pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: kingdom


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Building

Reading: Luke 1: 46-55

Mary’s beautiful song is all about God’s love for humanity.  She is aware of her direct role in this: she is bearing the Son of Man in her womb.  She rejoices in God her Savior and in her unique role: “all generations will call me blessed”.  Mary is aware of and deeply thankful for the role God has called her to fulfill.

Mary quickly moves past these thoughts and rejoices in the ways that God loves all of mankind.  God extends mercy to those in need and performs mighty deeds for those who fear him.  God blesses those in a relationship with him.  In doing so, God lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things.  God loves in many ways.

God’s love, however, is sometimes tough love.  God scatters those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  God will bring down rulers when necessary and will send the rich away empty.  God will not tolerate evil behavior by those with power.  God blesses us so that we can bless others, not so we can use our position or wealth to take advantage of others.

Mary’s song really speaks of God’s desired kingdom.  As followers of Jesus Christ we are kingdom builders.  We have a role to play in being the light and love in this time and space.  We too, like Mary, bear the Son of Man.  We bear Jesus in our hearts.  We can all bring God’s love to those who need God’s mercy and to those who hunger for either spiritual or physical bread.  We can all be conduits of God’s love flowing into the world.  We can also be the light shining into the darkness.  God’s kingdom is built on justice and equality.  If we are in positions with power and authority, we must use our place to insure justice and equality.  If, in our community, the leaders do not champion these things, we need to speak truth to bring about justice and equality.  May we each play the role of building God’s kingdom as we bear the light and love of Christ right where we are this day.


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Trust

Reading: Matthew 11: 7-11

At times, we all go through what John the Baptist’s followers are going through.  Someone who has been a leader in our church or community or organization is no longer present.  They have moved on to another place or they have passed on.  To be filled with questions and doubts and fears is a normal reaction.  We wonder who will fill the void.  We wonder how the void will be filled.

John has been put in prison.  He had led a powerful ministry out in the desert and had positively changed many people’s lives.  So instead of trusting in God and expecting God to do something amazing next, the followers worry and fret.  So Jesus asks them, in essence, why they followed John and why people came out to see him.  What drew you and others to John?

Jesus begins by asking if they went out to see a reed swayed by the wind.  Well, no, John was rock solid in his beliefs and in his mission.  His message did not change no matter who came out into the desert: repent for the kingdom of God is near.  Jesus asked if John’s attire and other refinements drew them.  No, of course not – it was about the message and about personally drawing closer to God.  Jesus then harkens the people back to a passage from Malachi.  John was there for a purpose: as a messenger sent to prepare the way.  Jesus has come, John’s work is done.  God’s plan continues.  Jesus ends the section by stating that although John was indeed a great gift from God, in heaven John will be just like everyone else.

In our lives, we too experience people God is using to do kingdom work.  It may be for just a short time or the work may last decades.  The person may be you or I.  But at some point, the work of God in that time and place draws to a close.  There is naturally sadness and often doubt or fear.  Yet in the midst of this, may we allow our faith to move forward, trusting fully in God’s plan and will.  May we be thankful for what God has done while remaining confident that it is all part of God’s plan.  God alone is in control.  Trust God.


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Fruit

Reading: Matthew 3: 5-12

John challenges the Pharisees and Sadducees who come out to see just what is going on in the desert.  He welcomes them with, “You brood of vipers!”. What a welcome!  John goes on to ask, “Who warned you of the coming wrath”?  It is almost to say, ‘who woke you up’?  John is implying that they have been lost or in a daze.

John goes on to tell these religious leaders that they need to produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  John is implying that they need to repent first, then to begin producing good fruit.  He warns them about complacency and the status quo, warning them that the axe is at the root of the tree.  I wonder if they realize they are the tree.  John wraps up this exchange by telling of Jesus, the one who is coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

We can read these words from John and smirk as we think about how those pompous religious folks have gotten a good talking to.  Or we can realize that maybe John is talking to us too.  To determine this, we must ask ourselves what fruit we are producing for the kingdom of God.  How are our lives planting seeds and bringing others into God’s presence?

One step beyond, especially true in this season of Advent, is to ask, ‘How are we preparing ourselves for the coming of the Christ child’?  What do you and I each need to repent of to be a worthy home for the babe to dwell in?  May we each step into our own place of solitude today to search our souls for the answers to these questions.  And may we emerge, ready to bear good fruit for God’s kingdom.


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God’s Kingdom

Reading: Isaiah 11: 6-10

The vision Isaiah lays out is hard to wrap our minds around.  We can picture a wolf with a lamb or a lion eating straw.  But to imagine this and all the other images Isaiah presents as the daily reality for all of the animals of the world really stretches our minds.  When Isaiah writes, “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my Holy mountain”, he means everyone and everything – man, animals, plants, nature…

We imagine heaven a number of ways.  Some see a beautiful city with streets paved with gold.  Some see us floating up in the sky, lounging on the clouds.  Some imagine a giant mansion with endless rooms in it.  But even more than what heaven will look like, we ‘know’ what it will be like.  We will constantly be in the light and live of God.  There will be no tears, no pain, no hurt, no hunger, no injustice, no oppression, no sin.

Jesus said, “This, then, is how you should pray… your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6: 9-10).  These familiar words from the Lord’s Prayer tie into the vision in Isaiah 11.  When Jesus taught the disciples this prayer, He included the idea of God’s kingdom coming here.  God’s will for the earth is peace, love, understanding, reconciliation, mercy.  God’s kingdom vision for the earth is the same as the vision for heaven.

So, what would our world look like if we put an end to all the harm and destroying?  What would life be like for all people if there was no violence, no abuse, no injustice, no oppression?  What would the world look like if there were no famine or drought or pestilence?  We, as God’s people, are kingdom builders.  What are you going to do today to help bring God’s kingdom to all the people you will encounter this day and to all the places you will be this day?


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The King

Reading: Jeremiah 23: 1-6

Bad kings have been the norm.  They have been unfaithful to God and have not insured justice and fair treatment for the people.  These bad kings instead have lived extravagant lives and have exploited the people to do so.  Having a king was the people’s idea.  Previously God had been their king, but they wanted a human king.  They wanted to be just like all the pagan nations around them.  Put that way it sounds like such a bad idea.  But the people would not quit asking so God finally relented and allowed them to have a human king.

As ever the God of second chances, instead of allowing the people (and later us) to suffer for their poor request, God brings news of a different king.  God does not punish the nation – the poor lambs have suffered enough already.  Instead God promises them a king who will “reign wisely”, a king who will do what is “just and right in the land”.  For a people who have been suffering for quite a while, this promise brings hope.

Today we do not have kings so much as systems.  True, we will soon have a new President, but he can only do so much on his own.  The President must work with Congress and within the confines of many systems already in place.  Yes, the systems can be changed, but this is very often a long and slow process.  Many people live within systems – medicare, social security, health care, prisons, education, foster care, reservations.  Many long for equality and justice and for things to be made right again.  Many long to be freed from the system in which they feel trapped.  Many need to see and experience hope.

The same king that was promised in Jeremiah 23 is the king who can bring hope to all people.  With hope, Jesus brings peace, compassion, and love.  Jesus may not directly fix these broken systems, but He can fix broken people.  May we, as the people of God, bring Jesus’ light and love and hope into the world, ever seeking to build the kingdom of God here on earth.


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Called

Reading: 1 Timothy 1: 12-14

Paul reminds us today that God can use anybody to help build the kingdom.  Paul acknowledges that his past included blasphemy, persecution, and violence – all against the newly founded church that followed Jesus.  He was very zealous in his work against this new church.  Yet God, in a show of great mercy, claimed Paul for service in the kingdom.  In a flash all the zeal against Christ became zeal for Christ.

When we look at Paul’s past, we can see how God was at work preparing Paul for the role we know him in as one of the great missionaries and teachers if the early church.  Early on Saul, as the old Paul was known, was a star pupil.  He was very intelligence and quickly learned the Hebrew Bible inside and out.  He quickly rose through the religious ranks and became a very well respected Pharisee.  It was all of this past knowledge and practices that allowed Paul to so skillfully build His case for Christ and to defend it against attacks from non-believers and the Jewish authorities as well.

Each of enters into God’s service in a similar way.  We too all come with our past sins and mistakes.  But we also come with we have done and experienced and learned in life.  The gifts and talents that God has blessed each of us with are a part of who we are as well.  Just like Paul, when we are called or led into service in some particular way, we are ready.  We are just who God has prepared us to be and needs us to be for that role.

Like so many before us, often we too ask, “Me?” as our initial response to God’s call.  We are usually skilled at saying “Well…”, “But…”, “When…”, and “No” also.  But God does not call us unless we have been equipped for the task at hand.  We may not know this or feel this way, but God knows better.  May we each obediently respond to God’s call in our lives so that we may say as Paul said, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that He considered me faithful, appointing me to service”.


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Cannot Be Shaken

Reading: Hebrews 12: 25-29

This passage in Hebrews was written in a time when following Christ could be very dangerous.  It could cost you your life.  While many of us do not face this danger today, in some parts of the world it is the reality.  Christians around the world die for their faith daily.  While most of us do not face this ultimate price, being a follower has a ‘cost’ to all believers.  This passage today is meant to encourage all believers and to remind us if the hope we have in Christ.

In following Christ, the cost can come in a number of ways.  It can be economic or social or relational.  As a Christian our choices and decisions can cost us popularity, status, position, or power.  It may cost us success as we choose to live following God’s ways.  We may choose to live less extravagantly as we choose to honor God first with our resources.  Our faith may cost us friendships, business partnerships, and even familial relationships as others choose to walk a worldly path.  There can be many costs.

Hebrews reminds us that we are one day “receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken”.  While in this earthly kingdom we face many ‘costs’.  They can shake us at times.  They can make us question and doubt.  We can also have our faith and our lives shaken by forces out of our control.  Economic downturns, violence and wars, disease, and death are just a few examples of things that can shake us.  Life and the circumstances that surround it and fragile and often we have little or no control over it.  Yet in the midst of this stands Jesus, our rock.  In the here and now, Jesus is our unshakable foundation.  As we lived out our blessed lives here on earth, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jesus awaits us in the heavens, the kingdom that cannot be shaken.


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The Circle

Reading: Hebrews 12: 18-24

Hebrews 12 offers a new perspective on God.  The God embodied in Jesus is the same God whose voice can thunder and who can be terrifying.  God is unchanging.  What changes or evolves is our understanding of God.  Stand at the window and watch and listen to the power in a magnificent thunderstorm.  Witness God’s voice booming!  Sit with a family that has just lost a loved one who they think was not saved, witness the unspoken questions and fear.  Consider the conviction we feel when we sin.  We quickly repent and seek forgiveness so that we are back in God’s love and away from the terrifying feeling of being outside of God’s love.

Through Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit we experience God differently.  God is now more personal, more easily accessed.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit function as more open conduits to heaven and God’s love.  In Jesus the man we saw the living God, first on earth and now in heaven.  Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” where grace and forgiveness comes through His blood sacrificed on the cross.  It is a free gift to us all.  It costs us nothing.  What a change in the previous relationship!  Jesus is also the mediator that stands between us and God and with the Holy Spirit intercedes for each of us.  This is what has changed, not God.

Faith and our response to it has also changed significantly.  Before Christ’s time on earth, faith in God was seen as an exclusive thing.  Either you were part of God’s chosen people, or you were not.  Jews were in, everyone else was out.  Faith led the Jews to care for one another, to live a life of obedience to God’s ways, and to worship God alone.  Jesus changed who was in the circle.  Through Jesus, all people are chosen people.  There are no limits or exclusions to the new covenant.  There is now no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free, …  We are to be Jesus’ hands and feet, loving all people with a servant’s heart.  We are to be Jesus’ voice, offering the good news to all peoples of all nations, ever working to expand the circle, ever seeking to build the kingdom here on earth.

What role shall we play today?  How will we each be a part of widening the circle, of helping another to step inside so they too can know God’s love?


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Tomorrow 

Reading: Luke 12: 54-56

Jesus opens today’s passage with some praise of the crowd’s ability to read the weather correctly.  It is praise to draw them in, to pique their interest and attention.  Then in a sudden twist He calls them hypocrites.  Many a mind gathered there must have wondered at what could be hypocritical about predicting the weather.  If only that was where Jesus was going.  Instead Jesus shifts to interpreting who He is and to reading the signs of God’s presence in their midst.  But the masses miss these signs.  They seem oblivious to the coming judgment.

Unfortunately believers and non-believers alike live in the mindset.  Death or the day of judgment is far away, not right here at hand.  Many are aware of God but have not dedicated their lives to following Christ.  After school, after marriage, after kids, after … then I’ll go to church.  Some day.  For others life is good and they have no need for God.  Perhaps in the back of their minds they know that in a big crisis they can seek God, but God is not needed now.  Life is good.

Many Christians live with a similar mindset.  They rationalize a sin they continue to practice and vow in their minds to give it up one day.  Others vow to start reading their Bible and to pray every day, starting tomorrow.  Or it may be joining that small group or helping out with VBA or…  Yet too often tomorrow always remains a day away.  Making a total commitment to Jesus is hard.

In the last few verses of chapter twelve Jesus uses another illustration to show that judgment will come.  His point of emphasis is that one cannot wait until they are standing before the judge to start making things right.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  It is for us as well.  Are we aware of it?  Are we choosing to live now for the King?  Is there an urgency to be ready for the kingdom because tomorrow may be at hand?


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Step Forth Boldly

Reading: Luke 10: 16-20

In a way Naaman and the 72 are opposites.  Naaman loads up the treasure to pay for his healing and heads off to find the man of God.  The 72 go out with nothing, taking the word of God, empowered by Jesus, to give away healing and hope.  In Naaman is healed, he may be drawn near to God.  The 72 are going out to bring the kingdom of God near to all people.  Even to those who reject the Prince of Peace, the disciples proclaim that He is near.  Too many of today’s Christians and too many of our churches today are more like Naaman, seeking to get something from God instead of striving to offer God to others.

Earlier in Luke 10 Jesus stated the reason for sending out the 72: “the harvest is plentiful”.  It is certainly plentiful today as well!  The disciples trusted in Jesus’ power and stepped out boldly to heal the sick and to proclaim that the kingdom of God was drawing near.  At first they must have been way outside their comfort zones.  Naaman too must have wondered a time or two what in the world he was doing as well.  But God rewarded their faithfulness.  Both the 72 and Naaman experienced firsthand the simple power of God to bring healing and to know personally how impactful the kingdom is in their lives.

Jesus calls on us today in the same ways.  Trust in Him and in His power to guide us.  Rely on Jesus alone.  Go forth and trust in the Lord of the Harvest.  May we too boldly step outside of our comfort zones, trusting that God will lead.  Through our simple faith, may we this day bring the kingdom of God near.