Turn To God When You Feel Alone
Jeremiah 29:4-14
Introduction
The holiday season is one that is filled with family, gatherings, food, and friends. It is also a time when loneliness is accentuated and often experienced. It could be the loss of a loved one or just the struggles of life that weigh us down. We feel like we should be happier - but it isn’t always so. Turn to God when you feel alone.
Jeremiah 29 is not centered around a holiday season, it is a message for everyone who understands what it means to feel alone. God allowed his people to be taken into exile by Babylonians. This painful experience was brought about after many warnings, Israel’s continued idolatry and abandonment of God.
Eugene Peterson: “Israel was taken into exile in 587 B.C. The people were uprooted from the place in which they were born. The land that had been promised to them, which they had possessed, was gone. They were forced to travel across the Middle Eastern desert seven hundred miles, leaving home, temple, and hills. In the new land, Babylon, customs were strange, the language incomprehensible, and the landscape oddly flat and featureless. All the familiar landmarks were gone” (p. 147).
Helpless and hopeless, they raise their lament…
“By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willow there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” Ow could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:1-4)
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like an exile … disappointed, life falling apart with no assurance it would get better, hope growing dim… Turn to God when you feel alone. Jeremiah’s message offers us truth and strength for the days ahead.
1. Engage in the Life Around You
Jeremiah 29:4-6 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “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, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.
This is amazing and unexpected advice - the ‘false prophets’ were saying that the exile wouldn’t be long - just hang on. Jeremiah’s message is: put down roots, it’s going to be a while - your life matters right now, not just in the future. Peterson: “Your life right now is every bit as valuable as it was when you were in Jerusalem, and every bit as valuable as it will be when you get back to Jerusalem. Babylonian exile is not your choice, but it is what you are given. Build a Babylonian house and live in it as well as you are able.”
We are not always able to wait until times are better to experience hope again. We turn to God by living in the moment - and avoiding isolation. The Scriptures teach us to focus on “Today”. \
Matthew 6:11 “Give us today our daily bread”
Psalm 118:24 “…Let us rejoice today and be glad.”
Today - engage in the life around you and find what blessing God has for you.
2. Pray for The World Around You
Jeremiah 29:7 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.
Again - unexpected advice - praying for their captors? For those who had deported them to Babylon? It would have been easy for them to just focus on self- to be introspective and be sad about their circumstances. That’s a place we can visit, but not live. It robs us of the very job that God gave us. Lament is a viable form of prayer and relation to God and the World, but this encouraged them to look beyond themselves. Why pray for the world around us - even when there are things about it that cause us pain and make us unhappy.
-Ask God to be at work in the world, He hears those prayers
-When things go well in the world around us, we experience prosperity along with it.
-By praying for the world around us, we have opportunity to help show the world the glory of God.
We are here in this place and time to seek the welfare of others in our parish. Are we making it a better place? Are we praying for our parish? Doesn’t this prayer extend to our nation and world?
3. Focus on God’s Truth
Jeremiah 29:8-9 Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.
There were false prophets who were downplaying the exile and saying it wouldn’t last long. This might be the message they wanted to hear, but it wasn’t coming from God. It’s easy to just focus in on the messages we want to hear. But we all need to be corrected by God at times. Beware of thoughts that poison your thinking. The enemy is an accuser. Confront them and reject them.
Fill your mind up with truth from the Word! There is nothing more powerful than a Word from The Lord when we feel discouraged and alone.
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
4. Remember God’s Good Promises
Jeremiah 29:10-11This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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.
The truth is that it would be 70 years - many of the people reading this letter from Jeremiah would not live to see the promises come to pass. But they could raise their children to expect them and be a witness for the Lord during their lives.
Joni Erickson Tada wrote “The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It’s enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrows currently assail us aren’t worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.”
Let each one of God’s promises prompt you to faithfulness and joy in your life. Don’t get distracted by the struggles - answer each one with an assured confident word of hope.
Conclusion:
Call on God and Seek Him With your Whole Heart
Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then you will call on 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.
-This has the sense of ‘with all your will and your energy.’ (Thompson)
-It will take some effort - but when we call on Him and Seek Him with all we have - we will find him.
He promises ‘I will be found’! What a marvelous promise! (vs 14)
This is the peace he promises.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
When you feel alone, turn to God! Whatever ‘exile’ you are in this season, whatever pain or hurt or sorrow you are facing - turn to God!
-Engage in the life around you.
-Pray for the world around you.
-Focus on God’s Truth.
-Remember God’s Promises.
-Seek the Lord and He will be Found!
In this series we have encouraged everyone to Turn to God when we hurt for others, when we need hope, and when we feel alone. Really, we turn to God every day and trust Him for all our needs. If you need to turn to God today to be saved, I encourage you through faith to leave sinful ways behind, be baptized, and embrace the life God is ready to give you…Today.
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Video of this message can be viewed by searching the YouTube channel of Forsythe Church of Christ.
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Discussion Questions
1. Jeremiah writes to exiles ... those in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Why is it important that the exiles establish themselves in Babylon? In what ways can we relate to those exiles? Aside from ourselves, can we think of others who might relate well to those exiles?
2. Read 1 Peter 2:11-12. Why could the early church identify so distinctly with the idea of being in exile? In what ways may Christians feel like exiles today? What ‘good deeds’ can those outside the church witness?
3. Why do the holidays seem to amplify feelings of loneliness? When we feel that God may not be at work in our lives or that he seems to have been absent, what can we do about those feelings?
4. Jeremiah 29:7 instructs God’s people to pray for the welfare of the city. What reason is given for this prayer? How would you word a prayer like that? Here Judah is instructed to pray for people much different in them in ideology and practice and religion. How does that instruct us in prayer?
5. Prayer is a demonstration of having faith in the ever-present God. How can we (as a church) be more intentional about praying during times of anxiety and tumult?”
6. How is Jeremiah 29:11often used today? What is your opinion about the appropriateness of using the passage this way?
7. Read again Jeremiah’s final admonition in this particular text (29:12-14). What does it mean to you to seek God with all your heart? The promises in verse 14 must have been quite a comfort to the exiles. In what ways do they comfort you?
8. What else did you want to talk about today?
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Resources
Gloer, W. Hulitt. Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
Jacks, Derek. The Encounter: Encounter Fall 2021 (Encounter Bible Study) https://a.co/3hSpjeN
Peterson, Eugene H. Run With The Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best. InterVarsity Press, 1983.
Tada, Joni Erickson http://www.joniandfriends.org/radio/4-minute/anniversary-diving-accident/
Thompson, J. A. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Jeremiah. Eerdmans, 1980.
