Apostles Church

Jeremiah 29:1-9. Historical Situation: The people of God have been exiled to Babylon and God is telling them to live in the city and seek it welfare and prosperity. The false prophets were giving a different message. However, God made it clear that if they would move into the city and seek the good of the city, they would prosper themselves in the city. So, two questions are raised: how should we see the city and how should we respond it?

Cities are ordained by God. The Cultural mandate of Genesis 1-2 to subdue the earth and exercise dominion includes the development of civilizations and the building of cities. As you read the Scriptures, cities are intended by God to be places of refuge and protection, justice and order where human life and culture flourish. They are intended to be a preview of the glory of the heavenly city that will be the ultimate place of refuge and protection and justice and order where life flourishes. If cities are ordained by God to be centers of cultural flourishing, he intends for us to enjoy the culture of the city.
Question: How are you enjoying the beautiful and creative cultural expressions of our city?



Cities are Loved By God.
The Multitudes of People. The thing that makes the City so special to God is that it is filled with people. God loves people and desires relationship with people. He has given his son to make this a reality – that in Christ we might be brought to God and enter into a  relationship with Him where we know Him as our God, our Father, our Friend. Humanity is the pinnacle of his creation and he loves humanity. As you take in the beauty of the city, don’t miss the most beautiful thing about it – the people. In all their diversity and uniqueness, they are the work of God, deeply loved by God, pursued by God for relationship, and a bearer of his image having a dignity and honor and beauty that surpasses any work of art or music or literature. Next time you walk the streets take in the beauty all around you. Illustration: It was once said by a urban minister, “God loves people more than trees, so I want to be where there are more people than trees…”
    
Question: how are you embracing the people of the city? How are you actively showing care for them, loving them as created in the image of God and loved by God? How are you seeking to serve them and introduce them to Good news of God in Christ.

Cities are Opposed by God.
We have to balance all of this out with the fact that the city has failed to be what God designed it to be. It is not a perfect preview of the heavenly city. The tragedy of the Garden is that man rebelled against God and the world that is full of beauty also became a world full of evil and sin and pain and suffering. It is radically distorted by sin and as such is filled with pride, injustice, oppression, evil, violence, and every kind of self-promoting activity that prevents the flourishing of the human community. We feel this. People are beautifully made but are sinners by nature and by choice and do ugly things to one another. Due to the presence of sin that distorts human nature and produces selfishness, greed, dishonesty, and anger when humanity lives in large numbers side by side, them seems to be an inordinate amount of corruption all around us. This is what mars the city and oftentimes overshadows the beauty of it.
    
God tells the people of Israel to seek the welfare of the city and to pray for it. That involved immersing themselves in creative activity that would promote human flourishing, but it also involved responding appropriately to the sin and corruption of it. How do we respond to the corruption of the city:

Resisting it in all its overt and covert forms and expressions. Those who know Jesus Christ belong to his Church and as such are called to be a new community, an alternate society, what Jesus called a “city on a hill” shining brightly. In other words, the Church is the city of God within the city of man. This city of God that exists in the midst of the city of man is to embrace all the beautiful aspects of the city of man that are present because of common grace and the image of God and to resist the city of man in all its sinful expressions. We are to struggle against the sin that is in us and the sin that is around us. One way to struggle with the sin that is around us is the refusal to participate.
    Sometimes there is overt participation. We sometimes adopt the same standards as the city of man in the realms of money, sex, and power so that we use those things in self-promoting ways: we treat sex as simply a means of pleasure instead of an act that facilitates whole life entrustment and commitment and is a reflection of Christ’s whole life entrustment and commitment to His people the Church (Ephesians 5:25, 31-32); using money primarily to increase our pleasure or standard of living instead of releasing it for the good of others like our Christ who though was rich for our sake became poor so we through his poverty and self-emptying might become rich (2Corinthians 8:9); using power to exploit, oppress, or gain at the expense of the emotional or physical well-being of others instead of using our platforms and positions to bless like Christ who came among us as a servant. We can participate overtly through the drunkenness, promiscuity, greed, prejudice, violence, and other self-promoting activities that do not facilitate the flourishing of the human community.
    We can participate in subtle ways. They seem harmless but the cumulative effect of these actions by large numbers of people can be devastating to the ethos and health of the city and to the human community.
Question to ponder: In what ways are you subtly participating in the self-promoting evil in the city and working against its flourishing? How are you actively resisting it and seeking to bring about the flourishing of the beauty and the people who live here. Examples: beautiful bags that are made by victims of oppressive child labor; viewing pornography and in doing so promoting the sexual exploitation of women; showing favoritism to certain races while subconsciously holding others in suspicion; spending exorbitant amounts of money on self-promoting over-indulgences; ignoring or despising the working poor; treating doorman, taxi cab drivers, delivery men as if they are modern slaves or second hand citizens; being harsh or overly critical of those you work with or supervise; participating in reputation destroying gossip; not paying for museums entrance because it is donation based, so you selfishly enjoy the arts without supporting them and fail to promote beauty creating activity – all of these are subtle ways we fail to seek to the welfare of the city and fail to promote the flourishing of the community. We are going to unpack this some more in the last week of the series as we talk about Renewal.

Closing Questions to ponder:
What are some tangible things I can do to embrace the city and enjoying its beauty and culture? How can I actively promote the flourishing of its culture and beauty and people? Secondly: How can I actively resist the evil in the city by living out the Gospel pattern of laying down my life for the good of others and forsaking self-promoting activities and participation in even the most subtle of evils?