The Conductor
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · December 17, 2023 · The God I Want series
Jeremy MacDonald looks at Philippians 3 and the Lord's Prayer to show that heaven is more than a ticket for after death. Jesus invites His people to bring heaven's culture to earth now, and following Him as King is free but costs everything.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The The God I Want series
Topics: Hope, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:50] What God do you want? It's kind of a weird question, but one that we've been wrestling with for the last few weeks, and you're certainly welcome to check on our YouTube channel if you've missed the last few weeks of messages. But the truth is we all kind of have a God that we really want. I mean, for some of you you know, your hope is that actually that there really isn't much of a God at all. You know, your expectation on life is that you would live without Him in mind. And so hopefully there's not really a God paying attention to anything that you're living out or doing, right? Like that's some people's expression and some people live in that kind of way. For some of you though, you want a God who is like here and He's the king and He's a particular kind of king. And then, you know, we talked about that a few weeks ago. You want Him to be in charge and be the only one in charge for some of you.
[1:39] You want a God that's gonna rescue you from all of the things that are wrong with your life. And as we wrestle with all the different things that we expect or we hope from God, it brings us to a place of realizing perhaps a little bit of more of our own journey and our own story. And all of our stories are a little bit unique until we get to, I think, this one particular question that kind of unites all people from all cultures and from all time. And the question is a little bit different than what God do you want. The question is this instead: it's what God, what do you need God for? What do you need God for? And the truth is that if you ask anybody, and if we're honest with each other and we actually share a little bit about our expectations and our hope for our lives and our futures, we all have one thing that we absolutely desperately need God for.
[2:26] We can't do it on our own. No matter what you believe about faith, no matter what your religious background is, no matter where you've come from and where you've been, there's one thing that unites us in our need for some type of God and for some type of interaction from Him. And so over the last four weeks, we've invited a local artist, Katie, to wear on. She's painted four different images for us that kind of spark each of these ideas for each of these messages. And this week, this idea, what do you need God for, I think is encapsulated in this particular image that shows you a little bit of what your expectations and hopes from Him are all about. And that is that you need a stairway to heaven. Hit it, Aaron. Oh, I guess we didn't practice that cue.
[3:13] That would've been good though. Oh, it's all right. A staircase to heaven or a stairway to heaven, you need, the one thing you can't do on your own is something after you die that there would be something exciting to live into or to experience. You need. What do you need God for? You need 'em for heaven. We can't do that on our own. And again, no matter what your faith background or your friends or your unchurched coworkers or neighbors or family members, we all have this hope when you get to a funeral that's not the end of the story. We have this belief that surely there's something else left. And surely no matter what we actually believe and do around our faith or religion or gathering in these kinds of ways, there's this deep-seated hope and need for somebody to take us up the steps into some type of eternity beyond this life.
[4:11] That this wouldn't have been the end of the story, but that there would be a continuation somewhere down the line. And the Christians over the years have used this kind of need to create a little bit of a perhaps understanding that might be a positive way of looking at it. A negative way could be almost like this transactional way of understanding faith and our faith in particular. And so over the years, you've seen a rise to people kind of speaking to that need for heaven in particular kind of ways kind of like this, which is an actual thing. You could purchase your ticket to heaven, currently unavailable, unfortunately for all of us. But honestly, you could purchase for a very small price. And this is what it's called: a track. If you've not experienced tracks before, they're little pamphlets that describe or articulate something about faith or, you know, for our faith, like the gospel message.
[5:02] And so you could buy tracks that are like your ticket to heaven and then this becomes something that you could hand to somebody. And if you've ever had the experience, it's so fantastic when somebody hands you them because it's a terrifying experience. Okay? So mine is, I'm on my way to Bible college. This is like 15 years ago, and I'm driving through the states. I go to Saskatchewan for school. I grew up here. I'm going to Saskatchewan for school. Ken Bandy is with me, my cousin's with me, and we're going and we stop for gas and snacks and somewhere in Michigan. And I had not been in the United States before very often, so I kind of had some nervousness about just being there, not knowing, being kind of young on my own, driving a car for the first time across the country. And so we're in Michigan, they're going into the gas station for snacks. And I'm sitting, in August, it's sunny, my window's down and enjoying the weather in Michigan.
[5:49] And I notice a group of bikers across the way. Now again, I know I come off as like extremely confident, very strong, pretty muscular, like I can take, you know, my own. And it wasn't, that wasn't the joke, you guys, but the point is that I, sometimes might be a little bit nervous around bikers, in particular. And so, across the way this biker who is wearing the vest and has the apparatus, the stuff like again, he's on a bike and he starts eyeing me from across the gas station way. And again, I'm in the United States, a young guy and I'm getting a little bit nervous. And so for about two minutes, which is a very long two minutes, when somebody's making direct eye contact with you and you keep breaking the gaze, he's staring at me and then gets off his bike and starts walking over to me, at which point I think I'm going to heaven, which is gonna be great, but he gets all the way over and I'm thinking like, are they coming out?
[6:46] Like, is somebody gonna see this? Like, what's about to happen? He legitimately leans into my car window 'cause it's open and hands me a track with a ticket to heaven. So for his two minutes of like staring at me, it's the Holy Spirit like speaking to his heart, like, you gotta go over and like God, you know, give the track to that person and tell him about Jesus. And he hands out and he walks off. And of course my heart was about to explode and then I dunno what I think about after that. But here we are and I'm alive and I now have my ticket to heaven And my life is gonna be fine. So love that, and now love bikers and assume that they're not all out to get you. Which is good. We're just learning all sorts of things together here. But the point being is that that transactional experience of getting a ticket to heaven is something that oftentimes Christians, and perhaps for you, I know for me, has been kind of baked into my understanding of things.
[7:31] And it comes from an honest place because it actually comes sometimes, at least the way that we think about it, from what we assume and what we read from in Scripture. For example, if you go to the New Testament, there's this letter to the church in Philippi. And Paul writes to the Philippians, and he writes this in particular, and this is something that, again, perhaps you've heard of or, you know, you've heard reference in songs, "Our citizenship is in heaven." And so then our songs rise up about it and we anticipate and we expect, and we tell stories about this idea that we could exchange something for access to this other place. But my friends, the shocking thing, the difficult thing, the thing that maybe defies our expectations, although we may want a ticket to heaven, the truth is actually much different.
[8:22] So one of the commentators, one of the people that take the Scriptures and unpack them and wrestle with them and take like a one line like "our citizenship is in heaven" and then write pages and pages, they do that not because the Bible is complicated. They do that because the Bible is written in a different time and with different people in mind in a different language. And if you've ever gone to a different culture before, even in just our day and age, you recognize that when you cross a boundary or cross a border, that you can experience something completely different just because cultures are so different, customs and words and language changes things. And if you've been on this earth for a few decades longer than I have, then perhaps you could even reflect on the fact that over time culture changes. And so what we have is we have these folks that are commentators and write these books, both the Christian Scriptures that try to unpack and help us understand some of those differences.
[9:16] Not that the Bible is too complicated, but that the Bible is often in a different culture and in a different time. And so N.T. Wright writes this about this particular passage. He says, "Being citizens of heaven doesn't mean you're supposed to end up there." Which the first time you wrestled with that, if you grew up in church like I did, it's like, I don't fully grasp, like, what do you mean? What does that mean? What does that mean for me? And N.T. Wright goes on, he explains this, he says, "The resurrection stories in the Gospels aren't about going to heaven when you die. In fact," he writes, "in fact, there is almost nothing about going to heaven when you die in the whole New Testament."
[10:05] But what about that verse, that verse, the Philippians one, right? Like, "But our citizenship, our citizenship is in heaven." What do you mean that it doesn't mean that we're meant to just go and be there? Well, the fascinating thing, at least fascinating for me, and I think very practically fascinating for all of us, is that this actually has dramatic implications for any one of us that choose to follow Christ. But it also has dramatic implications for all of us that have to wrestle with whether or not we would choose to follow this Jesus. And so the writers, the commentators, the people that are trying to help us understand what this actually means, they explain it this way. They say often this word citizenship, this word citizenship was used to designate a colony of foreigners or relocated veterans whose purpose was to secure the conquered country for the conquering country.
[11:02] And they did this in a very specific way. They did this by spreading abroad that country's way of doing things: its customs, its culture, and its laws. The idea of being a citizen in those days was that you would bring the culture of where you are a citizen and bring it and infuse it into the culture that you're in. That's the call of citizenship in those days. And so for many times and for many people, and you go across history and from around the world, this has been the practice. And surely sometimes it's absolutely atrocious and awful. But we have to recognize that the idea of bringing your culture to a new place and to a new people is actually part of many folks' expectations in the first century.
[11:52] In fact, N.T. Wright, again, the author we were quoting earlier, he says this about this exact situation. "Many of the Philippians, the people that Paul was writing to, many of the Philippians were Roman citizens. Their home wasn't the place that they were living, their home was from abroad, but their home, Rome, didn't want them back when they retired." Their expectation wasn't that they would go and then return back home. The expectation in those days, if you were gonna be a Roman citizen, is that you would take and bring that culture to the new place. In fact, their job was to bring Roman culture to Philippi. This was the expectation. And so it's this expectation that they understand where Paul invites them to do something very specific, that for thousands of years the hope and the expectation of those that would choose to follow and align themselves with the kingdom of God, the expectation would be that they would be the kinds of people that would bring heaven to earth.
[13:00] That there's something actually really important going on throughout the New Testament where Jesus has started something and invited us to participate in it that is really tangible and really practical and a little bit mystical. And so for anyone here, and this is not for everybody, but for anyone here that would choose to follow after Christ and make Him their Savior, your job specifically from the New Testament, your job is this, to bring heaven culture to earth. That this is what we've been invited into. In fact, when we read the verse in Philippians, we get to the context of it. It says, "Our citizenship is in heaven." This is us that have chosen to follow Christ, our citizenship is in heaven, "but we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."
[13:49] This is fascinating because when Paul writes this, Jesus has already been on earth, He's already died on the cross, He's already been resurrected. They're putting their faith and hope in this risen Savior. And yet at this point, they're eagerly awaiting His return. He's not waiting for their journey to heaven, they're waiting for His return to earth. And this has been the expectation of Christians throughout the centuries, that God did something miraculous and earth-shattering and changed everything, and then invited His people to participate in it. Paul goes on in Philippians, and I think this will be helpful. "So by the power that enables Him," Jesus specifically, "to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body."
[14:45] That the hope has always been something different, something physical, something on this earth. And so when we read and understand a little bit of what all of this means for us, it kind of changes a little bit of our understanding of where faith comes into play and comes into practice. Because for some of you, part of the thing that you've experienced in your faith journey perhaps has been that your faith is more about what happens after you die than while you're alive, that you created some type of transaction where, you know, okay, I'm good, I'll be in heaven. And so that's the end of the experience of faith. I just wait until I die for what's next. But that's not the case. And then for some of you who've been hesitant to jump into the faith experience, part of your hesitation is it seems so counterintuitive that God would want you to do certain things in this earth in order to have that transaction or that experience of heaven after you die.
[15:38] And it just doesn't seem to compute. And what you need to know is that it's not supposed to. There's something much greater at play that you're being invited into. So Tom Wright, he says this again about all of this situation, "The resurrection, we must never cease to remind ourselves, did not mean going to heaven or escaping death or having a glorious and noble post-mortem existence. Instead, but rather coming to bodily life again after bodily death." This is what Jesus taught and invited us into. Now there's still an expectation and an experience of something after you die. There's a sense that Jesus is on the cross and He looks to His left and to the thief that recognizes who He is, He says, "You'll be with Me in paradise." Sure, absolutely. And there's hope that we have in that, absolutely.
[16:26] It's not like it's a bad experience, but the bigger hope and the thing that the New Testament teaches is that our real hope is well beyond that experience. It's well beyond that experience. And it's about something that God has actually started right now, that Jesus has actually started with His ministry here on this earth that we as His people can participate in. And He kind of lays it out in a really clear and specific way when He invites us and teaches us how to pray. And if you've missed this in the Lord's Prayer before, it's worth coming back to because it's such a common narrative and a common story that has been spread through our culture. But the power of this prayer lies in the words that Jesus invites us to pray. And so you remember, this is how it goes.
[17:11] "Our Father in heaven," an acknowledgement of God who is above, who is powerful and strong, "hallowed be Your name." This claim that we get a chance to participate in God's declaration to our world today. It's actually His people who hallow or make His name holy or the opposite of this, to profane His name. It all comes down to the people of God. Will they actually make His name holy in their culture today? And so this is an invitation to us, to hallow, to make God's name holy in our midst. "Your kingdom come." What is the kingdom of God? What is God's kingdom like? When we start asking ourselves that question, the whole New Testament starts to come into focus because Jesus talks at length about what His kingdom is about. He's explaining it and illustrating it and telling stories about it and talking about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, both that are terms that are interchangeable about this new thing that He's beginning and starting and inviting us to participate in.
[18:09] And so we pray, "Your kingdom come, God, Your will be done." On earth. On earth. Just in a little bit, like, not right now, but like on earth eventually or like, God, on earth, maybe if things were aligned and like we had a different politician in power or we had a different neighbor, like, then on earth, like things would happen, right? Like, Your kingdom is limited, God, but for right now, we are just gonna pray that it comes. But we're not quite sure. No, no, no. Jesus says, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This is the invitation. You see, Jesus in His ministry says, explains, invites us, articulates it really, really clearly that heaven doesn't start later.
[18:56] Heaven doesn't actually start later. Heaven starts now. Amen. Now that's a lot. Now, that's a lot. But the invitation is that we get to be participants of it and that we're heralds of that story. You see, Jesus, when He preaches and He tells the stories about the kingdom of God, the expectation isn't that He's just casting a future vision. He's casting a work order for His people. He's trying to explain to them, this is what My kingdom is about. This is what My kingdom people are about. And so when you choose to align yourselves with Jesus as your King, it changes how we interact with our daily life and our world around us. Because now we are the heralds of heaven's culture and we bring it into our midst.
[19:45] And so for Christians, this is a tall order. This is a heavy load. This is a responsibility. But for those of you that have been hesitant to sign on because you feel like, you know, this faith thing, it's complicated or it's nuanced and it doesn't feel like it really makes a difference or it doesn't work or it doesn't play well with our world today, you need to know. You gotta count the cost before you make a commitment to align yourself with Jesus as King. But because while it's free and immediate that you can align yourself with Him, it's gonna cost you everything. Because to bring the heaven culture to our earth today is gonna cost us. And it's gonna be an immense thing. It's gonna turn and change how we interact with the people around us. It changes how we have a chance to experience our individual life. It changes the way that we do business with each other.
[20:31] When we bring heaven culture to today, everything adjusts. But this is what Jesus was talking about, and this is it, this is in the New Testament. When we get into where He is talking with the Pharisees, they ask Him, "When will the kingdom of God come?" Because they're in the first century. It's not like it's great. Like the indoor plumbing is a lot less sophisticated than it is today. And that's not what they were hoping and expecting and praying for. But I tell you what, if you were back there, you'd be open to praying for it. When does the kingdom of God come? When do things turn right? When do we get a chance to experience life differently? And Jesus says, Jesus says this, "The kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs. You won't be able to say, 'Here it is,' or 'It's over there,' for the kingdom of God is already among you."
[21:21] And it's in our midst now if we would be the kinds of people to watch for it and to herald it and to invite it and to act like it and to be those kinds of people. And that's the Christmas story of all the expectations about who this God is. We know for sure from Scripture, from the very beginning, that the God of Christmas is a different kind of God than anyone was expecting at the very beginning, the very beginning. This is the one that we share and that we celebrate and we sing songs about. And it's this, it says, "Look, the virgin will conceive a child, and she will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Emmanuel." And that word is so powerful and it slides off our minds because of the culture and just hearing it.
[22:11] And I get that, that's not a bad thing, it's not a knock against us. But when they called Him Emmanuel, it was because it meant something. It meant something important and it meant something dramatically different than anyone was expecting. It meant that God is with us and that God is in our midst and God is for us. And when we think about Him bringing and starting and inaugurating His kingdom now, it's a powerful thing because of His power, not our power. And He starts it and then He invites us to participate in it. And so here's the thing that you need to know when it comes to our hopes and our dreams for heaven, is that we all need and imagine and hope for something. But the thing about heaven that you have to realize is that for you, you don't need a ticket to get to heaven.
[23:05] You don't need a staircase to get to heaven. You know what? You don't even need to die to experience heaven. All that you need is Jesus. And you can experience that. So as we head into this last week before Christmas, I think there's probably just a couple of categories of people in the room that in a moment I'm gonna pray, and for some of you, I would just invite you to pray along on your own if you're in one of these two categories. Because I think for some people, somebody along the way convinced you that your faith was just a transaction of getting a ticket to heaven. God's a conductor taking the train at the end of your life, and you just take that ride all the way, and that's your experience and that's it.
[23:55] And you've missed out on the chance to experience what He has for you in this life because you didn't realize that heaven is actually meant to start now. Now is this life perfect? No, it's not. But that's the point of the kingdom of God, that we're participants of it to start to change what's wrong in this world and the culture so that we can infuse and bring the heaven culture. And what does that look like? Well, that's the exploration of us as Christians to understand and read through the New Testament and know what the kingdom of God is, that we can bring it and allow it to be a part of our day to day. And so for some of you, if your faith was just very much a transactional kind of thing, I wanna invite you in a moment when I pray that you would just kind of acknowledge that, and if you would like to make today a shift where now your faith is not just that transactional thing, but instead it's something about now, it's something about what does it mean for God to be real in my life today, I wanna make sure that you just have a chance to mark that moment here in this service today.
[24:53] Because I get it, like, it's easy to grow up in this culture of just like, I kind of go through the motions. It's different when you think, I've got a work order and a responsibility and participating in the kingdom. Like, that's a lot. I don't know what that means. That's okay. It starts with a knowing that Jesus is our King and that He's gonna lead us through. And so we turn to Him in these moments and invite Him to participate in our lives today. That's the first group. But there's also a group of people. And you would think that these kinds of messages, you know, you, to be honest, you've been hesitant about the whole faith thing and you haven't really signed on fully because you're nervous about what it means. And so I just wanna make sure that you know, as we head into Christmas, that Christmas says that God is with us and that Jesus is here and He's alive and it matters today and it matters in your life.
[25:41] And if you want to participate in His kingdom, you forsake everything else and turn away from all your sin and you focus fully on Him and He will guide you and invite you into His kingdom even now. And you can make that decision today. But in both of these camps, you have to realize it's easy to say these things, but it's difficult to fully pull them off and go with them because this is a moment where maybe God is speaking to you, but that moment can pass quickly. In fact, there was an author a number of years ago who was telling the story about Jesus through the lens of a, you know, in a play and explaining the story of Herod. And so in Oscar Wilde's Salome, you know, there's this fascinating interaction between Herod, as he is coming to grips, King Herod from the New Testament, coming to grips with who Jesus is, and he realizes that it actually matters and has changed everything.
[26:39] And so in this play, and I don't know, I find it fascinating, Herod says this, he says, "I do not wish Him to do that." Speaking about Jesus defeating death and resurrecting people. He had power over death itself. And Herod as the king of the day and coming to grips with the fact that his power was not anything like the power of this King. He says, "Well, I do not wish Him to do that." This is not from the Bible, this is from reality. He says, "I forbid Him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead." As if he has any control. "This man must be found and told that I forbid Him to raise the dead." And then he looks at his courtier, the person nearby, as they're having this exchange about this Jesus. And he says, "Where is this man?" And the person...
[27:26] And this is the line. It gives me chills. He says this about Jesus. And this is your experience, and this is your experience, and this is your experience. "He's in every place, my Lord." But it is hard to find Him because we're so blinded and we so often miss Him. He's in every place. The minute that we search for Him, we'll discover Him. But it's so hard to find Him because we so often forget to bother searching. And so when you're in a place like this and when you're gathered in this kind of way, it's the kind of moments to make sure that we solidify, that you solidify and that you know, not about a ticket to heaven, but that you would know who you've aligned your life with, that you might experience the kingdom of God in this moment.
[28:11] that you might experience this kingdom of God for all of your life in eternity. And so would you join me with me as I pray? Heavenly Father, in these moments, it's easy to say these kinds of things in some ways, but it's difficult to understand and know the full implications. Like, what is the kingdom of God? You spent so many sermons articulating that and trying to paint a picture for us. And that it, You've started something and inaugurated Your kingdom, and You invited us into it, and it's not fully here. And we await that day when full resurrection happens. And yet in this moment, that we could participate in it. I know that there's some people that have been on the sidelines that need to step in. And so God, in this moment I just, I pray for a few folks that have felt like maybe their faith was just a transaction.
[28:58] It was a decision that their parents made a number of years ago. It was a moment that was, it was decades in the making, and yet it really hasn't done much for them lately. God, for those kinds of folks, I pray that they would just come alongside me in these moments and turn their attention to You and pray this simple prayer. Jesus, You are my King, and I want to be a part of Your kingdom work. Now I forsake everything behind that has tried to drag me away. And instead I look, and I put my eyes on You, and I ask that You would guide my steps from this moment onwards, God. And in this moment, I know and You know that for any of us that turn our eyes towards You, that You're faithful and just to meet us here and guide us from this place.
[29:46] And then, heavenly Father, I pray for those that maybe have not thought about turning towards You. You know, religion and faith and church has been a part of their practice. Or maybe they've shown up once in a while, but they've not actually made that personal decision to look towards You as their Lord and Savior and direction. And Lord, I would pray that even in just this moment, that they would look to You and they'd say, "Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, I need You. I need You for more than just a place to go when I die. But God, I need You now and in my life now, and I give up everything else to follow You and be a part of Your kingdom. And would You give me Your Spirit to guide and direct me in the days ahead?" Heavenly Father, in these moments, we know that Your Spirit is at work in our lives and draws us towards Yourself.
[30:35] And so I pray that for anybody that's making those decisions, that You would go with them, that You would prompt them to not let this just be a moment that passes, but that they would look to You and follow You even beyond this place. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. And for anybody that makes those kinds of decisions and has those kinds of prayers at any point, and at any point you have any concerns or questions about faith, you've gotta know that this is a spot for it. There's connect cards in each of your pockets. You leave your information, you give it to an usher, you ask a question, you come down for prayer at the end of the service. Whatever you need to do to make sure that these moments don't pass, you've gotta make sure that you step out and let us know, 'cause we want to journey with you. I want to journey with you, I want to email you, I wanna talk with you. And I wanna make sure that you know what it means to experience God in this life right now, because heaven is for real, and it's right here in our midst if we would be so inclined to be a part of it.
[31:32] But that's not all. We also get to be the holders of it, and we get to share it with our world around us. And so why don't you stand as we sing one last song together.