Tag Archives: Seek first the Kingdom of God

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Knowing God

I Will Build My Church

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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)

I woke up this morning singing a song we had in church on Sunday:
“Father let Your kingdom come,
Father let Your will be done,
On earth as in heaven,
Right here in my heart.“

It is, of course, one of several settings to music of the Lord’s prayer, and it’s one of my favourites. But it’s got me thinking about the Kingdom Of God (never a bad thing) and how we perceive it. In particular, I’m thinking about our experience of the Kingdom In our church situations, and the relationship between the two. If you are feeling at all disappointed in, critical of, or hurt by what’s going on in your church at the moment, then this is for you. That probably means all of us at some time or another.

We can all get lost in our own imaginings of what the Kingdom Of God is like in heaven, but what do we know about the Kingdom Of God on earth? We know it is within us, we know that it’s eternal, we know it’s wherever we see the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus manifested, and we know it’s “righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” if we think about the rule and reign of Jesus in the light of John 10:10, we know that the kingdom is manifested when we see the works of the enemy destroyed and life in abundance established. And if we think of the heart’s desire of the King himself, we have to land on John 17:21 and His prayer in Gethsemane that “That they all shall be one, just as you, my Father, are in me, and I am in you, so that they also shall be one in us.”

Paul is clear about the ultimate purpose of the church and how to attain it in Ephesians 4: 15-16, which is that “speaking the truth in love, (we) may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” When the body of Christ has attained this goal we will have become the answer to the Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane and to the Lord’s prayer that He gave us on the Mount of Olives: His kingdom will have come on earth.

Unfortunately, it can seem at times that some people in our churches are either writing chapter 7 of Ephesians, or have never read the epistle at all. The Holy Spirit reminds us in Isaiah 26:3 that “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in You.” To live in the good of this verse, we need to remember Matthew 6:33: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” whether we are finding it in church or not. Ephesians 4:3 tells us that we find the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, so if we have peace in our hearts about our bonds with other members of the church, we know that we have done our part to maintain the unity of the spirit with them, and our hearts are prepared for the rule of the Kingdom of God.

The Ecclesia
Jesus is building His church in truth and love, because truth and love are who He is, and the church is His body on earth. My Church isn’t, but His church is. Where there is truth and love in the assembly of the saints we find His body, and when we are in truth and love we are part of it, whether we are in my church, your church, their church, or someone’s church on the other side of the world. Jesus said I will build My church, not My churches. Paul says we are one body, not many bodies (1 Cor 10:17), and that we are being “built together as a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22) Peter says: “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ…(who) has become the chief cornerstone.” (1 Peter 2:5-7)

The word that is used for this building, the church, is ecclesia. In the Christian context, ecclesia refers to a gathering of believers called out from the daily concourse of society to worship God, but the prime meaning of the word refers to an assembly of people called out of their houses to convene at a meeting place for the purpose of deliberation. So there is an implication of government here: when we meet to worship God, we also assemble to administer the government of His Kingdom. In fact Psalm 149 reminds us that our praise is integral to establishing His rule on earth. When Jesus says that the gates of hell won’t prevail against His church, He is saying that the councils of the powers of darkness won’t prevail against the government that is on His shoulders.

The government of the cross
And here’s the thing: Isaiah ‘s prophecy (Isaiah 9:6) wasn’t just a metaphor: Jesus did, literally, carry the government of His kingdom on His shoulders, when He carried the cross to Calvary. When we carry our cross as Jesus instructed and genuinely die to self, we are also carrying His authority to rule. We are part of the governing ecclesia of His kingdom on earth. Neither the many churches in your city nor the 45,000 denominations on Earth today are meant to be little microcosms of the Church of Christ: they are simply parts of it. More than that, they are only parts of it where they reflect the life of Christ and the government of the cross.  And since, according to 1 Corinthians 13:13,  it’s faith, hope, and especially love, that are the only things that last forever (“remain” or “endure,” depending on your translation), they have to be the three elements that make up the DNA of the everlasting life of Christ. Alongside those three it’s the word of God that endures forever. The cross, the DNA of the life of Christ, and the word of God: if we want to find the ecclesia of Jesus where His kingdom is governed, this is what we look for.

What if we don’t find it, or if or own church seems to be missing the mark? This doesn’t mean we spend our lives in the ranks of the spiritually homeless. On the contrary, God puts us into imperfect fellowship to teach us how to love one another, and to prepare our hearts to be carriers of His Kingdom. Our churches are training grounds for the government of His ecclesia, whether we govern in our local church or not. We can’t cause growth of the body by speaking the truth in love if we have no-one to speak it to, no relationships in which to exercise Kingdom values, and no arteries where the life of Christ can flow.

I was in a meeting the other day when I sensed the Holy Spirit showing me that His church was like an orchestra, with different instruments scattered far and wide, but where all the instruments were in tune with each other, all eyes were on the conductor and everyone was playing the same piece of music. The prophetic word He was giving me was that He was changing the (musical) key to a higher pitch. In my spirit I found myself looking at a violin that was far away. Just at that moment I received a phone call from a friend who pastors a church in East Germany. Not a coincidence, I felt, but a confirmation of what the Lord was showing me about His church.  

Pillars and sandcastles
People are hurt and Churches fail or divide when they become houses of the government of man and not of the government of Jesus, building castles of sand instead of being built as living stones. The church at Philadelphia was clearly of the latter type, and Jesus makes this promise to those that would “hold fast to what they have:”

 “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.” (Revelation 3:12.)

This is the reward for those who belong to the ecclesia of Christ. By contrast, a sandcastle is recognisable by its turrets and not by its pillars, and in the turrets flags are sometimes planted, where men like to write their own names. When someone seems to be waving their flag in our faces, we don’t want to snatch it out of their hands, but we need to pray that they, and we, will be pillars in the temple of our God where He can write His own name on our lives. If someone tells us how to “eat and drink,” we respond with righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Because a wave is coming when the sandcastles will be washed away, and only the pillars of the ecclesia will stand.

Be prepared; hold on., Pursuing Love

Strengthen the things that remain

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From a model of the molecular structure of DNA

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” ’ (Rev 3: 1-6)

I include the whole message to the church in Sardis here to put the heading in context. I do believe that the Spirit is saying to the churches today to “strengthen the things that remain;” I don’t believe He is saying that every church today is as dead as Sardis was. (Having said that, I believe that we all need to be humble enough to say, “Lord, is that me?” For if David could say: “I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes,” (2 Sam 6:22) and if Jesus described Himself as “meek and humble of heart,” (Matt 11:29) then the precedents are there, and it can only bring us blessing if we are open to the possibility that the whole of the message to Sardis is for us. However I want to focus here on just the one line.) So what does it mean to strengthen the things that remain?

I used to think, particularly when I Iistened to Bob Dylan’s rendering of these words in his song “When you gonna wake up?” that the things that remain were the things that were still left when everything else had died. In a sense of course they are, but I believe that the focus of these words is the context given to them in 1 Cor 13:13:  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. … But the greatest of these is love.” The church at Sardis was “dead” because it was weak in these three things. The foundations of church life – the molecular structure of its DNA – are our faith in Jesus, our hope of eternal life, and our love for one another. As we know, the greatest of these is the final one. And since we know from 1 Corinthians 13:2  that if we “have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and … have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love”  we are nothing, I think we can reasonably guess that it was the third  and greatest of the “things that remain” that was most lacking at Sardis. Are our churches alive because of the worship, because of the prayers, the preaching and the prophesies, and even the manifested power of the Holy Spirit in signs and wonders – or are they alive because we are loving one another?

It’s only God’s love that connects Heaven to Earth, and it’s His love that connects us to one another. I think that Jesus is saying to His church today – certainly His church in the West – that we are fragile in the “things that remain,” and that we need to be stronger in them to face the challenges ahead. The picture above is of a model of the molecular structure of DNA, the carrier of life. If each molecule is an individual within the Body of Christ, it is the “things that remain” that are the connectors which hold us together. Without them there is no life – it is “without form and void,” (Gen 1:2) in fact. Jesus promised, more than once, that persecutions would come upon the church. When they do, it will be the connectors that are going to be important. When it seems that our provisions are threatened, we will need to encourage one another in faith in the God who keeps His promises of provision. If we find ourselves in a situation where our life itself is threatened, we will need to tie ourselves to the anchor of our souls, the promise of eternal life in Christ, to face that threat. And to hold each other up in that faith and that hope we need to love one another. Without the connector of Love, the promise “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matt 18:20) loses meaning, because His name is Love. If we are not gathered in Love, we are not gathered in His name, as I have written in the article “The testimony of Jesus (2): when two or three are gathered in my name.”

James writes: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1: 2-4) And Peter writes: “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” (1 Peter 4: 12-13) Unless we are strong in faith, hope and love we will miss that joy through times of trial which comes from perseverance. I think our faith, our hope and our love are tested in different ways, but one thing is sure throughout: we will need to be connected to one another if we are going to persevere.

Sometimes it can seem as though we are on an express train that rushes through a mixed landscape of pressures and of pleasures: there are demands and deadlines to meet, places to go, people to see, texts to write, things to buy, stuff to do, fun to have – and the train doesn’t stop to allow us off. But Paul writes: “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.” (Rom 14: 17-19). Paul is exhorting the Romans not to prioritize that which feeds the flesh, but to pursue the things that feed the Spirit. The Kingdom of God – “Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” – is built in the places where we connect with one another and strengthen the faith, hope and love that we share.

Jesus teaches us that if we “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, … all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt 6:33) If we are fragile in the “things that remain” we need to pursue the Kingdom of God in order to strengthen them. I think that means above all that we have to strengthen the love that connects us to one another: not because God will judge us if we don’t, but because we will break if we don’t. Seeking first the Kingdom of God means putting our relationships above our needs, our deadlines,  and our ambitions – even, and for some, especially – our ministry ambitions; it means that we “pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another,” as opposed to chasing after those things on the express train by which we feed ourselves. Sometimes we have to jump off the train, as dangerous as it may seem, in order to seek His Kingdom. But when we do, we find everything that we were looking for, and most of all we find Jesus waiting for us when we land.

“When you gonna wake up?” from Slow Train Coming, by Bob Dylan