Plant The Garden

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Brother Kevin with the title “Plant The Garden” (Jeremiah 29:5 and Psalm 27). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel.


Psalm 27 + Jeremiah 29:5-7 | Key verse: Jer 29:5 | ~20 min

I. INTRO — cold open, no names (~3 min)

  • Picture: small walled courtyard, dry cracked soil, built over a garbage dump
  • Man on his knees, pulling rocks out one at a time — hands cut up
  • Asked permission for years, finally said yes
  • No release date. Could be the rest of his life.
  • He decides to plant a garden anyway
  • → "Hold that image. We'll come back."
  • Frame: two texts that don't usually get preached together — same sermon

II. PSALM 27a — the faith we want, vv.1-6 (~4 min)

  • Read/paraphrase v.1 — "LORD is my light... whom shall I fear"
  • Coffee-mug faith. Unshakeable. Third person — talking about God.
  • "Even then I will be confident" — armies, war, doesn't flinch
  • This is real — David felt it, not fake
  • But: only 6 verses in, sounds like a man who's never had a bad day
  • → "Keep reading."

III. THE TURN — vv.7-14 (~4 min)

  • v.7 — shift to second person, talking to God now
  • v.9 — "do not hide your face... do not forsake me" — begging, not composed
  • Note: some scholars think two psalms stitched together — confidence half + lament half
  • Point: doesn't matter historically — it's honest either way. Monday confident, Thursday begging. Both are David. Both are us.
  • Ends unresolved — v.14 "wait for the LORD... take heart"
  • No resolution given. Just: wait.
  • Problem: "wait" sounds passive — coat on by the door, staring at phone
  • → "That's not what David means. God already told us what waiting looks like on the ground."

IV. JEREMIAH 29 — waiting with sleeves rolled up (~5 min)

  • Context: Judah conquered, best of the people dragged to Babylon — real exiles
  • False prophets: "almost over, don't unpack"
  • Jeremiah's letter says the opposite
  • v.5 — build houses (not tents — foundations), plant gardens (years before fruit — statement of "I'm not leaving")
  • v.7 — "seek the peace of the city... pray for it" — pray for Babylon, the empire that burned their home
  • Their good now tangled with the city's, like it or not
  • This is NOT "wait it out" — this is root down exactly where you didn't want to be
  • → "Wait for the Lord" with sleeves rolled up. Not a coat by the door. A shovel in the dirt.

V. REVEAL — back to the courtyard (~4 min)

  • The man = Nelson Mandela, Robben Island, 18 years, no known release date
  • Years of asking → finally granted a strip of courtyard
  • Ground = former garbage dump, had to clear rocks first
  • Started hardy: tomatoes, chilies, onions
  • By mid-70s: thousands of tomatoes/chilies grown with fellow prisoner
  • Detail that lands: shared harvest with the wardens — Friday stew, ate it together
  • His own words — garden = one thing he could control; "small taste of freedom"
  • No promise of release, no 70-year timeline like the exiles got
  • Just dirt and a decision: plant anyway, feed the captors anyway
  • → Jeremiah 29 with a name and a face. Waiting was never "do nothing" — it was build, plant, bless, right here.

VI. LANDING (~2 min)

  • Some of you: Psalm 27 v.1 season — confident, at peace. Good — hold it.
  • Some of you: v.9 season — stuck, no end in sight (diagnosis / marriage / job / family)
  • Question: coat on by the door, or knees in the dirt God actually put you in?
  • Don't get to pick your exile. Get to pick whether you wait for the door — or clear rocks so something can grow.
  • Close line: "Build the house. Plant the garden. Wait for the Lord — and take heart."
  • Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fearing God

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “Fearing God” (Luke 23:32-33 and 39-43; Luke 18:9-14; Acts 5:1-11) . The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel: Today’s topic was suggested by the frustration I feel when talking to people who think that, just because God is good, loving and forgiving, He’ll simply forgive them for all they’ve done while they were still alive. They themselves seem to brush off all their sins and unbelief, as if it were nothing, and they expect God to do the same when they die. They usually have some familiarity with the basic teachings of Christianity – especially Catholics, who learn about them in their Catholic religious education lessons and schools – but they really have no idea why Jesus had to die on the cross, and what it has to do with them personally. They just take God’s forgiveness for granted, as if they were entitled to it. They have no fear of the Lord.   Now, by fear, I don’t mean you have to be...
Read more

A Christ Awakening And The Struggle Of Prayer

  by David Bryant [extracts] Chuck Swindoll in his book, The Grace Awakening, makes this observation: "The greatest heresy in the modern evangelical movement is our emphasis on what we should be doing for God rather than on what Christ has done and is getting ready to do for us." In other words, we don ’ t emphasize the hope grace brings to us. If there is any reason why there may be a struggle with prayer in our lives, it could be that we need much more emphasis on what we may hope, on what God gives us permission to believe, and on how large that hope should be because of who Jesus is as Lord.   The Disciples Struggle   Remember when the disciples came to the Lord Jesus to ask, "Teach us to pray." My reaction would probably have been at that point to set up a seminar on prayer and tell them what they need to know about prayer, and what they need to do in prayer! But Luke, chapter eleven, says that when the disciples said, "Teach us to pray," what...
Read more