Welcome to the Season of Easter. The fifty days between Easter morning and Pentecost are a continuing call to believers to keep rejoicing in the event that is core to our faith – Jesus’ resurrection. To miss the significance of Christ’s resurrection is to miss the point, which is what Paul was trying to say to the Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
But, friends, Christ is raised from the dead – He is alive! He defeated death! And our faith, our lives as His witnesses are not in vain.
However. Sometimes we are vain. So often we live from the root of what King James would call ‘vainglory’ – what the NIV describes as ‘selfish ambition’ (Philippians 2:3). Jesus’ life and death represent the polar opposite, and He’s called us to love others. To serve as He has served. To die to self – just as He did – so that we can live not from our agendas but His.
Imposing Agendas
One of the reasons I love watching The Chosen is because of the way it brings to life the subtleties of Scripture. When each of the Gospel writers tell us that the disciples ‘don’t understand’ what Jesus says or does, we might be confused, assuming that since they’re right there with Jesus they should get it. Or we might be tracking with them, admitting to ourselves that we don’t understand either.
Because The Chosen has living, breathing humans playing the roles of the disciples that we can only, usually, read about, we’re allowed to see some possibilities for their inability to grasp Jesus’ actual agenda, which is ushering in God’s Kingdom and doing His Father’s will (Luke 17:20-21; John 6:38). For each disciple there are some individual motivations and assumptions that blind them to the bigger purpose of Christ’s coming. But for all of them, they miss the point because they assume He has come to conquer the Romans, to restore their kingdom (Acts 1:6).
As a result, when Jesus uses metaphors to describe the kingdom He is bringing into the world, the disciples are often left scratching their heads. They’ll leave these conversations confused because the parables don’t fit their narrative of a conquering king. They leave thinking, a warrior king wouldn’t care about new wine or tiny seeds or the way yeast works in dough (Luke 5:37-39; Matthew 13:31-33). They believe the Messiah will raise an army, ride in with force and power, defeat the Romans, and install Himself on the throne – and Israel with Him.
The Chosen pulls these assumptions into the disciples’ dialogues consistently enough to help us, who live on this side of the cross, understand the agenda they were trying to impose on Jesus. We get to see what an actual ‘Zealot’ was and how he would have been trained for insurrection and revolution. We get to see how the ‘Sons of Thunder’ are so eager to use force and power to defeat known ‘enemies’ (ie: the Samaritans, Luke 9:51-55). We get to better understand why the disciples misunderstood Jesus’ teachings so often – because their agenda was so different from His.
Beyond parables, understanding the dichotomy between what Jesus was about and what the disciples assumed He’d come for helps us grasp why they acted the way they did. For instance, those same brothers, James and John – the ‘Sons of Thunder’, asked Jesus to elevate them in His kingdom so that when He sat upon His throne, they would sit on either side of Him – in seats of dignity and authority (Mark 10:35-37). They’re imagining a battle and victory and honor – in that order. Jesus, however, knows this about them and responds to their request, “You don’t know what you’re asking” (v.38). Because they didn’t. Not yet.
Then there was the time that Peter pulled Jesus aside to rebuke Him!?! The context of this conversation was Jesus letting the Twelve know that He would be arrested, beaten, and put to death, and Peter wasn’t having it (Mark 8:31-32). His version of Messiah wouldn’t come to die but to cause the death of all their enemies!1 It’s why Jesus told Peter, “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concern” (v.33). Peter saw Messiah through a human’s eyes and with a human’s ideals – he didn’t grasp the truth about Jesus. Not yet.
Even though we are in a better position to read these parables through the lens of Christ’s actual agenda, we often come to Jesus in the same manner as the Twelve. We bring our little kingdoms – our issues, problems, assumptions, ideas, and plans – into our relationship with Jesus. We assume He wants exactly what we do.
We, too, have been guilty of imposing our agendas on Jesus.
God’s Kingdom
JD Walt offers an extremely helpful graphic to help us wrap our minds around just what Jesus set out to do when He came to earth and how that mission affects us today. I present to you, “Time According to the Bible:”3
It’s been excessively helpful for me to think about God’s view of time. Everything and everyone before Jesus’ resurrection experienced earth with no ‘Kingdom of God’ (at all) while everything after His Second Coming will be nothing but ‘Kingdom of God.’ We can visually see why the disciples and so many others in the first century balked at Jesus’ teachings – He was opening the door to God’s Kingdom on earth. And that changes things. Some describe Jesus’ work as having turned the world upside-down.
This diagram also helps us understand where we land on God’s timeline. First, we’ve had a lot more earthly time to process what Jesus said and did than His first followers. Second, we recognize why we so often feel like we live in tension – that now-and-not-yet tension of God’s Kingdom here now-but-not-fully and Jesus’ ultimate reign. Third, we get reminded of what’s to come! And, it’s glorious!
Throughout this series, we will lean heavily into this idea of living for the Kingdom of God – mainly because it’s what Jesus came for. I challenge you to skim the four Gospels and look for the phrases “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven.”* You’ll find well over one hundred of them! Just for number-comparison’s sake, the Greek word for “salvation” only occurs in the four Gospels six times – spoken only twice by Jesus (Luke 19:9, John 4:22). That’s not to say salvation is not integral to coming into Jesus’ kingdom; it’s just not the only thing Jesus came for.
He actually came to usher in the Kingdom of God – the “thy kingdom come” of renown.
And when we begin to live out our faith with that understanding, we will begin to change – just as the disciples did. Once they got on Jesus’ agenda, their own agendas vanished. The Book of Acts demonstrates just how fully the disciples got on board Jesus’ mission. We’re meant to do the same!
Hidden Agendas
However, too often we function out of motivations that are far from pure and not actually aligned with Jesus.
When I began 2024 with a post telling ‘my story,’ I admitted how I began this writing journey with lofty ideas of success as the world defines it. Something in me craved the accolades. Something in me believed I’d feel better when others could see me do well. So, even though it was decades ago that I first felt the urge to write, God didn’t release me to do so until He and I had some time to deal with my deeply rooted insecurities, assumptions, and pride.
But not all motives are so obvious. Often our agendas are hidden – even to ourselves. Too often we walk through the world with ulterior motives, secretly trying to achieve or cause a particular thing. In addition to the desire to be significant (my story, along with the Sons of Thunder), author, David A. Smith, uncovers three additional ‘hidden agendas’ that can lurk in our hearts and motivate our actions: the desire to have certainty; the desire to have peace, safety, and security; and the desire for our own fulfilment.2
JD Walt describes our deep desires of the heart, these selfish motivations, as the gravitational pulls of self.4 Think of the planets in our galaxy and how the sun’s gravity is so strong that all of them are drawn-in to orbit around it. When we move through life living from our egos, from our inner fears or pride or insecurities or aspirations, we’re spinning in our own orbits, trying to pull others into it, as well.
With that in mind, we can look at Paul’s exhortation in the letter to the Philippians with better understanding:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Philippians 2:3-4 NIV
Paul charges the Church with this call because he knows us well. He knows how easily life becomes about ‘me’ instead of ‘us’ – how easily our Christian walk can get stuck on ‘I’ instead of ‘God’. It’s why Jesus tells us to seek the kingdom of God first (Matthew 6:33). It’s why Paul carries Jesus’ message out even further, naming what it is in us that keeps us from being about the kingdom, about God, and about the work He’s called us to do: selfish ambition and vain conceit.
When we spin in the gravity of self, we’re caught in the pull of our own agendas.4
Here’s the bottom line: we seek to become more like Jesus. And that means we need to think like Him, align our hearts and minds with Him, and get on His agenda. We want to leap out of our personal gravitational pulls and into God’s.
And as we start orbiting around Him, instead of ourselves, we’ll realize God is already doing the upside-down work that Christ began. And we get to become not only His disciples but His willing agents. We are invited to join in His work. We get to be His witnesses in the world (Acts 1:8).
Like the original Twelve, when we draw near to Jesus – seeking the Kingdom first, entering His orbit – we’ll uncover the agendas we have hidden within us. As we name them and lay them down, our eyes will open wide with wonder as we see how much bigger God’s agenda is than ours ever was.
Father God, we marvel at the way You have chosen to usher your kingdom into the world. You’ve blessed us with this in-between time to give us space to discover You, your love, and your ways. In your mercy, You have given us Jesus as the means for finding You and your kingdom. By your grace, You invite us to join in the work You are already doing! Lord Jesus, the more we read about You in Scripture, the more we wonder at the way You moved among people, teaching and demonstrating what it looks like to be in the Kingdom of God. We confess that we see ourselves in your original disciples, acknowledging that we, too, bring our own agendas into our relationship with You. Holy Spirit, we ask for your help to lay down what we think is best, what we believe God should do – help us to step out of our little kingdoms and into God’s big one. We ask that You would consistently remind us of all that Jesus has been teaching us so that our hearts and minds remain aligned with His. And, we ask that You would help us trade all our personal agendas for the One of Christ. Fill us in such a way that we can move into the world, just as the disciples did, on mission for the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ name, amen.
(Inspired by Luke 17:20-21; JD Walt’s Venn Diagram:3 John 14:6-12,26; 1 Corinthians 1:9; Acts 1:6,8; 1 Peter 2:21; Romans 12:2; Philippians 2:3-4)
NOTE: This series in not an official study of Philippians, but we will be pulling from it regularly.
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- *While you’re skimming the Gospels, notice where you find the heaviest concentration of Jesus talking about the “Kingdom of God.” (Spoiler: Yes, parables. More on that next week!)
- 1 – This article is about Israel’s ‘version’ of Messiah in the days of Jesus’ first coming, versus reality
- 2 – Admittedly, I have not read this book, but I was intrigued by his four specific ‘agendas’ enough to mention them here. They fit well with all I’ve been learning about the Enneagram — more later!
- 3 – JD Walt has a video on Facebook, demonstrating the Time of the Bible Venn Diagram.
- 4 – Taken from JD Walt’s “How to Pray Like Jesus” course on Seedbed. It was a live class that they recorded in three sessions. It looks like you can still purchase it and watch the recordings. This post was hugely inspired by it.
- 5 — Anna Grace Legband in the “Wake Up Call,” 2/8/24
- We have a new playlist!! “Hidden Agendas” is packed full of songs that help us do one of three things: confess our ‘vainglory’, celebrate Jesus and His life and His work, and call on the Kingdom of God. Aren’t our lives with Christ such a mix of all three? The opening song, “Simple Kingdom,” is so worshipful while pouring out truths of God and His kingdom over us. So good!
- This Wednesday, I’ll post the first “Teacup Video” of our new series where I’ll pick up on a theme from each blog post to elaborate on. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page and Instagram — and…a brand new YouTube ‘channel’!
- The April edition of our The Abiding Life newsletter hit inboxes last week. If you didn’t get yours, email me. Be sure to subscribe for future issues here!
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. For the next eight weeks we will put into practice the rhythm of repentance.
I suspect that I see repentance as the same thing as confession — and maybe there’s an aspect of them that is the same. But as I listen to the testimonies that have been coming out of places like Asbury where the Holy Spirit broke-in for an outpouring, I hear people like Anna Grace Legband say, “Repentance is a response to seeing the beauty, goodness, and holiness of God. We don’t initiate it. It makes sense that the command to repent follows the command to seek and call upon God. As he is found, we find that we have to change.”5 We don’t initiate it. By our seeking of God, He initiates repentance. Then we respond.
- So, this week, let’s intentionally seek God. Let’s seek His kingdom first. And as we get into His presence, may we give His Spirit space to do a work in us. May we respond with repentance — yes naming and confessing whatever ideas or agendas or habits or addictions we have. But then taking a step toward actually laying them down.
- Another rhythm that would make sense as we soak ourselves in the truths of God’s kingdom is to allow ourselves to mature from perpetual discipleship into the place where we become God’s witnesses (Acts 1:8).4 Let’s trust God enough to share our stories, to share His.
- And while it’s not a spiritual practice or rhythm, I invite you to share this site. It’s my most sincere hope that what we explore here together will encourage others to step more fully and deeply in their walks with Christ.
Featured Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Sahand Babali on Unsplash.
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