Crossway Pond Sermon Podcast · Crossway Christian Church

Jeremiah’s Deliberate Act of Hope

·35 min·2 clips

Jeremiah buys a field at Anathoth for 17 shekels of silver while Babylon surrounds Jerusalem.

Dave Ripper begins with a welcome from Crossway Christian Church and quickly names the sermon’s burden: hope matters in a hard world. He points to global unrest and war, New England snow, depression, despair, grief, loss, and the long work of following Jesus as places where hope is needed. The sermon then moves into Jeremiah and a costly act that looks unreasonable on the surface. That act becomes a defiant sign that the story is not over. Ripper says the purchase can lift Jeremiah’s soul in a dark chapter of God’s people. He frames hope as an investment in the better future God has promised. He brings in Eugene Peterson’s line that hope means buying into what we believe. From there he asks what it would look like to live in a way that says God’s promises are real. The first practical step is to rehearse those promises in the heart and mind. He calls the mind the greatest place of freedom because it is where people choose what to dwell on. He says the most important thing about us is our minds. He also says the most important thing about our minds is what they are fixed on. He uses the familiar chain of thought, act, habit, and life to show how inner attention shapes outward patterns. That leads into a call to sow hopeful thoughts that become hopeful actions. He wants those actions to become habits and then lives that bless others. The sermon keeps a warm, pastoral tone and stays close to everyday life rather than abstract theory. It moves easily from theology to daily attention, where hope becomes something practiced rather than admired. The closing prayer gathers the sermon’s themes around Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and future return. Ripper thanks God that Christian hope is not mere wishful thinking. He ends by asking for courage and emboldened hearts. The final emphasis is that God’s magnificent promises are enough to keep believers from losing hope.

As heard by us

A sermon on hope that treats belief as something practiced through deliberate choices.

Jeremiah's deliberate act of hope is framed as a refusal to let exile and the bleakest chapter of the people's story have the final word. Dave Ripper presents hope as more than wishful thinking: it is something chosen, rehearsed in the mind, and strengthened through ordinary…

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Why you'd press play

If you need hope that costs something, this sermon stays practical.

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