Shepherds after my own heart

If Jeremiah looks like it could be a particularly important, rich, cutting, fiery word to church planters - what might be an example of that message? Here is a reflection on some verses from the early chapters of the book with special relevance to church planters and pastors...

Jeremiah 2:8

The priests did not ask,

    ‘Where is the Lord?’

Those who deal with the law did not know me...

Just like Samson didn’t notice that the Lord had left him (Judges 16:20), the priests hadn’t noticed that the Lord had left them, that their places of worship were inscribed "Ichabod." Probably because they had never felt a sense of need of God in what they are doing or been distressed by a lack of God’s presence. They did not have the heart of the Psalmist (the spiritually healthy heart) which cries out regularly, "Where are you?" (cf. Psalm 10:1; 13:1–2; 22:1–2; 27:8–9; 42:1–2; 63:1; 84:2; 143:6–7).

And the scribes who deal with the law - the Bible handlers - don’t actually know the God of the Bible. Because what is the kind of 'knowing' that the Lord desires? Clearly not just cognitive - the scribes had that. The Lord desires a relational and experiential knowing that is painted with marital imagery: 

“I remember the devotion of your youth,

    how as a bride you loved me" (Jer. 2:2)

That is the 'first love' that had been forgotten. That is the love that the Bible handlers had lost. So to put this positively - God reveals himself in his Word for relationship - he wants those who deal with his revelation (especially those who minister it to others) to know him as a bride knows her husband.

• How much need do you/I feel for the Lord today? Are we ministering in such a way that we don't really need him? Then maybe we should stop. 
• What specifically has the Lord been teaching you/me personally in the last few months? How has he been wooing you/me back to a deeper knowing?

Jeremiah 3:14-18

“Return, faithless people,” declares the Lord, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the Lord, “people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the Lord, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to the name of the Lord. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. In those days the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance."

As Matthew Henry says, "Here is a great deal of gospel in these verses." It is a wonderful prophecy of the last days between the two advents of Christ. And it holds together a number of things - things which God has united and must never be separated:

1. General call to sinners. The universal proclamation of the gospel to the faithless. As in the wonderful modern carol, O Come All You Unfaithful or the older Come Ye Sinners. Admittedly in this case the call is to "Israel" (Jer 3:12) rather than the nations but it is explicitly to rebels - those who have fallen away. The gospel call does not wait for faith or obedience or interest it goes out to those without and creates what is lacking. It's a call full of hope - "I will frown on you no longer" (Jer. 3:12) - but it does not skate over sin. It is a call to repent - to stop claiming, "I am innocent" (Jer. 2:35). It's a tone of invitation captured by the older Reformed liturgies that start with verses like Joel 2:13: "Rend your heart, and not your garments" or Matt. 3:2: "Repent."
2. Marriage as one of the great - if not the greatest - images of the relationship between God and his people. We had it in Jeremiah 2 and now in Jeremiah 3: "for I am your husband" (v14). Sin in this context is infidelity, adultery, prostitution. Positively, the last days should be the preparation of the bride for her husband, full of heart-sick longing for his appearing. [For more on this see What is the gospel? Jesus, What to do with the Song of Songs; The great contest of heaven and earth.]
3. Unconditional election. "I will choose you" - says the Lord. "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). And irresistible grace:  "One from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion." BTW my favourite illustration of this is from C S Lewis' 'The Magician's Nephew': "Aslan threw up his shaggy head, opened his mouth, and uttered a long, single note; not very loud, but full of power. Polly’s heart jumped in her body when she heard it. She felt sure that it was a call, and that anyone who heard that call would want to obey it and (what’s more) would be able to obey it, however many worlds and ages lay between. And so, though she was filled with wonder, she was not really astonished or shocked when all of a sudden a young woman, with a kind, honest face stepped out of nowhere and stood beside her. Polly knew at once that it was the Cabby’s wife, fetched out of our world not by any tiresome magic rings, but quickly, simply and sweetly as a bird flies to its nest."
4. Church as the centre of God's plans - a great multi-ethnic people fed by shepherds after God's own heart.  These are tremendous promises: "I will give you" - God will do this in the gospel age - he is doing this right now. The Lord will not save isolated individuals to be wandering sheep without shepherds. He will give his people not only the Great Shepherd of the sheep - the new David (30:9) - but he will also give his people multiple under-shepherds like David - after his own heart. And what is the Lord's heart? He's just said - it is the heart of a husband - a heart of fiercely jealous love for his bride. John the Baptist shared that heart (John 3:29). The apostle Paul shared that heart - he was jealous for God’s people with the jealousy of God (2 Cor. 11:2). It’s a fierce love for people and a fierce love for God and a fierce hatred of whatever gets in the way. Those are the true shepherds and they "will lead you [literally: 'feed you'] with knowledge and understanding." That's the job. That's the food. That's what grows the church: "In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” - sounds a lot like the book of Acts. And "at that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the Lord" - that is the church - the city of God and even the throne of God - the place where he reigns - where he is most fully, actively present in grace and power. "And all nations will gather in Jerusalem to the name of the Lord." All nations. Every single one. "Will gather" - promise. The table of nations in Genesis 10 that were divided and dispersed all over the face of the earth - in the church they are being reconciled (cf. the reconciliation of Judah and Israel in v18) and brought into the same place. The church is a gathering manifested currently in multiple physical gatherings and one day in a single physical gathering. 
5. Atonement. All is nothing without this. How can a sinful bride return to a holy husband? A day is coming when "people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’" The epicentre of Israel, the place of atonement, will be totally eclipsed by a new epicentre, a new place of atonement. The shadows will pass away, replaced by the ultimate ark of the covenant - the great mercy-seat - Jesus Christ who is the mercy-seat/propitiation (hilastērios - cf. Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5).
6. Sanctification. "No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts." It's not the basis of their justification. That is only ever Jesus - his propitiation and his life clothing us. But as Calvin said: "Justification and sanctification... go together as if tied by an inseparable bond, so that if anyone tries to separate them, he is, in a sense, tearing Christ to pieces... Christ justifies no one whom He does not also sanctify" (Commentary on 1 Cor. 1:30).

• Does our Christianity hold together all of these or do one or two tend to be forgotten?
• How can our church gatherings communicate and embody as many of these different aspects of the gospel age as possible?
• How, as pastors, are we stoking a jealous love for Christ and his bride?