simple one: bring Heaven now

In the beginning, God created all things good, but humans didn't live according to how God meant them to live. They rebelled against God, and we call this rebellion "sin." When sin entered the world, it began to grow, fracturing our relationships and communities, eventually building an empire of itself. But God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay, and promised to restore this broken world. As part of this promise, God chose a people, Abraham and his descendants, to represent him in the world. He blessed them and instructed them to use that blessing to bless others. It is Abraham's descendants who we find enslaved in Egypt. One of the greatest events in this redemptive story is the Exodus, when God rescued the Israelites from their slavery under an Egyptian empire.
Gen 3:8-11. Gen 4:1-8. Gen 11:1-4. Exo 1:1-14. Exo 3:7-10. Deut 10. Ps 82. Isa 61. Lk 4. Mt 5:3. Mt 25. 1Pe 5:5. Gal 2:10. Jam 27.
The Egyptians oppressed the Isrealites as slaves and ruled over them ruthlessly in order to protect the empire. The Egyptians placed slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor. This is a key example in the Biblical story of sin manifesting itself in the form of empire. God heard the cry of the Israelites and liberated them from their oppressor. He took them out of Egypt and into the desert. This liberation from oppression under Egypt is a central, defining moment in history where God inaugurated his plan for restoring the world.
Gen 2:7. Gen 2:8-9, 20-23. Gen 3:23-24. Gen 6:5. Exo 6:28-7:1. Exo 19:3-6. Exo 19:11. Acts 1:1. 1Co 12:12, 27.
God brought the Israelites to Mt. Sinai out in the wilderness, where he spoke to them and came to dwell among them as a husband dwells with his new bride. God chose this group of people to become his flesh and blood, calling them to become a kingdom of priest and a holy nation where they would use their blessings to bless others. He did this so the whole world might come to know the one true living God.
Deut 17:16-17. 1Ki 9:15. 1Ki 10:1-9. 1Ki10:14. 1Ki 10:26-11:6. Rev 21:1-4.
The Jewish people reached Jerusalem, the land which God had promised them, and built a temple to honor God. For a while, God dwelt in the temple, they lived out their mission to bless others with their wealth and influence, and they upheld justice and righteousness. The Jewish people eventually misconstrued their belssing with favortism. They misused their wealth to preserve their kingdom, allowed foreign gods into the land, overlooked the poor, and mistreated foreigners. God sent prophets to call the Jewish people to look at how they were treating the oppressed and marginalized as in indicator of how they were living out God's will while calling them to repentance for their sin of misusing their blessing. The Jewish people didn't listen.
Amos 6:1, 4-5, 12. Amos 8:4-6. 2Ch 36:15-20. Isaiah 61. Lk 24:13-27
Because of their sin, the Jewish people were attacked by foreign empires and were taken as exiles to Babylon. In Babylon, they were again oppressed by a foreign empire. While they were exiled in Babylon, the Jewish people started to imagine, "What would it be like if we could be given all our wealth and influence back? What if we actually used our priviledge to bless others as God intended? What if we could get it right?" They repented of their sin, and soon afterward they were given the chance to return to Israel. They returned to Israel and immediately went to work rebuilding the temple; however, they were still under the rule of foreign empires. During this time, their hopes began to center around a messiah who would lead a New Exodus, re-establishing their kindgom.
Mt 1 / Lk 2. Mt 19:16-30 / Mk 10:17-31. Mt 14:13-21 / Mt 15:29-39 / Mk 6:30-44 / Mk 8:1-13 / Lk 9:10-17 / Jn 6:1-15. Mt 27:32-44 / Mk 15:21-32 / Lk 23:26-43 / Jn 19:16-37.
So the Old Testament comes to a sputtering stop with a group of people crying out for a messiah to come. But God didn't respond right away. He was silent. But that silence was filled with expectancy that God would send a messiah who would lead a New Exodus. That was what the Jewish people were expecting and hoping for during the time of Jesus. The New Testament then picks up with stories about the birth of Jesus. Then Jesus began his public ministry as a Jewish rabbi. And at the ouset of his ministry, Jesus' main message was that "the kingdom of God is here." This statement was obviously loaded for the Jewish people, and they heard him saying that he would liberate them from foreign rule, that he would lead a New Exodus. He promised that a New Jerusalem would someday come when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and restore all of creation. There will be no more crying out from oppression.
Today, Egypt can be seen as a picture of what we're all born into. We're all born into oppression by sin. We're born with a sinful nature that pulls us, distorts things and takes us in directions that are destructive to us. Every single human being is born into bondage to sin. God wants to liberate us from sin, and he has a plan to do this. In the same way that the Jewish people were called by God to use their wealth and influence to bless those who need it most, so God has called the Church to do the same, to be his flesh and blood - his body - in the world, so the Church is called the Body of Christ. When we begin to use our resources, energy and power to preserve our own comfort and empire, we are sinning. Eventually, our sin will cause us to lose our power, wealth and influence. And God's plan for blessing the world will be lost for a time.
The reason I am emphasizing study of the Exodus is because it is a great scriptural tool to understand who Jesus is and what he's doing. He wants to liberate the world from physical, spiritual and cultural bondage. Most of us have been given great wealth, talent and energy. And God wants us to share it with others who don't have enough. What if the Church began to understand that God wants to fix this entire planet?


Many misinterpert theology as some philosophical mumbo-jumbo that only scholars, pastors and seminary professors can partake in. When we begin to describe what we believe about God, we discover that he's been writing a story of hope and redemption for all the world, and we have a role to play in this story. The Bible is a collection of the voices of many who have come before us, inspired by God to pass along their poems, stories, accounts, and letters of response and relationship with each other and the living God. These words have been used to describe God and his character for thousands of years, and we call this theology. Theology is one of the best ways we can come to know and love God; it is also how we understand who God calls us to be and what he calls us to do. Theology comes from the Greek words "theos" and "logos." Theos means God, and logos means word. Words about God.



I believe God inspired the authors of Scripture by his Spirit to speak to all generations of believers, including us today. God calls us to immerse ourselves in this authoritative narrative communally and individually to faithfully interpret and live out that story today as we
are led by the Spirit of God.
In the beginning God created all things good. He was and always will be in a communal relationship with himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God created us to be relational as well and marked us with an identity as his image bearers and a missional calling to serve, care for, and cultivate the earth. God created humans in his image to live in fellowship with him, one another, our inner self, and creation. The enemy tempted the first humans, and darkness and evil entered the story through human sin and are now a part of the world. This devastating
event resulted in our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation being fractured and in desperate need of redeeming.
I believe God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay; rather he promised to restore this broken world. As part of this purpose, God chose a people, Abraham and his descendants to represent him in the world. God promised to bless them as a nation so
that through them all nations would be blessed. In time they became enslaved in Egypt and cried out to God because of their oppression.God heard their cry, liberated them from their oppressor, and brought them to Sinai where he gave them an identity and a mission as his
treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy people. Throughout the story of Israel, God refused to give up on his people despite their frequent acts of unfaithfulness to him.
God brought his people into the Promised Land. Their state of blessing from God was intimately bound to their calling to embody the living God to other nations. They made movement toward this missional calling, yet they disobeyed and allowed foreign gods into the land,
overlooked the poor, and mistreated the foreigner. The prophetic voices that emerge from the Scriptures held the calling of Israel to the mirror of how they treated the oppressed and marginalized. Through the prophets, God’s heart for the poor was made known, and we
believe that God cares deeply for the marginalized and oppressed among us today.
In Israel’s disobedience, they became indifferent and in turn irrelevant to the purposes to which God had called them. For a time, they were sent into exile; yet a hopeful remnant was always looking ahead with longing and hope to a renewed reign of God, where peace and
justice would prevail.
I believe these longings found their fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, mysteriously God having become flesh. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and set captives free, proclaiming a
new arrival of the Kingdom of God, bringing about a New Exodus, and restoring our fractured world. He and his message were rejected by many as he confronted the oppressive nature of the religious elite and the empire of Rome. Yet his path of suffering, crucifixion, death,
burial, and resurrection has brought hope to all creation. Jesus is our only hope for bringing peace and reconciliation between God and humans. Through Jesus we have been forgiven and brought into right relationship with God. God is now reconciling us to each other,
ourselves, and creation. The Spirit of God affirms as children of God all those who trust Jesus. The Spirit empowers us with gifts, convicts, guides, comforts, counsels, and leads us into truth through a communal life of worship and a missional expression of our faith.
The church is rooted and grounded in Christ, practicing spiritual disciplines and celebrating baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church is a global and local expression of living out the way of Jesus through love, peace, sacrifice, and healing as we embody the resurrected
Christ, who lives in and through us, to a broken and hurting world.
I believe the day is coming when Jesus will return to judge the world, bringing an end to injustice and restoring all things to God’s original intent. God will reclaim this world and rule forever. The earth’s groaning will cease and God will dwell with us here in a restored
creation. On that day we will beat swords into tools for cultivating the earth, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, there will be no more death and God will wipe away all our tears. Our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation will be whole. All will flourish as
God intends. This is what I long for. This is what I hope for. And I am giving my life to living out that future reality now.