TOM and the Goldfish Bowl, Part 2, A

15May/10Off

TOM and the Goldfish Bowl, Part 2, A

THE KINGDOM, THE CHURCH, AND THE TRADITIONS OF MEN

THE KINGDOM

I hope the first section of “Tom and the Goldfish Bowl” has been like a light flare over the fields of our collective imagination. Sometimes just a little light is enough to sponsor a “eureka” moment that can change us forever. Though I will not refer to the three-part allegory again in the remainder of this book, I do hope that it will continue to illuminate our thoughts as we go.

We Are More

What is the single most popular phrase that flows over the modern Christian’s lips in an effort to connect with someone’s spiritual journey for the first time? I think it is this: Do you go to Church?

I think the second most popular question would be: Would you like to go to Church with me?

Surely, we are more than meetings. Meetings are in many ways like handshakes. Handshakes are supposed to be the entry point into deeper relationships, but the world has grown tired of our culturally-relevant-rock-star-level-cause-driven-highly-orchestrated Church handshakes because there seems to be nothing beyond them except more meetings.

We are more than a first impression.

We have more than handshakes to give.

We are more than meetings.

The modern tragedy is that Christianity has been reduced to the action of going to meetings, and now meetings have become synonymous with our definition of Church. This invitation-to-meeting obsession has become a critical problem, and it has been pushing our reputations as followers of Jesus over the cliff of cultural irrelevance. We are becoming more aware all the time of how the obsolescence of Christianity is now a foregone conclusion in Western culture. Other words that now describe the Church’s modern reputation might include disconnected and out of touch. Unfortunately, our lack of relevancy can’t be blamed on Satan inhabiting the brains of movie stars and the so-called mainstream media. It is true that many have seen the Church as a broken, useless institution in recent years because of what some of its leaders have done to earn spots on tabloid television, but this broad judgement has become popular opinion for bigger reasons than the televised escapades of a few. I believe that we are, in many cases, being fairly judged. It seems that in many ways, especially in the ways that are most important to people in their spiritual pursuits, we have indeed become irrelevant. We have not offered much more than meetings, and the spiritually hungry have judged the offering as unacceptable. I believe this all stems back to one major mistake that we have all been making. I believe this one ongoing mistake has fueled our poor reputation and that it is the crisis at hand:

We have reversed the rightful positions of the Kingdom of God and the Church.

I will take the rest of the book to bring clarity to this crisis, and to bring clear solutions for our recovery. Dear Christian, we are supposed to be proclaiming the Kingdom and watching the Church grow as a natural byproduct, but instead, we have been proclaiming the Church hoping some Kingdom will come out of it. The proof of this backwards fixation is in how much we find ourselves preaching and proclaiming the Church. We just can’t stop. We write books on how to make it better. We start movements of style and methodologies in order to revolutionize it. We promote the Church with all our might, and we do so fully believing that she is the answer for the world. That is fundamentally wrong, or Jesus would have gone about “proclaiming the Good News of the Church.”

He did not.

We must repent.

We have continually upgraded our styles, our music, our language, and our websites because this, in our minds, has been the way to bring God-impact to our world. We have started Christian culture fist-fights over which established tradition or traditionless-tradition is better for the world.

We have missed the mark.

We have confused our priorities.

We have it upside down.

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God and asked us to go and do the same: “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:1-2), but we traded in this clear commission for what we thought we could see and understand better: the Church that meets together in buildings—large or small.

This trade has cost us dearly.

We cannot continue to work on perfecting our ideas of Church and how she should present herself, and expect the powerful, world-changing Kingdom of God just to pop out as a byproduct.

The Kingdom as Revolution

A system, defined, is simply the way that things work together. Now many believe, in keeping with their traditions, that in order to cure our present cultural irrelevance we should focus on fixing the present Church systems which obviously need improvement. Others think we should be punishing bad institutional Church systems and burning them all down because they are the true disease. Both of these directions are wrong because in both cases they attack the symptom but not the cause. The institutionalized Church, when it embraces marketing, management and intellectual territorialism is just exhibiting a symptom of a much deeper problem. It is a problem that runs deeper than systemic imperfection. I propose that all of these systemic sicknesses proceed out of this one root cause: our failure to receive and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

I am not sure how many people understand this failure because of the amount of effort we spend trying to build a better system and then we call it the Church. Our obsession with repairing the Church system is like an engineer’s obsession to build a better mousetrap. The question arises, however, and we must pause to ask it: Why build a better mousetrap if catching mice is not even our responsibility?

Dear reader, why should we continue to obsess over building a better Church system if Jesus never asked us to do it in the first place? Why should we obsess over revolutionizing the structures of organizations if they have never been—and will never actually be—the Church? Has that ever been what God required of us?

I don’t think so.

Jesus said, specifically, “I will build my Church.” He never said, “Believers. Go and build the Church.” So why have we spent so much of our time criticizing one system and proclaiming another if Jesus had already said that he alone would build it? Where did we get the idea that his Church is something that we could engineer? By counting the number of denominations and divisions in the Church today we have certainly proven our inadequacy in this regard.

I think it is worth the time to stop and emphasize that when Jesus spoke of the Church he was never imagining structures and systems at all. He did not call the system the Church. The Church may use a system, but she is not one. We have become confused between understanding the difference between the Church as the people of God, and the Church as the institutions that she has built and now occupies. Jesus never confuses the two.

Even while reading this chapter many of you have questioned my use of the capital “C” Church as I have made reference to her systems and institutions. Well, there is only one Church and we always capitalize her name because she is always the uniquely identified Bride of Christ. The Church is the people of God. If she has obsessed over inferior things, hidden away in institutional fortresses, or promoted temporal things—whether we like them or not—we still have no choice but to refer to her respectfully as the Church. Jesus was speaking only of his beautiful people when he said, “my Church” and in this book we will learn to do the same. Jesus claimed his unique authority to build her, and we will learn to let him do his business.

The Church is his responsibility.

Our obsession with getting into Christ’s business has not gone well. Our misuse of the word Church to refer to buildings instead of people is living proof of how inadequate we are to try and fill his shoes. If it is obvious that we are doing a terrible job, then why do we continue? What drives us to continue in such misguided efforts? There is only one answer: we have failed to receive and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Broken men have built broken systems with broken tools; therefore, every new improvement on the way men work and live together is destined to unwind and decay over time. Every new structure built by the hands of men still has flaws. We started trusting Church traditions and they quickly became institutions. People, even the people who were desperate to heal and improve these institutions, have passed this confusing disease along from generation to generation like unsuspecting carriers. Men have tried to inoculate themselves by dreaming up newer, and more perfect systems to contain the Church, but they have all been susceptible to the same human disease: brokenness. Many have lost hope and just left their idea of Church all together. But there is a hope.

There is a vaccine for this disease and it is 100% successful:

“Seek first the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 6:33)

The Kingdom of God must return to its rightful place as our obsession, our proclamation, and our reputation. The Kingdom can’t be reduced to a collection of human ideas or traditions because it comes down from Heaven and does not have its origin on this earth. Believers, we were meant for so much more than what can be built by the minds and hands of men.

The Kingdom of God is our answer.

The Kingdom of God is what the whole world has been longing for!

The Kingdom as Family

Of course, we don’t believe that all systems are bad. That is simply not true. There are systems that work and systems that don’t. There are systems that are appropriate to the task, and systems that are bound to implode when misapplied. It is a mature discipline to discern the differences in systems and understand their effectiveness in any given situation. Some systems are excellent. One is perfect. This one perfect system began in the Heavens. It preceded creation in the mind of God. It has transcended all earthly tools and measures. And this system has found its way into our world.

It is all around us.

We discover this perfect system in pre-history when we discover God as the Trinity. We see it imparted as a foundation for this world on the sixth day of creation. We see it lasting into eternity when we dream about the wedding supper of the Lamb. Born in eternity, this system is bound for eternity and will live on forever. It has worked since the beginning of creation, and it still works well in every culture and nation on this earth. Constantly creative, reproductive, life-giving, self-propagating—it is a heavenly system that is now reflected in the jewel of the creation: humanity. It is the DNA code of the Kingdom itself. It is the blueprint for the way things work in the Kingdom. We call it...

Family.

Pause for just a moment and enjoy the simplicity of this one word—how far it reaches, all that it infuses and all that it transcends. Nothing stirs the romance of the human heart more than family.

Many of us have experienced the painful possibilities of broken family and shrink back from this idea out of instinct. This automatic response, however, is proof, not a refutation, of the transcendent power of family because it is in the knowledge that something perfect is calling to us that we are most profoundly aware of the pain involved in our failure to attain it.

Here is the Good News of the Kingdom of God: we don’t have to attain it. And we don’t have to fail any longer in our desire to have it.

We can receive it.

An invitation to join the perfect family has already been made by God. He continues to invite us in right now. It is the gift of God and it cannot be bought or earned. The Scriptures tell us that coming into the family is a journey of trust. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is by faith, not works, that we are born again into family. It is a God-miracle. No one should ever believe the lie that we can earn it. The Kingdom is for sons and that is why we have to be born again to enter it (John 3), and we have to be adopted through blood to have it proven to us (Ephesians 2).

Would you like to enter into the family of God right now? Repent from your prideful independence. Trust your life completely to Jesus and believe that God has adopted you into his family. Live the miracle of becoming a son in the heart of God!

Family is the system of God’s own heart, and it is the blueprint for our future. It calls to us. This call to our hearts is the “mystery” that Paul speaks of in Ephesians. It is the mystery that only Christ himself is able to bring to life and to fulfillment within us. It is the beautiful call to be family with God, and this call can only be answered by the power of the favored Son of God calls us into himself and transports us into a relationship of favor with our heavenly Father.

Kingdom Expression

The very reason that we have failed to “build the better Church” is because the Church is not a machine that can ever be built by men. It is the natural byproduct of coming together with God as his beloved family.

Being the Church is like water being the ocean. It takes no effort; it simply is what it is. The newly adopted sons of God, just as easily, are the Church—we are what we are.

The mystery of God that we enjoy is the mystery of becoming one family with him. What we can do, since we can’t build Jesus’ Church for him, is to proclaim this new freedom, this new favor, and this new position that comes by entering the Kingdom family of God.

We are called to build up one another: “He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:10-11). This is a profoundly different work than the building and promoting of a perfect, man-made system, or the assumption that we can oversee the building of the whole Church. We can, however, help each other mature as members of God’s family.

The people of God—the Church—are a living expression of the Kingdom, and their health is based directly on how well they embrace the Kingdom of God. The Church’s purpose is to receive and proclaim the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the Good News—the Gospel—which is the power to become God’s family through Christ alone (Matthew 4:23).

Family can only be built and matured in a family way. Fathers share their DNA with their sons. Families pass along values to one another through close, loving relational pressure. Likewise, the DNA code of God’s family is transmitted first from the Father to Christ who told his disciples in John 14, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” This is the gift from the Father to his Son. Miraculously, through Christ, it is also his gift to us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5). Now, we have a commission to share our Kingdom DNA with one another through close, loving relational pressure. This expression of our Kingdom DNA one to another is what we call the life of the Church. Church, therefore, is not the product of managers, schools, or mission statements...

Wait.

I need to slow down.

Please forgive the speed of this download. I am excited. I need to slow down, step back, and give more time for us to enjoy discovering the Kingdom of God together.

Let’s take our time.

First, let’s lets put some firm handles on the Kingdom of God. To do this I want to divide the New Testament writings on the Kingdom into four acts—like they do in a play where the lights go down and the curtain draws between each one. We will imagine these scenes playing out in real life. This imagination tool will allow us to group certain times and similar messages together, making it much easier to follow the big ideas in each one. Our theater acts will occur in order, over time.

ACT ONE:
The Kingdom Announcement

The Message of John the Baptist

The curtain opens on Act One.

We see John the Baptist standing in the River Jordan. He is preaching. Johns’ words echo from Matthew 3: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

John was a seer. He was a prophet not only because he prophesied of the coming Messiah and the Kingdom of God, but also because he had eyes to see the Messiah. He knew it when he saw him.

John urged the people to repent and believe in the heavenly Kingdom and to turn from dead works, self-righteousness, and sin. He baptized those who said yes to his call and joined with him in agreement. John the Baptist’s culture, as it were, consisted of those who would repent from trusting in the religion of men for righteousness and would receive the Messiah. This Messiah, according to John, would usher in the Kingdom of God and he would baptize with fire.

John looks up from the waters in which he was standing, and who does he see walking down into the edges of the Jordan? Who was walking toward John with his hands out as if to say, “It’s my turn.”?

It is Jesus.

John knew this man was the One, but he was confused: “John tries to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Surely Jesus was not coming to be purified through baptism because he needed no such cleansing, John must have thought.

Jesus answered John, “‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented” (Matthew 3:15). If Jesus’ baptism was not because he needed to be purified from sin, then it was because he was identifying with John and his message. Jesus and John were being tied together, and Jesus wanted it to be so. Jesus was not only with John, but he would fulfill the righteousness John had been proclaiming. Remember, Jesus said the purpose of his own baptism was to fulfill all righteousness.

This new righteousness was not based on the works of men because it would come down from Heaven as a miracle-work from God. Jesus was going to make right relationship with God a real possibility, and he was going to do it inside of the Kingdom of God. We learn later in Romans that “the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Righteousness is of the Kingdom.

When Jesus enters the waters to be baptized he lifts John’s message—the message of the Kingdom of God and this new righteousness that comes with it—to the ultimate height.

The inventor of baptism had entered the waters of baptism.

The author of righteousness was fulfilling righteousness in plain view.

The King of the Kingdom had arrived, and he was inaugurating his Kingdom.

When Jesus goes under the water we can imagine the fireworks going off in the Heavens. They are brighter than the midday sun ... the fire of God is preparing itself with excitement to reveal the nature of the new Kingdom.

Jesus comes up out of the water and—

He saw Heaven being torn open—

Heaven was torn open making way for something to come down on the earth.

And the Spirit descending on him like a dove—

When the Spirit descends we are aware of the feeling of a heavenly promise like the promise to Noah and the promise of a new era after an outpouring.

And a voice came from Heaven—

We realize that the Father is breaking any previous silence, and every atom of this world strains with excitement to hear what he will say next. So intense is the anticipation that for one moment the whole earth is perfectly still.

It is perfectly quiet.

Then the Father speaks the word that changes everything, forever:

Son.

A Kingdom of Sons

Now we realize what the climax of the Kingdom’s message will be. We can see exactly how this new right relationship with God is to be established. We heard it right at the beginning when the Father spoke his heart aloud: “You are my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Now, we know the very nature of the Kingdom, and we see it in these three phrases:

It is the Kingdom of a Father.
It is a Kingdom given to a Son.
It is a family Kingdom.

It is a Kingdom whose very nature and strength and identity will begin—and will continue—with the proclamation: You are my son, and I am very pleased with you!

The Father establishes the tone of the Kingdom by letting us know how he will see us when we choose to trust Jesus and follow him. He sees us as sons, and we can’t change it. We are to submit to his great, adopting love!

The Father speaks over us with love and pours out his Holy Spirit on all of us. The heavens themselves are opened up around us, and there is no more distance between. The Kingdom has been ushered in and it has become our very atmosphere. It is the atmosphere in which the Father and all of his sons love and live together.

The Trap

Now we leave the river, and we are taken to the desert to witness this scene from Luke 4: “Jesus was then drawn away to the desert to be tempted by Satan for forty days.”

The liar is going to ask Jesus in many ways and with slick words: Do you really live inside of God’s absolute favor as his son?

In the first temptation the devil tempts Jesus to do a miracle and eat what this world can offer, but Jesus answers, “‘It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” In other words, Jesus expresses, “I don’t crave anything else to make me feel complete. I can see my Father’s love for me in his eyes.” Jesus still has the booming words of his own Father’s approval fresh in his memory, and the sweet communion with the Spirit of adoption still fresh in his heart. He is full of confidence.

In the second temptation, the devil tries to lure him to create a radical, supernatural deliverance from death in order to find fame. Jesus responds, “‘It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” In this response we hear: I don’t need to perform to be a son. I don’t need to test God because I trust his heart is always for me. I am already famous in his eyes. Jesus had not forgotten the incredible endorsement of his own Father when Jesus came up out of the waters of baptism. People only test what they don’t know to be true. He knew what was true and he easily overcame the devil.

In the last temptation: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” Jesus quickly answers this ridiculous temptation to claim a temporary throne offered by the liar: I love my Dad and I would never trade my relationship with him for this nonsense. I will worship God alone. Jesus was not shaken in the least. It is easy to anchor our lives in Father God when we believe what he has said about us is true.

We should not think that this temptation drama was a show of Jesus’ struggle at a moment of mental weakness.

No.

His body may have been weak, but his mind was clear. Jesus set the example for all of us. He set the example for sons.

It pleased Jesus to show us how foolish our enemy’s attempts to trap us really are. We can follow suit as God’s sons and say to the liar as well: What, you want us to trade in our eternal destiny in God, our place in the eternal Kingdom family for this?

A piece of bread?

Fifteen minutes of fame?

A fleeting earthly throne?

Back off. I am a son!

When we think of it this way we can see that the devil didn’t lure Jesus as much as Jesus lured the devil! Jesus lured him in and trapped him in his foolishness so we could all see how easy it is for sons to defeat the liar. We should consider renaming this temptation episode: How To Make the Devil Look Stupid.

Believers, it is time for us to follow Christ. This means we must receive the words of favor that our Father speaks over us: You are my son, and with you I am very well pleased!

We must also receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit who has been sent from God to convince us, daily, of our Father’s great love for us.

We must also be sure that we have an eternal destiny in God—as sons—and there is no foolish trick of the devil that will ever overcome us.

We will not be overcome when the liar comes and asks us in many ways and with slick words: “Are you really a son?” We will have an answer.

ACT TWO:
The Good News of the Kingdom

The Arrival of the Kingdom

At the beginning of Act Two we see Jesus standing in front of a crowd.

He is saying to the people, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

There are four accounts of Jesus’ life, the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We call them Gospels. Gospel means good news. The arrival of the Kingdom of God is the theme of all four of these books.

“The time has come,” Jesus says in Mark 1:15. “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

In Luke 4:43 Jesus says, “I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

The Kingdom, we see, is the Good News.

Many have said, no, the good news is salvation, the good news is healing, the good news is being born again. And we might agree with them all. These things are all good news. But they are also just the natural fruit of the Kingdom of God.

It is good news to be able to start our lives over in God. Our purpose, however, is not just to be born again. Our purpose is on the other side of being born again. Jesus clarifies the purpose of being born again to Nicodemus in John 3:3: “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.” That’s right: to see the Kingdom of God is the purpose of being born again.

Many believers, it seems, want everyone to be born again so they can be forgiven of their sins and then go to meetings. This is not the purpose of the rebirth. Birth is something that happens naturally in family. Birth brings us into family. In Nicodemus’ case, as well as in ours, if we are born again it means that we have entered into a new heavenly family.

We have been born to our heavenly Father.

We have become his sons.

The purpose of our rebirth is to enter the family Kingdom of God.

This message of the Kingdom family dominates all of Jesus’ life and teachings in the Gospels. The amazing dominance of the Kingdom message permeates all of the life and words of Jesus; there are over 100 instances of the word Kingdom in the Gospels alone. Luke 16:16 declares the Kingdom of God has divided human history: “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the Kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.”

The message of the Kingdom is violent because it has turned the direction of all human history on its head. It has interrupted our slide down the steep slope of independence and isolation from God, and offered us what we never dreamed could be ours: eternal family.

The Kingdom is a Way

The sheer amount of Christ’s teachings on the Kingdom means we can only summarize them in our short book. Though it is imperfect to do so, I believe it can be helpful to group his Kingdom teachings into two main categories: understanding the Kingdom as a Way, and understanding the Kingdom as a Location. For the sake of fluidity we will not stop and reference all the Scriptures here, but they are all available in the bibliography.

The following two passages are meant to creatively condense the salient teachings on the Kingdom from the New Testament, and then “unpack” those teachings into practical, real time challenges that we can respond to.

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: Jesus and the disciples preached the Gospel of the Kingdom constantly. Whenever they proclaimed it people were often healed of every disease and sickness. Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to proclaim the Kingdom and heal the sick. Later, people were baptized as they received the message and chose to follow Jesus. Preaching the Kingdom takes work and perseverance and it demands a response from those who hear it. (Matthew 4:23; Luke 9:2, 9:11; Acts 8:12)

OUR RESPONSE: We hear the message of the Kingdom. We hear Jesus inviting us into his family and making a way through his own blood. We receive the message, and we trust in Christ alone to reunite us with our heavenly Father. We are now ready go and proclaim the Kingdom as sons. We expect miracles and the healing of every kind of sickness wherever we proclaim the Kingdom of God. If it gets hard or if we suffer, then it will be to glorify God, as this is also our inheritance.

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: When people learn that the Kingdom is their inheritance, they draw closer to God. They stay in the Presence of God because their inheritance is to enjoy the privilege and nearness of the Father’s love. This Kingdom inheritance establishes privileges, authority, and heavenly resources that are immediately available. The poor in spirit who are hungry for God and those who suffer for their belief in the Kingdom for Christ’s sake are sure to inherit the Kingdom. The Kingdom will be given to those who produce spiritual fruit, and only those who come from the Father can really bear the fruit of the Father. The Kingdom belongs to the sons. Jesus says to his disciples with a sincerity that only comes from family connection, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” (Matthew 5:3, 13:23; 25:34; Luke 12:32)

OUR RESPONSE: The Kingdom is our inheritance because we are sons. If we suffer because we are in Christ and share his name, then it proves we are family. We are not imposters because we do not live as slaves trying to please God, but we walk in his favor always as sons. It is our privilege to enjoy his favor just as the prodigal son returned home to find it was never removed, and as the older son in the same parable came to realize it was always around him. We have come home to our heavenly Father. We are going to walk in Father’s favor, Father’s provision, and Father’s authority as we go. This is how we live in Christ.

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: Those who accept the invitation to come to the wedding celebration will get to join the party. Those who love the Bridegroom will enter an eternal relationship with him. Those who do evil, imposters with no heart for the Bridegroom, those who will not help the poor and the widows, and those who won’t receive the message of the Kingdom will not inherit the Kingdom because they prove that they are not family. Regardless of outward benevolent activity, it will be those who receive their adoption as sons that prove they belong to God. (Matthew 13; Matthew 22:8; Matthew 25)

OUR RESPONSE: We love you, Jesus. We accept your invitation to an eternal romance and an eternal commitment. As your dearly beloved we are confident in your love for us, and we rest in the fact that our hearts are falling in love with what you love. Jesus, You love your people, and we love your people, too. We love the Church and we commit to serving her. We will reach out and love the poor and forgotten as well. The Kingdom of God is a party and we are going to celebrate!

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: The Kingdom can be sought like a treasure in a field or a pearl of great price, and it is pursued with great violence by those who decide they must live with God. It is worth every effort, no matter how great. It is very powerful and can transform its environment like yeast in bread. And though it is a simple truth to receive, it can grow enormously larger and stronger, like a mustard seed into a mustard tree. We commit to work the Kingdom leaven, the promise of family, into all that we do. It is our nature to spread family love because it changes everything it touches. (Matthew 11:11-12; Matthew 13)

OUR RESPONSE: We are willing to repent and sacrifice what we were holding on to and take hold of what Father has for us. We have been adopted into his family, and we will grow and reproduce loving family just as his Kingdom DNA code has established it. Our work may seem small, but it will grow large. Our lives are important. This Kingdom growth cannot be stopped. We are riding on the powerful wave of our new nature in Christ!

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: It is a great responsibility to serve in the Kingdom so we focus on being fruitful by loving and serving people. The Kingdom requires us to forgive one another so we don’t choke the power of the Kingdom. The Kingdom cannot and will not be hidden by men. It must be revealed and allowed to shine, or we prove that we have no idea what we have received. We will never withhold the invitation to Father’s family. This is a reflection of our relationship to God. Humility is our nature. (Matthew 13, 18; Mark 4:21-23)

OUR RESPONSE: We love to forgive. We are reconcilers. Any unforgiveness brings division and broken relationship and harm to God’s family. We help bring people together as his family, and we joyfully and without shame promote the family of God everywhere we go. We are a family of selfless lovers and Jesus is our clear example of how far we are called to selflessly love. Whenever we promote ourselves and our strength we diminish ourselves and the family, but whenever we give ourselves to others in love, we build the family of God and Jesus is lifted up. This is an operating principle of the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom is a Location

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: There are requirements to enter the Kingdom; not just anyone can enter. To enter the Kingdom you have to be born again of water and Spirit, and you have to be more righteous than the Pharisees. To enter the Kingdom you have to do the will of the Father. The Kingdom is a spiritual place and we can’t enter it with human efforts. (John 3:3; Matthew 5:20, 7:21)

OUR RESPONSE: We realize that Jesus is the key to entering the Kingdom. Jesus is the complete answer to all of the entrance requirements of the Kingdom. When we live in him we live inside of his righteousness, which exponentially exceeds that of the Pharisees. When we walk in him we do, indeed, walk in his Father’s favor and are walking in the middle of the Father’s will. We can never earn for ourselves what our great Father in Heaven has given to us as a gift: the gift of adoption, which explodes in us by the Holy Spirit!

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: Getting into the Kingdom can be very hard. Jesus said some had to force their way into it. Some may have to painfully remove obstacles and endure hardships to get in. The rich and the prideful religious are going to have a difficult time getting in. However, those with the faith and humility of a child will have no trouble at all. Trust is the key; everyone must repent in order to enter. (Luke 16:16; Mark 9:47, 10:24-25; Acts 14:22)

OUR RESPONSE: We realize that human effort will not help us enter the Kingdom because the Kingdom family is a gift from God through Christ alone. We repent from our fleshly efforts that only get in the way, and we receive the gift. We repent from selfishness and isolation from others and from God. We turn our backs on the pursuit of riches and gain in this world in view of the riches that are in the heart of the Father for us. If leaving selfishness behind us proves to be hard then it is just a reflection of how far away we were from understanding how much Daddy God loves us and how much we truly need him! Father, we are pleased to be your kids!

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: Jesus teaches the disciples that the Kingdom will come down on them. They are to pray the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven. The Kingdom must be sought after now, and it must be realized in this world. When Jesus drove out the demons from someone who was terrorized by these evil forces then the Kingdom was said to have come on them in that moment. Jesus said that he conferred the Kingdom on his disciples just as his Father had conferred the Kingdom on him. The Kingdom is very, very near whenever the sons of God arrive. (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:2; Luke 22:29-30)

OUR RESPONSE: The atmosphere in which the sons of God thrive is the Kingdom of God. The power of the Kingdom is all around and so we choose to live in it. We realize that we, too, are his disciples and that the Kingdom has been conferred on us as well. Because our relationship and favor with God can never be removed no matter where we go, we are now confident that wherever we step the authority of the Kingdom is present to drive out the work of demonic forces and bring deliverance and restoration to all that we touch. We agree with the Kingdom and expect it to affect our world.

BIBLICAL INSIGHT: As a place the Kingdom also exists in the future. As a place it is also right here and now. It is both here and it is to come. Only the Kingdom of God is eternal and without end. Looking forward to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit Jesus promises, “some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God come with power.” Looking forward to the end of the age Jesus promises to celebrate with us at the beginning of the New Era Wedding Party. He says, “many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8). It is during this future era—after the great separation of the sons from the impostors—that Jesus promises something amazing: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13; Mark 14:25; Luke 19:11).

OUR RESPONSE: Jesus, we receive your promise of the future Kingdom. Jesus, we receive your promise of the present Kingdom. We proclaim your family invitation. We proclaim that in you, and you alone, there is eternal life. We have been restored to the Father forever, and now our hearts harmonize with yours—that no man should die but that everyone should have everlasting life. We are in the Kingdom now, and we will enjoy it with him forever. Father, make your children to shine now so that all may see us shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father!

ACT THREE:
40 Days More

After the Resurrection

Act Three opens and we are surrounded by the beauty and the power of the death and resurrection of Christ.

We can hear in the background John 12, in which Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

It is not a threat.

It is a promise.

Something huge is preparing to emerge.

The earth shakes and the temple curtain is torn.

The cross is pulled down, and Jesus is put in a stone tomb.

Wait.

The stone is rolled away and Jesus is alive!

The resurrection of Jesus is an overwhelming miracle, but Jesus didn’t come out of the tomb and ascend straight into Heaven. The Scripture explains that over the next 40 days the disciples meet together and the resurrected Christ appears to them and teaches them in person! And what does he focus on? The Scripture says in the first chapter of Acts that for 40 days Jesus “showed himself to these [disciples] and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1).

If any of us could return from the dead and speak to those we love the most we would certainly focus on that which was most important. For Jesus what was most important was the message of the Kingdom of God.

After he had clarified the message of the Kingdom, Jesus tells them to go to Jerusalem and wait. He promises that the true power of the Kingdom would soon be unleashed. Something—or someone—would be announced.

The prophet Joel echoes in the walls of that room in Jerusalem where the disciples wait: “Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days” (Joel 2).

ACT FOUR:
The Age of the Holy Spirit

The Arrival of the Holy Spirit

It is in the second chapter of Acts that we begin the final Act in our Kingdom theater. We see the disciples in a large room worshiping, praying for one another and waiting together for the promise: “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2).

As the Holy Spirit descends on each one like fire, we immediately realize how powerfully connected the Holy Spirit is to the message of the Kingdom of God. We remember Jesus, in John 14, speaking intimately with his disciples saying, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth [...] I will not leave you as orphans.”

He has not left us as orphans! He has not left us like children without parents! The Holy Spirit has come ... and now we can know God as our Father!

This outpouring on Pentecost was the end of life as orphans raised by the rules and management of an orphanage and the beginning of life as empowered sons.

It is no mistake that when the Spirit came he descended on the disciples in much the same way that the Spirit descended on Jesus when Jesus came up out of the waters of baptism. The drama and power of this moment spoke to the disciples clearly of the Father’s love for them and his full acceptance of them into his heart. We can feel the power of the worship in that place. The whole room is filled with the sense of God’s voice from Heaven saying, You are my sons, and with you I am very well pleased!

We can see now that if speaking in tongues is a sign of anything, it is certainly a sign that the Kingdom of God is not of this earth. Those who are filled with the power of God will do things and operate in things that do not seem normal in this world, and they will be never be fully understood by men.

Our minds are alive with the teaching from Romans 8:15 and following in which Paul explains, “for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption. He may empower us in many, many ways and reveal many things to us in our journey, but we can be absolutely sure of this:

The Holy Spirit will reveal to us the Father’s love!

The Holy Spirit will convince us of our sonship!

The Holy Spirit will make powerfully real our inheritance in Christ and empower us to live inside of him!

Now the scene changes and we see the disciples surrounded by onlookers. The atmosphere around the disciples and the people of God has suddenly changed. It has changed from powerful hope to powerful confidence—from patient waiting to powerful action. The Holy Spirit has changed the atmosphere in their lives to the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God. They stand up in a confidence they had never known before as the story in Acts 2 continues: “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: ‘Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say...’” and he proclaims the salvation that was offered through Jesus Christ alone. Peter continues to preach confidently:

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear [...] Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Absolutely amazing.

Absolutely Kingdom.

This is how we know we are to be baptized in water in his name. We repent from our old life of working for righteousness, just as John the Baptist preached, and we join into Jesus’ own family. We take on his name and we join with his message. It is the promise and arrival of the Holy Spirit that marks us as sons with absolute certainty.

The Kingdom of God Advances

The disciples continue in this simple, powerful message throughout the rest of the book of Acts, here are some excerpts.

“But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”
“Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the Kingdom of God.”
“From morning till evening he [Paul] explained and declared to them the Kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.”
“Boldly and without hindrance he preached the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Later, the words of Paul, in the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, come alive in light of the good news of the family kingdom:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ [...] And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

It is so easy to hear in this passage the words we have already identified as God’s family language: Father, chose, adopted as sons, mystery, Holy Spirit, and inheritance.

Paul was adamant about the Kingdom of God being neither a mere concept nor a new rule book, but rather it being the expression of the Holy Spirit in us. In Romans 14:17 he says, “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Paul attacks the idea that by obeying Jewish laws and customs the Corinthian believers would somehow become better Christians. He knows they were trying to create their own righteousness again, and he slaps it down hard. Righteousness, peace, and joy are not things that can be created by man for man. We cannot build a system that will provide these things for us. These are the outworking of the Holy Spirit, who is always proving the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

In 1 Corinthians 4:12-21 Paul scolds some of the Corinthian believers for building cliques and prejudices in the Church and for listening to self-serving teachers. He makes a threatening promise to visit personally and demonstrate the power of God as their fathering apostle: “But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?” Again, this power is not something set in place by the traditions of men. The Spirit of God on his people is a supernatural demonstration of the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Paul expected to see that power wherever he worked.

Paul also speaks very clearly about the inheritance we have in the Kingdom of God as a spiritual inheritance for God’s new family. In 1 Corinthians 15:15 he says, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable,” and in Colossians 1:12-13, “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son he loves[!]” Paul wanted to make sure that no one made the mistake of thinking the Kingdom of God was a kingdom of this world—it was one born of the Spirit and belonging to the spiritual realm.

The Kingdom in the Coming Age

At the end of this act we enter the prophetic drama of the Book of Revelation. In the first few chapters we are transported into the vision of John and we see a huge golden throne rising above everything else in Heaven. Creatures and beings of all shapes and sizes fill in around the throne and the front of the stage and look inward at a lamb that has just appeared and is standing on the throne. Revelation 5:6 begins:

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

The textured voices of the elders fills the heavens as they sing to the Lamb on the throne:

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a Kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.

Now we realize that we have been thoroughly included in the promises of the Kingdom of God. We are now living in the age of the Holy Spirit.

THE BIG THREE: The Simplicity of the Kingdom

The Kingdom is only complicated for those who haven’t yet believed and been born again into the family of God. Many scholars fail to understand the Kingdom because they trust in the power of their own minds. They haven’t seen the family or it would be simple for them. However, they have, unfortunately, produced incredibly complicated books on the Kingdom for hundreds of years. Some of the most confusing and difficult scholarly works on any shelf are the works of people trying to define and categorize and teacherize the message of the Kingdom of God. I do not recommend you read them. There is a beautiful simplicity in seeing the Kingdom for what it really is.

BIG FAT OBVIOUS KINGDOM TRUTH #1:

The Kingdom is family.

If children can receive it easily, then why would we ever believe that it belonged only to those with complex minds and great mental aptitude? Family is imparted by birth to everyone in the natural world and so it is in the spiritual world as well. It is only in family that every person from the oldest to the youngest, the weakest to the strongest, the most useful to the most broken, all find equal place and security. It is imparted directly through the miracle of birth or by the grace of adoption, and it can’t be purchased by intellect or will; therefore...

BIG FAT OBVIOUS KINGDOM TRUTH #2:

The Kingdom is for sons.

Why do you think Jesus leans into his disciples after some of these Kingdom parable sessions and says with a smile, “Hey, fellas, you know that the Kingdom is already yours ... hint, hint.”

Well, that was my paraphrase, but Mark 4:10 says, “When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, ‘The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.’” Can’t you see him winking just a bit and leaning in with one elbow on his knee? He leans in again to his dear friends and disciples and says in Luke 12:32, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

No kidding.

It’s absolutely wonderful to my ears! This is our perfect pastor, Jesus, taking care of us and watching over our souls. He looks into our eyes, he touches us on the shoulder, and he says in effect: Don’t worry about discerning the weight of all these sayings. The Kingdom is already yours and that is what is important.

Jesus affirms that the Kingdom is for sons, and that sons are adopted by love. If the Kingdom could be imparted by knowledge or works, then he would have established a different kind of system altogether. He assures us that, like a good family in this world, the Kingdom is a safe and sure place for us. For slaves and orphans this message of the Kingdom is confusing, but even they can be transformed at any moment by receiving the Father’s love. Whereas some only hear the parables about the Kingdom, we, the sons, actually live in it!

BIG FAT OBVIOUS KINGDOM TRUTH #3:

We enter the Kingdom by faith in Christ.

Jesus says, “Trust me.”

When we do ... here comes the Kingdom.

Even after the disciples had devolved once again into asking about rank in the new Kingdom, Jesus still answers with astounding grace: “You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28-30).

In this passage, he addresses their question about internal rank by giving them an answer of extreme proportions; that is, as Kingdom sons they would rule and reign with him over everything, so they shouldn’t worry about where they are on the totem pole! Some worry about where they are in rank, but sons learn to laugh at the idea.

Aaaak838f-akivd;alkdfjH! Yes! (That was me banging on the keyboard. I also pounded my fists on the table and yelled and laughed and yelled.)

The Kingdom naturally belongs to the sons and we become sons by trusting in Christ.

It is a miracle.

We call it salvation.

The Kingdom is not just a point in time. It goes on forever and ever.

We have received the Spirit of adoption as a gift, and we have been miraculously transfused with the blood of Christ. We share Kingdom DNA. We complete the requirement given to Nicodemus for entering the Kingdom because we really have been born again.

As for the entrance requirement in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven,”—sons are not intimidated. Before Christ changed us by the miracle of re-creation and filled us with the Holy Spirit, we could no more have accomplished the will of the Father than we could have jumped to the moon. But, now ... well, now it’s a whole different story. God’s will is already complete in us, and we are perfectly pleasing to him because we can say, We are clothed with Christ. Of course our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees because our rightness is not from our efforts, but from Christ, who wraps us up in his perfection.

When Dad looks at us he sees Jesus, so of course he is pleased with us. We walk inside his will and the same words with which he voiced his pleasure over Jesus when Jesus came up from the waters of the Jordan, and now these are the words he speaks over us: These are my beloved sons, in whom I am very well pleased.

Welcome into the Kingdom of God.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: TOM AND THE GOLDFISH BOWL

BY: BEN PASLEY

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The "NIV" and "New International Version" trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. Scripture quotes in italics or additional punctuation and capitalization are author’s preference.

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ISBN: 978-0-9825434-1-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009911631