Your Kingdom Come

                         
Rudyard Methodist Church Harvest Service 30^th September 2018

Deuteronomy 28: 1-14 and Matthew 5.1-16

The Book of Deuteronomy (meaning second law) picks up the story of the People of God and begins by rehearsing their story. Their release from slavery in Egypt, not entering into the Promised Land because of fear, forty years of desert wanderings and then finally moving into the land of Canaan.

And we then begin to move into a whole vast array of teaching about how to live as a People in a Covenant relationship with God.

And as with all covenants, there are certain terms and conditions that are laid out.

In these early passages Moses presents the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments as a fundamental precis of the covenant.

And then we arrive at the passage we heard from Deuteronomy chapter 28.

There are pages and pages of stuff to do and stuff not to do, and people they can have contact with and people to avoid, things to eat and things not to eat, and so on and so forth.

And then we read…

If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

Then we get a list of blessings that will follow this faithfulness.

So, let me ask you this question…

Are material blessings a sign that God’s favour rests upon us and that we are walking in God’s will and ways?

Or, who believes that material blessings are a sign of our own labour, or good fortune and nothing at all to how we live in God’s sight? 

Or maybe many of us are simply not sure, confused or don’t really care?  

As the millenniums slip by these questions became touchstones about how authentic Israelite's should live.

By the time we get to the 1^st century we have a self-selecting group of Jews who refer to themselves as Pharisee’s.  From our Gospels and other sources we learn that for the most part they were wealthy.

Let’s not forget at this time society was deeply stratified and there were broadly only two types of people, the rich and the poor.

Do you remember the parable Jesus told about Lazarus and the rich man and on death the rich person descends to hell and the poor man, Lazarus is carried to Abraham’s bosom. 

In the story there was a great divide which no one could cross.

So it was that there was a great divide between the rich and poor, the have and the have not's.

And the Pharisee’s were definitely for the most part, the haves. 

If you know very little else about the Pharisee’s you will also know that they were passionate about the Letter of the Law.

Every jot and tittle has to be accounted for – and a jot and tittle are very small marks that often come at the end of a sentence.

So, there they are, studying their Scriptures and what do they read in passage like the one we heard from Deuteronomy.

They read that, If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefullcome y all his commands that I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

Now follow that logically and what conclusions might be drawn?

Exactly the ones we find Jesus challenging them about time after time.

Wouldn’t it be logical to suppose that if God blesses those who are obedient, those who keep every jot and tittle of the law, and they are thus blessed, wouldn’t the opposite hold true.

That those who are poor, homeless, suffering, apparently not being blessed in any shape or form, then does it not follow that they are in such a situation because they have not obeyed God’s law, and have not carefully kept every jot and tittle of the law.

They had only themselves to blame for their condition.

Carry that perspective into the Gospel and you will see it played out time and time again.

John 9.1

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Now let us carry this over and have a look at the Beatitudes, (coming from the Latin word for blessed, beatus)

Remember the story of the Israelite's coming out of slavery in Egypt, their desert wanderings, their entry into the Holy Land and the giving of the Law by Moses.

And their continuing journey to live in a covenantal relationship with God which they managed variously.

Remember that Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels and that Matthew always has significant events and teachings taking place on a mountain.

And so we have Jesus coming to be baptized by John and crossing over from the east side to the west side of the Jordan, just as Joshua had done many years before.

Also Jesus had his own desert wandering.

Then coming out of the desert he began to proclaim…

‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’

And repent means far more than a feeling of remorse, it is turning 180 degrees and walking in the other direction.

And let me also remind you that when in Matthew we see the phrase, kingdom of heaven, this is out of respect for the name of God, and so we can, as we see in other Gospel, read this as the Kingdom of God. 

Heaven is God’s realm and so Matthew uses the one to mean the other out of respect to his readers.

And now Jesus goes up a mountain, like Moses and offers the kind of teaching that would be dynamite and would blow apart all that the Pharisee’s had come to hold as sacred and inviolable truths.

Jesus ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven, and later on will give in this ‘Sermon on the Mount’, what we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer.

This Prayer reminds us that our destiny, our hope and our prayer is not to embark to some far distant heavenly realm to live with God for ever.

Our true destiny is to see heaven, God’s realm, and earth, our realm, conjoined, wonderfully spoken of in Revelation as a great marriage feast.

Jesus also blows apart all the wrong headed thinking and understanding of just who might be recipients of God favour and blessings.

Jesus blows apart any idea that having material wealth and possessions means that God has blessed you.

This is a New Covenant, this is a New Testament.

This is how the world is supposed to operate.

If we find ourselves blessed then we in our turn seek to bless others. 

For example FCN is helping out with Forage Aid. 

Should a farmer find they are short on fodder and haven't the means to get more they can apply for aid. If they are accepted another farmer offers something of their excess and offers it to the farmer who is short on supplies. Recipient and donor do no know each other, it is all done through Forage Aid. www.forageaid.org.uk

This radical teaching sent shock waves through the ancient world of clear demarcations, clear boundaries between classes and between rich and poor.

Galatians 3.27-29 encapsulates this radical Gospel very well…

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.…

It turned things on their head and ushered in the Age to Come into the present, the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God.

A time when heaven and earth will be conjoined in the great marriage feast I mentioned earlier, a time for which we pray and for we which we work.

And it is this radical inclusivity, this outrageous love of God…

 ‘…for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whosoever believes in him should not die but have everlasting life.

…it is this Kingdom work to which FCN volunteers respond.

They see in the beatitudes that God has no favourites, no special people and that he does not pour his material blessings particularly down upon those who seek to scrupulously follow his law regarding every jot and tittle.

The Farming Community Network is a Christian faith based national charity that was established over twenty years ago.

Through a network of over 400 volunteers the FCN offers a listening ear, a compassionate heart and wiling feet to walk alongside farmers and farming families at times of difficulty or stress.

That might be concerns over finance, stress, mental health, succession issues or animal welfare. Currently Brexit and the ongoing effects of the drought are causing anxiety and for others HS2.

This Kingdom work is one of reconciliation, of redemption and of restoration founded upon the completed work of Jesus.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, (Jesus) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15–20)

And wonder of wonders, God invites you and he invites me to participate in His ever unfolding plan of reconciliation. To bring about the redemption of the whole cosmos so that earth begins to reflect more of the coming Kingdom, a foretaste of that time when as John puts in the Book of Revelation…

I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

Meanwhile – we have a job of work to do…

When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

God wants to help those, who mourn, God wants to help the meek, and God wants to help those who suffer for speaking out about injustice.

And God wants to help farmers and their families struggling with debt or with mental health issues, or succession disputes, or forage issues as they may well be doing in the coming months. 

And you and I are the boots on the ground. God’s hands reaching out and His feet walking alongside someone in need, practically demonstrating God’s heart of compassion and love.

Because this is a sign of the Kingdom of God come upon earth, a realized Lord’s Prayer.

We are God ambassadors, his agents of peace and reconciliation, purveyors of hope as we sing out across the land in confidence…

God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year:

God is working his purpose out,  and the time is drawing near:
nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,

when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God,
as the waters cover the sea.  

Are you ready to go to work for the Lord!

Seeking Fame and Finding Faith (sermon transcript HMP Stafford 23/09/18)

HMP Stafford 23/09/18

Think back to the 1980’s, big hair, leg warmers, loud pumping music and this song…

Luke 10. 1-20. (excluding verses 13-15)

I got more in me
And you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hand
Don't you know who I am

Remember my name, fame

I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna learn how to fly, high

I feel it comin' together
People will see me and cry, fame
I'm gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame, fame
I'm gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name

These are some of the words from the lead song of the 1980 film ‘Fame’ that later spawned a TV series running from 1982 – 1987.

The film was based around students at the New York Academy of Performing Arts.

As well as lots of singing and dancing the film also portrayed the angst and struggles of adolescence.

One of those is based around being known and hopefully liked as well.

It is about finding a place in the world, a time of growing up physically and also growing away from parents.

For some it can also be a time of great angst as the reality of your mortality begins to develop – hence remember my name.

Back track some twenty years earlier and to the UK and you would find me going through this type of adolescent angst.

A growing awareness that no matter what I did, or where I went, that one day I was going to die.

I knew something of death as my own father was killed in a road traffic accident shortly after my sixth birthday.

Following the custom of the time my father was laid out in the front room of our council home on the Kirkholt Estate in Rochdale, Lancashire.

The image that lived with me however wasn’t my dead father but his coffin lid standing to the side.

Like all coffin lids, and as a minister I have now seen hundreds of them, it simply had his name, date of birth and date of death.

That’s it – the sum total of a person’s life.  

They were born on …. And died on…

Ten years on from that tragic accident that left my mum having to bring up three young boys, I was preparing to leave school at the age of fifteen – and trying to deal with the demons in my head and the anxiety in my heart.

But not talking to anyone about it – that wasn’t the done thing then.

At that time I was very undeveloped and stood just four foot 10 inches and weighed six stone.

One day in the school playground I was chatting to my best friend James Masters about work after school life was finished.

James made an off the cuff that I ought to become a jockey.

That sowed the seed of an idea in my head to answer some of my anxious thoughts.

Yes, I could become a famous jockey, so that at least when I died, which was inevitable, people would remember my name and they would know who I was. 

Not simply a date of birth and death but a life known and celebrated.

I don’t how my mum arranged it, but on the same day a very famous Gordon Banks was defending England’s goal on the 30^th July 1966 at Wembley I made the long train journey from Rochdale to Newmarket to sign on for a Five Year 

Apprenticeship with Bruce Hobbs.

I had never ridden a horse in my life, didn’t have any interest in racing, nor did anybody in the family.

I was travelling hundreds of miles away from home in search of fame.

My life working in the racing game and living in the stables is a whole other story, save to say it was rough, tough, dirty and dangerous.

I did have one moment of glory at the age of 18 on my first ride when I won the Polar Jest Apprentice Handicap on Wandering Eyes.

And in some ways it my wandering eyes that led to any potential racing career come to a crashing end.

I became closely attached to a local girl – and it was the swinging sixties – and everyone was in party mood – and I was in what was probably one of the most conservative employments you could find, apart perhaps from the military.

In short, my attention shifted and I lost focus.  Another story for another time perhaps, but save to say that at the end of my five years as an Apprentice I left the racing game altogether.

Move forward ten years and I was married to the local girl and living in Newmarket and expecting our first child. 

In the interim period from leaving the racing game, I had mainly worked in hotels as a cocktail barman, but had also spent time working with a small demolition team and also had eighteen months living back in Lancashire and working in a cotton mill.

Back in Newmarket I was now working for Spillers, a Food and Nutritional Centre testing various human and animal feeds they produced on animals.

Here I met David, like me, a young man in his mid-twenties.

But David was a homespun boy and had never traveled or done much of anything really and David was a Christian.

But the sort of Christian I had never really encountered before – he really believed this stuff about God and Jesus and heaven and hell and all of that.

My schooling at a Church of England Secondary Modern School had left me with a deep fascination with Jesus, primarily as a great moral and social activist.

I met David in March 1974 when I began working at Spillers. We talked, argued, discussed as we worked closely together looking after rats, rabbits, guinea pigs and ferrets.

In November 1974 David gave me a Bible to read and I had begun to attend ‘meetings’ – I was beginning to think that there might actually be something in this after all and it was worth exploring.

And then I read Colossians 3.3…

‘For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.’

In this setting I will chose my words carefully, but to me, these words were the key to unlock the prison I was in.

Of course I had made myself comfortable and largely forgot about death, dying and not being famous.

But there was still that nagging question that came up every now and then.

Is this it, we are born, we live and we die – big deal. 

This verse helped me to see that in effect I had to die to my own plans, ideas, aspirations and dreams – because my true self, my life, all of this was held in God’s keeping.

And that if I got to know Jesus - who I was truly destined to be would be revealed to me day by day.

On the 1^st January 1975 I made a New Years’ Resolution to become a Christian.

Of all the decisions I have ever made in my life that was by far and away the best and most important decision I ever made.

Throughout the Scriptures you will find reference to the Book of Life or someone being noted as a friend of God.

Particularly we find this in the Book of Revelation.

‘And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.’

Back in 1966 I wanted my name to be known, I wanted to gain a kind of immortality through being famous so, as the saying goes, my name might live on.

But I discovered there is only one place that you need to ensure your name is written – in the Lambs Book of Life and as a friend of God.

And that is what Jesus says to his disciples when they return from a missionary trip.

They were well made up at the things they had seen and Jesus was well pleased for them – but then he went on to say,

‘Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirit submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Now that doesn’t mean that having asked Jesus to write my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life that I need not do anything else – that I can continue to live my life how I should choose.

One of the images Jesus uses is that of being ‘born again.’

And that is a useful picture – we are born again into a new way of life - we are born again into a new family – we are born again so that our past does not have to define who we are and determine our future.

And from my experience being born again does not automatically mean that struggles and stresses won’t come upon you. It is a daily battle to live according to God’s ways rather than the way of the world.

It isn’t for nothing that the words often used at baptism say, ‘fight against sin, the world and the devil.’

Within eighteen months of my becoming a Christian I had been squeezed out of my job at Spillers and my wife had divorced me on the grounds of my being a Christian.  Almost ten years to the day I found myself once more walking through Newmarket with my world in a suitcase about to begin a whole new life.

However, the same year that Fame the TV series began in 1982 I got married again and we have been together for 36 years and have three wonderful children and grandchildren.   

God called me to work in ministry with the Church Army back in 1978 and since that time I have dedicated my life to encouraging people to ensure their names and written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and that they then live out fully their new Christian lives to God’s glory and praise.

Like the disciples of Jesus, they may see, hear and do many marvelous things – but most importantly they will know that their names are written in heaven.

I tried to capture something of my journey to faith in a little poem, not by any means good poetry, but nevertheless I want to share it with you now and invite you to think about your name being written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

The Book of Life

I used to worry that when I was old,

Mine would be just another tale never to be told;

But Jesus came and spoke to me,

He said, there is only one place you need to be,

That’s in the ‘Book of Life’.

Now he holds my hand as we walk along

Sharing my gladness, sadness and song;

And I know he is leading me on

To the place He has gone

    to write ‘The Book of Life’.

He forgave me sins and set me free,

To learn not to say ‘I’ but we;

To start a journey back to the one

From whom all things come from,

That’s why with his blood he bought

     the ‘Book of Life’

And when this world is over and gone,

Jesus will show he is the one;

Why wait until it is too late,

And find yourself outside the gate,

He is asking you now, do you want your name

    in the ‘Book of Life.’

© Gordon Banks 1980

Sharing the Harvest with Lazarus!

St Matthews, Meerbrook, Leek ‘Harvest Service’

20^th September 2018

Deuteronomy 28: 1-14 &Luke 16: 19-end

God is working his purpose out,
as year succeeds to year,
God is working his purpose out,
and the time is drawing near;
nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,

This well-known hymn then has a concluding line from Isaiah 11.9

So, what do you think are God’s plans and purposes?

There are those who have taken the story we heard from Luke 16:19 – end and have concluded that this is a real story, with real people, that happened in a real place, or rather two real places, heaven and hell. They have deduced from this that God’s plan and purpose is to rescue people from a wicked corrupt earth and bring them to heaven as the final resting place for all those, and only those, who have put their trust and proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

That strikes me as a whole lot of assumptions.

It also strikes me that someone has taken a text out of context and made a pretext.

Although I know that such people would come back with other ‘proof text’ to justify their viewing this story in this way.

Personally I find such a view too narrow, a view that restricts God and a view that can lead to a total neglect of this earth because heaven is our ultimate destiny – if we are ‘saved.’

If we take care to read this story in its context, here referring to chapters 14 – 16, we see that this is another parable that Jesus told, and as ever it is a parable in typical Jewish style (because let’s not forget that Jesus was a good Jew) and it is full of hyperbole to make a point.

We begin in chapter 14 with Jesus as a guest of a Pharisee…

‘One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched’.

There follows a discourse that includes Jesus’ questioning about doing good on the Sabbath.

He goes on to tell a story of a rich man inviting his friends to a banquet, but they offer various excuses. So, he invites anyone and everyone, from the highways and the byways to come and enjoy his banquet.

Another story is about counting the cost of building or going to war, and then makes this incredibly challenging demand…

^‘In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.’

Then we have three well known stories about a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son – all found and restored.

 He (Jesus) said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

There is a short piece about divorce before our story – of Lazarus and a rich man.

If we have been paying attention we should by now have picked up a thread and a theme developing – a theme that runs like a river throughout all of Jesus’ teaching and his life and if we have eyes but to see and ears to hear, we will see that it also runs throughout the whole of Scripture.

God cares for the least, the lost, the last and the lonely. It is not sign that God’s love and favour does not rest upon people who find themselves in these situations.

That is wrong headed thinking that Jesus challenges and reminds the Pharisee’s that orthodoxy must be matched by orthopraxis.

The Pharisee’s had taken passages such as we heard from Deuteronomy out of context and made a pretext, made an assumption.

Drawing a particular understanding that material blessings are a sign of God’s favour and then following that to a natural, logical conclusion, that those who are not so blessed must be out of favour with God and in disobedience. 

What today is referred to as prosperity theology that was as prevalent among 1^st century Jews as it is among some North American Evangelicals.

Remember the story about another rich man who came and asked Jesus how he might gain eternal life…

That story concludes with this response from Jesus…

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

What then are God’s plan and purposes?

Is it that if we follow the injunction of Deuteronomy we can expect blessings to follow…

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.  All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

In and of itself being obedient to God is a thing to pursued with all due diligence – but isn’t there a danger that we can turn our Faith into a kind of magic?

That if we say certain things and do certain acts then we will get certain results – that is largely how magic is supposed to work.

So, how does this work out for those who obediently follow God’s will and ways and yet find themselves anything but blessed in a material sense.

And on that has you have begun to call to mind the Beatitudes…

There Jesus offers a whole different kind of recipients of God’s blessings.

As this is a Harvest Service and as I have been invited to say something about the work of The Farming Community Network let me now draw that into our consideration.

In our brief reflection of the passage from Deuteronomy and the story from Luke’s Gospel I hope we have captured something of God’s plans and purposes.

And as God’s People we seek to act in obedience to those plans and purposes, but never for our own material gain. We are blessed so that we might be a blessing to others.

And in particular I would argue that taken in context the story of Lazarus and the rich man is not about eternal punishment or everlasting bliss – but is a strong polemic against neglect and care of the vulnerable, the poor and the marginalized.

We might have fine words but have empty deeds.

For what do we pray regularly…?

Your Kingdom come,

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven...

The Farming Community Network is a Christian faith based national charity that was established over twenty years ago.

                                             www.fcn.org.uk

Through a network of over 400 volunteers the FCN offers a listening ear, a compassionate heart and wiling feet to walk alongside farmers and farming families at times of difficulty or stress.

That might be concerns over finance, stress, mental health, succession issues or animal welfare.

Currently Brexit and the ongoing effects of the drought are causing anxiety and for others HS2.

What are God’s plans and purposes?

When we take an overview of Scripture we can discern four epochs.

Epoch one begins in Genesis with God and humanity and the whole of creation in harmony.

Epoch two is the fall and the rise of disharmony and disease.

Epoch three is the incarnation – God coming and dwelling among as in Jesus. This ushers in the time of salvation, which is now…

2 Corinthians 6.2

In the Scriptures God says, "When the time came, I listened to you, and when you needed help, I came to save you." That time has come. This is the day for you to be saved.

Epoch four is the restoration of all things…

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, (Jesus) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15–20)

Epoch four is both now and not yet – like soldiers landing on the Normandy beaches, the war was drawing to a close but there were still battles to be fought before peace could be declared.

As we celebrate and enjoy the fruits of the harvest, albeit we will be paying more because of the drought, as we enjoy this bounty let us be ever mindful of those like Lazarus lying outside our gates.

Let us resolve to open our hearts and hands to those in need and thus demonstrate the importance of orthopraxis (right practise) as well as orthodoxy.

Heeding the Letter of James’…

‘If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.’

What are God’s plans and purposes?

God is working his purpose out,
as year succeeds to year:
God is working his purpose out,
and the time is drawing near:
nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,

when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God,
as the waters cover the sea.  

And for the glory of God to fill the earth God invites you and he invites me to participate in His ever unfolding plan of reconciliation. To bring about the redemption of the whole cosmos – to herald the glorious time when we will not head skywards to mystical heaven but will live with resurrected bodies in a new heaven and a new earth.

I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

Meanwhile – we have a job of work to do…

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

In Greek the meaning of the name Lazarus is: God is my help.

God wants to help the least, the lost, the last and the lonely. God wants to help farmers and their families struggling with debt, or with mental health issues, or succession disputes, or forage issues as they may well be facing next February time.  And you and I are the boots on the ground. God’s hands reaching out and His feet walking alongside someone in need, practically demonstrating God’s heart of compassion and love.  

Because this is a sign of the Kingdom of God come upon earth, a realized Lord’s Prayer.

We are God ambassadors, his agents of peace and reconciliation, purveyors of hope as we sing out across the land in confidence…

God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year:

God is working his purpose out,  and the time is drawing near: nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,

when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God,

as the waters cover the sea.