Today is the Day to Stop Waiting and Start Living

Living in exile.  Life isn’t what it was supposed to be.  Apart from the ones you love.  Though you live here, your heart is somewhere else.  Life is hard, and you’ve found yourself waiting.  Still waiting.  It feels like you are living in exile.  This isn’t how you’d envisioned that your life would turn out.  Life is hard in exile, no matter how things got that way.  It’s even harder when you know things aren’t right.  This was the story for God’s people. 

God’s original plan was that God would live face-to-face with his people, in perfect unity and community.  But once Adam and Eve sinned, that ruined this plan, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden.  Then God said he would bless all people on earth through Abraham. God told him “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)  But the people of Israel didn’t live out their part of the covenant.  One of the most depressing books I’ve ever read is Judges; it details the people of Israel’s failures to follow Him, again and again.  In fact, when you read the Old Testament, you will see the same pattern repeated time and again.  God’s people are living in prosperity, and they take their eyes off Him.  Then their enemies overrun them and they finally turn back to God.  Eventually their enemies overrun them to the point where they carry them off into exile.

This is the context of Jeremiah 29.  In verse 1, we read that Nebuchadnezzar had carried the people of Judah into exile, but in verse 4, it says that God did it.  Which was it? Who took Judah into exile?  Was it God’s way of punishing the disobedience of his people, or was it the act of an outsider who came to conquer?  The short answer is “yes.” Both things are true.  God’s people were disobedient and had broken their covenant with God.   Meanwhile, King Nebuchadnezzar was out to take their land.  Here’s the thing: there are times when we are in exile, but no matter how you got there, God isn’t surprised, and God hasn’t abandoned you there.

The key to living in exile is to walk in obedience to God, no matter the circumstances.  Judah’s exile had everything to do with their disobedience, and for them, exile was their discipline.  They had to learn to depend on the LORD, to love Him, to love justice, to walk in obedience. If your disobedience has led you into exile, you’re going to have to walk the road of repentance and transformation. 

Often the exile we find ourselves in isn’t about disobedience; it’s more about the circumstances we find ourselves living through in this fallen world.  Life can be extremely hard, but Jeremiah had some interesting advice.  He told the people of Judah who were living in Babylonian exile to build houses, settle down, and live life.  This might seem impossible; you resent where you are with every fiber of your being (whether the “where” is a place or a circumstance). You resent cancer.  You resent loneliness. You resent having to take care of your aging parents. You resent having things not be what you wanted or what you asked for.  You resent failure.  You resent not seeing answers to your prayers. You even resent the resentful feelings you have. 

You now have a choice in how to respond.  I have been enjoying watching college football bowl games, but one thing bugs me.  If you watch football, you’ll recognize this: it’s fourth down, and the announcer says, “Now they’re forced to punt.” Really, they’re not forced to punt.  They can go for it.  They can try again.  Likewise with all of us who are suffering through exile.  We can choose our attitude!  I remember “suffering” through a horribly boring concert at a youth convention in high school.  After sitting around for a while, complaining about how awful it was, my friend and I had an idea.  We made our way down to the front and began dancing.  We were the only ones down in front.  But shortly we looked around and saw that not only had many more kids come down front, but a majority of those in the stands were echoing our silly dances.  We chose to have fun.  Though my sister was horrified, everyone else had a blast.  And it was because we chose our attitude.

1 Peter 2:9-12 But you are a  chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.  Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Live good lives among the pagans.  Meaning, don’t just take on their lifestyle.  Just because you’re in a small town, you don’t have to gossip about your neighbors.  Or just because you’re in a suburb doesn’t mean you can be isolated from your neighbors.  Or just because you’re in a city doesn’t mean you can ignore your neighbors.  Live such a good life that the people around you see that there’s something different, something right, something good about you.  

Often when we’re in exile, the natural temptation is to put life on hold.  Life isn’t going anything like you’d planned…  maybe after you move, things will be OK. Maybe when you’re finished with your treatment plan, or when you’ve earned enough money to get you back on track, so you pull back from your activities and friends.  You’ll just wait until you’re back from exile.  Then you’ll get back to life.

This isn’t how God told us to deal with living in exile.  Listen to the words he told Jeremiah to pass on: build houses and settle down.  Plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage.  In other words, make yourself comfortable.  You’re going to be in exile for the next 70 years.

I’m sure this isn’t what Jeremiah’s audience wanted to hear.  We’d like to hear that things will turn around now.  The cancer will disappear.  You’ll get that miracle job tomorrow.  You’ll come home to find a voice mail message from your estranged loved one, saying “I’m coming home.” Quite honestly, we want to believe that bad things don’t happen to good people like us. Yet we find ourselves in exile, suffering through tough times, and the Bible just doesn’t support a theology that says that as long as we pray hard enough and believe enough, only good things will happen to us.  Quite the contrary, the book of Jeremiah tells us something else. 

One thing God is telling all of us through this passage is something you’ve heard frequently if you’ve taken The Progress of Redemption class: God is not in a hurry.  For the exiles in Babylon, the wait was going to be 70 years.  Yet sometimes we get up in God’s face and say, “I’ve been praying about this for three days, and you still haven’t answered.  You must not love me.”   That just seems awfully presumptuous.  It’s a matter of not knowing the scriptures and then passing judgment on God based on that lack of knowledge.

In fact, in Hebrews 11, we read what is often called the Faith Hall of Fame, of the heroes of the Bible.  Then get this: 11:13-16: All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.  And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

All of the heroes of faith in the Bible fall into this category. They didn’t see the fulfillment of their hope; they lived life as aliens and strangers.  How are aliens and strangers supposed to live?  Not just live out life, but be a blessing to the people who you live among.  Jeremiah 29:7 says Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

Don’t just live life, but serve the people where you are. Look around.  There are hurting people around you who actually need you.  You might be thinking, “I’m so messed up; what do I have to offer?” You have yourself.  God has shaped you to be in community, to encourage, uplift and support others.  This doesn’t just mean serving people in the church.  In fact, it means the opposite.  It means serving people outside the church.  This isn’t optional.  The reason for this is two-fold.  When we serve the people around us, we are living out our side of God’s covenant with Abraham.  Remember that?  As God’s people, we are to be a blessing; all the earth will be blessed through [us].  But when we serve others, we are demonstrating our love for Jesus.  Jesus tells his followers that whenever we give food to the hungry, give water to the thirsty, invite the stranger in, give clothes to the needy, visit the sick or imprisoned, we do it to Him.  This is how to live out your time in exile.  Serving others.  Think of every detail of every task you have, and do it as if you are doing it specifically for the LORD.  Maybe you are just doing menial chores.  Think of them as for Jesus.

It is hard; I don’t want to minimize your difficulty.  I’ve been there. I’ve lived in exile.  As you depend more and more on Jesus, realize and recognize that you can trust God with your future. When I graduated from seminary, a friend gave me a mug with Jeremiah 29:11 on it. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Understand that God’s plans aren’t always our plans; God always has a plan, and it doesn’t always look like our plans.  We’ve often got to go through our struggles and exiles to prepare us for what God has in store for us.

Andrew’s favorite Bible story is David and Goliath.  I love that story of the underdog defeating the giant.  To an outsider it would look like he didn’t have a chance.  But David was prepared.  How had God prepared him?  In 1 Samuel 17, David told King Saul that he would go and fight Goliath.  Saul replied, “You are not able to go against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.” But David said to Saul, Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep.  When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.  When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.  The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. (1 Samuel 17:33-37a)

David would never have faced Goliath if he hadn’t first faced the lion and the bear.  Perhaps God is preparing you for something bigger, something better.  Maybe he is preparing you to help countless others. 

In the meantime, and this is most important, Jeremiah says to seek God.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

This verse is a reminder that the object of our seeking is not the blessing, the reward, or even the strength to get through the exile.  The object of our seeking is God Himself!  And these verses promise us that if we seek God, we will find God.  Exile is a time of learning more about yourself.  When everything else is stripped away, when your job, your health, your looks, your athletic ability, your money, your family are no longer your identity, what you have left is your true character.  This is one of the greatest gifts of being in exile; when everything else is stripped away, we will realize that God Himself is enough.

It’s easy for me to tell you from the pulpit “depend on God for everything” but it’s not easy at all to live it out.  And you’ll never live that out when you have so much other stuff to depend on.  If you are wealthy, you will more likely depend on your money rather than on God.  If you have lots of friends, you will more likely depend on them for support and encouragement rather than on God.  If you are in a happy marriage, you will more likely depend on your spouse for love and intimacy rather than on God.  Exile can help you to find that Jesus really is enough.  Enough for everything. 

I know some of you are living in exile.  I don’t know what your exile is, or how long you’ll be in exile, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that God has not abandoned you in your exile.  In fact, God has a plan for you, even in the midst of your suffering.  So no matter what kind of exile you are in, today is the day to stop waiting passively for God to deliver you from exile.  Today is the day to start living, to choose to obey God’s voice while you are waiting, to repent and do what God is calling you to do.  To serve others around you, and to seek God and to worship Him, trusting Him with everything, to trust Him with your future… and your present.