For The City
The video above was created for the kickoff of our 50th Anniversary celebrations as a church.
The last seven weeks we have been going through the book of Nehemiah. It’s an amazing story of someone who was used to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.
As the church it is our mandate to join God in the rebuilding of the spiritual city (the church) within our city. For those of who us have grown up in church we hear the verse Jeremiah 29:11 thrown around a lot. It’s a great verse, but I think we can often take the verse out of context. Often we apply it to ourselves as individuals, not realising what precedes verse 11.
Israel once again is in exile. This time to the Babylonians. You would think that if you were taken into exile by a particular people that you would expect your God to say “stay away, don’t interact, and shun the pagan culture around you.”
That’s exactly opposite of what God tells Israel to do. In Jeremiah 29:5-7 God says,
5 ”Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
What’s the context of Jeremiah 29:11? That’s not a statement from God to an individual. That is a statement from God to a of community people who have been taken over by a pagan culture, yet God instructs them to flourish even in exile.
Seek the peace and prosperity of the city! That’s what the church is called to do. We are not simply to be in the city, we are called to be FOR the city!