01-08-06 Hope For A New Year
Last week we looked at Lamentations 3:21-24 and saw how Jeremiah remembered the mercies, compassions, and faithfulness of God which brought him hope in the middle of a difficult situation. Today I want to look at another passage of scripture, also by Jeremiah, to see how we can find hope for the New Year.
Ø Jer 29:11-14 (NIV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Ø Jer 29:11 (NASB) ‘For I know the aplans that I 1have (am planning) for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for bwelfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a chope. . .
Ø Jer 29:11 (KJV) For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expectedb end.
This is a message from God, through Jeremiah, to the Jews who are in exile in Babylon (v.1). They have been told by the false prophets among them that they will not stay in exile very long. After all they are God’s chosen people and He will come and deliver them. But God sets the record straight and lets them know that they will be in exile for 70 years. Now that may seem cruel and harsh to us, but we must realize that God knows what He is doing and has a plan to accomplish His will for them. Let’s examine this passage and see how God works to bring hope in the middle of despair.
· “For I know”—God knew exactly what He was doing. Their being in captivity was not an accident. In v.4, He clearly states “I carried (them) into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon” and again in v. 14 “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you.” They were where they were in Babylon because that is where God had put them. God was in control of their lives, even if they did not acknowledge or believe it. You see, He had been trying to get their attention for centuries through prophets and kings. He allowed the 10 tribes of the Northern kingdom to be destroyed because of the idolatry they practiced and their refusal to turn back to God. But He also did this so that the Southern kingdom (Judah) could learn from it and turn back to God. Yet, they kept turning away from Him, until finally He had to send them into exile to get them to turn back to Him. Yes, God knew exactly what He was doing—disciplining His children like any good Father would do when he sees them doing wrong.
v How did this bring hope to them?
1. It helped them to see that what they were going through was not just caused by chance or circumstances. So often we may feel like life is out of control and no one is in charge. But this is not true. Even when we are being disciplined by the Lord we can take hope in the fact that He is in control—our lives are not going along at the whim of fate.
2. It also spoke of the love and concern that God had for them—He wanted to see them do right—to grow up living lives pleasing unto Him. So He disciplined them to help them to see the error of their ways. If He did not care, He would have simply left them alone to their own sin and destruction. Many times God disciplines us as His children—not to harm us, but to help us—because of His love for us.
Heb 12:5-7 (NIV) And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.” 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
3. They could take comfort in knowing that God had not abandoned them. He was still in control of their lives, even when they were in exile. Sometimes we may feel like we have been abandoned when we are going through the dry, desert places, but God has promised He will never leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5).
· “the plans I have for you”—God not only was in control, but He knew what He wanted to accomplish in them—He had a plan to make it work out right. He was not just sticking them in Babylon and hoping they would learn their lesson, He was putting them there to fulfill His plan for them. There are 2 parts to this plan:
1. “to prosper you and not to harm you”—everything that God did was for their good. It is like when you tell your child to go sit in the corner for a “time out”—it is for his good, so he can learn to be obedient to his parents. God was giving them a “time out” so they could learn from their mistakes. As parents when we punish our children it is never to hurt them, but to help them. We want them to learn to behave and be obedient for their own good.
2. “to give you hope and a future”—Biblical hope is not wishful thinking, but waiting with eager expectation. It is expecting God to fulfill what He has promised to do, regardless of how impossible things may seem. God wanted them to have hope that they would have good things where they were—even in captivity. That hope was based on the history that they had with God. He had taken care of them in the past while in a foreign land (e.g. while they were in captivity in Egypt) and He would do so again.
--There is an interesting concept in the Hebrew word for future—“Aharit”.
319 אַחֲרִית [’achariyth /akh·ar·eeth/] n f. From 310; TWOT 68f; GK 344; 61 occurrences; AV translates as “end” 31 times, “latter” 12 times, “last” seven times, “posterity” three times, “reward” twice, “hindermost” once, and translated miscellaneously five times. 1 after part, end. 1a end, issue, event. 1b latter time (prophetic for future time). 1c posterity. 1d last, hindermost.
It literally means “afterward, backwards or after part.” So how can it be about the future? The Hebrew concept of time is like a man rowing a boat. He sees where he has been, but the future is toward his back. He backs into the future! It is completely unknown to him because it is behind him.
If you have ever seen rowing competitions in the Olympics, you will remember that the team doing the rowing sits with their backs to the finish line. They cannot see how far or how close they are to it. There is one person who sits in the back of the boat who sees and directs them down the course to the finish line.
This is how God is with us. He sets our course because He is the only one who can see behind us. It is what our God has done for us in the past that gives us hope for the future. It is the testimony of His goodness and faithfulness that He has never failed us that gives us hope in the future that He will never fail us. We must trust our guide that He knows what is ahead and will lead us correctly on the course of life.
· “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me”—they had not been calling on Him and praying to Him, but God knew that one day they would. After they had been in captivity for 70 years and had learned their lesson in their “time out” they would come back to Him. This shows that God knew what He was doing and His plan would work. Just a few chapters later, God says that as the Creator He will do great and mighty things when they call upon Him:
Jeremiah 33:2-3 (NIV) 2 “This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is His name: 3 ‘Call to Me and I will answer you and tell (show) you great and unsearchable (mighty KJV, NASB) things you do not know.’
v What God wants us to learn is that, in the middle of the chaos of life, the most important thing is to come to Him and pray believing that He is in control and that He knows what He is doing in our lives. If we have not been calling out to Him and praying to Him, it may be because just like Judah, we don‘t think He cares. Oh my friend, He cares! He values our relationship with Him so much and He wants us to know that He cares for us and will go with us through thick and thin.
· “I will listen to you”—Are there any greater words that could have been spoken to them (or us)? Not only would they call upon Him, but He would listen to them. He would hear their cries and answer them.
v We must know that when we cry out to God He will hear us. Otherwise, it may seem like our prayers are going no higher than the ceiling. Regardless of how it may look like God does not hear us, He says “I will listen to you.” He constantly has His ear tuned to our cries and prayers.
· “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”—It would take a commitment (all of their heart, not just part) to seek God in the middle of the captivity. They would have to forget about where they were and look to Him. This would help them to see that He was in control of their situation.
v If we want to find God we must be willing to seek Him with all our heart. It may be easy to cry out for help when things are going bad, but we must learn to seek Him with all of our heart everyday. We must forget about how bad things may look around us and keep our eyes on Him. We must focus our attention on Him and commit with every ounce of our being to trust Him—no matter what!
· “I will be found by you”—He would be found by them, when they sought Him diligently and with that deep commitment.
v We will find Him too when we diligently seek after Him. He wants us to find Him. He is not playing some divine game of “hide and seek” but we must search for Him with all of our hearts.
· “I will bring you back from captivity”—He would deliver them in His time (70 years) not theirs. They must be patient and wait on Him to fulfill His promise in His time.
v We have to learn to wait on God. His timing is often not the same as ours. Yet, He is never early or late. He will always show up at the right time—His time. And when He shows up, He will deliver us—He will bring us out of the captivity (bondage) that sin has put us in.
My friends, we must believe that God is in control of our lives and that He will deliver us if we will just call out to Him and pray to Him. There is nothing that happens in our life that is out of His control. Even when we are not His children, He is working to draw us to Himself and to salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. He know the plans He has for us they and they are all good. Let’s let Him be the one to set the course for our lives and guide us to the finish line. Let’s trust Him that He will give us hope and a future in this New Year.
----
a Ps 40:5; Jer 23:5, 6; 30:9, 10
1 Lit am planning
b Is 40:9–11; Jer 30:18–22
c Jer 31:17; Hos 2:15
b expected...: Heb. end and expectation
b Or will restore your fortunes
n n: noun
f f: feminine
TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
GK Goodrick-Kohlenberger
AV Authorized Version