We are called to engage, to work for the peace and prosperity of the city where God has placed us. We are called to stay true to Jesus, and when we do, God will be praised and people will believe.

March 23-24, 2019

ILL: A rabbi went to live in a corrupt city. Every day he ran through the streets of the city and shouted over and over, “Repent! Turn from your sins.” Days led into weeks, then months, and years. Every day the rabbi could be heard shouting his plea. Finally one day a friend asked him, “No one listens to you; everyone just laughs; why do you continue to do this?” The rabbi replied, “When I first came here I dreamed of a city turned toward God. I envisioned the city changing. That has not happened, so today I run through the streets shouting my plea to keep the city from changing me.” (From We are the Beloved, p. 9-10, by Ken Blanchard)

Are we changing the world we live in, or is it changing us? Are we being thermostats that set the temperature, or are we merely thermometers that reflect it?

That’s what we’ve been thinking about in this series, RESIST! We’ve been looking at stories from the Old Testament book of Daniel. Daniel was a young Jewish man who was taken captive to Babylon where he lived his entire life in exile. He remained faithful to God while living in a culture that was hostile to his faith. He didn’t live isolated from Babylonian culture—as we’ll see in a moment, he was in the middle of it, working for its good. But neither was he assimilated by Babylonian culture.