Cultivating Kingdom Communities of Faithful Practice - Bryant Martin

So I'm going to bless you, but I'm going to bless you for a reason, and that is to be a blessing to the nations.

Good morning, brothers and sisters. It's a real, real blessing to be here with you. I must make a confession. This is my first time with this congregation, and I'm very sad about that. And I'm very happy to be here with you. I feel like I have lots of really, really good friends here in this group. And we, this morning on the way down, we came over the mountains past Roxbury Campground, and we were doing a little bit of reminiscing about that. We didn't get to do that this year because of COVID.

And as I can, as I'm hearing, COVID is still around. It's alive and well in this area, and as well as back in our area as well. So I'm very thankful, thankful to be here with you and that we can meet in person and not on Zoom and fellowship together. So looking forward to, yeah, been blessed by the service already in many, many ways.

So for a message this evening, this morning, I'd like us to think about the world and what is happening around us and what is the answer to that. As we know, our world is so broken currently. How many of us a year ago could have imagined the different dynamics that are happening in our world right now? How many of us would have imagined that? Whether it be the election, whether it be health, even globally, many, many things going on. Just recently read an article that said by the end of this year, coming into 2021, there's approximately 150 million more people that are critically poor. They live on less than $2 a day. And a lot of this has to do with the coronavirus and those dynamics.

So we live in a world that is exceedingly broken, and many people are realizing it, which gives us much opportunity. Nationally, we face lots of rhetoric, lots of opposition, separation, people buying into certain narratives that divide. There's powerful people who are forwarding those narratives, whether within the church, sadly, or even within politics and other stories, other narratives. And there's much division, much hate. Last night, across the nation, there were numerous protests, and some of them were pretty violent.

Lots of things that call for followers of Jesus. And Brother Bill appreciated your Sunday school lesson and looking at Jesus and who He is and calling us to try to follow His methods. And it's right down the line that I want to speak about this evening.

On the way down here, a brother sent me a recording of a song. He just held his phone up to the speaker and played a couple of verses. And I think he knew it was my favorite song. And it's the song called "O Healing River, Send Down Your Water." And that really resonated in my heart. "Send down your water upon this land. O Healing River, send down your water and wash the blood from off the sand.

This land is parching. This land is thirsty. No seed is growing on the barren ground. O Healing River, send your water down." I thought of the verses there in John 4, a beautiful picture where Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman. He doesn't look down on her. He even speaks to her, a woman outside the box for a Jewish man to do that, a Samaritan outside the box. And he says this to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Let's pray. Father, we come to You in Jesus' name. And we stand this morning in celebration, whether in our hearts or physically, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, this one who came and walked on earth and showed us this beautiful picture of the new humanity, who taught us the ways to walk and then showed us by absorbing the horrible death on the cross and raising Him the third day, inaugurating this kingdom that is around the world, that is growing, that is spreading, this kingdom where there's life, where there's healing.

And Father, this morning we just asked, Lord, that You would send down that water and heal the land. And Father, that it would be through Your methods and not through ours. Just guide and direct this message, Lord. And may You be glorified in Jesus' name. Amen.

So what is the answer to our world today? We know that it's Jesus. It's the one who came to this earth. It's the one we've just been reading about. It's the one we've been thinking about in Isaiah 25, in the words of the New Testament we're reading this morning in Sunday school class with Brother Bill.

It's Jesus. But what does it look like? How do we actually bring this life, this healing water to bear in my life, to bear in our congregations, to bear in this world? What does that look like? And I want to do just a quick overview through scripture, like a really quick overview. As we know, God created the garden, a beautiful, perfect place. And He put a man and a woman there to rule that, to tend the garden. And they chose to not follow the ways of God. And sin came, and they were pushed out of the garden. And we can fast forward on up into later in Genesis, into Genesis 12. There were, or Genesis 11, actually 12, where God chooses a man.

He chooses Abraham to be this man who was going to bring prosperity, bring a people that was going to be like the sands of the sea. And God gave Abraham a commission there. He said, "I'm going to bless you, but I'm going to bless you for a reason." And that is to be a blessing to the nations. And as we know, God chose Abraham not only maybe for salvation, but for service to be a light to the world, to show the world who God is, to be His children. And then we know the story of the Israelites and their failures and even some of the high points. As someone pointed out this morning, Joseph, but for the most part, a people who walked away, who walked away from God.

And then we jump ahead a couple of thousand years to Jesus coming, arriving on the scene, and as we heard this morning, preaching the kingdom of God. And I know that this congregation here is a congregation that's been well taught in the kingdom of God. We know that that was a theme. We believe that that was a theme of Jesus' teaching in His ministry here. And then through His enthronement on the cross and the resurrection, He inaugurated that kingdom of God on earth.

And then coming right on into Acts, Acts 1, there before His ascension, it says that He taught, He was teaching His disciples the things that pertain to the kingdom of God. And at the other bookend of Acts, we see Paul. What is he doing there in that house where he's under house arrest? It says that he's preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern Jesus Christ with all confidence.

But I have a question for you. What is the kingdom of God? What does that look like? Is it some kind of virtual reality that we got to put on special glasses to see? Is it some kind of nebulous pie in the sky? Is it some monks in a monastery in the mountains philosophizing about what this looks like? What is the kingdom of God? What does that look like on earth? And how is the kingdom of God if Jesus taught that with all His life and showed that? And if the apostles taught that, what does that look like today? How does the kingdom of God come to bear in our lives, in our communities and in the world?

And turn with me to Acts 2. We're going to look at this very familiar but beautiful passage of the kingdom of God on earth. "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as everyone had need. So continued daily with one accord in the temple and the breaking of bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and with simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily." And we see here this kingdom of God on earth coming about. And it's through people who've decided to follow Jesus, and they come together, and they eat their—thank you, David. They eat their food with gladness, with simplicity of heart. They praise God. And we know that God used these people in so many amazing ways. We will take the time to hop to Acts 4 and on through the book of Acts and on into the epistles. We just see communities of believers, kingdom communities, living out their lives with faithful practice. And that's my title for my message this morning. What is the answer for the world? The answer for our world is cultivating kingdom communities of faithful practice.

As many of you know, the quote that John Dee likes to say, "Jesus wants a society of redeemed people to show the world what the whole world would look like if everybody would obey the king." And we see that just through the Acts and the epistles, this teaching, this one anothering, this focus on a community walking together, living together, and through that, not only embracing and not only displaying, but proclaiming the kingdom of God through these local churches, these local communities.

There's a couple of paragraphs I'd like to read in this one book here that talks about the early church and how they changed the world. So as we know, in the Roman Empire, the early Christians reached out to so many people, and they made an incredible impact. And I just want to read here a couple of paragraphs that talk about how the early church changed the world.

"Cities in the Roman Empire were characterized by poor sanitation, contaminated water, high population densities, open sewers, filthy streets, unbelievable stench, rampant crime, collapsing buildings, and frequent illnesses and plagues. Life expectancy at birth was less than 30 years and probably substantially less. The only way for cities to avoid complete depopulation from morality was for there to be a constant influx of immigrants, a very fluid situation that contributed to urban chaos, deviant behavior, and social instability.

Rather than fleeing these urban cesspools, the early church found its niche there. Stark explains the Christian concept of self-sacrificial love of others emanating from God's love for them was a revolutionary concept of the pagan mind, which viewed the extension of mercy as an emotional act to be avoided by rational people." So that was a pagan mind at the time. "Hence, paganism provided no ethical foundation to justify caring for the sick and the destitute who were trampled by the teeming urban masses.

Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachment. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family.

To cities torn by violence and ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities filled with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services." And did these early Christians, did they organize all kinds of parachurch ministries to accomplish these tasks? I think the answer is no. It was done just by people like you and I, people like congregations like this congregation just reaching out and serving others.

The Roman Emperor Julian, writing in the 4th century, regretted the progress of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods. He said, "Atheists," which he's talking of Christians here, the pagans obviously worshiped lots of gods, and these Christians only worshiped one god and didn't worship idols. And so they were atheists in their minds, "have been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar. And the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor, but for ours as well. While those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them."

Are the folks in Chambersburg saying that about Chambersburg Christian Fellowship? I don't doubt they are. I sat with Patrick Matthews over here in the corner at the Little Tide restaurant one day. And I don't think there was a soul that came along that didn't know Patrick. And he ministered to them. But it's a challenge for us. Do your neighbors, whether you're in Chambersburg or out in the country, do they think of you as people who are loving and serving others?

So we love talking about the early church. We love talking about this idea of breaking bread and fellowship and prayer. And we tend to have this kind of romanticized view. And we like talking about it. But there's no doubt that it is hard. It is a life of sacrifice. And today, how are we going to follow in the footsteps of these early Christians? How are we going to do that?

Are we going to follow the methods and their example to us, follow the methods of Jesus as they follow them as they followed Jesus? Or are we going to buy into other methods or other ways of how we think could change the world? And that's one of my concerns for today. I believe that there are so many narratives that are coming at us from so many different areas of the Christian world, especially. And some of them can sound so right. And as we know, it's very difficult sometimes when something is so close to right to determine what is false and what is truth.

And I believe that if there was ever a time for a clarion call to a two-kingdom concept, to a two-kingdom framework, that it's today. Where there is no vision, the people perish. There's this quote that I love that goes like this: "A vision without a task is but a dream.

A task without a vision is but a drudgery. A vision and a task is the hope of the world." And I believe that Jesus and His kingdom is that incredible vision that we can press into. And as we see Jesus just following His footsteps, doing the things that He did, and as we look at the early church, it gives us the task. And when you merge those two together, a vision and a task, it's the hope of the world. I would like to lay out just three paradigms that I believe affect us today.

The two are from the Christian world outside of us. And then the third one is maybe like a vision statement for us as kingdom Christians. So three different paradigms within the Christian world. Number one, paradigm that comes at us quite a bit is from the conservative evangelical churches and their methods. And it maybe goes like this: "Through preaching the truth from a pulpit, convincing people of it," so it's very apologetical or even confrontational and heavily intellectual, "and through the use of national politics, God would change the world." And so again, I'm painting with a broad brushstroke. I'm talking about the conservative evangelical church and kind of their way, their method maybe of how they see changing the world.

And the emphasis there is on powerful preaching, maybe just a Sunday morning service and not much life together outside of that, and using Gentile rule, using politics, power from above down to keep American Christian or whatever is their goal. Then the second paradigm is progressive evangelical churches and their method. Maybe it can go somewhat like this: "Through bringing awareness of social injustice and through the use of national politics, God would change the world." And there their emphasis is on maybe a public action, demonstrations, protests, awareness initiatives, social action, and also Gentile rule, just like the conservative Christians, again, using politics as a way maybe to kind of develop their notion or their theory.

So maybe that's two paradigms that affect us a lot today that come at us. The third paradigm is what I believe that you here at Chambersburg Christian Fellowship are trying to do, and by God's grace at State College, we're trying to do. And that goes like this, maybe somewhat like this, again, broad brushstrokes, but just trying to put some meat on a skeleton here. Number three, kingdom-focused churches' methods.

And it's maybe a lot like the early church, hopefully, by God's grace, and the pilgrim church up through the ages. Think of the Waldensians, Anabaptist Lollards, people who were maybe called Similarly Mount Christians. And it could go like this: "Through cultivating communities of faithful practice under the rule of King Jesus, engaging and serving people through personal relationships or one-on-one interaction, calling them to come and participate in the living body of disciples, and through that, being a proclamation for the kingdom of God." And we believe in that way, God would change the world. And the emphasis there maybe is maybe broader, possibly, hopefully.

The idea of being a witness, being a presence in a community, of living, doing life together, not only word, but also action, community, understanding ourselves as citizens of another country, the idea of really bringing our home turf onto foreign soil, that two-kingdom framework that we see taught so well through Scripture, through the early church, and through the teachings of Jesus.

So which narrative are we going to listen to is a question I'd like to leave with us. What is the way that God wants us to walk? And you can decide. And like I said, I'm painting a very broad brushstroke. But I'd like to go into five points, practical points of cultivating kingdom communities of faithful practice. There's tons of more points, but it's five that I thought of that I'd like to talk about. But this morning, I've actually preached this message at our church. But this morning, as I was working through these five points, I thought, "I need five points that we don't want to be like." Sometimes when you juxtapose some points together, you can maybe make a clearer picture.

Let's do this. That's great. We can talk about vision and direction all day. But sometimes we need to say, "Let's not do this." And maybe this morning, I was kind of gritting my teeth a little bit. I see so many things around me that I just feel like is not the heart of Christ, is not the way of the kingdom. And so you have to forgive me if I am a little bit hard this morning. But so five points, just real quick, of what we don't want to be, what we need to reject, and then we'll get into the positive, what are the things we want to cultivate. So number one, what we want to reject is reject isolationism.

So many of us are from, I mean, a lot of us are from Anabaptist background, not everybody. Most of us here would consider ourselves Anabaptist, not everybody probably. But as we know, as we look at our history, we see people who, at the beginning, as someone has said, were willing to storm the gates of hell, to be like the early church, and to go into the world and be that presence and see the world change through the power of the Holy Spirit and through people following, being disciples. But sadly, we've pulled back from that. We became people of the country.

Field lanes have intrigued us for way too long. I sometimes have used these three words, the three Ps. Plants, places, and products maybe have really consumed us rather than people. And so we've become very materialistic, and we've pulled back away from maybe those urban centers. It's nice and exciting to come to your congregation here this morning and be right here in the center of Chambersburg. And I know that you have many different things that are going on here. But we need to keep that in front of us. We have to reject isolationism and move inward towards people to be that presence and live among people.

Second point is reject meism, or maybe it could be called meology or whatever. The idea of what's taught so much is get saved, avoid hell, get your ticket for heaven, which I know is such an impoverished gospel. When you think about the gospel of the kingdom, how we get to actually live it out today, or the kingdom epiphany that Dean Taylor talks about, I can witness that when a brother from my congregation, former congregation, 12, 13 years ago, began to teach on the kingdom of God, and it was like lights were turning on. Oh, this is for right now. It's not for something in the future. We get to live this out now. And it gave me this purpose and vision.

But it's not meism. It's not about me. It's about Jesus, our King, and His kingdom. And it's an epiphany. I'm reading a book right now. I actually just got done last night. I got it on Friday, and I sat down and just consumed it. Couldn't get away from it. It's called John Nugent, Endangered Gospel, How Fixing the World is Killing the Church. Powerful book. But he says this: "The most dangerous religion is not Islam, nor is atheism, if we want to call that a religion. The most dangerous religion is a form of Christianity that uses the name of Jesus to keep people happy and healthy, but doesn't call them into a form of fellowship that showcases God's kingdom before a watching world."

So we need to reject meism. Next thing, third one. We've got to keep moving along here. Reject patriotism. Again, I'm thankful to be talking to a congregation that understands the kingdom of God and hasn't bought into those narratives of the right, of the moral majority, etc. We need to see love of this country as idolatry. Call it this country. Don't call it our country.

Just real quickly, I want to read here in Endangered Gospel, a couple of paragraphs here. This brother, he's an evangelical, but he has got a view of the kingdom in ways I haven't really read in those circles. "Christians who choose not to get deeply entangled in the political affairs of their host nation are not simply lazy, unloving, or irresponsible, nor are they attempting to dishonor the blood that was shed by those who fought to establish the various nations we live in.

They are honoring the blood that Christ shed, as well as those Christian martyrs who followed in his steps. These martyrs traded worldly domination for the reign of God and, by refusing to worship the rulers of the nations, bore witness to the trans-territorial eternal kingdom of which we are now a part.

Since the mission of God's people entails forming communities that embody Jesus' alternate or all-encompassing politics precisely for the world's sake, then focusing on our mission is not lazy, unloving, irresponsible, or ungrateful. It is rightly ordered action, love, responsibility, and gratitude. Since it is God's strategy for blessing all nations, it is the best way to preserve whatever is good and worth dying for in this world. Those who reject God's strategy or merge it with the world's strategies by making yet another pointless run at ruling the nations are the ones who are acting irresponsibly."

So we need to reject patriotism. Number four, reject fundamentalism and its children. One of those is dispensationalism. We need to reject those things. The other day, I was in our cafe there, and there's a gentleman who comes in on Friday mornings often and works from our cafe, works for Penn State. And so he's working in the cafe on his laptop. He and I ended up having a lot of conversations. He's been coming for five years now. And he's an atheist.

And one of the things that has made him an atheist is a conservative right, is this idea that somehow, through law, we're going to coerce people to become Christians, and it has turned him away from Christianity. And when he learned that these religious folks, that sowers, don't vote, it really upset the fruit basket. He couldn't believe it. He's like, "You don't vote." I said, "No, we don't." And I've been telling him about the kingdom of God, and it has just made incredible opportunity for him and I to dialogue. Because he's not threatened by me. He realizes that I'm never going to force him to do anything.

Anyhow, just the other morning, I came into the cafe, and incidentally, it was right before Anabaptist Perspectives did a whole thing on fundamentalism, like a day before, two before. And I didn't bring it up to him, but he said, "Hey," he said, "I just got done listening to a podcast on fundamentalism." I was like, "What?" He said, "Yeah, I just got done listening to it." And I said, "Well, I would love to listen to it." So he sent it to me. I listened to it. We back and forth on it some. But basically, this podcast was just talking about the issues of fundamentalism and how it has affected us for the last couple hundred years and has really took the Christians from this idea of a separate nation to trying to get involved to change the US through politics.

And also he went into John Darby and dispensationalism, how that has affected. It was really eye-opening for me. So we need to reject those things, this angry Christian. We need to reject that for something so much better and so much more wholesome and flourishing. And that is calling people into a kingdom of God, embracing the kingdom of God, displaying it, and proclaiming it. And then finally, reject racism. Paul said in Acts 17:26, "And he, God, made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined a lot of periods and boundaries of the dwelling places." And we know that scripture that teaches us clearly. In the example of the early church, there were people of multi-ethnic.

There was not racism there. But sadly, we struggle with that in our world today. We live under sin and the curse. But we need to reject racism. We need to consider my feelings, the way I respond to those of different ethnicity, different cultures, and ask ourselves why, and really try to align ourselves with the heart of our King.

So that was my five points that we need to reject. Let's move into five points that we need to cultivate. Number one, we cultivate communities of faithful practice by pursuing a love-faith relationship with Jesus. And so many times, as Christians, Anabaptist Christians, we can have a form of godliness, but we deny the power.

And we want to see the world change. So many of us do. I do. I want to see the world change. And so many times, I forget that change starts with me. Leo Tolstoy said, "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." And isn't that what Jesus did? He came. He came, and he wanted to see the law that was on tablets of stone printed, placed deep on the tablets of our heart. He knew that our worst enemy is our own self. And so he came preaching the kingdom of God, calling people to repent and turn and to follow this new and living way. John 15:4, "Abide in me, and I in you.

As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me." How do we abide in Jesus, in our King, when life is so busy? I don't know if your lives are anything like ours in state college. I'm sure they are. But they're just busy. There's just a lot of things to do.

How do we take time to abide in Jesus? I know that having frequent Lord's Supper communion, times of remembering, is also just so important in remembering who Jesus is, who our King is, what he's done for us, and who we are in light of that.

So we need to renew our love for Jesus. If we do not have that love with Jesus, there will not be kingdom communities of faithful practice. We need to fall at his feet and be like him, become like him, allow him to fill us with his Spirit, allow him to work in our hearts, confessing our sins with one another, and we'll be healed.

Number two of our five points on cultivating community, we cultivate communities of faithful practice by prioritizing our community.

Now, it's so easy for us to want that relationship with Jesus, but it's so hard for us to prioritize community because that means work, and that means relating with people that are broken just like me, relating with people who crossed me, relating with people who I just don't sometimes feel like relating to. And this convicts me.

So many times, we have so many good things going on. We can reach out. We can do all these good things. But am I prioritizing community? And that's something that this brother here really, really pushes on. He pushes back against all this busyness of trying to fix the world and says, "Really, as you look at scripture, it's really clear that we are called first and foremost to put our all into our local community, to one another and to loving each other, to walking with each other, to sharing with each other." And he calls it actually prioritizing our community.

What did Jesus say in John 13? I think maybe even someone read it this morning in the Sunday school class. "By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." Of course, John 17, there's verses there in that prayer, the Lord's Prayer, "The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one." Why? "So that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you've loved me."

So part of following Jesus is embracing is proclaiming the kingdom of God through the local church. And there's tons of one another in verses in the epistles. Just three real quick. Above all, maintain an intense love for each other since love covers a multitude of sins.

Galatians 6:10, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are the household of faith." 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed out of death into life." Why? "Because we love the brethren.

He who does not love abides in death." John Nugent says this, "Since loving one another is God's plan, it must become our highest priority. No more embarrassment, no more second-guessing, no more imitating worldly strategies to make this world a better place.

They have failed and will continue to fail. The old order is passing away," as in the nations of this world, the way of controlling and kind of keeping a semblance of order is passing away. "Only God's kingdom will stand. New creation is everything.

Nothing is more arrogant and self-serving than assuming that we know better than God what is the best for his world. If God's strategy requires a people whose life together reflects his kingdom, then any other strategy is apostasy and any doctrine that competes with it, heresy."

He doesn't beat on the bush. This brother believes that the way we're going to change the world is through churches just like you, through local bodies of believers working together, embracing and proclaiming.

So just a couple of little practical challenges. How do we live this out in our lives? I've thought a lot about this. My wife and I have lived in an urban setting ever since we got married back in 2008.

And how do we show the world a community and not just an insular family, just our family? How do we show that to the world? And it's something we've tried different things in state college. We've been blessed to live somewhat within proximity of each other and try to do life together maybe in more ways than maybe is typical. We've had some successes in that. Definitely can have lots of growth in that for sure.

But what if we would try to have someone from our congregation to our place around our table for a meal maybe every other week or once a month or every week, whatever? What if we would try to do that, have people into our place around our table where we can get to know them and talk over a meal? And what if we would consider Sundays being out? It's pretty easy to do this stuff on Sunday, right?

Any social club can have one day of the week that we just kind of do stuff together. But what if we try to do it more throughout the week randomly? Sundays are out. Sick days when we have, when can we have a family from our congregation in to our home? Hosting is hard work, as we all know. Hospitality is hard work. Trying to get our congregation outside the four walls of the building that we meet in. Just earlier this week, my son, we were splitting firewood, and he went from splitting firewood to splitting his finger. And you can ask him to at least show it. He won't be able to get out of the bandage.

But it's a pretty bad deal. And we had the incredible privilege of a community to help us. And what a blessing that was. We live on our street there. Three houses up, there's a family that lives from our congregation. There's a single that lives above them. In our house, there's a single brother, a Chinese brother who lives below us. And they all hopped in and helped in different ways or asking how they can help. And our neighbors happened to be outside, and they realized what was going on and trading. We were trying to get them off to the hospital really quick. And so it was a way that I hope that somehow our neighbors caught that glimpse of the kingdom of people living together and helping each other out.

God help us. I have more questions and answers in this area. But how can we cultivate communities of faith? We cultivate communities of faithful practice by prioritizing our local community. That is the way that God wants to change the world. Number three, we cultivate communities of faithful practice by dreaming.

We need to allow the Jesus way to stoke our imagination. And we've gotten so caught up. We can dream well when it comes to business, when it comes to arts and crafts, music, whatever. We've dreamt really well. Latte art, whatever it is. I'll pick on myself.

We love dreaming, and it's wonderful. But let's begin dreaming again when it comes to how we could bring heaven to earth in our communities. One of my favorite phrases of Jesus is where he says this, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." What an irrational thought of God of heaven coming with that idea, that dream, and then actually doing it, living that. We know that he did. In Acts 2, when Peter stands up and gives that incredible message, he quotes Joel 2:28, and it says this, "And it shall come in the last days," says God, "that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall see dreams." And I never forget the day I listened to a message by Dean Taylor. And he says, "Sadly," he says, "in our day, old men have become cynical, and young men are fantasizing."

We need renewal. We need the Spirit of God to fall on us afresh. And we need to begin dreaming again. How are some practical ways of doing that? The Waldensians were known as people. They were called Sermon on the Mount Christians. Recently, our family read a book, Under a Silent Sky. CLP just put it out about the Waldensians, powerful book of them.

I can't recommend that book more to read as a family. But they were people who lived in community and lived it well and lived it the Jesus way.

And they were men who just soaked up the Sermon on the Mount. Someone has said, "Let's be as passionate about the Sermon on the Mount as some people are about the amendments. Let's be as passionate about the Sermon on the Mount as some people are about the amendments. Let's look for ways to bring heaven to earth." And I don't think we're going to take the time here.

Maybe we will. Let's just jump to Acts 9, the story there of Tabitha or Dorcas. Incredible passage or incredible couple of verses that we can so quickly overlook. But here is a sister who was dreaming. Here's a sister who was serving. And what's interesting is there's a Greek word that's used here to describe a female disciple that's not used anywhere in the New Testament again.

And so what caused for what reason was this lady described in this beautiful, beautiful way? In verse 36 of Acts 9, "Ajapa, there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did. As we can see on down there, she died, and the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and the garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them." Here, this lady was serving widows, poor people, by just the simple work of being a seamstress. She was dreaming. She allowed the ways of Jesus to inflame her imagination enough that she actually was willing to do the work of making garments and laboring for these dear people.

Tim Mackey says this, Bible Project, "It takes a transformation of your imagination to see it and embrace Jesus' upside-down kingdom." We need to ask God to illuminate our minds, to remove the fantasizing, to remove that cynical spirit. Say, "Lord, what can I do with the talents, with the things that you've given me, the resources? What can I do to steward it for your kingdom?" And finally, a quote from N.T. Wright, one of my favorite quotes, "Our primary task, our primary task is not so much to give answers to impossible philosophical questions as to bring signs of God's new world to birth."

And that gives me a lot of hope because I'm not an apologist. I can't interact with my atheist friend and women argument. He's so good. He's got something like every argument is covered. I can't do it. But what I can do is be kind to him, is be kind to him and show him love and show him that I'm never going to force him to do anything.

I'm going to radically follow Jesus and try to, every day when he comes in, to be kind and gentle to him. We all can do this. We all can bring signs of God's new world to birth. It doesn't matter whether you're a child, who you are in this audience, we can do that. Okay, number four.

Moving on here. We cultivate communities of faith practice by joyfully stewarding our daily occupations for kingdom advance. Joyfully stewarding our daily occupations. I think so many times as kingdom Christians, we want to try to we somehow think like some special ministry or something is where it's at. But that's just not the way of the kingdom. That could be a way.

But really, it's just like Dorcas laboring over sewing a garment. It's just like Paul staying up late at night laboring over a tent so that he can minister. It's taking those things that God has given us and stewarding it for his kingdom, whether it be a mother in the home, which is so important, or a father, or a carpenter, whatever it might be, just joyfully stewarding it for the kingdom and watching for a way to share Jesus with them in word. And oftentimes, we can do it in action very effectively if we allow God to work in our lives.

I remember early on at Baptist, I think they said, "Hey, so what do you do?" And they would say, "Or what do you do for the kingdom?" It was kind of a question. We say, "What do you do for a living?" Or sometimes our occupations may really define us possibly too much. And so we need to make sure that we're not allowing our occupations to become an idol to us, but yet just confidently, joyfully stewarding our occupations for the kingdom. And when people see that, they see us joyfully doing that, just doing the hard work of making the dollar, of then using that to bless others and serve others, it really, really speaks to people.

Work. Work can be holy. And I think just a real quick little story.

Two years ago, I was in Africa to visit a team there with all nations. And this one brother on that team, he would be the first one to tell you, "I'm not an apologist. I'm not a Bible translator.

I'm not gifted in that way." But here's what he's doing. He's taken his knowledge of vehicle diagnostics, and he's using that to help train these local Africans. So Africa is a place where vehicles get dumped from all over the world, very inferior typically, and the Africans aren't trained.

And I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw driving on the road. I come from a transportation background, and it was my first time in Africa, and I would never forget it. I just couldn't stop staring at the stuff that you saw driving on the road. And a lot of it because they had never been trained. No one's trained them how.

And they didn't know how to go to they didn't know how to fix a root problem. And so this brother is there using his knowledge, what he's learned here in the States as a mechanic, using it to teach and train these people. And while the pious imam sitting on the mosque steps, he's there just infiltrating this city and building relationships and having conversations that are just amazing.

That is the shape of the kingdom, using what God has given us for his cause. And there's many, many, many, many good examples. My dad was somebody who was a good example of this. He's a truck driver, 73 years old, still doing about 2,000 miles per week. And he has this route that he typically goes on, and he has people that he speaks to on that route. He's often talking about people he's having gospel conversations with. Just a trucker, but it's amazing what you can do. I'm just being a trucker.

Many, many other things we can talk about here. One of the things, too, that I love about business and occupation is we can't answer questions that people aren't asking. We can't answer them. So we make ourselves readily accessible to people in the context of just work. And we're living there. There'll come a time when they'll have enough of a relationship that they'll ask you a question. And all of a sudden, you actually realize that these people almost consider them your friend. It's one of the passions I had with our little cafe there in State College is, as we thought about an occupation, what can we do? How can we actually get to know people and kind of live among people and make ourselves accessible?

And people ask us questions after a while. It takes a long time. People just don't come up to you and ask a question in the first week. That's not, "Would you do that?" No. We don't do that. It's often through relationship. And so that's what our occupations can do. They can be a tremendous fishing pond. We can be there. And when they have that burning question, they can be ready to ask us, or they can ask us. And hopefully, we can bring sign of God's new world to birth in our answers. Lastly, we cultivate communities of faith practice by serving strangers at our tables, hospitality to strangers.

The New Testament is full of hospitality to your local community. But there is definitely a teaching that we can bring to bear on how we relate to strangers. And interestingly, hospitality, the Greek word is philio xenos, which means love of strangers.