The Kingdom Of God

The Meaning of the Kingdom of God in Ephesians 5:5b

Well good morning. I got a few good mornings out there, I appreciate that. All right. It is cold, it's a cold one. I feel it in my bones. Well all right, we are getting ready to start this morning. Just want to tell you all welcome and just want to thank you all members of 12 .5 Church for faithfully coming here this morning.

This is simply an overflow of our heart of being obedient to what God has called us to do. The writer of Hebrews says not to neglect the gathering together of the saints and we do so to rally around each other in love and truth and to encourage one another in love and good works.

And so thank you so much 12 .5 family for bringing your gifts to the body and to serve one another. For our guests and perhaps regular attenders, we just want to thank you all for being here as well. You are loved and we enjoy spending this time with you and if you get a chance please fill out one of our connect cards.

We would love to reach out to you, we would love to pray for you and answer any of your questions and we look forward to getting to know you more and more. And so that being said, our heart this morning is to grow in the knowledge and love of our sovereign triune God.

Amen. Alright, before we start our service, what we do every Sunday is we pray for a local church. And we do this because we want to unify with other gospel proclaiming churches that unify together on the gospel of grace.

We are not saved by all the works that we can accomplish and do before God Almighty. And so there are so many churches that say that you must put your faith alone in Jesus Christ alone all to the glory of God alone.

And one of those churches is Bethany Baptist Church. So if you would, let's pray together this morning. Heavenly Father, we just want to praise your holy name for all of who you are and how you've blessed us.

Lord, we just want to lift up Bethany Baptist Church. The pastor there let us know that they have a kids ministry on Wednesdays and there's about nine kids that come from unchurched families. And so, God, this is such a wonderful opportunity for these families to hear the gospel, God.

For their kids, for whatever reasons, may be learning more about you, Jesus. And we pray that they would be saved. God, we pray that they would grow in their understanding of who you are, Jesus. And they would bring that to their homes.

And God, that the gospel would be contagious. Lord, I just want to pray for Bethany Baptist Church that the discipleship groups that they're planning on having every Sunday night. God, I pray that, Jesus, your name would be magnified and that there would be great unity amongst the body.

Lord, the pastor also said that they are starting a home Bible study at the end of January. And God, I pray that their plans to do that would come through and that everything would go smoothly in that.

And lastly, Lord, I just want to lift up the primary preaching pastor. God, I pray that he would be able to boldly proclaim your truth this morning and that the gospel would be made known. Lord, we love you and praise things in your name, Jesus.

Amen. All right. If you would, please stand and join me for our call to worship. Our call to worship comes from Psalm chapter 8 from King David. And so our call to worship is... There we go. Can y 'all hear me a little bit better?

I got to remember that. Thank you, Keith. Our call to worship is a time of togetherness where we interact with God's word together. So let us proceed with Psalm chapter 8. O Lord, our Lord, you have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes. When I look at your heavens, the moon and the stars, what is man that you are mindful of him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. All sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea. And all God's people said... All right, let's pray one last time for just adoration to God that we would remove distractions and that we would give him honor that is due his name.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word this morning. Already reminding us that your steadfast love endures forever, God. That you own cattle on a thousand hills and all the hills and all of creation is yours.

It proclaims your handiwork. And so, God, I pray that we would be reminded of who you are this morning. That Jesus, you are king and Lord over all. Yes, Jesus, we love you. Pray this in your name.

Amen.

God, we thank you for this time of worship and we praise you, Father. Thank you for allowing us to be here and for the people that you brought here to worship and honor your name. Pray, God, that you would prepare us for this time, Lord.

As we study your word, we gather together corporately to worship your name, God. We just thank you, Father. Thank you for your goodness, God. Thank you that you are our only boast. Praise you, God. Thank you, Lord.

Amen. Let's sing this one together.

Scripture reading comes this morning from Psalm 145, which, once again, is a psalm of David.

Where he says, I will extol you, my God and king, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised is his greatness, and it's unsearchable.

One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. On your glorious splendor and your majesty, on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.

They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known the children of man your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all of his ways and kind in all his works.

The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those that fear him. He also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.

My mouth will speak of the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. Amen.

We praise you this morning, great is your faithfulness, Lord.

What an awesome worship service, Lord. I'm just so grateful for your faithfulness, Lord. And strength for today, and great hope for tomorrow. I praise you for paying the price, paying the penalty. I'm so unworthy, but I'm so grateful.

Lord, I pray that you just bless the remainder of this service this morning, Lord. Lord, I pray that you'd be with Brother Nathan, Pastor Nathan, Lord, as he stands and boldly proclaims your word, Lord.

Lord, I pray that you would just anoint him, anoint the word, Lord, and just clear out any distractions that we may have, Lord. Open our hearts and our minds, and we may receive your word, Lord. Lord, I pray that you'd bless this offering this morning, Lord.

Bless the giver. We love you. We praise you. We ask all these things of your son, Jesus, precious and holy name, Lord.

Thy faithfulness. Not great is our faithfulness. Our faithfulness falls short, doesn't it? But his faithfulness is true and clear and good. We've got a bit of a ring here, guys. We've got to work through it.

Bear with us. We're sorry. We're still working through all the sound system here. But today is going to look quite different. We are going to take a little detour from our exposition through the book of Ephesians in order to take a closer look at one of the concepts that the Apostle Paul has alluded to in the second part of verse 5, in which we looked at last week, the kingdom of Christ and God.

When he declares that truth that, for you may be sure of this, you may be guaranteed, Saint, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

And, of course, we looked a little more detail at that inheritance that we have been adopted, that we have been brought in. Paul has been speaking of earlier on that we've been made sons and heirs, as he has pointed out.

However, this is the first mention of the kingdom here in Ephesians, at least by name. So we, the elders, as we met this week, found it incumbent upon us to stop and address this topic of the kingdom.

Because I believe that much of Western Christianity today is not quite sure what to make of this concept of the kingdom. We often have vague ideas when we come across this in Scripture. We think of the kingdom as being maybe heaven, right?

As Jesus said, pray your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The kingdom of heaven. Some of us think maybe some future realm that will be created one day, maybe that's the kingdom of heaven, that's the kingdom of God.

Some of you in your eschatological positions may believe that it's the millennial reign when Jesus reigns here on earth, and that's the kingdom of God. But let's be honest, many times those ideas aren't very defined in our minds.

We're not real sure exactly what all this encompasses. And so we hear this phrase, the kingdom of God, we generalize it and then kind of move on from it. This is why we want to stop and take a closer look at how Scripture defines the kingdom.

And as I prepared for today, I realized, and this is something that we had wanted to do anyways, but I needed a minimum of 12 to 14 weeks to adequately and systematically lay out this immensely complex topic.

Because this encompasses so many areas of theological study. Your view of eschatology, your view of the end times, will affect how you see the kingdom of God. Your view of ecclesiology, the study of the church, is going to be molded and it's going to affect how you see the kingdom of God.

Your view of soteriology, the study of salvation, is going to be affected in how you see the kingdom of God. And one day we would like to stop and do that 12 to 14 week series, but don't worry, we're not going to do it at this moment.

We're going to continue to press on in our study in Ephesians and then possibly do that later. So for now, I'm left to give you a 10 ,000 foot flyover view of this wonderful concept of the kingdom of God, so that we don't divert from our context in Ephesians too long.

In order to do that, we must go back to the beginning. We must go back to the very beginning, at least our beginning, right? Right there at the beginning of this beautiful book that we hold to and look to and glean from, the very first phrase in Genesis 1 and verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

You see, there was once a kingdom. There was a kingdom, a good kingdom. There was a righteous kingdom. One that was created and established by a good and righteous creator. Remember when he created it all, he said it is good.

Because he is good. And all the glory goes to that creator and that kingdom. And it was the kingdom of man. Of course, this is the kingdom of God, God's kingdom. But if you remember in chapter 1 of Genesis, as a matter of fact, you can look in your scriptures and follow along with me.

We're going to be kind of walking through just a few different texts. But in verse 26 of chapter 1, right as he's created all these things, he's created the universe. There was nothing in existence, and everything that was created was created from nothing.

And then there in verse 26 of Genesis 1, God said, let us make man in our image. It's almost like he pauses for a moment. He says, okay, now we're going to really focus on something here. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

And what does he say about this man that he eventually creates out of dust? He says, and let them have dominion. And then he goes on to list all of the creation. He creates man to have dominion because he is an image-bearer of the creator.

He had created a kingdom, then created this image-bearer of himself in order to have dominion over this kingdom. That goodness and righteousness that was in heaven was to be the same on earth. Because the earth is a reflection of heaven, isn't it?

At least at that moment it was. Just as man was a reflection of God. This is the kingdom of man. And look at what he told man to do in verse 28. And God blessed them. And God said to them, who is he talking about?

Adam and Eve, right? Both made in the image of God. He says, be fruitful and multiply. And fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

To multiply. He tells Adam and Eve to multiply, to fill the earth and in so to subdue it. To have dominion over all of creation. Multiplying meant that Adam, being the first image bearer created, right?

Out of the dirt, was called under the rule of the almighty God to represent that posterity, that multiplying. He was to rule over them as prophet, priest, and king. This was Adam's job in this kingdom of man.

His father of all, the representative of all. With the garden that he's been placed in being the very temple where God dwelt with his people. You realize the garden was the first temple? The garden was set there on this creation and made a place where God came and dwelt with his creation, with his people.

And this kingdom was to expand throughout all of creation with the presence of God being with his people throughout the whole of their dominion. This was the kingdom of man. And just like with any kingdom, there's a covenant.

There's a constitution of sorts, right? There must be rules, there must be regulations, there must be an understanding that binds this kingdom together. And this covenant is what we refer to as the law of liberty.

This covenant in this kingdom of man was the law of liberty. One that was based on perfect righteousness. It was a covenant of works. A covenant of works, one given to a people who were upright. This covenant of works was given to Adam and Eve in a moment and when they had no sin, they were upright.

There was nothing hindering them from a relationship with God. And so this covenant of works was good. And God placed this covenant, if you remember, right dead center of the garden, didn't he? Almost like a constitution planted right dead center of this temple.

And God says, you may enjoy my presence. You may enjoy perfect communion with me. You may have dominion over this kingdom and enjoy the fruit of any tree and live. But eat of this tree and die. This is the covenant of works, isn't it?

This covenant had two sides. Just like any covenant, this has two sides. It could bring life or it could bring death. It could bring blessing or it could bring curse. It could justify or it could condemn.

It could provide communion with God or it could provide isolation from God. This was the covenant. And we all know what happened, don't we? We all know what happened. By the time we get through just the third chapter of this picture of this beautiful kingdom of man, we don't even get out of the third chapter and a seemingly insignificant small spark of sin sets off an explosion that decimates this kingdom into rubble.

The serpent, who we know to be Satan, has made his way into the garden, comes into the garden, comes into the very temple where God is meeting with his people. He does so with lies and hatred in his heart.

And he planted that seed into the mind of Eve. Did God really say, here's the thing, God's holding out on you. You will not surely die. You'll be like him. And I know that in Satan's heart, he was hoping to usurp the creator.

He was hoping to bring this good creation, this kingdom of man, into the same fate as himself. To crush it. To cut right at the heart of God, his creation. It's almost as if you can see the hatred in his heart.

How dare these inferior creatures have dominion over this? How dare they? I am a superior being, and they're the ones made in the image of the creator? And they are the ones that gain a kingdom to reign over and to rule over?

How dare they? How dare God? You can only imagine his ecstatic joy as Eve takes the first bite of this fruit, handing the fruit over to her husband, Adam, who is obviously neutral in this, and just following the lead of his wife, and watched as Adam blatantly spat upon this covenant of works.

As Adam, the prophet, priest, and king of this kingdom, stomps on this great covenant, and bringing this kingdom to its knees so that Satan may dance upon its ruins. This kingdom didn't last very long, did it?

The kingdom of man did not stand more than three chapters. You see, Adam failed at his job of prophet, priest, and king. He failed to protect that sanctuary. He failed to protect his wife, whom he was tasked to care for and oversee.

He failed to protect his posterity from futility. He failed. And because of this, what happened? Because of this, they were cast out of the very presence of God. They had broken that covenant of works.

And instead of blessing, they got cursing. Instead of presence, they got the casting out from the very presence of God, and Satan became their ruler. This once beautiful, luscious kingdom of man in a moment becomes the kingdom of darkness.

Sounds hopeless, doesn't it? This would have been a very seemingly hopeless moment. And that grace and mercy that God had shown to his creation turned into righteous wrath and judgment that was deserved for breaking his law, for sin had brought death into the world.

You see, God's goodness sustained life. You ever wonder if there would have been death early on in the garden before the breaking of this covenant? No, because the goodness of God only sustains life. The goodness of God sustained life, but now the wages of sin are what?

Death.

There's a cost to breaking that covenant. And everything was subjected to this. The animals were subjected to this. The trees were subjected to this. The plants were subjected to this. The weeds, the ground itself in which Adam was made out of is now subjected to it because Adam was the prophet, priest, and king to care and have dominion over it.

And now, as a representative, he brought death into the world. And they themselves, as Paul said in Ephesians, became darkness. They weren't just in darkness. They themselves became darkness. However, if you keep reading, as soon as that darkness set in, a single ray of light burst through the darkness.

It's small, but it was a single ray of light that's penetrating through. A gracious, loving, merciful creator, the one who had been sinned against, the one whose covenant was broken. He rushed in to provide hope.

That's the God we serve, right? We're just saying it. Great is thy faithfulness. What faithfulness in our unfaithfulness. And that hope came as a promise. That small ray of light came as a promise. And what was that promise?

It was a seed.

That promise was a seed. Look at chapter 3 there in Genesis. In verse 15. You know the passage well. God is laying out the consequences of breaking this covenant to Adam and Eve and the serpent. And he says to Eve, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

I want you to notice it doesn't say Adam's offspring.

He says her offspring.

The significance there, right?

It's a seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And then God furthered that very imagery by clothing them in skins. You ever wondered why God did so? You remember the moment they take of the fruit?

They now feel shame. They know of their shame and nakedness and they try and cover it with fig leaves.

Right?

But in the grace of God, he could have left them in that shame. But what does he do? He takes the life of an innocent animal, sheds its blood, takes its skin, and covers their shame. You see that glimmer of hope.

That glimmer of hope. He's basically telling them, hey, guess what that seed of the woman will do? He will clothe you. Ah, so good. You see, what God knew all along was something that Satan was not privy to was that this wasn't plan B.

This was always God's plan A. His eternal plan. And this plan was to reestablish the kingdom. They broke the covenant. They brought the kingdom into ruins and God had already had a plan to reestablish the covenant.

But here's the thing, like a good and gracious God, better. Stronger. And everlasting. Where there's not a tree of life in the center to condemn.

Right?

That kingdom could not be reestablished as long as the covenant of works remained unfulfilled. A covenant has been broken. It cannot be rebuilt until this covenant of works becomes fulfilled. So this hope requires that this covenant would be satisfied.

This hope in a seed that he has promised. This would mean that a new covenant of grace would not do away with the covenant of works, rather it would establish it. This is important. This may seem like nuance to you, but this is important.

The covenant of works must be fulfilled and the new covenant will establish that. Just as we see God's promise of hope intertwined in his declaration of judgment there in verses 14 through 19 of chapter 3, right?

Notice when he's telling them about this great judgment that has come upon them because of their breaking this covenant, he also gives them hope intertwined in all of it. The actual outworking of this great hope came in the midst of great judgment.

We see this great hope unfolding before us in the midst of the judgment. The wrath of God being poured out upon the iniquity of the unbelievers. You see, even though the walls of this old kingdom had come crumbling down, the foundations of a new kingdom were being laid at this very moment.

This is what is known as the Edemic Covenant. I'm going to mention a few of these as we go. You might want to jot them down and do a little research. This is what we'll talk about in that 12 to 14 week series down the road, but let's introduce it to you.

This is what is known as the Edemic Covenant. The covenant of works that Adam broke must be fulfilled. We see another glimmer of this hope in what we know as the Noahic Covenant. The Noahic Covenant comes not long after all of this.

The result of this fall of Adam's posterity being brought into futility and into darkness and under the reign of Satan had led to unprecedented wickedness in the world. This debauchery at every turn. And what did God choose to do?

He chose to wipe the slate clean of sorts, didn't he? He decided to start over at some level and wipe out this wickedness. In order to do that, though, God must maintain who he is and God is a God of his word.

You see, God could not have wiped out the entire human race, burnt the entire universe and said, I'm starting afresh and anew with a new Adam. And he couldn't because he could not lie and he could not go against what he has set out to do and what his word said to do.

So he is a God that is true and faithful to his word. So he could not. He had promised that the seed of the woman would defeat the serpent. He had already promised this. So God preserved Noah and his family, didn't he?

He preserves him. He had him build an ark. You remember the story. You all learned it in probably Sunday school as children where Noah is told to build this boat, to build this ark. And when the floods came, when the waters came and covered the earth, killing every living creature, Noah and his family were safe.

They were safe inside God's provision of an ark. You see another glimmer of hope shining through the darkness here? The wrath of God was poured out upon wicked men, men that deserved the wrath of God because they hated God and turned from God at every turn because all man does.

And the world had become overrun with wickedness. And even though Noah and his family were also descendants of Adam, God had made a way of protection. He had given them faith. We see this glimmer of hope pointing to the provision of God and providing a Messiah, don't we?

Just like the Noahic covenant. Just like Noah and his family brought into a boat and shielded from the wrath of God poured out upon wicked men. This is the gospel, isn't it? Is this a picture of the gospel?

When we are in him, when we are in Christ, as the whole letter of Ephesians has been driving home, isn't it? We are protected from the wrath of God. We are shielded from the wrath of God poured out upon the iniquity of the earth.

And after this, God promised never to destroy the earth with water again. And he's held true to his promise. He has never flooded the entire earth, and he never will. He will burn the earth up one day, but he will never flood it.

You see, the light gets even brighter as we go on through the narrative of Scripture, as we come to the Abrahamic covenant. So we come from the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant, and now the Abrahamic covenant.

You see, even though God had wiped out the wicked men in Noah's day, Satan still had and was still the ruler of this kingdom. And that darkness remained. It was great darkness. The hope of that promise that seemed to be fading, the promise of that seed seemed to be fading.

The people of God were far and few. It was hard to tell them between the world. It was hard to distinguish them. And it was impossible to identify the very people of God, those that he had granted faith to and set apart that were not a part of this kingdom of darkness.

And I'm sure in the midst of this, once again, Satan was hopeful of his victory, wasn't he? He probably just roamed around the earth celebrating like God even wiped him out. He saved Noah and his family.

Apparently, I hated that, but he did it anyways. And now their posterity are still falling into my hands. Their bloodline is still falling into my hands, and I'm still wreaking havoc. So as history is unfolding, God chose to reestablish this covenant of works.

Mind you, this Abrahamic covenant is not a covenant of grace. This is a reestablishing of the covenant of works with a particular people of his choosing. This is why we call it the Abrahamic covenant.

Look at Genesis 12. The first three verses is all we'll look at here,.

But in Genesis 12, verse 1,.

"'But now the Lord said to Abram.'". Now, this is obviously Abraham, right? Abram was his name. It says, "'Go from your country and your kindred.'". Now, I want you to notice something. God separated him from the other people of this kingdom.

Okay?

He says, "'Go, go from your country. "'Go from your kindred. "'Leave your family. "'Leave your friends. "'Leave your neighbors. "'Leave all of those people "'who are still a part of the kingdom of darkness.

"'Leave them. "'Separate from them. "'And your father's house, "'and to the land that I will show you.'". And promised him a land, didn't he? Promised him something. He was separating his people from the kingdom of darkness under a covenant of works.

"'And I will make of you a great nation.'". There's a whole new nation being created here. "'And I will bless you and make your name great "'so that you will be blessed. "'I will bless those who bless you, "'and him who dishonors you I will curse.

"'And in you all the families of the earth "'shall be blessed.'". This light keeps getting brighter, doesn't it? It's becoming clearer and clearer as we go through. I can feel Satan getting nervous about this point, right?

Like, oh man, he doesn't quite have a picture, but he knows something's up. Something's going on. You notice it's a much bigger picture than just the nation of Israel. He says that all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

We'll see that later as we come into a covenant of grace, right? But this, this Abrahamic covenant, Abrahamic covenant was meant to separate a people out of the kingdom of darkness and have his law represented amongst a people.

Abraham knew this was something much bigger than just him. We know that because the writer of Hebrews confirms all of that. You can jot these passages down, Hebrews 11 .10. For he, talking about Abraham, was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

He wasn't looking for an earthly city. Abraham knew that God's going to provide a physical land for us, but this isn't the promise. The promise is that I will make it a physical land because he's separating us from the rest of the world, but this is a greater promise.

In verse 16 of chapter 11 of Hebrews, it says, but as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. That's what Abraham knew. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

This is so much bigger than just the people of Israel in a particular location geographically. This is something spiritual. Through this covenant, walking through this world as sojourners, they were set apart in the Abrahamic covenant.

In the midst of these people, we get the law defined now in the Mosaic covenant. When we come out of the Abrahamic covenant, he sets a people for himself, and now this very people gets a Mosaic covenant.

He brings Moses into the picture, doesn't he? We get the priest of this kingdom in the Aaronic covenant with Aaron. I'm not going to define all of these. I'm just kind of walking through. I want to get to this one.

And we get to the king of this covenant, the Davidic covenant. You see, God is making covenants with his people, shedding light upon this new kingdom that is to come, little bits at a time. And each one of these covenants, none of them are a covenant of grace.

They are a covenant of works. You see, after 700 years or so, this people of God have been overtaken, seen as insignificant, but then comes the great king, David.

Right?

God provides a king. First, he provides Saul, because that's what the people wanted. He turns out to not be such a great king. Oh, but then David, God's anointed. That's who God chose. And this was pointing to the seed of David.

This Davidic covenant is pointing to the seed of David, the victor, the king of kings, the one that would set upon the throne of David. 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 13 says, when your days are fulfilled and you lay down with your fathers, who's he talking to?

David. He's talking to King David. When it's done, when your life is over, you'll be buried with your fathers. I will raise up your offspring after you. You shall come who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This is a great promise. It's not the gospel, but it points to the gospel, doesn't it? The seed of the woman.

And now David is coming from that line, and now Jesus comes from that line. These people that he has set apart for himself coming right out of that Abrahamic covenant. But the context a little bit of this passage in 2 Samuel, you see David wanted to build a house for God in his kingdom.

David had set out, right? If you remember the story, David wanted to build a great kingdom. He's like, it's not right that I live in this palace and God's got this tent over here, and we worship God in this tent like we did out in the wilderness.