Embedded...
A lineage is a line, a family line, a bloodline. The Holy Lineage is the bloodline that extends out of Christ. As we know, no physical bloodline extends out of the line of Christ—this was the cringe and subversive plotline in Dan Brown’s Davinci Code—yet somehow his blood extends over everyone who receives his sacrifice. Indeed, every Christian belongs to the bloodline of Christ because we have taken on his blood and his flesh through the Cross by our confession of faith in Him as our Lord and Savior.
When you come into Christ, you become a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV). Together, the body of Christ is “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9 NIV). There are many things that you become or receive when you come into Christ (for example, Ephesians 2:6-8 NIV), but one of the things that God has led me to focus on is that you also become an heir.
Every Christian is an heir of an ancient, eternal, and holy bloodline.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
- Romans 8:16-17 (NASB1995, emphasis added)
to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,
- Ephesians 3:6 (NASB1995, emphasis added)
In the new testament, followers of Christ are called “heirs according to the hope of eternal life,” “fellow heirs,” “heirs according to promise,” “heirs of the promise,” “heirs of the kingdom,” and “fellow heirs of the same promise” (Titus 3:7, Galatians 3:29, Hebrews 6:17, James 2:5, Hebrews 11:9 NASB1995). An heir is an inheritor. Inheritors have an inheritance. We are inheriting the Hope of eternal life, the Promise, and the Kingdom.
The moment we become a Christian is the moment we become embedded in the project that Jesus calls “Kingdom.” There are many passages that comment on the Kingdom of Heaven in the New Testament, so I will simply suggest that you review the ones found here. Suffice to say that the embeddedness of yourself in the Kingdom Project will reflect the extent to which you are devoted to the Kingdom Project. I don’t want to begin discussing the Kingdom Project in explicit terms since it’s a complicated subject; instead, I want to focus on what it means to be embedded in a “project.”
Being embedded means that you have roots, that you are planted or positioned as an important component.
You are a key part of the project.
You have something to gain but also something to lose. You have something to give but also somethings to take. If the project fails, you fail, and if it succeeds, you succeed. In Christ, we know that the Kingdom of Heaven ultimately wins. However, embeddedness has multiple applications, yet as members of the Kingdom, we remember that “the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2 NASB1995). Thus, it is important for you to take your place as an heir and as a laborer, doing what God has called you to do. I began contemplating this aspect of Kingdom due to my move out to the near middle-of-nowhere Georgia.
Truthfully, although it’s difficult to explain, it didn’t really feel like I lived anywhere before I lived here.
I spent most years of my life in my hometown next to the town where I live now, and through college and afterwards, I lived in the city, the capital, and in cities within the perimeter—somehow these places feel more foreign to me than the place that I’ve lived for the past several months (less than a whole year). I spent a short time in other nearby cities, but none of them feel like home. My hometown once felt like home, but things have changed over time—doesn’t feel the same. Now, living in the town just next door to where I grew up, I feel at home, but it took me a long time to figure out why.
It’s the simple fact that I’ve grown roots. I’m embedded in a few of the happenings in this small town. I go to the same coffee shop everyday. I’m the only one my age (late 20’s) that comes early in the morning. There, I sit in the same place surrounded by older people who’ve lived in the area for a while. I usually only engage in small spurts of conversation, but they seem to appreciate it. It’s mostly men, but a few older women have been coming in lately as well. They discuss all kinds of things, and I often find myself laughing at their conversations, even if I’m not directly participating.
Today, one guy brought out a stack of memes and dad jokes that his daughter sends him. He is a retired veteran that creates harps that are used to teach kids music in the area. His wife is a gardener, and he frequently assists her in the garden. One important fact about him is that he doesn’t have a smart phone. Instead, he takes calls on a landline. His daughter sends him literal memes in the mail, and it’s hilarious (not just the memes but the fact that they are printed on perfectly crisp paper and expertly cut out). Today was the second time he brought a stack.
Another guy is a retiree who owns a boat. He promises us that we will all go out on the boat with him one day. I think that would be fun. Another guy is quite a bit younger and still working. He is a veteran but has a young daughter (2 years old)—he wasn’t here today. Another guy—he didn’t come today either—is a cop. And there are others (2 ladies have been coming by lately—today they discussed the keto diet with the boat guy).
We are the morning regulars of a local small business, a woman-owned coffee shop in a little town in the near middle-of-nowhere Georgia.
And it’s wonderful. The coffee shop itself is great as well (coming from someone who was a Barista for 3 years at a family-owned coffee shop in Atlanta). The staff knows me by name, and we engage in pleasant small talk with each other. I never used to do that. I used to hate small talk. Nothing like being in a small town to get you to appreciate a short and pleasant conversation. Everyone is so interesting! In Atlanta, the capital, and one of its suburban city off-shoots that commuters occupy, there was no small talk. I was atomized and alone. No one knew me or cared to know besides my family with whom I lived. I have never lived alone during this time but always with family, but God created us for Kingdom, which includes family and much more. Kingdom’s have cultures, histories, and lineages.
“Kingdom” could be replaced by a number of other terms to apply to my cities example. Kingdom is the Christian version of the concept. Perhaps “Community” is the word that would best express what I am discussing in a worldly context, but it does not replace the word Kingdom and all that Christ meant when he used it (for now, I will use “community” as a poor substitute). Suffice to say that I found no community in most of the physical places that I’ve lived. The cultures, histories, and lineages of these places have been obliterated. The people are disconnected, dislocated from the land and its history. They have no connection to the land on which they rest their heads and daily tread with their feet. They could have easily have been plucked out of space-time and pasted onto the landscape, coming from unknown ages and worlds. In postmodern society, is anyone where they belong?
Since moving to this semi-rural, semi-suburban (extent) area, I have found that, for the first time, I am embedded in a project that I truly care about (outside of church activities).
None of my jobs have really done that in the past—my time at the coffee shop in the ATL got close. None of the places that I’ve lived previously have gotten me to care about the physical community surrounding me either. The schools that I went to never did that. They failed horrifically to make me feel at home. My family makes me feel at home, but as I have said, we are made for family but also Kingdom, a much larger and encompassing institution than family. I have a loving family, but in a sense, we’ve all slowly seen this community aspect of living slowly seep away over the years. Christians can manifest some community inside the walls of the church, but I think God had a bigger vision especially if he uses the word “Kingdom” to describe it.
The stream of Christianity to which I belong and others parallel have heard God on this issue, and many have begun to build the missing pieces of the Kingdom project—I’m truly grateful to be taught and discipled by people who pushed through the mire of the lukewarm Christianity of the postmodern day to realize that we still are not where we need to be as the body of Christ. I wouldn’t even be able to describe what I’m describing now without the revelatory understanding brought by Kingdom Leaders that have grasped this (so, if any of you read this, thank you all!).
Many of us today are heirs but also wanderers, foreigners in our own land. We have no roots. I used to ponder why the 3 groups that we are told to take care of are orphans, widows, and strangers (sojourners or foreigners). An orphan is someone without a father (God is our father). A widow is someone whose lost her husband (Jesus is the bridegroom and the body of Christ is the bride—Revelations 19:7-8 NASB1995). But a stranger (and this was difficult to sus out) is someone who has no Kingdom and is without a King (Jesus is King and we are the Kingdom). Though Christians have consistently grasped the freedom from an orphan mindset and from widowhood (understanding that “marriage” is a divine partnership—we are divinely partnered with Christ as Christians), but few understand the freedom from nomadic anarchism that comes from not understanding Jesus as King.
Many Christians are not embedded anywhere (whether in church as an expression of Kingdom or in a local community), and it’s time for that to change (people are hungry for the reality of Kingdom). God sends his people out where he needs them to go. He led Philip right to the Ethiopian that he needed to speak to, and after baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip was miraculously translated elsewhere by Holy Spirit (Acts 8:26-40 NASB1995). It’s time to mobilize Kingdom people to fully manifest the complete Kingdom project as prophesied by Jesus when he says, “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 10:7 NASB1995).
It’s time for you to be embedded right where God has called you to be so that you can express the fullness of Kingdom that God wants you to reveal (as one of his heirs and laborers). You are heirs of the Kingdom, and this will come through you as long as you remember that Jesus is King. Remember…
You are part of a Holy Lineage that will NEVER die!
(Isaiah 9:7 ESV; Galatians 3:28-29 ESV; Romans 8:16-17 ESV).