Jeremiah: Pentecost Sunday - Week 3
Opening Prayer:
Lord God,
You are always with us.
You never leave us, even in our exiles, our dark places, our wanderings.
Your Spirit is always with us,
And Your purposes for our lives and for your world continue under the Spirit’s guidance.
In Jesus’s name,
Amen.
Key Scripture:
(You may wish to read all of Jeremiah chapter 31 in preparation for this study.)
27 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. 28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord. 29 “In those days people will no longer say,
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Sermon Summary:
The Pain of Exile and God's Broken Covenant
Israel was suffering and broken, the nation now divided and undergoing a 70-year exile in Babylon. Though they were God’s chosen people with a rich history, they failed to uphold their end of the covenant. They dishonoured their relationship with God. This resulted in overwhelming grief, exhaustion, and a deep feeling of abandonment. This ancient struggle mirrors modern experiences of "exile," such as being separated from loved ones, homes, or ministries in a broken world.
A Promise of Hope and the Entrance of Jesus
Despite their despair, God offered words of hope through the prophet Jeremiah, promising to bring the people back, renew the covenant, and engrave His instructions directly on their hearts. God's persistent work through suffering is exemplified in modern history by Li Tim-Oi, born in Hong Kong, who became the first female Anglican priest. She endured 14 years of forced labour and persecution under a Communist government, yet the church survived, proving God never stops working.
Ultimately, God met humanity's ache by sending Jesus. Born among an occupied people, Jesus entered fully into human suffering by walking alongside the sick, grieving, and excluded. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus brought hope into our exile, establishing a new kind of people who carry God's presence within them.
Pentecost: The Presence of God in Human Hearts
This internal presence is realized at Pentecost in Acts 2. While Jesus's followers waited, the Holy Spirit arrived with a violent wind and tongues of fire. Historically, fire symbolized God meeting people; at a burning bush, or on Mt. Sinai, or in the temple. At Pentecost, however, the fire rested on ordinary individuals—young and old, men and women. This marked the moment God's presence moved from stone tablets to human hearts. It allows all people, from the least to the greatest, to intimately know God and experience His comfort through joy, uncertainty, and disappointment.
Commissioned into the World
Pentecost provides both comfort and a commissioning to be Jesus’ witnesses to the ends of the earth. Empowered by supernatural gifts, believers are sent back out into their workplaces, schools, and families. Though modern Christians live in an "exile from Eden", marked by injustice and loneliness, they go out empowered by the Spirit to do extraordinary things and draw people home to God.
Discussion Guide:
Section 1: The Reality and Sorrow of Exile
In Jeremiah 31, we encounter the covenant community processing a staggering institutional, spiritual, and physical trauma. The people of Israel possessed an illustrious history, divine promises, and laws that marked them out as unique before the Creator. Yet, they found themselves broken, defeated, and forcefully relocated to Babylon. For many, Jeremiah’s declaration that this exile would endure for seventy years felt like absolute abandonment. It meant an entire generation would live and die under a foreign empire without ever seeing Jerusalem again.
Exile is more than an ancient historical epoch; it is a recurring emotional and spiritual reality. We experience our own contemporary forms of exile whenever we find ourselves separated from the places we call home, isolated from loved ones, navigating the wreckage of a failed career or ministry, or carrying the sheer exhaustion of living in a deeply fractured world. However, it is precisely within these prolonged spaces of displacement that God breaks through with a message of enduring love and ultimate restoration.
Discussion Questions:
The Israelites felt that their divine promises had come to nothing. Have you ever walked through a season where it felt like God’s word had failed or that He had abandoned you entirely? What did that feel like, and how did you navigate it?
Jeremiah’s timeline of seventy years meant that relief would not be immediate. How do we maintain our faith and internal resilience when the resolution to our pain lies far beyond our immediate visual horizon?
How do we differentiate between a structural feeling of "God abandoning us" and the simple, sobering reality that we live in a broken world where pain and bad things happen naturally?
Section 2: Resilient Faithfulness in the Long Wilderness
The narrative of Florence Li Tim-Oi offers an extraordinary lens on enduring a life of multi-layered exile. Born in Hong Kong in 1907, she responded to a profound call to Christian ministry and was ordained a priest in 1944 out of dire pastoral necessity during World War II, when Japanese-occupied territories left local congregations completely isolated. This historic milestone made her the very first woman ordained to the priesthood across the entire Anglican Communion.
Yet, her breakthrough was immediately met with institutional and political pushback. Following the war, she was prohibited from practicing her priestly functions. Decades later, in 1958, the Communist government closed all local churches, sentencing Li Tim-Oi to fourteen long years of hard labor, public persecution, and systematic political re-education. She openly confessed to losing hope during these grueling years. However, God's hidden movement was not bound by closed church doors. When the Cultural Revolution ended, the world discovered a vibrant underground church that had survived, and Li Tim-Oi was eventually fully reinstated to her priestly office.
Discussion Questions:
Li Tim-Oi spent fourteen years in forced labor, completely separated from the overt public ministry she loved. How does her narrative fundamentally challenge our contemporary cultural expectations of immediate success, visibility, and professional comfort?
Even when stripped of her formal clerical title and rights, Li Tim-Oi quietly established a local maternity home, a kindergarten, and a primary school in Hepu. How can we find hidden, creative avenues to express our core calling when our preferred platforms are entirely blocked?
Li Tim-Oi honestly admitted that she lost hope during her persecution. Why is it structurally important for our community to allow space for leaders and members to admit when they have run out of hope?
Section 3: Pentecost—The Divine Shift from Stone to Heart
The turning point of Jeremiah’s prophecy is the promise of a radical, unprecedented new covenant. God declared that His instruction would no longer be carved onto cold stone tablets, or enforced by external human teachers. Instead, the Divine law would be engraved directly onto the people’s hearts, establishing an organic, internal reality where every single individual—from the least to the greatest—would intimately know God and experience absolute forgiveness.
Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) stands as the literal, explosive fulfillment of this prophetic vision. Throughout the text of Scripture, holy fire denoted the localized, unapproachable presence of God: the burning bush confronting Moses, the pillar of fire guiding Israel through the desert, the smoke on Sinai, and the dense glory cloud filling the inner sanctuary of the stone Temple. At Pentecost, however, the fire does not descend upon a mountain peak or an institutional building. It breaks apart and rests directly upon ordinary human beings. The presence of God moves internally, choosing human hearts as His permanent tabernacle.
Discussion Questions:
What structural shifts occur in how we view "sacred spaces" when we realize that God’s primary residence has shifted from physical sanctuaries and altars directly into ordinary human lives?
The fire of Pentecost fell inclusively upon young and old, women and men, locals and foreigners alike. How should this multi-layered layout of the Holy Spirit challenge the hidden hierarchies and cultural exclusions that persist within our own faith communities?
The primary gift of Pentecost is the permanent capacity to intimately know Jesus and meet God within our everyday realities. Do we tend to undervalue this foundational gift in favor of more spectacular or sensational spiritual signs? Why?
Section 4: Comfort and Commission
The event of Pentecost does not conclude with a cozy, sheltered gathering designed solely for the internal comfort of the disciples. Instead, it serves as an immediate catalyst for missional movement. The Holy Spirit does not merely comfort us in our respective exiles; He actively equips and commissions us to step right back out into the broken margins of society. As Jesus outlined in Acts 1:8, the reception of the Spirit’s power is explicitly tied to becoming active witnesses across our immediate boundaries and to the absolute ends of the earth.
The international crowd that experienced the wonder of Pentecost eventually traveled back to their respective geographic regions. They returned to environments where they were religious minorities, into complex secular workspaces, and into the regular pressures of family and local community. Yet, they returned completely re-centered, carrying the indwelling fire of God to extend an invitation of hope to others. We share that identical commission today. We are sent back into our specific offices, schools, neighborhoods, and family systems to bring comfort and bear witness to a love that draws all people home.
Discussion Questions:
The sermon emphasizes that the Spirit enables us to know God not just in moments of joy, but specifically in uncertainty, disappointment, and "tanking" business realities. When have you experienced this deep, unexplainable comfort of God during an objective failure?
Why is it dangerous for a church community to experience personal intimacy with God without actively moving out into the exiles of others?
What do localized "exile spaces" look like in your city or suburb? Who are the people around you currently living under the weight of grief, isolation, or systemic injustice?
Practices:
Individual Practice: The Exile Inventory
Take 15 minutes this week to find a quiet space and journal honestly about your current "exile spaces." Identify areas marked by deep disappointment, grief, or uncertainty. Rather than rushing into a posture of immediate fixing or spiritual bypass, name these elements transparently before God. Conclude your reflection by writing out Jeremiah 31:3 manually, letting the phrase anchor your unresolved tensions: "I have loved you with a love that lasts forever."
Community Practice: Missional Incarnation
As a group, identify one tangible "exile space" within your immediate locality (such as a neighborhood recovery home, an under-funded classroom, an isolated community of elderly residents, or a high-stress workplace). Devise a practical, collaborative act of service or generous blessing to carry out in that space this month. Go not with a superior posture of being "the fixers," but with a humble desire to listen, share presence, and manifest the localized hope of Christ.
Additional Resources:
For a printable version of this guide click here.