Jeremiah 1

The Call of Jeremiah
⁴ The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew ^[1] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

⁶ “Ah, Sovereign LORD ,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.”
⁷ But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. ⁸ Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD .
⁹ Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Footnotes

1.       1:5 Or chose

 

 

The Call

 

Why is it that whenever someone comes across youth and young adults in college that one of the first questions that comes out of their mouth is “What are you going to do with your life?” As I have gotten older and found myself asking the same question of people I think it has to do with people who are looking for ideas, either for themselves or for others.

 

Jeremiah is told from an early age what it is he is going to do with his life. Like so many before him Jeremiah also has a response as to why he can’t or won’t be able to perform the call that God has made on his life. “I am just a boy and I cannot speak”

God responds, “Don’t worry I will give you words”.

 

God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

-Moses

-Isaiah

-Peter

-Each of us

 

We are all gifted for ministry of some form.

            -We have specialized stengths

            -It is the same spirit present with us, and it is through the Spirit that we have our gifts, we all have some part of all the gifts. (18, 26, 37 or so gifts depending on the inventory you use).

            -All Christians have all of the gifts in some part.

            -How to find our ministry. Find your strength and grow.

 

How often I have struggled with the question that I have posed to God, “What do you want me to do?” In talking through my struggles with call over the years and in reading a book this month “The Gifted Pastor”, a dear friend shared the words of Micah with me. ‘Do Justice, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly with Your God.’ This is what is required of each of us.  It is just this simple. Jesus shows it one more time clearly in the temple dealing with the woman hunched over for years. The law forbids this in some ways.

 

Jeremiah faces in his call the call to destruction. Jesus shows us an example of how destruction can come in some form. We may be called to destroy Idols, like Gideon, ideas, like Jesus, Unrighteousness, like the prophets, and hypocrisy, also like Jesus.

But it comes with the call to plant and build as well. What do we want to build and plant?

 

The use of all of the gifts is to God’s glory. There are gifts that people have that look like spiritual gifts, but are not because they do not glorify God.