What does First B Jackson teach about exile?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on exile starts not with a concept but with a letter. The sermons from Jeremiah 29 place the congregation inside a real historical moment: the best and brightest of Jerusalem have been marched to Babylon against their will, and they are sitting by the rivers weeping and hating everything around them. Psalm 137 is read honestly in these messages, including the rage and the curses, so that the distance between where the exiles were emotionally and what God was about to ask of them becomes impossible to miss.
Into that grief, God speaks through Jeremiah with a set of commands that cut against every instinct: build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and plan on staying for a long time. The hardest line in the letter is the command to seek the prosperity of the city where God has sent them, and to pray for it, because in its prosperity will be their own. Ray, who has carried this passage since his first Sunday at First B in 2012, frames it as a word to people who had every human reason to want nothing to do with Babylon. God does not soften the situation. He says plainly, 'I sent you into exile,' holding together Nebuchadnezzar's cruelty and God's sovereignty at the same time.
The teaching connects this Old Testament command directly to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, where He tells His hearers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. Both passages are making the same demand: act like God acts, not like the world acts. The passage is not about feeling at home in a hard place. It is about faithfulness in the place where God has planted you, whether that feels like home or not.
Taught from Jeremiah 29:4-7 · Jeremiah 29:10-13 · Jeremiah 29:11 · Psalm 137:1-9 · Matthew 5:43-45
The passage taught · Jeremiah 17:14
14 Heal me, O Yahweh, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- January 11, 2026 Seek the Prosperity of the City A pastor reflects on 14 years of ministry and what Jeremiah's letter to the exiles teaches about seeking the good of the place where God has planted you.
- January 11, 2026 Seek the Prosperity of the City Jeremiah's letter to the exiles commands God's people to seek the good of the city where He places them, a message as alive today as it was in Babylon.
- January 11, 2025 Seek the Prosperity of the City Jeremiah 29 calls God's people to seek the good of the city where He has planted them, even in exile. A timely word on faithfulness, prayer, and blooming where you are.
Mentioned along the way
- November 30, 2025 Judgment and Hope in the Book of Micah A Wyoming pastor walks through the book of Micah, showing how its alternating waves of judgment and hope all point forward to one coming Messiah who will be our peace.
- November 2, 2025 Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters Amos called God's people to justice and humility, not religious pride. The preacher's sermon traces the prophet's warnings, visions, and the hope waiting at the end of the book.