[Music] I had to rethink what I thought about church what I thought about Ministry what I thought about evangelism what I thought about social action what discipleship was everything had to be rethought in light of the kingdom of God I want to encourage you to let God mess you up if God needs to mess you up let God mess you up uh the only way you really discover the good stuff of the kingdom is when we let God break apart our our mediocre assumptions about what we think we already know about God
and the kingdom and Jesus and and everything else let God mess you up now unfortunately this concept of the kingdom of God has become kind of a buzzword lately um there's quite a bit of discussion and controversy about it the best book I've ever read on the kingdom I'll tell you is jacqu Al e l l l his book subversion of the kingdom and also the presents of the Kingdom they were just you know mindboggling books for me but probably the second best book on the kingdom that I've ever read is Scott
mcnight Kingdom conspiracy now in in his book Scott's a good friend of mine is a great thinker uh he he uh flushes out two lines of thinking about the kingdom and he characterizes them as as the the skinny jeans preacher and the uh plated pants preacher kind of little stereotypes here but skinny jean preachers tend to are the more fashionable they tend to hit on social justice issues uh they're following in the Stream of Walter rosenbush who was an American preacher at the turn of the century a
nd was really big on social justice and he thought the gospel is supposed to speak to social injustices that tradition is carried on today by a number of progressive Christian thinkers uh who I would would fit into the the skinny jeans category uh Scots category they tend to really be keen on how the kingdom is supposed to impact and transform Society they're big on lgbtq issues on Race issues on uh uh immigration issues gender issues any kind of discrimination they believe the gospel is suppose
d to speak into that you find this sort of way of thinking about the kingdom in various forms of Liberation theology because they already capture the truth that God is uh for the oppressed and wants to see people liberated and hates all deiz dehumanizing conditions now the critique General critique of this way of looking at the kingdom is that uh it can become guilty of setting letting the world set sort of the Kingdom Agenda the world sets the table and now we got to kind of f find out how the
kingdom is supposed to apply to this or that sort of situation rather than uh letting the kingdom uh be its own distinct witness and its own have its own distinct way of of transforming the world so the second group are the pleaded pants preachers and these tend to be a little more theological hybro generally speaking more sophisticated understanding of ecclesiology and so in whereas the first group is looking more at how the kingdom impacts the world and social justice the second group is more
about the church being a faithful witness and you find this strongly expressed in various forms of pism and the anabaptist movement and this way of thinking the the the kingdom is an already not yet kind of reality which is what we find in the New Testament in one sense it's already here but in another sense it's it's yet to come and so the church is called to be the already in the midst of the not yet we're we're called to manifest the first fruits and in doing that we're supposed to Bear witne
ss to this alternative Kingdom that doesn't mean that the pietist and the anabaptist and others who are would go into this pleaded pants category uh that they're not for Social Action that's kind of a stereotype of pietist uh but as a matter of fact psts were big on social action it's just that in this second way of thinking about the kingdom uh you do that not first and foremost to change the world but first and foremost to Bear witness to the character of God the kingom of God like everything
else about God to really understand to get into the depth of the Kingdom we need to Anchor all of our thinking I'm going to argue in the cross of Jesus Christ the cross confirmed by the resurrection but the cross is what gives the meaning uh to the revelation of of God in Christ it's a quint essential expression of who God God is in the ministry of Jesus we'll get to that a little bit later on so the cross and my conviction is that the cross reveals exactly what it looks like for God to reign in
the life of an individual and the life of a community that is the kingdom of God bearing witness to the cross-like character of God by manifesting that loving character in action is what the kingdom of God's all about putting on display the beautiful cruciform character of our our father so I'm going to argue that the pietists and others were right when they emphasize that the kingdom revolves around a personal relationship with God I think it's it's ultimately it's so important and often times
the folks that are big on social activism kind of pooo that personal relationship part so I think they're absolutely right but I think the skinny jeans preachers also are are right when they're emphasizing the social ramifications of the Gospel in my understanding uh the kingdom of God it's it's centered on our own relationship with the king of kings and Lord of lords uh and out of the fullness of the relationship that we have with God comes this individual and Collective impulse uh to manifest
God's characters and ways that change the [Music] world one of the perennial Temptations of theologians and I think lay people as well is to think that the kingdom of God is sort of a fill-in theblank thing the kingdom of God is now you fill in- the blank whatever you think is good whatever you think is ideal whatever you think is wonderful if the kingdom of God has any meaning it means that we can't fit our agendas into God's concept of the Kingdom it's rather about us trying to find our story
in God's Story the kingdom of God is a particular story about a particular God who's reigning a particular way and we don't get just to fill in the meaning you know just whatever we like like fill in the blanks if the kingdom means anything it also means that we can't talk about it in the abstract it's not just a mere Theory the kingdom in the New Testament it speaks of a reality it's the reality of God's Reign and that's a reality that that we enter into by means of a decision it means that th
ere's an inescapable existential element to the meaning of God is king or the meaning of God God's kingdom what that means to you will depend on are you submitted to it or not and Jesus at one point says why do you call me Lord Lord but don't do the things that I teach what he's saying there is that the the very meaning of Lord it means that that you do the things that he teaches if you're calling him a Lord but are not acting as though he's Lord what does the mean of meaning of Lord mean so the
re's an an inescapable existential element to the concept of the kingdom of God CS Lewis in his uh collection of essays called God the dock he's got this essay called Reflections in a tool shed and he talks about how he was in this Tool Shed out in his backyard and and it was all no lights in it at all it was all dark but there was a little beam of light that was breaking through this this crack above the door and he was initially in the tool shed looking at the light and all as you could see wa
s the light coming in and the dust particles that were in the light then he said he stepped into that light and then looked along the light look through that crack and as he looked through that crack he could see the trees outside the shed and some 90 million miles away he could see the Sun and his whole point was that there's a worldly difference between looking at something and looking along something or looking from the perspective of something he uses this analogy of a mathematician is is as
the ma mathematician doing his or her work uh she's dealing with Timeless truths but if there was a neuroscientist who were to somehow look at the brain of that mathematician doing that doing mathematics they wouldn't see these Eternal mathematical truths they would see a bunch of neurons popping makes a worldly difference whether you're looking at something you're looking at the mathematician doing math or you're looking along with the mathematician doing the math or or another analogy that Lo
uis uses is is two people fall in love two people are falling in love and it's just wonderful whatever now Along Comes A a neuroscientist or social scientist or whatever and explains to them that hey these are just your hormones popping there's a lot of chemicals going on in your brain well that that perspective is true but see you're not getting on the inside of [Music] love an ancient author wrote about this medieval author his name is brother Lawrence in a book called practicing the presence
of God I wrote a series of Reflections on that discipline called present perfect the concept is simply that that brother Lawrence encourages us to stay awake to the reality that wherever we go whatever we're doing whoever we're talking to whatever else is going on on God is there in him we live and move and have our being and so brother Lawrence taught that that that if God is there then then it's upon us to remember that the most important fact in any encounter in any given moment is that God i
s there and so become aware of that cultivate as part of your normal awareness the awareness of God's presence his love is always there and and see that is the kingdom of God the the the kingdom is the Dome over which god reigns right it's the the realm over which God Reigns and if God's reigning in our life that's always now because the only life we have to offer him and surrender is the life we have now and to look at this from a kingom perspective is to not just remember that fact but to be y
ielded Moment by moment my life is not my own and I I want to challenge you with this as we're starting to just get into this class can you right now will you surrender your heart just turn over the rain the control of your life over to the Lord and then there's kind of a leaning into a listening just try to cultivate an attitude where you're listening to what God might want you to do that maybe will go beyond maybe even against what your own plans are and I encourage you to pay attention to tha
t still Small Voice and listen the kingdom is now we are the subjects we live in a surrendered State and the more we surrender the more that becomes real to us and the more it transforms [Music] us
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