Some verses in the Bible get a life
of their own and become slogans that Christians
use.
All Scripture is inspired by God, but some
have a season of popularity.
A couple of decades ago, the prayer of
Jabez from the Old Testament was huge.
Remember the book?
Everybody was praying the prayer of Jabez.
And then there's God is good all the
time.
When you say to someone, God is good,
they give you the bump and they go
all the time, right?
There's another verse now in the last 10
years, I think, seems to me, that has
taken on a life of its own.
It's mentioned over and over and over and
over again.
Sometimes in a wrong way, televangelists hawking money
in an unbiblical way.
But then of course, it's from Scripture, so
it has a great truth to it.
Let's see if we can pick it up
here, reading in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah
29.
Let's look.
This is what the Lord of heaven's armies,
the God of Israel says.
Do not let your prophets and fortune tellers
who are with you in the land of
Babylon trick you.
Do not listen to their dreams because they
are telling you lies in my name.
I have not sent them.
By the way, just notice that the people
of Israel who are in Babylon, we'll get
to that in a moment.
There were prophets and fortune tellers among the
people and they were tricking the people.
Probably had to do with money.
Do not listen to their dreams.
They were having dreams, but they weren't from
God because they're telling you lies.
Notice they were prophets and they were speaking
in the name of the Lord, but they
were telling lies in his name.
I have not sent them, says the Lord.
This is what the Lord says.
You will be in Babylon for 70 years,
but then I will come and do for
you all the good things I have promised
and I will bring you home again.
And here comes the verse.
For I know the plans I have for
you, says the Lord.
How many have ever heard that verse?
Mention, say amen.
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 wholeheartedly, you will
find me.
I will be found by you, says the
Lord.
I will end your captivity and restore your
fortunes.
After you pray and you claim that promise,
I will gather you out of the nations
where I sent you and I will bring
you home again to your own land.
There's an old saying that a text from
the Bible without the context is a pretext
to try to prove something that might not
be true.
For every text, there's a context.
Who was it talking to?
What were the circumstances?
Then you understand what it meant and then
you hopefully apply it to your own life.
So this is a very strange moment for
God to say, I know the plans I
have for you.
Because Israel, Judah I should say, the kingdom
of the south, was in captivity.
Let's review that.
The northern kingdom had already gone into captivity
to the Assyrians 150 or so years earlier.
But Judah didn't learn from its cousins and
they continued worshiping idols, Baal, Asherah, Molech, all
these terrible things.
God sent prophets and warned them and said,
don't do that, worship me.
I'm the one who brought you out of
Egypt.
Why do you love someone other than me?
Get rid of these idols because they're not
only dishonoring me, they're gonna bring you trouble.
Everything seems now great, but when you turn
your back on me and you go away
from me, you're gonna reap trouble.
And because I love you, that's why I
sent prophets to warn you.
Not trying to rain on your parade, I'm
trying to give you a parade.
I want you to rejoice, but you can't
rejoice your way.
You have to rejoice in the path I
gave you.
They didn't listen.
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Babylonians, encircled Jerusalem
after many warnings and Judah was captured.
Jerusalem had the temple that they were so
proud of.
In fact, they used to yell, we have
the temple.
Oh, the temple, see the temple.
We're the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
We have the temple.
And God had warned them through Jeremiah, stop
saying the temple, the temple.
The temple doesn't mean anything when you're worshiping
idols.
There's no good luck charms called the temple
or going to church on Sunday or anything.
I'm the God who searches your heart.
I know when you love me and honor
me.
I know when you don't.
So now the temple was destroyed.
The walls of Jerusalem were knocked down, leaving
it very vulnerable.
And the people were put into captivity.
What Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians did was they
left some people in the land, very few,
minority, and then they spread out, especially the
leaders and promising young men, they spread them
out through the Babylonian empire, which was north,
northeast of Israel.
So men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and?
Daniel.
They all went into captivity.
Prophets like Ezekiel ended up in captivity.
So they're spread out through the Babylonian empire.
And now with the walls down, hardly anyone
in Judea, with the temple destroyed, now God
says, I know the plans I have for
you, plans to bless you, prosper you, and
help you.
And in the natural mind, you would say,
what?
Now you're telling me you have plans for
us?
Look at the mess we're in.
It's from our own disobedience, but what a
mess.
Jeremiah, though, tells him, now look, you're gonna
be in captivity 70 years.
That's not the first time it's mentioned in
the Old Testament.
God had said, I'm gonna put you in
captivity for 70 years.
I'm gonna bring you back.
They're in captivity, and God reveals a little
bit of his plan for them.
You're in captivity, you'll be there for a
while, but then I'm gonna bring you back.
I know the plans that I have for
you.
I have plans to bless you and prosper
you.
Doesn't matter how it looks around you.
Doesn't matter what people say.
Doesn't matter who's against you, who's for you.
Nothing matters how you were raised, what someone
did to you.
None of that is stronger than God saying,
I have plans for your life.
I have purposes, can we say amen to
that?
I have a plan, I have a purpose.
What Jesus is telling us in the New
Testament is always, I have a plan for
you.
Let's update it to our era that we
live in.
We're not Israelites, we're not living in Babylon.
But Peter, after he failed the Lord, denied
him three times, Jesus, in ministering to him,
tells him, Peter, I have plans for you.
I know, but I'm ashamed to even look
at you.
I know, but I have plans for you.
I have purposes for you.
My purposes for you don't change because you
messed up.
I have plans for you, isn't that a
good thing to know?
I have purposes and plans for your life.
Don't look at others, don't look inside at
yourself.
Look at me and believe that I have
a plan for your life.
I wanna say this to everyone.
Many Christians live like a leaf blowing in
the wind.
They have anxiety, they have nervousness, they're susceptible
to depression, why?
They are not cemented to the promise that
God has a plan for my life.
God has a plan for you, sir, and
for you, ma'am.
God has a plan, as sure as he
had a plan for Jeremiah and the people
of Israel, and the apostle Peter, and the
apostle Paul, God has a plan for your
life.
And the hardest thing that Jesus faced was
getting people to believe his promises and his
power.
Study the Gospels.
He went about saying things and promising things,
but oh, it was hard to get people
to believe and say, yes, Lord, I receive
that.
I embrace it.
I open my heart and I wrap my
arms around it.
You are not a man that you should
lie.
This is what you said, and I believe
it.
Doubt and unbelief says, yeah, but look at
your situation.
Look how you've messed up.
And the minute you look away from God
and his promise, you're gonna get shaky.
But as long as you keep your eyes
on the Lord and keep telling him, I
believe, come on, let's say amen to that,
I believe, I believe, I believe.
Say it with me, I believe, I believe,
I believe.
And many times we look away from the
Lord.
It's like when Jesus was out walking on
the water and he said to Peter, come
to me on the water.
Jesus said, if it's you, Lord, call me.
He said, come, and he's walking on the
water.
And as long as he looked at the
Lord and kept his eyes on his master
and stood on that promise that he called
me there, he was doing great.
But the wind came.
Some big waves came around him, took his
eyes off the Lord and said, yo, what
am I doing out on this lake?
What is this about?
And the minute he looked, he began to
sink.
And Jesus said to him, oh, Peter, why
didn't you believe?
So I wanna tell you something today.
I don't care how old you are, what
your background is, what race you are.
I don't care who did what to whom.
I don't care he said, she said.
I don't care about failures in your life.
God has a plan.
And listen, that plan includes today.
If God has a plan for my life
and my life is made up of days,
then obviously God has a plan for every
day.
Otherwise he won't work out his plan for
my life.
This is what many of us do when
the verse becomes a slogan.
Help me, Lord, to explain this.
God has a plan.
I know the plans that he has for
me.
I know, but that has to be made
up of everyday living.
He has a plan for today, where you
should go, where you should not go, who
you should talk to, who you should not
talk to.
When you talk to someone, how should you
talk to them?
Where you should make a plan to travel,
how you react to people who come to
you.
There's a plan for every day of my
life.
When you wake up in the morning tomorrow,
you gotta say, God has a plan for
my life and God has a plan for
Monday, the 8th of October.
Otherwise there's no plan for my life.
If there's not a plan for my day,
how will he work out the plan for
my life?
We must believe that, no matter how sideways
life seems, no matter how disappointed you are,
no matter how heartbroken you are, no matter
how unlikely it seems, Lord, we're in captivity.
Now you're saying you have a plan.
We're in captivity, the temple is destroyed, the
walls are down, we have no army, we're
totally vulnerable, and now you're saying, Jeremiah, no,
thus sayeth the Lord, I have a plan
for you to bless you.
Oh God, help us to believe his plan
for our life.
Help us to believe his plan.
I said this earlier, I wanna say it
now, I don't want confrontation or argument with
anybody here about doctrinal things.
I'm just stating to you, you can see
if God bears witness in your heart that
I'm telling the truth, I am telling the
truth.
But as I saw Carol leading these people,
especially now, they put a light on her
so the mass choir could see her.
I thought of that and I'm praising God
and I thought of how we began, I
don't mean began in the ministry, how we
began.
Did you know that when we got married,
I was in the business world working for
an airline, Carol was working for a drug
company as a receptionist in the city, we
knew each other from childhood, and then we
got married.
At our wedding, we were both Christians, she
was a pastor's daughter, I was not a
strong Christian in college, but then I began
to seek the Lord.
But now we have a wedding and we
pray, Jesus, come to our wedding.
You know, if Jesus comes to your wedding,
it's a good wedding.
Doesn't matter what the bride is wearing, doesn't
matter about rubber chicken and cold peas, it
doesn't matter, it's a good wedding.
So we're at the reception of our wedding
at a basement 20 minutes from here in
Bay Ridge, and there were 100 people there
or so.
And while we're at the reception, someone sings,
it was that song, fill my cup, Lord,
I lift it up, Lord.
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul,
bread of heaven, feed me till I want
no more.
Fill my cup, I lift it up.
Suddenly, as we're in this reception, the presence
of the Lord just descends upon us, just
like we felt while this choir was singing.
This is not something we planned, we planned
that someone would sing, but only God can
add those special moments.
And then suddenly a woman walked from her
table up to us, we're all broken and
praying, and she begins to speak in tongues
over us.
And this certainly was not planned in our
reception.
And then someone came and interpreted and began
to prophesy over this young man back then
and his shy, scared wife who wouldn't speak
publicly if you paid her $100.
You see what she just did here and
took the mic and talked, are you kidding
me?
She would hardly say hello and make eye
contact with people.
You don't know that part.
And they began to speak over us.
You're gonna travel here, you're gonna go here,
and you, Carol, will influence thousands, and you,
Jim, will influence thousands of people.
And saying things about God's purpose for our
life, when we ended up on our honeymoon,
we looked at each other and we just
said, what was that about?
That's impossible.
We're not in the ministry.
We're not anything.
We're nobody.
She's shy and untrained.
I didn't go to seminary.
I mean, what in the world?
But God began to make real to us,
will you believe me?
Will you trust me?
No, you say it's impossible.
But with me, all things are possible.
Will you believe my purpose and my plan
for you?
I don't have a plan to hurt you.
I have a plan to bless you and
make you a blessing.
Will you believe?
Everything that person said that day through the
Spirit, I believe, no one will argue with
anyone, has come true.
And we were the least likely two people
in the universe that those two things could
have been said about.
Not promising, not gifted, me especially.
Her, she has her gifting, which you know.
But I mean, it's impossible.
No, when God says, I know the plans
for you, what he says, we can receive
and depend on it, that he has a
plan.
Will you believe that up there in the
balcony behind me?
Would you please, look, look at me.
Would you please believe it?
Please, in the name of Christ.
Would you believe that God has a plan
for your life?
He has a plan for today.
It's such a good plan.
You don't even know it.
Listen, sometimes he reveals the plan.
He kind of did to us.
He did to the Jews.
You're gonna be 70 years in captivity, then
I'm gonna bring you back.
Other times, it's just an intimation.
It's just a sense.
God has this plan.
I'm gonna go somewhere or I'm gonna do
something, but I don't know what, but there's
just a sense.
His hand is on me.
He's gonna bless me and use me.
I know he's gonna do this.
He's gonna bring that daughter back.
He's gonna bring that son back.
He has plans for my family to bless
me and help me.
You have to believe because without faith, it's
impossible to please God.
You have to believe.
We have to believe.
And this goes further to contradict the sloganeering
that we Christians fall into with no thought
of how God works.
You not only have to believe, you have
to pray it.
Remember what he said?
In that day when I fulfill this, you
will call upon me and I will answer
you and I'll do what you say.
What will I do?
What I promise.
You have to pray the promise.
You don't throw up your hands and go,
oh, God said it, he'll do it, that
settles it.
You gotta pray the very thing God said.
You not only have to believe it, you
now have to ask for it.
Listen, this is how prayer works in its
deepest sense.
God gives a promise or a word to
you and then will you believe it?
Now pray it, pray it.
Say back to me, God do as you
said.
Or as the Psalmist says in Psalm 119
.49, remember your word to your servant for
you have given me hope.
If God gave a word, why do you
have to pray about it?
Because that's what God says.
I'm gonna be a partner in fulfilling this
word with you.
I'm not gonna do it while you sit
on the sofa with the remote.
You're gonna call upon me and I will
answer you and then people will know it's
not by accident.
No, I promised it, you prayed it and
then I'm gonna fulfill it.
Come on, everybody say amen to that.
God has a plan for our lives.
He has a plan for today.
It doesn't matter how things seem.
If you go by emotions, you're gonna be
fluctuating up and down like a yo-yo.
It has nothing to do with what we
see, what other people say, how we feel,
how we failed.
It has to do with I know the
plans that I have for you.
And by the way, if you're here today,
because we all get full of ourselves and
want our plans to be fulfilled, that's the
new theology of today.
Very, very, very dangerous.
I make my own plans and then make
God fulfill my plan.
No, then you become the center, I become
the center.
No, God is the center.
Jesus is the center of the universe.
It's his plans.
And trust me, when you go after his
plans to believe it and to pray it,
you find out that his plan is so
much better than anything you could think or
ask or imagine.
One last little amen here for that, okay?
So last word, you have to believe God's
plan.
You have to receive it, claim it, stand
on it, no matter what you see, feel,
and what others say.
Number two, you gotta pray it.
You gotta pray the thing, the very thing
God said.
That is counterintuitive, but it's true.
You have to ask God for the very
thing he has said.
You know what it's distilled down to in
the New Testament?
Lord, do as you promised.
Find out how Daniel and others prayed.
Lord, do as you promised.
Wait a minute, if God promised it, it's
gonna happen?
No, Lord, do, I'm praying, I'm following up,
I'm acting on your promise.
And then it'll surely come to pass.
Lastly, you gotta praise God for his plan
for your life.
You not only have to believe it and
pray it, you have to praise him for
it.
Now, most of us wait till it's fulfilled,
and then we give glory to God, and
we praise God, and we say, God, thank
you.
You promised it, I received it, I prayed
it, and now it has come to pass,
now I give you praise.
And that's right.
Some of us here ought to be praising
God so loud that we'd be louder than
all those voices singing up here.
How many have found God faithful in your
own life, bringing to pass that which he's
promised?
But can I just leave you with this?
The sweetest praise is not after he does
it, it's before he does it, is to
say, God, I so believe in your purpose
for my life.
I so believe that you have a plan
not to hurt me.
You're gonna bless me.
I haven't even seen 110th of your blessing
yet that you have in store for me.
And I pray it, you know I brought
it to you, so now, even though it
hasn't happened yet, I'm gonna praise you.
I'm in Babylon, and I don't see any
of this yet, but because God said it,
and I know his purpose is a good
purpose, Lord, I'm gonna praise you sometimes even
though tears are rolling down my eyes, because
you know what I'm going through, God.
You know what I'm going through.
But I praise you anyway.
I'm not gonna let what I see or
don't see stop praise going up to you.
I praise you just based on your faithfulness.
God is a good God.
Let's say amen to that.
Lord, thank you for your word.
Now help us to believe and receive your
plan for our life.
No matter what we see, no matter what
we feel, we believe in your faithfulness today,
and your love for us, that it's a
good plan.
Help us to live it out day by
day.
Help us not just to believe, but to
pray it, to claim it, to say to
you, do as you said, Lord.
Do as you said, Lord.
You have spoken, now fulfill.
Help us to praise you not after we
see it, but even before we see your
fulfillment, Lord.
Help us to be filled with honor and
glory and praise to your name.
Thank you for blessing us and all these
our visitors and giving us such a sweet
meeting.
We pray now your peace be on us
the rest of the day.
We pray it in Christ's name.
And everyone said, amen.
Turn around and hug somebody, give somebody a
handshake.
Come on, say hello to someone.