In this second part of our series on Jeremiah 29, we are diving into three key instructions from God for how captive Israel is to live in Babylon.
January 20, 2025
Speaker: Greg Sanders
Passage: Jeremiah 29
Good morning, Vintage family. Hey, I wanted to, first and foremost, just tell everybody, hope you’re safe, hope you’re warm. I don’t love canceling gatherings. And yesterday morning, I made a commitment that we would get up and take a lay of the land and see what was going on. And obviously, I think the number one concern we have is ice and dangerous roads. And in these moments, if it hadn’t been for the COVID season, we wouldn’t have been able to do this because that really was the season we learned how to go online.
So, I miss gathering, I miss worshiping together. In fact, I’ve kind of adjusted the way we do our gatherings online because I really think that worship-together thing is sacred to the church as a sacrament. So, we’re just going to hold that off for the times that we come together.
But today, I want to lead us into the Scriptures. But before I do that, I want to give you guys a couple updates and things that are coming up. Mostly just want to highlight the Men’s Conference that’s coming up here; it’s the seventh and eighth of February, if I remember right. I should remember because I’m teaching at it. I’m excited, guys, would love to invite you to come be part of this.
We’re going to do four sessions out of Psalm 25. We’re really going to talk about what does it mean to be a man before God, how does that impact the marketplace, how does that impact the home, and how does that impact my private life? And we’re going to look at the Scriptures and hopefully just mine some great principles out of that.
So, just a Friday evening session and then a short day Saturday. Would love to have you guys join us. You can hop on the website to sign up for that, you can go through the app to sign up for that. I know there’s limited space left, so I’d love to invite you to come be part of that.
Okay, if you have your Bibles, I want to invite us into Jeremiah 29 again. We’re going to pick up really, in verse 11, which is kind of the quintessential Jeremiah 29 verse. It’s the one that reads like a greeting card, and everybody knows it: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
Growing up, that verse was quoted so often, and I’ve heard it so many times, but earlier in the year, I felt like the Lord began to deal with me on that verse. And my process has always been to ask the question, Well, what’s the context? So, we began to look into the context.
And I want to remind us the question we started with last week was very simple: if we take this verse, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,” if He knows the plans He has for us, my question is: will we allow what He says or His plans to set our trajectory? Or instead, as a people, are we going to allow what we feel and what we see to control our narrative?
I think it’s a really important question because I think in this passage, the Lord is revealing that his people– which is us– are either gonna live from His promise or from their perspective. I think that concept is vital in our journey.
I know, for me, privately, for the last month or so, that phrase has just been lingering in my heart. And it comes up in all kinds of different places where I have to answer the question, am I going to let the promise of what God has said be what drives me right now? Or am I going to let my perspective– whether it’s my fears or even my excitement at times– be what drives me?
I think that concept is foundational to this word. And as a general principle, I would rather share this word right now because I really believe this is a for-the-moment prophetic word for this house. I’d rather share that with all of us in the room so we could feel the weight of what the Lord’s doing.
I know last in our last Sunday gatherings, there was just a sense of the authority of the Lord as we talked about this. And obviously, today, we can’t do that, but I want to spend a few moments talking about some more concepts here. We may look at these again together, I’m not sure. I am trying to be very diligent to take this really carefully and slowly because I feel like the Lord is highlighting so much and growing so much.
So, if you would, grab your Bibles. Let’s go to Jeremiah 29 and let’s look at some of these things. The background of 29, obviously, I want to remind us of that. It’s a word to the people of God who were captive in a land that was not their home. So, we looked last week at 1 Peter saying that we are strangers and aliens, we’re pilgrims. Peter’s principle in this is, I want you, the people of God, to remember you’re not from here. You’re from heaven.
And so the principle we pull from that, and maybe it becomes a foundational place we jump from, is that where we’re living is not where we are to live from. You could extrapolate that anywhere in the globe, that we are not to live from our circumstances– they’re not to lead us, guide us, direct us– we’re to live from Heaven because we’re citizens of Heaven.
So, I’m going to read this passage, we’re going to begin in verse 1, we’re going to go through the first part of 14. “Jeremiah wrote a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, priests, prophets, and all the people who had been exiled to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. This was after King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah, and all the craftsmen had been deported from Jerusalem. He sent the letter with Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, when they went to Babylon as King Zedekiah’s ambassadors to Nebuchadnezzar. This is what Jeremiah’s letter said:
“‘The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, sends this message to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the fruit you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the Lord for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you.’
“The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ‘Do not let the prophets and mediums who are there in Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams because they prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord.
“The truth is you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.
“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. ‘They are 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 in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you,’ says the Lord.”
So, we took a look last week at just this simple truth that they were captive in Babylon, but they were from Jerusalem. And that was kind of our jumping off place, that we are to remember that where we live is not where we’re to live from. We’re to carry His nature, His values, in this world because we’re not from here. And I think all of us can wrap our heads around that.
I want to take some phrases out of this passage, and the first one I want to start with today is this phrase: build homes and plan to stay. Now, in our first gathering last week, we were able to get through this. And the second and third gatherings, we just weren’t, there was too much ministry and fun activity in the Holy Spirit to chase that.
So, I want to kind of take us back through this, just for a moment. We have to understand the magnitude of what’s being said. You could imagine these people would have had every reason to put their future plans on hold. They’re put captive into a land that’s not their own. They’ve been taken away from their lands, from the places that they owned property and all those things.
You would imagine it would have been really easy for them to sink into a place where what parents were telling their kids and what they were telling their grandchildren is, When you go back, here’s what I want you to do. And they would have had to make a future plan for returning.
But the Lord doesn’t say that to them. He says, Don’t do that. Do not put your plans into the future and bypass your moment. Instead, He says, Invest, set your sights on the long haul. I think this deals with a specific calling to a tenacity in the marketplace. It deals with this solidarity, or this sense of being settled, that we are to live within our day and in our time. I said this last week, I’ll say it again: it’s almost like we put a flag in the ground and said, We’re here. We’re not leaving. This is our territory.
This phrase– plan to stay– is a word about attitude and perspective. They were to assume where they were was where they were for the long-haul. Okay, why does that matter? Flightiness– when I say flightiness, I just mean a lack of being committed to a situation is death to any vision, whether that’s a business plan, or whether it’s a family plan, or whether it’s a church plan, it doesn’t matter. But flightiness, this sense of being unwilling to just commit, is death to vision. You can’t get anything done.
But when we invest into the regions He’s called us into– that’s really what He’s dealing with with them, is to invest where they are- when we invest into the regions, and we build our futures there, I believe we begin to earn equity that shapes that region spiritually.
So, the word the Lord gave me at the beginning of this was, I want to bring recalibration to your direction. So, this calls for a recalibration to our rootedness. How willing are we to put down roots? I would advocate for us as a family, that all of us, individually, put a flag in the ground and say, All right, Lord, you called me here, let’s build a life.
I want to offer a simple idea: that at times, I think what holds us back from digging in and putting down roots is actually the desire to be in control of our own futures and our own destinies. And if we believe that He is in control, that God is sovereign, then we are to approach where He’s called us with this attitude and perspective: He put us here; we’re going to put down roots.
I think there’s an illusion that can overtake us if we’re not careful. What’s the illusion? That we’re in control. Church, we are not in control. We are to be a people under His government, under His authority. We are to be a people that would embrace what He says about how He wants us to live where we are as the definitive answer.
As I’ve wrestled through this, even as a fifty-two-year-old man, I began to realize there’s been a lot of places where I’ve been almost scared to just anchor and say, I’m here; I’m not leaving. Why? Because it takes control away. I would call all of us to assess our hearts with that issue.
The second phrase that I want to look at today is He says, “Plant gardens, and eat the food you produce.” I think this is to be understood as a mandate to succeed in culture and a mandate to create culture. Those are really big ideas, that we as a people are called to be successful in the marketplace, be successful in the culture, and we’re called to be those that are creating culture, not following culture.
I want you to consider the work of planting a garden. Isn’t it an incredibly similar process to developing business? That you have to get a lay of the land, you have to assess where it’s at, you have to understand what hurdles are in the way, you have to understand how you’re going to defeat those hurdles, you have to figure out what’s going to work in that particular region, what will grow there, i.e., what’s going to sell there?
You see, by doing this, the Israelites would have naturally learned and shared the marketplace journey of the people around them. I see this incredible shoulder-to-shoulder life that God was forcing them into. They’re in captivity, and He’s saying, The very people that are holding you captive, I want you doing business with them. I want you shoulder-to-shoulder in the marketplace, rubbing off on them. I want you to face the same hurdles they face. I want you out there with them. Their interactions would have been immediate through buying and selling.
They faced the same difficulties as the people that they were in captivity with, they would have faced the exact same things. And by doing that, it set something up. What did it set up? Here’s the thing that I think God is witnessing to the most in my heart, pushing the hardest on my heart. I’m a business guy at heart, so maybe that’s why. I don’t know. But what I see in this is that the Lord wanted to put them in the marketplace alongside of the people facing the same difficulties so He could bless them differently and let that be a witness to the Babylonians. He wanted to separate them by the way He blessed them.
I think we overlook this idea so much. I think it is a massive part of the Kingdom, that we, because of a fear of success, or a poverty mentality, or this belief that if we don’t suffer, it must not be Godly. Do I think suffering is part of the Kingdom? I do. Do I think hardship is part of the Kingdom? I do.
But it is absolutely inarguable here that what He’s calling for is for them to be willing to put themselves out there in the marketplace so He could bless them. I think it’s a key concept because I think He’s always looking for places to bless His sons and daughters, to put them on display in the very places He’s planted them.
And I see this as a word that is intended– and I want you to hear this, Vintage– I think this word is intended to ignite business in our culture. I think our Father wants conduits to bless us through; He doesn’t want a couple conduits in the church, He wants conduits in your life.
I think we’re in a season where multiple streams of income is a God idea, where ideas to do business are God ideas. And I think this is driving it so heavy in my heart, and I want to just put our eyes on it and say, Whew, maybe we should go sit with the Lord, start talking to Him about this stuff.
My hope in this series is that the Holy Spirit begins to release dreams and visions for business, that in each of us, there’s just new ideas and a new hunger to tackle the marketplace. I do have a very clear sense from the Lord that what is in His heart for us is to release a new and fresh level of business, of entrepreneurial authority.
Okay, let’s go back to the text. If you think about the fact that they were planting the food that they knew natively, it was a way for them to keep their familial culture alive. There’s nothing quite like the dinner table where you’re passing down a recipe that came from grandma, which came from her mom, which came from her mom’s mom, and there’s this sense of heritage that comes through food.
And it’s really interesting that He says to them, “Plant gardens, and eat what you produce.” It’s almost a mandate to protect their history and protect their culture. I think there might be a way to look at it differently, which is, Yes, we’re in captivity, but we’re not to become like our captors. We are to bring our culture into this realm.
And how do we bring His culture, which is our culture– that’s what I’m trying to get us to understand, is that you and I have a culture that’s given from Him that we are to live– and how do we bring His culture to the earth?
One of the things that I don’t know that I ever saw like I do now, when we gather together as a family and worship with passion, we pray with intensity, we celebrate in our homes and small groups, or maybe it’s just our families, maybe we have Bible studies together– all these incredibly unique things to the Kingdom of God– when we do those things, and we live those things out in our day and in our time, we are bringing the culture of Heaven to the earth. When we live His life in this region, we’re planning His culture in the region.
I also want one last thought for us to consider is that the call to eat the food is a call to enjoy the prosperity He wants to release. Can I say this? And I know that this might cause a little bit of pushback. I do not believe God is afraid of prosperity. I just don’t. I don’t think it makes Him sad. I think He wants to see His kids prosper.
In fact, I would argue that the weight of Scriptures teaches that He desires for us to be prospered. I think we have to recalibrate our mindset towards business and towards how we are living where we are because I think He wants to do something in our lives that so transcends what we believe could happen. And I want us to recalibrate so we’re ready for it.
So He continues, and with this phrase, this is the third phrase I want to look at, “Marry, and have children. Find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren.” It’s kind of a wild mandate that He gives to Israel. In essence, what He’s saying is, Enjoy life, enjoy family, invest into the success of your children. Don’t live in fear of the future, live with like an exclamation point. Have fun, succeed, laugh, enjoy what I’ve given you. It is a word of attitude and trajectory.
We are not to be looking for an escape. We are to love the lives He’s given us to live, and we’re to build them accordingly. Just think about that for a second. His desire is that we love the lives He’s given us to live, and He’s given us the mandate to build them accordingly.
I think there’s a rooted mentality that’s required to do this: you have to have a long-term plan. You have to be willing to enjoy His blessing in the midst of captivity, which means your eyes have to be off of captivity. Your eyes have to be on the blessing. Your eyes have to be on His purpose.
There’s a marriage mandate in this that is kind of wild. Our homes are to be places where marriage is celebrated, and our children’s children grow up with the desire to be married. Want you to just think about that for a second. I think all of us would go, Yeah, that makes sense. People naturally don’t want to move into or live into something that’s awful. So, I believe the call to find spouses for them is a calling to create an environment that makes your kids actually want to be married. That’s a big idea.
If we go one layer deeper, the calling to have children requires a healthy sex life in our marriage. Uh oh, Pastor just said sex. I think it’s His desire that comes through this passage for our homes to be passionate, healthy, and engaged. Maybe we just simplify and say how we handle our marriages in our homes really matters to God.
Why is that so important? Because I think there has been such an attack and onslaught against the church. We’re married and we’re committed, but there’s not vitality and vibrancy and passion. And church, I see this so clearly: His statement is, Get married, have a blast, have kids, have grandkids, multiply. There’s just such a word about reproduction and about vitality in life; I would challenge us, as the people of God, that this area must be healthy in our homes.
If you’re married and you’re in a spot where your sex life is terrible and you’re not encountering each other often, that is a thing that matters to the Lord, and it needs to be healed. And maybe hearing that, you’re like, How dare you speak to that part of my life. I’m not. This is. Although the rest of the Scriptures are so clear.
My wife coined a phrase early in marriage. She said, You know, I think sex is the glue that keeps marriage together. And we were young and dumb. I mean, I was twenty, she was eighteen when we got married. I think she was like twenty-three when she said that. Looking back on it, I felt like the Lord gave us a keen understanding of something that was really important. And I never saw it here until this week, that the Lord’s dealing with us as a people.
And I would challenge you in your homes, do what is necessary to get healthy. Sometimes it’s counseling, sometimes it’s repentance, sometimes it’s a laying down of stubbornness, sometimes it’s getting physically healthy. I don’t know what that looks like in your homes. I just see it here so clearly.
There’s another aspect that I think is revealed in here that would be really easy to miss, and I think this word is intended to calibrate something. I think it’s intended to calibrate our perspective on sexuality. What do I mean? If His plan was for a husband and a wife to marry and to have children and have grandchildren, then what He’s saying in this passage is very clear: that is His plan for our sexuality because the entire mandate here in Jeremiah 29 is about His culture being established on earth.
So if we’re humble enough as people to allow the intent of the Scriptures to lead us, we have to come to a really clear conclusion in this passage: He has a plan for our sexuality, He has a purpose in it, and He has directives that we are to live out. In other words, the Scriptures define sexuality, not our appetites.
Church, I think we need to recalibrate our lens for lives that develop a really long-range view of who we are to be and to develop an expectation of joy in the journey; it’s not to be drudgery, that is not what He calls them to. He calls them to have fun, to make memories with your family; prioritize that relationship.
In other words, guys, if work is more important than your home, you got to repent because the home is to be more important than your work. Ladies, if your hobbies or your children are more important than your husband, you’ve got to repent because that relationship is to be the central element in the Kingdom. All the way through the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, the family and what He does in the family is centric.
So what are you believing for your family? What’s in your heart for your children? What are you declaring over them? In this verse, we have to realize His desire is that we help our children develop great futures. It’s a legacy word. It’s a word that calls us to have vision and dreams for generations.
Here’s my question as we close: what would happen if you and I began to make legacy plans? Each of us considered three generations away, and we asked this question: what can I do today to help set that generation up? How can I live my life today to help create a legacy for them? What’s going to be said? That great-grandma and great-grandpa had a phenomenal marriage. They were great people, and they invested well, and they did business well. And look what it did down the line to the family. Instead of living with what the enemy wants, which is the view of today, just today.
Yes, we live with a humility that says, Give us today our daily bread. Why? Because we trust Him to take care of us every day. But nowhere in Scripture does He say, Don’t have a plan. Don’t work long-range. I think the Lord wants to revolutionize the way we approach life. He wants us to leave a legacy.
I love you guys, I want to pray us out. Lord always, when we film these teachings, I wonder do they communicate and translate the way You want? And I’m asking, Holy Spirit, that You do something in our hearts as a family, that this word would just anchor. And there’d be an excitement and an adrenaline and a joy to chase what’s in Your heart for us. That any place we’ve held onto this sense of, like, I just gotta make it, we’d put that down. Any place in our marriages where we’re like, You know what, it’s not worth it anymore, we’d repent of that. Even with our children, we’d reinvest and rebuild those relationships. Would You do the thing that’s in Your heart for this house? We love You, and we honor You. In Jesus name, amen. All right. Love you guys. See you next week.
News, updates, and events sent directly to your inbox every Thursday morning.
Stay up to date with what is going on at Vintage by subscribing to the Vintage Weekly - our weekly newsletter - and downloading the Church Center app. These resources enable us to keep you updated of upcoming events, opportunities, and alerts such as weather cancellations.
SUBSCRIBE TO VINTAGE WEEKLY
DOWNLOAD CHURCH CENTER APP
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Statement of Faith
Our Team
Photo & Video Policy
Prayer Request
Capture Your Miracle
1501 Academy Court, #101
Fort Collins, CO 80524
970-779-7086
info@vintagecitychurch.com
Thank you for submitting your message. We will be in touch shortly.