The Anatomy of Hope

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.