Promises and to fulfill those promises that all who trust and follow you will be saved.
Lord, we ask you that you would do as you have promised.
That you would rescue us out of.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: The difficulties that we face in our own hearts, in our lives, in our world.
That you would help us to not be fooled.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: By the false Christs, the antichrists, the pretend ultimate kings and kingdoms, but instead to see all things in proper order, according to your word.
To recognize that Jesus alone is ruler over all, and that we can be obedient even to our governors and our countries.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: But always doing so under him, always looking to him, always trusting him and him alone.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: As the One who has come in your righteousness and who has established us in that same righteousness.
Lord, we ask that you would bring to us the forgiveness of our sins.
We ask that you would help us to be rooted and steady and free in Christ.
We ask that you would help us to not fear, but to celebrate this good news of great joy and to declare it to the whole world that many might be rescued out of sin and out of blindness and out of slavery and come into your marvelous light.
We thank you, finally, for these prophecies from a long time ago that were fulfilled perfectly as you said they would be in Jesus Christ our Savior. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.
