The Kingdom of God

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 3. And we will again be looking at John chapter 3 verses 1 through 12.
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As we continue our study of the Gospel of John as a whole, we have found ourselves taking an extended look at the interaction between Jesus and this man called
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Nicodemus. And today as we begin the message,
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I want to give you a question to ponder.
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I want this to be the theme of the message, but also the inquiry that causes our search today, that causes us to go dive into the
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Word. And the question is this. What do you think, or maybe what do you think of, when you hear the
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Kingdom of God? What do you think of when you hear the
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Kingdom of God? Do you think of a spiritual place, perhaps somewhere far off or up in the clouds?
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Do you consider it a synonym for God's presence? Heaven, maybe, is a thought that you have had.
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God, this is an important question, but it is not one that I think is often easily answered, and I think even less is it even pondered.
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We simply say the Kingdom of God, and yet we often don't all have a clear understanding of what it is we are referring to.
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Jesus tells Nicodemus that being born again is necessary for both perceiving and participating in the
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Kingdom of God. And we have recently, over the last few weeks, sought to decipher what it means to be born again.
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We've looked at the necessity of regeneration, regeneration being the fancy theological term for being born again.
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We've looked at the necessity of it, we've looked at the nature of it, we've even looked at the navigation of it last week, as it is the
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Spirit who does the work and goes about regenerating. But today we are going to go beyond the barrier of entrance, that being regeneration or being born again is the barrier of entrance into the
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Kingdom. We're going to go beyond that, and we're going to ask the question, what is the
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Kingdom of God? So I invite you to stand, as we again remind ourselves of the text that we are in, and the focus of today's message.
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It says in chapter 3 verse 1, Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
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Jews. This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.
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Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him,
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How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
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Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
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Kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is
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Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
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So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him,
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How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
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Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
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If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name. And Lord, this morning
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I am somewhat overwhelmed by the weight of the subject matter.
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To preach a sermon on the Kingdom of God is already to admit that it will not be done justice.
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For Lord, we lack the words to truly encompass the fullness of the
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Kingdom. We lack the comprehension to fully understand the
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Kingdom. And yet Lord, we can know what we do know through our relationship to the
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King. So I pray this morning that I would be in submission to King Jesus.
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I pray that my message would be in subjection to his will.
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And I pray that you would keep me from anything that would violate his truth.
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And I pray, O God, that as your people are given your word about your Kingdom, that they would receive it, not as the words of a man, but Lord, that they would receive the word of God today.
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And I pray, O God, that I would be lessened and Christ would be exalted.
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And that the Spirit would be the teacher. And that the word of God would go out into the ears, mind, and heart of every person in this room.
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And Lord, God, that the believer would be challenged and edified. And that all unbelievers,
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Lord, would fall under the conviction of sin. And Lord, that you would move on their heart to turn from their unbelief and trust in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We are told in your word, O Father, that every knee will bow, either here or in the age to come.
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May it be, O God, that you bend our knees today to our King. In Christ's name,
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Amen. In the third chapter of John's Gospel, we find
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Jesus engaged in a conversation with a
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Pharisee, a man who sat on the ruling council of the Jewish people, a man who came to Jesus by night.
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We know not why, but we are told that he came at night. And when he comes to Jesus, he recognizes
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Jesus as a teacher. He calls him Rabbi. He recognizes
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Jesus as one sent from God. He says, no one can do the things that you do unless God be with him.
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And Jesus responds to him by giving him one of the most important statements of truth in all of Scripture, when he said, truly, truly,
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I say to you, unless a man is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God.
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And over the last few weeks, we have examined that idea of being born again.
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We have looked at the theological relationship between regeneration or being born again and faith.
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We have said that faith is not the cause of our regeneration, but it is actually the result.
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God gives us life and we believe. We've looked at the relationship between regeneration and sovereignty.
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We said that the analogy Jesus uses of the wind is showing that we control not the spirit, but the spirit determines where and to whom he works.
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And it is the spirit who moves according to his will, not ours. And then last week, we looked at what regeneration is not.
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Regeneration is not merely recognition of bare facts about who Jesus is.
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There are many people in this world who recognize the facts about Jesus, but do not know him as Savior.
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Regeneration is not reformation. It is not merely behavior modification, change of life, twelve steps to a better you.
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That's not regeneration, that's reformation. And a man can be reformed and not regenerate.
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And regeneration is not mere ritual. It is not simply becoming religious.
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For there are many men in this world who are very religious and yet have not been born again.
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But the heart of this conversation with Nicodemus, while it is about the barrier for entrance to the kingdom, while it is about this idea of regeneration, while it is about being born again, there is an essential truth that is behind all of this, that if we miss this, we will miss a very important part of the message that Jesus is giving.
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And that is the concept of the kingdom of God.
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I want to say something that I hope makes sense. And I hope that when
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I say this, it resonates with you. The kingdom of God is not a side note in Scripture.
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The kingdom of God is not a side note in Scripture. Oftentimes when we think about salvation, and we think about the gospel, we think about individual change and individual forgiveness and individual expressions of faith.
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And certainly the gospel does contain those things. The gospel is, or rather the gospel does encompass individual salvation.
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But the gospel is about more than you and you getting saved.
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The gospel message is about the kingdom of God, which is more than just you and your individual salvation and your individual forgiveness.
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The gospel is the royal announcement that Jesus is king.
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Through his life, death and resurrection, God's kingdom has broken into this world, and all who trust in him are invited to live under his gracious rule now and forever.
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That's the gospel. Now how do we participate in that rule?
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Through individual forgiveness and repentance and coming underneath the lordship of Christ. That's how we participate in that rule.
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But the idea that it's all about us has become a problem. It's all about him.
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It's all about his rule. It's all about his kingship. It's all about his sovereignty and authority over the world.
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The gospel is the gospel of the kingdom. The good news of the kingdom.
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And I think it is so easy for us to forget that. And to misapply the priority of the gospel.
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So the kingdom of God is not a side note.
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And so today I want to give you some points on the kingdom, some thoughts on the kingdom.
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We're going to walk through this idea, beginning with this simple theme that I just mentioned.
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The gospel is about the kingdom. I want you to consider three verses of scripture with me.
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And I want you to walk with me through these. So if you have your Bibles, please be ready to open them with me.
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First I'd like for you to turn to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1 provides us
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Mark's account of the first words of Jesus' earthly ministry.
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And I want you to go with me to Mark chapter 1 and look at verse 14. Notice what it says in verse 14.
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It says, now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming, notice what it says, the gospel of God.
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Remember what the word gospel, euangelion, means the good news or the good message.
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Angelos means message or messenger. We think of the word angel. And to put the prefix epsilon, upsilon at the beginning of a word means it makes it a good thing.
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Like eulogy is a good word. We think of that. And so euangelion means a good message.
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It's good news. And notice it says the gospel of whom? The gospel of God.
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And what is the gospel of God? It says the time is fulfilled. Read it with me. The time is fulfilled.
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The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.
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So Jesus comes to the people and his words to them are clear.
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The kingdom is at hand. The kingdom is here.
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It has come. And how has it come? It has come through the king. The king is in your midst.
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Notice the same words in Matthew chapter 4. So again, I'm asking you to turn with me this morning simply because I want you to see this is in all of the synoptic gospels.
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This is not unique to Mark. Even though Mark does place it as the priority, the first thing we hear out of Jesus' mouth is the time is fulfilled.
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The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Mark puts that as the first thing Jesus says. If we go to Matthew chapter 4, we read a very similar thing in verse 17.
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It says, From that time Jesus began to preach, saying,
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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Notice here the phrase kingdom of heaven is used rather than the kingdom of God.
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I need to only say this about that. There is a synonymous relationship between the phrase kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God.
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There have been many who have tried to distinguish kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God and even some who have tried to divide them out and say the kingdom of heaven is about one thing and the kingdom of God is talking about something else.
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I do not believe that that is correct. Kingdom of God appears 68 times across 10
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New Testament books, but the phrase kingdom of heaven only appears 32 times and all of them are in the gospel of Matthew.
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Matthew is the only one who uses the phrase kingdom of heaven and so there has been a lot of debate about why
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Matthew would do that. I think a good argument can be made by the fact that Matthew writes primarily to a
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Jewish audience and therefore when the phrase kingdom of God is less used, it is used in Matthew, but it is used less as the name of God or the word
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God is less invoked among Jewish people. Tendency among Jewish people is to replace the word
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God with something else like Lord or as in the Old Testament, Adonai for Yahweh, things like that.
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And so we see heaven encompassing the idea of God's presence.
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Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. In fact, you do not have to turn here for this one, but just to sort of push this across, what
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I'm saying in Matthew 19, 23 and 24, Jesus is speaking to his disciples.
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He says, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
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He uses kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God synonymously in this illustration, which
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I think is proof enough for me that when we read the phrase kingdom of heaven, it's referring to the same thing as the kingdom of God.
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So again, going back to Matthew 4, Jesus' message when he goes about preaching in Matthew is what?
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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, which is a synonymous phrase to what he says in Mark.
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The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Now turn to Luke.
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We'll look at the third of the synoptic gospels and go to Luke chapter 4. Luke does not put this phrase in the mouth of Jesus as the other two gospel writers do, but Luke does include this phrase kingdom of God in his summary of what
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Jesus is preaching. Notice in verse 42, if you're in Luke chapter 4, verse 42, it says this,
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And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place, and the people sought him and came to him and would have kept him from leaving.
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But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose.
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So Luke doesn't have him saying, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, but Luke has him saying, I got to go continue to preach what
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I've been preaching. And what have I been preaching? The kingdom of God, right? So Luke is summarizing the words of Jesus by saying,
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I've got to continue to do this because this is what I've been doing the whole time. Does Jesus preach the forgiveness of sins?
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Yes. Does Jesus preach a relationship with God? Yes. Does Jesus preach about the things that are the benefits for the individual to be received through trusting in him?
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Yes. But what is the heart behind what he preaches? What's the message behind the gospel?
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What is the message of the gospel? The gospel message is the gospel of the kingdom. This is the common theme of Jesus' message in the synoptic gospels.
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We are told in Matthew 6 .33 to seek what? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
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What do the parables tell us over and over? The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is like unto this or like unto that.
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The parables over and over and over again are stressing to us a definition of the kingdom.
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It's interesting though when we get to John's gospel as I've been mentioning, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all stress the kingdom.
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They all put those words in Jesus' mouth. He's preaching the kingdom. That's the message. But when we get to John, the phrase kingdom of God is only used twice.
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Remember earlier I said the kingdom of God is used 68 times in 10 different books of the
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New Testament? Well, only two is it used in the gospel of John. And we read about it already when we read our opening this morning.
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Unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of God. Unless you are born of water and the spirit, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
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So only in this story, only in this relationship, or I'm sorry, this interaction with Nicodemus do we find
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Jesus speaking about the kingdom of God. He does mention the word kingdom later when he's before Pilate and he says my kingdom is not of this world.
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But the phrase kingdom of God only shows up twice in John's gospel and it is here in the interaction with Nicodemus.
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But I have to tell you, I do not believe this is because John is somehow unconcerned with the kingdom of God. I want to be very clear.
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I believe this interaction with Nicodemus proves to us that John is not unconcerned with the kingdom of God because he tells us the very thing that one must have to enter the kingdom of God and that is he must have regeneration.
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He must be born again. But John is less concerned about telling us what the kingdom is.
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Instead, he is more concerned about telling us how we participate in the kingdom.
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The other gospels will tell us more about what the kingdom is, but John tells us how we participate.
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You must be born again. The concept of the kingdom of God is not a side note in Scripture.
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I've already said that, but I want to keep reiterating that because, again, I think it's something that we often don't think about.
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The concept of the kingdom of God actually began all the way back in the garden.
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And I'll invite you to turn there if you would. Turn to Genesis chapter 1. By the way, if you're new or maybe you haven't been here,
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I don't normally have this much cross -referencing. I tend to not do as much, but this morning
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I'm referencing all these passages because I want to show you this theme that's in Scripture. This idea of the kingdom is not just a small thing, but it's an overarching concept that is throughout.
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In Genesis chapter 1, we have this wonderful truth about man being made in the image of God.
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Now, when we consider the image of God, that concept and that idea has been debated by theologians as to its meaning ad infinitum.
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They're just always trying to discover new ideas about what does it mean to be made in the image of God.
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But one of the things that is clear in the text is we can say we are made in the image of God, therefore we are personal.
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We are made in the image of God, therefore we are relational. We are made in the image of God, therefore we are able to have relation with Him.
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All of these things which make us unique from all the other animals. You know, you don't see animals worshiping.
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You don't go out to a cow pasture and see cows going moo. You know, you don't see that, right? So cows don't worship, dogs don't worship, people worship because we're made in the image of God, right?
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So there's certainly something about us that is unique because of that image that's been stamped on us by God.
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We are made in His image. And by the way, that is a universal truth. Every human being is made in the image of God.
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Man and woman of every tribe, tongue, and nation is made in the image of God.
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But it's also a part of that image is that we are to reflect
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God. We are to image God in the world. It's not just what we possess as the image, but it's also what we do.
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And we see this in verse 28. So if you're in Genesis 1, again, it says that we are made in the image of God. In the image of God made
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He Him. Male and female made He them. And God blessed them. Verse 28, And God said to them,
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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 heaven and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
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What is Adam's role in God's world? He is
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God's vice -regent. He's the one that God has given authority in the world.
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He said, Now do what I have shown you. Take dominion over this world.
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Exercise authority over this world. Under my authority.
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Adam is not king without himself having an authority, but he has been commanded by God to subdue the world and take dominion over it.
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And what does Adam do? Is he a faithful servant of Yahweh who goes and administers
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Yahweh's authority throughout the land? No. He rebels against the authority of his king.
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I've said this before, but I don't know how often it's actually picked up what I've said. Do you understand that sin is no small thing, but it is actually high treason against the king of the universe?
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When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree, he was looking at the king of the universe and he was saying,
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No, not thy will, but my will be done. I want my kingdom to stand and my authority to rule.
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I want to do it my way. You guys remember that Frank Sinatra song? I used to work with a funeral home.
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I don't work much with them anymore just because time and things have gotten away, but I used to do funerals two or three a month, and I did that for several years.
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I've done over 150 funerals for people I never met. By God's grace,
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I had the opportunity to share the gospel with these people. I'm very thankful for that opportunity. But one of the things that always bothered me was when people wanted to play
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Frank Sinatra's my way during their service because it was always, just to me, sounded very, very opposite of what it should be.
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But that's the way many people are. We want to do it our way. We want to have my way.
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It's my kingdom. Going to do it my way. Well, that was
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Adam's attitude. He did it his way.
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And so what do we see? Does God abandon man and simply turn away from him and allow him to spiral into unending madness?
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It seems as such, there were times where man did spiral into great and passion -filled sin, but God did not abandon man completely.
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From the moment Adam sinned,
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God showed grace to him. And then down through the ages,
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God began, through his covenants, to bring man back under his rule that he had abandoned in the garden.
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Very good book that I would recommend, even though it's about that thick. It's called
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Kingdom Through Covenant by Steve Wellman and Peter Gentry. Now, I don't agree with everything anybody says.
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So if you read something in there, you say, well, I don't know if I agree. Okay, that's fine. It's a long book. You're going to find something you may not agree with.
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But the idea of Kingdom Through Covenant is the idea of the book. What does
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God do when man abandons his rule?
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God brings man back under his rule through the process of the covenant relationship.
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And God begins to bring man back under his rule successively and progressively through these covenants.
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This is why if people ask me, are you classic covenantalist? Are you this? Are you that? I often say I like the term progressive covenantalism because that's the idea.
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God is progressing his kingdom through his covenant relationships.
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What was God doing when he called
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Abraham out? He was establishing a people for himself that would live under his rule.
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That's what he said. He says, you come out and you go to the place where I show you and you'll be my people and I'll be your
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God and I'll bless those who bless you and I'll curse those who curse you and in you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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That's the promise of God to Abraham. You're gonna be my people.
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You're gonna be the people who live under my rule. The rest of the world will mock my rule.
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The rest of the world will abandon my authority. The rest of the world will not listen to my word but you will be my people and I will be your
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God. Therefore the kingdom of God is typified in Israel.
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Now what does typified mean? That means Israel is a type of the kingdom that God establishes because God calls a people to himself.
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He says, you're my people and here's my rule. What does he give them? He gives them his law.
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He gives them his standard. He says, here's my rule. You're my people. But there was a problem, wasn't it?
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How long did God's called out people, his nation, how long do they obey?
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Not long. And we find the cycle, don't we?
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Disobedience, judgment, repentance, restoration, disobedience, judgment.
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I mean, it's all through. We read through Judges. We read through the
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Kings. We see this cycle, this repetitive cycle. God has given them a kingdom to live under.
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He's given them rule to follow. He's given them a standard and a law. But then the prophets gave this wonderful promise.
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They said, there's coming a day where I'm going to establish a new covenant.
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And here's what will make the new covenant different than the old covenant. I'm going to put my law in them and my spirit is going to live in them.
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We will see the kingdom be inaugurated because the
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King will come. For unto us, a child is born.
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Unto us, a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulders.
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And we shall call him wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting
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Father, the Prince of Peace. Certainly, this pointed to the figure,
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Jesus Christ, who in His first coming, inaugurates this new covenant kingdom or what we would call the kingdom of Messiah.
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But He doesn't come and inaugurate the kingdom through rule.
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He comes and inaugurates the kingdom through sacrifice.
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He doesn't come the first time to wield an iron rod.
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But He comes and wields a shepherd's crook. And He says, follow
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Me. Love one another as I have loved you.
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Come unto Me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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So He was not what was expected. The King is supposed to overthrow our oppressors.
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The King is supposed to come and flatten our enemies. But He didn't. He came and succumbed to the hatred of His enemies and He even gave
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Himself to die on a cross. What kind of King is that? And what kind of kingdom is that?
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It's the kingdom of God. Because the kingdom is where the
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King is. The King is here. Jesus says,
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I'm here. And the kingdom comes with Him. The kingdom of God is at hand. He comes.
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He dies. He resurrects. He ascends. And He is seated at the right hand of the
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Father right now in a position of authority.
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What did He say when He came out of the grave? What did He say to His apostles? All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Me.
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And now what does He command them to do? Therefore go and make disciples.
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Of who? Of Me. Therefore go and make followers of Me. Therefore go and make people to bow the knee to Me.
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Because the King has come and He is now exalted on high and we have the opportunity to participate in His kingdom through obedience to His commands.
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Jesus said, if you love Me, what? You'll keep My commands. The kingdom of God is typified in the
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Old Testament. It is inaugurated in Christ's first coming and it is consummated in His return.
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When He returns, there will be no more rebellion. When He returns,
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He will put all His enemies under His feet. And the
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Bible says, on that day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
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What? What does every tongue confess? Jesus is my Savior? No. Jesus is
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Lord. Jesus is Lord. Beloved, Jesus is
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Lord is the banner of the kingdom. Jesus is
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Lord is the statement of the kingdom. In fact,
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I'm going to talk about this more at announcement time, but this week we're going to do a, we're going to do a, begin a new class on Wednesday night and it's going to be on basic principles of the faith.
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One of the first ones is being assured of our salvation. How are we assured of our salvation? And one of the verses we're going to look at is in Romans where it says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
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Lord, believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Why is confessing Jesus is
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Lord part of the gospel? Because it's recognition of who He is and what is the gospel. It's the gospel of the kingdom.
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If we deny that Jesus is Lord, then we have denied the very foundation of what the gospel is and who the gospel is about.
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There is no such thing as anti -lordship salvation. Now we can debate about what lordship salvation means and how it functions, but if you say
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Jesus is not Lord, you ain't saved. Jesus is
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Lord whether you believe it or not. But coming under His lordship means to bow the knee to His rule.
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In fact, I want to give you this idea. This is a thought. I heard a Bible teacher say this and I thought it was interesting.
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He was talking about the idea of the word kingdom. We think of kingdom...
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Kingdom is a weird word for us as Americans because we don't like kingdoms. We like democracies and representative republics and we don't like kings and we don't like kingdoms.
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What was that? Yeah, yeah. But do you know where the idea of the word kingdom comes from?
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The idea of putting the word DOM at the end of something relates to the idea of domain.
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It means to be under the authority of something, under the jurisdiction of something, or even the state of being. For instance, if I say freedom, that means a state of being free, right?
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If I say wisdom, that's a condition of being wise, right? Or even if I say something like boredom.
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My kids are always complaining, I'm dead, I'm bored. Boredom is the condition of being bored, right?
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Or to be in the state of being bored. The kingdom then is the idea or the realm or the domain where the king reigns.
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What is the kingdom? It's the reign of the king. And so we can ask this question.
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Is Christ reigning now? Yes, he actually is.
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Christ is reigning now. And you might say, but wait a minute.
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60 million abortions since 1973. Kidnappings, rape, incest, and murder.
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It's all we ever hear on the news. How can we say that Christ is reigning?
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We can say Christ is reigning because he is reigning in the hearts and lives of those whom he has saved.
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The rule of Christ begins first and foremost among his people. The kingdom of God is the people who are under the lordship of Christ.
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And here's the beauty of it. If you read about the parables or if you read the parables in the
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Old Testament, you know what you find out when you read those parables? The kingdom of God is growing over and over and over again.
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What do we read in the parables? We read the kingdom of God is like a seed that goes into the ground and it grows into a mighty tree so big that the birds of the air make a nest in its branches.
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That's the height of the kingdom. Or we say the kingdom of God is like a wheat field.
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And what's the wheat field according to Jesus? It's the whole earth. The kingdom of God, that's the width of the kingdom.
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This is John MacArthur's analogy. He said if you look at the parables, you'll see the height, the width, the breadth and depth of the kingdom.
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The height, the tree, the width, the field, the depth. The leaven goes in.
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And what does it do? It permeates the whole loaf. And he said the length of the kingdom because what are we told?
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The wheat and the tare grow until when? Until the end. So the kingdom will have no end, right?
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The Bible says the gates of hell will do what? Will not prevail. Individual churches can fall, but the church of Christ cannot fall.
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Individual churches may grow to the point where they outlive their age or something like that and the doors end up closing.
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And it's sad when that happens, but it does happen. And individual churches can become apostate and it's not sad when they close because they need to close.
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But the church of the Lord Jesus Christ that he established will not fail.
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It will continue to grow. That is his kingdom in the world, growing in the world.
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Here's the blessed part. The real part that just gets me excited is that when we consider the fact that the kingdom cannot fail, then we have no other choice than to keep marching forward.
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I hate it when people talk about feeling like the church is defeated.
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Church is not defeated. People say, oh, look at all the churches in Europe that are now turning into mosques or nightclubs.
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Yeah, but look at all the churches that are growing in Africa and Asia, continents that had been dark to the gospel for hundreds of years are now flourishing with the gospel in places where you can even die for your faith.
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People say, oh, well, in America there's a complacent church. Mike's going to kill me for this one.
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There's the Laodicean Church. I don't believe it's the Laodicean Church. But what was the
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Laodicean Church's problem? Lukewarm. Do we not see? And you know, that's funny.
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You see a lot of churches, Church of Philadelphia, you never see the Church of Laodicea. No church ever names itself that.
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But some probably should. That lukewarm church is neither hot nor cold, right?
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They're out there. And we tend to think that's all that's happening. We see the craziness going on in churches and we tend to think that's all that's happening.
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It's not. God is building His kingdom through His church and it's continuing to grow.
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We should be excited about that. We should be moved to tears to know that it's not going to end with us unless Jesus returns in our lifetime.
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It's going to continue to grow because that's what the parables actually tell us.
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They tell us the kingdom has incomparable value. It's like a hidden treasure. It's like a pearl of great price.
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And it is going to continue and fill the earth. You remember the book of Daniel? You remember when
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Nebuchadnezzar had his dream of that colossal statue? And the colossal statue with the head of gold and the shoulders of bronze?
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Right? You remember this? Remember the feet of the statue were mixed with iron and clay?
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Actually, I want you to see this one. Turn with me to Daniel chapter 2.
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And I'll draw to a close with this. Go to Daniel chapter 2 and verse 31.
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Beginning of verse 31, we have Daniel speaking to Nebuchadnezzar about his dream.
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He says, You saw, O king, and behold a great image. This image, mighty and exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening.
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The head of the image was fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, and middle and thighs of bronze. I got that backwards earlier.
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I apologize. Legs of iron and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
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And as you looked... Verse 34, so important. And as you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand.
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And it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.
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Now, you may ask yourself, what's that about? The different elements, the gold, silver, the bronze, these are all different kingdoms and Daniel explains that.
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But he also explains what this stone cut without hands is. He tells us that down in verse 44.
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And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people.
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It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.
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That's the kingdom of God. Jesus said it will come and it will grow slowly.
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But one day, it will crush all the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of Messiah will stand forever.
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So when we deal with the kingdom, we have this idea. I'm going to leave you with this thought. We have the already and the not yet.
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The king has come. He's already come. He's established his kingdom. It's already established, but it's not yet here because we await his return where in his return, what will he do?
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He will put all of his enemies under his feet. You go to Revelation 19. Jesus comes back.
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Mike loves to tell this. Coming back on that white charger. I can't do it as good as him. You know, getting all... Mike gets excited when he talks about it, but the
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Savior comes on his horse. And what does he do? He eliminates his enemies.
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He puts them all under his feet and he ushers in the new heaven and the new earth, the kingdom of Messiah, which will have no end.
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Beloved, we are in the kingdom now, but what we have now is not what is to come.
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So we can say, yes, we who are under the lordship of Christ are enjoying the kingdom now, but there is so much greater yet to come.
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And we look forward with great anticipation to that day when our king comes and takes us to himself and we enjoy the presence of God as our inheritance forever.
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Beloved, if you this morning, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you've bowed the knee to him, praise the
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Lord, but if you haven't, know this. You will either bow the knee now or you will bow the knee then.
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But make no mistake. You will bow the knee. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for the opportunity to talk about your kingdom.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would see the beauty, splendor, and majesty of your kingdom as we consider this truth, as we meditate upon this text for today.
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Lord, you told us we will not see the kingdom unless we have been born again. So I pray,
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Lord, today, anyone in this room who has not received the Lord Jesus Christ would, by the work of your
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Spirit, come to faith in him and that you would draw them to their knees and give them the gift of faith.