Kingdom Principle: Jesus is heartbroken by Israel’s rejection. This shows the love that God has for his own. How often has God demonstrated his love to us but we refuse it. God’s love is not determined by our response or actions, it is determined by his character. In this text we see, the resolutely immutable love of God for his own and the ridiculously influenced love of man for everything but God.
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God’s Love is _________________ ________________________
Luke 13:34 (ESV) — 34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Intense emotion, unfathomable pathos, finds its expression in the repetition of the word Jerusalem. Cf. “altar, altar” (1 Kings 13:2), “Martha, Martha” (Luke 10:41), “Simon, Simon” (Luke 22:31), and such multiple repetitions as “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! if only I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 18:33)…
God’s love for us does not change (immutable) based on how we respond to that love or how we act in light of it, because God’s love is not determined by our appreciation of it or our dessert for it, but is sourced solely in his nature and character.
As the city of God, Jerusalem represented the people of God. Yet how often that city had rejected God’s prophets! Think of Zechariah, who was stoned at the very temple (2 Chron. 24:21). Think of the abuse that Jeremiah suffered in the days before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. What Nehemiah said to God about the citizens of Jerusalem was true: “They were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets” (Neh. 9:26).
The city’s murderous rebellion broke Jesus’ heart.
Deuteronomy 7:6–8 (ESV) — 6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
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Man’s Love is ____________________ _______________________
Luke 13:34 (ESV) — 34 …How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Man can choose whatever he wants and he chooses the exact opposite of the thing he should choose.
Romans 1:21–23 (ESV) — 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Here is the reality that we must acknowledge and reckon with: in our flesh, we are prone to follow after other gods. [g]ods that are so obviously inept and impotent.
Colossians 2:13 (ESV) — 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
Questions to Consider
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How does the immutable (unchanging) nature of God’s love encourage you?
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What are some things that you are prone to put your hope and happiness in? Why will these things always disappoint you?
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What does it look like to forsake these things as the source of our hope and turn to God?
