Living Faithfully in Babylon

The following message is brought to you by Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. To learn more about our mission to train the next generation of gospel ministers, to visit us at CBT Seminary dot org. You know, not growing up in church and not knowing all of the rules that it has some disadvantages. One of the disadvantages that I remember distinctly is being in church and certain songs would be sung and people would just just sing them like everybody. I felt like I was the only one in the room that didn't know the songs, right, yeah, certainly it's amazing grace or something like. People would just get to, you know, wailing on that song, and I'm just sitting there like everybody knows this, right, I don't, And so I started trying to learn hymns. Another thing that I remember distinctly is people would share their testimony, and people would ask me to share my testimony. Sometimes I didn't know what that meant. So I paid attention and I would watch people share their testimony and how would record. I just noticed that almost everybody when they share their testimony would. Share a verse, right, like a life verse. And I'm just like I don't have one of those, right, And I knew I didn't have one of those, But I knew there was one that I didn't want to pick as my life first, because everybody else. Picked that one. I didn't mind knowing the songs that everybody else knew, but I didn't want the life verse that everybody else chose. So I was trying to find me another life verse because everybody, not just everybody, everybody would get up. End quote Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven, and how you quote it, it is determined by which Bible translation you were reading at the time that you memorized it. Right, If we were to start it, there'd be several different endings based on what Bible translation people were reading when they memorized Jeremiah twenty nine eleven. I'll read it here from the ESV. 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. Amen, hallelujah, Praise the Lord. That's just good. Right. But as I pondered this verse, I decided to go and look at it and the verses around it, and I came to a conclusion, I had a princess bride moment. You keep on using this verse. I do not think it means what you think it means, because we take that verse to mean that God promises good things to us and never bad things. We take that verse to mean that if we're living our lives the way God intends for us to live our lives, that we will always and only have welfare and not evil in the future and hope. And that forces us to do some kind of mental gymnastics, right, because that's the wrong kind of optimism. It's the kind of optimism that forces us to do mental gymnastics. So now if I go to the doctor and I get a bad report, let's say, hypothetically, he's going to have to, you know, cut my chest open and stop my heart and fix it and start it back again, just hypothetically. Right. Well, that's harm. Amen. So now I have to do some gymnastics. I either have to say that God failed me, And some people do come to that point. Some people when harm comes to them, when evil comes their way, their response is God failed me. This Christianity stuff doesn't work, or I'm going to have to say I failed God. Right that this was absolutely God's intention. However I got in the way. I didn't have enough faith. Had I just exercised enough faith, then I wouldn't be in this predicament, in this situation. Or God's not the only player in the game. So God's plans for me are welfare and not evil or not harm. God's plan for me is to give me a future and to hope. There's another player in the game who plans the opposite. Sometimes God wins, sometimes he wins. These are just some of the mental gymnastics that we have to do in order to hold on to the kind of reading of this that many wished to hold on to. And it just doesn't work, Amen, it just doesn't work. On number one. My God is God. He doesn't fail. He's never failed me. He can't fail me. Amen. Well, the problem with the second one, I failed God. Do you know what the problem with that is? The problem with that is not that you know I didn't fail God. The problem with that is I always fail God. Amen. The problem with that is that there's sometimes if you believe that, if you believe that this particular thing happened because in this instance, I failed God, what's wrong with you is that you believe. There are other instances where you didn't. They say a man, you ought to say, ouch, I've never earned anything from the hand of God. I've never been good enough, smart enough, right enough, righteous, I've never ever ever it's all of grace. Amen. And the problem with the last one, right, there's another player in the game. The problem with that one is that it presents a god in heaven. Who just says, I. Really really was hoping that that one worked out for you, but the devil's just so mean and he just got to help you. If that's your God. None of those are right. So it is. Right back to Princess Bride theology. You keep on using it that verse. I do not think it means what you think it means. That it doesn't. And in order to understand what it does mean, by the way, it is optimistic, just not in that way, Amen, It's incredibly optimistic, optimistic, and we need to view it as optimistic. We need to view this whole episode as optimistic, especially because I believe that this is one of the best pictures of the outworking of an optimistic eschatology. Like, what what does it really mean? Think about that for a moment. What does it really mean to have an optimistic eschatology? Does it mean you just sleep better at night because you're not scared. It has to mean something more than that, and it does and we see that here here in this text. So first, what I want to do is I want to demonstrate why this text doesn't mean what many think it means. And don't get mad at me. If this is your this is your life verse. I was gonna take it away for a minute. I'm gonna give it back, all right, I promise, promise, I'm gonna give it back. You're gonna have to let it go for just a bit, right, for just a bit. It's kind of like the. Child with their you know, favorite little plush toy and the plus toys dirty and torn up and the stuffing is falling out, and you just want to fix it for them. They don't want to let it go, right, You're like, okay, just just let me have a problem. I'm gonna give it back and it's gonna be better. Amen. So the first thing we have to do is we have to put this in context. And as we put this in context, I want to share with you a theological principle, and this is a theological principle that you would use if you're trying to teach your what a hermoneutical principle if you were trying to teach hermeneutics to a child. And I've got nine of them, so I've done this before time or two. Right, here's the principle we always teach them about the principle of context. Right. That that's important. But then there's another principle. A text can't mean what it never meant, Amen. A text can't mean what it never meant. In other words, you can't go to Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven and have Jeremiah twenty nine eleven in its context. And in its context. Means something completely different than the way that you use it and still come away saying my use is legitimate, because that's what it means altogether to me. I could not care less what this verse means to you, Amen. How it applies to you, we can talk about that. But what it means to you could not care less what it means to me, Completely and utterly irrelevant. The only point is what does it mean? Full stop? Amen. So when we look at the context, we go back to verse one. The context takes us to a very familiar place, to the place where we were last night. 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, all the people whom Nebuca Nezzer had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. That's what we read about Daniel. Remember that, so Jeremiah's writing a letter to folks like Daniel who had been taken into exile after five ninety seven by Nebica Nezzer. This was after King jack Andiah, the Queen Mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalworkers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Alasa, the son of Schifan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebica Nezzar, King of Babylon. So contextually, Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven, it's part of a letter. Amen, It's part of a letter. It's part of a letter that was written to a specific group of people in a specific place, under specific circumstances, during a specific time, Amen, a specific group of people. These are people from Judah who've been taken into exile. Specific place. They're in exile in Babylon, specific time, sometime after five ninety seven, but before the complete fall of Judah. In other words, if this is written in a letter to a specific group of people in a specific place, in a specific time, under specific circumstances, and you are not part of that specific group of people, this is not that specific place, this is not that specific time, and these are not those specific circumstances. It was not written to you, Amen, somebody. It was not written to you. I didn't say it doesn't apply to you, but it was not written to you. And there is a difference. There's a difference between something that was written to you directly and the way that you just sort of take that right and bring that in and apply that immediately, and something that was written to somebody else that requires you to take a step before the application. For example, tewod Timothy three twelve. That one was written to you, no steps needed to apply it. All those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus shall be persecuted. You can claim that in Jesus' name, Hallelujah. No steps needed. Just go grab that one. No interpretation, no, no, nothing, just go and just get it. It's yours amen. This one, however, requires some steps, because we have to understand what it meant to those who received it in that particular context, and then extrapolate from that what the nuggets are the principles that would then apply to us later. After we get this context, then we get to the whole. A text can't mean what it never meant, right, And one of the ways that we read Jeremi twenty nine to eleven is that this text means that God only and always intends these wonderful things for us, and if something other than that comes to us, there's another source of it, because God just doesn't operate like that. Verse four. Remember this was the letter that from Neverknas, King of Babylon. It's said at the end of verse three, it's said, thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom the devil has. Yours. Didn't say that. Mine either, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem. To Babylon. In other words, the boot of the oppressor is on your and I put it there. How then could verse eleven mean that God would never do something like this if he did it in verse four. It can't. It can't, So we must not read it that way. By the way, there's some warnings here that point that out to us. For example, look down in verse eight, and I know, I know we're skipping over five six and seven. Trust me, we're going to come back to that because because that's the point. Five six and seven, that's the point. But we got to understand the point. So go to verse eight. 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. Don't listen to your lying prophets. What were the lying prophets saying? The lying prophets were saying, two years tops, and we're going home, two years tops and we're going home. One of them had Anaiah, he comes and you know Jeremiah has the yoke bars on his neck, symbolizing this yoke of Nebuka Nezar that they are now under Hannah, and Iya comes. He prophesies a couple. Of years, it's all over and we'll be gone, and he breaks the yoke bars, he breaks the oak. Jeremiah doesn't confront him. He waits, and then he hears from the Lord verse fourteen of chapter twenty eight. For that says the Lord of Host, the God of Israel, I will put upon the neck of all these nations and iron yoke to serve Nebuchan Nezzar, king of Babylon. And they shall serve him, for I have given to him even the beast of the field. Jeremiah the Prophet said to the prophet Hananaiah, listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Now today Christians would say that he's a big meaning and that it was not godly to confront the liar like that or even call him a liar. And you know, I'm right, you know I'm right. It was just unkind. Now here's what they would say. Here's what they would saying. It's not the content of the confrontation, and it was the tone. Therefore, thus says the Lord. Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. Thank God for the new covenant and excommunication. Amen, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord. And that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hannonaiah died. That's how serious this is. There's the warning against the wrong kind of optimism and optimism that lies on God, and optimism that's just wishful thinking. We're not called to an optimism. Optimism that's just wishful thinking. And that's not what Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven was about. So what was it about. First, let's look at how we understand it rightly, and then the impact. That it has. We're going to go back to those verses our promise. But look beginning at Jeremiah twenty nine to ten. For us, says the Lord, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, the lie is a couple of years. We're out of here. God says, that's a lie. Don't listen to it. And then he says for us, says the Lord. When seventy years are completed for Babylon. That just gets us to the Edict of King Cyrus. It's still not back yet, over one hundred years before this happens. What does that mean. That means that the promise made in Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven is not a rite here right now today for you promise. It never was. It never was. It is a multi generational promise because the generation that is alive when this letter is written is not the generation that's going to go back into the land of promise. So there's our first mistake, right, there's our first mistake. If we just rip this kicking and screaming out of its context, then we take what is meant to point us to God's multigenerational faithfulness and manipulated into some kind of guarant of God's right here right now obligation to do what best pleases mean. And it's not that. It's not that. Not only is this multi generational, but it's also corporate and not individual. This is not an individual promise. Now, you don't really get this here in the text as well as you could if we had a better translation. For example, if we had the Texas Standard version, because the Texas Standard version would make the second person plural much more clear than the English Standard version. The English Standard version just says, I will visit you, and I 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. Plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future, and to hope, on and on and on and on and on. If we had the Texas version, you'd know what he's talking about, because the Texas version would say, I will visit y'all, and I will fulfill to y'all my promise, and I'll bring y'all back to this place, for I know the plans I have for y'all, declares the Lord. This is not individual. And if you doubt that, if you question that, just look at verse twelve. Then you y'all 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, and I will bring you back to the place from which I set you into. Exit all the places now, unless you've been cut into pieces. This is not an individual. This is the covenant community. This is the people of God. This is God's faithfulness throughout the generations to the people he calls his own. Amen. That's the optimism that Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven is intended to bring. And now, with that in mind, let's look at what that does. What does that do when you live in the midst of exile, when you live in a place where your hope is not yet realized, when you live in a place where there is turmoil and confusion and opposition and tribulation. How do you live if you have an optimistic outlook within that context? I'm so glad you asked. Now, look at verses five, six, and seven. Build houses and live in them, plant gardens, 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. That's what optimism does three things. First of all, optimism lays down roots. Optimism lays down roots, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. In other words, we are here, we are remaining here. We are not living as though we're not staying here. We're laying down roots because even though this is not the place that we ultimately desire to be, this is the place where the Lord has us right here and right now. So we will live as though we recognize that God, in his sovereignty, has placed us here. We lay down roots, lay down roots. It's interesting My family and I, for the last eight and a half years have lived in Zambia, have lived and served in Zambia, and two years ago we built a home there. It was really interesting when that happened because both from people over here and from people over there, the response was the same but different. The response was the same in that whether it's here or there, people said, wow, that's kind of permanent. Hey man, that's kind of permanent. People over here whom we know and love, said wow, that's kind of permanent. Don't know if we like that people over there, that's kind of permanent. Praise the Lord. The same but different, right, because laying down roots says something, and it says something optimistic connected to that. Not only do we lay down roots, but we live multi generationally. We make plans. We build for the future. So build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. That's me and my family in the right here and the right now. Then there's 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, and multiply there and do not decrease. Multiply there and do not decrease. Optimistic people get married and have kids. Amen's somebody. Optimistic people get married and have kids. And if we ever needed optimism before, we need optimism now. I don't know how many of you have young people in your lives or around you, or how many of you have counseled young people who are considering marriage and considering the future. But they are among the least optimistic people in history. They want to get married, right because you know, they want the benefits of marriage I'm talking about even Christian young people. They want to get married because they don't want to live in sin. Right, they want to get married. What about children? Maybe? Maybe at best. They're what I call yachts, right, not like the yacht to vote you ride in, but yacht y ot. You're gonna have kids maybe perhaps in a year or two. Why we just we just well, we just feel like we need to wait so that we can get to know each other. Said it before, I'll say it again. You really want to know somebody have a baby with them. Amen, you learn something about yourself and your spouse. The baby screaming at two three o'clock in the morning. There are times when you say I thought she loved me, or other times you, as a husband, get up, try to get up quickly before she is awakened by the screaming. She's gonna wake up anyway, but this way she wakes up. She looks out in the corner of her eye and she sees you, and then she goes it really does love me until the next time when you don't get up. But the point is the point is that this is optimism. Young people today say. Things like I'm not sure I want to bring a child into this world. That is the exact opposite of optimism. Optimism says times may be bad, but God is good, and God uses his people, and he uses them multigenerationally. Let's have some kids, pour the gospel into them and pray that God would use them in generations to come. That's optimism, but it's not. It's not here. There's a generation of young Christians that are growing up with little to no optimism whatsoever, and they're waiting later and later and later to get married. And when they get married, it's a coin toss as to whether or not they even want to have kids. This has tremendous implications. It's a news story a couple of weeks ago about South Korea. Some of you may have heard it. You know, replacement rate is two point one children per women. Well asked me about the point one. It's two point one children per women. That that's a culture that is replacing people who are dying. It's not necessarily a growing culture, but it's a culture that's at least at replacement rate two point one. The danger zone, kind of the point of no return demographically is if you get below one point five, if your birth rate is one point four or lower, your culture is going to die. And countries that get there, you know, actually they get nervous and they start trying to do things in order to boost the birth rate, and it never works. Never their financial incentives and other things. But low birth rates are not about finances. Were wealthier than previous generations who had far more children than us. Low birth rates are not about finances. Well, in South Korea, they're losing their minds right now because they broke their own record and their birth rate is now zero point seven to two. That's a lack of optimism. Birthrates in this country are below replacement rate. It's a lack of optimism. It's amazing. In the developed world, we have more than we've ever had before, and yet we lack hope. And if you doubt me, just look at birth rates because they speak to our hope or lack thereof. There's a third thing, and this one seems counterintuitive, 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. Now, mind you, this is Babylon, the boot of the oppressor is on your neck and I put it there. Lord, please make it stop. Nope, you're gonna stay here, by the way, pray for the oppressor. Wait the woman with their boot on my neck. Yep. That is incredibly counterintuitive. Unless you are a person who lays down roots and thinks multigenerationally, because then. You say, this is where the Lord has us. Amen, And if this is where the Lord has us, let us pray that the Lord blesses us. And if he's going to bless us, he's going to have to bless them. This may sound controversial, and I don't mean it in this way, not that I'm a person who's afraid of controversy. But in all of this talk about Christian nationalism, there's a couple of things that keep ringing in my mind. Right. One thing that keeps ringing in my mind is I currently live in a country that is a constitutionally Christian republic. Like in the preamble of the Constitution of Zambia, they identify themselves as a Christian nation. What's so funny about that is the whole name. Of the ideology that's supposed to scare us all to death is not Christian nationalism. It's quite Christian nationalism. Yeah, so I live and in openly overtly Christian nationalist country. That's black. So that always, that always rings in my mind. The other thing that always rings in my mind is this, if you listen to people and recently, a host on a mainstream television news program identified the primary characteristic of Christian nationalism, which, by the way, she said, is not Christian. Christian nationalism is not Christian. And this main characteristic that she identified was that Christian nationalists do not believe that their rights come from the government. They believe that their rights come from God. I usually don't go around wearing a lady Christian. I don't mind now, I don't mind wearing labels. I really don't. I don't mind wearing labels. I'm a reform Baptist, I'm a Calvinist. I'm a you know, I don't mind going around. I don't mind wearing labels unless people are playing fast and loose with labels and using them as wedges. Right, and Christian nationalism is currently being used as a wedge. And so I'm really careful somebody says Christian, ask not what do you mean by that? If this lady asked if I'm a Christian nationalist, I'm like, not only am I a Christian nationalist, but everybody who's got a passing grade in Civics. Is a Christian nationalist. At nationalists right, anybody who has read and agrees with the Declaration of Independence would then be by her definition, a Christian nationalist. But why am I bringing this up. I'm bringing this up because the reason that this is being used as a cudgel, the reason that this is being used to bash Christians, is because it's communicating the idea that if I want my faith and my morality to have sway an influence in the broader culture, then I'm dangerous. Verse seven says seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. The only way that I could not advocate for my morality in the broader culture from my religion in the broader culture is if I don't believe that my religion and its morality would bring welfare. Again, this is not about the labels that we carry. This is not about the broader debate over you know, Christian nationalism. How you define it. This is that I'm talking at just the most basic level. Here's the other problem. The people who use this against us don't believe it. They don't believe it. Listen to this. This is. From a book on the homosexual Revolution two thousand and four, California. Gloria Alread is arguing for same sex marriage. And listen to what the writer says. This is a pro homosexual writer who's talking about the history of the homosexual revolution in the United States. Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, also thought it was time same sex couples could do in his state what they were doing in Massachusetts. A few hours after Gloria Already had announced that her clients would be suing for the right to marry in Los Angeles, Newsom issued a marriage license to a same sex couple in San Francisco. The California Constitution's equal protection clause, he said, gave them the right to marry. Newsome heterosexual, married, Irish, Catholic, and a political centrist except when it comes to social issues. Yes, She wrote that. Had made the decision to act after having been in office only twelve days. He'd heard President George W. Bush say in his State of the Union address on January twentieth that he wanted to amend the US Constitution to protect marriage. The thirty seven year old mayor was disgusted and outraged. He and his chief of staff. Called the executive director of the San Francisco based National Center for Lesbian Rights. Tell me who should be the first same sex couple to get married in California. Newsom not only gave those licenses, but he officiated over the ceremonies. I want you to note something here, The writer points out that Newsome is a heterosexual, married Irish Catholic. Why don't miss this. They do not care if religion holds sway in the public sphere. They are not afraid of people bringing their sincerely held religious views to bear in political life. It is only those religious views that contradict theirs. Don't believe for a minute that these people have a problem with theology in politics. All of our politics is born of our theology. All of the hooplah about Christian nationalism is not about whether a person's religion or whether people's faith written large, has any place in the public square. If you are a Christian who believes an abortion. Bring your religion to the public square. If you are a Christian who believes in same sex marriage, bring your religion to the public square. If you are a Christian who believes in transitioning children, bring your beliefs to the public square. Not only that, but watch this. George W. Bush made a statement that he wanted to see the Constitution amended. That takes a supermajority of the States. Amen. He wanted to go through the legal process and allow Americans to speak and amend the Constitution of the United States to protect marriage. Gavin Newsome, twelve days on the job, says, I'm doing this single handedly because what I believe needs to be enacted. Bush they call a fascist, news they call a hero. Please don't miss the game that's being played. More importantly, don't allow the game that's being played to cause you to not live optimistically in that it causes you to shrink back from desiring the truth of God's word to infiltrate our culture so that our culture can be blessed, blesses the nation. Who God is the Lord. Amen. This is what optimism looks like. In the everyday lives of optimistic believers. May it be true of us. Let's pray. Father again, We thank you and we praise you for your kindness towards us. Thank you for reminding us of the hope that we have. Thank you for reminding us of your multi generational faithfulness, and for reminding us that, regardless of our individual circumstances, You are a God who saves your people. You are a God who redeems your people, who restores your people. Grant by your grace that we might hope in that we pray it in Christ name and for His sake. Amen, We hope you were helped by this session from the Annual Conference of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. CBTs relies on the generous gifts of supporting churches and individuals. If you would like to invest in the next generation of gospel ministers, visit us at Cbtseminary dot org slash gift. Thank you for listening.