Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Lost in Translation | April 25th, 2021

Welcome everyone to our KCC lobby, and this is where we're going to be hosting the next few weeks of our series because our main auditorium has been retrofitted.

Our Heritage Christian School drama is going to be doing a performance in there and do all their practices throughout the week.

It's a really exciting time for a lot of our students.

I want to thank you for your flexibility, and I want to thank you for your flexibility throughout this year.

I know we've all been through the waves and the emotions of the changes in the health orders and the changes in the plans, but I just want to encourage you, you're doing so well.

And I want to thank you for your encouragement towards us.

You have been just so supportive and so encouraging.

And we hear messages when we or when we bump into you on the street, wherever we're going, part of our church community.

You're doing so well, and uh you're taking care of each other, and you continue to support, whether financially or in encouragement and prayer, and just are excited for when we get to gather together, and that's so exciting to me.

I know that many of you are pastor parents in the home, that you're continuing to do good.

I heard of one family last week that raised$400 doing a car wash outside of their home for some of the missionaries.

Uh uh Fran Larry and Francine Cruthers in Kenya.

It's awesome to hear what everyone's doing.

So we've launched this new series entitled Lost in Translation.

And this week I'd like to address what it's like to live in the kingdom of God, living under a kingdom culture.

Just say that kingdom culture.

That is our culture.

And it's so urgent that we talk about it, particularly in this season and in this climate that we're living in.

And the world environment is so tense right now, and even though we're in Canada and we may not realize the tensions that many other countries face day to day, we still wake up and we still feel that pressure, whether it's through email, whether it's through a news site, whether it's through social, to take aside whatever the tension point might be, to take aside.

And if you're a follower of Christ, and if you're someone who wants justice, and someone who wants to do what's right, you may be weighing both sides of an equation, and you might not be on either side.

And this is the tough part that we encounter as believers.

That it's it's impossible to actually fully say yes and fully go with one side over another side because we're not a part of either culture.

We actually live in a space that I'm going to be referring to as a kingdom space.

A kingdom culture is the culture that we carry every day, and that's how we make decisions.

We don't make decisions because we're conservative or liberal or where we stand on a political party, or we don't make decisions because we're in the West versus the East.

We make decisions because we are kingdom citizens.

And that's why it's important for us, I believe, to clarify what it means to live as part of the kingdom.

Live with a kingdom heart, live with kingdom perspective, live with a kingdom worldview.

And if we're gonna bring translation to that, we want to be reminded of what the accurate definition and the accurate lifestyle of a kingdom citizen should be.

So if you've ever studied the kingdom, you'll realize that this was the sole message of Jesus.

It wasn't the message of prayer, it wasn't a message of deliverance or healing.

All of those things were wonderful that Jesus ended up ministering, social justice.

He ministered, but it all came under the umbrella of the message of the kingdom.

And when his disciples said, Listen, how are we supposed to pray, Rabbi?

Like teach us how to pray, he said, I want you to pray this way.

I want you to pray, our Father who art in heaven.

Give God glory, give the Father glory first, praise him first, and then pray this: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So he's referring to the Father and the Father's kingdom and the Father's will.

And Jesus went about day to day reminding people who were listening to him that it wasn't about his will, it wasn't about his kingdom that he came to earth to establish, it was all about establishing the kingdom of God on the earth.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus didn't come to represent himself just as we don't go about representing ourselves.

We're called to be the ambassadors of a different space.

Ambassadors from a different place.

And so I remember when I was wrestling with this thought, I remember asking my dad, what is it like?

Like what is the will of God?

What is the will, this will that he's talking about?

And Jesus', when he said that the will of the Father be like on earth as it is in heaven, he said, just whatever is in heaven, that's what it needs to be like here on earth.

So is there division in heaven?

No.

Is there sickness in heaven?

No.

Is there uh relational challenges in heaven?

No, that's the kind of environment that we're to have here on this earth.

Is there praise in heaven?

Yes, is there joy in heaven?

Yes, is there peace in heaven?

Yes, is there a party in heaven?

Yes, that's the way we're to live here on earth.

Thy will be done, thy kingdom come.

They're here.

And that's what Jesus came to do.

So to begin with uh understanding this and bringing translation to this kingdom message so that we can live within the culture of a kingdom of heaven.

It's important to first realize that there are two points of citizenship that we live in.

I have first a national natural citizenship, and I'm a national of Canada, and I carry that on my passport.

That's my nationality, and so I'm a citizen of Canada, but I'm also a citizen of heaven.

When I made a decision to follow Jesus, and I was welcomed into this family that is an eternal family, this heavenly family, all of a sudden things changed for me.

I now have two citizenships, and I'm walking each day with those two citizenships.

So we realize that Jesus came to earth to usher in this kingdom of God.

But he came to earth not only respecting the authority, respecting the government of his day, but he also recognized the highest authority and the highest loyalty that he had was to the Father in heaven.

And that's why Jesus said, pray first, our Father.

Remember who is priority, who is the first.

It's the Father in heaven who is first.

Holy, first, sacred is that name.

I go to you first.

And at the end of his ministry, after spending his days communicating about the kingdom of God, he said, Tag, you're it, I'm giving it to you.

The same ministry that I was called to come in and live and continue, I'm giving it to you.

And so I'm gonna give you every activity, I'm gonna give you all the love, I'm gonna give you all the power, I'm gonna give you all the resource to go and do what I started.

And just because it was Jesus' greatest ministry and it was Jesus' greatest purpose, it ought to be as Christ's followers, it ought to be ours as well.

So this kingdom way is the right way, it is the blessed way, it is the most blessed way for us to live, to operate.

And Jesus, when he lived this way, it changed the world that he encountered.

The culture that he brought with him changed the way people related.

And that is why it matters to us so much even today.

Because if we're all running on the same playbook, then we're gonna run in alignment.

We're gonna run together.

And the Bible says that there's a blessing when people actually work together, when they are in unity together.

Because if we're not in unity and we we see from life from a different perspective, if we're not living in that same kingdom, if we're not operating from that same culture code, then there'll be this subtle undercurrent.

Everything may look good on the top, but underneath we're being pulled one way or another way, and it can create slight tensions and divisions within our community.

And I don't want that for our church, I don't want that for our community, I don't want it to impact or impede the message of the gospel.

But we want to be able to push it forward, and so it matters to us that we don't get lost in translation, that we don't miss out on this message of the kingdom.

This kingdom culture, very simply, is basically God's way of doing things.

It was basically Jesus' way of doing things.

As he did anything and everything he did was based upon what he saw and heard the Father say and do.

He said, I want you to do it that way.

And some theologians have called it the third way.

Because in Jesus' environment, there were a Jewish way, and of course it was a way he would have been raised in.

There was a Roman way, and that was the rulers of the day.

And then there was this mixed way where there were Jewish and Roman mix, but Jesus brought this third way, and this third way challenged everyone who heard it.

And so you hear him saying it this way, you've been taught, or maybe you've been raised this way, or haven't you heard this story or this illustration or this teaching?

And he said, You've heard this, but I'm telling you it's a different way.

You've heard eye for an eye, I'm telling you, forgive, turn the other cheek.

You've heard, you know, if someone comes, you know, and robs from you, you need to take back from them seven times.

I'm telling you, go ahead, give them your tunic, give them your jacket, give them more than what they even took, give differently.

It was a different way.

Peter is a great example of this.

As the Romans came to cap, or the Jewish leaders came to capture Jesus before his crucifixion.

Peter decided he's gonna draw his sword and he's gonna deal with this uh abuse his own way, and he goes ahead and he chops off an ear of one of the soldiers that were coming to capture Jesus.

And Jesus says, No, no, no, no, no, Peter, and picks up the ear and actually heals the man's ear, puts it back, creates a miracle, forms a miracle in that moment.

He said, This is the way, I'm going to go, I'm going to leave.

And I know it's not your way, and I know it's not the way that you may have been taught, but it's my way, and it's a different way.

So certain people have looked at this way and they say, you know what, we have to change our way to adapt to his way.

Change our ways.

And that's a hard move for a lot of us.

And so kingdom culture does begin with you, and it begins with me.

It changes me personally first.

Before I go and look at everyone else, I have to ask myself: am I living within that space of kingdom culture?

Is it changing me?

Because if it changes me, it'll change my family.

And if it changes my family, it'll change my church.

And if it changes the church, it'll change community and it'll change our nation.

But it starts with you and me.

And I have to question every day how am I bringing heaven to earth?

How am I moving the kingdom culture forward?

Even in the story of the nation of Israel, they questioned Jesus and they said they were looking for this Messiah who would bring this new way.

But they didn't think it would be Jesus' way.

They thought he would be a soldier, a champion of sorts that was going to come and just rescue them from the Romans, but Jesus came a different way.

And because it's a different way, it's quite obvious why many of us miss it.

Peter missed it, as we talked about.

Peter missed it.

And he lived with Jesus, learned from Jesus, was instructed by Jesus, and yet he himself missed it.

And oftentimes, I believe we miss it.

And we get lost in what's happening around us, and we get formed by what's happening around us.

So we have to look at some of these perhaps distinctions between kingdom culture and the culture of the world.

So, what does kingdom culture do?

Kingdom culture recognizes authority.

As Jesus did, the kingdom culture is all about a new kingdom, and with that new kingdom comes a new king and one king.

And with that king comes authority, comes rule, comes uh the reign of God on the earth.

And so when I submitted my life to Jesus and I made him Lord, I said, You're Lord of my finances, you're Lord of my relationships, your Lord of my time, your Lord of my talents, I made him Lord of everything.

He was Lord of all, or he wasn't Lord at all.

But when I submitted to him and I made him the primary authority, that changed the way I do business, it changed the way I relate, it changed the way I deal with offense and disputes, it changes the way I pursue social justice.

It changes the way I pursue social uh relationships.

This is always referred to as an authority, an authority in the kingdom.

When you have a king and it's in his kingdom, the Bible says in his kingdom, he defines the boundaries of nations, he establishes rulers, he establishes fathers, mothers, teachers, pastors, all authority is positioned by him.

When you realize that you're in his kingdom, you realize that authority is positioned through him.

Romans 13, 1 says this everyone, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities.

For there is no authority except that which God has established.

The king's rule, the king's life, the king's reign is in the palm of the Lord.

The Lord instructs where he needs to go.

He carries that king.

And if you reflect in Scripture, you can see even imperfect people who are there because God put them there.

It's a challenge for us.

And it's always the challenge that all authority that exists, all authority that is established exists and is established by God.

So how does God see authority?

And so to build a kingdom is to perpetuate it, to live according to its laws, live according to its principles, and living as a citizen of heaven, I live under this authority.

And at times that authority breaks down.

And we've experienced uh harmful, we've experienced abuse of authority, we've experienced wrong use of authority.

And it doesn't make all authority evil or bad, it doesn't make all policemen evil or bad when you have one encounter with a policeman that's wrong.

It doesn't mean uh that authority is there to hurt us.

In fact, the authority is there to help us, to be a blessing to us.

It's there to actually allow us to thrive within the system.

God not only establishes authority, he backs it.

He backs the authority that he puts in place.

He establishes it, he backs it.

And if you go through scripture, you can see where Moses, people were murmuring, complaining, criticizing against him, and God dealt with them.

Whenever God dealt with people coming against his authority, some of it's quite humorous, from hemorrhoids to quite deadly, like leprosy or even death.

God deals with people who confront his established authority.

So I'm really careful as a as a church leader, as a public person, I know that my response matters and your response matters as well.

Your words matter.

We'll all be held account for the way we've treated authority in our lives.

So we have to be careful.

We have to be cautious as to how we guard our words.

My role, our role, our church's role in the kingdom regarding authority, the scripture is very clear, our position is to pray for them.

Pray for them.

1 Timothy 2.2 says, pray this way for kings and all who are in authority, so that we can live peaceful, quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.

I want to live in that space.

That sounds like heaven.

To live in that space, and I'm pretty sure that if Jesus was here today, he would keep his mouth shut when it comes to authorities.

He would keep his mouth shut when it comes to criticizing those who are in places of influence.

Jesus lived, I believe, in the constant criticism of those who were in authority.

And as an authority unto himself, he dealt with that critical spirit against him.

And they were constantly trying to cancel him out, trying to shut him down, trying to mute him.

But it's interesting that Jesus himself never muted anyone.

He always worked with a redemptive plan, with a restorative plan.

And his perspective was to always be the one who's finding a way to actually restore.

I think about the woman who was caught in adultery.

She was pulled, they had caught her in the act, they were trapping her, they captured her, they brought her out to a public place, and they put her in that place to actually condemn her.

And the Bible says that Jesus, who was there to give a verdict, as they were trapping him to judge this woman in this situation, he didn't even say a word.

He didn't let her live or promote or support the sin that she was she was uh in in living in.

Instead, he said, Listen, this isn't God's best plan for you.

You've got to move through it, past it.

You've got to draw from me and draw from grace and draw from the mercy that I'm extending to you for a new start.

So go and sin no more.

He did that and it was gracious, it was kind, it was private.

All of these things.

The God that we serve, the culture that we live in.

In recognizes authority and handles themselves differently when it comes to authority.

I'm sure there's a lot more that we can go deeper in with regards to how we approach authority, but we know quite clearly we need to pray, get God's heart on the authority that are in our lives, and we need to guard our tongue and watch the words that we share so that we're not speaking out of turn.

The kingdom culture, number two, it recognizes restoration.

The kingdom culture leaves a roadmap for restoration.

And I'm so grateful and so thankful that God laid a roadmap of restoration for me.

It didn't leave me dead, bleeding on the streets, alone.

It was there to help me.

That God was there to help pull me through.

And even we should be there for each other.

Galatians chapter 6 says this.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Brothers and sisters, he's talking to the church, to you and to me.

He says, if someone is caught in sin, how are you supposed to approach them?

You who are led by the Spirit, you who are spiritual people, you who are people who have got the word of God in you and the restorative nature in you are supposed to go and restore that person gently.

Restore them gently.

Not harshly, gently.

And watch yourselves.

Or you also might be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens.

And in this way you actually fulfill the laws of Christ.

You'll actually live in that kingdom culture.

Kingdom culture is all about restoration.

And so we need to look at people as not people who have done wrong and people who are doing wrong, but we need to look at people within the culture and say, how am I being a part of the solution?

How am I helping restore gently the people who I come across in my life?

So we live within this different culture.

And we have these two different pressures.

Cancel them, cancel them, or mute them, or restore them.

And I'm so thankful that God's given us an opportunity that even though people should be held accountable, we're not out asking for 50 lashes for people.

We have a job, and our job is to help restore, help encourage, help build back the people.

Jesus had a real issue with the Pharisees of his day.

And his issue was this: that they were the ones who knew the law.

They could recite it front and back, but they were pointing a finger at people without lending a hand.

And Jesus said, you need to lend a hand.

Be a part of the solution.

Be a part of helping people in the situation they're in.

And because the way that you judge, or the way you judge, you will be judged.

And the way you extend mercy, mercy will be extended to you.

And that's the warning that we read.

James chapter 2, verse 12-13 says this speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.

James 2:12–13

Because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.

Mercy, in fact, triumphs over judgment.

The danger of not exhibiting mercy, James says, is that you're going to be judged without mercy.

How many of you want mercy?

I want mercy.

I want to experience this incredible mercy.

Let me give you an illustration of the former US President Barack Obama, what he said in one of his symposiums, and surprisingly, as Canadian, we're talking about a former president, but let me share this with you.

He quoted it in the New York Times.

He said, the idea of purity, and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly.

In other words, be careful.

The world is messy, there are ambiguities.

People who do real good stuff have flaws.

People who are fighting may love their kids and share certain things with you.

In other words, you need to be careful.

And that's a warning to us all.

Be careful not to just judge, not to demand blood, not to demand a cancellation.

But the kingdom culture says, how do I look at ways to restore?

How do I look for ways to recover people?

How do I look for ways to rescue someone who may be flailing?

How do we look for ways to redeem and win our brother?

So the church may have a blind spot.

And we need to be careful that we don't enter into this world culture, but we continue to operate in kingdom culture.

We need to be addressing all issues that we face, the kingdom way, the Jesus way.

And the kingdom way, I believe, is the best for society.

It's best for families, it's best for business, it's best for society in general.

How can we approach our community with the kingdom way?

Imagine your home.

If people were forgiving and gave second chances and believed the best about each other and encouraged one another towards goodness, and look for ways to redeem relationships and work together in unity.

How blessed that would be.

If you're a believer today, we we believe that we ourselves can't even fix ourselves versus fix someone else.

It was this whole idea of having a telephone pole in your own eye and telling someone else they had a speck in theirs that we needed to rely on the atonement that came from Jesus.

And it's through his atonement that we received our own righteousness.

And so we don't look to point out the sin in another.

We look to ourselves and we say, Lord, help us to be the part of the solution.

Lastly, Canaan culture is about the individual.

It recognizes the individual.

It doesn't recognize the mob, it recognizes the individual.

And it deals with things privately, individually.

And the culture that we're in is tends to take things public.

And it's an easy thing to do.

Kingdom culture says, hey, go to them one-on-one.

Go to people one-on-one.

And the culture that we're in right now says, shout it from the rooftops, paint it in the sky, go ahead, put it, put it on social media, go ahead and blast your email out there, text everyone you know.

Go ahead and do it, live like that.

But the kingdom way is a different way.

Jesus demonstrated this in so many scenarios.

If you go through the scripture, you find he met with Nicodemus.

He actually accommodated Nicodemus, meeting him in the middle of the night, meeting him in the dark, meeting him one-on-one.

A leader of the Jewish people who had real questions and was ashamed to meet with Jesus in broad daylight, met with him at night to ask those questions.

Jesus met with them one-on-one.

We look at the scripture where it says, if you've got a challenge with your brother, go ahead and meet with them, find them, and discuss it with them one-on-one.

If someone has an issue with you, go ahead, lay down your offering and go and find them first before you give an offering and recover that relationship.

Deal with that relationship one-on-one.

Deal with it privately.

I love that Jesus, with the woman who was caught in adultery, he didn't publicly do what the legalists were doing, dragging her out into public, wanting to stone her.

Jesus waited until the very end when he was one-on-one and he dealt with that inner issue of her heart and he addressed it.

One-on-one, we need to address these issues.

And judgment is not to be taken lightly.

It's the Lord's position to judge.

We demonstrate as much as we can.

We look for means, we look for ways to show mercy.

His mercy triumphs over justice.

Grace is an invitation to people to come in, and then they see the truth, and they see the truth actually sets them free.

But grace becomes the invitation, and mercy becomes that invitation.

We don't go about looking for judgment.

We don't go about looking for ways to put each other down.

We look for ways to lift each other up.

And if this is my heart for the church today, and I don't want to see the or read about it in different scenarios or in different uh on different social posts or people are putting other people down, I want to see the church coming together.

And even if we have to just avoid those conversations and allow personal liberties to take place, allow people to walk with God and listen to God and listen to the Holy Spirit and do what they believe the Holy Spirit's telling them and then walk together.

If we can walk like that, then we can walk, I believe, the kingdom way.

Because we know that we live in a fallen world.

We know that we live as fallen people, we know that people are going to make mistakes, and we're going to help one another to choose rightly and to choose properly.

So how do we move forward?

Number one, conversations need to continue.

We need to keep having conversations.

And we can't just bury our head in the sand and say, you know, the world is going to be the same as it always has been.

The fact is the world is changing and we need to approach it from a different perspective.

And we don't have to adopt the world, but we should learn to adapt to the world.

And not everything that the world's bringing us is good and positive for our soul and for our spirit.

Social media can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse.

And so we need to know that limitation and know that place where we can where we have to say no.

And for me, that means having that conversation with people in my life who I trust, people in my life who can sharpen me, like iron sharpens iron and sharpen me.

I believe we need to have that through our small groups and through our connect groups and keep those conversations alive.

And we need to also do things, live differently.

And when I say live differently, I mean live differently from the world, live differently from the culture that we're living in.

And we need to be the type of people who announce every day in every situation, and I just think we should bring the bracelet back, what would Jesus do?

What would Jesus do?

And ask that question.

And based on what we know of his lifestyle and his teachings and the scripture, we should have a pretty good understanding, especially with the voice of the Holy Spirit counseling and leading us, guiding us, that we can live and do what's right.

It's not easy, it requires discipline, but it's important that we live the God culture way.

We live the kingdom culture way.

Living in His kingdom.

It's not about call-out culture, cancel culture, progressive culture, woke culture.

It's not about all the cultures that the world is trying to impose on us.

It doesn't matter about Canadian culture, American culture, liberal culture, conservative culture.

It's about the kingdom culture.

The kingdom culture is what matters for us.

We live under his authority.

We live with restoration in our hearts.

And we we live with the um we live with an individualistic approach to people, realizing that people do matter, that Jesus is first, that Jesus is first, but people matter to him.

So if you've been listening today, and you're saying this is a a message for me, I appreciate that response.

I appreciate it.

I'm just gonna pray with you.

And I'm gonna pray with those of you who have been perhaps even struggling with this tension that you're living in.

I'm just gonna pray for the peace of God to come and rule and rest and reign in our hearts.

So if you would bow your heads with me, it's like we enter into God's presence at this time of prayer and allow him to minister to your heart today.

Father, we thank you that your name is holy.

We thank you that you are the highest, the highest king, you're the king of kings, you're the lord of lords, and we thank you that in the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess the lordship of who he is.

And we announce today that uh we are not in the position to pass judgment, we are not in the position to live our own way, but we live under the authority of a new kingdom, and we live in this kingdom space.

And we ask today, Lord, for you to give us the eyes to see and the heart to believe and perceive what you are doing so that we can move our faith forward.

We say today, Father, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on this earth.

Lord, I'm excited for heaven to come to earth, for heaven to be established on earth today, in our city, in our homes, in our families, Father, we ask for your presence to be alive and rule and reign in our midst.

Wherever we go, wherever we step, we bring you with us and we carry you with us.

Carry this kingdom culture with us.

We ask, Lord, if there's any adjustments to be made, would you make them in our own hearts?

Would you bring them to light?

Would you shine your light into our hearts and our lives?

Expose any darkness, expose any error, Lord, so that we can walk with you.

And Father, for those who've never received Christ today, I just pray for each one who may be seeking you and look and pursuing you.

And they're just getting that sense that there is that hole in the heart, and only you can fill it.

And you're drawing them close through your love as you want to become faithful to them, to forgive them of their sin and heal their wrongs, and set them on a new path and a new journey with you.

Pray for them today.

And if that's you, I've written a scripture on the bottom of the screen here.

Just pray this along with me.

Father, thank you for sending your son Jesus for paying for my sin.

I realize today that I need you and I can't live my life without you.

Forgive me for going my own way.

Forgive me for my sin.

Today I change my direction and repent and give my life to you.

I invite you, Jesus, to be the Lord of my life.

And I believe, Jesus, you are the Son of God.

And you were buried, you rose again to give me that new life.

So I trust you in your name.

Amen.

God bless you.

If you made any decision in any way, shape, form, please communicate with us, reach out to us.

I just want to say we care for you, we love you, and we want to celebrate with you.

If you made that choice today for the first time, let us know.

God bless you today.