What if There Were a God, and He Loved a City?
A God who loves a City - That's really the grand narrative of the Bible... well maybe not a God who loves a city, but a God who loves His people. The story of the Bible is about that loving God pursuing His people, even to the point of great suffering and loss.
In the Bible, God's pursuit always included the prophets - you've probably heard of some of them - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, or maybe Malachi. Each prophet was sent by the Bible's God to call His people back to Himself - to warn them of the dangerous road that they were on and remind them how much he loved and cared for them - how much he wanted to see them thrive and flourish. Usually these prophets were sent to a city - after all that's where most of the people lived. God loved people so He sent His prophets, His representatives to the places where His people were, in order to proclaim His love and kindness. Ultimately He sent Jesus - to not only proclaim that same love and call God's people back to Him, but to demonstrate that great love through His life, death and resurrection.
The Bible continues the story of God's loving pursuit even after the resurrection - God sent His people out to other people and other peoples to proclaim the Good News of Jesus - the demonstration of God's love so that these people too might be brought back to this gracious God. And in the Bible we see the unfolding of this continued pursuit in the book of Acts as God sent people from one city to the next to proclaim the Good News of Jesus.
Why am writing this brief on the Bible narrative? Because it answers the question! If there were a God, and He loved a people then He would send His prophets and His people to reach those who were far from Him with the news that He was looking for them - with the news that He loved and cared for them... with the great and glorious news of the Gospel!
If there were a God, who loved a City - He would send someone to tell the people.
Macon, meet Mike and Jamie Aldredge... They are church planters, starting a new church in Macon. They've come from California to tell you that a loving and gracious God is looking for you!
