God Has a Plan in the Midst of Exile.

So...last night I got to preach at church.
...BIG church.

I was so nervous I thought I might throw up on stage....but luckily I didn't.
I'd say I did pretty good for being my first 20ish minute sermon and my first time on a big stage!

I preached, "God has a plan in the midst of exile." from Jeremiah 29:10-14.
I had known I was going to preach for the past month, but it wasn't until the week of Fine Arts that I knew what I was supposed to preach.  Every evening that week I went back to my hotel and pushed play on my iPod. "I Will Search for You" by Israel & New Breed came on.  I'd always loved this song, but this week it just rang so true and clear to me.

This message was even more so confirmed as I told a coworker what I was preaching about, and he said he had done that same verse for his sister's graduation video! And then my mentor emails me saying she prayed for me and signs the email with Jeremiah 29:11! And then my roommate just so happens to tell me she's reading a book by Eugene Peterson about the book of Jeremiah. WOW!

Sarah, you aren't searching for God enough.  You've been so run down this whole summer with working a full-time job, having 2 online classes, and an internship I had to be faithful to.  However, God had a plan in the midst of exile.

That was exactly my homiletical idea but I didn't know it until I began writing the sermon.
And this sermon took me a few days to write!! I started with the exegetical outline, homiletical outline, and then the sermon manuscript. For those of you not in Bible College, let me put it in layman's terms (hahahah! no offense, of course) I wrote out an outline of the verses, then an outline of the concepts/ideas I got from the verses, and then a word-for-word manuscript of what I wanted to say.

I'd actually only practiced preaching this sermon once on Monday night, once Tuesday night, and then a few times Wednesday before I had to give it.  I've never been so scared of anything in my life, and to top it off I started getting a headache... Bad timing...but I took some aspirin and napped for an hour so it went away before it really began!

The purpose of my sermon was this, to let people know God has a plan a promise for their lives even when we feel like exiles.  We've all been ostracized at some point in our lives before...whether it be missionaries in a foreign land, or a military person being deported... these are all extreme cases just like when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon. Nonetheless, we've all felt left out before, alone, meaningless, worthless. We've all questioned who we are at some point in our lives.

...when I got up on stage all my jitters disappeared after I prayed.
I was up on stage, like this is what I'm supposed to be doing the rest of my life, whether it be pastoring, or just being a motivational speaker...which has secretly always been a hidden desire of mine.

I'm so thankful I had great friends who came!
Thank you to Sarah, Beka, Heidi, Allie, Misty, Sophia, Kim, Breanne, Elyse and all who came. :)
It made that night really special and so much easier to preach in a loving environment!!

Everyone came up to me after service saying how great it was....how they didn't know I had such hidden talent. Someone even told me that he was going to say that I would make a great minister one day, but he said that I already was one. :) Pastor even joked about stealing my notes... hahaha!

But in all honesty, the sermon wasn't about me...it was about God and his plan. It wasn't about me being up on stage doing something fanciful for God. It wasn't me pointing out how spiritual I am. It was about me telling the people going through rough times that God has a plan even if they cannot see it in the midst of their sin, depression, anger, bitterness, etc. God is greater than the words I spoke, and I fumbled my words at times and could have used better illustrations..

The sermon itself wasn't great, but it was the lesson behind it that made it great.

I'm so thankful for my 3 months at this church.  They even took up a love offering which meant a lot to me. Oh, and I got a cd of my sermon too! It's crazy when you're surrounded by an entire church that feels like family and wants to hug and kiss you ever week even if you haven't personally gotten to know them as well as you'd want.

This was just such a great experience and I thank God for the opportunity to be used for His glory.

God has a plan in the midst of exile, a plan and a promise that we can stand on. Know that, and don't ever forget it.

Jeremiah 29:10-14