Last Sunday, I had the chance to lead the Bible portion of at Firestarters this last Sunday evening. Firestarters is a house church at Mount Hermon, in the Santa Cruz network of house churches, Gathering by the Bay.
I shared from John 18: 36 & 37, Jesus before Pilate, leading up to His crucifixion. Even as Jesus is on trial He is revealing truth about His kingdom, and truth about Himself. I made a few other points.
First, He firmly reminds us that His Kingdom is not of this world, if it was, His servant would be fighting for Him, even then. This echos His prior teaching that His kingdom isn’t found here or there, but it resides in each one of us (Luke 17: 21). Yet, the lack of the strength of men and women, the lack of fight, in now way made Jesus powerless.
The Kingdom inside of Him was so present and powerful that when He was arrested, the band of men to arrest Him fell back when He stepped forward stating He was the one they were looking for.
Again, when Jesus confronted the crowd that wanted to stone the adulteress, inside of confronting them with an equally larger group to rescue her, He confronted them from inside the Kingdom He carried, with grace, with wisdom and with authority, and he drove away the crowd without any words.
And the reminder for us is that we carry the same kingdom, and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We need to remember that as we interact with the world, we shouldn’t start from the strength of women or men, the store of riches, or the wisdom of this world. We start with the Kingdom in us, and all that come from our heavenly Father.
It was a great time of discussion as well, and the prayer time after the teaching was amazing, as it always is at Firestarters.
Each Saturday I also have the pleasure of leading the men’s morning coffee Bible study and prayer with men from Firestarters.
