(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today, finishing up a teaching series that we have been in over the last several weeks called Thrive in 25.

And we're gonna talk a little bit about how to continue to thrive with God's word in our life and through our life.

If you have your Bibles with you, I'm gonna ask you to open it up to Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 29.

We're gonna be teaching from that passage today.

But before we get there, I wanna talk a little bit about a story, a parable that Jesus told in Matthew chapter 13.

And it's a story about a good seed and it's a story about some good soul to carry out a good plan.

Let me say that again.

It's a story that Jesus told about a good seed that could be planted in good soul that could produce something good and carry out a good plan.

And how many of you know that if you plant seed, you want that seed to be in good soul?

Come on.

Because if I plant a tomato seed, I want that seed to germinate and I want that seed to grow up and I want that seed to produce good tomatoes.

Come on.

Not some of them, you know, tomatoes, you know, grown somewhere hydroponically or whatever else.

I want it to be in some good soil, some good acidic soil.

Come on, somebody.

Where it can produce some good tomatoes so I can slice those tomatoes and put them on a good tomato sandwich.

Come on.

Get those things in my belly and they can produce something good.

Well, this story Jesus told about is about four kinds of soil, a good seed.

And keep in mind, he says the seed is always good.

The seed is always good, but the problem is sometimes with the soil.

And because the soil has a problem, then it doesn't produce something good.

And he gets to the interpretation of this story, this parable he told about the soils and the seed, and he speaks about what the good seed is and how that good seed can fall on good soil and it produce something well.

And he says it this way in Matthew 13, verse 23.

He says, the seed that fell on the good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God's word and produce a harvest of 30, 60, or even 100 times as much as has been planted.

And so Jesus here interprets his story about four different kinds of soil and he interprets his story and he talks about the same seed that was dropped on four different kinds of soil, but there is a good soil, a fertile soil that produces, and it don't just produce a little bit, it produces 30, 60, even 100 times more than the seed that was planted in the soil.

And what I'm here to declare over your life today is there's a good seed that God wants to plant in some good soil, that would be the soil of our heart, and when he plants that good seed in the soil of your heart, his desire is that it produce a good harvest and produce a good plant, and that good seed does great and mighty things in this earth to do great and mighty things in other people's life.

And so today, we're gonna talk about our hearts, the condition of our heart.

Let's use the analogy Jesus used, and our heart is like the soul, and there's a seed that can be planted in our heart that can grow in that soul if the condition of our heart is right, and it can produce great and mighty things.

And so what God wants us to evaluate today as a church and as individuals is is my heart prepared for what God wants to do in my life and through my life.

And the passage we're gonna talk through today is Jeremiah chapter 29, because God tells a group of people in Jeremiah chapter 29, an Israelite people who had had the good blessing of God bestowed on their life, but the heart condition had began to get off target, and God had to take them in to a place of captivity and bondage in a place called Babylon in order to get their heart back right to do what God wanted to do in them and through them.

And God says this in Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11.

It's a verse that if you've been around church at all, you've probably heard quoted numerous times.

And it's a verse that is true here for the Israelite people that are in captivity on the front end of a 70 year captivity.

It's a word that God gives them as they're in captivity in Babylon.

And that same word can be transferred to our life today.

Wherever we are in our life, if we will pay close attention to why God had them in captivity and what God wanted to do in their life while they were in captivity, so that they can do great and mighty things with their life.

Jeremiah 29, 11 reads like this.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good.

Some translations say they were plans to prosper you.

Come on.

And they're not for disaster.

These are plans to give you a future and a hope.

And so God uses a man named Jeremiah to write a letter that was sent to these people who were in bondage in Babylon, and it's on the front end of their captivity.

And God says, listen, I know right now you feel like things are a little out of order, but you need to know that I've got some plans for you.

And they are plans that are good plans.

Come on, somebody.

And they are plans that are not for disaster, but there are plans to give you a hope and a future.

But I got some things I need to do in your heart.

I got some things I need to do in your life.

I need to cultivate some things into you so you can be receptive to the good plan.

Come on, somebody.

And produce the good harvest.

A good seed and good soil will produce good and great and mighty things.

And so God tells them, I've got a plan for you.

I want to do great and mighty things, but I got to recalibrate some things.

Come on.

And sometimes God needs to recalibrate some things in my life.

I don't know about your life, but he needs to recalibrate some things in my life so that good seed, the seed of God's word that is planted in my heart can produce 30, 60, a hundred times more than was planted into my heart.

And if that is going to happen in my life and through my life, the first lesson I have to learn, the first thing that has to be cultivated into my heart is God's vision.

Everybody say, God's vision.

You know, God has a vision for your life.

I know you may have a vision for your life, but I want to talk about God's vision for a minute.

Because God had a vision for these people before they were carried into captivity.

And God had blessed them mightily to carry out the vision.

But they had forgot the vision and because they had forgot the vision, God says, I got to recalibrate you.

So I'm gonna send an army, I'm gonna send Babylon to take you into captivity so I can put you in a place to recalibrate some things and plant my vision back in your heart so I can carry out my good plan.

Look what it says there in Jeremiah chapter 29, verses four through six.

This is what the Lord of the heavens armies, the God of Israel says to all the captives, he is exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem.

Build homes and plan to stay. 70 years, plan to stay.

You're in captivity, plan to stay.

Go ahead and build some houses and plan to stay.

You ain't going nowhere.

He says, plant gardens and eat the food they produce.

Marry and have children.

That sound familiar?

Genesis chapter one.

He says, then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren.

Here it is, the vision.

He says, multiply and do not dwindle away.

God's vision for humanity has never changed.

God created the first man and the first woman in the garden.

And he told the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, to be fruitful and multiply.

He also told them to rule and reign over the earth, to govern the earth, to subdue the earth, and be his image bearers in the earth.

In other words, God says, permeate my presence throughout the earth.

And God's presence in our life is to be permeated throughout this earth.

And what happens is God says, be fruitful and multiply, don't dwindle away.

And he says, I want you to grow while you're in Babylon.

See, the church isn't to dwindle away.

The church is God's vehicle, the church is God's vessel.

The church is God's people to produce, to produce, to multiply, to grow, to expand.

Come on, somebody.

And the vision that God has is for the local church to be the hope of the world today, expanding his good seed, his good message through Jesus into the hearts of other people, permeating this earth with his presence, with his glory, making disciples, whatever you wanna say it as, it's to multiply.

His vision has never changed.

So the whole reason God has us here as a people is to be fruitful and multiply and permeate his presence throughout the earth, to not forget who he is, to not forget the good work that he's done into our life, to not forget this good seed that was dropped into our heart as believers in Jesus Christ, but to be fruitful and multiply.

The vision is always to grow, grow, grow, multiply, more, more, more.

Some people ask me, pastor, why do you care about the numbers?

Because God cares about the numbers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

His plan has always been go into the world and let people know who I am.

Father Abraham, I'm gonna call you out of bondage and I'm gonna bless you.

Everybody say bless.

Bless.

I'm gonna bless you.

And what you're gonna do is you're gonna bless the nations of the world.

He says, your descendants are gonna be more numerous than the stars in the sky.

I'm gonna bless you, Abraham, so you can be a blessing.

I want things to grow.

And of course, the nation of Israel gets it off track.

They lose sight of the vision.

God comes back and he says, I want to put the vision back in your heart right now.

And then later on, we get to the New Testament and people have still got it off track.

God says, well, let me send my one and only son, Jesus, to restate my vision about who I am.

And Jesus, before he ascends into heaven, after his resurrection, he simply says, go into the world, make disciples, be fruitful, multiply, make disciples in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Multiply, multiply, multiply, make more, make more, do more, do more, produce.

The good seed that God has planted in our heart can produce a good harvest if we don't forget God's vision.

My friend, the whole reason they're in Babylon, in captivity, is the vision had slipped.

And so I stand before you today just to remind you again, our vision is to be a city on a hill, a light into the world.

You can state it a lot of different ways.

You can make all kind of little creative sentences or whatever it is.

But the reality of it is we're here to multiply.

We're here to talk about the good seed of what God has done in our hearts and in our life.

We're here simply to tell you that God wants to still do that good work in every man, every woman, every boy, and every girl.

He has a good plan for us.

He wants to put us together and He wants to do great and mighty things.

The calling on the local church is to use the good seed that God has placed in your heart with the good gifts He has given you to put those things together and let's do a good work for God in this community, in this world, and change the world.

Come on, it's to change the world.

With the attributes and the attitude.

It's amazing.

And God says, here people, I've got some good plans for you, but rest for a minute, let me reinstate the vision. 70 years, you're gonna stay here until you pick up what I'm putting down.

He says, I want you to not dwindle away, multiply.

Which leads me to the next thing that God has to do with our heart in order to cultivate good soul so that the good seed can plant it and he can do great and mighty things is God has to develop this idea of stewardship in our life.

We're all called to be stewards of God's vision.

Stewards of God's vision and carry out God's plan.

You're a steward.

Look at your neighbor and say, you good soul?

Good soul.

Look at your other neighbor and say, are you good soul?

Good soul.

How's your stewardship?

Stewardship has always been God's plan.

He gave the first man, the first woman in the garden, the garden to steward, to work, to look after, to do great and mighty things in and to do great and mighty things through.

Their assignment was to steward what God had placed underneath their rule and reign and to use it and to use it wisely and listen to God, let him provide for them and them to steward what he had placed in their hands.

And here in Jeremiah 29, verse seven, God says this to the people that are in captivity in Babylon about the position they're in.

He says this, he says, work for the peace and the prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile.

Listen to that.

I sent you into exile.

You're no longer in Jerusalem.

You're no longer in your homeland.

He says, but while you're there, I need you to work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I've sent you.

He says, pray to the Lord for it, for that region, for that area.

He says, for its welfare, we'll determine your welfare.

For its welfare, we'll determine your welfare.

There's a principle here that God's trying to get deep into the hearts of the people.

I created you to change the world.

I gave you all the resources I've given you to make a difference to the nations of the world.

And wherever I place you, you're to use those resources, use it well to change the world.

And your welfare will depend upon their welfare.

I sent you there, and what I need you to do in the place that I've placed you in is honor that place and use what I've placed in your hand and use it well.

You're there to lift that place up.

See, I honestly believe when we're stewarding what God's placed in our hands, we lift it up.

When you walk in the room, you should lift the atmosphere.

That's stewarding the good seed that God's placed in you.

Things should change, the horizon should change.

And we're here to bring change into the world, to bring peace and to bring prosperity with the good news of Christ into people's life.

I don't know how many of you know, but we live in a chaotic world.

And God says, we're to step in and make a difference, to steward and do great and mighty things for his name's sake.

You know, Jesus told a whole story, another parable in Matthew 25 about stewardship.

It's known as the parable of the talents.

And the Bible says that there was a man going on a long trip, a king going on a long trip, so he entrusted his stewards with resources.

He gave five talents, it says, to one, he gave three to another, and he gave one to another.

The man went away, he came back, and he says, how you been stewarding my stuff?

The one with the five steps up and says, here, I've produced five more.

I've been using it, and I've done things, and I've stewarded it well.

The one with the three stepped up and said, hey, I've produced three more.

I've been stewarding, I've doubled your resources.

And then when he got to the one, the one said, I put it in the ground.

I didn't steward anything.

I know you gave it to me, but I thought you was a harsh man.

And if I didn't have the one, when you came back, you gave me, I thought you was gonna, you know, be upset with me.

He says, I never gave that to you to put in the ground, to bear in the ground.

I gave that to you to steward on my behalf and do great and mighty things. but you chose not to steward.

So take the one from the one who won't steward anything and give it to the one who will steward everything because his heart is good soul.

Come on, somebody.

Yes.

Do you understand that everything, the breath you have in your lungs, the heartbeat you have in your chest, you are to steward?

The gifts, the talents, the resources that God gives you, you are to steward.

The influence he has allowed us to have, we are to steward.

Everything is to be steward by God.

And here's the principle.

God always elevates stewardship.

When I choose to steward what God has given me, God will elevate me in due season.

God will continue to multiply what he's placed in me and do more and more through me.

But the secret is to steward what he's already given you.

And some of us are like, I think my heart's right, but I'm really not producing 30, 60, 100 times more than the seed that's been placed in me.

How's your stewardship?

Are you listening to God?

These people had been blessed ginormously, but they chose not to steward the blessing.

They find themselves in captivity, all to recultivate their heart so the seed of God's blessing could get back in there and produce greater and mighty things.

And I know that penetrates many of our hearts sitting in the room today, but here's the good news, is if you hadn't been stewarding what God's placed in your hand, now's a good time to start.

God, He's a God who redeems, and He's a God who grows, and He's a God who multiplies.

Don't you be afraid of what the world says about your resources.

Step in with what God's given you.

Steward them and steward them well, and it cultivates a heart, a soul that God can work with.

Stewardship is a tremendous thing for us to understand.

Working hard where I am today determines what I can handle tomorrow.

That's what Jesus said in the parable.

He says, and again, it's a parable where he's not talking about, hey, do this, and you're gonna get more next week.

It's a parable where Jesus says, because they've been trusted a little here on earth that I have given them in all eternity, I'm gonna give them a whole lot more to be responsible for.

My friend, your life don't end whenever you clock out and you take your last human breath on this side.

There's an eternal life before us.

There's a kingdom that God is gonna continue to advance in all eternity.

It's called the kingdom of heaven.

And it's a kingdom that has places for you and me.

There's things in that kingdom that's gonna be steward all the days of your life.

And God wants to see right now as we're kind of walking through this little thing called earth.

He wants to see how we doing without He's already placed in our hand.

He has great and mighty things He wants to do through His people.

He wants to do in His people and He wants to do through His people.

But we have to get His vision and we have to steward what He's placed in our hand.

The last thing I wrote about Jeremiah 29 because he does have some good plans and he has a good seed that he wants a good heart to plant it in.

As I wrote it down this way, he's looking for a heart that's committed.

Committed.

We serve a covenant God.

And what that means is he's never gonna back up on his commitment.

He always does what he always says.

And his promises, he does not turn back on what he has promised.

And he has promised salvation to all who believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of their sin.

And he has promised eternal life.

He has promised an abundant life for those who worship the Lord and want to run after the things that God is about.

He has promised that I have come not to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come to give them life and life abundantly.

And my friend, I really believe that is tangible and intangible.

In other words, Jesus wants to bless us so that we can be a blessing.

He wants to do more in us so he can do more through us.

He wants our heart to be right, and he wants to do amazing, amazing, but I gotta be committed to what God's doing in the world.

So I need to tell you what the scripture says God's doing in the world.

He's doing it through something called the local church.

So are you committed to the kingdom of God and the local church?

In other words, again, this is how God works.

Look what it says in Jeremiah 29 verses eight through 10.

This is what the Lord of the heaven armies, the God of Israel says.

Do not let your prophets and fortune tellers who are with you in the land of Babylon trick you.

This is very important.

Because there were some fortune tellers, and there were some prophets in the land of Babylon that were telling the remnant of people that God had taken into captivity and were gonna be there for 70 years.

They're being, this isn't of God.

What you need to do is you need to rebel against the Babylonians because God would never put you in this position.

And God says, writes it this way.

He says, do not listen to their dreams because they are telling you lies in my name.

God would never put you here.

He says, I have sent, I have not sent them, says the Lord.

And this is what the Lord says.

He says, you will be in Babylon for 70 years.

I'm not a flash in the pan God.

I wanna do great and mighty things in you and through you.

They're telling you to rebel.

I say, stay, but then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised and I will bring you home again.

Continuing the same thought process, he says in Jeremiah 29, 11, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope.

The Lord, through Jeremiah, exhorted this remnant of true believers to get settled in, to live their lives where they were as they would be there for a while.

And then Jeremiah 29, 11 completes a sentence that begins in Jeremiah 29, 10.

And he basically says, if you wanna see Jeremiah 29, 11 happen in your life, he says, then commit and don't quit.

He says, don't listen to those false prophets.

He says, don't listen to those fortune tellers.

They'll begin to tell you to rebel against what I'm doing.

He says, but I need you to stay.

There's a principle here because we live in a culture and it's rampant in 2025 in North America because we teach about an independent society.

But I'm here to tell you what God is doing in the world.

He's not just gonna do in your individual life.

He's doing it through something called his body.

It's called the local church.

Jesus is the head of it.

He's working in us and he's working through us, but you gotta commit.

Come on, somebody.

Are you committed to the work of the Lord?

And it doesn't always, you know what, make sense in our mind.

And people say, you know, again, you need to rebel against the church because the church don't always do everything that's right.

I get that.

But the truth of the matter is, it's the vehicle God's gonna use in the world.

And I have to be committed to what he's gonna do in the world, through his people, and see these great and mighty plans begin to be worked out in my life.

We can't keep uprooting ourself.

We gotta root ourself.

The Bible says, those who plant themselves in the house of the Lord will flourish.

See, the problem isn't with the seed.

The seed is always good.

God's plan is always good.

The problem is the condition of the soil, the condition of our heart.

And God's not really wanting to pull his seed up and put it in somebody else's heart.

He planted the seed in your heart for your heart to be cultivated with his vision, with stewardship, with commitment.

And the question is, will you let God do the good work in you so that he can do the good work through you?

Jesus comes into our life to save our life from the penalty of sin.

He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin in our life so sin don't keep holding us back from God's vision.

He's working in our life because he desires to work through our life.

And my friends, the question for every one of us, because we talk about wanting to thrive in 25, is to ask myself, how's the soul?

How's the condition of my heart?

Do I really have God's vision?

Am I stewarding what he's placed in my hands?

And am I committed to doing what he's doing in the world?

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

I thank you for Jesus.

I thank you for Jesus coming into our life, coming into our heart.

I thank you for planting that good seed here among us.

And as he was placed in the ground and burst forth in resurrection three days later, God, he says to go into the world, be fruitful, to multiply, make disciples, do great and mighty things.

I thank you for this Jesus who was given to us to forgive us of our sin and help us overcome the power of sin.

God, I look forward to the day when we're in his physical presence again.

I look forward to the day that we join with all the believers throughout all the generations that believed in you, God.

And I look forward to that great and mighty day, those good plans you have in store for us.

But God, in the meantime, would you cultivate our hearts, soften our hearts to hear your good word, and carry out your good plans here in the earth.

They're plans, God, to prosperous.

They're plans for the good.

They're plans for a hope.

They're plans for a future.

And God, if there is one among us today that hadn't let the work of Jesus Christ begin in their hearts, may the day be the day of their salvation, and may it produce great and mighty things.

My friend, if you're in this room today and you've never received Christ as your Savior, the Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus resurrected from a grave, you will be saved.

And I invite you today to say, God, I need that salvation.

I need the work that Christ did on that cross, the blood that he shed on that cross.

I need that forgiveness in my life, and I receive it today by faith.

Tell God, you wanna operate by the same power that resurrected him from the grave, and God will put his spirit in you, and he'll begin to work in your heart and cultivate good soul.

Tell God, you wanna follow him all the days of your life.

Jesus, we thank you for being a good seed.

We thank you for having a good plan for our life.

May we create good soul for you to do the work.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.