Living for the Good of the World

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

The church doesn't exist for itself, it exists to serve and engage the world in the same way that Christ came to serve and engage the world. That's what the church is supposed to do, not just take care of itself, but reflect grace and goodness and mercy out into the world. So the question is, how do we do this?

How do we do this as a church? Well, what I want to look at is I want to look at a talk that Paul gave to the Athenians in ancient Athens. And what I want to pick out are three ways that he engages to teach us how we want to engage the world, because I think that they're helpful.

The first is that Paul cares about what matters to them, and so we want to be a people that values what matters to others so that they know they matter.

Secondly, we'll look at how Paul builds bridges and not walls by connecting through what they already know. And lastly, he offers hope. So if we want to be a people that love and serve and engage the world, we want to do those three things. We want to help people know they matter. We want to connect through what they know. And we want to offer hope.

So I have a great dog, and anytime someone comes over, what the dog does very first thing is he grabs one of his toys and he brings it to them. And he brings it to them as sort of like a gift, an offering. He's like, hey, this stuffed animal matters a lot to me, and I'm going to offer it to you and we can play with it together.

Human beings are a lot like dogs. We offer things to people that matter to us, and our hope is that those things are embraced. Because we know if people care about and like what we like, then we feel like we matter. So what we see Paul do here is really interesting. As he engages the Athenians, he tells them, hey, I really appreciate how religious you are.

And hey, I've paid careful attention in your city to all the different idols and all the different tools of worship that you have. And, and I, I see that this is very important to you. Paul wants them to know that they matter by engaging what matters to them. And so we want to be the same kind of people.

We want to be a people that pays attention. To what matters to others. Well, how do we do that? You know, I think first is knowing what people dream about, what they hope about, what they're wrestling with, because those are the most important things as a church. We want to care about other people's kids because their kids matter. And if you want them to matter, we've got to engage their kids. That's why family ministry is so important here.

But I think for all of us, as we think about as individuals and as a community, we have to figure out how do we help people feel like they matter. And here at the church is about welcoming and greeting and giving a place to everyone out in the world.

It's paying attention to them. Grabbing a hold of and embracing the things that matter to them so that they know they matter.

The second thing that Paul does is he builds bridges, not walls. So Paul quotes some of the poets of the day in order to share an argument, to share an idea with the people. And so rather than just proclaiming what he believes, And telling them they believe the wrong thing, he engages and builds from this place in which they have overlap.

And so that's instructive to us. You and I, what we want to do is we want to build bridges, not walls. We want to start with what we have in common and find agreement. And so I think we can, as humans, we have a lot of things that we hold in common. We want to be a people that care for others. We want to be cared for.

We want to have a life that's flourishing. We want to be able to enjoy the company of others. We want to be safe. We want to feel like we can have autonomy. These are things that we all hold in common together. And so we want to build from there this sense of collective vision about what it looks like to live and breathe and operate in the world.

And so my question to you is where are you building bridges? There's all kinds of ways to do it. As an individual, it's asking people about what's going on in their week and the hopes and the dreams and the things that they're working at. You can do that in your workplace or your school or your neighborhood.

As individuals, it's making choices like helping to run the cross country team or show up at your kid's end of year party and make that really excellent. Coaching in Little League, showing up in the community and volunteering and participating. All of these things are ways for us to build bridges towards this common good.

Now lastly, the thing that Paul does is he offers hope. So if we want to be a people, a church, that engage and serve the world, we have to be prepared to know that people need hope. And here's the challenge for us I think as human beings is that whatever present situation we're in especially a difficult one, we have a tendency to think that that situation is going to go on forever and so we lose hope.

I have a friend who has a leak in their roof and they've paid contractors to come and fix it three different times. And this past week as Tropical Storm Debbie showed up here in Syracuse and it began to pour and rain, the water came through their roof again.

This thing that they thought was, that they had fixed is leaking again, and so they felt like our house is something permanently broken with it. It's always going to leak. We feel that way in our lives. And so what we need is we need assurance. We need hope. That the thing we're wrestling with today will not be there forever. That we will find our way through.

And ultimately, the hope that is offered to us in the person of Christ is that just as Christ conquered death, and was raised from the dead, so too will this world, as Paul talks about. That this world is a shadow of the world to come, and that this world, that one day, evil and sin and death will be fully defeated and this whole world will be resurrected. And that's hopeful. It gives us the hope to sustain in the midst of the challenges that we find ourselves in already. So let's be the church together. Let's be a community of people that don't exist just for ourselves, but for the good of the world. And let's do that by helping people know that they matter by building bridges, not walls and offering hope because we all need hope.

Let's go out and be those people. Have a great week. Talk to you soon.