remove – Dancing In The Kingdom

Looking for Messiah

[Bible references: 1 Samuel 8:5; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matthew 2:2; 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24; John 6:15; 1 John 5:1-13]

During all the messy history, Yahweh was working to bring his plan into fruition. His end goal was to create a new heaven and a new earth but there were things that needed to happen first, including the removal of the power of sin over his people. His solution was to lay aside some of his power and enter history as a human, not only so that he could identify with his image-bearers but so that we would be challenged to choose his authority as a matter of faith – not a blind faith, but a faith based upon recognizing God’s work.

In the writings of Hebrew scripture there were clues and prophecies about the Redeemer that Yahweh would provide: the Redeemer that would be anointed by God, the Redeemer would rescue people from sin and the Redeemer would restore their relationship with Yahweh. The charts in Appendix D show many of those prophecies. These prophecies created an air of expectation. While it’s easier for us who are looking back to see how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, at the time that Jesus was born there were differing expectations about how those prophecies would be fulfilled.

One thousand years previous to Jesus’ birth, the Israelites thought that their problem was that they didn’t have a king “like everybody else” Now once again, many still thought that their problem was still a political one and that what they needed was the kind of Messiah that would throw out the Roman government.^[1] (There were also some other various controversies swirling around which we will discuss in more detail in the next chapter.) Nevertheless, people were looking for a Messiah.

Observe

Read 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matt 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24. What kind of Messiah was expected to come?

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 4– Retreating to chaos

Spurning love

[Bible references: Genesis 3:1-7]

God created His image-bearing creatures so that they could receive love and respond in love. He provided those creatures with an ideal environment in which to thrive. These creatures knew the One who created and loved them and yet they chose to reject that love. As the descendants of the original image-bearers, we know that impulse all too well, the compelling urge to distrust others and to rely on our own resources, the desire to clutch power to ourselves and reject any claim to another’s authority over us. These urges and desires seem to overwhelm the opportunity to receive the love offered to us and thus removing our ability to respond by offering love.

We are marked by our continued failure to resist the temptation to grab what we want instead of waiting to receive what we want from God. In spurning God’s love, in rebelling against His authority, we break the bonds that hold us to each other and to God, and in doing so breaking what bound the Kingdom of Heaven to Creation.

In all of human history, Jesus was the only one able to successfully resist the temptation to grab for himself instead of waiting for the Father to provide. His success began the restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, a restoration that will not be complete until He comes again to fully reunite Heaven and Earth. Until heaven and earth are fully reunited, we will not fully experience the overflowing shalom that God has intended for us. Until that time, the broken earth will be separated from heaven and allowed to sink into disorder and chaos. Until that time, the overflowing goodness and shalom that God had provided will be masked by the brokenness of not just Creation but also by the brokenness of the co-creators. Look at what we have done!

We were meant to be in communion with each other and with God. We were meant to be “gardening” with God to make our place, a place of thriving and abundance in concord with the type of thriving and abundance with which God originally made the universe. God intended for us to be connected to Him and to be filled with His Spirit so that we would be fully enabled to be co-creators with Him of good works. But until then, we are in a state of rebellion, separated from the one who is the source of goodness. In that sense, we are less human than we should be.

Reflect

It seems to be part of human nature, to be suspicious of those things or those people who are different than us. The question is, when does doubting someone else’s motives become an act of sin?

Observe

Read Genesis 3:1-7. What hidden desires may cause us to distrust someone?