Pillar#6: Kingdom-Minded

You and I are part of a Kingdom.

What does that mean? That’s what I want to look at this morning.

I’ll break it into three sections for memorability and ease of following along.

The Kingdom of God in the beginning

Other inferior kingdoms

Christ did what Adam couldn’t

1. The Kingdom of God from the beginning

The very first idea of kingdom, though not explicitly mentioned, is implied in these words in early on in Genesis.

Genesis 1:27-31

27  So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “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 heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

What I’m wanting you to notice in this is that God gave Adam rule and dominion over His creation. That’s essentially what the word Kingdom means in Scripture…rule and reign.

Ultimate and Sovereign rule is always God’s, but he gave dominion to mankind in order to accomplish something THROUGH him.

By the time we get to the temptation of Adam and Eve there’s already opposition to the Kingdom of God. There is a snake in the garden ready to deceive. He is not there because he forced his way passed the entrance, but again, because God allowed him there.

It’s at this point that people are tempted to jump ship on the whole thing because why would God allow this? But I think there’s a fundamental piece, that if abandoned, you cannot understand Christianity or the biblical world view.

It’s simply this...God is God, only God can be God. You are not and never will be God.

All of this… your life, my life, the past, present, and future....the good, bad, and ugly…the deep valley and highest peaks of history, is ALL a grand story that HE has written, and it glorifies Him. Creation, Adam and Eve, the Garden, Satan, Demons, Evil, Sin, Israel, Prophesy, the grace of sending God the Son, and the sacrificial love that redeems sinners and defeats the Serpent - it’s all written by Him. We can’t change it.

It’s a good story with a perfect ending!

So, don’t jump ship. Embrace the fact that in a world ruled by God, and filled with inferior corrupt kings and kingdoms, God still RULES over it all and is working everything to the end that He gets the glory in the redemption of His people and the whole earth.

Psalm 145:10-13 All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you! They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. [The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.]

Brothers and sisters, this is how we live with a Kingdom mindset. We MUST know, first of all, that we have a King, and that our King and His Kingdom is everlasting. And knowing this, do you see how the truth of this psalm instructs us to be?

As a product of His work of grace, we must give thanks.

Speak of the glory of the kingdom and tell of His power.

Make known to the generations of men’s children his mighty deeds and the splendor of the Kingdom.

The Lord is faithful in his words and kind in ALL HIS WORKS.

But this has never been easy. From the beginning there has been opposition. And this is where I want to briefly address...

2. Other inferior kingdoms that stand opposed to the everlasting Kingdom of life.

When God drove Adam and Even from Eden, He did not leave them without a mission.

Genesis 3:23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

This was the grace of God.

Romans 5:20 “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”

Rather than destroying Adam, God preached the good news of the gospel to them In Genesis 3:16, that one day there would be an heir to God’s throne that would come through a miraculous conception and fix what was broken in Adam.

And with that hope, the first family is sent into the earth to build and cultivate in the hopes that God would fulfill His promise to them.

A belief among some Christians is that Satan somehow has a title deed to the earth right now, and that a time is coming when Christ will take that back before establishing the new heavens and earth. I don’t believe there’s any evidence for this in Scripture.

God owns it all.

He’s the author.

Scripture does teach that the world lies in the power of the evil one, and though this is not to say that dominion belongs to the evil one in any complete sense, it does account for the inferior kingdoms, both of man and of demons that have been given power for a time, who’s goal is to destroy life.

Ephesians 2:2 “you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—”

A kingdom-mindset understands that he Kingdom of God has GREAT enemies. Can you think of one epic story exists without them?

I want us to look at Psalm 2 together, and I want you to notice the presence of the 2 kingdoms we’ve been talking about. Notice the realities of the opposition, and the hatred…alongside the promise of God and the victory for those who follow him.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

I implore you to take refuge in the Son if you have not done so. Hide yourself in Him. His wrath will be fierce and swift against sin, but oh his grace is sweet to the humble, and there is forgiveness.

We’re going to move to a final point in just a moment, concluding with the work of Jesus…but I want to drive home this important truth that you and I, and all people, without the help of God to change our hearts, will rage against Christ along with the kings that psalm 2 speaks of. This is the heart of sin, to hate God, to hate and oppose His way, and to stand in alignment with the inferior kingdoms of darkness.

Satan showed his hand in the garden of Eden.

He wants you to have the knowledge of and experience of good and evil - to taste its poison and walk in it. And many do. Remember that the definition of kingdom is where rule and reign is. If you’re unsure about whether this desire to align with inferior kingdoms is real, just ask yourself if there’s even a small part of you that desires to throw off God’s rule and law, and to completely govern yourself and live for your own happiness.

This exists in all of us. And like Adam, in our own strength we all fall to the power and allurement of what the kingdom of Satan and the world has to offer us…and it is because of this awful condition that the world is the way it is, and it is because of this awful condition that God’s plan is so comprehensive. This is why having a Kingdom mindset is so important, because without it we forget that the victory is ours through Jesus.

We forget that the mission is not impossible, but a surety.

In the Psalm we read a moment ago, there was a prophetic exchange recorded between God the Son and God the Father.

“Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”

This is a request from the Son to the Father.

So the very nations that rage against Christ, are nations that Christ is seeking to save. Yes, Adam failed, and in him we all fail too, but there is one man who did not fail even a single moment.

And this is my final point...

3. Christ did what Adam could not do.

He resisted the serpent’s temptations in Matthew 4 proving that he is the Son of God.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ 

Adam was banished from the presence of God, and here, it is Satan who left. Christ, in another hour of testing in the garden of Gethsemane, also endured, and committed himself to the will of the Father over his own human weakness. Christ, seeing an being offered the kingdoms of earth would not take possession of them through the worship of Satan. Rather, by giving his own life on a cross he would make a ransom payment and purchase His own people with His blood, destroying the work of the Devil for all who believe.

And here, Jesus declared what Adam should have said in his hour of testing....You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.

Adam sinned as the head of the human race, and therefore in Adam, all sin and all die. Christ came as the better man, resisted sin, obeyed God, recieved our punishment, rose from the grave and ascended into heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Brothers and sisters, Christ is the King of the universe. Make no mistake…any delay we see is not because he is slow, but because He is patient. All that the Father has given Him will come to Him for eternal life, and He is building His Kingdom every time He saves a soul from the grip of the inferior kingdom.

What does this mean for us, right here, and now? I’ll say three things by way of application.

If you are a Christian, then you are a part of a Kingdom that consists of citizens of all nations, colors, backgrounds, and stories of their past. What makes us one is Jesus. Let’s be sure to act like it in our conducts, and in our treatment of people who are different than we are. Our common ground is Jesus, and our acceptance is on the grounds of faith in His mercy and grace alone!

For churches like New City, this means we work hard, as our collective mission, to multiply the work of the Kingdom through the work of church planting, and missions. The reason for this is because this is exactly what we see in Acts, after the Lord have the great commission. When the great commission is lived out, not just people, but gathering of believers multiply…so we must pray for and be committed to this word, as a church.

3. I want us to remember back to earlier in the message, and leave you with this from Psalm 145 11:13 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

Church, we cannot lose. The snake has been defeated. Stop following your father Adam, and begin following King, Jesus. If you’re here this morning serving self, and still following the course of this world…it’s time to stop walking in disobedience and rebellion, and surrender to Christ Jesus as your King.