Prep+ Podcast #7

Transcript

(This is a transcript generated by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy or content by Crossroads)

High growth group leader. Welcome to this Prep Plus podcast. The aim of which is to really cheer you on in this important ministry of helping your group grow as disciples of Jesus by digging into God's Word. Together, we are up to study seven in our Jeremiah series on page 19. I am I love this part of Jeremiah. We're looking at Jeremiah 32.

I love it, I love it, it's so helpful, incredible, exciting, challenging. And so if I flick to page 35 of our booklet and I say, see our big prayer for this study, yeah, we'll be praying that God's promises would really take hold in the hearts of all of us in our groups, so that we would live for the world to come, even make decisions that look foolish now, but make complete sense when Christ returns.

So how about I pray? Lord God, pray for us as we prep our study together. Lord God, would you use our time with our groups to really grow us, grow our vision for the world that is to come, and how that changes the decisions that we make now, to really help your promises in your Word, to take root in our hearts and in the hearts of all the members, each of the members of our group.

And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, if you haven't already, then head off and prep the study. Work through the questions. Particularly. Put the time into thinking through how this study applies to you. How this part of God's Word applies to your life. And then we'll come back. All right. There's a good, hopefully a good, kick-off question there about the best investment that could be real or metaphorical.

You take it how you want to take it. We're in this book of hope, this book of consolation, just one of two studies. We started in it last week, and we have one more study in this book of consolation this week. And as that little box says, Jeremiah 32 takes the promises on either side of it in Jeremiah 31-33 and puts them into practice in the property market.

As an ex-property lawyer, I'm sure there are ancient Near Eastern historians who just kind of froth over all the detail that we have about how they used to buy and sell property in the ancient world. But anyway, it's a really exciting chapter, so read it out. What text different textile types do you notice? It is a long chapter that you're reading.

So one idea I had was that you could even write out and stick up around your room some of the different text types. So, for instance, prophecy, speaking God's words, telling the story narrative, praying to God, and prayer. And maybe people point to which text type they think it is as you hear the chapter being read out, just because it is quite long.

But that's kind of part of its beauty. Those text tips down the bottom of page 19 are going to help you out, particularly, perhaps that one about the right of redemption that will make the narrative make sense. Then we get into it. Chapter survey, just kind of looking at the chapter of a whole and working out what is going on in this chapter.

And the guts of it is that Jeremiah is told by God to buy a field, which he kind of needs to buy because of that right of redemption. But he is buying a field which is basically under invasion right? By this point. Under Zedekiah, Jerusalem is not a place to buy property. It's a war zone. Okay, so why would you buy property in a war zone?

Only if you were. Trust in God's promise that one day this land is going to be restored. So you almost. If you wanted to be creative, you could almost ask your group to write a real estate blurb for this property. You know, great potential, you know, unrealised opportunity, like all this kind of stuff. Anyway, there are a couple of bonus questions there on page 20.

I've kept them bonuses because this is a longer study, it's a longer passage, and we really want to leave time for application because this is a real application kind of passage. It really helps us think carefully about decisions that we're making. So really key to leave time for that, letting it sink in section in terms of digging deeper, helping you to kind of have your eyes on the promises that are motivating this action by Jeremiah and that.

Question five: What's the point the Lord is making? That's quite key. That's that's really let's get down to the takeaway of just how how bankable God's promises are that he is going to restore this land. Question six interesting. Why doesn't God just destroy? Sorry. Why doesn't God just restore Jerusalem now? Why do they have to go through the destruction of Jerusalem?

And that's probably bringing in some ideas that we've seen so far in Jerusalem that God is both merciful and just, and his mercy comes on the other side of justice. The resurrection comes on the other side of the death of Christ. Like it takes that punishment. It takes that justice for mercy to come through. Then we're going to be jumping forward to Luke 12 super short passage, but hopefully just really shows how this idea of making choices for the world to come, making choices based on God's promises applies to us.

This is Jesus talking to his disciples. That's the kind of context of it, and it's just a really short, but I think I love God's delight. He wants to keep this promise for Jesus disciples. And then as you get to letting it sink in, I reckon, I mean, I say choose to, but why not 2 or 3? Why not do them in pairs or small groups?

And then maybe the last question altogether. But once again, do the do the work yourself. If you haven't, jot down some notes of how this is applying for you yourself, then I'd really encourage you to do that too. It really can help kickstart discussion. And also it lets God's Word be taking root in you. And if you're excited about this passage and the impact it has on us, then that is going to be contagious for your group.

So all the best with this study. It's a fantastic passage, one which I think is unfamiliar to us, but which I think is just so helpful for thinking through the period that we are living in now, that we live by faith, not by sight. We're waiting for Jesus' return. And so we are making decisions, investments, if we can say for the world to come.

So I hope it's a great week for your group.