Living as a Reflection of God's Future Kingdom
Matthew 18:2-3; Acts 17:6; Matthew 18:22
We're going to continue this morning in part three of Identity Check as we travel through the book of 1 Peter. I hope you have been reading that book, and I hope that book has been reading you. As always, one of the things I love to say is it is one thing to read the Word of God, but it's quite another thing to allow the Word of God to read you. When the Word of God begins to read you, you now have a decision to make. You now have a decision that you can just hear it as truth, or you can adjust your life to reflect the truth.
Really, that's what the Word of God is all about. I want you to turn with me this morning, before we ever get to 1 Peter, to the book of Matthew, and I want you to go to chapter 18, verse 2. It reads like this: Jesus said, "And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of [God]."
Jesus comes and he puts a little kid right in front of the disciples. The same way this morning, if you could imagine him doing the same to you, if Jesus was here, he'd put a child in front of you, he would look at you, and he would look at me, and he would say, "Unless you turn and become like this little child (this innocence, this pureness, this fresh start), you will never enter the kingdom of God."
That's pretty strong. That's pretty heavy. I want you to understand when you read "the kingdom of God," or you read "the kingdom of heaven," everywhere you read that in the Scriptures, what you are really saying is, "God's rule and reign in the here and now." You see, this is more than the kingdom of God that is a futuristic kingdom.
We know the kingdom of God is yet to fully come. We know at the second coming of Christ he will come back. He will set all things right. He will take all injustices away. He will banish every sin, every heartache. Everything that corrupts God will do away with, but because of the power of the resurrection, the glory of that future kingdom now manifests itself in our lives as the Holy Spirit lives within us.
The kingdom of God. God's rule and reign in the here and now. That's what he's really saying. The beauty of the context of Matthew 18 (I'm not really here to preach on Matthew 18 today) is really discipleship and Christian community, and at the very heart of it is forgiveness. Have you ever been to a church community or to a church in general and you gather and you just don't feel any forgiveness? You don't feel any kind of love? You don't really feel anything different from the community of the world, so to speak.
Have you ever found yourself in a place like that? We've all been there. Even our local body… I've had times where I come in and kind of feel that. How many of you know that should not be? We are a community that is called to be different. We are a community that is truly upside down from the world. The Bible talks over in the book of Acts, chapter 17, when the disciples had come into a certain city they were completely upset about it, because they said, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also…"
It wasn't so much that they were turning the world upside down as much as it was they were setting all things right. If there's ever something the church needs to be, the church needs to be a refuge from the storm of the community out there that tries to set us apart. Jesus, in this whole context of Matthew 18, really sets the whole stage.
I'm just glancing through, but it talks about the temptation to sin. He says, "Don't cause a little one to sin." In other words, "Don't bring heartache into their life." That's what the community of the church should be. He moves on and talks about the parable of the lost sheep. Remember, that one that was lost. They go look for the sheep and they go find it, and they offer forgiveness.
That's what it should feel like when we come through the church doors, that we are coming into a refuge, but here's the deal. Is it okay to preach a little bit? Here's the deal. I believe with all of my heart on some levels (not all churches, but I believe the Western church in general a lot of times), we've learned to offer a lot of judgment but not a lot of refuge, and it's not right.
That's why people run from the church. That's why even older people leave church and the middle-aged leave church and the children leave church, because it's like they'll look at me and say, "Pastor, I don't really have a problem with this Jesus guy. I kind of like him, but it's the church I don't really understand," because what we've done is offered them judgment and not a refuge, not a community.
You should never be afraid to come to the house of God, and you should never be afraid to come to the house of God when you're really dirty. Amen? God knows what you did last night. He doesn't love you any less because of the bad decision you may have made last night. When he comes in, if he hasn't brought ultimate judgment on our lives but he's brought a loving conviction to try to move us closer to him, don't you think the church community, as we come stepping through the doors of the church, ought to reflect that very nature?
I think if we did that we really wouldn't have a problem with numbers, because people would say, "I want to go there because it's a safe place, but yet it's a holy place." Amen? "It's a broken place, but yet it's a place of healing." Hallelujah! "It's a place where the saints are not perfect. They're not sinless, but they follow One who is sinless." That's really what Jesus was trying to say about that child.
He was saying, "You need to go back to this kind of purity that exists." It moves on in chapter 18, and he talks about the parable of the unforgiving. Remember, where Peter says, "How many times should I forgive the one who sinned against me?" Of course, Jesus said, "…seventy times seven." In other words, he said, "It's infinite. Always forgive." The church should be a place of forgiveness. The church should be a refuge.
I'm all the time hearing people say, "Hey, man, you have to preach the truth, and sometimes truth is hard-hitting." Of course, it is. Pastors are to preach the whole counsel of the Word of God, but there's a difference between preaching hard truth that moves you to be more like him than the judgment that feels like you can't ever make it and you can't do any good.
The last time I checked, if you'll just kind of read John 3:16 and then jump into the pool of John 3:17, what you're going to find out is condemnation was poured down on Jesus. He didn't come to bring condemnation. Condemnation was poured out on him on a cross. Amen? We're not called to be a community that condemns. We're a community that brings healing, that brings acceptance, that brings warmness. A safe place to be broken. A safe place to fall. That's really what this is all about. That's why Jesus mentions this little child.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." That's strong. We could go home on that one. He had a point. We'd better learn to live together as brothers, because if we don't do that, we're going to perish like fools. That's what the world does. The world sometimes has a rightful case. They say, "We have more fellowship and brotherhood outside the four walls of the church than we do inside the four walls of the church."
We're supposed to be cutting edge, a new community, a community of the future that brings it into the now, but no. Many times we're not that. I love watching kids before they learn to really manifest selfishness, racism, cliques, malice, and anger. It's a taste. It's a small taste. Though it is a small taste, it's a taste of this future kingdom of this purity of what it looks like.
I know today as I speak to you that it's a small window that happens in. A very small window. It's not long till they learn to sin pretty well. All you have to do is look in the mirror. You'll see that small little child you once were has just grown up a little bit. A little different hair color, a little different body shape, but that little kid is still in there, and that little kid knows how to sin and pitch a tantrum and get mad and get angry and bring malice.
I'm not here today to debate whether we are born into that or we learn it. I kind of think it's both. I know we're born into it. The Bible declares plainly we are born sinners because of what happened in the garden. Sin came upon all humanity. We were born separated from God, but boy, after we're born into that, we sure do learn how to sin really well. Amen? We become professionals at it.
We even learn how to hide it, yet sin greater in our hiddenness. We're called to unlearn that. I love the glory of that little window I talked about. I mean, if you want to see it in its purest sense, anybody who has ever had children and you go to the hospital and your wife is having your child, and it's birthed. That whole beautiful moment takes place. Then they take the child down to the nursery. All the fathers and everybody, we're doing what?
We're standing at the window, and we're just kind of looking, claiming we did something great, when the real warrior was in there. Amen? We're looking through the window, and that moment is so cool. I remember, because we lived in California. It was cool. With Madison… And then I went through it with Noah.
It's cool, because it binds everybody together. There's something about that window and the purity behind that window that just pulls the community together. You look over and here's an Indian guy. You look over and here's a black guy. You look over and here's a white redneck with no teeth. It's just everybody. You have the poor. You have the rich. All of us are doing what? We're smiling. We're like, "What's up? Where's your kid?"
We're pointing through the glass. "That's mine over there." There's this beauty behind the glass, because they're all colors and they're all backgrounds. Again, socioeconomics… Everything is right behind there. God has done that. They're breathing and they're in sync, but something happens. We have to come out from behind the glass. Behind the glass was safe, but then we come out from behind the glass, and life begins to teach.
Within that first year, that little baby already knows how to go, "Mine," and knows how to fall down on the ground and arch his or her back and knows how to be selfish and all of that. It's born in, but it's also learned, too. Right? That's why they say racism is learned. It really is. It was taught to me. It was taught to you.
Life becomes this unlearning, but we know as Christ followers there is another community. I'm going to say it again. We know as Christ followers there is another community that shouldn't be that and will one day not be that. That's why 1 Peter talks about setting your hope on the future when he will fully reveal his grace to you.
We are saved now. We are transformed. We are being transformed. We are both learning and unlearning until Jesus comes back at the second coming, changes our lives and our bodies, and then we are no longer capable of sinning forever and ever. Heaven and earth come together, and oh my gosh, man, we tiptoe through the tulips again. Now all of a sudden we're all standing around like a sea of humanity looking through the glass going, "It's finally pure forever!" Amen?
All he's called us to as a group of believers is to begin to reflect that right now, both as an individual and as a Christian community (a church) as we gather. Turn with me real quickly over to 1 Peter. Let's jump back in where we left off last week. I think I left off around verse 23. Let me just read that to you.
We know as a Christian community that we are a new identity. We know we've been stamped with a new identity. We know we are called as Christ followers to reflect this future community right here, right now. That's why, when I speak to you, Legacy… That's why at Legacy Church our whole mission and our whole vision are just really simple: to be Christ followers who are fully engaged and leaving behind a kingdom legacy with our lives.
What is that legacy? It's nothing we come up with. It is a future legacy we pull into our lives and we pass on. We give people a safe place to come, not only in a corporate gathering, but when they approach you, when they come to you. That's what we're going to discover in these Scriptures today. Go with me to 1 Peter, verse 22, where I left off.
"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart." In other words, what Peter is saying is, "If you look back over what I've already written up until this point…" He said some pretty powerful concepts. In a sense, he has spoken to us and said, "Really, your name has been changed. You are now a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are becoming new."
Peter is going, "Your soul has been purified by the Word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. You have been sanctified. You have been set apart for his use." Set apart to what? To the obedience of Jesus Christ. To obey him. Peter has already told us, "You have been sprinkled (dispersed) among the communities of the world to be that salt, to be that light in the world, to be a community that draws them, to be a type of community where they never look at you and they never look at me and go, 'Hey, I like Jesus. I just don't like the church.'"
No. They should say, "I love Jesus, and I love the church he has put together." You can change that. I can change that. That's why he said, "This purity of your soul… You've been transformed, having purified your souls by obedience." How do you purify your soul? Obedience. Obedience to what? Obedience to the truth.
How many of you know we can hear truth all day long? Truth does not transform. Obedience to the truth transforms. We can hear for years and years and years, "The church should be loving," but if we don't obey the law of love, they perceive the church as not loving. Does that make sense to you?
We can understand the Bible says love is patient and kind and all those other attributes, but if we don't obey those attributes, then we are giving to the world a definition God never gave to them. God's going, "My definition is pure and holy. You're giving them something else. You're giving them what the world is giving them." That's what Peter is trying to get into us, that we are an alternative community. We are a people who have come to turn the world back to right.
As we march toward redemption and as redemption approaches us, this is how you and I are supposed to live. He moves on and says you have been set apart "…to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another…" You've been set apart to do what? Love one another. You remember when Jesus first gave that, right? It was over in the book of John, chapter 13, around verse 34 or so.
Jesus was having the Last Supper with his boys. You remember Jesus looks over and says, "One of you guys will betray me tonight. It's the one who dips." We know the story. Judas dips. He says, "What you are going to do, do quickly." He leaves, and then Jesus looks at his disciples and says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."
He goes on to say in other places they "…will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." He didn't say, "They'll know you are my disciples because you tolerate one another." Even in the church body, you might not like each other sometimes because of personalities, but love is an action before it's ever a feeling. Amen?
We love to excuse ourselves out of loving people. "I kind of like them. I'll get along with them." Loving is a commitment, because love calls us to die. Love called Jesus to die on a cross. "For God so loved the world that he gave…" It's not like Jesus woke up on the morning of his death and went, "Man, I can't wait to get at this!" We know in the garden the 100 percent human man side cried out, "Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass, but nevertheless, let thy will be done."
Why did Jesus go to the cross? The Bible says, "…for the joy that was set before him…" You're his joy. You're his favorite. Now live like you're his favorite and draw the world unto his body. Live differently. Be different. First Peter has already told us, "…be holy, for I am holy." You can't out-holy God. I can't out-sing Cassandra, but I can get around her and feel the beat. I can get caught up in that voice, and I can become one with that voice, and I can even dream about singing like that.
Hopefully, I'll be able to sing like that in heaven. I can get close to the one who can. That's holiness, getting close to the one who is and staying under that shadow so we become a true reflection to the world of who he is. When we don't live beautiful, broken, unconditional lives before the world, what we're teaching the community is, "When you have stuff and baggage in your life, get it cleaned up before you come into the house of God, because it's so holy you'd better clean it up before you come."
Do you know what they do? They live in that kind of guilt. "I would go to church, but I kind of have this and I'm ashamed." Come to church ashamed. I come to church ashamed every flippin' Sunday, because sometimes I know what I did during the week. I know I sinned sometimes on purpose. I don't know why. I don't plan it. It's just, "There it is, and I'm going for it." You never do that, though, do you?
I know when I'm coming to the house of God I'm coming to One who has redeemed me, One I can place my life under, and I can become a reflection. It's odd, because that's why God has placed me in lives. That's why I don't worry about judgment. I mean, people will look at me all the time. Pastors get it all the time. "He's a pastor, and he did this. He's a pastor, and he went there. He's a pastor, and he hung out here. He's a pastor. He has tattoos. He's a pastor. He did this." They'll do all these kind of things.
Why are you going to define me as a pastor? I'm a child of God. I have a job to do. It's to shepherd your life and your soul from a broken position, not a healed position above you, but with you. That's what a true pastor is. That's one who comes alongside. That's why I can go hang out with the millionaires, and I've hung out in San Francisco with the homeless who are as broken as you can be. I've hung out with elite and non-elite.
I've hung out with poor and those who have plenty of money. I've hung out in the bar with somebody who is broken and crying in their beer. I sit there with my hand around them. They're drunk; I'm not. I'm there. Amen. We don't do that anymore. We still believe it's us against the world instead of us for the world. That's why people leave. That's why people want to find alternatives other than the beauty of what his church should really, really be.
It says in verse 23, "…since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…" He said, "Do all of this because you've been born again by this living and abiding word of God." He says this is the product of being born again. This is the product of being in Christ. It is an imperishable seed contrasted by the seed that is perishable from the human flesh. It dies.
This seed never dies. His Word will always live. Let heaven and earth fall apart, but his Word shall abide forever, and his Word lives inside of you. That's why I'm always saying to you guys, "You are a sacred space. You create sacred spaces everywhere you go because God lives on the inside of you." That's why I stand all the time. When people have these little arguments like, "We took God out of this, and we removed God from that…" We don't remove God from anything!
You can't remove God. He's everywhere. How do you remove God? It doesn't make sense. I kind of get the argument. Pass any law you want. You can outlaw prayer tomorrow, and do you know what will happen? Christians will be like Daniel. They'll open up their windows, and they'll face the East, and they'll say, "My God," and they'll call on him. Outlaw it! You can't kill a child of God. We're eternal. (I didn't know I was going to get into all of that.)
Watch this. "…for 'All flesh is like grass…'" That word for? Underline the word for because it's a beautiful reference he's getting ready to give. It picks up the book of Isaiah, chapter 40. In Isaiah, chapter 40, it is God bringing hope into the Israelite's lives when they were in exile. This is him saying, "I'm going to bring you out of exile." It's God speaking to his community.
The Bible is written to individuals, too, but it's really a book written to a community. Sometimes we over-individualize it. Do you understand what I'm saying? We like to over-individualize it because it makes us a little better than the next guy. I can live a little cleaner than you can, Cassandra. You know what I'm saying? You only let about two cusswords a year slip, and I only let one. I'm a little better than you. That's what it does to us.
Look at what the Bible says about community, where it says, "Bear ye one another's burdens…" and "Iron sharpens iron…" God speaks to a community. When a pastor preaches, we're preaching to us. I'm not preaching to you. I'm preaching to me (us) as a community. That's why we function as a community.
When the world comes in, what do we show them in the church? Individuality, cliques, racism within the church…stuff that should never be in here. That's why I hate bringing politics into the church. I don't. I never have. I never will. Go vote. I don't care. I follow One. He'll sort all the little stuff out in the end. I follow One. He's the only party who is perfect. I can promise you that. The only one.
People come to me all the time and say, "Who are you going to vote for? What are you going to do?" What does it matter? If it's this guy or this lady, it doesn't matter. When I say things like that, does anybody feel…you don't have to raise your hand…the tension? "It kind of does matter." There you go.
"…for 'All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.' And this word is the good news that was preached to you." That is on the inside of you. Look what he picks up in chapter 2. That's why we move on. "So put away…" Watch this in verse 1 of chapter 2. "So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander."
Put all that old stuff off, because this slander, this malice, and all this stuff… It drives a wedge in the body. It infringes on the gospel community, because you and I have been called to reflect the future kingdom of God. Malice and anger and all that stuff and selfishness have no place in your life and no place in the kingdom of God, God's rule and reign in the here and now. We've been called to heal people when we need our own healing. We've been called to minister to broken people when we're broken ourselves.
A lot of times we're afraid of that, but Jesus said, "In your weakness I shall be strong." We feel like we need to be punished. One of my dear friends, Pastor Jonathan Martin, who pastors Renovatus Church… I don't know if I'm quoting him perfectly, but I heard him say one time and I love it, "We'd much rather be treated as a servant than a son." Wow! I'm like, "Jonathan, God gave you a strong word right there. That's powerful."
I get what he's saying. We want to be punished because we feel, "I kind of deserve it," but a son he keeps close and says, "You messed up, but come on. You messed up, but come on." That's uncomfortable. It ends and says, "So put away all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander…" Verse 2: "Like newborn infants, long for…"
Do you know what God is saying there? "Go back behind the glass. Go back to the purity of that community behind the glass with those little babies." That's why he brought children out. He knows children grow up into adults like us who just kind of goof up the world sometimes. "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation…"
Do you know what salvation means? Rescuing. "…if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good."
What he's saying is, "Since you've been saved, since you've been born again (if you have today), you've tasted that the Lord is good. You remember the beauty of when you came to Christ." I want to end today by just sharing my own little journey. On August 24, 1988, I was out in the world living my life, doing the things of the world. God began to tug at my heart. Before long, I ended up in a church.
The preacher preached. The first time scared me to death. I left. Then I called my girlfriend, who is my wife now. "Could you take me back?" She did. I heard the message, and then God spoke to my heart, and he called me down. I remember I went down to an altar, and I remember my prayer was a simple one. I said, "God, if you're real and you're up there, save me." That's all I knew. That moment, and I don't know how to describe it, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted completely off of my shoulders.
I felt a rush of power go through my body, and I felt the cleanest I had ever felt in my entire life. Joy and grace permeated my life in that moment. That moment… If you could bottle up and you could capture, you'd carry around and you would pour it on your head every single day when you woke up. It dawned on me when I was driving to church this morning. I said, "Aha! That's it. If we could cause people who come into the church to feel like that every time they came, we'd never have a growth problem."
