Survival Essentials - The King [The Kingdom of God]

the theme we've been unpacking the last few sessions i hope you got to hear eric mataxis this weekend if you didn't it's it's it's worth the time to go out and listen to that we did a podcast together and we're able to have a little dialogue and that's there's a little more freedom in that than sermons so if you want a little more information that's worth the time as well i think i'm grateful for eric's life for the place he takes in the kingdom god has his people that is so encouraging to know it's important to know but the topic we've been unpacking is survival essentials and in this particular talk i want to really spend the focus in talking to you about the king that i don't mean elvis i mean i'm grateful for elvis but there are greater kings i want to start with three passages of scripture i'll read them and then i want to offer some brief comments as means of introduction in john 18 and verse 36 jesus is speaking he's before the roman governor in jerusalem and he said my kingdom is not of this world if it were my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the jews but now my kingdom is from another place and pilate responded you're a king then and jesus said you're right in saying i'm a king in fact for this reason i was born and for this i came into the world to testify to the truth what is that truth the truth that he's a king and he has a kingdom then in second corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20 it says we are therefore christ's ambassadors as though god were making his appeal through us and then finally in philippians chapter 2 and verses 9 verses 9 to 11. god exalted him jesus to the highest place and gave him a name that's above every name that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father a king and a kingdom it's an important concept to be a christ follower is best understood i would submit to you in the context of a king and a kingdom there are some implications that come from that that we need to be aware of every one of us will have an individual appearance before the king everybody i would submit to you if there is a king of all kings one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is lord of all and you know you have an appointment with him it might be in our best interest to prepare i'm just climbing out on a limb currently our lord is king of an unseen kingdom it's not one of the kingdoms of this world so we can't visit its capital we can't visit its halls of decision-making it's a kingdom that is unseen in fact we're told that it's a kingdom that begins within us so it's a kingdom of a different sort we're going to work on that some more over the weekend but we're also told it's a kingdom which will be made manifest it will be made evident that you will see it with the same certainty that you see the united states of america or the nation of italy you will see the kingdom of god in luke chapter 9 and verse 26 jesus is speaking he said if anyone is ashamed of me in my words the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the father and of the holy angels the glory of the lord is when the reality of his kingdom is made evident that day is ahead of us now there's an essential question for every human being are you in the kingdom are you on the outside because you are in one of those two places everybody now if you're included in the kingdom the bible's very clear we read it in second corinthians 5 you have been assigned an ambassadorial role say well i don't want one you won't ask if you're in christ you're an ambassador for the kingdom and god is making his appeal through you and you will be held accountable for how well you did with that ambassadorial role say well i don't like that noted but you've been informed but i don't think the answer you'll want to give on the day you have that appointment it was all i didn't want to be an ambassador because we just read what jesus said if you're ashamed of me in my words he'll be ashamed of us now how we will fulfill that assignment varies widely because we've been given different gifts we've been given different abilities we're not all the same thank god in fact you know in contemporary language god just isn't a socialist we didn't all get the same gifts we didn't get the same abilities we don't have the same iq we don't have the same eq we don't all have the same physical abilities we're not all going to be professional athletes bummer but you know enough of scripture if you have just a casual knowledge of scripture to know this is a biblical principle jesus talked about a wealthy person who was leaving for a season and he called his servants and he gave one two talents and won five talents and another 10 talents everybody didn't get the same thing so that's not fair okay we're different we're different physically some are tall and short some of us have metabolisms that burn calories like a furnish and some of us not so much we always take care of horses and the horses that would maintain their weight with less food we used to call them good keepers some of us are really good keepers we're different we have different emotional characteristics different mental abilities some are male and some are female and contrary to a lot of public opinion there's a difference we're just not all the same so when we talk about the kingdom a part of our understanding is we're ambassadors and we're going to fulfill that role in different ways so don't judge one another encourage one another then often there's a lot of confusion because i think we've held too narrow a view of what it means to be included in the kingdom what does it mean to be a part of the kingdom of god well some will monitor it by church attendance i'm for that because i'm here a lot being a church makes you a better kingdom member i'm in i'm a frequent flyer of the deluxe version some say it's about membership you need your name on a list others focus on the sinner's prayer others will talk about baptism in water i believe all of those things have value all of them have biblical places but i believe they're too narrow in their perspective in matthew chapter 7 and verse 21 jesus is speaking he said not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven warning there are people that will recognize jesus for who he is they will call him lord they'll know the language he said but only he who does the will of my father who's in heaven many will say to me on that day that's just so many are going to say this not one or two not the stragglers many many are going to say to me on judgment day lord didn't we prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles and i will tell them plainly i never knew you away from me you evil doers so it was the criteria and it's in a larger context jesus goes on to say it in many ways in fact he goes on to tell the parable of the the man who built his house on the rock and one who built it on the sand remember he said the wise man is the one who hears my words and does what it says that's the same principle he just stated in that 21st verse he said it's the he who does the will of the father who is in heaven who is a participant in the kingdom so sitting in church isn't the goal you can sit in church and not know the lord you can know the right answers you can read your bible and choose not to do the will of god so it's not about finding the right group or the right church or the right denomination or the right translation it's a personal decision how often do you need to do the will of god once i did it once no i think the goal would be to do the will of god as consistently as you have the opportunity to live in the truth that you know see we have lived in the most a most stable nation if not the most stable nation and our lives have been defined by opportunity they have you may not like the opportunities that have come to you but our lives are filled with so many opportunities that most of us settle for mediocre we've imagined that things like justice and freedom and liberty were secured by our national identity after all we have a constitution and there's a legal system and we expect that to treat us fairly and because of that our faith has been a secondary resource in our lives it didn't have to be primary we had other things in front of it and they were doing just fine thank you we didn't need to know god for freedom because we had some legal standing for freedom we didn't need to know god for healing we had medical care available to us or for provision because most of us have opportunities those things could all be secured by other means so we could think about our relationship with jesus as something that really wasn't essential at least not for our current circumstance so for most of american christianity god got put in the category of something that was hobby-like well i mean i have some interest in it it's a nice addition to my life it's kind of an optional accoutrement look it up but the events of the last several months have begun to awaken us to our realities in a new way and i think the shorthand on that is when the world you're living in begins to crumble if you know the king and his kingdom you will begin to step much closer now that's true beyond the pandemic if you're faced with a life-threatening illness you may have argued that healing wasn't real but you'll step closer to a king who heals if you have financial trouble you'll get closer to a king who is a provider if your children are troubled you'll develop a prayer life that you thought was just bothersome before you had that intrusion into your life from where we stand today i would submit to you that our nation is being dismantled it's no longer the harbinger of justice and liberty for all in ways we have never seen before on a daily basis we're watching the expansion of things like censorship the media as propaganda elections not being imagined as fair evaluations of people's choices and on and on and on and on and on we've never seen this before it's not just about a pandemic our coven numbers six months ago were about where they are today and we were told it wasn't safe for our children to be together and now they tell us it's safe for our children to go to school i'm grateful for that i think they need to go to school but there's an enormous disparity in those two responses to almost very similar numbers did dr fauci have an epiphany i think we all understand that there's there's many forces involved and you can take almost any slice of contemporary current life one that's had probably more airplay over the last few years than anything has to do with elections and the elections are over and i'm grateful for that because it's no longer about that but in 2016 the election outcome was a very highly contested thing remember huge panic it was on the news every day all day it's all we heard about it seemed like in fact we appointed a special prosecutor because we really weren't sure it needed to be checked out and we hired a whole raft of attorneys that didn't like the person that had been elected and we spent millions of dollars we begin to discover that the fbi had conducted surveillance of a presidential candidate and of an elected president and after all the investigations and all the talk and weeks and weeks and weeks and elected officials saying i have incontrovertible proof and this is illegitimate and the elected officials illegitimate the special prosecutor comes back and say there may have been interference but it wasn't orchestrated by the person that was elected hallelujah we have another election now with that background and almost three years of an unrelenting drumbeat if we had a huge problem i think just a casual glance at that circumstance would suggest a very extensive study of this election for heaven's sakes at the last one so we've got another opportunity this time we want to be sure we get it right we'd have a careful review of how the votes were cast of how the votes were counted after all in the last election we were told the outcome was almost certainly fraudulent or unduly influenced by outside forces we don't want that to happen again so this time let's button down the hatches right if i told you that somebody shoplifted thousands of dollars of stuff from the bookstore on saturday night you would expect us on sunday morning to pay more attention so we had an election in 2020. and what's the answer there's nothing to see here don't ask no reason to examine the factors contributing to this election outcome everything's fine i'll accept the transition of power no problem we have to we need to pray for those that have been elected i've been leading those prayers almost on a daily basis but it should be no surprise to us that public trust in that process is an all-time low now i've said all that to say this there's a great divergence of opinion among christ followers should we talk about what we see or should we just quietly gather in our churches and study our bibles it's an important question it's a very important question it's not a political question or even a legal question it's a question of our faith i believe we're in a we're desperately in need of god's wisdom to navigate the current world we're walking through apart from god's truth i don't imagine that we'll be able to stand without god's perspective our education and our experience is not going to be sufficient this time the force is driving confusion and conflict are spiritual in origin and they're going to require spiritual insight in order to be navigated so i come back to this notion of life in the kingdom what's it mean to be citizens of the kingdom and to serve a king you understand something about your rights and privileges as a citizen of this nation what does it mean to be citizens of the kingdom well there's a principle of biblical interpretation and i have studied in a widely divergent array of environments some very conservative evangelical some very liberal much like the one that eric described yale to have been and i can tell you that across that entire array of opinion about how we approach the word of god there is almost universal agreement upon this principle that a text without a context is a pretext that you can't rightly understand the meaning or the message of the word of god without some sense of the context into which it was being spoken understanding scripture then means implies that there has to be some cultural awareness for instance this is this is not complex this is not some big word event the the the authors of the bible and the majority of the stories take place in a part of our world that is overwhelmingly a desert so the language that we read about reflects that there's much talk about rain and rivers and heat and shade and thirst there's very little dialogue in there about snow or blizzards or a heavy frost or a a long cold winter because it's written in a desert and understanding that helps you understand the story not to feel excluded you understand where it was written well in a similar way it was written predominantly to a group of people who lived in an agrarian economy they made their lives through crops that was the primary source of income for the overwhelming majority of the people that are engaged in the story so there's much talk in your bible about planting and harvesting and seeds and weeds jesus used those images because the people to whom he was speaking understood that their livelihood came from that platform i believe if jesus spoke in the 21st century he'd talk about wall street and global markets it's not beyond him he was speaking to an audience so to understand the parables we have to understand the context into which the message was delivered well i would submit you that in a similar fashion god's word today has to be understood in the context of our world and that's really the heart of this talk we must understand god's perspective in light of our current culture and circumstance we must talk about it or we're as spiritually blind as if we didn't have god's perspective jesus could have arrived and just presented abstract theological concepts he could have talked to the people in terms of systematic theology the nature of god detailed explanations of the trinity but he talked about weeds in the wheat field and a farmer who went out to sow his seed or a sheep herder who lost a sheep because that was the world that his people were living in and i'm quite confident that if he talked to us today he wouldn't talk to us in abstract theological concepts he would talk to us about the world we're living in and we desperately need a god perspective let me say it this way the text without a cultural context in our lives is just a pretext well that's not easy let me walk you through a little bit of jesus message it was so difficult in jesus day that it ended with him being executed so i'm not surprised that there's a little push back on it in the 21st century there was a power structure there was a group of people doing quite well in jerusalem thank you they were well funded and well financed they were empowered by the existing system it wasn't perfect but for some of them it was working very well and they didn't want to hear a god perspective they didn't intend to listen and if you will read the gospels with just a little bit of an openness to that you will see jesus keep poking them jesus arrived with a message and in john's gospel it starts very near the beginning he says you have to be born again you have to be born again that's us that's kind of part of our christian vernacular we're almost numb to it but jesus is speaking to a group of people whose entire system of governance is established upon their race they are the covenant people of god not because they found the right church or the right theology they are the covenant people of god a unique people on planet earth because of their dna and jesus rolls in and says you won't even get a whiff of the kingdom of god unless you're born again your dna isn't going to help you wait a minute our dna has helped us john chapter 3 and verse 3 jesus is talking to a leader of the jewish people in the city of jerusalem he came at night he didn't want to get busted and jesus said i tell you the truth you know what's coming next is going to rattle his frame of reference right i tell you the truth no one can see the kingdom of god unless he's born again it's almost impossible for us to understand the drama behind that statement to the audience that is receiving it don't tell me that the prophets are your ancestors it won't help you when you stand before the king john chapter 8 same author jesus is talking he said i know you're abraham's descendants yet you're ready to kill me because you have no room for my word and i'm telling you what i have seen in the father's presence and you do what you've heard from your father remember what i said about the kingdom a moment ago it's an invisible kingdom they're counting on their dna to make them okay and jesus has flipped the script he said i tell you what i've seen in my father's house and you're acting based upon who your father is he's not talking about their physical dna any longer is he he's talking to them about a spiritual kingdom folks we have been woefully unaware of the spiritual kingdom but you've heard from your father abraham is our father they answered they want no part of it our dna is special our worship is just right our bible translation is the best and jesus answered if you were abraham's children then you would do the things abraham did your dna isn't going to help you he said jesus is diminishing their authority structure he is pulling the thread that unravels everything that holds their story together he's deconstructing their power system and suggesting an entirely new vantage point and their response you can predict it they're offended they're angry and they desperately want to shut him up you stop saying that i'll give you another perspective in jesus teaching the sabbath rules remember the ten commandments those ten things we're getting really early in the story they're not suggestions or prompts they're not hints they're commandments they've never been amended and one of them is to keep the sabbath holy that's all it says keep the sabbath holy you know we're still required to do that that's another lesson so the rabbis have to interpret what it means to keep the sabbath holy and they come up with this elaborate system there's more than 600 rules that are a part of this whole system and the sabbath rules to jesus audience were as important to them in defining right and wrong and moral character and moral competence as our drunk driving laws would be they're as important to them as our laws against violence against women they're not like religious rules you take communion with purple grape juice and i take it with red grape juice it's not about you come to church on saturday and i come on sunday these sabbath rules to them were just as significant as if if you knew somebody that was a a consistent offender in the most reprehensible law you could think of they held that status and jesus consistently not occasionally he consistently challenged them to rethink their sabbath rules he kept throwing it in their face luke 13 indignant because jesus had healed on the sabbath that's against the rules if you're sick on the sabbath just stay sick the synagogue ruler said to the people he's going to stand up in the synagogue and challenge jesus because this interloper has broken our rules he says to the people there are six days for work so come and be healed on those days not on the sabbath what a happy fellow and jesus answers him in public this guy invited a public debate so jesus says i'm up let's go you hypocrite doesn't each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water yeah because indoor plumbing was really expensive in first century israel so if they're going to water their livestock it's going to require some physical effort and he said you don't want to lose the investment of your livestock that was their investment portfolio so you'll water them on the sabbath then shouldn't this woman a daughter of abraham who satan has kept bound for 18 long years be set free on the sabbath from what boundary and when he said this all of his opponents were humiliated who are his opponents this is confrontational language that luke is introducing this is jesus ministry i thought jesus loved everybody well in the synagogue luke said he had opponents and they're the rulers the power brokers says his opponents were humiliated it's not a good thing to humiliate opponents but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing mark chapter 3 verse 1 another time jesus went into the synagogue and there was a man with a shriveled hand was there and some of them were looking for a reason to accuse jesus can you imagine they're watching him they want a reason to pull him down they want a reason to criticize him we got to shut him up so they're watching him seems kind of familiar to me does it feel familiar to you they're looking for a reason to accuse jesus so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the sabbath we can't be having that it's against the rules i don't care if he does good jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand stand up in front of everyone no quiet corners and jesus asked them he's got the man standing now synagogue he has the man stand and he turns to the audience and jesus said which is lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do evil to save life or to kill and they remain silent they're not about to answer him because they could care less they don't want to do right or wrong they want to keep their power and their power is dependent upon you keeping the rules don't ask questions and he looked around at them this is jesus he looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed by their stubborn hearts and he said to the man stretch out your hand and he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored yea god amen the pharisees went out and began to plot with the rodians how they might kill jesus see this is serious folks the sabbath rules aren't some little subtle about we worship with a piano when you worship with a drum this stuff is so threatening to the power structure that we've got to shut this man down jesus isn't offering them abstract theological ideas he's talking to them about how they behave on a daily basis in the context of the kingdom of god and he's saying in spite of your pedigree you got it wrong matthew 21 verse 45 when the chief priests and the pharisees heard jesus parables they knew he was talking about them and they looked for a way to arrest him again this is some heavy duty conflict this is not some subtle little church spat we've got to shut this man down there's another perspective kosher laws those are the dietary rules they came from moses again there's hundreds of them they grew out of one verse in the bible it says in the in the law in the book of deuteronomy that you shouldn't boil a kid a young goat in his mother's milk that's where all the dietary rules came from that one statement they keep separate utensils if you cook with meat or not with meat separate pots and pans they have to be served on separate plates you have to eat them with separate utensils until today the kosher laws again they're as important in that first century audience as our laws surrounding public decency or marital fidelity these aren't some subtle theological something folks they're at the heart of how they live it defines you as either okay or reprobate and jesus says to them what goes into your mouth does not make you unclean boom they're thinking oh yes it does heretic shut him down you visit jerusalem today they have rabbis that inspect the kitchens in public places to say if they're kosher enough for the orthodox to eat not evil and jesus is saying you're focused on the wrong set of rules matthew 15 verse 1. some pharisees and teachers of the law came to jesus these are the power brokers the religious leaders in the first century are different than we think about pastors or church leaders today the sadducees controlled the temple that was their power base the physical structure of the temple the temple was the national bank it was the repository of the wealth of the nation it's the most elaborate building in the nation so the people that control the temple control the wealth of the nation they would be like the federal reserve or the the wall street they're the most financially invested and astute people in the nation they're not just preachers and the pharisees control the synagogues and the and the the the dissemination of the jewish rules and regulations amongst the population that's their power base and there's other groups but those are the two you're probably the most familiar with so the pharisees and the teachers the law came to jesus from jerusalem the seed of their power he said why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders they don't wash their hands before they eat and jesus replied why do you break the command of god for the sake of your tradition well i thought jesus was all about love being conciliatory hugs why do your disciples break the rules of the elders why do your disciples break god's rules jesus escalated for god said honor your father and mother and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death but you say that if a man says to his father or mother whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to god if you give your gifts to the temple you don't have to give them to your parents thus you nullify the word of god for the sake of your tradition but he didn't stop there verse seven you hypocrites that's not a kind word in the first century or the 21st century you hypocrites isaiah was right when he prophesied about you these people honor me with their lips but their hearts they're far from me they worship me in vain but their teachings are but rules taught by men he called the crowd to him now he's going to bypass their leaders he gathers the people he calls the crowd to him and he said listen and understand what goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean they've heard that all of their lives the menus in their restaurants are determined by that their favorite foods their holiday foods everything about their diet but what comes out of his mouth is what makes him unclean so the disciples came to him and said do you know that the pharisees were offended when they heard this which part when i called them hypocrites when i said they set apart aside god's rules for their own traditions when they perverted the law which part did you know that the pharisees were offended when they heard this and jesus replied every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots their status doesn't impress me leave them they're blind guides and if a blind man leads a blind man both will fall into a pit peter not he's not satisfied peter said explain the parable to us and jesus said are you really so dull what's the answer yeah it's not that they're slow jesus is reorienting everything and peter said wait a minute we've trusted those people that we've counted on them to tell us the truth and and to show us the path and we thought that was a bastion of integrity and you're telling us to leave them that they're blind jesus said don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these make a man unclean for out of the heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false testimony slander that's what makes a man unclean but eating with unwashed hands that doesn't make you unclean see jesus was speaking to their culture so that they could get alignment between god's word and their behavior not their definition of right not what was comfortable for them not what was convenient for them he could have talked to them about the prophets and what the prophets meant and how wonderful isaiah was and how obedient jeremiah was and what a great boat noah built don't you know jesus knows more about noah's boat than we do he could have talked about how the animals gathered and how they fed them all those things we would like to know but he was talking to them to help them understand the implications of god's word in their world and it put him consistently in hot water in challenging sabbath and kosher laws jesus was confronting the leaders of israel you weren't having some theological discussion he was not offering abstract theological principles he was confronting the societal norms which were leading the people away from god's best we have to do that or we're culpable we have to tell the truth about what's happening in our world but get this the romans were not the problem and whoever you perceive the enemy to be that's not the problem roman authority over israel was a result of the heart condition of the people of god it wasn't a result of roman legions or military tactics that superseded what was present in the middle east their freedom the the god's people's freedom or their lack thereof wasn't determined by military strength their faithfulness to god was the primary determiner of the circumstances of their day-to-day life it was true in the first century and it's true in the 21st century don't be angry at the government we have to change our hearts let me add one more component and it's about the king and what jesus came to show us jesus life the book of hebrews says that jesus is the exact representation of the father that he came he came as a living expression of the will of god and i want to submit to you that jesus life is god's power on display i'm going to ask you for taking just a minute with me and think about it in those terms that jesus life his public life was about god's power on display it's a little different perspective see jesus healing ministry his deliverance ministry his i would submit to you more than their theological they posed a threat to the establishment because jesus was demonstrating a power that they couldn't duplicate they couldn't do those things and they couldn't just dismiss him because he's demonstrating a power they don't have so jesus can't be tolerated we've got to shut him down he's exposing us see if jesus persisted if he kept on if he was allowed to go unchecked his power threatened their security because the people will see the fallacy in what they're saying so he has to be silenced now in the church world in my lifetime we have spent enormous amounts of time debating whether or not we believe in healing or whether we believe in deliverance from unclean spirits or whether or not we believe in miracles we've never imagined they were necessary parts of our faith we haven't held as a fundamental belief that we need the power of god to be demonstrated in our lives and through our lives because we have an adversary because we've had so many freedoms and liberties and opportunities presented to us it just wasn't necessary to us our focus has been on something else entirely kind of a personal salvation what do i need to do to get my ticket punched it's really all we would've cared about a king or a kingdom i can illustrate it i think really quickly in matthew 8 jesus calms a storm on the lake because the storms blowing up sea of galilee the fishermen think they're going to drown jesus speaks to the wind and the waves and then he looks at his friends and he says you have little faith why are you so afraid he got up and rebuked the wind and the waves and it was completely calm the men were amazed and asked what kind of man is this even the wind and the waves obey him i bet they didn't forget that in mark 1 it's the first chapter of mark's gospel jesus is in the synagogue in capernaum that's where he his ministry base was it's a little fishing village mark 1 23 there was a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit you have that imagination that people that are in religious gatherings have problems with evil spirits and the man cried out the spirit cries out of the man what do you want with us jesus of nazareth have you come to destroy us i know who you are the holy one of god nobody else knows who's he who he is yet the demon has understanding that his disciples don't have jesus said sternly be quiet and come out of him the evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek the people were all so amazed and they ask each other what is this a new teaching with authority he gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him here's the punch line verse 28 news about him spread quickly over the whole region of galilee what's the news there's a man amongst us who has authority over unclean spirits he has a power we haven't seen before and the disciples are thinking yeah and he speaks to storms in john chapter 9 it's one of my favorite miracle stories there's a man in jerusalem that was born blind we're told he doesn't ask for help in fact the disciples point him out to jesus and ask a question about the origins of his his infirmity and jesus said you're asking the wrong question but so you know the power of god let me show you something and he spits and he makes mud remember the story and he smears it on the man's face and he says go wash you need to be a little familiar with jerusalem he sends him to the pool of siloam the pool of siloam is still there jerusalem is a city built on hills and the pool of siloam is at the bottom of the hill i assure you in the crowded bazaars of jerusalem streets there was a bucket of water within a few feet of where they were standing jesus smears mud on a man's face a blind man's face and said i want you to make a rather difficult journey to that public pool and wash your face think if the man would have gone oh bother who do you think you are but he responded to jesus so he went and watched and the bible says john says in this understated way he came home seeing you bet he did but this is what i wanted us to see today says they brought to the pharisees the man who had been blind he's no longer blind now the day on which jesus has made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a sabbath warning therefore the pharisees also asked him how he'd received his sight and the man said well he put mud on my eyes and i washed and now i can see and some of the pharisees said this man is not from god he doesn't keep the sabbath but others ask well how could a sinner do such miraculous signs so they're divided jesus is creating division in their ranks some are beginning to believe nicodemus has come at night finally they turned again to the blind man what have you to say about him it was your eyes he opened the man said he's a prophet and the jews still didn't believe that he'd been blind and had received his sight until they so they sent for the man's parents is this your son is this the one you say was born blind how is it that he can see and the parents are not overly stacked on courage they say well we know he's our son and we know he was born blind but how he can see or who opened his eyes we don't know ask him he's of age welcome to life under the bus and then john tells us his parents said this because they were afraid of the jews even with their son's eyesight being restored can you imagine raising your child and he's reached maturity and he can see you for the first time in his life but the threat of the authority arrayed against them was so great they said we're not going to stand up for that this isn't again this is not some little clever theological squabble you believe in speaking in tongues and i don't because i happen to but this is a life-and-death battle grown-ups with tremendous benefit are stepping away from it they said this because they were afraid of the jews for already the jews who decided that anyone who acknowledged that jesus was the messiah would be put out of the synagogue that's why his parents said he's of age asked him so a second time they summoned the man who'd been blind give glory to god they said we know that this man is a sinner and he said whether he's a sinner or not i don't know but one thing i do know i was blind and i see you it's a wonderful story but it's not really a miracle story it's a power story the power brokers in jerusalem now they've got a real problem on their hands this man is doing something we can't duplicate we can't touch we don't know how to respond to this this this begins to feel a lot like the confrontation between moses and pharaoh's magicians they kept pace for two or three parlor tricks but they got to a place where they couldn't duplicate it in the game the consequences went way higher and now jesus isn't in galilee he's not in the flyover country doing things with the uneducated he's standing in the streets of jerusalem in the midst of the most powerful people demonstrating a power that they can't replicate and they are beyond anxious if anybody says he's really the messiah they're out of here and then jesus raises the stakes john chapter 12 six days before the passover jesus arrived at bethany bethany is a little village on the mount of olives the mount of olives faces the city of jerusalem and just over the crest of the hill you just crest the hill that's bethany it's an arab village today they call it lazaria named after guess who lazarus so right there on the periphery of jerusalem is where jesus raised lazarus from the dead again not a miracle in galilee not a miracle in the in the hill country not a miracle at jericho this is in jerusalem and this wasn't just like something small the man was dead and buried and deteriorating and was stinky and he walked out of the tomb so he has a credibility that's really hard to refute i'm pretty much thinking he's the only person at the table that has that experience so six days before passover jesus arrives at bethany where lazarus lived whom jesus raised from the dead there was a dinner given in jesus honor and martha served while lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him meanwhile a large crowd of jews found out that jesus was there and they came not only because of him but also to see lazarus i mean just imagine we're doing a memorial service welcome back i bet you'd come to church next week just to see all right even if it rained i bet you'd come for that even if it snowed you'd want to hear that testimony not only because of jesus but also to see lazarus who being raised from the dead so the chief priest made plans to kill lazarus as well for on account of him many of the jews were going over to jesus and putting their faith in him we've not only got to shut jesus down we've got to get rid of the evidence of this power we can't have somebody suggesting there's an authority greater than our own how dare you suggest that you gathering together is essential luke chapter five while jesus was in one of the towns a man came along who was covered with leprosy when he saw jesus he fell with his face to the ground and begged him lord if you're willing you can make me clean jesus reached out his hand and touched the man i'm willing be clean if you're a leper you weren't allowed in public you certainly weren't allowed to approach someone who was healthy in fact you had to self-identify unclean unclean so the people would know to stay away from you contact tracing is not new i'm willing be clean and immediately the leprosy left him so jesus ordered him don't tell anyone but go show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that moses commanded for your cleansing you need the next phrase as a testimony to them as a testimony to whom the priests go tell them what happened to you tell them there's a power beyond what they have known tell them there's a better way than keeping empty rules without a heart intent on the king and it doesn't stop with jesus my time prevents me from walking you further the conflict will continue in jesus disciples lives because they're bringing a power to bear that neither the roman authorities nor the jewish authorities can contradict in fact the things that jesus did begin to multiply like a grease fire splattered with water it's no longer centered just in jesus life in ministry now there are dozens of people in jesus name doing these things jesus life is a portrayal of new authority and power and it's not centered in herod's temple or the structure of the sadducees or the pharisees it's a power and authority centered in another kingdom jesus came to show us the father and his kingdom remember what he taught us to pray your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven now i would humbly submit we have lost our way we have traded rules and regulations and service times and we've thought of morality as intrusive and burdensome and a god perspective is somehow limiting we've lost our vision of the king we cannot survive apart from god's power and provision the same god who delivered manna to his hungry people will make provision in our lives i believe that we may walk through some difficult things in fact the bible says we not only might we will but we will never walk beyond god's watchful care so please let's stop quibbling about whether god still heals or performs miracles and let's release our anger because god failed to answer a prayer in the time or the manner that we would have preferred let's repent of our rebellion and our insistence that we remain on the throne of our lives how about let us begin to learn in a new way about our king and his kingdom and yes i think we will have to talk about the world we live in and the implications of the conflict between the systems of this world and the kingdom of our god and it will make us uncomfortable but jesus showed us the way and he will lead us through what an exciting time he's awakening us a year ago we were still having church and now we're serving the king i want to pray with you why don't you stand with me and i'm not going to ask you for a response i'm going to give you an assignment before we're together again whether it's saturday or sunday or next wednesday whatever that looks like in your life i want you to begin to quietly ask the lord in what ways have i not fully recognized you as a king where is it i sit on the throne where is it i'm clinging to tradition to traditions easy for me to say where is it i'm afraid to let you speak into the world i live in because i like the power structure and what it's bringing to me don't tell me you're devout i want to know if you're doing what god said you can be a devout keeper of rules and jesus said you're white-washed tombs you search the world over to make another disciple and you make him twice the child of hell that you are so being devout is not necessarily a compliment to understand the difference don't point your finger we don't need to find anybody else we've got to begin to say to ourselves god help me because if we will bring alignment to our hearts god will move heaven and earth to help us but we have to watch and we have to listen and we have to think and then we've got to act father help us help us not to be hearers only but to be doers of your word give us the boldness and the courage to choose your truth and to be willing to say the truth holy spirit help us where there are things in our own hearts that are displeasing to you help us see how we might better honor the king awaken us in new ways to our assignment as ambassadors may we choose it with our whole heart and may your power be made evident in our lives beyond anything we've ever known forgive us for not being interested forgive us for imagining that we were self-sufficient forgive us for not caring we choose to give you our attention in our hearts and our allegiance beyond anything we've ever known before in jesus name amen hallelujah god bless you

Channel: World Outreach Church

Views: 10,940

Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Survival Essentials [The King], Kingdom of God, Survival Essentials - The King [The Kingdom of God], Jesus ministry, Jesus miracles, Jesus healings, Eric Metaxas, Biblical Interpretation, Jesus’ Message, Sabbath Rules, Kosher Laws, Jesus Calms a Storm, Lazarus Raised from the Dead

Id: Rm34-an6qwc

Length: 56min 43sec (3403 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021