Seek the Welfare of the City

Show Notes

Jeremiah 29 (Listen)

Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles

29:1 These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. It said: 4 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,¹ 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD.

10 “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare² and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

15 “Because you have said, ‘The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,’ 16 thus says the LORD concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your kinsmen who did not go out with you into exile: 17 ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, behold, I am sending on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like vile figs that are so rotten they cannot be eaten. 18 I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19 because they did not pay attention to my words, declares the LORD, that I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, declares the LORD.’ 20 Hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 21 ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall strike them down before your eyes. 22 Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” 23 because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the LORD.’”

Shemaiah’s False Prophecy

24 To Shemaiah of Nehelam you shall say: 25 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: You have sent letters in your name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying, 26 ‘The LORD has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to have charge in the house of the LORD over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and neck irons. 27 Now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who is prophesying to you? 28 For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, “Your exile will be long; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their produce.”’”

29 Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet. 30 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 31 “Send to all the exiles, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD concerning Shemaiah of Nehelam: Because Shemaiah had prophesied to you when I did not send him, and has made you trust in a lie, 32 therefore thus says the LORD: Behold, I will punish Shemaiah of Nehelam and his descendants. He shall not have anyone living among this people, and he shall not see the good that I will do to my people, declares the LORD, for he has spoken rebellion against the LORD.’”

Footnotes

[1] 29:8 Hebrew your dreams, which you cause to dream
[2] 29:11 Or peace

(ESV)

What is Sermons from Redeemer Community Church?

Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 00:00

Scripture reading tonight is, Jeremiah chapter 29 verses 1 through 7. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after king Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the by the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan and Jerm Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, king to king of Babylon. It said, thus said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I've sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Speaker 1: 00:57

Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage. That they that they may bear sons and daughters.

Speaker 1: 01:10

Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile. And pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.

Speaker 2: 01:23

If you pray with me again. Lord, we ask that you would speak tonight. We need to hear from you desperately. No one needs to hear from me. Ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.

Speaker 2: 01:48

Chapter 29 of Jeremiah is one of those passages of scripture that I find myself going to over and over. I've taught on this text in the past several times. When I was the director at u UCF, I preached on this text at least 2 or 3 times, especially towards seniors the last night. Because I I thought this text, it tells so much about what the Lord wants us to be in the world as a church. And how do we get involved, in our communities, in the lives of those we work with?

Speaker 2: 02:23

How do we have an impact for the kingdom of God? And so I always thought it was relevant for graduating seniors. It's foundational, this passage is, in understanding our calling here as a church and how we are to be a part of God's redemption for this world, for this city. In the first and last pages of the Bible, you see the tree of life. The Bible begins with this picture of the Garden of Eden, and the tree of life is in the middle of it.

Speaker 2: 02:55

At the end of the Bible, you find the tree of life again, but this time it's not in the midst of a garden. It's in the midst, the very center of a city. The Bible moves from a garden where there's only a couple of people in the tree of life to a city in the tree of life, where there's a community of people. And so you can see that this is the flow of the Bible, it's the thrust of the Bible. What God is moving us towards is a transformed community.

Speaker 2: 03:30

That's his heart, and we see this clearly in Jeremiah 29. This text is very relevant to us because it shows how we are to live our lives, how we're to share our faith in the midst of a hostile culture that's not accepting of this, a culture that doesn't love God. This letter by the prophet Jeremiah, he wrote shortly after 600 BC and he wrote it to the first waves of ex exiles from Israel. Israel had been living in continued disobedience is what all the the prophets kept prophesying about that God was going to destroy them, send them into exile, Unless they repented, they didn't. So God brought in the Babylonians and he said, I'm going to put you in exile for 70 years and then he could come back.

Speaker 2: 04:16

And a great way that I like to think of that exile period, and if you're a parent, you can relate to this, it's time out. A lot of it is is God the father, he has a disobedient son, Israel. They won't listen, they won't listen. He says, fine. I'm taking you away from your toys.

Speaker 2: 04:32

I'm taking you away from all this and I'm going to put you in time out for 70 years, and then you can return, and then we'll see if you've learned your lesson. And so they have this 70 year time out period, and, this is the period of Israel's history that we call the exile, and it's the period in which Jeremiah writes. Now most people don't know this, but there were actually 2 exiles. Not just 1, there was 2 exiles. 10 years before the temple was destroyed, there was a big deportation, 5 87 BC.

Speaker 2: 05:07

Babylonian came in and and, or the the big deportation came second. The first one came 10 years earlier and when they they just did this little mini deportation, in which they just captured a lot of the working professionals. That was it. They, they, they got the lawyers, the city managers, kind of the power brokers, the craftsmen. They got the artists.

Speaker 2: 05:30

And they took them out of society first, 10 years before the big conquering, the big deportation. They took out the working class Because Babylon realized that this was the group in which society hung to. If you want to change society, you go after the working class. That small group of people there. They changed society.

Speaker 2: 05:59

The king of Babylon was right. I I would love to think it was people like me, pastors, you know, who changed society. You know, pastors are the ones that lead a kind of cultural revolution. But it's usually not the case. It's the working professionals and Nebuchadnezzar understood this.

Speaker 2: 06:17

Actually during this period, god uses the same strategy when he wants to bring about change. When you look at the people that he really uses during this time, he uses Nehemiah, not a pastor. Nehemiah is a cup bearer. That's all he is and that's who he uses. Or Esther, a beauty queen, uses her to change society.

Speaker 2: 06:38

Or Daniel, not a pastor, he's just a wise man. God used very ordinary, the working class kind of people to bring about change. Now this letter that Jeremiah writes is written to these people who are part of that first wave of exiles. They have been ripped from their homes. They've been placed in Babylon.

Speaker 2: 06:59

The the the city of its day, this pagan city. And so they were once in this tight knit community of faith, but now they're in the midst of this pagan culture. And so, the school systems there no longer reflect their values that they had. The laws that they now are under, they no longer, reflect their moral values. The songs and the arts that surround them no longer use the same religious vocabulary that they had grown so used to.

Speaker 2: 07:34

And this had to be a tremendous shock to them. You know, to be once the majority and now placed in this irrelevant minority in which they are so misunderstood by all the people in power. There was absolutely nothing about this city, Babylon, that appealed to the Israelites. There was nothing. They hated this city.

Speaker 2: 07:59

They hated the people in this city who had conquered them. And so what they did is what most of us would do in a setting like that is they isolated themselves. They lived in separate neighborhoods. They got the Hebrew neighborhood there, and they all lived together. And and they they formed their own little community within this pagan community.

Speaker 2: 08:21

They kept their own little culture within this much broader culture, and what they did is they formed this holy huddle. They all got together and they formed this holy huddle, and they looked at this pagan city and they thought, let it go to hell. Let it go to hell. We though, we're gonna keep ourselves pure. God will judge them eventually, but we just keep ourselves pure and, you know, they would they would pick up, I'm sure, things like the, you know, the Babylonian news or tablet or whatever they had and, you know, they would read about the decline of school systems.

Speaker 2: 08:54

They would read about all the murders. They would read about all of the, the things that happen in pagan societies and you know, they would just say, that's right. Let them stew in their juices. Serves them right. Let's just not, let's remember who we are.

Speaker 2: 09:13

And so God sends the prophet Jeremiah. He says, no. No. Look at verse 4 again. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel to all exiles whom I have sent in exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Speaker 2: 09:32

Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.

Speaker 2: 09:55

And pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare. God says that when you are placed in the midst of a pagan culture, that you are to neither assimilate and just become just like the Babylonians, nor are you to isolate, and just get in your little holy huddle and have nothing to do with the You're not to assimilate, and you're not to isolate. You're you're not to embrace that pagan culture, but at the same time, you're not to remove yourselves completely from it. Instead, you're to do whatever it takes to get involved in the lives of all of these faithless people that you are in the midst of, and try to transform culture. You're not you're not assimilated into it, you don't isolate yourselves from it, instead you try to trans form this culture that God has placed you in the midst of.

Speaker 2: 10:50

And God tells us the same thing in the New Testament, in Matthew chapter 5, when Jesus says, you are the salt of the Earth. The salt of the Earth. Now, I've heard some really, really bad sermons on that, in which it basically says, You're the spice of life. You know, you're the Christians, we're like, you know, the over the top spice of life people, and and that's not at all. We don't add flavor.

Speaker 2: 11:15

In the 1st century, salt is primarily used as a preservative, a preservative. Salt is what you would add to meat to keep it from rotting. So when Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth, he's not saying that we're to spice up life. Not at all. You don't spice up life, preserve life.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Preserve it. In the way that salt preserves life is it mixes itself into something that will naturally rot or decay without it. You work your way into something that is gonna rot unless you're in there. Jesus tells us if we're not around rotting things as a church, we have become useless. We've become useless.

Speaker 2: 12:11

These Israelites were in the midst of a rotting community, and they are now to act as a preservative for Babylon, the very people who had conquered them, the very people who hate their god and hate their religion. And now they're to work themselves into this pagan culture, somehow. Well, how do you do this? How do you do this? Well, the first thing that Jeremiah tells him to do, he said, build houses and live in them.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Build houses and live in them. Says, don't rent, commit yourselves to a community and build. Settle into some neighborhood, interact with the neighbors, invest in them. They're to build houses, not fortresses. And by fortresses, I mean they're not to set up barriers that keep their pagan neighbors away.

Speaker 2: 13:13

But the way that they are to live and to invest is always to be inviting their pagan neighbors in. You know, and and what they were doing before they got Jeremiah's letters, they were keeping them all away. You know, they were trying to limit any interaction they could with the Babylonians. They would only do business with other Hebrews. They would they would only interact with one another.

Speaker 2: 13:34

They're in that little holy huddle and they're refusing to go out in the city because they're scared to death. They're gonna somehow become corrupted. Jeremiah says, no, build houses. Don't build fortresses. Don't isolate yourselves.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Settle in. Now, isolation, I have to admit, is my first knee jerk reaction, and I found that it is most Christians' knee jerk reaction. That when they're placed in a culture that's in odds with Christianity, the first knee jerk reaction is, remove myself. Get as far away as I as I can, lest I become corrupt. And so we we do the easy thing, and so we only have friends who are Christian friends.

Speaker 2: 14:11

We only do church activities. We only want to work at a business in which everybody's a Christian. We only want to do business with other Christians. We begin to form our own little Christian culture, and soon the world cannot even relate to us. They can't even relate.

Speaker 2: 14:29

We've isolated ourselves so much. We have put up such a barrier and that is not what salt is to look like. And we do these things under the the the guise of Christian community, thinking that we're just guarding ourselves from the world. But what we've really done is create a Christian fortress. And the only way that a person can actually build a relationship with us is if they are, you know, willing to swim across the moat, and to come over to us, maybe stumble into a church, break down the door.

Speaker 2: 15:04

God doesn't want us to isolate ourselves. He wants us to dwell in the city. He wants us to inter interact with the people. Get out of our holy huddle. And of course, you see this in Christ.

Speaker 2: 15:18

You see this in Christ who modeled this for us. You know, Jesus was called a drunkard and a glutton. A drunkard and a glutton, because he was always eating and drinking with sinners. He he found out where the sinners worked, went there. Sound found out where the sinners lived, went there.

Speaker 2: 15:39

Zaccheus, you come down. I'm going to your house today. And as a church, we have to ask this question. If sinners were so drawn to Jesus, are sinners drawn to us as a church? And if not, what does that say about us?

Speaker 2: 16:04

Sinners who were so drawn to Jesus, if sinners are not drawn to us as a church, what does that say about us? It says we're not being very Christ like. It's a tough question to ask yourself and you need to ask, have I isolated myself? Have I isolated myself? The next thing that Jeremiah tells the Israelites to do is to plant gardens, eat of their produce, and one of the things I think he is hinting at here is that work really hard to bring life into a community.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Work really hard. My wife and I, we have a vegetable garden in our backyard. And on our garden we have this little sign, that has this verse printed on it that we made. You could barely read it now, the the the woods gotten all rotted and the the lettering's bad, but we we we have Jeremiah 29 there, plant a garden. For those of you who own a home, you know that planting a garden is never the first thing you do when you get a house.

Speaker 2: 17:06

You never do it. You you know, you fix up the rooms, you do all the repairs, you get the colors like you want, update the kitchen. You're going to do all the things like that. Your first thought isn't, you know, let me get out there and get my hands dirty and get a garden. And the reason we don't do that is because we need to build equity, which is a really good thing, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:28

You gotta you gotta build equity in your house so you can sell it for more than you made it. You know, you don't have equity in a garden. Working on a garden, however, is not going to increase the value of your home. It's not gonna do that. It's gonna increase something else.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Lauren and I, we have what we call $50 tomatoes. Those of you who are gardeners, you realize that. You get out there and you work and you work and by the time you've had fertilizer, the right soil, you know, the little tomato cages and all that. You get a tomato like, this tomato cost me $50. You know, everybody's trying to start gardens to save money.

Speaker 2: 18:09

That's not how you save money. It might taste better, but it's not going to really save you money. Because you have to put all this work in it, and you're not going to get the money back. And Jeremiah says, exactly. You're not going to get the money back.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Because you see your investment is not in your house, your investment is in your neighbors. There's your investment. It's in your neighborhood. It's where I have planted you. That's your investment.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Work hard to make your community a better place. Don't look at your house like it's a fortress or some pretty castle. You know, we we have that idiom, your your home is your castle. Your home is Man, that is that's so true. You know, you I like to picture this, you know, you have your your big house, your driveway's the the, drawbridge, or or it's the moat, you know, your yard is.

Speaker 2: 19:03

You you open your garage door, that's a drawbridge, you know, you get in there, you close the drawbridge up. Hopefully, you could get in, not even see a neighbor. You know, get in, go into your inner sanctuary, sit down on your throne, and zone out. And our home is a castle. It's a fortress.

Speaker 2: 19:22

We don't even know our neighbors. Jeremiah says, no, your investment is in those who live around you, not in the building, the structure that you live in. Jeremiah then he tells these exiles, he says, raise a family. Take wives, have sons and daughters. If you wanna change the city, you need to raise a godly family.

Speaker 2: 19:47

Don't go into life always thinking, I want to shelter my my my children from the world. Think how am I going to raise children to change the world? And I realize, I mean, parents out there is a balance. There's a balance, you know, in all honesty, we're not going to take our child or we're not going to put him like Woodlawn Elementary, right now. It's not her it's not our little 6 year old girl's battle to fight yet.

Speaker 2: 20:12

But we wanna make sure that she is not completely sheltered from all of the poverty and all of the injustice that's around her. She needs to be exposed to those things. She needs to see those things, so she can be raised up to change those things. Finally, Jeremiah says that you're to be so attached to the city that your welfare is actually tied up in its welfare. When it prospers, you prosper.

Speaker 2: 20:41

Without going into a ton of details, on my street, one of my one of my neighbors, we're not great friends, he has a substance abuse problem. And when he has a bad day, Lauren and I have a bad day. We have a really bad day. And and so, I I can be off somewhere and I'm gonna get a call and it's gonna be it's gonna be the wife saying, you gotta get here right now and I gotta cancel plans. I gotta do whatever it is, and it's gonna take up hours and hours.

Speaker 2: 21:20

It's not fun, but it's what I'm supposed to do. You know, we don't really have anything in common. I mean, we've got nothing in common, but I need to wrap my life so much into his life that when he's doing well, I'm doing well, when he's doing bad, it's gonna affect me. It will affect me. That's what salt is.

Speaker 2: 21:47

Working your life into something that will rot unless you're in there. It will fall apart unless you're in there. Let's look at Daniel. Turn to Daniel chapter 4. Skip over a few chapters or a few books.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Daniel's a great example of how to be salt and light in the world. To be in the world, but not of the world. Daniel was one of these exiles. He lived during the time of Jeremiah. And he is one of these exiles who's been ripped from his home.

Speaker 2: 22:28

He's been taken off to Babylon. He and his friends are put into service of of the king as one of the wise men. Yet despite working for the king in the midst of this really sinful pagan city, Daniel kept his integrity. And Daniel also sought the welfare of the city. And so, look at Daniel chapter 4 verses 4.

Speaker 2: 22:57

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering

Joel Brooks: 23:07

So I made a decree that all the

Speaker 2: 23:08

wise men of Babylon should be brought before me. So I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. Then the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, the astrologers came in, and I told them the dream but they could not make known to me its interpretation. At last, Daniel came in before me, he who was named Belteshazzar, after the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. And I told him the dream.

Speaker 2: 23:38

And he tells him the dream, and Daniel interprets this dream for him. And so, the, this great king, Nebuchadnezzar, he has a dream and he wants it to be interpreted. It's a it's of this giant tree that's cut down from this this angel in heaven. He knows this dream is really important. He knows he needs to find the interpretation to it.

Speaker 2: 24:01

He sends out for everybody, sends for his magicians, his his enchanters, his astrologers, his source for all these people to give him the interpretation. Finally, he goes to Daniel Belteshazzar. Now this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing. Here is a exile.

Speaker 2: 24:23

A devout Jew, yet he is called Belteshazzar, the chief magician, the chief magician. He's the head of all of the other magicians, all of the other wise men. These are the they're the sorcerers. They're the astrologers. These are all of those pagans, and he's ahead of them.

Speaker 2: 24:55

This means that if if he became the chief of these people, he had to study what they studied. He had to learn and master these things, the knowledge of them, somehow keeping himself distant and pure, yet somehow knowing all these things, going to these classes, learning these chants, all of this, so he would rise up through the ranks, and now he's the chief of the magicians. And yes, they misunderstand him a little bit. They say, yes, he's the one who has all the spirit of the gods in him. It's like, well it's not the spirit of the gods.

Speaker 2: 25:25

He's even misunderstood there, it's the spirit of of God in me. But you have to ask yourself, what is such a godly man, Daniel, doing in a position like this? This should absolutely surprise you. I mean, I understand he's forced to be a wise man, he was forced to do this. But to rise up through the ranks like that, without embracing it?

Speaker 2: 25:53

I mean, he he didn't think, I'm just gonna kind of not do a good job. I'm not gonna learn this stuff. No. No. No.

Speaker 2: 26:02

He somehow embraced it. He could have just thought that I've been thrown in this terrible situation, I'll wait it out and then they'll send me home. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, come here. This is what we do. We meet early in the morning.

Speaker 2: 26:16

We just form our holy little huddle. Let's not get involved in anything. Soon they'll lose interest in us and they'll just send us on home. Okay? Let's just do that.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Let's set up our fortress. Let's isolate ourselves. Let's stick together. Let Babylon go to hell, and and they don't do that. And I'm not sure how he did that.

Speaker 2: 26:40

I'm not sure how. You know, that's the thing about being salt and working yourselves into things that rot. Nothing's really clear cut. You're always seeking the Lord. You're always praying.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Oh, I want to get involved in this. I want to stay pure. Lord, help me. That's what it is to be working. It's so easy, the law.

Speaker 2: 26:57

So you want, you know, let me just separate way over here, piece of cake. But if you wanna have a lasting impact on the world, that's what you'll do. Well, look at the lasting impact Daniel had and you see this in Matthew chapter 2. Most people don't realize this. In Matthew chapter 2 verse 1, let me just read a couple verses.

Speaker 2: 27:19

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod, the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, Saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw a star when it rose and have come to worship him. A 600 years later, 600 years have passed since Daniel and Jeremiah last walked the earth. Jesus is born. You have to ask a question, why in the world would pagan wise men from the east, which is where Babylon is, the Babylonian Empire.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Why would they come to worship a Jewish Messiah? It makes absolutely no sense. And what you're seeing here is the impact of Daniel. In which he used his position as chief magician, chief wise man so well. Taught them so well, there's no other reason.

Speaker 2: 28:30

That they would actually come, it'd be passed down, and 600 years later, they're still looking for the Jewish Messiah. If you wanna have a lasting impact, you seek the welfare or you seek the shalom of the city. I'm at our theological coffee house, on Friday night, which was which was fantastic. We were discussing the sermon that we we had last week, the message on the resurrection. And, the resurrection and the redemption of all creation, and we're looking at 1st Corinthians 15 again, which is what we we looked at last week.

Speaker 2: 29:09

About the the main point at the end of chapter 15, and Paul's talking all about the resurrection. And he says that the If we understand the resurrection, if we really understand, it makes us steadfast and immovable, and it helps us to know that our work is not in vain. Understanding the resurrection helps us know that our work is not in vain. That somehow, the work we do, the way we invest ourselves in the city now, the way we invest ourselves in people right now, that work lasts into the kingdom of God. Somehow, it lasts.

Speaker 2: 29:46

It continues. It becomes incorporated into God's kingdom when it comes on earth. Our work is not in vain, and and and we were discussing in coffee, I was in particular, it's really hard to work out because the Bible just gives us signs, not photographs, when talking about the future. And so it just kind of points us in this direction. I I like to think of Jesus' body as the model of the work that we do.

Speaker 2: 30:12

Jesus' resurrected body is is the first fruits. He's the first born. He's the one who goes before us. His body is the type of body that we will have. Now, it was not a completely new body, because if so, you would go into that, when they went to go to the grave, you would find Jesus's body there.

Speaker 2: 30:29

His soul went someplace else and they just gave him a new body. God just gave him a new one. That's not the case. His old body was gone and transformed into a new one. He still had the scars, yet he could walk through walls.

Speaker 2: 30:45

He could eat fish. He would cook. Yet he could be here, and then he could zoom there. It was it was his whole body transformed. And in the same way, Paul says the work that we do here, somehow it remains, somehow it's redeemed, sometimes somehow it is transformed, and it will last.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Particulars are hard to figure out. What a comfort that is for us, that we do not labor in vain. I like to picture it like this, where as Jesus said, the work you do is a mustard seed. He says, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. You do this little work, you have no idea the outcome.

Speaker 2: 31:27

It's gonna grow into a huge tree It lasts. The Israelites are only in exile for 70 years, and they had to be thinking, what could a disenfranchised, small, powerless people do to have any impact? What could they possibly do? And so they started doing nothing. And Jeremiah said, no, no.

Speaker 2: 31:54

Seek the welfare of the city. Your work is not in vain. And I challenge us as a church, as a little church. We're so little, city so big, that our work is not in vain. Getting to know your neighbor is not in vain.

Speaker 2: 32:13

Giving soup to someone who needs it is not in vain. Those things last. They're mustard seeds. They grow. We're to seek the welfare of the city and as a church so bind ourselves to our communities, and to our neighbors, to the city that when it prospers it prospers, and when it doesn't, we don't.

Speaker 2: 32:36

Pray with me. Lord, I ask simply that we would be salt as you have commanded. That this week when people leave here, when the church gathered becomes a church scattered, that we will work ourselves into people, into work situations, into culture, into the arts. We'll work ourselves into those things that will rot unless we're there as a preservative. We pray this in the name of Jesus and for His glory.

Speaker 2: 33:20

Amen.