Living In Babylon

Introduction:

-Good to be back to place that will always feel like home to me. Update what’s going on across PennDel.

-How I feel being with you all this morning:

2 Timothy 1:4 NLT

I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again.

Romans 1:11 NLT

For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord.

King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes wrote the following,

Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

A little later today, we will be honoring students who have graduated from one season of their life and are preparing for a new one. In all honesty, we all graduate from one season to another, whether we get a big party or not. Maybe you are here this morning and you have graduated from one season and are entering another. Maybe you are excited about that season, for others you may have some fears, and for some you, you maybe asking yourself, “why has the Lord brought me into this season?”

I encourage you to open your bibles to Jeremiah 29, and we are going to take a look at a group of people who graduated from one season to another, and what the Lord expected of them.

Summarize Jeremiah 29 for context and then state there are biblical principles that we can learn from this.

(Pray)

1.) Where You Are Going (or Staying) Is Because The Lord Wants You There:

Jeremiah 29:4–6 NLT

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away!

Jeremiah 29:10 NLT

This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.

The Lord is encouraging the people in their new season, be of good cheer, live your lives for the next seventy years in this new season because there is a plan and purpose behind it.

Dwindle - to be come few, small , or ineffective.

“Don’t let a difficult season cause you to become ineffective for the Kingdom of God.”

Some may be asking - How can the Lord say this?!

Jeremiah 24:1–10 NLT

After King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon exiled Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, to Babylon along with the officials of Judah and all the craftsmen and artisans, the Lord gave me this vision. I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. One basket was filled with fresh, ripe figs, while the other was filled with bad figs that were too rotten to eat. Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad, too rotten to eat.” Then the Lord gave me this message: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: The good figs represent the exiles I sent from Judah to the land of the Babylonians. I will watch over and care for them, and I will bring them back here again. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. “But the bad figs,” the Lord said, “represent King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, all the people left in Jerusalem, and those who live in Egypt. I will treat them like bad figs, too rotten to eat. I will make them an object of horror and a symbol of evil to every nation on earth. They will be disgraced and mocked, taunted and cursed, wherever I scatter them. And I will send war, famine, and disease until they have vanished from the land of Israel, which I gave to them and their ancestors.”

The seasons that come and go in our lives are not by chance. The Lord is directing yours and mine steps.

Proverbs 16:9 NLT

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

(Personal Example: Rachel’s story)

“When the season of our lives doesn’t make sense to us, we can have faith in knowing it all makes sense to our Lord.”

2.) Seek The Welfare of the Place You Are At:

Jeremiah 29:7 NLT

And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”

Translation I have tattooed on my soul:

“Seek the welfare of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on it’s behalf. For when it propers, you will be prosperous.” -Holman Christian Study Bible

Seek = To care for, enquire, investigate, make supplication.

Welfare = Peace, Health, Security, Blessings, and Deliverance.

“BE ALL IN FOR YOUR CITY, COMMUNITY, PLACES YOU GO!”

To Be All IN:

-What is going on?

-What is the culture of the area?

-What are the wins, losses, etc?

“Being all in doesn’t mean giving in to the immoral acts taking place. Being ALL IN means that you actually care and love the place and the people.”

Daniel was all in for the city of Babylon.

Daniel 4:27 NLT

“ ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.’

Challenge: Are you ALL IN for your area?

Introduced to a tract in a sermon called “Others Can, You Cannot.” Powerful tract written by G.D. Watson. At the end of the tract it says this.

“God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.”

Here’s the point, now is the greatest time to be on mission for the advancement for the Kingdom of God! Now is not the time to bring our boats back to shore. We need to be in the depths of the water. Yes there are fears and concerns, but praise be to God He is far greater and stronger than any immoral sin that is corrupting our communities, nation, and world.

(Parents and Students: Don’t give up on your schools.)

“The Lord has sent or is sending you to bring peace, health, security, blessings, and deliverance through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Get out of the kiddy pool and jump into the ocean of life. You were born for the here and now not just to get by. You were made by THE Creator Himself to glorify Him in advancing the Kingdom of God.

3.) Prayer Brings Change:

Jeremiah 29:12–14 NLT

In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”

Prayer can bring change to the places God is sending you.

(Testimony of a school in Oregon)

“Just as the Lord ended the captivity of the people who were exiled in Babylon, Jesus Christ has ended us being captive from our sins and this sinful world.”

4.) The Lord Wants To Use You As a Vessel To Bring Supernatural Change:

Let us remember that Daniel was one of the people exiled to Babylon. The Lord used him mightily during his time to remind people of the Living God.

-10 Day Fast

-Interpreting Dreams

-Interpreting Writing On The Wall

-Seeing His Friends Saved By The Lord

-Being Rescued By The Lord in the Lions Den

-Prophesying About The Future of Jesus Christ.

Challenge: Are You Willing To Be Used By The Lord?

Honor Graduates:

Closing:

“If we are going to be effective in the mission The Lord is calling us to, we must get our hearts aligned with the heart of God.”

The events of the Apostle Paul.

“Are you willing to be used by Christ, no matter the cost?”

(Prayer and Worship)