“23 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, 24 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,” declares the Lord.
25 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the desert in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
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I’m going to need some congregational participation here. If you were stranded alone on a desert island with only one tool, which one would you choose? If you were stranded alone on a desert island with only one piece of technology, what would you choose? If you were stranded on a desert island with one fictional character, who do you think would prove most helpful?
The goal of the desert island game is to identify what you deem most necessary for a particular crisis. It is a way of deciphering what you think can and will deliver the most in the situation in which you find yourself. That’s what’s going on with this evening’s passage. Judah was unraveling and as the Babylonian threat grew the people found themselves playing a real-life version of the desert island game; they were trying to figure out what would be most needful for this particular crisis.
We’ve seen something a bit like that in our own nation over the past year. When supply lines were threatened by the pandemic, people decided which foods and amenities seemed most necessary and stocked up—hence the toilet paper shortages. After the riots, gun sales went through the roof. Each round of stimulus checks has brought questions about how best to prepare for the possibility of hyper-inflation. People were and are deciding what they think is most necessary for each apparent crisis.
As Judah unraveled the people made their choices. Some did their absolute best to understand the lay of the land and act accordingly; in short, they thought wisdom would save them. Some saw signs of chaos to come and focused on strength. Some believed that cash would still be king no matter what happened.
Jeremiah told them that none of it would prove sufficient. They could never be wise enough, strong enough, or rich enough for what was coming. Humanly speaking they could do nothing to ensure their survival. What was most needful was to know the Lord. The Lord could do what wisdom, strength, and wealth could not. That’s the claim of this sermon: what’s most needful is knowing the Lord.
We will study this in two points. First: proper boasting. Second: circumcised in heart. In verses 23-24, we will study proper boasting. In verses 25-26, we study the call to be circumcised in heart.
First: proper boasting. Last week we studied one of the more gut-wrenching passages in the book of Jeremiah—“Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears!” We stopped at 9:2, but it got worse as chapter 9 went on; verse 4, “Beware of your friends; do not trust anyone in your clan. For every one of them is a deceiver”; verse 11, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackal”; verse 17, “call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids”; verses 20, 21, and 22, “Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament. Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses… Dead bodies will lie like dung on the open field.”
That’s what the people were up against and that’s what led to verse 23, ‘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…”’ None of that would be enough when Babylon came to town.
People tend to think that they are sufficient to handle anything or, at the very least, that they can become sufficient to handle anything. They believe that enough wisdom, strength, and wealth can fix any problem. Now, wisdom, strength, and riches can do quite a bit. The wise do understand the lay of the land and as a result can better prepare for what’s next. Those who have strength can better leverage situations to their advantage. Those who have wealth are better positioned for any number of difficulties. There is a reason that people boast in wisdom, strength, and wealth.
People still boast in them in our day. People who truly understand the lay of the land in any given field tend to rise to the top. Strength is still seen as a prerequisite for liberty, as seen in second amendment discussions. People still believe that having enough wealth is the best way to prepare for whatever’s next. The wise still boast in their wisdom. The strong still boast in their strength. The rich still boast in their riches. They do so because of what they believe wisdom, strength, and wealth can do for them.
However, none of these can do what the Lord can do. That’s the point of the contrast between the triads of verse 23 and 24. The triad of verse 23—wisdom, strength, and riches—cannot do what the triad of verse 24 can do—the Lord’s steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. That’s the message of verses 23-24, “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.” The point of these verses is, as JA Thompson puts it, to make clear, “in such critical days the only hope for men lies in the faithfulness, justice, and integrity of [the Lord].”
Now that is either true or it is wishful thinking. Either the Lord’s steadfast love, justice, and righteousness are operative on behalf of His people in trouble, or they aren’t. If they aren’t, you better get enough wisdom, strength, and riches, but if the Lord’s steadfast love, justice, and righteousness are enough, why worry about making sure you have enough wisdom, strength, and riches?
The people in Jeremiah’s day had to decide what they thought could deliver. You need to decide too because the contrast between these two triads shows that you can’t trust in both at the same time. You can’t put your trust in your own wisdom to secure the best outcome for whatever situation you find yourself in and, at the same moment, put your trust in Lord’s steadfast love for you in your situation. You can’t believe that whatever leveraging you can do will deliver you and trust that God’s justice is what will bring the necessary outcome. You aren’t putting yourself in the hands of a promise keeping God if you believe that, when push comes to shove, it is really your savings account that takes care of you. You are putting your trust somewhere; where is your trust placed?
Now we are finally ready to tackle the confusing word “boast.” Many people can get on board with the words, “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 are confused by, “let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord.” That’s understandable because we tend to assume that boasting is leads to pride—you shouldn’t boast about being wise; you shouldn’t boast about being strong; you shouldn’t boast about being rich; you shouldn’t boast about anything. In this context, however, boasting is about the greatness of what can deliver in a crisis: wisdom or God? Strength or God? Riches or God? The message is here is that you boast in God because He is far superior to wisdom, strength, or riches in the face of the Babylonian threat. “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.”
God’s people boast in Him because He is superior to everything else. That’s Psalm 44:8, “In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.” The Lord can help when no one else can; that’s Psalm 34:2, “My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.” The wise ruler trusts not in what he can do to stop evil but in what God can do; that’s Psalm 63:11, “the king shall boast in God; all who swear by him shall exult, because the mouths of liars will be stopped.”
There is an element of proper trash talk here because God does and will demonstrate His superiority above everything which opposes Him. That’s Isaiah 45:24-25, “All who have raged against Him will come to Him and be put to shame. But all the descendants of Israel will find deliverance in the Lord and will make their boast in Him.” That’s the same trash talk Moses and Miriam gave after the victory of the Red Sea. “The Lord is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name.” They were saying that the Lord was a better king than Pharaoh. Elijah boasted in the Lord on Mount Carmel because Elijah believed the Lord was a better God than Baal. Paul boasted in the Lord on the cross because that was more powerful than anything the Jews had and the plan of salvation it represented was wiser than anything the Greek philosophers had. Paul boasted in the Lord’s help in his own weakness because that’s actually what strength looks like in church. There is all sorts of boasting in the Lord in Scripture.
Now we don’t just boast in the Lord; we boast in knowing the Lord; “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.” It does you no good to boast in the Lord unless you actually know the Lord.
To understand what this means, you need to grasp the seeming impossibility of it. You need to recognize how outrageous it sounds when we talk about knowing the Lord. What we are saying is, “you know the God who created everything and who does whatever He wants? He and I know each other.” We are saying what Brennan Manning says about God, “Oh yes, God does like me; in fact, He’s very fond of me.” That’s what we are saying when we boast in knowing the Lord.
That’s what Jesus did. John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.” John 5:20, “the Father loves the Son and shows him all He does. Yes, and He will show him even greater works than these.” John 16:27, “the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me.” Does that sound like someone who could say, “Oh yes, God does like me; in fact, He’s very fond of me”? That was Jesus’ boast. That could be yours.
If you want to boast in the Lord, you—like Jesus—need to know what He’s like rather than what you assume Him to be. If I want a real relationship with you, I need to get to know you as you are, not you as I assume to be. If you want to know God, you need to know Him as He is, not as you assume Him to be. So who is He? What is He like? Who is this God in whom you can boast? He tells us in this second triad which we’ve already seen can do far more for us in a crisis than our wisdom, strength, or money; verse 24, “I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.”
Do you want to know what the Lord is like? He delights in steadfast love; that’s the covenantal word here behind “kindness.” The Lord delights when He sees steadfast love. He delights to show steadfast love. That’s why He does it so much. He delights in justice. That’s why He hates injustice. He delights in righteousness, which makes Him the happiest being you will ever meet because He is perfectly righteous. He thinks He is, without a doubt, the best, which is why He makes us more like Himself. That’s also why He tells us to boast in Him.
Jesus understood all of this, which is why He boasted in his Father. Churches who understand this boast in Him too. They love to boast in the Father so that others will know His greatness. They love to boast about Jesus in song because it just makes sense to love their king; that’s We Will Worship the Lamb of Glory, “with our hands lifted high, we will worship and sing. And with our hands lifted high, we come before You rejoicing. With our hands lifted high to the sky, when the world wonders why, we’ll just tell them we’re loving our King.” They love to boast in the power of the Spirit by depending on Him rather than depending on themselves because that makes God look good. That’s what it means to truly know God.
That’s the boast you need in the face of the Babylonian threat. That’s the boast we need. The book of Revelation uses the language of Babylon to refer to the power of this age. IF your goal is to avoid being sucked into the currents of this culture and carried downstream with it to destruction, you need to know the Lord. He’s the only one who can deliver.
We see what it means to know God from a different angle in our second point: circumcised in heart. The Jews in Jeremiah’s day thought they knew God. They thought they knew God because they were God’s people, and they had the scars to prove it. The men were circumcised as a sign that they, and those born to them, belonged to God. They thought these marks meant they knew God. They—like the Jews in Paul’s day—boasted in circumcision. They thought circumcision meant they knew God.
Jeremiah told them that they might be circumcised in the flesh but their lives demonstrated that they weren’t circumcised in heart. Their flesh was marked; their hearts were not and therefore their circumcision meant nothing more than the circumcision practiced by the nations around them; that’s verse 25, ‘“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the desert in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
Some scholars believe that these nations were part of an alliance formed by the Egyptians to contain the Babylonian threat. These nations in particular were listed because they practiced some form of circumcision while the Babylonians did not. The message to Jews was, “if you think just being circumcised in the flesh can do anything for you against Babylon, then you really are no different from Egypt or Moab.” Calvin rightly said that the same is true for anyone who thinks baptism by itself makes a difference; “The same is now the case when we boast of baptism alone and are at the same time destitute of repentance and faith; our boasting is absurd and ridiculous.” Baptism can’t save you from the power of this age. Only knowing God can do that.
It isn’t just wisdom, strength, and riches that will prove insufficient; faithless faith will prove insufficient. Being circumcised in the flesh without being circumcised in heart was just as insufficient. Being baptized without having a new heart is insufficient. Being me without having a new heart is insufficient. Being you without having a new heart is insufficient. There is nothing that makes up for the lack of a new heart, which is just to say that there is nothing that makes up for the lack of actually knowing the Lord.
This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. This is why Stephen told the Sanhedrin that they didn’t understand what he was saying because they were uncircumcised in heart and ears. That’s why Paul told the Jews that their trust in circumcision meant they were basically uncircumcised. They were boasting in faithless faith. They needed to boast in the Lord. They needed to know the Lord.
You need to ask yourself if you actually do know the Lord because the Lord only knows the people who actually do know Him. That’s what’s behind Jesus’ explanation of what’s coming on judgment day. ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ There will be people who believe the Lord is for them and yet are totally unknown by the Lord because they don’t really know him. Don’t be one of those people.
Knowing the Lord is that important. Knowing the Lord is far more important than any of us will ever grasp. It is worth boasting in. It’s the only thing worth boasting in. You can know God. If that doesn’t change you, nothing ever will. If He’s not enough to face whatever is coming, nothing will be. Amen.