My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick within me.
– Jeremiah 8:18
This is one of those verses in the book of Jeremiah where we see Jeremiah’s heart as a reflection of God’s heart for the people of God. Jeremiah is looking out at the people who are under God’s judgment and he says, “My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick within me.” He is grieving for God’s people who are under God’s judgment.
And I read this verse and I just ask in my own life, and I would ask you, “Are you grieved over sin in your own life? Does it grieve you when you sin? Is your heart sick over sin that you see in your own life?” And then to ask the question, “Are you grieved over sin that you see around you? Are you grieved over sin in others? Does it make your heart sick in ways that lead you to do what Jeremiah did to proclaim God’s word? To proclaim God’s judgment on sin and God’s grace and mercy for those who repent?”
Jeremiah 8:18 Helps Us to Grieve Over What God Grieves
Oh, God, help us to grieve over what grieves you. We pray for sick hearts in this way. According to your word in Jeremiah 8:18, God, we pray that you would make our hearts like yours in ways that we do grieve over sin in our lives. God help us to hate sin more and more and more every day to not be casual with it, to hate it, to grieve over it before you, honestly our hearts to be sick over it. And God, we pray that as we look at a world of sin and sinners around us, you would help us to grieve over this. You would help us to grieve rightly that our hearts would be sick over sin around us, that we wouldn’t be comfortable in it or desensitized to it. God, that you would give us hearts like your heart, and help us to mourn and grieve and pray over sin and over sinners who need your grace and need your mercy.
Praying for the Banjar People of Indonesia
Help us to have that level of compassion that we see in your son, that we see in Jesus, our savior, who wept over the city of Jerusalem, went to the cross to die for their sin. Help us to weep over sin and sinners around us, over people we know who don’t know you, and then to go and speak with compassion and love, the good news of the gospel, and warning about coming judgment. God, we pray for this light of the nations. God, for the Banjar people of Indonesia.
Help us to grieve over 4.4 million people, most of whom have never even heard the gospel. We pray for hearts that are sick over that and not just them, but 3.2 billion people in the world who have little to no knowledge of the gospel. God, help us to grieve for our hearts to be sick. God, make our heart sick over this as your heart grieves over this in ways that drive us to proclaim the good news of your grace, that they might experience your mercy. Make us people, we pray, who grieve over what grieves you. According to your word in Jeremiah 8:18, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
