Last week I talked to you about the fact that
volatility is up ahead.
That there is volatility that's facing us,
in large part because of the news that I said
about the oil prices
boiling down to
less than zero.
And that is precarious.
And because of that volatility,
we said that jobs are going to be
evaporating before our eyes,
old practices will be evaporating,
old norms and even old establishments and old rules.
When volatility happens,
uncertainty
is up ahead.
In fact for many of us,
this is not even up ahead—we're in it.
But it's further down the track.
Why is uncertainty
something that we can
determine as up ahead?
We know that the virus—
first of all, we were told if you check the symptoms of people,
and people were symptomatic,
then you can control it.
Then we realized
that wasn't the case.
There were
things like asymptomatic.
Then we said that the quarantine length was 14 days,
and now they're finding that
there are times when it goes beyond that.
We were told that masks were not necessary,
then masks were necessary.
And now we're finding out
that the vaccine is about
15 months away.
But could be longer.
In short,
there's a lot of uncertainty.
When you look at flights today
and you think about flights,
if you're intending to fly or go on a trip,
as I would want to go and visit my children,
the reality is there's uncertainty,
because we don't know,
if we have contact distancing in planes,
how it will look like.
And if only a third of passengers can fly,
will the airlines even take us?
Uncertainty.
Uncertainty now is the new reality.
It would be almost like a maze.
A maze gives you uncertainty.
When things become uncertain,
it's very hard to plan things.
So the question for us today is,
how do you plan in a time of uncertainty?
Where do I begin to even start to plan things?
For my work, for my business, for our ministry.
For our personal lives and for the
education of our children.
How do I start?
Where do I start?
A starting point
when it comes to planning in uncertain times
can be found in the book of Jeremiah 29:11.
The declaration of these words are,
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord."
He's declaring it.
"Plans to prosper you
and not to harm you.
Plans to give you
hope
and a future."
The first words are "For I know."
Not you know,
I know.
We don't know, He knows.
In other words, that's your starting point.
God knows that He has
plans for you.
And it's a distant plan, but there's a plan.
And the good news is that these
plans are to prosper us,
and to give us a hope and a future.
In other words,
there is something that
we all know this is gonna end one day.
And in that future we will find hope
and we will find
prosperity.
God wants to prosper us
in the future.
And you can only say,
Yes!
Thank You Jesus.
Thank You God.
But here's the interesting thing about that verse
is the verse that preceded it.
In verse 10.
Verse 10 says, "This is what the Lord says:
When 70 years of Babylon are
completed..."
In other words,
wait a minute.
I thought You had a plan.
I didn't realize this was gonna be 70 years later.
In other words, not just yes— What?!
I mean,
what is certain
in between that time gap?
And then He says,
"When 70 years are completed for Babylon,
I will come and rescue you."
In other words, the level of uncertainty
is no longer just uncertainty;
it's mega uncertainty.
And that's the reality.
We know
certain things are gonna end in the future.
We don't know how long,
in which case,
there is
a level and a measure of
uncertainty.
The book of Jeremiah 29:11,
which is a very popular verse we've heard,
begins in verse 1.
29:1 says,
"This is the text of the letter
that the Prophet Jeremiah sent."
He sent this letter, he was in Jerusalem,
from Jerusalem
to the surviving elders,
the elders among the exiles.
What happened was,
Nebuchadnezzar,
the ruler of Babylon,
conquered Israel,
took Jehoachin and his mother
and all his wives and all his wise men,
and they were the remaining survivors
in this new land of Babylon.
I was reminded, as I read this verse,
about the book
The Worst Case Scenario,
made popular in the late 1990s.
And it says The Survival Handbook.
This is talking about a moment of severe
uncertainty for those people in Babylon,
and I was reminded about this book and
the accompanying book of the SAS Survival Handbook,
and How To Survive the End of the World,
and The Prepper's Survival
and the host of survival books that have come after it.
What do you do
when things are uncertain
and survival becomes the name of the game?
Verse 1, the second part of verse 1 says,
"The prophets and all the
other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem into Babylon," in other words,
even the most religious and the most discerning people
are uncertain
about the future.
Now verse 2 says,
"This was after King Jehoiachin
and the queen mother..."
Even the most authoritative people,
the rulers of the land,
have no answers.
And that's pretty much what we're seeing right now.
It is pretty uncertain.
The court officials, the smartest leaders of Judah,
have no answer.
And Jerusalem
and even the skilled workers and artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.
No one has the answer.
Here's the situation.
Israel and Judah was sacked,
they were uncertain about the present and they
were uncertain about the future.
The question therefore is,
how does God want you to plan
in a time of uncertainty?
Verse 4 says,
"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel,
says to all those who I carried into exile
from Jerusalem to Babylon."
This is what God is saying to you
in a moment of uncertainty.
Now I want you to understand something
when you read the Bible.
When you read these things this is not written to you.
This is written for a specific people.
When you read the Bible you don't
take these words and put meaning in them;
you take the principle
of uncertainty
and what God says to those people,
you extract that principle
and you apply it to your life, here, today.
"Now to all those who were carried into exile,"
in other words,
very uncertain times.
As I prepared for this message,
I phoned
an 86-year-old man
who has been through SARS in Singapore
and who has been through
different kinds of uncertainties.
And I had a moment to talk to him about uncertainty.
I asked him,
"Tell me about the most uncertain moments in your life."
And I said that and he didn't reference the SARS,
he referenced to me
World War II.
He said
he was nine years old when World War II broke out,
and he asked me,
actually asked me,
how old were you when that happened?
I said I was not born.
I'm only 63 years old.
I wanted to know from
from people who've been through things
what uncertainty looks like.
And he said they were uncertain about surviving the war.
Bombs were dropping all over Singapore
and they weren't even sure they were gonna survive.
They were uncertain about surviving during the occupation
of the invaders.
Uncertainty.
How am I gonna eat?
And then most of all,
after the war,
they were uncertain about the post-war future.
What does the future hold for us?
Uncertainty.
It was an interesting moment just to
look, talk to him,
because it was very similar to what we're going through:
uncertainty about surviving COVID-19.
And hopefully most of us will.
"Uncertain about thriving in the occupation" is
"uncertain about thriving during the COVID-19 situation."
And then most of all,
uncertain about the post-COVID-19 future.
What's that gonna look like?
Are our jobs gonna be there?
Are our norms gonna be there?
The things we're gotten used to?
Now verse 4 says,
"The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel,
says to all those carried from Jerusalem
to Babylon..."
Here's the interesting thing.
Here's what God says to them in that letter,
which ends somewhere in verse 11
"I know the plans for you,"
he begins by saying,
"Build houses and settle down."
"Plant gardens and eat what they produce."
Interesting.
The first thing He says
in the moment of uncertainty is build.
Not just build,
He said "build houses."
In a foreign land.
In a foreign situation.
In our case, start building in the midst of this uncertainty,
"and settle down."
Then He goes on to say,
"Plant gardens to eat what they produce."
In other words,
if you're uncertain of surviving COVID-19,
plan to survive.
That's the beginning thing.
God has plans for you in the future,
but right now,
what He's telling us is,
plan to survive.
He says build houses.
Make a plan to build the house or
build your physical needs right now.
And then He says,
plant a garden.
In other words,
build for your
physical needs.
What are your physical needs right now?
And begin to build for that.
Begin to build.
I'm back to exercising.
It's been 12 weeks of
really running around
and trying to figure out what the next evolution of life
looks like in the midst of COVID
where my schedules have gotten lost.
I had to rebuild.
And that idea of building for your physical needs right now
differs from person to person.
For some of you it's about your job.
For some of it's you about your health.
For some of you it's about—
For my 88-year-old mother whom I spoke to
earlier this week,
it's a very different situation.
She's in a lockdown all by herself
with a household help
and a dog.
My sister,
she's living with my sister,
who happens to be stranded
somewhere in Florida.
But build for your physical needs.
In other words, address that, because that's necessary
for you
to survive.
Next is Proverbs 22:3 says,
"The prudent see danger and they take refuge."
This is not the time to be a daredevil.
This is the time to be prudent.
For your physical life.
Don't expose yourself unnecessarily.
"But the simple keep going and pay the penalty."
In other words, they suffer for it,
another version says.
Don't just build for your physical needs.
Build prudently
as you go on with life.
This is not the same scenario.
This is different, in fact
I daresay,
that none of us have ever experienced
anything like this magnitude,
apart from my friend,
my 86-year-old friend,
who has been through war.
First Peter 1:6 says,
"In all this you greatly rejoice,
though now for a little while
you may have had to suffer grief of all kinds."
In other words,
build to endure.
Build with endurance.
You're gonna have to endure.
There will be suffering,
although for a short period of time,
but be ready to build for your physical needs,
be ready to build prudently,
and build
with endurance.
The 1828 dictionary
speaks of endurance as a noun.
It says,
"A bearing or suffering;
a continuing under pain or distress without resistance."
This is the time, and here's the problem
with the coming generation.
Because of years and years and years
of not learning how to survive—
Back in the day
of my friend,
people knew how to survive.
People knew that that was the way to go.
And that's why they know how to endure.
The generation that's coming up
know how to enjoy.
They were never trained how to endure.
And at this moment in life,
you need to have endurance.
The ability to bear the suffering;
continuing under pain or distress without resisting,
or without sinking or yielding to the pressure.
In other words,
don't give in to the pressure.
The ability to delay and wait for
the future
that will come.
It will come.
But there will be a delay.
Now,
question for you.
Do you have a survival plan for your physical needs?
How do you plan to build it?
Do you have a plan?
Do you have a plan that you're changing?
I'm back to shaving again
because I'm stuck in the house
I had to redo my plans, my physical plans.
Because I need to survive.
And that
context for you is different as it is for me.
Now,
back to the question.
How does God want you to plan in a time of uncertainty?
He says I have plans for you,
plans to prosper you,
plans to give you hope,
plans to give you a future.
That's in the future.
For now,
plan to survive.
Now what do you do when you're uncertain about thriving
during the actual COVID?
For the second thing is plan to thrive.
Not just survive,
but to thrive.
There's a difference between surviving and thriving.
You're not going to last very long
if all you're doing is trying to survive.
At some point you've got to shift from surviving to thriving.
And that's why you have to first plan to survive.
Jeremiah 29:6 says,
"Marry
and have sons and daughters."
That's a funny thing how this—
you wanna read this tonight.
The Bible is an amazing book.
And he says marry
and have sons and daughters.
He says find wives for your sons and daughters in marriage
so that they too may have sons and daughters.
In other words, He basically said,
if thriving or surviving
is about enduring,
if surviving is about endurance,
thriving is all about
securing
your relationships.
If you want to thrive,
the next phase
after you've addressed the physical needs,
is to address your relational issues.
Notice what
chapter 29:6 says,
"Increase in number there;
do not decrease."
In other words,
he was saying, don't just build houses,
don't just plant gardens,
don't just survive—
Thrive!
Increase in number.
Grow again.
I know that You've sinned against Me,
I know that you made bad decisions,
I know that you've been caught flat-footed in this season,
but you can change that.
Thrive.
Build your relationships.
Build your key relationships.
This is the season.
A friend of mine from Singapore
had an interesting story.
He sent me this video of his daughter,
seven-year-old daughter,
and there she is singing.
I don't want to play the long video, but
she's singing to the
praise and worship of our service.
And he told me the story about
how this daughter of his
prayed that
"God, would You give my..."
She actually listens to me preach. She said,
"Would You give,
would You
please
make my mom and dad
spend more time with me at home?"
And that night
that they were praying together during the COVID,
she said,
"God, thank You for answering my prayers."
And my friend
had to literally get up there and turn and just,
in his heart of hearts he realized, God answers
prayer.
And he's began to say how much he enjoyed
the last few weeks, if not the last few months,
being with her.
This is a moment to rebuild your relationships
and we're all on different places.
I've been rebuilding my relationships
with my grandchildren.
That's my oldest grandson
and that's me and my wife trying to
connect with him
online.
These are my two grandchildren who are
serving me food
that's not even edible
and my other grandson and this bald-headed cutie.
The point is,
rebuild your relationships.
For you that's different.
That may be a husband.
That may be a wife.
That may be a parent.
That may be an office mate.
That might be somebody.
That may be your professional relationships.
Build them.
Now.
After you've planned to survive,
plan to thrive.
Secondly,
build your attitude.
Your attitude
is gonna matter the most
in this season.
It's the difference between
whether you're gonna have fun,
or this is going to be something that's
gonna be a horrible next few months.
There's a difference between enduring
and thriving.
Enduring means I don't have a choice.
That's what survival is.
Back in the days when
people didn't have all the conveniences we have,
we needed to endure.
We had no choice.
Today because we have all these choices,
we don't know how to endure.
But enduring is not thriving.
Enduring is I have no choice.
Thriving is,
I choose to be a blessing.
I choose
to be a good person.
I choose
to be
good-natured.
It's a choice.
It's not an easy choice,
but if you're gonna thrive,
you're gonna have to change your attitude.
You can say I don't have a choice,
this is my new job now,
I gotta deliver, I gotta be a Grab driver,
whatever it is you're saying,
I don't have a choice.
Yes, but you can choose
to work well.
You can choose
to say thank you.
You can choose to be grateful.
You can choose to say "God I thank You, I'm still alive."
Because that is thriving.
And no longer just
surviving.
Enduring will cause you to just
grumble and complain over time.
Thriving
will say I can turn this moment
into an advantage.
I can turn this moment
to a time when I can influence others
and be a blessing to many.
I can turn this time to an advantage for me
that other people will see that—
By the way,
if you don't realize this,
we're all on equal level right now.
The opportunities for everybody is the same.
This is the time
to turn this negative situation
into an advantage for you.
Enduring
will just make you ungrateful over time.
Thriving
will make you grateful and say God thank You.
I breathe,
I have strength,
I have resources,
I have friends,
I have key relationships,
I'm ready for the future,
I'm just waiting for it to happen.
Verse 7 says,
"And also seek peace and prosperity of the city
to which you have been carried to exile."
Basically they were saying, hey listen guys,
you're stuck there already.
Pray for peace and prosperity because,
 here's the reason why.
You can't just build your key relationships
and build your attitude.
You gotta build for prosperity.
And you can't build
something that prospers and blossoms and thrives
if you don't have peace and prosperity.
You can't.
And you can't just keep going on surviving.
We were not meant to just be survivors.
We were meant to be like trees
planted by streams of water,
whose leaves do not wither,
who bear fruit in season.
who whatever we do
will prosper.
That is God's dream for you.
But you need to plan to thrive.
Third John 1:2 says,
"Beloved,
I pray that in all respects you may prosper
and be in good health
just as your soul prospers."
I love this verse.
"I pray that in all respects..."
Prosperity is not just money.
Prosperity is not just being healthy.
Prosperity is not just having—
Prosperity's all of those combined together
and that's why you want to pray.
That you would be like a tree planted in streams of water.
That whatever you do will prosper.
That you would be in good health.
And the key,
it says,
is your soul is prosperous.
When your soul is prosperous
you achieve prosperity.
Question for you and me is this.
Do you have a plan
to thrive in your relationships?
What are the details of that plan?
As I try and land this message,
the letter that Jeremiah wrote the survivors
was plan to survive, plan to thrive.
He said if you don't know what the future is,
plan with God.
I love this part.
The closing moments of
the letter goes, Jeremiah 29:8 says
"But this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says:
'Do not let the prophets and the diviners among you deceive you.
Do not listen to their dreams
that you encourage them to have.'"
Basically you're feeding on each other.
Don't just listen to any voice.
Discern from Me and walk with Me.
And then we arrive at verse 10.
"When the 70 years
have been completed for Babylon,
I will come to you
and fulfill my promise to bring you back to this place."
That's where we started a while ago.
Plan to thrive.
In this uncertainty, plan to survive rather, plan to thrive.
And more importantly,
plan with God.
Because He knows the plans.
There are very rare verses in the Bible
where the word is used three times in succession.
This is one of them.
Because God is serious in letting you know
He has a plan for you.
And His plan for you is a hope and a future
and prosperity.
And then it goes on,
as the closing
moments of this letter or the best parts of this letter.
Verse 12.
"Then you will call on me
and you will pray to me
and I will listen to you."
And as you do that,
because you've planned to survive
and thrive and walk to Me, with My plans,
"you will seek me and you will find me
when you seek me with all your heart."
That's actually ultimately what God wants you to gain from this moment.
"I will be found by you,"
declares the Lord,
"and will bring you back
from captivity to the place which I ordained for you."
As I close,
I'll show you a picture of my 88-year-old mother
with my sister's dog
and having that conversation with her and
telling me about her dentures fell
and she needs to survive.
And she found some kind of glue to piece it together
and she survived.
But she's thriving.
She's picking up plants,
she's trying to do a little bit of gardening all by herself.
But most of all I love what she said.
"Joey, I'm ready to go.
I'm ready for Jesus.
And I put my life in the hands of our God."
That's the game plan.
As you meditate on the word of God,
think about these things.
Think about the plans that God has for you.
I wanna pray a prayer
that summarizes the message we just heard.
Lord Jesus,
You are our hope.
You are our hope
and our prosperity and our future.
Though we may have many plans,
we trust
that it is Your purposes
that will prevail.
We proclaim that we can do all things.
We can do all things, not just survive,
not just thrive,
but well into the future through You,
Jesus,
who gives us strength.
We will not just survive
but thrive.
And as we commit our plans to You,
we know that they will succeed.
We also trust Jesus
that we trust that You will supply
all our needs
through your glorious riches.
Lord, it's
not very easy
to look to the future with a lot of uncertainty
but we thank You that You're here for us.
And in Your name Jesus we pray,
amen.
