The Week of September 12th, 2021
Welcome Back Sunday
Sermon Noodles and Devotional Guide on “The Great Reversal”
Sermon text: Jeremiah 29
What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
What is the worst piece of advice?
Here is the reason I ask: what do you believe you are worthy of in this world?
If I asked you, are you hopeful for the future, how would you honestly respond?
Let me tell you a story: There are a few major historic, world changing events in the Hebrew scriptures. One is the Exodus when the Hebrews escaped Egypt and received the Ten Commandments on Mnt Sinai.
Another is called the Exile.
In 589BC the Assyrian army attacked Israel. They wiped out the 10 northern tribes, including the tribe “Israel” which would not become an independent country until 1948. Two years later the Babylonians were the new kid on the block. They invaded what was left of Israel, sacked Jerusalem, and carted the inhabitants off into slavery in Babylon. That is why the book of Daniel takes place in Babylon, not in Jerusalem.
There was a great temptation for the people of God to live without hope.
God comes in with The Great Reversal.
I know you are living in a foreign land, says The Lord in Jeremiah 29. Build houses. Get married. Have children. Seek the welfare of the city even though it is your enemy. In the darkness of the time, God pulled a Great Reversal and said, “I have plans for you”—good plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future and a hope. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.
This is what God does. This is what the Gospel does. God is in the compost business, turning the manure in our lives into fertilizer. Where there is doubt, there is faith, where there is despair, there is hope, where there is death, there is resurrection.
This is God’s Great Reversal. There is hope.
It may not be what you want to hear—that God will not rescue you from the cancer, or getting old, or for failing eyesight—God may not fix or solve or rescue you from your Babylon. But God does call us to live from a higher place, place of hope and generativity. God does a new thing when you least expect it. God allows certain things to happen to lead us to the edge of our resources so we learn how to draw upon the Larger Source.
Devotional Guide for the week of September 12th
“Lost Generation” by Jonathon Reed
I am part of a lost generation, and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but 'Happiness comes from within' is a lie, and
'Money will make me happy'
So in thirty years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life.
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than
family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era
this is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
Thirty years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
1. Read Jeremiah 29:4-7; 11-13. What strikes you about this passage? Remember that Jeremiah is not writing to people in the comfortable confines of the holy city Jerusalem, but to people who have been enslaved by a conquering army and forcibly displaced to live in Babylon. How does this fact impact your reading?
2. Do you think God desires what is good for us, or is God more interested in punishing wrongdoers? (please note: the character of our mom and dad’s parenting style shapes what we believe God is like more than we want to admit)
3. In your journal or on a piece of paper make a list of what exactly God asks the people to be and do in Jeremiah 29:4-7 and 11-13. What surprises you the most on the list?
4. Read the poem again. Only this time let’s read it backwards. Start from the bottom and read up to the top. How does the poem change in meaning? The Great Reversal!