The City of God | Timothy Keller
Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
[00:00:00] ANNCR: Welcome to Gospel and Life. This month on the podcast,
Tim Keller is preaching through the book of Hebrews to answer this essential
question. If God loves us so much, why is life so hard?
[00:00:21] Liturgist: Tonight's scripture reading comes from Hebrews chapter
11 verses 13 through 16. And Hebrews chapter 13, verses 10 through 16, all
these people were still living by faith. When they died, they did not receive the
things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, and
they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their
own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would've had
the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a
heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has
prepared a city for them.
We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right
to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a
sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also
suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
Let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. For here.
We do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
Through Jesus. Therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
The fruit of lips that confess his name and do not forget to do good and to share
with others for with such sacrifices.
God is pleased. This is God's word.
[00:01:57] Tim Keller: Hebrew is written to people who are beaten up. They've
been experiencing a great deal of difficulties, a lot of suffering in their lives, and
the question that's. On their hearts constantly that the Hebrews writer is
addressing is this, if God supposedly loves us so much, why is our life so hard?
You've never said that, have you? If God supposedly loves us so much, why is
our life so hard? And one of the most amazing of the answers that the writer
gives is in this text here. In this passage, we're told that when you embrace the
living God by faith into your life, comes transforming power and a deep
tension, a duality, and if you try to resolve it, you lose that transforming power.
Now, what do we mean by that? In his very first verse, it says, talking about the
great believers in history, it says, they admitted they were aliens and strangers
on the earth. They admitted they were aliens. Now the word, the Greek word
translated aliens, there is actually a fairly complicated word, uh, and it referred
to a very specific status In Greco-Roman society, the best translation would be
resident aliens.
Resident aliens. On the one hand, these are people who are not visitors. They're
not tourists. They're not just passing through a resident alien was a permanent
resident. This is where you live. And yet though they're residents, they're not
citizens of the land or the city where they reside. They're not tourists.
They're residents, but they're not citizens. Of where they reside their aliens. And
that is the tension that anyone who wants the transforming power of God in
their lives, that is the tension you must live with. In fact, to some degree, much
of the, of the power for change comes from the tension. And if you try to
resolve the tension in one direction or another, it's a spiritual disaster.
That's the message. And if we wanna understand the message, we need to, uh,
break this down. And learn four lessons from the passage. And the four things
we learn are we learn there are two cities. We learn that each city has a conflict
with the other, but we learn, but only one city is for the other. There are two
cities.
Each has a conflict with the other, but only one is really for the other. And last
of all, we learn how to become citizens of that city, the one that's for the other
two cities. Conflict one though is for the other and how to become a citizen of
it. Okay, number one. First point is there are two cities, um, Craig Kester
Lutheran Commentator, who wrote the Anchor Bible Commentary on the book
of Hebrews says, you can divide the book of Hebrews into three basic parts,
chapters one to four.
We are on a journey with Jesus the prophet, into the true rest of God. Chapter
five to 10, we're on a journey with Jesus, the true priest, into the true presence
of God. Chapter 10 to 13, we are with Jesus the king on a journey to the true
city of God, to the rest of God, to the presence of God and to the city of God.
And we come to this last section, the word city. The term city of God. The city
to come is all through. This pass, these, uh, these last, uh, chapters. Notice verse
13 says, all these people were still living by faith. They were looking to the city
that God was preparing for them. Now, who are these people? Well, Noah,
Enoch, Abraham, people that are mentioned fur.
Uh, further up in the, in the chapter, uh, we read in verse nine, Abraham, by
Faith made his home. As a stranger, that's the same word as a stranger, a
resident alien in a foreign country, for he was looking forward to the city with
foundations whose builder and maker is God. Now, what does it mean to say
God is preparing a city?
What does, what do we mean? The word city in the ancient times was
synonymous with the word society or civilization. In fact, you know, our word
civilization actually literally means a Citi, you know, a civilized person is a CFI
person. Now, the reason that that, that the city and civilization were so closely
tied was in ancient times, only in the city.
Did you have the safety for a cultural life to grow? Only in the city did you have
political life, the rule of law. Only in the city do you have economic life and
commerce in exchange you, you didn't have it anywhere else. And therefore,
when we say Abraham, when the Bible says Abraham was seeking a city that
God is building, what it means is that God is preparing a new human society, a
new human order, a new set of social arrangements, not based on power and
pride.
What the Bible calls the lofty city, the earthly city, or the city of man, but a city,
a hu new human order based on justice, based on peace, and based on service.
The city of God, the heavenly city. Now. If you want to get a picture of what
that final city is like, uh, which is referred to here in chapter 13, verse 14, where
it says, we're looking for the city that is to come, this divine city that God is
building, God's city is in the future, and at the end of the Book of Revelation
chapter 21 and 22, you see it coming down outta heaven.
It's God's new human order and comes down onto the earth and it cleanses ours.
When the city of God gets here in the city of God, we're told all disease, all
death, all poverty, all strife, all racism, all poverty is wiped off the face of the
earth and all tears are wiped off the face of the people, city of God, the city to
come.
Great, huh? But here's the tension we already see here that that city is a city to
of the future. It's a city to come. It's a city in the future. But in chapter 12, verse
22, and if you were here two weeks ago, we read this in chapter 12, verse 22,
the Hebrews writer says to his readers, but you have come to the heavenly
Jerusalem, the city of the living God.
Now wait a minute. It seems like a direct contradiction, and it's in the same
book. Chapter 12 says, you have come to the city of God. Chapter 13, verse 14
says, the city of God is still to come now, which is it? Is the city of God still to
come or have we already come to it? And the answer is, the city of God is
already, but not yet.
It's here, but it's not here. Jesus says to his disciples, you are a city. Set on a hill
whose good works are the light of the world. And what he means by that is that
when those people who've experienced the grace of God get together and form a
community, that community is a imperfect but genuine foretaste of that future
city.
It's a pilot plant. The new social arrangements, the new way that human heart
works, the new way that people get along the new a, a place of service, a place
of peace, a place of justice, a counterculture. So there's a certain sense in which
the community of people who've experienced the grace of God are a foretaste of
that, that, that, that future city.
So in summary, we are in the city, but we're not in the city. Or put another way,
we are citizens of a city, but we're residents of another city that we're citizens of
the city to come, but we're residents in the city that is, and there's your tension.
We're resident. Aliens and he, what the tension means is, is let, let's pull that
apart.
Let us pull that apart. We have said, first of all, that these two cities that we
have to do with are in conflict because we're aliens. Aliens. What does it mean
to say that people who believe in God through Jesus Christ are aliens? And here
it says, look at verse 13. It says, let us bear our disgrace. I. For here, we have no
enduring city.
Now let us, I'd like to reflect on that fascinating verse for a moment. Let us bear
a disgrace for here. We have no enduring city. This is what that means,
Christians, any version of human society, any city. In any economic system. In
any political system, it doesn't matter whether it's socialism or capitalism,
something between, it doesn't matter whether it's east or west.
It doesn't matter whether it's traditional or individualistic. It doesn't matter
whether it's highly moral or highly secular. It doesn't matter. We have no
enduring city here. Any city that Christians live in, you will sense a deep
discord and tension painfully. You'll be painfully different from your neighbors.
You'll be intention and conflict. There'll be deep discord between what you
believe and what your city believes, no matter what your city is like, or to take
the language of the verse. No matter where you live, the culture in which you
live will look at your beliefs, your Christian, your biblical beliefs and practices
and values.
And it will like a lot of them, they'll say, that's good, that's good, and that's
good. But at some point, every culture will look at what Christian beliefs are
and look at some of the things that we do and believe and say, disgrace. I am
culturally offended by what Christians believe. I'm culturally offended.
It's disgraceful, those things that the Bible says. It doesn't matter where you live
because we have no enduring city. If there's anybody here who thinks well
Christians would be very happy in traditional moral, you know, conservative,
uh, societies, not liberal, pluralistic secular societies. And if you believe that,
you still don't understand the text, and that means I'm just gonna have to keep
the sermon going and it's your fault.
No, look, we have no enduring city. There is no economic system. There is no
political system, there is no culture. There's no century in which Christians are
really at home. The culture surrounding Christians will always look at us and
some points and say disgrace. So for example, let's give you many examples,
the culture of Communist Poland in the seventies and eighties.
Made Christians look liberal. Why? Because Christians stand against the
idolization of the state. They stand against making the state into a God. They
stand against stateism. They stand against the idea that the state can decide what
is right or wrong. And because Christians were against the statism, they worked
for freedom.
And they were the liberals, you see? And they worked for the fall of
communism. But in United States culture, United States culture makes
Christians look like conservatives. Why? Because Christians here it's no
problem with statism. Uh, here Christians stand against the individualism of our
culture. We stand against the idolization of the individual fulfillment or
individual consciousness saying everybody has the right to determine what is
right or wrong for him or herself.
Now, why is it that Christians are alien in every city, every culture, east, west,
traditional, individual, everyone. Well, let me give you some examples. You can
maybe cluster, uh, cultures into two categories. There's collectivistic cultures
which are more traditional, hierarchical, and they say the individual is less
valuable than the family, less valuable than the tribe, less valuable than the
group.
And then you have individualistic societies like our own, in which individual
rights are more important than your obligations to the family or the tribe or
anything else. All right. Okay. Well, let's just see how Christian, how the Bible
fits into any of those cultures. Let's see what the Bible says about sex.
Okay, well, in traditional cultures, hierarchical family oriented cultures, there's a
prudishness about sex. And when you go into the Bible, if you really know how
to read the Bible, you'll see there is no prudishness about what the Bible says
about sex at all. You. You go and read Genesis one and two, the account of
creation.
And, and what is the epitome of creation? How does it end? What is the final
episode? What is the finality of the the great hymn of creation in Genesis one
and two, the sexual union of a male and a female. That's how it ends. That's the
top. Go to, go to the Song of Solomon, see the bare faced rejoicing in sexual
pleasure.
And it'll, and if you, you know it. If you're from a traditional culture, if you're
from the prudery, you won't be able to handle it. On the other hand, what the
Bible says about sex does not go down well at all in an individualistic culture.
Why? Because what the Bible says about sex is that sex is for building
community.
You must only have sex with someone who you're married to. You must only
have sex with someone who is absolutely permanently and exclusively
committed to you. And so what the Bible says about sex offends people in
traditional cultures, it offends people in individual cultures. It doesn't fit.
Lemme give you one other example what the Bible says about truth.
Individualistic cultures don't like to hear that there's absolute truth. The Bible
says you must accept it, not because it works for you as an individual, but
because it's true to what is there. On the other hand, how do traditional cultures
use truth in traditional moral cultures? Hierarchical cultures?
The people that have the truth bash others with it. It's a way of putting down
people. It's a way of marginalizing people. But what is. The ultimate truth of the
Bible, the ultimate truth of the Bible is that you are a sinner saved by sheer
grace. And if anyone uses biblical truth to bash somebody else, it only proves
that they have no idea what the biblical truth is.
Biblical truth, Christian truth doesn't fit into traditional culture. Or individual
culture, it doesn't fit into western culture. Eastern culture, it doesn't fit. And do
you see one more thing? Do you see how absolutely narrow it is to say
Christians need to get up to date? That happens a lot and especially New York,
they say, you know, the I I, I like a lot of what the Bible says, new Yorkers say,
but some of it's regressive.
Some of it is just out of date. Some of it's primitive. There's certain parts of the
Bible that are just socially regressive and you know, you've gotta get up into the
modern world. You've gotta get up to date. Do you realize how narrow that is?
Think about it. Our culture likes a lot of what's in the Bible, but there's some
text of the Bible that is, say, disgrace, outrageous, scandalous.
But if you go to another culture of the world, there's the things that we in our
culture don't like. They like, and the things that we in our culture hate, they
think is fine. Not only that, keep this in mind. Do you know the things in the
Bible that right now the average New Yorker think us of as regressive a hundred
years from now they're gonna think of is progressive.
When you read, you know what's so hard about reading? Augustine's the city of
God. In Augustine was a tremendous intellectual, and 1500 years ago, he was
defending Orthodox Christian biblical belief. He was defending Orthodox belief
against the critiques of his culture. Now you know why it's so tedious to read
the City of God?
Because all of the criticisms of his culture are in the dust bin of history. They're
laughing stocks. But Augustine's Christianity, Orthodox Christianity is still
something that millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people still embrace
and love. And when you read, if you embrace Orthodox Christianity, you can
read Augustine's Confessions 1500 years ago and say, brother.
This is the same faith. And do you realize that the, right now, some of you are
living in New York City, right? And you are having trouble accepting
Christianity because all the smart people, all the cultural elites say Christianity,
the Bible, this text, in that text, it's so primitive. All of the things.
That are worrying you so much about the Bible because our culture is critiquing
him. Those things are gonna be in the dustbin of history too. A hundred years
from now, two oh oh years from now, they're gonna be laughed at, but not
biblical Christianity itself, it will never go out of date.
[00:20:53] Tim Keller: See, when you say Christianity has to get up to date,
what you're really saying is, my culture's the ultimate culture. My time in
history is the ultimate moment I. And it's not. If Christians were to actually try
to fit into their cities everywhere in the world, there'd be no Christianity left. We
have no enduring city here, and the fastest way for Christianity to go outta date
is to try to get up to date, 'cause everything that's up to date is soon.
Laughed at. But according to the book of Hebrews, what the Bible says, if you
embrace what the Bible says, you are adopting the values, the practices, and the
beliefs of the city of God, which is to come and will never pass away, and
therefore, you'll never be outta date. 500 years from now. There'll be hundreds
of millions of people who believe what you believe, but if you criticize the
Bible, if you get rid of Christianity in your life because you don't think it's up to
date.
The things that you have jettisoned the Bible for are a massive potage. It'll be
outta date faster than you know. So you see, Christians are aliens. Every city
we're in, there's a tension between what we believe and what Christianity
believes. But secondly, we're resident aliens. We're in conflict with our earthly
city.
But we are for our earthly city. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a
resident alien? Well, a resident alien is not a tourist who's just here for a time,
not a visitor who's just here for a time. In fact, not even a temporary person who
comes here just to get a degree or just to make some money, or just to get
something on the resume and then get out.
A resident alien is someone who says, this is where I'm gonna live permanently.
And according to what the Bible says, to be a resident alien means to be not a
consumer of the place where you live, but to be committed to its full
flourishing. So for example, in Jeremiah 29, there we have a perfect example of
what it means to be a resident alien.
God speaks through Jeremiah two. The children of Israel have been taken into
Babylon, that terrible wicked city. And what does God say to them? He says,
settle down, build houses. Plant vineyards, raise your family. But most of all, he
says, pray and work for the shalom, the full flourishing of that city. Love the
city in which you're an alien now.
That's what Hebrews 13 is all about. We started looking at it last week. Do you
remember? And it's amazing. Verse one says, work at Philadelphia, and that
means love of your brothers and sisters, the people like you. But verse two says,
work at philia, which is the love of strangers, the love of people who are not like
you.
Verse three says, care about prisoners and the oppressed. Now what's going on
here? Something very weird. Love the city that will never love you back. That's
what we're being told. Look at verse 13. Bear the disgrace. That you're gonna
have every city you're in, Christians, Christians, whatever the city you live in,
your city of residence will always consider much of what you think and believe
and do a disgrace, culturally offensive.
So how are we supposed to respond? We bear the disgrace. Verse 13, verse 15.
And therefore we joyfully and gratefully verse 16. Do good and share with
others. The verb do good means to care for the people in need and the poor. The
verb share with others literally means to share your income. We are supposed to
love a city that will never love us back.
We're supposed to sacrifice for a city that will misunderstand us, sometimes,
marginalize us, and certainly reject us. We're supposed to understand that we'll
never be understood. We're supposed to expect not to be expected. We're
supposed to love a city that will never thank us and never appreciate what we do
and will always consider us outrageous and to some degree, sinister and
suspicious.
That's what you're called to do. You're supposed to be for the city that's against
you. Do you know how radical this is? Lemme tell you how radical it is.
Sociologists, for many years have actually, uh, taken, um, religious groups and,
and try to analyze how they relate to culture, the culture around them. And
they've divided them into two basic ways.
And this is lar generalization, but largely true. They say religious groups in the
relationship to the surrounding culture fall into two groups, sectarianism and
chaplaincy. Sectarianism and chaplaincy. Hmm. Um, sectarianism, sectarian
religious groups look at society as them chaplaincy religious groups Look at
society as us sectarian religious groups have very, very high standards saying
You can't be part of ours unless you believe all these things and do all these
things.
Otherwise, you're out. Chaplaincy religious groups say it doesn't really matter
what you believe. We include everybody. We just love everybody. Just come.
See sectarian religious groups say, keep away from the world. We're aliens. On
the other hand, chaplaincy religious groups say, no, get involved. We're
residents, but we're just like everybody else.
What you have here is fundamentalism, fundamentalist religious groups,
mainline religious groups, the fundamentalist religious groups. Our aliens,
period. The mainline religious groups, our residents, period. Do you see what's
going on in most religious groups? The tension that the Hebrews writer's talking
about is resolved.
They're not resident aliens. They're either aliens or they're residents. See, it's not
enough to say, as many people say, Christians, so to speak, in the world, but not
of the world. That's not a good enough. Pharisees are in the world, but not of the
world, but they hate the world. They look down on it, and this is what is wrong
with both sectarian religious groups and chaplaincy religious groups.
Fundamentalist and mainline, both of them are basically about power. They're
really part of the earthly city. Mainline groups basically get power by
completely agreeing with everything in the culture, so the cultural elites can say,
that's okay. That's good. Fundamentalist groups get power by vilifying the
world and and being hostile to the world, and that's how they raise money with
all that anger.
And that's also how they get their followers in line. But don't you see, when you
resolve it so that you're either an alien or a resident, but not a resident alien, you
lose your power to change lives. Neither of those groups are changing lives. The
chaplaincy doesn't change lives at all. Just as y'all come, we accept you as you
are.
And the fundamentalists, they coerce people. They conform, but there's no
transformation and there's no transformation of the city because so much of the
creative power for serving in the city comes from the tension of being a church,
which is against the world, for the world that we know we're aliens, but we're
resident aliens.
We're gonna love a city that will never love us back. We're a counterculture, but
we're a counterculture for the common good. We're aliens, but we're un
alienated aliens. We're not Pharisees, we're not the sectarian, we're aliens, but
we're un alienated aliens. Do you see how hard that is? Do you see how weird
that is?
Do you see how difficult that is? And also, do you see how rare that is? The
reason it's rare, I don't, well, let's face it, the sociologists are right. Most
religious groups do resolve the tension by being either aliens or resident, but not
resident aliens. So now how are we gonna get the power? To be citizens of the
future city and yet residents of the present city.
And or put it another way, according to the book of Hebrews, here's how you
know your citizens of the city of God. Here it is. Ready class. Okay. True
citizens of the heavenly city are the very, very, very, very, very best residents of
their earthly city. True citizens of the heavenly city are the very, very, very best
residents of the earthly city.
They love a city that will never love them back. In fact, might persecute them
and they're gonna do it anyway. They're a counterculture, but an engaged
counterculture. They're deeply different, but deeply engaged. They're not
naively inclusive or harshly exclusive. They love the city. Now, how do we get
the power to be citizens of the city of God, resident aliens?
How do we get the power? And the answer is in this little text, but especially in
one little word, the answer is here, Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make
the people holy through his blood. Let us then. Go to him outside the camp
bearing the disgrace. He bore. For here, we do not have an enduring city, but we
are looking for the city that is to come.
It's all there, but especially in one little word, you know? Did you see it? Then
how are we going to become not sectarian or chaplaincy? How can redeemer
become neither? How can Redeemer be resident aliens? What the Bible wants
us to be. We're never gonna get there by just trying real hard, you know, that,
you know, let me show you why that goes wrong. So it'd be very easy to say,
okay, okay, I get it.
I get it. Resident aliens, which means we need to try harder than the
fundamentalist to be biblical and to be have high standards and have integrity.
But we're gonna try even harder than the mainline to love the city and care
about the whole city and be engaged with it for the common good. And so we're
just gonna do slap all the power and the integrity and the standards of the
fundamentalists onto the love and the engagement of the main line.
And we're gonna be the perfect church only. We'll be the only really good
church in town. You see what's happening? I said, the problem with both
sectarian religious groups and mainline religious groups is that they're basically
about power. And as soon as you start to say, well, you see, you know, we're
gonna try real hard and we won't be either like these awful people.
We won't be like them. We won't be like them. We'll be the good ones. We're
starting to do the same thing. The only way we're ever going to become resident
aliens is if the fundamental structures of our heart are changed by an encounter.
With Jesus Christ. Now you see whenever the Bible says, whenever biblical
writers start to try to get you to change your life, they never appeal directly to
the will, but they go to your heart and they never appeal directly to you, but they
go to him.
So for example, two Corinthians eight, Paul is talking about giving your money,
but look how he does it. He doesn't say be generous, because that's the Christian
thing to do. Oh, no, here's what he says. He says, if you're having trouble being
generous because you're anxious about money or you're, you're too needing
money, it's because you don't know the generosity of Jesus Christ, who on the
cross though he was rich, became poor, so that through his poverty we might
become rich.
Paul won't let you get away with saying, oh, I know Jesus died for me, but I'm
not being generous. He says, if you're not generous, you don't know Jesus died
for you. Jesus is not really your savior. You're still not believing it. You're not
being melted by it, not being changed by it. You haven't grasped it in the depths
of your being.
Money is still your significance. Money is still your security. Don't tell me, you
know, Jesus died for you. Don't tell me you know he's a savior. You don't know
it in the depths of your being. It's a lack of, it's a lack of rejoicing in the gospel.
That's why you're not generous, because if you knew he died for you, you'd be
generous.
That's how it always works in the Bible. The bi biblical writers never say, do
this, now, get to it. Nor does the Bible say, be like Jesus, now get to it. Never.
Here's how the Bible goes. The Bible says, do this. And if you're honest, you
say, I can't. And the Bible comes back and says, yeah, but there's one who did
for you in your place, and to the degree you grasp that and it changes your life.
You can begin to do it too. Do this. I can't, but there's one who did in your
place, and if you believe that and grasp that, then you can begin to do it too. All
right, now that's exactly what the Hebrews writer is doing here. Let's try it. The
Hebrews writer is saying in the book of Hebrews, get out there and love the city
that will never love you back.
Never. Thank you. Never appreciate you Always think that you're a sinister.
And suspicious. Get out there and love a city who will never love you back.
And if you're honest, you'll say, I can't. But the writer of the Hebrew says, I
know, but there's one who did? Jesus loved that city of Jerusalem. You know
the place in Luke where he's crying out and he's, he's weeping.
He's saying, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. If only you knew the things that pertain to
your peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes. Jesus loved that city. He
healed people in that city. He fed people in that city. But what does it say that
happened to him? He loved a city that eventually crucified him outside the gate.
Why outside the gate? Because that was the symbol, but it was a powerful
symbol. Crime alienates you from human community. Sin alienates you from
human community. If you live for yourself, you destroy human community. So
you're sent outta the city. You're sent outta the human community. You
experience alienation, which is what you deserve.
Jesus Christ loved that city, but he lost that city. But on the cross, he didn't just
lose the earthly city. You know what else he lost? He lost the city of God
because he doesn't say Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Why has thou forsaken me? He
doesn't say earthly city. Why has thou forsaken me? He says, my God, my God.
Why has th forsaken me? What was going on on the cross? Jesus Christ was
losing the city for you and me. He was experiencing the cosmic alienation. That
sin deserves. He was being sent outside the gate. He was being cast out in our
place so that God can accept us in spite of our failures. Or put it this way, Jesus
Christ lost the city.
That was so that we could become citizens of the city to come making us salt
and light in the city. That is, he lost the city. It was making you citizens of the
city to come, making us salt and light in the city. That is why. Only when I see
Jesus Christ loving someone who will not love him back, loving a city who
won't love him back, loving me, and you who won't love him back ever like we
should.
When I see that happening, then I'm melted, then I'm empowered, then I'm
affirmed. Then I'm humbled into being able to do the same thing. And only
then, and not only that, I've got the real city, so I don't have to be scared of or
seduced by New York City. I'll tell you something, without the gospel. Unless
you know that you know the ultimate mayor and you get into the ultimate
parties because you know the Lord of the ultimate city, the city of God, you're
gonna come into a place like New York, the big, bad New York.
It is. There are some, the people are more beautiful than you. They're more rich
than you. They're smarter than you. They're better than you. Everywhere. You're
only gonna have, there's only two possible ways to, to respond to this city. You
either get seduced by, it sucked into it because you desperately want significant
security from the people out there, or else you're intimidated by it or you're
hostile to it.
You become a resident or you become an alien. But the gospel makes you a
resident alien. It frees you to serve the city instead of use it or fear it or bash it
or be seduced by it. Finally, Jesus Christ suffered outside the gate. Let us then
therefore, because he did for you and for me, to the degree you grasp what he
did, we can bear the same disgrace and still love the city who will never accept
us.
They'll always look at some of our beliefs and say, disgraceful, outrageous, but
we don't care. We love them anyway, because that's how Jesus loved you, and if
you understand the gospel. Then we really will finally be like the early
Christians were described in the letter of dus. This is a description of the early
Christians.
They share their table with all but not their bed with all. They pass their days on
earth, but they're citizens of heaven. They love all human beings, but they're
persecuted by everyone. They are poor, yet make many rich. They lack all
things and yet have everything they want. They are insulted and repay the insult
with honor.
To sum up what the soul is in the body. That's what Christians are in the city as
the soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, Christians now are
scattered through all the cities of the world. What a challenge. What an
invitation, what an adventure. Let us pray. Thank you, father, for providing for
us this metaphor, this image.
Of being resident aliens, citizens of a city that we don't have yet. Citizens in one
city, residents of another, alienated, but un alienated, un alienated aliens, a
counterculture for the common good. And we pray, Lord, that you would turn
us into that more and more as we come to grasp more deeply what Jesus Christ
did for us.
He loved a city who couldn't love him back, that killed him outside the gate, and
because he did that for us, we can follow him. Make us all that we should be
through faith in Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen.