Our script reading this afternoon is taken from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. Turn with me in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 24. Jeremiah had a rather lengthy ministry in the land of Judah. He began his ministry around the year 627-626 in a time of reformation led by King Josiah, a godly king. But his ministry was long enough to see the fall of Jerusalem. In fact, there were those who took him away against his will to the land of Egypt when the kingdom of Judah fell. But this evening we read Jeremiah chapter 24. After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken into exile from Jerusalem, Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision. Behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. One basket had very good figs, like first ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. And the Lord said to me, what do you see, Jeremiah? I said, figs. The good figs, very good, and the bad figs, very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten. And the word of the Lord came to me. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, like these good figs, I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land, and I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. But thus says the Lord, like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah, the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers. This truly is the word of the Lord. And this evening, I direct your attention to the words of verse seven. I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God for they shall return to me with their whole heart. Dear congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Christmas season is already upon us. You probably have noticed in some of the stores that Christmas displays are already out. I heard one friend tell me, I did not see this myself, but one friend said that he already said some Christmas displays in stores last August. Well, that's rushing the season. I suppose just like some people never take their Christmas decorations down or their lights, I suppose some stores might as well just keep their Christmas display up the whole year. Already in some of the drugstores, Christmas cards are out for sale. It comes upon us soon enough. And every year we complain about it. Nevertheless, the merchants are out to make profits. and it's especially important commercial time for the merchants of our land. And they make a profit from the habit of gift buying. I call it a habit because so often the formality of it, the routine, seems to overtake us. And I can be just as guilty as anyone else. And when it becomes a mere formality, the joy of gift giving and the joy of gift reception is largely lost. Consider the fact that the day after Christmas, the day or two days after it, are some of the most busy times in our stores. Not simply because there might be some Christmas sales, but often people are returning gifts. Some gifts have to be returned. It was the wrong color. There was a flaw found. It's not the right size. Some gifts need to be returned. But I suspect that some gifts are returned simply from sheer ingratitude. We simply didn't like the gift that we had received. On Jeremiah 24 verse 7, Jeremiah is speaking about a gift, a covenant gift. Christmas has come for Israel in exile. It is a gift that will be returned, not out of ingratitude, but a gift that will be returned to the Lord because of the nature of the gift and the nature of the giver. And so I want us to focus this evening upon Jeremiah 24, verse 7. Under the theme, the Lord gives the heart that returns. The Lord gives the heart that returns. First, notice with me. the occasion for this gift, secondly, the content of the gift, and then finally, the size of the gift, its occasion, its content, and its size. Now, the chapter that we've just read describes a vision of two baskets of figs. Visions are not completely unusual in the Old Testament with prophets, not even visions of baskets with fruit in them. If you're familiar with the book of Amos, there is that passage in Amos, one of his visions, where he sees a basket of ripe fruit. Picture in your mind a lovely bushel basket with ripe, crisp apples. But the vision that Amos sees is of an Israel that is ripe for destruction. The end has come for Israel. Every single fruit has gone rotten and is smelly. Not good for any eating, selling, reception. Good only to be thrown out. And now likewise, here in Jeremiah 24, he has a vision. Two baskets of figs. One is a basket of very good figs. You know, often the first that are ripe, the juicy, sweet to the taste figs. represents those who are in exile. The other basket is bad figs, rotten figs, so bad there's no way you would ever put one of them in your mouth. And as the Lord explains the symbolism of the vision, the bad figs represent Zedekiah, the current king, his court, and all the remnant of Jerusalem. These are the bad fruit who by some way, hook or crook, had avoid being taken away by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, into exile. The Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar had only recently taken away the previous king, Jehoiachin, or Jequaniah, as he's called in this chapter. He has both names. His court are taken into exile, prisoners in a foreign land, in the pagan land of Babylon. And I can well imagine that those who avoided the exile could, you know, wipe their hands clean and say, the Lord was with us. The wicked have been taken away. We are survivors. The Lord loves us. Now, in fact, both Jequaniah and Zedekiah the current king had been wicked kings. And so being taken away into exile would seem to be a punishment that he deserved. He deserves to be taken away and punished in the eyes of those who were righteous. But then a prophet begins to see a vision. Prophets see things that you and I don't see. At Jeremiah 23, he describes the previous chapter, he describes what a prophet experiences when he is taken up into the court of the Lord. And when you're taken up into the court of the Lord, you see and hear things that ordinary mortals do not see and hear. And that's when prophets often may receive their messages, not exclusively, but often. They have seen the Lord, they have heard his word, and they now communicate that to us. Well, Jeremiah, what do you see? His answer? Figs. Very good figs. Quality figs that would make your mouth water. The kind of fruit that ripens first is almost always the best in its taste. Now, that good fruit that Jeremiah sees is symbolic of God's new attitude to the community of God's people that had been taken away to Babylon. He will regard them as good. The Lord is not blind to what kind of hearts they had, what kind of lives they lived. But He will now regard them as good, and they will experience the Lord's blessing. God is so changed, it seems, that He will even give them a new heart. And that forces us to ask the question, why? Why will he do this? And it's not readily apparent why. And yet the announcement of a good gift from God must have been a great source of relief for Jeremiah. If you're familiar with the book of Jeremiah, you know that he is not what we might call one of those, he's not a health and wealth preacher in any way. We would call him perhaps a hell and damnation preacher. In fact, the word Jeremiad, which sometimes is used even in modern literature, is a kind of sermon that denounces the wicked. Jeremiah's sermons were so unpopular that the men of his own village, Anathoth, plotted his death. They told him, you stop preaching. Stop it. Because if you don't, we're going to kill you. This is what the men of his village told him. So the fact that now he can say something promising must have been a welcome message for Jeremiah. God has a good gift for his people. But again the question comes back. Why? What's the occasion for this gift? Did these people in exile deserve it? Had they merited it? Do we see mass conversions and signs of repentance among the exiles in Babylon? No, we don't see that. They may have been very well chastened, but the text does not tell us that that's the reason why God will give them this new heart. You know, at Christmas time, if I may just use that for example, How many times don't you feel like you have to get so-and-so a gift? Family member, friend. You really don't want to do it. You know, they have everything already, so what do I get them? But, you know, if you don't get them a gift, it's an awkward moment, maybe a little bit of bad feeling. And so we go out and we buy a gift. We find something, even if it's a bad tie. Got to have something. or fruitcake. It's part of our social customs. Gift buying and receiving at Christmas is a habit and it becomes a very expensive one at that. But then I ask, but is that the real spirit of giving? We have occasions for giving gifts that are really occasions for necessary gifts. Necessary because of the social customs and social pressure. And then the only surprise And then the only joy that is left is, well, what is ultimately inside that nicely wrapped box? Not the fact that you received a gift. Aren't the sweeter gifts the ones that come totally out of the blue? You had no idea it was coming and there it is. And so often the spirit of giving in our midst, and again, I'm just as guilty as the others, is more often a hoping I can get. But brothers and sisters, God's giving is far, far different. With a wicked regime in power in Jerusalem and other wicked Jews in the land of Babylon, God makes this amazing and surprising announcement. I will give them a gift of a heart. I will give them a new heart, a heart that knows me. No occasion, no birthdays anywhere. It's not even Christmas shopping time. The God who hates sin with such fierce hatred that he cannot tolerate it, he cannot even look on it. That's true. He cannot look upon anything that is sinful, filthy, dirty, wicked, is telling these exiles through the prophet, He will give them a heart that knows Him. And this gift comes to people who had burned incense to bales, to people who had called trees their fathers and stones their mothers. Chapter 2. They are a people who had become barren religiously. The gods of this age, the gods of pleasure, of nature, of power, foreign alliances, all those foreign gods had burned them out so that they reached the point where they could no longer offer to God any kind of worship that was acceptable to Him. No fruit, no knowledge, no love. These people had become completely barren in their souls. You see, to know the Lord alone is to love the Lord alone. And Israel no longer loved Him. She'd become unwilling through all the centuries of her life and of her existence to know the Lord her God, and then became unwilling to obey Him, though God repeatedly sent His servants, the prophets, to warn them, to urge them to come back to the covenant God. And all of this spiritual drift, things don't change overnight. All of this spiritual drift culminates, ends in Israel's inability to love God and to know him. You know, churches and congregations, and I dare say people as well, go through at least three stages when they drift away from the Lord. I'll never forget that when My own pastor back in my hometown spelled this out. He says, in the first stage, churches, congregations, and people, they're not sure what they believe. They have a vague idea of what they believe, but they really don't know for sure. In the second stage, they clearly don't know what they believe. In the third stage, they don't care what they believe. That doesn't happen overnight. But when that drift begins, unless it is arrested and stopped and returned around by the Lord God himself, that drift will end in death. If you study church history, this pattern is played out again and again and again. When the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, how can people be motivated to respond? First, they're unsure of what they believe, then they don't know what they believe, and then they don't care. Where are you in this? I'm not saying you are drifting. I'm just saying, is this something that needs to be asked of us? Where is your congregation in this matter? Israel had drifted, and now she smelled like rotten figs. But then, amazingly, out of barren ground comes good figs. Out of the wicked land called Babylon, where God's people, some of God's people, have been taken in exile, God says, I'm going to regard them as good, and I'm going to give them a heart that knows me. Why? No occasion, really, except this. Except this, perhaps, to have a people who knows him and loves him and serves him. You see, God chose Israel out of his sovereign, gracious covenant love. Without Israel, humanly speaking, God is not loved by any nation. Israel must love him in the covenant as all God's people must love him. For his choice of Israel cannot be undone. It cannot be undone. For his choice of his people is a sovereign choice that he makes even before the creation of the heavens and the earth. And therefore, brothers and sisters, it is not a matter of our work that makes us acceptable to God. We live a Christian life not to pay him off or to earn his favor. That takes the stress out of Christian living. Again, this is October where we often think of the Reformation and that the pain that Martin Luther went through before he became a full-blown Protestant Christian was this, do I really love the Lord? Have I really merited his grace? Have I really shown myself repentant? I don't think I have and so I need to fast and fast and whip myself and sleep on cold floors with no blankets, I must painfully prove to God that yes, I really do love you and then maybe he will be merciful to me. How often don't we Protestants profess the true doctrines but live as if we're trying to make God like us? God loves His people not because of anything they've done. God loves you not because of anything you've done. Nothing. Because if we earned His love, God could look at each one of us and say, I'm still waiting, and we would never make it. And so God tells Jeremiah that he will give his people a knowing heart. His arm is not shortened that he cannot reach to the Chaldean lands to reach sinners and to hand them his gift of a knowing heart. The exiles will get the gift, not the self-righteous who had congratulated themselves that they avoided the exile and still live in Jerusalem. You know, it's the self-righteous Pharisees who like to stand and give God thanksgiving prayers. But basically, they're thanking God that they're better than others. I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other men. I fast, I give, I do this, I do this, I do this. I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other sinners. It's the publican who can hardly at all look up who cries out to God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He goes home justified because he has thrown himself on the sheer, mere grace and mercy of God. This gift of a knowing heart is not a reward, as we've said. You see, a reward is kind of like a paycheck. You put in the work, you get the paycheck. You do the duty, you get the reward. In other words, that work becomes a kind of claim on God that would make the gift not a gift at all. God says, I will give them. What can you say when the Lord of all heaven and earth, the God of creation, chooses to give you this amazing gift? You see, brothers and sisters, What did you do to earn or deserve it? For we share, I'm afraid, the dilemma of the sinful man in Adam. For in Adam, we lost all claim to God's covenant gifts, just like Israel lost all right to claim its life in the promised land. You see, in ourselves, we may only remain silent when God chooses to give us this gift, humbly silent. A heart that loves and knows Him. You know, I don't know if you watched any of the film clips or the YouTube excerpts of how the people of the United Kingdom acted when they were passing by the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II or when they meet their new king, Charles III. There are certain protocols. that you follow. Now, you can agree with them or not agree with them. I'm simply saying this as an illustration. When you meet a king or queen, you don't start chattering about some mundane topic like, isn't it a nice day today? The monarch speaks first, then you respond. God is our king. He is our sovereign. He is our covenant Lord. He is a covenant Lord who speaks up while he is surrounded by stinky figs. And he says, I will regard them as good. I will give them a heart that knows me. Out of grace, sheer grace, grace earned for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, there's a popular hymn that speaks of Jesus coming into one's heart. The hymn has a pious intention. But that hymn really doesn't fit what's going on here in Jeremiah 24, because when you have a dead, cold heart, a heart of stone, you cannot invite the Lord into a dead, cold heart of stone. If Israel had a heart, it was a heart of stone, cold, lifeless, unresponsive to God. That heart would never do, which is why God's new gift can take on an added dimension. He sovereignly gives a knowing heart. Now that is its content. You know, some people enjoy giving gag gifts, large packages pleasantly wrapped. They open it up, lots of paper filler. And then at the bottom is a very insignificant gift. I'm not giving anybody ideas, but it happens. God's gift is different. His package, the gift has content. There's something there because it is a heart that knows that Yahweh is God. No one else. Yahweh is the Lord. Now that's a big topic. That's a huge topic. How can someone know God? Well, it's impossible, you might say, and yet some people act as if they know all that needs to be known about God, or they think they do. Consider Israel. They thought they knew about God, but God is saying that they need a heart that has this content, it knows me. It knows me, just as I know you. Is that Israel's sin, though, really? a lack of knowledge? Hadn't she lived under the Mosaic covenant for centuries? And it was the duty of priests, prophets as well, to continually instruct, teach, teach, teach these people the ways of the Lord. Are some of God's people, covenant people, uprooted out of the promised land, taken away to Babylon because they failed a Bible knowledge test? They knew many facts about the Lord. They did. God is one. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. They knew his law, or at least its basics, that he demanded payment for sin. You have to bring sacrifices to be accepted by God. In fact, Judah was privileged, as I mentioned earlier, Judah was privileged to have a great time of revival and reformation when young King Josiah became king. But it all petered out. You see, brothers and sisters, it is true what J.I. Packer, the great British evangelical theologian said, a person can know a great deal about God. without much knowledge of God. It is easy to know about God and yet leave him or have him remain completely a stranger. Many people will miss heaven by 18 ages. They will understand the data, the information contained in the Bible, data, information about the Christian faith, but their hearts are unresponsive to the Lord. Israel and Jeremiah's day was not lacking in facts about God, but they lacked the knowing heart. They may say, as the Lord lives, yet they swear falsely and refuse to repent. Chapter five, both the poor and the great have rejected the Lord and his law. Jeremiah offers one of the most stunning indictments of God's people when he writes in chapter five, A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy lies and the priests rule by their own authority. And my people love it this way. But what will you do when the end comes? What will they do? For the exiles in the land of Babylon, they shall come with hearts that know the Lord. Judgment for some, yes, but Jeremiah is told to announce the gift of a knowing heart to the exiles. This is amazing grace. What a sweet sound. What is involved in this gift, this surprising gift? Let us take a closer look as what is in the content of this most surprising package. Well, first of all, it is a heart. No, I'm not talking about the physical organ that pumps blood in our bodies. It is that center, the core of all of us, the mind, the inclinations, the center of what we really, really are. God's promise of a knowing heart is the will, the thoughts, the beliefs, what makes us who we are. in order to get results. In other words, God's reformation of his people, it will never be superficial. A little bit of makeup here, a little bit of do-goodism over there. No, let's go to the center. If the heart of the problem is the heart, he will give a new heart. But it's a heart that knows God. Now, that too is a gift of God. It is easy for us to know a lot of things about God, but to know God, ah, that's the challenge. Our boys and girls, our young people, we learn a lot of things in Sunday school, catechism, Christian education. He is one being, three persons, okay? He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just good, and the overflowing fountain of good. And if you say, so what? then I would say to you, you do not know God. If I would say to any one of you, describe your spouse to me, and you could only describe certain physical features about your spouse and say, well, my spouse does such and such during the day, and then your description ended, I might well conclude, I don't think you know your spouse. For to know your marriage partner can come after years, years of intimate effort and daily living together. It takes years, not days, not months. And the same is true with God. That's why we never stop reading the Bible. We never stop praying. We never stop meditating upon his word. We never stop listening to the word proclaimed and preached. Because when you are struggling, like with a severe sickness, struggling to get money together for Christian education, when we struggle with those things, with God, we begin to know him a little bit better. To the exiles in Chaldea and to us, the church, God gives a knowing, loving heart. A living seed that pleases God is planted in the very center of His elect people, and then it sprouts. And as it's nourished by His grace, it grows and grows and grows. Throughout the years, until the knowledge of God and the love of God permeates everything, God will then be loved by His people, His covenant partners, and by all creation indeed. You see, congregation, it is that covenant relationship that God has in mind here. Israel had heard these phrases over and over again when God made a covenant with her on the way to the promised land. I am the Lord, I will be your God, you will be my people. That wonderful promises of the covenant relationship. For what more could anyone want than to receive full acceptance from God? To be welcomed by him, indeed to be part of his family through his adoption. This is quite a bundle, a gift package that is amazing. Large in size because it is as large as life itself. For your heart is a thousand times more important, more central than mere feelings. It is life itself. We shall return to God with our whole heart. That's how the verse ends, verse 7. They shall return to me with their whole heart. For the heart that God gives restores all of life. For by His covenantal grace, we find ourselves turned in a new direction. And then as we turn in a new direction, everything we possess comes with it. This is why the connection between man and the garden, man and creation, was always so close in the very beginning. For if man sins, the whole thing is now trash. But when man is renewed, then a new creation will follow. It either turns or it burns. Our families, our homes, our politics, our business, our prayer life. As Daniel once said in Daniel 11, the people who know their God stand firm and take action. They stand firm and they take action. It's like a circle. He gives the heart. The heart returns in worship and devotion. He gives more grace. We again return it in a life that serves Him. And the circle grows and grows and grows. You fail? We all fail. But He gives more grace. This is why the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was so complete. It is finished means I've paid it in full. All of your sins have been washed away. All of your debts are paid for in full. Stop worrying. Start believing and taking action. You fail, He gives more grace. More grace. Because He wants to be known as the covenant God. Our covenant God. And that circle of grace gets bigger and bigger. This is why I want to challenge you boys and girls and young people. Life will not be easy for you. Now, I know you've heard that before, but I want you to also see this, that life now is the beginning of a kind of adventure, maybe that's the wrong word, but a relationship in which you will come to know the Lord more and more, even when you go through the ditch, even when you go down the valley where death casts a shadow. Never let him go. Never let go of him. He will not let go of us. Stay with him so that, as Paul writes in Ephesians 3, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. He asks a lot, doesn't he? And we can give him nothing by ourselves. But the good news is that all that he asks of us, he first gives. St. Augustine caught that so well. Give what you ask, O Lord, and then ask whatever you want. He gives it first, the gift of a knowing heart. He gives more than what we deserve because He loves us deeply. He loves us forever as His covenant people for Christ's sake. And then we dare to turn back to Him. Lord, in all humility, my heart I give to you promptly and without delay. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious God, we do ask that you give to us the grace that allows us to not hold back, but rather to surrender all to you, to give to you what you first give to us, and in doing so, glorify you, praise you, honor you, serve you, to glorify you together forever, and to enjoy you always. Gracious God, we fall far short So often, Father, we are anxious about the things for which we should not be anxious, and we pass by those things that really are of eternal weight. Gracious God, help us to keep our eyes focused on Christ, that the dove of peace may fly into our hearts, rather than to keep looking at the dove of peace and watch him fly away. Keep us focused upon your Son and all that he has done for us in his amazing love for us. a sinful people, but a people redeemed by your Son.