Jeremiah 27:2-3 – Called Before Kings

2 “Thus says the Lord to me: ‘Make for yourselves bonds and yokes, and put them on your neck, 3 and send them to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. Jeremiah 27:2-3, New King James Version

My wife and I have started watching The Good Wife. In the show's second season, the title character's teenage daughter is starstruck at the opportunity to meet a singer and social media sensation. The friend who accompanies her is just as excited but uses the opportunity to present the celebrity with the Gospel.

This kind of reach beyond our ordinary station has a solid Scriptural foundation. In Jeremiah 27:2-3, God specifically tells His prophet, condemned in his own country, dismissed in his own hometown, to confront the nations around him with the reality of sin's cost. It is God's prerogative to open such hearts, from pharaohs, to kings, to actresses, to authors whose reach we admire. It is our job to be obedient.

We are checked by what I call the Roger Kahn Phenomenon. In Boys of Summer, he recalls dreams of wanting to be a major-league baseball player. Confronted with the reality that he was not close to being the best player on his camp team, he reasons outward. If there are better players here, there must be many better players elsewhere. He adjusts his sites accordingly and becomes a sportswriter.

We all make similar adjustments. Even Paul in Scripture says he learned to be content. Perhaps we over learn the impact of that lesson, though, or perhaps we mislabel as contentment a failure to stoke the fires of faith in relational settings. We perform a calculus as to how much influence we need to have over a given person before the Gospel can take root in their hearts and transform their character, and we have no basis for this man-centered math.

Unlike Roger Kahn's career aspirations, and ours, God's Word is not restrained by the talent or confidence of the deliverer. It will accomplish what He sends it forth to accomplish whether it comes from a teenager's tract, a pariah's visual aid, or from the mouth of a prisoner like Paul whom world would assume would better use his words to justify himself.

The very unexpected incongruity of our reach, brothers and sisters, as we come as close as humanly possible to presenting the Gospel to every living thing may be what God uses to get His message due consideration. An actress on Criminal Minds who befriends the awkward Dr. Reid surely has real-life company when she confesses that everybody in her usual circle wants something. How much would a presentation of God's love and justice whereby we have nothing to gain stand out?

The restraints of emotion and habit that keep us from reaching above our station are understandable and can be outgrown by faith in acts of courage when we repurpose Lady Macbeth's urgent to screw our courage to the sticking post,

if not automatically an everyday habit. Tim Keller urges, perspective in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "On the one hand, don't be intimidated yourself. Christians can call those in power due under justice and truth as Daniel did (Daniel 4:27). On the other hand, never be in despair. There is a king of kings."

Of course, we don't reach for those who are the culture's tipping points, in Malcolm Gladwell's phrase, at the expense of a testimony of integrity among those we live with every day. Those called to more influence, authority, and responsibility, Paul knew, must already be cultivating humble discipline in their habits on the job and at home.

There is time, and grace and mercy, or both. There are means and moments to live out the Gospel by helping with the groceries right alongside a faith which would take a social media flyer on commending an admired author for words which pointed to the Gospel.

By such continuity, who knows, we may be the instrument God uses to bring one of those kings who bows around His throne in Revelation. Just the audacious aspiration is healthy to raise up our heads, broaden our spectrum of God at work, and drive deeper that faith of Jonathan to his armor bearer of, who says God will not?