Senior Night Devotion
Notes
Transcript
“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. 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. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 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.
Jeremiah 29:11 has probably been shared with you a lot lately, but he surrounding verses have probably been left out
This verse is not a claim to if you believe in God life is going to go smoothly
This is not a verse centered on you
Which is a view that sometimes gets unintentionally pushed
So what is this verse about?
“Seventy years are completed”
In seventy years how many of us will be here? Not many of us
So this statement was not to an individual, but to a group
Israel in exile
And this promise they were given would not come to fruition until 70 years later
So the people hearing these words knew they would never live in Jerusalem again, never would see home again
With that context given know live is not promised to go as planned, live is not promised to be void of heartache, life will have troubles and pains. More than likely lots of it will not go as you envisioned
And that is when you need to cling to the end of verse 11, “to give you a future and hope”
What is this hope we cling to?
It is not a stellar GPA, its not Friday night stats, its not a college degree, its not a well paying job at the steel or paper mill, its not a wife, its not a husband, its not a house, its not a boat.
That hope is in the salvation given to us by Jesus
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
With time the joys of Jesus deepen as we grow closer, the doors faith open far outnumber the doors a college degree will, Jesus is our ultimate provider and joy
Go pursue that dream job, dream degree, go marry the girl or guy, do things you enjoy because if we go back even further in Jeremiah 29 to verses 4-7 it says:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 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. 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.
So even among a wicked culture we still called to live life, to enjoy life even when it is not ideal. We are to seek the betterment of the culture
In order to do that though let the Lord establish your plans, pray for guidance in career, marriage, hobbies.
And remember the two greatest commandments:
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
So my challenge to you as you think about your future plans is ask two questions:
Is this what is God leading me to?
How can this plan be used to serve others?
