Gospel

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Sunday 11/3/13 Pastor Michael sermon The Good Life-Don’t Wait For It, Live It Now! Jeremiah 29:4-14
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Most people think the good life has no difficulties, no needs or wants. They feel that the good life is way over there, out of their reach. Most think the good life is a place, a person or a situation. We cannot control what happens to us but we can control what happens through us. It has to do with theology and our belief and study of God. God will provide the good life no matter where we live, who we have or what we do. If we have God, we have the good life. As long as we have a relationship with God, we have the potential to have the good life. God woke us up this morning, in our right mind and brought us to church.

In our text, God is giving a word to Jeremiah to tell the Israelites they are getting ready to go into captivity at Babylon. This is because of their disobedience to God and their worshipping of idols. Their punishment was for them to be taken captive to Babylon. The word Babylon means confusion. You can’t mix God with everything. You can’t mix Him with the world and expect to have the good life. God is a jealous god and He wants to be the only one! Some things we go through because we put ourselves in the situation. God did not do it. The misery we go thru is what we brought on ourselves thru our bad decisions. We are getting the consequences of our behavior. Stuff we did to ourselves.

God didn’t want us to do it, God didn’t want us to go there but we were determined to do it anyway. We made bad decisions and now we have to deal with the consequences. We need to Praise God because we are not getting the full…FULL impact of what we did because it could be worse! Mercy from God has spared you and me from a whole lot of stuff! Every time we think of the goodness of Jesus and how He shielded us, we should get Happy! Praise the Lord! We cannot complain. He had been too good to us! Praise the Lord!!

In our text, God is telling the Israelites that they will be slaves in Babylon as punishment. This will not be their end though. God says He still has something better for them, the good life. God has plans for them and wants them to live the good life now in their captivity. They can do it by following God’s plan. We can live the good life because of God’s plan for our life. Some things God tries to keep us from. He knows that if we mess us, God has a plan B, a plan C, plan d, E, F, G…. Every time we mess up, God has a plan to make up for our mess up!

God told the Israelites, while in their captivity, to build houses and plant gardens. Make where you are better. Make the place of your captivity better, Make the best of bad decisions, situations and don’t complain. Don’t complain but make it better! If you are there, make the best of it. Stop talking about how when you get out of it, then you will live the good life. Live the good life now! Stop complaining and enjoy where you are. Build houses, plant gardens, have a good attitude and live the good life where you are. Don’t go to your job complaining about the job. Make the job better! A lot of people wish they had a job! You need to not complain but make the job place improve. To get out of a bad job, make it better. Don’t go there with a bad attitude. Act like the job is what God has given you, make it better and don’t complain! Things don’t get better because we complain. Do something to better it and God will bless us and bless it!

For a promotion, learn how to bless souls/people that curse us. No mater how we are treated at work, go there and do the job good. Bless the place and God will bless us. Just like David was working for Saul and was hated by him. Saul threw a javelin at David and tried to kill him. David kept on doing his job anyway and eventually God blessed him. God promoted him to be King David. God had to prepare David for being king. We have to show God we can handle the little stuff before He gives us the bigger, better stuff to handle.

God wants us to experience the good life where we are. As long as we have God, we have the good life. God has plans to prosper us. We have to show Him we can handle things while in captivity. It will much greater when we are out of captivity. We need to act like we already have the prosperity while we are going thru the struggle. You cannot appreciate a good relationship until you have had a bad relationship. You cannot appreciate where God is going to take you if you don’t go through the struggle first. The good life isn’t based on what you have but who you know!! God has good things planned for us. Good Life, God Life!!

AMEN

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