Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Acts of the Holy Spirit…
is how our pastor Hunter apparently likes to refer to the book that is placed after the Gospel of John. He started a series on it this past Sunday and talked about the apostles question "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
I pulling from memory here as the sermon isn’t online just yet and I don’t take notes like I should, but one of his main points was that we are still asking that question.
Some of us believe that he has restored the Kingdom of Israel in the church fortifications that we have built. We worship in places that are combination meeting hall, school, coffee shop, movie theaters. We never have to leave the church to face the culture outside. There’s no need to be threatened in our faith by stepping outside the church doors except to go home and to work.
Others believe that he has restored the kingdom in this great country of ours. Of course opinions differ as to whether we are a Christian nation that has fallen far or one that is under assault but is coming back into its strength. No matter what you believe I have to tell you that we as Americans are not part of the Kingdom by birthright.
As Hunter pointed out, the Kingdom is bigger than all of that. Jesus tells his men that now isn’t the time, but that we’ll have the power needed to go and be witnesses. Apparently that wasn’t enough though. Like Animal at the end of The Muppet Movie, God has the angels shout “GO HOME! GO HOME!”.
Rather than stand around wondering when Jesus is going to come back and what our place will be in the Kingdom when he does, we need to put our feet to work.
¶
11:35 AM
is how our pastor Hunter apparently likes to refer to the book that is placed after the Gospel of John. He started a series on it this past Sunday and talked about the apostles question "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
I pulling from memory here as the sermon isn’t online just yet and I don’t take notes like I should, but one of his main points was that we are still asking that question.
Some of us believe that he has restored the Kingdom of Israel in the church fortifications that we have built. We worship in places that are combination meeting hall, school, coffee shop, movie theaters. We never have to leave the church to face the culture outside. There’s no need to be threatened in our faith by stepping outside the church doors except to go home and to work.
Others believe that he has restored the kingdom in this great country of ours. Of course opinions differ as to whether we are a Christian nation that has fallen far or one that is under assault but is coming back into its strength. No matter what you believe I have to tell you that we as Americans are not part of the Kingdom by birthright.
As Hunter pointed out, the Kingdom is bigger than all of that. Jesus tells his men that now isn’t the time, but that we’ll have the power needed to go and be witnesses. Apparently that wasn’t enough though. Like Animal at the end of The Muppet Movie, God has the angels shout “GO HOME! GO HOME!”.
Rather than stand around wondering when Jesus is going to come back and what our place will be in the Kingdom when he does, we need to put our feet to work.
¶
11:35 AM
