Hope for our Future -- Joyful Hope for Our Church Family -- 09/25/2022
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Living In Exile
Living In Exile
Our story this morning carries us to the land of Babylon. The Jewish people live in desolation. The Assyrians conquered and scattered the northern Kingdom of Israel. Now, Babylon sacked the small Kingdom of Judea and deported most of the population to Babylon. They had wiped the nation of Israel from the earth. Now assimilation into a foreign culture with foreign religions threatened the continued existence of the Jewish people as a unique ethnic group.
Exile in Babylon was the place where the Jewish people knew they did not belong. They belonged at home, in the God Promised Land, but exile was the outcome, willfully choosing to abandon the God of the promise.
Babylon was the place of their discomfort. The Promised Land was home. They were comfortable there. They knew how to live off the land and how to live with each other—they spoke the same language, at the same food, celebrated the same holidays, and, at least in name, worshipped the same God. Nothing is comfortable in Babylon. They don’t know the language; the food is strange, the Jewish that gave restful rhythms to live disappeared, and God has forbidden them to give themselves to other gods and religions—how will that work in practice in this strange place? These are desolate times for God’s people.
Will we survive?
How will we survive?
These were the questions at the top of every Jewish mind.
Those Jews tell us what those desolate times were like in Psalm 137:1-4.
By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
Theses times of desolation were times of lament for God’s people.
What about our church family? What is . . .
Our Exile Experience
Our Exile Experience
The Place We Don’t Belong
The Place We Don’t Belong
· The community has changed around us. It is sometimes easy to feel like we are in exile, and we haven’t moved anywhere. Because where we are now is the . ..
The Place of Our Discomfort
The Place of Our Discomfort
· The culture of Sauk Village is foreign to most of us.
· Sometimes, we literally do not speak the same language.
· It’s hard to feel at home in a foreign land.
Our desolation has been on top of our minds for years. Sometimes we hear the questions.
· Will our church family survive?
· How will our church family survive?
· How can we sing the songs of Jesus in a foreign land?
Our place of exile can and should be . . .
The Place for Our Lament
The Place for Our Lament
For us, as it was for the Jews, lament is our healthy front-runner to our Journey to Joy. Biblical lament teaches us how to grieve our losses, our disappointments, and our failures with hope in God’s restoring goodness.
When we lament, we simply allow the sadness in our hearts to come to our attention, we honor that sadness or grief, by putting a name on that emotion, we acknowledge its reality and do not pretend it’s not there and live in the illusion that all is well. Then we ask Jesus who lives in us to come and be with us in our sadness, using works like, “Lord, you know I am feeling so disappointed and I’m grieving over our dear friends, who have left our church family over the past years. Come, be with me, Lord Jesus, in my sadness and grief. Come, be with our church family as we grieve this disappointment together.”
Let’s take a moment for silent lament as we sit in the Lord’s presence together. Please close your eyes as I guide us through this time of silent prayer and then we will conclude with praying together out loud a prayer of lament on the screens.
Please close your eyes and calm yourself in the Lord’s presence.
· When you think of our church family’s past and how we have come to where we are today, be attentive to the emotions of grief, sadness, or loss that come into your heart and mind.
· What name would you give to those emotions: disappointment, sorrow, anger, disillusion, stress, abandonment?
· In your own words, as Jesus come be with you in your sadness, and ask Jesus with our church family as we grieve our losses together.
Please join me in praying the prayer on the screen before us.
Oh, Jesus - You know every one of our sorrows. You know all our losses, Lord, and you grieve with us. We invite You into all that we are feeling this morning; we open the door to each of these sorrows and invite You into them with us. Come and be with us here. Grieve with us. Love us here in our sorrows. Lift our hearts and souls. For You are our healer, and you understand our broken hearts. Amen.
Jesus understands our broken hearts comes to heal them. Psalm 34:7 assures us:
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
When we pass through the gate of lament, then we are ready to join God in our . . .
Journey to Joy
Journey to Joy
On this journey to our surprise we find that . . .
God Carries Us
God Carries Us
Jeremiah 29:4 (NIV)
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile.
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to you, Emmanuel Church, I carried into exile you feel today. You did not come to these times by accident. I brought you here. I, Almighty, carried you from a place and time that felt like home, to this place and time that can feel like exile to you. Yet, I carried you here. It is another step on your journey where I will conform you, Emmanuel Church, into the image of Christ Jesus, your Lord. This refining process is exactly what you need to be my witnesses in Sauk Village, the surrounding communities, and all the way to the ends of the earth! You may not like where you are, but I carried you here for your wellbeing and for my glory.
After the Lord assures us we are not where we are by accident but by His sovereign goodness, He lays out before us His clear . . .
Path to Joy
Path to Joy
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
“Build houses and settle down.” This is a call both to activity and rest. Create a home in exile and rest contented where you are.
“Plant gardens and eat what they produce.” This is a call to find cultivate the resources that will sustain our life as a church in this place. The resources that were previously available will no longer sustain us. We must learn to cultivate and benefit from the place where we are in our present time and place.
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.
The LORD Almighty calls us to build our church family in exile, to build a growing, flourishing church family; and specifically, not to decrease the size of my of our family. When we are in an uncomfortable time and place, we shrink back to preserve what we have, rather than looking to leverage what we have for growing our family.
Renée and I for a time did not have children after our first two “because we were in Africa”. Eventually we woke up from that delusion and then we had Mark. Thank God we did. Our lives would have missed untold blessings had we not done so.
In short, God calls us am to create a little Eden where He plants us. This is Eden language.
Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
Can you hear the similarity between God’s instructions to humankind in the Garden of Eden and to the Jews in Babylon?
The path to joy requires effort.
Can we hear the activity of building, of plowing?
Can we feel the sweat on our brows, running down my faces, soaking our shirts as we labor to bring into being that which is necessary for our wellbeing?
Can we smell the cooking fires smoldering? Can we taste cooked produce from the garden and the baked bread from the grain in the field?
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.”
God calls us to seek the peace and prosperity of Sauk Village, and to the extent possible, the surrounding communities. God calls me to pray for Sauk Village, because If Sauk Village prospers, Emmanuel will prosper.
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. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.
The LORD Almighty warns us not to let “spiritual” people deceive us with a “Word from the Lord” that is a lie, because it is a contrary word to what the LORD himself has spoken to us. He also tells us not to encourage them to lie to us. Do not surround ourselves with people who will only tell us what I want to hear. Beware of people who claim there is a simple, easy way out of exile. Exile is never over until it is over in God’s way, in God’s timing.
Jeremiah 29:4–9 is about settling, becoming comfortable with who we are where God places us. It’s about committing ourselves to flourish where God has planted us. It is about us committing ourselves to help a place, a place and time we did not choose, and to people, we did not choose to be among. It’s about being faithful to the Word of Lord spoken to us in our desolation, in an uncomfortable place while trusting God’s Sovereign goodness. For we have . . .
God’s Promise of Joy
God’s Promise of Joy
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.
Emmanuel, exile has an expiration date. God will come to us and fulfill His good promise to bring us home, to the place He created for us. Now, we do not know precisely what that means for us in this time and this place, but we know exactly what it means for our future. Our Lord Jesus said,
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
God continues his promise to us, saying,
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.
Emmanuel, your exile is part of my plan for you and my plan is to prosper you and not to harm you. Here’s the plan: I am giving you hope and a future.
God’s plans are completely good, since God is sovereign, even that which feels hard, uncomfortable, depressing, painful or even tragic is a means of grace to us, it brings to us an experience of God’s goodness that is necessary for our witness right here, right now and for our eternal wellbeing—all to the glory of God for . . .
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
Do we believe this? Will we believe this?
Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 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.”
How we notice God moving in our exile is that He motivates to:
• call on him (probably out of a sense of deep long, a desperation to see things get better).
• come and pray to him: to call on the Lord and to pray to him go hand in hand. These are signs of repentance and willingness to surrender to His will.
God moves us . . .
• to seek Him with our whole heart.
Then we will find our rest in him, for He will bring us back from our captivity to the ways of this world.
Just as the river flowed through the Garden of Eden to sustain humanity and all creation, just as God gave to Israel a land flowing with milk and honey, our Lord Jesus gives to us a life of . . .
Overflowing Joy
Overflowing Joy
Jesus calls out these words to us Emmanuel Church . . .
Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, Rivers of living water will flow from his heart. (John 7:37–38, NLT)
Overflowing Jesus Joy
Overflowing Jesus Joy
Jesus makes this promise to us in the Gospel of John
I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
(John 15:9–11, NLT)
Jesus promises us overflowing joy.
I have loved you with the same love with which the Father loves me. Remain in my love by keeping my commandments. You will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
For Emmanuel Church, we are . . .
Living Under the Care of Jesus
Living Under the Care of Jesus
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,
Therefore, Emmanuel Church, we can have joyful hope for our future. Our church family can have joyful hope because we are living under the care of Jesus, and our future is absolutely wonderful.
Would join me in confessing this wonderful truth together, reading from the screens.
We live under the care of Jesus. Our story is in His hands. Our future is absolutely wonderful. (Read 3X)—In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come Lord Jesus and make it so. Amen.