Kingdom of God part 1

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

The Kingdom of God as a Central Christian Hope

I'm excited. This week, we are going to be talking about the kingdom of God. And this is a topic that is very, it's made a big impact on my life and that's why I'm eager to share with you. In fact, we're going to talk about it this week, next week, and the week after that.

So, you're stuck with me. Just a brief story. When we were overseas, a couple of months ago, I was teaching English classes and I had a businessman in a one-on-one English lesson. And he was mid -50s and he seemed open to a relationship and so he, we arranged to meet together for lunch.

And we went out to a nice restaurant together and sat down and I didn't know what to expect, okay? But this man, no sooner had we sat down, within the first five minutes, he went on kind of a lecture, a rant maybe, about how capitalism was evil and how religion was just a problem, you know, a cause of so many problems in this world and he explained that he was an atheist and it just, you know, went from there.

And do you ever have those experiences where you think of the perfect answer to give somebody like 48 hours after the conversation? That's usually where I operate. But on this occasion, I think, God actually allowed me to have some direction as to how to address this issue.

I first listened to this man as he went on and on and then I just, I asked him, I said, let me ask you a question, sir. I know you don't believe in God but if you believed in God, what kind of God do you think would exist?

And he was taken aback by the question. I guess he had never thought about it and so he said, well, you know, I think if there was a God, he would be more just.

And I said, wow.

And that was a springboard into a really meaningful spiritual conversation about Jesus, our King, about the Kingdom of God, and about what kind of world I think we are all desiring to see. You see, there's a lot of, I think we are hardwired as people to desire a more perfect world, a world without suffering, without injustice, without shame, without war, without racism.

We're hardwired to desire this. That's what we're created for. And the absence of us makes us feel empty and angry. I think all people are hardwired for this. And that's why there's so many isms out there.

There's capitalism and socialism and atheism. And there, you know, conservative Muslims want to impose Sharia law, which is a religious system of laws that govern all of life. And everybody's got an idea about how to usher in this perfect world.

And Jesus talks quite a bit about this. In fact, he talks a lot about the Kingdom of God. I would direct you to just this one verse because there is hope for us. In Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7, it says, 4, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders.

These will be his royal titles, Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. His ever-expanding, peaceful government will never end. His rule, he will rule with perfect fairness and justice from the throne of his father, David.

He will bring true justice and peace to all the nations of the world. This is going to happen because the Lord of Heaven's armies has dedicated himself to do it. Friends, what exciting news. And this morning, we're going to explore the Kingdom of God, what it is, when it is, and why it matters for us.

So as we do that, please join me in prayer and then we're going to worship Jesus, our King. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would bless our worship time now. May it be pleasing and honoring to you. And as we open your word in a little bit, I ask that you would give us attentive hearts, hungry hearts, receptive hearts.

Holy Spirit, come. Govern our time in Jesus' name, amen. So this morning, we're going to explore the topic of the Kingdom of God and we're going to ask a couple of questions. What is the Kingdom of God?

When is the Kingdom of God? And why does it matter? And we touched on that already a little bit. I appreciate your prayer. Would you allow me just to pray again for us? I just feel a need to pray again.

Father in heaven, I know that unless you build the house, those who labor do so in vain. And so, standing before this group of your chosen people whom you love, I know that I cannot do.

Anything.

I ask that you would give to us, give to me grace to speak, give to us grace to hear. Heavenly Father, may your Holy Spirit govern this time. May the name of Jesus, our King, be glorified.

Amen.

So this is the first of three messages about the Kingdom of God. Today, like I said, we're going to talk about what the Kingdom is and when it is and why does it matter. And so, today's message is going to be something of kind of an overview.

We're not going to look at just one passage, we're actually going to look at a multiplicity of passages. And for those of you who like to take notes, we're going to look at a lot of different verses and it might go quickly.

If you like to take notes and you find this sermon helpful to you, I'm going to make the PowerPoint, which has all the verses on it, available afterwards to anybody who wants it and so you can certainly avail yourself of that.

So don't feel the need to, you know, quickly try and jot down everything. It might go a little too fast and you'll get frustrated and I'll lose you. And so, just please, let's just stay together here.

Next week, I'm excited because we're going to talk about the kingdom of God but we're going to talk about how to make sure that we are a citizen of the kingdom. We're going to talk about entering the kingdom of God.

And the following week, we are going to talk about spiritual warfare. What happens when the kingdom of God clashes and collides with the kingdoms of this world? So I'm excited. I hope that this will be helpful to you.

That's where we're going. But again, like I said this morning, we're going to do an overview of the kingdom. And so, let's just take a look. We're going to take a look at eight or nine verses right now.

Quickly, they're all going to be up on the screen to illustrate the kingdom of God and the emphasis that the New Testament places on this theme. So, at Jesus' birth, in Luke 1, the angel comes to Mary and says, You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants.

Forever.

His kingdom will never end. Then, in Mark 1, when Jesus began his ministry, it says Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come, he said, the kingdom of God is.

Near.

Repent and believe the good news. Later, in Matthew 9, verse 35, it says Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity.

When Jesus sent out the twelve disciples, he says in Matthew 10, as you go, proclaim this message. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Now, was it just Jesus that emphasized the kingdom or was it the apostles also?

Take a look with me in Acts 8, verse 12. Philip goes to Samaria and he sees a great outpouring of the Spirit and it says, when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God, and in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

And again, in Acts 28, verses 30 and 31, Paul is in house arrest in Rome near the end of his life and it says, the book ends this way, for two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.

What was he talking about with people? He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. But the kingdom wasn't just a first century emphasis.

Look at what Jesus said as he predicts the end of.

The world.

He says, in Matthew 24, talking about the future, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come. And finally, our last verse, in Matthew 13, Jesus tells a number of stories to illustrate truths about the kingdom.

And here, a very short story, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Friends, the kingdom of God is worth any sacrifice.

The kingdom of God is so important that if you sell everything you have to enter into it and to attain it, you have made a wise decision. But if you miss the kingdom, no matter what else you do in your life, you have missed the point.

Your life has been a failure. That's how important the kingdom of God is. Now, allow me to pause here for a second and, you know, I'll be honest with you, full disclosure, I feel a little bit of nervousness preaching about this topic because I know that there are different views of the kingdom, okay?

I'm going to share with you my best understanding of the kingdom this morning. And it's not my intention to create conflict with anybody's, you know, view that they have of the kingdom right now, their presently held view.

But let me just tell you about my background, just so you know where I'm coming from. Now, I was raised in a Bible teaching, missions minded, God loving, just a really good church. And at that church, I was taught about the kingdom of God as a boy growing up.

And I was taught that the kingdom of God referred to a literal 1 ,000 year reign of King Jesus on earth in which Jerusalem would be the capital of all nations and Jesus the Messiah would bring peace to all nations and this would last for 1 ,000 years and this was the next step in God's program.

Now, I don't necessarily think that that teaching is wrong. I'm not going back on that. But here's the problem. When I was growing up, I couldn't for the life of me understand how that was relevant to my life now.

My understanding of the kingdom as a young man was similar in value to my understanding of the French Revolution in the past. I mean, it was important to the people that went through it and in some sense, it gives shape to our world today in some distant way.

But that was a long time ago and those were different people and the kingdom of God, like that's something way in the future and I could not for the life of me see what relevance that had. But friends, I couldn't have been more wrong about the kingdom of God.

If the kingdom is important enough to sell everything we own to attain it, if that would have been a wise investment, if the kingdom of God is important enough that Jesus made it one of his central primary teachings, then it is absolutely imperative that we understand what the kingdom is and how we can make sure that we're in on it.

So with that, let me do my best to explain, we're going to open up this idea, what is the kingdom of God?

And let's just start with the word kingdom.

What is a kingdom? Well, I received a great example about a year or two ago, I remember I was, I think I was playing chess. As I remember, it was chess. I was playing chess with my son, Elijah. Now, he was about seven years old at the time and as we started the game, he took his hands and he put his hands over half of the board and he said, Dad, this is my kingdom.

You can't come into this part of the board. And what did he mean? He meant, this is the area of which I have sovereign authority. This is my area and I'm in control of this area. I reign over this part of the board.

And I thought to myself, wow, from the mouth of a seven-year-old, what a great example of the meaning of the word kingdom. And also, he's cheating. So, we use the word kingdom today. I mean, we have kingdoms in this world, don't we?

At Western Michigan University, where I work with international students, we work with a lot of students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now, you'll see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has geographic borders and within these geographical borders, King Salman, who is the current king, exercises sovereign authority.

So, if you are in Saudi Arabia, you have to obey the laws of the king. But the kingdom, in a sense, expands beyond these simple geographic borders, don't it? Because we have students from Saudi Arabia at.

Western.

Now, is anybody here under the sovereign authority of the King of Saudi Arabia? Does anybody wake up and say, I wonder if King Salman put out a new edict today? I wonder what he wants from me? We're not under the King of Saudi Arabia's.

Authority.

But the students that I work with at Western Michigan University, their scholarship is dependent on his goodwill. Their families are there. So, in a sense, you can, and they love and respect.

Their king.

So, you can say, in a sense, that wherever the subjects of the kingdom are present, there also is the kingdom, couldn't you?

So, what is a kingdom?

A kingdom is the realm or the place over which the king exercises his authority. Now, how does that relate to the kingdom of God? Because the kingdom of God has no geographical boundaries, does it? You can't point at a country and say, there's the kingdom of God or here it is.

So, what do we mean when we talk about the kingdom of God? Well, Jesus doesn't give a precise definition of the kingdom, but I don't believe that means that we shouldn't try and define it. If I can point to one verse that I think maybe defines an important principle of the kingdom, it's the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 10.

Jesus prays, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So, the kingdom of God is that realm in which the reign and authority of Jesus is exercised over the individual heart and over the community in which the will of God is perfectly realized.

Friends, in heaven, the will of God is perfectly realized. On earth, not so much so. But insofar as we are citizens of the kingdom and our lives are yielded to the reign of Jesus, our king, we can say in one sense that the kingdom is here.

Now, here's the important question, though, because there's more to the kingdom than that. Here's the important question, and this is where theologians sometimes tend to take different opinions. The question is, when will the kingdom come?

Now, some people say the kingdom of God is 100 percent right now and there is no future aspect of the kingdom. The kingdom is now. Some people will say, no, no, no, no, there's no sense in which the kingdom of now.

It is 100 percent in the future and that is the fullness of the kingdom. It's only something's future. Now, the Roman Catholic Church in the past has defined the kingdom of God as the church. Some say the kingdom is past.

It happened a long time ago. When is the kingdom? Well, let's go back a little bit and talk about what the Jewish people in Jesus' day understood when they were talking about the kingdom. Because Jesus didn't just come into a vacuum.

When he preached about the kingdom, the people had ideas about this. So, let's go to the next slide and I'm going to read to you a passage that I believe, and it might be hard to read, but I'll read it for you.

It might be a passage that just encapsulates the Jewish idea of the kingdom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, in other words, the Messiah. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, his delight will be in obedience to.

The Lord.

He will not judge by appearance, false evidence or hearsay, but will defend the poor and the exploited. He will rule against the wicked who oppress them, for he will be clothed with fairness and with truth.

In that day, the wolf and the lamb will lie down together. The leopard and goats will be at peace, calves and fat cattle will be safe among lions, and a little child shall lead them all. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

This was a precious passage and passages like this to the Jewish people who were waiting for the kingdom of God. Now, what does that mean? Let's look at the next slide here. The Jewish people, their view of the kingdom of God was such that there were two ages represented by the two circles here.

There was the present age that was characterized by, in some cases, demonic oppression. There's enemy nations surrounding Israel. There's injustice and warfare and sickness and spiritual darkness and death.

That's a pretty bleak picture. And the Jewish people understood that the present age is characterized by these things. But there is an age to come, and in the age to come, the Messiah will come and he will reign.

He will give victory over the enemies. There will be justice and peace and wellness. There will be knowledge of God that covers the.

Earth.

There will be life. But here's the important point. In the understanding of the people in Jesus' day, there was a sharp line between the present age and the age to come, and there was no overlap between these things.

Messiah would come, he would bring the new age. But right now, this world is subject to misery and suffering. And that's the world that Jesus came into. That's the concept among the Jewish people of the kingdom of God.

And there was tremendous anticipation by the Jews about the kingdom of God in Jesus' day. Messiah will come, he will relieve our sufferings, he will give us political independence. And there was great eagerness among the Jewish people.

Now, I remember my son, I have three boys, and up until now, we have homeschooled our boys. And I remember about a year or two ago, my oldest son was doing a homeschool course in world history. Now, I love history.

And so, I thought, you know, he's going to love.

This.

But he was required to read a couple of small books about world history. And it was kind of a surprise to me because he became frustrated reading the book. And he said, I'm just, I don't like history because all it is, is people killing people and stealing their land.

Maybe that's an oversimplification, but it brings up an important point, doesn't it? Have we ever seen the kingdom of God come yet? Have we seen this prophecy fulfilled that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the whole earth as water covers the sea?

That the lion and the lamb will lay down together? We haven't seen that yet, have we? So the kingdom of God is something that has future fulfillment, something we have not yet seen. And the New Testament emphasis on the kingdom carries on this idea that the kingdom of God has a future fulfillment.

There will be an apocalyptic inbreaking of the kingdom of God into our world in which enemies will be vanquished and the kingdom will be firmly and finally established over this whole world. There will be justice.

There will be peace. There will be health. There will be life. The New Testament preaches that, friends. Take a look with me, Matthew 13, verses 40 through 43. Now, in this, this is, I've just taken a selection of it, so Jesus tells a parable and he says, the kingdom of God is like this.

There was a farmer and he went out to the field and he sowed seed in the field. And at night, while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed bad seed in the same field. And so what you have, as time went by, the wheat and the tares, which a tare is like, it looks like wheat to the untrained eye, it's almost the same as wheat, but it's not the same.

It's bad. So the wheat and the false wheat, the tares, grew up side by side, almost intertwined together. And so the master of the field, his servants came to him and said, didn't you sow good wheat in this field?

Why?

Where did this come from? And the master said, an enemy did this. And the servants said, well, do you want us to go through, cut everything down and gather everything.

Up?

And the master said, no, wait until harvest time because if you pull up the weeds, you're going to harm the wheat as well. Wait until harvest time, we'll cut them all down together and then we'll sort the good from the bad.

There will be a sorting, a gathering into my barns of that which is good and a burning of that which is.

Bad.

So we see, I think, from this parable that Jesus teaches that at the end of this age, Messiah will suddenly return with great power and with great authority. There will be a sorting of mankind. What a terrifying and also glorious hope that is.

So my point, though, in sharing this parable is that the kingdom of God is something that is still.

Future.

It awaits a future fulfillment and Messiah, Jesus, will return with thunderous, apocalyptic power and he will establish his reign and authority over all the earth. The Bible teaches this very clearly.

But now here, there's another aspect of the kingdom in the New Testament, something I'd like to share with you this morning and this is something I didn't understand for a long time and it's something that's added a layer of meaning for me to the kingdom.

The kingdom is future but there's also another line of teaching, not contradictory but complementary to the first line and it's encapsulated in this verse. Let's move to the next slide. Jesus tells a story here in Matthew chapter 13 about what the kingdom is like.

So we find this parable. It's only one verse long. It's simple. It's understandable. Any first century villager would have been familiar with the elements mentioned in this parable but I believe that this parable redefined, in a sense, or brought a new revelation to the kingdom of God that was so fundamental that I don't even know that Jesus' own disciples understood exactly what he was talking about.

I think in time, their understanding flowered and.

Grew.

Take a look with me. Matthew chapter 13, he told them still another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it was worked all through the dough.

Now, if your family is like my family, you buy your bread at Costco. So perhaps I'm not that familiar with how yeast works. So lest we fail to apprehend the meaning of this parable, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast, or some translations use leaven.

Yeast is what makes bread rise. Now, you'll notice in this passage, 60 pounds of flour, 60 pounds of dough, that's a huge amount of.

Dough.

That would feed more than 100 people. So that's an exaggeratedly large amount of dough and a very, very few small flecks of yeast give shape to the entire loaf of bread. To all of this bread, just a little yeast will give shape, slowly working through every part of the dough.

Now, what does that mean? Well, I believe in this passage, the dough, this massive amount of dough represents our world. And the yeast, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast. The kingdom of heaven is present in our world now.

It's working its way quietly, yet effectively through every culture, every nation, giving shape to our world. Friends, the kingdom of God is at work everywhere.

God's winning souls.

He's breaking addictions. He's restoring families. He's saving marriages. He's overcoming depression. He's driving out demons. He's healing bodies sometimes. He's healing souls all the time. He's changing communities.

He's repairing broken lives. And this is the great mystery of the kingdom. Even as we wait for the thunderous, apocalyptic return of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, don't miss this, the kingdom of God, this age to come has, in a sense, folded itself back into our present age.

And it's at work powerfully giving shape to the cultures of this world. It is powerfully at work this very morning. In Luke chapter, we'll take a look at this graphic.

Here.

So I believe the kingdom of God, the graphic that we can use to reflect the kingdom of God as it's taught by Jesus is this. Yes, the present age is, in fact, characterized by demonic oppression, by spiritual darkness, by death, by sickness, by warfare, injustice.

There are people at odds, enemies all around. But the kingdom of God is breaking in to the kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of God has folded itself back and it's breaking into our present world. Jesus is reigning and he is bringing his kingdom.

He's bringing justice.

He's bringing peace.

He's bringing transformation. He's bringing the knowledge of God.

He's bringing healing.

He's bringing life. The kingdom of God is working now in this present age even as we will see a future and fuller fulfillment of the kingdom. That's why we read verses like Luke chapter 17, verses 20 through 22.

In this passage, Jesus says, once upon being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come now that's the question we're exploring this morning, when will the kingdom come? Jesus replied, the coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say here it is or there it is, because the kingdom of God is in your midst.

The kingdom of God is an active agent giving shape to our present world.

Does that make sense?

Friends, Jesus rose from the dead and he ascended into heaven. Do you know why the resurrection and ascension of Jesus were so important? Now, if there's a rigid premillennialist here, I might get myself into a little bit of trouble.

But do you know why it's one of the reasons why it's so important? In Romans chapter 1, verse 5, I'd like to I'm going off notes here, this is dangerous. I want to share with you a passage that always troubled me when I was younger and I never knew what to do with it.

Romans chapter 1, verse 5 rather, verse 4, I'm sorry it says, talking about Jesus as to his human nature was descendant of David and through the spirit of holiness listen to this was declared with power to be the son of God by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

What does it mean when it says Jesus was declared to be the son of God? Is that suggesting that he wasn't the son of God before? Was there a change in Jesus' character?

No.

Jesus was always the son of God. But son of God is a term in Jewish literature that means the messianic king. And what I believe this passage what happened when Jesus rose from the dead? Jesus, when he ascended into heaven, I believe he was crowned king and he reigns in heaven now.

But he will return and exercise his reign over all the earth, although we do not see that revealed perfectly in this present world. The kingdom was inaugurated at the resurrection of Jesus. The kingdom will be consummated when he returns in power.

And now we live in the time between the times, the time between Jesus' ascension and Jesus' return. And so we see kingdom benefits, kingdom power present in this age but not yet, not fully yet. That's the mystery of the kingdom.

Friends, that's why if Jesus was crowned king, that's why we read in Matthew 28, verse 18, Jesus says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. That's why we read in 1 Corinthians 15 where it says, Jesus must reign until his enemies are placed under his feet.

Jesus is reigning and one day his enemies will be placed under his feet and he will reign over all of the earth just now as he reigns in heaven. Well, you're asking me, well, in what sense, though, does the kingdom if the kingdom is present today in some sense, even while it seeks a fuller manifestation in the future, in what sense can we experience the kingdom today?

Well, how does the kingdom come into our present world? Well, I remember we were overseas in the Middle East, we were in Turkey, and my about a year before we came back, so this was about a year ago, we met with a woman who her ministry was to help like missionary kids who have grown up overseas kind of readjust to transition back into life in America.

So we met with this woman and she came to our home and did a little like debriefing kind of in preparation for our return home to America. She told us a little bit of her story and I hope I don't get this wrong, but this gal was Armenian.

Now, for those of you who know the political relationship between Armenians and Turks, Armenians and Turks, friends or not friends? Not friends. There is tremendous animosity and tension between Armenians and Turks today.

Armenia is a historically Christian country. Turkey, as you know, is Muslim. But that's not the source of the problem. The source of the problem was in 1915, at the end of the Ottoman Empire, there was a campaign of violence by the Ottoman Turkish government against Armenians.

One to 1 .5 million Armenians were killed during this time of turbulence. And there is, in Armenia today, there is an Armenian Holocaust Museum and the Armenians are often lobbying different nations, even here in America, to have this event labeled the Armenian Holocaust.

Now, how do you think the Turks feel about that? They vehemently, passionately deny that they did anything wrong. They said it was a war, stuff happens in war, the Armenians attacked us too, and so there's a lot of finger pointing.

But as I remember, this woman told us, you know, in my home growing up, my father or grandfather would say, don't even mention the word Turk. They're not that, I don't even want to hear about.

It in our house.

I mean, that's the kind of tension and animosity that exists between Armenian and Turks today. So this woman was Armenian and she's in Turkey ministering to missionaries. And she said that she met with some Turkish Christians and in dialoguing with them, you know what they said to her?

This is so, this is so contrary to, you would never hear this. The Turkish Christians said, we are so sorry for what our people, our fathers, did to your.

Fathers.

And there was a beautiful reconciliation that happened between the Turkish Christians and this Christian woman. That's the kingdom of God come. That's the kingdom of God healing the nations. It's a foretaste of what God is going to do in the future.

And it's breaking into our world now. You know, we've all heard or experienced ourselves the power of prayer through which, you know, when we lay hands on somebody and pray for their physical healing, we've all experienced.