Jeff Durbin: The Gospel Of The Kingdom

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If you would, open your Bibles, please, to the gospel according to Matthew. Gospel according to Matthew chapter 4.

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Gonna read a rather lengthy section today to give context and lay the foundation for our discussion today on the gospel of the kingdom.

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The good news. The good news of the kingdom. Matthew chapter 4, first book in your

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New Testament. We're gonna start at verse 1.

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

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But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

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Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

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Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

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Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

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And he said to him, all these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

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Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the

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Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

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Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet

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Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the

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Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light.

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And for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.

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From that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

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And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately, they left their nets and followed him.

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And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets.

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And he called them. Immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him.

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And he went throughout all Galilee, pre -teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together as God's people. Lord Jesus, you are the king of kings.

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Lord of lords, you are our great God and savior. And though in ourselves, apart from your righteousness and your redemptive work, we have no right to be holding this treasure in our hands.

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Your word, God, we confess our full dependence upon you and your spirit to stand faithfully on your word.

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And so we ask, God, that you bring understanding by your spirit and by your word into our hearts and minds, renew our minds.

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Help us to understand what is so good news about the kingdom.

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Help us to understand the message of the gospel of the kingdom that you are proclaiming.

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Help us to be passionate as your people about the truth, about your kingship, your rule, your authority.

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Help us, God, to have our hearts and our minds brought into accordance with your truth.

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When it comes to your authority and your rule, use this message for your kingdom and glory,

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God. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name, amen. The gospel of the kingdom.

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If you were to ask, I think, the average evangelical today on the street, what is the gospel of the kingdom?

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If you were to ask the average professing Christian to explain what is so good news, which is what gospel means, what is so good news about the kingdom of God, the rule of God in the world,

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I'm ashamed to say I think that many of us would not have a clear or coherent biblical answer to that question.

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But it's important to recognize that the weight of discussion, and you can check this out for yourselves, the weight of the discussion throughout the gospels, the four gospels, is weighted with the discussion of the kingdom, the rule of God, the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom, the proclamation of the kingdom.

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It is weighted to that direction more so than the other important and vital

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Christian doctrines that we teach. Teachings about salvation, eternal life, all those things, vital, true, beautiful, necessary, important, foundational.

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All of the truths about the resurrection of the Son of God, all those truths are vital to the Christian faith.

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They are discussed. They are everything. However, if you were to look through the gospels, the weight of the discussion is on the kingdom of God, the rule of God, the parables of the kingdom, pointing to the authority of Jesus Christ, his redemptive work that is connected to that long anticipated promise of the rule of the

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Messiah in history. If you just did this experiment this week, I want you to look at the gospel according to Matthew, just the first gospel, just what we were just in.

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If you look at that gospel, I challenge you to read through it. It won't take you long, 28 chapters.

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You can get through it this week for sure, 28 chapters. And look at the emphasis that Matthew, this very

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Jewish gospel, is making about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the rule of Messiah, all authority in heaven and on earth, his.

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That is a weighted doctrine in teaching throughout the gospels, the kingdom of God.

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That's interesting, isn't it? If you were to ask the average evangelical on the street today, you were to say, what is the gospel?

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Tell me the good news. I think, you know, if we have hopes about sort of clarity on this issue, if you were to ask a sort of a rigorous minded

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Christian, what is the gospel? They will probably give you one aspect of the gospel, and they would center it around justification by faith in Christ alone, because of his work alone, and they would be right, because justification is that process through which

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God brings us to himself and reconciles us to himself and brings us to peace.

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Justification is at the heart of the gospel. So you can talk about the gospel in that way. The good news of what

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God has done in Christ, his perfect life, his death, his resurrection through faith in him.

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We have peace with God. We are not condemned. We receive his righteousness. He does not count our sins against us.

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It is through faith and faith alone. That is true enough. However, when we talk about the gospel today in the

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West, we've truncated the gospel to just that aspect.

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We've privatized the Christian faith. We've privatized. It is about me and my personal intimate relationship with Jesus.

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The gospel is really about how God saves me from my sin so I can escape this world to get to that better place called heaven one day.

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The typical evangelical, I would argue, probably thinks more in terms of the kingdom of heaven as something out there that we go to, rather than how the

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New Testament actually brings us that truth and doctrine. The kingdom of God is something that has arrived here.

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The good news about the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom of God, is that heaven has broken into Earth's story.

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God is bringing redemption, salvation. He is reconciling all things to himself, and he has done that by bringing the kingdom of God here.

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We tend to think about escape. We need to get out of this sin -cursed, fallen world so that Jesus can bring us to that better spiritual existence out there, and that is the farthest thing from the teaching of the

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New Testament itself. It was good news to those early Jewish followers of Jesus, good news that the

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Messiah had arrived to bring the rule of God into history.

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Because there were promises about the rule of God through Messiah that meant the world would be saved and healed.

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There would be peace. There would be salvation. Salvation, the families of the Earth would return to worship

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Yahweh. The nations were going to come to God. This Messiah would bring justice and righteousness and the law of God to the world.

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It was good news. And did you notice, we were in Matthew chapter four. That's early on in Matthew's gospel.

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Matthew is telling you this very Jewish kingdom of God story.

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And so he starts it, we talked about this recently. He starts it with everyone's favorite thing, the genealogies, right?

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Some of us see those and we say, I don't know really why this needs to be there. That is vindication and proof that God has kept his promises.

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That Jesus actually has the royal right to the throne of David, that he actually is the

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Meshiach, the Messianic king. And so David starts for the Jewish reader.

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You want to know that Jesus has the right to rule the world? Let's start with his story, his family history.

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Here it is. He has the royal right to the throne. In Matthew, I believe through Joseph's genealogy, his adoptive father.

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He skips the curse brought in that line by virgin birth, but he has the royal right to the throne.

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And then I believe Luke's gospel is through Mary, his biological mother. And that shows that he goes all the way back to David and Abraham.

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He has the right to the throne. Matthew is keying in on that point. Jesus is the royal king.

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Here's his genealogy, go check it out. And then he moves, Matthew moves into the story recapitulated of Israel in Jesus' life, and he moves into the story of John the

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Baptist. John the Baptist saying what? To the Jewish mind, it's everything.

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It's almost meaningless, I think, to us today as evangelicals. But to the Jewish minds, reading

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Matthew's gospel has got to be like light dawning on them. What are you saying?

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The forerunner, John the Baptist, the one that was going to come before Mashiach, it's him, and what's

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John saying? In Matthew chapter three, he's saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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The story starts, Jesus is the king, and then it moves into John the Baptist proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand, and then

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Jesus goes into the wilderness. And I brought this point out because I think that it is key.

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I believe that Matthew is doing something here. He's highlighting a part of the temptation, obviously through inspiration.

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This is the Holy Spirit's work, but he's highlighting something that is vital for us to understand. If you want to understand the scope of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and the mission that we have as God's people, you have to understand the meaning of what that last temptation is.

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Satan comes to Jesus after being defeated in the other temptations, and he says, here's all the kingdoms of the world,

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Jesus. Here they are in all their glory. I'll give them to you. I'll give them to you.

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No suffering, no cross, no death, no beatings, no nothing. I'll give them all to you right now.

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Why is Satan offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world? Because that is precisely what

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Jesus came for. Satan knows the identity of Jesus as Mashiach. Satan knows his

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Bible better than most Christians. Do you believe that? He's been around for a while. He's got his theology right.

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He's the father of lies and distorts the truth. And even in the temptation here of Jesus, he's twisting scripture as Satan is known to do.

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But he offers Jesus in that final trial what Jesus actually came for.

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And it is something that Christians are dismissive of today. I believe that it is part of all of the woes and troubles that we have.

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We've demoted Jesus as the king. We don't understand the gospel of the kingdom. We don't understand the rule of God in history.

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Satan did. Satan understood it, which is why he presents it to Jesus. I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.

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All you must do is bow and worship me. And Jesus did what Adam failed to do and Israel failed to do.

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He stood on the word of God. And he says to Satan, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

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Satan is offering Jesus everything he came for. But Jesus had a predestined plan of redemption and salvation that was guaranteed to occur by God's decree.

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But notice something. Matthew is making sure we understand that Jesus is the Messiah.

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He came for those kingdoms. Satan is trying to make it easy for him and dismiss all the salvation, all of that.

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I'll just give you the rule of the world, Jesus. Just worship me. And when Jesus comes out of that trial in the wilderness, notice something.

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When you read it this week, notice something. That what is quoted by Matthew is the book of Isaiah.

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And it is vital for us to understand something. What is quoted from Isaiah is

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Isaiah chapter nine. Matthew knows the story.

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The themes are all there. They understood how much it meant to have this

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Messiah finally break into history to bring God's rule. And so Matthew is bringing the Jewish mind to that promise from Isaiah and he quotes it.

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And as soon as Jesus comes out, the first words out of his mouth are, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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That is shorthand for Matthew in saying, repent for the rule of God is at hand.

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It is broken into history. And here's what I want to emphasize for us today as God's people here at Apologia Church.

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Jesus is proclaiming something that we hear so very little about.

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He says, it says in the text that he's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

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Now stop there for a moment and just think with me for a second, each of us. Can you explain that?

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Can you explain it? Because Jesus is preaching it, John's preaching it, kingdom of God's arrived.

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Jesus says, repent, kingdom of God, it's here. It's broken into history, to the fingertip reach, it's right there at your hands.

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And then he's proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. And I want to say, do we even understand the glory of that?

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Because we understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, God's gospel in Romans chapter one. We talk about the good news of God, redemption, salvation.

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I think we've got that. We need to always stay sharp with it, clearly communicate how God reconciles sinners.

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But do we even have the ability to articulate biblically the meaning of the good news of the kingdom, or have we truncated the gospel?

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Because again, the weight of the gospels in terms of discussion, there's a lot of discussion on a lot of important doctrines.

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But so much emphasis and weight is put upon the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God in history.

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Again, I think the disastrous effects of not understanding what is good news about the kingdom is that it actually leads to us in many ways demoting

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Jesus as the king. We demote him. The New Testament authors give him that key place and position of authority and messiahship and the throne of David, the right hand of the father, all authority, king of kings and lord of lords.

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And the church today, in many places, demotes Jesus, privatizes the

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Christian faith in terms of it is a private experience behind my eyes, between my ears with Jesus.

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It is something in my church family, church walls and building. It is something that is in here and not necessarily out there.

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And I'm going to say that is not the faith of the apostles and the early leaders of the Christian church.

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Their faith was an authoritative faith. It was a faith about the messiah as ruler and judge.

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And the call was to repent and to believe the gospel in a hurry, because he's returning and he's going to judge the living and the dead.

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He is seated and on his throne, he is reigning now. He is king over everything. And they brought that message out there into the public square.

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Oftentimes, Christians in our culture today have demoted Jesus to the degree that we fear even bringing the words of God and the authority of Jesus and his gospel into conflict with the spheres of authority out there, because we think that Jesus is

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Lord over the church. Jesus is Lord over the Christian life, but he's not

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Lord over the unbelievers. Now, Giovanni today read, during our psalm today, he read

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Psalm chapter two. Now, is that the perspective of Psalm chapter two? That somehow the rulers of the earth have no obligation to believe or submit to Jesus Christ?

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Actually, no, it's much bigger, broader, more beautiful. It's much more good news about the authority of the king that scripture talks about.

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What does the father say to the son in Psalm chapter two? What does he say? He says, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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You've heard me say this a hundred times, and I'll say it a thousand more. Dr. Greg Bonson, one of my heroes of the faith, when commenting on that passage, he says that the father says to Jesus, Trinitarian conversation happening.

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The father's speaking to Jesus. And he says, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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Dr. Bonson used to say, when he commented on that, he used to say, do you think that Jesus forgot to ask?

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No, Jesus didn't forget to ask. We know that Jesus didn't forget to ask.

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And that's what Jesus was coming for, because at the end of Matthew's gospel, Matthew 28, 18 through 20,

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I'll say this a thousand more times until we memorize it, because it is the story we're living in.

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Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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That's past tense. And on that basis, go therefore and make what?

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Disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

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Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey Jesus. Did Jesus forget to ask? No, the father says,

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I'll give them to you, Jesus. The very ends of the earth are yours. And then the father then turns the conversation to the kings and the rulers of the world.

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And he says something that, let's be honest, most Christian, professing Christian politicians would cringe or be fearful of saying today.

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He says, the father says to the rulers of the world, in regard to Jesus and his messianic rule, he says to them, he says, be wise.

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Obey the Son or you will perish when his wrath is kindled.

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Where's that message? I wanna argue because we don't understand the good news of the kingdom and the rule of Jesus in history.

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That message isn't prevalent coming from the church today because honestly, we don't believe it.

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We don't believe honestly, truly, in a meaningful way that Jesus today has all authority on earth here.

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Because oftentimes we look around us and we think, well, it doesn't appear that way. We've got a lot of revolts, a lot of rebellion against Christ, his law, his commands, and so it doesn't appear to be so.

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But that's not what Jesus said when he ascended. Before he ascended, he said what? All, all authority.

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There and here has been given to me. Now let's be honest, if we look around us today at the mess that we're in because of the lack of Christian courage and conviction and the proclamation of the truth in the public square.

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We say, it doesn't look right now like Christ is truly king and ruling over this nation because people defy him at every turn.

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There seems to be a lot of unbelief, a lot of rebellion against God's truth. And so, does

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Jesus really think he's ruling and reigning over these United States? I wanna point something out to you that before he ascended in that glorious moment of Matthew 28, 18 through 20, before he ascended,

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Jesus said in the context of the Roman pagan empire, with Caesar on his throne, having been just put to death as a criminal under Rome.

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He said then, with a handful of confused disciples in front of him, he said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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And if those disciples had looked around, they would have said the same thing that we're saying. It doesn't look like it,

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Jesus, but Jesus is the truth, amen? He is

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God incarnate, he speaks only the truth, and his word is law. He said that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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So go, go get the ends of the earth, go get the nations that are mine. My father gave them to me, you go capture them.

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That's what I came for. And so this story of the gospel of the kingdom is something that we've been proclaiming by God's grace since the beginning of this church that God brought out of darkness and into light.

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One of the key doctrines that we have been teaching and preaching and proclaiming from the very beginning is the messiahship, the authority, the rule of Jesus, the kingdom of God.

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So Jesus was preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

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Now, I emphasize, and I think it's important for us to make sure that we grab hold of this truth, that the focus in scripture is the kingdom of God, the rule of God, the kingdom of heaven, coming to earth, breaking into history, not us going to it.

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Is it true that when we die, we are going to go to be in God's presence? As part of our catechism question we're on right now.

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What happens to you immediately after you die? To be absent from the body is to be present with the

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Lord. We die, our bodies go to the ground to await the physical resurrection. But our souls, our spirits go to be with Jesus, like the saints before us.

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Is it true that we are going to be in God's presence when we die? Yes, but the story of scripture is not about the earth ending and being thrown away, that is not a biblical theme.

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The story is that God redeems what has fallen as far as the curse is found.

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And God brings the kingdom of heaven, the rule of God into history to heal and transform the world into ultimate victory where Jesus comes to finally defeat death.

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That is where history is going. God's kingdom and rule here, transformation occurring here and now because of the work of Jesus in history.

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But we need to understand, and we can't do this comprehensively in a standalone.

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You know I'd love to do this for weeks on end, but it's a core doctrine series we have lots to talk about. And so I want to do as much as I can right now to emphasize some pillars we need to understand when we think about the kingdom of God.

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He comes proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Clearly, there was a story that he had taken and he's bringing to the

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Jewish people. He's saying, it's here now. Everything your mom and dad were telling you about. Everything you were hearing in synagogue.

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Everything we were hearing at temple. Messiah's coming. Kingdom of God is coming. The nation's coming to God.

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Justice and righteousness and peace with God is coming. Jesus has that story. He's bringing it.

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They understand it. They're waiting for it. And it's good news to them that it's arrived. Good news that the rule of Messiah has broken into history because that's what they were waiting for.

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But we need to understand what scripture says from that story in terms of what they were waiting for.

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The question is this, how, how and, another one, when was the rule of God to break into history?

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The Bible tells us. We got to examine together as a church some of the amazing prophecies about Jesus.

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The who, the where, the what, the when, the why, the how. All of that. Like I told you the spectacular one for me is something like Daniel 9 that's specific about the redemptive aspects of Messiah.

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And then when he's going to arrive in history. And it puts something as a deadline.

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Here's where it stops. He must be cut off before that temple is destroyed. And that temple was destroyed in 70

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AD. So I said if Jesus is not Messiah, there is no Messiah. But there's also other prophecies that give timing indicators.

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The when of Messiah's kingdom. So what does the Old Testament say about the how and the when?

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So Daniel chapter 2, go to your Bibles. We think about what they were expecting, anticipating, why this was so exciting to them.

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Daniel chapter 2, I cannot unpack all the details here of Daniel 2. But you need to have this in your hearts, in your toolbox, as you think about the good news of the kingdom.

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Daniel chapter 2, starting in verse 31, a little bit of the story here in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

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Daniel's the prophet, Daniel's interpreting the dream. In Daniel 2, 31, he says, you saw,

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O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearing was frightening.

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The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

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As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.

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Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces and became like a chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found.

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And listen closely. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

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This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the

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God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are the head of gold.

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Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over the earth.

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And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things.

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And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and the toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom.

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But some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mix with the soft clay.

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And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.

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As you saw the iron mix with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together just as iron does not mix with clay.

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And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, listen, that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

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It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.

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Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.

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A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain and its interpretation true.

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All right, take a breath, there's a lot there. But the point here is the how and the when.

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Notice that in Daniel's prophecy, he's making this prophecy during the time of the

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Babylonian captivity. And he mentions in this dream, we have these four kingdoms that are arriving in history.

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Babylon is one. And if you look through history from the time of Babylon to the time of Christ, you're gonna see those kingdoms through history landing on Rome.

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Now question, when did Jesus arrive in history during which empire and kingdom?

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Which one? Rome, precisely as Daniel prophesied that God had made as certain that the

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Messiah's kingdom was gonna come. And it was gonna be like a little stone cut out of a mountain.

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And it was gonna become what? A great mountain that did what to the whole earth? Filled the entire earth.

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In Daniel's prophecy, you've got these kingdoms and God is going to bring a kingdom that will come during the time of the fourth kingdom, and it will be a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

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It will be a rule that is forever, but note something. Not just the when is given here in Daniel, but the how of the kingdom of God.

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And this is vital, it is vital, vital, vital. As much as eschatology can be adiophora and a side issue.

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You heard me mention my love for Dr. MacArthur, my appreciation for his ministry. He's probably, depending on whether my first profession of faith was genuine or not, he's probably mostly responsible for bringing me to Christ, so I love the man.

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But his perspective on eschatology is different in ours in some respects, in terms of the victory of Messiah in history.

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He thinks we lose down here, Christ is going to come back to a church that has lost, the world has lost, and then

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Jesus is going to come and he's going to really bring the kingdom then. For a literal thousand year reign on earth.

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Now all Christian eschatologies, if they're orthodox, are going to converge on the essential issues.

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And what is that? Jesus is coming back, amen? And when he comes back, he is going to defeat death once and for all.

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There is going to be a full and final resurrection of the just and the unjust. There's going to be a day of judgment.

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We're all together on that, all right? We're all together. But Christians do have some disagreements in terms of timing of certain events.

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The kingdom of God, has it really arrived now or is it arriving later in full somewhere else? But it's important for us to recognize something.

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The text here says that it is during the time of the fourth kingdom that God of heaven is going to set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

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The question is, when did Jesus arrive? During the time of the fourth kingdom. And how did the kingdom arrive?

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In a way that we tend to disagree with today as Christians.

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My friend Doug Wilson says that Christians today will often think about the kingdom of God arriving in history like the 82nd airborne, right?

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It just sort of like falls out of the sky and obliterates everything. But brothers and sisters, that is not how scripture says that the rule of God is going to come into history.

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What do you have? These giant kingdoms, powerful, mighty kingdoms.

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And then when Messiah's kingdom comes that will never be destroyed, it comes like a little stone, insignificant, little nothing.

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And then what happens ultimately is that it becomes a stone that grows into a great mountain that fills the entire earth.

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So the how of the kingdom of God, according to the Old Testament, is not obliteration.

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It's small, seems insignificant, seems powerless, but it ends up progressively filling the entirety of the earth.

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That's Daniel chapter 2. The other one you already know, but let's go to it quickly, Isaiah chapter 9.

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In terms of the kingdom of God, how does the Bible say it's going to break into history?

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How's it going to happen according to the prophets? Well, in a way that we don't tend to like as human beings.

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We want it now. We want it all to be over with now. We want total victory now. But that is not how the

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Bible said the kingdom of God was going to arrive or progress in history. Isaiah chapter 9, you already know verse 6, the deity of Christ.

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The Messiah is human and he is divine, he is El Gabor. But verse 7 of chapter 9 says this, of the, what's the word?

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What's the word? Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.

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What is that? With the rule of Messiah, the God -man that Isaiah is talking about who's coming into history, the

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God -man of the increase of his government, what he rules, and of peace, there will be no end to its increase.

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So the kingdom of God was coming small. It was going to grow to fill the entire earth, and it would be something that would be progressive in history.

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It would grow and have progress in history. On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it, here's what's good news about the kingdom.

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Ready? Here it is. What is good news about this rule? Well, there's the peace of it.

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We love that. That's good news. God's going to bring peace between him and mankind.

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The Prince of Peace is coming. That's great news. That's great news. That's what we need.

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But there's more good news about this kingdom. It says this. It says, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

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The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. See, it's interesting, too, because one of the things that really bothered me, it probably bothered you all as well, is the last couple of years during the

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COVID shenanigans and nonsense and all the things that were happening in our culture, the riots in the streets, all of the

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Marxist fists going up, all of the talk about intersectionality.

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And all of these different discussions about social justice and all these things, it bothered me.

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It botherss me still. It bothers me when I see it all the time. It bothers me because these unbelievers have no idea what they're talking about.

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They have no concept of true justice. They despise righteousness, and yet they co -opt a concept from the

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Christian worldview of justice and righteousness. But they reject the God who provides the grounding for that.

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Christians are the ones that have the true message of justice and righteousness. We follow the king who is actually bringing it into the world.

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They pretend to want it, but they deny it with all that they do in their lives. Christians have a basis to actually rejoice over the justice and righteousness of God, because we have the messianic king ruling on his throne, who through his gospel of peace and through his people and his word, he is bringing true justice to fill the earth and true righteousness.

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We've got the message of justice. We have the message of righteousness. But the promise is, is the messianic king is going to bring that.

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So, I ask the question, can you explain why the kingdom of God is good news?

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Well, here's one answer. It's good news because it's peace, peace between God and men.

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It's good news because it's peace for the world. It's good news because the Messiah brings with his kingdom justice and righteousness to fill the earth.

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That's why it's good news. Another passage, one more. Isaiah 42,

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Isaiah chapter 42. And you see also as you get there, why it must have been so exciting, so exciting.

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If you're a Jewish person in the first century where Jesus comes into his ministry, you're longing, and you're waiting, and you're anticipating, and you're saying.

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I mean, they were waiting for Messiah then and his kingdom like Christians today in the West wait for rapture, right?

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I mean, videos on YouTube about it, it's gonna be Tuesday, it's gonna be 12 o 'clock. I've done all the mathematics about it,

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I've figured it all out. Actually, I know that Jesus says, nobody knows, but I know, I know.

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The rapture actually is two months from now, and then that fails, and they go to the next, and all the rest. It's like we just wait for the rapture, wait for the rapture.

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We're like longing, anticipating for the rapture, the rapture, the rapture. But here in their day, it's totally different.

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Their longing, their discussions is Messiah's coming, his kingdom's coming, his kingdom's coming, and they're excited because texts like this.

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They're in a hearing in synagogue, and they're like, guys, this Messiah is coming, and let's talk about what the prophet says about his coming.

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Here's what he says, Isaiah 42, behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights,

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I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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He will not cry aloud, or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

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He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.

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Now you're a Jewish person in synagogue, they enroll that scroll, they read that and everyone's just giddy and excited like who's the

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Messiah, where's the Messiah? It's got to be time, we've read the prophecy of Daniel, we're counting down the days, we know he's got to be around here somewhere.

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This is the time of the Messiah, we know this is the fourth kingdom, it's Rome, it's here, so who's the

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Messiah, where's the Messiah, are you the Messiah? And then Jesus comes in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, it was probably so refreshing and exciting.

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And they hear that message, and they come to see Jesus, and they see his miracles, his healing the sick, and the blind, and the lame, and people with leprosy, and he's raising people from the dead.

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It had to be so exciting to see that, and confusing. But it shouldn't have been confusing.

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Confusing because they're like, how, please tell me, how is,

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I mean it seems obvious, he's righteous and wise, and he's got these divine powers, and he's walking on water for goodness sakes, and he's raising people from the dead.

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I get it, I see all the miracles, this is divinity right here among us. But I just want to know how this lowly person from Nazareth is the ruler of the entire world and nations, how?

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And they were miffed by that, especially the religious leaders, like how? How is this guy the ruler of the world?

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But if they had read their Bibles and believed it, they would have seen, no, that is how the kingdom's supposed to arrive in history.

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It comes like a stone, and then a great mountain that fills the entire Earth. No, he's a lowly

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Messiah. He doesn't cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

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They should have seen in Isaiah 53, he's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom we hide there our faces.

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He was despised and rejected. We esteemed him smitten and stricken and afflicted by God.

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But he was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. You see, if they had just believed their

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Bibles, they would have understood what was happening right there in front of them. It was everything that God had promised.

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But notice, when Jesus comes proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, there's a story behind that, and there's a way that scripture tells us in history it's gonna unfold.

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The how, the when, it comes progressively. Note something, note something.

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In Isaiah 42, what does it say? It says, verse 4, he will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth.

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What's that mean? It's progress. This rule of God is progressive in history.

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Now that is the foundation that the Old Testament lays for us about the how of Messiah's kingdom, the when of Messiah's kingdom.

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But it's interesting to note that the New Testament gives us the same story.

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It's exactly how Jesus talked about the kingdom of God himself. And it surprises them at one point, like, are you a king?

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And what Jesus says is something that distorts their whole story and makeup of the kingdom of God.

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We want him to come now, smash the Romans, rule the world, obliterate all this, bring justice and righteousness now.

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That's not how scripture says it was gonna come. And Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world, to which

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Christians have misinterpreted so terribly today. To say that Jesus was saying there, my kingdom is not in this world.

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That is not what Jesus said. My kingdom is not of this world. It's not your kind of kingdom.

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It doesn't come like that. That's not how my rule is. It's not your kind of kingdom. But his kingdom is most certainly in this world, cuz

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Jesus is the king, amen? And he said that he brought his kingdom. But Jesus, and I'll just do this as briefly as I can.

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When he talked about the kingdom, he talked about it just like the Old Testament promised, Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13, this is an incredible chapter.

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We spent time working through and we did our verse by verse through Matthew. But I wanna just emphasize two parts of this.

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In Matthew 13, verse 31, look how Jesus talks about the rule of God.

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It says, he put another parable before them, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

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It is the smallest of all seeds. When it is grown, it is larger than all the garden plants.

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It becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. He told them another parable.

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The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hidden three measures of flour till it was all leavens.

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Now, note something about that first parable, that when Jesus says the grain of mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, that was on the

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Jewish chart of seeds and all of that. The mustard seed was the smallest on that chart.

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Jesus isn't saying literally it's the smallest of all seeds. It's like on the chart of Jewish seeds and how they accounted for them and all of that.

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But notice, it's the smallest of all seeds. And when it is grown, it is larger than all the garden plants.

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So what does that mean? Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God in the same way that the Old Testament did. How? Growth and progress in history.

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It starts small. And then when grown, it's something that becomes larger than a man.

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The birds of the air can nest in its branches. And then he talks about the kingdom of heaven in a way that, let's be honest, today, because of technology and all that's going on around us and all the many blessings of the

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Christian world view and all of that, capitalism. Amen, everyone, whoo, capitalism.

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A lot of times we don't have to make our own bread, so many of us, I mean, not an apology at church, you guys are like the bread masters.

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But we don't typically do that process of leavening and dough and letting it proof and rise and all the rest.

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But I've had the benefit with my wife who makes incredible sourdough of being able to see this on a regular basis where you've got this entire crazy process of making this beautiful loaf of bread and it's just, it's amazing how much better it tastes than all other bread, right?

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I mean, it's like, why do we even eat store -bought bread? I mean, if you could just make it at home like this. But that whole process of that leaven permeating the entirety of the loaf, now they understood what that meant because that's how they ate.

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They had to build this stuff. They had to make this stuff. So they understood what Jesus was saying when he talks about the rule of God coming like leaven, they're like, leaven?

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You can barely see the stuff. But it has a massive impact on that dough.

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And the crazy thing about that leaven, like my friend says, is you can't hear the tinkering.

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You don't hear the chainsaws and the hammers and the clanking and the working of the leaven.

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And how does it work? It permeates the entirety of that loaf and it does it, how so?

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Quietly, peacefully, it grows and permeates that entire loaf until it's filled the entire thing.

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And that's how Jesus talks about his rule. It's kind of like so small and insignificant, it looks like this recently crucified common criminal about to ascend to heaven with a handful of very confused disciples saying that he's the ruler of the entire world.

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Leaven, nothing. And then within a few hundred years, that empire toppled on its head, the gospel spreading around the entire empire, the gospel going forth to fill the entire world to this very day where we have followers of Jesus Christ, obedient to him, loving him, loving his law, proclaiming his truth all over this world today.

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From every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. But it started like leaven, and that's how

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Jesus talks about it. Now quickly, I want to say, we did spend a lot of time talking about this the last couple of weeks, so I just want to emphasize this, what is good news about the kingdom?

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Well, the Old Testament again tells us the how and the when. It gives us details about what is good news about it.

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But what was also good news about it is that it meant salvation to the nations.

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Remember those promises, they're all connected. Abraham, in your seed, the whole world's gonna be blessed.

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You're gonna have descendants as numerous as the stars, like the sand on the seashore. Through your seed, ultimately, that's going to Christ.

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This entire world is gonna be blessed through Father Abraham. That's Jesus. The nations no longer worshiping false gods, foreign gods.

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But the nations, the families of the earth, coming to worship the true and the living God, that's good news.

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For idolatry and paganism to be once and for all stamped out in this world. Isn't that good news?

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Yes? That's why we evangelize. That's why we evangelize. To see the world come to know the true and living

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God. That's good news of the kingdom, salvation to the nations. You see that reiterated over and over again.

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Passage that you already know. I'm going to the familiar ones now so that we're all sharp on these. In Psalm 22, the passion

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Psalm, Psalm 22, 27. It says, all the families of the earth will return to worship

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Yahweh. That's what's good news about the kingdom of the Messiah. Now, I want you to see this one.

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Daniel 7, Daniel 7, 13 through 14. I'm sure

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Pastor James is going to touch on this next time he preaches. In terms of the ascension of Jesus, his kingdom.

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Now remember, Daniel's written when? Anyone know?

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Don't give me the date, okay? When did, say, where was he when he wrote this?

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During what time period? Babylonian captivity, right? There are prophecies in here that you should know now.

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Daniel 2, that's the how and the when of the Messiah's kingdom. Daniel 9, that amazing prophecy that the

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Messiah's going to come and die, be cut off before the destruction of the temple. That's there in Daniel now. You know those passages now.

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Now here's another one, Daniel 7, 13 through 14. Here it is, one of my favorites.

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I saw in the night visions, and behold the clouds of heaven. There came one like a son of man, and he came up to the ancient of days, and was presented before him.

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And to him was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

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That, brothers and sisters, is good news. That is good news. What was

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Jesus' title for himself? The son of what? The what? The son of man.

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Jesus identified as the son of man. And did you notice something important?

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That if you took Matthew 28, 18 through 20, and you put it side by side with Daniel 7, 13 through 14, you would see an amazing connection where Jesus in Matthew 28, before he ascends to the father, before the son of man comes up to the ancient of days, he says to his disciples, he says, all authority there and here is mine.

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Now go get them. Go get the nations. Go get the tribes. It's mine.

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Go get them. Then he ascends, and then you go, Daniel 7. Daniel 7, the son of man coming up to the ancient of days, presented before him.

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And to him is given what? Dominion and glory and a kingdom that all the people's nations and languages should serve him.

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Like Matthew 28, 18 through 20. It's the same story.

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This is the fulfillment of the promise. Jesus is in that story, and he's brought the disciples now into it.

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They're viewing now everything they were taught as little boys and girls.

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I've read that passage in Daniel in synagogue. I heard that. Ancient of days, all the tribes, languages, people, and now they're sitting there and they see him go up and they go, my goodness, we get to do it now.

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It's here now, it's arrived. The world belongs to Jesus, the end of the earth, the knowledge of God covering the earth like the waters cover the sea.

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And we get to go get them now. And that, brothers and sisters, is why they walked into the public square with so much confidence, they knew that Jesus was the ruler and the king.

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They knew the story. What does Daniel say about the interpretation of the dream? It is certain, this is what

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God is going to do. This is where history is going. And so the apostles could go in with confidence into the culture around them.

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And they could take beatings for Jesus, they can have loss, they can feel pain, they can do all of that because they knew where this story was ending.

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And that is total victory for Jesus the Messiah. This is good news of his kingdom.

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Now, you've already seen it, but one of the other promises of the blessings that the rule of God brings into the world is that God's law, his

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Torah, his instruction, his standards, his standards of justice and righteousness were going to be a part of what

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God did to bless the world. You already know these passages, I'll just reference them for you now.

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Jeremiah 31, 31, Ezekiel 36, those promises that during the new covenant era,

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God was going to do something new, he was going to put his law, where? Within them, within them, no longer on stone tablets outside, but it's going to be something that's internalized, written on the inside of us by God himself.

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And then God is going to put his spirit, as Ezekiel 36, into his people and cause them to observe his statutes.

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It's a constituent element of the new covenant promises, the kingdom promises. The law of God is going to be something that is within his people and they bring that to the world.

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Did you hear it? Did you hear it? One of my favorite parts, because it's something that doesn't make any sense to the modern evangelical today or someone like Andy Stanley that wants to disconnect the

01:00:34

Old Testament from the New Testament and say, the law of God is defunct, the law of God is irrelevant, that's over now.

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Tell that to Isaiah 42. Tell it to Isaiah 42 or Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36.

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Tell it to Isaiah 42 where it says, the servant of the Lord, the one the spirit is upon, he'll bring forth justice to the nations.

01:00:57

And what's it say at the end of that prophecy? What's it say? And the coastlands wait for his

01:01:04

Torah, his law. One of the good news, blessings of the kingdom, is that the

01:01:13

Torah, that gift of God to the world, and it is a gift. The law of God is a gift, it is a blessing.

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Yes, it's a curse upon those who are fallen, who can't obey it, and that's why they need Jesus, but it doesn't make the law bad.

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The law is good and righteous and true, amen? And so one of the blessings of the kingdom of God in history is this happens,

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Isaiah 2, go there. Verse 1, the word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

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It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord, hey, there it is again, shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills.

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Sounds like Daniel, doesn't it? Sounds like Daniel. And all the nations, there it is again, shall flow to it.

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And many peoples shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the

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God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, that we may walk in his paths. You know what that is?

01:02:31

That's the evangelism of the church right there. Inviting, come, come.

01:02:37

And it says, for out of Zion shall go forth the, what? The law and the word of the

01:02:47

Lord from Jerusalem. You see, one of the things that was promised here about Messiah's kingdom is that the nations were going to stream up to God's mountain.

01:03:00

They were going to stream up to God's mountain. Now, weird thing about water. Weird thing about water is that water doesn't tend to flow up.

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Where does water flow? Down. That's interesting, isn't it?

01:03:18

Isaiah is giving you an image of the rule of God in history, this messianic kingdom, the mountain of the house of the

01:03:24

Lord, where the nations are streaming up to the mountain of God.

01:03:30

How do you get water to go up something? It has to be what? Drawn, has to be pulled.

01:03:39

And so there's this beautiful and precious thing just embedded in this prophecy itself where the nations are going to be drawn toward God's mountain.

01:03:49

But did you notice one of the good news blessings of the rule of God is that the

01:03:55

Torah, the law of God goes forth from the people of God.

01:04:02

And that's a gift. Justice, righteousness forevermore coming from Messiah's kingdom.

01:04:10

That is why it is good news. Justice and righteousness again,

01:04:19

Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, Isaiah 42. Get to know those passages. One of the good news blessings is the

01:04:25

Messiah is the king. Daniel 7, 13 through 14. Psalm 110, 1 quoted by the apostle

01:04:34

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. I want you to go there briefly. 1

01:04:39

Corinthians 15, and this is where we're going to end today. Kimmy, don't say anything. 1

01:04:47

Corinthians 15. Now, I'm not going to go through the whole passage, but the apostle

01:05:06

Paul here mentions at the beginning the gospel itself that he delivered.

01:05:17

In verse 3, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

01:05:26

And then he talks about who Jesus appeared to. And finally, he appears to him. He's unworthy.

01:05:33

And they preach this gospel, what Christ has accomplished. Now, he has to deal with some false teaching that's happening within the early church in terms of people saying there was no resurrection of the dead.

01:05:48

And he's saying, well, if there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ hasn't been raised. Your faith is in vain. If Jesus isn't raised from the dead, then we're of all people most to be pitied.

01:05:58

We've got nothing. But Jesus is raised from the dead. And then he says, starting in verse 20, but in fact,

01:06:10

Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

01:06:22

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order.

01:06:29

Christ, the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God, the father, after destroying every rule, every authority and power.

01:06:42

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

01:06:50

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Now, if you were to take a timeline, write this on a timeline, chart it out.

01:07:00

What does the apostle Paul under divine inspiration say about the future of humanity?

01:07:06

Just chart it out, write it on a timeline. What does he say? Christ is raised. We're gonna be raised because of his resurrection.

01:07:13

But what does he say? He must reign. So he says that Jesus is reigning now.

01:07:19

That means that Jesus is the Davidic King. Jesus is the Messianic King. Jesus is on his throne. He's not waiting to reign and take his throne.

01:07:28

Jesus is reigning now, according to the apostle Paul. And Paul says he must reign until, and then he quotes

01:07:37

Psalm 1101. What? He makes all of his enemies a what? Footstool for his feet.

01:07:44

And then he says this. Then, then, after Jesus puts all of his enemies under his feet, then he will destroy death.

01:07:59

Timeline it. Jesus is reigning. What's gonna happen? Enemies under his feet. Then what happens?

01:08:05

He destroys death. So that's where we're at. The apostle

01:08:12

Paul understood the story. The New Testament writers understood the story.

01:08:18

It's what John was preaching. It's what Jesus was preaching. It's what Paul was emphasizing in Romans 1 and 16.

01:08:27

The command of the eternal God to bring all the nations to the obedience of Messiah. It's where Acts ends with Paul preaching about the kingdom of God.

01:08:37

It's where our Bibles end. I want to give you this verse so you have it. It's where our Bibles end in Revelation 11, 15.

01:08:48

This is the testimony of the word of God. Revelation 11, 15.

01:08:57

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our

01:09:10

Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.

01:09:16

That's what the angels testify to about Jesus. The kingdoms of the world have become the kingdom of our

01:09:26

Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.

01:09:31

Now, I want to ask us if we believe that, if we believe all of this about Jesus, that he is the one who has full authority, all authority in heaven and on earth.

01:09:45

If we believe that all the kingdoms of the world actually belong to Jesus, Satan couldn't give it to him for real.

01:09:54

It was God the Father who gave him to Jesus by divine decree. If we believe that Jesus is king of kings and Lord of lords today, will that change how we proclaim the message of the gospel out there?

01:10:10

Doesn't it change it? Don't we go into the culture with a humble boldness because of this truth that looks different than the modern evangelical who thinks that Jesus is

01:10:26

Lord behind my eyeballs and between my ears, that Jesus has no real say to the world out there.

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Make no mistake about it, that is not the message that Jesus brought. He brought a message of full and final authority.

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And when the apostles brought his gospel into the world, they turned the world upside down because they went into the world telling the truth.

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Jesus is the ruler of the world. He's coming to judge. You better repent and believe in a hurry.

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Peace with God is only found in Jesus. Repent and believe the gospel for the gift of eternal life.

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Jesus is the ruler of the world. He has full and final authority. It was the message of his authority that got them in trouble in their day.

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Amen. Kaiser Kyrgios, Caesar is Lord. Just acknowledge it.

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Just say it. You can have your Jesus. You can have him. Take your Jesus, worship your

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Jesus. We don't care what you worship, but don't you dare say that Jesus is the ruler of the world above Caesar.

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We must have final authority. And those apostles would say things like, we must obey

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God rather than men. They wouldn't say Kaiser Kyrgios. They would say, we'll be good citizens.

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We'll be obedient citizens. We'll be peaceful. But we will not say that there is any authority above Jesus Christ because he is the one who reigns forever.

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Repent and believe the gospel. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the good news of the kingdom.

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Help us to proclaim these truths boldly to the world around us. Embolden us by the truth of your authority,

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Lord Jesus. We love you. We trust you. We thank you for the peace that you bring. It's in your name we pray.