SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, that's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the tonight show starting.
SPEAKER_01: That's my new favorite bumper video we've ever made.
SPEAKER_01: That's good stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I'm John, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_02: A few years ago, I read something in the Bible that uh got my attention.
SPEAKER_02: And I think about it pretty often.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the apostle Paul, right, he had this young protege named Timothy.
SPEAKER_02: He wrote Timothy a couple of letters, gives him all kinds of uh advice.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a little piece of advice in here that when I read it recently, uh just got in my brain and stayed there.
SPEAKER_02: Um this is it.
SPEAKER_02: Paul tells Timothy this, it's uh 2 Timothy 4.2.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Preach the word of God, be prepared whether the time is favorable or not.
SPEAKER_02: I think that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh uh when I read it, I was reading the NIV, and so the version I read that really stuck in my mind says this same verse.
SPEAKER_02: Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season.
SPEAKER_02: Now that makes a ton of sense to me.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it does to you.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like Paul's saying, uh, there's there's God's word, it's always there, it's it's timeless, it's always good and true, and sometimes it's in season, and sometimes it's out of season.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: I've been reading um the Old Testament prophets this summer, and it seems that it was true then.
SPEAKER_02: There were times when God's instruction, his word to his people was in season, and times when it was out of season.
SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, this week I was reading about Jeremiah the prophet, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Jeremiah the prophet, his story is crazy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, talk about God's word being out of season.
SPEAKER_02: So Jeremiah was a prophet in Judah in the years leading up to when the Babylonian army invaded from the north.
SPEAKER_02: They sacked the capital city of Jerusalem, they destroyed the temple, they took all the people captives and carried them back to Babylon as exiles.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and Jeremiah's job throughout all this was to keep speaking God's word to the people, uh, which he did, but they didn't want to hear it.
SPEAKER_02: It was out of season.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: He kept saying, You guys broke our covenant with God by worshiping false idols, and now God is going to allow us to be carried off as exiles into Babylon.
SPEAKER_02: And they were like, nah, that doesn't sound right.
SPEAKER_02: And Jeremiah was like, no, seriously, I'm telling you what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_02: And they were like, no, seriously, please stop talking.
SPEAKER_02: You're bumming us out.
SPEAKER_02: No, I don't, I don't think they even said please.
SPEAKER_02: They actually put him in jail.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they they uh once threw him down a well, left him for dead, eventually his own people kidnapped him.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Once he was like, when the Babylonians invade, don't fight back, okay?
SPEAKER_02: And the military leaders were like, oh my gosh, would you please stop with this?
SPEAKER_02: We're trying to put together an army so that we can fight back when the Babylonians invade.
SPEAKER_02: At one point during the invasion, some of the people were like, This stinks.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should escape to Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Jeremiah, ask God if he thinks we should escape to Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: So Jeremiah prayed for ten days, and he came back and said, God said, Don't escape to Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: It'll be worse for you if you do, if you do.
SPEAKER_02: And they said, nah, that doesn't sound right.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna escape to Egypt, and we're taking you with us.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, at one point after everything that Jeremiah said would happen happened, right?
SPEAKER_02: Jerusalem sacked, temple destroyed, people carried off into exile.
SPEAKER_02: Jeremiah was still in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: They left him there because they left all the poor people there.
SPEAKER_02: They were like, we're not taking all these poor people into exile.
SPEAKER_02: You guys can stay behind.
SPEAKER_02: And Jeremiah wrote a letter.
SPEAKER_02: He had heard that uh the people who had been carried off to Babylon were thinking, you know, this exile is not gonna last very long.
SPEAKER_02: It can't possibly last very long, right?
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get out of here soon.
SPEAKER_02: We'll put our army back together, we'll rise up, we'll we'll overtake them, we'll head back home.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: A little optimism, it's not gonna kill us.
SPEAKER_02: Jeremiah, who is their resident, Debbie Downer, writes a letter to the exiles in Babylon and says basically, I told you guys this was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: No, he didn't say that.
SPEAKER_02: This is actually what he said, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Nate read this last week.
SPEAKER_02: I love this so much.
SPEAKER_02: This is Jeremiah 29.
SPEAKER_02: So this is Jeremiah talking to the exiles.
SPEAKER_02: He says, This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
SPEAKER_02: And then he quotes, okay?
SPEAKER_02: He's quoting, this is what God says to them.
SPEAKER_02: Build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce.
SPEAKER_02: Marry and have sons and daughters, find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_02: Increase in number there, do not decrease.
SPEAKER_02: And this is my favorite part.
SPEAKER_02: Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
SPEAKER_02: Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
SPEAKER_02: I think Jeremiah was lucky that they were too far away to throw him back down the well.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Because this is not what they wanted to hear.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: But think about it for a minute.
SPEAKER_02: God's people are now living in exile in occupied territory.
SPEAKER_02: They're a religious minority now.
SPEAKER_02: They have no cultural authority, no social or political privilege, no legislative power, nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: They're exiles, they're refugees.
SPEAKER_02: And what does God tell them to do?
SPEAKER_02: Does he tell them to rise up and fight?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Does he tell them to get in little groups and hide?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Does he tell them to wait for a new administration to restore them to their old position of power?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: God tells them to seek the peace and prosperity of the city, because if it prospers, you will prosper.
SPEAKER_02: Wait a minute, you mean if these godless heathen Babylonians prosper, we will too?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: That's what God's telling them.
SPEAKER_02: How can that possibly be?
SPEAKER_02: Why in the world would God give this instruction?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the Hebrew word here that gets translated to peace, right?
SPEAKER_02: Seek the peace of the city.
SPEAKER_02: That word is a very, very important and well-known Hebrew word.
SPEAKER_02: Any guesses, scholars?
SPEAKER_02: Shalom.
SPEAKER_02: The word here is shalom.
SPEAKER_02: Now the Israelites in exile would have known this word.
SPEAKER_02: They understand it.
SPEAKER_02: They know this doesn't just mean peace as in like a little break from the conflict.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, sometimes we think of peace as simply meaning that people aren't fighting.
SPEAKER_02: But they understood shalom as meaning that all the things people need in order to flourish are there, available to them.
SPEAKER_02: Safety and security, love and relationships, good work, housing, clothing and food, physical and spiritual health, all of it.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of peace God is telling them to seek, even when they're in exile, even when they're in a place where God's word is way out of season.
SPEAKER_02: Well, God's word was out of season during Jesus' life, too, right?
SPEAKER_02: We're told that he was the living word of God and he was executed for treason.
SPEAKER_02: That's how out of season it was.
SPEAKER_02: And when Jesus showed up on the scene, people had a similar kind of false expectation as they did in Jeremiah's day.
SPEAKER_02: How about now?
SPEAKER_02: Is it time to rise up and fight?
SPEAKER_02: Still no.
SPEAKER_02: Is it time to get in little groups and hide?
SPEAKER_02: Still no.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, are you the new administration here to restore us to our old position of power?
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, but no.
SPEAKER_02: And in the collection of speeches that we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to the people, let me paint a picture for you of what life is going to look like in the kingdom that I came to establish.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: There are some people who are going to feel very much at home in my kingdom, and I'm going to describe them to you.
SPEAKER_02: And this is what he says.
SPEAKER_02: This is wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: This is Matthew 5, 9.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is using a compound word here, peacemakers.
SPEAKER_02: Now, maker is the Greek word poeo, which I looked it up, it doesn't have anything to do with chicken.
SPEAKER_02: But it is a word that Jesus would have been familiar with from his first career.
SPEAKER_02: Remember what Jesus' first career was?
SPEAKER_02: It was a carpenter, right?
SPEAKER_02: This is a great carpenter word, poe.
SPEAKER_02: It means create or make, fashion, build, construct.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: But the Greek word that's translated to peace is Irene, which literally means peace, but is itself, wait for it, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word shalom.
SPEAKER_02: So why would Jesus and Jeremiah both encourage people to work at crafting, at building comprehensive human well-being, even when their own way of life, even when God's word is out of season?
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: I think it's because this work of peacemaking taps into our ancient, original, shared human work.
SPEAKER_02: It is my opinion that to craft shalom, to craft human flourishing, is the ancient, original, shared task of all human beings.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't usually give a title to a sermon because it doesn't matter and nobody cares.
SPEAKER_02: But my sermon today has a title, and I am calling it the shared work of all humans.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: And what exactly is the shared work of all humans?
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you asked.
SPEAKER_02: It is to pursue the common good of the place in which we find ourselves, whether it's in season or out of season.
SPEAKER_02: Now we're gonna be using that phrase, common good, a lot during this sermon series.
SPEAKER_02: And we are defining it simply as the flourishing of the sum total of communal life in a given place.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna talk about pursuing the common good as a principle of socialism, capital S socialism, right?
SPEAKER_02: So don't worry.
SPEAKER_02: This is not gonna be a political hot button topic.
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna talk about a slew of government-sponsored initiatives.
SPEAKER_02: This is not gonna be the gospel watered down and funneled through social activism.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna talk about pursuing the common good as the ancient, original, God-designed, shared work of all humans.
SPEAKER_02: Wendell Barry, whom I love, calls it membership.
SPEAKER_02: He describes it as the sense of community solidarity that binds us all in a common destiny.
SPEAKER_02: What did God say to the exiles?
SPEAKER_02: If it prospers, you will prosper.
SPEAKER_02: The Israelites in Jeremiah's day, they called it shalom.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus calls it peacemaking.
SPEAKER_02: It's the same idea.
SPEAKER_02: And for the next several weeks, we're going to call it pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: Well, what does the Bible say about this?
SPEAKER_02: What has it meant for Christians throughout history?
SPEAKER_02: And what does it mean for you and me here and now?
SPEAKER_02: That is what we're going to talk about today.
SPEAKER_02: But first, let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, as always, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_02: We thank you that it is available, that it is true and timeless and perfect, whether it's in season or out of season.
SPEAKER_02: We ask the Holy Spirit to come this morning and help us to understand what it is you have for us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the gift of your presence and the gift of your word and the gift of your son Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We pray all this in his name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So I have this friend.
SPEAKER_02: I have a friend named Don.
SPEAKER_02: Don Everts.
SPEAKER_02: Don Everts is one of my very favorite people.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, he and I were on the pastoral staff together at a 200-year-old tall steeple Presbyterian church in St.
SPEAKER_02: Louis, Missouri, many years ago.
SPEAKER_02: And now Don is the lead pastor at a church in Springfield, Missouri, and I obviously am here with you.
SPEAKER_02: But Don is still my dear friend.
SPEAKER_02: And in addition to leading a church, Don's kind of an expert on today's topic.
SPEAKER_02: He has this book deal with Intervarsity Press and with the Barna Institute.
SPEAKER_02: So Barna does all this research about churches.
SPEAKER_02: And they give that research to Don and say, Would you please write books about this so that people can understand it?
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: So Don writes these books and then he travels around and he speaks in churches about things like pursuing the common good and becoming better neighbors, which I love because if anybody doesn't need to become a better neighbor, is my friend Don.
SPEAKER_02: Don is the best neighbor I've ever had.
SPEAKER_02: He and his wife Wendy practice what they refer to as radical hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: Radical meaning it's not for everyone, and it probably shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, it used to kind of drive me crazy.
SPEAKER_02: They would invite us over to dinner and be like, bring a salad.
SPEAKER_02: So we would bring a salad for, you know, the eight people in their family and our family.
SPEAKER_02: And then we would get there and there'd be 30 people.
SPEAKER_02: I'd be like, Don, why didn't you tell me you invited 30 people to dinner?
SPEAKER_02: And he'd be like, oh, well, I didn't.
SPEAKER_02: Most of them were just already here.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Radical hospitality, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, as I was getting ready for this sermon series, I wanted to talk to Don.
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to ask him some questions.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Don, help me understand what are gonna be some of the challenges of talking about becoming better neighbors and talking about pursuing the common good with my church.
SPEAKER_02: What are some of the challenges?
SPEAKER_02: Because Don talks about this stuff a lot.
SPEAKER_02: So I called him up.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Don, I know that you and Wendy practice this annoying, radical hospitality.
SPEAKER_02: So I just want to start with the question that I'm sure everybody asks you.
SPEAKER_02: If your door is always open and people are always welcome, people always know they can come to your house and count on you, how do you know when to wear pants?
SPEAKER_02: Like, does the Holy Spirit prompt you?
SPEAKER_02: Like, Don, there's a neighbor in need.
SPEAKER_02: They're on their way.
SPEAKER_02: It's pants time.
SPEAKER_02: Don't confusion told me that perhaps that is not the question that everybody asks him.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what he actually told me, okay?
SPEAKER_02: He said that Christians know we're supposed to love our neighbors, right?
SPEAKER_02: We know this.
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes we have a metaphorical understanding of who our neighbors are.
SPEAKER_02: And so we don't show love to them in practical ways.
SPEAKER_02: Or he said we may define neighbor too broadly, like, well, everyone's my neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: And so again, we don't do anything about the people who are our literal neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: He also said there's just a challenge.
SPEAKER_02: I I already alluded to it, the challenge of church people being like, well, isn't our only job to save souls and make disciples?
SPEAKER_02: What's all this common good nonsense?
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: I have something to say in a few minutes about uh motives that I think will help us kind of clear that up.
SPEAKER_02: So I'll come back to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, Don had a lot of good advice, and he told me this funny story.
SPEAKER_02: He told me a story about pitching a sermon series very similar to this one to the church where he's the pastor in Springfield.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he met with his elders and he said, Hey, we're gonna, I want to do this series, we're gonna talk about the biblical mandate to pursue the common good and about becoming better neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: And he said that one of the church elders in the meeting just groaned and said, Oh, don't make us talk about our neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: I hate my neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: And Don said he thought the guy was joking because again, you know, like love your neighbor is kind of a thing, like especially if you're a church elder.
SPEAKER_02: But that guy, bless his heart.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's just saying what all of us have thought at one time or another, which is there are other people in my neighborhood, and I didn't pick them and I don't like them.
SPEAKER_02: And as soon as I got over laughing at that story, I started thinking about all the times I open my windows and turn on my attic fan on a beautiful evening, and my kitchen fills up with the smell of pot smoke.
SPEAKER_02: Or all the times my neighbor's pit bull gets out and whizzes all over my peonies.
SPEAKER_02: Or when the neighborhood kids break branches off of my little baby uh Japanese maple that I just planted, or leave sticky popsicle sticks on my front porch that attract ants.
SPEAKER_02: Or my oldest son's buddies ring the doorbell at bedtime, and I'm like, somebody else is gonna have to get that.
SPEAKER_02: Holy Spirit didn't give me the pants prompt.
SPEAKER_02: And as soon as I finished laughing at that poor, misguided church elder, I started thinking, ah, great.
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe sometimes I hate my neighbors too.
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's time someone reminded me that loving my neighbors, seeking the shalom of my community, peacemaking, pursuing the common good, is the shared work of all humans, including me.
SPEAKER_02: So, what does the Bible say about this work?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's see.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna try to move quickly through a lot of scripture today.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we believe that all humans are created by God, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's not another creator, just the one, and he made all things, including all of us.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we believe.
SPEAKER_02: Our origin story tells us as much.
SPEAKER_02: But if you hang out in the first few pages of the Bible for very long, you are likely to stumble across a surprising fact about life in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_02: And that fact is that humans were given work to do.
SPEAKER_02: Genesis 2.15 says, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the wording here implies something that everyone who has ever had a garden already understands.
SPEAKER_02: The garden needs someone to cultivate it for it to become useful and habitable.
SPEAKER_02: Gardens don't just spring up on their own.
SPEAKER_02: The cucumbers that I'm growing on my back porch didn't just show up there, right?
SPEAKER_02: They needed me to work and take care of them.
SPEAKER_02: And these are interesting words, work and take care of.
SPEAKER_02: Now we talked about this at length in our series on the first three chapters of Genesis that we did back in January.
SPEAKER_02: But I love the writer's choice of words here.
SPEAKER_02: The Hebrew word that gets translated to work in other cases literally means to serve, which I think implies that we humans are designed to serve the place we live, not be served by it.
SPEAKER_02: A similar meaning to me is implied by the word that gets translated as take care of.
SPEAKER_02: It would seem that our mandate from the very beginning is to serve and care for the place around us.
SPEAKER_02: Now that includes taking care of the land itself, but don't get stuck in the gardening metaphor, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm I'm meant to serve and take care of more than my porch cucumbers.
SPEAKER_02: I think that what we see here is that humans are designed to stand shoulder to shoulder and put our hands to the same shared work, pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: We're not like the rest of creation.
SPEAKER_02: We have a job to do, is to serve and manage all the other creatures and resources for good purposes, to help them flourish, to use them wisely and to take care of them.
SPEAKER_02: And I think if we really lean into this mandate to serve and take care of, and if we use our imaginations a little bit, like we talked about doing in this Lectio Divina series, I think we can imagine that the shared human pursuit isn't limited to making good crops and good names and good people.
SPEAKER_02: Those are the things we see explicitly in Genesis.
SPEAKER_02: But I think this mandate fans out to include the making of anything good that is true and that promotes the common good: a good meal, a good home, good conversation, good effort, even a good organization or a good business or a good meeting.
SPEAKER_02: I think it also bears noting that if we're right in our assessment of this creation mandate, then this work isn't just a function of being a Christian, it's a function of being a human being.
SPEAKER_02: This mandate dignifies and empowers everyone to serve and take care of their place, to pursue the common good of the place where they find themselves.
SPEAKER_02: Well, after humanity's fall into sin, people lost sight of the shared work God had given them, and like me, they needed to be reminded.
SPEAKER_02: So God gave them the law.
SPEAKER_02: And as modern Christians, we tend to focus more on the redemptive and theological portions of the law, which we probably should.
SPEAKER_02: But interestingly, it's full of all kinds of practical instructions to help God's people pursue the common good of their communities.
SPEAKER_02: Leviticus 19 has specific instructions for taking care of fruit trees.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_02: Exodus 23 tells them to let the land lie fallow every seven years so it could recover its vital nutrients.
SPEAKER_02: It's brilliant.
SPEAKER_02: Deuteronomy 23 told them how to dispose of human waste so they wouldn't get sick.
SPEAKER_02: There are details about not hurting each other, about watching out for widows and orphans, about being generous toward travelers, avoiding cruelty to animals.
SPEAKER_02: There are even instructions for taking care of your enemy's animal if you come across it and is hurt.
SPEAKER_02: That's shalom, right?
SPEAKER_02: That kind of peacemaking covers everything.
SPEAKER_02: And I am completely convinced that this shalom thread, right?
SPEAKER_02: This pursue the common good thread that starts in Genesis 2 runs straight through the Old Testament law.
SPEAKER_02: It runs through Jeremiah telling the Israelites to pursue the common good of the city they were exiled in.
SPEAKER_02: It runs through Jesus saying that people who pursue the common good will be recognized as children of God.
SPEAKER_02: It runs through the writing of the earliest Christian leaders, too.
SPEAKER_02: They definitely picked up on Jesus' instruction to craft peace.
SPEAKER_02: Paul said this to the believers in Rome.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Pursue what makes for peace.
SPEAKER_02: The writer of Hebrews encourages Christians to strive for peace.
SPEAKER_02: James.
SPEAKER_02: James swings for the fences, right?
SPEAKER_02: James channels his brother Jesus' language and Shalom language and garden creation mandate language.
SPEAKER_02: When he says, Kayla read this in our call to worship.
SPEAKER_02: He says, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
SPEAKER_02: This literally runs the whole way through our Bible.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't secondary.
SPEAKER_02: It isn't liberal theology.
SPEAKER_02: It isn't social activism.
SPEAKER_02: It isn't watering down the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: It's the shared work of all humans.
SPEAKER_02: We're created to do it.
SPEAKER_02: We're commissioned by God to do it.
SPEAKER_02: The law and the prophets instruct it, and Jesus paints a picture of it.
SPEAKER_02: The early church leaders encourage it, pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: The early church was known for it.
SPEAKER_02: They were known for doing things like visiting prisoners, receiving immigrants, rescuing abandoned children, feeding needy people, even contributing financially to common funds that were meant to help pursue the common good.
SPEAKER_02: And throughout the centuries, the church kept taking, kept talking about this mandate, this shared work.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, look at this.
SPEAKER_02: This is really wild.
SPEAKER_02: This is something from the Epistle of Barnabas.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, this isn't in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: This is just a Christian writing from the end of the first century.
SPEAKER_02: This guy says, do not live entirely isolated.
SPEAKER_02: What did I say earlier about what the exiles in Babylon were asking Jeremiah?
SPEAKER_02: Is it time for us to get in little groups and hide?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves as if you were already fully justified, but gather instead to seek together the what?
SPEAKER_02: The common good.
SPEAKER_02: He says, any objective historian investigating the effects of Christians throughout history will be overwhelmed with the enduring legacy of shared work throughout society, in the arts, literacy, education, human rights, health care, literature, science, justice, rule of law, and more.
SPEAKER_02: The fact is that Christians throughout history have recognized that this is the shared work of all humans and they have pursued the common good, but it hasn't always been at the forefront of the Christian experience.
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, it hasn't always been what we're known for.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I would argue that much like preaching God's word, there are times when pursuing the common good is in season and times when it's out of season.
SPEAKER_02: And if you were gonna guess, right, if you were gonna guess, would you guess that the latest research shows that people associate Christians with pursuing the common good, or that people don't associate Christians with pursuing the common good?
SPEAKER_02: If you were gonna guess.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it turns out it's not assumed that we're good at this.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if anything, it's assumed that we're worse than other people.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to spend much time on this because it depresses me.
SPEAKER_02: But let's look at a little of the data from Barna that I promised earlier.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, my friend Don sent this over.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't have a cool infographic to show, so I apologize.
SPEAKER_02: This information is gonna look a little bit clunky, but let's see this slide, Isaac, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Um so in their research, Barna asked the question: who is best suited to solve community problems?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's the question.
SPEAKER_02: Pretty simple question.
SPEAKER_02: And they give several options.
SPEAKER_02: And you don't rank them, it's like just pick one.
SPEAKER_02: Which of these groups seems best suited to solve community problems?
SPEAKER_02: And the the groups they ask, they put in three categories.
SPEAKER_02: There are practicing Christians, which I mean I think that's us, and there are non-practicing Christians, and there are non-Christians.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So among the non-Christians, 42% say the government is best suited to solve community problems.
SPEAKER_02: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, 31% of practicing Christians say the government is best suited to solve community problems.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: Practicing Christians, to the tune of a full third, say that churches are best suited to solve community problems.
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
SPEAKER_02: How many non-Christians agree?
SPEAKER_02: 7%.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Non-Christians think that businesses are better suited than churches are at solving community problems.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know about you, but I am saying two things emerge from this data, okay?
SPEAKER_02: First, if only a third of practicing Christians think we're better suited than the government at solving community problems, then perhaps we've lost sight of whose job this is.
SPEAKER_02: And second, if 33% of us think we're doing a good job, and only 7% of non-Christians agree, then there's a chance that we do not see ourselves the same way that other people see us.
SPEAKER_02: Would you agree?
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Now, either we're doing a great job at pursuing the common good and nobody sees it, which could be true, or we're not doing such a great job of pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: And if that's true, then it's not just me and that church elder who hates his neighbor who are due for a reminder that this is the work God calls us to from the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: Well, if we need a reminder, we are in good company.
SPEAKER_02: The Christians in Asia Minor in 60 AD, they also needed a reminder.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, they faced growing hostility from their non-Christian neighbors, in part because the emperor at the time, Nero, had an extremely negative view of Christians.
SPEAKER_02: God's word was out of season again.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02: There was just a lot of tension and hostility and distrust between the Christians and their non-Christian neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: And so the Christians, and it just wasn't that different for them than it was for Jesus' audience at the Sermon on the Mount, or for the exiles Jeremiah was writing to in Babylon, and I just don't think it's that different then than it is for us now.
SPEAKER_02: The Christians in 60 AD were like, is it time to fight back?
SPEAKER_02: Still no.
SPEAKER_02: Is it time to get in little groups and hide?
SPEAKER_02: Still no.
SPEAKER_02: Nero's the worst.
SPEAKER_02: Should we just wait for the next emperor to come in and restore us to our position of power?
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, guys, but no.
SPEAKER_02: These temptations were and are understandable, but they had the potential to distract the Christians from their calling to stand shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: And thankfully, God led Peter to write them a letter that, among other things, reminded them of their calling to pursue the common good.
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
SPEAKER_02: This is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna look at this little passage that Peter wrote.
SPEAKER_02: Can you put that up, Isaac?
SPEAKER_02: Look at just the end of this.
SPEAKER_02: Peter says, Now who will want to harm you if you're eager to do good?
SPEAKER_02: The implication is that somewhere along the line, they had stopped doing a great job of pursuing the common good and they need a reminder.
SPEAKER_02: But Peter is clear, this is not anything new.
SPEAKER_02: Right before that line, the rest of that passage, he's quoting Psalm 34 to them.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the rest of this passage is.
SPEAKER_02: Now, do you see anything about the language of that that sounds familiar to you today?
SPEAKER_02: Search for peace.
SPEAKER_02: That's shalom again.
SPEAKER_02: Work to maintain it.
SPEAKER_02: That's shalom language, and it's creation mandate language, and law language, and Jeremiah the prophet language, and it's Paul in Hebrews and James language and Peter language and Jesus language.
SPEAKER_02: And we want to make it secondary.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to talk about our neighbors because we hate our neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: Well, we're almost finished for this morning, but I want to just touch on a couple of very practical things about what all this biblical mandate stuff has to do with us right here and now, and then we're gonna be finished, okay?
SPEAKER_02: First, I read something recently, I alluded to it a minute ago.
SPEAKER_02: I read something about motives that I found very, very helpful, and so I want to share it with you.
SPEAKER_02: I think this is gonna help us as we move through this series to understand the relationship between saving souls and making disciples and pursuing the common good.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: In their book, To Transform a City, Eric Swanson and Sam Williams talk about the difference between ulterior motives and ultimate motives.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now hear me out.
SPEAKER_02: Ulterior means that the motivation for something is intentionally kept hidden.
SPEAKER_02: An ulterior motive is usually manipulative.
SPEAKER_02: It's when we do one thing in the open but privately intend to do something else as soon as the chance presents itself.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Ulterior motives.
SPEAKER_02: Ultimate simply means the farthest point in a journey.
SPEAKER_02: It's the eventual point, it's it's the destination.
SPEAKER_02: Ultimate means that the motivation for doing something is long range.
SPEAKER_02: Think about like when someone starts med school, their ultimate motive is to become a doctor, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's not hidden.
SPEAKER_02: So here's what was helpful to me when I saw it.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna put this quote up.
SPEAKER_02: The ulterior motive in pursuing the common good must never be to share the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: But ironically, the ultimate motive is just that to share the story of Jesus and his impact on our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: Does that distinction make sense?
SPEAKER_02: It makes me think about my friend.
SPEAKER_02: I got this buddy who likes to tell the story about when he was in middle school and a friend of his invited him to a pool party that his church was sponsoring.
SPEAKER_02: Pool party, awesome! Right?
SPEAKER_02: Free admission to the pool, check.
SPEAKER_02: Free snacks, game time.
SPEAKER_02: And then about an hour into the party, some well-meaning doofus youth pastor was like, Everyone in the pool in a few minutes you're gonna have a chance to be baptized.
SPEAKER_02: And my friend was like, boom, what?
SPEAKER_02: This whole thing was a ploy for me to get sneaky baptized, right?
SPEAKER_02: Ulterior motives, okay?
SPEAKER_02: The reason we pursue the common good of our neighborhoods is because we're called to it.
SPEAKER_02: Not because we think it'll get us in the door to save souls and make disciples.
SPEAKER_02: That's an ulterior motive, and people can smell it.
SPEAKER_02: It smells like sneaky baptism, okay?
SPEAKER_02: But the irony is that the ultimate result, the end destination of pursuing the common good is that the kingdom of heaven comes right here on earth, and that people come to know and follow and worship Jesus Christ as King.
SPEAKER_02: This is not a contradiction, and in fact, it's a very important distinction to make, right?
SPEAKER_02: Ulterior motives versus ultimate motives.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the very last thing for today.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Stephanie mentioned this earlier in her announcements, but we have, with the help from my friend Don and from an organization called the Hopeful Neighborhood Project, we have put together some resources to help you to consider how you can practically pursue the common good in your neighborhood or community.
SPEAKER_02: We've put all these resources together at the lobby table out there.
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome to them.
SPEAKER_02: Please take them.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you just you never know what these things will shake loose in your mind as you endeavor to become a better neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: Um, Connect Church wants to be a better neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We live in a neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02: We are part of a neighborhood, and we want to pursue the common good of our neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know exactly what that means or what it entails, but we are sure asking a lot of questions about that.
SPEAKER_02: What should we build?
SPEAKER_02: What should we offer?
SPEAKER_02: How can we be peacemakers in our neighborhood?
SPEAKER_02: How can we pursue our ultimate goals, not ulterior motives?
SPEAKER_02: We're asking, how do we, as a church that's in a neighborhood and as individuals or families who live in neighborhoods, how do we pursue the common good of our neighborhoods?
SPEAKER_02: Well, that is what we're gonna talk about next week.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna talk about a simple but revolutionary approach that is right in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: We are gonna see what God's word says to us about how we can pursue the common good.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: For today, let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, again, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_02: It is true and good and perfect and life-giving.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you for this call we have to not to secondarily pursue the common good, but to do it as as a function of being humans made in your image.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you for this calling, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It's a high and holy calling.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I pray that you will give us strength and endurance, um, give us creativity and imagination.
SPEAKER_02: Help us to work together in this endeavor.
SPEAKER_02: We love you, Lord, and we trust you.
SPEAKER_02: We pray all these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.