This Week's Sermon Passage

I'm going to try to do a new thing once a week. Look at the bible passage that Jim is going to preach on for the morning, and try to learn from it. :) I'm hoping that this will help me hear the morning sermon better while caring for a three year old in church. have no clue what day I will do this one...but suspecting it will be Fridays as Jim does the order of worship on Thursdays for the most part.

Sunday's passage will be Jeremiah 9:12-26

12 Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? 13And the LORD says: "Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, 14but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. 15Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. 16 I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them."
17Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skillful women to come;
18let them make haste and raise a wailing over us,
that our eyes may run down with tears
and our eyelids flow with water.
19For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
'How we are ruined!
We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land,
because they have cast down our dwellings.'"

20Hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
and let your ear receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a lament,
and each to her neighbor a dirge.
21For death has come up into our windows;
it has entered our palaces,
cutting off the children from the streets
and the young men from the squares.
22Speak, "Thus declares the LORD: 'The dead bodies of men shall fall
like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves after the reaper,
and none shall gather them.'"

23Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."

25"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."

Though his immediate text is Jeremiah 9:23-24

23Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."

from this immediate text these are my thoughts....... What do I boast in? Do I boast in myself, in my hubby, in my son, in the things that "I" do, in the fact that 'my hubby' was nice and did thus and such so that I could do this other thing? This text clearly points to the error of such thinking. My only boast should be that I know the Lord. That I want to understand God and his ways. That my Lord is the one who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. God delights in these things.

I have to admit....that's not often how I think. I am learning to thank God for the things he allows me to get done each day, but so often my first thought is .... I did good today. I got this that and the other thing done. I did good. I fail to acknowledge God in the doing, and I fail to boast in what I should...that I am getting to know God better, that I am daily understanding some of his ways better. THIS is what my primary focus should be, it makes the rest of life fall into place so much better. I want to be a delight to my Lord and Saviour and this passage teaches me how I can do that. So then..... let me do it. :)