Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, where we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, through scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with Him throughout your day. Your host is Travis Feynon, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we're going to be talking about diving deeper in our relationship with Jesus, through scripture, prayer, and meditation. We will focus on hearing the voice of God and being guided by the Spirit of God, not only when we chat with Jesus in the morning, but as we journey with Jesus throughout the entirety of your day.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission podcast. And I say those few lines so often, I think sometimes it's easy for me and us to forget what that is really saying. We are together and we're friends that are friends of Jesus. And we're doing this together and we're connecting and reading scripture and meditating as a community together.
We're friends that are friends of Jesus and we are on mission. We are about the business that Jesus is about. And each one of us plays a unique role in that. But we are a people that are together on mission.
And I truly believe that those are the two ideas that stir the human heart most deeply. We want to be together. We want to be hand in hand. We want to be a part of a team.
You know, we want to be with each other. And then we want to be a part of something larger than ourselves. Mission. And that theme runs through every novel and every story and everything that stirs.
And that is the truth about the Christian faith. We are together on mission. And by the way, that's a great description of God together. Father, Son, Spirit, on mission, this mission of redemption together on mission.
So anyway, longer prelude than normal, but welcome to the Together on mission podcast and we're going to see some talking about prayer. And you can turn in your Bibles to Luke 17 verse 21, which will probably be a pretty familiar verse. And we're just going to look at one verse this morning. But the title of the podcast today is Christ in you.
So prayer is not about shouting into a void. You know, I hope God and I connect today, you know, shouting into a void. It's not about trying to access something or someone that's far away or even. And this is the point of the podcast outside of ourselves.
I think we have this idea that there's some sort of distance to travel in order to connect with God as if he is out there somewhere. And it makes a great deal of sense as to why this would be a philosophical category when it comes to God because God in our culture is the man upstairs as he is often called. And we've got our family of origin stuff in there and some of us would describe our father or our mother or our parents as maybe distant or remote. And we do bring some of the sadness and difficulty and trauma, whatever that might have looked like for you into our relationship with God.
And we begin to develop this idea and really this idea is theology. It's not good theology, but it's theology. It's how the world works as we see it and we begin to develop this theology that God is somewhat distant or somewhat remote and we have to kind of access him and that's what prayer is about. And it's as if we think he's out there somewhere and we have to travel some sort of a distance in order to connect with God.
Now we don't see it that way, but somehow sometimes that's kind of how it comes out when we go to be with Jesus. We're operating with those kinds of thoughts and idea needs to be debunked because it is absolutely not biblical in any way shape or form. And when we feel like we need to access something or someone out there, all kinds of problems begin to develop in our connection with Jesus because connecting with Jesus is like breathing. It's natural.
It's the most simple thing in all the world. So this morning, let's relax. Let's go to our spot. Whenever a spot we can count on, let's open up our Bible to Luke 17 21 and let's read the words of Jesus.
The kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you. That's how close it is. And if the kingdom of God is the space where the spirit of God dwells and inhabits, which it is, then the spirit of God is within you.
The kingdom of God, Jesus says to his disciples is within you. And this verse has been so central throughout the history of the church. Almost every great saint has written about this idea throughout the history of the church and has enjoyed this verse and the truth about this verse and the theology of this verse. The kingdom of God is within you and it is almost certain that Paul, the apostle was picking this idea up in Colossians when he says this, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So as we're sitting down and enjoying the presence of Jesus or seeking to enjoy the presence of Jesus, could we just meditate and ponder this reality? The kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you. Christ is in you and that is the hope of glory.
And so never look for the kingdom anywhere else, but right here. And once we realize that the kingdom of God is within us, that Christ is in us, just realizing that reality will allow us to come to the Lord in peace and begin to just simply and easily enjoy his presence. And so right now, let's just close our eyes to everything that's around us and the things that we have to get on to doing today, which of course will bring Jesus into as well. But let's just close our eyes and let's give our full attention to just the deep inward part of our being because Christ is in you and the kingdom of God is within you.
Now, does that mean that Jesus is nowhere else but within you? No, does that mean that the kingdom of God is not happening in all kinds of places and all kinds of people? Not at all, but often we miss the simplicity of the teaching of Jesus that Christ is in us, that the kingdom of God is within us. That's the hope of glory.
And again, when we miss that, we begin to think that prayer is shouting into a void and trying to access something or someone outside of us. And therefore we bring work and pressure and whatever else in because we're missing a whole idea of prayer. So let's just this morning, let's just be quiet before the Lord who is in you. The kingdom of God is within you.
That's the hope of glory. And getting that theology correct is actually very crucial in prayer because not only does God want to be with you. And let me just talk about that for a moment. God relishes every moment with you.
That's true. When God thinks about you, chills of joy rush up and down, God's spine. And He's always thinking about you and His affection towards you and His desire to be with you, you specifically you as incomprehensible. Not only does God enjoy being with you, He looks forward to being with you.
And again, this is absolutely crucial because He is within you. Christ in you, He's closer to you than a brother or a sister. His spirit inhabits you. And prayer is recognizing that prayer begins really when we understand the truth that the kingdom of God is within us, that Christ is in us.
And the result is that we'll simply lean in, turn inward, get into our hearts and learn how natural it is to enjoy the presence of Jesus. And I could go on, but I would love for us to just stop right now to meditate this morning on these two sayings. The kingdom of God is within you. Christ is in you.
And just let's just say these two realities over and over again and focus our attention on Jesus and be quiet and enjoy His presence and find the kingdom of God right there. And I just need to say this before we close. As we begin to enjoy God enjoying us, as we begin to soak in God's enjoyment of us and it soaks into the soil of our soul. We then will begin to discover that we get to supremely enjoy ourselves and then we're set free to truly enjoy others.
And that's really what it then looks like for the kingdom of God to move out from us because it's within us. Christ is in us, but that's what it looks like for the kingdom of God to move out from us to everything and everyone that we get the privilege of interacting with. Christ is in you, the hope of glory. We'll talk soon.
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