One of the most popular, most regularly offered, justification that we hear is: I am not enough.
It comes so often that I do not have the space today to list out all the instance where I recall hearing it recently. As I am sure that you could add to any list that I create. For you know places, instance, and people who would join the choir of others who respond to the stress, the wounds, and the dailyness of life by saying: I too am not enough.
And while we are quick to grab our Bibles, or find and squeeze a cross in our pockets, or a look to the little Jesus sitting in a places of prominence around our lives, and hold that up and say, ‘yeah, but Jesus makes me enough,’ tomorrow the refrain will come and someone’s actions or their words, or their lack of actions and words, will cause you to say once again, and this time, perhaps, with a tear in your heart, “I am not enough.”
In that place, we find a prophet who lived in difficult times and among difficult people. A prophet whose message was devalued and not listened to. He felt the same way, I think. The weeping prophet who no one wanted to follow. A prophet whose message was discounted to detriment of society and the church that God sent him into.
Jeremiah’s perspective is familiar to us for just because we have the Word of the Lord before us, and just because Christ abides in our hearts, the refrain, erroneous as it is, will still eat away at us. So, the call of Jeremiah from this first chapter of his book, with it is familiarity, and its hints to the words of David in Psalm 139—it needs our attention.
For in these words, God speaks to His servant, and to His Church. . . not a word of chastisement or rebuke, and not a word of prodding them to action among a difficult cultural context or a blind society as a whole.
Instead in this passage I hear something different. And as we consider these few verses, I wonder if you will join me in hearing and responding to the message in the life of this church—both personally and corporately? For as Jeremiah’s call teaches us: we are enough.
Move 1- Time.
While our text begins formally in verse 4, I want to draw you into verse 5. And I want to ask a question as we think about what the Word of the Lord to Jeremiah meant. . .
Let’s hear verse 5 again:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”[1]
Theologically verse 5 is an important verse to consider. It is the substance of Jeremiah’s call. These are the words that he will go back to when he feels threatened and pushed by the people who do not listen to him; people who devalue him. Additionally, verse 5 contains some foundational themes to wrestle with for the church. Themes like: God’s immenseness. God’s presence throughout all our time as Christians. God’s power. God’s will in the life of His people. Just to list a few. It is all there in just one verse.
In 26 English words, or 12 Hebrew ones, we have such depth being given by God to someone who defines themself as too young to be called by God. Oh, and Jeremiah never defines what makes him young either. Young in age. . . Young in faith.
I imagine that this verse took some time for the prophet to consider. If Jeremiah was sitting with the Session of this church, and we were Dwelling in the Word together on this whole text, I would like to think that his attention would rest in on this one verse for a while.
God forming him in the womb. . . that is the reference to psalm 139.
God present in his life and setting him apart for service before the prophet even took his first breath. . .
God calling him to be a prophet when he, the young prophet who could not yet articulate his sense of belonging in the church or his sense of call and did not think he was either qualified or called to be a leader.
Like I said, this is a heavy weight to feel and to try and express faithfully.
As I have told you before, I heard the voice of the Lord call me when I was Jr. High school and I still am learning what that means to me today—and I am no Jeremiah. Imagine hearing God and attempting to make sense of what he heard.
And here is my question: Why are we in a such hurry with God when Jeremiah would likely have to sit with this message and meditate on the implications of what God was saying in his life?
For when we feel like we are not enough, when we feel like we do not measure up to others, we must return to the truth that holds this passage, and this call together… God formed us, Church Family. God called us, Bethesda. God provides the gifts. God sets us up for success, here!
Even when the world around us says that this is an impossibility and points at our flaws—corporately and personally. We are enough. We are always enough to thrive.
If God was present the entire time, even before the prophet was aware of this fact, then should Jeremiah not trust in the revelation of God in his life that calls him to be different?
Should we also work to trust God in the same manner and fashion in our life and in the life of the work we do in His name and for His glory?
Move 2- pushback.
Now I wish that was enough—for Jeremiah and for us. The affirmation that God calls us, that God provides for us, that we can trust the Lord and know that we are enough because Christ is in us, and that God’s care and support changes our identity as we push on toward the high calling in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:14)—this is foundational.
But not even Jeremiah does any of this.
And that truth is also important for us as we consider the prophet’s call story. Because just an affirmation, and the confessional moment that call story this brings forth in each of us will not totally remind us that we are indeed enough in Christ Jesus. It should, but the whispers still come. There is still push back.
For in verse 6, the prophet will again press against God and try to wriggle out of the call of God. He will try and push away from being faithful—just like we do. For as the saying goes, “old habits, die hard.”
And just about the time that we expect God to smack the prophet for not having enough faith, for the world would smack us if we dared to be vulnerable to them and to each other, God reminds us: Do not be afraid in verse 8.
We will push back on God, but God will not let us go. God’s call and God’s mission still calls each of us toward faithfulness. And this is not just a general sense of fear that we are dealing with either but a sense of terror and dread.
Why, are we not to fear?
The Lord answers quickly!
Because God is going to deliver us. And more than just deliver us, God will abide close to us in those moments when we feel that we are not enough—even when we confess with both actions and words that we are not enough on a regular basis. And as we push back on God’s call and mission in our lives, God says, “you may believe this, and you may confess it when pushed, but I have made you different. And because of this, you are enough in my eyes. You are always enough.”
Move 3—the call
And so, Jeremiah, like you and me, is called to great things. The word of the Lord has been placed in the prophet—and in us. God has touched the mouth of his called children and sent them forth to prosper and share the gospel.
And we will see a great many things taking place right before us. These images are vivid, and they are listed in verse 10. Plucking up and breaking down. Destroying and overthrowing. Building and planting. We will see them all as Jeremiah is told that he too will see them as he serves the Lord.
While they come with a sense of judgement?
We are never told which way the judgment falls. We might create that sense, or offer that judgment, but Jeremiah is never told who is suffering and who is being blessed.
Instead, he is to stand before the world, his community, and even the church and faithfully share what God is doing and what God is saying to him knowing that some will listen and some will not. And that is without the commentary that is so tempting to add to the mix.
And it is that commentary that helps us tell each other that ‘we are not enough.’ But when the word of the Lord comes into our hearts and lives, we are enough because Christ dwells with us and in us and God’s word.
Conclusion
Jeremiah took time I believe to consider the word of the Lord. And after considering it, we know that he suffered still. Yet God was always with him—as God is with us.
I hope that as you leave our time in worship and begin to share God’s message, and as you hear others confess with actions, and sometimes with words, that they are not enough, maybe you will remind them of the truth—in God we are enough. And you will further help them turn to Christ who will help transform their lives and make them whole.
DM
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