Sermon Tone Analysis

*Inscription: Writing God’s Words on Our Hearts & Minds*

*/Part 56: Thriving in Exile/*

*Jeremiah 29:1-14*

*/August 7, 2011/*

 

Intro

 

Prayer

 

*Scripture reading: Jer.

29:11-13 (Marilyn?)

*

 

We drove out to Lake Roosevelt last week, and that is a long, hot (no AC) and dull drive.

Mile after mile of brush and wheat fields.

Every once and a while there would be something to *break* the *monotony* – a town or even a dust devil was a welcome sight.

·         That is how most of us feel about reading the Prophets, lots of dull stuff we don’t understand with a few famous verses.

That passage in Jeremiah 29 is one of those well known ones; how many of you have gotten some *card* with that printed on it?

The thing is there is a lot more to Eastern Washington that we miss as we fly by at *65+ MPH* – the farmers who feed us, the people who live in the towns, who look down on us city slickers.

This passage is far more than a nice *little* verse to decorate *graduation* *cards* – behind it is a whole story of pain and disappointment.

Judah had become little more than a *vassal* of Babylon and Babylon had carried away about 2,000 of the elite people back to Babylon, including *Daniel*, *Shadrach*, *Meshach*, and *Abednego*.

·         The prevailing wisdom among this group was that this exile would be *short*-*lived* – why even unpack?

After all they were *God’s* *people* and he wouldn’t abandon them, would he?

Never mind they weren’t really following him.

There were even false prophets promising God would bring them back.

In this context, Jeremiah (still in Jerusalem) sent a letter:

 

*Jeremiah 29:1-14 * This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.  2 (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.)  3 He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

It said:  4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.