Grace Baptist Church

Grace Blog

May 29, 2009

The Kingdom, the Community, and You, Part 3

This week, I have been writing about a kingdom hermeneutic–a way to interpret and shape life according to Christ who is our King and the kingdom’s advance in and through our lives. In Part 1, I focused on the preeminence of the King and how His kingdom should prioritize our thinking, inflame passionate affections, and pattern our living. In Part 2, I turned our attention to how pursuing the kingdom causes us to embrace a kingdom-ethic where we are considering others more highly than ourselves. Christ-like community takes shape when kingdom-focused disciples are embracing their identity and purpose together to pray and live out, “Your kingdom come.”

In this third and final part, I want to think about us, and in particular some points of application as it pertains to parts 1 and 2. This is crucial because we can have many “amen” moments in affirming theological principles without ever experiencing any “oh me” moments–times when we are confronted with realities requiring repentance. We are always susceptible to reverting back to our own little kingdom’s where we are king and the world revolves around us–our wants, our needs, our perspectives, our priorities, etc. When Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” we should not forget that this is a present command; in other words, repentance is required regularly not only for the advance of the kingdom but its presence as well.

There are questions we ought continually to ask ourselves, especially when it comes to the direction of our lives or our church. Are we thinking of the kingdom of God first or ourselves? Are we trying to advance our agenda or God’s agenda? When it comes to others, are we looking to take advantage of what they can do for us or taking the advantage of the opportunity to do much in blessing them?

Kingdom confrontations are going to happen. In each of us are preferences, traditions, felt needs, and a sense of entitlement, all of which serve as filters to our worldview and influence the decisions we make. They are not all bad, but we must recognize that there will be times when, if we are humbly submitted to the rule and reign of Jesus in our lives, areas will be exposed where we are rivaling or even rebelling inwardly against the very thing we are praying for!

I am convinced that God has great things in store for Grace Baptist Church, but in order for us to fully embrace all of what He will do through His church, we must cultivate a passion for the kingdom, a priority to serve others, and a daily practice of repentance as we together seek to glorify Him through radically-devoted, gospel-saturated, kingdom-advancing lives. When we have God’s perspective for our church, we think little of ourselves, more of others, and always for the glory of Jesus through the building of His church!

Labels: Community, Kingdom of God, Repentance | posted by TimBrister at 7:51 pm | Categories: Community, Jesus |