When I talk about the kingdom, I don’t want you to miss-understand and think I’m talking about heaven. The Kingdom that the Bible talks about should affect every are of your life.
Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 6:10 “10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
The concept of kingdom has many personal implications and applications for each of us who call Jesus our King. As I begin to talk about the kingdom, I want you to ask yourself this question: Who is on the throne of your life?
Who is making the decisions in your life day to day? Is it you or Jesus? Are you surrendered to Jesus as your king or are you still calling the shots? Have you surrendered just part of your life or are you completely surrendered to Him?
Jesus is not a part time King. He’s not just King when you want Him to be. He does not step down from the throne when you don’t want him there and then return when you need something from Him.
You have to come to grips with the fact that Jesus is the King.
You didn’t put Him on the throne and you can’t take Him off.
That understanding will change your attitude toward who Jesus is.
I say this because those of us who have been in church for a while easily accept the idea that Jesus is the King as a concept, but as a practical application the idea of a king ruling over us is a foreign concept. We say that Jesus is our King, but we remain seated on the throne of our life.
We do what we want, when we want and how we want. We “surrender” the parts of our life that we don’t want, in trade for eternal life in heaven, but we hang onto the parts that we want to keep. The ones our flesh does not want to give up. Our pride, our arrogance, our mouth, our attitude, our identity that we have from a past career and our money. Have you surrendered those things to King Jesus or is your flesh still firmly in control of those?
You see, there is a cost you have to consider if you really want to fully surrender your life to king Jesus. The key to being a disciple of Jesus, is understanding the kingdom concept.
Isn’t the Bible basically about Jesus coming to die for my sins so I can go to heaven? No, it’s not.
Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus summed it all up when He told us what to do, repent. And He told us why we should do it, the kingdom has arrived.
Look at His words. Jesus didn’t say: “Apologize, so you can go to heaven.” But isn’t that what we hear in church most of the time?
Jesus did not come to earth for you to get a ticket to heaven. If you believe the only reason Jesus came to earth, died and then rose again was for your ticket to Heaven, it becomes very easy to become self centered, and you start thinking everything else that Jesus taught is optional. That kind of thinking allows you to stay on the throne of your life.
As long as you got the main thing taken care of, the rest of life is just about trying to get through till it’s over. You basically treat Jesus as a broker who set up your retirement plan.
The reality is, that Heaven is a side benefit of us being restored to a right relationship with God. Is it going to be more awesome than we can imagine? Yes. Is it the reason we were created and why Jesus came to earth? No.
As we begin our study of the Kingdom of God, I’ll be laying a lot of groundwork that will cover the initial concepts of kingdom life. These are the themes that you will see during our study.
The King, who owns everything Kingdom Citizens, with Rights and Responsibilities Kingdom Laws, the constitution by which the kingdom operates
We will be talking about each of these topics as we work through the concept of kingdom life over the next weeks.
There are about 120 references in the bible to the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. But what do we know about the Kingdom? Jesus taught more about The Kingdom than any other topic. If it was that important to Him, it should be that important to us.
After all the years I spent in church, I don’t remember one sermon on what Jesus was talking about when He talked about the Kingdom of God or or of heaven.
I believe that’s because we all just assumed He was talking about heaven and how things would be when we get there. But if you take a while and study the scripture it becomes very clear that He was not just talking about going to heaven. There is much more to kingdom life than a retirement plan in heaven.
The two phrases used in scripture, “kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven” are talking about the same thing, but they are using different terms to describe it. The kingdom of God describes who owns it...God. The kingdom of heaven describes where its seat of authority is based...heaven.
They can be used interchangeably. It’s like saying the kingdom of Great Britain or the kingdom of King Charles. They both mean the same thing.
Why did Jesus talk so much about the Kingdom?
Because He is the King, and He wants His kingdom citizens to understand how His Kingdom operates.
Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Here, Jesus was teaching us not to be worried about our physical needs in this world. Things like, food, clothes, and a place to live. Instead of being consumed with our physical needs, we should be concerned about our spiritual needs first. And the answer to our spiritual needs are found in the Kingdom.
Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
The Kingdom has to be sought because it has been hidden.
You don’t just stumble across the Kingdom. You have to be diligently looking for it. You have to seek it for yourself. Don’t just expect me to give it to you. I can’t give you something that doesn’t belong to me. You have to seek the Owner for it.
In order to seek God’s Kingdom, we need to understand what a Kingdom is. This is where things can get difficult for us. We grew up believing that kingdoms were only in fairy tales.
The last time we Americans were under a king, we rebelled and declared independence. So we don’t really care too much for the idea of a king owning us. And that is one of the main problems with the American church.
“We have Americanized the gospel and we have spiritualized the American dream. Neither has anything to do with the Kingdom.” - Tony Miller
We have a difficult time accepting the fact that the Kingdom is real and it is not a democracy. In a democracy the people have a voice and a right to be heard. It’s written into the constitution.
In a democracy, if you don’t like the mayor, you vote in a new one. In a democracy, if you don’t like a law, you vote to change it. In a democracy the people are in charge...But in a kingdom, the king is charge. He is sovereign over all things. That’s why...
In a kingdom, You do not get to vote on who gets to be the king. In a kingdom, You do not get to vote on what the king can do. In a kingdom, you do not get to vote on the laws. In a kingdom...there is no voting. There is only the word of the king.
As we discover the Kingdom of God, our first step is to go back to where it all started.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Stop right there. As Christians we fully accept that God created the heavens, the earth, the animals and mankind...but we never stop and ask why. We must answer the question of “why” we were created, in order to understand our purpose here on earth. What was God’s motivation for creating us?
God wanted to expand His kingdom. And not just His territory... His family as well.
The expansion of the Kingdom of Heaven is why God created the earth, it’s why He created Adam...and it’s why He created you. God wanted to expand His kingdom dominion from the invisible heavens to the visible earth. A physical, visible family.
Genesis 1:26 “26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; ...
Mankind is unique in creation, because we are a reflection of the image of God. Why would God make man look and act like Him, with reason, knowledge and creativity? It becomes clear when He lists our areas of oversight and responsibility.
We were not just created and turned loose to do whatever we want. We were given a management assignment. The verse continues.
Genesis 1:26-27 “...let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them... “
As His earthly family, God made man in His image because we were originally designed to function in the earth the same way God does in heaven. Man was created, in order for God to delegate His Heavenly rulership authority to Adam for dominion of the earth.
Genesis 1:28 “28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have
dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
When God created a new physical territory, the earth, He wanted a physical being to oversee it. From the very beginning, God intended His spiritual Kingdom rule to be extended into the physical earth through man’s oversight. God is a Spirit and rules the invisible spiritual Kingdom of Heaven. He created man with a physical body to rule over His creation of the physical earth. Man was created to be the earthly physical rulership extension of God’s Kingdom.
Genesis 2:19 “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air,and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.”
Adam was given dominion over the earth. Whatever Adam called an animal, that was its name. His word/voice had authority in the earth. Our original purpose was to rule with Heaven’s authority in the earth while God our Father rules in Heaven.
But Adam sinned and lost his authority. When Adam fell, he didn’t fall from heaven, (like satan) he fell from dominion over the earth...which was his original assignment of authority or dominion. Adam handed his authority to govern the earth, over to satan when he chose to follow Satan’s lies over God’s command.
The serpent had a punishment for his involvement in man’s rebellion. He had to crawl on his belly from that point forward. Eve had a punishment for her part in the rebellion. There would be pain in child bearing. But Adam’s punishment was different.
Genesis 3:17-19 “17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”
Adam’s punishment was directed at the ground...what he was made from. From this point forward, it would grow thorns and thistles, and it would no longer respond to his words. Adam lost his voice of authority. He would now have to work to get the earth to give up what he needed...until he returned to it.
The thing Adam was supposed to rule over was now going to rebel against him. This punishment was a direct reflection of what Adam had done to God, when he rebelled against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam had rebelled against God’s words and now the earth was going to rebel against Adam’s words. That’s why God cursed the ground.
Man was supposed to be using God’s authority to rule the earth. But now, God could no longer delegate His authority to us since we were now separated from Him by sin. There had to be a reset to the system God originally put in place, so He sent a second Adam to the earth.
1 Coninthians 15:45 “And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life- giving spirit.”
When Jesus came, He was called “the second or last Adam”, because He was the second or last man to be born directly from God, not of natural means.
Luke 3:38 “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Adam was called “the son of God” before Jesus arrived. This is because Adam was the first man who came directly from God and not born through natural means. We can see from this that Adam and Jesus were tied together.
So now, we can begin to understand the answer to the big question:
Why did Jesus come to earth?
If you boil it down to its very core, Jesus came to repair the kingdom system that Adam had broken.
Jesus reintroduced the dominion or authority of the Kingdom of God in the earth through man. And that could only be done by being what Adam was created to be originally...sinless.
The perfect life Jesus lived, allowed Him to become the only legitimate sacrifice to atone for Adam’s original sin. We were all born into the family of sinners because we are a direct blood descendant of Adam.
This is why we all need to believe in and call on the name of Jesus to receive His offer of salvation from our sinful condition.
The ultimate goal of Jesus was to restore our relationship with the Father, which then allows us to re-engage His Kingdom expansion plan.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
It says that God loved “the world”...This means His entire creation and the original order He set in place. His KINGDOM expansion plan. Not just people. God loved it all.
Jesus came to reset the original order and relationship that God wanted with man. Which was for us to fulfill His assignment of delegated Kingdom dominion authority over the earth as His children.
Are you His child? Have you surrendered to the King? Are you living as a kingdom citizen?
Коментарі