We are starting a new series that is found in the midst of Jeremiah called Flourish. This comes from Jeremiah 13-19 where God is talking to his people about why they are unable to flourish as he people. Rather than enjoying God’s blessings, they are going to be put through judgment because they have failed to understand their relationship with God. God is going to explain this to his people and these things were written for our instruction so that we might have hope (cf. Romans 15:4). Before we take a careful look at God’s words in Jeremiah, I want us to begin with an important New Testament teaching. It is so important that two different authors proclaim the message.
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6 ESV)
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5-7 ESV)
I want us to observe the repetition: God opposes the proud. God resists the proud and stands against them. Grace is not give to the proud but to the humble. Now I want to begin our lesson with this problem. No one thinks they are proud. We have read this command to humble ourselves. We have read that God opposed the proud. But we are not the proud, right? The people of Israel did not think they were proud either. So God is going to use some pictures to help his people see the problem of pride and understand what they were doing that showed their pride. This will help us also understand our pride and what must be done to overcome it so that we can receive the grace and blessings of God. So why are God’s people on the road to ruin? Open your copies of God’s word to Jeremiah 13.
Pride Makes Us Useless (Jeremiah 13:1-11)
God’s teaching begins with a physical illustration. In fact, God is going to tell Jeremiah to work two visuals for the people so that they can understand the problem of pride. The first living illustration is found in the first eleven verses of Jeremiah 13. God tells Jeremiah to go buy and wear a linen undergarment. This is probably a loincloth and the closest thing we have today to this loincloth that they would wear would be underwear. So I think the CSB and the NASB 2020 are right to help us by calling this underwear or an undergarment. Then Jeremiah is to take the undergarment he is wearing to the river and hide it a crevice of a rock. Then, after many days, he was to return to dig up the linen undergarment that has been left out. The point of the exercise is found at the end of verse 7. The clothing was obvious ruined and completely useless.
Now there are three messages God was communicating in this physical picture which are found in verses 9-11. I would like to take the three messages in backward order. In verse 11 you will see that the linen undergarment was to represent the relationship God has with his people. God was closely attached to his people. Please consider how amazing it is that God does not describe his relationship with his people as something that is small or insignificant to him. He does not keep his people far from him. Rather, God is trying to show what a close relationship he wants to have with his people. In fact, the word “clings” in verse 11 is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 when God proclaimed that a man leaves his father and his mother and clings (joins) to his wife so that the two become one flesh. God says that entered into this kind of close relationship with his people. In fact, they were going to be God’s people to his own praise and glory. The second message is in verse 10. The people are like this useless undergarment now. The third message is in verse 9. Since the people have made themselves useless, God will ruin their great pride that has caused the relationship to be spoiled. Pride has ruined his people. Pride has ruined the relationship. Pride has made the people useless.
So what was the pride that the people were exhibited? What was the problem that showed that these people were full of pride and arrogance that had spoiled the relationship with God, making them useless? Look carefully at verse 10. The people refuse to listen to the Lord and stubbornly follow their own heart. You see that we think of pride as thinking highly of ourselves. The problem is that the most obvious way that we think highly of ourselves is by not listening to God but continuing to listen to our own hearts and doing what we want to do. Following our own heart is pride. Living how we want to live our lives is pride. Doing what we think is best is pride. Refusing to obey God’s commands is pride. We wonder why it is such a big deal for us to do what we want. The big deal is pride. The big deal is that we are opposing and rejecting God which gives God no other option but to resist and oppose us. This is what James and Peter are saying. There cannot be grace when we are resisting God.
Pride Prepares Us For Judgment (Jeremiah 13:12-14)
But God has a second picture to show the people. Jeremiah is told to tell the people that every jar should be filled with wine. The people are going to respond that they know that. They know that jars should hold wine. It would be like us saying cold foods should be kept in the refrigerator. It is a truth that the people understood. But here is the message in verses 13-14. All the jars should be filled with wine because God is going to make them figuratively drink the wrath of God to the full and then will smash the jars, depicting the destroying judgment coming upon them. There is a great truth in life. God opposes the proud. This means that God will judge the proud. Pride prepares us for judgment. Every time we act in proud and arrogant ways, we are preparing ourselves for God’s wrath. Listen to what Mary says once she is told that she is going to give birth to the Savior.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. (Luke 1:51-52 NIV)
The work of the Lord is to scatter those who our proud within themselves and lift up the humble. The humble are exalted and draw near to God. The proud are smashed and destroyed.
Pride Grieves God (Jeremiah 13:15-19)
Now I want us to see the heart of God in this moment. I think it is so important that we see the heart of God in passages like this one where we see judgment described. First, the warning is proclaimed in verse 15. Listen and pay attention! Do not be proud! God has made this message clear. Do not be proud. Give glory to God (Jeremiah 13:16), not to yourself and your thoughts. Second, look at what Jeremiah says about this situation in verse 17. If the people will not listen, Jeremiah will bitterly weep for the people because they will go to captivity. But a prophet represented the voice of God. Throughout the book of Jeremiah you will see that Jeremiah regularly represents the actions and feelings of God, just like in these two living parables Jeremiah has enacted. God is grieved by the people’s pride. Why would God be moved to tears over his people? I think we miss this point far too often in the scriptures. God wants a close relationship with you. This was the picture of the linen undergarment. God has brought us close to him and he is devastated when we want nothing to do with him. Our pride grieves God. Pride not only makes us useless, but our pride also grieves our Lord because it makes fellowship and relationship with him impossible. God does not want us separated from him. God does not want us to be judged. God does not want us to experience the consequences for our sins. We should know that considering how we are able to see the love of God for us in the cross of Jesus. He gave his only Son so that we would not have to be separated from him. But pride separates us, makes us useless, and it grieves our Lord.
Pride Prevents Us From Transformation (Jeremiah 13:20-23)
So God is going to explain even further why this relationship cannot exist between us and God when we allow ourselves to be proud. The problem of pride is that it keeps us from listening to God and changing our ways. Look at the powerful imagery God uses in verse 23. Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? The answer to this rhetorical question is obviously not. Can a leopard change his spots? Again, the answer to this rhetorical question is clearly not. Now listen to the conclusion at the end of verse 23. If a person can change the color of his skin or if a leopard can change his spots, then you can change and do good who have been accustomed to doing evil. When you are proud, then you cannot change. God says that there is is as much hope for you to change your wicked ways when you continue to think highly of yourself. There is no hope is God molding us and transforming us when our hearts are proud. This is exactly the picture Isaiah gave to the people.
Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:6-8 ESV)
We will not forsake our ways when we think that we are right. We will not listen to what God says when we think that we are doing life the way we ought to do it. You see that Isaiah says that the only way to return to the Lord and experience the compassion of God is by rejecting our thoughts and ways and accepting God’s thoughts and ways. Here is the problem as Jeremiah identifies it. We become so accustom to doing what we want to do and listening to our own hearts that we will not change.
Pride Makes Us Forget God (Jeremiah 13:24-27)
This brings us to the final picture from Jeremiah in this chapter. You see the picture in verse 25. The reason the people will be scattered and judged is because they have forgotten the Lord and trusted in lies. Pride makes us forget God. We do not think to look to God and listen to his ways when we are full of pride. We trust in the lies of our heart and the lies of our pride that tells us that we are doing right. Friends, we should be terrified if we have to wave a banner that proclaims pride in who we are and what we are doing. There is no hope for change when we are resting on our own pride. The reason repentance is so hard is because we have to admit we are wrong. Repentance is hard because we have to admit that our wisdom and our thoughts and our actions are wrong. We do not want to think we are wrong. We do not want to say that we are wrong. We want to always be right. But the only way to be right is to admit that we are wrong. Otherwise we will forget God, believe the lies, and never change.
Our Challenge
So let’s concluding by thinking about the big picture of Jeremiah 13. God is teaching us that pride makes us useless and worthy of judgment. Our pride grieves God, prevents our ability to change as we forget God and believe the lies. No one likes the idea of be useless. We all want to be important. We all want to be useful and helpful. But we make ourselves useless in God’s hands when we allow pride to remain in our hearts. Listen to what the apostle Paul said to Timothy in his second letter.
Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:21 ESV)
To be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master, and ready for every good work we need to cleanse ourselves of pride. Pride puts us on the road to ruin. So here is my challenge for us in this lesson. How would God describe us? Would God describe us as useful or useless? The scriptures are plain that to enter the kingdom of God we must experience a new birth and become a new creation. We must put to death the old self and put on a new self in righteousness and holiness. We are to be transformed into the image of Christ. But there is one great sin that prevents these things from happening. There is one great sin that keeps us from being useful to the master. Pride is the sin that ruins us and keeps us for having the relationship God wants to have with you and the relationship your soul is longing for. Pride is observed by stubbornly following our own hearts (cf. Jeremiah 13:11). Resist pride and God will draw near to you. Keep pride in your heart and you will resist God and God will oppose you and you will not flourish as God wants you to in your life.