Dean invites us to enter a “holy Lent” by adopting intentional spiritual disciplines that bring order to life’s chaos while resting in the promise that God’s steadfast love and mercies are new every morning

Jeremiah ends with the fall of Jerusalem, destruction of the city, the palace of the king, the Temple of the Lord, and the execution and exile of all the people. God’s judgement on Judah for immorality, injustice, and idolatry that Jeremiah had prophesied for decades is finally realized. This judgment on God’s people is a type of the spiritual and eternal judgment that will fall on all people. The Bible is clear, God is judge and one day we will all give an account before him, but if our faith is in Christ, we have no reason to fear.

This sermon explores the final siege of Jerusalem through the contrasting responses of the vacillating King Zedekiah, the suffering prophet Jeremiah, and the courageous servant Ebed-Melech. It challenges us to move beyond a superficial faith and cultivate a deep, rooted obedience to God that stands firm in the face of suffering and cultural opposition.

Dean explores the “Book of Consolation” in Jeremiah 31–32, highlighting God’s radical promise of a new covenant where His law is written directly on our hearts and our sins are forgiven. By looking at Jeremiah’s seemingly “foolish” land purchase during the Babylonian siege, the message challenges us to act as bearers of hope today, trusting in God’s faithfulness while we live between the historical fulfillment of Christ and His future return.

This message was recorded from a home livestream due to a snow/ice storm that cancelled in-person services.

The readings are from Psalm 139:1-18 in the Book of Common Prayer (2019), Jeremiah 18:1-12 and Romans 9:14-24 (ESV).

God’s pronouncement through Jeremiah is through the enacted imagery of the potter forming and re-forming the clay. He says to Judah and Jerusalem, that he has the right to reform and start over with them if they do not repent and turn from their idolatry, injustice, and immorality. It is a warning of certain judgment and a call to repentance. God’s sovereign power and predestining purposes are clear in Jeremiah 18 and the associated readings, but they are not to be understood by intellectual reasoning alone. God invites us to know him and his sovereignty in relationship; he is the God we can trust, and he wants us to entrust ourselves to him.

This week Dean explores the prophet Jeremiah’s vulnerable and candid relationship with God to understand how we can walk with Him for the “long haul” through the cycles of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. He speaks to how we can navigate seasons of pain when God may feel like a “deceitful brook,” and learn to hold fast to Him as the true source of living water.

Pastor Johnny Kurcina explores Jeremiah’s daring confrontation at the temple gates, where he warned that outward religious rituals are meaningless without a genuine heart-level relationship with God. God wants us to love Him with our whole hearts, without idols distracting us from what is important. He also wants us to love our neighbor and have a real concern for the justice and the protection of vulnerable groups like the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 

Pastor Dean Miller explores how God’s intimate calling of the prophet Jeremiah serves as a guide for us to embrace what God is asking us to do this new year, even when we feel unqualified or overwhelmed. Drawing from Jeremiah’s ancient warnings, he challenges us to forsake the “broken cisterns” of temporary satisfaction and instead trust in God as the “fountain of living waters” while living as exiles in a fallen world.