Living in Exile

Reading: Jer29:5-9

Jeremiah 29:5–9 ESV

5 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. 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. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

Pray

We spent time last week talking about God’s character, and how our times of exile are times that we learn to know God better. We know him as he is near to us in the difficult days. We know he keeps his promises as we see him doing just that. We come to know that God has a perfect plan for us - not to get back at us but to get us back. We find that God isn’t far from us at all - when we seek him with our whole hearts, we will find him. And all through the process, we find that he is shaping us into his own image.

Let’s take a closer look this morning at our side of exile. What does living in exile look like for us? How should we live in light of this painful but necessary work of God?

To know how to live in exile, we need to understand that God puts us in exile to draw us back to him.

Living in Exile Means Learning to Submit to God in Obedience

The whole reason the Israelites find themselves in exile is that they have rejected God. They have turned to false gods. They build luscious estates on the backs of the poor and withhold proper wages. They disdain the Sabbath, wondering when it will be over so they can get back to their greed. They cheat the orphan and the widow and charge exorbitant fees, keeping the needy in constant need rather than helping them improve their status. They throw their babies into the fire for Molech. Then, they turn around and make sacrifices of lame or rejected animals in God’s temple and expect God to be happy with them! Israel deserves complete and total destruction!

But God doesn’t destroy totally. Instead, he upholds his own covenant with long-dead ancestors like David and Abraham. Instead of wiping Israel off the map and relegating them to the ash-heap of history, God seeks their restoration. He exiles them so that they will return to him.

That means that even God’s exile is an attempt to restore a broken relationship with him. Think about that! When God says, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you,” he doesn’t just mean that he’s always there for you. It also means that even when we turn our backs on him, he pursues reconciliation with us - even though he would be completely just to destroy us!

So what God does is try yet once more to draw us to submission to him. Instead of just giving his commands, though, he has to put us on our backs with nowhere to look but up. By putting us into exile, God is pleading with us to stop rejecting him, but to serve him completely. When we are exiled, it is God’s way of teaching us obedience. The hard way, yes, but it is God’s way.

That means that when you find yourself in exile, you must look to God. What does he want of you? What is he telling you to do? What will please him?

What God wants is our obedient submission. Today, we’re going to consider some practical steps to living in exile by looking at God’s instructions to the exiled Israelites. Like directions to a destination, these steps will help us live in times of exile. The first step is:

Accept God’s Judgment

The first step for us in exile is to accept our present circumstances as being the will of God. Resign yourself to the fact that you are under God’s judgment.

Now, you may not be the cause of that judgment. You might be exiled even though others have done wrong. Ezekiel was in Babylon along with the others who were exiled there. He was God’s prophet, certainly not responsible for God’s judgment. Yet, there he was.

You might be an Ezekiel - you might be in exile even though you “don’t deserve it.” You need to accept your exile as being God’s perfect will for you. Maybe you’re there to represent God around those who do not know him and do deserve his justice. Maybe you’re there to learn how to be more obedient as God prepares you for future work. Whatever the reason, God has one. Even if it doesn’t look that way, your exile is God’s perfect will. Accept it.

But most of the time, if we’re honest, we’re in exile because we’ve sinned. We deserve God’s judgment. How much more should we admit that God is just and right to carry out his punishment on us!

That was certainly true of the Israelites. The specific way those exiled in Babylon were to accept God’s judgment was to make themselves at home. Look at verse 5:

Jeremiah 29:5 ESV

5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.

There was a time that God brought his people into the land of his promise:

Deuteronomy 6:10–12 ESV

10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Did you notice the difference - before God brought them in and they didn’t have to build or plant. They were able to live off the work of others. Not now. Now in exile, they would have to build and plant.

But building and planting imply something - longevity. They would be there for a while, long enough to build homes and plant crops. Long enough to settle down. This judgment was not temporary (from the human perspective); this was a permanent exile. And the way you accept a permanent exile is to make yourself at home. When God tells you to settle in, he’s telling you to accept his judgment. He’s not changing his mind - he’s working to change yours. So settle in - but don’t just settle. Thrive! Look at verse 6:

Jeremiah 29:6 ESV

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.

Multiply! How can you think of multiplying - of thriving - when you are dead-set on not submitting to God’s will? You can’t thrive in opposition to God. The call of the prophetic word here is to grow - marry, have kids, thrive in the middle of your exile.

When we accept God’s judgment, it opens us to thrive in a difficult day. Ours is a difficult day. Rather than running away from the social battles, away from the political wranglings, away from the divisiveness of the moment, we should thrive within it. We should be more bold in our witness, more bold in our faith. Just as a cactus thrives in the desert with little water, so we should thrive in our own deserts - drawing every drop of living water and being life in a barren land. We as God’s people have the solution to our world’s greatest problems - don’t hide your light under a bushel in such dark days…SHINE the LIGHT!

Accepting God’s judgement and repenting of our sins puts us in a great place to obey where God leads, shaping us to be more like Christ each day.

The second step to obedient submission is to

Desire God’s Peace

This doesn’t just mean we want God “off our backs” or just to have a good, happy relationship with God. We don’t just desire to be at peace with God, but we also desire for others around us to also be at peace with God.

Jeremiah 29:7 ESV

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.

Last week, I said the word “welfare” was shalom, when everything is just how it’s supposed to be. All three times “welfare” appears in this verse, it is shalom. God commands his people to seek the shalom for their new community. They were to seek God’s peace for others around them.

That is a radical way to approach enemies. After all, you’re not exiled if your only around people you like! Exile involves enemies, and God calls his people to love even their enemies. Loving those who hate you, blessing those who curse you. That’s living like Jesus! That’s how we’re called to live, too.

When you’re watching the news and you see people committing atrocities, or hear of people led by an unholy ideology, do you love them? Do you seek God’s peace for them? Or do you hate them and only want fire and brimstone kind of judgment?

Followers of Jesus Christ know that this world is not our home. But while we are here, there are loads of people around us that need God’s love. And they’re not always easy to love. God calls us to seek peace for those around us - because he loves them even when we don’t. May we love the unlovable, just like God does. May we seek his peace for them - may we seek for them to come to peace with God.

The third step of obedient submission is to

Ignore God’s Detractors

There will always be false prophets - people who claim to speak for God but who do not. The same was certainly true in Jeremiah’s day. Look what God tells the exiled Israelites to do:

Jeremiah 29:8–9 ESV

8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

He tells the exiles, “stop listening to liars!” False prophets were scattered throughout the people, claiming first that God would protect all of Judah, because they were God’s people. When Nebuchadnezzar’s army started invading Judah, they simply claimed that God would protect Jerusalem - it was his own city after all. The temple would never fall. Israelites would never go into exile in a foreign land, they claimed.

Even after this group was exiled, the false prophets kept claiming lies as though they were God’s truth. “You won’t be here long” they said.

Why do we do that, by the way? Why do we keep listening to people who lie to us, thinking that this time they are surely telling the truth? Even after they get caught, they lie more, and we believe them! How many times do we keep falling for the bit?

Picture of Lucy snatching the football away from Charlie Brown

The problem is that their lies actually cause harm.

They Endanger God’s People

In verses 15-19, Jeremiah tells the people of the oncoming devastation toward those who are left in Jerusalem. God will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence to bring ruin to those who do not listen to him. Such is the danger that comes from listening to false prophets. When we choose to listen to false prophets, we place ourselves directly in opposition to God. We open ourselves up to God’s wrath. We follow lies instead of truth, and the lies never set you free.

This requires discernment - how do you know when a prophet is truly from God or not?

Hold up the Bible

You find truth here. Read this Word. Pray for wisdom and find it in God. He doesn’t want you to not know - he wants you to know. He doesn’t want you to be deceived - he has given us his Spirit and his Word to guide us. Don’t let false teachers sway you from the truth.

They Silence God’s Prophets

The reaction to Jeremiah is revealed in verses 24-28. A man named Shemaiah actually sought to silence Jeremiah because of this letter and his prophecies of a long exile. He wrote a letter to the high priest and to all the priests calling for Jeremiah to be punished for his prophetic ministry. Listen to his own words:

Jeremiah 29:26–27 ESV

26 ‘The Lord has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to have charge in the house of the Lord over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and neck irons. 27 Now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who is prophesying to you?

It’s not enough for false prophets to try to guide people instead of true prophets of God. They must silence God’s genuine prophets. They don’t want an open discussion - they want dominance. They want to have control over the direction of things. They want to be the voice in the king’s ear.

Note this: if you are speaking truth, someone will come after you to silence you. They will come. Truth reveals falsehood, just like light reveals what’s in the shadows. But men love darkness rather than light, for their deeds are evil. So don’t be surprised if you are trying to live for God in exile and you begin to be opposed. Take it as a confirmation you are doing righteousness when the wicked oppose you. And take comfort in the fact that those false prophets will not escape God’s judgment.

They Face God’s Punishment

We all face judgment - Christian and non-believer alike. The difference is that the Christian need not fear judgment. The non-Christian ought to tremble at the thought of God’s impending wrath. False prophets will face the punishment:

Jeremiah 29:21–23 ESV

21 ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall strike them down before your eyes. 22 Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” 23 because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the Lord.’ ”

Shemaiah doesn’t escape judgment either:

Jeremiah 29:30–32 ESV

30 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 31 “Send to all the exiles, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah of Nehelam: Because Shemaiah had prophesied to you when I did not send him, and has made you trust in a lie, 32 therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will punish Shemaiah of Nehelam and his descendants. He shall not have anyone living among this people, and he shall not see the good that I will do to my people, declares the Lord, for he has spoken rebellion against the Lord.’ ”

God will bring judgment upon them. You’ll stand before him in judgment too. Have you submitted your life to God in obedience? Have you learned from your exile?

Invitation