In this video blog, Pastor Bill Johnson shares his revelation on the Kingdom of God. Anytime we leave the subject of family, we’ve left the subject of Kingdom. Family includes and celebrates everyone; this is the nature of the Kingdom we are part of.
hallelujah king forever
[Music]
we thank you for the cross
a number of years ago i saw something
that seemed to elude me for
a lifetime and that was that whenever
god talked about the kingdom of god he
was talking about family
the lord’s prayer what we call the
lord’s prayer is really the disciples
prayer
says our father who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name it ends with
for thine is the kingdom our father has
a kingdom
anytime we leave the subject of family
we’ve left the subject of kingdom
because the kingdom of god
is a relational community it’s a group
of people
that learn to live under the dominion of
god
and inside this kingdom is bigger than
the outside which sounds contradictory
but you have to remember this kingdom is
the kingdom where
you live by dying you receive by giving
you’re exalted by going low and in the
same way there’s more room inside than
there is outside
and when we understand that this is a
family
of believers it’s a family component
then we we
we are able to much more resist the
temptation to make it a corporation
church is a business
church as an institution a corporation
is so much bigger than that it’s family
and the people in this tribe in this
family
deserve to be treated as sons daughters
as mothers fathers
and in that context there’s the honor
where everyone gets to succeed everyone
gets to thrive
when it’s an institution the opposite
happens the powerful
become more powerful the weak become
weaker
and that’s just not the heart of god the
heart of god is for
every single person to be celebrated to
be valued to be empowered to be enabled
to be loved to be cared for to be
honored
to be recognized for who they are what
god’s doing in them
that’s what a family does in a family
you don’t have one child sitting off in
the room while everyone enjoys
christmas you spend that time together
because that’s what family does
family includes everyone family
celebrates everyone
and that’s really the nature of this
kingdom this kingdom is a kingdom of
honor
and in the culture of honor you
celebrate who a person is
without stumbling over who they’re not
and just like
a natural family every person in the
house is celebrated
so it must be in the kingdom of god so
it must be in church life
that we celebrate and honor the
diversity that god gives us
in such a wide variety of people and
this is our privilege the kingdom of god
is a family
[Music]
hallelujah
[Music]
we thank you for the cross