A Hope and a Future [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. While I was on the edge of whining about there being no plan, there actually had been a master plan for my good to bless me.

I just didn't know about it yet. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Brin, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Remade, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I sure want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So, as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.

Don't miss it. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.

Or call 877-544-4860. We're going to give you more on all this later in the program. But right now, let's dig in and get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news?

Yes. Beloved, if you were to try with all your might and your highest imagination to dream up the very best possible future for your own life, you could not come close to the goodness of what God has already prepared. We are in the prophet Jeremiah, where we've been for a number of weeks, building really towards these prophetic passages of restoration hope that come here in Jeremiah chapter 29. A word to people who have been exiled to Babylon, and it is a word of profound hope. And today we're going to focus in on two verses, which are two of the most beautiful prophetic verses in the Bible that carry magnificent weight for our own hope.

Jeremiah 29, starting at verse 10. Thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, 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 and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I'll hear you. You'll seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart and I'll be found by you, declares the Lord. And then I will restore your fortunes and gather you from the nations and all the places where I've driven you, declares the Lord. And I'll bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. I know the plans, verse 11, plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. That verse is where I want to focus our attention.

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. When I was approaching my 40th birthday, I was a little surprised that my wife, who is the queen of celebration, had no big plans for my 40th. I didn't, you know, I'm not too big into birthday, but it was my 40th and this was a few years ago and I was a little surprised.

And as it drew closer, I found myself disappointed. She said, what do you want to do for your 40th? And I said, well, you know, we'll go out to a nice dinner, I guess. And we'll go over to Ryan's restaurant where we go for all our celebrations, the place where we celebrated so many birthdays and anniversaries and the place where she pushed a little gift box across to me one year and inside it were some little pink baby booties announcing the conception of our second child, you know, stuff like that. Oh, it Ryan's and I like it. And so I said, well, we'll go, we'll have a nice dinner.

That'd be great. But the whole time I was like, what's happened here? You know, no plans being made for the 40th and she's good at that, you know, but so be it. We go and have a wonderful date with my, with my wife. And we go walking into the restaurant and they said, we have a table for you in the back, back room where we've been a number of times, walked back there and everybody shouted surprise. She had rented out the whole back room at Ryan's and my thought was, how has she pulled this off?

My second thought is how much does this cost? But she had my favorite appetizer, the scallops wrapped in bacon. If you wrap something in bacon, I don't care what it is. It's good. And and I started looking around the room and my jaw dropped because people like my spiritual mentor, Dudley had flown in from Texas and my good, good friend from Florida had flown in and my college roommate and on and on it went and I realized that this had been planned for months and people that I treasured, she had written many months in advance to people that had been important in my life and asked him to write a blessing on a card and she'd compiled it in this huge notebook and she had my favorite desserts from one of the best bakers that we've got and a church and every detail was planned, including the next day, the amount of time and where and when I'd spend with these out of town friends and it was remarkable. I was so surprised that while I was on the edge of whining about there being no plan, there actually had been a master plan for my good to bless me. I just didn't know about it yet. Is it not possible that God could have a master plan for your good?

You just don't know it yet. It has not all been unveiled to you yet, but if a loving wife would want to plan something like that, how much more so would your perfectly loving heavenly father have good things in store for you? These are exiles who have been deported to the land of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar, who was a tyrant, had deported them. It had been prophesied that they would be taken away. It was a matter of discipline, not punishment and not something that was forever, but discipline to teach them something, the people of God.

Ultimately we teach them what we read about today. There's going to be a day which you're going to want me. You're going to call upon me.

I will be found. But it's like the Lord is saying the one thing that in a sense he can't, he's sovereign so he can do everything. But the one thing that in a sense he just can't force to happen and that is for you to want to feed on his grace. So sometimes in his sovereign goodness he would bring about the conditions wherein you'd want him. Beloved, I wish I could tell you how much God loves you and how much good he has in store for you.

I wish I could explain it. I wish I could fathom it myself, but I know enough of it to say that the only real hindrance is our hunger for him. And so these exiles would learn and the whole nation would learn what it is to hunger for God and appreciate God and want God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength. It was a matter of a temporary discipline. And exile we learned last time is an in-between place. It is the place between where you once were comfortable and where you want to know that you will be.

But right now it's not comfortable. The in-between places are difficult because it requires clinging to promises without falling into nostalgia for what once was. It's difficult for those people because they're away from their families and they're away from their businesses and they're away from their temple. So when life strips you of the things that you've always counted on for your comfort and you find yourself in an in-between place, you could think of that as an exile time. And this prophetic word of hope comes to those people who are in exile. And the word of the Lord came saying, don't think that there's just a blip on the radar. No, don't deny it, but don't postpone your living. It's a word in which first he says essentially, I want you to prosper and increase even in your place of exile, bloom where you're planted.

Now don't postpone living. And then we come to this at verse 10, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I'll visit you. And I want you to notice that the 70 year reference here does not refer to the duration of the exile, but I noticed this for the first time this week, it refers to the duration of Babylonian rule.

The important thing for the exiles to know first is that there's going to be a completion of Babylon's time. There's a limit to the span of wickedness. There is a limit to the rule of evil. God's grace never runs out, but evil empires always do.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. God has a way of bringing what looks like it has sovereign control in matters of the world to an end in an instant. It would come in Belshazzar's drunken feasts as he drank from the golden goblets that had been stolen from the ransacked Jerusalem temple and had his party toasting his pagan gods. And just in a moment, in the blink of an eye, there is suddenly handwriting on the wall and the kingdom of Babylon ends.

So this period is over. God says, I'm going to bring you back. Do not think that Babylonian rule is your destiny. And in the next part of the verse 10, I will visit you. I will fulfill to you my promise. I will bring you back. I will.

I will. I'd like for you to notice that though repentance is commanded all throughout the prophetic oracles of Jeremiah, repentance means a turn. It means a change of mind. It is an invitation to return to God as an invitation to see from God's perspective that even though repentance is required of the people, there's no mention of it here.

God is not going to allow his ultimate destiny for his people to depend on any capacity of the people. Instead, he says, I'm going to visit you and I'm going to bring you back. Regardless of how much you've learned, there's a limit to this and I'm going to bring you back. He's good. He's powerful.

I will visit. It means attend. And he says, and I will fulfill in the ESV that word fulfill, but it comes from a Hebrew word that means to stand or to rise up like in Exodus chapter two where Moses has fled for his life to Midian and he doesn't know anyone there yet. He'll eventually marry there. But these women, daughters of Jethro, they are out trying to get water at the well and some shepherds came and were preventing them and maybe going to attack them.

We're not sure. And the text says the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. And that word, when Moses stood up to the shepherds who were going to perhaps attack these women or weren't going to let them come to the well, when Moses stood up, that is the word that in Jeremiah 29 is translated word fulfill. So God stands up for his promises. I will fulfill. I'll stand up to my own word.

That's what he's saying. And the promise that he's talking about is actually in Hebrew, two words here. It is tob, which means good and da bar means word. So it's, it's, it's God saying, I will stand up for my good word that I gave you. God, God is, God is true to his word. And so he says, I will fulfill my promise.

I'll stand up for my good word. And then at verse 11, for I know the plans that I have for you. And I just, I just want, I just, we're just, we're just looking at one verse today and I just want you to be excited about some Hebrew words with me today. I just want you, this is a, this is an iconic verse of scripture. This is one you want to put on a poster and hang on your wall. This is one you want your Bible to flop open to.

This is one you want to, to put on the dashboard of your car. I know the plans that I have for you. And so I want you to understand it deeply that this word I is actually in Hebrew, a grammatical point of emphasis.

So it probably should be translated. I myself or I, I alone, I, I alone know the plans that I have for you. I know deepest understanding. And the word for plans here is really more the idea of thoughts. The theological word book of the old Testament says the basic idea of the word is the employment of the mind in thinking activity. So the word for plan here is not so much a reference to understanding as it is to the creating of new ideas. Some translations say, I know my thoughts towards you. We don't have a good word for this. It's like saying, I know my holy imagination towards you.

I know how I think about you and that's what matters. What's interesting is that if you were with us for a recent message from Jeremiah on the Lord is our righteousness. We spoke of what theologians call imputed righteousness, which is to say that when you are in Christ, it doesn't just mean that the blood of Jesus has paid the penalty for your sins. It means that God begins to think of you as if you had lived Jesus's own meritorious life. He credits the righteousness of Jesus to you, which means he imputes it.

We just don't have another word for that. But what it means is that he thinks of you this way. So this word in Hebrew that, um, the Lord is referencing here, I know my thoughts towards you. This is what is used in Genesis 15 six when we read that Abraham believed the Lord and God counted it to him as righteousness.

It's this word. I know my thoughts. God thought of it as righteousness to him. What I'm saying is what matters is how God thinks of you because God doesn't have wrong thoughts. His thoughts are never wrong. So if he thinks of you as the righteousness of Jesus, then you are.

If he thinks of you in the same way that he thinks of his only begotten son, Jesus, then you are like Jesus in his eyes. He doesn't have wrong thoughts. His beautiful thoughts is expansive thoughts. His thoughts that can form a cosmos. He has thoughts that can design a way in which he could be just and justifier away in which his wrath and mercy could both meet at a cross so that you would be his now and forevermore. Oh, he has beautiful thoughts. I know my thoughts for you, says the Lord.

You don't know him, but I do. The Lord's always saying to us, I wish you could know more about how I think about you. You ever had somebody misunderstand you that you had good intentions towards them and they interpreted as something bad and you just want to say, I wish you knew my thoughts.

You don't know my thoughts. You have no idea how many times that in this role that God has given me this privilege that I stand in a position as a human being, just a human being with no particular symbolic place that should be in anybody's life. But oftentimes people look at someone like a pastor or some authority and see one thing or this and think this or that. And we form judgments and we, and there's so many times I sat down and said, if you knew my thoughts toward you, how much more so are God? I alone know my thoughts towards you. Thing about God's thoughts is that they are not only 100% real and true because he can't have incorrect thoughts, but whatever he thinks comes to pass.

If he thinks tree, tree will be. See, we do this in part. We can think and then to a certain degree, bring it to pass. Alan Wright, today's teaching, a hope and a future. It's from our series Remade and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan and our good news thought for the day. And again, the series has remade and the visual behind this, going back to the potter's wheel and making a clay bowl or a clay cup, you know, and there's something good here for you on this teaching, I hope in the future. So God knows the plans he has for you, like the potter who has the clay on the wheel, spinning it, spinning it, keeping it moist, molding it, pressuring it in with his hands, shaping it. And so like the clay, the clay doesn't know what's happening.

It's just the potter does. And I think Daniel, that there's something credibly nourishing, comforting, peace giving, life giving. I'm just saying to ourselves every day, God knows the plans.

I don't know them all, but he really knows them. And those plans are good. And you take this Jeremiah 29 passage and let it go deep in your heart. I know the plans I have for you. And they are plans for your good, for your welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Say it to yourself every day.

It's the word of God. Pull you up by your bootstraps. Doesn't doesn't work with a lump of clay. It doesn't work with a lump of clay. Come on, make yourself into a nice cup here. I'll wait.

Doesn't work. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.