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4 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 5 “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6 I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
(ESV)
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.
(ESV)
Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
We're gonna be in Jeremiah 29 tonight. So if you have a bottle and wanna flip there, it'll also be there in your worship guide. If you would read with me, Jeremiah chapter 29 verses one through 14. 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, to 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 and the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem.
Ford Galin:The letter was sent by the hand of Eleazar, the son of Shaphan, and Gamariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon. To Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. It said, thus says the lord of hosts, the god of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce.
Ford Galin:Take wives and have sons and daughters, and 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've sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare. 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, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.
Ford Galin:I did not send them, declares the Lord. 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. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, To give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you.
Ford Galin:You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 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've driven you, declares the Lord. And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. This is the word of the Lord.
Ford Galin:Amen. Pray with me. Lord, God, we are here to hear from you. At best, I can offer words, but God, you offer life. So I pray that you would breathe life into us now.
Ford Galin:Lord, that you'd speak through me, speak through your spirit, speak through your word. Lord, to that which is from this world would quickly be forgotten, but that which is from you, God, would transform us that we may have life, and that you would send us out so that through us, Lord, life would go out into this city. Speak now for your servants who are listening. We pray this in the good name of Jesus. Amen.
Ford Galin:Well, if I'm honest, I really struggled to write an opening illustration for this sermon. I think that I started five or six different times and like every single one was worse than the last. I'm not sure why, it may be because this text feels really important at Redeemer. For those who have been at the church for a long time, you might be aware that Jeremiah 20 nine:seven is actually one of the most foundational convictional scriptures for who we have called to be as a church. It may also be because I know that Joel has preached on this scripture many times, I knew the afternoon service might not live up.
Ford Galin:But for whatever reason, rather than trying to start with some perfect illustration that I could never find, I am gonna ask or start with asking you guys a question, a little bit different. I wanna ask why are you here? Not here at the 4PM service of Redeemer on November 9, but wherever you are at in life. Why are you here? As you think about your life, living in 2025, most of you in Birmingham, Alabama, some single, some married, some with families, some in plenty of different seasons.
Ford Galin:Many of you working, but also some students or some who are staying at home. However you would define and describe your life circumstances right now, why are you here? And the second question, where are you headed? And this is gonna feel ridiculously awkward, but it's the 4PM, so we can get away with it. Actually, I'm gonna give you guys just fifteen seconds of silence to think about that.
Ford Galin:Why are you here in life? And where are you headed? Alright. I know that someone in here is dying in the silence, and I'm sure that twenty seconds is plenty of time to answer these two huge existential questions. Don't worry so much about your answer, but I wanted us starting there, feeling the weight of that, because Jeremiah 29 is actually gonna speak into both of those questions pretty clearly.
Ford Galin:They're big, huge foundational things about the ways we approach life, and Jeremiah 29 is gonna give us some clarity on how we should think about those questions. So we'll come back to that a few times as we go. But first, let's start with some context and we'll work our way there. So last week, for those who are here, Cole Ragsdale led us as we studied Jeremiah six, which was a passage about the dangers of not heeding God's words. The warning that happens when we disobey or harden our hearts to what God has to say for us.
Ford Galin:And it was hinted at the end of our passage last week, but we're told that the Judeans, that was just the Jews who were living in Jerusalem and the surrounding area to whom much of Jeremiah spent his ministry prophesying towards. We're told that they ultimately will not heed this warning. We didn't quite get there but Jeremiah six twenty two, 23 goes on to say that what's gonna happen is a result of Israel hardening their hearts and their disobedience is that God is gonna raise up a northern country, Babylon, to conquer Jerusalem and to bring the Judeans into exile. Now, we've skipped 23 chapters, but the main thing you need to know is in Jeremiah 29, we're starting to see that come to fruition. In May, Babylon conquers Jerusalem and takes this first wave of exiles back into Babylonian captivity.
Ford Galin:Now they didn't take the entire country. There's actually gonna be multiple waves of exile. The biggest one will happen in May when Jerusalem is completely destroyed. You can read about that in Jeremiah 39. But our passage today, Jeremiah 29, comes after this first wave of exile.
Ford Galin:In Jeremiah 29 verse two, we read that Babylon had taken the working class of Jerusalem. Now, when Babylon takes their first captives, they don't take the elders, they don't take the leaders, they don't take the elites, they take the skilled laborers, the up and comers. In a minute, it was the future of the Jews. Now, it's a little bit confusing why Babylon would do this. And at the time, there were a few different ways that people approached conquering a nation.
Ford Galin:I don't have much experience, so this is what I've read. But from what I understand, the most common is you would just take them, enslave them, and bring them back. But typically, enslaved people would tend to have uprisings and rebel. Other times, the Roman Empire would do this, is you wouldn't actually take captives, you would let a nation carry on as it was just owing you taxes. But eventually, want their independence and rebel.
Ford Galin:But Babylon tried a third strategy. Their thought wasn't gonna be to oppress the Jews, nor was it gonna be to let them go on living. They thought, well, if we can just bring some of the Jews into our culture, perhaps we can win them over. Perhaps we can convince this working class, this up and coming generation of Jerusalem or to see things the way we see him, to live the way we live, to forsake their gods, and to worship our gods. I think, well, we don't we don't need to enslave them.
Ford Galin:We just need to indoctrinate them. If we can capture the minds and the hearts of this up and coming generation, we'll pretty soon the full nation will follow. So this first wave of exiled Jews, they find themselves in a place that was unknown. They find themselves uneasy and unsettled, forced to dwell in a place that is not their home, and even more a place in which their culture, their faith, their way of life is now under threat. It would have been left in complete culture shock as they got to Babylon.
Ford Galin:They would have lived with this continual pressure and this persuasion to abandon their beliefs and their way of life, that which God had called them to be, to instead look like the surrounding culture. As I look out at a church full of predominantly an up and coming generation, living in 2025, a time in which following Jesus and holding to biblical ideals is becoming increasingly unpopular, and in many ways, others are seeking to persuade or dissuade us from the faith. Can't help but ask if we feel similarly. If there's a culture shock in our modern day where it feels like being a Christian doesn't just fit in with the culture as large, Maybe not so much in the South or in Birmingham, but as we look around our world or around our nation, are there ways that we feel like exiles? Unsettled and homesick, brought to a place in life that perhaps we did not want, or even fighting to hold fast to a faith in a nation in which that faith is increasingly unpopular.
Ford Galin:When I asked a moment ago, what are you doing here? I imagine as you began to think about your life, there are plenty in this room who thought about their life fondly. But I also recognize there were probably plenty who were pretty quickly filled with sadness or unease. There's no question that you don't feel at home right now because you find yourself in a place in life that is the last place you thought you would be. You may not have been physically taken captive or forced to leave your home, yet you feel like a stranger in this life, a sojourner, an exile, far from what you thought your life was designed to be.
Ford Galin:And maybe maybe you feel this way in a in a couple of different rooms. Maybe you feel it geographically or at work, that you live in a city or you work in a job that that you can't stand, but it was the only open door for you, so you're stuck somewhere that does not feel like home. Or maybe you live in one part of Birmingham, though you wish you were in another, but you simply can't afford it. Maybe you feel like an exile in your season of life. Do you feel unsettled and unease of where you are?
Ford Galin:Maybe you've had a longing to be married, yet God hasn't given that opportunity yet. You have a desire and a yearning to see a family grow that God has not granted that, and so things feel unsettled and incomplete in your life. Maybe you feel like an exile relationally. Do you even feel like a stranger in your marriage or in your family? Or that you don't truly belong in your group of friends, or you don't even feel like you have a group of friends to which you could belong.
Ford Galin:So you're left feeling like there's no one to give you the rest, the security, the support that you need, so you feel lonely looking for someone or something to truly call home. And just like the Judeans in Jeremiah chapter nine, remember that God has brought you to this place in life, even if it is not where you wanted to be. And so when I ask, why are you here? The only thing you can think is, I don't know because I don't think I belong here. So in that sense, you may hear be here already feeling the weight of a life as an exile, but there's a deeper sense in which all of us here should actually feel the weight of a life in exile.
Ford Galin:In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis writes that most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, know that they want, and even want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, it leads me to believe that the most probable explanation is I was made for another world. What he is saying is that if you've ever felt a longing for more, a thirst that it seems like nothing in this world ever truly quenches, and let's be honest, all of us have, It's because we're not actually made for this world. God has set eternity into our hearts. He has wired and designed us to only feel fully at home with him in his eternal dwelling.
Ford Galin:To our first Peter, a book that we're gonna study as a church next year, I believe, is addressed to Christians that he calls elect exiles. To our Hebrews 11, we see those who are are those who are living by faith commended. For we read that they have acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles in this world. For people who speak thus make it clear that they were searching for a homeland. And so however you feel about the here and the now of your life, know this, that we are actually not made to feel fully at home in this world.
Ford Galin:That there will always be this feeling of unease or lack of settlement because this is not where we are designed to make our eternal and final home. Yet in the meantime, we live in a world that would seek to dissuade us from our faith in many ways, and instead look like the rest of the prevailing culture. And in that, all of us live the life of an exile. So what does God say to an exiled people? Well, in our passage, He's going to remind us of where we are headed, and then in light of that, He's gonna call us how we are to approach our here and now.
Ford Galin:That'll be two things we are to seek. We are to seek Him, and we are to seek the welfare of the city. So we're gonna work back through this passage a little bit at a time. First, seeing where God reminds us that we are headed somewhere, and then seeing how that informs the way we would approach why we are here now. So if you go back with me starting in verse four.
Ford Galin:Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So don't miss that the Lord is making abundantly clear he is behind this exile. It is not chance or happenstance, but the Lord's sovereign plan. Verse five, build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce.
Ford Galin: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 and do not decrease. So first, god tells them that they are to build houses and plant gardens and to take wives and to grow in number. This is god saying, settle in.
Ford Galin:You're gonna be here for a while. Says, don't rent, buy. I want you to be fully present and invested in the community where you find yourself, where I've sent you. Plant gardens not because gardens are actually efficient or cost effective, but because they bring beauty to the community you're gonna find yourself in. God wants an exiled people to ingratiate themself into the community where they find themselves for the long haul, and to increase in number and in influence, which leads into Jeremiah twenty nine seven, which we're gonna circle back to in a few minutes.
Ford Galin:For now, go on to verse eight. 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 not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name. I did not send them, declares the Lord. And so Jeremiah was telling the Judeans, hey, settle in.
Ford Galin:But they also had these false prophets who were saying, hey, hey, don't listen to Jeremiah. We're only gonna be here two years. This is gonna pass pretty quickly. They had no reason to believe this. They just were telling the people what they wanted to hear, and it's been a temptation for us always that we seek out that which tells us the things that we think are right for us.
Ford Galin:That's why second Timothy four three tells us that the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. And so as we live and feel the weight and the pains of a life in exile, we have to realize that our call is not to just find teachers who will tell us everything is gonna be okay. Right now in America, many of the largest churches in our country are those that preach a false prosperity gospel that would say that God wants every Christian to be healthy and to be wealthy, to be successful and to be prosper. And absolutely, God does desire and work for and provide our good.
Ford Galin:We also have a God who's promised we will suffer. And so we cannot look for teachers or for messages that are just gonna tell us, hey, it's about to get better because that's not what God has promised us. But what we have in Jeremiah 29 goes so much deeper than saying life circumstances will improve. Verse 10. For thus says the Lord, when seventy years are completed in Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
Ford Galin:That's God saying he's gonna bring them back home. And in verse in Jeremiah twenty nine eleven, most famous verse throughout this entire book, also oftentimes the most understood in Jeremiah. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. God's message to an exiled people who are hurting is take heart.
Ford Galin:I know what I'm doing for you and my plans are secure. My plan is ultimately for your good, for your welfare, and I know where you are headed and you do not have to fear what is to come. Now, god says they're going into exile for seven years, which means that for most of these Judeans, they are gonna spend the rest of their lives and actually die in their exile. But God's word of hope to them and to us is verse 11, he says his plan is to give them a future. In Hebrew, that is the word It comes from the Hebrew or conjunction preposition, sorry, which means after or afterwards.
Ford Galin:What god is saying here with this, saying that he has a plan for their future is saying that your fortunes may not be about to change, but your suffering will not be the end of the story. The story is not finished, but has an afterwards, an epilogue. The direct meaning to the Judeans is that God would ultimately gather them up and bring them back home to Jerusalem. But the meaning for us here today is that our suffering in these lives are not in, but God has promised us a future in his presence, where we belong with him in relationship for eternity. Commentator Walter Bruggemann summarizes it this way.
Ford Galin:This proclamation or this is a proclamation of salvation. A bittersweet promise of long term hope over and against short term optimism. Yahweh's response is not no, but not yet. Yes, we may or better yet, we will be left feeling the pains and the sufferings of a life in exile. But they or but we have a secure future.
Ford Galin:A day on the other side of all of our tears and pains and homesickness. When Jeremiah twenty nine eleven is wrongly taken to mean that God has this wonderful plan for our prosperity in this life, What gives encouragement for a little while, but then when our life circumstances don't change, then it just leads to disillusionment and heartbreak and numbing out. Even in the last week or two, I have sat with three different members of this church who have been in prolonged brutal seasons of darkness. Has Jeremiah twenty nine eleven failed for them? Absolutely not.
Ford Galin:Because God is not saying, I'm making known to you the plans I have for you. He's saying, I know the plans I have for you. And what's not for you to know at all, what I will reveal about my plan is at the center of it is to give you this future. The beauty of Jeremiah twenty nine eleven is not that it lets us assume that God is about to do something in our life that lines up with the plan we have for ourselves. He may, and we should pray that he would.
Ford Galin:But the beauty of Jeremiah twenty nine eleven is that even when our life makes no sense, even when the plan feels unrecognizable and we cannot grasp how it's possible we are where we are, that no matter how bad it gets, God's plan is not in question or in doubt. But there's a future and a hope no matter how bad it gets. When I asked you the question earlier, where are you headed? For the Christian, the answer is abundantly clear. You were headed to an eternal future, and afterwards, You were headed to a time of welfare and of peace, and that's the Hebrew word shalom.
Ford Galin:Shalom, well, it means complete good. It can means flourishing, things being restored exactly to what God intended them to be, not just things of evil that are gonna cease and tears that are gonna stop. But shalom is those those desires that CS Lewis was talking about, those thirst of our soul. Shalom is where every one of those has their fulfillment. Shalom is the joy of being the perfect design that God created for his creation because we, as God's creation, will be back with God our creator.
Ford Galin:And for those of us who are in Christ, that is unmistakably and unalterably where we are headed. Though we live in a life of exile now, our future is unshakable and secure, kept in heaven for us. And so that's where we're headed. But in light of that, why are we here? How are we to live as exiles?
Ford Galin:Look at two things. The first really quickly. The first is gonna be something that God wants to do in us. The second will be what God wants to do through us. So the in us is He wants us to seek Him.
Ford Galin:Jeremiah 29, twelve, and thirteen. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I'll be really brief on this point, but God says He is after our wholehearted seeking of Him. God wants to refine His people in exile so that He would not be one thing we seek in the midst of every desire and intention for our life, but that our sole pursuit would be the Lord alone.
Ford Galin:And so is that how we approach our relationship with the Lord? Lord has told us that He is a jealous God. He doesn't intend to fight with other desires for our attention and our energy. He asks for it all. As Abraham Kuiper wrote, there's not a square inch of the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not declare mine.
Ford Galin:God is after every fiber being, not a half hearted pursuit of him. The truth is that if God has some of our heart, he actually has none of it. He calls for it all. But I don't want you to hear this as a rebuke. I actually want you to hear this as an invitation.
Ford Galin:God says that he is the fountain of living waters who can satisfy our deepest desires. That he is the one in whom we ultimately have shalom. The one in whom we find our home. And the one who says here in Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen will be found by us if only we will seek him wholeheartedly. He says, I will give you all that which you yearn for, but it's me and that's it.
Ford Galin:God is not content to be one on a list of things that we are seeking in life, but he says it is all or nothing. And so he invites us and says, seek me with all of your heart and see the ways that I will be found by you. And so that's what God wants to do in us in our exile, but what does God wanna do through us? Let's go back to verse seven where we'll stay for the rest of our time. But seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.
Ford Galin:For in its welfare, you will find your welfare. God tells calls the Judeans to seek the welfare of Babylon and to pray for them, The very ones who had brought them into exile. Now, Babylon's aim was to assimilate God's people into their culture, to slowly make the Jews look more and more like Babylon, that eventually they would just blend in. They wanna change their way of doing things, their beliefs, their gods, everything about them. They wanted them to conform to the culture at large.
Ford Galin:But the Jews said, well, if that's the case, we're just gonna avoid Babylon altogether. And rather than setting up shop in the city, they build this kind of remote village out by the Khabar Canal in their own kind of insulated community. And in Psalm one thirty seven, we see that the Jews are actually there praying for Babylon. They're just praying for Babylon's destruction. They're praying that God would do to Babylon what Babylon had done to them.
Ford Galin:And so they wanted to isolate themselves from Babylon, and they wanted to long and await Babylon's downfall. But God says no to that as well. God says that when you're exiled, I don't want you to retreat into your holy huddles out of fear or hatred of a community that is opposed to your faith. But I also don't want you to conform to the culture around you. I want you to transform the culture around you.
Ford Galin:Don't assimilate, don't isolate, but ingratiate yourself in Babylon. And for us, ingratiate yourself in the world now. Invest deeply in this community even if and even though they will oppose you. Pray not for their destruction, but for their flourishing. Spend your life seeking their welfare, and that word welfare is the same word, shalom.
Ford Galin:See, for God's people, shalom is a future gift, but a present task. Shalom is a future gift but a present task. And so it is with us here today. In '25, God is not calling us to conform to a culture in which following Jesus is becoming increasingly unpopular, but he's also not calling us to just find one another and to hole up in these insular communities where we just talk about how messed up the world is and wait for the world's destruction or until God calls us to be home. Remember, Jeremiah twenty nine four made it clear that God sent them into the exiles, and in the same way, God has intentionally placed you where he has you now.
Ford Galin:There are those here, like I said, who are lamenting or frustrated or heartbroken by the pains of their exile and where they find themselves in life. But in your here and now, are you open to how God would use you to seek the welfare of those around you? The Garnettes are an incredible example of this. Forced in a stage of life they never would have chosen for themselves, but saying, God, how would you use us? And out of their faithfulness and willingness to answer that call, they've blessed many in this church and so much more.
Ford Galin:Olivia Garnett now has a hope and a future she might not otherwise. I don't know what it looks like for you. If you feel isolated, unhappy, or like an exile in your own marriage or in your own family, it may be that God is calling you to prioritize working for your spouse or your family's good even if they aren't gonna reciprocate rather than seeking your own welfare in it. If you feel like in an exile in Birmingham or in your job, you're spending all of your energy just trying to get out and get somewhere else. Not saying that there isn't a place for that, but it may be that as long as you're there, God is calling you to use your energy and your time primarily to invest in your neighbors or in your coworkers or to work for your company or your community's good.
Ford Galin:And again, regardless of how we feel about our life circumstances, all of us truly live the life of an exile, which means all of us have this call to, in our exile, seek the welfare of this world. In Matthew five, God tells Christians that we are to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The metaphor here is that salt, prior to electricity, was used to preserve food. When there was rotting or decaying or food that was otherwise gonna perish, you would mix salt into it, you would get the salt into as many different crevices of it as possible, and as the salt mixed in, it would cause that which would otherwise perish and rot in decay to be preserved, to remain viable. And that is what God is calling us to do.
Ford Galin:You see, you and I are surrounded by coworkers, by neighbors, by friends, by family members, as well as by members of the community who are impoverished or underprivileged. In a community that is perishing apart from Christ in a world that is rotting. And our call is to spend our lives working and to pray for the welfare and the shalom of these people God has placed around us. As the salt of the earth, we are to deeply ingratiate ourselves into the community around us even if they might be opposed to the things that we would believe. And on one hand, I can think of so many who are doing this incredibly well in Birmingham.
Ford Galin:My mind first goes to a man named Tom Patton. Tom was a pastor at the previous church I worked at. And there's one day, Tom and I were in Athens, Greece on a mission trip, and I wake up and I see him just looking at this list that has just this or this page that just has this list of names. Tom had been up for like an hour and a half praying, reading his bible. He was way more spiritually than I was or ever will be.
Ford Galin:But I asked him about this list because it just looks like a list of just bullet point names. And his face lights up. And he's like, wait, I haven't told you about this? These are my bar friends. I was like, wait, pastor, you said bar friends?
Ford Galin:And he said, yeah. Well, a few years ago, I was dropping my wife off at an appointment and I had an hour to kill. And so I thought, and I was like, what can I do? Well, let me figure out how I can share the gospel in some way in the next hour. And he was about to go to a coffee shop, only to remember that no one at a coffee shop wants to be bothered.
Ford Galin:And he looked up and found this little dive bar on 280, about three minutes from where he had had to pick up wife in an hour. So was like, it's three in the afternoon. Surely no one will be in there, but I'll go just in case. And he found a raucous crowd at 3PM on a Tuesday afternoon. But he sat there and he got to know him, and they were pretty skeptical of him at first.
Ford Galin:And it was clear there were some people in there with some hard things. There were some people in there who were rough around the edges. But he sat with them for about an hour, got to know some of their stories. Then he left and he went and picked up his wife. Then two days later, went back, and he saw some of the same people there.
Ford Galin:And he talked to him again. They were shocked that he had come back after what happened the first time. Then the week after that, he came back a few times. And the week after that and he made this regular rhythm of one to twice a week going to this bar in the late afternoon where these regulars were. And he spent years doing this, building these relationships with those who would never have walked into his church.
Ford Galin:But in that time, he became a really dear friend to them. Pretty sure there were times he walked into that bar and immediately started breaking up fights. Pretty sure there were times he walked into that bar and immediately had someone yelled at him, hey pastor, we're thinking about this, tell us what you believe. We're not gonna agree with you, but we at least wanna hear what you think. There were times in there that he sat at that bar and had people crying to him.
Ford Galin:There were times where week after week, he faithfully got to know them, cared about them, and shared the gospel with them. And then every single morning, he had printed off a piece of paper with all of their names, and he spent every single morning of his life for years praying for every single one of them by name. And these weren't people that were these hard, rough around the edges people that he felt obligated to pray for, but his face lit up when I asked him about it because these were his dear friends. That's what it means to seek the welfare of the city. I think about Andy and Paula Hughes, who some of you may know this and may know them, but years ago moved into a neighborhood in Roebuck and had a really hard neighbor.
Ford Galin:She was I believe she was a widow. I know that she was at least by herself and had no family in the area, and she was hard in a lot of ways. But Andy and Paula took the time to get to know her. They did the hard work of investing in her, helping her with things around her yard and house sometimes, and her house was not a pleasant place to be. They brought her meal after meal.
Ford Galin:They invited her into their home. They took her to doctor's appointments. And I remember talking to Andy about this. She is, the neighbor has since passed away, and she never came to the Lord. But Andy, I remember talking to him and saying, I don't know why, but I know without a shadow of a doubt the reason the Lord brought us to that street was to be a neighbor to her.
Ford Galin:This is what God calls us to be. I think about so many others. I think about the nurses and doctors in Redeemer's culture that are doing such great work throughout this city. Where I feel like once a month, I have someone come up to me who knows I work at Redeemer and says, hey, you know so and so, they go to your church. Right?
Ford Galin:I say, yeah. And they say, no, no, no, no. Well, I was in the hospital for this and they were my nurse and got to know them and they actually came in. My surgery was scheduled for their off day and they came in just to pray for me. I have those conversations all those times.
Ford Galin:I think about those of you whose your front porches have been the gathering places for your neighborhoods. I think about those of you who are using your jobs to invest in this city. I think about those of you who are trying to find places of influence in your school systems and being overly involved in a parent for the sake of influencing the areas and the children in your community for good. Think about Ruth Ann Skaggs and Lacey Ellis who are constantly organizing volunteers to go and to bring food and to share meals with those who are interfaith hospitality house down the street. And so on one hand, I can hear and see and know of so many of you who are so faithfully embracing this call to seek the welfare of the city.
Ford Galin:But if I'm honest, and this is just one person's perspective, so take this with a grain of salt, I first came to Redeemer in 2018, and it shocked me how passionate Redeemer was about this. But in many ways, I don't feel that we always have the same urgency now that Redeemer did a decade ago. I'm not thinking about anyone specifically as I say that, and there's reasons why I think that may be case. The case chief among them is, especially since 2020, there have been a large number of really hurting people who have come to Redeemer, and it has taken a tremendous amount of energy to care for them and the things that we have going on within our midst. But if God calls us to be salt and light to a world that is perishing and decaying, there can never be a time where we are not serious about seeking the welfare of this city, of our neighbors, and those outside of these church walls just as much as those in.
Ford Galin:And so it's not my place to tell you what it would look like for you to embrace this call. For some, it may mean looking to sign up with some of our formal ministry partnerships at Redeemer. For others, it may be looking at the spheres of influence you have in your life and starting to pray and to think about, well, how could I work for the good of this community? But if there's two things I could ask everyone to do before they go to bed tonight. First, I'm gonna ask you to pray and say, Lord, where would you call me to seek the welfare of this city and this world?
Ford Galin:And then to be open to what he has in response. And second, I'm gonna ask you to take a few minutes to pray for someone you wouldn't actually think to pray for. Maybe non believers in your community or at your work. It may be an aspect of this community or your neighborhood that you see rotting and decaying. I want you to do that.
Ford Galin:Take a minute and pray, God, where would you have me seek the welfare of the city? And then pray for some areas where you see rot or decay or perishing and where life needs to be brought. I don't know this, but for many of you, whatever God puts on your heart for that second prayer, very well might be something he is calling you to consider in that first prayer where you might be involved in seeking the welfare of the city. And I'll also point out that this doesn't have to be done in isolation. Like, don't think about this as on your own, but gather up other believers or members of your home group or friends and consider ways that you could seek city welfare together as a group project.
Ford Galin:But for anyone who's ever embraced this call will tell you, the call to seek the welfare of a world that is perishing and a world that is opposed to our faith, it's gonna be costly. Takes energy. Takes time. It'll probably take hard relationships and tough conversations and it'll take sacrifice. That's what makes this last point so important.
Ford Galin:Knowing where we are headed affects everything about the way we approach our here and now. Ultimately, it's Jeremiah twenty nine eleven that is gonna free us up to embrace the call of Jeremiah twenty nine seven. What I mean by that is that because God has promised us a future welfare, a future shalom, we don't have to spend our lives working for our own shalom and welfare anymore. It's already given for us. And if we are freed up where we don't have to spend our life working for it, it means we now actually can spend our lives working for the welfare and the shalom of others.
Ford Galin:We have to hold these two in tandem because we have this future promise of welfare, we now have the task of present welfare because we don't need to worry about our life circumstance or our future in the same way. God is providing for us, and he's calling us to provide for those around us. See, this world is the closest thing to hell that those who are in Christ will ever have to taste, But it's also the closest thing to heaven that those who don't know the Lord will ever get to experience. And if that's the case, how could we not spend the entirety of our lives working not for our own good but for the world's good? That they may taste and experience even the slightest bit of the Lord's peace and prosperity and welfare and shalom.
Ford Galin:And then perhaps as we pray for them, we would see many others in this city come to know the Lord and to share with us in his eternal perfect living waters of life. And we praise Jesus for that fact that that we know that is our future. We praise him because in case it's not clear, he is this ultimate picture of what it looks like to use a life of exile to seek the welfare of this world. See, Jesus is the one who was sent by God. John three sixteen, for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son that whoever should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Ford Galin:Jesus was sent into a world that was perishing and decaying. And when he came, he was met with nothing but hostility and rejection and opposition. But he didn't conform to this world. He was the only one who lived without sin. He also did not just go and back off and pray and wait for our destruction, but no, he entered in and ingratiated himself, so much so that he was called a friend of sinners everywhere that he went.
Ford Galin:And then he didn't just spend his life working for our good, he ultimately gave his life for our good. Paul tells us in Romans five that God shows his life for us in this, that while we were still enemies to him, while we were still sinners, meaning while we were broken and perishing and decaying and rotting on our own, at the right time when all of that was true, Christ died for us. So that Romans five one would be true. Since we have been justified by faith, we now have peace, shalom, with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus has achieved our shalom, so now we can bring that shalom to the world around us.
Ford Galin:On the cross, he perfectly and fully secured our future and our forever home, where we would be exiles no longer. And because he died for us securing our eternal home and our shalom, well, now we are freed up to spend our lives doing the same for those around us. Always remembering that we have this present task of shalom because we can bank on this future gift of shalom that is coming. And it's coming in the Lord, the one who promises to be found by us if we will only seek him with all that is within us. Let's go to him now in prayer.
Ford Galin:Lord, God, we are painfully aware that apart from you, we had nothing, and we had no hope. But, Lord, you made a way when there was no way giving your life for us. Lord, you were sent into this world and you worked for our good. So now, god, we have a hope. We have a future.
Ford Galin:Shalom is coming. God, I pray that in that that we rejoice in you, and I pray that in our rejoicing, we would be stirred up to then bring joy and shalom to the city around us. Show us how you would call us to live into that, and may we be faithful to follow you wherever you would lead. And we pray that in the present name of Jesus. Amen.