God’s “controversial” plans for you
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.
I told the 8th graders in our class last week that I would say some “controversial” things in tonight’s sermon.
One of our last classes together was a lesson on marriage. As part of our discussion, I encouraged them to date, finish high school, get married, wait to enjoy sleeping together until their wedding night, have lots of children, and stay married until God parts them through death.
Following this sequence will statistically bring about “success.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that of the Millennial families who followed the steps in this order, only 3% were in poverty. A staggering 97% were receiving physical blessings above the poverty line.
By contrast, a troubling 53% of those who did not follow the sequence were living in poverty.
God has a plan for your lives. He lays it out clearly in Scripture.
“Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4).
“For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will remain united with his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
“The man who finds a wife finds a good thing, and he obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).
“Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).
“What God has joined together, man must not separate” (Matthew 19:6).
God may not always bless us with a marriage or with children. But, if we find a spouse and have children, there is a specific order God wants us to receive those in. This is a sequence, a series of steps, a plan that God has for you. But these are also so-called “controversial” plans. What makes them “controversial”? Our culture. Our friends. Our family. Us. Our sinful natures.
We hear God’s Word, his will, his plans, and we tense up. Our brow furrows and our neck stiffens. We think we know better than God. We are like the Burger King of old where we want to “have it your way.” We don’t like anyone – even God – restricting our fun, limiting our sin, or curbing our sinful desires. We want what we want … and we want it now.
So, we do things out of order and we still expect God to bless us.
But is that how it works in your house? You expect your kids to listen, behave, and do what you tell them. But they stomp and cry. They fight and defy. When they act that way, do you still bless them? Or do you chasten and correct them?
There are some more plans God has for you. The 8th graders and I discussed numerous times in our classes about the roles God gives for men and women in their relationships. God desires men to serve as leaders, providers, and protectors. They are to serve as the Christ-figure for their wife and family. “Husbands, love your wives, in the same way as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
God desires women to serve as nurturers, loving and caring for those in her family. The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is a suitable partner for him” (Genesis 2:18). The wife serves as a helper to her husband and a strength for her family, much like God the Father helps and strengthens those within his family. “God is our refuge and strength, a helper who can always be found in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
These are more plans that God has for us, but we often prefer to go along with our culture that tries to imagine how there are no differences between men and women. Our culture then enforces the notion that we can get along just fine on our own without the benefits of the other sex.
The Bible verse the 8th graders chose for their graduation is Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.”
This is a verse of comfort to people who had done so many things out of order. The children of Israel had cheated on the Lord and worshiped false gods. They refused to follow God’s will and God’s way. They had perverted themselves with all kinds of physical and spiritual filth. Still, they expected God to bless them simply because they were his chosen children.
God the Father’s children had continually refused to listen and behave, to trust and believe. They stomped and cried. They fought and defied.
God chastised them by allowing them to be carried into captivity by the Babylonian empire.
Jeremiah 29, from where we receive our sermon text, contains a letter the prophet Jeremiah gives to the children of Israel now living in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah encourages them to accept the Lord’s judgment patiently and believe God’s Word that it would be several generations before they would return to their homeland.
He writes, “This is what the Lord says. After seventy years have passed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious word to bring you back to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10). God had set the limit of their exile to 70 years. Jeremiah reminded them that they were in exile only because God chose to lead them there. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon served merely as God’s instrument of chastisement. When the Lord chose, he would bring them back.
To those whose vision would be blurry with tears, whose hearts would be torn by grief, whose bodies would be racked with pain, whose hopes would be shattered by disappointment, and whose loss would leave them empty, God promised, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.”
This is God’s promise – not just to those children of Israel – but to all of you – students, graduates, parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, and more. As Christians, we desire to follow our theme this school year and walk in God’s wisdom, to be imitators of God as his dearly loved children, and keep all of his statutes. But we don’t. And we won’t. That’s because we are stubborn in our sin and relentless in our rebellion.
Yet, God gives us another “controversial” plan for us. It isn’t disaster for our sin and rebellion. It’s forgiveness of our sin. It’s redemption from our rebellion. It’s the righteousness of Christ to cover our unrighteousness. This is all foolishness to the world, but it is the wisdom of the Lord. It’s Jesus. Jesus says of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). This is “controversial” in our culture that despises Christ and his Christianity. Yet, Jesus is what WLS, Shoreland, First Evan, Water of Life and the churches and schools within the Wisconsin Synod are all about.
You may or may not follow God’s sequence for marriage and children. You may or may not fulfill God’s roles for men and women. You may or may not walk in God’s wisdom. You may seem to do things right or do things totally wrong. And, no matter what you do or don’t do, you may face difficulties, suffering, and sorrow in your lives. You may lose your college career, lose a job, lose your health, lose a parent, lose a spouse, or lose a child. And as you struggle, the world may look at you as a loser.
But, you are always a winner. No matter what you face. No matter what you do or don’t do. No matter how stubborn you are in your sin or how relentless you are in your rebellion, God still helps you in times of trouble. Jesus still loves you and gave himself up for you. The Holy Spirit still brings you out of the darkness into the marvelous light of the Lord. As long as you walk in God’s wisdom – which means that you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior – you are a winner in God’s eyes. You are a baptized saint. You are a blood-bought child of God. You will graduate from this world to his heavenly Kingdom.
Nothing happens in this world that God does not see. Nothing happens in your life that God does not have a plan for. Everything – even the times of loss – have God’s stamp of approval. Everything has his divine purposes in mind. What are those purposes? His purpose is to prosper you and give you peace. His purpose is to give you hope and a future. Far beyond worldly wealth and earthly prosperity and a future here, our Lord works for your spiritual prosperity, heavenly wealth, and the sure hope of an eternal future in heaven. Everything he plans and does works with this purpose in mind: through faith in the Son, you will one day end up in the Father’s mansions in heaven.
What comfort that is when we are not always able to connect the dots of life. What security that gives us when we cannot see the specifics of the future. What peace that provides when we just don’t know which way to go.
The Lord knows. The Lord cares. The Lord plans. The Lord controls. All of it, with your soul’s best interests in mind.
If you ever have any doubts about that, then just look at Bethlehem’s manger, Calvary’s cross, and Jerusalem’s empty tomb. In these places we see God’s plan to give us peace, hope, and a future.
These are some of God’s “controversial” plans for your life. They are all about Jesus and your relationship with Jesus. Trust them. Love them. Live them. Be blessed by them. … And never, ever graduate from them. Amen.