Deep-Rooted Weeds

Jeremiah 4:3-4

Verses 3b-4 (NLT)  O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power.  Change your hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins.

    Yesterday we were talking about what it means to surrender as a community.  We can’t truly surrender as a community unless we surrender as an individual.  In today’s verses Jeremiah gives a few things that need to be surrendered to God so we can be in line with His will for our lives.

    First let’s look at pride.  Here is a sin that we all deal with, at least from time to time.  The word pride has many different definitions, but the one used most often about humans in the Bible refers to arrogance, or haughtiness.  So when the Lord is telling His people to surrender their pride, He is telling them to give up the arrogance they have been showing in their lives.  The root of arrogance is believing ourselves better than another, and therein lies the truth of pride.

    The thing with pride is that it is a deep-rooted sin “weed” and therefore needs to be dug out instead of just cut off.  Weeds are seldom shallow rooted and therefore troublesome as they take more pulling to get them out.  The root of pride is so deep that the Lord says to plow the hard ground of their hearts.  That is where the weed of pride thrives.

    For us to surrender fully to the Lord so that our worship can be pure we must break the hard ground of our hearts and dig out those weeds of pride and the power we think we have.  Pride is a sin and if we don’t get it out at its root, then we will be dealing with it over and over.

    To plow deep in our hearts isn’t a pleasant experience.  Digging deep into ourselves hurts.  But what is the result?  The result is a deeper relationship with God.  Isn’t that what we all claim we want?  But how willing are we to do the hard work of surrender?

    If we aren’t willing to do the painful work of surrender, we can never know the true joy of worship

Making It Personal

    Where does pride show up in your life?  Have you ever tried plucking it out of your life?  What is the first step?

Making It Personal Kids

    What do you think arrogance looks like?  Why do you think God doesn’t like it?  Have you ever been arrogant?

Closing Prayer

    Father, please help us dig pride’s sin root from our hearts.  Show us every place that pride shows up in our lives and convict us of it so we can uproot it and worship You purely.  Thank You.  In Jesus’ name, amen.