The Kingdom is about the King

We are coming to the end of the year.
This Sunday is last one in "ordinary time."
Next week we celebrate Christ the King,
and the week after that is the beginning of Advent.
We are in the countdown to Christmas.
It's obvious
from the shop windows in my neighborhood.
History is going somewhere.
God will shake the heavens
and the earth
and the powers in the heavens,
and we will see the Son of Man
coming in great glory
with the holy angels.

Monday morning
the Psalm in Morning prayer
was Psalm Two,
and this verse jumped out at me:
"Now therefore,
O kings be wise,
be warned O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
with trembling rejoice,
lest he be angry,
and you perish on the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.

These weeks at the end of the readings,
and the beginning of Advent always look to
the Return of Jesus.

If you have spent any time among
conservative types of churches,
this topic can become a real turnoff,
because there is a cottage industry
around the rapture
and end-times prophecy.
And honestly,
it seems like the second coming takes
a back seat to the tribulation,
and the whole thing is completely
disconnected from reality.

Let's go back to our main thesis:
Jesus Christ did not come to start a religion,
he came to establish a Kingdom.
The whole Bible
from beginning to end
is about this Kingdom.
It is not about religion.
And when you try to understand the second coming
from a religious grid,
things get weird.
And it is really important for artists and creative people.
Because if you try to fit your life
into the religious grid,
you produce bad art.
If you are an artist for the Kingdom
there is a lot of freedom.

And this is essential to the calling
on our house.
Belonging House is called to prepare the way
for the coming of the Lord.
And the coming of the Lord is about the Kingdom.

So what is this Kingdom?
George Eldon Ladd
wrote multiple books on the subject,
and he said we are in an
"already,
but not yet"
Kingdom.

In other words,
Jesus came to inaugurate the Kingdom.
He won the battle
and the legal right
to be King
when he died and rose again.
And then,
he left us to tend and increase this Kingdom
in hostile territory.
He won D-Day.
And we are fighting our way to Berlin.
And then he said
that he is going to return and win
a final victory.
Our experience is not “it.”
We are not in an endless cycle that is going nowhere.
We are moving toward a final battle,
and a final victory.
So often,
and it happened again this week,
I find myself in a church
or a ministry setting,
and the leaders and people act
like Jesus is never coming back.
If Jesus came and disrupted the program
they would be genuinely shocked.
Jesus is coming back,
and we have to hold everything loosely.

In the final weeks of the life of Jesus
at the end of all the gospels
before the passion and cross,
Jesus talks at length about this.
And he likens it to "birth pangs"
seasons where the the warfare,
the trials,
and the difficulties
become intense,
interrupted by periods of recovery.
And like the process of labor,
these contractions
would grow closer and more intense
as the day of his appearing approached.

I meet a lot of folks who have sat under
bad end times
teaching
and they dread the second coming.
All they heard about was the tribulation,
and not much about the hope.
The hope is that Jesus will be with you.
Jesus will be here
and he will bring order to this world.
That's the hope.
The King is coming.
The hope is not that you get sucked up
and out of here with the rapture vac.
No,
the hope is that you will live in a world
where the King finally rules and reigns on this earth.
Everybody wants a king like Jesus.
A king who judges rightly,
who does not judge with what his eyes see.
Every body wants a king like Jesus
who lifts up the lowly,
and brings order.
This is the longing of every human heart.

And Jesus warns us to
watch,
pay attention.
You will not know the day or the hour,
but you will know
signs of the appearing,
just like you know from the sky,
that the weather is about to change.

You will know when there are wars and rumors of wars.
You will know when the gospel is preached to the entire world.
You will know when the love of many grow cold.
You will know when it was like the days of Noah,
where great evil and wickedness reign,
and people go on as if nothing odd is happening,
eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage.
You will know when it is like the days of Lot,
who lived in a city that normalized sexual perversion,
that made people turn aside from those in need,
and become hard towards the stranger.
Jesus said,
you will know the signs
that something is coming.

Sadly,
there are all these people
who are obsessed with the fulfillment
of end times prophecy,
who are missing the word of the Lord.
And Jesus said
this world will pass away,
but his word will never pass away.

Jesus said,
watch,
be ready.

God is calling you,
and me
to be in the Kingdom.
We need to get our lives into the place
where we are so ready for the appearing of Jesus,
that when he comes
we will not need to make any adjustments.
We need to get our lives so in line with heaven
that when heaven does come on earth,
we are able to pass from one degree of glory to another.
We need to live in the age to come
now,
so that when that age appears,
we will be ahead of the curve.
We will be the leaders of the nations,
we will be like sparks through the stubble.
We will govern nations.
We need to be longing for the one our soul loves,
and longing for the day when we shall see him as he is.
The Kingdom
is about the King.

This is the promise
of the Kingdom.

Yes,
but how?
We get there day by day,
listening to the King.
We need to hear the royal proclamations
he is releasing every day in the Bible.
We need to be listening for the Holy Spirit,
to guide and direct us,
and we need to then go where the King directs,
follow those orders,
and watch what happens.
Jesus is the King of the Kingdom,
and the King is coming.

This is the calling on our house
and on all those who are in the Kingdom.
We are called to make a way.

Next week
Jim Leach will be teaching.
And then Advent begins!
And this year the focus is going to be
making a way for the coming of the Lord.
We are going to focus on John the Baptist,
because this community has a John the Baptist
anointing.

The King is coming.

Come Kingdom of God,
Be done will of God,
on earth
as that will
is unhindered in heaven.
Amen.