Get Your Hopes Up!

Introduction

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

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.

Prayer

Planning is smart. We plan for our retirement. We plan for vacation or graduation. When we plan well, it means we will, when the time comes, reap the benefits of our planning.

I love planning for the future of Powerhouse - when we get together and catch God’s vision. It is exciting. We have blueprints for a new building! But, at some point, we will actually need to make plans to build. Blueprints are cool…but they won’t get us very far unless we start planning.

It is a great feeling when a plan does come together, when all your hard work, thinking praying, and studying produces a big victory!

However, “The best laid plans of mice and men” often turn out differently than we expect. We can plan, prepare, envision, think of everything that could go wrong and plan for accordingly, and still see our plans derailed. When that happens, we feel frustrated, disappointed, maybe angry and confused. I’ll tell you a secret: I have envisioned and planned things for Powerhouse that have gone awry. It’s pretty deflating when you plan, prepare, and finally get to the big day, only to be let down because nobody shows up or your plans didn’t work as you had expected.

When that happens, you are depressed for a minute, then you second guess yourself and ruminate about the whole thing. But you wake up the next day. “Mistakes happen. Not every plan works. I will learn from this flop so I can avoid the same mistakes next time.”

It’s one thing to see a plan fail at work or here at the church. It’s not as easy when plans for your life don’t work out. When everything you thought could be, should be and would be isn’t, won’t be and doesn’t look like it will ever be.

We all have had those thing we will never do: “I’ll never: be like my dad, treat my kids the way my parents treat me, get addicted to anything, be homeless, go to prison, you name — so if we fail in one of these areas, our vision/plan crashes

And…sometimes, people blame God for their failures

Listen - you don’t plan to fail, you don’t get married planning to divorce, don’t plan to be an addict, don’t plan to grow into a bitter and angry person, you don’t plan to get cancer, be along, have messed up kids…YOU DON’T PLAN TO BE DISAPPOINTED!

In Jeremiah the Israelites found themselves in an unexpected and disappointing situation.

Let’s talk about it for a bit:

Narrative

Jeremiah was known as “the weeping prophet” - and no wonder. He didn’t want to be a prophet, but God called Him and he answered the call. Most of the messages God gave Jeremiah for the people were messages of judgement and punishment. Jeremiah did not like giving these messages, but he obeyed the voice of the Lord.

Needless to say, Jeremiah the weeping prophet was not very popular. To make it worse for him, his competition, the other prophets were telling the people that God was going to deliver them from their enemies very soon and they would prosper and rule.

In chapter 26, the Lord instructed Jeremiah to stand in the courtyard of the temple in Jerusalem...

Jeremiah 26:4–6 NIV

Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house like Shiloh and this city a curse among all the nations of the earth.’ ”

The king, priest, elders, and other prophets were getting really tired of Jeremiah’s gloomy and downright insulting prophecies. This seemed to be the last straw…the priests, prophets, and the crowd took grabbed him — “You must die! How dare you say these things in the name of the Lord! You are a false prophet.” They would have killed him right then and there, but the officials and another crowd of people said, “You cannot kill this man; he speaks in the name of the Lord.” Jeremiah survived to prophecy another day…and he did, a lot.

He had been telling the people for decades that one day they would be overtaken by Babylon and taken into captivity. By the time we get to chapter 29, a large number had already been taken. So Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiled elders, priests, and prophets.

Let’s take a peak...

Jeremiah 29:5–6 NIV

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

…He is telling them to accept the situation and to stop listening to the false prophets. They were in a trying season…How would they react?/

Who Brings Trying Seasons?

The bad people…right?

The king of Babylon did it to the Israelites

He carried them into exile - it was cruel, violent, destructive, people died in the process, families were torn apart, and so much more.

Yes…Nebuchadnezzer the King of Babylon was their oppressor — one day God would send judgment upon him…but not now

Why not?

Does God bring trying seasons?

Jeremiah 29:7 NIV

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

“I have carried you into exile”

So what we have here is the hand of God using Babylon as His hammer of judgement

This truth was hard for the Israelites to accept, even though Jeremiah had been telling them for years. They had a hard time thinking God brought this upon them. It might have been easier to think God had abandoned them

The Message of Jeremiah: Grace in the End 1. A Surprising Perspective: From Refugees to Residents (1–6)

What had happened was under God’s control and it was not about to end soon. With this prophetic perspective, Jeremiah tells the exiles to settle down in Babylon for a stay that will last several generations (5–6). The language of these verses works in two ways.

First — they needed to changed their perspective from exile to resident

— accept this. You are where God has placed you. Will you flourish by trusting and living for Him?

— Babylon wasn’t the permanent home for Isreal, but it would be for a few generations

Second — “planting, eating, marrying, having children…increase in number.”

— God wasn’t destroying His people…they would continue…His promises would be kept

We know that many of God’s people followed His instructions to settle down, adapt to where God had placed them, but ALWAYS remain faithful to Him. Think of Daniel…he is a great example of this.

Who Brings Good Things From Trying Seasons?

It is definitely not us!

Our human reaction to trying seasons is to make a lot of bad decisions, fall into depression, give up, lash out, deny, etc.

Our Loving Father Brings Good Things From Trying Seasons

Jeremiah 29:7 NIV

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Bloom where you’re planted

Pray for them? Are you kidding?

These are bad bad people

What can we take from God’s instructions to pray for their captors?

God can hear and answer prayer anywhere on earth

God will hear our prayers for those that have not yet followed Him

God will bless our land…as sinful and imperfect as it is…if we pray for it

Even in the middle of a great trial, God can and does use His people to make a huge impact in the world

Praying for our world is part of ministry, it is an essential part of bringing lost people to know Jesus’ love

Even praying for the ones that seem to be the most wicked or hurtful people…change will happen

It’s hard to keep hating someone when you pray for them every day

God’s Gift to You is Hope

Jeremiah 29:10–11 NIV

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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.

That verse, Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most popular, most quoted, most beloved verses in the Bible — but how many of use quote verse 10 along with it? “When 70 years are completed for Babylon...”

When you have been in Babylon for 70 years! What? Back up. Seventy years?

Yes…Jeremiah 29:11 is a precious and encouraging promise, but it is much deeper and rich than we know

God’s gift to you the fact that He has plans for you

…even in the land of the enemy

…even in captivity

…even in unknown and uncertain circumstances.

Your hope rests in the fact that God has plans for you

“I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.”

CHALLENGE

I don’t think anyone looks forward to or welcomes trying seasons - some of them feel overwhelming

We might have a hard time realizing that God allows us to go through trying seasons for His own good purposes

For the Israelites it was because of their decades of sinful disobedience and turning their back on Him

God allows us to experience very trying times

God challenges us to bloom where we are planted

Don’t trudge through the trial like a defeated and spoiled child

Take the challenge

Be the person God made you to be right now…at this time in your life…in the rough or even tragic seasons

God has plans for you!

God gift to you is hope!

if you feel like you are outside of God’s plan for you…GET YOUR HOPES UP

If you think this season will never end…GET YOUR HOPES UP

His plan is not to harm you — He loves you

Things are going to get better — latch onto the hope God gives to you by believing that He does have a plan for you

To give you hope…and a future.

No God? No Hope

Know God! Know Hope

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

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.