23.3 The Pattern of the New
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I have established that the proof of Jesus faithful and true, casting down every accusation claiming that God’s word is a lie, is you and me loving one another through all the offenses and joys of normal human life together. The proof of God is Christ Community.
Then, I concluded the last lesson with this thought: “Christian Community is the source out from which the knowledge of God flows, first to all who believe in Jesus at some level, and then to all creation. By our life together, an entire universe of LIFE is formed.” – The one Seed has become many just like itself. Yet now, each local Community of Christ is as that same One Seed among many, that is, many Communities of Christ across the earth.
Many Communities. It is this second definition of “many seeds,” many Communities of Christ, that is the source of an ecosystem of life arising upon the earth and to all the cosmos. The local Church is the Seed, the pattern, the DNA of the universe of LIFE, together with many other local Churches of humans as they are, loving one another.
And loving one another requires the Mercy Seat forever, because God does not ever turn us into “something else.” The perfection of God is not the demand for outward performance coming from the serpent. The perfection of God often looks like a complete mess. By the Mercy Seat we are forever giving space to one another.
A Description of the Mercy Seat. Here is a description of you and me as the Mercy Seat that is God forever. And be kind with one another, tender-hearted, forgiving [giving favor to] each other, in exactly the same way that God inside of Christ gives favor freely to you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children {seeds inside the fruit of Christ} and walk inside of love, in just the same way that Christ also loved us and gave Himself to us for our sakes, an offering and a sacrifice to God, into a sweet-smelling aroma (Ephesians 4:32-5:2 – JSV).
In this lesson, now, I want to look at some of the practical ways in which a single Community of Christ is the pattern, the DNA, by which other humans know how to know God together.
Come and See. First, by simply looking up the Greek words of “the great commission,” we discover that Jesus did NOT say “Go and tell.” But He did say, “Come and see [Me where I am]” (John 1:39). The word is not “Go,” it is “having gone through.” And this is why the ten ruling verses must rule. Having gone through what? Having gone through the veil into the Holiest, we inside of God and God inside of us (Hebrews 10). Yet that is the supposed “Go and tell,” something God did not actually say. And Jesus did not say, “Make disciples”; He said, “Having gone through, disciple all.” The difference is the difference between the two trees, knowing personally as life or “knowing about.”
Refuge AND Outlook. Yet in seeing how the world “Comes to see Jesus as He is in us together,” we want to remain inside the pattern of Refuge and Outlook. Living together inside of Jesus and Jesus living inside of us together is the Refuge. How we see all is the Outlook.
The deliverance, then, is “Come and see,” as Jesus said.
In Lesson 22.1 A Glorious Liberty, I said that you cannot give what you do not have. And you cannot give in such a way that you lose what you have. All Christian Communities, then, have two modes. The inward mode is family, and the outward mode is hospitality. Then, “places in-between” are where these two modes connect.
Patterns of Home. So how, then, is a single Christian Community the pattern out from which the Kingdom of God, Father just being Himself, proceeds into the ordering of all denizens inside this heaven/earth first, and then out to all the cosmos, in the increase of that Kingdom of Life forever?
I’m glad you asked. It’s called – Patterns of Wholeness, Patterns of Home, Patterns of Father at Home.
These same patterns of home merged together with the ten most important verses and lived out in full meaning and expression by a small assembly of humans become the same DNA by which the world and the universe become the ecosystem of God.
The Age of Tabernacles. God is utterly practical, however, and there is no “rapture,” ever. Everything of God comes into the knowledge of each one only through their faith, and that, step by step, and always inside of TODAY! And thus, in this lesson, we are speaking of the Age of Tabernacles, as the ecosystem flowing out from the tree of life becomes the norm on this planet inside the present limitation.
We are referring back, then, to Symmorphy III: Kingdom, Session 19: The Tabernacles Church. Read through that again before continuing into the next session. Although we will possess immortal bodies among the peoples, that means nothing different, for we walk in all confidence now that we ARE all that Christ is and means.
Hospitality. Here is a pattern of four words that give a context for “the pattern of the new”: Visit – Visitor – Hospitality – Host.
| Visit To come to see for friendship, business, or curiosity. Act of visiting for business, friendship, ceremony – Act of coming to view or inspect. |
Hospitality Act, practice, or spirit of one who is hospitable: kind and generous reception and entertainment of strangers and guests. |
Action and Place |
| Visitor One who makes a visit. One who comes to see a person or place for friendship, business, curiosity, or pleasure. |
Host One who receives or entertains another; one from whom another receives food, lodging, or entertainment. |
Person (Drawn from Webster’s 1926 Dictionary) |
| Coming to See | Receiving with Purpose |
The Greek words for hospitality are philoxenos (adj) and philoxenia (noun) – brotherly love towards strangers. Given to hospitality (Romans 12:14).
Come and Drink. The operative verse, of course, is the title and topic of the last content session of this course. And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).
Come and drink.
Yet we are also using the metaphor of the seed, that the community of hospitality is the pattern out from which all creation is ordered by Father being Himself – the Kingdom. Yet the one thing absent in the ordering of the Kingdom is force of any kind or at any level. Freely you have received, freely give (Jesus).
Example and Spirit. The absence of force means that hospitality alone will win the day. “Whoever desires.” Jesus cannot restore creation to the Father until He has won the heart desire of every single individual in the creation.
Being the seed of the Kingdom, a pattern of wholeness begins by example, but it is much more than example alone. Here is an operative line: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children {seeds inside the fruit of Christ}. Yet we know that it must be God in us, not us “trying to be like God.” And thus the seed is also a life-giving power.
In the earth, the seed is an example; in the heavens, that same seed is a life-giving Spirit.
Suspicion vs Trust. In the earth, the Community of Christ operates at the visible level, something a visitor can “see.” But in the heavens that same Community is operating at a life-power level, opening realms of Spirit to the visitor that they have never known.
And all of this inside the simple human joy of hospitality.
The first and largest issue of any visitor to a Christ Community would likely be suspicion versus trust. To Suspect: To imagine or be apprehensive of something wrong or hurtful; to have doubts; to assume ulterior motives. To Trust: To place confidence in; to rely on; to give credit to, to believe; to hope or expect confidently; to invest; to allow without fear or misgiving. (Drawn from Webster’s 1926 Dictionary)
The Key of Transformation. Yet against suspicion and mistrust is arrayed Father. Father covers all for all; Father hopes all for all; Father believes all for all; Father carries all for all. Thus “life laid-down” is what releases the life-force that is inside the seed of Christ Community into transforming all.
Here is what we are concluding. The KEY to transforming the universe is to treat each individual person coming our way with the utmost respect and honor, to regard each one, without consideration of any outward appearance, as superior to ourselves. This one, regardless of outward appearance, is as King Jesus to us.
Disrespect vs. Respect. Now, I have heard authority figures in differing arenas, including anointed apostolic ministries, make a statement to “lesser ones,” whether to new ones in the fellowship, to new employees on the job, or to children in the classroom. “You have to earn our respect.”
I never understood that statement; it made no sense to me. But since I always respected people, especially those moving freely in the power of God, I just assumed it must be so. Yet, here is what those words really mean: “I will disrespect you until you have sufficiently appeased my sense of superiority.”
My students always respected me because I always respected them first, even to ask forgiveness when I was mistaken.
Let It Not Be So. It shall not be so among you. – But let him who would be “great” in the Kingdom become the servant of all (Jesus).
Who would trust an arrogant Christ who sees Himself as superior; who would willingly come to a God who tortures forever those who do not meet His unreal “expectations.” Yet this is the face Christianity has been to the world. How much of human awfulness in our world today is the end result of the gospel of the serpent promoted by Christians? People imagine “theocracy” to be the worst form of government, a cover for torture and abuse for the worst reason, for “salvation someday.”
This innate “suspicion,” then, will be found in every visitor, a suspicion that can be answered only by the best kind of respect, a respect that is willing to be wrong.
Fragrance. Visitors will come and see for every reason under the sun: for business, for entertainment, for education, for recreation, for curiosity, even for devious means. Yet every individual visitor carries deep inside an innate sense of shame.
And the word that best describes what they will obtain from their visit is “aroma” or “fragrance,” a lingering sense of the smell of glory, that is of Christ as them, a taste of goodness and joy they have never known. God… through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ… the aroma of life leading to life (2 Corinthians 2:14-16 – reduced).
Pretending vs. Being Real. Second to the contest between suspicion versus trust is the interplay of pretending versus being real. Being real isn’t about “not making mistakes.” Humans make mistakes. Being real is about “Please forgive me, I was wrong.”
In my first semester teaching in a public college, the “adult” students were acting quite childish. I was tired and stressed out. I “corrected” them in a disrespectful manner. One of the young women registered a complaint with the appropriate college authority. I am terrified of two things: angry young women and the people who sign my check. I waited a couple of class times, allowing peace to come, then I apologized and asked for forgiveness. I learned later from that same young woman that my being real won their deep respect.
Real Power. We do not ask forgiveness because we are “low”; we ask forgiveness because we are just like God, seeing all others as better than ourselves. When visitors come to see, for whatever reason, they see something they did not know existed. They see people being real towards one another.
You see, we have always thought of the “water of life” as something magical, something of great power. The water of life that transforms the universe is magical and of great power – little acts of kindness and simple words of encouragement, asking forgiveness and being real towards one another – the POWER of God released!
Kindness and Encouragement. When I was twenty, living at Graham River Farm, where most of my days were spent reeling from autistic agony and fears, I walked one day under such a cloud into the welding shop. One man, an elder, stood at the work counter with his back to me. When I walked up to the counter and he had noticed me, he said to me, without even turning to look, “Daniel, I’m glad you’re here; you are such a blessing to me.”
The reverberations of life flowing out from that one word continue as uplifting energeia inside of me to this day, forty years later. I remember that moment and those simple words.
I’m telling you, this is God-Power. KINDNESS and ENCOURAGEMENT.
As Jesus to Us. You see, we can talk all day long about “models of government” or “the ordering of society” or “principles of living.” None of that could ever be the Seed out from which a universe of life springs.
The Seed that births the Kingdom, the tree of Life out from which rivers of living water flow, IS little acts of kindness and simple words of encouragement. Hospitality coming out from a limitless generosity. – Real joy that you have honored us with your visit. – Undiminished respect for your personal likes and dislikes.
Kindness and encouragement, deeds and words, is the pattern of the New Creation, out from which all that is God flows. – You are as Jesus to me.
Release into Goodness. Yet there is also another aspect to this source of all things new, one hurting heart at a time. And that is to release each one into the limitless goodness of a God whose intentions are towards the uplifting of each individual person.
This is why I always felt comfortable at Lakewood Church. In almost every service, Joel Osteen set our view on the limitless goodness of God, and in every service, he set all free of himself. Each time it was with the simplest of words. Yet those words contained the release of all that is the Kingdom.
Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. – Not by persuasion nor by force, but by Oour gentle and holy Spirit.
Patterns of Father at Home. A binary intertwining of kindness and encouragement is the heart of the Seed, yes, but once that Seed has been planted in the heart of each individual visitor, then all the other patterns they will see with their eyes come into play.
Patterns of Wholeness. Patterns of Home. Patterns of Father at Home.
We could go through each one of the patterns again and show how all created things, from trees to dolphins to humans to archangels, to the highest heaven, will come to learn of Christ through us. Yet we have already laid out those patterns. Here we are simply placing these same patterns of home expressed through our life together as the true ministry of Christ, the pattern for a universe of Life.