Jeremiah 27:4 – The Compounding Word
“And command them to say to their masters, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel—thus you shall say to your masters:” Jeremiah 27:4 New King James Version
By the time he was a young man, Steve had seen a lot. His father would needle whatever he didn't accomplish rather than commending what he did, so he diminished the value of the approval he once sought. As an officer in the Air Force, he had seen other airmen manipulate the system for easier assignments. Now acclimated, Steve had taken up with mockers.
One of them brought him a Gospel tract with a laugh. "Look at this!" Steve was never the same. He was transformed by that very Gospel his companion had dismissed. As it took hold of him, he went on to preach it as his real and lasting hope, clinging to it even through depression and physical complications.
Steve knew by personal experience what Jeremiah 27:4 states outright, and what Jeremiah's spiritual heirs need to remember. The Gospel we present has more than one audience. Jeremiah had God's explicit confidence that the ambassadors to whom he spoke would carry his message with them as part of their sense of professionalism. He could note their facial expressions and pray for the message's impact on their hearts, to be sure, but he need not obsess over initial human approval.
Jeremiah and Steve were tutored in what the career guidance book Stretch: How to Future-Proof Your Career by Barbara K. Mistick and Karie Willyerd call loose networks. Close tie networks, they caution, inhibit us from taking the kinds of risks Jeremiah took. Our identity is fragile. Our interactions with a set number of people are freighted with the strong possibility of our ultimate failure. Open to the power of casual and secondary contacts, we operate more freely and optimistically.
The Bible might say we walk and work and speak by faith. Our days and words have all the durability of a breath, says the Bible. But God Who initially inspires echoes, and echoes, and echoes. He shapes legacies on single acts of faith-filled obedience.
Members of Jeremiah's ambassadorial audience are to be carriers of a virus of healthy discontent with the world's lies. These ambassadors, moved or not, realizing their personal accountability or not, would be accepted into audiences Jeremiah would never see. By the sovereignty of God, Gospel ripples would continue outward far beyond Jeremiah's diminishing social capital as a pariah in a condemned state.
His message would become interwoven in the mission of those to whom he spoke. They would carry it in their own idiom, delivering it to their own network based on the trust they had they built up. Believe it or not, deliver it with a raised eyebrow, or not, the Word of God would accomplish what He sent it forth to accomplish.
It still will, at its compounding work while we sleep, even in moments when we are stuck in despair as to its impact, even after God has gathered us to our fathers and is rewarding us for the very work we thought at times of negligible value..
Does that not encourage us, Christian? Does that not lift our eyes above earthbound calculations based on how many hearts are moved in our immediate sphere, how many likes and looks we get while proclaiming God's Truth on social media? Reminded of His power to compound His message as He will, even to use unbelievers to carry it, are we not more free to celebrate HIS approval in the act of obedience rather than to calculate how effective we have been in our own efforts?
Knowing, beloved, that we are already justified, already, in fact, seated with Him in the Heavenly places, we can, in fact, have attentional energy to read those facial expressions. Because our worth does not ride on our calculations of success, we can, even, strategize as best our perspective permits. We can prayerfully seek the time and the words with which best to engage for the Gospel, because we know that its ultimate success and expanding parameters are in God's control. He is both our Master and the Master of every influencer His message will encounter.
By the time he was a young man, Steve had seen a lot. His father would needle whatever he didn't accomplish rather than commending what he did, so he diminished the value of the approval he once sought. As an officer in the Air Force, he had seen other airmen manipulate the system for easier assignments. Now acclimated, Steve had taken up with mockers.
One of them brought him a Gospel tract with a laugh. "Look at this!" Steve was never the same. He was transformed by that very Gospel his companion had dismissed. As it took hold of him, he went on to preach it as his real and lasting hope, clinging to it even through depression and physical complications.
Steve knew by personal experience what Jeremiah 27:4 states outright, and what Jeremiah's spiritual heirs need to remember. The Gospel we present has more than one audience. Jeremiah had God's explicit confidence that the ambassadors to whom he spoke would carry his message with them as part of their sense of professionalism. He could note their facial expressions and pray for the message's impact on their hearts, to be sure, but he need not obsess over initial human approval.
Jeremiah and Steve were tutored in what the career guidance book Stretch: How to Future-Proof Your Career by Barbara K. Mistick and Karie Willyerd call loose networks. Close tie networks, they caution, inhibit us from taking the kinds of risks Jeremiah took. Our identity is fragile. Our interactions with a set number of people are freighted with the strong possibility of our ultimate failure. Open to the power of casual and secondary contacts, we operate more freely and optimistically.
The Bible might say we walk and work and speak by faith. Our days and words have all the durability of a breath, says the Bible. But God Who initially inspires echoes, and echoes, and echoes. He shapes legacies on single acts of faith-filled obedience.
Members of Jeremiah's ambassadorial audience are to be carriers of a virus of healthy discontent with the world's lies. These ambassadors, moved or not, realizing their personal accountability or not, would be accepted into audiences Jeremiah would never see. By the sovereignty of God, Gospel ripples would continue outward far beyond Jeremiah's diminishing social capital as a pariah in a condemned state.
His message would become interwoven in the mission of those to whom he spoke. They would carry it in their own idiom, delivering it to their own network based on the trust they had they built up. Believe it or not, deliver it with a raised eyebrow, or not, the Word of God would accomplish what He sent it forth to accomplish.
It still will, at its compounding work while we sleep, even in moments when we are stuck in despair as to its impact, even after God has gathered us to our fathers and is rewarding us for the very work we thought at times of negligible value..
Does that not encourage us, Christian? Does that not lift our eyes above earthbound calculations based on how many hearts are moved in our immediate sphere, how many likes and looks we get while proclaiming God's Truth on social media? Reminded of His power to compound His message as He will, even to use unbelievers to carry it, are we not more free to celebrate HIS approval in the act of obedience rather than to calculate how effective we have been in our own efforts?
Knowing, beloved, that we are already justified, already, in fact, seated with Him in the Heavenly places, we can, in fact, have attentional energy to read those facial expressions. Because our worth does not ride on our calculations of success, we can, even, strategize as best our perspective permits. We can prayerfully seek the time and the words with which best to engage for the Gospel, because we know that its ultimate success and expanding parameters are in God's control. He is both our Master and the Master of every influencer His message will encounter.
Comments
Post a Comment