For I Know My Thoughts I Have Toward You

For I know My Thoughts – Jer 29:11 Pastor Matt Davis – Long Valley Bible Church Amen. Our Savior lives and our Savior loves. And one of the best things about serving the God that we serve, is that He is a God of the living not a god of the dead, and he lives and reigns today. If you have your Bibles with you turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 29. We will be read on verse 11. While you’re turning there, I do have to say this is perhaps one of the most taken out of context verses in the entire Bible. We like to read this just as what we want it to mean to us but not what it meant to the people it was written to in the circumstance behind the writing of Jeremiah 29. Verse 11, says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah wrote these words, in a letter to the captives and Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had carried away a considerable part of the people of Israel into a far country. Jeremiah extorted them to build houses, to form families and to abide peacefully in Babylon until the Lord should lead them back at the end of 70 years. At this time, there was a general and easy fealing among the Jews and other subjective nations who did not rest quietly under the iron yoke of Babylon. They were plotting and planning continual rebellions, and certain false prophets in Babylon would work with them, stirring up the spirit of revolt among the… among the exiles. Now, Jeremiah, on the other hand, assured the exiles that God had sent them into the land of the Chaldeans for good, bade them to seek the peace of the city wherein they were now dwelling, and promised them that in due time, about seventy years, the Lord would again plant them in their own land. Now, a people in such a position as the Jews, in Babylon were, they were in danger in two ways, either to be boyued up in false hopes, and so to fall into foolish expectations, or to fall into despair, having no hope at all. And so became a sollen and degraded race, who would be unfit for restoration and unable to play the part that God had ordained for them in the history of humankind. Jeremiah then had the double duty of putting down their false hopes, and sustaining the right expectations. He therefore on one hand, plan the warn them against expecting more than God had promised. And on the other hand, he awakened them to look for the fulfillment of what God had promised in verse 10. When it says, “For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good work toward you in causing you to return to this place.” In verse 11, he says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you.” The point here is that God still has plans for Israel. He has not forgotten his own. This truth, although it is easily spoken, is not readily comprehended. In the fullness of its joy nor is always believed, as it should be. These people in captivity were likely to fear that they’re God had forgotten them. Therefore, the Lord repeated his words in this place, and speaks of his plans more than once. His words are repeated as to seem almost redundant, out of a desire to make his people feel absolutely sure, God still had plans for them. All the Lord was to do, toward them was carefully planned. And then the Lord goes a step further, the Lord would have us know that his plans for us are settled, and definite. This is part of the intent of the words “I know my thoughts that I think toward you.” With the Lord, there’s neither question nor debate. His plan is settled, and he adheres to it. Now we are prepared to go even a step further, namely, that God’s plans toward his people are always plans for their well being. His thoughts are not of evil, and still more the Lord’s plans are all working toward an expected end. God is working with a motive. And all things are working together for one objective, and that is the good of those who love God. God sees not only what he is doing, but what will come of what he is doing. As to our present pain and grief, God saw not these, but he saw the future joy and usefulness or then that would come. Now the historical context of Jeremiah 29:11. And I covered a little bit of that is that the Jewish people had broken their covenant with God. They had rebelled against him and had abandon their first love. They got carried away in sin. And God brought the Babylonian captivity against the Israelites as a punishment for their sins as a way to turn their thoughts and mind and love back to him. Now there was a false prophet named Hananiah, who was promising a return from captivity into Babylon within two years, and a spoiler alert that did not happen. Jeremiah tells us seventy years. And as we go through history, we can see that it took seventy years before the captivity had ended. So the circumstance behind this is twofold. The first is to warn Israel, the Israelite nation, against the false prophet of Hananiah, that what he was saying is wrong, but also to give them hope for a future. Today, my message to you is also to give you hope for a future with the uncertainty of the results of this election. I firmly believe that God will not be mocked, and I firmly believe that Donald Trump will serve for four more years. However, I am also not God, I don’t know. I know some people who call themselves to be prophets have proclaimed this. And we will test these people that claim to be prophets and see. But I also know that even in the Old Testament with his chosen people, that God has put over them authority, they did not like or want; the Babylonian captivity, in particular. And so, we also know that if God could do that to the Israelite nation, he could do that to us as well. But also God wants us to know that he knows his thoughts toward us. He has thoughts of peace and not of evil and to give us an expected end. Regardless of the 2020 election outcome, our God want… has thoughts of peace toward us. He wants us to live in hope. He wants us to live in joy. He wants us to live a life of fulfillment. He does not want us to get carried away in the political state. He does not want us to get caught up in the evil. And I almost have to, excuse me, almost have to wonder if our political state today is not brought upon us, by Christians. You know, as the Universal Church of God, regardless of if we are bap… you know, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Lutheran, nondenominational as the church, we have dropped the ball in America. Many denominations today gladly accept homosexuals, they gladly accept transgenders, they gladly marry them, and they gladly protest for the rights of those people. Despite what the Word of God says. Many Christians, and many denominations today fight for abortion, and to legalize it. Many Christians, almost every Christian has idols that we put above our God. And so I cannot help but wonder if Christians as a whole are responsible for our political state, the Babylonian captivity was brought on by the sin of God’s people. And I wonder if we are the same, so I beg and plead not just the online church here tonight, but the nation that we get back as the first song worship song today says “to the arms of our first love.” Let us drop to our knees and confess our sins. Let’s ask the Lord to search us out and bring the… the hidden depths of our heart up to us. Let us pray for him to do the painful work of tilling the soil of our heart, that he can heal our nation. Let us be humbled. Let us allow the Lord to work and do his will. But also in the meantime, let us have the hope of He knows His thoughts toward us. Just as the Lord still had plans for the ancient Jews, and he never forgot them, The Lord has plans for us. And he never forgets, see, told us I will never leave or forsake you. So we have the promise, that no matter what happens to our political state, we still belong to God. Turn with me in your Bibles to Proverbs 16:9. It says that “A man’s heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” So as we carry forward with the hope of Jeremiah 29:11, with the knowledge that God knows his plan, that he has thoughts of peace and hope for us, let us also remember that as we may have our own plans, as we devise our own way, it is the Lord that directs our steps. And we need to be willing vessels and that we need to be willing to change our plans for the Lord’s plans, we must be willing to say not my will, God, but your will. And we must be willing to say that whatever the Lord desires is what I desire. Our hearts are deceitful. And they are wicked beyond all measure, according to Jeremiah, and so as our hearts devise our own way, we must take the Word of God to our heart, and we must be willing to let the Lord direct the path which we can take. And we’re… the expected end that God has for us we… were going to get there one way or the other. The question becomes, do we want it to be miserable along the way? Or do we allow for God to direct our path, and we take the path of least resistance. And along the way, we live a life of peace and prosperity and joy. In Proverbs 19:21, turning on the wrong way. 19:21 it says “there are many devices in a man’s heart, nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord That shall stand.” In the 2020 election cycle, this verse gives me much, much hope. Okay, there are many devices in a man’s heart, you know, a man will lie, steal, cheat, kill, he’ll plot against other men, he will do anything he can to get what he wants. And we can see that in the 2020 election cycle, we see lying, we see cheating, we see these mich.. mischievious ways of parties trying to accomplish what they want. But what gives me hope here is no matter what man can deviseth in his own heart, no matter what devices are available to us, we cannot outsmart God, we are not wiser than God, we cannot pull one on him and say “you didn’t see that coming God!” But it says that the counsel of the Lord is what show stand, meaning the Lord alone is sovereign, and the Lord has already declared from the foundations of the earth, what… what the outcome of this will be. And so what he has already declared to be is what shall stand, that is what shall come to pass. And we can take comfort and joy, in knowing even if it’s not our candidate, even if it’s not our preference or choice, that the one and only sovereign God has committed it to be. And because of that, this circumstance, the situation will never be out of his own hand. And as we go through this, must remind you of one of the most famous verses in the Bible, Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six. It reads, “to Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and they not on my own understanding.” Verse six, “but in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” As Christians, there’s two traps we can fall into with this. The first trap is thinking that we know better, we know wiser, we are smarter. You know, we think God is out of touch, you know, what is God doing? Does he not see this? Does he not see that and so we make our own plans. And we go off, and we do our own thing based off of what we know and understand. And that’s a trap of the devil he wants us to fall into. And the second trap we fall into is when we see all the chaos, and we see things we don’t understand, okay, cuz I cannot understand why God would put Joe Biden in office. But when we see things we cannot understand, we begin to lose our faith in God. We begin to think maybe he’s not sovereign, or maybe he’s not real, or maybe he is not there because we don’t understand or agree with what he is doing. But the Bible tells us to “Trust in the Lord with our own heart and lean, not on our own understanding.” Because we are not all knowing we are not all powerful, we are not sovereign. We don’t understand the bigger picture like God does. So it says trust in Him. And when you trust in Him, if you acknowledge him, don’t acknowledge the news media, don’t acknowledge Facebook, or what our family or friends, or co workers or peers are saying, but acknowledge God and all of our ways, says he will direct our path. If we just trust in Him and acknowledge Him, regardless of the earthly and fleshly manifestations and trials and circumstances, the Lord will direct our path. And at no point will he lead us into a valley that he is not beside us and that he will not get us out of. So lets trust in the Lord with all of our heart. Meaning not on what we know or believe, but let’s acknowledge God, let’s acknowledge that our ways, not his ways, His ways are not our ways, and he will direct our path. Proverbs 1:5 is in my list today as well. Proverbs 1:5, a page back my Bible says “a wise man will hear and will increase learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsel.” I have this in here today, not because it fits with Jeremiah 29:11. But because it fits with Proverbs 3:5. Because if we are to be hopeful, we must obtain unto wise counsel. Now I can tell you, no one on Facebook, nothing that we see in those comments is wise counsel. Nothing we see on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News is wise counsel. And let’s be honest, nothing that we hear from Joe Biden or Donald Trump is wise counsel, because we are all men. There is only one counsel, I know that does not lie, that does not confuse, that does not lead astray, that does not have its own agenda. And that is the word of God. So the Bible says that “a wise man will hear an increase in learning.” So we will hear the Word of God we will study it out, and we will increase our understanding and learning of it, and we will attain unto its wise counsel. And what does the word of God tell us? What we read Revelation chapter one this last week, and it told us that God alone is sovereign, that he has his hand on everything. Naturally, I’m going to turn their Revelation chapter one. I’m trying to remember what verse that was. Okay, verse eight, he said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, say at the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” If you remember from our Friday study, the Almighty here in the Greek, mended to the idea of someone who is sovereign, and someone whose hand is involved in everything. So we will attendant wise counsel on the wise counsel tells us that our God knows all sees all a sovereign, above all, that He alone is in charge of the nations, and that his hand is involved in everything. And so we can take comfort because no matter what happens, it’s not our hand that’s involved. It’s not our hand that directs it. It’s not Trump’s hand. It’s not Biden’s hand, not our senators, or houses or supreme courts, but it’s God’s hand. And so we do not have to worry, or stress, or sweat, the outcome of the election. And in Romans 8:28, one of my favorite go to verses when things do not go the way that I desire them to, says, “and we know that all things work together for the good to them that love God, to them who are called, according to His purpose.” So as Jeremiah encouraged the ancient Jews, in 29:11, with hope, of the knowledge that God has a plan, that he has thoughts of peace and an expected end. And as Paul encouraged the early Christians and the Roman Church, now, all things work together, I to encourage you today that God still has a plan. And that plan does not involve harm to us, but that all things work together to those of us that love God. So do we love God? I know I do. Are we call it according to His purpose? I know I am. So that means whether it’s a Trump administration or a Biden administration, it works together for my good. It means whether my home floods or I wreck my car, because these are both things that happen is year it works to my good. It means that no matter what happens, no matter what things come to pass, it says “all things work together for the good.” So there is nothing that works against me, because there is nothing that can take God by surprise. And there is nothing so bad he cannot take it and he cannot work it out for the betterment of those that he calls his own. In closing for you today, I want to encourage you with one further thought in Scripture from Paul, it’s in Philippians four verse eight, yeah. Philippians 4:8. Paul encourages that the church in Philippi says “Finally…” Now as finally is after the other three chapters and verse seven of chapter four, Paul says “with everything I have said, This is my last encouragement to you, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there’ll be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” So my encouragement today is let’s not dwell on COVID. Let’s not dwell on the election, let’s not dwell on what is bad, or what could be, or what should be. But let us dwell on what things are true. What’s true, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, our salvation, the promises he has made to us, whatsoever things are honest; let’s dwell on the honest things and not get caught up and the things that are the world. “Whatsoever things are just” it says! We can dwell on the justice of God; we can dwell on the knowledge you won’t be mark… mocked sorry, whatsoever things are pure, or lovely, or a good report. The Bible says there is so much good, that why are we wasting our time on the bad? It says, “if there’s any thing to be a virtual of praise, think on these things.” So let’s fill our mind. In the coming weeks, let’s fill our heart with things that are praiseworthy, with things that are virtuous, with things that are of above. And let us not be carried away by the things of the world, and the things that are meant to distract us, and put us under the yoke of Satan. Let’s pray. Father, God, Lord Jesus, Lord, we thank you and praise you, Lord, we are so, so grateful that you know, the plans you have for us. Lord we are so grateful that you tell us they are plans of peace, the plans of hope, their plans of mercy. They’re not plans of evil against us, but you plan to bring us to an expected end. And so Lord, we thank you, and we thank you all so because your Word tells us that you will work all things to our good because we love you. And we’re called according to your purpose. Because we are yours there is nothing that will work to our detriment, but you will weave it together, and you will make it work out in a way that that is our life. And so Lord, we praise you and thank you in advance even though we have not seen the outcome we know that you have; Even though we have not seen the side effects, we already know that you’ve promised to make it work for us. You have promised to bring us to that expected and and so Lord, we praise you and we thank you. We look forward to see in your hand in our country the next four years. And Lord, we repent of our wrongdoings. We turn back toward you. And we ask that we can be welcomed back into your arms, the arms of our first love. Lord, we pray for those who need you. We pray for those who are sick. We pray for those who are depressed we pray for those who are lost in search and we pray for those who in the… in this election cycle, are looking for hope, who are looking for meaning in this. And we pray for your Holy Spirit to go out across our nation and touch the hearts of everyone who is hurting and desiring you and Lord, we thank you and praise you in Jesus beautiful name. Amen.