Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

          Our text today the prophet Jeremiah gives us a description of how God called him to be his messenger; the chosen one to bring God’s message to the people of Israel, and to be a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah also describes his response to God’s call, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, I am only a boy.” When God called Jeremiah, first thing Jeremiah does is, look at himself and what he saw was a boy who did not know how to speak.

          There is another God’s servant who did the same, Moses. When God called Moses from the burning bush Moses response was, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Again, the first thing this great man of God did was to see himself and compared who he was with the task God wanted him to do. On both occasions God promised his company, “I will be with you.”  

Every time I read about Jeremiah and Moses call, I conclude that there are three words that have the power of ruining God’s call and will for our lives, and we have to get rid of them; those three deadly words are the words spoken by Jeremiah, “I am only….”Moses’ version are “Who am I.” Both expressions have the same purpose, to look down to us. In Jeremiah’s case, those words were followed by “a boy.” Later, Jeremiah who saw himself as a boy, with God’s help became one of God’s greatest spokespersons.

Before God could use Jeremiah, he had to deal with those three deadly words. God begun dealing with Jeremiah’s own limitations assuring him that He knew him better than Jeremiah knew himself. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” This is what John Wesley called Prevenient Grace. God working in us even before we can even realize. God was preparing Jeremiah since he was in is mothers’ womb. Prior God’s call, Jeremiah the boy was simple the son of Hilkiah, but after God’s call, this was no longer the case. God reminded him he was more than that; he was the creation of the Almighty God. And God has claimed him as His servant.

You see, until here we have two perspectives of the same person: two views of who Jeremiah was. First, what Jeremiah thought about himself, “I am only a boy”, the son of Hilkiah. This means He thought he was not worthy for the task God wanted to do, and the second perspective is what God thought about Jeremiah, “you are my prophet.” You are not a boy, you are someone I have prepared, I have been working with you even before you knew it.  But there is a third perspective, a third view of Jeremiah and that is found all over the book, that is what others thought about Jeremiah. Chapter 43:2 gives us a glimpse “Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.” Some people in Israel saw Jeremiah as a liar, a false prophet.

In our Lord Jesus, who followed the same line of the prophets, we find the same three perspectives. Luke 11:15, describe what some people believe about Jesus, “But some of them said, “By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.” In other words, you do not represent God, you are a false prophet, we do not believe your message. Chapter 3 verse 22, says what God thought about Jesus, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And Luke 4:18 says what Jesus thought about himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me…” There was no doubt in Jesus about who he was, He was the anointed, the Christ. Jesus saw himself as God saw Him!!! And because he did, he was able to fulfill his call and to live according to God’s will. Because Jesus saw himself as God saw him, he was able to obey and trust his Father; he was able to endure the cross without any doubts.

Those who followed Jesus, saw in him what God saw in Jesus too. When Jesus was baptized a voice from heaven said, “you are my son whom I love.” In Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples, “who do you say I am?” Peter’s answer was “you are the Christ, the son of the living God.” The word anointed is used by Jesus to describe himself, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…” Peter said you are the Christ, which in Greek means anointed.

What can we learn this morning? What is the message we can take with us this morning? If there is something we can learn this Sunday is this: see yourself as God sees you; take ownership of the call he has given you. Do not look down on yourself and use it as excuse for not doing what God wants you to do.

Remember that when we see ourselves, we see our limits, we see what we can and cannot so. When we see ourselves, we remember what people think and said about us and how they treated us; that mislead our understanding and how we see ourselves, that gives us a false image of who we really are. Remember, regardless of all what we see in us, God has called us because he knows us better, because he knows what he can do thru us. God has endowed us with the spiritual gifts we need to proclaim his kingdom and regardless of all that faults we see in us, God calls us “my chosen people, my royal priesthood, my special possession.”

Next, after we see ourselves as God sees us, let us see others as God sees them and help them to be what God wants them to be, because that is the only way to grow together and to testified of what God has done in us.  

The German writer Johann Von Goethe wrote “The way you see people is the way you treat them. And the way you treat them is what they become.” He also said, “If you treat an individual as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” And that is what our God does, he sees us not as we are but as he wants us to be.

Remember when Jesus sees us, he sees his church, his people and he expect us to see ourselves the same way too. Remember it does not matter what had happened in the past, in Jesus we can always have a new beginning, because his love for us “it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. it does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

If God has called you and you are doubting, just remember who you are 2 Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” Let us live our lives and call according to that.