Outline

  1. The key players
    1. Protagonist: God
    2. Antagonist: Good, moral upright guy (Jonah)
  2. God’s purpose
    1. What is God concerned with?
    2. What is God trying to do?
  3. The importance of cities
    1. Strategic
    2. Cultural
    3. Gospel-sharing
    4. Economic welfare of His people
  4. Two layers of every city
    1. General population
    2. Those who belong to the City of God
  5. Christian impact in cities
    1. Christians are the best possible citizens.
    2. Christians preserve culture.
    3. Christians expand literacy.
    4. Christians have preserved entire communities.
  6. The eternal City that is to come
    1. It will never fall.
    2. One can never lose one’s citizenship.
    3. We’ll enjoy the city, its economy and community, forever.
  7. God loves cities because God loves people
    1. If we want to think more like God, we have to appreciate that where we are is filled with people.
    2. God loves people so much that he provides a means of salvation that does not depend on how good they are—God saves them because He wants to.
    3. God even stops from destroying a city just because they say they’re sorry.

Related Scripture:

  • Book of Jonah
  • Jeremiah 29:4–12
  • Hebrews 13:12ff

The Challenge

  • Because of our salvation and resultant citizenship in the City of God, we can go out to cities and know that no matter what, God is doing something that will have a preserving effect because of a child of His being there.
  • We need to be like those Christians in the early parts of our church history who rescued people at their own risk, who got involved in their community, and preserved art, literature, learning and music for generations to come. They are the ones who ushered to us Western thought that would have been completely lost had it not been for Christians in cities.

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