We are constantly moving from an area of darkness and futility in our minds and we are learning about being like Christ (apprenticeship) not simply just being a deposit of knowledge. You need lots of people feeding you to help you on this life journey, whether you are a minister or elder.
God’s kingdom is God’s journey with the creation. It is
very much the point of the books of Moses. Jaweh is
king of the created order. Israel was always waiting for
the right leader or king. The Old Testament writers
point us in this direction. In the book of Judges there is
a cycle of sin, rejection of God’s word, then release
from their captives for a time.. cycle went on for 400
years.. end of the book is about dark times. In those
days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what
was right in their own eyes. Ruth tells the story of
Naome.. things are bad for her…but in an incredible
way, God restores her life primarily by providing offspring.
The Book concludes with incredible celebration
and a geneology, leading up to David. So despite the
darkest of times, God was still working. God makes a
covenant with David saying there will never be a time
when his house will not be king.
Today we are also in tough times. What will happen to
the kirk? Is God really the King?. The Old Testament
stories all tell us that God is moving even when we may
not think he is. However, often when God comes to us,
he pauses and says wait just a bit longer...what seems
like darkness, what seems like silence! Remember that
his timing is different from ours.
We knew he was at work with David and it was great
with him but afterwards things did not go so well. What
happened to God’s promises? What did Daniel say to
us? He tells is that Nebuchadnezzar was not really the
king. Similarly today, in the middle of the Kirk appearing
to be broken apart God is working. The prophecy of
Daniel is that, even though kingdoms will come and go,
God is still working and the blessing of God’s kingdom in
its fullness will come and will be amazing. In the book of
Luke restoration of the kingdom is in Jesus. Jesus inaugurates
the kingdom of God on earth and during our
time we await his second coming. The kingdom is something
that we are still longing to see in its fullness. We
see more of it now that Jesus has come but we are still
on a journey.
The church and the kingdom are not equivalent. The
church is part of it but the kingdom includes much more,
such as the created order, time and eternity (Colossians
chapter 1).
The Church should never point to itself, its forms or its
polity. It must always point to Jesus Christ.
Foretaste.. look and see that the Lord is God. It is like
looking at new bread. It looks nice, smelling is better, but
tasting is best. Don’t just know! Let it nourish you! What
if our churches were places which were so close to God?
Surely people coming into them would be able to foretaste
the kingdom of God.
The church then has to be a sign and foretaste of the
kingdom so that people join us on this pilgrim journey. A
sign points the way. The church is a pointer to Jesus .
How do we do it? How do we represent the kingdom?
With earthly kingdoms, rulers even today use images of
themselves everywhere and they did the same thing in
early times too. Why? So that people would be reminded
of the king. For God’s kingdom, however, we are told In
Genesis 1.27, that male and female were created in his
image so humanity bears the image of God. But it became
a flawed image because of sin. And today, sin has messed
us up so the image is not easily seen. So what do we do
about that?
God sent the ultimate human in Jesus himself. He is the
image of the invisible God (Colossians). We are created to
be like Christ. Now the image is being restored again
through Jesus Christ. We are all little images. The image
of God must to be so clear that when people walk into
church they see God. That is how critical this is!
Can they see it? Surely, they can’t if we are huddled
behind closed doors. Can they hear if all they hear is of the
church and its controversies. Can they taste and see…not
if they are fed platitudes and cliches rather than the bread
of life!
There are three ways we can achieve this:
1. Community :
Read the Sermon on the Mount and what it says about
community. The establishment of a community which
looks like and behaves like God. It is very easy to come to
church and hide. Adam and Eve did not have to hide from
each other. Yes they were naked but they had no shame.
There was nothing to hide from each other.. There was
honesty and integrity. Now because of sin we often hide
and some of us are hiding in the Lord’s work. But, we must
remember that in Christ we are new creations. We may
be still learning not to hide and we learn this through
community. It is not that we don’t sin but we have forgiveness
and learn. We develop a sensitivity to those
outside the church. We look at them as fellow pilgrims
just that they have not entered the journey yet. It is
nothing to do with being in or out of the club! So with
them, we talk to them about our sin but not with shame
but with an honesty and integrity. Christ has taken away
our shame. I have been forgiven and I have been restored.
When we develop this sense of community we experience
a freedom from the drive to be affirmed by others. In our
weakness, we often want to be affirmed by others and so
we hide our struggles. But this is completely unnecessary
in the kingdom of God.
Jason Curtis Presentation Two at day conference for SEECAT
Jason Curtis Presentation Two at day conference for SEECAT
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