Is the church over, or does God still have big plans for you and for me? At a game-changing encounter in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus gives his disciples the KEYS to moving forward. Have we appropriated those keys? Are we using them properly? How does Jesus move us FORWARD in 21st Century America?
If you are the discussion leader in your group, have everyone open this page on their mobile device (except for David Felker) and take turns reading and asking questions.
Sunday was the final message in this series. Do you remember what we started off saying about our citizenship?
Philippians 3:20-21
But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
Some have interpreted that this means that we are to disengage with this world. But, in that game-changing encounter at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus clearly gave us something…
Matthew 16:18-19
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
On Sunday, I described this passing of the keys as us inheriting his mission.
Jesus told a parable about inheritance that might shed a little more light on the subject:
Matthew 21:28-31
A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go.
“Which of the two obeyed his father?”
So, which is it? Which son are we?
We talked about going out as either a “Saul,” or a “Paul.” What do these mean?
Paul passed on his keys by bringing along Timothy. Is it possible that your Timothy hasn’t been harvested from the field yet? Shouldn’t we be out there, working, bringing people into the Kingdom?
What does this look like?