WWUTT 2479 For I Know the Plans I Have for You (Jeremiah 29:1-11)

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. A plan to prosper and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future. But what does that promise really mean when we understand the text?

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Jeremiah 29 in Its Exilic Context

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we have finally come to the famous chapter of Jeremiah 29. And yes, we will read verse 11 today, but probably not getting through the entire chapter as this one's a little bit longer than our previous chapter.

To recap, last week we looked at chapter 28. And there we heard of a false prophet named Hananiah. Hananiah said that this exile into Babylonian captivity was only going to last a couple.

Of years.

And then God was going to bring the exiles back. Even Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he would come back with all of the craftsmen and all of the priests and everybody else who had been taken away into exile.

They would all return to Jerusalem. And Hananiah took the yoke that was on Jeremiah's neck. Remember that God told Jeremiah to make a yoke for himself and this yoke was symbolic of the slavery, the exile that the Jews were being sent into.

Hananiah broke that yoke off of Jeremiah's neck. But everything that Hananiah said and did contradicted all that Jeremiah had said. And to Jeremiah, the Lord spoke again and he said, I did not speak through this man.

These words that he is saying, they did not come from me. And this yoke, it's not going to last you two years. It's going to last 70 years. That yoke of wood is now a yoke of iron. And Hananiah, as for that guy, well, the Lord struck him dead.

He said, within the very year that you have made this prophecy, you will die. And as we read the last line in chapter 28, in that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died. So now the Jews are in this state of thinking, we are going to be wiped out.

We have sinned against God. We've been exiled into this horrific enemy, into the hand of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. And they're surely going to kill us here. And that's what we deserve. We worship false gods.

We broke God's law. We rebelled against him entirely and he sent us into exile to annihilate us. That's what the Jews are thinking. But God speaks to Jeremiah and has a letter through Jeremiah delivered to the people who are in exile, encouraging them that God still has a plan for them.

He is going to bring them back. But that's a promise they wouldn't see fulfilled for many, many years. So let's read it together from Jeremiah chapter 29. I'm going to go a little bit further than this, but I'm going to start out just reading the first 14 verses.

Hear the word of the Lord. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elassah, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

It said, 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, plant vineyards and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease, but 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 find your welfare.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.

I did not send them, declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear 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 I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Reading Jeremiah 29:11 in Context

I believe I've mentioned to you that I teach a Bible class at a Christian school, and at the very beginning of this school year, I had asked them for famous verses. What are some famous verses that you know?

And they threw out various verses, including Genesis 1, 1, John 3, 16, Philippians 4, 13. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. And of course, Jeremiah 29, 11. I said, okay, quote to me, Jeremiah 29, 11.

And a couple of them knew it. I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm.

You.

That's probably the translation you're used to, to give you a future and a hope. And so then I asked the class, tell me what that verse means. What does that mean? And they had various answers that were all very, very positive.

God is going to fulfill all my hopes and dreams. God does have a future in store for me. God is going to give me good things. And if I keep my eyes on Jesus, then I will have great reward. You know, there were various answers like that.

And I said, have you noticed something about your answers? Who does it seem that your answers focus on? And they all had to acknowledge they were talking about themselves. God is all for me, and he's going to do all these great things for me.

And I said, are you sure that's what that verse means? And that's how we should be understanding it. And this was leading into me teaching them how to read their Bible. So that's what we have spent this semester doing is learning how to read the passage, know what it means, and then even be able to make some applications.

So I said, you can't just read this verse. You got to read the verses around it to understand the context of what is really being said here. So I had them open up a Bible. There's two books that they're supposed to have out on their desk every class period.

They have their Bible out and their notebook out. And so I said, open your Bible. You have to have a Bible. It's Bible class. They opened their Bible to Jeremiah 29. I said, someone read for me verse 10.

So we know Jeremiah 29, 11, you've been quoting it. Someone read the verse right before it. And it says, once again, I read it again. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. And just reading that verse out loud, whichever student it was that read it out loud, but just that one verse I could see in several of their faces.

I already know now, Jeremiah 29, 11 doesn't mean what I've always thought it meant. Because God has just said here that they're in a bad place and they're going to be there for 70 years. So for some of them, if they're self-applying that promise, Jeremiah 29, 11 is for me some sort of promise from God that he's going to give me all my hopes and dreams.

What if you don't get all those hopes and dreams for 70 years? What if you don't even live that long? So the wheels are already turning in their heads. This verse doesn't mean what I thought. And all you had to do, just reading the verses around it, we're able to see that this is not some fortune cookie testimony that's given to all believers, that God is going to give them whatever they ask for or whatever their hearts long for.

So I said to the students, does this verse have application for you though? Is it just written to a particular people? Or is there something that we can glean from it also? Yes, there certainly is. So I said, let's start at the beginning of the chapter and we'll read through and see what we can find.

Now, I even gave them the backstory of what happened in chapter 28, but then we start in chapter 29 and let's go back there together. And I'm reading here again in verse one. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the people who Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

So as I'm teaching the students this, I'm saying like, who's the intended audience here? And they're recognizing it's Jews. It's even these people who have been sent away into exile into Babylonian captivity.

In verse two, this was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. You've got a list of some pretty important people here.

That are not in Jerusalem among the Jews anymore, but they've been carried away into exile. Verse three, the letters were sent by the hand of Elassah, the son of Shaphan and Gamariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

It said. So we've got this huge setup on exactly what's going on here, on exactly what we're reading. And I had said to the students, sometimes the setup is not quite that clear, but it is crystal clear here in Jeremiah 29.

We know who's writing and to whom he is writing. So here's that letter that is sent to these people. We even know who's speaking here, who is speaking. It is God. For 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, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters multiply there and do not decrease.

Living Faithfully in Exile

So what is God telling the Jews to do there while they are in exile? Live your life. Do all the normal stuff that you would do if you were still living in this land. Build your homes, plant gardens, plant vineyards, eat their produce, make a living for yourself, trade and sell and buy while you're in Babylon.

You're part of that nation for now. It's as if you are citizens now of that kingdom. And so live as citizens in that kingdom, pay your taxes, live a normal life, get married, have sons and daughters. Don't just sit there wallowing in your misery.

You know, I don't know if you've ever had anything truly grievous happen in your life where you were just very depressed and you were weighed down by grief, but you can't just wallow in your grief, right?

What's going to happen to you if you just sit there and cry all the time? It's very, very unhealthy. First, it's unhealthy mentally, and then it's even going to be unhealthy for you physically. If all you're just doing is sitting around and crying, you're either going to lose a lot of weight or you're going to gain a bunch of weight.

And that, even what happens with you physiologically, will also play upon your mind and your emotions. It will affect you spiritually. So even when something of great grief happens to you, you still have to get out and do something.

And so God is encouraging the Jews here. Don't just sit there and cry for yourselves. But you need to continue to work. You need to labor. You need to do normal things because God intends to bring the Jews out of their captivity and bring them back to the land.

That's something that's already been said through Jeremiah up to this point. God is bringing that back to their remembrance. You might think that the world is over. Your lives are over now that you've been sent into exile.

No, continue to live your life. And one day you are going to be brought back to this place, fulfilling the promise that God had already given to them. And so, verse 7, God says, 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 find your welfare. Now, that's something that we even find in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, it's very similar to something that Paul said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2.

We read there, First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So what is Paul telling Timothy there? And by connection, the church where Timothy is pastor, he's saying we need to live our lives.

We need to pray for the welfare of our captors. Remember that we are exiles in this world. The apostle Peter, when he addresses the Christians in Asia Minor at the beginning of his letter, he says that we're exiles to the exiles in Asia, he says.

And that's all of us. We're still exiles. The world is not our home. We are citizens of a greater kingdom, a heavenly kingdom. As Paul talks about in Philippians chapter three. So we are ultimately looking for a promised land we have not yet received.

But in the meantime, we need to pray for the welfare of our captors, of those with whom we are in exile. Again, Jeremiah 29, seven, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

Yes, these Babylonians are monstrous and bloodthirsty, but pray to the Lord on their behalf for when they benefit, when they gain their wealth and power and everything that's going to benefit you who are under their control.

So pray for their welfare. In their welfare, you will find your welfare. And likewise, the apostle Paul says the same for the church, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Live your life. Don't live and wallow in despair at how bad things are getting in the world. And here in the United States of America, we still have it really, really good compared to what's going on in most of the world.

You know, it wasn't that long ago. What is it now from this date? A little over two weeks ago that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. A lot has happened in two weeks, hasn't it? Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

And we've even since had his memorial service, which was this past Sunday. Isn't that right? It was this past Sunday. Feels like this whole week has been getting away from me also. You know, and that was a horrific thing that happened, his assassination and how it was broadcast all over social media.

There were a lot of people that saw this happen. Such a horrific, monstrous thing. And yet there are places in the world where somebody like a Charlie Kirk getting assassinated. That happens on your typical Tuesday.

So we still live in pretty good comfort in the United States of America. There are other parts of the world where Christians are being slaughtered, like Nigeria, for example. Christians are being massacred there.

Thousands every year. And we need to be praying for our brothers and sisters there who are being hunted and killed, that they would remain steadfast and strong, even in the face of this horrible danger, of this horrible threat.

Now, that's it does not mean that those Christians in that place are being punished by God in any way. It's these evil people who have done this, and they will receive the greater condemnation. They will stand before God one day in judgment.

As Peter also talks about, with suffering Christians like Jesus, we don't revile in return, but we continue entrusting ourselves to him who judges justly. But we still need to recognize the plight of our brothers and sisters around the world and be lifting them up in prayer.

We are all exiles. We're all strangers and aliens in the world. This world is not our home. So live your life in this world. Don't just wallow in misery. Continue to labor and even grow in holiness and encourage one another in the Lord.

Praying for each other is the church has been instructed to do. There is a promised land for us. We don't receive it yet, but we will one day. And this is talked about in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11.

The way that the Old Testament faithful thought of their promised land is the way that we need to think of our promised land. Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles in the earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had the opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city. A city on earth? No, but the heavenly kingdom that we are promised in Christ Jesus. Even the Old Testament faithful, they weren't looking primarily to that place on earth that they would have the opportunity to return there.

They were seeking a heavenly kingdom, even the people in the Old Testament. And so, thus says the Lord of hosts in verse eight, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you and do not listen to the dreams that they dream for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.

I did not send them, declares the Lord. Very interesting and by the providence of God to be reading that warning here in Jeremiah 29 this week because we just got through another rapture prediction. There was that prophet Joshua or whatever his name is from over in Africa.

And he had made the prediction that on the 23rd and 24th of September, Jesus was going to return. The rapture was going to happen. And of course it didn't happen. And he's now changing his prophecy. That's the way most false prophets do it.

But here God saying, don't listen to these prophets and diviners or to the dreams that they dream. They are leading you astray. And we've got to be careful of those false teachers even in our day that we not be led astray by them.

Those false teachers who will twist verses like Jeremiah 29 11 to mean something that they don't really mean. So let me pick up in verse 10. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. And what is that plan that God has for Judah? And what is that future and hope that he is going to fulfill for them?

Ultimately, it's through this people that he will bring about the Messiah. And he's not about to let that plan get thwarted no matter how wicked the Jews were when they were worshiping false gods and following in the ways of those pagans.

God's plan was not going to be undone. And so he would preserve this people and he would bring them back to the land and through that people, the Messiah would come. So we have the promise of Jesus Christ, even in this promise to give this people a hope and a future.

Christ as the Fulfillment of God’s Promises

Now I said we were at least gonna get through verse 11 today, we almost didn't. I'm out of time. So we're gonna pick up here next week. But again, all of this pointing to the ultimate fulfillment, which is in Christ.

And my friends, that is the hope and future that God has in store for us as well. All of the wonderful plans that God has for you, he has for you in Christ Jesus. You might be called to do something that might cost you your life.

When it comes to sharing the gospel with somebody else, who knows? That it might happen to you as well. And yet that would still be a good and glorious plan that God has for you to die for the name of Christ.

Great is your reward in heaven. You have nothing to fear of what man will do to you. Your life is secure in the hands of the God who raises the dead. Heavenly father, I thank you for what we have read.

And I pray that we don't despair no matter what is going on in our lives. No matter what we see happening in the world, we continue to hold fast to the promises of Christ. And there is a plan to give us a hope in a future.

There is a plan that is for our welfare and not for our harm. And it is in Christ who gave his life for us, who rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Let that word, that message, the gospel, give us hope today in Christ Jesus. It's in his name we pray, amen.

Let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.