Jeremiah 9:23-24 - August 21, 2009

Jer 9:23-24 This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” NIV

Oh the love of God! Oh the Kindness of God! Here in the Old Testament, in the book of Jeremiah, we get one of the clearest verbal statements from the LORD’s own mouth of his intent for the earth: “I delight in exercising kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth.” Wow. This is a God we need to know! And this is a God the world needs to see! “I am good and loving! I am kind and just! I am trustworthy and faithful! I AM WHO I AM! (Ex 3:14).” Would we boast in who he says he is, so that the world might see him as he truly is?
Ever since Adam turned away from God, and unleashed death into the world, God has been acting in “kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth” to conquer the power of death and restore creation. Though, time after time, God expressed his goodness to creation and to his people – his greatest expression was yet to come. His exodus of Israel out of Egypt couldn’t fully express his kindness and justice. The giving of the Law couldn’t finish the job against sin and death (Ro 8:3). The return from the Babylonian exile and the building of the second temple wasn’t sufficient. And this proclamation alone through Jeremiah was not enough. No – in order to rescue creation, God would have to step down into the sphere of man in a permanent and irrevocable way. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9). In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a woman, to redeem us (Ga 4:4-5). Reinhard Bonnke has said many times that “creation cost God nothing. But salvation cost him everything.” This was indeed God’s supreme act of “exercising kindness, righteousness and justice on the earth.”
But do we the church live in this living knowledge? In our Jeremiah text above, God’s yearning is for a man or a woman to boast that we know and understand him. God is not asking us to boast in our wisdom, strength, or riches – all things that come from him anyway! “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (Jn 17:3). Would that this reality penetrate the core of our beings, that we might boast more appropriately in the LORD. I read recently this quote “I am absolutely dazzled by Jesus. I have found the One my heart loves.” For “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Is this our boast today? Do we come alive with this living knowledge?
Much of the world does not know this God who delights in exercising kindness. Much of the world doesn’t think God exercises much of anything in the world for that matter! Evil and injustice are still at work through the lives of men, communities, and nations. Yet! Through us God is calling: “Boast in me! Boast in the knowledge that you know me, in the love and mercy you have received through my Son! Just as I am full of kindness, righteousness and justice, I want that to flow through you to the world, that they may know also!” Right where you are at today, in the very spot of reading this, would you bask in this love of God for you, that you may boast of truly knowing God so that that the world might truly know this God, that he is a God who “delights in exercising kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth!”