The Hole in Our Gospel

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Thursday, October 17, 2013     Jeff Dixon

Acts 1:3 To these He also presented Himself alive, after His sufferings, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

A question to start off with.  What is the kingdom of God?  We have been discussing it now for two weeks and do we have a firm biblical understanding of what it is.  If Richard Stearns is right about there being a hole in our gospel would you not want to fill it in?  Here is a short list of some of the things the kingdom of God is;

                Romans 14:17. . . .it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit

                1 Corinthians 4:20 . . . .it is not in words, but in power

                Luke 12:31. .Seek first the kingdom of God and all these shall be added unto you

                Luke 17:21 . . . the kingdom of God is within you/among you

These are only but a few of the passages in scripture that speak to the kingdom of God and what it is.  I do not claim to be a scholar or an expert of the scriptures but it seems clear that God’s kingdom is not like what we might think a kingdom looks like.  The problem with words is they form ideas and familiar words form familiar ideas.  The scriptures say kingdom and we start to think king on a throne big robe and a crown.  All of those things are true about God, the train of His robe does fill the temple with glory, He is seated on a throne in heavenly places, and does wear a crown but that is not what it seems to be saying in these texts.  The kingdom or “reign” of God is not external but internal.  God is ruling in the hearts of man and woman given over to His lordship. As we grow from faith to faith and glory to glory we surrender more of ourselves into His hands.  This for me has been the key to all of my too few successes.  When I surrender what God is seeking from me and trust it into His keep what I receive from Him is that “I become a partaker of His divine nature. . .” 2 Peter 1:4.  A part of the new nature given to me at my conversion is opened up to me in ways I could not see before and now I see things and people around me differently. Now the nature of God can freely express itself through our lives which are a demonstration of Gods power in us.  It is all of Him and not of me and yet it is demonstrated through me, Galatians 2:20.  It is not my self-driven efforts to put to death my old nature, but listening to the voice of the Spirit of God in small ways every day. Not a booming voice, but that still small voice that stirs my thoughts to the things I know God would have me do. It is in surrender through obedience to these sometimes small things sometimes not so small things that God builds our faith. It is rare however that what I believe I am to do is in isolation, it almost always includes others. We sometimes see our faith as just that, ours but it is not ours in the singular since but in the plural.  He is not just my heavenly father He is also yours which in fact makes Him “ours”.  If our view of the gospel is diminished in some way it is probably that we see it mostly through the eyes focused on self, which in fact is not about the kingdom of God but rather our own little kingdom.

The question set before us this week is whether there is a hole in our gospel or not. I cannot speak for you or the Church at large but I know me pretty well.  Some days it seems my gospel looks more like Swiss cheese than a solid wall of faith, there seems to be holes everywhere. If we were honest with each other we would probably soon find out that all of us have holes in what we call the gospel and none of us clearly understand what the kingdom of God is, but before we give up in frustration let us look to someone in the scriptures who also had a hole in his idea of the Gospel.  Peter gave up his life to follow Christ, walked with Jesus for three years, preformed miracles, cast out demons, healed the sick, walked on water and saw Christ transfigured right before his own eyes and yet did he ever have a hole in his gospel. Peter thought he was on the right path, he even went so far as to argue about the place he should have in the Kingdom.  You could drive a truck through Peter’s hole and it leads him to deny Christ.  Yet look at what Christ did for Peter.  He did not leave him in frustration and despair but Christ comes to Peter and loving confronts Peter with truth and Peter is changed.  The one who denied Christ before a servant girl stood tall before the Sanhedrin and refused to stop preaching about Christ.     

What I think God would want us to see here is this that He will not leave us in our hole in our gospel either. He will by His grace and through the Holy Spirit start to fill in the hole in our gospel so we might start to see His gospel, a gospel that speaks to us of a kingdom that reigns in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is where the Love of God has been poured out.  In this way we are given the blessing of pouring out onto others that which was poured into us.

Father, I pray that this makes since to those who need to hear it, that it leads us to seek you in some quiet place to ask of you that we might see the glory of your gospel and to catch a glimpse of your kingdom, that we might see your divine nature being manifested in ourselves and the lives of those around us. That we would see it and it would be marvelous to our eyes. “I pray that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we may know what is the hope of your calling, what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance in the saints”, Amen.    

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