"Kingdom Expectations"

Scripture: Mark 1:14-20
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: January 22, 2006

 "Follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fish for people."   I'm pretty certain that Andrew, Simon, James and John had no idea what this meant, but I wonder what power Jesus must have had to immediately address them and have them leave everything they owned.   It was a risk. The four fishermen simply left their fishing boats and livelihood, never to return.   What they did know is that the Kingdom of God had come.   Jesus announced it - "The time is fulfilled...this is the end of all things.   This is what God has been promising.   The Kingdom of God is at hand.   Repent and believe in the Gospel."  

And so those four men left all they had.   They had a desire to participate in the Kingdom of God, so much so that they gave up everything to be a part of it.   I commend their sacrifice.   But their sacrifice and commitment to follow Jesus confronts me with the decision I have to make: If the Kingdom of God has come and now is, am I ready to leave all I have, all I am and all I will be to be a part of it?  

Are you ready?   This is the question you have to answer.  

Earlier this month the Barna Group finished two surveys about God and people's commitment to God that I think are important for us to note.   One of the surveys polled a group of 627 Protestant ministers.   They asked the pastors how important God is to their parishioners.   On average, pastors contend that 70 percent of the adults in their church consider their personal faith in God to transcend all other priorities.   Some of the pastors even contended that up to 90 percent of their congregants believed that God held top priority in their lives.  

Then the Barna Group completed the second survey.   Researchers polled those pastor's congregations.   The difference in the perception of pastors and the reality of people's devotion to God marks a huge gap.   The survey showed that most adults, at best, are lukewarm about their relationship to God.   When asked to identify their top priority in life, only one out of seven adults (15 percent) placed their faith in God at the top of their priority list.  

Why was there such a variance?   The report showed that pastors have simply thought that just because people showed up to church on a Sunday morning meant that they had a deep spirituality in their life.   In fact, pastors are 21 times more likely to evaluate whether people showed up as an evidence of their commitment to God than if they experienced the presence of God during their time in church.  

The words of one of the researchers, I believe, tells a mighty truth about the condition of the church and the neglected power we have.   He said, "There has never been a time when American society was in more dire need of the Christian Church to provide a pathway to a better future.   Given the voluminous stream of moral challenges, and the rampant spiritual hunger that defines our culture today, this should be the heyday for biblical ministry.   As things stand now, we have become content with placating sinners and filling auditoriums as the marks of spiritual health."   (see Barna Group, January 9, 2006).

I don't want to be a part of that statistic.   I want to be a pastor who has a congregation that daily seeks and experiences the Kingdom of God and its power.  

As I mentioned the series were are engaging in, I said we would look at the one requirement for experiencing power in biblical proportions.   The requirement is this: when Jesus calls we need to follow.   When He asks us to be His disciples, we can't give Him anything less than a whole commitment - body, soul, mind and spirit.   God must be the top priority above all things.   Someone once said that that kamikaze pilot who flew 100 missions may have been a good pilot, but he was not committed.   Commit yourself, body, soul, mind and spirit to Jesus...and follow Him!

Once again, as we go through this series on the Kingdom of God, I expect that each of us will experience tremendous things; healings, power, miracles, spiritual victory and moments of overcoming the world.  

So let me check in with you.   Have you joined us on the journey of experiencing God and the Kingdom of God?    There is no substitute.   If God is not the top priority of your life or if you don't intend God to be the top priority of your life, then don't expect to see or experience great things.   The Kingdom of God is for the courageous.   It is for those who commit themselves to seeking Jesus and for those who will settle for nothing less than best.

The four disciples that Jesus called could not have experienced the Kingdom if they weren't committed to giving their all to joining in the journey.   They had a choice.   They could have stayed at their boats and continued on in their day to day experience.   But their hearts hungered for something more.   They desired the Kingdom of God so much that they wouldn't let their meager existence get in the way.   They started their journey and they accepted the invitation of Jesus - "Follow me!"

They followed and they experienced great things.   But take heart!   Those disciples were just like us.   They had successes.   They had failures.   They didn't always stay committed.   They simply had to take the first step.   When they messed up and lost God as their top priority, Jesus gently reminded them to get their eyes back on Him.   Take a look at Peter's life (he's called Simon in our passage today - that was his name before Jesus changed it to Peter).

Peter wanted to experience the power of the Kingdom.  

When He saw Jesus walking on the water, Peter didn't hesitate to ask if he could do the same (don't you love the boldness of Peter?).   Peter took that step out on the water and found that when he kept his eyes, his focus on Jesus, he could walk on the water.   But when Peter lost his commitment to follow Jesus to the nth degree, he began to sink.   It was as if Jesus was giving Peter a taste of the things that he could do if he kept Jesus as his top priority.

But even after three years of a committed life to Jesus, Peter would forget to keep Him as a top priority.   There, along the seaside, after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus revealed to Peter what his discipleship would mean.   Peter would need to have the courage to face death for Jesus.   Jesus shared with him that he would die on the cross...and Peter didn't really like it.   When Peter questioned why and tried to ask about another disciple, Jesus, I believe, gently, yet strongly, grabbed Peter's face toward his own and said, "What is that to you, Peter?   You follow me."

"But Lord, what about this man?"

"Peter", Jesus gently brought his forehead to his own, looking intently into his eyes, "What is that to you?   YOU FOLLOW ME!"

Later, Peter would determine to continually live with his eyes on Jesus.   He was determined to be a citizen of the Kingdom until the day when the Kingdom fully took over the whole earth.   Peter had power.   When Peter walked down the street, his shadow would touch people along the way and they would be healed (Acts 5:15).   He was an unusual man in an uncommitted world.   But he was a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Do you fully participate in the Kingdom?   Need a little training on how to do a better job?   You may not like the answer, but here it is.   You need to follow Jesus.   If you hesitating or trying to rationalize what I'm saying, you'll never experience it.   No questions, no bargaining, no helping God determine how the path should look.   You're the follower, not the leader.  

It is possible to follow half-heartedly.   You can still get to heaven as long as you're following Jesus.   But only the ones who intently follow right at the heels of Jesus experience the power of Jesus.   The path is set, but I want to walk with Jesus as close as I can get.   When a woman sought Jesus for her illness, she was determined to find Him, to get close and follow Him until something happened.   As she reached out to touch Jesus' garment, she found healing for her illness of many years and found praise from Jesus that has stood written down as a memorial to her for 2,000 years now.   She had the courage to break through the crowds, even facing dirty stares and jabs from others who stood in the crowd.   But she wouldn't settle for anything less than a healing from Jesus.  

What are you settling for?   Does what I'm saying sound unrealistic?   Is it the darkness that is keeping you from fully letting go?   Is it easier to say, "But Ross, I've seen the evil that happens in the world today.   If God is so good, He'd take care of all this.   I won't believe when it all looks so grim.   "How can a loving God..."   Have you ever asked this question?   "Where is the Kingdom of God when things seem so dark?"

Tony Campolo tells a great story about Ingmar Bergman's famous movie called "The Seventh Seal".  

Have you seen it?   It is about a knight who has returned from the Crusades defeated and struggling with his faith in God.    He is struggling with an approaching dark atheism or clinging to a good God.   This knight, Antonius Block, confesses his struggle of faith with a monk, not realizing that the monk is really "death" in disguise.   Throughout the movie Death and the knight play a chess game.   At the very last scene they finish their last moves.   Death moves his chess piece and declares, "Checkmate."   The movie ends with the knight crying out to God for mercy, having his faith restored in God.   Overcoming his fear of dying, the knight is found dancing with other people following death into the afterlife.

What is interesting is this: though it is a dark movie and can seem quite depressing, a Bobby Fisher, the great chess expert watched the movie on screen.   At the scene where Death moves his chess piece and says, "checkmate", Bobby Fisher turned to the person next to him in the theater and said, "Why did the knight give up?   The king still had another move!"

The King still has another move.   That's the Good News, the Gospel.   When the world was filled with darkness, the King used His move.   He sent His Son into a dark, dying and confused world.   When everyone was hungry for love, Jesus said I love you.   When the world played their chess pieces and moved their game to put Him on the cross, shouting "Checkmate, O foolish Knight", they didn't know that the King still had one more move.   He rose from the dead.  

The game goes on.   You now are the knights.   Don't listen to death which says, "Checkmate".   The King still has a move.   And I promise if you put your faith and trust in that King, you will not lose the last move.   I promise you, whether you have responded to Christ's invitation before or several times, let the King make another move in your life.   But there is only one thing that makes it so: "Come," Jesus says, "Follow me."

The King still has another move.   He's not giving up on you.   Don't you give up on Him.   He's still calling you to follow.   It doesn't matter where you've been, what you've done, how you've failed, or how you've succeeded.   It only matters how you respond NOW.

Put down your meager things.   You're standing at the door of something great.   If God is inviting you to participate in the Kingdom of God, then you have to leave everything behind.   You don't need those things.   It's as though you're standing at the door of a great, new world holding onto old and tattered clothes.   Take them off and walk in to receive the ones that fit; the ones that are clean.   Let go of everything and follow Jesus.

"Come," Jesus says, "and I will make you fish for people.   The Kingdom of God is here.   Repent - Go another direction - and follow me!"

Come forward.   He'll meet you up front this morning.  

Amen.