Seek the Prosperity of the City

In one paragraph

Ray preached from Jeremiah 29 on the Sunday Van Jones arrived as associate pastor, using that moment of new arrival to revisit a passage that landed in his own lap on his very first Sunday at First B. The sermon follows Jeremiah's letter to the exiles in Babylon, asking what it means to seek the good of a city you did not choose and may not even like. It is a message about faithfulness in the...

Read together

1. Matthew 5:43-45 Jesus quoted in the Sermon on the Mount: love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, God sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous
2. Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, consecrated you, appointed you a prophet to the nations
3. Jeremiah 1:8 Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord
4. Jeremiah 6:16 Stand at the crossroads, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls
5. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, used often in marriage counseling
6. Jeremiah 17:14 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for you are my praise
7. Jeremiah 31:3 I have loved you with an everlasting love and drawn you with unfailing kindness
8. Jeremiah 33:3 Called God's telephone number: call out to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things
9. Jeremiah 29:11 The second most googled Bible verse: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future
10. Jeremiah 29:1-2 The letter Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the elders, priests, prophets and all people taken into exile in Babylon
11. Jeremiah 29:4-6 God commands the exiles to build houses, plant gardens, take wives, have children and increase in number
12. Jeremiah 29:7 Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf
13. Jeremiah 29:10-13 After 70 years God will fulfill his good word, bring them back, for he knows his plans for a future and a hope
14. Psalm 137:1-9 By the rivers of Babylon they sat and wept remembering Zion, hung harps on willows, captors demanded songs, imprecatory ending
15. Psalm 19:14 Referenced as appearing in the song by Sublime and the Melodians: may the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight
16. Psalm 16:5-8 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, the Lord is my portion and support, I will not be shaken

Talk about it

1. Ray talked about Jeremiah having forty years of ministry where people simply would not listen to him, and still his words are preached today. Has there been a time in your own life when you felt like you were faithfully doing what God asked and seeing no fruit from it? What kept you going?
2. God told the exiles through Jeremiah to build houses, plant gardens, and take wives, meaning to put down roots and plan on being in Babylon for a long time. Is there a situation in your life right now where you have been resisting putting down roots because you are hoping things will change soon? What would it look like to commit to where you are?
3. Psalm 137 shows the exiles hanging up their harps and crying out for God to remember their enemies and repay them. Ray described this as very honest, and said we sometimes feel this way too. When have you caught yourself praying more like Psalm 137 than like what God commanded in Jeremiah 29, and what made it hard to pray differently?
4. Ray pointed out that God said 'I sent you into exile' even though Nebuchadnezzar was the one who physically took the people. How does it change the way you respond to a hard or unwanted situation when you consider that God may have sent you into it, rather than seeing it only as something that happened to you?
5. The command in Jeremiah 29 is to seek the prosperity of the city where you have been sent and to pray for it, because in its prosperity will be your prosperity. Ray mentioned that Jewish congregations often pray by name for the leaders of their city, state, and country, sometimes through gritted teeth. What would it look like practically for you to seek the prosperity of the specific place where God has put you right now?