God's Big Plans [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

Be for the welfare of your city, because I have good plans for you. 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 Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Providence as presented at Granola Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout today's entire program, I 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.

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877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Okay people of God, are you ready for some good news? God's got big plans. He always has big plans.

A good plan. What might happen if we became more conscious, more aware, more filled with certainty that at every point, no matter what you're going through, God has a good plan at work towards you and for this world. We're talking about providence. And to talk about providence is to think of how God provides or sees ahead of time. And we narrow that focus in today on a familiar text, beautiful prophetic text, one of the most beautiful in the Old Testament, from the prophet Jeremiah. A text that we've looked at before, but is, it cannot be excluded from a series on providence because of this focus that God knows the plans that he has for us. A God who's planned it out.

Wow. Here we are in Jeremiah 29 verse 4. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I've sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses, live in them, plant gardens, eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons, give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

So here are the people there in exile in Babylon. We'll take a closer look at that in a moment. But what God is saying is that there is a way you can have energy and passion, compassion and positive motivation to be a blessing and bloom where you're planted.

And how can you have that? Well it's related to this at verse 10. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed from 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 I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you'll 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. Thou be found by you, declares the Lord, and I'll restore your fortunes and gather you from all 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.

So just note this, that the exile in God's mind is not so much a punishment as it is a learning and a thirsting for the people of God who will discover again how much they need him, how much they want him, so that they'll know God even more deeply. I think it's in the third of the Pirates of the Caribbean series that Jack Sparrow is a captive on I think it's Lord Beckett's ship. The Black Pearl has pulled adjacent, they are battling one another and in some ridiculous maneuver this pirate who seems to escape from every predicament has tied a rope, I don't know, it's related to a cannonball that he shoots out of a cannon that then he's tied to, it throws him up a hundred feet in the air, catapults him over to the other ship and he escapes and Lord Beckett's officer is there and says, do you think that he plans it all out or does he just make it up as he goes?

As he is preparing to say that, Lord Beckett's like, how long will it take to prepare our ship to pursue the Black Pearl? And while he's saying that the main mass falls over having been having been destroyed by the cannonball and it's just another one of those scenes with this ridiculous character Jack Sparrow and the whole tension of the series and what makes it fun all these movies is that you're kind of wondering is he like the greatest pirate in the world and he plans it all out or is it all just some sort of luck that just keeps happening? At some point in our lives we have to decide whether we think that somehow God's just making it up as he goes or if there really is a way in which he is so sovereign, so wise, and so good that he is at work with plans like long-term plans that are being worked out through short-term plans and how much would it change us if we really thought that way in the valleys and on the mountaintops? God is at work with a plan and what will happen for us I think is that there'll be a whole lot of peace and calm that would come to our lives, a whole lot of capacity to endure the difficult times but also be a whole lot more expectancy of what might be coming next. God knows the plans that he has for you and they are for your good, not for your not for your harm, plans to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope.

Let's talk about the God who's got big plans, big plans. Well this text is set in the time of what we call the exile, the Babylonian exile. It is one of the most painful times in Israel's history. King Nebuchadnezzar has overrun Jerusalem, sacked the temple, and deported people to Babylon. We could see on a map that they make their way first up north and then to the east to Babylon.

It was the largest, Babylon itself was the largest city, beautiful city, one order surrendering you can see here of it on the Euphrates, if you show the next slide, of how beautiful really a city it was and it was the place in the world and yet it was pagan, they worship false gods, they were sent there to be away from their homeland. It was not just that they were amongst a foreign people, it's that they are in this awkward in-between place. It is not the place where they're going to ultimately be, they are not called by God to settle in and make it their home, but it is where they are. So let's think of exile this way, an in-between place. It's a place where sometimes you know I'm not going to be here forever but it is where I am now and that creates a lot of potential angst, a kind of what psychologists call cognitive dissonance where our minds are trying to make sense out of it, this is who I am but why am I in this place and why are these things happening? Maybe exile can be a problem or a life disappointment you never imagined would happen to you and there you are. Maybe it could be a relationship and you never thought that you could have this many problems in it and it's not what you signed up for and yet here you are. I think exile can be a time of obscurity when you're like David who's been anointed to be king but he's hiding in the caves of a dullum and an in-between time in his life until he's on the throne or maybe maybe exile feels like you don't have the people around you that you once had people that you love and that you need and now you're you're making some new relationships and you're finding a new way or maybe it just could be that what you once had for your earthly security feels like it has been stripped away from you and you're left with the hope of what can be but these are the kinds of things we feel in exile times in our lives and I think when we're in exile like the people of God in Babylon there's twin perils on the one hand you can look at this kind of time and think well it's just temporary so I'm gonna postpone everything important until I just get back home in fact we won't take a time to look at the text but one of the things Jeremiah was up against was some false prophets who were prophesying what people wanted to hear and that is the exiles gonna be very short in fact someone has prophesied and said it's gonna be only be two years and Jeremiah had to actually speak against us and just say these are lies or false prophecies because we'd like to believe sometimes that when when these in-between places that it's going to be so brief that really we get into a kind of denial about what we're actually going through and the problem with that is that in that mentality we tend to just postpone living that's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series unlock the power of blessing your life discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastor Alan org God's love you've heard about it with your ears you've believed it in your mind now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book lover of my soul the Bible is a love story from beginning to end you are the spiritual bride of Christ the perfect bridegroom the Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you to win you and to walk with you hand in hand for any man who has fallen in love with a woman you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like for any woman who has searched for true love would you long for can only be found fully in God Gary Chapman renowned author of the five love languages says the incredible reality that God pursues us and love comes to life and lover of my soul ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart accept Christ's proposal enjoy his embrace revel in his love after all it's a match made in heaven it's lover of my soul by Alan Wright the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor Alan org today's teaching now continues here once again is Alan Wright it's a little bit like what we were feeling during the pandemic where you know we just didn't know what was going on and so first everybody is sequestered and quarantined but then we think well is it going to be over soon does anybody remember how we thought it was going to just be flatten the curve for a few weeks and all the preachers in America thought we're gonna be back by Easter and it's gonna be the biggest in-person Easter services in the history of the world here we are years later and what we've done regardless of all the variety of opinions about what ought to be done what we've all done is we finally said we can't postpone living forever we just got to go on and live we got to do some things at first everybody was postponing their their weddings everybody was postponing people are postponing funerals people are postponing everything because this will be brief and it will just and then somewhere you suddenly go it's not that brief and we can't just not live so that's one of the perils of exile time is just put off living and and one of the things God's saying is don't do that I want I want you while you're in exile give your sons and daughters to marriage build your houses build up your businesses be involved in the community it's not your ultimate home this is not the place where you're going to be forever this is not where your grandchildren are going to be raised but for now don't put off living be a blessing and bloom where you're planted the other peril of course is to think that the exiles forever in which you despair of living if you think well this is never going to be better it's always going to be this way then you can sort of give up and despair of a future and that's why God's has to send word and say while on the one hand this is not a blip on the radar and it's not that brief on the other hand you must know that I have beautiful thoughts towards your future and I want you to think about how much I think about those beautiful thoughts it is because of this that then he can say I want you to be for the welfare of your cities wherever you are and and this is the very reason that we're going to be serving on this beautiful Saturday in November if God be for us who could be against us and and I I just want us to walk this out like just God loves us when we didn't deserve it so just go and love somebody not because they deserve it not because they got their act together but just because of love be be for the welfare of your city because I have good plans for you so if we are either postponing living or despairing of living we'll never be able to be the blessing God wants us to be while we're living so God wants them to know he has plans that's the context of Jeremiah 29 they're going to come back they've taken an exile in 586 they're going to come back in 536 and you can have peace and you can have joy by just thinking about God's big plans for your life well in case you missed last week the world shifted last Saturday when Mia Joy Wright came into the world and y'all that was just I mean it is it's fantastic and it just it's just fantastic I go after church last Sunday she was born Saturday night I rushed down to Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte to go to the hospital and meets me there and she was actually down at the coast so she come driving in you know we go and find him in their room there with this baby that is less than a day old and you know holding her is just wow and I'm just sitting there you know just remembering like it seems like yesterday that I'm holding Bennett in my arms the day he was born and now here he is the father and I just hand him back over to Bennett I had me a back over to Bennett hand her over and while I'm handing her back to Bennett I'm getting so choked up you know thinking about it all and Bennett's getting choked up and and I'm thinking about what it's like to become a dad when everything in your life is changed because your your every thought and every measure of happiness is now wrapped up with the well-being of your child and there is a love that you find that you couldn't have known was possible it's like a deeper level a whole nother gear a whole nother something that's just there and I'm here I'm thinking about this and I just hand in her back over and all I said to him was I was fighting back the tears all I could muster was now you know now you know now you know what it's like to have all of your thoughts consumed with all the good thoughts and plans and intentions you have for your baby girl thoughts and plans and intentions that she has no idea about but you do this is what it means really to begin to understand the love of God is to understand that you're like a baby in his arms and as vast as his thoughts are no one could know the sum of them so at some point walking with God and trusting with God is just letting yourself be held and trusting in his good plans verse 10 thus says the Lord when 70 years are completed for Babylon 70 is an interesting number it corresponds roughly to the number of years that they literally were in exile depends on when you date the start of exile and there are various proposals for this but also I think it's important to remember that seven and ten are two of the most highly symbolic numbers in the Bible and both of them have a sense of completion like seven days to a week it's a full week or ten like the ten fingers ten toes it's all of them and so seven times ten is a picture of like in the fullness of time after the complete time is up after these 70 years and I think it's so interesting that the restriction or the limit or the end of it is not when the 70 years are completed for you but did you notice that verse 10 when 70 years are completed for Babylon this is a reference to God's limiting the span of wickedness I love that that God's grace doesn't run out but evil empires do and it means that God is not putting his people in exile into some sort of cosmic time out Alan Wright our good news message God's big plans from the series Providence please stay with us Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment unlock the power of blessing your life discover God's grace filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastor Alan org God's love you've heard about it with your ears you believed it in your mind now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book lover of my soul the Bible is a love story from beginning to end you are the spiritual bride of Christ the perfect bridegroom the Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you to win you and to walk with you hand in hand for any man who has fallen in love with a woman you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like for any woman who has searched for true love what you long for can only be found fully in God Gary Chapman renowned author of the five love languages says the incredible reality that God pursues us and love comes to life and lover of my soul ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart except Christ proposal enjoy his embrace revel in his love after all it's a match made in heaven it's lover of my soul by Alan Wright the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty that's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty or come to our website pastor Alan org back here in the studio to share pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day God's big plans I guess little gods do little things are big things it just such a nourishing thought to think you know we say what we'll say up well I got big plans you know as some young person I got big plans for my life but really the story of the Bible and the story of our lives is God's got big plans yeah he's got big plans now they may not look necessarily big in the world's eyes they may not be the things that the world caused big but in God's eyes is the biggest it's the best he's got a future and a hope for each and every one of his children and he's a god of restoration and he's a god of surprises and a god of the deepest and richest sort of blessing so you can expect it God's got a big plan the picture in the scripture is altogether relational and life-giving and organic and so though we speak of a mystery the scripture speaks of human life as being granted free will so that every choice that you make matters and yet God is mystically and marvelously involved in the details of our lives so that he works in and through yeah we're we're in it we're in the game but he's way ahead of us with all his goodness at work on our behalf thanks for listening today visit us online at pastorallen.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 pastorallen.org that's pastorallen.org today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries