Gary Hamrick - A Life that Bears God's Name (01/22/2026)
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In Jeremiah 15:15–21, the prophet pours out his heart to God amid relentless persecution for faithfully proclaiming judgment, yet he affirms his delight in God’s Word and his awareness of bearing the Lord’s name. God responds with a call to repentance and worthy speech, promising restoration, protection, and strength to stand as His spokesman without compromising. The key takeaway is that those who bear God’s name must feed on His Word, avoid compromising company, be willing to walk alone, share God’s indignation toward sin, and continually repent to be restored for His service.
Invitation to Turn to Jeremiah 15
Shall we turn together in our Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 15? If you have your Bibles, if you would join me there—Jeremiah 15. If you don’t have a Bible, we have a few that we are happy to distribute throughout the congregation. If you see an usher walking down the aisle near you with a Bible in hand, just raise your hand and receive a Bible from one of them, and then make your way to Jeremiah chapter 15.
I’m going to read starting at verse 15 down through the end of the chapter. So Jeremiah 15, starting at verse 15 and down through the end of the chapter.
Reading Jeremiah 15:15–21
This is what it says. Jeremiah is praying here to the Lord, and he says:
«You understand, O Lord; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me away. Think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?»
And therefore, this is what the Lord says. So now, in response, the Lord speaks in verse 19. He says:
«If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them. I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; and they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you, ” declares the Lord. „I will save you from the hands of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the cruel.“
Opening Prayer
Let’s stop there and pray. Father, we thank you now as we open up our Bibles to study this passage from Jeremiah. We pray that you would speak to our hearts. We pray that we would come before you humbly and receptive and open to what you would want to say to us today. And we pray, God, that you would challenge and change us as we not only hear what your word says but as we take it to heart and do what it says. So help us to be doers of your word, not hearers only. And we pray your blessing over your word, that it is a word that will accomplish its purposes and it will not return void. Lord, that you will do your good work in our lives and in our church today. We’re thankful, in Jesus' name. And everybody said amen.
Context: Jeremiah’s Persecution
This passage here that we opened up with from Jeremiah 15, starting at verse 15, really harkens back to last week’s study when there was this assassination plot against Jeremiah by members of his own hometown—and in particular, members of his own family—who wanted him dead, all because he spoke the truth. He was a vessel that God used to speak to the people of Judah, to his own country, about the impending judgment of God that was coming by way of the Babylonian Empire if the people of Judah didn’t turn to God and renounce their sinful ways.
And so this first part that we opened up with here in verse 15—the first part of verse 15—really is Jeremiah referring to this death threat that was targeted against him. And he’s appealing to God for divine retribution. So that’s why in verse 15 he says, „You understand, O Lord; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors.“ And then he adds at the end of the verse, „Think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.“ So he’s just crying out to God. He’s appealing to the Lord for his help, for his mercy. You know, he asks him in this verse, you know, don’t snuff out my life. I’ve tried to be faithful to you. I’ve tried to serve you in righteousness. And so he appeals to God.
And Jeremiah would be one of the prophets who would suffer probably more physically and emotionally than any of the other prophets. It means the prophets would be brutally killed at the end of their life, but in the duration of their ministry, most times they were basically tolerated. They weren’t always listened to, but they were at least tolerated. Jeremiah, however, has enemies. They just don’t like him. They don’t like what he’s saying. They don’t like the word of the Lord coming through him. And so they want him dead.
And it’s not only this assassination plot that we referred to last week, but later on, when you go through Jeremiah, you’ll see in chapter 20 that he’s beaten up. They beat him and then they put him in the stocks. And so they just want to humiliate him and torment him. And then later in chapter 26, the people publicly call for his death. I mean, the assassination plot from last week was something private, but in chapter 26 they just publicly cry for his death—the people do. And then later in chapter 38, they even throw him into an empty cistern. And remember, several weeks ago we talked about a cistern being just a basin in the ground, usually carved out of bedrock, in which to have water as a supply for fresh drinking water. And so there’s this empty cistern, just muddy on the bottom. They throw Jeremiah into one of those things and they just leave him for dead.
And so this is the way they treat him. It’s constant. It’s relentless. They just want him dead, and they don’t want to listen to what he has to say. And he’s just trying to be a faithful servant of the Lord. And every time, the Lord rescues him. And this is why, at the end of this chapter that we just read here, at verse 21, this is why the Lord says to him, „I will save you from the hands of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the cruel.“ And so the Lord makes this promise to him. He says, you know, I see your suffering. I see your pain. And I’m here for you, and I’m going to rescue you. It’s going to be okay.
But nevertheless, he’s going to have to endure some pretty difficult days at the hands of his own countrymen.
Bearing the Lord’s Name
But there’s the statement that he makes in verse 16 that I want to draw your attention to. And before I read it again, I just want you to notice with me how Jeremiah personalizes things. And I don’t mean that in a bad way—you know, how we say to people, you know, don’t take it personally. I don’t mean it that way. I mean it in a noble way.
Jeremiah is not just approaching his ministry with the idea that he’s here as a spokesman to just, you know, really challenge everybody else. But he takes it personally in the sense that what is God dealing with in my own heart in the process of him using me as his mouthpiece in the lives of the people of Judah? So he internalizes this, and he makes it deeply and intensely personal because he thinks about what is God’s opinion not just of Judah overall, but what does God think of me? What does God think of my life? And how does my life stack up against his standard? Before I can think about how what he’s telling me to say to the people applies to them, how is it that what he’s telling me to say to the people first applies to me?
So he inserts himself in the narrative. And that’s what we’re seeing here in this chapter 15. He’s making this intensely personal. And so he’s praying to the Lord about how he stands in relation to God’s standard. And one of the things that he says in verse 16—if you’ll notice again in verse 16—he says, „When your words came, I ate them.“ He’s talking to the Lord, and he says that they were my joy, my heart’s delight. And then notice the end of verse 16: he says, „For I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty.“
Now just underline that in your Bibles or highlight it. He says, „I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty.“ If you have a New King James or in ESV, it translates, „For I am called by your name, O Lord God of hosts.“ But he means it more than just, oh, I’m called to be a prophet. He means it in that there’s a responsibility that I bear, and it is this: that I constantly am reflecting the Lord wherever I go, whatever I do, whatever I say. Lord, I bear your name.
And he means this, I believe, literally and figuratively. First, literally: his name in the Hebrew was not Jeremiah—I mean, that’s an anglicized version of the Hebrew. There’s no J letter in the Hebrew alphabet. His name in Hebrew is pronounced Yirme’yahu. And Yirme’yahu—scholars debate about the actual definition for Yirme’yahu, how does it translate in Hebrew. Some say it means God throws, as in God’s throwing down judgment on the people of Judah. Some say it means God exalts. Other scholars say it means God loosens. There’s great debate about how to properly translate the root of the name Yirme’yahu.
But one thing that all Bible scholars are agreed on is the „Yah“ part of Yirme’yahu. And the „Yah“ part is a reference to the proper name of God, which is Yahweh. So whether it’s God throws, God exalts, God loosens—it’s a debate—but the one undebatable aspect is that contained within the name of Jeremiah, Yirme’yahu, is a reflection of God’s name: Yah, Yahweh.
So I think that one of the things he’s saying here is literally: my given name has your name, Lord, within it. And in that sense, I bear your name. But in a deeper way, in a broader way, I think he means it figuratively: that Jeremiah is keenly aware that he represents God wherever he goes, with whomever he speaks, whatever he does. He is constantly aware that he is putting God on display. And so in that sense, he personalizes this, and he wants to make sure that he’s bearing God’s name properly. And he wants to make sure that he’s reflecting the Lord well in his life.
And so that’s what I love about him. He begins with himself. He’s not just, well, I’m God’s prophet to pronounce judgment on everybody else. He’s like, let the judgment of God begin first with me. And he looks at himself in a mirror, and he says, you know, I have to be aware that I constantly am bearing the Lord’s name wherever I go, whatever I do, and with whomever I speak.
And in that sense, this is very applicable to us. Because listen: if you identify yourself as a Christ follower—that you have yielded your life to Christ and Jesus is Lord and Savior of your life—then you and I also bear his name as Christians. That’s not just a label; that’s an identity. If you know Christ as your Savior and you’ve trusted him as Lord and Savior and you identify as a Christian, you call yourself a Christian because the name of Christ is contained within your identity.
And as one who identifies with Christ as Lord and Savior, you are constantly to display him wherever you go, whatever you do, with whomever you speak. And this is not a negotiable thing. If you are wearing the jersey and playing on the team, you will always be reflecting him. And we have to be conscious of this. We have to be constantly aware of this as a Christian: what does it mean to be a Christian? What should a Christian look like? How is a Christian supposed to act? How is a Christian supposed to behave? And what is a Christian supposed to talk like? So that we can best reflect Christ.
The Challenge of Bearing Christ’s Name
Now, I’ve got to be honest with you: as I read through this, it became personally challenging to me. I hope it’ll be equally challenging to you. And this is going to be one of those messages—it’s going to be challenging. I’ll just tell you right up front, okay? So any of you, when I put my head down, I want to get up and leave—I was hoping he’d be funny today. Well, I’m not going to be funny today. It’s going to be challenging today.
I had a lady years ago when we were in the old building. She came up to me. She goes, „You know, I just love it when you talk hard to us.“ I said, „What?“ She goes, „Yeah, just preach it. Preach it, Pastor G. Just give it to us hard.“ All right. The next week I gave it hard. She left the church. I mean, just like that. Anyway. So not that I’m wishing anyone to leave, but this is challenging stuff here.
And I think we need to look at our lives and we need to ask some serious questions: what are people learning about Christ through us? What glimpse of Christ—if you bear the name, if you’re a Christian—what glimpse of Christ are you giving to people? And probably equally or even more important is the question: what things should characterize those who bear the Lord’s name?
I think Jeremiah actually answers that last question. What are some things that should characterize one who bears the Lord’s name? I see five things—maybe you could figure out more from the passage we just read—but I see five things that it says about how we should live as men and women who bear the Lord’s name.
Five Characteristics of Those Who Bear the Lord’s Name
So for those of you taking notes, I’m going to just review some of these verses we read at the top of our study and pull out five things that are important to understand about someone who bears the Lord’s name.
1. Feeds on the Word of God
And the first thing that I see here in what he says is that someone who bears the Lord’s name feeds on the Word of God. Feeds on the Word of God. In verse 16, the first part of verse 16, he says in his prayer to the Lord, „When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight.“
Now, in the context, of course, he’s talking about the prophetic word—when God would speak to Jeremiah, then Jeremiah was to speak forth the Word of God. He was to declare that as a prophet for the people of his day. And so clearly he means here, you know, when the Lord would give me a prophetic word that I would speak prophetically to the people. But I think that it is also a wonderful reminder to us of the importance, in general, of us reading the Word of God and getting all of God has, because all that we have here in our Bibles is what God has spoken forth, inspiring it through human vessels to pen the heart and the intention of God.
And therefore, we need to take our Bible seriously and what it is that God would say to us directly from the Word of God, because it is his revelation for this and every previous and following generation. And in a similar way, as Jeremiah says, „When your words came, I ate them, and they were my joy and my heart’s delight, ” will the psalmist write something very similar about God’s law in general in Psalm 119:103, where the psalmist says, „How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.“
And so, in other words, the first thing that Jeremiah notes here about a life that bears God’s name is a hungry appetite for God’s Word. We must have a healthy and a hungry appetite for the Word of God. Why? Well, for many reasons, but on this particular topic, in order to properly bear the Lord’s name correctly in a world that needs to know Christ, how are we going to do that unless we first understand the heart of our Father? And we won’t know the heart of God unless we read the Word of God and we get it into our hearts and into our lives that it might mold us and shape us, that we might become more conformed into the image of Christ our Savior by reading the word and understanding, well, what does God think about this? And what does God think about that? And what does God expect of me in this area? And what does God expect of me in that area?
You won’t know those things unless you read the handbook that he’s inspired for all humanity to read and to understand. If we expect to live a life properly in bearing God’s name, we must be fed by, guided by, and governed by the Word of God. And it must be central to our lives as something that guards us and guides us, something that directs us and corrects us, something that nourishes us and monitors us, something that encourages us and challenges us. And you’re going to get all of that when you go through the Word of God. Sometimes it’s very nourishing. Sometimes it’s very challenging. Sometimes it’s very encouraging. And other times it confronts us about certain issues in our own lives.
And so as we read the Word of God, it helps us to become a better ambassador for Christ in our world because we’re getting the heart of God into our own lives through the reading and the application of his word, that we might be a better representative of him in this world.
And let me say this: the one who expects to properly bear the Lord’s name cannot practice selective obedience to God’s Word. You don’t get to decide what parts of the Bible are worthy of obeying and what parts aren’t. I mean, there might be parts of the Bible that honestly are easier to obey than others. There might be some parts of the Bible that come more naturally to you than other parts. But we must never read God’s Word and think that this is just a bunch of suggestions. They are not. And we must not read God’s Word and think that it’s just a list of rules. It’s not. It’s more than that.
The ordinances, commands, and statutes of God are the wise counsel of an all-knowing, ever-present, all-loving God who knows infinitely more than I do. So I better listen up to what he has to say and obey, who is worthy of my praise and my honor and my obedience. Because if I expect to bear his name, I need to know who he is and why he is so worthy of our praise, honor, and obedience. The sure way to dishonor God is disobedience, and the sure way to honor God is through obedience.
Jesus didn’t put it any more plainly than this. In John 14, verses 23 and 24—in John 14:23, Jesus said, „If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.“ I mean, how much more plain can he get than that? „If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.“ Next verse, John 14:24: „He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.“ He just puts it very plainly: if you really love me, you’re going to obey me. If you don’t love me, it’ll be shown by the fact you don’t obey me.
So we have to be asking ourselves: how much do we love Jesus? Because Jesus says if you love me, you’re going to obey me. If you don’t love me, you won’t obey me. So how much do we love Jesus?
The Christian who says things like, „I know what the Bible says about divorce, but I’m going to pursue one anyway.“ „I know what the Bible says about sexual purity, but I’m going to fool around anyway.“ „I know what the Bible says about moderation, but I’m going to go ahead and get wasted anyway.“ „I know what the Bible says about forgiveness, but I’m going to hold a grudge anyway.“ The person who goes around saying stuff like that—we’re not even saying it, thinking that—it’s not bearing the Lord’s name. You’re just bearing your name, and you’re mocking the name of God in the process.
We’ve got to be serious about this as Christians and take to heart what God says in his word and do what he says in order to properly reflect him, bearing his name in our culture. If we’re going to properly represent him—if we’re going to properly represent Christ in our world—we have to know the Scriptures, grow in the Scriptures, and show the Scriptures by the way we live.
We have to know the Scriptures, which Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. We have to know the Scriptures—that’s where it begins. We have to know the Scriptures because in knowing the Scriptures, then we come to faith in Christ. We have to grow in the Scriptures in the same way that we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ—2 Peter 3:18. And we have to show the Scriptures as we shine like stars in the universe, holding out the word of life to a crooked and depraved generation, as what Paul says in Philippians 2:15 and 16.
So we have to know God’s Word, grow in God’s Word, and show it to a world who needs to know the love and the hope that come through faith in Jesus Christ. And it begins with us obeying—doing what God says in his word. First John 5:3: „This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.“
See, we have a choice. We could either approach the commands of God and think, man, this is like vinegar—I don’t like this. Or we could approach the Word of God as Jeremiah does, and he says this is like honey. This is sweet. This is satisfying. This is nourishing. Oh, how I love your word, Lord. I received it. I ate it. It was like food for me, and it was sweet to the taste, and it was satisfying and delightful.
I hope—I pray—that as you approach the Word of God, you approach it that way: Lord, some of these things are more difficult for me to obey than other parts, but it’s all good, and your word is delightful to my soul, and I feed on it. It is sweet to my mouth. Thank you, Lord, for your word.
So we need to ask ourselves: does God’s word have its rightful place in my life?
2. Avoids Bad Company
The second important point about someone who bears the Lord’s name is that we have to avoid bad company. Now he says here in the first part of verse 17: „I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them.“ It’s very similar to Psalm chapter 1, where it says, „Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.“
Now let me qualify this, and I want to make sure everybody understands this. When we talk about avoiding bad company—when you read with me, as I hope you just did, verse 17, when he says, „I never sat in the company of revelers; I’ve never made merry with them"—he’s not saying that I distanced myself from people because I was too good for them. You know, we’ve got to be very careful. And I always try to make sure this caution is woven in with this kind of a point: that we should never, as the church, think to ourselves we’re just one club and we’re exclusive and it’s hard to get in our club, and we don’t associate with other people outside of the walls of the church, and, you know, we just need to make sure we only are each other’s friends and nobody else’s. I mean, that’s just ridiculous.
And we have to be salt and light in the world. God has called us to be a part of, you know, integrating with the world—only insofar as we influence the world, not so much so that the world’s influence on us would cause us to compromise our lives. And we have to be very careful about this. It’s a very fine line. The world needs what you and I possess in terms of the love of Christ and the message of the gospel. But if we think that we’re just going to rub shoulders with the world and hang out and do everything that they do, we’re compromising our witness, that God’s not glorified, and his name is not borne well.
So we have to be careful in what Jeremiah is saying here, where he says, «I didn’t sit in the company of revelers. I didn’t make merry with them.» He basically said, I didn’t party. I didn’t go around just indulging with the rest of the world, doing things that the rest of the world does. He says, I was very aware of the fact that my mission was always to influence the world, but I never let the world influence me. I stood above that.
And this is why, actually, I think in verse 19, when the Lord replies to Jeremiah in verse 19, at the end of verse 19, this is why God says to him, «Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.» Like, I want you to live your life in such a way that you’re holding the standard. Don’t ever drop it to get down on their level. You live your life for my glory, and you walk the higher road, and you help people to come up higher. But you don’t compromise yourself to go down lower.
And this is important for Christians to understand. If we’re going to properly bear the name of Christ in our world, we can’t be doing stuff like the world does. We have to be very careful about this. Jeremiah is saying, I was very guarded about the company that I kept. He was saying, I was very careful about the lifestyle that I lived.
Listen: he interacted with his world, but he never acted like his world. That’s the point. You and I must interact. We need to share Christ. We can’t be this exclusive club. But we have to be also constantly cognizant of the fact that the world wants nothing more than to pull us down to its level. And as Christians, as bearing the name of Christ, we have to make sure that we’re guarded and that we’re careful about how we live and that we don’t do things that might otherwise compromise our reflection of Christ.
Because the reality is: how can we ever expect anyone to want what we have if our lives look no different from theirs? How can we expect the world to want what we have if our lives look no different from theirs? To bear the Lord’s name means, as Peter would say in 1 Peter 3:15, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
Well, why should anyone be motivated to ask us if they can’t see the hope that we have because we live and do and act just like they do? We have to give them reasons to want to ask the questions: what’s going on with your life, man? You’re different. You don’t do some of the stuff we do. You don’t talk the way we talk. And, you know, I noticed that you don’t go to this place and that place. You know, what’s going on with you?
And you see, that becomes an open door for us to say, hey, you know, I love you, and, you know, I enjoy working with you or hanging out with you, whatever. But listen, I belong to Christ. And because I live for Christ, I want to reflect him well. There’s some things I don’t do because I don’t want to reflect poorly on him. And it becomes an opportunity for you to start to share Christ with people.
But if you’re just doing everything that they do, why should they ever be motivated to ask? If we party like they party, we cuss like they cuss, or smoke blunts like they’re smoking blunts, or lie like they’re lying, or gossip like they’re gossiping—why should they ever care? We have to give them reason to want to ask the questions because we have a stand-up life that is different, that honors the Lord, that bears his name well.
3. Willing to Walk Alone
Number three: someone who bears the Lord’s name is willing to walk alone. This is sometimes a hard thing for people to grasp, but I want to point out to you the middle of verse 17. He says, «I sat alone because your hand was on me.» «I sat alone because your hand was on me.»
I’m just going to be real with you. The reality—sometimes, not always—I don’t want to paint this pitiful picture of a miserable Christian life—but the reality is that sometimes the life of a Christian is a lonely life. If you’re really living for the Lord, there will be times that you will be ostracized by people. You will feel strangely uncomfortable. They will treat you like the odd man out, and you will sometimes find yourself alone. And you will think to yourself, this seems miserable. I was having a lot more fun when I was hanging out with all my unsaved friends before I became a Christian. You know, am I resigned to a life of loneliness? You know, what is this all about?
I’m not saying that’s going to be like that constantly, but I’m saying once in a while we better be prepared for a little bit of loneliness. Because you see, when your values are different from the world, when your convictions are different from the world, when your standards are different from the world, you won’t be able to fit in always. And when you don’t feel like you fit in, you sometimes feel strangely out of place, and thus you sometimes feel lonely.
You will have, obviously, Christian friends, and your church family becomes some of your closest friends. But the truth is that as it relates to your interaction with the rest of the world, you will feel strangely out of place at times, and you will feel alone.
And I try to tell people all the time: if you’re interested in just being well-accepted or being, you know, the popular person in the crowd, and suddenly you’re not, and you’re going to starve for that kind of thing, you better learn something—learn it quick: embrace loneliness. It’ll become your friend.
And no one understood loneliness better than our Savior, because he understood a depth of loneliness like we’ll never imagine. When he’s being crucified on a cross and all his best friends deserted him—all of them. They all deserted him and fled. They were more concerned about saving their own skin than to be associated with Jesus in the hour of his need. They deserted him. They fled.
And when he bore the sins of the world and he took on our sins, that’s when he cries out, «My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?» Because in this instant and in this moment of bearing the sins of the world, even the Father—he felt this separation from the Father, even though he was never separated from the Trinity (that Godhead is one). But this distance was felt because he bore the sins of the world, and he felt that isolation for that moment.
Jesus knows better than anybody what it is to feel all alone and abandoned by your best friends and still being true to the Father. That’s why Isaiah 53:3 says he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with grief. Because he understood what it was to be completely alone.
And if you really want to be a follower of Christ, to bear his name, be prepared to stand alone. Or as Jeremiah says here, «I sat alone because God’s hand is on your life.» And not in some «you’re better than anybody else» way, but when God’s hand is on you, there are some times where he just wants to separate you for his purposes and for his glory.
So Jeremiah says, «I sat alone because the Lord’s hand was on me.» God was doing something in his life, and in order to preserve Jeremiah’s life, Jeremiah understood, I just can’t be doing everything else everybody else does. The Lord’s hand was on me, so I sat alone.
And Christian, we need to recognize that sometimes there will be lonely seasons in your life as a Christian when you determine, I’m going to live differently than the rest of the world. Though they might ostracize me, though they might no longer include me in some of their fun and games or whatever—okay, fine. Because I’m living for a higher purpose, and I’m serving the Lord himself. And God’s going to take care of me. And it’ll be in those times of loneliness that Jesus will show himself to be your very best friend—your very best friend.
4. Shares God’s Indignation About Sin
Number four—I’ve got two more, real quickly—someone who bears the Lord’s name shares God’s feeling of indignation about sin. The end of verse 17: Jeremiah says, «And you had filled me with indignation.»
The word «indignation» is used in every modern translation. It’s the Hebrew word «zem, ” and „zem“ literally means to froth at the mouth. So that’s a picture of real indignation—somebody so stirred up they’re just frothing at the mouth. And it is a word that is used in Scripture to express God’s displeasure with sin.
So those who bear the Lord’s name should be distressed about sin. Sin should make us angry. And sin should make us angry because we first look at it in our own hearts and lives. We should be filled with indignation about sin in our own lives first before we’re ever angry about sin in the world.
And I think this is what Jeremiah meant when in verse 18 he said, „Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?“ Because he was aware of his own sinful heart, and he says to the Lord that my pain is unending. He’s grieved over his own sin.
And I hope—I pray—that you still feel grief over your sin. The worst place to be is when we sin and sin and sin and sin, and we just don’t have any conviction about it anymore. That’s what the Bible refers to as a seared conscience. We become so used to sin that we just get a calloused heart about it.
So when people sometimes say to me, you know, Lord, they’ve been praying to God and saying, you know, Lord, I want victory over my sin—and they come to me and they’re saying, you know, I don’t always feel like I have victory over my sin—you know what I say to people? I say, if you just never give up—as long as you continue to feel the conviction about it and continue to confess that before the Lord and ask for his help—you’re going to be fine. The worst thing is to get to a place where you just have no more conviction about it.
And so don’t despise the conviction, because that’s the Holy Spirit challenging us. And Jeremiah is challenged here about his own sin. He goes, „My pain is unending, and my wound is grievous and—it feels—incurable.“ He’s distressed about his own sin. And he realizes that except for God’s mercy, his sin would be incurable.
And if only the people of Jeremiah’s day would respond with the same conviction that Jeremiah felt about his own sin—if only the people of the nation felt grief over their own sin the way Jeremiah did over his sin—it would have gone far better for them. But they did not.
And Psalm 97:10—it says, „Let those who love the Lord hate evil.“ Do you hate evil in our world? I mean, doesn’t it anger you to think about how evil is just destroying people’s lives? And then more personally: do you hate it in your own life enough to do something about it?
5. Repents to Be Restored
Which leads us to the fifth and final point. He quotes here from the Lord in verse 19: „Therefore this is what the Lord says: If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me.“
Some of your translations say „if you return, ” but the Hebrew word brings here to return as in the sense of turning—because that’s the idea behind repent. You know, repenting is coming under conviction of sin. Listen: it’s not enough for you and me to be distressed about sin. We have to repent of it. Being distressed is only half of it; repenting is the other part.
Repent—in the New Testament, the Greek word is „metanoia.“ It means to change your mind. In other words, you have to have a whole different mindset about the sin and how much it grieves God, how much it grieves yourself, such that you would turn—a change of mind, a change of course and direction. You would turn from what you’re doing and go the opposite direction. And that’s the idea behind repentance.
And repentance is a word that is commonly used throughout the Bible, especially when you get into the New Testament. John the Baptist’s first words out of his mouth: „Repent“ (Matthew 3:2)—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.» First words out of Jesus' mouth in Mark 1:15: He says, «Repent and believe the good news.» Peter, when he was preaching in Acts chapter 3, he says in verse 19, repent then—he says to the crowd who was gathered there—he says, «Repent then and turn to God that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.»
You know, when the refreshing comes from the Lord is when you’re right with him. And you get right with him by repenting of sin—by turning from your sin, renouncing it, and saying, Lord, I want to follow you. Forgive me of that sin.
And then the beautiful thing is that in response to that, God restores us. That’s the other part of this verse: «If you repent, ” God says, „I will restore you.“ Come to me broken over your sin, and I will restore you. And I will use you—"that you may serve me, ” is what he says here.
The only unusable person is an unrepentant person. When we come to the place of humility before God and say, Lord, you see this in my life—forgive me and help me, Lord. I’m convicted about my sin. Help me, Lord, and forgive me. God forgives, and God restores, and God uses us for his glory.
There’s no unusable person as long as we stay humble before the Lord. He restores. You know that word «restore"—we use it in modern terms over furniture. You know, furniture restoration. And I love people who have that kind of skill. I just dabble in it, but those of you who really have perfected that skill—if you can find some piece of junk at a garage sale or some flea market, some piece of furniture nobody else wants, and you strip the paint, you sand it down, maybe you change the hardware and get it looking good, and then you oil it down with some tung oil, and you just get it looking so beautiful.
And you can take something—you can visually see it when you do this kind of thing—where you take just a piece of furniture that’s useless, worthless, broken-down piece of junk, and you give it a little TLC, and it ends up being just something so beautiful. It becomes like a piece of furniture—like, you know, in your front hallway—that you’re proud of now because it’s become this beautiful example of something that’s been restored.
That’s what God does with people. That’s what God is always doing with people. He’s taking the discarded and the people who think, well, I’m worthless, and I don’t have any good purpose for the Lord anymore because of what I’ve done in my sin. And the Lord’s like, I’m anxious to forgive you of your sin. I love to forgive you so that I might restore you and use you for my good purposes.
And so he dusts us off when he cleans us up, and he sands off the rough edges, and then he makes us usable for his glory. Because God is the God of restoration.
But people who want to bear his name must be people who demonstrate these things, that we might be a proper reflection of the Lord in our world.
Peter said in 1 Peter 4:16: «If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear his name.»
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the example of Jeremiah, who was very conscious of the fact that every place he went and everything he said and everyone he had contact with, he was constantly bearing your name. He was reflecting you in his world.
And so do we. For those of us who know you in a personal way and who have taken on not just the label but the identity of being a Christian—knowing Christ as our Savior—we bear your name. We have the name of Christ written on our jerseys. We’re part of your team.
So how well, Lord, are people getting a glimpse of you through our lives? How are we doing, Lord? Show us right now. Speak to our hearts. How well are we representing you in our world—people we work with, go to school with, family members, neighbors, friends? Did they see you? Or is it just a label to our lives? Do our words and our actions reflect Jesus?
If not, Lord, show us right now. We don’t want to dishonor your name. We don’t want to live our lives for ourselves. We want to display you. We want to let our light so shine before men, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, that they would see our good deeds and glorify our Father which is in heaven. We would give reason for people to ask about the hope that we have.
But how can they see the hope in our lives if we’re living just like they live—if we’re doing the things they do, we talk just like they talk, and go to the places they go? Lord, help us. Help us to stay the course, to take the higher road, to live for you in a way that honors you. That we might help people to find that same saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by lifting them up to where we are, not by compromising our lives down to where they live.
Help us, Lord. Challenge us, we pray, by your Holy Spirit. And when we’re not reflecting well on you, would you point it out right then and there? We invite you, Lord. Speak to us in those moments when we’re not representing you well. Because as a Christian, we bear your name.
We need your help, Lord—your grace, your strength—to be people who live in such a way—not perfectly; we know we’re frail people—but we would strive for that nevertheless. To live in such a way that honors you and glorifies you, that exalts you, that lifts you up, where people can get a good glimpse of who you are because we bear your name well in our world.
This is our prayer, Lord, in Jesus' name we ask these things. And all God’s people said amen.