The Perfecting Church

The Church is a Kingdom-Family, marked by its call into relationship with God. This lifestyle of hearing God's call and responding to it, is the hallmark of the Church. God’s intent is that each expression of His Church would be a gift to the local community in which it resides, while extending itself beyond what’s familiar. The greatest indicator of a healthy Church is not the size of it when it gathers, but the loving witness it brings, as it reaches and reconciles its neighbors with the influence of God’s Kingdom.

Our culture values superstars and celebrities however God values significance. The ability to hear and willingness to answer His call determines significance. God is looking for a body that fully understands and embraces their individual role in the collective impact of the Kingdom of God. It’s not in the crowd cheering your name or receiving accolades but God smiling on our lifestyle of walking with Him that should bring us the most joy. Every assignment is critical and every player is the MVP on God’s team!

Insight into the joys, difficulties and expectations of the Ministry of Marriage.

The Church Jesus spoke of and gave birth to was a living people not simply a physical structure. People like Simon Peter, who expereinced the Father revealing Jesus' true identity to him and Jesus continually showing him his true identity in Christ. People like Abraham and Sarah, who were renamed and repurposed, no longer living to usher their wills into the earth, but God's will. People like the Magi (theWise Men), who left their familiar surroundings and pursuits to follow a star leading them to the King of a Kingdom, that is in this world, but not of it. People like us, who are called to be Ambassadors of this Kingdom, finding our permanence, pleasure and purpose in Him and not this world. People like us, who daily give Him full use of our lives to draw others to Himself and into His eternal Kingdom. We are ambassadors. We are the Church.

After 3 years, 6 months and 15 days, our local church has nearly 1,100 members and an average attendance of just about 700 people each Sunday. But when Jesus first mentioned the word Church His intent was not that it would merely be a place we go or somewhere that our name is on the roll. His intent was much more about Church being the people we become. The Church is His ekklesia, God's Kingdom-Family in the earth. The Church is a people marked, not only by hearing God's call, but by their on-going repsonse to that on-going call. The Church exists to enjoy and establish the Heavenly Father's will, here in the earth. The Church exists to answer the call.

Adam led God's Kingdom-Family into a rebellion and insurrection against our Heavenly Father, destroying the entire human race. He and his wife succumbed to the idea that God was keeping something from them and they rebelled against His rulership in their lives. Jesus came as the second Adam. His birth, life, death, and resurrection marked the emergence of an entirely new species of human being called the Church. The Church is a Kingdom-Family, marked by their response to a call into relationship with God. This lifestyle of hearing God's call and responding to it, is the hallmark of this new species, God's Kingdom-Family, the Church.

There has always been a call, and there will always be a response. When God calls or reveals Himself to us, He does it in a language that we speak and in ways that we can recognize. When we hear, and question whether it was God, it's often because other passions and pursuits have occupied His place in our lives. It's not the call or His revealing of Himself that ultimately makes us, it's our response to that call. God has been and will continue to call. The question that ultimately shapes our lives is how we respond.

Some of the earliest worshippers of Jesus were the Magi popularly known as the wisemen. These pagan men travelled nearly 1200 miles from Persia to worship and present gifts to the King of Kings in Bethlehem. From their account we get a picture of what worship looks like. We get a picture of what it means to seek the King. There were religious people in much closer poxomity to Jesus but they were not pursuing Him. They sat indifferent, in Jerusalem, five to seven miles away from where the King of Kings entered the world. There were also powerful people nearby but they didn't pursue Him to worship, their response was disdain. They were threatened by Him and what His entrance might mean to their position and pursuits. But these Magi came to worship and they came bearing gifts. From them we learn what it means to be reconciled unto God. From them we see what it looks like to worship the King.

Today is the last Sunday gathering of 2014 for us. I can'think of a more fitting topic than prayer or a more significant text on prayer than Luke 11:4b, which reads, "And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. What could be more important for us here, than to overcome temptation and to be delivered from evil? Jesus shows His followers this desire needs to be pursued and cultivated in prayer. Our High Priest prayed for and walked in this overcoming grace and could boldly proclaim He was tempted in every way we are but never yielded to sin. Who better to teach us to pray and show us how to live, "Lead us not into temtation but deliver us from evil" than Him?

When you boil it all down there are essentially two ways we see and experience the world. We either see and experience it as a place to give or a place to get. Regardless of which view we have it permeates everything we think, say and do. When we see the world as a place to get we struggle with a heart consumed by lack. Lack convinces us we never have enough of anything. When we're consumed by getting we always feel we don't have enough, whether it be time, resources or something as simple as appreciation. On the other hand, when we see the world as a place to give our eyes are opened to what we have and the vast potential lying dormant around us. While grabbers are consumed with what they lack givers are consumed with gratitude for what they have. In the end our lives are controlled by how we see the world. Is it the place where we give or is it the place where we take?

The Lord's Prayer isn't giving us a prayer to recite, as much as it's giving us the priorities of a Kingdom being established in our hearts. Jesus' personal prayers were not only guided by these Kingdom priorities, His daily activities were too. Jesus prayed and lived consumed by the relationship He had with -- "Our Father which art in Heaven." He prayed and lived to "Hallow" our Father's name. He prayed and lived to carry out -- "thy Kingdom come and thy will be done." Jesus looked to and depended upon our Father to sustain Him -- "giving us day-by-day our daily bread." But it seems out of place for the sinless One, without spot or blemish to pray -- "forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us." What is Jesus revealing to us as He teaches, "Forgive Us As We Forgive?"

Jesus instructs us to pray to "Abba" our Father -- give us day-by-day our daily bread. A life well lived is one sustained by our Father's daily bread. Bread represents divine provision. Bread is the sustenance our Father provides for us, His yielded-child, day-by-day, scene-by-scene to live in His will for our lives. Jesus teaches us, not only does our Father provide us with all we need, He provides all we need daily. Our Father created us a spirit, that possess a soul and lives in a body. He provides for our trinity of needs on a daily basis.

Last Sunday we heard what it meant to pray, “your Kingdom come and your will be done.” Jesus taught us to pray regularly to willingly give Our Father loving rulership over our lives. He taught us to pray surrendering our will and giving Our Father primary and absolute influence, authority and command over our lives. We learned to pray not to seek our will but to seek His Kingdom, understanding it will fulfill all of our needs physically, our need for safety and our need for significance. And then the following day, on Monday, November 24th at 8:24PM, the most polarizing event since August 9th, the day Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson happened -- the grand jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson. What is the Kingdom’s response to this? How does our Father want us to react? A Kingdom Response to Ferguson.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray that desire was birthed out of what they consistently saw Him doing. Jesus' response was not to give them a form prayer or a technique. His response was to introduce them to the priorities His Father had given Him for mankind and life in the earth. His response was to invite them to pray prayers that established God's priorities in their lives and God's priorities in the earth. He taught them to pray for Our Father's Kingdom to come and for His will to be done in the earth and in our lives.

Content is a word rarely used in our bigger and better crazed culture. The essence of the word and the power of applying it to our lives has largely been lost. We’re obsessed with what’s next, moving forward, doing more, being more, having more and anything other than what presently is. The Holman Bible Dictionary defines contentment as: an internal satisfaction which does not demand changes in external circumstances. How do we get out of the never-ending cycle of pursuing contentment based on external circumstances? God gives us the most unlikely candidate to answer that question. A Jewish man born a Roman citizen who sits in jail. It is unclear what his crime is and it is unclear when or if he will be released. So there he sits in a dark, damp, underground dungeon – content.