The Anatomy of Hope
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The Anatomy of Hope
Jeremiah 17
Main Idea: The trusting life is the blessed life.
- Trusting Self Is the Cursed Life (17:5-6).
- Trusting God Is the Blessed Life (17:7-8).
- God Knows Us More Than We Know Ourselves (17:9-11).
- Our Trust Is in the Lord (17:12-18).
So there you are in the middle of a crisis. Pressure is mounting on you, and you must make a decision. Gratefully you have already concluded that your immediate instinct in the moment was not correct. God, in that way, has saved you from yourself. Now to reflect and make the wisest choice. As you think about this, two options become apparent: you can trust in what you think is best, or you can trust in what God says is best.
As a pastor I counseled people countless times who made choices contrary to Scripture. They trusted in themselves, ignored Scripture, and then lived with the consequences of that choice. At times, perhaps most times, the person acted in what he thought was the wisest way because he did not know Scripture speaks to the issue. Some acted out of ignorance. However, and this is important, this is willful ignorance. If we do not know how God would lead us, it’s often because we do not know his Word. But ignorance is a choice. God’s Word brings life (Ps 119:40). To refuse to learn the Word is to refuse to learn to live. We can hurt ourselves and the ones we love by proactive neglect of the Word as much as by reactive rejection.
So, to speak plainly, we have to decide whom we will trust. Will we trust our own wishes and desires, or will we trust God? The problem you might be facing is not really the problem. The real dilemma is whether you will trust God.
The problem you are facing is simply the crucible in which you will exercise your freedom (the choice to do what you want) with true liberty (the freedom to do what is right). The result? Blessing or cursing. The blessed life is the trusting life.
In this way the road to the blessed life is counterintuitive. We are not trusting in ourselves; we are trusting in God. The trusting life is the blessed life.
So, in the midst of crises, whom do we trust?
Context (17:1-4)
Judah’s sin is profound; this has been established. However, in this chapter God, in the same spirit as chapter 13, says there is no hope. Sin has left a permanent stain that cannot be removed; it is written on something more permanent than paper. The language is powerful (v. 1). The sin God has in mind is the specific sin of idolatry (vv. 2-3), and it comes with the price of losing the inheritance God wanted to give them (v. 4). Instead of living in the promised land, they will be serving in someone else’s land—a land they do not even know.
Once again this is the ignorance brought on by sin. When they do not want to know God through his word, they will now wander in a land they do not know. All this ignorance is cultivated by a desire to know anything but God—to put something in the place of God as an object of worship. What they did with statues of wood and metal, we do more creatively.
Another specific sin God has in mind in the end of the chapter is the sin of breaking the Sabbath (vv. 19-27). While this may seem like a small sin compared to the sin of idolatry, the Sabbath-day ordinances were designed to make Israel unique. It was a sign of the covenant. To reject Sabbath observance was to refuse to honor God, who rested from his work on the seventh day.
The following verses reflect a shift in tone. Verses 5-11 are a collection of wisdom sayings, the kind of literature typical of Proverbs. As with Proverbs, the collected sayings are not necessarily clustered into groups by topic. However, there seems to be a theme here. While there is a curse for disobedience (vv. 5-6) and blessing for righteousness (vv. 7-8), we cannot even know our own hearts (vv. 9-10)! Our hope then is not in ourselves. Our hope is in God who sits on his throne (vv. 12-13). This is why Jeremiah can have hope in God as his refuge from trouble (vv. 14-18).
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The best way to understand this text is to meditate on each of its individual components. So, where is our confidence? Whom do we trust?
Trusting Self Is the Cursed Life
Jeremiah 17:5-6
The person who calls his own strength his greatest strength is the one who is cursed. This reminds us of Jeremiah 9:23-24.
This is what the Lord says:
The wise person should not boast in his wisdom;
the strong should not boast in his strength;
the wealthy should not boast in his wealth.
But the one who boasts should boast in this:
that he understands and knows me—
that I am the Lord, showing faithful love,
justice, and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Notice the juxtaposition in 17:5-6. If a man calls himself his strength, he turns away from the Lord. The two ideas are tied together. To trust in your own strength is to turn from the Lord. The result is that he will be like a dry bush in the desert—parched and alone. This is what makes self-consultation so dangerous. We depend on our own knowledge and not on the wisdom of God. In the end we are solitary and withered.
We are not cacti that can exist and thrive on little water. We need the water of the Word to refresh us and bring life to us. So when someone trusts in himself, the result is that he is alone in that determination.
Trusting God Is the Blessed Life
Jeremiah 17:7-8
Contrary to the cursed life is the blessed life. Look at the description. Blessed people have their confidence in the Lord. In other words, their moral, spiritual, and emotional compass understands that a relationship with God is the true north. Following him is where life is. When God’s presence with us is our ambition, we have true direction, true wisdom, a true path.
The passage immediately brings to mind Psalm 1. The blessed man is like a tree that is “planted beside flowing streams.” In other words, the blessed man is fruitful and productive. He prospers in what he does. The living tree does not fear when the pressure of heat is on. It is not worried about drought. It will not cease to produce fruit. Why would it not be worried about drought? The reason is not because it is immune to drought. The reason it has no fear is because of its location. It need not relocate to avoid the drought. The tree is located near the water. The drought will come, but the tree has a sustainable source of moisture in the water. God’s Word, according to Jesus, is living water. The secret to the tree is not its strength but its source. Fear is quelled by its location.
This is a picture of the believer who has a right relationship with God through his Word. It’s not that he will not go through the fire of persecution but that he will be sustained through the Word.
This is an important point. Our faith is in God, not in our faith. If our confidence is in our ability to live out our faith, this is simply a religious way of trusting in ourselves. I have seen in my own heart the temptation to have confidence in my own environment, my own way of thinking, my own Christian subculture. I find that the heart is just as likely to make an idol of good works as it is of material things. God knows our hearts.
God Knows Us More Than We Know Ourselves
Jeremiah 17:9-11
We might say that we know our own hearts, but God thinks otherwise. God asserts that we do not have the wisdom to assess the deceitfulness of our own hearts (v. 9). This is a shocking thought. My own mind is a poor EKG for my heart. The results are always skewed with the optimism of my own perceived goodness. I really can’t know my own heart. But God does (v. 10). So the Word functions like a mirror. It exposes us to ourselves.
This is because the Word exposes us to the presence of God. When we are exposed to his presence, then our own sickness is properly diagnosed. Like Isaiah, who saw a vision of the Lord and, when seeing God clearly, thought he was doomed (Isa 6). His assessment was that he was “ruined.” Through. He was a man with a wicked mouth who came from a wicked people, and he was in the fearsome presence of the holy God.
Jeremiah follows this observation with an example of someone who has been self-deceived (v. 11). This proverb asserts that those who make money in unjust ways are like a bird that sits on another bird’s eggs. However, in the end, what is “hatched” will fly away.
So our confidence is not in our own flesh because there is a curse there. Instead, we are experiencing the blessing of trusting in the Word of God. Yet we cannot trust in our perception of our walk with God. So where do we put our confidence? Here is a wonderful picture.
Our Trust Is in the Lord
Jeremiah 17:12-18
A throne in heaven awaits those who trust in God (v. 12). This takes the mind to Revelation 4–5, where John paints the vivid and timeless picture of a throne in heaven. The throne is surrounded with creatures, elders, saints, and all living things who bow down and acknowledge that God is Lord of all things. In the next chapter of Revelation, John sees the identical scene with the exception that joining God at the throne is the Lamb of God. All of the praise centers on God on the throne and the Lamb. So, to be clear, this really exists. There is a place in heaven we will see one day where the glory of God sits.
As a result of this reality,
Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who abandon you will be put to shame.
All who turn away from me will be written in the dirt,
for they have abandoned the Lord,
the fountain of living water. (Jer 17:13)
Notice the contrast between the writing here and the writing of verse 1. There the sins were permanent and would be remembered. And here, in a sad irony, the remembered sins lead to forgotten people. Their names and lives will dissipate as quickly as a name written in the dust. Why? They have abandoned the source of living water. This again brings to mind Jeremiah 2:13. They have traded off living water for stagnant cisterns that can hold no water.
This is the theological reality. Our trust is in God and his Word because our hearts are fixed on the coming reality of seeing the throne of the God who judges all.
Now the proverbs are over. Jeremiah is facing a personal dilemma. With all the trouble around him, he simply asks that God would be his refuge, his hiding place for protection during this time (vv. 14-18).
Conclusion
Imagine going to a doctor. He asks you how you feel. You explain your symptoms and talk for a while. Then, with no test, without examining you, he diagnoses you. That would be horrible! No doctor would ask how we feel then write a script based on our own self-perception.
Spiritually we don’t make a prognosis based on self-diagnosis. There is a sense in which self-confidence is natural. In order to function in society, we must believe we have some such capacity. Yet there is a difference between a God-honoring confidence and self-reliance. The former comes from knowing who we are in Christ, the latter from an overinflated sense of our ability to lead ourselves.
Rather than trusting ourselves, we should trust God, who knows us better than ourselves. The trusting life is the blessed life.
Reflect and Discuss
- What is the particular sin Judah is indicted for in 17:2-3?
- Judah is guilty of another sin in 17:19-27. Name it.
- What is the connection between Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17:7-8?
- Why is there a shift in tone in 17:5-11?
- Jeremiah discusses the ignorance of the human heart in 17:9-10. Why is the adage “Listen to your heart” poor advice? What does Scripture say about the condition of the heart and man’s ability to discern it?
- Is it possible to trust in your own strength and trust God at the same time? Are these two behaviors mutually exclusive?
- What is faith, and why is it absolutely necessary for the Christian life?
- Discuss the irony of this passage. How is it that Judah’s permanent sins would lead to a forgettable future?
- Is there a difference between God-honoring confidence and self-reliance? If so, explain.
- In what way does this passage undercut the mundane patterns of religiosity that permeate our hearts?