Chris McCurley: I'm glad you're here this evening. Continue our... Looking at the most commonly abused, misused, misapplied and misinterpreted passages of scripture. This is one that's pretty popular right now. Jeremiah 29 and 11, if you want to turn there. You know, it's called going viral. Maybe you've heard that term. Going viral is when a blog post, a tweet or a video or a piece of music goes from relative obscurity and skyrockets to overtaking the masses overnight. It happened with Pacabel's Canon and D major. He wrote it in 1680 and it lay dormant for three centuries until about 1980. You began hearing it everywhere in commercials, ⁓ background music, even as an entrance march to weddings. And that's kind of what's happened with Jeremiah 29, 11. It's had this resurgence over the last few years, almost gone viral. And you know the verse, I'm sure, but I'll read it anyway. For I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. This is a ⁓ standard verse that you see on email taglines or maybe on t-shirts or coffee mugs or bumper stickers or graduation cards or whatever it may be. You see this verse quite often and we like to personalize it. We like to individualize it. God has a plan for me to prosper me. you know, whoever I marry, it's. It's God's will for my life. I decide to go to college versus going to the military, then it's all a part of God's wonderful plan. If I decide to have a steak instead of ramen noodles, then it was all a part of God's plan to prosper me. Right. And I don't have to tell you that there's some fake news involved in this type of interpretation. We have to be careful in reading the Bible devotionally. It's OK to do so at times, but we have to take precaution. What I mean by that is. We often read the Bible devotionally in that we take every verse we apply it to our set of circumstances and that can be dangerous. And so we have to be careful. And with that in mind here are a few just suggestions as we study the Bible. Number one the Bible was not written to you it was written for you. This this word was written to somebody else before it became your word. So there's an original audience. who was dealing with the original set of circumstances and in a particular culture, in a particular time in our history. And so remembering that before you can take it and apply it to your life, figure out what it meant for the people it was first written to. Secondly, let's avoid one verse theology. Now let's avoid proof texting our way through scripture. We need to interpret the Bible with this question in mind. What is God saying rather than what do I want? God to say or what do I want this passage to say. And then third remember that there is a bigger picture at play here. That the Bible is a narrative it's one long narrative story that starts in a garden into the garden. Everything in between is a story of salvation it's a story of redemption and so every passage needs to be read in light of the bigger story the bigger narrative. ⁓ One way that. What example I should say. That I use in. Avoiding kind of the pitfalls that we we tend to fall into when we're interpreting scripture is name chapter 1 verse 7 Probably been a long time since you turn to name but in they him chapter 1 in verse 7 it reads the Lord is good a Stronghold in the day of trouble and he knows those who take refuge in him What a beautiful verse right? Slap that on a bumper sticker on a coffee mug or on a t-shirt Just don't read the next verse. Verse eight. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of its sight and will pursue his enemies into darkness. Not quite as enlightening or uplifting, right? But that's why we avoid one verse theology. That's why we we make careful that we don't read the Bible devotionally only. So with that in mind. Let's look at Jeremiah, Chapter 29. Verse 11 in its original. context we're going to ruin the motivational poster tonight we're going to run the bumper sticker so let's look at verse one. As Jeremiah writes now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophets sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile the priest the prophets and all the people who never can answer had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon this was after King Jeconiah and the Queen Mother the court officials the princes of Judah and Jerusalem the craftsman and the Smiths had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elisah the son of Shafan and Gemaria the son of Helkiah whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon saying thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare you will have welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you and do not let listen to the dreams which they dream. for they prophesy falsely to you in my name. have not sent them declares the Lord for thus says the Lord when 70 years have been completed for Babylon. I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place. Now you'll notice that this message is directed to a specific people at a specific time who are dealing with specific circumstances. And that is given away in the title above this section, depending on which version of the Bible you use, it will say something like message to the exiles. And that's not you. Right. That's the people of Jeremiah's day. And these are the people that have disobeyed God mainly through idolatry. They've committed spiritual adultery and God has had enough. And so Israel is going to time out. They're going to be sent off into a one-way trip to slavery into Babylon, and God is going to keep them there for an extended period of time, 70 years to be exact. Now, the people hearing this message for the first time had to be wondering, OK, God has come through in the past. Will he come through again? Will he rescue us again? And there is a message of hope. There's a silver lining that Jeremiah gives the people, and that is there is a future hope of glory on the horizon. One day they will return home to Jerusalem and be restored. But for now. There's going to be 70 years of suffering. And heartache. This is their punishment. And Jeremiah wasn't the only one talking at this point. There were other prophets who were giving other messages. And these messages were not as bad. were things I, you know, the sky's not falling. Don't worry about this. This is not a big day. Don't listen to Jeremiah. He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's going to be fine. And many of the people, especially the leaders. Would have rather listened to these false prophets because their message was much more endearing. And so Jeremiah comes on the scene. He's contradicting their words. He's saying, don't listen to them. This is the word of God. And so you have this, this, these conflicting messages here. And I want you to notice verse 11 and following for I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you declares the Lord and I will restore your fortunes. and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you declares the Lord and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile. So it's easy to read verses like this and individualize them to make personal application. But even the people hearing this message originally could not have individualized it because he's not speaking to one specific person. Jeremiah is giving a message to the nation. of Israel and many of the people that were hearing it that day wouldn't even see it come to fruition. Right. Because it was going to be 70 years in the future. And so this is a promise for the entire nation a future hope and glory being restored. But for now I mean many people were going to die in captivity so they couldn't have been individualized it either. And you read a little further you also see that this future prosperity is not for everyone. Versus seventeen eighteen relay a message from our Lord that is not all that positive not all that inspiring and not one that you'd want to put on a bumper sticker. fact it's quite terrifying notice what it says in verse seventeen and following thus says the Lord of hosts behold I am sending upon them the sword famine and pestilence and I will make them like split open figs that cannot be eaten due to rottenness. will pursue them with the sword with famine and with pestilence and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. to be a curse and a horror and a hissing and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them. Yeah, cross stitch that and frame it and put it on a wall, So. Can I claim these verses? As a reader today? Yeah, you can. Does God have a plan for my life? Absolutely. Does he have a plan for welfare and not for calamity? Without question. Do I have a future and a hope? No doubt about it. But we are dead wrong to assume that that plan just involves a mountain of wealth and and longevity of life. There's way more to it than that, right? There's way more to this life than just that. And we know that. But we're also wrong to expect that God will make certain that I live a completely comfortable existence until I die in my sleep when I'm 100 years old. You think about. All the folks right now that are that are dealing with a wilderness experience, they're walking through the valley of the shadow of death and they're praying hard for for comfort, for healing, for. for a release from the prison of pain and it doesn't come. And maybe they're thinking, OK, well, God, do you not care about me? Why won't you hear my prayer? Does God not have any concern for me whatsoever? You see how this can be dangerous when you take one meaning and apply it to your life? And then have the expectation that that's how things are going to play out, because like we talked about before, our definition of good, our definition of prosperity and God's definition are usually two different things. God has been honest with us and telling us that there will be trouble in this life. This life is hard. Maybe you were growing up and you told your parents, you know, that's not fair. Maybe your kids have told you that that's not fair. Whoever said life was fair, Jesus certainly didn't. God certainly didn't guarantee fairness in this life. But there is hope. There is a glorious future awaiting us. We are not unlike the Israelites in that. We are exiles as well, aren't we? Now we're not enslaved. We're not in. We're not in in captivity, but we kind of are, aren't we? We are exiles in that this is this is not our home. This earth as it currently stands is not our home. We're heading towards the promised land. Someday we'll get there someday will realize that future hope someday will be at home with our Lord. But for now we have to learn to live as exiles and strangers in a foreign land. And what do we do? Well. Let's take a lesson from the Israelites and what Jeremiah told them. Build houses. Plant gardens. Get married, have babies. Seek the welfare of Babylon. God basically says through his messenger bless the ones who put you in captivity by being faithful to me. Seek the welfare of the city, it says, where I've sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will have welfare. In other words, God's instructions to the Israelites in captivity was get comfortable. I gotta tell you, I don't necessarily like reading that. I'm sure that's not the message that they wanted to hear. How would you feel living in a foreign land taken into captivity? By an evil nation. And instead of rescue, God says you used to it. You comfortable. You flip over to Peter and you find some similar instructions. But this time not to the Israelites, but to the church, which would include us, right? And what we find. In 1st Peter, Chapter 2, starting in verse 11, are these words. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lust, which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. So same kind of thing. Peter is giving instruction to the exiles in. And how to live and this describes us. We're not enslaved. We're we're not in captivity necessarily. However, we are living in an earthly kingdom that is juxtaposed to God's kingdom. Our values, our morals are different than the kingdom of this world, and so we are aliens and strangers, pilgrims and sojourners as as Peter calls us. And so what do we do? How do we live? While we're as exiles of the dispersion as Peter calls it. What do we do how do we live. very similar to the instruction that God gave the Israelites through Jeremiah we abstain from fleshly things that this kingdom values we strive to be a good influence we promote godly principles and the hope of changing the world around us but listen to the continued instruction to these exiles verse thirteen submit yourselves to the Lord's sake to every human institution whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. and the praise of those who do right for such as the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil but use it as bond slaves of God honor all people love the brotherhood fear God honor the king servants be submissive to your masters with all respect not only to those who are good and gentle but also to those who are unreasonable for this finds favor. If for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience. But if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it. This finds favor with God. So it's important to note here that Peter is addressing some people who are dealing with persecution, right? He. He's addressing an issue of punishment and persecution that existed because these people were Christians. And according to Peter, Christians are exiles of the dispersion. That's the term or phrase that he uses. And we are waiting for the exile to be lifted and to be gathered together to receive our inheritance. And Peter indicates that this exile will be over when the chief shepherd appears and he gathers his dispersed sheep. And so we are living in a current kingdom. We are dispersed and we endure ill treatment and persecution until the chief shepherd comes and gathers his sheep together, separates the sheep from the goats, and we go to be home with him. And here's how we are to respond in the meantime. Submit yourself to every human institution. Do right. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king, servants or slaves, submit to your masters, even the masters that are not good. I don't know about you, but that's a little hard to swallow, isn't it? Kind hard to take. I don't know that that would be my knee jerk reaction, right? Certainly this is a cultural thing. It didn't mean it for us, right? I mean, surely God doesn't expect that of American citizens today. We're Americans. We fought for our freedom. Where would we be today if we just submitted to every human institution? We wouldn't even have a country, right? Surely this is not. Meant to apply to us in this day and age. I want there to be an exception. I want there to be a caveat. But Peter doesn't give any nuance here. Peter tells these Christians and us in the process, I believe, to respond to mistreatment the way Jesus does. And how did Jesus respond? Verse 21 for for you have been called for this purpose. Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps who committed no sin. nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return while suffering. He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds you were healed for you were continually straying like sheep. But now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your soul. Again, if this were easy, everybody'd be doing it, Jesus never said it would be easy, only that it would be worth it. This is not easy. It's not to live like Jesus, especially when you're in exile. It's not to live. It's not easy to live like Jesus in a foreign land. In a kingdom. That is juxtaposed to the kingdom that you are a citizen of a true citizen of heading towards the promised land. or fighter. I'm your huckleberry, right? I just dare you to try me. I'll turn the other cheek and it'll be yours after I slap it. You know, I mean, that's how we think. You assert yourself. You don't let anyone get the best of you mess with the bull. You get the horns, right? But Peter is trying to convey something here. And it's not that we are to be a doormat. It's not that we are just to to hunker down like a like a puppy in the corner waiting to be beaten with a rolled up newspaper. We are to fight for injustice. see that throughout the Bible. We defend ourselves when necessary. We don't allow the government to impose values that override the authority of God. Right. We don't obey the government in that situation. We always put God first. But Peter's message, I think, is this be faithful to God and be a blessing in the nation which you live. And just like the Jews living in Babylonian captivity, we wait with anticipation for the day when the exile will be over. and we receive our inheritance. And what does that look like? Well, it doesn't look like disruption. It doesn't look like division. It doesn't look like being a sore thumb. It doesn't look like being a jerk. It doesn't look like being an idolizer of politics. It looks like being Jesus. It looks like being at peace with all men as so far as possible. looks like returning good for evil, letting God handle the revenge stuff. looks like pursuing something bigger and being invested in something greater than this life. looks like making a difference in this world by responding differently than the world. Something that is really hard for me, but something that I have to remind myself of constantly. My kingdom is not of this world. And neither is yours. You live in this world. And sometimes it seems like you have one foot in each kingdom, doesn't it? But this isn't home. And so while we live and while we exist and while we function in this kingdom, we're always. Homesick. And our eyes are always fixed. On the day when the exile is lifted. And we get to go home and that really helps us when we're having a wilderness experience, doesn't it? It really helps us as as we travel through the valley of the shadow of death. So. I you we're not going to have cancer stories every week. don't want that to be the focal point. But this past week I was sitting in the waiting room. Waiting for my friend Trace Pierce who attends here to come and get me because he does my radiation. And I'm sitting there waiting for him and that I struck up a conversation. Actually she started it with an older lady that was sitting behind me and I knew that she was there every day that I was with a young girl that was in her 30s. I assumed her daughter and I was correct. And we were talking and. And she was asking me about you know why I was there and all that and so I was kind of telling. sharing my story with her and so I really want to hear her story why she was there and she was there to accompany her daughter who was 36 years old who is going through radiation treatments as well on her brain. 36 she was having some headaches. She just wrote it off as you know sinus things of that nature. One day she's looking at the dog kennel and the straight bars are curvy and she's like that. not right, know, something's up. She goes to doctor and they find a massive brain tumor in the back of her brain. It's very serious. She was also pregnant at the time. She lost the baby. And so her world is thrown into chaos. They remove the tumor. Pretty grim diagnosis. And every day she's coming and taking radiation and then we'll start chemotherapy. And so over the last week or so, I've gotten to know her and. And I look forward every day to going in and seeing her because she's always smiling always. And no matter what she's dealing with, she kind of laughs it off. She's got beautiful blonde hair, long blonde hair. And just talking about, yeah, I'm probably going to lose it. But, you know, she kind of jokes about it and makes a quip. But as we're talking. She said something to me and I'll never I'll never forget this, I'm going to I'm going to keep this in my mind always. She was talking about the different things that have happened in this whole process that were not coincidence to her. And she was explaining all of it and she said somebody who doesn't have faith might think that that's odd. that everything played out like this, but she goes, it's not odd. It's God. And I'm never going to forget that it's not odd, it's God. And to see the strength that she draws, I asked her the other day, I said, how does somebody do this without faith? She goes, I don't know. That's the only thing that gets me through. How do you do this without faith? How do you live as an exile in this world without faith? It's really hard. Some of you know that from experience. But we have a future and a hope, don't we? God has a plan to prosper us. That plan has already been set in motion. We're going home, right? And let's always keep that in view no matter what we're dealing with, no matter what we're going through. We're homesick. And someday that homesickness will be cured when Jesus lifts the exile. We get to be at home. Let's pray. Our most kind and gracious Heavenly Father. You are a good God. And we are so thankful. To be here in your presence tonight, but also to walk with you daily and may we. Always lean into you. May we have that deep connection with you. May we draw near to you so that we can always be in your presence. You are faithful. May we always be faithful to you. And may we always be homesick for heaven. We love you God and we thank you. And it's in your sons name we pray. You know that song we sang there's a stirring. I'm so dense it took me about 10 times of singing that before I realized what it was about. You know what it's about right? That's about death and going home and. I think it's. It's a good reminder and I think it's good for all of us. To remember. Like the Benedictine monks used to have a a human skull sitting on their desk that they could look at and they always thought I'm going to die so. They would look at that skull as a reminder. I am going to die. So fill in the blank, right? We're all going to die at some point. So what are we going to do while we live? And my suggestion to you would be. Be Jesus. So that when Jesus returns. He finds you being Jesus. You gotta need tonight. Why don't you come as we stand and as we sit?