A Kingdom Perspective
After Pentecost • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
My Favorite Illustrations A Lesson in a Song
One of the great Gospel songs tells us to “take your burden to the Lord, and leave it there.” The trouble with most of us is that we take our burdens to the Lord, lay them before him, and then take them away again. We should leave them there!
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
Even Jesus needed to get away sometimes...
But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
This woman understood the Kingdom Perspective. She had no claim upon Christ but one - faith. Faith in Christ gave her a boldness that overlooked even His apparent rejection, in order that she might obtain the blessing that she sought for her daughter. God gave her confidence in the Word and the Word would not - could not - deny Himself.
Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
Will you stand still as God stirs up faith in you? Can the Word of God have free course in your heart, so that you can see Him at work in you, for His good pleasure?
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
How many have heard this passage and seen in it a rebuke of prejudice? I think you miss a deeper point, that a congregation at its best would be in need.
What do you need in order to do the work of ministry? What stands in the way of meeting this congregation’s most important priority?
(take some answers)
Fund-raising! Without money, bills don’t get paid. Without money, the building can’t be maintained. Without money, the Pastor cannot be fully committed to serving the congregation that called him because he has a family to take care of. If you all stop giving, this church stops functioning. If people stop contributing, I cannot stay in Gary as a Strategic Mission Developer.
So now, when a person with resources comes to visit, don’t you get excited, just a little? When a successful businessperson or community leader puts something in the offering plate, don’t you get a little excited? You don’t have to tell me...
On the other hand, when somebody who you can tell is struggling starts coming to church, you’re glad that they have come, but...
From the world’s perspective, those who have needs are a liability, while those who have resources are an asset. You can’t run a business (or a church) with an account that is full of expenses and no revenue, right?
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
James says that the poor are “rich in faith,” but your friend tells you that the bills can’t rely on your faith account.
What can we say to these things? If God be for us, we need Him to send us some more rich folks, right? God knows what we could do if “the wealth of the wicked were laid up for the righteous” here at (____), right? God knows that you would be faithful if He blessed you with finances, right?
It seems that James doesn’t play fair, telling you that the poor are heirs of the Kingdom. James is pounding you with the Law instead of giving you the Gospel - that “epistle of straw” really hurts!
4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
We need God to help us in those times when the Kingdom Perspective and our earthly experience don’t match up . When God’s Word of promise seems out of sync with our situation, we need God to help us out! The faith that He gives will direct our steps to the deliverance that He will work for His glory.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
You know, Jesus REALLY wanted to get some “me-time,” didn’t he? He walked all the way up to Tyre, and that didn’t work out, now He walks all the way back down to Galilee, and turns back into Gentile territory, still trying to stay away. I don’t think that He was only trying to avoid the Pharisees.
Ministry does take something out of you, physically, financially, and even emotionally. But when a congregation begins to get a God’s-eye view of its community, both the congregation and the community will experience the difference. It will be reminded that there are somethings that only God can fix, and He will fix! The word will get out that “this church isn’t just playing church.”
That’s why Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer. Ministry doesn’t come easy - love is not cheap. We can’t get a God’s-eye view when we don’t spend time with God. When people take something out of us, we need to acknowledge it and they need to recognize it and testify to it. We need to know that God is not yet finished working in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
These folks from the 10 Cities bring this deaf-mute to Jesus and begging Him to heal their friend, because they were convinced that Jesus wasn’t playing about the Gospel of the Kingdom. they were convinced that He was committed to exercising Kingdom authority over everything in this fallen world, even lives that were bound by the fallenness of this world. He left the Church in the World to bear witness that He has not retreated from that commitment.
And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
You need to know that the God whom you worship is the God who “groaned” but pressed on through - He is the God who went to the wall for you! God is allowing us to shine in this world right now so that it can see that He does all things well. He does things that the world wishes it could do, but power belongs to God, and sometimes we need to be reminded, just who is who in this world!
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Praise God that Jesus did that for us. With His wounds we are healed. That’s God’s view of our situation.
Jesus, the Word of God, took flesh and entered our world to bring that fallen world into His eternal Kingdom. Jesus did all the work to destroy the works of the devil already. His eternal Kingdom is the final chapter, and the Spirit bears witness to it. The ministry, the cross, the grave, and the Resurrection and Ascension, were all the outpouring of God’s superabundant love, a love that took the last word away from death and gave it to life, took the focus off of time and put it on eternity!
Tell your neighbor
Christ is forever for you!
That’s the source of our strength, the foundation of our hope. Christ in you, the hope of glory empowers ministry, empowers faith hope and love. He empowers you to empower one another to keep pressing on in Jesus’ name!
So let the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your heart and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.