FOUNDATIONS: PT 1 - The Holy Spirit And The Kingdom Of God
The central message of Jesus and the apostles was the arrival of the kingdom of God. After his resurrection Luke tells us in Acts 1 that Jesus spent 40 days on earth proving that he rose from the dead and teaching them about the kingdom of God. In this first week we will discover what the kingdom is and the truth that the Holy Spirit wants to bring the kingdom to bear in us so that he can express the kingdom through us. The danger is that we can perceive the kingdom as a threat to our pride, security, comfort, need for control, insecurities etc.
James: Pt 10 (5:12-20)
In this last passage of James, the author shifts gears dramatically to talk about the power of prayer for healing and our need to walk in the light if we want to be able to access the power of God. James talks about confession and the role of secret sin as a possible block to prayer for healing.
Easter Sunday
Before Jesus was resurrected from the dead on that first Easter Sunday, he was walking in his resurrection identity. Four days after one of his closest friends, Lazarus, had died Jesus went to visit his friends (Lazarus’ sisters) who were grieving, and into the middle of their grieving and pain he makes a declaration about his identity saying “I am the resurrection and the life.” In that moment Jesus is communicating something powerful and profound about his identity and nature. His statement “I am” is not only an identity statement, it is a statement of presence in the present. Jesus is calling Mary and Martha out of the past (and the disappointment of what he didn’t do for them) and also out of the future (what might happen) and into the present. I am here now and I am the resurrection and life. Jesus is calling us today out of a life of bondage to the pain and disappointments of the past and out of a life dominated by anxiety, fear and our need to know and control the future. Jesus is inviting us to live with him and receive his resurrection power in the present.
James: Pt 9 (4:13-5:11)
In this passage James has some direct and confrontational things to say about planning for the future, our ideas of control and what it means to release our lives into the hands of God instead of tight-fisted, white knuckle living.