T4A Pre-Conference with Tim Chester Session 3

The Together for Adoption conference starts tomorrow, but kicked off today with a pre-conference with Tim Chester. Tim is a church planter with The Crowded House. He is the author of Total Church, A Meal with Jesus and You can Change, three books that should be required reading for every Christian and church leader.

Much of the material came from his book Delighting in the Trinity.In session 3, Tim covered The story of God’s kingdom. In this session, he unpacked what it means to live out the identity of disciple.

Here are some notes:

How do we know God?

• What gives shape to the idea of being a disciple is that God is Lord, King, the Word.
• We know stuff by seeing it in the world around us. God is not like that, we can’t put him in a category or a box.
• If we are to know God, God must make himself known through faith.
• Christians are not people who have searched and found faith, they are people who have been found and given faith.
• God has made himself known by descending from heaven, making himself known through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
• If God is solitary, if he is one God, instead of Trinity, they he cannot be known. In Islam, God is unknowable.
• Because God is Trinitarian, what he reveals is himself.
• “God reveals. God reveals himself through himself. God reveals.” -Karl Barth
• Jesus is the Word of God and the Spirit is who reveals that Word.
• Genesis 1 is written to declare “God reigns.”

How we reject God by rejecting his Word

• The rejection of God’s rule in Genesis 3 is a rejection of God’s word.
• The story of the Bible is the story of God reestablishing his rule.
• The nation of Israel, after the Exodus are not saved by God’s law. They were already redeemed, the law of God brings life, blessing and peace. Not in the sense of saving us, but in the way of ordering life, in the way that is blessed.
• The main force that drives the story of God forward is the word of God (see 1 & 2 Kings as prophets of God take on the kings of Israel).
• The cross and the kingdom is at the heart of the gospel, they are one, they unified.

What we do

• Mission is the announcing of Jesus.
• The kingdom grows, as people see, hear and accept the word of God.
• The mission of the church is God ruling through his word.

Our Identity

• We are learners.
• We find life in the Word of God.
• The Father does his work through the Words of Jesus.
• The kingdom grows through the proclamation of the Word.
• Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God as dearly loved children.
• The goal of Paul’s ministry is that Christians experience joy and growth in the faith (Philippians 1).
• Don’t tell people they aren’t believing, tell them the truth they need to believe.

The rest of his talk can be found from my notes from last night. This was a really helpful session on the identity of being a disciple and how we learn about God, how to learn of God and how to grow in our relationship with God.