Jeremiah 29:11, By The Numbers

I want to drop a really weird thought on you…
I was up last night to get a drink of water and I had a very strange thought. For those of you who know me well, you understand that it is not strange for me to have a strange thought… in fact, its pretty normal. But normally, I don’t have them at 3am (because I’m not actually sure that my brain works at that hour).
The scripture, Jeremiah 29:11 popped into my head as I was heading up the stairs. I wrote it down here, just in case you’re not familiar with it:
I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope. Jeremiah 29:11 GWT
As I thought of this well known verse, my mind drifted to the word “plans” in a way that it never really had before. Usually, when I read this verse, I like to focus in on the fact that God’s plans for me are filled with peace, hope, and a future. I think its fair to say that most of us think the same way! Every once in a while, we get really holy, and we think about the fact that God loves us enough to have a plan for our lives…pretty cool thought! But last night, I thought of those plans by the numbers…
At the church that I pastor, the last Sunday morning count we took said we had 200 adults in the building. I started to wonder how far back God had been planning so that all of those people could be there. I started to wonder how many people and how many decisions it had taken over the years to get everyone in that building, at that time. I wondered how many people had been involved in God’s plan over the last 200 years to accomplish that group of 200 people. I started to look at Jeremiah 29:11 By The Numbers!
WARNING!! I’m about to go a little math-nerd on you here, but stay with me!
We had 200 adults here that day, but you and I both know that families come to church together. Since we are talking about ancestry here, we’re going to remove 1/3 of those people. We’re going to work with 133 as our base number.
We’re also going to say that a generation reproduces every 25 years. Some people will go with 20 years for that, but I wanted to be conservative with this so it doesn’t look exaggerated. So, that’s 8 generations over the last 200 years to get 200 adults into our church building that Sunday.
So, let’s do the math!! If it takes 2 people to produce 1 person, then our number of people doubles with each generation that we move back. So, if we take 133 and move it back 8 generations, then it took 17,024 people to produce that 133 people! That’s a lot!!
But it gets even better!! Because we are talking about separate generations, each set of numbers is a distinct group. That means that we can add each of those 8 generations together to get the total number of people involved over 200 years to produce those 200 people. Drum roll please!!… The grand total is 33,915 people over 200 years, or 8 generations!
God had worked together the plans of 33,915 people over the course of 200 years to bring 200 adults to our church a few weeks ago! That means that when we think about God’s plans for us, He didn’t just dream them up yesterday! He’s been working on them for years! He’s been working on them for 33,915 people and 200 years!! He’s been working His plan for you for longer than you or I could ever understand!! If those numbers don’t blow you away, wait until you see where we go next!
People are more than just a body. People make decisions! So, for 200 adults to be in our church, there were a lot of decisions made over those 200 years to make that happen. Let’s be super conservative and say that each person involved in this 200 year plan made 4 decision per day (we both understand that we make that many decisions before breakfast, but lets just go with 4 per day). With 365 days each year for 200 years, and 33,915 people involved, and 4 decisions per day, that means that 9,903,180,000 decisions were made to get 200 people to church. If you’re having a hard time counting commas and zeros, that’s over 9.9 billion decisions!!
God didn’t start his plan for you yesterday! God’s plan has always been in action! And YOU have always been a part of that plan! He didn’t just dream you up a few days before you were conceived. He has put over 9.9 billion decisions into getting you and 199 of your friends where you are right now. He has had His plan for you working for longer than you’ll ever know…
As impressive as it is to see how God planned to include you in His kingdom, look at what can happen when we look at God’s future plans by the numbers! If each of those 200 hundred people makes just 1 decision, they can radically effect the futures of many, many people.
If each of those 200 people makes a decision to try to bring 1 person to Christ every 6 months, amazing things will begin to happen!! 1 person every 6 months really isn’t that much, but it will take effort. It will take 1 very important decision.
If those 200 people win 1 person for Christ every 6 months, and the people who come to Christ do the same, we get some crazy numbers. If we multiply that out over 8 generation (we’re using 8 generations because that’s what we used to look back), which is only 3 ½ years, we have 25,600 people in the Body of Christ because of 1 decision made by 200 people…
The numbers show that you’ve been a part of God’s plan… All 33,915 people and 9.9 billion decisions over the last 200 years.
The numbers show that you can be a big part of God’s plan… 25,600 people serving Christ because of 1 decision made by 200 people.
You’ve seen Jeremiah 29:11, God’s plan, by the numbers. Now, what are you gonna do about it?