Living in the Kingdom XIX

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Sunday 01/31/16 

Series: Living in the Kingdom XIX

Message – Unified in Purpose X

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Living in the Kingdom

 

For weeks now we’ve been talking about our Unity with God and recently in particular, being unified in PURPOSE with Him.

We’ve seen several ways in which this is lived out and.

  1. Praying with fervency
  2. Praying with respect to God and His will
  3. Exercising faith in God w/ patience
  4. Being Persistence in Hope – There are two predominate reasons people give up hope:
    1. Growing weary – tired and therefore discouraged. Growing weary is an indication that YOU have been the one carrying the burden. The remedy for this is considering Christ and His struggles, so that we will not grow weary and faint. As we focus on Christ we are to roll the whole of our cares upon Him – being anxious for absolutely NOTHING, make our request to Him and trust.
    2. Fear – People protect themselves from hope since it is so deadly to the human heart to have our hopes destroyed. It is easier to NEVER get our hopes up than to get them up and have them disappointed. Fear constrains our belief…it puts a choke hold on our trusting reliance upon Christ – Who told us that men ought always to pray and NOT loose heart.
  5. Being filled with JOY!

 

We’ve illustrated these points as they were lived out in the lives of others like David, Jacob, Elisha and Jesus.

 

But near the closing of last Sunday I had introduced these two questions?

  1. What do these have to do with Living in the Kingdom?
  2. I can see how they applied to the “larger than life” lives of people like David, Elisha & Jesus, but how does this fit into MY life? I’ve got no lions to slay, no kingdoms to conquer, nor worlds to save….How does this play into MY life?

 

We began to answer this by going to Hebrews 10:32-12:29, to illustrate the point in the lives of those who have gone before and obtained a good testimony of faith.

We learned that Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham & Sarah, Moses…etc. all prayed with passion, sought God for His purposes and will, endured hardship and persecution, hoped in the face of hopelessness and experienced joy even before their faith became sight.

We also learned that though we do not have any lions to slay or giants to kill, any kings to fight against or armies to fight against us – we DO suffer opposition against the formation of Christ in us.

Our purpose (as was mentioned in part by Paul in the prayers he prayed over Colossae & Ephesus) is to bear His image – bear fruit, become mature, honor and glorify God by our sanctified desires, our passions, our thoughts, our words and actions. To show ourselves COMPLETE IN HIM and nothing else! This should be the center focus of all we do, desire and pray for! It is THE PRINCIPLE thing we should pray concerning and NEVER give up HOPE for!

 

ALL of the little prayer we pray – for provision, for family, for health, for greater spheres of influence should ALL be done under the banner of this SINGULAR GREAT HOPE!

 

Perhaps the BEST prayer which illustrated this was Our Lords…

 

Remember our 5 take away points…

  1. Praying with fervency
  2. Praying with respect to God and His will
  3. Exercising faith in God w/ patience
  4. Being Persistence in Hope
  5. Being filled with JOY!

 

 

Jesus’ clear focus in prayer was to honor the Father. To ask for His will to be done. THAT is the Kingdom of God!
Remember that was part of the purpose of creation…to illustrate God’s rightness in His authority and dominion over all things to the angels. Proving and making a precedence for His rightful claim to reign in sovereignty. (“when you are judged” & wisdom to the principalities.)
Jesus comes as a man…and as a man makes requests to God – BEGINNING with a humbled and awestruck recognition of His rightful place as supreme, coupled together with a confession of His Own personal sonship.

“Our Father, Who is in heaven”

In this statement we have Christ doing more than simply acknowledging Who He was praying to – He was showing respect and honor. A number of years ago in modern mainstream Christianity there was a paradigm shift from honoring God to His becoming our “bestie”. Like every major “enlightenment” in our past, the pendulum  needed to swing to the center but had so much momentum that it swung entirely to being out of balance on the opposite side.

Holding God in so much reverence that we stand in abject, awe-inspired terror of Him, caused us to understand the God Who “so loved the world” as little more than an all powerful deity to tip-toe around in hope of not eliciting His wrath. From such time periods we received an  abundance of hell fire and brimstone messages and books entitled, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God”.

Today, God is no longer feared. He is our big, soft sugar daddy in the sky. He is the celestial push over of the cosmos and He loves you so much and “needs” relationship with you so desperately that He is no longer all bound up about that sin thing, and just wants you to be happy – regardless of how that happiness is obtained.

Here we see Jesus – not only the incarnate son of God, but in fact, Himself part of the Godhead. As a human, Jesus approached God as humans MUST – with deep respect for God as Creator and as Father. He does this with His traditional wisdom and simplicity using a minimum of words.

Jesus’ statement was a humble acknowledgement that God is in heaven and we, His children, are very much on the earth. And so agrees Isaiah and the Psalmist,

“(1) Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?” ~ Isa 66:1

“(3) When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, (4) What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” ~ Psa. 8:3-4

“Holy be your name” 

This was both a statement and a request. On the surface the words imply a reverential acknowledgment of the transcendent and awe-filled nature of God’s name. In modern society this is all but entirely lost on us, but one’s name was the recognition of all that one was and all for which they stood. Today, we unfortunately only encounter this in the negative in statements like, “You ruined my good name”. A name is like a company logo or sign, it is NOT the company, but when one sees it, they are immediately reminded of all that company represents, whether it be good or evil.

The term “holy” simply means “other than”. God’s name represents His person. God as a personality, is entirely unique in all that exists. While man shares His likeness and may of His attributes – even man is as nothing when compared to Him.

“When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth; Surely every man is vapor. Selah” ~ Psa. 39:11

“Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are a lie; If they are weighed on the scales, They are altogether lighter than vapor.” ~ Psa. 62:9

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” ~ John 15:5

So this statement is another admission of God’s greatness in comparison to man. As I said though, this was NOT just a statement, it was a request. The words also were asking for the Holy nature of God’s name and WHO it represented be impressed upon the minds of man and that their actions would yield to the weight of it’s awareness.

This is where we left off this week. We will most likely resume from here next Sunday…Blessings! 

 

I hope this teaching will challenge you and encourage you to place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

You have a special place in God’s family & kingdom. If you do not know Him, please use our ‘Contact Us‘ page and reach out so we may have the privilege of introducing you to the Lord. Attendance at our church will NOT even be mentioned nor will money.

If you have been spiritually fed by this ministry and wish to give, we truly appreciate that and you may do so here, but all outreaches of this ministry are FREE for you and anyone to enjoy at no cost.

 

Blessings!

 

Pastor Mark

View posts by Pastor Mark

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!