Known By God - A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday - Jeremiah 1:4-10

Today marks the last Sunday of the Christian year. For believers next Sunday is our New Years. Our Year begins in anticipation waiting for the messiah, our king and our year ends by remembering and celebrating that Jesus is our king. So this Sunday, we celebrate the very One for whom next week we, once again, wait and long.

 And these thoughts of the years’ end and the kingship of Jesus bring us to the call of Jeremiah. God called Jeremiah out of God’s own intimate knowledge of Jeremiah. God knew Jeremiah. God created Jeremiah. The particular word used here, “to know,” implies deep understanding. It is an understanding of another that goes beyond that of an acquaintance.

Nasrene has been frequently been our cashier at Star Market since we move the parsonage to Cambridge eight years ago. I know Nasrene. I know a few things about her. Her daughter is on the city council. Nasrene knows us; she has watched the girls grow up. She knows what grades they are in and which school they attend. But the knowledge God has of Nasrene is deeper than this kind of “knowing.”

I also know Jennifer Couchman. I have known Jennifer since I was in sixth grade, when I decided she was my friend, even when she was not quite so sure she wanted to be friends with the strange new girl who just moved in across the street. We know things about one another that few other people know. She is one of the very few people in the world who still thinks Katie when she thinks about me but will nonetheless always call me Kaza. Our knowledge and understanding of each other is deep enough that may live half a country away from each other, and not speak nearly enough, but whenever we get together, catching up on the “stuff” in our life is perfunctory. Jen and I know each other pretty well, but still the knowledge and understanding God has of Jeremiah is deeper than even Jen and I’s nearly life-long friendship“.

The kind of knowing that is here in this passage is the deep, long lasting, intimate knowledge that develops between two spouses; the kind of knowledge that is found in “doing” life together with another; the kind of knowledge that comes from being with someone through the long haul of life’s journey. The kind of knowledge that knows what a person looks like first thing in the morning, funky breath and all. And the kind of knowledge that is gained when night after night their face is the last face you see as you turn out the light. Knowledge found in struggling together, in parenting together, in fighting together and yes loving together.  The idea is that two people, who live together, are together and move through life together, should know each other better than any two people know one another. This kind of knowledge is the kind of knowledge spoken of here.

God KNOWS Jeremiah. But it is even deeper than that. God knows Jeremiah better and more intimately than I know Michael.  God has known Jeremiah not merely as long as he has lived, but since even before that. God has known Jeremiah since the moment of his creation. God knows Jeremiah, more deeply and more intimately than anyone else could possibly ever know Jeremiah. 

The God loves Jeremiah. And out of that love and in the knowledge that God knows from “knowing” Jeremiah, God chose Jeremiah to bring a message to the Israelite people. God knows that Jeremiah is the right person for this. God knows this because God knows Jeremiah.

The thing about Bible characters, the more you read about them the more you find out that they are simple flawed human beings just like the rest of us, just as you and I would, just as so many before and after him have, Jeremiah, interrupted God in the middle of God speaking to him and calling him to do God’s work, and he told God exactly why he believed that he was not up to the job that God had given him. He believed that he knew himself better than God did. That he had been Jeremiah all his life. So he needed to let God know some things about himself that he was sure God did know or understand.

Jeremiah charges in, interrupts God and tells God all the reason he objects to God’s call. Jeremiah sees himself as a small child. The word he uses here is one that is only used of very small children who as of yet do not know enough to be of any consequence. Jeremiah does not believe is not up to this task. He is too young; too inexperienced; he does not know enough. Nobody would listen to him because he is really just a child.

God then tells him that he will go to whom, “I send you.” God is not worried about Jeremiah’s age, real or perceived. God, who knows Jeremiah, does not believe that he is too inexperienced; not old enough; or is not up to the task. It was not up to Jeremiah to worry about whether any of these things, or anything else, would inhibit people in listening him. God choose Jeremiah. God knows Jeremiah. God knows that Jeremiah is really the best person for this task. God knows that Jeremiah can do it. Besides, God did not call Jeremiah to make other people listen, or to decided what other people will or will not do. God called him to go and give them the message God was giving him to give to them.

All though the message God gives to Jeremiah at this point is specifically for the Israelites, but God is not God over just the Israelites. God is not just the God of one nation, or one group of people. God is not just the God of the chosen. God is not just the God of Christians. God is God of all, so therefore God’s call for Jeremiah is not for him to speak to just his people, or the people who so happen to live near to him. God’s call is bigger than that. God’s call is for Jeremiah to speak to all people in all the nations. God is the God of everyone, not just some, not just the special, not just the “chosen”, not just the nice, the good, the worthy; God is the God of everyone

Almost every time God called people, God called them to all go into al the world. Think of God’s blessings of Abraham which is that all people will be blessed through him. God’s reach is vast and God’s kingdom encompasses the whole of creation. God’s call is never limited it is just as vast and included the entirety of God’s kingdom.

The fact that God is King of all is exactly what we are celebrating today in, “Christ the Kind Sunday.” All creation belongs to God. The sovereignty of God and therefore Christ whose kingdom has come through his life, death and resurrection, is as vast as creation itself. Christ is king of all. Christ is our king and also the king of anyone and everyone. As Christians, followers of Christ who not only believe in Jesus Christ, but are transformed by his life, his death and resurrection into people of Christ’s kingdom and as such we are all called to carry the good news of the Gospel to the entirety of Christ’s kingdom. We are all called to carry the message of the good news of the gospel. We are all called, just as Jeremiah was, to all nations, to all peoples, to all creation.

Our call from God is to take the good news of the gospel to everyone, far and near; to our family, to our friends, to the people of our neighborhood; to people that you meet each day. And our call is also to those far away.
This is what foreign missions is all about. This is why as a Nazarene church we pay the general church our world evangelism budget faithfully every year. This is also why we have missionaries come and speak to us about the work they are doing and how they sharing the Good News to those who are far from here, to people we may never meet, so we can know how our giving, how our support is helping to fulfill God’s call to all people everywhere.

But our call is even bigger than that. Our call is to go to those we have a hard time believing can or will come to Christ. That includes our enemies, people who are outright hostile to us. But also simply people don’t like; people we fear, people who make us uncomfortable; people who, perhaps, we would not really want in our church. But it is not up to us, to share the Good News with only the people we want to share is. Our call extends to All; our call encompasses the entirety of God’s vast kingdom; our call is to EVERYONE.