The Person God Uses

1. The Person God Uses Let Your Heart Be Broken Jeremiah 8:4 – 9:1 www.doubtlessliving.com

2. Broken Hearts Club • The world likes to focus on the heartache that comes from a broken relationship. • In fact, over 1,000 songs come up when you search iTunes for the phrase “broken heart”. • What are some of the song titles you remember that mention love and broken hearts? • Can broken hearts can be caused by more than breakups? www.doubtlessliving.com

3. If I only had a heart… As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. • What did the Tin Man want more than anything? • Does anyone recall what the Wizard said to the Tin Man? • Do you agree with the Wizard’s statement? www.doubtlessliving.com

4. Let Your Heart Be Broken • Usually everything inside of us screams against having our heart broken. • But like the Tin Man, when he said goodbye to Dorothy, we know that we have a heart when we feel it breaking. • And a broken heart is actually the only kind that is of any use to God. www.doubtlessliving.com

5. Deep Problems • Jeremiah knew what it was like to have a broken heart, he is often called the weeping prophet. • He felt deep concern for the moral and spiritual condition of the people around him. • As we read this first passage, pay careful attention to the emotion and tone of God’s voice expressed through Jeremiah’s words. www.doubtlessliving.com

6. Jeremiah 8:4-7 4You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says: Do people fall and not get up again? If they turn away, do they not return? 5Why have these people turned away? Why is Jerusalem always turning away? They take hold of deceit; they refuse to return. 6I have paid careful attention. They do not speak what is right. No one regretshis evil, asking: What have I done? Everyone has stayed his course like a horse rushing into battle. 7Even the stork in the sky knows her seasons. The turtledove, swallow, and crane are aware of their migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the Lord. www.doubtlessliving.com

7. Stay the Course • “Staying the course” is usually viewed in a positive way, can you think of some examples where staying the course might be the wrong thing to do? • If you know you are on the wrong track, how do you get back on track? • How does this same type of thinking/acting apply to our spiritual lives? www.doubtlessliving.com

8. Course CorrectionsAs parents what would you do if your children were doing any of these things? • What should we expect our Heavenly Father to do when He sees His children veering off course? • Are the “course corrections” we set for our children based on love, anger, the desire to punish, pride, or something else? As parents we help our children recognize weaknesses and help them to grow and strengthen those weaknesses. Jeremiah was trying to do the same thing with the people of Judah. www.doubtlessliving.com

9. Shallow Responses • Is it difficult to watch someone you know and love turn from the Lord after seeing them obediently follow Him at one time in their life? • Often these are people who know His Word and have great intellectual knowledge. • But, it is only head knowledge and has not saturated their heart. • Such a person believes he is following the Lord, but it is only based on superficial responses. www.doubtlessliving.com

10. Jeremiah 8:8-13 8How can you claim: We are wise; the law of the Lord is with us? In fact, the lying pen of scribes has produced falsehood. 9The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and snared. They have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom do they really have? 10Therefore, I will give their wives to other men, their fields to new occupants, for from the least to the greatest, everyone is gaining profit unjustly. From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. 11They have treated superficially the brokenness of My dear people, claiming: Peace, peace, when there is no peace. www.doubtlessliving.com

11. Jeremiah 8:8-13 • 12Were they ashamed when they acted so abhorrently? They weren't at all ashamed. They can no longer feel humiliation. Therefore, they will fall among the fallen. When I punish them, they will collapse, says the Lord. 13I will gather them and bring them to an end. This is the Lord's declaration. There will be no grapes on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and even the leaf will wither. Whatever I have given them will be lost to them. www.doubtlessliving.com

12. Inconsequential? • Have you ever had a serious injury/illness that initially you thought was something minor? • What would the consequences have been if you had continued to treat it that way? • What were the consequences of Judah saying “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace? • What are the potential consequences for those making shallow responses today? www.doubtlessliving.com

13. Deep Heartbreak • God’s Word gives us wisdom and direction for our homes and how best to raise our children in obedience to God’s ways. • One of the best ways we can teach our children about God is by reflection His charter, including His broken-heartedness for those in need and the lost. www.doubtlessliving.com

14. Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1 18My joy has flown away; grief has settled on me. My heart is sick. 19Listen—the cry of my dear people from a far away land: Is the Lord no longer in Zion, her King not in her midst? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images, with their worthless foreign idols? 20Harvest has passed, summer has ended, but we have not been saved. 21I am broken by the brokenness of my dear people. I mourn; horror has taken hold of me. 22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? So why has the healing of my dear people not come about? 9:1If my head were water, my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night over the slain of my dear people. www.doubtlessliving.com

15. Broken Hearts • The depraved lifestyle and stubborn wills of God’s people bent on selfishness led to immoral choices and Jeremiah was distraught. • Can you think of a time when you related so deeply with someone that you felt their pain & heartache? • Can you recall a time when you stood alongside someone hurting but knew you could not bring or give any kind of healing? • How did it feel to watch the brokenhearted suffer? www.doubtlessliving.com

16. Functional Hearts • A heart that feels nothing for others has flat-lined in the emotional sense. • The heart may still be beating physically, but it is not feeling and functioning the way God created it to be. • God desires that we have broken hearts for the world He created and loves. He wants us to reach out to the brokenhearted and help them turn to Him. www.doubtlessliving.com

17. Gods people are privileged to have His Word and are responsible to obey it. • God’s people cannot expect His blessings when they are in rebellion against Him. • God’s people must be willing to listen to His Word even when He rebukes them for their sins and rebellion. • God is grieved when His people rebel against Him so that He must bring difficulties into their lives in order to cause them to repent and begin serving Him again. Much of the content in this session has been taken from: LifeWay Christian Resources, “Living Beyond Yourself,” Life Truths Leader Guide, Volume 6, Number 4, Summer 2012, pp. 126-137. www.doubtlessliving.com