Today you should read: Jeremiah 6:1-9
The Patience of the Lord
Well, it’s great to be back with you Center Point! I’m excited about what God has planned to reach the west side of Lexington with the gospel. Will you commit to pray with us? If we want to see things that only the Lord can do, then we need to ask the Lord to do them. We’re depending completely on God’s grace and for Him to do everything!
Today’s reading is a bit somber and sobering. It reminds me a lot of the sermon from this past Sunday. The reason is because the Lord, here, is bringing rejection and death to His people. After hundreds of years of rejecting His commands, Judah is going to be punished by the Lord. He is going to reject them. He is going to allow death to His people; to the tribe and to the individuals. But in this death, the Lord will ultimately bring life. Because out of this punishment He will draw hearts back to Himself, and they will learn to treasure the Lord again. And soon enough He will ultimately bring the Life-Giver Himself, Jesus of Nazareth, from this very tribe. Jesus will come through the line of this very tribe that God is rejecting right now. Doesn’t that remind you of our passage from Sunday in John 12:20-26? The Lord surely brings life…through death.
Today’s “Walk-a-Way”
From our reading today, I want us to grow deeper in understanding two things: The Lord’s patience and the Lord’s purpose.
Although these verses speak of the destruction and the devastation that the Lord will bring on His people, and even though the theme of these verses is rejection by the Lord, we can’t miss His patience. This is the God of the universe. There is no ultimate sin sacrifice yet, and yet God has been very patient. Even here we see how God has dealt lovingly with His people up to this point. He has loved His people, provided for His people, given direction to His people, and
protected His people. The Lord has been so patient.
Not only has God been patient, but He has also been good. His purpose for His people has been for their good, and even now in rejecting them and exiling them, His purpose is for their good. His purpose is to bring them back into a loving relationship with Him and not to be hurt by the idols that they are pursuing. The Lord has good purposes for rejecting
His people.
With both of these aspects being true, God is still going to discipline His children. God’s patience will now have to end (in a sense), and He will have to address the disobedience of His children. And I think we can learn that God’s patience will not last forever if we are living in sin. If there is an area of disobedience that God has shown us in our lives, an area where we have been disobedient to His Word, we should deal with it. God will be patient towards us, but He will indeed step in and discipline us. Oh, how honoring it would be to our loving King for us to step up and address it ourselves before He has to, as He had to with Judah. God is so patient with us, let’s step up and honor Him knowing that His purpose is for our good.
Posted by: Sam Cirrincione
JumpstartCPC.com 
Welcome back, Sam! Yes, I will commit to pray for God to show us how to reach everyone on the west side of town with His Good News!!
Amen Kim! Welcome back Sam & Kasey! Tina and I are excited to see what God his in store for HIS church on the west side of Lexington. We will be praying!
Great to have you back Sam!