In the first century, the believers were rumored to be cannibals ("they eat flesh and drink blood"), atheists ("they don't believe in the gods"), and traitors ("they deny Caesar is Lord"). They were under immense societal pressure to recant their belief in the Jesus as Lord. Into that pressure and difficulty, the Lord met the apostle John in a vision designed to remind the Church that the King was always with them, that he never gave up (setting them an example to follow), and he would be returning to renew all things! With these truths firmly fixed in mind, the Church could patiently endure hardship and suffering.

Those who have chosen to follow the King and who desire his will and ways to be realized have now been "called out" from this world. We remain in the world, but we're no longer "of" the world – we belong to God's kingdom and are under the rule of our marvelous, self-sacrificing King Jesus. the name of this group of people is the Church (from the Greek word meaning "called out ones"). What is our mission? Where do we receive our power to accomplish it? Where do we practice this mission?

Just as we concluded last week that entrance into Jesus' kingdom doesn't come without our death (to ourselves and to sin), so this week we'll look at the events leading up to Jesus' Passion (suffering). Did you know that all four gospels each devote at least a third of their account to the final week of Jesus' early ministry? There is no kingdom entrance for us without his Cross. While most kings consolidate their power and seek to protect themselves, we'll see how Jesus relinquished his power and showed us what a radically different King he is than any other we've ever known.

For livestream go to https://www.youtube.com/live/xnJg-a_tgCk

We saw last week that the Son was God's beloved Word and Deliverer after the 400 years of "silence." Today, we'll see how he was the perfect King that Israel needed. Unlike the kingdom in the Old Testament, where many kings merely did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, Jesus was the perfect King who announced, demonstrated, and described God's perfect kingdom. And then he ruled it full of grace and truth. He's the King our hearts are genuinely longing for, and we find ourselves most satisfied and delighted when we live with Him as our King.

God's relentless love for Israel, rooted in his covenant-keeping faithfulness, has never wavered. But for 400 years, God's silence must have been deafening in the hearts and minds of Israel. Has God finally rejected us? Have we strayed too far and he has abandoned us? But at a moment, in a setting, and in a manner that almost nobody expected, God invaded our sin-darkened world in the person of The Son. He came not to destroy and revenge God against our rebellion, but to rescue us from our own ill-fated kingship. All who believe in him and declare him as Lord can be saved!

As the kingdom of Israel fell into greater and greater levels of decline, God did not leave them without witnesses to his goodness and love! Join in this week as we explore the role of Israel's prophets in revealing God's heart for his people and his plan to bring them back to himself no matter how far they would run.

This week we are back to The God Story where to date we've seen Creation, Fall, Promise, Israel, and now Kingdom. Remember that God's kingdom is one of the major themes running through the God Story, as humans experience a constant wrestling to honor the true King (God) rather than descend into enthroning anything else in opposition to him. We'll see how Israel was designed to practice the truth of enthroning God alone as King (and how they failed to do that) as well as understanding how this affects us today.

This week Pastor Bryan Clark of Lincoln Berean will be preaching out of Psalm 143. It starts with one bad choice that leads to another then another. We wake up one morning and realize we’ve made a mess of our lives, and we wonder, how did this happen? Will the sun ever shine again?

As we continue our journey, we see that God's Promise to the one man (Abraham) has its fulfillment in the birth of a nation - Israel! This nation is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and the way in which he is planning to bless all the nations of the world to restore what was lost through humanity's sin. This is a people that God chose, covenanted with, and revealed himself to in amazing ways. We see, through Israel, God's heart to restore what sin had stolen.

At creation, God generously shared himself and all his dominion with humans, but in pride and rebellion we threw off his rule in order to proclaim ourselves kings and queens. In so doing we despised his family and presence. Yet into our brokenness and sin, God approached one man to begin an epic rescue mission of all nations. God starts with a promise that will flow through all the pages of The God Story. Although it seems this promise is, at times, utterly lost, God's promise remains true and is the hope of all the world!