Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Jeremiah 29:1-14

JEREMIAH 29

Hey, good morning, Vintage. Welcome to 2025, to our first Sunday of this year. I wanted to take just a few moments this morning and maybe set an agenda for the year. 

There’s a passage of Scripture that I have quoted a lot, I’ve thought about a lot, it’s one of my favorites. It’s out of Jeremiah 29. It’s on a lot of coffee mugs, it shows up in a lot of Christian bookstores. “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Blessing, not cursing, a future and a hope.” 

It’s a well-beloved passage for a reason. It’s an incredible statement. But I want to look at what it says in context in Jeremiah 29 because I believe what the Lord is dealing with there is something that, in the last maybe three or four years, I think we’re losing sight of as a church. 

I see a movement in the church at large, that it’s almost an us-against-them mentality. And this passage is written to a group of people that are in captivity, and the Lord’s statement to them in captivity is pretty wild: how He wants them to view their future, how He wants them to approach life, what He has in store for them. So, I want to take us through this. 

JEREMIAH 29:1-14

So, if you have your Bibles, let’s go. We’re going to be in chapter 29, we’re going to be in verses 1-14. “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 food you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and then 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’re going to be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and I will 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.” 

STRANGERS AND ALIENS

Okay, big passage of Scripture. So, word from the Lord to the people who were in that land, and the word was, Hey, this isn’t your home. 1 Peter 2 teaches us that we, the people of God, are strangers and aliens. 

I was really into a band called Petra growing up. Really liked it. That was back when we were Pentecostal, and all rock music was from the devil, and Petra was a Christian band, so we could listen to them. And they had a song called Strangers and Aliens, and I remember the first time hearing it, not really being familiar with 1 Peter 2. I was like thirteen when I heard the song, and I was like, What are the lyrics? “We are strangers. We are aliens. We are not of this world.”

And so I remember asking– I don’t know if I asked my dad or my grandfather, I can’t remember– and he’s like, Oh yeah, that’s what the Scriptures teach, that we’re pilgrims. We’re not really from this world. Well, what are we from? We’re citizens of Heaven. We know that this is the right answer. 

So, what I want to submit is that this word in Jeremiah is one that we can extrapolate a lot from as we are His people today, in a land that’s not our own. I don’t want to over-egg this idea, but it has plagued me watching the church not understand this for the last several years. We’ve argued way too much about the wrong things, and it’s because we take our ownership around us instead of from Heaven. 

WHO PUT THE PEOPLE OF GOD INTO CAPTIVITY?

I want you to notice who put God’s people into captivity, who put them where they were. According to this passage in Jeremiah, it says He did. God did. And perhaps that tiny truth should become this magnanimous understanding for us that He is sovereign and where we are– unless we are in direct disobedience to His Word, like Jonah getting swallowed up in the belly of a whale– where we are is where we are to be. 

I would love to just invite us to consider that as a baseline understanding for how we approach life. I am where I am because God is sovereign, and He put me here. I’m not just in a choose-your-own-adventure novel where if I don’t like it, I move. While it’s a right that we have as citizens, perhaps we should consider that it’s not a right we have as citizens of Heaven. 

GOD’S MARCHING ORDERS

The second thing is, God gives them marching orders for how they are to live in captivity. For me, I want to submit that I think that’s the most vital aspect to understand because it translates directly to us that God has a way He desires we live and we manage our lives wherever we are, whether it’s Fort Collins or Babylon. 

First thing He says is they were exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem. So the first principle that I want us to grab onto is where we are to live from isn’t where our citizenship on earth is found; it’s where our Heavenly citizenship is found. 

We never are to forget who we really are; we’re citizens of Heaven. We dealt with this just on a micro level before the elections, and I want to just keep pushing this in front of us this year: we are to live from a Heavenly calling, carrying Heavenly armor, walking in a Heavenly nature on the earth. 

We’re exiled into the earth from the Kingdom of God. Grab onto that idea. We were translated into the Kingdom of God because of Jesus. Paul teaches it, that we got translated into the Kingdom of Light out of darkness the moment we got saved. 

So our citizenship and our origination change– originate, origin, or origination, however you want to say it– it changed that moment. And if we’re citizens of Heaven in captivity, then we’re to walk in honor to the captivity we are in– that’s a hard one– while carrying the citizenship of our native land. Let me say it this way: we’re bound to our King first, and therefore we represent Him in everything we do on earth. 

INVEST IN THE FUTURE

The second thing I see Him say to them in this culture is to build homes and plan to stay. I want us to understand the magnitude of what’s being said. They would have had every reason to put their future plans on hold. 

They get translated out of Jerusalem, out of their home, into captivity. The natural response would be, Hold on, wait. Don’t invest into this culture. Don’t be part of this culture. Just hunker down until He takes us back so we can build our homeland. And He says to them, Don’t do that. Invest. Set your sights on the long haul. 

I think this is a word that deals with a tenacity in the marketplace and a solidarity we got to live with. It’s like putting a flag in the ground saying, Hey, we’re not going anywhere. Flightiness and a lack of commitment or death to vision. 

When I was at Portland Bible College, Frank Damazio used to say this, that vision lives and dies at the pressure point of implementation. You can say all the things you want, but what you do is actually what you believe in your vision. 

When we invest into the region He’s called us to, building our futures here, we begin to earn equity to shape that region spiritually. I think this is a word to us about how to manage our hearts towards the places we’re at. 

Third thing He says is plant gardens and eat the food you produce. It’s a cultural term; it’s a success term. Consider planting gardens, they would naturally learn and share the marketplace journey with people around them. It meant they had to cross-pollinate with the world around them. It meant they were going to plant foods that they knew natively, and it was a way to keep their family’s culture alive. 

We’re in captivity, but not to become like our captors, but to bring our culture into their realm. For me, I want to take this plant-gardens-and-eat-the-food-you-produce and move it into what I see it as is. I think gathering together as the people of God, worshiping with passion, praying with intensity, celebrating in homes together through hospitality, is a way to plant our culture in the region. It’s an attitude we are to have while we’re in captivity. 

BUILD AND ENJOY FAMILY

Fourth thing He says, marry, have children, find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. I grew up in a Pentecostal culture, and I remember thinking as a kid, Am I going to get married? Will I be around long enough to be able to get married? And there was such a sense of, The Lord’s coming back, He’s coming back, He’s coming back, that it was almost like we were given permission to not want to win at life. 

And yet, what the Lord says to Israel in captivity is, I want you to hunker down, marry, don’t put anything on hold, have kids, find spouses for them, have grandkids. In other words, Enjoy life, enjoy family, invest into this, into the success of your children. Why? I don’t want you living in the fear of the future. Live, succeed, laugh, enjoy what I’ve given. 

It’s 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. That mindset change affects the way we handle our lives. It affects the way we interact with the people around us. 

And He goes on and says, multiply, do not dwindle away. Two words that have to be understood: the word multiply means to increase and become abundant and numerous; dwindle means to diminish, to lessen, to give less– it’s an interesting word; it deals with generosity, it means to pull back. 

And I’d love to highlight that this was not given as an idea. He gives it in the text as an order; we are to increase. The word was not aimed at numerical value of people. Does it qualify to grow numbers and people? Yes. But I would submit this word was given to them as a word to govern their tenacity as a people. 

In other words, overcome, don’t fade. Become so fueled with vision, business passion, excellence, integrity, prosperity, that I, the Lord your God, can pour blessing and opportunity into your hands. 

Have an attitude that says, I’m here to multiply; I’m not here to fade out. Multiply until when? And if you’re looking at retirement as your fade-out season, stop it. Have a plan to multiply. This word doesn’t say anything about retirement. It doesn’t say anything about, It’s okay to back off. It just says, Dig in, go, win, succeed. 

BE A PEACEMAKER

I want you to consider how the Lord emphasizes it: He says, “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.” 

Let me just give you this idea: the people of God are spiritually and naturally connected to where they’ve been placed. And His goal for His people is that they shape wherever He puts them. From His mind, I should be able to put believers in every city in the world, should be able to put them in every region in the world, and they should understand this to be a way of tenacity and tenaciously and aggressively digging in to be winners and to succeed and to live great lives and to build great families. And when they do that, they start to inculcate the region, and the Kingdom of God gets established. 

He says, work for the prosperity of the region you’re in. I want to say it this way: be great at work. Be great in business. Be great in your influence. Be a person that adds value to the city God’s put you in.

He says, work for the peace of the region that you’re in. Be a peacemaker, not the one that creates tension or difficulty too often. It’s said of us that we’re always fighting against things. So, be an asset, be a resource. Have an attitude as a builder. Invest into things in the community. 

Get on boards in your neighborhood. Be a person that brings positive influence and change to every place you touch. 

Then He says, pray for this city. Church, we can’t just talk about it; we have to pray for it. We need to build a list– each of us– of those people in the city that we can intercede for. Build a list of the people that you come in contact with, people you know. You know something about them, you know who they are, maybe you know them personally. Get to know them and intercede for them. 

He goes on and says, “Don’t 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.” What’s interesting is we don’t know if those prophets and mediums came with them from Jerusalem. We just know that they’re there in Babylon with them. 

There are a lot of voices chiding for the people of God to stand against things and be adversarial, and I just don’t see that in this message. In fact, what I see God saying is the opposite. And He goes on and says, If you’re hearing people say, stand against them and fight your captors, that didn’t come from me. It deals with our attitude towards where we are. 

And then He ends it with, “Now that you’ve heard all this, ‘I know the plans I have for you for good, 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.” 

I think it’s significant that this word lands here because it’s like a trust fall promise. If you’ve ever done a trust fall at work– they make you do those team building exercises, where you have to fall and trust your team that they can catch you– if you’re like me, you assess them instantly and be like, I don’t trust them, and it’s just the root of the problem. 

But He promises that in those days– in other words, in the midst of captivity– that He would listen and answer their prayers if they want to know Him, He’s going to be found by them. The Lord kind of plays His hand in this verse. He says, Look, I know what I have in store for you. My plans are for your good. They’re not for disaster. They’re a future and a hope. He’s like, Here it is, if you trust Me, this is what I have. 

WHY DOES THE LORD GIVE THIS MESSAGE?

The remaining question then is, do we believe, as a people, that He’s for us, He’s working on our behalf, do we believe that enough to live in captivity the way He says to? Why would the Lord send Jeremiah this message? Why would He have given it to Jeremiah to send to His people? Because the people of God have always been inclined to look at the circumstances they’re in and derive an us-against-them mentality, missing the supernatural power they have to change and affect the regions they’re in. 

You carry the seed of Heaven in you. Everywhere you go, you can expand it, build it, influence it. That’s His goal for your future. I would love to invite us to consider that truth and make a decision to shift our mindset in ‘25 and decide we’re here to live the Kingdom, to multiply, to not dwindle away, and to affect this region. 

I love you guys, can’t wait to see you next Sunday. Please don’t forget we start our new gathering times next Sunday, 8:00am, 9:45, 11:30. 7:30 for a twenty-minute prayer set in the beginning, love to have you join that. But please don’t forget those time slots, and be safe this week. See you then, bye, bye.