Proactive Community Involvement

July 30, 2006. Proactive Involvement in Our Community. Jeremiah 29:1-11.

For many American believers Christianity is a private, personal spiritual relationship with God that has little if any emphasis on mission and almost no connection with the wider community in which we live.

You can be considered a solid, growing, mature, on fire believer in Jesus Christ as long as you attend church regularly, read your bible (for your own inspiration) pray (for your own wants and needs) and in general stay away from the big sins such as smoking, sex, drinking, clubbing etc.
Having an active, ongoing witness with any group of non-believers anywhere is hardly ever viewed as part of a normal and necessary part of our Christian experience.
In fact I’d dare say that most of us who’ve been walking with the Lord for five years or more have never intentionally sought out relationships with non-believers for the specific purpose of doing good among them so that we might by God’s grace get the opportunity to declare the gospel. Moreover, the church and pastors have generally not asked or encouraged us to look at our communities as places of mission that we should become involved with on some level.
Those of us who are around unbelievers are usually in situations where we have no choice such as home, school, or work.

Sadly we’ve so overemphasized our personal relationship with the Lord that that’s all it’s become. Our faith has been reduced to a simple, private and personal relationship the goal of which is to help me deal with the daily problems and issues of my life.
That kind of Christian life falls short for a number of reasons, but let me give just two.
First of all it fails to understand that the God we serve is a God of mission. That is He makes it His business to seek out those who don’t know and believe in Him to bring them into a worshiping covenantal relationship with Himself. Remember, God Himself made the first mission trip when He entered the garden of Eden to get Adam after he had sinned. This leads to us to observing that those mentioned in Scripture who served God lived out their relationship with Him by serving in the mission He called them too. Whether Noah, Abraham or Joseph they all lived with a sense of mission.
The second reason this kind of Christian life falls short is that we miss the great opportunity to experience life in Christ as it was meant to be. Christ calls us to a life of discipleship which means He calls us to a life of mission. And Jesus said that if our life’s focus is only about making it in this life we’ve missed the point. Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Matt. 16:24-27.
In this passage Jesus calls us to a life of mission, not one of ease, comfort, convenience and prosperity. He warns those who would live and even use Him to secure and live a life built on comfort, ease and freedom from anything that would ever bring trouble. He then says that those who by faith lose their lives for His sake and the sake of His mission will actually discover and enjoy life as it was meant to be lived.
Thus, by faith we believe that the pathway toward a fulfilling, vibrant walk with our Lord will include a lifestyle of mission for a lifetime.

This letter was written to those God had taken into Babylon by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews were taken to a foreign place and obviously not given the best places to live, best occupations etc. Moreover, they hated the Babylonians and wanted nothing more than to see them crushed. God writes them through Jeremiah revealing that they are in fact His exiles sent to promote His witness to Babylon. Furthermore, they must take an active role and work toward the positive holistic welfare of that city. They were to view Babylon as their place of mission, not a place to flee from or remain hostile to.

What did it mean for them and what does it mean for us therefore to be missionaries to the place where He has sent us?

First of all, being a missionary to our community means that we accept and recognize that we live under God’s sovereign control and exist to carry out His mission.
He chooses to put His people in strategic places for the purpose of witnessing of His salvation found in Jesus Christ. This is an aspect of God’s sovereignty. Sovereignty means God’s control and direction of all things for the purpose of His glory. God exercises His sovereignty in a number of ways, one of which is to place His people exactly where He wants them to be. Such was the case with the exiles from Judah. The letter reminds them that despite being in a foreign land, they were still God’s people, which meant that He was still with them. God’s presence is vitally important for a number of reasons. God’s presence insures that He is still carrying out His purpose which is to make Himself known and bring people into a covenantal relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ. This is exactly what He did in the empire of Babylon.
He will provide each and everything we need. Thus we know that He will meet our spiritual, economic, emotional, social and psychological needs for His glory and our good. We are certain of His protection until He brings us safely into His eternal presence. We are confident that He will supply us with His power to do whatever He has called us to do as we work to extend and expand the kingdom and agenda of Jesus Christ.
Where are you now? Where do you live, work, go to school? Recognize that God has placed you there to have a gospel driven effect on those around you. Notice that the letter specifies that God had placed the exiles in Babylon. In other words, though the Babylonian empire provided the transportation, God, bought the ticket.
Viewing ourselves as missionaries means that we are grateful for the privilege of serving as the ambassadors of His eternal rule and agenda in Jesus Christ. God calls us His exiles to remind us of how we should view our relationship to the place where we live. We are neither permanent residents, or just tourist. Consequently, we don’t live as though this is all there is, nor do we act as if we don’t care for the present issues and problems of our community. This is important because it will help us to avoid two extremes.
Withdrawal from the culture and society we live, and setting up our own Christian ghetto.
Identifying too much with the country, our culture we live in. This causes us to adopt their values at the expense of God’s directives.
The apostle Peter put it this way when he wrote to another group of God’s exiles in 1 Pet. 2:11-12. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Note what the apostle Peter says. Believers aren’t to get lost in the sinful rebellion of our culture. Don’t try to become so relevant with the culture that we lose our minds and forget that we are sojourners and exiles.
Also, don’t become so withdrawn from the culture that they never see us and never have any contact with them. Peter’s exhortation could be summed up by saying live well and do good.

Secondly, being a missionary to our community means that we seek the overall well being of the community we’re apart of. We live as God’s aliens in a place when we adopt His agenda for our lives and live to serve His purposes as expressed in His Word. This includes becoming involved proactively with the community we live in. We ought to strive to build communities that we’d like our children and grandchildren to live in and establish a presence in our city and community.
The passages refers to building houses and livelihoods. The thrust behind this command is that they were going to be there awhile so it just made good sense to do what they could to build up the place where they lived.
We must answer the question: What are the issues and challenges pertinent to the overall well being of my community?

Seek the peace and prosperity of our community. The term translated seek means to carefully seek after, to pursue, to ask about, care for and seek diligently. It conveys the active pursuit of those things that will add to the general well being of the place where you live for all the residents of that place. We are told to seek the peace of the city. The term translated peace is the Hebrew word shalom. This word means much more than peace in the general sense of an absence of hostility. It has to do with entering into a state of wholeness and unity and restored relationship. It co notates completeness, wholeness, harmony, and fulfillment in the spiritual, physical, social, psychological, and emotional sense. It further has the idea of rest and quiet.
We are to examine all the various aspects of our community which go to make up its overall well being. That includes but is not limited to the housing, jobs, education, and medical institutions within the reach of that community. We should be concerned about the young people, elderly people, single parents, and other groups who may be likely pushed aside.
The fulfillment of this kind of peace is Jesus Christ. For true well being begins when we abandon our rebellion against God and enter into a worshiping covenant with Him through Jesus Christ. That’s true of communities and true of individuals. You may have all other aspects of your life together. With all that you still are incomplete if you’re not in a covenantal relationship with God through Christ. Thus Romans 5:1 says, Therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Being a missionary to our community means adjusting our schedule and lifestyle so that we can serve.
Assess the talents, gifts and skills you have that could be put to use in your community. For example Dorcas in Acts 9.
Look at your schedule. See if you can set aside some regular time whether weekly, bi-weekly or monthly to do good in your community. If you can’t do it within the next three months see if about the next 6. If not then see what you can do within the next year.
Think of what might happen if every one of us spent two to three hours a week doing good and building our communities up by simply using the skills, gifts and abilities we already have. Think of the evangelistic possibilities if just 20 of us were in regular contact with two non-believers through our community involvement. Think of the possibilities if 50 of us were regularly involved in the lives of non-believers. How might our church change if we were in consistent contact with 100 souls that could be prayed for and hear the gospel on a regular basis? How might this community be changed if 100 hundred people were devoting two to three hours a week and using their ordinary skills, abilities and gifts to do good within it? How might this community view the Name of Jesus Christ if this kind of outreach were a regular part of our Christianity? My prayer and goal is that each of us will be regularly involved in the lives of non-believers on some level by September of 2007.

Being a missionary to our community means dedicating our lives to Jesus Christ as an act of worship.
Jesus left the safe confines of heaven on a mission to save us. Jesus lived a life of mission constantly looking for opportunities to do good and improve the lives of those around Him, Matt. 9:35-38.
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Jesus was proactively involved in the place His Father sent Him to. He didn’t come as a bystander nor was His spiritual life confined to what was most comfortable and convenient for Him.
Jesus didn’t view His community as a dangerous and hostile place to avoid, but a place of mission.
His heart went out to those who were bruised and broken and he therefore used His gifts and time to serve them.
Moreover, He instructed His followers to do the same.

To Him Who Loves Us…
Pastor Lance