Blessing Our City: Engaging with Purpose and Identity

1. "So, when we think about what it looks like to bless our city as Christians, if we think about blessing our city as a road that we are called to walk down, there's going to be ditches on either side. On one side is the ditch, of thinking that our call to bless the city is only sharing the gospel with people. Now, I don't minimize sharing the gospel with people. It's a big part of what we're here to do, but when we fall into this ditch, we abdicate our real responsibility to engage in social issues in the cities in which we live." [03:30] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "So, exile, you know, it's not something I think that we think about a lot these days. Our life is very different, but exile historically has been one of the strongest forms of punishment that someone can experience. So, when you're exiled, you are cast out of your home. You leave everything that's comfortable. You leave your possessions, you leave the people that you know and you love. All of that is true for Israel. And in addition to that, they have been exiled from the city that contained the temple. So, for them, the temple represented God's presence in their lives." [05:01] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "So, God tells the Israelites here that they are to seek the welfare of the city where He has sent them into exile. The Israelites have been forcibly removed from their land. They are living in the heart of paganism and idolatry. And I just kind of want to sit for a minute in how that would have felt to them. I mean, they would have felt fear. They would have felt sadness. They would have felt grief. They would have felt uncertainty. And all of these feelings for a normal person can have paralyzing effects in their lives. And God first is telling them, embrace your new normal. This is your season. This is where you are." [06:36] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "So, this is a word we typically translate peace. This word shalom is used all over this passage. And it's basically a comprehensive way of saying, seek the type of well-being in this city that touches every aspect of your life, every aspect of civilization. It means that in all that you do, your call is to make things more the way that they should be. Things are not the way they should be, and you're here to help make things more the way that they should be. So, He's telling them, not only can you have peace, but you can also make things more the way that they should be." [09:33] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "We shouldn't wall ourselves off, and we should never wholesale adopt the culture in which we find ourselves. This is the heart of being, you know, not being of the world, but being sent into the world. So, we should, as Christians, engage economically, culturally, and socially in the city in which we dwell, but we should never lose our identity as Christians as we do it. So, we should work as Christians for the peace and prosperity of our city while never forgetting that we are Christians. We are different from the city that we are seeking to bless." [13:44] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "We will bless the city when we ourselves are blessed by God. Okay, so this brings us to the really famous part, the really misunderstood part, the misused part. These kinds of promises in the Old Testament, we have to understand they have what's called a near-term application and a far-term application. So, when we come across Old Testament promises, we need to understand what's the near-term application, what's the far-term application. So, in this passage, God has two promises for His people. And so, in the near term, He promises in verse 10 that He is going to visit His people in exile, that He is going to be with them, that they are going to have His presence." [28:22] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "So, remember the two promises. In Jesus, they're fulfilled in us. His presence. What does Jesus say at the ascension when He gives us the great commission? Lo, I am with you always. All of us, no matter what we're doing, no matter what's happening in our lives, we have access to His presence. Yesterday morning, I woke up and one of my kids had woken up early, and I turn over, and I don't know if you can see me, but I'm Angela's face. I see my kid, you know, which is okay. That's fine. The older my kids get, the sweeter it is because it's not going to happen much longer. But what if I had rolled over and I had seen one of you there? Not okay. I would probably call the police because you don't have that kind of access to me, but my kids do." [34:21] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "Our task isn't just to stick it out until we die. Stick it out until Jesus comes back. Our task is to change the world. Now, we're never going to be able to make this world home, but our task is still to change this world. Jesus embraced exile so that He could bless us. And the more we understand this and the more that we experience Him, the more we're going to be able to make this world home. We're going to have the power to do the same thing, to bless other people whether we feel like they deserve it or not. We're going to have the freedom to be wronged and not retaliate. We're going to have the freedom to be opposed and to bless." [37:32] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "No other worldview has this kind of society. It's transforming power because no other worldview has Jesus. It's Him and His presence. It's not political power or cultural power or economic power. It is Him and His real presence in our life that gives us this power to go and bless our cities. That's God's promise for our shalom and our future hope. And that's our fuel to bless the city in which we live because we have been blessed. You know, the world says that we demand that those around us change so that we can be blessed. That's what the world says. The world sees everyone who won't change as the problem. But the gospel of Jesus Christ says that we bless this world and we seek its welfare because we were the enemy of God and we were blessed anyway." [39:06] (62 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)