How do God’s people live in a morally fragmented, hostile society?

Thank you. René, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Cheer if you love Santa Cruz. Don't we live in a beautiful place? I love Santa Cruz so much. Cheer if you'd like to love Santa Cruz even more than you do now. Well, you're about to find out how, if that's even possible.

Well, by the way, I was so moved by the worship today and there's just one thing I wanna point out. Our drummer, it's only the second time he's drummed with us. He was fantastic. He's in high school, and the high schoolers are sitting right up there. Wasn't he amazing? He's in high school. Amazing.

In just about 30 minutes, you're going to be hearing from somebody who's even younger than that, who's going to help lead you in worship. But first, I wanna give you a quick preview about what's coming up. Next week, we start a mini series called Grateful. It's all about Thanksgiving and how good it is for us timely. And then the next month, we're gonna be talking about launching into our Advent series. It's called Christmas Mix Tape. Some of the forgotten verses in the Bible about Christmas, maybe Bible verses about Christmas that you have not even looked at in years. What could those verses be? You will find out in December.

But now, how to really love Santa Cruz. If you're new to TLC, I think you picked a great weekend because this message is all about the DNA of TLC. What's our soul? What are we all about? And why do we do church? Why do we live here in the Santa Cruz community the way we do?

And I'm just gonna start with this by way of explanation. I am a dual passport guy. Swiss and American passports. My parents were Swiss immigrants. I am the first human to be born and raised here in America in our whole family for centuries on either side. So I kind of have feet in both worlds.

And I gotta tell you something that is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. And it has been for many, many, many years. Something I think is vastly underappreciated by most Americans is Swiss immigrants and their families and what they have done for the United States of America. And right now you may be puzzled thinking, well, there's that cheese with holes and cuckoo clocks.

Sit back and drink this in, my fellow Americans. Ready for this? Einstein, Swiss citizen, yes. Chevrolet, Swiss race car driver guy who started this iconic American car company. Rick and Bacher, electric guitar pioneer, Swiss immigrant. John Sutter, Gold Rush starts at his ranch here in California. Swiss guy. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Swiss mom. Steve Baumer, CEO of Microsoft, Swiss dad, so both companies, both of these huge companies connected to Switzerland. Wright Brothers, Swiss family. The Hershey's Chocolate Guy, Swiss family. George Lucas, Swiss grandparents. Jim Caviesel, Swiss grandparents.

So let's just recap. Swiss people gave America the theory of relativity, electric guitar, Chevrolet's gold, airplanes, computers, chocolate, Star Wars, and Jesus. You're welcome. Now, thank you. Now, of course, I realize most of us in this room, if not all of us, are from families that at some point or another came to this place that we now call North America, right? At some point, they were all strangers in a strange land with their own hopes and their own dreams.

But what if you were not an immigrant? What if you were a captive? What if you were a prisoner of war in a strange land? Well, that was the experience of Daniel. We just wrapped an amazing eight week series. I loved it, studying his amazing life. Talk about a stranger in a strange land. Yet somehow, as we saw, he remained totally principled as a Jewish man, yet also totally influential in an alien Babylonian culture. How did he do that?

Well, as I hinted last weekend, Daniel wasn't just making it up as he went along. He was following a very specific blueprint for how to do that. It is a blueprint that is right inside your Bible too. It was written right at the time of the Babylonian captivity all about how to live a life of purpose, how to live a life of meaning when you are kind of a cultural outsider.

And it could help you know exactly how to live as a person of faith in an unobtrusive but principled and influential way at your job, at your school, in your neighborhood, in your family. But many Christians don't even know the blueprint is there because the same exact chapter of the Bible contains one of the most famous verses in the Bible and kind of the gravitational pull of that verse is so powerful that it makes people ignore the whole rest of this chapter, which is a shame.

Now this verse is great. You probably know it. It's Jeremiah 29:11. You see it on plaques, you see it on little stones, you see it on greeting cards and so on. I love this verse. In fact, why don't we just read this verse out loud together? Ready? Let me hear you. "For I know the plans I have for you," it says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

And a lot of people in this room right now need to hear those words. Because the last few months or weeks have been so tough for you and you need to hear this. God has plans for you. There is good for you. There is a future for you. There is hope for you. Your life is not over. Inspiring words.

But these words are so good that they can distract us from the rest of the chapter. And that's a shame because these words are even more inspiring when you understand the almost totally hopeless situation that the original hearers of this word found themselves in. This verse was written when Daniel was still just a teenager about the same age as our drummer today, right?

And what happened was, and you know the timeline by now, about 2600 years ago, the Babylonian army destroys Jerusalem, burns it down and takes Jewish exiles as prisoners into the city of Babylon hundreds of miles away. And in fact, this is actually a carving found by archaeologists made by the Babylonians of the Jews being taken into Babylon. You see men, women, children being forcibly marched into this city.

And when they get to Babylon, they're marched down the main street in kind of a parade of shame. Look at these captives. And the main street was lined with carvings of snarling lions. And this is actually one of the lions from that era. This is one of the lions that Daniel's eyes would have seen, that the Jewish captives' eyes would have seen. The idea is we have destroyed you like a lion devours its prey.

And when they walked past these lions, they were walking into a city that was morally just sort of fragmented because they weren't the only foreign captives there. They were captives from all over the world, the known world at the time, brought by the Babylonians into this capital city of Babylon. And they brought their own worldviews, their own gods with them, and to the Jewish captives it must have just felt like moral chaos. And of course they were marching into a city that was very hostile to them. And there may have been times that you felt like that right here in Santa Cruz.

And so the question the Jews in Babylonian had to answer was how people of faith live in a fragmented, chaotic, immoral, hostile society where they are the minority. And that is so relevant, of course, to us today. People are getting so fragmented, so polarized. And so how do Christians live in a culture like that?

Well, some people are saying that to be a person of faith means to be aggressive and to be dominant and to take back the culture that way. Meanwhile, others are saying that to live as a person of faith means we need to choose what they call the Benedictine option and live separate from a degraded culture like a community of monks. Others are just blending in with culture at every level.

And those are the same exact choices that the Babylonian captives had. They heard the Babylonian answer, which was assimilation—become exactly like us. They heard the typical religious answer, which was isolate. In fact, in Jeremiah 28, right before this, there's a self-appointed prophet named Hananiah who says to the Jewish people, "God is going to judge those wicked Babylonians any minute now. So everyone stay separate. Let's stay in our own little religious enclave, let them all go to hell." Then he pronounces judgment on the Babylonians. And that's a common religious response to living in a secular world, isn't it? Disdain the world. Look down on it, judge it, feel superior to it.

But Daniel resists both of these options. Instead, he follows a specific plan. Again, right in the Bible in Jeremiah chapter 29, where God says, no, my answer is not assimilate, my answer is not isolate. God's answer is in the first half of Jeremiah chapter 29. He says, okay, you're captives in Babylon, here is the plan, here is the blueprint, very simple, four pronged strategy.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses, settle down there, plant gardens, eat what they produce, marry, have children, then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. And at this point, I'm really resisting showing you pictures of my seven grandchildren right now. Increase in number, don't dwindle away. Oh, also seek the peace and prosperity of the city which I've carried you to exile. Pray to the Lord for it. Because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

God's surprising answer is not assimilate and it's not isolate, it's not condemn. You could say there's four aspects to it and this is God's answer to the Jewish people in captivity and it's his answer to us too. And this is who we are as a church. We're committed to these four things.

God tells people, first of all, stay in your city. Stay there. I'm not saying there's never a reason for people to move, of course, but he's just saying, if you find yourself a minority in terms of your faith, your worldview, I don't want everybody to just take off. There needs to be a good core of you that settle down. Settle down there.

Why would he tell them to do that? Well, God wants to reach the world, right? I hope you do too. And here's a formula for influencing your community. First, proximity. You have to be near people if you wanna have an influence on people. You have to be near people if you wanna understand people. So proximity plus longevity, especially here in Santa Cruz, honestly, I don't think in Santa Cruz, people really trust anybody until you're here for at least a decade. I mean, they want you to be a local. They even have stickers in businesses, right? Local, that is very important. You need to earn trust here, longevity.

And you have to have integrity because you can have proximity and longevity and have a reputation for just being a jerk. You've gotta slowly, carefully build a reputation for, you know, if you say you're a follower of Jesus, then act like Jesus. And then proximity, longevity, and integrity equal influence.

Now, I did not always get what seems to be a very obvious equation. I'll tell a story on myself. Years ago, Brian King, a man who was president of Cabrillo College, the community college that's right next door to our campus, and he was also on our board here at TLC, he said, "René, I got a question for you. Why are you not out in the mix, in the community?" And I'll never forget it, I said, "But I am." But we, our church does like annual beach clean ups, you know? I'm out there in the community for one morning a year, Brian. I don't know how you can say that.

And Brian says, no, why are you not personally at like the Chamber of Commerce meetings or the Second Harvest meetings or a rotary? He was saying in a nice way, René, you spend all your time at a church ivory tower. Get in the mix. And I said, but how do I do that? I can't go to those. They won't like me. I'm a pastor. No.

And so I said, come on, you'll be my guest. And this is what happens in half a week. He brings me to the Santa Cruz Rotary Club one day and then to the Aptos Chamber of Commerce the next day and that Friday night to a banquet for the food bank. And that four day period changed my life. It changed the way I do ministry, it changed the way I lead this church. Because suddenly I realized if you love, you know, you say you love your neighbor, you say you love the people in the town, but then you need to get next to the people in your town.

And there are tons of ways for you and me to do this. Service clubs like Rotary, neighborhood associations, coach a team, get in business groups like the chamber, join a band, an orchestra. I know somebody who has joined a local hula group. Of course I refer to Mark Spurlock. You need to get in the mix, put down roots.

Second, grow in your city, grow there. You know, sometimes I think people of faith think it's holy to say the world out there is so bad. We as God's chosen people will do our best to get purer and purer and smaller and smaller. That's not what God says to do here. He's saying increase is not an unspiritual goal.

I mean, honestly, I make no apology the fact that I do pray that Twin Lakes will grow. I do pray that it will increase in number in a healthy way. I pray that our church will increase in number. I pray that our school will increase in number. I pray that our youth groups will increase in number. I pray that our recovery groups will increase in number. I pray for that.

And I pray for the other churches here in Santa Cruz. I pray for Gateway. I pray for Regent. I pray for Vintage Faith and many, many of the other churches that they will also increase in number and health and influence. That is all part of how we grow in the city. You know, we shouldn't have this mentality of well, you know, the Christian presence will never grow in our city. We just got to stay pure and just all we can expect is to get smaller and smaller. That's not what God tells the Babylonian captives to do.

And then third, God says, help in your city, pray for it, not against it. Look at verse seven. This must have blown their minds when they heard this. He says also, let's read this together out loud. Let me hear you. "Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile."

Now, pardon me, the word peace there, it's fascinating. The Hebrew word is shalom. Say that with me. Shalom. Isn't that a fun word to say? Shalom. Say that again. Shalom. It just makes me feel more at peace just saying that word. Now this is interesting because this means more than, you know, in English, peace might mean an inner calm. I feel peaceful. Or it might mean like a truce during war. Shalom means much more than that. This means total flourishing in every dimension, economic, relational, spiritual. Isn't that an awesome word?

This is what I pray for for Santa Cruz. I want Santa Cruz to flourish in every dimension. Spiritually, that's why we share the gospel, but also I want Santa Cruz to flourish in every dimension. This is one of the reasons why we do things like this month, our annual fall food and fund drive for Second Harvest Food Bank. Do you see that this is one of the ways to do what Jeremiah—the Lord through Jeremiah—is telling those Jewish captives to do? You help in your city, you pray for your city, you stay in your city.

Second Harvest is an amazing ministry, but this is a way to get Santa Cruz to truly flourish at every level. Check this out. Experts say hungry kids—this is kids who grew up in homes with constant hunger insecurity—they get lower grades, they get sick more often. Now you might expect that. But listen to this. Hunger in a child is a strong predictor of behavioral problems and learning problems later in life. And those who go hungry as children have job problems and lower incomes later in life, which contributes in turn to so many other social ills.

So in other words, you wanna solve so much of society's problems, so much of that is tied into just feed people, especially kids. And you go a long way to helping out with all those other problems too. Seek the flourishing of the city you live in. There's no better way to do that than just feed people. And that's probably why God says to do it. In scripture, it's a direct command over 200 times. And there's about 2,000 times where the Lord tells us to take care of the poor and the needy.

And the great thing about Second Harvest is, you may not know Second Harvest is literally a food bank, and it's the main source of food for our pantry and about 70 other churches in our county. Also get food from the food bank, so it's a way to bless them too. So you can bring in actual food, we have the bins out in the lobby, and on the front page of your bulletin, we put kind of the most needed food items for the food bank. And of course you can give monetarily also at TLC.org/food.

But listen, I wanna sort of sparkle your imagination a little bit here because you might be going, oh, well, let's see. Well, I don't have a lot of money to help the food bank. So here's, and listen, if you need to receive food and you can't give this year, great, please receive food from us. That's why we're here. That's what churches do. But you might be going, well, I'd love to help, but I just, you know, it's tight this year.

So here's how some people have been getting creative in the last few days. Shelly Hernandez over in Scotts Valley, she dressed up as a dinosaur and danced in front of her house, holding a sign that says, "Help make hunger extinct." And they had all these tubs so that people could just drive by and put in food for the food pantry. And that night she invited people, she had a silent auction and dinner at her house, and she just got on the phone and asked people to contribute to her silent auction. So check this out, I asked her yesterday, so how much did you raise? In food, half a ton. And in donations to the silent auction, $25,000. Unbelievable.

So here's another one, Andrew Trowbridge. I was talking to him between services. Since Andrew was 10 years old he's like, I want to participate in the food drive. I don't have any money. So he starts his own lemonade stand, made his own lemonade when he was 10. So he's been doing this every year. He's 17 now. He's off to college next year. So this year is his final lemonade stand. And he pulled out all the stops. He had marching bands and more. He held it at Santa Cruz High. And I asked Andrew, this is one day, a few hours, one day. The other day, Andrew raised $12,000 for this food drive, this year. Let's thank Andrew and Shelley. Amazing.

At our house, we had a garage sale yesterday. My wife keeps finding stuff at our house that we don't need, which is amazing, because I thought we just donated all of it to stuff the truck. But it's like the miracle of the loaves and fishes—junk is just multiplying. But she's been selling it on Craigslist, sold some of it yesterday to help raise funds for the food drive. So this whole thing goes until November 22nd, but I'll wrap up this part with this.

It makes such a difference. I treasure this note that I got. "Your church pantry got my family through a week without groceries." This was a young mom, two babies, working two jobs. "Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We felt so blessed to have beans and veggies and such nice Christian people to greet us. Bless you and all the work you do." What I loved about this is she doesn't say we felt so fed or we felt so full. She says we felt so what? Blessed. When you feed people, you bless them.

So stay in your city, grow in your city, help in your city, and finally pray for your city. Pray for your—look at the rest of verse seven. Pray to the Lord for it. Say for, for, for it, not against it. You know, I'll confess something. A few years ago I realized I was getting into a very bad habit. And it's this. All I did about politicians, school administrators, bureaucrats, the government was complaining. All I was was cynical. But this verse says, don't be cynical about 'em. Pray for them to do what? To do a good job. Do you pray for that?

So I kind of got convicted. This was a couple of years ago, okay. Maybe it was five years ago. I gotta pray for my leaders. Bible tells me to pray for my leaders. And I've learned that when you're praying for somebody, it's usually a pretty good idea to ask them, how can I pray for you? And so I thought, I don't know how they're gonna take this, but I'll just choose some local leaders every year and just either call them up, talk to them when I see them, send them an email, how can I pray for you? That's it.

So I did that the other day. And here are the three leaders that I asked. Capitola Mayor Joe Clark: "Please pray for the wellbeing of all our community members during these difficult times." By the way, if you wanna pray for them, you can get out your phones, you can take pictures of these things so that we're praying for them, or you can also look at the video later. "The wellbeing of all our community members during these difficult times, that we would take care of one another and be kind."

And I'm going to give another one. Many of our undergrads are from low income backgrounds. I did not know that. "I would pray that they have the courage to reach out for help when they need it. We're able to bridge this need for now. Second Harvest is a huge help, but we're concerned about what will happen if this situation doesn't get resolved soon." Let's not just complain, that's easy. Let's choose to pray for our city and educational and national leaders, right?

Now here's my big question, it's one thing for us to hear this. The first people who heard this in Babylon, they must have thought, this is impossible. How could I like pray for prosperity for them? Remember Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar II, one expert described him like this: he was an egomaniac known to be hotheaded, murderous, vain, unreasonable, and incredibly cruel. And as they walked into that city, they would have seen idols that would have deeply offended any Jewish person. And now God says, okay, I want you to root for it. How do I make sense of that?

Well, check this out. Back in Jeremiah 29, all these verses that we've been studying now lead to that famous verse 11, which starts "for"—you might not have noticed that word "for" before—"for," since, because of what? For what? Do all these things I told you? You can pray for prosperity for that city that hates you. You can help that city that hates you. You can stay in and love and grow in that city that hates you. How can I do that?

Because "I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Their plans were good and not disaster to give you a future and a hope." Why not just give up? Because this. Because you have a hope. Your future's amazing. God says, "They can't touch what I got for you. I have so much in store for you."

And the immediate application for those readers was the restoration of Jerusalem. But that is a foreshadowing of a narrative arc in the Bible for all of us about the restoration of heaven and earth. The very end of the Bible. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All those things are gone forever." That is the ultimate promise of the Bible.

And when you believe this will happen, when this captures your imagination, then you're actually eager to lean into your city and love your city. Why? Because you got hope. That means you're not coming from a scarcity mindset or a victim mindset. And you want them to be part of this amazing future.

You know, I started by talking about how I'm a dual passport holder, but biblically in a sense, so are you. We're all dual passport holders. Whatever country you live in and the kingdom of heaven. And you're an ambassador of that and you're calling people into that. And this is the key of doing what God calls us to in Jeremiah 29.

So my friend Dewey Bocher, he's a pastor over at Good Shepherd Lutheran in the East Bay. He's Eritrean American. Eritrea is a country in Africa. His brother is still in Eritrea. It's the country with the worst human rights record against Christians of any country on planet Earth. His brother's currently in prison there simply for being a Christian. And I asked Dewey one day, don't you struggle with hatred? Toward the government there.

And here's what he told me: "No, I pray for my brother's jailers and for the authorities there. I love them. I don't want them to be judged by God for this, I want them to know the love of Jesus." And that's what God asks us to do.

So with all this in mind, ask yourself this question. Think of where you live, your country, your county, your city, and ask yourself, am I living disdainfully here in my city or lovingly? Now, be honest with yourself. Is your posture generally one of disdain or one of love?

Now, maybe you're thinking, "I don't know René, Santa Cruz is super weird. This is hard." But when I believe that God loved me so much that He gave Himself for me when I was a sinner, what happens is I've got a resource deep inside of me for loving people who deeply differ from me because Jesus Christ did that for me.

As Tim Keller says, "Think of how God won you over, not by taking power but by serving you, not with a sword in His hands but with nails in His hands, not coming to judge but to bear judgment. That's how God so loves the world." And that's how I can love Santa Cruz. Amen? Amen.

All right, I'm gonna close by doing something a little bit different today. I'm gonna ask Mark to move the TV. I'm gonna invite some folks back up to sing a song for you, kind of as my closing illustration. Our worship pastor, one of our two worship pastors is Elizabeth Summers. And she has a couple of little kids. The oldest is Ruthie. She's six years old. And Ruthie is going to sing a song for us that summarizes every single thing we've been talking about so far.

And here is the song. I would—the verse. I'd love for us to read Matthew chapter 5 verses 15 through 16 together. Let's read this together. "You are the light of the world. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." Amen? Let's welcome Ruthie as she sings for us.

Thank you so much, Ruthie. You guys can have a seat. Ruthie will be drumming for the band next weekend. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, that's what we pray. We don't wanna put our light under a bushel. We wanna let it shine, even when we're afraid. We wanna let it shine. And so help us to shine with the love of Jesus and really love Santa Cruz. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.