Seminar | II. “The Kingdom of God & Shalom” | Bill Haley

On the first Sunday of the next four months, we will share a series of talks Rev. Bill Haley offered Christ Church Austin during a retreat they hosted entitled “Spiritual Formation for Kingdom Action.” Taken together, these talks offer a powerful invitation into an integrated and transformed Christian life. In this second talk, Bill digs into the cosmic scope of the Gospel and its implications for every aspect of our lives.

Listen to Session I: "Contemplatives in the Heart of the World"

Explore the Full Archive of Bill’s Sermons

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Transcript

Drew Masterson: 0:16

Hello and welcome to For the Journey, a podcast offering formation and inspiration to Christians longing for more of God in their lives and in the world. For the Journey is presented by Coracle, a ministry committed to inspiring and enabling people to be the presence of God and the brokenness of the world through spiritual formation for kingdom action. We want to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God so that you can go further into the world with God's loving, healing, redeeming power. For the journey is a space where each week we hope to help you encounter God and live a more integrated life of faith in the world by offering a regular rhythm of reflections, guided spiritual practices, thoughtful conversations, and more. On the first Sunday of the next four months, we will share a series of talks Reverend Bill Haley offered Christ Church Austin during a retreat they hosted entitled Spiritual Formation for Kingdom Action. Taken together, these talks offer a powerful invitation into an integrated and transformed Christian life. In this second talk, Bill digs into the cosmic scope of the gospel and its implications for every aspect of our lives. Here's Bill.

Rev. Bill Haley: 1:37

Good morning, everybody. So uh so we had a great night last night, at least I did, um, and wanted to just very, very, very briefly touch on what we covered. Last night we started with Colossians 1:17, that Christ is before all things, and in Christ all things hold together. And so we just talked about, well, what things hold together. And we talked about kind of these polar opposites of the beautiful things and the hard things and and how and how somehow Jesus is there. And it's in Jesus that they all find coherence and integration and wholeness. And so we talked about the Christian's life as a life of really holding things in tension, um, being unwilling to lay down anything that is true, but rather holding all things that are true together. Um so we talked about even this topic of this retreat spiritual form um uh changed lives for a changed world and spiritual formation for kingdom action. And we talked about, we're not talking about changed lives for our own self-actualization. We're talking about changed lives for a changed world. We're not talking about spiritual formation so that I can be who all I can be. We're talking about spiritual formation to bring the kingdom of God to the world, right? The operative word of this retreat is actually the word for. Um and I shared that in God's design there is an answer to a broken world. And we know this broken world, and it's it's broken people like us who have found wholeness in Jesus, who then from that fullness of God offer the love of God into the broken world so that it too can be changed. That I just love that, I just love that that God has not left the world a mess. He has not. He has not abandoned the world. And we say that in our Eucharistic liturgies, don't we? You did not abandon us to the power of death and sin, right? God has not abandoned this world, no. Um, he has offered healing in Christ so that then we can be healers in Christ. Wherever our world is, our world might be our family, our world might be our job. Talked about that this morning. Our world might be our church, or it might be the city of Austin, it might be the actual world out there. Your primary world might be your marriage. I know it's a big part of your world if you are married. Your friends, your school, whatever part of the world that we are in that is broken, that God has not abandoned it, but has offered a response. The response of his son Jesus, who then heals us so that we can then, like Jesus, be healers. So, and then last night I introduced Mother Teresa, um, who um I'm not gonna share that whole story again. We'll talk about her a little bit, even just to begin, but but just that just how much she changed my life with a speech, a poorly given speech, that was the most powerful speech I've ever heard in my life, and how that inspired me then um to take an opportunity to go to Calcutta and visit at Missionaries of Charity and meet her before she died. So, let's start with Mother Teresa since that's where we concluded last night, okay? Sound good? Y'all ready? Cliff said, Bill, be a fire hose. That's what he said. Kinda. So I'm gonna teach for a little while. We're gonna take a break, break into small groups to talk about a particular question, then we're gonna regather and talk about something else until about 1215, okay? So we'll just see how it goes. I've also told, I've also given Cliff permission to, you know, if at any point I need, I if at any point I like say something blasphemous, that he's able to raise his hand and he's able to say, heresy. Or that if he feels like there's anything else that would be particularly helpful for you, for me to camp out on, for him to just suggest that. So um, so I actually very much feel like we're doing this quite together. So no sleeping. Pastor's weekend off, right? Uh-huh. For some pastors, I guess. So, Sister Prema took over Missionaries of Charity after Mother Teresa died, and this is what she said. She said, through her life, Mother Teresa's work, her charisma, through these things, she brought those around her to God. She did not preach, but she testified with her own life. And even today, many people will tell me of their first meeting with Mother Teresa. Perhaps they had seen her for five minutes on the terrace of the motherhouse, but that one moment changed their lives. And I've got to tell you, and I told you last night, and I'm telling you again, I'm one of those people. I saw her in a distant ballroom of 4,000 other people. And that one experience with her from a distance changed my life. Being in Mother Teresa's presence changed my life, but the remarkable thing about that is that my experience was remarkably not unique. I've not yet met a person who met Mother Teresa who was not profoundly marked and changed. So Billy Graham said, when she walked into the room to greet me, I felt like I was meeting a saint. Another man, Paul Murray, says, Nothing could have prepared me for the impact that she made on me at that first encounter. In her every gesture there was revealed something of the unimaginable kindness and goodness of God. And in the end, it was, I believe, here's an operative word, this shining, this shining quality within her, shining through her, the utter humility and beauty of God, which was her greatest gift to those who were fortunate enough to come to know her, however briefly. Malcolm Muggeridge, who was not a believer when he first met her, but came to be a believer, said, It was impossible to be with her, to listen to her, to observe what she was doing and how she was doing it without being in some degree converted. Something of God's universal love has rubbed off on Mother Teresa, giving her homely features a noticeable, here's the operative word, a noticeable luminosity. Here's the word again, a shining quality. And then my wife Tara, who I who spent a lot more time with her than I did, way before we met, and that's its own story, she said this, Tara, my wife, nothing could have prepared me for the life of this simple nun who taught me more about what Jesus must have really been like than I could have read in a thousand books. Tara said this after she had gotten her biblical literature degree in undergrad. And through her experience, through Tara's experience of being in India and spending time with Mother Teresa, she said that after, after growing up as a committed Christian and an evangelical Christian, she says this. People who love transformingly, people who walk into the room and you know it. People in whose presence you feel like you're in the presence of God. Because, in fact, you actually are. That is not why I'm here. To inspire you and to encourage you to follow Jesus. No, I'm after something much more. I'm here to inspire and encourage all of us to be Jesus. Does this make sense? In other words, yes, following him is part of that, but following him is not the point. The point is so that Jesus can live inside of us so that we can actually then be Jesus in the world, walking around, so that when people are in our presence, people say, That changed me. There was something different about that person. There was a shining in them. There was a luminosity. I felt like I was in the presence of God. Because, dear friends, this is the purpose of our salvation. The purpose of our salvation is not the forgiveness of our sins. And I realize I'm in Texas saying this. All right, the purpose of our salvation is not the forgiveness of our sins so that we can be saved from hell and go to heaven. No, all that is a means to an end. The forgiveness of our sins is simply a means to an end. And what we're talking about this morning is the end. We're talking about us being transformed into the likeness and even the presence of Jesus in the world, so that we can be agents of the kingdom of God coming into the world until Jesus Himself comes back to finish the job that he started on the cross. That he started when he came. The purpose of our salvation is so that our lives can be transformed into the very likeness of Jesus Christ, so that we live like him, so that we love like him, so that we can heal like him, so that we act like him, so that we can know the Father like him. Do you know that the intimacy that Jesus had with his father is available to us, and that's part of the reason why we are forgiven of our sins, so that we can have that same access? The purpose of our salvation is so that we can be transformed in the very likeness of Jesus. Because he lives in us by his Holy Spirit, so that we can be in fact who we are, that is the body of Christ in the world. And then in the world we become his hands, we become his feet, we become his heart, we become his eyes. In the world, we become his temple. What is a temple? What was unique about the temple? Who lived there? God. The presence of God. We become basically walking temples where God lives. And this is, can I just give you even a two better phrases than walking temples? Walking temple is really nice because it's actually very scriptural, biblically based, right? I mean, that's what we're told that we are, actually, but let me give you two gorgeous phrases about what we actually are and what Jesus came to make us. Walking icons. Walking icons. Or living sacraments. Living sacraments. People in whom we're gonna talk about sacraments tomorrow, people in whom the invisible real can be seen. That's what a sacrament is. This is what Jesus came to make us into. So, in a word, or more accurately, Paul's word in Ephesians 4, don't turn there. He says, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, and here it is, to mature manhood. Okay, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is what Paul says. He basically says, we are to mature. C.S. Lewis puts it very starkly, puts it very well, you've heard this before, and he's right. Martin Luther said that the Son of God became man so that sons of men could become God. This is right out of 2 Peter, right? Where we share in the divine nature of the Lord, where we ourselves take on some of his very nature because we are one with him, unified with him. C.S. Lewis puts it this way every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else. The purpose of becoming a Christian is not the forgiveness of my sins. The forgiveness of my sins is a means to me becoming like Christ. Okay? This is the goal of spiritual formation. This is the goal of changed lives. We're going to come back to that later this morning. But let me just start here by saying, without this transformation in us, without this maturing in us, without this spiritual development in us, our own works have less power, they're harder, and we won't do them for as long. Why is it that so many folks who are social activist types or even ministry types, why is it that they so often burn out after 10 or 12 years? Because whose power are they relying on? Their own, right? How many of us have been there? I have been there. I know more of you have been there. I've been there. You know, to where it's like, huh, you know. Let me just put it this way. So much more happens when God does it. It's ridiculous. Like to the degree that when I think about what I can accomplish on my own strength, it becomes distasteful to me. Because I've seen what God can do when God does it. So, spiritual formation, we're gonna come back to that. Um But you remember how we were talking about Mother Teresa, you know, when you were with her, you felt like you were in the presence of God. You know, even if you just saw her, you kind of felt like you had some sort of glimpse of the divine and how just that changed her, changed people. Well, Mother Teresa was like that for me. But it's not just Mother Teresa who has that impact on people, is it? Right? You have your own people who have been like that for you, don't you? Um people who are probably less famous, maybe who are still alive. Who's been like that for you? Who is like that for you? Who for you has become someone that when you're with them, you feel actually loved? You feel actually paid attention to? You feel like you matter? Who for you have words that are true wisdom? That when this person speaks to you, you listen because you know that they're just telling you the deep stuff. You might not even understand it all, but you know that they're on to something, right? Who in whose presence? Um, who who gives you hope? Who gives you strength? Who gives you encouragement? Who, when they talk to you in your life, do you know that they are looking at you? Whose risks for Jesus have inspired your own? Basically, who in your life has consistently been the presence of Christ to you? And how would you describe them? I asked um my my church this once, you know, how would you describe somebody like that? And um and some of their words, some of the words of my congregation help us identify, well, what does maturity even look like? What are we after? You know, what does Christ-likeness even look like in, you know, living in 21st century skin? Um well, such people are wise. They know the Bible. You know, they don't beat you with the Bible, but they know the Bible. Um, they're compassionate, they're unafraid. They are humble, they're full of grace, they're prayerful. Very comfortable with themselves, aren't they? They're not trying to be somebody who they're not, are they? They don't need you to think about, they don't need you to think that they are somebody who they actually aren't. Um They've got authority, they have a sense of authority, and they are a wellspring of love. It sounds a lot like a mature Christian, right? Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn't it? Sounds a lot like Jesus living inside of somebody and then through them living into the world. Sounds like somebody who's been formed. So back to Mother Teresa, because this is the most encouraging thing you're gonna hear me say this morning. Now that you're sitting there going, I'm I'm not Mother Teresa. I can't be Mother Teresa, you know? Well, you're actually you're actually right. You are not Mother Teresa. And I am definitely, most definitely not like Mother Teresa. I'm not Mother Teresa. I can't be Mother Teresa, even if I'm not, I'm not sure I'd even want to, even if I could. Right? The early Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Zeusia, once said, When I reach the next world, God will not ask me, Why were you not Moses? Instead, he will ask me, Why were you not Zeusia? Make sense? God's not going to ask me at the end of the world, Bill, why weren't you Mother Teresa? He's going to ask me, Why weren't you Bill Haley? And that is true for each one of us in here. Our vocation is not to be replicas of Mother Teresa. Our vocation is to be who we are with Christ living inside of us, so that when we are in the world, it's Christ pouring out of us, but in our very own unique way that is absolutely inimitable, unable to be imitated, very different. Because we have grown not only in who God wants us to be in Christ, we've grown into who actually God knew us to be before the foundation of the world when we were a speck and a dream in his eye before we even conceived. Does this make sense? That feel nice that I'm not trying to fire you up to be Mother Teresa? I'm not. I'm not. I am trying to fire you up to be you. But not you for your sake. Rather, you with Christ in you for others' sake. God will not ask why weren't we Mother Teresa? He invites us. He invites us. It's not even like a point your finger, you will. He invites us. He offers. He offers. He he says, he says, be you with me living in you in your own unique way. And he's committed to doing this. Good news and bad news about when we become a Christian. Um the good news is that God is committed to our Christ-likeness. The bad news is that God is committed to our Christ-likeness. Amen? You know what I'm talking about? So I have a slide here that illustrates this from C.S. Lewis. Christ says, give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. Thank you? Thank you. May I have another one? No half measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth or to crown it or to stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent, as well as the ones that you think are wicked, the whole outfit, and here it comes. And I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself. My own will shall become yours. So this is what we're talking about. This is what we're talking about when we're talking about spiritual formation. About Christ giving us Himself living through us in our unique ways. And this is the purpose for our salvation. It is eternal life. It's just it's eternal life starting now. Come back to that later. So, what we're talking about is about spiritual formation, changed lives, but I want to actually start with kingdom action and a changed world. Because God invites us to bring his kingdom in our own unique ways too. So let's start with the end in mind, shall we? Shall we start with, well, where is all this heading? This kingdom action language? If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn it to Luke chapter 4. So let's start with the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God was the core message, and it was the core ministry of Jesus. The kingdom of God was the core message and the core ministry of Jesus. In Matthew alone, the phrase is the kingdom of heaven, and that phrase comes up over 60 times. You've noticed this, haven't you? In the Gospels? In Mark and Luke, the phrase is in John, the phrase is the kingdom of God. And in our gospel here this morning, Luke chapter 4, or Luke, the Gospel of Luke, the notion, the language about the kingdom of God comes up in and around Jesus over 40 times. So N. T. Wright, a great Anglican bishop who I'm sure many of you have read, said, the kingdom of God is at hand. And this announcement was at the center of Jesus' public proclamation. And one of N. T. Wright's chapter titles sums this up well that Jesus' public proclamation was basically this: new creation starting now. New creation starting now. So Luke chapter 4 is basically it's the earthly ministry of Jesus in one chapter. The whole earthly ministry of Jesus is summed up in this chapter that then leads to the great crescendo of the cross and the even greater crescendo of the resurrection. So let's look at Luke chapter 4 just really quickly because I want to orient us on what in the world is the kingdom of God. We'll come back to why that phrase is perhaps confusing in a little bit, but let's just look at what Jesus is doing here. So this whole chapter can be summed up in this phrase: that Jesus is preaching the message. Jesus is preaching the message, and then the power of the messenger is proof of the message. Does that make sense? Jesus is preaching the message, and then his power demonstrates that the messenger is true. Therefore, the message is true. So in Luke chapter 4, primary message is good news. Good news. And we are, we followed him out of the wilderness, and now he's giving his inaugural sermon. You're very familiar with this, where he comes into his own synagogue in Nazareth, his own hometown. He's given a scroll and he's given, he's he's basically said, you know, choose a text. And uh this is just so amazing to me how this picture gets set up. Jesus, you know, basically, hometown boy who'd gone off to who knows where, gained a little bit of a reputation, comes home, and they say, pick a text. And he chooses this wonderful messianic prophecy out of Isaiah to read. And he basically says, Um, yeah, I'm him. Just stunning. I mean, so what would be uh what would be a kind of a rural area of Texas? Any any any in particular? Which one? Mule Shoe, Texas. Mule Shoe, Texas is way out there. I mean, like, barely anybody's even heard of it. Maybe some of you haven't even heard of it. Um, you know, you might think that nothing good comes out of Mule Shoe. Yeah, but then there was this little guy who was born in Mule Shoe and grew up in Mule Shoe, and and he becomes something of a preacher, and he goes out and he makes a name for himself outside of Mule Shoe. Um, but then he comes back to Mule Shoe one day, and you know, the town's kind of excited. It's a small town, they don't get that much news, and so they they say to they say to Bobby, say, Bobby, would you give the sermon? You can preach anything you want to. So Bobby flips to Revelation chapter 21 and chapter 22, you know? And uh he you know, all eyes are on him, Bobby's gonna give a great sermon, you know. And Revelation 21 and chapter 22 about the new Jerusalem coming to earth, you know, in Mule Shoe. Texas, here's Bobby up in the pulpit, and and Bobby reads the passage, you know, no more tears, no more, no more crying, no more pain. And then all eyes are on him. Right? And uh and he closes the Bible very slowly, and he says, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. I just really I mean it's just stunning what Jesus who he is, what he did, you know, his understanding of his vocation. And then, and then after he says today, Revelation 21, 22 has been been um fulfilled in your hearing, what state around here don't we like? Oklahoma, okay. Okay, and so then Bobby, then Bobby, then Bobby says, and I'm going to go to Oklahoma because they are actually more inclined to hear my message. Your response is exactly the response of that passage in Luke chapter 4. Do you see this? So, so there are three bits of good news here, and we'll we'll come back to Oklahoma in just a second. Three bits of good news here. First, let me just read this. Jesus says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. First of all, the good news here is that Jesus is coming to help people who are broken and people who are poor. That Jesus and the gospel of the kingdom of God is good news to you if you are if you are if you are up and out or down and out. And that specifically it's good news if you are on the bottom edges of society or if you are not getting what the world has to offer, that Jesus has something for you. This is good news. Second bit of good news in Luke chapter 4. I just already told you this is in verse 21. Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The good news is that Jesus is fulfilling not just this scripture, but the whole Old Testament. That's good news. And then the third bit of good news about Oklahoma is that the good, that the good, that the grace of God is for all people. That the grace of God is for all people. Okay? And Jesus gets at this by by saying, by telling a couple of stories that from the Old Testament about when God's power came to the Israelites, but the Israelites wouldn't receive it. And so Elijah goes to the widow of Zarephath, and what is she? She's Gentile. Right? Or Elisha goes to the Naaman the Syrian. What is he? Gentile. Right? That when there were no miracles amongst the people of God, that those who were Gentiles were the receivers of God's grace. And in a moment we go from we go from verse 22. All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were in his mouth. And in a moment we go to verse 28. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. You remember how you laughed about Oklahoma? And you said, same idea. I'm trusting you're not going to try to toss me out over that ledge over there, right? And they rose up and drove him out of the town, and they wanted to throw him over a cliff. So this is the message of Jesus. That he's bringing good news. Good news for the poor, the broken. Good news that the Old Testament is fulfilled, good news for everybody. Good news for everybody. Not just their own. And then the rest of the chapter, I'm not going to get into this today, is Jesus is preaching the message, and then the power of the messenger demonstrates the validity of the message. Okay? So you see this in Luke 4, 31 through 44. Basically, Jesus leaves for, you know, under obvious reasons, I guess. And he just starts going around and preaching in other cities as well. And verse 31 to 44 is demonstrating that he has authority. We got that in verse 32. His word possessed authority. And then he goes and he's casting out demons, and then he's healing people, like Peter's mother-in-law in Capernaum, and he heals others. This is what he's doing. And we might look at these things and we say, wow, that's really, really cool. Jesus had authority. He had power to heal people, he had power to cast out demons, and we might think that's awesome. That'd be really neat to see. But for Jesus, this wasn't actually what was so awesome. This wasn't actually what he had come to do so much as what he tells us in verse 40, verse 40, when he says, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. Jesus gives us his mission statement that he was sent to preach the good news, the gospel of the kingdom of God, in other places as well. And so these things that are happening around him, they are important, but they're not most important. All they are are demonstrations of what the kingdom of God is like when the kingdom of God comes. Right? People who are subject to demon possession are freed. People who are sick are healed. Shoot, just a couple of chapters later, uh, people who are dead are being raised from the dead. And Jesus is saying, when the kingdom comes, what happens is that the world begins to function the way that the world was always designed to function. When the kingdom comes, what happens is that the world starts getting back on track the way that it was designed in the very, very first place. Okay? Jesus would agree that the world is not as it should be. And so he comes with authority to set it right. And to set something in motion that would set it right. He comes to bring and to preach the kingdom of God. So with this phrase kingdom of God, I'm gonna camp out here a little bit because this is really murky. Um, in our Christian context, the kingdom of God is, I believe, unfortunately, at best, poorly understood. Um, and I'm sure there are some of you who feel like you've understood what the kingdom of God is. Um, but I imagine a lot of us don't. Would anybody be willing to say, yeah, I'm not so sure. I've heard about it, but I'm exactly hard to get my hand. Yeah, I see one hand, but there are others. Um for many, many years, at least in the evangelical tradition, uh, the kingdom of God didn't get much play. You didn't hear it talked about much. Um, maybe in reference, but you didn't hear it kind of unpacked and expounded. And this is a real bummer because it was really important to Jesus. You know? Sixty times in Matthew, 40 times in Luke, like this was really important to him. And so it took me a long time to try to find some language so that I could understand what is this thing that mattered so much to Jesus. Um, so let's see if we can make these clear just a little bit. I don't know. This helps me, hopefully to help you. So we have a slide here. Um, the kingdom of God, uh, in Dallas Willard's definition, this is not going to be helpful. Um but I really, really, really trust him. And so um I just want to at least give you his definition because it is at least short, even if it might be obtuse. Um, the kingdom of God is the range of God's effective will. Um it makes sense, doesn't it, that Dallas Willard was a philosophy professor? This one helps me out. This is mine. That the kingdom of God comes when the ways that God designed things to be actually happen. The kingdom of God comes when the ways that God designed things to be actually happen. The kingdom of God comes when the gay when the way God wants things to be is. When the way things ought to be aren't, and they get addressed, and they become the way that God intended them to be when he created all things and put people in the middle of it all. And Jesus sets something in motion. And what he sets in motion is the possibility of this. Um, Jesus came to address the way that things are because they aren't the way they're supposed to be. We human beings, which we'll talk about, we have not lived into our design, we have not lived into our dignity, we have not taken up our mantle in a million ways, and Jesus says, But I will not abandon you to you, the failure of you to live into your fundamental vocation, to be my image bearers, taking care of what I've made. Because of sin, we are separated from God and we are shadows of ourselves. Writ large and also even in our individual expressions. So Jesus comes, he brings the kingdom of God. And here we are, 2,000 and something years later, at a beautiful place in the hill country of Texas. And these two things are related: that Jesus comes and here we are. And here's how they're related. In Luke chapter 4, as we just saw, Jesus he preaches, he teaches, preaches, he heals, and he casts out demons, and he's got authority. I think those four. He preaches, he heals, he casts out demons, he's got authority. He's proclaiming the kingdom and he's illustrating the kingdom. In Luke chapter 9, maybe look at these later, first bit of Luke chapter 9, it's the same thing. But this time it's 12 people doing it. The disciples. And he commissions them with authority to do three things: to heal, to cast out demons, and to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God. In Luke chapter 10, early verses, he does exactly the same thing, except this time it was with 72 people, right? So he commissions them, they have authority to cast out demons, they are healing, they're proclaiming the kingdom of God, and they have authority, obviously. Amazing. Then in John chapter 20, after the resurrection, he appears to his disciples and he says, As the Father has sent me, dot, dot, dot, so I am sending you. In other words, here's my purpose. Now I'm giving you my purpose, but here's the here's the fuel to do it. And he does what? He breathes on them. Right? And he says, Receive the Holy Spirit. Remember this? Little side trail here. What does that sound like to you? God breathing into something and a new being being created? Adam and Eve, Genesis 1? Genesis 2? New create creation. Oh my gosh. Jesus, did you just do that? Did you just do that? Did you just make a new creature? Did you just rectify what happened in the garden? Did you just create a different capacity in human beings to be those who who are the uh the place where the divine dwells so that the divine can still be present? Oh my Jesus, you didn't. Except that he did. You know, Jesus is the new Adam. Jesus bringing the new creation, Jesus making it possible for us once again to live into our fundamental vocation that was ours when we were created as human beings, which was to just do a couple of things. Reveal God in the world, image bearers. Reveal God in the world, be in relationship with God, in intimate union, and take care of what God had made and make something of it. That makes sense? That's it. Now, each one of those, man, you can unpack for hours. But really, that's it. That's why we are here. God created the world as a place where his glory could be revealed, where his character could be revealed. That's why he made the world. You know, out of the abundance of who he was, and out of the abundance of his love, he creates a being that he can share this glory with in fellowship. And he creates this being that is to do three things fundamentally: look like him in a lot of different ways, be in relationship with him. A sort of relationship that the best image we have is that between a husband and a wife. And then thirdly, take care of what God had made, steward the creation, turn it into something that would be a blessing for the creation itself and all those who are inhabiting it. That got completely derailed. And we became, we became, as the human race, unable to live into our original purpose. And so Jesus comes back, and oh my gosh, he's making it right. He's making it right. This is what he came to do. Again, forgiveness of sins is a means to an end. And the larger end is that God is getting creation back on track through the ministry of Jesus. And Jesus is commissioning those who would follow him, those who would become those where he dwells. He's commissioning them to be his agency, to keep on doing his work even when he's not here in physical form until he comes back. He is bringing the kingdom. And he's saying to us, and now I am leaving you the power and the vocation to be those who bring the kingdom. I am leaving you to be those who are who are to make this the way it ought to be. And when it is the way it ought to be, it will feel different, it will smell different, it will look different, it will be attractive, it will be the kingdom of God, and it will be a foretaste of what's coming later when I come back to complete the job. So kingdom action. I have a definition here then. If we're talking about spiritual formation for kingdom action, we're talking about changed lives for a changed world, here's kingdom action then. Doing something so that my world can look like the kingdom of God. That's it. That's it. That's it. It's as simple as this. What does the kingdom of God look like? A little side note here. It's very interesting that um very interesting that um the the closer you get to God, the more your words fail when you try to describe God. You know what I'm talking about? And the reason for that is because God is ineffable. That is, God transcends our language. And so it would make sense, right, that that the closer we get to God, the more time we spend in silence because words fall, they they falter, they fall apart. And um I feel like this when I'm talking about this stuff. It's like, gosh, I feel like I understand it's just such a little bit of it, but man, it's so massive, like the words don't even work. So I'm gonna try. So, what does the kingdom of God look like? I'm gonna give you a word here. It looks like shalom. Shalom, right? Shalom, this universal flourishing, which includes human flourishing that God intends at creation, that God created man for to join him in the creation of, that Christ comes to restore, that Christ invites us to receive of, and that he calls all people and especially Christians to be agents of. Shalom. Shalom. There are many words to describe Jesus, but I think this is just a beautiful one. Shalom. Right? In Isaiah chapter 9, he's called the Prince of Shalom, Prince of Peace. Yeah? I think our word, our modern word peace, gets, it loses some of the punch of it, doesn't it? Like we need the Hebrew here because it actually is meaning something beyond just general well-being. Um He's called the Prince of Peace when the angels came. They say, Shalom comes to the earth. He wept that things didn't know, the people didn't know the things that made for shalom. He loved saying to his disciples, like after the resurrection, Shalom be with you. The fullness of God be with you. So what is shalom then? Shalom is not simply the absence of conflict. Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, it is the presence of fullness. Shalom is not defined by lack, it's defined by wholeness. It's not a negative, it's a positive. So, Strong's concordance, shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, all that. Tim Keller, I have a quote from him up on the screen, I hope. Um you'll have to skip ahead to uh Tim Keller. You'll find it. Shalom means complete reconciliation. One more. One more? There it is. Shalom means complete reconciliation, a state of the fullest flourishing in every dimension. Physical, emotional, social, spiritual, because all relationships are right. They're perfect, and they're filled with joy. The Hebrew word shalom is an extremely rich concept. It means full human flourishing in every respect. It's the more contemporary word that we're using for shalom these days, flourishing. Have you seen this word more often in common culture? Amen. Flourishing is a God word. It basically simply means shalom. Um let me uh connect those two things in our next slide. This is uh from the reformed tradition of another philosopher, Cornelius Plantinga. The webbing together of God and humans and all creation in justice and fulfillment and delight is what the Old Testament prophets called shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a ceasefire among enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing and wholeness and delight, a rich state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its creators and savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Okay? So without illustrating this quite, I think you get the idea of what shalom would look like. It's like it's where everything is working, right? Where nobody is left out, where you know, some people can have flourishing, but not at the expense of others or at creation, where there is harmony, where there is peace, where things are able to live into their design, and especially people able to live into who it is that God created them to be. So let's ask the question then what is required for this for this shalom? What's required for this? Um, a very, very, very important caveat here that I don't want to spend much time in, but I do want to say it, and that is this that as a Christian, I believe that a person cannot and will not be who they ultimately can be and who they're made to be without a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Okay? So that's an important thing to say, and I could unpack that a lot. Um, but I would argue that that at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the most important thing that is required for somebody to experience shalom is actually a relationship with Jesus. Okay. But good news though is that you don't have to have a living relationship with Jesus to benefit from the way that God designed the world to actually function. And in fact, in some ways, the way it needs to function if you are going to be able to live into who God wants you to be, even if you do have a living relationship with Jesus. Did that make sense? Yeah, I don't think I can repeat it either because that really came fast. Um but you get my point, okay? You get my point. So um let's just talk about what is required for wholeness. What is required for fullness? Because what I want to do is I want to try to connect your jobs with the kingdom of God. I'm very interested in your Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, or very interested in your unpaid all-the-time work, and I'm referring to mothers of young children like my wife. Um, I want to try to connect these things to the kingdom of God. Um, an individual will find it difficult to flourish and to be able to freely choose their best life in a society that does not offer the prerequisites for it, right? This kind of just makes simple sense. Take something like food. Um if a person doesn't have enough to eat, they're gonna find it really hard to flourish, right? If a person doesn't have enough to eat, they're gonna find it really hard to live into God's ultimate design for them, right? They're gonna find it hard to live into who it was that God knew them to be before the very foundation of the world. Especially if it's a child who's hungry. Because of the way that nutrition affects brain development. Right? So in my county where I live, Shenandoah County, uh Virginia, one in five kids live in a situation of food insecurity, which is a fancy word for hungry. Across our country, one in four children live in a situation of food insecurity. That is, they live hungry. Okay, and a child who's growing up hungry is gonna find it difficult to live into who God intends them to be. They're gonna find it difficult to experience the sort of shalom that we're talking about. Um and so there are ministries of trying to provide more food for kids who don't have enough to eat at home. Our state does that, our government does that, don't they? Through food assistance, right, and school lunch programs. 50% of the kids who go to my kids elementary school are on food lunch programs. In other words, they get subsidies to help help them be able to eat. The bummer is, though, is what happens when they go home on the weekend? What happens when school's not in session? What about the summer, right? When they are unable to get breakfast at s at school or lunch at school, right? There's a shortage. And so a bunch of Christians have rallied together and they have tried to um create what they call Luke's backpack, where just backpacks are stuffed full of food that the kids can take home and they can eat it themselves, and frankly, a lot of their families end up and end up joining as well. So it's just all of kind of um pastas and rice and you know, healthy sorts of things that aren't that expensive but can feed a lot of people. Um, you know, and that's an example of something that is mitigating against shalom being addressed by those who are trying to somehow uh encounter it. And that's just an example of food. There are many, many things that are present in a society if it's going to create the context for individuals to have the possibility of flourishing, right? Of experiencing shalom. And I would just say that among them are listen, for anything here that relates to your work, to your job, to your vocation. Basic, providing basic needs like food. Um we could talk for a long time about the wide web of things that is required in order for people to be able to eat. Does that make sense? You know? Um, and each of them being required in order for people to have enough to eat. It's a huge web of vocational relationships. So provision of food in one way or the other, um, shelter, clothing, medical care, education is required for people to really grow into who God designs them to be. A just society, the ability to rely on the rule of law, um, effective government. I would argue religious freedom is required for shalom. I would I would say that the promulgation of the Christian gospel, the ability for people to hear the gospel freely, is a requirement for flourishing. The possibility of meaningful work, you know? Because we were made, Genesis 2.15, to work. Access to the arts and freedom. There are other things as well. But this is where this is where I was asked to address a little bit how do our jobs, how does my real life relate to all this spiritual life? And what I'm telling you is that when we think about in terms of the kingdom of God, that we are carrying on the ministry of Jesus, working to bring the kingdom of God until Jesus brings it back, one of the ways that we bring the kingdom of God is to, in any way that we do it, make it make the possibility of there being human flourishing and shalom so that individuals can live into the dignity of their creation and their calling. And that even our jobs are a fundamental way that God does that. And when we can understand our work somehow connected to either bringing positively shalom or, in the negative, counteracting the effects of the fall, of which there are many, we can realize that our work is actually a way that God does his work in the world. And that there is no divide between secular and sacred work, that what Cliff and I do is absolutely no different in God's economy than what any of you do who don't spend most of your time in a church. Does this make sense? This is absolutely revolutionary. It got a lot of attention during the Protestant Reformation, but it's actually a universal Christian teaching, at least theologically. And that's really, really cool. So kingdom action is not simply being Mother Teresa. Am I making sense there? Kingdom action does not mean that you have to sell everything that you have and go off somewhere to do something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and there is the legitimate vocation to that, right? No, kingdom action can be any way that we are seeking to do something that is bringing the kingdom of God in anticipation of when Jesus brings it back. So our vocations, our work is part of that. Our family life is part of that. That's a big deal. You know, families are family life is hard with little ones. I know that. But but but but but uh if there was ever such a thing as like little outposts of the kingdom where our own children and where others can experience the fullness of God so that others can see that there is an alternative to whatever their life is, our families are are are I think those outposts. Uh families have been called the first they the Catholic Church refers to them as as domestic church. I love that, you know, that our first church is actually what goes on in our household. And I would say that this is not limited to those people who are married by any means. Um I would say that that whatever our household is, the calling is to make it be a place of shalom, a place of flourishing, a place where we can experience and where others can see the reality of the kingdom of God. Does that make sense? This is a very high calling, I know of what I speak, but I'm I I don't want to not say it because I think it's true. I think our households, the households of a Christian, either with nuclear family or with friends or whoever it is that the Lord puts us with, are to be outposts of the kingdom, bearing witness to the shalom of God so that others can encounter that and come in. Okay? So this kingdom of God thing impacts our work. Kingdom action impacts our work, it impacts our family, it impacts community. I'm not going to spend any time on this except to say what this church does is a significant act of kingdom action. And what kind of community you are is a significant act to bring the kingdom. So don't don't um don't undersell your corporate vocation. Make sense? And another place where this kingdom action applies, and this is the one that I just want to end on, um is kingdom action in order to be a redemptive presence in the middle of pain. A redemptive presence in the midst of pain. Because this is what Jesus does. It's so amazing, isn't it, that he saw the brokenness and the pain and the horror and the agony, and he had a real choice as to how he was going to respond, and what did he choose? Christine? In it. It was a free choice on his part to do this. He didn't have to, just like the cross. He didn't have to do that either. So Jesus seeing the mess, seeing the horror, seeing the pain, feeling the sorrow of this beloved creation of God, human beings, not living into God's original design for them, right? He sees it and he chooses not to stay there. That might be God correcting my sermon. Would you make sure that it's not him? Is it the Lord? Okay, no, good. Good, good, good. So Jesus chooses to incarnate into it. He chooses to come in and engage it. And so if we had the same Jesus living in the middle of us, right? If we basically relive the life of Christ, what does that mean for us? What are we gonna do when we look at pain and sorrow and suffering? What's our posture gonna be? I can tell you what a lot of people choose. It's called a gated community. Nothing against gated communities. If that's your calling. But no, ours too is engage the pain. So I was in Darfur a few years ago, right at the height of the genocide. And um, I didn't realize a lot of the dynamics of that, but you know, South Sudan, Sudan had been going through a civil war for a very long time, 20, 25 years, and a lot of it was really focused on the southern part of the country, you know, and not to be overly simplistic, but you kind of have Muslims in the north, Christians in the south, and the Muslim-controlled government in Khartoum literally waging a genocide on the Christians in the South in order to be able to take property, basically, and to basically purify the country. What I didn't realize before I went there was that a lot of the folks who had who had waged that war in the south were conscripts. That is, they were drafted by the army from the north in Khartoum, and they were from Darfur. They were Muslims, but they were black Muslims, not Arab Muslims. Am I making sense? And so these black Muslims from Darfur were conscripted to perpetrate this genocide on South Sudanese Christians with the promises that when it was all done, that these uh places in Darfur who had done the fighting, that they would get schools and they would get hospitals and they would get more social services. But do you know what they got instead? Those who had been conscripted to perpetrate genocide became the victims of genocide. Because the Khartoum government, as opposed to merely, they were actually not as they were not only concerned about purifying the land of Christians, they were also concerned about making the whole country of Sudan basically Arab Muslim, not African Muslim. Am I making sense? And so all of a sudden, what happens in Darfur is this awful genocide of Muslims perpetrating genocide on Muslims, Arabs versus African. And so that was the story. I didn't realize that before I went. And so I went there in the height of this thing to work with World Relief just to do a short spiritual retreat with their NG, with their staff, their on-the-ground staff, and ended up doing some stuff with USAID as well, just trying to bring some sort of spiritual sustenance to these folks who you know were working and living at the risk of their life. And so I was stunned having learned this story when I when I met this guy working with World Relief. He was an NG, he was a World Relief staff worker. World Relief is the uh relief and development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, right? Christian organization. And I met Peter. Peter was from South Sudan. And it's like, wait a second. And now that Understand the story. What are you doing here? Peter's family had been forced out of South Sudan, and they were actually all living in Khartoum, where he would go to Khartoum for three weeks out of every three months, and then he would come back and do this work. So his family had been displaced by these very people that had actually perpetrated his displacement. That makes sense. He had come from the place of suffering in order to engage the current place of suffering, even though those who were suffering were those who had perpetrated his own suffering. Unbelievable. And I just couldn't get my head around it. And so finally I just asked him, I said, How can you do this? How can you do this? Tell me. And he said, he talked about the first time that he had ever seen one of these villages that had been raised in the war. And he just said this. He said, Seeing their suffering reminded me so much of our suffering. And I know what they're going through, so I can comfort them with Jesus. That's kingdom action. That's being a redemptive presence in the midst of pain. That is Jesus living inside of us so that our lives end up looking more and more like his. You've lived this story. Some of you have done this story. You know, um awful neighborhood, awful house calling to buy and renovate. People coming, renovating, you know. And all of a sudden, this house that had been known for um drugs and prostitution and the police turns into this place of shalom in the middle of the inner city in a block. And all of a sudden, um the people in the neighborhood feel like there's actually safety on their street, and all of a sudden new relationships start to happen. And that's the story of our house in the inner city of Washington, DC. It's still and it's still happening. It's just amazing to see that God had taken what was um what was the last house in the block that uh that was really um rife with drugs. I first year that we lived there, I got woken up at 5 30 a.m. three times by the federal marshals. You know, it's like, you know, are you Perry Reveno? It's like, no, I'm not. It's a former owner, I haven't seen him, you know. Um, but just you know, a place of utter brokenness becoming a place of fullness and a place of shalom. Kingdom, the kingdom coming. That is kingdom action, okay? About us being the presence of Jesus in the midst of pain so that the kingdom comes. Doing that in our families, doing that in our communities, doing that in our work, sometimes doing it very specifically because we know what the needs are. So, kingdom action.

Drew Masterson: 1:02:57

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