Study Notes

Foundation Statement: This statement sums up Babylon; Man taking care of it without God.  In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches to come off of Babylon and come onto the Kingdom

 

I.      Taking the care and engaging self-effort guarantees your failure and downfall-Jeremiah 17:5-8

A.    When you have a need or have something that needs to be taken care of and you pick that up and try to take care of you are trusting in yourself and have made flesh you arm

1.      Trusting in man is looking to or relying on man to meet your needs (That includes yourself)

2.      Trusting in the arm of flesh is you relying on natural things or the world’s system

a.    The world’s system is based on you taking care so in it you rely yourself and your ability

b.    When you take thought (the care), you make flesh your arm

3.      When people are engaged in self-effort their heart and mind have departed from the Lord

a.    Your heart has departed from the Kingdom and you are in Babylon

b.    That simply means they aren’t looking to him or thinking about what He’d have them to do

c.     Your are not thinking about God or what he wants you to do or what he wants you to say; you’re not conscious of the Kingdom and making decisions based on the Kingdom because you are trusting in man and have made flesh your arm

B.     What happens to the man who has taken the care, who is trying to figure it out on his own, who is trying to meet his own needs without God?

1.      CURSED be the man ---- He is now empowered (positioned) to fail

a.    The curse is the empowerment to fail

2.      This man is toiling, he’s striving, he’s contending, he’s sweating, and he can’t get ahead…Why? He’s CURSED, He’s empowered to fail because he’s in Babylon

a.    He’s trying to obtain something through self-effort that was never designed to be obtained that way

b.    It’s already been predetermined in Genesis 3 that a man who tries to meet his own needs without God will fail to do so

3.      When Christians live in Babylon they will see no growth, increase, and very little good in their lives

a.    He doesn’t see when good comes because good comes by grace through faith and prideful people who take the care get resisted

b.    Jeremiah 17:5-6-MSG-Cursed is the strong one who depends on mere humans, Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets God aside as dead weight. He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie, out of touch with the good earth.  He lives rootless and aimless in a land where nothing grows.’

c.     Jeremaiah 17:5-6-ERV-“Bad things will happen to those who put their trust in people. Bad things will happen to those who depend on human strength. That is because they have stopped trusting the Lord.⁶ They are like a bush in a desert where no one lives. It is in a hot and dry land. It is in bad soil. That bush does not know about the good things that God can give.

d.    Jeremiah 17:5-Voice-Cursed is the one who trusts in human strength and the abilities of mere mortals.  His very heart strays from the Eternal.  He is like a little shrub in the desert that never grows. 

4.      Areas of lingering average and decrease are the result of living like this in verse 5

a.    When this guy has a need, he’s not casting the care of that need on the Lord and inquiring of the Lord and looking to the Lord to meet his need, no he’s trying to take care of if himself and meet his own needs and figure it out on his own; oh he might pray a little prayer, but he didn’t leave Babylon and good doesn’t come like that, growth and increase don’t come like that-Matthew 6:27

b.    Babylon is the land where nothing grows

c.     You can pray in Babylon, but your prayers won’t work until you get into the Kingdom

5.      You can be in Babylon and be praying about your situation at the same time

a.    Just because you are praying that doesn’t meant that God has the care, that doesn’t mean that you’re not engaged in Babylon, that doesn’t mean that you are operating by the Kingdom

1)       EX: I’m just so worried I just got to pray that God does something and then after they get done praying their so sad, so worried, so heavy-NOT THE KINGDOM

2)       EX: You pray, and then all day think about what you can do to fix it; you’re googling, you’re facebooking-NOT THE KINGDOM

b.    The world and most Christians are similar in that they both labor and try to take care of it ourselves but the small difference being that while Christians do that they pray-NOT THE KINGDOM

1)       2 Corinthians 6:14-Among-The middle-many believers are right slap dab in the middle of the world’s way of doing things and then throw a prayer on the end of it and call it Christianity

C.    5-Self-effort, taking care of it, activates the curse and the curse produces failure

1.      Satan wants the care in your hands, he wants you in self-effort relying on yourself because that is where the curse can work and that is where failure will be produced

II.     Cast the care and engaging faith puts the blessing to work and guarantees your success-Jeremiah 17:7-8

A.    This is talking about two different men who are opposites

1.      This man is relying on The Lord, trusting in the Lord

a.    He is NOT relying on himself or trusting in himself to be is own source, to solve his own problems, to figure the situation out

2.      Who’s hope the Lord is---This guy has made God his source

a.    Hope-Refuge, confidence, security, careless

b.    Whose hope the Lord is-The Lord is my refuge, my security, my confidence; Not medicine, my job, the economy, or myself

c.     EX: You got a family problem He is your hope, you got a financial problem He is your hope

3.      You see a totally different approach between these two guys

a.    I’m not relying on myself, I’m not relying on man, Jesus is my hope!

b.    I’m relying on Him. He is my hope.

c.     These are the words of a man who HAS NOT taken the care

B.     The man of faith, He will be like this tree (The guy that lives like this is going to end up being like this tree)

1.      Don’t TAKE THOUGHT for your life and this is what is available to you

a.    In the year of draught the tree is not thinking about how he can take care of this

1)       We see someone who didn’t deem themselves responsible as the caretaker

b.    Not careful, not relying on itself, not trying to meet it’s own needs, not running around looking for a rain cloud, not trying to take care of itself

2.      When you make God your source and operate by the Kingdom rather than Babylon and stop trying to meet your own needs without God you will possess an ability to get good results in bad times

a.    God can take care of you in a desert as easily as he can in a well watered forest

C.    When you cast the care rather than taking the care you are releasing the force of faith/trust and when you do, it activates the blessing in your life

1.      When you stop working (in self-effort) the blessing starts working

2.      Proverbs 10:22-The blessing makes me rich; I don’t make myself rich

a.    Proverbs 23:4-I don’t work to be rich; that’s the blessings job

b.    Genesis 13-The blessing is why we don’t see Abraham contending for a piece of land; he’s not trying to take care of himself and be is own source

c.     Abraham made God is only source and trusted God to take care of Him rather than himself to take care of him (trying to meet his own needs) and that activates the blessing (Genesis14)

3.      The way self-effort activates the curse, faith, trust, and the single eye activate the blessing

D.    You got one guy who is relying on himself, who has made flesh his arm who is not trusting in the Lord and he can’t see to succeed no matter how hard he tries; You got another guy who is not relying on himself, who is trusting in the Lord and he can’t seem to fail no matter how bad the circumstances get; One guy is seeing no good at all, another guy is only seeing good and he’s experiencing that good right in the middle of a bunch of bad circumstances because the blessing is on his life

1.      This lays out the perfect picture of Babylon vs. The Kingdom