Florissant Ladies Bible Study
Session 3 - Kingdom of Celebration & Empire of Entertainment-Meaning Invades Meaningless
A fisherman in Florida notice his young neighbor's father wasn't around much, and he didn't have a male role model. So he started taking him fishing. He quickly saw there was a huge need for many children in his area to have this type of mentorship. So he started a program and is teaching thousands of children who have either lost their father or don't have an active father figure, how to fish. He's encouraging, mentoring, and giving them a connection and place to belong.
I. - Don't just look for the helpers, be the helpers
While watching the news, there are lessons we can learn from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, for example, he shares advice from his mother, " When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."
Great advice for young children and even for adults who have to watch scary things on the news, but as followers of Jesus, we look for more than helpers. We are the helpers whom others can look to and see the love of Jesus.
Kristi noted in The Gospel on The Ground that the earliest followers of Jesus set a beautiful example of being helpers when they lived for the kingdom of God rather than fighting against the world empire.
"They sought to bring the kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven. They wanted to create, build, share, bless, encourage, meet the needs, make a positive impact, and make a difference in the darkness of the world of empire. Rather than running from this darkness, they inhabited it and announced the year of the Lord's favor in it, both in word and deed."
----Kristi McLelland, p. 81 of "the gospel on the ground"
We can imagine that the apostles would have been in several of our modern-day inspiring news stories.
There are scary stories in the bible of persecution, imprisonment, martyrdom, shipwrecks, and more. God instructed Luke to fill the book of Acts with so many amazing inspiring stories about the early followers of Jesus.
We read the inspiring story of tremendous generosity, in Acts 2:45, when followers of Jesus sold property and possessions to give to everyone who had needs.
Can you imagine the news headline for Acts 5:12-16? "Peter's Supernatural Shadow." Just like we read in the gospels of crowds gathering to see Jesus, crowds of sick and needy people gathered from towns all around Jerusalem to receive help and healing from Peter and Jesus's followers.
There is the testimony of a kind and generous woman, Tabitha, dying, in Acts 9:36-43, but then Peter prays to God and she opened her eyes and sat up, this is the perfect positive inspiring story to close an intense news broadcast.
There are only a few examples from the beginning of Acts! There are many more!
II. Meaning invades Meaninglessness
Have you often wished the news could be about stories of kindness, generosity, compassion, and love?
Kristi reminds us that it is easy to get frustrated and feel discouraged and angry hearing about all the awful destructive disagreements, and meaningless tragedies that are happening all around the world. If we're not careful, we can become so focused on how against the evil we are that we miss opportunities to demonstrate the beauty of being in the kingdom of God.
"But if you see the world of empire as a space that needs the light you can bring, as an opportunity to usher in the kingdom of celebration and bring meaning to meaninglessness, you will engage and lean in wholeheartedly like the believers we read about in the book of Acts and the early church histories."
------Kristi McLelland, p. 82 of "the gospel on the ground"
Jesus's disciples and his earliest followers, empowered and led by the Holy Spirit, responded to Jesus's teaching when he told them,
Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the father." John 14:12
These followers were doing things they saw Jesus do, and they did even greater, all for the kingdom of God. And because they did these things we know, as faith-filled believers in Jesus, we certainly can do them too!
God has provided amazing examples, through Jesus's first followers, of how to be the helpers and the light to a broken and hurting world. When we see hunger, we need to feed it. When we see pain, we need to offer aid and comfort. When we see loneliness, we need to invite people to join the family of God.
Today We Learned:
* As faithful followers, we can share The Good News of Jesus to a lost and broken world.
* Jesus left many examples for use as a guide to help those in need.
* The early followers of Jesus sought to bring the kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven.
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