Connecting to the Kingdom

Jesus never calls people to come to church, he invites them to enter the Kingdom of God – a relationship that begins today through faith in Jesus and lasts forever in a community of people where God is glorified and his will is done. People who live in the Kingdom of God have undergone a radical transformation because the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection has changed their hearts. Jesus teaches that the Kingdom of God is a radical place where people would rather serve than be served. It is a radical place where people would rather live together celebrating redemption in Jesus than to live alone, just coping with everyday life.

So, sometimes I wonder what people think when they hear us talking on Sunday mornings about the most practical expressions of doing life together as the body of Christ – we call it living in community. We talk about being in a small group and finding a place to serve at CCCC as basic expressions of living in this community of God’s people. I wonder what people are thinking because I know that only about half the people who attend CCCC are in a small group and much less than that, maybe one fourth, are regularly serving.

Why is that? Is it because we aren’t inspiring speakers? Is it because people are still new to church and they are just trying to figure out what they believe about God before they jump into the “community”? Maybe.
I think both of those reasons are true for a few people, but not very many.

I think the real bottom line for people who regularly attend CCCC who aren’t in group and don’t serve is that they just don’t really understand what Jesus is talking about when he describes what it’s like to live in the Kingdom of God. I think people see church as just a part of living in this world – like going to work or to the grocery or to a baseball game. I think people think that they can “know” God without being intimate with his people and intimately involved with his mission. I just don’t think that’s true.

Jesus’ description of the Kingdom of Heaven is one of mutual submission, sacrifice, service, and interdependence among the people who live there.

Matthew 20:26-28 But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

The next time you hear us challenge you to fulfill your CC2.0 commitments to give, serve, go to small group, and invite people to church; or the next time we invite you to GroupLink or First Serve; or the next time we invite you to come to The Gathering and share the Lord’s Supper with this community of faith, I hope you’ll come. Not because I asked you to, but because you decide to risk a greater exposure to the transformational power of the gospel of Jesus and because you’re ready to trade life in the suburbs for life in the Kingdom of God.