Genesis: Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah

Come on, that's gonna be exciting you guys. Excited for that. Yeah,

me too. Good morning, Welcome to Venture Church. Glad to

see you. If I haven't met you.

My name's Christian Limbeck, one of the very grateful pastors

on staff.

We're glad to have you in the house today. We

are in the.

Book of Genesis, still picking it up in Genesis chapters

thirteen and fourteen with the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yay,

Like you know, not all stories are known in the Bible,

but this is one of those stories that most people

are like, I know it's not good, Like I know

it's a bad story.

Even if they don't know all the details.

And so we're gonna we're not We don't pass over

the hard stuff here at Venture.

We teach to the whole Bible.

But I think it's a good question to kind of

ask right up front, So why is it there?

Like why this early on do we have.

Such a brutal story And we just need to put

it in the whole context. Pastor Brandon told you last week.

Chapters one through eleven are kind of the prehistory. How

does this all get set up? And then in chapter twelve,

we meet Abraham who becomes Abraham, and the story of

Abraham and his family we follow for the next two

thousand years of scripture. This is where the rescue hero

Jesus will rise from And frankly, we're still talking about

Abraham and his family right now, four thousand years later.

This man has become a central figure of human history.

So part of what's going on here is we're still

meeting Abraham. What kind of guy is Abraham? How does

Abraham look different than the people? Why did God choose him?

And we're meeting him still as an example of imperfect faithfulness.

Do you remember Pastor Brandon saying that last week and

he wanted to highlight like this is this guy does

some great stuff. He also does some knucklehead stuff, and

it's meant, dudes, you love that. Scripture puts that right

up front, like we meet Abraham following God faithfully, but

he also makes mistakes. And all the people of God said, Amen,

we're meant to be able to identify find ourselves somewhat

in the story.

Of At least he's a model that we can point out.

He repents when he makes mistakes, he receives God's corrections,

and he.

Continues to put one foot in front of the other.

Well, as we're getting to know him today, we are

going to contrast the kind of man Abraham is with

the kind of culture that exists in Sodom and Gomora.

Do you get that?

And this is a biblical warning story and so the

points aren't particularly confusing. Abraham decent guy, God, good judge,

Sodom and Gomorrah bad.

We're done. You guys can go home.

Right, But I'm hoping we can unpack another layer inside

of this today. Genesis is really trying again highlight two paths,

one exemplified by Abraham. You can trust God. You can

trust him with your resources and his resources. You can

trust him with the story. You can trust him if

he calls you into hard places or into.

Easy places, trust him.

Do the next right thing, and you will build a

worthwhile life or.

Make your own way, make your own.

Decisions, decide what life is about and see where that goes.

And Sodom and Goamar is about to show you it

never goes anywhere good like setting your own path. And

we keep getting this story over and over leads to

bad outcomes. Sodom and gomurdis happens to be a piercingly

bad example. So Moses is not writing or not messing

around in the writing of this book. He's like, Hey,

I want to highlight these two paths for you. Let

me give you the worst possible exams. In fact, Scripture

is going to bring it up over and over and

over as an example of what happens when human culture.

Culture is so corrupt that it causes these kinds of problems.

Sodom and Gomora is about.

Power, it's about excess, it's about self power, revenge, selfishness,

and underline this callousness towards the disadvantaged and the stranger.

And we're going to get that in Scripture when it's

looking for a clue. Is this like a decent person

or a decent culture? In fact, this is levied against

Israel over and over and over. Is I know you

know who God is and who you are when you

take care of the least advantaged among you, when you

see towards the vulnerable and the outsider and the stranger,

that's evidence that you understand who God is and what

this is all about. And this is going to stand

as an example of that. Now I want to be honest,

scripture does not have a good view of Sodom and Gomorrah,

and frankly, scripture does not have a good view of

cities at all. During this point, we saw back in

Genesis chapter four an example where there were some good

things that came out of the city of Kane. We

got architecture and music and animal husbandry. I mean, these

are all good things that came out of human cities,

but by and large they are seen as primarily places

of excess power, rebellion, and corruption. Cities equal bad, got it,

And I was trying to think of a way to

like help this example land. Everybody in here's seeing a

Hallmark movie, right, And even if you don't want to

admit it, boys, I know that you've all seen Hallmark movies,

and we all.

Know the story. Right. Powerful woman leaves the big city.

And its life of materialism and competition and shallow entertainment,

and she goes out to the country or she meets

a nice boy and she discovers the beauty and simplicity

of a country life. And this guy, he probably helps kids,

and he has a dog, and he lives in his

grandfather's cabin. You know that he's still building, and he

bakes bread right like you know, you know, he's a

good country boy. And in this case, city bad, this

anti city bias is based, it is baked into every

Hallmark movie. You have to admit it, right, Uh, City bad,

Country good. And these Hallmark movies reveal in us that

this kind of anti city trope that we see so

evident at this point, with these examples in scripture, Hallmark

reveals to us is still pretty baked into us.

We still tend to think of as like country is

more wholesome.

City as more reckless and rebellious and far from God.

And it goes all throughout like you read it in

all kinds of stories. Pick your story from.

Dune to Hunger Games to Jane Austen, Like in all

of these stories, cities are about self power and corruption

and certainly not caring for the vulnerable. And I think

that as soon as I say that in this room

you could admit it. Are some of you already nodding

your head in agreement. Yeah, I'll tell you why I

think you are because I live in Seattle, and not

just Seattle.

I live on Capitol Hill.

Yeah that sound people tell me about you live on

Capitol Hill. Why, like, because it's my home and I

love it.

Thank you? Are you safe? Mostly?

But I get this kind of like anti city bias

shade all the time from my fellow Christians, frequently city bad,

country good and it. At this point, I want to

be clear, I don't want to twist scripture. At this point,

city bad, Like we get the city of Kin bad.

The next city is Babbel. It's so bad. God has

to come break it apart. But for the.

Systems of human power go too far. Guess what next

city is up? Yes, Sodom and Gomorrah. So it's not

like we've had this like good history of good cities,

and Sodom and Gomora is gonna kind of prove the trope.

It's gonna end up being a bad place, I hope,

because I don't think I'm gonna if I went this direction. Hey,

Abraham's different. God's a good judge. Sodom and Gomorrah are

bad and worthy of judgment. I don't think any light

bulbs would turn on for people today.

So you got that. That's a central idea.

Honestly, if looking at the scripture, we can also learn

something new this morning. For that cool so we're gonna

pick it up in chapters thirteen and fourteen. Then we're

gonna skip chapter fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and pick up backup

in chapters eighteen and nineteen, because that's where the story is.

And in between are the juicy chapters of fifteen through

seventeen that Pastor Brandon will preach next week and unpack

begin to reveal how God intends to fulfill this amazing

promise that Abraham and Sarah will have a son, and

that through that family.

All the nations of the earth will be blessed.

But woven around that story is this story of Sodom

and Gomorrah. I always encourage you to bring a Bible,

if it's the paper kind or the digital kind, something

you can write in, move your finger around. We'll be

doing lots of dodging today. We'll put some of the

key scriptures up on this screen for you.

So here's how it goes.

Here's how it goes with Abraham, our imperfect hero at

this point, and Lot, his nephew, whom we put it's

a lot of hope in and the cities cities of

Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, it starts with competition. Now, what

an interesting place to start. Chapters thirteen and fourteen are

trying to establish how did Lot end up in Sodom

and Gomorrah.

That's the question over chapters thirteen and fourteen.

How did a Lot, who came with Abraham and should

be among the righteous, how does he end up in

Sodom and Gomorah. It's going to try to answer that question,

But it also begins with attention where the city where

the kind of two pathways, trust in God and no

fear over resources is going to meet the culture of

the city competition, Take what's yours, look out for yourself.

And we see that when competition begins to rise up

between the shepherds of Abraham and the shepherds of Lot.

So we're going to pick it up in chapter thirteen

Versus five through seven. Now Lot was moving about with Abram,

also had flock and herds intents, but the land could

not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions

were so great. So these guys are already smashing it

their desert lords, and they were not able to stay together,

and quarreling arose between Abram's herders and Lots. Now it

says they're the Canaanites and the Parazites were also in

the land. Because it wants to say, let's try it again,

set up this kind of countercultural moment. Now you're not

an ancient Nearies reader, so the question mark doesn't pop

in your head, which is, oh, what's Abraham gonna say?

Because they're expecting in the normal power structures, Abraham is

this much more powerful and revered uncle Abraham should be like, hey, Lot,

things aren't working out. Bounce like, find another spot to take,

because this is mine.

I've done these things.

This belongs to me, and so this is the expectation

or maybe even corrects Lot for having quarreling.

Let's pick it up. But what does Abraham say? Verse eight?

So Abram says to Lot, man, you're supposed to see

this incredible gentleness and care. Hey, let's not have any

quarreling between you and me or between your herders and mind,

for we're close relatives. Is not the whole land before you.

Let's part company. You go to the left, I'll go

to the right. If you go to the right, I'll

go to the left. In other words, you choose, and

I will take whatever you do. Not choose this is extraordinary.

Lot looked around and he saw that the whole plane

of the Jordan towards Zoar was well watered, like the

garden of the Lord.

Like Eden, is what he's saying, like the land of Egypt.

In other words, he sees a place that.

Has plentiful water, lots of resources. You should read, requires

less trust in God, like hey, I can see he's

being drawn into these resources. And then I love this

little note. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

In other words, he knows the he knows the reader

now where he's It's like, isn't that just like a

sand pit down there? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

but it used to be good, right, so so so

you have Lot being drawn. Now it says the two

men part of company Abraham lived in the land of Canaan,

and picking up verse twelve, why Lot lived among the

cities of the plane and pitched his tent near Sodom.

And then verse thirteen, Now the people of Sodom were

wicked and we're.

Sinning greatly against the Lord.

So we see Abram, and the story is a good

boy lives out in the country. Lot is drawn to

the allure and the values of the city, and see

the hallmark alarm bell supports to go off. Lot, don't

go to the city because then you will be wooed

by the values of the city.

So they can see it coming. And friends, it does come.

We're gonna see that Lot is in fact transformed or

shaped or influenced by the values of the city instead

of himself becoming an influencer in those contexts.

Okay, So he makes his way there again.

In this case, Abram is shown to be incredibly gracious

to trust God, and Lot does not get this kind

of favorable picture as he makes his way into Sodom

and Gamara.

Now, I want to be biblically honest.

Two Peter seven through eight, which they're just gonna show

you later, accounts that Lot was a righteous man, a

very imperfectly righteous man who was grieved by what he

saw in Sodom and Gomorrah.

But we're supposed to say.

But see he's beginning he is putting himself at risk

of being influenced by this other culture. Chapter fourteen. In

chapter fourteen, verses one through twelve, I'm gonna.

Skip a lot here.

It explains it's kind of the context, the circumstances by

which Lot ends up in Sodom. Agarth there's a war

between kings in that area, has nothing to do with them.

But what happens is in verse twelve, you see in

chapter fourteen that he gets caught up in it.

So it says during this war they also.

Carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions. And do

you see the correction in here, since he was living

in Sodom, like this is what you get for being

in Sodom. Right, So Lot is carried off. That's part

of this picture that we're getting him. In verse fourteen

we see again faithful Abram. So Verse fourteen says, when

Abram heard that his relative have been taken captive, he

called out the three hundred and eighteen trained men born

in his household and went in pursuit of them as

far as Dan, which is very far in the north.

I'm going to carry on a little bit during the night.

Abram divided his men to attack them, and he routed them.

Verse sixteen.

He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative

Lot with all their possessions, together with the women and

all the other people. So what's fascinating is, by the

way three hundred and eighteen men, he is a powerful

desert lord, but this is up against four national kings.

So we're supposed to see that Abram was gracious to Lot,

but not in a pushover kind of way. He had

the power, but he chose to not exercise the power

in just in case you wondered if he had power.

When the moment comes, Abraham can take care of business.

Right, he is shown as a courageous desert lord, gathers

his guys, goes out, and with the hand of God,

he wins. So again we see this pathway of trust.

So this is how this is kind of a setup.

This is how Lot ends up in Sodom and gomor

This is who Lot.

Looks like and what Abraham looks like.

And I'm gonna skip over to chapters eighteen and nineteen

with the more familiar part of the story. But everybody

has the pictures so far, right, this is how Lot

ends up in Sodom and Gomorrah. So flip it over

to chapter eighteen. Chapter eighteen, he probably says in the

top of your scripture, the three visitors. Chapter eighteen begins

with three visitors showing up to Abram out at his tent,

out to Abraham at this point, out at his tent.

Now we the reader know that this is the lord,

but it's not clear that Abram Abraham knows that this

is the lord. Presumably he just sees three strangers show

up at his tent who are probably in need. And

so now we're getting again this picture of what kind

of man is Abraham.

And you could expect all kinds of things.

He could again kind of be afraid of a stranger

showing up and pull in and hoard his things. Instead,

we see that he is exceedingly gracious.

This is a powerful desert lord.

Let's it say in eighteen two it says Abraham looked

up and saw three men standing nearby, and when he

saw them, he hurried to the entrance of his tent

to meet them, and he bowed low to the ground.

Now, I want you to know, in the ancient near

East and into the.

East today, no desert lord, no lord over this whole

clan is going to run and bow before somebody.

They do not know.

This is an act of profound humility and hospitality towards

the stranger. I want you to put in the mind, like,

hold in your mind somebody that you hold in the

highest regard. And you put somebody you hold like the

highest respect in your mind, somebody you like, really revere

and be nervous to.

Be around them.

Now, imagine you show up at their house and they

run out, and they bow down at your feet and

they plead you to stay.

And then they hop up and go back to cook.

Right, this is the image you're supposed to be like, Hey,

who is this guy? Who is this Abraham that God

is trusting with the story, Who is this father of

the nations? This is modeling this kind of extraordinary behavior.

And I want you to underline he models for you

hows ought to be treated.

That's the picture that we are going to hold in

our mind.

So he's radically hospitable, radically humble when he meets these strangers. Now,

what happens is the scene turns in verse sixteen, and

it turns to the most recognizable portion of this scripture,

of the part that we know when we think of

Sodom and Gomorrah. In verse seventeen, Abraham is about to

discover one of the three is the Lord embodied.

Which would be shocking off its owns.

It says he got the Lord as one of these

three men, and then two of them are angels. Verse sixteen.

When the men got up to leave, they looked down

towards Sodom. So now we're moving our lens down.

Towards this city.

And Abraham walked along with them to see them on

their way. Now in verse seventeen and following, what happens

is Abraham is going to be let into a di courtroom,

and we the reader are supposed to be shocked that

this mere human being is led into God's divine counsel

and is God is going to listen to what he

has to say.

So God starts.

This talk in front of him, and he's like, should

we tell Abraham what we're gonna do? Now Abraham's standing

right there, So this is an invitation for Abraham to

get involved. I'm going to make Abraham into a great nation,

and We're going to go take this action down in

the city of Sodom. By having the conversation in front

of Abraham, they are obviously inviting him to participate, right,

So this is invited to the divine council. So we

get to see we're going to see who God is

in this and who Abraham is. I'm going to stop

taking these glasses on and off us that age where

you're learning which one you want. Now, look, this is

the part of Sodom and gomor that we're most familiar with.

But I want to ask a couple of questions.

We know judgment is coming, like most people know how

this story goes, we know judgment is coming. Why is

God judging this city? Let's read verse twenty. Then the

Lord said, why the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is

so great and their sins so grievous that I will

go down and see if what they have done is

as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If

it's not, I will know, and I will be able

to be merciful. The reason God is judging Sodom and

Gomorrah is because corrupt behavior exemplified in excess and self power,

and a failure to care for the vulnerable. The cry

of the oppressed is what has risen up to God's ears,

and it could be people in neighboring areas, It could be.

People living in that city.

But is the cry of the vulnerable and the impressed

that not care for the stranger that is rising up

to God's ears, not the scene that is most famously coming.

That scene that is most famously coming is just meant

to be a particularly obscene and gruesome example of the

kind of moral decay that is exemplified in this city

in their behavior, and you're going to see in their

care for the stranger. Okay, So God is coming into

this city, and he is coming to judge it because

the cries of the oppressed.

Have risen to him.

Now we know that Abraham, this mere men man, gets

invited to argue with God about it, or to advocate

for Sodom and Gomorah.

Now you should be wondering at this point.

Why hasn't he been advocating for Sodom and Gomora before?

Why has he waited to this last minute to care

about this city.

But he gets to negotiate.

And you get to see what kind of God, how

extraordinarily gracious God is? Have you ever noticed? Because most

people know how this goes, let me read you a

bit of it. Beginning in verse twenty three, God says,

I'm gonna go down to Sodom. The angels are gonna

go to Sodom and Gamora. Then Abraham approached him, the Lord, and.

Said, will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

What if there are fifty righteous.

People in the city, will you really sweep it away

and not spare the place for the sake of fifty

righteous people in it? Far be it from you to

do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked,

treating the righteous and the wicked alike, Far be it

from you. Will you, not the judge of all the earth,

do the right thing?

And the answer is yes, this is a true statement.

But I want you to notice that it is Abraham

that is miserly and not God. God never said a number.

Abraham chooses a big number, thinking God will be stingy.

I want you to notice. All along the way, God's

like sure, cool, yeah do that. He's like, what about fifty.

God's like, yeah, cool, I want to do it for fifty.

Abraham's like, well what about forty five? And God's like yeah, no, sweat,

he is ready at each change. Abraham's like thirty, God's sake, yeah, absolutely, thirty, twenty, Yes,

I will do it for twenty. I will be more

merciful than you could possibly imagine. Abraham works himself down

to the lowest number he can think of?

What about ten?

Like he's ready for God to be miserly with his grace?

What about ten? God never hesitates? Yeah, ten, if I

find ten?

Do you notice that in there it is Abraham who

stops lowering the number, not God.

Maybe one would have been enough.

In fact, we get a clue that one would have

been enough. You will see God's mercy for one human

in this story. God is more gracious than you could

ever imagine. Did you ever know that the story of

Sodomghamura is also.

About God's graciousness.

God is being more gracious than Abraham could have possibly imagined,

and he's ready to be redemptive towards the city. I

remember Dye said, I'm gonna paraphrase, but Die said something

like this in her message on the flood. God can

be infuriatingly gracious against our enemy and against sinners. It's

like He just gives them chance and chance and chance

and chance.

And that is what we are seeing here. So the

two angels.

We know go down to the city to carry out

their observations and their judgment. And the question is are

they going to find ten righteous people in the city.

Or new.

But the idea was out there and a positively. Lot

in the beginning of chapter nineteen is shown to be

perfectly righteous and I'm not going to read it, but

in verses one through three he's shown to look like

his uncle. He runs out to meet these strangers. Again

it's a counter picture. He pleads to provide for them

and have them stay in their house, and so you

see him modeling what should be happening, which sets up

the totally contrary and disgusting thing that's going to happen

instead in the city of Soden and Gomora. So he

provides their needs, but things go to absolute crud after that.

Let's pick it up in verses four and five. The

part most people probably know.

These angels are with Lot in his family locked inside

their house before they had gone to bed. All the

men from every part of the city of Sodom, both

young and old, surrounded the house. Now you are meant

to be terrified and horrified. Don't glaze over THISA.

You're in a strange city by yourself, you are barely protected,

and all the citizens of that city have come to

brutally abuse you. A.

This is a violent and vile image. They called out

to a lot.

Now here's anti hospitality, where the men, the strangers who

came to you tonight, bring them out to us that

we can have sex with them. Sorry, kiddos, I should

have said earmuffs. But this is meant to be like

a really painfully bad, sad story. And in verse six

we see what's happened a lot And verse six it

says a Lot tries to go out and talk them

out of this wicked act, but in doing so we

just see how broken his own moral compass is. Because

he offers his own two daughters, who have never known

a man. He says, hey, don't take advantage of the

these strangers take advantage of my daughters. And you're supposed

to go who does that?

That's that's disgusting.

You're supposed to be horrified and you're supposed to be warned.

Look like if you go into the city and you

don't go.

In and transform it, but you're instead influenced by it,

here's the danger. And here's where human culture and rebellion

of God goes. Interestingly, in verses twelve through fourteen, guess

what we see God being.

Ridiculously merciful again. Lot has just done this. Listen to

verse twelve.

The two men the angels say it, a Lot, do

you have anyone else in the house, sons in law, sons, daughters,

anyone else who belongs to you? Please, let's get them

out of the city verse fourteen. So Lot went out

and spoke to his sons in law, who are pledged

to marry his daughters. He said, come on, let's get

out of this place. The lord's about to destroy its

sons in laws thought he was joking and laughed in

his face verse sixteen. When he hesitated, the men grasped

his hand in the hands of his wife and his

two daughters and led them safely out of the city. Listen,

for the lord was merciful to them. Lot has not

earned mercy at this point. And just in case you

were thinking maybe his daughters were decent, people, read the

rest of the story because you're going to see the

kind of culture they were raised in and the kind

of despicable behavior that they get up to because they

don't trust God, they don't trust the story, they don't

trust resources.

And we get this horrible origin story of the.

Enemy peoples to Israel of Moab and the classes and

the Ammonites. Look, it's a brutal and it's a gross story.

Why is it here.

It's here because we're supposed to see these two pathways

of life, right, trust God with the resources go into

human rebellion. Here's where human rebellion goes. Because you're supposed

to say, Abraham, I get it, and I trust it.

But I think maybe.

There's something else that we could ask, some other thing

that I'd like to point out today.

What about the city.

Because this is also a story of God.

Coming to rescue a city.

He's coming in graciousness to see can I find something

in the city where it's redeeming. I'm gonna give it

every single chance. I'm gonna give it way more chances

than you would are me. Like if we were on

the judge's seat for Sodomongmorro, we had have baked it

a long time ago.

They had been like that place is irredeema will let

it go.

And yet God keeps showing up with mercy in this story,

Like you get to be surprised at the graciousness of God.

Does God reject the city like Hallmark? Not even close?

Do you know that Abraham of the country by his

lineage becomes Joseph and Moses of the cities of e

Where does God put his name to dwell among the

people out in the country.

Nope.

In the city of Jerusalem. God intends to redeem the city.

Hear me, venture, hear me Hallmark watchers.

The city is his.

And we're not supposed to read the story of Sodom

and Gomura and wag our finger and go if that's

what you get. We're supposed to read the sodomn cities

of Sodom and Gomorah and go. What could have been different?

God loves all the humans in there. What if Abraham,

who could see it from his house, had gone into

the city before that problem had arise. What if Lot,

who lived in that city, instead of being transformed by

the city, had influenced it for the name of God.

Could the story have been different because God was ready

to be merciful. God intends to redeem the city. Did

you know that the entire story of Scripture.

Ends with the redeemed city.

Do you know when it comes to the end, he

doesn't say I made another garden like Eden. He says,

I looked in Jenice and Revelation twenty one and twenty two,

and I saw a new city, a city the size

of the globe itself descend, and God rebuilt a city

like Eden, a garden city. And in this city were

justice and ingenuity and love and care for the other.

And the gates are always open so everyone can come in.

This is a city of hospitality, This is a city

of God's presence. God is so present. Light is not

required in this redeemed city. Did you know that filled

with the Holy Spirit, Jesus calls Christians a city on

a hill, not a flickering light hidden under a basket.

It's part of our call to.

Be a blessing, to love the country and the city.

And here's why, I just want to be real honest

with you, friends. I hear a lot of shade for

the city that sounds a lot like giving up on it.

I hear a lot of animosity that sounds like leave

them to their own garbage. I live in I say

ninety percent of the time when I tell somebody to

live in Seattle, they're.

Like, we can't give up on the city.

Let us not plead for the city when it's too late,

but when people are still there, when it is our

call to be a blessing in the city.

The story of Sodom.

And commercial break our heart for the cities that are

in our own neighborhoods salt and light. And I just

want you to know, like when we did the I

Found God in Seattle campaign and then we sent out

Tony and Ariel and the team, it wasn't because we thought,

oh that city is just so awful, somebody better do something.

Tony and Ariel didn't go with their teeth a grit

against the wickedness of Sea. They went with their hearts

open to the people who live there because they know

that we are called to be a blessing to the city.

I'm gonna end with two stories, and the worship team's

gonna come back up the first. I asked Tony, I'm like, hey,

got any stories about life transformation that.

You see happening in the city. He's like, Oh, let

me tell you about Katie. He says.

Katie was a guy living in the city, but she

was living on the outskirts of her faith and finding

nowhere to get connected. Then she found venture Seattle and

he said, Christian were on the phone and I don't

know why I'm doing it like this because not nineteen

eighty Christian. I just want to tell you, like Jesus

is rocking her world and she is finding life and

Christian community. Everything's being changed for And I immediately thought

right away, what if we had given up on Seattle,

What if we had been repulsed by its rebellion and

just not gone to the city. What would happen to

people like Katie? So there's life in the city, and

lots of it. The second story I want to tell

you is about Austin Reger. He's a legendary UDUB rower

who recently died tragically in a diving accident. When the

Seattle Times asked his rowing coach, Michael Callahan, what kind

of man Austin was, he answered, his coach at the

U dub answered to the Seattle Times.

The Seattle Times printed this.

He defined the character of the team, the work ethic

of the team, the mindset, and the spirit. Callahan said.

Rieger was a vocal in his Christian faith. They didn't

have to be faithful to be part of his group.

They also just gave faith to people, believing in good,

believing in the growing process, and believing in each other,

you're friends.

That's that's the kind of testimony we can be in

the city every day. We get to choose these two paths.

A life where we trust God he gets to send

us into beautiful places and he gets to send us

into hard places, or a life our own path.

We hold our resources and we tell.

The people who aren't like us, are far from us,

you're different, go away, do your own thing. Let us

choose the path modeled after Father Abraham, radical hospitality and

care for the stranger. And I think Scripture is just

full of this idea. When you look and you see

that God is needed. Scripture asks who will go, and

something in us is supposed to rise up and says,

send us, Lord, send us, Send us into our neighborhoods,

send us into our schools, send us into the city.

We're gonna end by singing an old song today called

God of the City. Probably been a while since saying it,

but I had asked you why we sing it.

We just take a moment and ask God, how could

I be involved?

What's one small thing that I could do for the

good of my neighborhood, the good of the city. For

the Father is gracious, the son is on the move,

and the Holy Spirit is with you.

Amen.