Episode 1594: Rejoice Forever in Creation

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,594 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Catherine Llewellyn: I'm Catherine Llewellyn. I invite you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to tune into your real calling and tune out all the noise is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer,

Scott Maderer: but instead leading in and recognizing. That in the Kingdom of God, we'll all be heard. We'll all be lifted up, [00:01:00] and those words, instead of dividing us and separating us, will bring us together in community and togetherness and peace and love. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in your. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Isaiah chapter 65, verses 17 through 25. I then talk about how Advent is about what is happening and what is coming. And I also share how there will [00:02:00] be joy in community in the coming kingdom. Isaiah 65, 17 through 25 says, for I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.

The former thing shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy in its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people. No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it. An infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered a cursive. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit they shall not plant. And another eat for like the days of a tree shall the days [00:03:00] of my people be and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be offspring, blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well.

Before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear the wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like an ox, but the serpent, its food shall be dust. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountains says the Lord, as church people. We often live on an island.

We focus on our congregation and our church, those people that surround us. And even if you're not a church person, we often focus strictly on the groups to which we belong. The identities which we call to and say that we have. We focus insularly on our own beliefs and those that believe like us. [00:04:00] And it's often easy to forget that there is a Capital C Church or a capital C community out there that we are part of as well.

There's this group that is out there that is made up of their humans, of people around us, and we often just touch those people at a very surface level. We use words and talk to simply fill the silence around us, or to use it as sort of social lubrication. How are things with you? Great things are just great.

We really just exist in almost a self-protection mode and create distance between ourselves and others. Not because we don't like others, but because we're protecting ourselves or fearful of what would happen if we opened up. And we're really honest. What would happen if we said, [00:05:00] when someone said, how are things right now things just aren't so great for me.

What would we hear if we actually just listened? And even when someone says, great things are just great, if we looked at their eyes and their body language and their tone, and we recognize that no, maybe things aren't. Just great. Maybe we should ask more questions. Maybe we should lean in a little more.

Maybe we should listen with a little bit more heart. Maybe we should use language, not to choose sides, but rather to build community. We should stop using words as weapons to degrade and call names instead of looking at the word. That creates and gives life and brings people together. That's the landscape that we live in today.

I don't know about [00:06:00] you, but I find that we're using words to create a war torn, cratered surface, a blood strewn landscape of our political discourse. We're looking at violence one against the other, a nation. Torn apart by words of hate and fear. And often we take a breath and we think it's gotta be over.

It's gotta be over. We've gotta get back to just being what we're good at or what we're great at. But instead, we continue to tear at each other and pull each other apart. That's. Part of what's happening during this season of Advent, advent was not just about the anticipation of the [00:07:00] Christmas season, but also an anticipation of the coming of the Kingdom of God, the second coming of Christ, and later advent was co-opted.

By Christmas and began to focus exclusively on the first coming. And obviously there's connections between the two and you can focus on both. But often as we blend them together, we lose something. We begin to ask, why do we pretend it hasn't happened yet during advent? That's been asked around Christmas time.

Why do we play act? Instead of celebrating what's already been done, the birth of Christ, we begin to lose the sense of anticipation. Not just anticipation of the coming of the birth, but anticipation of the return of that. [00:08:00] We think it's already been done. It's already happened. It's already over. We think the story has ended.

And this is where we've ended up. This is what we've got. Maybe there's still some problems to sort out, but we'll just whip it out, we'll get it done. Instead of looking forward to the fulfillment of the promise, we began to focus as a works-based community that feels guilty because everything isn't fixed yet.

Everything isn't taken care of yet. We gather together, we pile on more and more things that haven't been done, more things that are going wrong, more things that we have to fix, heavier burdens, and we trudge away from our encounter with God with a heavy heart. It's as if we met our loving father and God wasn't pleased with us, and so we've gotta be working harder to be worthy of the love that we're dying to [00:09:00] receive instead of looking forward.

We've lost our grip on faith by only looking back, it turns us into the very Pharisees that Jesus complained were adding to the burdens of others without actually lifting a finger. To help that sense of advent, that larger sense was taken because people are hungry for change. And that's what anticipating the coming of the kingdom is about, the recognition that this isn't all that there is.

The world needs to change, that sin leads to brokenness, and it's beyond our power to repair that the consequences of hatred, prejudice, self-centeredness, have gotten beyond our ability to correct. That our way of living has excluded too many, has pushed down and set aside, has run over and used up people and resources and relationships and [00:10:00] cultures, and we need help.

It's gotten so bad that it isn't just some of us that feel it, but all of us feel it and we begin to cry out for change for a savior. But the problem is there's plenty of people that step forward and say, I am your savior. And because we're desperate for change and desperate for conflict to go away, and we want safety and security and peace, we listen to them when they promise to make our lives and our world better.

And often they promise that they say, your life will be better. These other people are to blame. You've gotta blame these enemies. If we get rid of these people, then you'll be fine. It's not your sin that's caused the problem, it's their sin. It can't be our sin that's gotten us here. It has to be someone else.

And that pain that we feel if we just drive out that other person from our [00:11:00] midst, then we'll live in security and comfort, except that's not how the kingdom of God is proclaimed. Instead, anticipating the kingdom is a proclamation that there's only one savior and there's only one source of security and comfort.

When the kingdom comes, those on the margins will be gathered in first. The broken, the grieving, the loss, the different, the outcast, the shamed. They'll be invited to sit at the table with the one who brings the new heaven and the new earth. That's the sign of the proclaimed kingdom, that there will be joy in the people of the kingdom.

There will be delight. Joy, community togetherness, not hate, not division, not laughter, not pushing others out, not saying we are better and you are wor worse, but that joyful [00:12:00] community that looks at each other and glorifies diversity and recognizes that unity does not mean uniformity. The struggles of the poor.

Healthcare, hunger, all of these things will disappear in the kingdom. That's the inclusive kingdom of Christ that we're called to create, not a country based on fear, hatred, scarcity, not abuse of each other, not tearing things down, not pointing out how it's always someone else's fault. But instead, leading in and recognizing that in the kingdom of God, we'll all be heard.

We're all be lifted up. And those words, instead of dividing us and separating us, will bring us together in community and togetherness and peace and love. [00:13:00] Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired.

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Develop your influence and impact the [00:14:00] world.