Our future is incredibly bright

Sermon Transcript

Citylight Church, today we begin a new sermon series entitled Better Than We Think.

Typically at Citylight Church, we preach through books of the Bible. We just completed a series in Isaiah. In six weeks we’ll begin Summer in the Psalms, and then in September we will begin a series in Hebrews. But over the next six Sundays we are going to learn together from six of the best known and most beloved passages in the entire Bible. Though each of these passages are incredibly popular, we rarely have the opportunity to do a deep dive into each one of them. I believe that as we slow down and look in depth at each of these beloved passages of Scripture, we will learn that they are even better than we think.

One of my favorite devotional practices is to prayerfully read the passage I am preaching on Sunday, during the week. As I read, think, journal, and pray over the passage I am about to preach, my heart can seep in God’s word like a tea bag in hot water. I want to invite you to share this practice with me throughout the Better Than We Think series. If you have ever filled out a connect card, then I sent you an email last week with all the passages that we’ll cover in Better Than We Think. Join me in reading the passage each day as we prepare for Sunday. You’ll love it.

I want to talk to you this morning about your future; about your future. I want to talk to you about your future because that is where most of our fears and anxieties live. Fear lives in the future. Author and biblical counselor, Ed Welch, writes, “There is a storyline to human life that includes a past, present, and a future. Fear spans them all. Fear can be triggered by the past, react to crises in the present, or anticipate them in the future. Its preferred time zone, however, is the future. Dread, panic, nervousness, worry, and anxiety all speak of our potential vulnerability…Worriers are visionaries minus the optimism.” When we are controlled by fear and anxiety we are like visionaries who can imagine all that the future could be, minus all the optimism. I want to talk to you about your future because our fears live in the future, but one of the Lord’s most common commands and invitations to his people throughout the Bible is to be attractively different because they’re not afraid.

I want to talk to you about your future because a certain and bright future is the only antidote potent enough to free us from being controlled by fear in the present. I want to talk to you about your future because the passage we are exploring this morning is perhaps the most beloved of all God’s promises about our future. The passage was originally written to a people who had just been conquered by a foreign army and hauled off into exile in a foreign land. In other words, Jeremiah 29:11 was written to people who were deeply disappointed by their present circumstances and deeply afraid because their future looked incredibly bleak. It’s into that bleakness that the Lord speaks our most beloved promise in all the Bible about our future. Jeremiah 29:11 – “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.” That brings us to the big idea of our passage: Our future is incredibly bright. We can live in the joy of the Lord now, rather than being controlled by fear, because our future is incredibly bright. To truly apprehend and experience the brightness of your future so that you can live in a measure of freedom from fear and anxiety in the present – wouldn’t that be wonderful – we’re going to take what our passage says about our future in four parts: 1. The lie 2. The promise 3. The plan 4. The prayer.

THE LIE

As I said a moment ago, Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most commonly repeated verses in the Bible. What you may not know is that Jeremiah 29:11 was written to correct a lie; a lie about the future. Let me explain. Way back in about 1,400 BC the Lord brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, through the Red Sea on dry ground, and then entered into a gracious covenant with them at Mt. Sinai to be their God and they his holy people. You can read about this in the book of Exodus. A covenant is a chosen relationship between two parties in which they make binding promises to one another and there are usually blessings associated with keeping the covenant and curses associated with breaking it. Well, Israel broke the covenant by committing spiritual adultery by loving and serving other gods, rather than the LORD. Ok – fast forward to about 600 BC and the Lord brings the covenant curse that he promised to his unfaithful people: the Lord sent the Babylonians to conquer Israel and Judah and take his people into exile. Jeremiah was a prophet in Israel during this tumultuous time. Jeremiah 29:1-23 is actually a letter that Jeremiah wrote to God’s exiles in Babylon. And in the part of the letter we are focusing on, Jeremiah is correcting a lie. The lie was that the exile in Babylon would be brief; that it would be brief. Jeremiah was correcting the lie that a change in circumstances was right around the corner. This lie was peddled by a false-prophet named Hananiah. Listen to what Hananiah said to the exiles, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two years I will bring back to this place all…the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon…” -Jeremiah 28:1-3. Hananiah was lying to the exiles about their future by saying that a change in circumstances was right around the corner. Jeremiah is correcting that lie about their future. Jeremiah 29:9-10 – “…for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD. For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for you in Babylon, I will visit you…” Hananiah was lying. Yes, their future was incredibly bright. No, that bright future was not right around the corner.

Citylight Church – our future is incredibly bright, but let’s not believe the lie that our incredibly bright future and a change in our present circumstances is right around the corner. Ironically, Jeremiah 29:11 is sometimes used to perpetuate the lie that our bright future is right around the corner, let’s not buy it. This is really important and really good news. When we experience the truth that our future is incredibly bright and that it may not be right around the corner, then we can finally calm down and learn to be content in nonideal circumstances. We can stop being surprised when we experience long-term trials and instead rejoice in them. 1 Peter 4:12-13 – Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Instead of being frantic in trials, we can learn to calm our hearts in God. “I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.
3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!” (Psalm 131:2-3 MSG). Our future is incredibly bright, but if we are going to experience the joy, freedom, and contentment now in light of that future, we have to dispose with the lie that change in nonideal circumstances is right around the corner. That’s the lie about our future, let’s turn now to the promise, the promise of our future.

THE PROMISE

Remember why the exiles were afraid: They were torn from their home, Jerusalem, and they did not know if they, their children, or their grandchildren would ever return to the city of God. Listen to the promise about their future. Jeremiah 29:10 – “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. The heart of what the Lord is promising his people is that in seventy years, the Lord will bring his people home to Jerusalem – to the capital of the promised land. No, the end of exile and the return to Jerusalem isn’t right around the corner, but it is absolutely certain because God has promised it.

Citylight Church, we have more in common with the exiles that Jeremiah wrote to than you might think. The New Testament describes all of Jesus’ disciples as exiles. It’s true. In fact in 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter refers to Christians as exiles twice and once describes the Christian life as an exile. You see, when we bend the knee to Jesus as Lord and rest in Him as our only Savior, we gain dual citizenship. Dual citizenship. We become citizens of Jesus’ heavenly kingdom to come, yet we remain citizens of a nation here on earth. However, since our true and ultimate citizenship is in heaven, we’re resident aliens, exiles here on earth. Not only that, we are promised that though the end of our exile may not be right around the corner, we will one day be brought home to a Jerusalem that is greater than any city this world has ever known. The end of our exile may not be right around the corner, but all who are in Christ will one day be welcomed home to a Jerusalem whose designer and builder is God himself. Revelations 21:1-3 – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. Our exile may be long on this earth, but in Christ our promised future is incredibly bright!

Friends – our promised, incredibly bright future can have a very powerful and practical effect on the way we live now. Listen to how the Apostle Paul encourages us to live now in light of our incredibly bright future. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). The promise of an incredibly bright future, which is yours in Christ, has the power to make you steadfast and fruitful now. “A man full of hope will be full of action” -Thomas Brooks.

Steadfast
Not easily moved, blown over, or brought low by the present
Fruitful
You can take massive risks for the Lord
As a witness, with your money, in your work for God, in our city, with your time in discipling others

That’s the promise of our future. How can we be confident in it? It’s all part of God’s plan for his people’s future. A plan he revealed to Israel. A plan that we are already living in. Let’s turn now to the plan.

THE PLAN

The promise to bring Israel back to Jerusalem is part of the Lord’s larger plan to give his people a future that is incredibly bright. Jeremiah 29:11 – 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. The promise to return his people to Jerusalem is part of a larger plan for welfare and not for evil, to give his people a hopeful future. THE PLAN: to make a new covenant with his people, a covenant that isn’t like the old covenant he made with Israel at Mt. Sinai. That plan, that covenant is spelled out just two chapters later. Jeremiah 31:31-34 – “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” God’s plan for His people’s future is a new covenant and it’s not going to be like the old one: he will actually put his law within his people so that with new hearts they will love to obey him, everyone in this covenant will know the Lord personally, and He will completely forgive his people’s iniquities and remember their sins no more. The promise of a New Jerusalem is just one part of the Lord’s plan to make a new covenant with his people.

Citylight Church I have amazing news for you: you’re living in that incredibly bright future and part of that new covenant now! Through his sinless life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection, the Lord Jesus brought this new covenant to the world. Just before his crucifixion, at the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus poured out wine and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Through the blood he spilled on the cross in our place, Jesus has inaugurated a new covenant and if you believe in Him, you have been brought into that new covenant. Your sins are forgiven, his law is on your new heart, and he will remember your transgressions no more. You are living in the hopeful future!

Now, the new covenant is already here, but it’s not yet complete. It’s like a delicious meal that has arrived and you’ve taken a bite, but you haven’t experienced the full flavor yet. Yes, your sins are already forgiven and you already have a new heart, but one day the new covenant plan will be complete. Every tear will be wiped away, sin will be no more, and you’ll enjoy the promised new Jerusalem forever. The Lord’s plan means that your future is incredibly bright. And that brings us to how we live now while we wait.

THE PRAYER

We live in the overlap between two ages. The meal has arrived, but we haven’t tasted its fullness. We are citizens of the kingdom, but it hasn’t yet come to earth. We living on the cutting edge and we live by prayer. Jeremiah 29:12-13 – Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jesus teaches us how to live by prayer on the cutting edge of the two ages. Matthew 6:9-10 – Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” We live on the cutting edge of our incredibly bright future by praying for the future to break in now.