Transformation in the Kingdom Of God
REVIEW Richard
- The Kingdom of God as with any Kingdom is about the one who is King! Not about the rules and neither does it revolve primarily around us. The Kingdom of god takes its character from the King. [Toyota car takes its character from the designers even though it is designed for us to drive!]
- The Kingdom of God is not found in either appearances or the external shape of things.
Very easy to confuse God's Kingdom with a certain way of doing things and yes, there are some things which God says are definitely right and some which are definitely wrong but we too easily make habits and traditions into rigid laws of the kingdom when they are just not. - This leads me to my final point in regard to God's kingdom. If the kingdom is about the king first and not about external things second then where do we discover God's Kingdom. Jesus is clear about this… we discover God's kingdom within us!
Luke 17:20Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."
And this means that God's rule begins with the shaping of the heart rather than with the shaping of the world. Do you want to know God's kingdom, then look to your own heart - to have it shaped and changed by God and to find God at work already in there. Invite God into your heart to shape it and to give your life direction and you will discover a new law and a new life growing there - the law of love and a life that is eternal.
More about God's Kingdom:
Jesus gave us some clues as to how we might recognize the kingdom and I want to just leave you with a few of them. Jesus told some really amazing stories about the Kingdom of God and each of those stories give us a clue as to what God's kingdom is like. These stories are found in Matthew's Gospel in chapter 13 and elsewhere in the NT
1. God values hearts over housekeeping: The first story is about a man who sowed a paddock in good seed only to have an enemy come along and fire a whole lot of weed seeds over the top. By the time the guy realizes what has happened both the crop and the weeds have sprouted and are good sized plants. The servants naturally come and ask him if they should go and weed the paddock to get rid of the weed plants. Surprisingly however the owner says 'No' and he explains to his men that to do this would be to risk uprooting good plants and he want every good plant he can get. In other words, he is willing to allow a paddock full of weeds to grow just sop that he can get some good plants as well.
So what's being valued here? [Ask] God is prepared to put up with stuff that is out of place - even with evil if it will mean one more heart is harvested. To often we like to keep our churches and our lives tidy and in doing so we risk destroying good plants along with the bad. God doesn't work like that. God values hearts over housekeeping.
2. God is in the small and vulnerable things of life: Using the example of mustard seeds Jesus gives us another clue as to what to look out for in God's kingdom. What he says simply is this… don't despise the small and apparently insignificant things in life. Don't belittle that which God calls you to give because it is out of this thing that God will bring forth the fruit of the kingdom. God loves to work through things that are small, small talents, small minds, small people. He loves to bring fruit and life out of stuff that is small. The world looks to the large and successful things. God and God's kingdom is found in the small stuff. Everywhere you look in the Bible you find God working through small and vulnerable things. He choose one man Abraham all alone in a foreign country with a barren wife to be the father of a whole nation of chosen people. He choose a young shepherd boy to the be the most famous King of that nation and he choose a boy born in a stable to be His only Son and Lord of all Creation.
And then God says - I want to choose you, warts and all, failings and all, problems and all, doubts and all - to be my servant and to bring my love to the world. Silly? Maybe, buts it's true. You are the mustard see God wants to build into a mighty tree and He will if you'll only let Him
3. What is the most important thing about yeast when it is used in bread making? It is that it is mixed into the dough - that it resides in the dough. God's kingdom is such only amongst the dough, only within the wider community. We need to be aware that God's aim for His kingdom is to be a light in the dark not a light in the light but a light in the dark for all who are there also. Never let the Church be separated from its true mission which is the wider community of humanity.
Drawing:
What does it look like to have the kingdom of God within you?
Draw yourself as a container of the Kingdom.
What things do you hold that are elements of the Kingdom?
Eg Jesus, love, seeds, keys, understanding
What have you especially been given that might represent this?
What do we hold as a corporate container of the Kingdom?
Why do I do this? Helen
It was my 40th birthday and I was studying on my own in the Hewitson Library at Knox College.
My family was in Invercargill where we lived. I had a 4 year old daughter and two other kids at school. I was traveling up to Dunedin every week to study theology and I had recently been turned down for entry into the ordination program to become a minister.
In fact the road to even putting myself forward to go through that process had been like a 3 year long battle with myself about whether this was the right thing to do and whether I could do it and whether in fact women should even be ministers.
How many times I was reminded that I had children and my place was looking after them.
How many times I was told I was too quiet and I didn't relate well to people.
How many times did I recriminate against myself. Why don't I just go back to teaching?
And why is my whole life caught up in building a community of students?
Why do I leave my cellphone on and get woken up at 1:30 in the morning by someone in crisis or someone wanting some theological advice. I don't know!!
Why do I put myself through agony every week to get myself to stand here when mostly I feel incredibly inadequate?
When I constantly feel on the brink of not knowing what on earth I am doing?
Why do I spend hours listening to you and learning how to counsel?
Why do I put up with being pushed around by Matt and challenged by the guys?
Anyway as I was sitting in the library that day, I experienced the presence of God in a way that doesn't often come.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
It was as though there were something tangible being expressed to me and I experienced a feeling of the sacredness. The translation I read said: that which we have gazed upon, and I knew that this meant something which one had spent a long, deep time being with and imbibing into one's spirit, and I felt this kind of deep connection with Jesus Christ in that moment. I saw a set of swinging doors, like those in a restaurant that can be pushed in from either side and myself as if flattened by the doors swinging back on me. I heard the words: Behold I have set before you an open door. I had the sense in which I had to get up and push the doors open.
Failure isn't an excuse to lie down and not get up.
So I took myself back to Committee who check out whether you are suitable minister material and tried again.
Why am I so passionate about the church?
I'll tell you why.
It's because I am totally addicted number one to Jesus and being deeply connected to Him
number 2 to the church which for some reason Jesus regards as His very own body.
And for some reason God has planted a huge passion for the church into my life.
And I can also tell you that I have spent a lot of my life expressing this passion by being very angry with the church
Because when it comes to relevance and actually doing what it is called to do we are so far off the mark it's not funny.
Yet Jesus considers the church to be His Bride.
Listen to this:
Husbands love your wives just as Christ loves the church and laid down his life for her, in order to make her holy and to present her to himself in splendour and radiance. As we take care of our own bodies, so also Christ nourishes and tenderly cares for the church, as we are part of his own body. Eph 5
The church. That's us. Is the object of Jesus' greatest affection.
He bursts with love for it.
As a besotted husband stares at his bride at the altar, so Christ holds us in a deep, intimate stare of love.
He gave up heaven for her and he gave up his life to make it possible for us to join his family.
And He will present her to Himself, spotless and made whole.
Christ did something to make this possible. And today He continues to woo the Bride.
That we will be whole, spotless, mature, fully human in every way.
And I can stand here and tell you that I experience this.
I have been wooed by the love of God and pursued even when I gave up on myself and wanted to die.
I needed an Extreme Makeover.
God first called me to be a minister when I was 18 and it took 26 years.
It took me most of that to concede it was possible.
In that time I morphed from co dependent, angry, lonely, depressed, shy individual into what you see today.
I know what it's like to be transformed by the renewing of my mind.
And it's hard, painful work as parts of me that I kinda get off on have to die and let go and change.
Paul says: I am in pain of childbirth until Christ is formed (morphed) in you Gal 4:19
until a mind and life in complete harmony with the mind and life of Jesus shall have been formed in you.
2Cr 3:18 describes all of us as being transformed into the same image of Christ, from one degree of glory to another, by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 12:2 Don't be conformed to this world but be morphed or transformed or transfigured, by the renewing of your minds. The Greek word metamorphosis covers all these nuances.
What is my vision for the church?
A community of transformed believers, morphed individuals
who love God and are fully committed to serving him together.
Who hold out the word of life relevantly. Genuinely
With no cringe factor but also humanly.
A cycle of coming to God being changed and able to reach out in the same way.
Finding lifelong contentment in relationship to Jesus, so that when the spiritual veil is lifted we will see Him face to face and not be ashamed. Presented mature and complete
What do seeds do?
They transform and they transform their environment
The cycle of transformation and the Kingdom
We are given the Seeds of transformation.
The power of the church to transform lives.
What are the keys for?
The church has the keys of the kingdom to unlock for the world ways of being that transform.
The keys of knowledge of the will of God
To open the doors of faith to the world.
Who else holds the key to the transforming possibilities of change in our society? To change a heart, to heal, to turn hatred into love, repentance, reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, to get to the core problem. Not govt, nor psychological theories on their own, social welfare, education…
No the radical message of the transforming love of God, has been given to the church.
We hold the keys.
Response: Keys of the kingdom
PUT YOUR KEY SOMEWHERE TO REMIND YOU
What does the key represent for you?
What will it unlock?
What will it unlock in the Kingdom of God? In the lives of others, in your own life?
What is your vision of life that will cause you to step up and say count me in.
I will lead. I will do what no one else is prepared to do.
| Who of you out there are called to be ministers? On which of you women does the call of God lie to be ministers? Who are the church planters among us? Who of you are called to work amongst the poor overseas? Where are the songwriters and the musicians who will lead this generation and this congregation in worship? What of the artist and craftsmen? How will you use this great gift for the Greatest Artist of all? Prophets, pastors, teachers… |
You don't have to have our permission.
You don't need to hang around until it is written in the sky. You'll be dead before then.
The harvest is plentiful, it's just waiting for the labourers to come and gather it.
But the labourers are complacent and scared.
They hanging around not sure of themselves, wanting so badly to get it right, that they are immobilized.
The faint stirrings inside, the sense of call you have, in my experience this is GOD.
You think you're just hearing things. How could that possibly be?? I can't do this?? Should I do this? What if I stuff up my life??
You are no more and no less equipped than me or anyone. You will get the resources along the way.
Mathew 11: 12: From the days of John the Baptist till the present time the kingdom of God has endured violent assault, and violent men and women seize it by force as a precious prize-a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought for with most ardent zeal and intense exertion. Amp Bible
My hope for you is that you will morphe and become morphe agents.