Speaker 1 0:39

[inaudible] north gay friends. What is going on?

Speaker 2 0:49

It is good to see you. It's good to be with you.

Speaker 3 0:54

My name again is Mike Gold's really, if I haven't had a chance to meet you yet. And , um, I love my north gate family. I love the opportunity to get to be up here with you and we get to gather again in person. And so we get to be together in person and what a joy that is. And , um, one of the things that I get to do is I get to spend some of my time traveling around the country, caring for pastors in different kinds of spaces around the country. And , and I got to tell you, I know that you know this, but the last 15 months have been incredibly hard on pastors, incredibly hard. And they're not the only ones, right? I know that we've got frontline workers in the room and this has been a difficulties . And for you, we're so grateful for you. We've got teachers in the room like teachers, like you are incredible. You have done incredible work or last 15 months. We're so grateful for you. But my ministry, my work is with pastors. And so if I were, if my work was with teachers, I would be saying this to like superintendents of schools, or if my work was with frontline workers, I'd be in hospitals saying this, but , but here's what I want you to know is that I'm grateful that this is a church that we create space for pastor Larry, to get some time away, to be, to have some restoration and to be with his family. Uh , recent Barna poll came out that said 29% of pastors are seriously considering quitting coming out of COVID about a third of pastors across the country are giving serious consideration the weight, the emotional burden that , uh , our pastors have been sitting with is heavy. And so like, I can say that because, cause I get to come in and let you know that like that's something that like Larry wouldn't necessarily stand up here and say, and so I want you to know that that burden, that burden has been true across the country. And so creating this kind of space for your pastor is incredibly significant, so grateful that you would do that. And so we've been in this series a , on this ancient prophet named Jeremiah and I love, I love the idea of Jeremiah providing us with some framework and some for how is it that we re-engage coming out of everything that has happened over the past 15 months, because for Jeremiah as this ancient prophet, he had this vision for the way that the people of God should live. He had this intention for what it would look like for them to be the community of God's people in their time, in their place, in their cultural moment. But the problem was that that vision kept getting disrupted. There kept being turmoil. There kept being things that would happen roadblocks that would show up that would cause the people of God to get derailed from this vision, from this way that they were called to from this picture that they had for them. It's almost a bit like what you and I have experienced over the past 15 months because you and I, we had these visions, these pictures of ways things would be, and they would get disrupted that , that, wasn't how you thought your senior year should look. That wasn't the vision that you had and it got disrupted. Chaos happened in it, disrupted it. What you thought that season of life would look like with your kids, ended up looking very different. It got disrupted. You were on this trajectory in your career where it was just taking off. And then all of a sudden it stalls out all the sudden you're furloughed. You're laid off that that area no longer exists anymore. And you're having to figure new things out. It was disrupted. And this is the experience for Jeremiah. As he's speaking to the people of God and helping to be the voice of God, to them speaking through Jeremiah, to them, here's how we're called the live. Here's the vision we have of the way things should be of what life should look like. And it keeps getting disrupted and they keep having to figure it out. And we , we hit this point today in the story of Jeremiah. If you've been tracking with us over these weeks where his frustration with missing the way that they're called to has sort of boiled over and I want to pay attention to not only what Jeremiah says, but I want to pay attention to what he says, what it says about him. And so look at what, in Jeremiah chapter 25, look at what, and we'll be up on the screens free here, Jeremiah 25. Listen to what he says in verse three, it says for 23 years from the 13th year of Josiah son of Amun king of Judah until this very day, the word of the Lord has come to me and I've spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. Let's just stop at that moment for a bit 23 years, he says for 23 years, I've consistently done this thing for 23 years. I have been persistently faithful for 23 years. I have done the thing that you have called me to do God. For 23 years, I have lived way that you've called me to live God for 23 years. I have said the things that you have called me to say God, for 23 years, I've done it again and again and again and again, and yet it doesn't seem to be working. I have kept at it. And yet there is no response. There is no traction. It almost feels like it wasn't worth it. Most of the time, it almost feels like I speak into the wind and it just sort of like dissipates and it goes away. I mean, how many of us have actually been doing anything for 23 years over and over and over. That's not normative for most of us in generations, older than mine. Maybe for some of you, it would have been normal to have been in a job for a long period of time that you would have been in that job. That same job you would have gotten your golden watch and you would have spent your entire, and then you , you retire and you had been at that same place for that entire time, but that's not normal anymore. Our cultural moment is different. It's not right or wrong, good or bad. It's just different. We no longer stay in our jobs for our entire careers. Not only do we not stay in a job with one company for entire careers, we shift careers multiple times. Now this is new. This is a new kind of experience. So doing something for 23 years, like how many of us do that? I we've got a few. You are incredible. Many of us are not doing that. Uh , my wife and I, we are next month. We're going to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. So we're, we're moving towards the 23 years. And the reason that you are clapping is because she has put up with me for that long, because if I were to tell any of our friends who know us and have known us for a while , that we're celebrating 21 years, they would be shocked because they're like, you tricked her into this thing. But now like, now she's choosing to be with you. Like now she knows what she's gotten into and she's choosing that thing. But doing something for that long is not my normative experience. What my normative experiences is. Maybe what some of you experienced too at times is that I get excited about a thing. I go full in on the thing. And then I very quickly give up on the thing. Like for instance, several years ago, I decided I was going to be a surfer. I live in long beach, California, and we're about 10 to 15 minutes from the beach. And I thought like, I need to be a surfer because I would travel to other places. And they'd say, where are you from? And I'd say long beach. And they're like, oh, do you surf? And I was just tired of saying no. And so I thought I'm going to become a surfer. And I thought this is going to be this great spiritual discipline. I'm going to paddle out in the water and it's going to be me and God. And I'm going to like , it's going to be restorative. It's going to be this great hobby. I'm going to love it. My brother had a surfboard that I borrowed from him. I went out and I bought a wetsuit and I was like, I'm going to be a, and I don't know if you've ever tried surfing before, but it's a bit of work. You get on the surfboard and you paddle out there and it's a lot of work paddling out there. And then when you paddle out there and you think this is going, this is when the fun stuff happens. No, it is not when the fun stuff happens. Instead, what happens is you sit on the board and you sit there waiting for a wave and you wait and you wait and you wait. And then a wave starts to come. And so you start paddling to catch that wave, but it's not a wave that's going to break. And so you put in all that effort and you didn't get to ride in . So you paddle back out again and you wait and you wait and you wait some more until finally a wave starts to come. That's going to crest just right. And you paddle into that weight and you catch it and you stand up on it. And you're standing up on that wave for 4.7 seconds. And then it's over. And I was , I had this realization while I was a surfer, that it is a lot of work for very little payoff. And so, so I was a surfer for two weeks and I gave my brother back his surf board . And on a completely unrelated note, I happen to have a used wet suit for sale. It's hardly used if anybody needs one that that's, for me, that's my much more normal experience that what happens for me is it's not that I do a thing with a long commitment and persistence been . Instead , I throw myself into something with passion and with fervor and excitement only to watch it sort of wane. And that especially becomes true if it becomes difficult along the way, because I have a vision of the way something's going to be. When I started , I have this intention that this is going to be incredible. And I throw myself into that thing. And then something is hard. I'm not as good at it. As I thought I should be. I've watched lots of YouTube videos and it wasn't as easy as a YouTube videos made it out to be. I do. And suddenly it gets hard. And then I dissipate with it. I mean, the thing is, it's not really hard to start something, but seeing it through and finishing it that that's difficult. And that becomes true in all sorts of areas of our life. And so for Jeremiah, to , in the midst of his anguish complaint, that we also get a picture of his persistent faithfulness. I mean, he's complaining about how long he has been at this thing without getting a response, but his complaint gives us a window into the fact of like, you have kept at it. You've continued going 23 years. You have done this thing. And in fact, what he's done is , is what the author and pastor Eugene Peterson would call a long obedience in the same direction. I love, I love that phrase, a long obedience in the same direction. That line has become one of my life goals. That my hope would be that like I would get to the end of my life and that when people reflecting back on my life, when people are reflecting back on sort of the waves of my life and how it like touched them, impacted them in some sort of way that one of the phrases that would be true, that people would say is that Mike, Mike lived a long obedience in the same direction. And for Jeremiah, his long obedience in the same direction, it wasn't easy. And it's never easy for any of us, for some of us that that route is a little bit easier than others. For some that route has a lot more roadblocks and a lot more difficulties along the way, but it is never easy for Jeremiah was met with hostility for Jeremiah was met with difficulties. But the thing is that for Jeremiah, that roadblocks, they weren't in his control. It was the way that people responded to him. And that was outside of his control. He could only do the thing that he was called to do, but he couldn't control what happened with that. He couldn't control the roadblocks . He couldn't control the difficulties. In fact, look at, look at how it goes on here in Jeremiah in verse four, it goes on and he says, and though the Lord has sent all his servants, the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, turn out each of you from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land. The Lord gave to you and to your ancestors forever and ever, he says, look, this isn't new. Your non-response the way that you aren't listening. The way that you aren't, this isn't new. This isn't because of me, this isn't because my methods aren't working this isn't because of something that I'm doing, this, this is on you. And what Jeremiah could have done is he could have allowed the people in the situations outside of his control to derail him. And there is the thing that he was called to do. There is who he was called to be. There was the kind of life he was called to live the things he was called to say, there are all of those things. And then there was the stuff that was trying to derail it, and he could have let those things derail it, but they were out of his control that he says, look, you have been doing this for years and years and years. And so he could have given up so many times along the way, because he just wasn't getting the response that he wanted things weren't working out. And that's the thing sometimes is that when we do what is good and right, and true, it doesn't always mean that we're going to get the response that is good, that we want to have. It doesn't mean that it's always going to work in the way that we want it to work. That is not the sign of Jeremiah's effectiveness of his ministry. The effectiveness of Jeremiah's ministry is not whether or not people turn and follow what he's calling them to because they don't otherwise, he would've given up a long time ago that the picture of the effectiveness of his ministry is, was he faithful to what was good? Right. And true. Was he faithful to who God had called him to be? Was he faithful to the way that he was called to live? I mean, for Jeremiah, he could have started strong. He could have started with passion and energy and excitement here is who we are called to be as the people of God. And he could have hit these roadblocks where again, and again, and again, he says that they didn't listen and they didn't respond. And they turned against him and he could have easily given up. And yet the reason that you and I are talking about Jeremiah today, thousands of years after he would live, the reason that there'd be a book in the Bible that bears his name, the reason that one day that Jesus would be born and he would have followers and he would go out and he would be teaching and then he would be performing miracles. And that when he would ask some of his followers, who do people say that I am, they would say, some people are comparing you to Jeremiah, that you remind us of this prophet of old, that there is something about Jeremiah that continued on that kept in the waters that stayed significant to the people of God that they're like , there's something about this prophet. There's something about the way that he lived. There's something about the ministry that he did. There was something about the work that he was committed to, that he did not give up, that he was persistent and faithful. And that one day that Jesus, when he's, when he's asking people, who do you say I am, that people would say that you remind us a bit of this prophet of old. And the reason that all of that would be true is because Jeremiah defied the normal experience of just fizzling out. He defied the normal experience of being inspired and hitting difficulties. And then just sort of tapping out and saying that this , this isn't for me. Instead, he gets to this point where he's able to say in the midst of his anguish and complaints, he's able to say for 23 years, I've consistently done what I was called to do for 23 years. I've consistently done the right thing regardless. And to do that, wasn't easy for Jeremiah. If you're to read throughout the entire book of Jeremiah and read the account, that's there. What you find is constantly throughout the book is that he wants to give up over and over and over again that he's like, God, this is hard. Why did you call me to this? This isn't what I want to do it . In fact, at one point in Jeremiah 19, it's one of my favorite lines in the book. The way the Hebrew actually reads is, is that he says to God, God, you seduced me. You tricked me into this. You pulled me into this. You put up a facade. I thought that this was going to be good and beautiful. Like I thought that this was going to be this way. That was going to be like , life-giving had to have so much energy and God instead, it's been hard. It's been difficult. All that happens is that people call me names and they come after me. And I go out and I speak the words that you've given me to speak. And it's like, it falls on deaf ears. God , like, why did you call me to this thing? And so at this one point at this one point, there's this moment where he's offering one of these complaints to God like, God, why do you have me do this thing? I'm tired. I'm over it . There are other things that I could be doing. I would rather be doing the other stuff that looks a lot easier. And it's in the midst of that in Jeremiah chapter 12, that here's what God's response then would be to Jeremiah. God says to Jeremiah, if you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? And if you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets? By the Jordan? Here's what he's saying. He's giving a metaphor. God's giving this metaphor, this picture. And he's saying, Jeremiah, if you are worn out racing men on foot, how are you going to compete with horses? Because this one is easier and that one's going to be a whole lot harder. And if, if you have this path that you're walking on, if you're hiking and you have this path that it's state it's, it's flat and it's easy and there's nothing in your way. And you have a hard time with that. How are you going to handle it? When it's overgrown with thickets, how are you going to handle it? When there's all the brush in your way, how are you going to handle it when it's much more difficult? In other words, what God is saying is saying, Jeremiah, how will you handle the harder, more difficult experiences of life? If you can't handle these ones that are right in front of you right now, that actually require less of you than what's to come. Jeremiah, you're going to have these moments that are going to call for more from you. You're , you're going to be confronted in ways that you can't even imagine. Right now, you can't even fathom the ways that you're going to be confronted. You can't even begin to picture the difficulties that you'll experience. You don't have a category for them because they have not yet happened to you. And if right now you can't handle the things that are happening to you now, and you want to tap out now and you want to give up now, how will you handle these difficulties that are going to come to you later in life? Jeremiah, what you're going to come across later is going to feel like a walk in the park to what you're going through. Now, it's going to feel like the difference between running a race against people versus running a race against a horse. It's going to feel like the difference between going on a path that is clear and easy versus going on a path that's covered over. And it's difficult if you can't handle now, how will you handle later? And the thing is the thing is that , that your life right now, it's setting the trajectory for the way that you'll handle the things that you'll experience that are going to be harder and more difficult later in life. The things that you don't know that will be asked of you, the demands on your life, that haven't been put on you, the choices and decisions that you make. Now, they're actually training you for how you're going to respond in those moments that you don't know what they will be, but what you do now is training you for how you'll respond in those moments, because your life is built on a series of small decisions. And so we're not going to do the big, difficult thing later. If we haven't been doing the small things that will help us get to that place. Uh, like , like for instance, I have this, I have this vision that like, at some point, at some point I'm going to be called to radical generosity city in order to help somebody. And when that moment comes, when that moment sort of crosses my path, I want to be the kind of person who's going to respond with radical generosity in that moment. Like, don't you want to be that kind of person that when this moment is called of you, that you would be somebody who would be able to be radically generous in a way that would actually change the trajectory of somebody's life in that I want to be that kind of person, but here's what I know. Studies actually show that if you're going to be that person that has nothing to do with how much money you are making at that point, when the opportunity presents itself, and it has nothing to do with how much money you have in your bank account. When the opportunity presents itself has nothing to do with what your liquid assets are at that point. Here's what it has to do with whether or not you will respond with radical generosity. When the moment presents itself, it has to do with whether or not you have been making smaller, generous decisions. Up until that point, it's like a muscle that we develop because we don't like show up to the gym and be inspired and have this vision that I'm going to be a bodybuilder. And I'm going to bench press 250 pounds, and I'm going to show up and do that thing. You go do that thing and you will be dead, right? Like you're not going to be able to do that. Instead, what you do is you consistently show up weekend, week out with smaller weights, and then you work up to a little bit heavier weights and you consistently week in, week out show up and then eventually over time, because you have been consistent with the small things, then eventually you're able to handle the larger thing. There are going to be these moments in your life where you're going to be called to engage in something that's bigger. And are you doing the things that will help lead you there? Like there's going to be moments where maybe like your character is going to be attacked. There's going to be moments where it's going to feel like people have turned against you in some sort of way, big ways, small ways, some sort of way. It's going to feel like people. And I'll tell you that when those, that moment happens for me, I want to be the kind of person who there are two responses that I want to have. I want to have empathy. And I want to have curiosity. I want to have empathy towards the person who's responding in that way. And curiosity wondering like , what is it that has like, what brokenness are you going? What hurt are you going through? That's causing you to act in this way. It's causing you to treat me in this way. What's going on for you. But here's what I know is that I will not naturally respond in that way. If I want that to be true, then, then I have to find small ways for that's true now. And a small way might look like when I'm on the freeway and somebody is driving like a jerk and they're like cutting people off and they're going quick. And what my natural responses is that I make up a narrative about who that person is about, why they're driving that way and all the things that are true of him that I can say in my car that they won't hear me say, because like, I'm in my nice, safe bubble of my car saying those things. But what if instead when those moments happen, I instead invite empathy and curiosity. And I say, huh, I wonder, I wonder if like, there's somebody pregnant in their car and they're trying to get to the hospital. It's probably not true, but like, why not? I'll never know it's actually true in the car. So why not let it be something like that? That gives me empathy for the person. Maybe they're incredibly late for a business meeting. That's so important that they're going to lose their job if they don't get there in time. And I just started being curious and having empathy for what's going on there. And this little thing that doesn't cost me something so that I'm building the muscle. So that one day when there is the bigger thing that does cost me something, that muscle is already there, I've been practicing it . I've been rehearsing it. And so do you want to build the capacity to do something more significant? You want to build the capacity to handle things that are more difficult, your smaller habits that you're engaging in now will help to reflect the direction that your life is headed. And so are they reflecting the direction that you want to have? Like , what do you want to be true in your life 23 years from now? And what are the small things that you can be doing today that helped to build that muscle? What will happen as you build that muscle over time is the same thing that happened to Jeremiah. As we get to the end of Jeremiah's story, which we won't get to today, but you'll get to incoming weeks. What begins to happen is that people, there are some people who begin to trust. Jeremiah began to look to him for direction, begin to realize that Jeremiah has some cache that comes with him because of the way that he has lived consistently over a long period of time, because he has lived a long obedience in the same direction that there is a weight of character that he carries with him. So they begin to recognize this wisdom that comes with Jeremiah. And over time, living consistently in the same direction will begin to produce wisdom. Now, wisdom does not happen. You don't get to be wise just because you got older. There are a lot of people who are older, who are not wise, but you do get to become wise without getting older. There are no 20 year old sages. There are no 30 year old sages . There are no 40 year old stages . You have to have live life to become a Sage. You have to have lived life to gain wisdom. Okay ? And it's living the life of consistency in the same direction. Doesn't mean that we don't mess up. It doesn't mean that we don't get derailed at times, but it means that we keep bringing ourselves back to that point. Wisdom is gained through that persistent faithfulness course, correcting along the way to ensure that the trajectory goes and continues in the right direction. It's a friend's friends. I'm not asking you today. I'm not asking you to be somebody who's in the same job for the next 50 years. Maybe some of you that will be true of my guess is that most of you, that won't be true of . I'm not asking you to never move and to stay in the same house that you're in now to not make changes. I'm not asking you to not change majors in college and to not change career paths along the way. I'm not asking you to have some hobby that you try out and that you feel like I can't ever abandon because Mike told that story about like, so I I'm going to be a surfer because I decided I'm going to be a Sur . I hate doing it, but I'm going to do it. Like, I'm not asking you to do that. But here's what I am asking you to do. I'm asking you to consider what kind of person do you want to be 23 years from now? What kind of character do you want to have 23 years from now? What kind of stories do you want your kids to tell? What kind of stories you want your neighbors to tell 23 years from now? What kinds of ways do you want to be responding to moments? You don't even know that you'll be confronted with 23 years from now? What kinds of things you hope people will stand up? And one day say about you as they're reflecting in your life. And you get to start determining that now. Well, whether you're 15 or whether you're 50, you can start living in a way that one day, perhaps someone may say of you that you lived a long obedience in the same direction. May you be able to say like Jeremiah for 23 years, I've been doing this. And regardless of what, what, like what has happened along the way, regardless of the roadblocks that have shown up for 23 years, I have been doing this, may that be true of your marriage? And then you're able to say it for another 23 years. May that be true of the way you parent your kids? And then you're able to continue to be saying that may that be true of the way that you started your business with this idea of the way that you would treat people and what you would do. And then along the way, there was reality of stuff. And may it be true of you that 23 years into the business that you started, that you would be able to say, this has been consistently true of the way I've treated my employees and my customers. What do you want to be true of you 23 years of now that that begins now in the small things that we're doing now. And so today, today we have an opportunity to celebrate communion together. And communion is a reflection and a remembrance and an entering into the last meal that Jesus would celebrate with his disciples. It's this way of remembering and reflecting on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, where we remember that though, the path to the cross was difficult. And though the path to the cross was in some ways not what we would want it to be, that he chose to go that path. Anyways, I think of, I think of what the author of Hebrews writes about Jesus going to the cross,

Speaker 4 30:30

The author of Hebrews says this that let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. Let , let us continue a long obedience in the same direction. And the author of Hebrews

Speaker 3 30:44

Says, this is how we do that. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer

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And perfecter of faith

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For the joy set before him,

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He endured the cross scorning its shame

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And sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,

Speaker 4 31:00

Consider him consider Jesus who endured such opposition from sinners so that you do not grow weary and do not lose heart in the midst of the difficulties of life. In the midst

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Of the difficulties of trying to figure out what does it look like

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For us to live as faithful people of God in this moment, in this time, and this place, the author of Hebrews says that we, we turned to Jesus. We fix our eyes on him. We remember that for the joy set before him, that he would endure the cross at theologian

Speaker 3 31:35

Steelers is to spend all kinds of time trying to figure

Speaker 4 31:37

Out what is the joy set before him. And there's all, there's all sorts of things. There's all sorts of things that that joy may be. But I'll tell you what one of them is. One of them is you are the joy who has set before him that for God, so loved the world that he would give himself up for you. And so what I want to ask you to do is I want to ask if you had take on the bottom, don't take off the top yet because you'll spill your juice on the bottom. There's a small wafer. And if you take that out, when we take this, we remember it , that last meal that Jesus would share with his disciples, that he would take bread and he would break it and he would give thanks. Then he would say this about the bread that he would say, this is my body, which has given for you that when you take it, do this in remembrance of me, the body of Christ, and likewise, he took the cup and he also gave things. And he said that this cup represents my blood, which has been poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink of it, do this in remembrance of me, remember the life that I live, remember that I would go to the cross, remember that death couldn't hold me and that I'd be raised from the dead. And so as we drink this, we do it in remembrance of Jesus. [inaudible] . I want to invite you to just take a moment of quiet reflection, remembering Jesus, who would endure the cross for the joy set before him.