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God's Emerging City
When we compare the Church today with God’s revealed design for her in the Scriptures, we see that we face an ample maturing process yet ahead of us. One key to arriving at His goal is that we take His road, His way. Since the highway to His city runs through our hearts (Psalm 84:5, NASB), His excavation process of removing the high places and straightening the crooked places, etc. (Isaiah 40: 1 - 5) takes place in our inner man. As we yield to His internal work, we will find ourselves increasingly and successfully fitted together with those to whom He is connecting us.
Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending (Greek, KATARTIZO) their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
A successful fisherman will make sure that his net is fully mended before he casts it. The Greek word KATARTIZO that is translated mending is the verb form of KATARTISMOS, found in Ephesians Chapter 4 where Paul refers to the equipping of the saints. God equips the saints; He mends us.
Consider the local church as a torn and jagged net. He gathers us to integrate us into a corporate unit. He takes all the fragmented parts and mends us together into a meshwork that He can then cast into the Earth. Many leaders think only in terms of individual training when they think of equipping the saints. And while teaching the Bible and giving personal counsel are certainly part of the process, God wants to integrate the members of Christ’s body into a corporate unit for service. And only He can do that.
But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.
If God places the members strategically in each other’s lives, then what do the Ephesians Chapter 4 ascension gift ministries do? Scripture says that Christ gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the integrating/mending to occur. In other words, God anoints them to serve in His work as He mends His corporate net. And these ministries must learn to move in harmony with His timing and His activity as He incorporates His people around himself.
One thing is clear – it takes spiritual discernment to see God’s present work of structuring His people. Over the years of Church history He has repeatedly poured out His Spirit among many different people groups. And many systems of church relationship have emerged. One can look all across the spiritual landscape and see these frameworks. Even if we could say that all of them came from God’s initiative, they still all have some degree of mixture. And I doubt that any of them are sufficient to contain and fully express what He is about to do upon the Earth.
One problem is that we get used to a distinct way of functioning within a particular corporate system. We find our identity there and we settle in. Then when God begins to move in new ways, we resist Him because His activity does not fit our usual way of thinking.
And one main issue we simply must face concerning Church structure is our tendency to see as permanent what God only intended to be temporary. In other words, He is lifting our eyes to see His ongoing structuring of His people, His present stitching together of His corporate net to gather a great harvest among the nations. To put it another way, we are going to need Holy Spirit discernment to recognize His present work among us as He transitions us toward incorporated oneness with Heaven and each other.
This raises an interesting question. What will we do when God begins in our sphere of service to integrate believers from different streams/movements (of course, He has always done this to some degree)? Will those in leadership be flexible and yield to the Lord as He establishes His purpose? The tendency will be to protect turf and define divine order by what fits the present system. But Heaven’s order is revealed in what harmonizes with the Scriptures and with the present activity of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus will not cease building His house until He returns. Major changes lie ahead for us as God coordinates us with Heaven and with each other as He brings us into the unity of faith. When He integrates local and regional churches into harmonious corporate units, God’s kingdom will have a much greater impact on society. Today most evangelism occurs through individual Christians from many different church structures. As good as this is, the Lord is going to establish a united corporate expression of Christ to the world. Indeed, the unity Jesus prayed for in John Chapter 17 will be miraculous to behold.
The oneness He seeks is greater than all believers of the various church structures trying to coordinate with each other (i.e. ecumenism). He requires us to recognize and honor His activity as He connects believers, families, and ministries. When we cooperate with Him, the result will be that unbelievers will marvel and acknowledge Jesus as God’s Son (John 17: 21, 23). The Head of the Church will settle for nothing less among us than the same oneness He had on Earth both with His Father in Heaven and with His disciples.
Great multitudes followed Him–from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain (Greek, OROS), and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them.
Notice that the disciples were sitting before the Lord on a hill. Jesus then instructed them on how to live in His kingdom (vv. 3 - 13) and concluded with this statement:
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill (Greek, OROS) cannot be hidden.
Jesus looked at His disciples sitting before Him on a hill and saw God’s mountaintop city. I am sure it took eyes of faith to see the New Jerusalem as He gazed upon this largely untaught diverse company of followers. Yet He had a strategy for mending His corporate net and building His city. His plan focused primarily on their hearts.
The intervening verses between the two scripture quotes above reveal His strategy. Jesus saw in this great company of disciples, the city of God set on a hill but yet in a largely unformed condition. So He revealed how to become the corporate expression of God’s light to the nations. And since the road that leads to His city runs through the hearts of His people, His words in Matthew Chapter 5:3 - 13 are crucial to our succeeding in His ongoing purpose.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We must come to recognize our spiritual poverty, our total inability to produce or extend the Kingdom of God. In fact, we cannot preach, teach, counsel or lead a worship service. We simply are unable to fulfill anything of His will apart from the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Unless the Lord arises in us and reveals His power, all we have is our thoughts, our opinions, and our words. People who do not clearly understand their own poverty of spirit often quickly arise to serve God in their own strength, telling us to initiate kingdom activity. “While we are waiting on God, He is in fact waiting on us. We need to arise and go forth in His name.” Such thinking is what gave us Ishmael in Abraham’s life when God’s purpose was to be revealed through Isaac. Even Jesus of Nazareth (God himself) only did what He saw the Father doing and spoke what He heard Him saying.
God’s kingdom is where He accomplishes His will on Earth as in Heaven. And the only way such a miracle will occur in our corporate times together is if we gather having laid down our personal ideas and agendas.
This is not to imply that God cannot reveal His plans beforehand. Hopefully, many folks will have heard from the Lord prior to our gatherings. But it will take God’s miraculous intervention to harmonize everything into a corporate expression of the singular mind of Christ. We must recognize our own total spiritual barrenness apart from Him. Such an attitude will posture us to listen for His words and wisdom. Here is how His kingdom is revealed among us. Blessed are the poor in spirit, they get the kingdom, not just a nice meeting.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Mourning comes from grief and pain. So how can mourning be a blessing? The answer is that God comes to us in the midst of suffering bringing His comfort and a more complete revelation of himself. Many times, all we want to do is to simply wait for trials to get over so we can then rejoice. But His strategy is to come to us in the midst of adversity revealing His Spirit’s comfort in our hearts. Here is a dimension of God we would never experience if we never went through times of grief, mourning, and pain.
And when we talk of mourning, we are not only referring to the normal pains of this life or of the enemy’s attacks. Sometimes other believers are the source of our distress. Yet, no matter how unfair certain circumstances may appear, God is even then providentially at work in our lives.
It is so easy to justify our words, actions, and reactions against others who have failed us or rejected us. But the Lord uses such times to expose sin in us as well as in our brethren. Blessed are those who go through the pain and find the comfort of God. He will then enable them to stand and bring His grace instead of reactionary and divisive words to others (2 Corinthians 1:3 - 4). Here is the road forward to His city.
Blessed are the gentle (Greek, PRAUS), for they shall inherit the earth.
(Matthew 5:5 NASB)
Probably the best English translation for PRAUS is the word meek. Meekness is greater than gentleness. In essence, meekness means that no matter what someone else does to me, Jesus is revealed in my life. If someone comes at me with rejection, I refuse to react in kind. Rather, I seek to express Christ to them. If someone comes at me with persecution, I seek to express Christ. If someone comes at me with anger, my response is Christ. True meekness is expressed when He is revealed no matter what the circumstance.
It is so easy to express something other than God’s humility when someone pushes the right button in our lives. What we often express is anger. However, it is the meek who inherit the Earth, not those who defend themselves and proclaim how others have wronged them.
Jesus always revealed the Father no matter which buttons others tried to find and push in Him. He never failed in His mission to accurately express the nature of the One who had sent Him. The heart of God was revealed even when He made a scourge of cords and drove the moneychangers out of the temple. This act was certainly not done to convey gentleness. However, someone had to represent the Father accurately in His own house! Righteous indignation and militant meekness were needed to bring God’s heart to the situation.
Thus, meekness is greater than gentleness. Sometimes it will appear pleasant and kind, sometimes it will not. However, the meek will reveal God when their buttons are pushed. This is key to becoming the integrated city of God. We must recognize our poverty of spirit, walk through times of mourning and come to the place that, no matter how people act toward us, we reveal Christ. Otherwise, we will arrive somewhere other than God’s destination for us.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Notice, Jesus did not say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for people to treat them better.” Rather, we are to long for an increased expression of His righteousness both in ourselves and in those around us when sinful attitudes surface because of an imperfect church environment. God’s promise is that such hunger will be satisfied.
I have seen revealed in my own life many sinful thoughts, words, and attitudes when I experienced injustice. And repeatedly, my immediate appeal was: “Oh Lord, get people to stop treating me that way. I really do deserve better. “ But our prayer ought to be, “Lord, I want You to be revealed in my life no matter what button in me is pushed – and even if nobody else in my life ever changes.”
God’s objective for us is the fruit of righteousness. As a result, I think I can guarantee that others will continue to push our buttons.
And just to make things more interesting in church, He often uses His people to reveal our need to change. We probably all tend to think the tests would be easier if He would only use an angel or someone as meek as Moses. However, His tools to sharpen us are often those who have (what seems to us) worse problems than our own! When these folks treat us unjustly, sinful heart attitudes can surface in us very quickly. That is when we must repent and hunger for the fruit of God’s righteous character to be formed in us.
When we were born of the Spirit, God immediately gave us His gracious gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). And now He seeks to form in us through trials and over time the fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). Growing spiritual fruit really does take time.
So being a good farmer, God has a plan for abundant fruit in His vineyard. First He redeems a people for himself and then He turns us loose on each other. Learning to minister effectively to one another is a process we learn over time. And we will all make mistakes. As a result, we simply must hunger and thirst for God’s humility to be more established in our lives.
My purpose in writing is not to justify the injustice of others toward you. But since you are the one reading this book, I cannot address them, only how you respond.
God is not a reactor. He initiates and then He responds. But far too often, we react in our circumstances when He wants us to respond to others with His heart of love. And if our response is dictated not by Christ but by their sin against us, then we are revealing the lordship of something other than Christ in our lives. He is to be the One informing our words and actions.
Do we see the road to His city a little more clearly yet?
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