Counting The Blessing Of Hope

Counting Every Blessing: The Blessing of Hope

Jeremiah 29:1-13 and 1 Peter 1:3-5

We are in part 4 of the series Counting Every Blessing. I have been assigned the Blessing of hope. Hope is a very strange word in the English language because it has so many different levels of confidence attached to it. If you went to work this past week and you said, “I hope to get paid on Friday”, that is a different kind of hope than if you don’t have a job, and you said, “I hope to get paid on Friday.”

If you are hoping your social security check will arrive a day early next month, that is a different kind of hope than hoping that the Cleveland Browns will win the superbowl this season.

Part of what makes hope either something very strong or something very weak is what is the hope connected to. What is the basis for the hope? Some hope is nothing more than wishful thinking. I know a guy who is 61 and hopes to be a millionaire when he’s 66 so he can comfortably retire. Yet his skills, his education, and his work history is very limited. Some hope is grounded in fantasy. Some hope is grounded in reality. Some hope is grounded in something stronger than reality and that’s when the hope is grounded in God. When God gives a promise, our hope in the promise is ultimately our hope in God.

Before he died, Jesus told his disciples, I will be killed and on the third day, I will rise from the dead. The disciples hoped Jesus was wrong about what he said. They hoped he was wrong about dying, and at first they did not believe that he had risen from the dead. But if they had put their hope in his promise to rise from the dead, they would have spared themselves a lot of grief. Their faith would not have been shattered by the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.

One mistake constantly made by believers is grabbing a verse or a promise from the Word of God, taking it out of its context, and making it say something that that really misses the point. Many of us know the verse from Jeremiah , 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. But there was some background work that had to be done before that verse would operate in the lives of the people to whom it had been given.

Supposed you made a promise to pay two teenagers, Sam and Rayshon $200 to rake up the leaves in your yard if it was done by 3:00. You gave them the rakes, the bags, and everything else needed to do the job. At 3:00, they rang the door bell to get paid. You look out and see not a leaf has been raked up and not a bag is full. How many of you are going to pay them the $200 because its 3:00 and you made a promise?

To understand the meaning of Jeremiah 29:11, you need to know its history. Jeremiah had been preaching to people for years that they needed to repent from their evil ways and turn back to God, otherwise God’s judgment was going to come and the Babylonians would take them out of their country. They told Jeremiah to shut up, they didn’t want to hear it from the King of Judah on down to the person in the streets. The false prophets told the people Jeremiah was lying. All that he saying was fake news.

Well the Babylonians did come and capture the king of Judah, his family, all the skilled workers, the rich, the important religious leaders, and anybody who was somebody and took them away to Babylon. That’s how Daniel, Shadrack, Meshak, Abednego, Mordecai and Esther all left the country and ended up in Babylon and Persia. None of them wanted to leave their native land in Judah.

They were terrified of the future at the hands of their captors. People who were left behind cried for them because they knew they would probably never see them again. They knew some would end up as slaves. Others could not believe that God would allow this to happen. Jeremiah had been telling them this for years, but no one wanted to listen.

King Nebuchadnezzar took the king of Judah’s uncle, Zedekiah, and made up the new king over God’s people. Nebuchadnezzar did not take Jeremiah to Babylon. But within a few years, the new king Zedekiah also quickly turned away from God.

Jeremiah started prophesying that God was going to send Nebuchadnezzar back to destroy all the nations in the area. False prophets rose up with good news for those who were in exile.