TRC Vision and DNA 2020
Kingdom
Vision: For God’s glory, disciple the nations.
Mission: Be and produce Radical followers of Jesus.
Radical: abiding life of UP/IN/OUT
What makes this vision go?
- Our DNA of KDSC.
KDSC sequence is vital
The gospel of the kingdom of Jesus makes disciples (Romans 1:16).
- It can’t be the gospel of salvation alone that makes disciples because Jesus does not simply save to keep out of hell.
- Jesus saves to put us on his kingdom mission.
- So, disciple making is deeper, wider and more glorious than escaping wrath over our sin. It is also about being put on a mission.
- Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Kingdom disciples learn to follow Jesus by hearing and obeying Jesus (Matt 7:24-27).
Disciples work in domains of society as ambassadors of Jesus kingdom, healing and preaching the good news of the kingdom.
From the preaching of the good news of Jesus’ kingdom, disciples are made and gathered into the church as the community of the kingdom and they begin to multiply the church. (Matt 16:18).
Kingdom
Why the kingdom of God? What is the kingdom of God?
- The kingdom is what Jesus preached, and what he told us to preach…because it is in fact the very storyline of the universe captured in the bible.
Genesis 3 – Adam and Eve reject Yhwh as king.
1 Samuel 8:1-9 – Israel rejects Yhwh as king by wanting a human king like other nations.
Psalms 10:16 (ESV) The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.
The Lord Jesus intends to firmly and finally establish his kingdom rule…and he has done it!
Mark 1:14-15
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.”
Illustration: The gospel of the kingdom is like a finely cut diamond that has a multitude of facets that make it shine. (salvation through justification/God’s reign/justice/mercy/all nations/restoration of all things)
Example: Galatians 3:8 (ESV) And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
The equating of the gospel and the kingdom in this passage is huge because it rounds out the gospel message to its fullness.
Matthew 4:23
“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.”
Matthew 6:33
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Matthew 6:10
“…Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
- What is the kingdom?
“The kingdom is the renewal of the whole world through entrance of supernatural forces. As things are brought back under Christ’s rule and authority, they are restored to health, beauty and freedom.” – Tim Keller
God’s kingdom is his universal rule, his sovereignty over all the earth…The kingdom is his reign more than his realm. – George Eldon Ladd
“The kingdom of God is the reign of God. It is Jesus’ Christ, the Lord over all things in action. Wherever the will of God is being done, that’s where the kingdom is being manifested. In a very real sense Jesus is the kingdom in person.” – Bob Roberts
How do we make application of the truth of the gospel of the kingdom?
- Be driven to the bible as THE NARRATIVE of THE KINGDOM that is THE REALITY about everything.
- Let the bible then teach you how to SEEK THE KINGDOM OF JESUS as the first priority of every day. (your testimonies are my delight, the psalmis will say)
- HINT: Begin by praying, as Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:10, for the kingdom to come on earth as it is fully come in heaven.
- Submit to the rule of Jesus in absolutely everything his word teaches us to submit to.
This will require:
- Bible reading and interpreting practice.
- Covenant fellowship with people who will lovingly hold you accountable to truth and vision/mission.
- Seeking help on hard things. (ask us!)
- Faith that Jesus alone is everything, and inferior things are not worth breaking his word for. (i.e. Doing what I perceive is more vital first rather than obey the Lord / Sabbath)
- Haggai 1:4-11 (ESV) 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
- Getting comfortable with our growth in Jesus’ rule over us being incremental and full of failures as well as successes and having to hold to our worth being in Christ and not success in our effort.
- Being a living sacrifice as a worshiper.
- Certainly a private matter with the Lord, but it is certainly corporate as well.
- Jesus as the object of our affection and effort not our personal gain.
- Jesus as the object of our corporate affection together…in other words Jesus first through others first.
Theology in the Dirt 