"Plans to Prosper You"

 

"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

 

            We have some friends who are missionaries with the Free Methodist Church in Chile. This week they wrote of the rescue of the miners and gave some information that perhaps was not on the news. This has been a story of anxious waiting, of fear and hope, and then of rescue. It is also a story of faith and meeting God. So our friends told of Miner #10, Alex Vega, who surfaced with a Bible clutched tightly to his chest. There was Miner #9, Mario Gomez, whose first action above ground was to bow down on his knees and pray. He said, "I have changed. I am new." T-shirts appeared with "Thank you, Lord" on the front and on the back, Psalm 95:4, "In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him É To him be the honor and the glory."

Billboards declared for weeks, "We are praying." So, our friends say, "We are proud to be Chileans by adoption."

            We need such occurrences to happen. So often life is muddled or tragic. This is a story that has touched us deeply. It was not a story of an immediate rescue, but of waiting for months in a dark place, far below the surface of the earth. It was a longer wait than most of us could imagine. But they did it. It is not so much that we expect always happy endings, but in the very real struggle of life, we want to know if we can endure, and if we can find God and know of his goodness. So the other verse that goes with the one we read is, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

            Our own culture is in many ways addicted to winning, or perhaps to getting our own way. Maybe that accounts for the tremendous popularity of sports and the demand for ever more champions. If our teams win, then somehow our lives are validated. But that distorts the reality of life and even changes the meaning of hope. When you live in a way so that you always have to win, the victories can become hollow after a time. Then when we encounter significant loss we can lose faith, we can both blame God and judge ourselves.

            Jeremiah teaches us a different path to hope. Last Friday night some of us were at the Presbyterian Church, and we experienced a very moving 90 minutes of one man reciting from memory, and with great emotion, passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah and the prophets. He led us through an evening in which we heard the call of God, then the judgment and loss that comes from disobedience and a refusal to open our hearts to God, and finally hope. We listened with new ears to the passages we normally read at Advent concerning the Messiah, and verses like this that we hold on to, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." It makes a difference when we begin with the call of the Lord on our lives and honestly look at the consequences of our sin, coming to repentance and sincerely asking for mercy, and then allowing God to provide a hope and a future.

            Hope is not always about a happy ending, or a success or a win. Hope is much more about seeking God and coming to know him through whatever we face in life and experiencing healing, forgiveness and salvation. Hope is the beggar who cried to Jesus, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." His desire was to see, and Jesus restored his sight. But his call was for mercy, for finding God.

            In 597 B.C. the Babylonians defeated Judah and sent King Jehoiakin, and some of the population, into exile. A new king, a vassal king or puppet king, Zedekiah, was installed. Jeremiah tells the people to accept the rule of Babylon and to accept the judgment of God for a time. But Babylon is having internal troubles with revolts and has its hands full with other enemies. So Zedekiah and number of the kings of the surrounding nations gather in Jerusalem to plan a united rebellion. False prophets come and speak in favor of the rebellion, saying Babylon will fall in a short time.

Jeremiah is alone in his message, and places an ox yoke over his shoulders, symbolizing the rule of Babylon which they must endure. In the end, there was no rebellion, the plans came to nothing. Then Babylon came back again and destroyed Jerusalem, leading the people into an exile of 70 years. It was during this time that Jeremiah spoke to the people, "Submit to the King of Babylon and live. Why die by the sword, by starvation and by disease?"

Another prophet, Hananiah, came, speaking an easy peace. He took the wooden yoke off of Jeremiah's shoulders and broke it, saying "The power of Babylon will be broken." This was a rejection of the Lord, a breaking of the covenant. Hananiah spoke only of peace and prosperity, of victory within two years. He stood with the planners of rebellion. But Jeremiah stood in the counsel of the Lord. He replaced the wooden yoke with an iron one.

            It was Jeremiah who heard the true word, not Hananiah. Jeremiah stood in the counsel of God and heard the true call that speaks of the path to life. Hananiah promised victory at no cost, an easy path to happiness, a life of prosperity without discipleship. His was a life of compromise with the world. He was well liked, and he was a false prophet. His words did not come true.

            But Jeremiah had faith to listen to God's call. He obeyed when others faltered. He endured the loss, and then came to true hope, a hope based on knowing God. "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." That is what brought Jeremiah to know the plans of the Lord, not to harm but to give hope and a future.

            So Jeremiah wrote a letter to those in Babylon, those who would wait long years for rescue. He told them to settle down, to plant and to marry and have children. It would not be two years in the distant land, but far longer. So they were to plant crops. That is short-term hope. To have enough hope to plant crops and look forward to harvest. Sometimes that is what God calls us to. We go through a difficult time, maybe we feel crushed. We may not know how to pray. We can't see ourselves all the way to a good end. But God calls us to plant, to do what we can in this season, living with hope, even very short-term hope.

            A few weeks ago our son David was on a team of runners who were helping a friend complete a 100-mile race through the mountain trails of Utah. It was David's task to help him in the early pre-dawn hours on the last leg of the run. So he described how he had to move him along during a time when exhaustion had set in and he just wanted to go to sleep. But they were close to the end, so David would say "Let's just walk over to that tree" and then "OK, now let's jog a little way." Finally, as dawn was breaking, a new energy came into the runner, and he was able to finish strong. I don't know why anyone would want to do a 100-mile race, but there are times when we are in need of just enough faith and hope to move ahead, even when we are not able to see where we are going. That is when encouragement and prayer and presence make such a difference.

            Then Jeremiah told the people to get married and have children. It took faith and courage on their part to get married in Babylon, to have children, not knowing what their future might be. Can you imagine what it was like when the first wedding was held in Babylon? Or the first baby was born? But as they acted in faith and began to live as if they had a future, that is when they received the promise. They did not find out about the plans of the Lord to prosper them until they took steps in faith towards a future. Then in God's time, and it was 70 years, the restoration and prosperity came.

            The plans and future that the Lord declared to his people go beyond their return to their homeland, and beyond the rebuilding of their homes and the temple. The plans the prophet declared find their fulfillment in Christ. The plans the Lord has for us are found in Christ, in his kingdom, in life everlasting. When we put our hope in him, we have a future.

            Nils Frykman wrote a hymn:

            "I have a future all sublime, beyond the realms of space and time,

            where my Redeemer I shall see and sorrow nevermore shall be.

            A precious heritage is mine, in heaven kept by love divine;

            what serves me best, while here below, my father will provide, I know.

            Now peace and joy within me dwell, I sing with gladness 'All is well';

            Protected, guided by his might, he leads me to the land of light."

            Amen.