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Jesus and His Passion for a Big Kingdom<\/h3>\nJesus and His Passion for a Big Kingdom<\/h3>\nBy Shane Bennett<\/p>\n
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Driving of the Merchants from the Temple, by <\/em>Ippolito Scarsella. <\/em><\/p>\n If God\u2019s job is to make his sheep fat and happy, he\u2019s not too good at it. I think about believers in the Caribbean and the US suffering the effects of Harvey and Irma today, Mexicans dead in a massive earthquake, and Christians persecuted in the Middle East. Not to mention potential believers like the Rohingya of Burma who are fleeing for their lives in the hundreds of thousands<\/a>.<\/p>\n If his job is to radically remake everything, I wonder why he\u2019s so slow about it. Realizing, however, that the fundamental unit of the \u201ceverything\u201d getting remade is the human heart, mine and yours, I sadly acknowledge I\u2019m part of the slowness.<\/p>\n Alongside the long list of things I don\u2019t understand and the timing issues I don\u2019t get, one thing seems pretty clear in the Gospels: Jesus inaugurated and relentlessly lived into a vision of a certain and vast kingdom of God\u2014a new reality in which outsiders become insiders, evil is pushed back, justice becomes the norm, and as N.T. Wright brilliantly summarizes, God \u201cputs all things to rights.\u201d<\/p>\n God\u2019s job, then, is to bring about that kingdom. Jesus, by the way he lived, the things he said, and the places he hung out gives us both a framework for what the kingdom looks like and a model for participation in it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m particularly encouraged and re-centered by some of the key biblical ideas highlighted in the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement<\/a> course regarding this:<\/p>\n While this carried messianic allusions for his Jewish listeners, perhaps it also provided accessibility to non-Jews. At least it lowered some of the walls of exclusivity raised by Jewish-specific titles like Son of David and Rabbi.<\/p>\n Matthew tells us Jesus went and lived in Capernaum<\/a>, fulfilling scripture (Matthew 4:12-25; Isaiah 9:1-2):<\/p>\n Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, This also put Jesus nearer to the nations. While messiah-seeking Jews could come up from Jerusalem to encounter Jesus (as Matthew says they did<\/a>), Gentiles found him teaching, healing, and driving out demons right in their own back yard! The presence of the kingdom of God had come even to them<\/a> (Matthew 4:24-25).<\/p>\n When Jesus cleansed the Temple<\/a>, or as I like to say, \u201cwreaked havoc on the holy hangout,\u201d he was not teaching us that Girl Scouts can\u2019t sell cookies in the foyer and realtors should leave their business cards at home on Sunday morning. Instead he was rolling back a situation that prevented access to God by Gentiles. He re-opened a path for the glory God deserved and wanted from the nations (Matthew 21:12-17; Isaiah 56:7-8). Can\u2019t you just hear him shout it?<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFor my house will be called We see him in action healing a Roman soldier\u2019s slave<\/a> (Luke 7:1-10) and driving out demons from the daughter of a foreigner<\/a> (Matthew 15:21-28). We hear his words of scathing rebuke<\/a> (Luke 4:24-26). Were there not widows in Israel? Were there not lepers in Israel? Yet God had sent the prophet to foreigners!<\/p>\n I particularly love how Jesus agrees to spend two days in a Samaritan village<\/a> (John 4:39-41). Poor disciples! Jesus was leading them into the very places they promised their moms they\u2019d never go! This is such a cool model for us to both go and take others into important situations that are beyond our realm of comfort.<\/p>\n What can we do to grow in alignment with Jesus on this? How can we see and live out the kingdom he envisioned? The answer could be as big and diverse as the cosmos, but here\u2019s one thing that hurts and one thing that should be fun:<\/p>\n First, realize that we may have more in common with the religious leaders Jesus was smacking around than the outsiders to whom he showed such lavish kindness.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible this is just me and not you, but give it a little thought. If you\u2019re reading Missions Catalyst, odds are you\u2019re an insider to the things of God and to the current Christian culture. Our enemy would love to build a mindset in us in which we thank God for our special status and cluck our tongues at those gays, Muslims, liberals, etc. who are outside looking in.<\/p>\n Second, give up on this generation and focus on the next!<\/p>\n I\u2019m kidding. Let\u2019s not give up quite yet. But I want to invite you to build kingdom-minded kids by sending your youth group with me next year to connect with refugees. It would be a little bit like when Jesus took his guys to hang out with the Samaritan woman and her village. Let\u2019s spend a week in a US city, learning about the refugee situation, connecting with a local church, working hard, and authentically serving an unreached refugee community.<\/p>\n Sound like a step in the right kingdom direction? Let\u2019s talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb You can also comment on our website<\/a> or Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jesus and His Passion for a Big Kingdom By Shane Bennett Driving of the Merchants from the Temple, by Ippolito Scarsella. If God\u2019s job is to make his sheep fat and happy, he\u2019s not too good at it. I think about believers in the Caribbean and the US suffering the effects of Harvey and Irma … Continue reading Jesus and His Passion for a Big Kingdom | Practical Mobilization<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practical-mobilization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7405,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402\/revisions\/7405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Jesus called himself the \u201cSon of Man.\u201d<\/h4>\n
2. Jesus hung out with outsiders.<\/h4>\n
\nthe Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
\nGalilee of the Gentiles\u2014
\nthe people living in darkness
\nhave seen a great light;
\non those living in the land of the shadow of death
\na light has dawned.<\/em><\/p>\n3. Jesus gave Gentiles access.<\/h4>\n
\na house of prayer for all nations.\u201d
\nThe Sovereign Lord declares\u2014
\nhe who gathers the exiles of Israel:
\n\u201cI will gather still others to them
\nbesides those already gathered.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n4. Jesus passionately advocated for care for outsiders.<\/h4>\n
5. He worked long and hard to build global, kingdom understanding in his disciples.<\/h4>\n
Our Response<\/h3>\n