This is the season of salvation

September 18, 2016 Jeremiah 8-9:1 This week once again, we light our candles. Once again, not a week goes by that someone has been killed. That we are not mourning a tradjedy in our nation or in our community. We honor those who lost their lives in the bombing in New York and lift them up in prayer. And not a week goes by that someone is killed in our community. We may not hear about it on the news, it may not be newsworthy to others, but to the families and those who knew the person, every life is important and their lives are changed forever. This has been a horrendous weekend for me. As a student pastor at South Shore UMC, one of the things the most important things that my senior pastor told me – was to never go out on Saturday night. As a matter of fact, she said that Saturday should always be a nice easy day, with not a lot of excitement. Because when you do things on satuday night, it makes Sunday morning too stressful. Well I went out last night. As a matter of fact, there is absolutely no rest for the weary – community meal during the day yesterday, the St Bernard Gala last night, sermon this morning, and concert this afternoon. My pastor, Rev. Pleas also told me that I had to wear a dress whenever I came to church, but she was wrong about that one. The good news was that I knew that this would be a long weekend, so I knew that I needed to be prepared. I actually have two other sermons for this week in the lectionary, but they are both on 1 Timothy. I even have an old sermon on Jeremiah, but God told me that I needed to write a new sermon on Jeremiah, with a new message for today. It has been a battle all weekend, because I kept telling God that I did not have time – and God said I needed to continue my story of Jeremiah. The good news is that I might not have that much to say on Jeremiah, but everytime I say that, my message is longer than I expected not shorter. Remember from last week, that Jeremiah is the weeping prophet. He weeps for the condition of his people. God tells him that his people will suffer. God tells them that it is their own fault, it is a result of their sin. And Yet Jeremiah weeps because these are his people. Their fate is his fate. Their suffering is his suffering and his families suffering. Jeremiah has a deep and dark and heavy message for the people. It is easy to wonder what was so good and prophetic about the message that you are going to suffer, suffer some more, never see the light of day, and then die. Not everyone can appreciate Jeremiah’s message. In the midst of everything else going on this week, I really did take the time to do my sermon prep. I found that most of the commentators favored the message of Timothy. His message to pray for everyone, including our leaders, is a timely message considering there are only 51 more days until the presidential election. Both of our candidate need a lot of prayer. Our nation needs even more prayer. Rev. Albert Shears said something important, that this is the last presidential election where there will be a dominant culture. So many people are acting as if this is the endtimes, because it is the end of an era for them. One newsperson said that he has never seen such a crazy election season, and he hopes he never sees another one like this one. Our country is indeed in need of prayer during these dark days. That is all the more reason, why God said I needed to preach on Jeremiah today. My point is that I could not find a lot of information on Jeremiah, because his message is so dark. His message on the surface. There is no hope, you cant stop the circumstances of our nations. It is what it is. There is nothing that you can do abo ut it. The circumstances that led up today started years ago, so you cant change the course of history today. I have preached on this text before, because it has the famous line, is there no balm in gilead? Is there no hope, no silver lining, no salve to make things better. We as Christian give an answer to that question and say that there is a balm in Gilead, and that balm is Jesus. Jesus makes everything better, he can heal us, he can touch the sin sick soul. There is peace. Jesus is indeed our balm in gilead. Jesus is the answer to our questions and longing. We know that. But I want us to stick with Jeremiah’s words for a minute. Jeremiah’s question, of where is the hope in the midst of the darkness. I have preached on a Balm in Gilead before. But God led me to anther sentence in the text for us to think about. As we light our candles of remembrance for the 5th time in 8 weeks. Jeremiah says, the Harvest has come, the summer is over and we are still not saved. Summer is over, the holidays are over, the 90 degree weather is over, school is back in session, and people are still being killed in our streets everyday. When does it end? What will it take for it to stop? Jeremiah’s words are short, let me read them again for you. Jeremiah 8:18-9:1Common English Bible (CEB) 18 No healing, only grief; my heart is broken.[a] 19 Listen to the weeping of my people all across the land: “Isn’t the LORD in Zion? Is her king no longer there?” Why then did they anger me with their images, with pointless foreign gods? 20 “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, yet we aren’t saved.” 21 Because my people are crushed, I am crushed; darkness and despair overwhelm me. What to do with God’s people 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then have my people not been restored to health? 9 [b] If only my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night for the wounds of my people. Jeremiah was in despair because the harvest for his people was the end of the summer, about now. His people had planted their crops, they did all they could. But it was a hot summer, and no rain came, just hot wind. So when harvest came around there were not crops to harvest. In the midst of everything else going on in their world, there was nothing to eat. The people were really hurting. Our people are hurting too. There is problem upon problem in many of our lives. And we are looking for a balm in Gilead. Those inside the church and outside of the church. It is so important for us to tell others that Jesus is the balm in gilead. There is an answer, and in god’s time the violence will stop. We will stop needing to kill one another. But we have to be faithful. I felt that Jeremiah’s message was important today, because we need to be reminded to be faithful even in dark times. There is never any reason to just give up and to stop caring about being human and about reaching out to help someone else. Even in our darkest hour when there is no hope, God is present. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, because he had feelings. God weeps to. God is not an unfeeling God who stands by and watches us. In the old testament, God gets jealous, God gets mad, God is vulnerable, Good weeps for our situation as much as we do. Even in the new testament it says that Jesus wept, for the same city that Jeremiah weeps for now. When we cry, God cries too. He cries because he lives life along with us. He sees what we see and he understands. No other religion has a God that cries and is vulnerable and needs us to love him. His tears are a strength not a weakness. I would say that Jeremiah 8 is one of the saddest chapters in the whole bible, God cries, Jeremiah cries, the people cry. And God is still at work. Why then have my people not been restored to health? The good news is that there is a balm in gilead, there is hope, things will get better. The summer is over and this is the time for salvation. I want to thank those who helped in the community meal yesterday, I felt that we worked together as a church to make it work. Thank you to those who were willing to pray yesterday and tell others about the church and about the salvation of Jesus Christ. That is an important ministry. This is the time for salvation. The summer is over, it is harvest time here in the Midwest – time for us to reap a spiritual harvest. Many spiritual seeds have been planted into the hearts of many. Many are looking for salvation, and it is time for us to be faithful. To tell them that in good times and bad God is with us. God does not interfere with the consequences of sin, But God always shows us a better way. This is the time for us to reach out to others and tell them the good news. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved (Jeremiah 8:20). Friends and Family, Family and Friends, the Lord sent me to ask you this question: "Is this the season to seek salvation?" A single mother had to ask this question concerning her teenage daughter. At age eleven, her daughter began to ask questions about God. She told her mother she wanted to go to church. But her mother wasn't religious and did not see any reason why her teenage daughter should be so religious. So she kept her out of church, but she couldn't keep her from the parties. Two years later at age thirteen, her young daughter had a baby. As she looked at her teenage daughter, the mother had to ask herself this question, "Did I miss the season to seek salvation?" A young man had to ask this question concerning his family. The young man was 25, raising a good family. The woman was a good wife for a good husband. He had no faults, except that he worked all the time. He was trying to excel in his job so that he could build up his home and take care of his family. He never had time for church. He believed in God, but he also believed that he would have time for God after a while -- after he got his promotions, after he built his new home, after his family was settled. But one day before he got his life together, time and circumstances tore his life apart. A driver missed a brake pedal, and his car went out of control. The car struck the young man, paralyzing his body from the waist down. As he was lying in the hospital bed, he had this thought: "Is this the season to seek salvation?" PEOPLE WITHOUT CHRIST One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Jer 8:20 KJV. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Question? What is 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day? Answer: The line of people who are without Christ. As long as there are people who don’t know Christ, there is work for us to do and it is the season for salvation. One last story, I don’t know if it is true or not, but it makes a point. The gala that I attended was to raise money for St Bernard Hospital to buy equipment to detect breast cancer. I am sure the raised a lot lasat night. They even auctioned off Hamilton tickets for $2000. Henry Ford was in Ireland, attending a gala for a hospital. And two adminstrators approached him and asked him to give $5000. It was interesting last night to see this auctioneer going through the crowd, and as the price went up, everyone held onto their hands. No one wanted to be drawn into the auction and play with money they knew they didn’t have. $2000 was an awful lot to pledge. So you can imagine how Henry Ford felt in the 20s giving away $5000. When he opened the newspaper the next day, the headline says US millionaire pledges $50,000 to the hospital. He immediately called the administrators and and demanded a retraction. They promised that they would tell the newspaper to correct the story and to say that Henry Ford did not promise $50,000 but only $5000. He realized how that would look in the media, so he promised to give them the other $45,000 under one condition. They had to build an arch over the entranceway saying I walked among you and you took me in. In honor of the fact that the administrators had taken him in on their scheme. The message for us – who are we taking in during this season of salvation? Let us pray for others and pray for the mission of our church. Amen. Text Illustration: OWNERSHIP OF THE GIFT A humanitarian group in Africa, noticing the filthy water, sewage, and disease, built clean water and sewage system for a village. Months later, they visited the village, but it was back to square one with filthy water, sewage and disease. [from Pickthebrain.com] The chief told the humanitarian workers: "And what did you expect? These people had been many years without clean water. Then you gave it to them for free in abundance. They took all they could use and more. The people did not work for those water stations. They do not own them, and they could not be persuaded to maintain them." The humanitarians were silent. The chief had spoken truth. The great gift alone had not been enough and the reasons could be clearly observed. Perhaps it is human nature to abuse a gift. The humanitarians returned to their camp and thought long and hard about how they could help the villagers. The next day the humanitarians returned, determined to rebuild the water and sanitation systems with the following conditions. 1. The villagers would have to pay for water and sanitation. Not more than they could afford, but there would be no gift giving this time. 2. A group of villagers would work with the contractors to build the system and would be taught how to repair every aspect of it. These villagers would in turn train others so the system would never fall into disrepair. With these new conditions in place, the water and sanitation systems were restored. This time the people had respect for the systems because they owned them. This time they were able to repair the system when it broke down. To this day the villagers have plenty of clean water and live free of filth and disease.