Unlocking The Kingdom
Imagine arriving at the front porch of a beautiful vacation rental, ready for a restful time away…
You lift a unique key to that door, press it into the keyhole, turn it, it unlocks, then…ah! You are inside! The place is yours to enjoy!
There’s something thrilling and wonderful about knowing who and what we have access to. And using that key to actually enter in shifts everything for us, leading us to peaceful moments, security, and new adventures.
As believers, we have been given a special set of keys. Not for a vacation house but for a Kingdom.
In days of old, if you received the keys to a kingdom, not only did you get access to all the doors and passageways but those very keys would’ve been symbols, revealing a level of authority, highest permission, and favor from the King.
Jesus said to His followers, “And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.“ (Matthew 16:19)
Wait, I thought Jesus had the keys?! Did He just give them away to His followers?
Yes. Jesus entrusts us with an intimate and powerful partnership that begins in our relationship with Him but flows into every realm of our life. And yes, we’ve been given the keys to the Kingdom and honor and partnership beyond our wildest dreams, but the house remains owned by our Father and His Son, so the nature and way of Kingdom life operate best in partnership with the Owner’s heart and resources (Hebrews 3:3-6), because all of this is really His!
Jesus taught all the time about the Kingdom of God. His miracles displayed power and authority over sickness, demonization, and even death—and He said these displayed “the Kingdom in your midst” (Matthew 12:28, Luke 10:9). For Jesus, this wasn’t just an idea about God, but the reality of His Father’s love and power flooding into the broken areas of life all around.
This Kingdom wasn’t something far away, but present “among us,” and “at hand” (Matthew 3:2) because Jesus was there. This Kingdom is central in Jesus’ most popular prayer, teaching us to pray with Him, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
As we launch our new series, Unlocking the Kingdom, we are asking ourselves two things:
1. Do I really want to enter into this Kingdom lifestyle of living with Jesus’ heart and pursuing the things He does? Do I know what He cares about? Am I after His heart? Do I want to enter and live in His Kingdom, the realm of His domain?
2. And, who around me is Jesus already actively opening up His Kingdom to? Who is this person or people group, that perhaps hasn’t known they could really come in? And will I prayerfully partner with Him in using my “set of keys” to unlock that Kingdom door for them, too?
To make this real, we’ll structure our study with Jesus’ first sermon from Luke 4:18-19, pondering phrases like “good news to the poor” and “freedom to the oppressed” and “the year of the Lord’s favor”. And in these times, prayerfully experimenting with what the actions of this look like in our lives in church, too.
Let’s use our keys ;)
See you Sunday,
Pastor Dave
P.S. This Sunday, we’re “Introducing the Kingdom” and I encourage you to read ahead Luke 4, the whole chapter! See what God begins speaking to you right now!