Bloom Where We Are Planted

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0:00 So good morning again. And as Ben just mentioned, we're going to be talking about the value of life, which is one of the values of the cross Orlando. And last week, we walked through the value of story. And this week we get to double click on life. And we're going to do so by delving into the story of Jeremiah. And before we do that, I like to go to the Lord in prayer and just join me in the Word of Prayer.

0:34 Heavenly Father, your Word is living and active and your Spirit is at work in our lives, in our city, in our world, in ways we can't even imagine. I ask that you quiet our minds, still our hearts, over these next few minutes so that we can hear a word from you to join you, to better join you, and the work that you're doing in the world through the people you've created. So Lord, thank you for your life-giving, life-changing word.

1:06 May it be a lamp unto our feet, light to our path. Would you help me your humble and inadequate servant this morning as our deliverable Word? In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and I spent some of the summers working with my dad who had his own landscaping company, still to us, to this day. And we worked extremely long days, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., 6 days a week.

1:37 And it was working in the summer, outside all day, it was miserable. And as a kid, growing up, you know, 13, 14, 15, you're like, man, what am I doing with my life? Like, who am I? What am I doing? And I remember most, not necessarily the cutting of grass, but just the long rides from house to house traveling with my dad. He would always, that's most dads, dude, they repeat the same thing over and over and over, right?

2:10 So my dad would always say this, bloom where you're planted. Bloom wherever you're planted. So no matter where you are in life, where you're working, find ways to bloom where you're planted. And so today we're going to look at Jeremiah chapter 29, and see God's message to his people to bloom where they are planted. So if you have your word, your Bible with you, today turn with me to Jeremiah 29, and I'll start reading in verse 1.

2:48 And so Jeremiah is a prophet, and he's conveying the words of the lords of the people of Israel. These are the words of the letter of Jeremiah. The prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So the people of Israel have been taken out of their homeland, and they're in exile. They've been taken captive by the Babylonians.

3:21 The skip down to verse 4. And it says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters into marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply their, do not decrease.

3:54 But seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile and prayed to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare. So that's a very popular passage. If you've been around the church for very long, you've heard that passage, and know that story. So what led to the people being taken into captivity? A little bit of background here. The people of Israel were taken into captives into Babylon, which is a city along the Euphrates River in Iraq.

4:26 And Jeremiah explained in earlier chapters why they were taken into captivity. So in chapter 25, we don't have to turn there, but I'll summarize it here. In chapter 25, Jeremiah tells the people, for 23 long years, I've been prophesying to you the works of the Lord. But you have not listened to them nor turned from your evil ways. So the people would hear God's word through Jeremiah the prophet and they wouldn't obey.

4:57 They wouldn't turn from their evil ways. They wouldn't stop doing the things that they were doing and worshiping false idols. And Jeremiah goes on to say, you have neither listened to nor inclined your ears to hear. Although the Lord persistently sent you all his servants to the prophets to say to you, turn now every one of you from his evil way and his evil deeds. Dwell upon the land the Lord has given you and your fathers from old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them or provoke me to anger with the works of your hands.

5:33 That's interesting, right? Which they did. They provoked God to anger with the works of their hands. And as a result, God banished them from the land and allowed them to be captured by the king of Babylon. And they were to be an exile for 70 years. And on top of that, Jerusalem, the city was destroyed. So as I was reading through this, I was putting myself in the place and the shoes of the Israelites who were in captivity.

6:09 And wondering, trying to figure out what were they doing? What were they doing living in this foreign land serving this foreign king? One thing that Jeremiah does point out is that they were listening to false prophets. They listened to false prophets, tell them lies. So they're in captivity for 70 years. Guess what the false prophet, Hana'a, told them. If you have your Bible, flip back a page or two to Jeremiah 28, verse 2.

6:41 This is what Hana'a and I are the false prophet told them. Essentially, the Lord of hosts told me to tell you, he has broken Babylon's hold on us. I'll just read it. It's interesting. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel, says, I will remove the yoke of the king of Babylon from your next. Within two years, I'll bring you back to the temple. I'll bring back all the temple treasures that came Nebuchadnezzar and carried off to Babylon.

7:13 I will bring back Jehoa'kin and Son of Jehoa'kin, King of Judah and all the other captives that were taken to Babylon. So Hana'a was telling the people, I know you're in captivity, but guess what? God told me to tell you, we're going back in two years. Don't worry, he's going to take care of Babylon. He's going to take care of Nebuchadnezzar. We're going back. So when they heard that prophecy, I can imagine what they were saying to themselves,

7:44 why should I lift a finger in this place to do anything other than eat and sleep? Why would I do anything other than that? I mean, we're heading home in two years. Or they were probably saying, hey, this place is going to be destroyed. Why should I even care about taking care of it? These heathens will get what they deserve. Let us just get through this, let's survive. So imagine, you got this message coming from Hana'a, the false prophet,

8:14 which he's bringing words of comfort and hope to the people. I don't know about you, but I can see how easy it is to believe that, right? I've been taken from my home, forced to a foreign country, to serve a foreign king, and a prophet comes and delivers a word of comfort. And not just one prophet, there were numerous prophets saying the same thing, or saying something similar. So it must be true if multiple people are saying the same thing, right?

8:48 Believing those lies led them to despise their situation, and it led them to have certain feelings and emotions about their experience and Babylon, which dictated how they acted or did not act, right? However, the Lord had other plans for the people, and he had one prophet, Jeremiah, to respond to the false prophets giving false hope.

9:20 Jeremiah was the opposite of the other prophets because he brought the Lord's uncomfortable message, as most prophets do. They bring a message mostly not of comfort and joy, right? Most prophets bring the heart truth to the situations that we find ourselves in, or that the Israelites found themselves in. And he brought that message filled with uncomfortable commandments. And he told them to first off, do one thing, stop listening to the false prophets.

9:56 So in chapter 29 verses 8 and 9, Jeremiah kind of said this to the people. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel, says, Do not let your prophets and fortune tellers who are with you in the land of Babylon trick you. Don't listen to their dreams because they are telling you lies in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord.

10:27 So you remember Hanaiah, the false prophet, the lies that he told them, bringing words of comfort in a distressing situation. And I'm sure the people didn't believe Jeremiah because he was bringing words that were not of comfort or hope. I'm sure they thought he must be the one that's the false prophet because everybody else is saying this. He's the only one saying something completely different. So in order to validate Jeremiah's message, or Jeremiah is the prophet to bring the true message

10:57 that God had for his people, something drastic had to be done. Something drastic had to be done. So Jeremiah 28 verses 15 through 17 says this. This is what God did to the prophet Hanaiah. Listen Hanaiah, the Lord has not sent you is what Jeremiah told him. And you have made the people trust a lie.

11:27 Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have utter rebellion against the Lord. In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hanaiah died. Something drastic happened, right? So if you're the people of Israel and you got word that Hanaiah just dropped dead and is no longer on the face of the earth because Jeremiah said that he was a false prophet,

11:58 I think I'll be believing Jeremiah moving forward, right? I think they would listen to him from then on, but if you keep reading the book of Jeremiah, you'll see that they didn't. They didn't learn to listen. So what was the true message that God wanted to bring the Israelites who were in captivity? I want to go back to the first passage we looked at, 29, Jeremiah 29, verse 4.

12:28 And God called, he told Jeremiah to tell the people to do several things, to, he gave them actions, gave them things to do, plant gardens and eat the produce. Take wives, have kids, take wives and give your daughters into marriage. Wasphere your sons and daughters into marriage. Multiply, don't decrease. Seek the welfare of the city and pray for the city on my behalf, for in its welfare you will find its welfare.

13:02 So doing this required people to bring the best of who they were and what they had to offer in life to the city of Babylon, to the people to serve the king of Babylon. So I want to pivot here and look at us. We'll put a pin in that store, we'll come back to it in a second, but what lies do we believe? What lies do we believe that keep us from bringing the best parts of ourselves to engage the people

13:36 and the structures of our city in a way that brings about flourishing? What lies do we believe? Maybe it's the lie that I'm worthless. I don't have anything worthwhile to offer, that voice of shame. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's the lie that this city and the people here are hopeless and not worth wasting my time, my energy and my resources on. Maybe it's fear. What are the lies that we believe that keep us from bringing the best of who we are

14:11 to our city, to our community, to our relationships so that thriving and flourishing can take place? So the lies we believe lead to emotions that in turn drive our activity or our inactivity as we saw with the Israelites. So what can we do about that? What can we do about the lies that we may believe that keep us paralyzed?

14:44 One thing I think we can do, I know we can do, is believe the truth, hold on to the truth, be reminded of the truth that can move us to live the kind of life that God called us to live. Hold on to the truth that can help us bloom where we're planted. I enjoy listening to and reading books by a good friend Andy Crouch. He works with an organization called Praxis, which is a, the work that they do is like a creative engine that inspires

15:22 redemptive entrepreneurship in the marketplace. So they work with entrepreneurs to bring the best of who they are into the marketplace for the flourishing of all. And Andy talks about blooming in this way. He uses the phrase good work. We're called to good work. What does that mean? What does he mean by good work? And he defines it as the fruitful transformation of creation.

15:52 The fruitful transformation of creation. We're all created in the image of God, right? Which means that we have characteristics and traits of God deep within us. And it's our job and it's a wonderful job to explore who God made us so that we can put those gifts and abilities and internal resources into the work of fruitful creation.

16:24 And as Andy says, when we do that, that is good work. And that good work leads to good rest. That good work, when we take the best of who we are, the image of God as within us, we identify what that looks like, the characteristics of God that is in us. We take that to the marketplace, whether it's our vocation, whether it's where we volunteer, whether we're raising our families, we're bringing the best of who we are to whatever situation we find ourselves in.

16:57 That's good work. And that leads to good rest. And Andy defines good rest as the fruitful contemplation of fruitful work done. The fruitful contemplation of fruitful work that we get to do. We can rest well knowing that the work we did on any given day gave us the opportunity to use our gifts, our abilities, our talents, our resources, our relationships even

17:31 to bloom where we're planted. Blooming, when we bloom where we're planted, I believe that it inspires other people around us to want to do the same. It's contagious. When you see someone next to you doing well at whether it's, you know, playing a sport and you see a teammate doing their best, it kind of makes you want to step up and do your best. When you see a co-worker knocking it out of the park, kind of makes you want to step up your game, and you can bloom as well where you're planted.

18:06 So blooming where we're planted is the good work we get to do. What's the opposite of good work you may ask? The opposite of good work is anxious toil. Anxious toil. What does that mean? Andy defines it as excessive and endless fruitless labor that brings about no satisfaction. I don't know about you guys, but I worked a couple of jobs where it was fruitless labor, anxious toil.

18:41 I worked at an auto zone one year in college, and we were remodeling the auto zone moving shelves. Had to wake up, be there at 5 a.m. fruitless labor. And that toil, that word toil, if you remember, it goes back to the very beginning of the fall. When Adam and Eve sinned, the curse is that we would toil and the soil.

19:16 Like the soil won't be as fruitful. We have to work extra hard. And that toil leads to exhaustion, right? Despair. You get home from work, hadn't done anything worthwhile, and you're like, man, why do I do this to myself? And so it leads us to look for something, right? It leads us to look for leisure. We work day in and day out without purpose and satisfaction or joy.

19:46 It makes us find ways to enjoy. I need to find something to kind of enjoy myself. I'm going to work hard so I can play hard, right? Which leads to the opposite of good rest, which is fruitless leisure. Fruitless leisure. And that's defined as the fruitless escape from fruitless disappointing labor. So this led me to question, what do I do? What have I done to escape work when it's not satisfying, when I'm not using the best of who I am?

20:26 I'm not bringing that to the place where I work or to the place where I go to school or what have you. What do I do? What have I done? In the past, it looked like waking up on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. watching college game day, watching 11 o'clock, watching the 3-30 game, watching the 7 o'clock game, and then watching some of the West Coast football games that come on ESPN at 10-30 at night. That, oh, and I forgot Sunday morning after church, of course. Watch all the football games, NFL games on Sunday while embodying a couple of good drinks along the way.

21:03 Or several. That's that escape. Or maybe it looks like this for some of us, scrolling on Snapchat, Snapchat endlessly or Instagram or for us old folks, Facebook. Maybe it looks like you could fill in the blank, right? What do we do to leisurely escape the good work or the anxious toil that we find ourselves in sometimes?

21:37 So I want to go back to Jeremiah here. And Jeremiah, he called the people of Israel in captivity, and he's calling us to bloom where we're planted, bring the best of who we are, to do good work that leads to good rest. Sabbath rest, right? So as I close here, I think about the value of life. The value that we have here at the cross of life.

22:11 And I'm reminded of the words that Jesus said in John 10-10. He said, this, the thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. I came that they, you and me, may have life and have it abundantly. That's what he came to do. So we can have the abundant life, whether that's, and what that looks like is bringing the best of who we are to whatever situation that we're called to.

22:41 And Jesus calls us to a rich, full, joyful, joyful life overflowing with meaningful activities, meaningful work done under the personal favor and blessing of God. Meaningful work done under the favor and blessing of God. Ben often talks about how living under the reign of God will, will look a certain way. We will look a certain way.

23:11 Living under the reign of God opens us up to experience life and all its fullness. As we pray for and actively work towards the flourishing of our community, the city of Orlando, where we call home, our state, our nation. Living under the reign of God allows us to bloom where we're planted. Living under the reign of God allows us to bloom where he's planted us.

23:41 Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your good word to us. Thank you for the life that you've given us and called us to. And thank you for Jesus who through his sacrificial death and resurrection and him imparting his spirit on us, we get to do good works and enjoy good Sabbath rest.

24:16 And even we live in this world filled with thorns and thistles. Give us wisdom. Give us discernment and faith to find the corner of the world where you want us to serve and work and use our gifts and our abilities to bring about chaos that we find ourselves in or bring about or actually join you in making all things new. What I pray that Orlando will be a different place because this small group of humble, compassionate, courageous people bloomed where we planted.

24:56 Thank you for your good word to us, may it be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. This day we pray. In your name, Lord Jesus, amen.