This Beautiful Mess #3.

Hey Friends - great time at KAMP's on Sunday evening. Thanks Andy Malone for leading and journeying with us in worship. And great to meet several people from the community for the first time. It is our sincere pleasure for you story to join our story AND our story join your story. And together, for our story to find its place in God's story.

Here are the highlights from the talk...

In Mark 4:26-29, Jesus gives us another parable to explain to us the Kingdom of God that is near, the Kingdom of God that is within us.

Cruise over to the library OR rummage through your child's bookshelf to read “Frog & Toad Together: Garden”. It is a wonderful rendering of the parable in Mark 4.

Many of us are like toad. We spend our lives singing, dancing and telling stories to dirt, trying to make the seeds grow. In the end we conclude that making seeds grow is hard work. But is it?

The Parable of the Growing Seed
26 He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

Jesus described the work as casting out seed, going to bed at night and rising in the day. The soil produces the growth “all by itself”. The word translated “all by itself” is automate – which is obviously the root word from which we get our word automatic. The man who sows the seed doesn’t even know how it happens.

In this parable, the man who sows the seed does not know how the seed grows. I feel qualified for that role: clueless and sleeping on the job. Too many of us experts think we know all about how the work of ministry is supposed to grow.

The consequence is that the mysterious and miraculous element of the Kingdom is replaced with strategic plans, demographic studies and brightly colored flow charts. We sacrifice pure, organic power for hard work and little results. Professing to be wise, we become fools.

Many of us are like Toad. We can jump and shout, sing songs, and read stories, but it will not cause any greater growth. The Bible tells us throughout that only God can cause growth.

Paul said in 1 Cor. 3:6-7 said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow.”

Trying to cause growth is not possible for us and only confuses people. Worse than that, when we try to cause growth we take upon our shoulder’s God’s work. GOD IS HEAVY. God’s glory, kavod, the full weight and significance.

Matthew 11:28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jesus is giving an invitation to walk away from human religion AND enter into his Kingdom, a better way.

Acts 15:9He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

Maybe you are walking around with heavy load. Perhaps you are buckling under the way of religion that your family, friends, or church experience has put on you. The invitation is to let it go. Take it off. Receive and embrace a kingdom that is not burdensome or wearisome.

Perhaps you and I need to repent from human religion. Perhaps you and I need healing from human religion. Perhaps you and I need to enter into our world and take off the heavy religious burden that is crushing so many in our society.

Matthew 23 - WOES AGAINST HUMAN RELIGION

A Warning Against Hypocrisy
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5 "Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries [a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have people call them 'Rabbi.'
11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees
13-14 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
15 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are.
23 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Mark 1:15 says 15"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

There is a better way. There is a Kingdom that shows us how things really are.

All of us long deeply to be a part of a spontaneously growing and multiplying movement where God is doing the work. The reality is that as long as we invest in human-driven efforts, we will never see what we all really want to see.

This important parable speaks to our heart’s desire. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom is to grow spontaneously, “all by itself”.

There is risk involved in seeking a spontaneous movement. We must trust God to do His part. We must be willing to place ourselves in a position where, if He does not show up, we will be seen as complete fools. Most have not been willing to take that risk.

The kingdom is. We are witnesses (Acts 1:8).

So if we are not GROWING by DOING…
We are RECEIVING by BEING…

I have spent my life trying to get to the next level. You work hard and you save money so you can get through school, buy a better car, buy a house, or have kids. But every level requires that you try to get to the next level. Your new job requires a better car. Your new children require a bigger house. Your bigger house requires a better job and longer hours. And so the cycle goes.

Spiritually, we tend to think in levels too. Everything depends on what we do.

Churches love to talk about advancing the kingdom and building the kingdom. It’s as if Jesus said, “My kingdom is a pile of lumber on the truck in heaven, and I need you boys and girls to get a hammer and help me nail this thing together. Could ya?”

But he didn’t. When Jesus talked about the kingdom, he never talked about us building it OR advancing it. Never. He said, “The kingdom is…” He simply invited his followers to see it, embrace it, believe in the unfading reality of it, and join in what His Father was already doing in the world.

Being kingdom people – I love that and I hate it.

I love it because it implies some sort of discovery that I am going to have to make to truly understand what Jesus is talking about.

But being before doing is not in my makeup. Doing, for one thing, requires more of me. Therefore, doing ads immediately to my sense of self-importance. And I think that is why I hate being.

Doing is a much easier objective to rally the troops around than being. How many messages have you heard telling you that God is calling us to simply be in His Kingdom? Nothing to do, buy, sign up for, build. Nowhere to prove yourself.

Kind of throws me off. I like thinking in terms of levels of achievement because it gives me a sense of power and control. I mean, if I work hard and do the right things, I can move to the next level. There’s not so much ambiguity or mystery to the process of making God work for me. All I need to know is: What’s the next level and what do I need to do to get there?

The other reason I like levels is because it requires less of me relationally. Levels of spirituality are perfect for a culture that deifies individuality. Our world is all about the individual. The kingdom is always about the other. It demands that I notice others, love others, pray for them and serve them. Levels spirituality does not. It allows me to do it myself, by myself.

Jesus hates levels spirituality. All it does is reinforce the lie that started way back in the beginning – the one that says I can be like God. How screwed up have we gotten that we cling to a Christianity that can be lived out without God? Pretty screwed up.

We’re so inclined to try to make things happen for God. Every week we’re tempted to get out a measuring stick. Did we get higher? Are we sliding down? And we figure that God is measuring too. He is simply inviting us to be part of what he is already doing.

Choosing to live in the kingdom dimension creates some major shifts in our thinking. One of those is the shift from advancing to embracing. I don’t see my life now as one in which I advance the kingdom of God. It is advancing all by itself. Jesus explained it this way:

The Parable of the Growing Seed
26He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

Following Jesus isn’t about us; it’s about him. I can’t embrace the kingdom when my arms are full of me. I have to let go. Then Jesus can give me a new way of being.

Embracing is hard, but it’s also freeing.

The kingdom of Jesus is alive and growing, but not because we make it grow. We plant seeds of life. We water and weed. We sweat and hope and pray. But the dynamic of life in the garden is the kingdom at work. It is the life of God springing up around us.

The kingdom is. We are witnesses (Acts 1:8).