Life in the Kingdom of God

Participation in the context of the Kingdom

God is the true authenticator

Have you ever bought something and found that once you got it home it wasn't quite you expected? Have you ever shelled out your hard earned cash for something that didn't meet your expectations once you got it home and inspected it?

One of the first things did when I moved here from Winnipeg  was I went grocery shopping, after all a guy's gotta eat, right? So I headed out to the grocery store to fill the empty shelves in my kitchen armed with the knowledge that I have moved to B.C., which I had been told didn't stand for "British Columbia" but "Bring Cash", expecting groceries to be noticeably more expensive. So I headed to Super Store to buy all the things I would need to feed my mind and body.

It was to my great surprise when one of the first things I picked up was a what I considered a luxury, Cracker Barrel Cheese. To my shock it was actually cheeper than it was back home, like half price. I continued around the store, filling my cart knowing that maybe everything  wasn't going to be as bad as I thought.

It was only when I got home and was putting my groceries away that I learned why that cheese was such an apparent good deal.

This block of cheese was the same length and height as any package of cheese I had ever purchased, however it was about one quarter as thick. Like this cheese was so thin, if you held it up to the light, I swear you'd nearly be able to see right through it. It wasn't quite the deal I thought I was getting.

Maybe you have experienced something similar, but in a far more significant area of your life. Maybe a relationship you were getting into didn't turn out to be as life giving or meaningful. Maybe a job that seemed so promising never panned out to be that much different from your previous employment. Maybe it's someone's word, that convincing you that this time it will be different, or maybe it's your own promise to yourself telling you that you have changed for good, only to find out that it is difficult to teach old dogs new tricks. Or maybe it was a community that you feel failed to live up to it's own commitments.

What ever your experience I am sure that you have, more than once, experienced a lack of authenticity or a failure of authenticity. I am sure that what you were promised—or what you felt you were promised—and what you received were two different things.

But here in Isaiah God offers us good things, good things that are good for our soul. Verses 1 and 2 say .....

So how do we know that these gifts of God is offering us, these valuable gifts of choice wine and milk, are actually good? How do we know that they aren't like that cheese I bought and just a shade away from being transparent?

The first thing that we must remember about these gifts is the source. Just as any gift reveals the character of the gift giver, so God's gifts cannot be removed from His goodness and truth. We can know that God's gifts are good for our soul because He is the creator and lover of our soul and He, He my friends, is good.

To return to the grocery isle, you know that many items are sold to us with shaky claims, pop-tarts being part of a balanced diet, cheese-wiz actually being cheese, and certain products being "premium". But it doesn't take too many consumerist experiences to realize that most of these claims can easily be manipulated. This is the reason that certain selling points, such as fair-trade or organic have certification bodies. For example, when you buy coffee you can rest assure that your coffee is actually fair-trade because an organization has done the investigation that as an average consumer, we cannot, and attests to the truth of these statements.

So it is with God, because God is truly good we can know that his gifts for us are truly good. God's gifts are good for the soul because he is the creator and lover of our soul.

God's gifts are good, they are authentic, because He is the authenticator, He is the one who created us and knows us and he knows what we need more acutely and accurately than we do.

The reason why our church can value authentic community is only because of God. It is impossible to have true community unless we have the truth of God laying bare the truth of our lives. We cannot live in authentic community unless we are open to community with one authenticator.

The reason why we can't have true and authentic community without God is because we were created by God for fellowship with Him. Any existence, any community that exists without fellowship with God will fail to be measure up to what we were created for.

Again, God knows what we need more acutely and accurately than we do.

However, sometimes these offerings of God may not seem to be quite as good as we want them to be. Sometimes we may feel that God isn't living up to His end of the bargain or that maybe he isn't quite as good as advertized.

One thing that we must remember is that God is Wholly different from us, God does not simply differ from us in degrees, but in kind. God is not just simply a better, more pure, stronger version of us, he is utterly and completely different. We are the creatures, he is the created.

God is offering us truly good things, however sometimes because of our sin we may not recognize how great a gift he is offering to us, or even that they are what we need. However if we seek blessings that are less or different that He is offering it is easy to misunderstand both God and ourselves.

We can be like the child who is too stubborn to stop playing in the hotel room that is across the street from Disneyland. If we demand to stick to what we earn and can control we will miss the adventure of Space Mountain for the familiarity of the few toys we were able to jam in the car around the suitcases.

God is offering us gifts so grand that we cannot fathom, experiences fit for Kings, but we can be distracted by the simple things that the world around use offers.

To look to God for only physical blessings is to reduce God from being the eternal Being that He is. When we seek only the things of this earth we cast God into a mould that forces him into our created world.

When we seek only after spiritual blessings from God, when we turn to God for only gifts to be experienced outside of our physical existence, we push God out His created order and make Him out to be a God, but a God who cannot interact with our created world.

Both of these temptations are temptations to idolatry and reduce God from being the All powerful God who loves us and created us that is seen in Scripture. In this we are tempted to replace the God of Scripture with a God much more to OUR liking, one whom we can control or who will provide for us in the ways we desire without meddling in our "private life".

When we look to God for only physical or spiritual blessings, we reduce God from being the Holy One to being a more human one. This, this replacement of the Holy with the human is really what the core of idolatry is all about.

If you have been reading along through Isaiah you will remember that earlier in this book God mocks the carved images that were imported into Judah from the surrounding nations in Isaiah chapter 40. But behind these bold statements there is a deeper reality. As Ivan Friesen notes "In Isaiah there is also an awareness of what idols symbolize. Not only are they sometimes made of silver and gold; they also symbolize the replacement of God by the material security that silver and gold provide (2:7)." Human security or Divine authenticity, the choice is ours.

God is calling out to us, offering us sweet gifts, gifts that will truly satisfy our all too human needs. Needs that we may not even understand or acknowledge. We can chose to strive; to grind away, to work for fouled water, water that does not satisfy. Or we can respond in faith and receive the Sweet water, choice wine, and precious milk. Sustenance that will not only provide for our bodies, but for our whole selves.

• The Good things of God are gifts, we respond to them

God gives us good gifts, we don't have to work to gain these gifts, we don't have to strive for them, extending ourselves to gain blessings or God's pleasure. God doesn't desire for us to go an earn anything. The good things of God are gifts.

The first five verses of this chapter are very clear that God is the source and giver of what we need to truly live. God does not charge or demand. I really like how the NIV phrases verses 3 through 5.

"Give ear and come to me;

hear me, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.

Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations that do not know you will hasten to you."

Listen to the actions of God, he makes it possible that our "soul may live". He "will make an everlasting covenant", He faithfully loves. He made David a witness, a leader, and commander. And He will make nations seek the people of God.

God is the one who makes these dramatic ideas a reality for the people of God. God will do these amazing things, things that we long for. However, there is an aspect of human action, of human participation in these promises of God.

In this passage God uses particular verbs regarding human action. God calls us to Give ear, come, hear, seek, and call.

While the verbs, or actions words, God uses to describe his own actions are active verbs, the verbs that God uses for human action are responsive verbs. God acts and calls us to respond in faith to His action.

This call to respond to God is what faith is all about.

I don't know about you, but I grew up thinking that faith in God had everything to do with something I did once in a prayer to God. Faith, or believing, in God had everything to do with words that I said once. But as many of you who have been on a journey of faith for any period of time know, faith is far more than this.

As Karl Barth, arguably the greatest theologian of the 20th century notes in his collection of essays entitled God Here and Now

"This is faith: That I let Jesus Christ be for me what I am not and cannot be for myself, my goodness, my righteousness, my salvation; that I let the Word of God be my God, my creator and Preserver, my Lord, and Savior. And this, therefore, is our share in the sovereign act of the Word of God; this, therefore is our true [humanity]."[1]

Again, "This is faith: That I let Jesus Christ be for me what I am not and cannot be for myself, my goodness, my righteousness, my salvation;" and this means that "I let the Word of God be my God, my creator and Preserver, my Lord, and Savior." And when we do this, when we trust Jesus to be what we cannot be and submit ourselves to the Father, Son, and Spirit as God, Creator, Preserver, Lord and Savior, we therefore participate in the divine life, the act of God. We can live the life we were created for, because this is what it means to be truly human.

This sort of faith is not something we set once and forget, it is something that we do every day and every moment of every day. In this, faith is like marriage. It was not enough for me to stand up on our wedding day and tell Carmen that I love her and will be faithful to her. I have to live every day loving her and being faithful to her, showing her the love and respect that she can rightfully expect.

Instead faith is the life of submission to God. Submitting every action and decision to Him.

This means that as Christians before we think of "I want" or "I need", we must think "God is" as God's existence is the foundation of our re-newed life. To do anything else is to create an idol in our minds.

It is in this, in understanding ourselves first and foremost as defined by God that we actively participate within God's action.

When we live this life of faith we experience a blessing that is beyond description which is we are drawn into the act and work of God. This work is the will of God and is exactly what you and I were created to experience.

This action of God through us is the fulfillment of our freedom not the negation of it. Let me say that again, this action of God through us is the fulfillment of our freedom not the negation of it.

3. God is Ontologically different

In the context of human experience this seems contradictory, how can it be that we humans can retain our freedom--let alone have it fulfilled-- through God's action in and through us?

However, this passage reminds us that God is not like us. For many years I always thought of God as really just a Super human, someone who was like us but just way, way better in every way. However, this is idolatry. God is not like us, though He reveals Himself to us in ways that we can understand. He is Wholly and completely different than we are. The gap between God and us is not one simply of quantity, but quality. God is beyond any category that we as humans can create.

Read with me again what God says to His people through the prophet in verses 10 and 11.

So I know that we are so much more scientifically advanced than the Jewish nation was in the prophet’s day, I know that we have meteorologists and climatologists who can explain the weather and botanists who can explain the life of a plant from seed through to producing food for the farmer.

But really, how many of you really and truly understand the powers behind rain and snow that come down from the heaven?

And even after Brad's great description of plant germination on Easter, how many of you actually understand the powers and motivation behind a seed dying and the life process of a plant.

Not many of us, right?

These are mysteries that highlight  who God is, He not only understands these powers upon which our lives hang, but controls them and created them.

God cannot be reduced to a human concept.

To borrow an analogy that Brad used last week, God and humanity are of different operating systems. They cannot be compared.

Now this might not be so apparent today, when most apps and programs are available on most platforms, but for those of you who remember the good old days of DOS and Macintoshes, if you had a Dos computer-- like we did in my house-- then when you went to your friends house who had a Mac, you realized very quickly that  there was nothing in common, they looked different, worked differently, and most importantly, a program from one platform certainly would not work on the other.

God and His power are beyond our understanding and this is why He can work through us while establishing our freedom.

The fact that God is wholly other is why He can truthfully speak and say that just as these miraculous life sustaining things happen, seemingly on their own, So it is with His Word. He sends it out, and it always produces fruit. And as John notes in the first chapter of His account of the Gospel, this Word reached its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As "He was with God and He was God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that He didn't make."

4. God draws us into the Kingdom and we respond.

The results continue to be felt today. God is continuing to build up His Kingdom and draw people into the life we were created for, life which is the life of joy and peace. This work may have been fulfilled in Jesus but it yet to be completed.

Is this contradictory? Sure sounds like it.

The work of Jesus is like the final trumpet blast in a symphony, but that blast is still reverberating around the concert hall, it is still affecting individuals and groups within this great concert hall, and so we live in the space between final note and the completion of the song.

We live in the Now, the Kingdom has come and yet the kingdom is still coming, it is still breaking in all around us, God is at work.

This is the reason why I love the scene in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in which you still haven't seen Asland, the witch has yet to be defeated, but her power has been broken and the never ending winter is coming to a close, new plants are popping up and the snow is receding.

Because the kingdom is already in force, because spring has sprung, we can participate in the kingdom even now.

As we saw earlier, God works in and through us, but we have a participatory role in this. God is establishing His kingdom, He is doing miraculous things in bringing this world that has been broken, into the order that He created it for. And best of all, we get to Participate in this.

I really like how Eugene Peterson states verses 12 an 13 in The Message

"So you'll go out in joy,

you'll be led into a whole and complete life.

The mountains and hills will lead the parade,

bursting with song.

All the trees of the forest will join the procession,

exuberant with applause.

No more Thistles, but giant Sequoias,

nor more thorn bushes, but stately pines—

Monuments to me, to God, living and lasting evidence of God."

Notice what the prophet said, we participate in this Kingdom, we help spread it, while we are lead into a whole and complete life, we will go! Go! God's kingdom is not simply an amusement park that we simply show up and enjoy, over looking the outside reality of the world.

However, at the same time it is God's kingdom and it is not up to us to grow or expand it, God is the one who established it and He is the one who will bring it to its fulfillment. In this we fulfill what we were created for, to glorify God through caring for our fellow creation (Genesis 2:15).

This means three distinct things

First, We Know that God's Kingdom is good because it is His and He is able to authenticate that it is valuable and meaningful. God is offering the fellowship and meaning that our hearts crave, He can do this because He is the one who is offering us finer gifts that we can even imagine. This Kingdom is no paper thin block of cheese, it has depth to it that we can never reach the end of.

Second, We know that we can participate in His Kingdom, because He creates the space for us to respond to Him, for us to participate with Him in building His Kingdom, just as we can respond to His gifts in our lives. God does not force us into His Kingdom, He does not choose against people, instead, He chooses humanity in Christ, and in this choosing creates a freedom for us to participate in His Kingdom, a Freedom to be truly human,

And Finally, We know that God's freedom does not limit our freedom, but instead creates true freedom for us because He is not like us. His thoughts our not like ours, and His ways are not like ours. God is in all things and works through all things. Even in ways we cannot understand from our perspective God works to bring Glory to Him and expand His Kingdom, even when individuals choose NOT to participate, when individuals chose to be enslaved to sin instead of living in the freedom of true humanity, God will work through these experiences.

• Conclusion

I am going to invite the band to come up and lead us in a few more songs, while they come up, I am sure some of you are wondering how this affects you?

Maybe you struggle to understand how God can be good in the face of the evil of the world? Maybe your experiences with God have lead you to doubt if He is good or actually in control. Don't give up on those questions, God can stand up to your inquiries, but always remember, His ways are not like ours and He works on a very different time table then we do. We are constrained to the moments by which we live our lives. We are bound by seconds on a clock, our birth and our death. God is not. But dig in to Him, seek Him out. Seek Him in prayer, seek Him in discussions with fellow believers such as in a life Group, or seek Him out in the writing of wise brothers and sisters who have gone before us.

Or maybe your are burnt out on trying it your own way, on religion, on human action to try and change the world, or at least the world around you, into what you think it should be. Well then you are at the right place. Know that God wants to and is changing the world.

If you are a reader of Scripture you will know that in the end, creation looks alot like it did at the beginning, in a right created order, an order that God is working to restore. If this is you, I invite you to stop trying to change the world and let God change you so that in faith, in submission to Him, you can participate in the Kingdom of God as you have been created to.

If this is you, I would invite you to take advantage of the prayer teams that will be at the side. Ask them to pray with you that you will allow God de-thorn the idols of your life in order that He may be the King of your life, the rightful ruler.

Finally, maybe you're like me and you so easily forget the Good things that God is offering to you and to me, without cost and you instead, like me, seek to gain things by your own strength, smarts, or hard work? But these hard earned things, though they may have the glitter of goodness all around them turn out to be cheep and hollow. If this is you, remember, these things are not what we were created for. What God is offering cannot be bought with blood, sweat, and tears. No amount of sweat equity can buy the fine things God is offering, FOR FREE.

Or maybe you simply crave the full transformation of the world, the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom, when all the world will be set right, then allow yourself to cry, cry with our brother’s and sisters who have gone before us, who also cried out , as it says at the very end of our Scipture “Amen, Truly. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev 22:20)

[1] Barth, God Here and Now, Page 26.