Zoom Out, Hope Is Bigger Than You Think - Louie Giglio

0:17 This collection is called The One Thing and the subtitle of it is Heading into an Uncertain Year with an Unshakable Hope. And that message that Pastor Grant gave last week, just brilliant and so inspiring, kicking this collection off and that subtitle has come true for us already. It already is an uncertain year. It started that way on New Year's Eve morning in New Orleans, Louisiana. And it's been that way all the way through January so far. The year is uncertain, ours collectively and yours. But yet underneath all of that is an unshakable hope. And that's what we want to focus on in this journey together. And this message today is taking us to what I believe could be the epicenter of encouragement around hope. If there ever was a word of hope for our lives, it's found in the prophet Jeremiah from 600 BC. And the verse in Jeremiah is probably well known to everybody in the house today. It might be your life verse, Jeremiah 29, 11. Amen? Anybody? Hello? Got it crocheted on a pillow somewhere at the house or a screensaver on your phone. It says, 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 a hope, there's our word, and a future. That this word and the original language has got such a big idea when it comes down to hope and a future that what it's trying to convey needs these two words, hope and future, all conveying one thing, and it's a hopeful ending, that God's plan is to bring your life ultimately, no matter what you go through, to a hopeful ending. And what I love, and I hope that

2:30 you'll stay with me in this, is that most of us take this text and we go, wow, I must be the you in this verse. And so I'm going to make this my life verse. I'm going to park here, believe this for my life. But what I want us to do today is I want us to zoom out from this verse. And like a lot of things in faith, we come to God's word and we find that one thing that we really love. And we kind of circle the one thing that we're really all about. And we're like, that's for me right there. But we don't really take the time to understand what is God talking about here? What's the context of what God is saying? Because if you don't understand the context, you're never really going to get the fullness of the text. And so with this verse, like a lot of verses, we grab the verse and we say, wow, this is me for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. But what I want us to do today is I want us to zoom out a little bit because when you zoom out from verse 11 and understand the context that it sits in, it even gets more powerful than it is by itself. You're like, this couldn't be more powerful than it is by itself. This is, I've been hanging onto this through this hard season I've been going through.

3:45 I've been hanging onto this in this dark journey that I'm in right now. How can it be more powerful? We're going to see that when we widen our lens out and see what is going on in Jeremiah 29, that verse 11 would be sitting in the midst of it. And the first thing that you have to see when you zoom out is that the you here is not singular. It's plural. And please, please don't leave me here, okay? Stay with me. It's going to be good all the way to the very end. But when you zoom out, what you realize is this verse isn't spoken directly and individually to you. It's spoken to the people of God in a particular moment in time. And what we would love to do is just say, no, that's my verse, but it's not just your verse. It's a verse for the people of God who were in a big predicament in this moment, and they needed this promise of hope from God. Now, we can apply it to our lives, but it will help us if we look wider to see what the context is. That's why the title of this talk is Zoom Out. The hope is bigger than you think. And we see the context when we look at Jeremiah 29. A letter to the exiles. That's what we find when we zoom out. 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 that Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. And so what's happening here is that the you that are in this promise were God's people from Judah. And they had been disobedient and disinterested in the things of God. They didn't have time for God or for his house

5:51 or for his ways, but he still loved them. He still had a purpose and a plan for their lives, but now they've ended up being carried away by a foreign ruler into a foreign land to a foreign city and cities. So disobedient, disinterested, but now they're displaced, they're captive, they're embarrassed, they're disheartened, and they're in exile now so that they can think about who they are and think about the condition of their hearts. Has anybody ever been in that place before where you weren't interested in God's way, so you ended up in another place so while you were in that place, you could take stock of your life and take stock of who you are and where you are and what your heart's condition is, and that's where they were. They were in exile, most of them, because they insisted on doing it their way.

6:48 Now, that wasn't all of them. Daniel was in exile in Babylon also. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in exile also. They weren't there because they were disinterested in God. They were there as the consequence of their people who were disinterested in God. But God ultimately gave them their own way. We started the year with this online collection, and I talked about Psalm 81, verse 10, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt. See, in this case, the sovereign God's bringing them out of a ruler. In Jeremiah, sovereign God is sending them into a ruler. We see already the footnote today is there's a sovereign God in our story. And so he says, open wide your mouth and I will fill it. What a promise for this year for our lives. But look how fast things change. Verse 11, but my people, so I'm offering to fill their lives with what is good. That's the implication here. I'll fill it with what is good. But my people would not listen to me. Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

8:04 wow there can't be more intense words than these I gave them over it reminds me of what we say often one of the scariest realities in life is that if you insist God will let you do it your own way and that's where they were. And I don't know who this message is for today. It could be that you're already dialed in and going, I have made some bad decisions. I have been disinterested in the ways of God. I have insisted on doing it my own way, and now I am in a place where it feels like exile. Or maybe you're in some exile because of somebody else's choices or someone else's decisions have put you in that place.

9:02 And maybe for you, exile looks like a fractured relationship or fractured relationships because of your actions. Maybe exile to you looks like someone made a decision and as a result of it, it made you an ex. Maybe exile for you is that for some reasons, you're estranged from your family. Maybe you're in the midst of a devastating harvest because of the terrible seeds that you planted, and now the fruit is coming to bear. Maybe exile for you just looks like a barren land. Maybe exile looks like you being miles away from everything you know and everything you love. Maybe exile for you looks like outward prospering, but inward wanting and wasting away. Maybe exile for you looks like walls of addiction that have you bound.

10:06 Maybe exile looks like everything you've worked for being stripped away from you. If that's you, same as the recipients of Jeremiah's letter, there is a promise and a hope for you today, even in exile. Five things that come out when we zoom out. Number one, God's plans for your life are better than your plans for your life. I love the way he says this. I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. I know the plans that I have for you. I know that you have plans, and God knows that you have plans, and it's okay that you have plans, but God also has plans. And I'm telling you right now, you should not fear God's plans, because His plans for your life are better than your plans for your life. I mean, I'm 66 years old.

11:04 If you dial back to 17 years old, Campbell High School in Smyrna, Georgia, and rolled up and said, hey, Louie, what are your plans for your life? Well, I had some, but this wasn't in any of them. It wasn't that they were bad. They just were way different than this. And what I've learned in my life is that God always has better plans for me. And even if you're in exile, like they were in this moment, because now we've zoomed out and we understand that when God made this phenomenal promise to them, they weren't having their best day. They weren't living their best life. They're in Babylon. They're in exile. They have been carried away from their home, from their business, in some cases from their extended family. And now they're in a foreign land, but God still has plans for them, even in the foreign land.

12:01 And if you are in exile today, you need to know that God's thinking about you right now. No matter how far away you are, he could have easily written them off, but he wanted to bring them back. But to bring them back, he had to send them out. And you might be where you are right now because God sent you there. But he didn't send you there to leave you there. He sent you there so that he could bring you back restored to the fullness of your potential in him. You know, it's interesting in this text, when you open up in this first verse we read, it says this letter is to those among the exiles and the other people that Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. But you don't have to go very far in the text to understand that really God is at work. Verse four, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Same thing when you look down in verse 14, same thing in verse 20, all the way down through Jeremiah 29, God, after saying Nebuchadnezzar carried them starting, then everywhere else he says, I carried him. So who carried him? Did Nebuchadnezzar carry him or did God carry him? Yes, both. God, sovereign God, is moving this powerful ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, to accomplish his good plans for his people. His plans are always good. We saw this when we were studying Romans chapter 8, and we know that in all things, even in exile, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. His plans are good plans. The place you're in right now might not be good. Amen? But the plans of God for your life are good.

14:05 The second thing we see when we zoom out is that God is faithful to keep his promise to you. He is going to keep his promise. Verse 10, this is what the Lord says. When 70 years, we've got to remember that, are complete or completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill.

14:29 Let's get rid of that. I'll come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. There is a sovereign God in your story. And there is a sovereign God who is in charge of your destiny. Even in exile. Just a little wider, if we can just zoom out real wide for a second. in 669 the ruler of the Assyrian empire I know most people this is what you came for today you were praying and hoping this morning the ruler of the Assyrian empire Ersher Haddon he died and he had built the Assyrian empire to great strength in 669 BC his son Ashurbanipal became the ruler when he died his brother had been given some territories to rule over but Ashurbanipal became the ruler of Assyria and the Assyrian empire.

15:28 And he ruled from a city called Nineveh. Have you ever heard of that city before? It's a city that God 100 years before Asher Ben-Apal had sent Jonah to that city to preach repentance and salvation. So Nineveh was on God's heart. But Asher Ben-Apal, he becomes the ruler. He rules from Nineveh. His brother over here decides he wants to start taking territories and rule. and he ends up taking Babylon. And so Ashurbanipal goes to Babylon and for four years sieges the city of Babylon until in the year 648, Babylon fell to Assyrian control again. But eventually Ashurbanipal died in 631 and the Babylonians and the Medes, they banded together and strengthened an alliance and they began to take lands again in that area and in that region.

16:24 The leader of Babylon, the Babylonians at that time, was a ruler named Nabal-Palasser. And Nabal-Palasser was a very smart person, and he forged this alliance with the Medes by having the daughter of the ruler of the Medes marry his son, whose name was Nebuchadnezzar. And they began together to take cities of their own. And so they began conquering city here, in a city there. And eventually, they took a lot of the cities. And in 612, they took Nineveh, and Nineveh fell. And then in 605, at the consequential battle of Karshemesh, which I'm sure we were all very familiar with, the Assyrian Empire fell.

17:12 Nabal-Pilassar wasn't leading the troops that day because of an illness. his son was leading the troops that day. His name was Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar died that same year. In 605, Nebuchadnezzar became the ruler of what now was the mightiest of empires, the Babylonian Empire. And it began to spread. They took more and more territory. And eventually, they ended up taking not only what they already had, but they ended up taking this region all along the Mediterranean, in the midst of which was the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah and Jerusalem. immediately they began to siege Jerusalem. This happened right away in 605.

18:05 In 597, another siege occurred, and 7,000 to 10,000 captives were taken from Jerusalem into Babylon. Again, in 587, they ransacked the city and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and more captives were led into exile in 587. Nebuchadnezzar died in Babylon in 562. And in 539, Cyrus the Great, who is the ruler of the Persian Empire over here,

18:42 he overthrew the great city of Babylon. He came in while they were having a big feast in Babylon and the people were distracted by the festivities and he diverted the water in the Euphrates River. His armies crossed the river, went into Babylon, and sacked Babylon, and the Babylonian Empire came down in 539 because of Cyrus the Great. He called himself, as he expanded this kingdom even more, he called himself the king of the world. But he wasn't the king of the world because there was a sovereign God controlling the events of history and he didn't understand or know it, but we do because of Isaiah 46. Remember this, keep it in mind. Take it to heart, you rebels. So we've got a theme going here. Remember the former things, those of long ago.

19:34 I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. And here's what I please right now. From the east, I summon a bird of prey from a far off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. From the east, right? I'm summoning a bird of prey. Where is the east? Over here. So I'm calling someone from the east. And he is a man who is going to fulfill my purpose. What I've said, that will I bring about. What I plan, that I will do. Listen to me, you stubborn hearted, you who are now far off from my righteousness. I'm bringing my righteousness near.

20:30 It is not far away. And my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel. So in 539, God says, it's time to bring them back. I sent them out. And when I sent them out, it was for 70 years. Why the 70 years? Because I wanted to restore the house of God. I wanted to restore the hearts of people. I wanted a new generation to rise up who will love my word and love me. And I wanted them to understand who they were and to remember, wait a minute, we're not supposed to be out here in this foreign land. we're God's people. But now I've done the work that I wanted to do and it's time to bring them back. So how am I going to bring them back from the Babylonian empire? I'm going to get Cyrus the great who thinks he's king of the world. And he's going to come in 539 and he's going to take down the Babylonian empire. And one of the very first things he's going to do in 538 is he's going to pronounce a decree that all of the exiles can return home to Jerusalem.

21:35 And they began that process over time of the return. Just a small footnote, Cyrus the Great died in 530, and the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 331. God is still on his throne. I need to get these people into exile. Thank you very much. Move some pieces around. And now I need to get them home. Thank you very much. I'm going to move some pieces around. And you need to remember that in exile. You need to remember that when it looks like everything is lost. And I'm not going to try to make chess moves here. so if you're a chess master, don't rewind this and pause it and send something into my feed. I don't need it. But you just need to remember that if you're in a position where it looks like somebody else is pulling all the strings and things are happening that you don't have control over, you just need to remember that God is the one who is sovereign in time. And he's like, Navel Pilaster, I need you.

22:52 Thank you very much. That's about what you get. That's beautiful. Asher Benapol, you can get over to here. I need Nebuchadnezzar to move here. I need Cyrus the Great to move here because I have a plan for my people. And I am gonna move whatever pieces it takes wherever I need to move them to do whatever I need to do until I can say, checkmate, actually, I'm in charge of history. I'm in charge of rulers. I raise up kings, and I put them down. I raise up nations, and I put them down. I raise up rulers, and I put them down. I'm the God of history, and I'm the God of your story, and I've got plans for you. And you can believe that I'm going to be faithful to keep my promise to you. I will move empires.

23:47 to keep my promise to you. The third thing we see when we zoom out is that you gotta be wary of false voices when you're in exile. When you're in exile, everybody's got an opinion. But the scariest opinion of all when you're in exile is the person who says, the Lord told me to tell you this. In fact, that might be the scariest person, period. And I'm not saying that you don't want to open your life up to your close friends, people in your circle, to say, hey, I've been praying about this and I feel like I'm supposed to share this with you, or I've been praying about this and I feel like I need to bring this up and bring this to light. I've been praying about this and I have a word for you. But anybody in your life that starts with, hey, the Lord told me to tell you this, I usually go, help me, Lord.

24:39 Not because of what they're about to say, just because I don't like people speaking over me, stuff like that. I think and it's just a small me thing and you can do it however you want to do it I think just a small another message for another day is it is no harm in saying I don't know for sure but I think the Lord has really laid this on my heart and if he has and it's real then it's going to land but when you're coming in when the Lord told me to tell you this I'm all I'm already like I've already got the Lord telling me all this You're like, well, how do we see this when we zoom out? Well, when we zoom out, right down in the first part of this text, in verse 4 and down, he's going to tell them what they need to do. But then he comes down to verse 8, and he said, yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says.

25:36 And what has he said? He said, you're going to be there 70 years in Babylon. on. And then he says, do not let the prophets or the 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. That's what you need to be thinking the next time somebody says, the Lord told me to tell you this. You need to be going, Lord, did you send them? In the chapter before, this is Jeremiah 29 and chapter 28, there was a prophet named Hananiah, and he didn't like the 70-year prophecy. And so he says, in fact, I'll just let you see what he said. It'd be more powerful if you just hear it coming right out of his mouth. You need to be able to identify this. This is what Hananiah says in Jeremiah 28, verse 2.

26:31 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says. Wow, that's powerful. I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years, I will bring back to this place all the articles of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, removed from here and took to Babylon. I will also bring back to this place Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the other exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. and Jeremiah said no that's not the way it's going to go down and Jeremiah had made this yoke and was wearing it around while he was preaching this message about the 70 years and the promise of God and the hope in the future and Hananiah took the yoke and broke it as a way of saying God is going to break the yoke on Babylon and in two years everybody's going to be home and Jeremiah saying no the 70 years has a purpose the 70 years is God's timeline the 70 years is the work of completion that God wants to do in this situation. And yes, everybody's going to rally around and clap for Hananiah. Two years, oh, we'll take the two years over the 70 years, Jeremiah.

27:41 Thank you very much. But Jeremiah is steadfast. And he says, no, this is the word of the Lord. And then when you go back to Jeremiah 29, you find out really fast that he's serious about this, this last section down here. Message to Shemaiah. Tell Shemaiah, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, you sent letters. And he goes on to talk about the letters that he sent back to Jerusalem from Babylon, trying to get them to imprison or kill Jeremiah. And then there's other false prophets that he names them. He calls them out. He's calling people out left and right, these false voices. And what are they trying to do? Their theme is they're trying to shortcut God's work in his people. Don't let anybody come into your exile and shortcut the completeness that God wants to do.

28:34 the fourth thing we see when we zoom out is that God gives you a hope so big, even in exile, that you can bless exile. When you hear this word of the Lord, this promise, this life verse, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. When you hear this word in exile, it gives you a whole new lens on exile. Because you know I'm going through, I am going out, I am going up, and I am going home. And so while God has me here and while God's working on me here, I can bless here. This is what he said in verse 4. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

29:29 Build houses. Build. Settle down. Plant gardens. Eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and daughters and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there. Do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and the 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. and so what what I want to do and what we want to do when we get into this barren place what we want to do is we want a way out and God is saying I don't want you just to think about a way out I want you to think about the place where you are prospering and I want you to pray for it to prosper what do we see here we see the gospel already in Jeremiah's time we see the gospel in Babylon. We see the gospel in the Old Testament. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek.

30:34 We see the gospel coming in to play in the story. And what God is saying to each one of us today is when you wake up tomorrow, your circumstance may not change. Maybe you can change because of this time in worship today, but maybe your exile circumstance isn't going to change tomorrow. So when you wake up tomorrow, instead of the first thing you say is, God, get me out of this. Maybe the first thing you could say is, God, how can I bless somebody in this? and I'm not gonna I'm not saying we want to bless harm so don't misunderstand what I'm saying if in your exile you're barren place right now there's things that are illegal things that are harmful God isn't asking you to bless that he's asking us to look around in exile and go what would make this place better I'm gonna pray for that I'm gonna pray for peace and prosperity you know why because I'm here and if it gets peaceful and prospers I'm gonna be peaceful and I'm gonna prosper with it I want I've got hope so big about what God is going to do in my story that I can bless exile.

31:50 That is how a very me-centered promise just became a very everyone-centered possibility. And the last and fifth thing is that the hope in a future, the promise, is a person, not a place.

32:13 Jeremiah 29.11 is incredible, but so is Jeremiah 29.12 and 29.13. And 29, 14. I want to give you a hope and a future. 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. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.

32:54 So what is the promise? What is the hope? And what is the future? The promise and the hope in the future is God. It's not a place. It's a person. It's not a destination. It's a relationship. And this is what he's saying to everyone in exile. You can find me. You can get me. You can come to me. You can pray to me. You can be found in me. I am the hope and I am the future. Yes, yes, I will bring you back from captivity. Yes, I'll gather you from all the nations and places where I banish you. And I will bring you back to the place. Anybody had God bring you back to the place? Anybody testify today at Trillith or Cumberland or 515? God brought me back to the place.

34:02 Yes, he wants to bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile. But the goal wasn't the place. The goal was me. Me. Me. Me. he's telling us today, he is promising you today, whether you are lost out in the wilderness,

34:37 whether you just stuck your fist right in the face of God and said, I don't need you or want you. whether if somebody walked out on you and by no choice of your own, your whole world changed. I don't know. I just know there's a sovereign God in your story. And he is saying, I know, I know. Trust me, I know the plans.

35:15 And they are to prosper you and not to harm you. to give you a hope and a future. maybe the circumstance won't change right this minute, but you can change right this minute. and you can decide right here and now I am turning around and I am turning my heart towards God I am saying to him your way and not my way your plans and not my plans you and I'm not asking for a place I'm not asking for a destination I'm not asking to get my job back I'm not asking that you will fix that or fix that I hope and pray that the right things will emerge in my life.

36:15 But I'm telling you, God, more than any of that, I want you. And I need you. So I'm calling on you today. I want to find you today. I'm praying to you today. I want you, God. And maybe the exile is there tomorrow. But you're different in exile tomorrow. And you already know tomorrow. I'm on my way out. I am on my way up and I am on my way home. And I'm actually already there because I got Jesus.