Jeremiah 31:3 NIVUK
[3] The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
There is one truth above all others in the Bible that should change everything: how we see our situation; how we see ourselves; how we see those around us. It is utterly
foundational. So completely basic. Yet we sing of it blithely in children’s songs, without taking any notice of how utterly wonderful it is.
That truth is this:
You are loved.
You are loved, and not just by anyone, but by God Himself.
I know from bitter personal experience that if you feel unloved, it becomes very difficult for anything anyone could do for you to make any kind of a difference. Your heart becomes hardened, impermeable, like stone. You believe you are not loved because you believe you are not lovable.
And so you retreat into self-fulfilling, self-defeating misery.
This misery then becomes the playground of those with deeply nefarious intentions, who either seek to turn you into a misogynist (something a rock band from the 1990s poetically described as a ‘He Man Woman Hater’) or someone who seeks to harm themselves and plunges themselves on a bleak pathway to self-destruction.
I want to tell you, right here, right now, this is not necessary and you can escape it.
Because you are loved, and by God Himself.
But, of course, we have to admit that this doesn’t always seem to be the case, which is why I have chosen to explore the above verse. The context of this verse is one that would seem to say exactly the opposite.
However, this statement is still marvellously, wonderfully, beautifully true.
Let’s look at how things seemed in The Present.
The situation when Jeremiah recorded these words was worse than brutal. Judah was being threatened by the Babylonians. A previous raid had taken a whole bunch of the elite into exile (see Jeremiah 29). Many of Judah’s border towns had already been taken. The marauding Babylonian troops were heading for Jerusalem. The city, and with it the kingdom, was facing an existential threat.
The record of the actual fall of the city in Jeremiah 39:1-10 is expanded on in Jeremiah 52:1-30.
The full horror and the emotional impact of it all is contained in the five devastating chapters of Lamentations.
Now, our belief is that when God loves you, everything goes well for you.
This does not seem like love.
And yet, there was a devastating reason why God did this: He had simply had enough. As explained elsewhere:
2 Chronicles 36:15-16 NIVUK
[15] The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling-place. [16] But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. https://bible.com/bible/113/2ch.36.15.NIVUK
So the reason why all this horror took place was not that God hated them, but instead that He loved them. However, He had reached the end of His tether with their behaviour and knew that it had to stop.
Their present situation was bad – really, really bad. There was no longer any way back or any way out. They had to face something akin to ethnic cleansing.
And why?
Because they had profaned God’s Name in the land He had given them.
So, you see, yes, their situation was beyond bad. However, it was their own fault because their own sin had caused it.
But what about The Past?
Now we come across something quite extraordinary.
The history of the people of Judah up until this point has been one of a tragic inclination towards sin and their own destruction. They were like lemmings, mindlessly heading for a cliff edge. And their leaders – the kings – and their spiritual advisers – the priests and the prophets – were not just silent about this steep decline, but were often complicit in it.
They were on the road to hell and exceeding the speed limit more and more with each passing day.
And yet despite the insolence of sin and depravity and the blasphemy of idol worship, God sent them this message:
Jeremiah 31:3 NIVUK
[3] The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
Imagine the sheer unfathomable depths of a love like that: a love for the utterly and totally undeserving!
It is almost as if God is attempting to woo His people, even though His love is unrequited and His affections are spurned. Yet His love is unrelenting and His kindness towards sinners is undeterred.
This is a thing of unparalleled beauty.
And it has its ultimate expression here:
Romans 5:6-8 NIVUK
[6] You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is its climax, its zenith, its peak.
There is no event in history to match its significance.
God, out of love for a defiantly sinful world, sends His Son to die on the cross for us:
John 3:16-17 NIVUK
[16] For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.3.16-17.NIVUK
John 4:9-10
[9] This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. [10] This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Often we wonder if we are deserving of love, if we merit it, as if love was a reward for being good enough or beautiful enough or kind enough.
But what happens with that cruel belief?
On one side, we have those who have love because someone thought they were worthy of it.
On the other side, we have those who do not have love because no-one thought they were worthy of it.
And those on the other side are often angry, bitter, self-absorbed, self-destructive and dangerous.
But Jesus Christ cuts through all of that.
The Gospel cuts through all of that.
Because it comes with an absolutely revolutionary message: none of us are worthy of God’s love. None of us deserve it. None of us can earn it, no matter what we do.
God loves us not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are.
And that is truly wonderful.
We no longer have to beg and battle and bruise to win the affections of another human being, only to spend much of our time realising that they will never love us.
No, we can look to the cross, see the ultimate declaration of love there has ever been and realise that it is for us, and is precisely because we don’t deserve it.
What a Friend we have in Jesus!
And that is not all.
Because of His love, we have become children of God:
1 John 3:1 NIVUK
[1] See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
What an awesome truth!
But this passage is not just about the present and the past, it is also about The Future:
Jeremiah 31:4-6 NIVUK
[4] I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. [5] Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. [6] There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, “Come, let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.” ’
This is beyond extraordinary.
God tells Jeremiah here about a future when He would take His people, broken and battered by the consequences of their own sin, and build them back up again.
Four things will happen as a result of this:
· Israel would be restored. Perhaps the most remarkable of these words is the use of the word ‘Virgin’. In Ezekiel, in some of the most drastic and colourful words ever spoken in Scripture, Israel and Judah are accused of being worse than a pair of prostitutes (Ezekiel 23). There is even a prophet – also a priest – who was required by God to marry a prostitute to show just how evil the Israelites were (Hosea 1:1-3). What this remarkable verse means is that even the very signs and scars of their sin will be completely dealt with when they are restored.
· Joy would be restored. This is a wonderful promise. The curse they had brought upon themselves by violating their covenant with God had led them to flee in utter desperation (Deuteronomy 28:25). And that had happened – even their last king was caught fleeing by Babylonian soldiers (2 Kings 25:1-7). But now, instead of panic-ridden flight from place to place, joyful dancing would be restored.
· Labour would be restored. They would be able to plant their grapes and harvest them, without harassment, and the same would happen for their other crops too (Amos 9:13-15).
· Pilgrimage would be restored. Jerusalem would be a place where people would want to be, instead of a place people avoided.
This prophecy speaks of a full restoration – greater than we could ever imagine.
It is beautiful.
It is wonderful.
It speaks of blessing so overwhelming that the sorrows of the past seem like nothing. As the Psalm puts it:
Psalms 30:4-5 NIVUK
[4] Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. [5] For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
Such is the love of God.
We spend much of our youth and middle age scrimping and saving to give ourselves and our loved ones a better future. And it is right that we should.
But that future is so uncertain. We cannot tell if prices will rise too high, or if companies will go bankrupt, or savings rates will plummet, or if interest rates will soar, or if some great misfortune will befall our country.
Nothing at all is certain.
And for us, that is a scary thought.
But here’s the thing: because of God’s wonderful love for us, our future is always glorious. As Paul put it:
Romans 8:28 NIVUK
[28] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:35-39 NIVUK
[35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? [36] As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ [37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, [39] neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. https://bible.com/bible/113/rom.8.35-39.NIVUK
God’s love for us provides hope, when we are hopeless; certainty, in an ocean of doubt; light, when we are in deepest blackness; warmth, when we are freezing; vision, when we are blinded; reason that cuts through all the nonsense.
God’s love is the thing that makes most sense of all.
There is nothing greater we could aim for, nothing more wonderful we could yearn for, nothing more needful we could long for.
God’s love is the ultimate reality.
And this is love is ours, through Jesus Christ.
If that doesn’t make you want to drop all your trophies and trinkets and follow Him, I don’t know what will.
I used to hate Valentine’s Day in school. It was such an awful, isolating experience to see cards piling up on the desks of the popular kids, but see nothing on mine. It was so demoralising. It felt like rejection. And it hurt.
There are few things more painful than feeling unloved.
But the wonderful truth is that because of Jesus Christ, we never have to feel that pain. He stands with us now, in all our pain and disappointment and disillusionment. He has been seeking us since before the day we were born. And He promises that He will express His love in looking after us now, before taking us to be with Him in Heaven.
When I was a young boy, the rock band Foreigner sung the anthemic ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’.
Do you want to know?
Look to Jesus. You will never see a better expression of it anywhere else.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, forgive me when I forget that You love me. Forgive me for thinking that You show Your love by making my life easy, when often it isn’t. Help me to see every trial as a gift from You to bring me closer to You. Amen.
Questions
1. Describe God’s love for you in your own words.
2. Is God’s love deserved or earned? Why / why not? Why is this important?
3. Do you feel God’s love for you? Why?
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