Kingdom Structure 1985

Reading from Luke chapter 15, verse 11. And Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the property that belongs to me. And he divided his living between them.

Now, many days, not many days later, the young younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property and loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country and he began to be in want.

So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed swine and he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything. And when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven.

And before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father while he was yet at a distance.

His father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven. And before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and make merry for this.

My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to make merry.

This is really a description of us. We've come home to the father. We come home with our broken, troubled, mixed up hearts.

Wounds all over our bodies. And we've received a wonderful welcome. We're being made to know that we are not outsiders.

We're not hired servants. We're sons and daughters. We belong.

The father has killed the fatted calf and there's a tremendous celebration. All heaven is rejoicing. But what happens after the banquet? What happens to this prodigal son after the big celebration is over? You could say that every day is a celebration from here on in.

And in a sense, that's true. But the one thing this younger son now needs now that he's come home. Is to get some structure in his life, some order.

He's got to get some order, not monotony, not legalism, not rules and regulations like his older brother. But some real order to hold things together right. All those years or all those months or however long it was out there in the far country when he was squandering everything he had, he was trying to be free.

He didn't want any kind of order imposed on him from outside, but he ended up not free, but a slave. Now, if he doesn't get some order in his life, he's going to be back there again in a very short time. This man is going to have to learn now how to get up every morning and go to the father and say, good morning, father.

And go to his older brother, who's never been very nice to him up to now and say, good morning, brother. Then he's going to have to learn how to take his responsibilities on the farm. He's going to have to learn to fit in to his father's kingdom.

The Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the waters closed in over the Egyptians, and they were free for the first time in hundreds of years. And there was tremendous rejoicing. People were dancing and singing and shouting and hollering.

It was marvelous. But they were a motley crew. They were thousands and thousands of people, but they had no discipline, no order.

They were just a mess, really. And they would never have been able to even make it to the end of the wilderness and reach the borders of the promised land if they didn't get some order in their lives. And so in his mercy, the heavenly father brings them to Mount Sinai and there Mount Sinai begins to form them into a nation.

It begins to weld them and shape them so they begin to get some order into their messed up lives. He gives them the tabernacle. He gives them sacrifices for thanksgiving, sacrifices for sin, teaches them an order for living, an order for traveling.

They begin to learn how to function together as a nation. And then in the years that follow, they begin to put that into practice. And there's no way until they had this order that they will be able to conquer the promised land.

Jesus called people to discipleship, and when he called them to discipleship, he called them to freedom, new life, unspeakable joy. And so they left their fishing boats, their tax collecting, their political reaction, their political revolution, and they entered the kingdom. And it was wonderful.

Now they saw a meaning they never saw before. But after he brings them into the kingdom, Jesus then sits these people down and begins to teach them the ABCs of the kingdom of heaven. And we find them basically in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five, six and seven, specific teachings as to how to do it, what to do, how to function under God, how to function with each other without that order and structure in their lives.

These men and women would never have been able to turn the world upside down. Pentecost comes, Pentecost is a wonderful outpouring of the life of God's spirit, that the church, the body of believers is baptized in the spirit of God, light from above, new joy, new freedom, new power. It's wonderful and so abundant that it spills out over the rest of the city of Jerusalem.

Three thousand people come into the kingdom on that day. But unless that new life is brought into some kind of form and shape, it'll just evaporate like a cloud and a couple of days or a few weeks from then, it will be as if it had never happened. And so we read.

In Acts, chapter two, verse forty one, the end of Peter's sermon, so those who received Peter's word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls. They started the day with one hundred and twenty. They end the day with three thousand one hundred and twenty.

How are one hundred and twenty people going to absorb three thousand? We're told in the next verse, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. Now they begin to get some order, some structure in their lives. Without this, it would have become empty and meaningless.

And so today in this place, two things are happening first and they're happening really from the hand of the Lord. First, the Lord is pouring out a fresh life from his spirit upon us. And it's like welcome home on the father.

Welcome. It's like coming out of the Red Sea. New life, a fresh Pentecost.

Palm Sunday, 1970, almost 15 years ago, revival broke out in this place and it's been happening, going on really ever since, kind of in waves. And we're really in the middle of a more powerful wave than we've known maybe for a long time, if ever before. Great things are going on.

But now a second thing is being added. And this is new for us, at least for most of us. In addition to this new life, now we are being given by the hand of the Lord some structure, some order.

There has to be some kind of structure and order in our lives. You all right there? Oh, Brother Benny has to. OK, well.

We'll let the bathroom lecture go anyway this time, but that's OK with Brother Bennet. He's got special permission. There has to be some structure and order in our lives or we'll never fulfill the purpose we've been given in the kingdom of heaven.

And so we read in Ephesians chapter two, starting at verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.

First, there is the breaking down of the old structure. By abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.

What we read in this is that the old structures are being destroyed. The false vision that caused the younger brother to run away, trying to find freedom away from his father's house, that false vision is destroyed. So is the legalism that caused the older brother to stay on the farm and do everything right and still think he's an outsider.

That's being destroyed. Plus the wall between the younger brother and the older brother that has divided them from each other all their lives. That's being destroyed.

And so then the Lord, having broken down the old structure, draws us to the father's house, makes us to know his welcome. But now he forms us with some new structure, some order. There has to be order.

Reading on in the same passage, he came and preached peace to you who were far off, the younger brother, and peace to those who were near the older brother. For through him, we have access in one spirit to the father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it. For a dwelling place of God through the spirit. So what's happening is that the that a dwelling place is being formed out of human souls, bodies as well to contain the spirit of God built on the foundation of the cornerstone Jesus.

Now, most of us here, including me, very much dislike structure. We're afraid of structure. That's why we ran away in the first place.

We left the father's house and took off trying to find freedom. And we ended up, most of us slaves to our own passions one way or another. And then others of us are don't want any structure because we've had enough of it.

We're so full of rules and regulations and legalism and do's and don'ts. We're sick of it. So we don't want to be tied down.

We don't want to be stuck in cement like a brick in the wall. But what we need to learn is that for all that there is some order and some structure which is not only good, but essential, without which there can be no freedom at all. We have to get over our fear of structure and order.

So that we can be formed by the hand of God, not by the manipulations of men, not by people who are trying to exploit us, but by the spirit of God, that we can be formed into a body in which we are knit together so well that the spirit of the Lord can move among us. He doesn't move in this way with the individual. He moves in this way through the body.

And so we read in first Peter chapter two, verse four, come to him to that living stone rejected by men, but in God's sight, precious and like living stones, be yourselves built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In other words, he's building something. The hand of the Lord is building this thing that's alive and flexible and moving and powerful.

But this thing, like the human body, has structure. How would you breathe if you didn't have a backbone and a rib cage and your lungs just you die in a matter of seconds or minutes, at least, you know, how would you walk if you didn't have leg bones, knee bones and foot bones? You know, you just go down. How would you talk or sing or eat if you didn't have jawbones? And how would you pick how would you play the organ if she didn't have any bones in her hands? You know, they'd be like rubber gloves sitting on the console.

There you know, there has to be structure and order in that sense. And so having brought us to the father's house and welcomed us in order that we can fulfill the joyful purpose, we're given to practical things have to now happen in our lives. One, we have to be built on the cornerstone, our lives have to be joined to the cornerstone so that from here on through the weight of our life rests on him.

That doesn't bother us too much, we at least say, OK, that's all right, but the second one is the thing that frightens us. We also, number two, have to be joined to each other. Four, we're not just a pile of bricks rolling down the hill, we're a body, a temple, we're members of each other.

OK, let's look at the first one briefly, first one, we get built on the cornerstone, come to the stone, come to him, that living stone rejected by men, but in God's sight, chosen and precious commitment to Jesus. Now, all of us claim that we have such a commitment if we eat his body and drink his blood today, we know that we're committing ourselves to being part of him. But now we have to put some structure into that, let's let's not be afraid of a little bit of order in this, this commitment that we say we're making to Jesus.

Let's be willing to begin each day of the rest of our life with an act of the will expressed with a mouth in which we commit ourselves to this cornerstone afresh. Lord, I begin this day committing myself to you. I want to be built on you as my cornerstone.

I want to be founded on you. I want the life of this day to be absolutely established on you. Consciously and willingly doing this, the day becomes his and he then becomes the foundation of this day, the guide, the protector, the one who blesses and prospers this day.

Without such structure in our life, we really can't fulfill the purpose of the kingdom of God. But we also need to be joined to each other. And so not only are we told in this passage to come to the living stone and God's side chosen and precious, but we are also said told to be like living stones built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

To be built together. Now, the one who does the building is the Lord. We don't build, he builds, but we have to cooperate.

We have to be willing to be built, willing that I should be joined to these brothers and sisters and link to them, fit in with them. I should be I need to be willing that he should bind me together in cords of love to these people with whom he has put me. In John 13, 34, we hear Jesus say to us a new commandment I give to you that you love one another.

Even as I have loved you, that you love one another by this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And we say, amen, Lord, we'll do it. But now we need to put some structure to that.

A little bit of structure, some order that we begin now each day, the rest of our life. Committing ourselves with an act of the will that's spoken with the mouth, Lord, today again, I commit myself, I join myself to these brothers and sisters with whom you've placed me, and I want to be with them and function with them, and see my life as an expression of the body of which I am a part. We hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to us, and to many in the body all over the earth, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

And these words are not addressed to the individual, they are addressed to the body. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness to people, but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and nations will come to your light, kings to the brightness of your rising. See, but for this light to come to us, and this glory to shine in our midst, and this word to go forth as it will with power, and to be confirmed with following signs from the hand of God, that light, that light, that glory, and that word are given to the body, not to the individual.

To those who are linked to each other in the body, and become members of each other, forming a holy temple through which the Spirit of God can move. Now the one who does the building is the Lord. The Lord God, he builds.

We don't build, he builds. But we have to be willing. We have to be willing to be built on the foundation, and build on that foundation not just for three weeks, but for the rest of our lives and forever.

Willing to be joined to each other, not just for an hour a week for the next five years, but every day, 24 hours a day, to think of ourselves as part of the body, and functioning in that way. Are we willing to repent of our secret aloofness, of our secret isolation? Many of us have been involved for years, and we sit and we say, yes, maybe I'll do it. I know I really ought to give up my sovereignty.

And sometimes we almost feel like a magnet trying to pull us off the rail or someplace, but we hold back because somebody might catch me emotional, or maybe somebody will see me cry, and we back off. Are we willing to give up our sovereignty, and allow him to build us together into that body? If we are, let's tell him, and let's show him that we are willing to be members of each other, built on the foundation, the cornerstone, Jesus himself. And if we are, and if we follow through with some order and discipline in this matter, we will see the Spirit of the Lord moving in our midst with a power we have never witnessed before.

Let's just take a little bit of time and speak to the Lord in our own hearts, and let him speak to us, just in silence. Amen.