Kingdom of God
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Regaining Vision
Regaining Vision
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
When we read these words we usually do so with pre-conceived ideas.... unfortunately, not from the Bible but from ideas we have continually heard or been brought up with, either conciously or unconciously.
What is Jesus actually saying here?
Much of western Christianity over the last several centuries have focused on the divinity and death of Jesus.
Much focus, even among Adventist circles is about:
The divinity and humanity of Jesus;
Was He tempted like us or not;
What is justification;
Righteousness by faith;
Sanctification;
How am I saved;
Am I saved
There is one common theme though that runs with most Christians who obsess over these topics, they tend to be anthropocentric.
Anthropocentric
Anthropos = Human beings
Centric = Center
Human beings are the central and most important entity in the universe.
So for a lot of Christians it’s about how
I am saved
How am I justified or sanctified
They’re sincere but it’s a “zeal not according to knowledge”.
They’re motivation is misguided
They’re vision is impaired.
And what has happened is that people will read the letters written by the Apostle Paul but and try unpack his theology without ever looking and contextualising it with the middle part of Jesus’ life.
The life of Jesus is completely looked over. But without understanding His message and life, we can’t fully understand the rest of the New Testament.
Was Paul obsessed with a kind of anthropocentric theology?
Not at all!
Was he obsessed with salvation, righteousness by faith, sanctification.
Maybe, but possibly not in the way we think he was.
8 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.
25 “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
23 They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus.
31 He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!
Paul as the rest of the disciples were not preaching about ‘righteousness by faith’ or ‘how do I get saved’ but they were proclaimed, explained, preached, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God.
They were only continuing what Jesus and John teh Baptist had begun:
17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Repent = to change direction not necessarily to be sorry for sin.
Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John and says to them to ‘Follow Me.’ When they “abandoned their nets and followed Him” they repented. They didn’t only abandon their career, but more than this, they began a journey where they were going to learn to abandon everything they thought they knew and follow a “new and living way”; they were going to embrace a new way of ‘being’; a new way of being human. They were abandoning their own Babylon and it’s way of doing things and following Jesus into the kingdom of God where everything is different, it’s upside down, but it’s good. It’s good because everything in it flourishes because everything lives from the ultimate principle of self-giving love.
Then, after Jesus is resurrected, he spends forty days with them preparing them to be emissaries. We obviously don’t know all the details of what was taught but we do know the overarching theme that was discussed:
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach
2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
King Jesus
King Jesus
When you read these verses and then you read the gospels, especially Matthew, it would appear that Jesus is obsessed about the kingdom of God.
How many parables are related to the “kingdom of God?”
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
What is the “good news”?
Isaiah 52 talks about a moment after Jerusalem has been decimated by Babylon and most of the people taken away as exiles and so there a few still left in the city wondering what has happened? Is God still with us?
7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.
9 Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
But how will God bring about this salvation to the captives of Israel?
Even though Israel came back from Babylon and re-built Jerusalem they still felt like exiles always coming under rule by other world powers, eventually Rome.
And so for the Jews, the good news would be the Messiah ushering in His kingdom by raising up an army and defeating the enemies of Israel and setting them up above the nations of the earth.
But then you continue reading Isaiah 53 and you read about a “Suffering Servant;”
A king who would not appear beautiful or majestic for us to be attracted to;
A king who would be despised and rejected, oppressed and afflicted;
A king who would be “cut off from the land of the living” and would be punished for their transgression.
The king would pour out his life unto death; and it will be known that He is the righteous One when bears the iniquity of the people.
Then in Isaiah 54 there is a reassurance that Yahweh’s commitment to the covenant will never be removed and in Isaiah 55 is an invitation to us to enter into it:
10 Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isa 56 God then invites all the nations into this covenant and to live in a whole new way:
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
1 This is what the Lord says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
2 Blessed is the one who does this— the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”
3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”
God promises to the foreigners who “attach themselves to Yahweh, to minister to Him and to give themselves to Yahweh’s name, to be His servants.
The foreigners who will keep His ways and hold strongly to His covenant:
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
8 The Sovereign Lord declares— he who gathers the exiles of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.”
Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—
5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel
6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,
10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,
12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus is the true Human, the Image of the invisible God and He all things in heaven and earth
visible or invisible
thrones, powers, rulers, authourities
were created through Him and for Him.
Despite the rulers of darkness opposing the presence of God in the world, through and in Jesus all things in heaven and earth have been reconciled to Himself by making atonement through the blood of His cross.
21 So what about you? Well, there was a time when you were excluded! You were enemies in your thinking, and in wicked behaviour.
22 But now he has reconciled you in the body of his flesh, through death, in order to bring you into his presence holy, blameless and without any accusation.
23 This assumes, of course, that you keep firmly on in the faith—by which I mean, solid on your foundations, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard. This gospel, after all, has been announced in all creation under heaven! And this is the gospel of which I, Paul, became a servant.
24 Right now I’m having a celebration—a celebration of my sufferings, which are for your benefit! And I’m steadily completing, in my own flesh, what is presently lacking in the king’s afflictions on behalf of his body, which is the church.
25 I became the church’s servant, according to the terms laid down by God when he gave me my commission on your behalf, the commission to fulfil God’s word.
26 This word declares the mystery that was kept secret from past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to God’s holy people.
27 God’s intention was to make known to them just what rich glory this mystery contains, out there among the nations. And this is the key: the king, living within you as the hope of glory!
1 You see, I’d like you to know just what a struggle I am having on behalf of yourselves, and the family in Laodicea, and all the people who don’t know me by sight.
2 I want their hearts to be encouraged as they’re brought together in love. I want them to experience all the wealth of definite understanding, and to come to the knowledge of God’s mystery—the Messiah, the king!
3 He is the place where you’ll find all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
What’s the fruit, the wisdom and knowledge that we find in Jesus?
The latter part of the letter reveals a glimpse of this, and it’s not handing pamphlets or hold evangelical meetings...
It’s to be loving, peaceful and thankful
12 These are the clothes you must put on, then, since God has chosen you, made you holy, and lavished his love upon you. You must be tender-hearted, kind, humble, meek, and ready to put up with anything.
13 You must bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against someone else, you must forgive each other. Just as the master forgave you, you must do the same.
14 On top of all this you must put on love, which ties everything together and makes it complete.
15 Let the king’s peace be the deciding factor in your hearts; that’s what you were called to, within the one body. And be thankful.
16 Let the king’s word dwell richly among you, as you teach and exhort one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God with grateful hearts.
It’s wives submitting to their husbands.
It’s husbands putting the needs of their wives above themselves, loving them as Christ loved them.
It’s children learning to obey and respect their parents.
It’s parents loving their children and provoking them to anger.
It’s slaves being faithful to their masters because in everything they do, they do it for another Master.
It’s masters being just and fair remembering they indeed are slaves themselves to a loving Master in heaven.