The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, chapter 4, verses 12 through 25. Now when

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Jesus heard that John had been arrested, He withdrew into Galilee. 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, 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 in the 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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And while walking by the sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

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And He said to them, Follow Me, I'll make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed

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Him. 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. And He went throughout all

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Galilee, 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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So His fame spread throughout all Assyria. And they brought Him all the sick and those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics and paralytics, and He healed them.

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And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the

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Jordan. In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, this is going to be a slightly different type of sermon today.

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As you can tell from our gospel text, there is a heavy emphasis on making disciples, being fishers of men.

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But in order to do that, you must understand the message properly. And there's something that Jesus said that is very difficult for us to understand as 21st century

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Americans living in a democratic republic. And these words are them.

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

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Kingdom of heaven. Now you sit there and you go, okay, kingdom, right, right, right. We have a president.

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I don't know if you've noticed. There was a lot of news about our new president this week. And the issue is that in our democratic republic, we've kind of lost sight of this whole concept of monarchy, of being under a king.

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And not only that, because so much preaching and teaching today doesn't know how to connect the

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Old Testament with the New, the story of the kingdom gets lost.

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It's a major theme. It's a major doctrinal and theological theme in scripture, and it's highly abused today.

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If you've ever heard any liberal preaching on this, and that seems to be quite a thing up here, then you may have heard stories like this.

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The gospel of the kingdom is, well, fulfilled, and you're doing kingdom work when you engage in social justice.

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And so you may think that people who preach this way, they basically say it's important for us to go and do kingdom work by digging freshwater wells in Africa.

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And there's nothing wrong with digging freshwater wells in Africa. Or we need to somehow fight for social justice.

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Or spend our time working to eliminate poverty. Now, believe me when

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I tell you, serving your neighbors who are poor and needy and making sure that they're fed and clothed is an important good work.

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But that technically is not the work of the kingdom. Think of it this way. Many people in liberal circles consider

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Gandhi, his life, to actually be kind of some stellar example of what it means to be doing kingdom work.

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But Gandhi did not confess Christ. He denied Christ. And although Gandhi made a difference in the world,

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Gandhi didn't make any disciples. And so when you wrongly understand the gospel of the kingdom, you end up making a difference, but you don't end up making disciples.

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And the Great Commission, in the Great Commission, Jesus did not say, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go, therefore, and make a difference. That's not what he said. But if you are busy of the work of the kingdom, you cannot help but make a difference.

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You see the difference? You see, anybody can make a difference. And if you know your history, after Adolf Hitler ascended to the chancellorship of the

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German Republic, he made Time Magazine Man of the

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Year. He made a difference. He got the trains to run on time.

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He turned the economy around. He took Germany from a nation that had huge inflationary problems, stabilized their economy, and put them on a solid track, heading straight to World War II.

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And so understand, the Bible is thick with kingdom talk.

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When we pray the Lord's Prayer today, Your kingdom come, your will be done.

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You see, there's kingdom talk in there. The question is, what does scripture mean? What does Jesus say?

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And why is it that Jesus now, as John the Baptist has been arrested, is picking up the same message as John the

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Baptist? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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So the question is, how would a first century Jew, living in Judea, at this time, have understood these words?

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That's the question. So we're going to do a little topical sermon, if you would, drilling hard into this concept of kingdom, fleshing it out, because I'm convinced that once you see it, you can't unsee it.

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And there is no difference, by the way. And this is the other thing. There's a lot of confusion, where people will say, there's a difference between the gospel of salvation and the gospel of the kingdom.

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And so they try to split the two. You can't. They go hand in hand, because they're the exact same thing.

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So, with that, we're going to do, literally, a 50 ,000 foot overview of the

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Old Testament, flying through it at about Mach 5. I'll point out some things along the way.

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If you would, turn back with me to the scene of the crime, in Genesis 3, verses 1 -5.

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I'll tell you the context here. If you remember in Genesis 2, God creates man and woman, both of them, male and female, in the image of God.

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And it's very clear in Genesis 2, that God, after creating the universe and everything that you can see, taste, touch, smell, everything in this time -space continuum in six days, literal days, by the way, it was evening and it was morning the first day, that He set up man.

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He created man in His image in order to be the governor and caretaker of the creation itself.

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Does that make sense? So, God Himself wasn't going to govern the earth directly.

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He was going to govern the earth through the creation that He made. And the pinnacle of that creation is man himself, made in the image of God.

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And so, we were stewards under God, taking care of the creation for God, and made in His image, we would do it exactly the way

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God would do it. Does that make sense? So, already in the book of Genesis, there's the beginnings of government and a concept of kingdom with God as King.

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But then, at the scene of the crime, when the devil tempts our first parents, it says this,

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The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field of the Lord God had made. He said to the woman,

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Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? No, that's not what

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God said. Important to note this, sometimes questions can be very dangerous.

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There are questions designed to get information, and there are questions designed to trip up.

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Now, I will say this, my wife has mastered the art of giving me commands in the form of a question.

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You were going to mow the lawn today, right? Very dangerous question.

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So the serpent says, Did God really say that you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

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The woman said to the serpent, Well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God did say, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

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No, actually, he didn't say that last bit. But the serpent said to the woman, and you have to say it like this,

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I always like to, You will not surely die. You've got to do it seductively, right?

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For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

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And there's the catch. You see, there's a big difference between being like God and being godly.

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Adam and Eve were already created in the image of God. They perfectly reflected God's character, his grace, his love, his thinking, his wisdom.

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They were already godly. But see, the serpent is all about being godlike.

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And to be godlike is to make yourself God. And so we recall then

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Satan's primary sin as revealed in Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 15.

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Oh, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn. You are cut low to the ground, you who laid low the nations.

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You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God.

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I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north.

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I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the

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Most High. And there's the catch. And notice the kingdom talk.

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Who's God in Satan's mind? He is.

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He wants to ascend and be like the Most High. And that same language shows up in the garden, and Adam and Eve go for it.

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I want to be like God. And in so doing, you make yourself

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God. And you set up your own throne within your own heart to administer your government and make things go your way.

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See it? So ultimately, the story of the Bible from beginning to end is the story of who the true king is.

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You see, God's reign is reflected in monarchy. So we continue.

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Exodus 15, 17 through 18. Recall again the words of the song of Moses.

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We recently reviewed this in Sunday school. The tail end of the song ends in this way.

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You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain.

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The place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode. The sanctuary,

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O Lord, which you have established. Yahweh will reign forever and ever.

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Kingdom talk. And this is a picture of the end times when Christ returns to establish

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His kingdom. His kingdom here on earth. And that's exactly what's going on here.

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And we can hear it over again in Handel's Messiah. And He shall reign forever and ever.

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And then the antiphonal part of the choir comes and answers back, right? It's just beautiful.

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But we hear these words and unfortunately, well, we live in a democratic republic.

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If you remember our history, Americans and kings didn't get along.

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And see, that's kind of the thing. Have any of you watched the Netflix show, The Crown? Worth watching.

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I know it's a chick flick. Please forgive. My wife made me watch it.

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But it's fascinatingly wonderful in this sense. Is that the

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British monarchy is completely anachronistic to 21st or even 20th century culture.

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Here we've got this ancient monarchy and there's this wonderful part in the fifth episode where they display and show us the coronation service of Queen Elizabeth II.

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And it's this thousand year old liturgy and they show the anointing of the monarch.

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This pinnacle moment. And keep this in mind, in scripture, there are only three offices that receive a holy anointing of oil.

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They are the prophets, they are the priests, and they are the kings. And Christ as the

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Mashiach, which means anointed one, he is all three. He is prophet, priest, and king.

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So keep this in mind. This is important stuff. But now let's take a look at 1 Samuel 8 starting at verse 1.

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A pinnacle moment in the history of Israel. Now if you remember the story, the children of Israel, after their wilderness wanderings, an entire generation dies in the wilderness, and finally

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Joshua brings them into the promised land. They cross the Jordan. They sack Jericho, tear down Ai, and just take control of the land and their inheritance.

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And after they get there, who's king of Israel? God is.

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There is no visible monarch in Israel. If you were sojourning through Israel at the time, and you say, whose kingdom is this?

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Oh, this is God's kingdom. Who's the king? Well, God is. It's a weird way of doing things, but keep this in mind.

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Is God visible? No. Okay? And so Israel, as the story goes, kind of starts beginning to take notice of the fact that they're not like other countries.

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Other countries, they have kings. And if you know your good 7th grade world history class where you had to learn about the fertile crescent and Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, what do you know about the ancient kings?

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They were all God kings, visible deities on earth. But in Israel, there was no visible deity

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God was the king. And so as they would look around and go, we never have any coronation services.

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We don't have any guy that we can, like, you know, mock in the press. So they start to begin to feel this tension.

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And, well, note what happens in 1 Samuel 8. When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.

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The name of his firstborn was Joel, the name of his second was Abijah. I don't know why no one names their children

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Abijah. Anyway, they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but they turned aside after gain.

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They took bribes and they perverted justice. Just like any old rotten politician. So then all the elders of Israel gathered together and they came to Samuel at Ramah and they said to him,

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Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.

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But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. Samuel prayed to Yahweh and Yahweh said to Samuel, Obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you.

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For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

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So in the history of Israel, we see now there was a time when

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God was king and then it switches. Now we have human kings.

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And all of this is a result of the fact that they had rejected God as king.

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And you can't understand what Jesus is saying without getting this and mulling it over in your mind and the major implications of it.

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So they have rejected me from being king over them according to all the deeds that they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt even to this day forsaking me and serving other gods.

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So they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.

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So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him.

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And he said, These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons, appoint them to his chariots, to be his horsemen, to run before his chariots.

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And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties. And some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.

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And he will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. And you'll notice that Samuel is saying all of these things as if this is not a good thing.

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This guy is gonna act like he's a little deity on earth and he's gonna control everybody and everything.

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And rather than sitting there going, Oh, that sounds awful. They're sitting there going, Oh, wouldn't that be great? He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.

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He will take a tenth of your grain in your vineyards, give it to his officers and his servants. He will take your male servants, your female servants, the best of your young men, your donkeys, put them to his work.

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He will take the tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.

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But Yahweh will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel.

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And they said, No, there shall be a king over us. So that we may also be like all the nations and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.

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We want to be just like the world. And if you read your

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Bible, then you know that the world is diametrically opposed to the things and ways of God.

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But they want to be just like the world. So that we will be like all the other nations that our king may judge us, go before us, fight our battles.

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And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of Yahweh. And the Lord said to him,

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Obey their voice, make them a king. And then Samuel said to the men of Israel, Go, everyone, to a city.

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And we know how the story goes. The first king of Israel is Saul. And that didn't go very well at all.

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Saul was not a man who had faith. He was wicked and evil and disobeyed. The word of the

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Lord did not heed it, did not respect it, did not obey it. And as a result of it, God rejected him.

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And then something really strange happened. God sent the prophet

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Samuel to anoint another king while the king was currently living.

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The word awkward comes to mind. So there's King David, a man after God's own heart.

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And King David is the anointed but not yet reigning, hmm, that sounds messianic, king of Israel.

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And his kingship is held up in Scripture as a model and a picture of the coming kingship of the

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Messiah Himself. And we see that God in 2 Samuel 7, verses 11 through 16, gives a very solemn promise to King David.

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And here's what it says. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that Yahweh will make you a house when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers.

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I will raise up your offspring, singular, after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish

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His kingdom. Hmm. And so notice here. God is king.

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They reject God as king and now they get visible kings like everybody else. It didn't go so well with the first one so God raises up a second one who is a prototype and from His very body will come the

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Messiah and the Messiah Himself will be a king. Which is a promise then that in the

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Messiah the return of God being king is coming back.

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But in this sense, the thing changes altogether. No longer is God king in an invisible way.

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God Himself unites Himself with the humanity that He created. Born of the

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Virgin Mary, suffers under Pontius Pilate, takes on our flesh and He will reign forever as our visible king, both

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God and man. And this was always the plan by the way. Always the plan.

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So the promise continues. I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body.

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I will establish His kingdom. He shall build a house for not my name and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.

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And He shall reign forever and ever.

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That's what He's saying. I will establish His kingdom forever. I will be to Him a father.

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He shall be to me a son. Hmm. A son of God. Now watch this next part.

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He's sitting there going, who's He describing? So when He, this king, commits iniquity, I will discipline

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Him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from Him.

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You think, well, when did Jesus commit any sin? Oh, you see, you seem to forget something here.

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You see, God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Jesus became the singular sinner of humanity and He was beaten with rods and He was scourged and whipped and had stripes.

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So this is even prophesying Jesus' death for us on the cross and His suffering for our sins.

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And notice that God sees our sins on Jesus as if Jesus is the one who committed them.

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Wonderful stuff. So I will discipline Him with the rod of men and the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from Him as I took it from Saul, whom

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I put away from before you, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.

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Your throne shall be established forever. Great words.

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So if you're living in Israel from that time forward, when you hear of this prophecy, you have this hope, this expectation, that God's kingdom is going to come and God is going to be the one to reign over us again.

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But how does it go with the sons of David? If David is the high -water mark of the kingdom, with each successive generation, it just goes down and down and down, finally through the floor.

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Over and again, you see with the sons of David, the direct descendants who are the monarchs, and he did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord and he did not follow in the ways of his father David, but he worshipped the Baals and it just goes down and down.

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And some guys, along the way, they repent, so it takes a little turn up, but it just keeps going down and down.

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And ultimately, God says, Enough! I'm sick of your idolatry, I'm sick of your wickedness,

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I'm invoking all of the cursed clauses of the Mosaic Covenant, you're going into exile.

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So God raises up Nebuchadnezzar, takes them into exile, they're gone for 70 years, Jerusalem is sacked, the temple's burnt down, it's just a mess.

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And there's no kingdom. None at all. And then when the remnants return, is the kingdom fired back up again?

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No. Because no sooner do they rebuild the temple that the prophesied one who would come to subjugate them,

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Alexander the Great, read the book of Daniel, Alexander the Great comes into town and he takes over the whole world.

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He dies a young death, and well, his kingdom is split into four pieces, and so Israel comes under the governorship of the

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Ptolemaic Empire. Read your Maccabean history if you want to know about that.

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Read the Apocrypha, it's helpful here to give you a little bit of the intertestamental history of what goes on.

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The Jews and the Greeks just don't really get along. You think of Antiochus Epiphanes who literally, literally defiles the temple of God.

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Sacrifices a pig on the altar. Goes into the Holy of Holies himself. I mean, it's just a mess.

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Which is a picture of the Antichrist. So from the intertestamental period, is there kingdom?

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No. And no sooner does the Ptolemaic Empire start to wobble and fall apart that up come the

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Romans, and then they literally take Israel and just push them down under their boots.

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And so what's the hope when Jesus is alive? The hope is that God is going to restore the kingdom and get rid of all of these sinners, tear down their temples, and just destroy all of his enemies.

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Mwahaha! So they're looking at the Old Testament prophecies regarding the second coming of Christ in judgment, and they totally miss, like Isaiah 53, that he was pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

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And so their hope and their expectation at this point, and they're just languishing and at this point, and we know this from outside of biblical history, at the time that Jesus arrived there was all kinds of groups trying to figure out how to usher in the kingdom of God and bring it about.

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The zealots had this great way, terrorism. You know, they engaged in terrorism against the

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Romans to help bring the kingdom about, but they always got crucified. It was a mess. So you get it.

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This kingdom thing going on. And let me read a little bit from Paul's sermon in Antioch, Pisidia in Acts 13.

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And you can kind of see the kingdom theme in this. And then we can wrap it all up and put it in a bow and you should be able to see it.

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Acts 13, 16 -23 reads, Paul preaching in the synagogue at Antioch, Pisidia says,

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Men of Israel, you who fear God, listen, the God of the people

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Israel chose our fathers, made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out.

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And for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness. Boy, that's the understatement of the entire history of man.

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And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All of this took about 450 years.

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And after that, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. And then they asked for a king. And God gave them

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Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said,

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I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all of my will.

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Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.

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And so you see it. King and Savior together. Which is why

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Jesus then, as he picks up the preaching call of John the Baptist, says this, repent!

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Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And here's how they would have heard it. The reign of God is back.

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It's at hand. It's here. God's going to reign over us again. You see, where the kingdom is, is where God is king.

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Not just God, though. Christ. Where Christ is king. And see, the call of the kingdom is to repent.

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To put away your wickedness. Put away your idolatry. Knock off that lying about your neighbor and gossiping against them.

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Put away your sexual immorality, your drunkenness, your orgies, and all of your evil deeds that you have done under the dominion of darkness.

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Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand. And in Jesus, he is king, and he is

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Savior. And he's not come the way, well, Israel at this time was hoping for, to come and flex his mighty muscles and take his sword out and just hack to pieces the evildoers.

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That's not what he's come to do. And I would like to kind of think of it this way. Think of it this way.

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We just saw the inauguration of Donald John Trump. And we just heard his inauguration speech.

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And notice the strong warning he sent to all of the enemies of the

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United States. All of the enemies. You're on notice. You terrorists.

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Oh, we're going to come get you. You're going to be wiped off the face of the earth. Donald Trump is president, and this is what earthly kings do.

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But I would remind you that Jesus' coronation and his first act as king is the diametric opposite of any king, president, parliamentary leader on the planet.

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Think back to Jesus' coronation. It's recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew.

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Gospel of Matthew chapter 27, verses 27 through 31. Listen to the details of Jesus' coronation as king.

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The soldiers of the governor, Pontius Pilate, took

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Jesus into the governor's headquarters. They gathered the whole battalion before him, and they stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, twisting together a crown of thorns.

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They put it on his head, put a reed in his right hand, and kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying,

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Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit on him, took the reed, and struck him on the head.

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And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

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That's Jesus' coronation service. Absolutely.

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And when they crucify him, what does Pontius Pilate put above the head of Jesus? In three languages.

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The name of that thing, by the way, hanging above Jesus' head on the cross, is called the titulus.

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The King of the Jews. He's crowned king, robed in scarlet purple, given a reed as a scepter.

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He's knelt before and proclaimed to be king. And what they meant as mocking is his true coronation.

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Absolutely true coronation. Keep in mind, they were the official representatives of Rome.

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And so Jesus is crowned king in the midst of his suffering and his dying for our sins. And it's important to note this then.

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What is Jesus' first act as king? Does he say, oh, give me the sword.

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We're going after our enemies. No. His first act as king was not to assemble his cabinet, start a war, send a strong warning to his adversaries and his enemies.

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Instead, Jesus' first act as king was to bleed and to die for his enemies so that they could be reconciled to God.

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Romans 5, 6 -10 says it this way. For while we were still weak, and we're all included in this list, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. Hear those words. Jesus did not die for good people. If you're one of them, you don't need this king.

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You don't need a Savior. He only died for the ungodly. And so this text teaches us to say, yep,

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I qualify. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die.

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But God, He shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Since therefore we have now been justified, declared righteous by His blood, how much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God?

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For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And notice what it says there.

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Christ reconciles us while we were enemies. I could go on, but I think you're starting to see the point.

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Through Jesus' death, the record of death that stood against us, that kept us from God, He canceled it.

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And forgave our sins. In all of human history, in all of the history of every king, president, political leader, in all of human history, you will never read of one more selfless and loving than King Jesus.

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He laid down His life so that His enemies could be forgiven, reconciled to God, and live and not face

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His judgment. Our king is nothing like the kings of the earth or even the president of the

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United States. In other words, King Jesus truly is the Prince of Peace. So with that in mind,

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Jesus' call is repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. God's rule and reign has begun.

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Remember the Great Commission. You cannot understand it apart from a right understanding of the kingdom that He is

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King. And here's what He says. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. You see,

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Jesus has proclaimed Himself in the Great Commission as King. As you're going, therefore, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching all that I have commanded. And I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

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You see, the Great Commission is a kingdom mission. And you cannot do the work of the kingdom apart from making disciples.

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And that is done through the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. And then discipling people in all that Jesus has commanded.

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What has He commanded? Take a look at the Bible from beginning to end. From Genesis to Maps, that's all the things we've got to learn.

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We've got to be discipled in. So you don't do kingdom work apart from proclaiming

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Christ as King. And to proclaim Christ as King is to proclaim Him also as Savior.

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The One who sits on the throne presently. Keep in mind, Jesus isn't up in heaven right now twiddling

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His thumbs going, Dad, when do I get to be King? I'm bored. I've been here for like 2 ,000 years, man.

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He's currently ruling and reigning. Currently.

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There isn't a government on this planet that hasn't had Jesus' stamp of approval on it.

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Either for the good of the people that they're over, or for the judgment of the people that they're over.

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Christ is King of kings. So repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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In fact, brothers and sisters, if we pulled out a globe, I couldn't spin the globe and say, look, the kingdom's right here next to Barbados and our great baptismal font.

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No. I'm looking at the kingdom right now. It's in our midst.

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You who are baptized, forgiven, penitent sinners, forgiven and absolved and pardoned.

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Notice the King language. Pardoned by the King of kings. You are the kingdom.

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And what is Christ up to? He's building the kingdom. The book of Revelation shows that great multitude from every tribe, nation, language that worships

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God before the throne. That currently He's building His kingdom and when

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He returns, He brings all of His citizens back with Him. New Jerusalem.

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New heaven. New earth. And He will reign forever and ever. And we will never have to hear the bickering between Republicans and Democrats ever again.

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Come, Lord Jesus, quickly. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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