Your Life as Spoil Text: Jeremiah 45:1-5
Introduction: The Hazards of Faithful Service
We live in an age that is obsessed with personal fulfillment. The ambient air we breathe tells us that the goal of life is to find your passion, to achieve your dreams, and to secure a comfortable and meaningful existence for yourself. This is the great idol of our time, the pursuit of self-actualization. And because we are Christians living in this particular time, this idol often finds its way into the church, sometimes even dressing up in pious clothes. We want to serve God, certainly, but we also expect that service to come with a certain set of benefits, a certain kind of personal satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, and a measure of peace and security.
But what happens when faithful service to God results in the exact opposite? What happens when your diligence in the ministry leads not to success and satisfaction, but to sorrow, pain, weariness, and a profound lack of rest? This is the crisis that confronts Baruch, the faithful scribe of the prophet Jeremiah. He is a man doing exactly what God called him to do, in the middle of God's will, and he is absolutely miserable. He is suffering from a case of acute ministry burnout.
His story is recorded for us in this short, but potent, chapter. It is a personal word from God delivered to an individual servant in a time of national crisis. And it serves as a potent corrective, not just for Baruch, but for every one of us. God's word to Baruch is a necessary splash of cold water in the face of our self-centered ambitions. It is a call to radically re-evaluate what constitutes a successful life in a world that is under the judgment of God.
The Text
This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written down these words in a book at Jeremiah’s dictation, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel to you, O Baruch: ‘You said, “Ah, woe is me! For Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my sighing and have found no rest.” ’ Thus you are to say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, what I have built I am about to pull down, and what I have planted I am about to uproot, that is, the whole land.” But as for you, are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am going to bring calamity on all flesh,’ declares Yahweh, ‘but I will give your life to you as spoil in all the places where you may go.’ ”
(Jeremiah 45:1-5 LSB)
A Personal Word in a Public Crisis (v. 1-3)
We begin with the setting and the complaint.
"This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written down these words in a book at Jeremiah’s dictation, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: 'Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel to you, O Baruch: ‘You said, “Ah, woe is me! For Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my sighing and have found no rest.” ’" (Jeremiah 45:1-3)
The historical context is crucial. The fourth year of Jehoiakim is a time of high apostasy and impending doom. This is the very year that Jeremiah dictated the scroll of God's judgments, the one that King Jehoiakim would infamously take a knife to, slice up, and burn in his winter palace fire pit (Jeremiah 36). Baruch is the man who wrote that scroll. He is the secretary of the resistance, the administrative assistant to the most hated man in Judah. His job is to meticulously record words of divine judgment that no one wants to hear, and for which both he and Jeremiah are risking their lives.
And God addresses him directly, by name. "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel to you, O Baruch." In the midst of a national meltdown, God does not lose sight of the individual. He knows your name, He knows your work, and as we see, He knows your private complaints. God has been listening to Baruch's sighs.
Baruch's lament is raw and honest. "Ah, woe is me!" This is the cry of a man at the end of his rope. He feels that Yahweh has "added sorrow to my pain." The pain is the baseline suffering of living in a corrupt and collapsing society, the threats, the danger, the opposition. The sorrow is the grief that comes from the work itself, the emotional toll of writing down page after page of judgment against your own people, your own kinsmen. He is weary, not just physically tired, but soul-weary. And he has found no rest. The work is relentless, the pressure is immense, and there is no relief in sight.
Notice that he rightly attributes his condition to God. "Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain." He understands divine sovereignty. His mistake is not in his theology of causation, but in his interpretation of God's purpose. He sees God's hand as a source of affliction, a piling on of misery, rather than as part of a larger, more severe, and ultimately righteous plan.
The Divine Re-Framing (v. 4)
God's answer to Baruch's personal crisis is not to offer a word of soft comfort, but to provide a radical shift in perspective.
"Thus you are to say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, what I have built I am about to pull down, and what I have planted I am about to uproot, that is, the whole land.” ’" (Jeremiah 45:4)
This is a staggering statement. God essentially says, "Baruch, you are complaining about your weariness. I am busy demolishing a nation. You are worried about your feelings. I am uprooting what my own hands have planted." God takes Baruch's personal, microscopic pain and places it against the backdrop of His own cosmic, covenantal work of deconstruction.
God is the great builder and the great planter. He built Israel. He planted them in the land. And because He is the sovereign owner, He has the absolute right to tear down what He has built and uproot what He has planted when it becomes corrupt and fruitless. The whole land is a construction site that is about to be leveled.
This is the corrective for our self-pity. Our personal problems, as real and painful as they may be, exist within the context of God's vast, sovereign purposes in history. God is telling Baruch, "Your problem is that your frame of reference is too small. You are looking at this through the keyhole of your own personal comfort. I want you to look at it from the throne room of heaven. I am judging the entire nation." When we feel overwhelmed by our small troubles, the solution is often not to focus on them more, but to be overwhelmed by the greatness and terrible holiness of God's work in the world.
The Rebuke and the Promise (v. 5)
Now comes the heart of the message, a direct challenge to Baruch's ambition and a redefinition of what true blessing looks like in a time of judgment.
"But as for you, are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am going to bring calamity on all flesh,’ declares Yahweh, ‘but I will give your life to you as spoil in all the places where you may go.’ ” (Jeremiah 45:5)
Here is the diagnosis. Baruch's misery was rooted in a misplaced ambition. "Are you seeking great things for yourself?" What were these "great things"? For a man of his position, a literate and skilled scribe, it would have meant a stable career, perhaps a position at court, the respect of his peers, a peaceful life, and the satisfaction of seeing his work contribute to a flourishing society. He wanted a normal, successful life. He wanted what we might call the Judean Dream.
The problem is that he was trying to build a respectable career on a sinking ship. He was seeking personal advancement in a system that God had marked for demolition. God's command is blunt: "Do not seek them." Stop it. Cease and desist. Your ambition is fundamentally at odds with my purpose. I am bringing calamity on all flesh, a comprehensive judgment, and you are worried about your 401k.
This is a word for the church in the West. We live in a civilization that is, like Judah, in open rebellion against God. The foundations are being pulled down. And yet, so many Christians are still primarily occupied with seeking "great things" for themselves, a comfortable life, personal peace and affluence, all within the structures of a dying Babylon. God's word to us is the same: "Do not seek them."
But this rebuke is followed by a glorious promise. "But I will give your life to you as spoil." Spoil, or plunder, is what a soldier takes from a conquered city. It is the prize won through conflict and destruction. God is telling Baruch, "The world around you is going to be burned to the ground. Everyone is going to lose everything. But I will make you this promise: you will walk out of the flames with your life. Your own soul will be your trophy. That will be your great thing."
This radically redefines success. In a time of judgment, the greatest blessing is not prosperity, but preservation. The great prize is not comfort, but salvation itself. God is promising to save Baruch's skin. He will survive the coming holocaust. And that, God says, must be enough for him. It must be enough for us.
Your Soul as Plunder
This passage forces us to ask a very pointed question. What are the "great things" we are seeking for ourselves? Are we seeking the approval of a world that is at enmity with God? Are we seeking financial security in an economic system built on debt and godless principles? Are we seeking a comfortable and respectable reputation among men who hate the Lord Jesus Christ?
If so, we are Baruch. We are setting ourselves up for sorrow and weariness, because our ambitions are crossed with God's purposes. He is in the business of pulling down and uprooting, and we are trying to plant our little gardens in the path of His bulldozer.
The call of the gospel is a call to abandon our quest for these kinds of "great things." It is a call to die to self. Jesus puts it this way: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). God offered Baruch his soul in exchange for the world, his world, which was Judah. It was a good deal.
And this is the deal God offers us in Christ. The whole world is under a sentence of judgment. Calamity is coming. But in the gospel, God promises to give us our lives as spoil. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are snatched from the fires of judgment. We are His plunder, rescued from the domain of darkness. Our salvation, our very lives, are the spoil of His victory at the cross.
Therefore, let us stop seeking great things for ourselves in this passing age. Let us seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let us be content with the astonishing promise that our God will preserve us, that He will bring us safely through the fire, and that He will give us our lives as spoil, an eternal inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth, where our true greatness will be found in Him alone.