In the sermon 'Rooted in the Local Church by the Waters of Babylon' by Scott Aniol, the importance of being deeply rooted in scripture and the local church is emphasized as vital for Christians to thrive in a modern-day equivalent of Babylon. Aniol highlights that while Christians live and work in the world, their true citizenship is in heaven. Drawing parallels to the Israelites in Babylon, he notes that they gathered by the rivers for ceremonial washings and worship, signifying the importance of community and faithfulness even in exile. Aniol stresses that without this foundation, Christians risk being led astray by contemporary idolatry. To ensure that daily work matters for God's glory and to remain faithful, Christians must engage consistently with their local churches for instruction, edification, and worship.

If we try to live successfully and flourish in our modern-day Babylon, but we are not rooted in scripture and rooted in the local church, we will ultimately fail. Things that we do out in the culture, our vocation, those things matter to God. But as Christians, our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. And so everything that we do in the normal, seemingly mundane but significant aspects of culture need to be always rooted in the sufficient word and fueled by our faithfulness in the local church. I think about the Israelites in Babylon.

One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 137, which expresses the fact that God's people are weeping by the waters of Babylon, right? They're in exile. But in context there, you have to ask the question, well, why are they by the waters of Babylon? Well, what most commentators will tell you is that very likely they were by the rivers of Babylon because of the need for the ceremonial washings that came with corporate worship. Meaning that even in exile, God's people gathered in local communities of faith by the rivers for ceremonial cleansing.

And what were they doing there? They were there to encourage one another, to hear the word of the Lord read, to worship the Lord together and that is how we must be now in our modern context and our modern Babylon. Our citizenship is far away in the heavenly Jerusalem. We are in exile. We're supposed to plant gardens and build houses and have families and all of that.

But ultimately we must make sure that we are gathering by the rivers of Babylon for worship. That we are faithfully engaging with the people of God in our local churches because if we don't we will be rudderless, we will have no foundation, we will be easily swept up into the idolatry of our age which of course many Israelites were bowing down to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar falling into the traps of pagan idolatry. But if we want our daily work to matter for God's glory and if we want to remain faithful, then we will gather with the local church for instruction from God's Word, for faithful edification of one another, and for corporate worship.