I Know the Plans…
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
- Today we will begin in the book of Jeremiah.
- We pick up in Chap. 29 which is after decades of prophetic preaching warning
to turn back to God… the Israelites were taken captive by the Nation of Babylon.
- Today, the Prophetic call to repentance to turn from our Godless path and to
turn back to Jesus goes out every day throughout the world via various means.
- Like the Israelites, so much of the world population continues forward as
though the end will never come.
- Does Jeremiah 29 sound familiar
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
1. Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles…
Jeremiah 29:1 (ESV) These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Jeremiah 29:4 (ESV) “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
Jeremiah 29:5 (ESV) Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.
Jeremiah 29:7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Jeremiah 29:10-14 (ESV) 10 “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
1.1. Until the appointed time…
1.2. On Wednesday we covered how Hananiah prophesied falsely that Israel would be returned in 2 years, though the Word of the Lord was 70 years.
1.3. There seems to be a common theme of mankind wanting to preempt the Lord’s timing.
1.3.1. Like with Abraham’s 25 years school of believing.
1.3.2. Moses 40 years in the school of humility.
1.3.3. Israel’s 70 years in their school of captivity.
1.4. After the 70 years of captivity were completed the Lord would fulfill His promise.
1.5. We have to train ourselves to know when our ears are just being tickled.
2 Timothy 4:3-5 (NKJV) 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2. But, seek the welfare of the city.
Jeremiah 29:7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
2.1. In the time of exile Wass not a time of sitting on ones hands.
2.2. Even while we are waiting for the promises of God to come to pass in our life is not a time to be sitting on our hands.
2.3. Let your roots go down.
2.4. Build houses, families, plant gardens and multiply.
2.5. The cities welfare is connected to your own welfare.
2.6. When we are living where we did not think we wanted to be;
2.6.1. we need to continue to seek to be a blessing, a part of the solution, building the place where we are at…
2.6.2. our city our church our life is connected….
2.6.3. Stay engaged until the very last moment until God brings you into your spacious land.
2.7.Be faithful where you are with what you have.
Luke 16:10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
2.8. Ela… if we are so unsettled with where we are thinking consistently we are not where we want to be then we will be a blessing to no one either here or even likely where we think we want to go.
3. I know the plans…
Jer. 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
3.1.God reminded His people of this promise while in their captivity.
3.2. Spoken at the beginning of their 70 year captivity.
3.3. Ela… Lord, didn’t you just allow us to get taken captive. Now your saying you have plans for good and not evil.
3.4. He knows…
Ephesians 1:3-6 (NKJV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
3.4.1. Before the foundation of the world He sees our beginning from our end.
4. God has ordained the time and parameters where you find yourself today.
Acts 17:24 (ESV) The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
4.1. The times and seasons and boundaries being established.
4.2. Boundaries have been established.
4.2.1. Boundaries = a limit-placing, i.e. (concretely) boundary-line: — bound, a setting of boundaries, laying down limits, a definite limit, bounds
4.2.2. Ela… Like the oceans crash against the shore but never just overtake the earth’s dry land.
Proverbs 8:29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
4.2.3. Similarly to how God set an allotted time for the Israelites to be in Babylon.
4.3. That circumstances as it seems would bring us back to God when it is
God Himself bringing us back to Himself. – Acts 17:27
5. Continue feeling our way towards God.
Acts 17: 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
5.1. In God’s mercy things happen so that man would seek God.
5.2. Groping our way forward…
5.2.1. verify by contact, to search for: to feel after, to handle, touch.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (NKJV) For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
5.3. Why did this happen to me? Or why do these things keep happening: so that we would seek God?
6. To those who will seek the Lord.
Hebrews 11:6 “Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him”
6.1. God’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom.
6.2. He rewards those who seek after Him by way of drawing near to Him.
6.3. While you were in your mother’s womb:
6.3.1. God’s plan for our life. 6.3.2. God’s plan for your life.
Communion:
Like a people who dream…
Psalms 126:1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
• When the Lord restores
- Dreams come true.
- A life on mission.
Matthew 11:28-30 (NKJV) 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”