Nehemiah – Week 2 – Positive Presence
On Sunday we gathered around the idea of “positive presence” which is a short way of saying “making and being in relationships with people who are not part of the church.” We continued to use the story of Nehemiah (Ch 2:1-10) to show how a person who is trusted, close, and respectful to those who are in places of influence can actually work with that influence to make things more like God wants them.
Positive presence and relationships go a couple different ways. First, they are individual. It should be a totally natural thing for each of us to connect with people who don’t believe or even act the same as we do. I mentioned on Sunday that people who don’t live or believe the way we do will never care about our beliefs or lifestyle unless they know that we care for them and like them as friends. We need to be a positive presence within their lives and hearts if we are to have any chance at loving them as completely as we should.
Relationships are also cultural. I mentioned on Sunday that we cannot change something that we’re not involved with. People outside of Christianity don’t seek guidance or direction from Christians or from the Bible. They are influenced, for the most part, by things like the media, entertainment, education, arts, government, science, etc. If Christians are to have a chance at changing the world for good, we have to influence culture. To do that, we have to be part of the things that drive the culture. We need to be a positive presence within the world culture. We need to be positively present in news rooms, locker rooms, studios, court rooms, executive suites, classrooms and laboratories.
I want to punctuate this week’s conversation and look to next week’s discussion with words that have had a big impact on me. A few weeks back we shared a 2nd Century description of early Christians who were making their presence know in Greece, Rome and Jerusalem in very positive ways. These writings not only express the positive reputation of early Christians, but they also sketch a vision of the Church as it is still meant to be today. These words are from The Epistle to Diognetus:
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.
Tags: