Love the City More

We're in Jeremiah 29, 4 through 11, right?

And uh how many of you are familiar with Jeremiah 29, 11, right?

How many of you have a tattoo, maybe, uh, or a pillow, or some type of you know, shirt thing?

Oh my god, Jeremiah 29, 11.

Uh, God is gonna give me a future and a hope.

Uh, right?

It's one of those scriptures that we kind of take out of context and we're like, oh man, this is so amazing.

Look what God, but it's surrounded by like kind of despair, sorrow, frustration, false prophets, and lying and all this other stuff that surrounds Jeremiah 29.11.

Jeremiah 29.11 is true, it's God's word, right?

But we have to understand it in context for it to actually be able to benefit us in the way that the Spirit intended it to, as he was moving Jeremiah to speak these words to God's people.

It's surrounded by this reality of exile.

So the people of Israel, they were actually taken out of their land by this foreign nation called Babylon.

And they were taken into exile.

Uh, it actually says in the very beginning of our text, for uh verse 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.

Look at the sovereignty of God in this situation.

This situation of despair, this situation of frustration and devastation.

God kicks off in Jeremiah 29, 4, saying, This is my sovereign plan.

I took you from Jerusalem into exile, into Babylon for this judgment, for this correction, for this rebuke.

But God promises them, but I haven't forgotten you, I haven't left you, I haven't abandoned you, but you're here on purpose.

And so the Jews find themselves in this exile, a cultural exile, where they're under godless rulers in the midst of a godless nation.

And they're tempted to believe lies.

They're tempted to believe lies that this exile will be short.

Actually, prophets uh were telling that it'd be only about two years that you'd be here.

These, what God calls false dreamers, uh false prophets that were giving them these false hopes that their exile would be short.

But God actually declares to them, no, it's gonna be about 70 years that you're gonna be here.

And so Jeremiah 29, 4 through 11, is working in this tension, this tension of a people who find themselves in a foreign land under foreign rulers, and they long to be back into Jerusalem, their homeland, and they're believing that this is just gonna be a short period of time.

This isn't gonna be a big deal.

If we just kind of bear down and grit through it, we'll be able to get through this soon.

And God says, No, don't believe the lies.

You're here for a long time, but here's my plan and purpose for you while you're in the midst of this exile.

So as we get into the body of the text, we're gonna look at verse four.

It says, We are exiles in a foreign land.

This is what I want us to understand.

Me and you, we are just like Jerusalem.

We are just like Israel.

We are exiles in a foreign land.

In this opening passage, God is letting his people know authoritatively through Jeremiah that they are where they are because of him.

They found themselves under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar.

He was the king and ruler of Babylon, but he was a godless king.

He did not serve Yahweh, he did not obey his commands or statutes, he did not worship him.

In fact, Nebuchadnezzar demanded that the people worship him as if he was God.

But all of this was according to the will of God for his people.

The Lord's message is addressed to all the exiles.

An exile is one who is without their home and finds themselves in a foreign place.

And so if we are exiles in a foreign land, then how do we understand ourselves in such a way?

Right?

It was really obvious to me when I was in another nation.

I was kind of in this state of exile for eight days, right?

I was in a foreign land, I didn't understand how the government worked, the food was mediocre, uh, I didn't they drank a lot of hot chocolate for some reason.

Uh, and and there was just like weird things that they did.

I didn't feel at home, right?

I felt like a person who was without a home in a foreign place.

But that's kind of easy for us to wrap our brains around, right?

But what about us here sitting in this room?

Are you sitting, if you are in Christ, you are sitting as an exile in a foreign land.

You see, we've been made exiles through the work of Jesus.

We are aliens, sojourners, wandering through this desert of a foreign land that we do not call our home.

1 Peter 1, 17 says this, and if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

Peter is writing to these saints that are scattered abroad Asia Minor, and he's telling them, You are exiles.

If you call upon the Father, you are an exile in a foreign land.

Because our citizenship does not belong here.

Our citizenship resides in heaven.

Philippians 3 20 says, But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We belong to a different kingdom, a different land, because we've been transferred out of the world of darkness here, and we have been brought into the kingdom of the Son by grace through faith in Jesus.

And it's because of him we find ourselves as exiles whose citizenship is in the heavenly Jerusalem, but we're residing in a modern-day Babylon, a foreign land ruled by godlessness.

And my hope is that if you're a Christian in this room, you've confessed Christ to be your Savior, you feel that tension, right?

You feel the reality that you live in a land that doesn't love God, that doesn't serve him, that doesn't obey his commands and statutes, who don't share his values, who don't seek to see his kingdom uh rule over this earth.

I hope you feel that frustration and tension.

Because it's the reality of who we are.

In the letter of 1 Peter, the apostle addresses his audience in this way to those who are elect exiles.

And at the close of his letter, he actually makes this statement.

He says, She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

The Apostle Peter's placing in parallel the story of Israel's 70-year exile in Babylon with the new reality of those who are in Christ.

It's in Jesus we find ourselves as exiles, foreigners, sojourners, residing in our own Babylon with longing hearts to be at home in Jerusalem.

Yet we find ourselves here on purpose.

You are here on purpose.

It is the will of God, the providence of God, the sovereignty of God, that you are here residing in this place.

When we are in Christ, we aren't just uh lifted up, right, like left behind, uh clothes, you know, a pile of clothes laying on the ground, and then just this clothless man shooting up into heaven.

I don't know why that was a thing.

It makes no sense to me.

That would be a horrific sight.

Just clothless people flying up to heaven.

Um, but I get, you know, movie-wise, they had to kind of make it more dramatic.

Uh but but when we get saved, we don't just shoot up into Jerusalem.

We don't just shoot up into heaven to be with Christ, right?

He keeps us here.

And then we have to wrestle with like, why does God keep us here?

Have you ever asked that question?

Like, why don't we just say we just go to heaven?

Wouldn't that be easier?

You're here for a purpose.

You're here for mission.

God has a design for his sovereignty.

It is the Lord who establishes our city, who establishes our residence for the glory of his name and the good of his people.

And we must wrestle within our own hearts the reality that this world, this nation, is not our home.

We are exiles in a foreign land.

In five through six, we start to see the purpose, the reasoning behind this exile.

We see that we are to be fruitful and flourish in our city.

We are to be fruitful and flourish in our city.

We'll unpack this in three kind of synergistic and statements, right?

So these three synergistic and statements are build and live, plant and eat, be fruitful and multiply.

Build and live, plant and eat, be fruitful and multiply.

Let's start with the first one: build and live.

God tells his people this build houses and live in them.

He's commanding his people to settle in, establish roots, construct all that it means to have a home.

You see, like I said, the people were of Israel were actually tempted that this exile would only last a short time.

And you can imagine, like when I was in Colombia these last eight days, I didn't try to build a home.

I didn't try to put down roots.

I knew that my time there was short.

It'd be foolish for me to put effort or work into establishing myself in that land.

But God is telling them stop listening to the false prophets that are telling you this will only be a couple years.

You need to put down roots and build.

We as a people, we need to be uh putting uh roots down.

We need to establish ourselves within the city that God has placed us.

We can be tempted to believe that our own cultural exile will only last a short while.

So maybe we can just wait it out.

But the Lord has placed us here with a purpose, and he's commanding us to build houses and live in them.

Settle into the city I've placed you, establish roots here.

Because we're only going to be able to make the biggest impact in the place where God has us if we are established in that place.

We talk a lot about presence in church planting, uh this theology of place.

And when we plant churches, we want to be lead pastors who move into the city where God is calling us to plant and reach those people.

It is through that establishing of ourselves that we're able to make the greatest impact.

Can you imagine?

Like if I lived way up in Dayton and I tried to come down here and always plant a church and reach these people and be a part of the culture, like that would just be futile, right?

It'd be frustrating.

It wouldn't make sense.

But there's a reality to our place, there's a theology around our place that if we are going to make an impact within the culture of which God places us, we need to put roots down.

We need to be present among the people.

We need to be established so we can make impact.

God goes on to say, plant and eat.

The word to God's people is plant gardens and eat their produce.

This exile is going to be long.

For us as New Testament Christians, it's going to be until death or until the Lord's return.

Our exile now in Christ is semi-permanent.

We should work with our hands and discover ways to sustain our residency, to cultivate the land and to improve and develop what is there.

You see, there's a strong sense in this exile reality that Jeremiah is bringing us into that with Israel is going to come men of skill, men of trade, men who have specific gifts and talents.

God's challenging them, don't be idle.

Don't just sit on your hands, but work.

Be busy.

So that the land itself might see improvement and development.

The last and statement he uses is this kind of be fruitful and multiply.

It talks about being married and having children and doing these things that you would do in an established residence.

God is kind of echoing this first blessing that he gives his people in Genesis as he looks over Adam and Eve and He tells them to settle themselves, to establish themselves, but also to have dominion over that which God has created.

Bear children.

He's calling his people to fill the land with his image, to establish generations and see expansion of his presence take place.

What I want us to focus on is that their situation was not dictating the mission of God.

We can often do that within the church, can't we?

We allow our situation to dictate mission, and usually in negative ways.

What's going on around us, where we're at, what stage of life we're in, what's happening to us in this very moment.

More often than not, I would submit negatively dictates mission.

God doesn't see it that way.

Every single aspect of who you are, where you reside, the circumstances you're going through, the stage of life you're in, every single part, sovereignty was designed sovereignly by God Himself.

And none of it was to minimize or diminish mission.

Every single part of it was to amplify it.

But we've got to see it through the lens of what God has called us to as his people.

He charges them to not decrease, even though they reside within a wicked and godless nation.

Their multiplication and flourishing should be witnessed by the surrounding nation.

It's like Israel in Egypt.

When Israel was in Egypt, they were under this oppression and slavery.

And you could imagine that that might dictate mission, it might diminish mission.

But what happened?

What do we read about in Exodus about the people of Israel?

That they multiplied to such a great number that one of the greatest nations of all of history was fearful of them.

Think about the witness of God's people.

If this foreign land, if this godless culture saw the power and prominence of God's people.

What is that?

That's the light pushing back the darkness.

That's the image of God expanding throughout this city and culture.

That's the kingdom coming.

In the midst of their exile, God has called his people, be fruitful and flourish.

Play offense, not defense.

Get to work, don't idle in waiting to cultivate life in a land of death.

Verse 7, we see the kind of hinge point of this passage in 4 through 11.

We see this in verse 7.

Our welfare is found in the welfare of the city.

Our welfare is found in the welfare of the city.

This is the will of God to still down for his people while they reside in exile, to seek the welfare of the city where God has sent us.

It is he who caused us to dwell here.

Not simply to wait out our days, but to get busy, to labor, and to work to see the city's welfare flourish.

Because though we're exiles, we're exiles with purpose.

We're exiles with mission.

But the Lord also instructs them not to just work with their hands, but to labor in prayer also.

It's insufficient to just get to work without dependence upon God.

To build and bless our efforts.

Psalm 127, 1A says this unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

We have to get to work with an equal dependence upon God to bless what our hand is put to.

And so though we labor in working, we labor in prayer as well.

We pray for its rulers, its inhabitants, its industries, its prosperity, its peace.

Ultimately, the welfare of the city comes from the Lord.

We are to petition him to see it materialize.

Why does all this matter?

God says, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.

In its welfare, you will find your welfare.

Let me just tell you this.

This is an extremely cultural contradictive statement.

Because all of us, to some measure, believe what?

That they are supposed to provide us our welfare.

The city of which we reside in, the culture that we find ourselves, the place where we establish ourselves, right?

They are supposed to provide us our welfare.

They are supposed to have the programs, the assistance, the policies, all of these things set up in place so that we might find our welfare.

They're supposed to serve us.

That's actually very contradictive to what the Lord is instructing Israel.

Their welfare, the very welfare that they desire, that they long for, is not to be found in selfish pursuits or in self-righteous demands.

But it's to be found in emptying themselves out for the welfare of the very city that they find themselves in.

It's there, in the pursuit of the city's welfare, that our welfare will be found.

When we work to bless, when we labor to serve, when we seek to have goodness expressed within our culture, that is when we find our own welfare.

So many of us are lazy in mission because we're just waiting for other people to hand over to us what we really long for.

We're unwilling to labor for it, we're unwilling to work for it, we're unwilling to get our hands dirty to see it actually materialize inside of our city.

And so we sit and wait and we demand.

You give me this.

I'm gonna elect the right person so that they can give me what I want, so that they can develop the right programs and policies and legislation or whatever it is so that they can provide me my welfare.

That's counter-kingdom fundamentally.

We are to labor as God's people to see the city flourish, and in that we find our own flourishing.

What does welfare mean?

Four characteristics of welfare I want to walk through here with us.

Four characteristics of welfare.

Number one is safety.

We all desire to be safe, right?

Does anybody desire like I just desire to be unsafe?

Any of you?

Evil Knievals in the room?

That's just like what you get paid for.

Uh no, right?

All of us desire some type of safety.

We move into certain neighborhoods to be safe, right?

Many of you have probably moved out of the urban context of Cincinnati up into the suburban context of Cincinnati so that you can be safer neighborhoods, right?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay.

You this is yes.

This is no.

We purchased security systems, right?

How many of you on Black Friday, you're just waiting for a Black Friday deal?

To drop so you can get your you know your cameras that that you're never more than likely you live in a place where you're not getting robbed or shot, but you have an AR and you got eight cameras in your house and you can scope someone at like a hundred yards.

Like, where do you think you are?

Sudan?

This is you're not that's not gonna happen here, right?

Why you you we fantasize about these militias that were like what in the world?

I have rabbits and and and and and other woodland creatures that just come up to me and I feed them, and it's like Cinderella, it's amazing out here.

I leave my car unlocked all the time.

It's beautiful.

But we get our CCWs, we build our artillery, we do all these things.

It's intrinsic in our nature to remove ourselves from harm, to defend against the possibility of violence.

What we desire for ourselves, we should work to see in our city.

Another characteristic of uh welfare is health.

Health.

We all desire to be healthy.

We might not do a great job at it, but we at least desire it.

Health doesn't just reside in personal fitness, but it also resides in the sense of community, in the very fabric of community, in leadership, in the building of values, placing effective tools in the hands of its citizens.

A healthy city is one where a genuine community is developed, where hospitality is practiced, where generosity is extended, and where values are instilled and contended for.

That creates health.

One of the reasons that our nation feels so unhealthy is because we're actually trying to say values don't matter anymore.

Values matter tremendously.

The Ramas home has five core values that we live by.

We love God, we love truth, we love family, we love the church, we love recklessly.

These are five core values that we live by, and that's instilled into our children, that's instilled into one another because values bring health.

And in the Ramas home, we talk a lot around the dinner table about Ramases are leaders, we're not followers.

We do the right thing when no one else is.

We we we pursue truth even when it hurts us.

We are people who lead, we don't follow.

We need to have more leaders in the church.

People who stand up and do what's right no matter the consequence, who pursue truth no matter its negative effect on them.

Because that builds health.

Third characteristic of welfare is prosperity.

We all desire to be prosperous.

If you notice in each of these four characteristics, you're gonna find that you yourself chase after these things, but you chase after them for yourself.

How do we then work to see that actually built into the city we live?

Because that's where we'll actually find what we long for.

To have enough, to see development happen, to have a life without concern for tomorrow.

The prosperity of the city is realized in the sum of its individuals, not in isolation.

People who start businesses, create charities, sow into the future of the generations to come.

A prosperous city is one of bounty, not scarcity.

Because it takes a collective effort of the residents to work hard so we can have it.

So we cannot want.

What about peace?

Do you all desire peace?

You see, peace is more than just the absence of conflict.

Some of us we can think of peace as something so simplistic where there's no conflict present, there is peace.

Peace actually is bigger than that.

When you look at the biblical understanding of peace, it actually means wholeness, completeness.

But for us, it is actually to see that which has been destroyed, restored.

Peace is more than just the absence of conflict, it's taking action to restore brokenness.

As the people of God who find ourselves in broken cities, we need to work to bring restoration to those areas.

And this is a holistic effort.

This isn't just seen in evangelism alone.

God doesn't just call us here alone to evangelize, while I would put that as top priority for God's people to share the gospel with one another, to preach the gospel and to evangelize.

It's more than that.

To see the kingdom break into our existence, to see it actually materialize and become tangible, to seek out the dark places and shine the light of Jesus into them.

It discovers the wounds of society and it plies the healing balm of the gospel.

Fundamentally, it pursues to see on earth as it is in heaven.

Man, I when you read through that Lord's Prayer, right?

So many times we can focus on some of the other parts of it, like, you know, forgiveness and the way that God uh provides for us.

But there's something when we align our heart with God's heart, we pray the way that He told us to pray, there's a critical element of that prayer, that thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We're not just waiting for heaven.

We are working to see heaven break into earth.

That means that God's law and statutes and ordinance reign over this city because it is for the ultimate flourishing of his image bearers.

It means that we push back the darkness, it means that we work to see brokenness restored.

It means that we're a people, that when other nations enter into our experience, it's like they stepped into a foreign land because we have labored in seeing the kingdom break into our world.

It should feel foreign to them, it should feel out of place for them.

Our welfare is not owed to us.

It's not a right that we can demand to be given, but nor is it something that will be handed down.

Our welfare is found in the grime and grit of seeking the welfare of our own city.

It is built upon the foundation of responsibility, not blame shifting.

And it's cultivated in the working of our hands, not in the idleness of our entitlement.

Verses 8 through 11, we see false prophets and true promises.

False prophets and true promises.

The temptation as an exile is to wonder if God has abandoned his promises to his people.

I'm sure many of you, you've you've gone through hard times.

You've gone through difficulties and trials, and that question has had to arise in your heart.

Has God forgotten me?

His promises?

This doesn't seem like everything it was made out to be.

But in that despair, we're tempted to listen to the voices of the false prophets of both our churches and our culture.

What about false prophets of the churches?

We listen to doomsday prophets, con men, and false teachers.

Tempt us to believe in false statements.

The Lord said, and they blaspheme his name.

When it talks about in the Ten Commandments, do not take the Lord's name in vain.

It literally means to not say that the Lord said something he didn't.

That's literally what it's talking about.

It's not, you know, stubbing your toe and saying, oh God.

That's not, I mean, don't do that.

That's fine, but that's it's not like you just disobeyed all the, you know, the whatever command that is.

Three, I don't know.

But um, it literally means to not say that the Lord said something when he didn't.

Because we blaspheme the name of the Lord.

In the Old Testament, that the what one of the ways that we understand um both severity and kind of permanence of God's law is we look at something called the moral law of God found in the Old Testament, and we look at this the severity of punishment or the language around it.

So there's certain laws that were more ceremonial.

There was that Christ fulfilled and that we are no longer under obligation to fulfill in ourselves.

But then there are other laws that were moral laws, and we can see both uh in their severity and the language that was around them that there was permanence to these things, things that we as God's people should always seek to live out.

Blaspheming God's name meant you got stoned to death.

So severity, pretty high, right?

You didn't just have to go take a bath outside the city and then come back in, like, sorry guys, you is like, no, we're gonna kill you.

All right.

Uh so blaspheming God's name.

There are false prophets today that are blaspheming God's name with these empty prophecies, these empty declarations of what God is doing, when he's going to return, who he's gonna put into leadership to see uh, you know, uh this nation flourish and all this other junk.

And we listen to it.

Why do we listen to that junk?

We listen to it because we live in this tension.

We want to have something real to believe in because the kingdom doesn't feel tangible sometimes.

And it's in that temptation that we open our ears to these false prophets, these con men.

Some of them even tempt us to skew the scriptures to say what we want them to.

And more often than not, we create a theology that affirms our fears rather than one that actually builds a deeper trust in Jesus.

Let me tell you something.

I'm pretty convinced that America doesn't have that big of a role to play in the returning of Christ our Lord.

So whatever the great bear wakes up and comes over, you know, Russia and America war or this.

My grandma used to call me, you think that this president's the Antichrist?

I don't know, grandma.

Probably, uh, right?

It's like we are so hyper-focused on the USA that somehow all of the scripture started to centralize around our ego.

Rather than on the truth of God's word, whether America flourishes or fails, God is not dependent upon that.

But what do we do?

We build all these crazy theologies that tempt us to be more fearful than trusting.

But some of us we listen to the cultural prophets, the propaganda of false hopes.

And it tempts us to put our trust in the things of this world rather than the ruler of it.

What happened to the red wave, y'all?

Turned into a purple puddle, didn't it?

As some commentators said.

Oh, it's gonna be amazing.

Praise God, it didn't.

So that our hearts aren't put into trusting and hoping in these false promises and false prophets of our culture.

Let the church be persecuted, let us suffer, let us go under fiery trial and tribulation, because it is historically shown in that the church flourishes, the gospel goes forth, the kingdom advances.

What are we really saying when we talk about, oh, if we just vote this way, if we just get these people in office and blah, blah, blah?

We're saying we can be lazy and idle, and they can do everything for us, and rather than we rise up and in spite of who sits in office, we seek the kingdom come here and now.

The heck with who gets put into office?

Who cares what happens in 2024?

Who cares?

Church, we're exiles.

This is not your home.

You're a foreigner in a godless and wicked nation.

Get that deep into your mind and heart.

And let's seek thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That should be our prayer over and over and over again.

What does God say to his people in Israel?

It's a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.

I did not send them, declares the Lord.

Here we see the provenance of God, but we also see the faithfulness of his promises.

For thus says the Lord, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you.

I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

Why?

Because I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

What is God saying to his people?

Don't imagine for one second that I've forgotten you or the promises that I've made to you.

I have you here right now for a purpose.

When we fail to trust God, we're tempted to listen to other voices than his.

When we cultivate a deep trust in him, we can put our hands to work knowing there's a purpose backed by a promise.

And so what are we called to do, church?

We're called to love the city more.

We're called to love the city more.

Here in the midst of our own exile, finding ourselves in a wicked and godless Babylon, God calls us out to love the city.

He doesn't call us to hunker down and try to survive.

He doesn't call us to retreat in despair.

He doesn't call us to rise up in militia and overthrow.

He calls us to be still, to be placed, to love in action, to build and live, to plant and eat, to be fruitful and multiply.

Exiles.

Because we've been transformed by the resurrecting power of the gospel.

Our citizenship has been transferred to heaven.

And we feel the foreignness of our surrounding.

But God doesn't leave us.

He doesn't save us and then abandon us.

He saves us and then he gives us purpose and then by his spirit empowers us for mission.

A mission to see the welfare of the city cultivated by the labor of our own hands.

But many of us, we struggle with this, right?

We struggle with this in so many different ways.

And I want you to know, I'm preaching to myself up here, right?

It's so easy for us to get swept into hoping and things other than God Himself.

Some of us, though, when we look at this, we we we tend to answer it this way we tend to uh assimilate into the city.

Some of us we assimilate into the city.

Some of us don't have uh love for the city while staying distinct as God's people.

That's critical.

Every time God called his people into a place, they were never to lose their distinctness.

They were always supposed to be identifiable as his people.

When you look throughout the Old Testament, when God's people found themselves in other nations, his judgment came when they started assimilating into it, meaning they served their gods, they took on their idols, they took on their customs and ways and values.

They assimilated.

We tend to be a people who lose a value for what makes us God's people.

It's a love for his truth, a submission to his commands, an upholding of his values, a reflection of his character.

And in return, many of us, in an attempt to love our city, we embrace the things of it.

We embrace its self-declared truth and we exchange it for that of God's truth.

We accept or embrace its godless values and exchange them.

Its lawlessness all become a part of who we are as a people.

And you see that all throughout the church right now.

The church is doing its best.

Um that's probably over-exaggeration.

The church is trying to love the city.

And when you see this happening over and over again, what is it, what is it doing in its attempt to love the city?

It's assimilating into it, it's adopting the truths of culture, it's adopting the values of the world, it's adopting the commands and sense of justice, all of these things of the world.

It's adopting in an effort to actually love the city in the way that they believe God calls them to.

However, God never calls us to love the city in such a way that we assimilate it into it or that we exchange our identity for it.

We are to live counter-culturally.

You see, in our infatuation and shallow roots, we assimilate into the culture and forsake our citizenship in heaven for a temporal one of this world.

First John puts it this way in chapter two, verses 15 through 17: Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever.

You see, in our attempts to love our city, we actually cripple our ability to love it the way that God calls us to.

Because for us to truly love the city means for God's truth, God's values, God's justice, God's character to cause it to bless.

To truly have welfare, the city needs a counterculture to come and begin cultivating and expanding within it.

Intrinsically, on its own, the city is insufficient to provide its own welfare.

That's why God's calling his children to seek it out.

It's the breaking through of the kingdom in our hearts, but it's also the breaking through of the kingdom in our city.

We are called to assimilate into the culture of the kingdom.

And as its citizens, we should not be found in short-lived infatuation, but grow an eternal affection for our home and the king who reigns over it.

But others of us, we don't assimilate into the city, we isolate from the city.

We isolate from the city.

Some of us see ourselves as exiles who have been forgotten, abandoned, and left to our own ruin.

Our hearts are gripped by despair rather than the peace and joy that Jesus promises to his people.

It's true, we find ourselves in a lawless and a wicked city, but we are not there because we've been forgotten or abandoned.

Our hearts are filled with despair fundamentally because we've forgotten God's promises and we've listened to false prophets.

We're not called to isolate, but to build and love, plant and eat, be fruitful and multiply.

Why?

Because he's with us.

And every single one of his promises are yes and amen.

To isolate from the culture exposes how little we actually trust God, how little we actually believe his promises to be true.

Promises that he will never leave us or forsake us, that he will walk with us through the fiery trials, that he will fill us with all joy and peace, that he has conquered over our enemy, that the dragon's head is severed from his body, that he is the light that pushes back the darkness, and that he has made us to be light also.

There's a whole book full of his promises.

It should give way to confidence and courage, even in the midst of a godless culture.

As God's people, we don't isolate, we press in.

We aren't absent, we're present.

We don't hide, we reveal the glory of God, our King, and the splendor of his kingdom.

What's our hope this morning, church?

As I wrap this up, Jesus was exiled for our welfare.

This is our hope.

Jesus was exiled for our welfare.

Jesus bore the shame of being made in exile that we might inherit the blessing of being God's people.

Hebrews 13, 12 says this.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

He was literally made in exile.

He was taken out of the city in shame, in scoffing, to the Mount of Golgotha that he might be made a curse for our blessing.

And in that, we were rescued from spiritual exile by Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

1 Peter 2.10 says this once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We were spiritually exiled from God.

But then we became his children through the blood of Christ His Son.

And now we are exiles in a foreign land because we've been brought into His home, into His kingdom.

And one day you and I will see the fullness of that truth.

We will be rescued from our cultural exile when Christ returns.

Revelation 21, 2, 3 says this, and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.

And God Himself will be with them as their God.

So what do we do, church?

We seek welfare and we await eagerly.

Seek welfare and await eagerly.

Our hearts should long for home.

That's a good thing.

If your hearts are comfortable here, you should be a little worried.

Our hearts should long for home.

But in that eager awaiting, we should seek welfare.

Because God has placed us here on purpose, on mission, that his kingdom might break through.

Let us not be a people who assimilate into or isolate from the city that God has placed us.

But let us be a people who seeks the welfare of this city as we eagerly await our city to come.

Amen.

Let's pray.