Jeremiah 29:11 and multi-generational promise

This is an excellent message by Voddie Baucham on the promise in Jeremiah 29:11 and how it affects the way we should live our lives. Grab a cup of coffee and sit down with a notepad!  I jotted down a few of my notes below. Enjoy!

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" - Jeremiah 29:11

“That promise usually rubs up against real life and we find ourselves in the midst of cognitive dissonance.

We have a couple of ways that we try to clear up this cognitive dissonance:

-Perhaps there’s a problem with God. (‘I have a disease and the disease is killing me. Excuse me, God… killing me isn’t prospering me… You messed up and You need to fix it.’)

-God is impotent. The harmful things are from the devil. Because this is God’s plan, He’s just going to prosper us… he’s not going to harm us. He’s just going to give us hope and a future, so anything that’s not prosperous – that’s from the devil… anything that gets in the way of our hope and our future – that’s from the devil.  This way of thinking would have God impotent, powerless in the face of the devil.             I agree with Martin Luther who wrote that ‘even the devil is God’s devil.’ My God’s got the devil on a leash, amen? The devil doesn’t do anything without permission from my God.

-There’s a problem with me. God wants desperately to do this stuff, but I just don’t believe enough. This way of thinking would have us more powerful than God.

“This promise is all about legacy.”

“ If I look at Jeremiah 29:11 and I rip it kicking and screaming out of context, and look at it through my ‘American eyes’… through my egotistic, narcissistic, materialistic American eyes; then Jeremiah 29:11 is all about my pockets being fat and my body being healthy. That’s all it’s about.  Right here, right now… Me and mine…  More stuff for me, better life for me.  And if that’s the case, then every time something negative comes into my life I’ve got to justify it somehow, because it just doesn’t line up with this promise.

HOWEVER, if this is a multi-generational promise, and if God is making a promise that I may not even see in my own lifetime, then difficulty comes into my life and I say, “that’s ok.” Why? Because the promise may not even be fulfilled until my children’s children’s children are on the scene. And if that’s the case, it’s fine for me to have hardship – but God’s promises are not brought into question because I’m going through hardship.”

“Jeremiah 29:11 was never meant to be an individual promise. It’s a corporate promise.”

“Here are some ways we twist this verse:

 First of all, we twist it because we make it a promise directly to us when it was a promise made directly to a specific group of people under specific circumstances during a specific time and in a specific place.

Secondly, we twist it because we make it for now when it was actually a multi-generational promise.

Thirdly, we twist it because we make it for ME when it’s supposed to be for US."

"I meet people everywhere I go who torture themselves trying to figure out what they’re doing wrong because they’re not getting their prosperity, and they’re not getting their health, and they’re not getting their hope the way that they see it."

“Some of the most godly people in the history of the church are some of those who suffered the most. Where do we get this from? And oh, by the way, if God would crush and kill His perfect, spotless Son – who do you think you are??”

What are some things that are different when we understand this promise in its context?

1) Lay down roots. Be in it for the long haul, have a long-term view and a long-term perspective. Be “base” for your children. Don’t live your life for you – live it for generations to come.

2) Prioritize marriage.  Take an active role in the selection of mates for your children. If we want them to be prepared for marriage we’ve got to start working on it. We spend a lion’s share of our time preparing our kids for college, and no time preparing them for marriage. Newsflash: their marriage relationship is far more important in the long run than any degree they will ever earn from college.

3) Put a premium on children.  ‘Multiply there and do not decrease.’  Where does our legacy come from if we don’t put a premium on children? Where does the next generation come from?  How many warriors would go into battle saying ‘I want as few arrows as possible’?  If we believe in multi-generational vision and we’re here to leave a legacy, it changes the way we view children.

4) Impact the culture. ‘Seek the welfare of the city you’ve been taken captive into’. One of my prayers is that people who despise Christians would go ahead and despise us, but would have to admit that we bless them. We’re here for the long haul… let’s be a blessing to the culture. Let’s have a multi-generational view. Let’s mentor the next generation so that they can impact the world long after we’re gone. Let’s live in such a way that it’s better when we’re gone because we’ve been here, and let’s raise an army of young men and young women who think the exact same way so that when God’s promises are fulfilled there are men and women who are our legacy who are there with arms wide open to receive them.”