Jesus says the kingdom. Of God is here. It is now. What is happening? He says it's breaking in. It's all around us, the kingdom, the kingdom. If you read any amount. Of the scripture when Jesus is actually speaking, he talks about the kingdom all the time. So, what is the kingdom? What are we supposed to be doing? As followers of Jesus. In this kingdom. We talked about this last couple of episodes, but. Kind of. Typically what church will tell you, religion will tell you is that you're supposed to be. You know, a good follower of Jesus is someone who avoids sin and, and, and. The bad stuff. Don't do this. We're against this. We don't do this. And mostly just sort of wait around for ha for heaven. Just sort of wait around for, you know, life after the good life, the forever life, the next life. And if you can try to convert some people on the way, that's good to always be converting. If you're evangelical, that's what you're taught from the get-go. Convert convert, convert. So basically avoid sin, manage your sin, keep it as low as possible and convert others. As often as possible. It's interesting. I think the kingdom is less about what we don't do and what we avoid. I don't think that's why Jesus came. Avoid this, avoid this. Don't do this. Don't go there. The kingdom is not so much about what we don't do. It's more about what we will do, what we're invited in to do. And Jesus gave us a really clear directive. I'm going to read from the message Bible. This is Matthew chapter 28. This is Jesus speaking. And he says this. God authorized and commanded me to commission you to go out and train everyone you meet far and near in this way of life. Marking them by baptism in the name of the father, son. And holy spirit. So typically that's a great scripture. It's known in church. As the great commission and it's where God invites us. To join him in his work that he's doing in his kingdom work. And typically the way I understood that growing up was like, train everybody. You meet, go out and train everyone. You meet, get everyone baptized convert. Basically. I understand that as conversion, like our team, the good team, the right team, the correct team. Telling those on the bad team or the wrong team. How to. No God, how to stop sinning and how to join our team. That's the great commission, but man, I've come to discover. So much bigger than that. And it's so much better than that. Thank God. It's so much better than that. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples, right. It doesn't say go and convert unbelievers. That's not the great commission go and convert unbelievers. Nope. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say golden build mega churches. Nope. Doesn't say that. It doesn't say go deeper and deeper back to the Latin to the Greek. Doesn't say that. It says, go and make disciples. So what's disciples, that's another fancy church word. If you're around church long enough for religion long enough, you realize they have. They have their own vocabulary. They have their own words. And discipleship is one of those sort of fancy church words that means to train or to teach or to guide. It means to be a follower. It means to watch almost like an apprentice, right. And so. We are called by Jesus to train. To invite, to teach, to show off, to display, to demonstrate kingdom life. Remember followers of Jesus follow Jesus. You can't call you while you can call yourself. I guess, a follower of Jesus. If you don't follow Jesus, but you're not a real follower of Jesus. If you don't. Follow Jesus. So how do we follow Jesus? Well, Jesus had. Friends around him, the Bible calls them disciples. They're 12 guys that he invited to follow him around and he says, just basically watch what I do, do try to do what I do learn from me. Mostly what Jesus does. Is he loves, he shows up in your loves. He brings restoration and healing and hope and grace and mercy and kindness inclusion. He he forgave centers, basically Jesus came to forgive centers. You ever see on sporting events sometimes. In the end zone or in the outfield, there's something you're watching on TV. And there's someone holding up a sign, John three 16. And if you're not familiar with that verse, that's like one of the all time. Great. Number one top hits of verses for Christians. And it's a great one. It's basically where God says. You know, God loved the world so much. He came into it. He sent his son Jesus to forgive and to restore and to bring us back it's about God's love and his grace. So it's a, it's an amazing verse. It there's so much truth in it and hope. And it's basically the gospel in like a verse. The good news summed up in a sentence or two. But what I find even more interesting, maybe even. I don't know, definitely more relevant for me today. Is John three 17. The very next verse, which I've never seen someone hold up a sign for. I've never seen that on a sporting event. Maybe I'll go do that. If you ever see that it might be me. Holding a poster board that says John three 17. So what does John three 17 say? It's a very next verse, which basically means it's the next thing out of Jesus's mouth. After he says, here's the gospel. I came to rescue the world. The very next thing he says is this. And I quote. God, didn't go to all the trouble of sending his son. Merely to point an accusing finger. Telling the world how bad it is. He came to help to put the world right. Again. Let's just read that one more time. One more time. Let us let it, just let it just sit. Let it just sit there for a second. John three 17 Jesus speaks and he says this God, didn't go to all the trouble. Of sending his son merely to a point. And accusing finger. Telling the world how bad it was. He came to help to put the world right. Again. That's what disciples look like. That's what disciples care about. That's what followers of Jesus do we go where he goes? We do what he does. We care about. The things he cared about, he cared about putting the world, right again, about bringing hope and restoration and peace. About standing up for those who are in the margins, he cared about justice. He didn't. I mean, literally. This is so crazy to me because I'm, I'm reading literally the words of Jesus. And he says he didn't come to point and accusing finger and tell the world how bad it is or was he, he came to help. He came to put the world right again, but if you look at church, If you look at religion. Literally that has like what we're known for telling the world how bad it is, how wrong they are, how screwed up they are, how angry God is, how far they fall and how bad they missed it. That's literally what people think of when you tell them Christians or church people, they think of people accusing them, yelling at them against them. They don't think of. People who are here to help. They don't think of helpers. They don't think of people here who are here to put the world, right. Again. God, that would be beautiful. Wouldn't it? That's what we're invited into. That's what we're called to. That's what a follower of Jesus does. So we've been talking about this. Last couple episodes. If, if we're not supposed to just manage them, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to practice what he practiced. Key word here is practice. Just to be clear. Sometimes I like to look up words in the dictionary because sometimes we hear words over and over throughout our life. And through different lenses of church and family and culture. Whatever, and they sort of take on this. Hinge or this tent, if you will, of, of. Things that are not actually accurate. So I love once in a while to go to the dictionary. dictionary.com. Sponsor this week. Just kidding. pictionary.com you look it up. So I looked up the word practice, and this is what it says, the actual application or use of an idea. Belief. Or method. As opposed to theories. About such application or use again, let's repeat that one more time. Practice. The definition literally means. The actual application or use of an idea, belief or method, as opposed to theories about such application or use so beans, we do stuff, right? It means. Well, I've got me thinking. I played sports in high school. I was. A heck of an athlete, but unfortunately I peaked at like age 13 or 14. 14 and a half maybe, but. I was good at the time. I was great for a 13 year old. And then you know, things sort of leveled out. But I remember back in high school basketball practice. Think about practice, right? We're talking about practice, the actual application or use of an idea. So when we think about gospel practice or kingdom practice, I thought about basketball practice. What did we do? We didn't just draw. Stuff on a board. We didn't just draw plays. We didn't just watch films. We didn't go. Deep into the encyclopedia of basketball history. We didn't go back to the ancient Greek or Latin to understand what the words really meant. And then cyclopedia, we just basically got out there. We pass balls around. We ran up the court. We got in shape, we practiced our plays. We took a ton of shots. We practice our rebounding. We were on the court, running around doing things. That's what practice is. There's a scripture that. Is beautiful, wonderful, and terrifying all at the same time. And it's Jesus speaking again, and this is Matthew chapter seven. And this to me. As I read this, I understand what practice means. What joining in God's kingdom work actually means. It says this knowing the correct password. Sane master master. For instance, isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience doing what? My father wills. I can see it now at the final judgment, thousands striding up to me and saying, master, we preached the message. We bashed the demons, our God sponsored projects had everyone talking. And do you know what I'm going to say? Jesus says. I'm going to say you miss the boat. All you did was use me to make yourself important. You don't impress me one bit. You're outta here. Yikes. To me. If you're on the insider's club of religion. That should scare the hell out of you. Literally, that should be frightening because Jesus is talking about you. I've been there. He's talking about me on some of my days. I'm not. I'm not out of this. Like, this is the thing to me. It's like, Jesus says, I invited you. To obey me. I invited you to follow me. He says, what is required a serious obedience. That doesn't mean following the rules of a law. It means following the things I care about, I care about love and justice. I care about healing and hope and restoration. I want my kingdom to break in. I showed up to tell people that God is on their side. I showed up to tell people that God is not angry. I showed up to restore the world to put it right again, you should be doing those things. That's what Jesus is inviting us, calling us. Into. And yet he says, you're going to stand before me one day. And I'm going to quote this again. He says, master master, we preached the message. We bashed the demons, our God sponsored projects had everyone talking and Jesus says, do you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say to you, you missed. The boat. All you did was use me. To make yourself important. You don't impress me one bit. You're outta here. Let us follow the ways. Of Jesus, let us be practicing practices of the ways of Jesus. Not about theory, not about going deeper. Let us show up. Don't be a poser. If I could summarize that scripture, I feel like Jesus is basically saying in its essence, don't be a poser. Opposer. I remember in middle school, we had this group of skateboarders at my middle school at east middle school and they were. Hardcore. They had the baggy pants. They had all the treaded shirts, the. The carry their boards with them, the hats vision street wear the cool shit, like the very 1000% skateboarding vibe. They're always mad at people posing. They're always saying don't be a poser bro, such a Proser, such a Proser poser, poser. I never really understood what they meant, but then I realized as I got a little bit older poser, someone who's who acts like they're in that group who acts like they're a skateboarder, but they don't skateboard. You know, they carry it around. They can maybe step on the edge and like kick it up and grab it. So it kind of looks like they know the very basics. Right. And they wear the outfits and maybe they even talk some of the talk, but they can't do Ali's. They can't do kickflips. I cannot get out of half-pipe. They would kill themselves. They don't practice skateboarding. They're acting like they are skateboarders. They are posers. And I think Jesus is inviting us here to say, Hey guys, don't miss this because if you follow religion, you're going to end up being a poser because it's fake it's fraud. It's phony. It's not. It's not the real thing. It's not why I came. Don't get stuck in that loop of emptiness. You making yourself look important and yet in the church bubble, it all looks important. But don't be deceived. Followers of Jesus followed Jesus. We've practiced the way it is an action. Early on Christianity was known as the way, right. Early on the first 60 to a hundred, 200 years of church history, it wasn't even called the church so much. It wasn't called Christianity. It was called the way. And people who followed the way of Jesus were known as followers of the way. It was not merely an affirmation or a belief or a statement or a one-time prayer, but it was a way of life in which we step into and are transformed. And therefore those around this are transformed. And mostly again, Please don't miss this mostly 99.999 and nine and nine and nine. Mostly. It looks like love. Practices. Of the way of Jesus. Are people who show up in our neighborhoods and we love well. It is an action. It is a verb. It is a practice. Of restoration of healing of grace, of forgiveness. We as Christ followers should be known for these things, but mostly on sadly, if you think about. If you think about. What church people. Are known for it's mostly what we're against the things we don't like. The people we don't like the groups we don't like. You know, the things we despise, what we feel is broken and wrong and bad. We'd love to point the fingers. Again, back to the scripture. Jesus says I did not come to point an accusing finger. Yeah. Those who claim to know Jesus and follow Jesus and serve Jesus point fingers and non stop. All they are known for is pointing fingers. You're bad. You're wrong. You're out of bounds. You're too far. God's mad. God's angry. We're against this. Does this sound like the scriptures? Does this sound like what Jesus taught. To me, it sounds like a specific group in scripture. They're known as the Pharisees they're there, that's a fancy word of the church people that's super elite master level. Church people. Those are the people who pointed the fingers. Those are the people who were always known for what they're against. Jesus says we should be known for what we're for. We should be known for loving well for showing up in our cities and our neighborhoods for serving for justice, for grace, for healing, for restoration, for hope, for standing on the side of the oppressed and those in the margins. That's what Jesus cares about. And that's what we're invited to follow. Following Jesus is not being a church person. Following the Jesus is showing up. And helping break in this beautiful kingdom into our world, into our broken world. That's hurting, suffering. We want to be practices of God's kingdom. We want to be apprentices to Jesus. I do. I shouldn't say we, I don't want to speak for you. I want to be that. When I served as. Pastor. At a church in Knoxville, my wife and I did that for about 10 years. We, we developed what we called our manifesto and it was 10 rhythms, 10 practices of tangible things tended to tangible ways that we could actually show up. And start to live out this kingdom. And I think that's important. I think it's really important because a lot of times, again, there's that vacuum. If it's not about sin management and what church always tells us about religion, avoid the bad. What do we do? There's this vacuum and there's really not a vacuum. There's so many beautiful things we can step into as followers of Jesus. And so what I want to do. This was sort of an intro episode, but what I want to do over the next 10 episodes is step into each one of these rhythms. I think they're powerful. I think they're beautiful. I think some of them are super challenging. But I think it's going to be a great, beautiful experience and give us something tangible of like, how do I step into this? So we're going to step into these starting on the next episode. But I'm gonna just list them real quick. There's 10 of them. The first one is presence. Second one is leave. The third rhythm is love. The fourth rhythm is eat. The fifth rhythm is listen. Six is learn. The seventh is party. The eighth is inclusive. The nine is fight. And the 10th is rest. We're gonna step into each of these over the next coming episodes, kind of explore what they mean. Crack them open and kind of see how we can step in and start to follow. Jesus and the way that he showed up. I'm looking forward to it. And again, thank you so much for the support for this podcast. I am new to this. I love sharing, but your feedback, your reviews, your notes, your messages, even just sharing it with someone who you think maybe isn't maybe on the edge of like, there's, they're spiritual, but they're not church people. I think that's who I want to talk to. That's who I want to share with. So I appreciate you sharing this. And thank you for coming along on the journey piece.