Dear Veritas,

At our most recent First Sunday, we spent time as members taking communion, worshiping together, and seeing a story of God’s redemption in the life of one of our members. We concluded the night by answering several questions from our members. We gave our members a chance to ask our elders questions (think questions about the Bible and/or our church). Our members submitted 68 questions that ranged from wanting church updates/direction to desiring answers on complex theological ideas and how they play out in our world today. We were only able to get to a handful of the questions asked, and I do truly want to answer them all at some point in the future, because it seemed like the majority of them were asking, “How should a Christian live or think about _______ in our world today?”

I think about you, the people of Veritas, and how you are trying to, through a biblical lens, navigate relationships and situations in your neighborhoods, with friends or family, at work or in class, with your kids and their friends and their parents, etc. How should we process this trial or tragedy? How does the principle of God’s sovereignty play out in this situation? What does God’s Word have to say about _______? How do we live in the world today and be ambassadors for Christ, yet not be of the world?

In John 17, we see Jesus praying for his disciples and then for all believers. In verses 14-18 Jesus prays:

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

Veritas, we are a sent people, called to make disciples. We are to be in the world but not of the world. It can be tempting to desire the things the world has to offer, as the evil one wants us to care about the created more than the Creator. Jesus prays that his Father will sanctify his disciples in the truth. The Word of God is truth. You have to make a decision: There is the world and there is the Word… Are you going to take what the world says, or are you going to let the Word of God be your authority in the world?

I pray that God would be more desirable to you than anything else, and that you would delight in him and his Word.

- Matt

Some things to consider:

• In what ways are you living like the rest of the world?
• What does it look like to be in the world but not of the world?
• Are you regularly ingesting the Word/truth?
• Is the Word of God your authority in the world?