Embracing Community

Last Sunday we continued our series on First Baptist Church's vision statement. We looked at the idea of embracing our community. Different Christian groups have looked at the world around them in different ways. Some have seen the world as something to be rejected and the Christian community as needing to develop its own culture. I attended a church that warned against anything worldly which it seemed to loosely define as secular. The problem is that the Bible looks at the world as both good and bad. The world is something God created and is good and can even be said to be loved by God. But the world can also be a symbol of a sinful value system in rebellion against God. When we look at our world or community we need to see both what God loves and what He hates. In Jesus' prayer in John 17, He indicates that He is in the world but not of it. That is, Jesus has not bought into the sinful value system but He is not avoiding the world. Jesus actively went after people, loving them and drawing them to Himself. Jesus calls us to be in the world but not of it. There should be something different about us but we should not separate ourselves from our community. We must embrace our community with the love of Christ.