Family Rules

There is a Kingdom experience for us to have on earth.

"It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S. Lewis

When our passions and pursuits don't align with God's purpose, He does not answer our prayers in the way we would hope.

God is not interested in helping us build our own kingdom; He is inviting us to experience His.

Matthew 6:9-10 ESV

9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

God is not a transactional God, but a relational one.

The entirety of scripture is God's story of restoring His creation.

Christianity is not passively waiting for restoration one day; we are actively pursuing it today.

Jesus never prayed that we would be taken out of this world, but that we would make a difference in it.

As we march toward eternity, we are praying heaven down to earth.

In the family of God, there are family rules.

Jesus prayed for God's Kingdom to be made known, but He also prayed for God's will to be obeyed.

2 Forms of God's Will:

1. what He makes true

2. what He commands us to do

1 Timothy 2:4 ESV

4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Matthew 18:14 ESV

14 So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

With no will, there is no Kingdom.

In the family of God, love is required.

Matthew 22:35-40 ESV

35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love:

1. requires obedience

You can obey without loving, but you cannot love without obeying.

Love:

1. requires obedience

2. requires truth

You can speak truth without love, but you cannot love without speaking truth.