Live a full Life

Nazirite Ministry

Jeremiah 29:4-14

Live a full life

31/01/2021

Good evening everybody. It is great to be here tonight. To worship God together and to have fellowship with each other. For the past few weeks, we look at what it means to be a church, at leadership and what each one of our responsibilities are.

Tonight, I want us to look at Jeremiah 29. We all know this passage and verse 11 is probably the verse which is taken out of context in the Bible. People make all different kinds of false promises on behalf of God to others from this verse.

Lets read together Jeremiah 29:4-14

The New International Version Chapter 29

4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 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. 7 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.” 8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.

10 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. 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 on 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

1. God is Personal

First God reminds them of who He is and His character. When we read the Bible and we see the Lord spelled like this: LORD, which means this is the God’s personal name meaning Yahweh which means The Lord is the one who is there for His people and this is bring us into close contact with the character of God. God is telling them that He is a personal God, that He is always with them, to teach them, guide them, help them, support them, to lead them.

Second reminder is that He is almighty. Almighty indicate God’s supreme and incomparable power. Meaning that He is the greatest of all ad that there is no equal to Him in quality and extent. he is above all and rule over all. Back to He is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth

Thirdly He reminds them that He is the God of Israel. Not a god but THE God of Israel. He reminds them, that He chose them, even thought they did not always chose Him as their God.

In all of this craziness they are in at the moment, they could have felt that God had abandoned them and left them alone and for dead. That He is finish with them now and that they are all alone, cut of from Him for ever. Israel as a nation have been disobey god for centuries, they fail to be devoted to Him alone. They followed their own ways and the ways of the other nations around them. Instead of standing our for God, they conformed to the practice of the nations around them. They failed badly and they reap the reward for their disobedience and disloyalty.

This is the beauty of god, that in all their wrong doing and mistakes, their disobedience and disloyalty towards Him, He never left them alone, or abandoned them or cut them off from Him. He punishes them fro their wrong doing, but He reminds them that He is with them no matter how difficult things might be. He said that for Him anything is possible and that He could change things because He is almighty, but he chose to leave them where they are, because its important for them as a nation to learn and grow through all of this.

The same for us. We can so easily forget about Jesus and what he did for each one of us. We so easily follow our own ways and desire and we disobey God so easily in our lives. But he comes to us tonight and reminding each one of us, that He is a personal God, which is always with us no matter what. That is He almighty and that nothing is form Him impossible, but where we are in life at the moment is where he wants us to be to learn from Him and to trust Him that he knows better than we do. He is also reminding us that He chose each one of us and that we are His no matter what and that there is nothing in this world that could separate us from Him.

Romans 8:38-39

The New International Version Chapter 8

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2. Live a full life

From verse 5 to 7 we read that God is telling Israel as a nation that they have to make sure that were they are that they make the most of life there. Yes it is not their won country and yes they are in exile but this is where He place them and they need to keep on living and making a difference for Him. They should do things that bring them joy like getting married, build a house, have your veggie garden. Don’t t’just sit and wait fro better days to come by, make the most of the days you have been given. Don’t sit and dream about your past life you had, live in the now and enjoy it.

Then God tells them to pray for the country they are in, If it prospers then they will prosper as well. What should we pray for? Not that they can have things their way, but that God’s will will be done. Pray that God will keep on working in our country leaders life, that they will do what is right in the eyes of God and not man.

Our focus should not be on this life and what we can gain from it here, but we have an obligation towards Jesus to live our lives to the fullest extend we can for Him and as well to pray for this world. We so easily say, what is happening is the will of God and therefore we do not have to pray for the world. It is suppose to be in all of this turmoil and we just have to accept it. Everybody is trying their best to figure out when Jesus will return but that is not what we should do. We use the second coming of Jesus as an excuse why we don’t have to live a full life for Christ here on Earth.

We can so easily get caught up in life, in our own dreams and desires. what we want and think we need. We put all our time and effort into becoming rich and successful and we miss life on the way towards our goals. There is nothing wrong with having money and goals to accomplish in life, don’t take me wrong on this but they should not become our driving force and the ultimate goals in life. God gave us family and friend, breath and a personality to enjoy His creation. What god is telling them s to live a well balance life between work and home.

To live a full live is not about where you live but what you do where you live. The question is, are you content with what you have?

3. False Prophets

I can only imagine what the false prophet would have told the nation of Israel at that time. They would not be in exile for long, God will come and rescue them as always. Just believe, don’t settle in, you will be leaving soon. Just trust God and he will make it all go away. We are God’s people and he love us and if he love us, he will not let this carry on for a long time.

We so easily lend our ears out to people who say all the right and nice thing to us and for us. We hang on the lips of the people that tells us that God is JUST love and because he loves us, He will not let anything bad happen to you. That is not true. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people. But through all the heart ache and pain, God is working in our lives. Yes, we mighty be in a bad spot because of the choices and mistakes we made, but it doesn’t mean God is not working in our lives. Remember that He said he will never leave you nor forsake you?!!!

We touched on this last week as well. We need to make sure that what people teach us in in line with God word and that is the whole truth and not someones interpretation of God’s truth bend the way they want it to be.

4. God has a Plan

Verse 11 is one of the verse which people like to quote out of context. People like to send it to people for encouragement, and that is what is means but in the context of this passage, God reminds them, that yes they are not where they want to be, and its because of their disobedience that they are in exile, but He has plans for them as a nation and as His people.

Prosperity through God’s eyes and our eyes are quit different. We see, wealth, power, a good long life, without hardship and or sickness. God sees growth, opportunities to be stretched, yes it will be painful but it will not harm us. Prosperity through God’s eyes are to use this life to prepare us fro the next life to come. Prosperity does not mean comfort through the eyes of God. His prosperity promises us hope in Him and a future with Him. Don’t let your dreams and hope for your future stand in the way of God’s dreams for your future. Through all of this, we need to do some very important as well.

5. Seek the Lord

The most important thing we can do with our live is to seek the Lord with all our heart. This is up to us. Just as Israel knew everything they needed to and did not do it, we are the same. We get caught up in all different kind of things in our lives, but we miss the bigger picture. If we want to enjoy life to it fullest and the prosperity of the Lord, then we need to seek Him with everything in us. This must must become our driving force behind what we do and why we do things.

Matthew 22:37

The New International Version Chapter 22

37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind

Jesus enfranchised this as well. He live by this and for this. To love His Father and if we want to follow in His footstep, we need to do the same. Love God with everything in us and this my dear friend is a choice everyday. Love is not a feel or something we say, love is an action and we need to make sure that we show God and the world how much we love God.