Faith For Exiles By David Kinnaman And Mark MatlockSample

Day Seven: Finding Hope in Exiles

Scripture: John 17:14-18

Realism + Hope = Resilience

Freedom comes by facing reality. Jeremiah’s writings pulsate with being realistic. Daniel’s life is marked by sheer determination to call things as they are. Esther’s mantra “If I must die, I must die” is yet another example. As exiles, our resilience depends on our ability to accept and recognize reality. Facing reality is powerful for those in exile.

Exiles are instrumental to God’s purposes. During times of major change and intense pressure, exiles show the way forward. Exiles help to reform and revitalize the church, reorienting it toward God. How hard it is to make disciples in post-Christian digital Babylon. At the same time, we also want to remind our fellow believers, without equivocation, that the five practices we began to introduce this week lead to hope—hope that we find in Jesus. The church will find a way forward, even and especially in exile.

You are living in the challenging age of digital Babylon, attempting to make (and to become) resilient disciples in a time when easy entertainment, comfort, and a kind of surface-level prosperity sing their siren song to lure us away from our truest selves and from the true God. For us at Barna—and we invite you to use this definition too—discipleship is developing Jesus followers who are resiliently faithful in the face of cultural coercion and who live a vibrant life in the Spirit.

I am mostly realistic about what we are up against, and part of me even feels skeptical about the progress we can make, about the inexorable pull of digital Babylon. Digital Babylon presents us with challenges rarely experienced before by the church. The allure of the screen age has surely undermined so much of what we as Jesus followers are trying to do.

And yet.

I am also bound to hope. Hopeful that our young students enter the bastions of academia in our country and remain resilient disciples of Christ. Hopeful that the church, the bride of Christ, becomes beautiful and transparent and true. Hopeful that, by cultivating these practices, we form and are formed into disciples who thrive in digital Babylon.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Confess any sin before God regarding your attitude or bias toward Millennials and Gen Z. They are a generation of hope. Ask for compassion, curiosity, and a willingness to be placed in your heart toward those coming behind you and one day leading the work of God here on earth.