Daily Dose of the Word of God - Beyond Sunday - Ep. 64

Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach

Transcript

Jeffrey Klein   
Welcome to Elmhurst CRC's daily dose in the Word of God. It's Monday, November 18. This is Jeff Klein reminding you to take your faith into the week beyond just on Sunday.

In Jeremiah 29 the prophet writes the people of Israel living as exiles in Babylon. They had been ripped from their homeland. They had been removed from their regular place of worship at the temple in Jerusalem. They found themselves living in a place where the people around them didn't believe what they believed, and even worshiped and served different gods altogether. The God of Israel was no longer the center of their lives, and the people around them didn't even know or understand the Jewish laws and the way of life that God had spelled out for them in his word. What would you do if you were in their shoes? What would you do in exile? Try to escape, hide, keep to yourself, or just stay under the radar and hope no one notices you. Well, Jeremiah has some different advice. He tells the people to build houses, settle down, plant gardens, listen to Jeremiah. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Wow. In many ways, followers of Jesus today are in exile. We live in a world where the majority of people is not living out the desires of God that we read about in the Bible. Even those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, have a hard time living out these values in this culture all around us, the science point to Christianity being pushed more to the edges of the culture and away from the center. What Jeremiah said then, I imagine he'd say to us too, bless the city where you live. Act like God's people there you find yourself feeling like you're in exile. Are you feeling like an outcast in your community, displaced like you're just kind of a freak with this Jesus following stuff? Well, go to work. Work to make the place where you find yourself better. Pray for it. Invest in it. Invest in the people there. God has plans for that place, and more specifically, for your time there. What will you do today to seek the peace and prosperity of your city?

Let's pray. Jesus. Help us not derail at the culture. Point fingers, yell and scream. Carry on instead. Help us to live out this, these words of Jeremiah that encourages us to go make the city that we live in, the place where we find ourselves a better place to seek its peace and prosperity. Lord, help us to build your kingdom wherever you have put us in Your name. We pray Jesus. Amen.