It's Always Too Soon to Quit
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund uses this singular weekend to look at the book of Jeremiah, who was often called the weeping prophet. We see how his ministry was met with frustration, how he feels about how things that have happened, and 3 things we need if we're not going to quit something significant in our lives.
Message Transcript
Hey, welcome again to Orchard Hill online. We are hopeful that these online only weekends will be winding down soon. Our team is busy making plans for how to return to in-person services. Hopefully, we'll have an update on that soon. Next weekend, we will be all online. It's Memorial Day weekend. And we have the special privilege of welcoming Ken Carlson to speak again, as has been our tradition on Memorial Day to think about our nation and lives that have been dedicated to not just our nation, but to something higher. And so, we hope that next weekend, that'll be part of your plan. And then we'll see kind of where things are moving and what we're able to do.
I just want to thank so many of you for the ways that you have continued to stay engaged. We've had just an increase in some people in groups. So many of you have given so generously during this time. Thank you, that has allowed the church to continue to function at a really high level and we're just so grateful for the church family. And we know many of you have given to the Eleos fund and we've been able to use that to help some of our church family who have experienced a real downturn during this time. And so that's been really a cool thing to see.
So today, we're between Mother's Day and Memorial Day. We're not really in a series, which gives me some freedom to choose something based on the moment rather than just taking the next text that's in line. And so, we have something that I hope will be an encouragement to you, but let's just spend a moment praying together first. Father, we ask today as we're gathered in homes and in different places, and at different times, watching and participating in this time together that you would speak. God, I pray that my words would reflect your word and content, and in tone, and an emphasis. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Well, today I want to speak from Jeremiah chapter 20, verses 7-13. I'd like to read it, just so that we have it in our minds. And this is really a message about quitting. And I've called this, It's Always Too Soon to Quit because Jeremiah was somebody who had been called by God to do something difficult. And when we encounter this kind of personal statement that he makes here, he is really at a place of wanting to quit. In fact, in Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 2, he basically says, I wish that I could just go do something else altogether than whatever I'm doing. I don't know if you've ever felt that way. If, as you have walked through a different part of your life with hardships, or maybe some kind of financial difficulties, or maybe it's a relationship that you're in right now, or maybe it is an overt kind of ministry opportunity, maybe it's your business, maybe it's schooling, maybe it's just quarantine.
I heard somebody say the other day that there's been an increase in three things during this quarantine: drug alcohol use, which isn't entirely surprising, an increase in pornography use, and then there's been an increase in domestic abuse. If you think about it, those are things for all kinds of people that could cause us to say, either that's an evidence of wanting to quit a battle, or somebody related to something in that saying, I'm done, I'm out. And so, let me just read this and then I think we'll see some things that are helpful to us today, you, wherever we are, you are in this time.
This is Jeremiah chapter 20, verses 7-13. "You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So, the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked." This is the word of the Lord.
Now, I turned to Jeremiah today, because Jeremiah had been called to this prophetic role. He's been called by some the weeping prophet. And if you've been around Orchard Hill for the last month or so, we studied a minor prophet Joel, minor, meaning shorter. Jeremiah is one of the major prophets, a longer book. But Jeremiah's ministry was met by constant frustration. All the things he hoped for, all the ways that he probably envisioned God working, went terribly wrong. In fact, by getting this moniker, the weeping Prophet was one who kept proclaiming things. And people didn't listen, they ridiculed him, and they mocked him. In other words, everything that he hoped for seemed to be dashed. And here we get his kind of moment of saying, here is how I feel about how things have gone for me in my life.
And I believe, from these verses, we see three ingredients or three things that we need if we are not going to quit something that's significant in our lives. And the first is this and that is, we really need to be persuaded is what I'm going to say. And this is in verse 9, it says, but if I mentioned your word, and speak anymore, in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire. And what he's saying is God has called me to do something. And so, whenever I say I'm done, I'm done speaking, I'm done doing what God's called me to do, he says I can't because it's in me in a significant way.
Now Jeremiah received kind of a clear call of God in Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5 and following, where we see God saying, here's what I want you to do. And Jeremiah, as I said in chapter 9, verse 2 says, I want to basically quit. And there are different ways to quit. You know this, but one way that we quit is by literally walking away, just saying, I'm done. I'm not going to continue doing this anymore. But there's a more subtle way to quit, and that is to say, I'm staying, but I'm done. Some people do this in their marriages. They say, I'm not actually going to leave my marriage because I don't want to be that person, but I'm not going to give my best effort to this anymore. I'm not going to quit my job, but they're not going to get the best of me anymore, because I'm just going to mail it in. I'm not going to walk out on my kids, but I've just had it with investing in them. You know the kind of quitting that we're talking about. But Jeremiah here says I can't do this.
Now, he does say in verse 7, he says, you’ve deceived me, Lord. And this is a really interesting word picture. If you study it, what you'll see is this word is used in another part of the Bible for somebody who seduces a virgin, in other words deceives and entraps almost. And this is a shocking word picture for a prophet of God to say, God, this is how I feel about how you've worked. And God you gave me this call, Jeremiah 1, and now I feel deceived. I feel like you led me to something that is completely unsustainable in my life. And my guess is if you ever feel that way, like you've been drawn to something and then you've met with frustration, you say, God, where are you? Why did you lead me into this marriage? Why did you give me these kids? Why did I do this? Why have I gone down this path? And I'm sure even in this time, some of us have even thought this around business, like God, I thought that you led me to start this business and now I'm having a hard time even making ends meet because of this pandemic in the world. God, you deceived me.
It's not an uncommon way to think we may not always say it out loud. But I love that the Scripture is so raw, so honest, that we see this prophet, this renowned Prophet saying, God, this is how I feel. But here's what he was persuaded of, verse 9 again, he becomes persuaded of this idea that God had called him. Now, this is a phrase, we don't use the word calling much anymore. And what I mean by this is, rarely do people say well, I feel called by God to such and such. Now there are some people, some maybe tribes of Christianity that used that language a lot. Our particular kind of corner of the vineyard doesn't use that language a whole lot, but I wonder if there's something lost in that. And here's why I say that because there are some things that are clear calls of God for all Christians. And sometimes it would be good to say, if I'm engaged in this thing God has called me. And so, I wonder if just getting clear about a call of God helps us to be persuaded enough to say, I can continue without quitting.
But sometimes when we step back and say everything's kind of equally an option, then we don't feel a sense of calling. Now, it is true that God guides and provides, where God guides, he provides, you probably heard that statement. But here's something that's also true, sometimes God guides by what he doesn't provide. In Acts chapter 16, Paul and some of his associates were feeling called by God to go to Asia and we're told that God prevented them from going. And so, their mission turns somewhere else. And sometimes what God does is by not providing or not doing what we think should be done, he's actually leading us somewhere else.
And the questions really are these and that is how do we know what is really a call of God? And how do we know when it changes? And those are not easy questions. But I would suggest that there are some things if you're engaged in them, until there's a clear call of God away from them, you can say this is a call of God. I think God has called every person to repent, to turn to God and to live a life of character or to reflect God's image. So whether you are a longtime Christian, or you're just kind of saying, I'm not sure where I fit into the spiritual realm, there is a call of God to say I want you to have a relationship with me, the creator of the universe.
If you're married, I think there's a call to that marriage until God calls you to something else. And that would be a clear call by a series of circumstances. If you are parenting, there's a call to be engaged in church and community, there's a call to use your gifts to serve. I think there's a call to social justice.
Just in recent days, the story of Ahmaud Aubrey has become well known in our country. And many people are posting things you know, I run with Maud. I think there's some beauty to people just saying I understand that what Martin Luther King Jr. said more than a generation ago now is still true. And that is injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever affects one directly affects all of us indirectly. And there's a call to say, I'm not going to stand by as injustice happens and just act as if it's nothing.
Now that doesn't mean that you have to post I run with Maud. I personally don't like to post anything that is anything just because it's just kind of my thing to not feel like I always have to decide between what's posted or not posted. But my point is this and that is there is a call of God to say I don't just stand idly by while injustice happens. Now let me just push here for a moment, though, it's easy, because right now, I run with Maud is socially couth. In other words, everyone says this is important, almost everyone, to make your post. But there are other injustice issues that are crying out right in front of us. In fact, in our day and age, there are more fetuses eliminated, babies killed, however you want to say that then there are a lot of other forms of injustice. And a lot of times what people do is they'll say, well, I'll get excited about this because it's socially acceptable. But I don't want to say anything about another kind of evil. Now my point is this, and that is, is there's a calling from God to people to say stand up for causes of the oppressed. And that means that you can say, these are some of the things that God has called me to.
Now you may say, well, that doesn't help me personally. I mean, what is my calling, and without going into a lot of scripture, a lot of ideas on it, the idea of calling is to say there are some things the Bible says, straightforwardly, these are calls for everybody. But discerning your own call is a little harder. It's not an easy thing to do. But sometimes God may even change that call over time. Sometimes he'll use circumstances to change the call. That's what I was saying about Acts 16 where sometimes some will say I think this is what God wants. And then God, by not providing a certain thing, may move us in a different direction which causes us to say, okay, this isn't what God is doing. But once you can say this is something God's called me to, then you can say it's always too soon to quit.
I like how a man named V. Raymond Edman, who was a president of Christian College, called Wheaton College, once said it, he said, "Never doubt in the dark, what God has shown you in the light." Never doubt in the dark with God has shown you in the light. Sometimes, situations will come swarming at you in such a way that you'll say I don't know where to go. But go back to when you said I felt clear and God moved me to this, and then say that is my calling, and I will not quit. And if you're in a place where God has moved in a new way, changed the situation, then you can say okay, the situation has been changed but let it be a clear calling to move on, not just saying very simply that you want something different.
And here's a second thing, and that is we don't just need to be persuaded, but I think we need to have perspective. Verses 10 and 11 says, "I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived;" In other words, people are plotting against Jeremiah. And then in verse 11, he says, "But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior;"
It's important that you and I realize that our circumstances don't define us or our path forward. One of the reasons that Jeremiah was disheartened is because people had turned on him and had said, he's not worthy, or he doesn't have anything to offer, or all he does is pronounce doom and gloom and nothing happens. And here he's saying, in essence, but I will say that I am going to sense God's leading in my life, and I'm going to continue no matter what my circumstances are. And his perspective ultimately became saying, I can look at what is happening here, and I can say, but God is with me. And he says this phrase, it says, but the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior. Some translations say, he's with me like a dread champion. And that word mighty or dread is a Hebrew word that has the idea of ruthless or fierce. In other words, this isn't an image that you typically account for God. I mean, usually when we think of God we think of a serene picture. But here, Jeremiah's picture is God is with me like a ruthless, fierce and the word warriors, the word champion, one who's able to do anything. In other words, what he does when he's in the midst of this time of defeat as he looks at his circumstances and says, these are not good circumstances, but I have a resource that is bigger and better than any circumstance that I'm currently facing.
And this just reminds us very simply that if our problems are too big, then our vision of God is likely too small. In other words, if we're sitting around saying this circumstance is a circumstance that I have no ability or no power to do anything about, and you haven't factored God into it at all, then you don't understand what God's role is in it. Because if you are doing something God has called you to, then he will give you what you need to endure it. And what that means is that if your problems currently seem too big for you, then your vision or your reliance on God is too small. Now, I realize that in saying that, emotionally, what happens when we're struggling with continuing or doing what God has called us to do, is that we end up a lot of times saying well, I just don't feel like I can continue in this. And it's that our circumstances have become what we look at instead of at the power or the reliability of God. And so, we don't rest.
When my wife and I were first married, we had all kind of hand me down, collected furniture, which is typically what you do when you're married. And there was one chair that we had that was this tan recliner. And it was a really comfortable chair and it you know, had been probably cast off several times by the time we had it. And I used to love sitting in that chair. And then one day we had some mice in our house, and we traced that the mother mouse had gone under this chair into kind of the bedding of the chair and had baby mice. And once I traced that, I could never sit in that chair the same way again. Because now when I would sit in the chair, I would look at the chair and I'd be like, this chair is gross. I don't want to sit in this chair. And all of a sudden, the chair had changed, but the circumstances had changed in such a way that I could no longer rest in the chair.
And here's why I tell you that story. And that is, sometimes what happens in your life, my life, is we move through a series of events that make us think that God is no longer worthy of us to rest in. And what we need to do is recapture a picture of who God is and have a perspective that says God is the dread champion, the mighty warrior, the one who can work in ways that I don't understand or see.
Now, maybe today you're in a storm, the storm you didn't anticipate and think you would be in. And as you walk through it, you're just saying, I just hurt so much I need to find another path forward. But if God has called you to a certain place and time, then you can say, I know that God will work in this situation in a way that I need.
And then here's a final thing that I think that we need, and that is, we need to offer praise. And I think we see this in verse 13. Because this comes just almost out of nowhere, feels like it's almost out of nowhere, it says, "Sing to the Lord! Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked." Do you know what praise is? Praise is like spiritual aspirin. Do you know what aspirin does? Aspirin doesn't actually fix anything. It just raises your threshold of pain. And what praise does, is it raises your threshold of pain, it allows you to say, I can deal with hardship, because I know who God is, and I know what he has done. And you see what happens when you and I start to praise God, when we say, God doesn't just call me to keep doing everything in a perfect way, but he's the one who has done what I can't do on my behalf. So yes, he calls me to perfection, but he answers the perfection for me in Jesus Christ. Then I begin to say, this is the god that's worthy of worship.
You see, for a lot of people, what we do is we start down a path and we say, God has a standard and I'm going to reach that standard. I'm going to be that person. And then what happens is we say I can’t, and we want to quit. And it's actually our praise of God that says, God you through Jesus Christ have done for me what I could never do, therefore, it is your goodness that I worship that changes our capacity to continue.
There's a story that's been told about how the hymn, It Is Well, was written. Let me read just a short section about this. It was written by a man named Horatio Spafford. And here's what is said about it, "This hymn was written after a traumatic event in Stafford's life. The first two were the death of his four-year-old son and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which ruined him financially. He had been a successful lawyer and had been invested significantly in property in the area of Chicago that was extensively damaged by the fire." So, 1871 he's a lawyer, he has a family, one of his sons dies in this family, one of his children, and he has economic ruin. "His business interests were further hit by economic downturn of 1873 at which time he'd plan to travel to Europe with his family on this ship. In a late change of plans, he sent his family ahead while he delayed on business concerning a zoning problem that he was having after the Chicago fire. While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship that his family was on, sank, after it had a collision with another vessel at sea. All four of Stafford's daughters died. So now he's lost his son and his four daughters. And his wife, Anna survived, and she sent him what is now kind of a famous telegram that says, saved alone. Shortly afterward, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write the words of the song, It Is Well With My Soul.
Now think about that. Economic devastation, all of his kids dead, traveling to meet his wife, who obviously will be grieving because of the loss of their children, and he writes the words that many generations have now sung. It is well with my soul. When peace like a river attendeth my way, it is well with my soul because I know the God who holds all things.
You know this pandemic that we're in is hard for many. For some, it isn't really that hard, at least not yet because all that's changed is, they work from home and they're thinking this is pretty dope. I get to work in my bathrobe instead of having to go to, you know, an office somewhere. And for others, they've lost people that they know, or they have been in a place where all of the work that they've put into a small business is being threatened. And now there's the added tension of saying it isn't just the pandemic, it feels like the decisions of others to not allow businesses to operate. And there's all of this angst and you're saying, how do I continue? Well, the answer for Jeremiah was get clear about your calling, be persuaded what God has called you to so that you know it's of God. Have a perspective that says, there's a God who has worked on my behalf, who is with me like a mighty champion, a dread warrior, and then offer praise to God in the midst of it because it will raise your spiritual temperature. And the way that you and I can actually do this is not just by simply saying, I'm going to try harder to be more full of endurance, but it's by saying, I look to the one who has endured on my behalf. And in doing that and looking to Jesus Christ, now I'll have the capacity to continue to move forward.
You see, my standing with God, you're standing with God, is not because we endure, it's because of what Jesus Christ has done. And that, lets us say now I can continue to trust and to move forward even in the hardest of times. So, let me just ask you today, where are you? Which part of this whole message do you need to hear the most? Do you need to have perspective on who God is? Do you need to decide again what is being asked of you by God, what your calling is? Do you need to offer praise?
You know, the gospel, the message of Christianity, really is good news for quitters. I mean, think about Peter in the New Testament. Jesus, I'll never deny you no matter whatever happens, I'll never deny you and then three different times. When somebody says weren't you one of his, weren't you with him, he's like, no, not me, never. And then Jesus restores Peter, even after he quit. And the reason that's such good news is it means that you and I can say, it's always too soon to quit. I want to stay true to whatever God has called me. But it also means that there's no fear. If you do quit, if you do step away, the good news of Jesus Christ is that there's a loving extension of grace and an opportunity to get back up. But don't let that be a reason to step away from the good things that can be on the other side of saying, God, I will be faithful, where you have placed me, right now, to do the hard things so that I can see you work in my life in this time.
Let's pray together. Father, we ask today as we're gathered that you would show each of us where it is that you're calling us in what is of you so we would be clear. Remind us of who you are, your great power, your great care, and help us to praise you in such a way that we have the capacity to continue even in something that's hard. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
