Naming The Wilderness | Jeremiah 29:1-14

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Morning, South. Morning. It’s good to see you all this morning. If you’re tuning in online, thank you for joining us there as well. I hope you’re able to connect through that medium as well. Thank you for coming. If you’re new or new-ish around here, my name’s Aaron Bjorklund. I’m one of the pastors here.

And if that is you, we have a space in the lobby just for you. It looks like this. It’s the new here wall, welcome wall there, and that’s a place for you to just ask any questions you may have find out if this might be a church community that you could plug into. Because we have this conviction here that at South what we do here in this room here is great, and it’s so important for us to gather, worship together, sit under God’s Word.

That’s awesome. But what it means to be the Church is to connect with each other all throughout the week and to grow together. So if this isn’t the church for you find somewhere. There’s some great churches around here. Find somewhere to plug in and dig your roots in deep. I’d encourage you to do that.

So as we get started here I’m just reflecting on some mixed emotions that I have today because let me lead you into this. I … today is the first Sunday of our lead pastor, our wonderful, fearless leader Alex’s sabbatical, and the problem when your boss goes on sabbatical and also happens to be one of your best friends, is it feels like your best friend’s going on sabbatical from your friendship.

So I am sad- … ’cause I’m gonna miss this guy quite a bit. And, but I know it’s good for him. I’m sure many of my friends wishes, wish they could take a sabbatical from our friendship. And he just had a better excuse than they did. More power to you, man. I hope you’re having fun, and I hope we can pr- if you think about him, pray for him, pray for his family, that he just comes back replenished this fall to kick off the Book of Ephesians.

So that’s why I’m sad today. But I’m excited today because we’re kicking off this series called The Space Between. And no, that’s … I can’t get it out of my head. It’s not the Dave Matthews song. The space between. If you’re from the ’90s or t- early 2000s- … you know what I’m talking about. It’s a series about finding God in the waiting.

Or maybe we could’ve said it this way, finding God in the wilderness. And to be overly dramatic, we’re in a waiting season, in a space between when Alex was here and when he comes back. It’s a wilderness exper- don’t tell him I said that. He might get a big head. But we’re in this space between, right?

The month of May is a ton of transitions, isn’t it? The month of May includes kids getting out of school, and they’re home for the summer. It’s a different season. It feels different for parents. That’s both delightful to have your kids around with you, and also a challenge sometimes, right? How do you entertain them?

And they’re making more messes. It’s a space between, right? It’s also on the forefront of my mind especially because I have a middle schooler who’s going from middle school to high school. It’s a space between, a transition a season of change for her. And I also have a senior who … Or she’s not a senior anymore.

She just, my oldest, graduated high school and turned- Turned 18 all within a two-week period, and I’ve just been on the brink of tears multiple times over the last month pondering the day when she leaves our house. And just little things will trigger me. It’s a space between. I was sitting in her choir concert a couple weeks ago, her last choir concert.

Her choir director’s awesome. Our o- And he’s built a lot of great community there and tradition around this. And they have a yearly tradition at the last choir concert, they sing two blessings. The men sing an Irish blessing, and the women sing another blessing. And it’s a blessing for the seniors who are graduating and heading on to college or life after high school.

It’s also a blessing for the hi- for the seniors to sing over the students who are left behind in school. And as they sang this song, I just had tears streaming down my face Pondering, pondering the day that she’s no longer in our house. They sang these words, “When the storms of life are strong, when you’re wounded, when you don’t belong, when you no longer hear my song, my blessing goes with you.

This is my prayer for you, there for you, ever true, each and every day for you in everything you do.” It’s a space between. I was thinking about this story that same daughter who just graduated and turned 18, when she was little in elementary school, she went to an elementary school where Jimmy Jones, one of our elders here, who’s amazing, he worked at the school at the time, and he was telling the students that he was gonna change jobs and he was gonna leave the school, and he was everyone’s favorite.

And so he told the lunch room, and the kids were so sad, and I … When I picked her up from school, I asked her about her day, and she said, “Daddy, I learned a new word today. Mr. Jimmy taught me a new word, bittersweet. It means when you’re sad and happy at the same time.” So the examples I just gave you are spaces between, but they’re not bad things, are they?

Those are examples of spaces between. They’re actually just transitions in life, and act- in fact, they’re like beautiful things in many ways. They’re markers of growth and transition and progress in many ways. But even those kinds of traditions sometimes catch us off-guard with emotions that we’re not ready to handle, because we as human beings do not like change, and there’s a grief in transition that’s hard to quantify, isn’t it?

Space between. Even natural transitions can become an unexpected wilderness when the emotions of those transitions catch us off-guard. Those are some maybe more beautiful or lighthearted examples, but there are some much heavier examples as well, aren’t there? Perhaps you’ve lost a loved one recently, and the family dynamic’s just not what it was, and you’re grieving the loss of that thing You’re grieving the loss of them never seeing or meeting or getting to hang out with so and so or s- and whatever it may be.

Space between. Or maybe for you, you’re in between jobs and it’s not something you asked for, it was thrust upon you. It’s a space between, a wilderness experience that happened to you, and you find yourself in between what was and what will be. A space between. Maybe it’s a child that is an adult child who’s just struggling right now, and from a distance you’re just longing for them and hoping for life and hope and goodness for them.

It’s a space between

Jesus made this promise in the New Testament, and he said this: “In this world, you will have trouble.” Thank you, Jesus. Aren’t you glad you came to church today? This is what we’re talking about in this series, and I’m excited to dig into it because I think that there’s something for the people of God in the wilderness experiences of life when transitions hit, trials hit, or maybe this one’s a little bit more hard to wrap our minds around or our hearts around, it’s turmoil.

Maybe for you the outside circumstances are just fine. The job’s fine. Nothing to write home about, but it’s fine. The family situation’s fine. The kids are fine. Everything is fine, and on the outside it looks like your life is good, but your soul is dry, and your spirit is empty, and you just haven’t felt God in a while, or whatever it may be.

It’s a space between. It’s a, what the desert fathers called a dark night of the soul, where you’re just like, “Where are you, God?” And the hardest part about that particular kind of turmoil is the outside circumstances don’t explain the pain internally that you’re feeling. It’s a space between. Here’s the question that we’re gonna be asking throughout the early part of the summer in this series.

It’s this: What does God want for you in the seasons you never asked for? What does God want for you? Where is he, and what does he want for you in the seasons you never asked for? So just like Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble,” here’s the assumption I’m operating under throughout this whole series.

It’s this. If seasons of wilderness are inevitable, how can we get as much out of them as we can when they come? I’d encourage you to come back each week of the series if you can because we’re gonna just be exploring this. We’re gonna be saying, “God, if we find ourselves in wilderness experiences, what can we do about it?

And can we please get something good or beautiful out of these experiences? Since they’re so painful, we might as well redeem them.” So come back each week, listen to the series, and get some insight into what God has for you in these things. If you have your Bible, we’re gonna be hanging out in Jeremiah chapter 29 for today.

But before we dive into this text that I think gives us some incredible insight, it we’re opening Pandora’s box of the wilderness today, and we’re gonna gaze inside for the rest of the series. Before we dive into this passage, I just need to pray for us. Father, and for me, Father I just, I ask for this church community, for each one of us that you would give us ears to hear, eyes to see your truth

But wherever the wilderness finds any person in this room, Lord, I pray that you would meet them today in that place and speak to their hearts

Demonstrate your goodness Redeem that which is broken. Bring beauty from ashes. This is my prayer, Father. We pray this in your name, amen and amen. Jeremiah chapter 29, we’ll start in verse one, but to get a little context, let me he- help you get lay of the land. We’re jumping into the middle of the Book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah’s a prophet. He’s writing from Jerusalem and he’s writing let- a letter to the first wave of exiles who’ve been taken out of the land of Israel. The people of God are taken into exile by Babylon in 5 97. The first wave are taken out of, in 597. And then 5, in, in 585, the city’s actually destroyed, and the rest of the, them are taken into Babylon.

So Jeremiah the prophet is writing a letter from the p- the Promised Land to those in exile, and he wants to challenge them and speak some truth into their lives, but he’s also trying to offer them some comfort. They’re in a space between. They’re in a wilderness kind of an experience. They’ve been taken out of the land that they were promised by the God of Israel, and now they find themselves in a wilderness kind of an experience, and they’re waiting, and he has a message for them.

And so that’s where we pick up our story. But I think his, one of his main agendas in this passage and elsewhere, but in this passage specifically, is to answer this question. And so as we dive into this passage, look for the answer to this question: Who is responsible for your situation? Or in this case, who’s responsible for their situation?

Look at verse one with me. Jeremiah chapter 29 says this: “This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to sur- the surviving elders among the exile and to the priests, the prophets, and all the other people that Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

So who’s responsible? The first answer we have here is it’s Nebuchadnezzar. It’s Babylon’s fault. This is why they’re in exile. This imperial power came in grew to greater and greater power, and they came in, and they took over the land, and they used their force, and they used their strength to take these people out of their land and bring them into exile.

So it’s Babylon’s fault. And then we see that the letter’s carried in the next few verses by all these different individuals, but then we jump down to verse four, and it says this. Unfortunately for us, it says this: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those who I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

So whose fault is it? God says it’s him. And I gotta be honest, when I started studying this passage, I didn’t wanna teach that. I wanna just put all the blame on Nebuchadnezzar. I don’t want, I want God as far away from painful situations as I can possibly make him theologically, but the text, Jeremiah wants us to know this, here and in other passages, that God was integral to this exile experience.

And one of the things I think we learn from this passage is this: God is not above commandeering our troubles for his good purposes. This is how he operates. We know historically, if you look at the history of ancient Mesopotamia, you know that it was Babylon. They came into this land, and they exerted their power, and Nebuchadnezzar was prideful about it, and so on and so forth.

They did it, but God says no. I want you to know that I’m involved because I’m going to do something with this exile experience. I brought you here.” So which is it? I wish it was a little bit more cut and dry than this, but I think it’s actually, hang with me for a moment before I lose you, this is the first lesson we see from this passage, that you are planted there, you’re not abandoned.

He wants them to know when they find themselves waking up in a foreign land, they were planted there by God. They were not abandoned by Him. And the reason I think that’s important for us is because when you look at the character of this God, it’s actually quite comforting. When I first read this passage, I didn’t like it, not a fan of it.

By the way, it’s fine when you’re studying a passage of scripture, when you read something, to dislike it, to wrestle with it, and just to sort of rail against, “I don’t like this God. Why is it this way?” I think that’s the beginning of study of the scriptures, and that’s what happened to me. But then I started thinking about this God that brought them into exile.

Look at this little hint, and we may not see it as modern readers, but the ancient Jewish people would have seen this. W- look at this, verse four, “This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel,” He w- He wants you to know this is not just one of the other gods. This is specifically Me. You know Me, Israel.

I am the one. “The God of Israel says to all those I carried into exile at Jerusalem.” And I think he’s q- cueing them in. He’s reminding them of who He is, that He’s the one involved, and He’s cueing them in on a passage that states His character more than any other passage in all of the Bible. Look at this, Exodus 34.

They would have thought of this when they heard this from Jeremiah, the Lord our God, the c- the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.” This passage is the number one quoted text about the character of God in all of the entire, in, in all of the Bible.

So when they read the God of Israel, they read the God who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. He’s gracious, He’s compassionate. This is what they think, and they says, “Oh, that’s the kind of God that brought me here.” And that’s actually, there’s some comfort in that in a strange way. God tends the gardens that He plants, and He will tend to you when He plants you in the wilderness.

He wants them to know that, “You were placed here, but I’m with you. I know what I’m doing. I’m gonna redeem, I’m gonna commandeer what others meant for evil, and I’m gonna take it, and I’m gonna plant you.” And if He can’t tend a garden that He’s not present to, this means He is with you in the wilderness.

This is deeply comforting to them, isn’t it? The first thing we learn in this passage is that you’re planted, not abandoned. What else can we learn from this text that might comfort us in seasons of wilderness, and prepare us for the wilderness that is l- this sermon series as we continue throughout this summer?

Look with me down at the next section. We’re starting in verse five. It says this: “Build houses, settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.”

Set up shop. Make a home in the wilderness. It’s gonna be a while. He goes on to tell them it’s gonna be a while. He goes on to actually warn them there’s other prophets who are saying, “It’s only gonna be a couple years. It’s fine, just hold your breath and everything’s gonna be fine. Everything’s awesome.”

He says no. When you find yourself in the wilderness, set up shop and dig in.” Now, I think he’s doing something else here that we don’t necessarily catch on the first pass as, as modern readers, but to his original Jewish audience, he used a word here that draws forward another ancient passage in their scriptures.

Look at this word. It’s the word multiply. The other place it shows up is in the Garden of Eden. Jeremiah is drawing on Garden of Eden language in this passage. Look at it. Genesis 1. So this is the very first book of the Bible. It says this, “God blessed them and he said to Adam and Eve,” the very first humans, ” ‘Be fruitful'” and this is the same word, ” ‘increase in number.

Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over it, the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over everything in the, every creature that moves on the ground.’ ” So this is the command that God gave to humanity on day one. Why are you here? Do you wanna know what the meaning of life is? You are here to be fruitful and multiply, and to fill the earth with the goodness and the beauty of God.

This is what you were made for, to take His goodness and to expand its range throughout all of the cosmos. Now interestingly, most of us think, “Okay but the Garden of Eden is perfect. Why would He give them a command when it’s already set up? The Garden’s Ev- Eden is done, right? There’s no project to be done.”

That’s actually not true. I think that’s a very common misconception. The Garden of Eden wasn’t perfect. It was perfect potential Because all surrounding the garden, what do we learn in Genesis about the nature of the things around the garden? We learn that now the Earth was formless and empty, or formless and void, or tohu wa-bohu in the Hebrew.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And we see that God sets up a garden in the midst of chaos, in the midst of wild and waste, in the midst of disorder, and he says, “Humans, you’re here. This is a launching pad, but now here’s the fun. We get to tame the wilderness together.

This is what you were made for. You’re made to take my goodness and my beauty and my design and all the goodness in this garden, and to expand it into the dark places, into the disorder of the rest of the cosmos.” It’s perfect potential. It’s not complete. So interestingly, when he asks the people of Israel in the Jeremiah’s day, what is he asking them to do?

Do the very same thing I asked you humans to do on day one. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Get after being on mission with me. The Garden of Eden was the base camp for the expanding goodness of God. Now interestingly what we find in the story of scripture is we find in Genesis w- what happens is they have this launching pad, and then they disobey God, and then it’s like the wild and the waste starts to creep into the garden Instead of them pushing back the chaos starts to creep into the garden and that sort of falls apart.

And then we see the story of scripture unfolding, and God tries to draw them back into the mission, draw them back into the story, draw them back into the story. And so wild, and waste, and wilderness, and all of these sorts of things creep in on garden experiences when the people of God disobey God. And I know…

I think that Jeremiah is trying to help them think and reflect back on these early passages from their story, from their book, and I think so because in Jeremiah, look at this. Early on in the Book of Jeremiah, we read this, “My people are fools. They do not know me. They are senseless children. They have no understanding.

They are skilled in doing evil. They know not how to do good. I look at the earth and it is tohu va-vohu.” It’s formless and empty, and the, a- and wild and waste. It’s wilderness, and that the heavens and their light w- was gone. In other words, early in the Jeremiah story, we see that Israel, the promised land the space that was supposed to be Israel’s new project of recreating Eden, had become wild and waste because they weren’t walking with God.

And so in, in one sense, the garden had been… They were already in an exile. They were already in a wilderness. The irony of all of this story is this, Israel was supposed to be a garden nation, but they had made it a wilderness. Now he wants them to make a garden in their exile. So he takes them out of the promised land, what was supposed to be a garden, into Babylon to retrain them to be garden people again So this is the lesson we learn, the second lesson here is that they’re supposed to be rooted, not waiting.

They’re supposed to dig in deep roots and get back on mission with what God commissioned humanity for from the very beginning. Marry, have children, plant gardens, eat of the produce, do these kinds of things. Wilderness is not a waiting room. It’s a garden that hasn’t been planted yet

Every single wilderness in the cosmos is meant for something. It’s meant to be invaded by the goodness and the beauty of God And so he asks his people to go into those spaces, into the Babylons of this world, into the Babylons of your soul, into the Babylons of your relationships, and to set up shop and to push it back with his goodness.

Irony, i- in all of the story is they were in exile partly because they had become too much of Babylon, and now he sends them to Babylon to relearn how to be the people of God again. Okay, so great Aaron. That’s cool Bible nerd stuff. That’s great for them. That’s their project. What about my wilderness?

I’m in between jobs. I’m supposed to get married and have babies and plant gardens. Where… What’s today? What does it mean to set up shop or dig in deep roots today? I- I’m glad you asked that question. I planned on it, so let’s dive into that. I wanna give you a few tips, some modern equivalents of what it means for us to be rooted in wilderness experiences.

The first one might be this. Build houses, settle in. This is the language of the text, but what that might look like is stop living in provisional mode. Put down roots in this season. Make it home, even if it’s not where you want to be. I don’t know how that lands with you, but maybe you’re like I don’t wanna invest in this relationship because they might move away, or they might stab me in the back,” right?

Or whatever. “I don’t know if I wanna plug into this church, because what if it blows up in my face again?” Or whatever it may be, and it’s too risky. It’s too much pain. I don’t know if I wanna I don’t wanna know if I wanna do this or that, because there’s too much risk involved, and what I think God is saying is wherever you are found, go on being the people of God.

Dig in your roots and risk this kind of planting. Settle in. Make it a home. Set up shop and push back. Another option, plant gardens. What that might look like today is planting things you may not harvest. Maybe you’ve been seeing a counselor for years, and it just… I wish we were past this by now. I wish we were beyond this situation, and, but you’re investing in a future thing.

Spiritual disciplines. You’re trying this thing, and it’s just, you’re trying some disciplines, and it’s not working, and it doesn’t seem to quicken your soul yet. Friendships that are struggling or whatever, and you just I just… It’s so exhausting investing in these things, right? Planting is an act of faith that the future exists.

Take the risk again. You might find yourself in a season of wilderness, and you’ve been holding your punches. You’ve been hedging your bets. And I think what God would offer you is to say, “Hey, get back in the game. Lean in. Redeem this wilderness. Risk planting gardens again.” Another option, multiply. This is for, our textual equivalent is this having children and marrying them off and so on and so forth.

What’s the modern equivalent of that is grief wants to shrink your world. Pour yourself into something that’s outlast this season. Invest in someone else’s future, not just your own survival. I get it. When there’s grief that creeps in, or a wilderness creeps in, or the pain comes in, I get it. I get it, and I am inclined to do this every single time.

I just wanna isolate. I wanna tap out. I wanna numb the pain. I do this with whether it’s social media or watching YouTube or whatever it may be, or just avoidance. It’s me trying to avoid the pain. And what he’s saying is no. Turn outwardly. Help someone else through their wilderness.

Maybe, just maybe, that will be part of what breaks the back of your wilderness.” Be rooted, not waiting. What else can we learn from this passage? I wanna show you one more thing in this text that I think gives us some insight into how we can approach this seasons of wilderness in our lives. It’s this.

Look at verse seven with me. Verse seven says this: Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city. Remember who he’s talking about. This is the, this is… He’s asking them to pray for Babylon. This is the people that came into their land and killed their friends and family, uprooted them, and then dispersed them, making sure that they weren’t hanging out together, that this family member goes to this part of Babylon, this family go me- goes to this part of Babylon so that they can’t team up together.

And he’s saying, “I want you to seek the peace and the prosperity of that nation.” to your oppressor. You know what it reminded me of this week? It reminded me of another wise teacher who said this, “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you,” Jesus says, “love your enemy, and pray for those who persecute you.”

He’s saying this is how you undo the imperial powers of the world. This is how you push back against the painful situations in life, is you pray for those who harm you, and you do good to them. Because if they learn, become, if, because if they prosper, you too will prosper. I think Martin Luther King said it really well, a famous quote, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

So he says this, “Be fruitful. Don’t be fallow.” Pushing back against Babylon, there was two factions for the people of God, primary factions. Some of them said, “Just be assimilated,” “We’ll just take on the Babylonian customs. We’re gonna t- we’re gonna just try not to be noticed,” right? Then there was others, “Let’s fight them.

Let’s kill them. Let’s attack. Let’s protect our land.” And the Jesus way, the way of God, is to actually go in and infiltrate Babylon, not by being absorbed by them, but by standing for righteousness and pursuing good, feeding the poor, all these sorts of things, praying for even our oppressors, and that is part of extending the garden range, the good Garden of Eden range.

Unfortunately for us, one of the things the wilderness does is it prepares us for fruitfulness . Unfortunately, because it’s painful. A lot of s- studies around church discipleship have pinpointed several significant things that take place in the life of a follower of Jesus that help them grow.

One is teaching, mentors th- there’s all these kinda different things that you can spiritual disciplines. You can put yourself in situations to help you grow. One of the most powerful ones is trials and pain and challenge. Now, it’s not something you would ever choose for yourself, but if it’s gonna happen anyway, the pain can be transformative.

And I’ll warn you this. If you’re in a season of wilderness, watch out. I think God might be preparing you for something good and beautiful and powerful. Why? I can’t guarantee that’s exactly what’s going on, but it is a pattern that happens over and over and over again in scripture.

Look at this. It happened to Moses, desert for 40 years. Joseph, he was in a pit, slavery, prison before second-in-command of Egypt. David, years as a fugitive before becoming king. Elijah, Abraham, Jacob, Ruth, Jonah, Daniel, Paul. Jesus himself starts his ministry with a season of 40 years in the wilderness. If you find yourself in the wilderness, just know maybe on the other side of that wilderness is a season of fruitfulness that he is trying to prepare you for

The wilderness is a training ground that prepares the people of God for the mission of God. The wilderness might just be a training ground to prepare you for what you were made to do So here’s a practical tip. What does it mean to seek the shalom of the city? Turn outwardly while you’re in hurting.

Your wilderness is not just about you. Your fruitfulness blesses people who don’t cause your pain and can’t fix it. So look outward. Choose to be fruitful even in the midst of wilderness. Be fruitful, not fallow. And so when you boil all this down, church What can we learn from the wilderness? What does God have for us in wilderness experiences?

It’s this, God’s plan for your wilderness is Garden of Eden life. This is His plan. This is His plan. When you find yourself in any wild- whether you chose it, whether it’s a natural transition, whether it’s whatever it may be, I don’t know what it is, or whether it was ha- something that happened to you, God is in the business of redeeming and drawing out fruitfulness and preparation.

He wants to recreate and replant a Garden of Eden people, and He wants to do it in your life. Now, before I continue, I just need to pause and just acknowledge, oof, this is a lot easier said than done. As I was preparing for this message, I was just recognizing that I kinda regretted choosing this sermon series for us because it, it came alive to me.

I know some of you and some of the things that you’re facing And let’s be honest, some of the things you’re facing, you’re like, “I don’t care about the fruitfulness. I would give up the Kingdom of God in a second if I could have them back

Or whatever it may be

What are we supposed to do with those emotions when they rise up? Where you’re like, “Great, it’s gonna be for my good. I don’t care.” What happens if that’s what you feel in moments like this? That’s a great question. I think next week we’re gonna be talking a little bit about lament. Maybe one of the first things you should do when you find yourself in the wilderness is learn to lament.

I’d encourage you to come back. Kevin Butcher, who is a gifted communicator and one of our members here is gonna share with us what to do with some of those pent-up emotions next week. So please come back We find ourself arriving at Jeremiah 29’s most famous text, Jeremiah 29:11. You’ve probably heard this.

I’m gonna actually just read this over you. It’s not on the screens, but I’m gonna just read some of the context, and then you’ve probably seen some of this on a bumper sticker. It says this: “This is the word of the Lord the word the Lord says: ‘When 70 years are complete from, for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promises to bring you back to this place.

For I know the plans I have for you…'” And here’s the bumper sticker part, right? “‘… declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.'”

For some of us we love this verse. It’s a verse that is near and dear to us. It comforts us in seasons of wilderness. For some of us who have a relationship with the scriptures where you start to study more and you find out, oh, wait a minute, this is a verse for Israel. It’s not actually for me.

I’m not in actual, physical Babylon, and there’s 70 years. So what about my wilderness? Is it relevant to me? And so you’ve just disassociated from this ve- verse completely, and you say that was for them. Great, but what if my… I can’t get my loved one back. I’m not coming out of this wilderness.

It’s just where I live.” And so this verse is maybe a struggle for you. But what I can tell you from this verse 11, tw- is this, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you.'” What it does speak of is His character. This is the way, the posture of God towards the people of God, is I want your good.

And even if evil outside of God’s desire, outside of God’s wishes for you happens to you, He immediately steps in and He tries to redeem that evil. And He says, “I will take this. I have a character that is good for you, and I’m gonna do everything in my power to bring goodness.” So I think it’s okay for you to own some of that verse because of this.

God’s plan for you, for your wilderness, is Garden of Eden of life. I’m gonna actually invite the team to come up as we come to a conclusion. I was reflecting this week on any examples I could think of someone who lived out this kind of posture towards wilderness experiences, and I was reminded of a story that my dad told me, and I’ve actually told it here in the pulpit once before but in a slightly different context, and it’s been a number of years.

But it was just, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I think it’s a great example. In 1994, my par- my family and I were living in Rwanda when the genocide took place, and it was the largest genocide since the Holocaust, the largest mass exodus of humanity from a country since the Holocaust. And it was brutal.

Most of the killing was done with machetes. It was hand-to-hand combat, and it was horrific. And it was devastating to my parents, who had all these students and pastors in their lives that they were training, and my family was evacuated, and while we were in the States, my dad went back and took multiple relief trips into the cons- or into the camps refugee camps in the neighboring countries.

And on one of these occasions, he ran into one of his former students, Vambiti, and they were catching up a little bit, and then my dad looked out over the camps and the devastation and the squalor and the hunger and the just loss of life, and he began to cry. And then Vambiti turned to him and said, “Phil, wait.

Wait. Do you remember that village we wanted to plant a church in? It was too far away. All the people from that village have congregated in this part of the camp. I have a church there now.” “Remember this other village, this other town that we would love to have had the presence of the gospel in?

I have a church there now where I’m trying to reach that part of Rwanda, and they’re all here in this camp together.” He was rooted

He knew he wasn’t abandoned. And he was not fallow, he was fruitful. And Vambiti had a perspective that I long for this church. And I get it, pain and suffering, it’s gonna come. But if it’s gonna come, we might as well become a church family that learns how to redeem the brokenness in this world, learns how to receive the goodness that God might have for us, learns how to become prepared to bring the garden to the nations.

Would you stand with me? We’re gonna just respond with this song. Father, help us to become this kind of people that learns how to redeem the broken things in this world. We ask in your name, amen.