Thy Kingdom Come
Notes
Transcript
Our Scripture lesson this morning is taken from Luke 4:38-44:
And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.
Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
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 them, 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.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
May God add His blessing to this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
This morning’s text provides me with the opportunity to speak about one of the most important doctrinal teachings in the book of Luke. A doctrine he shares with all the other New Testament writers. This doctrine is that the Kingdom of God is fully inaugurated, BUT not fully established. It is a doctrine that is sometimes called, The Already, But Not Yet. This doctrine came as a surprise to the Jews, they fully expected that when the Kingdom of God was inaugurated it would be established. This is one of the reasons the Jews, for the most part, rejected Jesus. To put it bluntly, Jesus was a big disappointment to them. Sadly, because people do not properly understand this doctrine today, Jesus is a great disappointment to them. We have all known people, because Jesus did not answer their prayers for deliverance from a great trial or tribulation, give up on God and Christianity. In their minds Christianity either does not “work” or God does not care.
Healing plays a prominent role in our text today. Healing or the lack thereof is perhaps the most common issue that gets confused by not properly understanding the already and not yet nature of the Kingdom of God; but before we tackle that issue, we need to have some idea of what the Kingdom of God is:
The Good News of the Kingdom
The Good News of the Kingdom
In our text this morning, Jesus says:
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.”
Jesus understood that His calling from the Father included the preaching of “the good news of the kingdom of God”.
To preach is to announce or herald news. In the days before mass media, news was spread by a herald commissioned by the king. Heralds would good through the towns and villages of the king’s realm announcing the news. Sometimes, it was bad news, for example, “To arms! To arms! We are being invaded!” Other times it was good news, for example, “Hear ye! Hear ye! All are invited to the kings feast!”
The message about the Kingdom of God is good news. We first hear this good news of the Kingdom in Luke when the angel Gabriel said to Mary:
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Notice that Gabriel speaks of a “Throne”, and a “Reign”, and a “Kingdom”. The Kingdom of God is God’s perfect reign over Heaven and Earth through His Messiah. This is a perfect reign; in that it results in the end of all that is evil. However, throughout the book of Luke there is a tension. This tension is clearly seen in Luke 11; the chapter opens with Jesus teaching us to pray “Your kingdom come” (Lk 11:2) and in the very same chapter Jesus tells the Pharisees “the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20).
What is it, has the Kingdom come, or is it to come? Actually, it is both! The Kingdom has come!
God’s Kingdom Has Come
God’s Kingdom Has Come
In our text this morning, we see Jesus’ healing, casting out demons and preaching the Good News. These are not random activities, as we learned last week, they are signs that the Kingdom has come. On one occasion, John the Baptist was wondering as to whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. He sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus, and here is Jesus’ reply:
And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.
All the things we see Jesus doing in Luke’s Gospel are signs that the Kingdom of God has come!
People use to understand the importance of Christ’s coming, they even changed the way they marked time. All of history prior to Jesus was called BC, and all of history afterwards is called AD. Brothers and sisters, we live in an AD world! Since Christianity’s founding, the world has become a much better place. Without Christianity there would be no hospitals or universities. Christianity provided the necessary foundation for the scientific method, limited government, the liberation of women and the end of slavery. We see the fruit of Christianity especially in the nations that were historically blessed by the Protestant Reformation, by the standards of the rest of the world, these nations truly have enjoyed “health, wealth and prosperity”.
I purposefully used the phrase, “health, wealth and prosperity” to contrast the truth with error, because there are those who are known as “health, wealth and prosperity preachers” who falsely teach that we can enjoy these things in the fullness right now. But Scripture teaches that...
God’s Kingdom is Yet to Come in its Fullness
God’s Kingdom is Yet to Come in its Fullness
In Lk 21, we find Jesus teaching about first the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the persecution of Christians during the entire Inter-Advent period and finally the end of the age. It is a very confusing passage until you understand that in God’s perspective, the Last Day has already begun, and what is for us is thousands of years, is but a day for God. At the end of this passage, Jesus says:
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
Clearly here Jesus is not speaking of 70 AD, nor present persecution, but rather when Christ comes again to establish His Kingdom in its fullness. A very helpful passage of Scripture for understanding why there is the delay in the full coming of Christ’s Kingdom is found in Peter’s second letter:
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
This passage is helpful, because it reveals to us the reason why Christ has delayed in fully establishing His Kingdom—it is because not all of the elect have come to repentance and faith yet. Imagine with me if you will, that Christ had fully established His Kingdom in the first-century as the Jews expected. This would mean that you, along with millions upon millions more would have never been born! More, importantly it means that you would have never have been born-again! Christ, will not come again until the last person whose name is written in the Book of Life has come to repentance and faith!
The problem with so called “health, wealth and prosperity” preachers is they take the Scripture and twist it. They will say, “Healing is in the atonement” and “It is always God’s will to heal the believer”. These are actually true statements, but falsely applied. Let me explain what I mean:
For every prayer there are three possible answers: 1) Yes—now, 2) Yes—not now, or 3) No. If you are praying for the healing of a believer (including yourself), God answer is never no. We know this it true because at the resurrection we will be eternally healed and perfected physically. This is most clearly taught to us in Revelation 21:4:
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
The question of our healing is not “if”, but “when”. This leads to another question, “why does God not immediately heal believers and why does He sometimes say “no” when we pray for unbelievers?” There are several biblical answers to this question, but I want to look at just three:
God Foresees Consequences We Do Not
God Foresees Consequences We Do Not
In Luke 10, Jesus speaks of His ability to foresee contingent events:
But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
In Genesis 18, we find Abraham interceding for the city of Sodom, what if God had answered his prayer. God could have easily commissioned Abraham to preach in the streets of Sodom as He did Jonah in the streets of Nineveh. God most certainly had the power to bring the Sodomites to repentance. He could have empowered Abraham to do great signs and wonders; but what would have been the consequences?
If Sodom had not been destroyed, Lots daughters would have born sons by their Sodomite husbands, rather than by their father Lot. This means there would have been no Moab, and thus not Moabites. This in turn would have meant there would have never been no Ruth, meaning there would have been no David, meaning there would have been no Christ, meaning you would still “be dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1-12)!
As hard as it is to believe, we all have just six degrees of separation from everyone in the whole world! You may think your life is inconsequential, but like the tiny pebble that causes an avalanche, just one incorrectly answered prayer will have catastrophic results.
Every prayer is perfectly answered by God, even when that answer is a “no” or “yes, but not now”. God’s knowledge and wisdom are perfect, ours is not!
In addition to unforeseen consequences, God does not always give us an immediate “yes”, because...
God Uses Suffering for Our Sanctification
God Uses Suffering for Our Sanctification
At the beginning of his letter, James writes:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Both Paul and Peter teach likewise. Paul goes so far as to link our suffering to Christs:
and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
One of the great overarching themes of Luke’s gospel is what is called the Great Reversal. In the opening chapter of Luke, Mary sang of how God would bring down the mighty and exalt the humble. The path to true glory always goes through the cross. There “easy road”, Jesus warns, always leads to destruction!
Finally, God does not always answer our prayers with an immediate “yes”, because...
God Uses our Suffering for the Salvation of Others
God Uses our Suffering for the Salvation of Others
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we find this intriguing verse:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Paul is not saying that our suffering adds anything to the atoning work of Christ, rather, he is saying that the Gospel of the Kingdom only advances in this world through the suffering of the church. Upon your conversion, Christ could have taken you directly into His glory, but that would mean that you would be absent from this world. The church is Christ’s incarnational witness to this world. Suffering, Paul says, is the necessary cost of doing Kingdom work.
Persecution is the most obvious example of this, but all suffering, including sickness, opens doors for us to proclaim the Good News. A well-known example of this is the fruitful suffering of Joni Erickson Tada. Parallelized in a diving accident, Joni longed for supernatural healing, and was told by “faith healers” that the reason she was not healed was because of her lack of faith. In time, by God’s grace, she came to understand that her injury was being used for His glory, her sanctification and for other’s salvation. Her injury resulted in a great harvest for God’s Kingdom.
When we look at a person like Joni Erickson Tada, we can see clearly what God meant when He said to Paul, “my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) Yes, indeed, the power and authority of Christ’s reign is established upon this earth. The Day is coming when we will see that power made perfect in a perfect world, but for now we can see it made perfect in our weakness!