Old Testament in a Year - Jeremiah 23-37

In our readings right now have us in the book of Jeremiah. It's been a great journey. Next year, we're journeying through the New Testament together. A few weeks ago, we remembered together as a nation, a 25-year anniversary of one of the most horrible tragedies that's ever struck our nation, 9/11. If you've ever had an opportunity to visit the 9/11 museum at Ground Zero inside of the museum, there's a 17-foot tall steel cross that was found on September the 13th in the midst of the debris, in the midst of all the wreckage of those buildings, and they believe that this cross came from the north tower when it collapsed. But that 17-foot tall cross that was found in the midst of all of the rubble really became a rallying point. It became a symbol of hope for all of the people that were affected by this tragedy. Last week, we talked about a great godly king of Judah. His name is Josiah, and Josiah found the book of the law in the temple. When he read the book of the law to the people, they repented, and Josiah led Judah in kind of this cleanup, this restoration where they did away with the idols, and they destroyed the false temples, and they really returned back to Yahweh. But in spite of that, in spite of that kind of revival that they experienced, again, we see the pattern where the people of Judah returned back to idolatry and immorality, and in the midst of all of this, we know, and we talked about this last week, God raised up a prophet by the name of Jeremiah during the reign of Josiah. Jeremiah's there, and he's being used by God, crying out to the people, returned to the Lord, come back to God, repent of all the stuff that you're doing, and the people once again are in the place after Josiah's reign, where they're just ignoring the cries of the prophet Jeremiah, and what it eventually led to was the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of all of the people in 586 BC, where they were taken as captives, they were taken in exile to Babylon, and then the tone of Jeremiah's writings take take kind of a turn, because up until that point, Jeremiah's writings is just this plea, come back to the Lord. But once the captivity took place, 586 BC was when complete captivity happened, there were other periods where they were taken captive, but not all of Judah,

but now in 586 BC, the temple is destroyed, Jerusalem is destroyed, the people are taken captive, and now we see in Jeremiah, and hopefully you've been reading in Jeremiah even this week, these chapters that we're going to tackle this morning, but his tone shifts, and out Jeremiah and his writings from a prison cell in Jerusalem begin to be a rallying point for the people, and they become a symbol of hope, a message of hope in the midst of destruction and loss. And a part of his writings there are verses that are probably familiar to a lot of you. We're going to look in Jeremiah chapter 29, although we're going to skip around to several chapters in Jeremiah, but chapter 29 we're going to begin to read in verse 10. Would you stand to honor the word of God? I know you've been standing for worship. Just stand one more time just to honor his word. And we see from Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 10, and you'll hear the shift of his tone. It's no longer about come back to God, repent, return to the Lord. Now Jeremiah's bringing hope to the people in the midst of such destruction. And he writes this to the beginning of verse 10. He says, "This is what the Lord says. You'll be in Babylon for 70 years, but then I will come, and I'll do for you all the good things that I've promised." For I know the plans that I have for you says the Lord's their plans for good and not for disaster to Give you a future and a hope In those days when you pray, I will listen If you look for me think about the goodness of God I mean, they've just thrown it up in his face over and over and over and just

Denied the goodness of God over and over and yet God still say and I'm gonna be here for you. I Still have plans for you Some of you can relate because you were living a horrific lifestyle and yet God still kept reaching for you God still kept loving you and then you blew it again and there was God standing there saying I still love you I still have great plans for you And the Lord says in verse 13 through Jeremiah if you look for me wholeheartedly you'll find me I will be found by you says the Lord I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and We'll bring you home again to your own land Let's make some declarations church together and then we'll dive into this everybody ready Man I don't know yesterday was an interesting day in college football and maybe you just exhausted all of your energy over some teen that Really in the scheme of things. It just doesn't matter, but now we're talking about the word of God And we're talking about the king of kings. I just think you ought to be a little more vocal and a little bit Bit more excited about what we're doing right now than you were yesterday. What was going on? Amen, let's make some declarations together here. We go ready I will hide this word in my heart that I might not sin against God This word is life to my body and health to my bones. I will be a doer of the word And I am confident of this that he who has begun a good work in me In Jesus name, amen, you can be seated now that verse verse 11 out of chapter 29 is a verse that is Quite popular. You see it in a lot of graduation cards You see it on a lot of coffee mugs You see it on wall plaques. You see it on t-shirts They're great words of hope and promise and Jeremiah wrote them to be exactly that He's riding to prisoners of war. He's riding to those that are in captivity and they've lost their homes They've lost their farms. They've lost their freedom and they've lost relationships Now listen to me God's good plans and that's our theme. That's what we're focused on today. God's good plans

but they're not always defined or measured by immediate comfort or relief and The context of verse 11 Forces us to the mat to wrestle with this question Can God's good plans be trusted? When life does not match the promise Can God's good plans be trusted? When life does not match the promise Jeremiah had every right to throw it up in their faces and say I tried I I spent 40 years Pleading with you and that and you still rejected God. You're getting exactly what you deserve, but Jeremiah didn't do that He immediately begins to remind the people of the goodness of God that God still loves them That God hasn't changed that God still has a great plan for them. God's gonna bring them back Out of captivity and bring them back Into their homeland and God's gonna restore to them and out of these years of captivity today There are four things I believe that we can learn because all of us are gonna go through heart season some of you are there now and in the midst of those tough seasons as we wrestle with that question Can God's good promises be trusted? When life doesn't match the promise? I believe there are four lessons that are so important for us today, and here's the first one I hope you're taking notes. I hope you're on the refuge app with a nose They often take time and trust. Now, watch this. If you go back to chapter 28, verse 2 through 4, there's a false prophet by the name of Hananiah, and he tells the people. He says, "Hey, within two years, you're going to be free from captivity and you're going to have peace." And Jeremiah says, "Hey, man, I hope you're right. Let it be so." I hope that's the case. But then in verse 15, Jeremiah rebukes Hananiah. What's this? Verse 15, "Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah, listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but the people believe your lies. Therefore, this is what the Lord says. You must die. Your life will end this very year because you have a rebelled against the Lord. Two months later, the prophet Hananiah died." Now, Paul warns us

in 2 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 3. Listen, he says, "For the time will come," and I believe we're living there now, "when people will not put up with sound doctrine, instead to suit their own desires, they'll gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." We're there. We're living in that now. And listen, listen to a pastor who loves you. Listen to a pastor who just pleads with you because here's the reality. Many people are attracted to the supernatural and their appetite for that causes them to dismiss sound doctrine. I believe in the prophetic. We honor the prophetic in this house. We recognize that it's one of the offices that Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 4. And I believe the prophetic plays a key role in the body of Christ being equipped, but we have to be careful that we're not constantly chasing after some prophetic word that just provides some temporary comfort to our hardship or that gives us some false hope. Are y'all with me? And that's what a lot of people do. They don't like sound preaching. They don't like the hard truths of Scripture. And when they're in a hard time, they'll go chasing after the supernatural or after some prophetic word that just in the moment makes them feel better about themselves or makes them feel better about their situation, gives them some temporary relief. Listen to me, many of the things that God does do not happen overnight, and they require us to trust Him. They require that we trust Him even when our life does not seem to line up with His promises. Jesus tells us in John chapter 16, verse 33, "In this life you will have trouble." He told us that. "But listen to me, Church, we cannot afford to shortcut the plan of God for our lives because we become impatient and we just want a quick fix." I've been there. I know what that's like, where we just want the season to end. We want the hardship to end. And if we're not careful, we will grow impatient. We'll begin to doubt the promises of God, the plans of God in the midst of our hardship, and we'll do whatever we have to do to bring an end to the suffering, even if it means that we miss the plan and the purpose of God. And I'm saying to you today as a pastor who loves you, the promises of God take time and trust. It's maybe not going to happen overnight for you. Hey, I would love it if it does, just like Jeremiah told Hannah and I. That'd be great. Two years, awesome, wonderful. But the reality is it's going to be 70 years, not two years. Why? Because the plans of God sometimes take time and trust. We don't get to determine how long the season lasts. How long the suffering lasts? How long the hardship lasts? What we have to do is to continue to trust God and to trust that His Word is true. His plans are true even in the midst of our hardship.

captivity and trusting we can thrive even in the midst of hardships. We can thrive. What's this? Jeremiah, now he's in a prison cell in Jerusalem. He's writing to the captives in Babylon and he says this in chapter 29 verse 4. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives that he's exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem. Watch, build homes and plan to stay. Plant gardens and eat the food they produce. Mary and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply. Do not dwindle away and work for the peace and the prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Wow, think about that. God's saying those people that have taken you as captives and as prisoners. That place where you're living, you need to pray for that place. Wow, that's tough. Those are words we don't often want to hear and then he goes one step further. He says pray to the Lord for it and for it's welfare or for it's welfare will determine your welfare. So God's saying through the prophet Jeremiah, you're gonna be there for a good long while. His message is that even in hardship we can find joy. Listen to me, God's plans do not promise quick relief but if we trust His plans we don't have to postpone joy or obedience while we're there. While we're in a place of hardship we can still find joy. We can still prosper in the midst of the difficult season. He tells them build homes. Plant gardens. Eat the fruit of the things that you grow. Mary, raise a family. Have some grandkids. God's reward for not killing your own kids. Can I get a name in from you grandparents? And he says, prosper. Prosper even though you're in captivity, even though you didn't see this coming although Jeremiah had warned them for 40 years, you said what I want you to understand. He's saying to the people of Judah, you brought this on yourselves but in spite of that God still has plans to prosper you and not to harm you. It doesn't just mean at the end of 70 years when He brings you back out of captivity. No God wants you to prosper right where you are and some of you today are in a heart season. Some of you are in a tough place. Some of you are in the midst of hardship and you're thinking I've got a postpone joy or obedience while I'm in this until I get out of this place whatever it is and got to know I want you

to find joy right now. I want you to prosper right now and a part of the way that you can prosper is even though you're in a job that's not your dream job is pray for that employer. Pray for your boss even though you might be in a city and it wasn't your desire to live in Annapolis or China Grove or Charlotte or Harrisburg or wherever it is that you might live. God says pray for that city. Pray for the place that you are. Maybe I'm going to take you somewhere else. Maybe I'm going to take you to that place that you always hope that you would live but for the time being I want you to pray for the peace I want you to pray for the prosperity of this place. Jeremiah says pray for your captors pray for Babylon and pray for the peace and the prosperity of the land. Here's the third thing that we learned. What's so key? God's plans for our our ties internal renewal over external relief. Internal renewal over external relief. It's our nature that we're in a tough season that we want the relief. We want the thing to be done. We want external relief. We find that true in Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17 contains a story about ten lepers and the Bible says that they cry out to Jesus. Now by rabbinical all they have to stay a hundred feet away from Him at least. And so from a distance the Bible tells us verse 13 of Luke chapter 17 Jesus, master, happy to be on us. And then Jesus tells them, I want you to do something that violates the law. Jesus says, I want you to go and show yourselves to the priest, show yourselves to the priest. Well, they knew all too well as lepers. We can't go to the temple. We can't be near a priest. We have to be a hundred feet away. We can't go to the market. We can't be around our families. We're outcast. We have to live on the outskirts of the city.

But Jesus says, no, here's what I want the 10 of you to do. Go show yourselves to the priest. And the Bible says, as they did that, as they stepped in faith according to his word. And that's what miracles often involve, right? It would be so easy if the miracle happened and then we said, okay, yeah, I'll go to the priest. And she's not the way it happens. It usually requires us to step in faith first. Jesus says to him, go show yourselves to the priest. And the Bible says this, as they went, they were healed. As they went, if they would have stood there and said, that's stupid, I, that's illogical. I'm not gonna do that. They never would have received their healing. But as they obeyed the words of Jesus, they were supernaturally healed. Now, notice this, it says there, verse 15, one of them, when he saw that he was healed. Okay, so there's external relief, external relief. They look at their skin, it's covered with leprosy and all of a sudden their skin is completely made new. So they have external relief. Verse 15, one of them recognizes, I don't need just external relief. I need internal renewal. So in verse 15, notice this, it says one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, praise God. He fell to the ground at Jesus' feet,

thanking him for what he had done. I want you to notice that the man praises God, praises Jesus in a loud voice. Remember now, when they were in need, when they were desperate, they cried out to him in a loud voice. Why is it so often that when we are in need, we'll cry out to God in a loud voice, but then we worship with a quiet voice? Not this guy, no, this guy says, I was desperate, I cried out in desperation, now I'm grateful and I'm gonna cry out just as loud or louder to show my thanks to the one who has healed me. Verse 19, Jesus said to the man, stand up and go, your faith has healed you. Time out, flag on the play. He's already been healed. Why would Jesus say your faith has healed you because the word healed there is the Greek word sozo. It doesn't just mean external healing. It means to be healed on the inside and the outside. So here's a guy who says, I'm not satisfied just with an external relief. I need an internal renewal. Like I'm still missing something on the inside and he goes back to Jesus and all of a sudden he gets a touch, not just on the outside, but a touch on the inside. Now watch Jeremiah chapter 31, now let's go back. We're in chapter 31, verse 31,

the day is coming says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant though. They broke that covenant though I love them as a husband loves a wife says the Lord. But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days says the Lord. I'll put my instructions deep within them and I will write on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. They'll not need to teach their neighbors nor will they need to teach their relatives saying you should know the Lord for everyone from the least to the greatest will know me already says the Lord and I'll forgive their wickedness and I will never again remember their sins. In other words, through the prophet Jeremiah, God is promising. I'm not just going to give you external relief from captivity. I'm going to give you internal renewal. I'm going to touch you on the inside. I'm going to do this work on your heart because I'm going to write I'm going to write on your heart.

Oftentimes, when we think of good plans, the good plans of God, we think of immediate relief from the hardship. But God's plans center on our hearts being changed and our relationship with Him going deeper, which is much greater than some external change to our circumstances. Listen to me, if you don't hear anything else, I want you to hear this. Without a change of our heart, we'll just carry the same brokenness and dysfunction into our new circumstances. So God may give you relief. You may pray. Maybe you create that on your own, but without a touch on the inside. Without God renewing you on the inside. Without God doing a deeper work in your heart, you're just going to carry that same stuff into the next season, into the new circumstances. That's why the purposes of God, the promises of God, prioritize and focus more on internal renewal than they do on external relief. Here's the last one, then we're going to pray. Number four, God's plans are backed by His covenant promises. His plans for you, the plans that we love to quote in Jeremiah 29, 11, and they're great. But what we need to understand and what we see from these years of captivity

are that the plans of God, the purposes of God, are backed by His covenant promises. Look in Jeremiah 32, beginning in verse 6. At that time, the Lord sent me a message. He said, "Your cousin, Hannah Mel, son of Shalom, will come and say to you, by my field at anothoth. By law, you have the right to buy it before it is offered to anybody else." And then just as the Lord had said, "My cousin, Hannah Mel, came and visited me in prison." And he said, "Please buy my field at anoth in the land of Benjamin. By law, you have the right to buy it before it is offered to anybody else." So buy it for yourself. And then I knew, Jeremiah writes, that the message I had heard was from the Lord, skipped to verse 13. Then I said to Baruch as they all listened, this is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says, "Take both the silt deed and the unsealed copy and put them into a pottery jar to preserve them for a long time." But this is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says, "Some day, people will again own property here in this land and will buy and sell houses and vineyards and fields." Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 11 is another very familiar verse for us. And this is what it says, "For I will restore the prosperity

of this land to what it was in the past," says the Lord. And then he goes one step further by promising the coming Messiah. We've traced all through the Old Testament. These times that the Messiah has promised us, times that the Messiah is seen all through the Old Testament. Here's another example of that in verse 15 and 16. It says this, "In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David's line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. In that day Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name. The Lord is our righteousness. God speaks these promises to us. He gives us plans and purposes. And they're backed by His covenant, His covenant. We observe the covenant of His sacrifice a moment ago. Every time you read in Scripture that there's a promise for you and you claim that for yourself, you need to understand that that covenant, that promise is backed by the covenant of the Lord, the blood of Jesus that speaks a better word. I know a pastor in the Washington, D.C. area. His name is Mark Baderson. He pastors National Community Church. And years ago, when they first planted their church. And church planters love to hear the stories of other church planters, especially when it evolves some hardship because we've all been there. We've all gotten the tattoos. We've all had those seasons that were just horrific and tough

and difficult. And we didn't know how God was going to come through. And Baderson said in their first year, renting was $1,600 a month. So they're $400 a month for everything else. Bill, salaries, you know, supplies, all that kind of stuff. And so over and over, like they didn't have a band, they were trying to put together a worship team. And Patterson says, he's praying for a drummer. He was actually leading worship at the time, but he had no rhythm. He said, we need a drummer. So he's praying. He said, I probably prayed 200 times for a drummer. And then finally the Lord said to me, why don't you go buy a drum set? And he was like, we don't have a drummer. And the Lord said, do you trust me? So that was before the Google days for Facebook marketplace. Patterson finds this drum set. It costs $400. All the rest of the money that they have for the month. And he's going to go buy this drum set. So he's just like, man, I'm going to trust God. So he goes on Thursday and he buys this drum set on Thursday, 400 bucks. Buy this drum set takes it to where there sets the drum set up. And that Sunday in walks of first time visitor. He was a member of the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. And he became their drummer. Listen, when God promises something, it doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but it might mean that you have to step in faith first in order to see the promise come to pass. Because here's the truth. Faith acts on God's future promises today. We don't wait until we see the miracle. We don't wait until we see the promise fulfilled. Listen to me church, God's plans for you are good. I don't care what your pedigree, I don't care what your background, I don't care how horrific your life has been. Let me tell you something. God's plans and promises for you are good, not because they guarantee a relief to your heart, but because they guarantee, listen to me, that trouble will not have the last word in your life. That's why its promises are good. That's why we can associate the goodness of God with crucifixion. Why? Because it puts into motion this brand new covenant. And it's God's way of saying to us, my promises for you will be fulfilled not because I just relieve the hardship that you're in now, but because in the midst of my promise and my goodness, the hardship is not going to have the last say. God's good plans rarely shield us from life's struggles, from life's hardships. Instead, they give us purpose through the season, and they guarantee for us a future that's grounded in his redemption.