The Hebrew people in the Old Testament anticipated a Messiah that would be a priest and a King, radically changing every area of our worldly experience, and restoring it to God’s original intentions. Welcome to a two-part Easter series as we look at the practical impact that Christ's death and resurrection has on each of our lives. When Jesus came, He never intended for us to keep our faith relegated to attending church and being privately spiritual. The same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in us, and gives us power and purpose to continue His work in the world. Jesus says He is with us always and that He has all authority in heaven and on earth. He also calls us to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything He has commanded. This is an all-encompassing call, given by an omnipotent God. Where is He calling you to partner more fully with His ongoing work in the world?
The Hebrew people in the Old Testament anticipated a Messiah that would be a priest and a King, radically changing every area of our worldly experience, and restoring it to God’s original intentions. Welcome to a two-part Easter series as we look at the practical impact that Christ's death and resurrection has on each of our lives. When Jesus came, He never intended for us to keep our faith relegated to attending church and being privately spiritual. The same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in us, and gives us power and purpose to continue His work in the world. Jesus says He is with us always and that He has all authority in heaven and on earth. He also calls us to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything He has commanded. This is an all-encompassing call, given by an omnipotent God. Where is He calling you to partner more fully with His ongoing work in the world?
How do we live in light of the fact that here it is Easter? Jesus has conquered the grave, he's alive and he's been crowned the king. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all nations. He has decisively defeated the enemy, satan, on the cross. What does this mean for us?
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to part 1 of our two-part Easter series here on Ideas have Consequences, where we are looking at how, on Easter, god, through his Son, reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace by the blood of his cross, according to Colossians 1-19. We hope these are helpful discussions for you as we look at how all things means all things and thus has practical implications for each of our lives. If you're new to the podcast, here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the Church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and today I'm joined by my team members and friends, dwight Voet, tim Williams and Luke Allen. We are going to do a two-part series here at Easter. Since Easter is coming up and we obviously love Easter it's such a wonderful time of celebration for the Christian I want us to look at a couple of.
Scott Allen:I want to focus our discussion on Easter around a couple of verses that I just think are incredibly momentous, life-changing. Of course, easter is the time that we celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead, the fact that he is alive and will be alive forever, that we serve a living Savior, a living King. I just want to start with a very famous passage of Scripture that we all know. This is Jesus. After he rose from the grave, he came back and appeared on the shores of Lake Galilee to his disciples and he gave them the Great Commission. This is what he said when the eleven disciples this is starting verse 16 of Matthew 28,. When the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and he said All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you, and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. When Jesus came back from the grave and appeared to his disciples as the living, risen Savior, he made this audacious claim All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Our strong conviction is that when he said that number one, he meant that that he is the King, and not just when he comes back, but he is the King, the risen King and the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth right now. So the question is how do we live as Christians? This is really what we're going to explore in these two podcasts. How do we live as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, in light of that reality? And I want to get very practical in this discussion. What does it mean for us to live in the light of the reality that Jesus is King, he's the risen King and he's presently the King, and I know this gets into some things that are confusing, because you look around the world and you might say, gosh, it doesn't seem like he's King. Even here in the United States and all that's going on right now in our own country, it's like it doesn't seem like he's King. So we're going to get into some of the challenges with that.
Scott Allen:I just want to go to yet another verse before we open up the discussion too, and this is Colossians, chapter 2, verse 15, also talking about the cross and Easter and what happened on the cross. This time, in view of the great enemy and the foe of God, satan, according to this verse verse 15 of chapter 2 of Colossians and having disarmed the powers and authorities we're talking about the spiritual powers in heavenly places, the demonic realm and Satan. Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. Okay, the cross, not the resurrection, but of course those two go together. On the cross, jesus defeated, he disarmed the powers and authorities. He actually made a public spectacle of them and, as our friend Darrow is often kind of fond of saying in reference to this verse, he said that the imagery here is imagery of a conquering Roman army, that they would bring back their vanquished foes into Rome and they would parade them, you know, as a way of showing that they had triumphed over them, made a spectacle of them, and so this imagery is quite powerful, you know, here's Jesus publicly parading these defeated foes, making a spectacle of them, because he's triumphed over them by the cross.
Scott Allen:Same question If this is true, how do we live today? What does this mean for us very practically, and how do we understand this reality in light of the fact that we can look around the world today and we can say gosh, it doesn't seem like Satan's a defeated adversary. It seems like there's a lot of evil things going on in this world. So we're going to talk about, you know, before we get into our discussion, I do want to you know, the church has views on these, these questions of how do we live now in light of these important realities of Easter.
Scott Allen:I think there's a dominant view in the church today that really we in the DNA are highly kind of critical of and are in many ways trying to push back against. There's also a kind of what I would call a minority view that we also have some concerns and problems with, and so very often people will say, well, what is your view? And you know, at least to me, they'll say this I don't know about if you get this, guys, and they'll want to put me in some kind of a box and say, oh, this is your view, and I'm like, well, I don't know if that actually captures my view. Well, anyways, I'd like you to try, I'd like us to try to flesh out our view here a little bit, without using any of these kind of confusing labels that people like to use, but, but nevertheless, let me just kind of spell out and, guys, you can help me on this, for sure but the, the dominant view in terms of how do we live now in light of these realities, I think goes something like this Well, yes, jesus did you know?
Scott Allen:He did, of course, rise from the dead and he certainly is the king now, at least over heaven, but he's not really going to be the king here on earth until he comes back. Until that time, you know, things are really going to continue to kind of go from bad to worse. Satan's roaring around like a prowling lion and he's going to have his way, kind of the what we need to do now, how we live now in light of these things is we've got to rescue as many people as we can out of this dark domain of this fallen world and, you know, get them rescued into heaven. So it's kind of a rescue operation on our part and that's pretty much it, honestly, you know. I mean it's it's that's why evangelism is, is kind of all important for the church, and maybe planting churches, that would be another thing, getting people into churches.
Scott Allen:And then beyond that, I would say, maybe a hat tip to some personal piety. We need to try to live holy lives, at least on a personal level. But if you start talking about anything beyond the personal, into the cultural or the social, people get very kind of anxious about that in terms of this view, and they would say things like oh, we can't talk about bringing God's kingdom, that's, that's wrong, you know, and we shouldn't be involved in politics and culture. That's a distraction. I mean, again, I'm just giving some broad brushes on on this view. So, and then, yeah, when Jesus comes back, then we're going to have then the, the kingdom will be, you know, present in its fullness, and it's really honestly not even that relevant to tell and tell that time. I'll just put the with what I call the minority view on the table to well before I do that, guys, any just did you want to flesh that out a little bit more from your vantage point? Do you feel like I'm treating that fairly? You know, that kind of majority view, maybe the dominant view?
Dwight Vogt:I hear what you're saying, scott, and I, yeah, I hear the same. It's interesting. Sometimes I'll be sitting in church listening and talking about this idea of Christ triumphing over the grave and over Satan and the kingdom coming and, and I'm okay, what is that? I? And then I'm starting to listen. What is it? What's it gonna become? What's it gonna? And usually it ends up being and someday we will live with Christ eternally.
Dwight Vogt:We have eternal life and he will come again and defeat Satan, and so, yeah, it always goes back to that, that refrain, and it never. It sort of touches the here now because we want to talk about the kingdom here now, but I don't hear a clear explanation Often.
Scott Allen:Correct. I agree, Dwight. It leaves a lot of stuff unsaid and off the table in terms of how do we live now, right?
Dwight Vogt:What does that mean? Now, I mean you say the kingdom is now, but is it just now in the sense of I'm saved for eternity In clarity.
Scott Allen:Right, and that's what we want to be getting into. Dwight is trying to fill in some of that that. You know a lot of what's unsaid there. You know about how do we live, right? Yeah, tim Luke, any thoughts from you just in terms of how I'm setting this up, both with those two verses and then also this kind of what I'm calling the majority view within the church today about how do we live in light of those realities? Yeah, I think what?
Tim Williams:you're saying is what we describe a lot in the DNA as the sacred secular divide. So you know, with this mindset people tend to think, you know, god's concern is spiritually related and everything outside of that is not spaces where he intends to increase his authority through people's lives. And I don't think that most believers consciously think that. I mean because when you bring it to light they say well, you know. But subconsciously, without thinking about it, an unexamined look puts them in that camp for sure.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that's right. And when you say you know spiritual, tim, I would broaden that out to kind of put into that bucket you know things related to church, local church, you know, certainly, heaven, evangelism, these kinds of things. I mean, these are the relevant topics for Christians today and anything that doesn't fit into that bucket is really not important for us. So yeah, that's exactly right and I think you're bringing up a great point, tim, there too, of you know we actually.
Scott Allen:You know we struggle as Christians in a sense. We kind of know that there's some problems with this. We don't really often live like this is true, but so we've got kind of a theology that goes against, in some ways, what we kind of know to be true, and I see this even on issues like the pro-life issue. It's like, you know, a lot of evangelicals are very involved in that. Thank God for that. But kind of why, you know, I guess, if we shouldn't be involved in social and cultural issues you know it's just about rescuing people out of a fallen world and we shouldn't be involved in politics and we shouldn't be trying to bring the kingdom then what you know, but we know better, right, then that somehow we know better.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I think it's. You just used the word kingdom and I think it's because we don't have a all have the same or clear understanding of what does that mean? The kingdom, especially as a kingdom, come now.
Scott Allen:Exactly exactly.
Luke Allen:I think a lot of times we talk about kingdom, but sometimes we don't use that word and sometimes we do, and yet we're all talking about the same thing. It's because we've been justified because of Christ's finished work on the cross. We're now sanctified and that means your life looks different, you live in a different way and therefore you change the world around you At least you should. It should affect your family and your relationships and your work. We all agree on that. And yet some people say, well, that's bringing the kingdom to your workplace and to your family. And then other people don't like that word so they stay away from it. But they all are saying the same thing like as a Christian, we should live faithfully and that should change our life. That's good. Growing up, that's the view that I had. No shocker there God is Lord of all and therefore he is Lord of everything. And yet then I went to Christian University and I can remember a couple Bible classes specifically where it was almost like they took the Great Commission and they simplified it to, instead of going to make disciples of all nations, go and make converts of all people. That's kind of the sense I got. No one said it that way, but that was kind of the takeaway is it was all boiled down to evangelism, which is absolutely essential and great, but that's all it was.
Luke Allen:And that left me in like, say, a business class, a little bit lost. Because they would say something like well, your purpose of being a Christian in the world of business is to look around you and see all the lost souls. You can see and save them and I'm like, okay, cool, but what about an accounting class, when I just sit behind a laptop all day and I don't see anyone? Is my work valuable in that situation? There's no souls near me to save. Am I in the wrong line of work? Is the holy line of work to get into ministry or missions or something like that, where I can be more of an evangelist? So that view was a little discouraging in some ways when you hear it simplified to just evangelism.
Scott Allen:Yeah, it has really practical implications on our work, doesn't it?
Dwight Vogt:Luke.
Scott Allen:Just as you were saying, is the only important work, the work of an evangelist or a church planter? What if you're an accountant? Does that work matter? And this theology, this view of how we live, this, what I'm calling the dominant view, it doesn't have a lot to say about that. It really doesn't. It leaves, like again, a lot off the table. It says, yeah, of course you should provide for your family, so work is good, you need to earn some money, give to the church, right, you got to tithe. But beyond that, it doesn't have a lot to say about work, right, which is a crazy thing because we spend a lot of our time working, right. So, okay, let me. Guys. This is really helpful.
Scott Allen:I wanna put the minority view on the table and then I wanna come back and I want to. I want to say, I want to do some kind of critiquing of this majority view and then in the second episode, we'll look a little bit more at the minority view. The minority view I say minority because I do think it's held by a few Christians out there, for sure, and some influential Christians, but certainly not, in my view, by the majority of Christians. And that is in light of these two realities of Jesus coming back and being crowned the king, all authority and heaven and earth has been given to me, and the fact that he has decisively defeated Satan and the powers of darkness on the cross triumphing over them. This view would say we need to be actively, you know, representing this kingdom and bringing it into every area of life, and it needs to shape everything. We need to disciple the nations so that the kingdom of heaven becomes the kingdoms of this world. Essentially, for me anyway, so good so far.
Scott Allen:But I think this view and again I don't want to mischaracterize it, but it's almost, some would call it triumphalistic, in the sense that the view lends itself to be interpreted as that Once we do all this work in the power of the Holy Spirit, then the kingdom, god's kingdom, will really come in its fullness before Jesus comes back or right at the time that he comes back. And you know it's something that we bring and we bring kind of in its fullness, you know, before Jesus comes back, right. So I want to we'll hold off on critiquing that view a little bit until later. I don't think most people have that view, I do think you know.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I don't think many people with a biblical worldview, real Bible believing Christians, have that view. I think a lot of times when people are critiquing this view they lump in people like the prosperity gospel into this, or your new social justice warrior that also says they're a Christian tax that on top and they're trying to bring in this utopia that's more Marxist than Christian and people will kind of throw them in that camp. Oh, they're just trying to usher in the kingdom.
Luke Allen:But what we're talking about here is the Bible believing Christians who are faithfully looking at theology and the word I don't know well personally. I don't know anyone that holds that view.
Scott Allen:that would yeah, I don't either, luke. It's funny, you know, but I've had people, when I talk about what we teach the DNA, they'll put me in that group and they'll say oh, that's what you believe. And I'm like no, that's not actually what I believe. And then they usually walk away puzzled like well, come on, you're just being a contrarian, you gotta fit in one of these boxes.
Tim Williams:And I'm like no, I don't think people remember that being a more popular view 50 years ago. And I think it kind of fell out of favor.
Scott Allen:Maybe. Yeah, the history of these ideas is interesting. I was thinking, not 50 years ago, but certainly 25 years ago, Tim, there was that book that had such a splash in evangelical circles the late great planet Earth, which was more reflective of the majority view. Right, that things are just gonna get bad and worse and worse, and then, man, the late great planet Earth is gonna be destroyed and we just need to hang on, kind of, was the idea. Hold on until Jesus comes back. It was a very pessimistic view that led to a lot of, you know for me, passivity on the part of the church, you know, in terms of how we live right now.
Luke Allen:So, Hi, friends, if you'd like to learn more about how you can disciple your family, your workplace, your school, your society or even your nation, make sure to check out our flagship online training course here at the Disciple Nations Alliance, which is called the Kingdomizer Training Program. We live in a world of poverty, corruption and injustice. We all know this isn't the way it should be and help needs to come from somewhere. But who is responsible to fight poverty and bring healing to our broken communities? The government or the church? The answer is the Church, but unfortunately, we have largely neglected this responsibility here at the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:For the last 25 years, we have worked around the world helping Christians understand that our mission is more than saving souls for heaven. Our mission also includes being the hands and feet of God to transform the nations and bring healing and transformation to our broken communities. If you'd like to learn more about how you can play a part in God's plan for the nations, check out the Kingdomizer training program, and that is available at quorumdaocom. Join over a million others who have learned how to bring biblical transformation into every corner of society by signing up today at quorumdaocom. Again, that is quorumdaocom, or you can always find the link in the episode page.
Scott Allen:Let's go there, guys, let's talk. I want to come back to these, just these two verses, and almost put aside these two views here for a second. And just what is it? You know, how do we live in light of the fact that here it is Easter. Jesus has conquered the grave, he's alive and he's been crowned the king. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all nations. He has decisively defeated the enemy, satan, on the cross. What does this mean for us and how do we make sense of the fact that it doesn't sometimes seem like this right in our world, right? So, dwight, I know you've, I kind of want to start with you because you've thought so much about this and but I think we all are going to have, you know, important things to say. I do want to keep this at a very practical level of discussion. What does it mean? How do we, how does it shape the way we as Christians live today? These two realities?
Dwight Vogt:Maybe this harkens back to well, first of all, yeah, I thought about it. I don't know if I thought well about it, but I thought about it, so hopefully, it's well. I'm thinking of you know, when Jesus showed up and he was immediately recognized by some as the Messiah, his disciples got so excited you know Andrew was introducing his brother and he goes.
Dwight Vogt:You know it's the Messiah. He's come, I've seen him, and for them, the Messiah was this anointed king who would come and basically set Israel free from oppression, set them free politically. He would also be a priest, in the sense that he would call people to righteous living. They'd end corruption and lying and stealing and adultery, and all this would end because they'd finally have this wonderful, perfect king who would lead Israel out of its darkness. And it was call it political, call it social. It was a big deal and they were so excited and, of course, the tragedy was the cross for them, because this ruler was no longer in fact. He was killed in a most horrible manner and then, when he rose from the dead, it was clear that, wait, this is not, you know, this is not a new president. This is something different now, something else has happened.
Dwight Vogt:Yes he's overcome Satan, he's defeated the grave. But this isn't. This isn't what we expected maybe I'm talking to the minority view here all at once. But they expected a political change and some kind of moral legal overwhelming, you know, impact on the morality and behavior of the people, and instead they got. They got Jesus and resin from the grave, and anyway, I'd like to start with that just. You know their disappointment and that this was not what they expected. So what did they get? You know?
Scott Allen:Yeah, well, they got a risen savior who claimed to be the king overall, and, of course, that's how they started living. You know, one of the verses I think of in the in the book of Acts is Paul is in Ephesus and everyone's in an uproar because here comes these new people right, these Christians, and they're. It says they're turning the world upside down because they claim that there is some other king than Caesar and his name is Jesus, right, you know? I mean I should probably pull that verse up because that's such a great verse. So, yeah, they were looking for a political ruler and Jesus clearly wasn't what they expected. He wasn't this king that sat on the throne and kicked out the Romans. He was actually much more than that, and he's the king over not just the kingdom of Israel this you know nation but he's the king over literally everything and every nation, everything you know, and he's now alive and ruling, right?
Dwight Vogt:What's interesting is that he left, though you know it's. I think what also surprised him is he goes to heaven and he says I'm going to send my spirit, the spirit of Jesus, spirit of Jesus Christ, and he is going to rule in your hearts and minds and lives. And so there's this transfer of power at the, at the resurrection and at the ascension, where now we become the people he always meant us to be. And I, you know, and I think back of Jesus' prayer. What is, what is his prayer is like kingdom come, thy will be done. And so he's saying my will is that you people, my followers, my children, live as I created you to live with love, dominion, overcoming evil, resisting evil, pushing back on evil, doing good, bringing healing.
Dwight Vogt:It was a it's, it's this amazing thing where he's now in heaven, ruling, but he's ruling through us now, and yet he's still present on the earth. We can call him, we can pray, but we have this huge man. I let's say I interpret it. We have this huge mantle as kingdom followers, as followers of Jesus that we are now. The kingdom has come because it's in us and we can live it out. Maybe I've gone too far with this, but no, no, dwight, and Tim and Luke.
Scott Allen:Forgive me, I don't want to be cutting you off. I just think this is such a really important point it's worth dwelling on a little bit. How do we think of Jesus right now? Because, as you said, dwight, you know he. He rose from the grave and at the end of the you know, of Matthew 28, he says I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. In other words, I'll be present with you, right? So what does that mean? That he's present with us and yet, at the same time, he's not. He ascended, right, so he's not with us in the same way that he was with the disciples. We don't see him bodily right now. He does promise that we will see him again bodily when he comes back. So I just think it's worth kind of teasing this out a little bit you know, what is?
Scott Allen:what does it mean? You know what is. How do we think about this? And let me just share with you kind of my conviction about this. When Jesus says I will be with you always, what he's talking about there is he's talking about his presence with us through, through his spirit. Right, I will fill you with my spirit, it, and you will become empowered, right by the, by the spirit of Christ, to do the things that I, I have done, you know, and I will not leave you, I will not forsake you, I won't abandon you, I'll be with you. So I think, for me anyways, very practically, that I I live that way every day, that Jesus is with me you know, I have access to his you know, to to him, you know and all his authority
Scott Allen:and to his authority and to his power. You know that he's not just in heaven, right, and he and I think that way too, because I think there's two views in terms of what we do as Christians, and I think they're both kind of wrong, frankly. One view is that you know he's now in heaven, right, and, and he's given us instructions, but we're supposed to get all this work done kind of in our own strength, right, and I think that's a false view. The other view is you know he's, you know, I guess what would. How would I say, he's in heaven and you know he's going to do all the work, you know bringing his kingdom, and we just kind of lay on the couch and let him do his work. And I think neither of these views are right.
Scott Allen:Right, I mean, I think the right view in terms of how we think about Jesus is that he's with us and he's doing his work of advancing his kingdom on earth right now and he's inviting us to participate with him and he's got missions and work for us to do, but we do it in his strength right, and we do it for his glory and we follow his lead. Often, think about dancing. In this respect, it's kind of like a dance and Jesus is the lead partner and we're following. But we're dancing, right? We're not. He's not just dragging us around the floor and we're limp, right, we're, we're actually dancing.
Scott Allen:We have work to do and and frankly I see this as well that you know, when we are with him in heaven, at the end of our lives or at the end of eternity, you see two things happen. Hopefully, he will say to us you know, well done, good and faithful servant, well done. Well, why is he saying that? Because we did something right. We, we were obedient. We, you know, we did what he called us to do. We were faithful to being obedient to his calling. You know, we will also right, you know. We will essentially say to him I couldn't have done anything right, anything apart from you. Right, you get all the praise, all the glory, and both of those things are true, I think yeah, and Paul makes that clear yeah apart from him, I can do nothing.
Scott Allen:I can do nothing apart from him right, you get all the credit, jesus, you get all the glory. And he's saying and you even see this, I think, in this exchange of crowns, jesus crowns us, that's it is. He honors the work that we've done, but then we give back the crown, right? I just love that imagery, you know, because it shows how we should be living now in light of Jesus's resurrection. He's alive again. I'm speaking from my own belief here on this. You know he rules and I'm to advance his kingdom in his power. But I have, you know, I'm not a zero, as Vishal would say. I'm not. I don't just lay on the couch, I don't. You know, it's not. You know I have work to do and and you know I do it in his strength.
Scott Allen:You know, another imagery besides dancing is the imagery of being yoked. You know Jesus used that imagery, you know, come to me, all your burdened and heavy laden, take my yoke upon you, right? And I think that you know part of that is just this imagery that we're in the same yoke, pulling in the same direction with Jesus. You know to do his work today, but let's talk about maybe, the work, right? What is that? You know? Again, because one view, the work is really limited to just kind of spiritual things like evangelism and maybe attending church services. But is the work more than that today? Right, you know what is? What is this work that we're supposed to be doing right now?
Dwight Vogt:I'm thinking of, of how we go back to Genesis one, 128, where God creates man and women in his image and he gives us both are mankind that cultural commission, the creation mandate which is to rule over the works of his hands.
Scott Allen:Well, what did he?
Dwight Vogt:create. Well, he created everything. What's?
Luke Allen:included everything what's not included.
Dwight Vogt:There's nothing not included, and so that was his mandate from day one. It says I've created this incredible universe, incredible earth, this beautiful green, blue spot in the universe, and now I am delegating to Scott and Tim, Luke and Dwight the rule I'm going to have them rule over this place. And then we blew it terribly.
Scott Allen:Right, and yet that was his plan that we would.
Dwight Vogt:We would be, he would be the king, we'd be the co vice regents, whatever, and we would rule under his command, but we would rule. And now you think of the words, and, at least in English, I'm fascinated that we have words like reconcile, which is to re means to bring back to, to reorganize. The way it was to reconcile your books is to put them back in order to, to redeem something is to buy it out of slavery and put it back into freedom, so it's a returning to to what was. Restore is to take what was and bring it back to its original condition, and these are the words we see wrapped in this description of salvation in the New Testament, and that takes us back to what we really are supposed to rule.
Scott Allen:So it's, it's like, by the way, when you say rule Dwight, I just want to get specific, I mean because we're so quick to think rule over spiritual things, but but no over mathematics and biology and sociology, and you know about over the dust on the piano bench in my living room right now. Exactly Over my garden and my backyard and everything you know. I mean, let's get kind of practical on this.
Dwight Vogt:You know over relationships, you know you know my wife's a counselor and she, she's constantly helping people rule in their relationships. How would God help you bring peace and love and reconciliation and forgiveness to your relationship with this other person? That's, that's ruling, I mean. Anyway, we tend to think of rule, as you know, armies fighting one another, but no, I'm thinking.
Scott Allen:And the rule too, and this was the way it was set up at the very beginning in Genesis, chapter one that you're alluding to. That was broke and now has been reconciled. It's a rule under Christ's, you know, ultimate dominion. I mean, our rule is a stewardship.
Dwight Vogt:It's never autonomous.
Scott Allen:We're accountable to him for how. But he's given us that dominion and that rule right. You know we are to take it, to take it up and do it, but without the spirit of Christ we rule, like Adam did we rule like.
Dwight Vogt:I mean we rule as fallen individuals, which means we just destroy. So to think of, of, not to deny, the, the justification and sanctification that took place through his atonement on the cross, is to say oh, we can do this on our own, we just need to try harder. He's saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's never going to work. That never has worked. It doesn't work ever. The crusades didn't work. They tried that, it didn't happen. And so there is this mysterious element where the spirit of Christ, because of the atonement, can live in us and then we can start to do what we were supposed to do finally, finally, maybe, hopefully, I think that's an important point is we say this all the time there is no neutrality in this world.
Luke Allen:Culture or people are always moving in one way or the other towards evil or towards goodness and God.
Scott Allen:Or somebody is going to be ruling. Right, there's going to be somebody ruling in the sense that somebody's laws, definitions and their authority is going to be setting the agenda and institutionalized.
Luke Allen:Exactly, if you're not living under God, you're living under someone else's, and as Christians, we can do that as well. Well, if we don't recognize that Jesus is the risen King, the ruler, then we can easily become subject to some other ruler, which is what we often call worldviews is you can have the wrong worldview while being a. Christian.
Scott Allen:I'd like to go ahead, luke. I'd like to just stay on the really practical. What does this mean for us to live this way, in a very practical way, in our daily lives, and what does it mean for the church in our communities?
Dwight Vogt:Tim your thinking In our cultures, yeah.
Tim Williams:Just listening to you guys in the last few seconds. What it doesn't mean is that the way we were doing it before knowing Christ should be exactly the way we continue to do it in every area of our life after knowing Christ, except that we go to church now and we read our Bibles. Oh, so well said.
Scott Allen:Tim Expand, please. I mean, it's got to change everything.
Tim Williams:I mean the way to what you guys were saying, the way Adam did it kind of our natural born, instinctive way of doing things, as we kind of think about it, compared to the perfect way. So it's got to impact.
Scott Allen:Can you give a practical example, Tim, of what you're saying? So the way that we used to do things needs to change.
Tim Williams:I mean well.
Scott Allen:I've got some ideas. Sure, let's say I was a parent right.
Tim Williams:And let's say, before coming to Christ I screamed at my kids all the time and now I've come to Christ. And maybe before I came to Christ I cared about my kids but I just didn't know how to relate to them. But now, coming to Christ, I'm working through seeking spiritual fruit in my life which is going to lead me into spaces of patience and working to control my tongue and not responding in anger, but responding purposefully for their building up and being careful not to tear them down.
Scott Allen:So let me just expand on what you're saying, tim. In other words, you're talking about parenting here and the King he exercises Jesus, the risen King, who has authority over everything he has something to say about parenting. In other words, he has ordinances and laws and principles that should govern right, because we're talking about kings, kingdoms here that should govern how we, you know, this area of parenting. He's got a say on that right, absolutely. And to live faithfully now is to know what he says about that and to do it, to be obedient to living that out, and it's going to be very different than the way of the world, right For sure, right.
Scott Allen:But just like you said, tim, very often we tend not to think practically about these areas, like parenting or working as an accountant or you name it, and we assume that he doesn't have a lot to say about that. He doesn't have rules, laws, ordinances, precepts that apply to those areas. So I'm just going to do it in the same way that the world does. Well, the world has got precepts, you know, principles and ways that it's doing these things that are counter to the ways of the king. So if we're not intentionally applying the king's way of doing these things. We are going to be, by default, doing it the way that the world does, and we're going to be kind of double-minded in that we're going to be we're not really going to be honoring.
Scott Allen:Jesus as king. You know we're saying, okay, you're king kind of over certain things, but not over other things. You just, and it's because you don't seem to have an interest in these other things.
Luke Allen:Well, no, that's yeah, I made a good do what. You brought it back to Genesis and I think for this Easter discussion that's so important, because in Genesis it's very clear we live in God's creation, god's world, god's reality. I love how Arturo Cuba, one of our friends from Latin America, talks about this. He says that there is not a single subatomic particle that does not obey God's will. Everything's God, god's yeah. So as Christians, if we live in this reality, god's reality, we just have to have this understanding that before I became a Christian, it didn't mean I lived in a different reality. And now that I'm a Christian, now I see God's reality, it's like no, we always lived. Every single human in the history of the world has lived in God's reality. We just didn't recognize it that way. And now that we are a Christian, now we can see that we live in God's reality and therefore we can see that there is a God's way of living, there is God's way of doing this and that and the other thing. Everything, because it's all God's world, is subject to his will. And now, as a Christian, you are freed to live in that reality, which is awesome.
Luke Allen:I think of Colossians 113. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transformed us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. So because we live now in God's kingdom, because of Jesus's finished work on the cross, we have been redeemed and forgiven of our sins and freed to live in God's reality. Before Jesus, we were unable to live in that reality because we were still constrained by sin. But now Jesus has freed us to live in the finished work of his Son and we can live in the um, yeah, live in triumph of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross. Sorry, am I getting too deep here? I know we're trying to.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, he's freed us, because I often think, well, what does that mean freed? You know, I didn't feel like. Of course I was, you know, made a decision for faith at the age of seven, but I didn't feel like I was a slave at the time. But I was and and can, and that's a reality. So what does it mean to be freed? I Think it's a. Maybe you guys can impact that better, but it's. It's something that happened in the heavenlies, with Christ setting us free from Satan's power.
Scott Allen:Yeah, but then, I'm also thinking
Dwight Vogt:of yes of one of the challenges of you know of, okay, now we live a different life. Now we did, we follow the Bible's rules about, you know, life and marriage and family and work. But then Paul was doing all of this really, really well himself as a good Pharisee, and Yet he came to Romans 8 and said but what I want to do I can't do, because the good that I want to do I don't do. I do the wrong. And Nicodemus showed up at Jesus and he was practicing all these things as a teacher of the law, and Jesus response to him was we didn't actually address his questions. He said you need to be born again, you need to have a new heart, and I think that the resurrection of Christ and his promise of being with us forever and ever is giving us his spirit, is giving us a new heart.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, and I think, we need to grow, we need to unpack what that means. What does it mean to have a new heart and do I have a new? You know, is our heart being renewed day and day because the reality is, at least in my life, man, I can remember so many times where it's like I just had to cry out and say my heart is not here, it's not here to obey, it's not here to love, it's not here to forgive. You know, god, help me. And he would respond in my heart and give me the heart to do his kingdom will. And I think that Christ get. Christ died and went to heaven and gave us the power to live kingdom lives. But he also, somehow, he, he, it says he renewed our hearts, he gave us life, he gave us this new way of, he, gave us a new heart.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and you know even more than that.
Dwight Vogt:I mean you're without that dead in your trespasses. Yeah, I mean you were literally dead.
Scott Allen:You know, like you couldn't do a thing because you're just a corpse. You know.
Dwight Vogt:So we can do good works, but you know you don't have that heart.
Scott Allen:Yeah, you have to be made alive again, and we can be made alive again because Jesus rose from the grave right.
Dwight Vogt:You know so yeah, and because we have new hearts and then Christ lives in that heart, somehow that's, and there is a now, and not yet too, do I for sure, when it comes to our own personal lives as Christians.
Scott Allen:Right, our sins have been forgiven, we've been Made new, in the sense that we have that new heart and that new mind, you know, but we're not perfect. You know we're still struggling with sin and that's not gonna come to an end until the end, when we're glorified. And then that end, you know, that Work of sanctification reaches its perfect conclusion and you won't have that rustling that you're talking about now, and I think we all, christians all, understand that, that this kind of level of personal faith and sanctification. But I think the same. I think, if there's a parallel to God's kingdom coming in this world, right, that there was a victory on the cross.
Scott Allen:Jesus rose from the dead. Every the table was set for his kingdom to come, but it's not gonna come in its fullness Until, you know, he returns, right, it's in the, in, the in. Until then, in this now and not yet time, there's gonna be this struggle, right, this struggle where it sometimes it seems like Satan's winning. You know his ways, his counterfeit, you know deceptive, evil ways are having our, you know, dump seem to be predominating, and other times, you know Not, you know there's. There's this give-and-take tug-of-war kind of going on, but what? How do we live in light of that? You know, we know whose side we're on. We need to be pushing for God's kingdom, you know, and not just sitting back passively.
Dwight Vogt:So my point, scott, again, was just that I, you know we have. We have a new way of living with, with the resurrection and the ascension and the spirit coming to us and God says I want you to go out and now make disciples of all nations. We have a new mandate, a new way of living, but it's really an old mandate and and one of the two changes that I see that happened because of Christ coming was two things one, he actually gives us new hearts, he gives us new life. He, the Spirit of God, comes to live in us. The spirit that was dead is now alive, and with that comes also power, the power of the Spirit of Christ to actually obey and do and think and and Persevere, you know, against evil and to do good, and to create beauty.
Dwight Vogt:So it's, it's, it's an amazing thing that he did for us and it results in the kingdom Advancing in our lives. Yeah, here on this absolutely, dwight.
Scott Allen:I think of the advance of the kingdom and how it starts Inside of us. Right, it doesn't start outwardly. And political change, you know, and this is why Jesus didn't come as a political rule.
Dwight Vogt:It's not through the crusades.
Scott Allen:It's not through the crusades, it's not through the next election. It starts the, the beachhead, if you will, of the advancement of the kingdom. Is that human heart right? It has to be changed, it has.
Dwight Vogt:The kingdom has to come in your life first but it doesn't start, stop there, it doesn't stop there and that's that's that's where I think so many.
Scott Allen:Christians get get it wrong. It's like that's the, that's the beginning and the end of the kingdom. Advancing is just your own personal life and your own personal piety. And no, he's not just the Lord over your own personal life, he's the Lord over all. And so it's got to work out from you into the rest of society, into the social sphere, and that includes things like family and how you parent. Getting back to Tim's point, right, it has to work its way out into the social sphere, the cultural sphere, into every area, but but it certainly has to start inwardly.
Luke Allen:So I Love, how, when Jesus was before Jesus ended, he gave us a great commission to believers who already had their hearts changed. And it's the great commission right. I had a friend explain that recently. Co-mission we do it along with Jesus, along with God. So, and it is. It is to go and make disciples, and a disciple is. There's a lot more depth to that word than a convert. Because, it implies that your heart has changed, but then that changes your life.
Scott Allen:You're discipled.
Luke Allen:You're an apprentice of Jesus now. Yes, you live in that reality and that reality affects all things, as we've said so many times today. But yeah, just that, great commission, it's. It's almost too simple. Is here's what I want you to do? It's like what they're in the huddle before Jesus leaves. Here's what I got to do. Here's the playbook and you know and break. Now go and make disciples of all nations. I love that. Gives a lot of purpose and mission and meaning in your life.
Scott Allen:Absolutely. I don't want to under. That needs to be underscored. Luke, this this gives purpose to your life because you've got God's got assignments for you.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah in this you.
Scott Allen:Your life counts in this, like big time. The question then is do you know what that's going to be? Are you following God in that leading? And it doesn't mean? I think a lot of Christians think oh, that means I've got to quit Whatever I'm doing and become a missionary in a foreign field or plant a church. No, part of that might just be meaning getting married and raising a family. That's part of your assignment to advance this kingdom, and that's not some small thing Okay, especially not the time that we live in. But what? What is that mission that God's got for you? He's got a mission for you, right? He's got good works, as it says in Ephesians, that are prepared in advance so that you may walk in them. Wow, that purpose is is so needed today. We all need that.
Luke Allen:So yeah, yeah, and it's not just a spiritual purpose. I love that right. It's examine who God made you to be, examine your, your passions, examine you know.
Scott Allen:Here's how he made you, your sports, your personality, your gifts, relationships, right your relationships, your areas of influence, exactly Luke.
Dwight Vogt:Everything yeah, everything when you think of connected when you think of the growth of the church globally, you know what impact would that have. I mean it whether it's a half a billion or a billion out of eight billion. Now I don't know. But think of all of those people living as Christ created them to live, you know.
Scott Allen:Being sensitive to carrying out that mission in his way.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, listen guys.
Scott Allen:We need to. Let's pick it up in our next Episode. We're gonna pick right up where we left off, at that very point of we're getting very practical into what does it mean to live as a follower of Jesus Christ in light of Easter, in light of Jesus Victorious conquering of the grave, him being alive now and forever as the king, having triumphed over Satan. What does that mean for us right now? That's where we're, that's what we're exploring. So thanks for listening to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple.
Luke Allen:Thank you for listening to part one of our two-part Easter series. We will release part two the week of Easter, on holy Tuesday, march 26th, so stay tuned, as always, if you enjoyed the discussion and you want to learn more, make sure to visit the episode landing page on our website, which is linked in the show notes below. As you can probably tell, today's topic on the kingdom of God is near and dear to our hearts here at the DNA Because of its practical call for each of us to live in light of Easter and go and make disciples of our lives, families, relationships, workplaces, societies, cultures and even nations. If you'd like to learn more about our mission here at the disciple nations Alliance DNA, we'd encourage you to head to our website, which is disciple nations org to learn more, and if you'd like to join us in the alliance, you'll see about halfway down the home page of our website that there's a section that says stay connected and from there you can sign up for our community newsletter.
Luke Allen:The ideas have consequences podcast is brought to you by the disciple nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can also find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube and, again, our website is DiscipleNations Ñ<font style="vertical-align: inherit;"></font>. Thanks again for joining us. Please share the show with a friend and we'll hope you're able to join us here next week. On ideas have consequences for another practical discussion With dr Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries and host of the dr Jeff show.