Discipleship - Life in the Kingdom Part 2

Thank you music team. Well done this morning.

Well, good morning Church!

Happy Father’s Day!

Introduction

Last week someone said to me, that was a great message on discipleship in the Kingdom. Now you just need to tell us how to do it.

No problem. Get out your notepad and your Bible. Here we go.

Being an apprentice of Jesus Christ is all about learning to live and move within the Kingdom of God right here, right now. And let me start off by saying that obedience plays a crucial role in this. Faith plays a crucial role. Hope Plays a crucial Role. Love plays a very crucial role as does forgiveness. And listen to me. All those things. Obedience, fiath, hope, love and forgiveness ALL come from God. You in and of yourself do not have the capacity to live and move with all of these things in operation. All of these things in your life and in my life absolutely depend on the character and power of God. We need both. The character and the power of God. One of the two won’t do. To attempt obedience, faith, hope love and forgiveness without understanding and tapping into the character and power of God will only reduce these things to burdensome duties, and from that comes a joyless, legalistic pursuit of all of these things which, I am sorry to say, is very common in the church today.

So this morning we are going to be talking about things that will help us live and move within the Kingdom of God in its current state, and becoming more dedicated and committed disciples of Jesus Christ, so that, we in turn can help usher others in that direction.

We are going to look at a few passages today, more than I could list but the primary text for today comes from Colossians chapter 3.

Let me just share something with you that I have learned and has become more clear to me over the years. There is nothing I will ever do or say that will convince someone who is uncommitted to the Christian faith, to become more committed. After years of attempting that and failing, I have come to the realization that the great issue we face in the church today is not trying to get people who are uncommitted to be committed, but rather to enable those who are committed, to grow into the fullness of the life that Christ offers.

Because the truth is, the only thing most people are truly committed to is themselves and having things the way they want them to be. And that IS the problem isn’t it? Well that is my problem, probably not yours.

But what the world is waiting on, and what God is looking for, are Christians who will grow and continue to move forward until all of the things that we see in the scriptures about life in God, become real to us, not just something we talk about.

This is not a message to try and convince you to follow Christ but to help anyone here today who are like me, and are just longing for a more real and meaningful existence in the Kingdom of God here and now. So lets get into it.

Now last week I gave you a passage of scripture to read that I said would give you a window into the kingdom of God. I asked you to read Mark chapter 1: verses 14–39. How many gave that a read? Good. I hope you were able to see in that passage all the aspects of the kingdom revealed there in Jesus ministry.

I hope you saw...

The Gospel Proclaimed (V 14-15)

The calling of disciples (v16-20)

Authoritative teaching and learning going on (v22

Spiritual and Physical Healing (v 23-34)

Opposition to the advancing Kingdom. (v23-26)

This morning I want to give you some things that hopefully will help you better understand what it means and what it takes to live and move in the Kingdom of God right now in your day to day. And I want to give you another challenge or assignment.

There are a couple of passages of scripture that sum up what we are going to look at over the next few weeks, maybe more than any others. And so I want to encourage you to take these and read them once a day. If you are really adventurous you could even memorize them. Here they are.

The first is the passage I have on the slide this morning. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 -17. Paul wrote this to some people he never met in person. And I think when he wrote this he was really trying to back the truck up and leave the whole load right there. He had never seen these people and he wanted to just give them the whole picture and in many ways I think Colossians succeeds better in doing that than any other of his writings.

That passage ends with the wonderful instruction

Col 3:17 NLT - 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father

And by the time you get to that verse, you will know why you're going to be giving thanks through Him to God the Father. We will read the whole thing together in a minute.

The other other passage is 1 Corinthians 13. Yes the famous LOVE chapter.

I think when most people read 1 Corinthians 13 it's sort of like we are looking at something in a museum.

We look at that love chapter and and we hear about how love is the greatest thing in the world and how it is not impatient, it is kind and so on and we just sort of say well you know, that's nice. It’s nice, but I have no idea how to get there. But it really IS nice.

My hope is, if you will commit to reading it every day you will gradually be able to claim 1 Corinthians 13 in a way you never have before. And if you'll take these two passages now and just read them and meditate on them once a day. Maybe read them with someone in your home or a friend, that might be a good thing. If we can take these passages into our mind and let them possess us, then I think we will have a vision of kingdom living that will stabilize us, and and direct us, and enable us to get in the picture, in a way that when we read 1 Corinthians 13 we can start to say. “Yes this is reality. This is my reality.

Now if you are a note taker I encourage you to write this down.

“Kingdom living means living in the character and power of God.”

I think this is vitally important to remember and it is primarily what I want to submit to you this morning. Try to hold on to that. Kingdom living means living in the character and the power of God. In other words, it means that inwardly we take on the qualities of God and we see that in Jesus. That's where we primarily see it and that is why we want to become apprentices of Jesus.

And we see that expressed in 1 Corinthians 13. We see it especially in the last words of that passage… I love how the NLT says it...1Co 13:13 NLT - 13 Three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love.

Faith

I have been contemplating faith a LOT lately. You could say that faith is confidence. But it is not confidence that comes from you, it is confidence that can only come from God to you.

How are you doing with your confidence? Could you use a little more? Then ask God for it. Because when we look at life in the day and age in which you and I live, and all of the things that it contains, we wonder how we can have confidence in anything, at all

Hope

Hope is the joyful anticipation of good. Is your life full of hope? Paul describes God as, “the God of hope. Why?Because He's a good god and he's a god who Himself is full of joyful anticipation. Do you ever think of god like that that? God is actually full of joyful anticipation. Sometimes I think we imagine God calls us to something that He Himself does not possess. But I reckon God is the most hopeful being in the whole universe. He would have to be to keep striving with the likes of us.

But I imagine that many people sort of think about God sitting there wringing his hands in dismay and thinking “Oh what am I going to do about these sinners here like John. What am I going to do?

I'll tell you he's very hopeful about John and he's very hopeful about all of us who have put any kind of confidence in Him at all.

Faith, hope, love. What’s love?

LOVE

Well I can tell you it is not what we often think about it. Simply put, love is the will for the good of others. Now you've got to have faith and hope to sustain that and love is really what it's all about and I reckon when you get to the center of this amazing universe, what you find is not some black hole sucking everything in and spewing out debris on the other side. No! I reckon it is love that is holding the whole thing together.

The very center of it all is love. A community of loving people who just want the good of everything and everyone.

That's what the old apostle John means in the opening of his first letter where he says this is the one we heard of. In 1 John 1: the first 5 verses there we see John marveling over the fact that jesus came into the world. And John was very close to Jesus and he speaks about how we have seen and we've heard and we've touched with our hands and then it says this is the message. We've heard of him the secret about the universe, is that at its center is a God who John says in v 5 is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. And he uses a negative phrase there that's kind of unusual in the Greek. It’s like saying in English, there's no darkness not none. It's about the only way you can put it into English. Not none. Not a speck.

One thing I have been practicing is not to believe ANYTHING bad about God. Because in our fallen state we do have a tendency to believe bad things about God. In our fallen state we can probably find a reason to believe something bad about Him. It'll be a bad reason but the trouble with bad reasons is you never know they're bad when you've got them.

So the Word comes through Christ and the Word is, faith, hope and love. Beloved, that’s kingdom living. And that IS for you and me. We have access to all of that. Jesus came into the world so that we could trust Him and follow Him into His kingdom. And He went as far as to let Himself die for our sins so that we could get over all of the suspicions we have about God. Who else do you know that would do that for you?

Those of you who were in the Romans study we just did may remember Romans 5:8 God recommends His love towards us and the recommendation is,

Rom 5:8 NLT - 8 ... by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Christ died for the ungodly. Jesus comes in to make that clear and to open the doorway to the kingdom of God to us.

In another place Paul says God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.

Jesus came to say the door to the kingdom of God is open.

We spend a lot of time preaching only the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ and that's VERY important. That is ESSENTIAL. Scripture is clear, you cannot leave that out. But you know what I noticed? Jesus never preached that as the gospel. In fact John the baptist, when he came, did not preach that. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, “Repent for the kingdom of the heaven is at hand”. And it is available now. It's not a way off and inaccessible. In Jesus Christ the kingdom of the heaven, the kingdom of God is available.

And then Jesus sent his own disciples out in Matthew 10 and guess what? They preached exactly the same thing. “the kingdom of the heaven is near”

So what in fact IS the good news that Jesus brings? It is simply that by trusting Him we can come to live now within the range of God's effective will. We can come to live now in a place right where we are and right who we are. We don't have to become someone else and move someplace else.

No matter what the circumstances are in that place where we are, we CAN live within the range of God's effective will. That's what it means to live in the kingdom of God.

I am going to talk more about this over the next weeks but what I want to try and accomplish this morning is to give you an introduction to life in the kingdom of God. What it is. And Jesus came saying just bring your life into my life. Take everything you have and trust it to what I say, and who I am, Believe that I know what I'm talking about. Just trust me.

Sometimes we say well Jesus is just saying that. Trust me with your whole life, your whole person. And of course we come with a lot of agendas and a lot of baggage into that relationship. But this is so important. Jesus just says bring it. You don't have to get rid of it before you come. You bring it with you. You just come. Whoever wants to can come to me. That is the coolest thing about His invitation. Jesus says come just as you are. Because of the grace of god in Jesus, we can bring who we are into the kingdom of God.

One of my favorite stories is the prodigal son and one thing I noticed about that story is the father does not send the kid for a bath before he hugs him. Think about where he had been. But his father takes him in his arms and takes him as he is and then the new life begins again.

But here is the thing. We can come just as we are but we cannot remain that way if we really want to experience Kingdom living. The first thing we have to do is to die to self. We will talk more about that next week.

Well jesus not only taught the availability of the kingdom of God but he manifested it.. He made it very visible for His disciples to see.

There is that story in Mark 11 where Jesus curses a fig tree and the next morning His disciples notice that it has completely died from the roots up. In fact turn to mark chapter 11 and we will have a look.

Now I have heard all kinds of wild thoughts about why Jesus cursed this fig tree. Some people read this and manage to feel sorry for the fig tree because they think Jesus was mean to it. I think Jesus is just demonstrating the power that comes with Kingdom living. Because when the disciples see that the fig tree actually died simply because Jesus spoke to it, Jesus takes it in a direction that is a bit surprising.

Mar 11:21-25 NLT - 21 Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, "Look, Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!"

Now if you are not familiar with the story, back in v 13 we are told that Jesus notices a fig tree in full leaf and he walks over to see if there are any figs. And we are told there weren’t any figs and we are told why…it was too early in the season for the fruit to be growing. So the fig tree was perfectly normal. And Jesus says top the tree “May no one ever eat your fruit again” And then as we just read, the next morning they pass by that tree and it is dead as can be, simply because Jesus spoke to it.

Now as I said. There are all kinds of reason given for this. The most common being that the fig tree represents a fruitless Israel and so Jesus curses it for being fruitless. But it was not even in season for fruit so I am not sure I buy all that. Also, look at Jesus reply when Peter points out the tree is dead. “Let that be a lesson to you boys. Fail to bear fruit and I will curse you! Not what he says. What does He say? verse 22....

22 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "Have faith in God. 23 I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, 'May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. 24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours.

Pretty clear what the lesson here is. Not a warning about being fruitless, but a demonstration of the power of God. It is about believing in your heart that with God, all things are possible. That is the posture we must take if we want to live in and move in the kingdom. Have Faith in God. Not in ourselves, but in God. because know this beloved. If you carry any shred of “self” into the kingdom, you will see very little power in the things you do.

Then this passage takes another strange turn. verse 24 Jesus says...

25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too."

Many people I think when they come to that part of the passage they say have we changed the subject? And when you stand praying forgive. And the answer is no, we haven't changed the subject because it is in the place of forgiveness that the power of God is free to flow.

‌And so what we see here is Jesus fixing the manifestation of the power of God, to the presence of the character of god. So when he comes to say when you stand praying forgive he's still talking about the same life. Living in the kingdom of god has two sides.

I want to take you back to my initial statement.

Living in the kingdom of god is living in the character and power of God.

So you see jesus here teaching about moving mountains and in the next breath speaking about forgiveness.

And you'll notice that he says very frankly, if you do not forgive neither will your father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.

Well, is this about the forgiveness of sins or is it about living in the kingdom of God? It's about both. Because when you are not in harmony with god's character you cannot be in harmony with his power.

I want to say something to you now that I come back to at some point. God's intention for all of his people is that they should come to the place, grow to the point, to where he could empower them to do what they want to do.

I’ll say it again. Because some of you may say, “Did I hear that right?”

And there's an important point. See many people think God wants us to grow in our character to where he can empower us to do what HE wants us to do. And that's right. But what does he want us to do? He wants us to become the kind of people that he could trust with his power to do what we want to do. (Pause) That's the inner dimension of the character of kingdom living.

And god's process with us is to bring us to that point.

Scripture tells us that the law of god is going to be written on the hearts of human beings in such a way that they will naturally do what is in the character of god. That will be God’s victory and scripture tells us that is going to happen.

And you can say it looks pretty unlikely at this point but I will tell you that there are people I'm sure in this room, who know the reality of what I am saying at least to some measure. People who would be as pained to do anything wrong as many others would be pained to do anything right!

The world would tell you that id everyone else is doing it, then it must be okay. I will give you an example. I hope no one in here thinks I caught them.

A guys is selling a car and he says to the buyer, would you like me to give you a bill of sale that is two thousand dollars less than the actual price so you don’t have to pay so much taxes on it.

Now many folks would think, of course that's just good business.

But what if the the person who's buying the car was a Christian and he was seriously thinking about it? Right?

Here is the thing about that. What we will seriously think about, is one of the strongest indications of where our growth in character is.

As a Christian, that should not even be considered for a moment. That suggestion should make us look at the seller like they had their head on backwards. THAT should be the natural response of a Christian living in the Kingdom.

Folks, I couldn’t be more serious here. Cheating on your taxes. Not something a Kingdom liver should do and if you are then you are hindering the power of God in everything else you do.

One of the most powerful testimonies to the world is when in you in your ordinary circumstances, you look at people in astonishment when they suggest we should do something wrong.

And I am convinced that you will have much greater witness and power for the kingdom of god if you do that in your surroundings and your family or at work. In the church. There are some churches that shady stuff like that would just be considered routine. I mean if we can gain a little bit here well okay. Its just good business.

But it is character here that jesus is bringing up. He refers to forgiveness specifically but it is a clear reference to whole character of a person who is wanting to live in the kingdom of God. Forgiveness is crucial.

Folks, hanging on to un-forgiveness towards anyone, prevents you from experiencing life in the Kingdom as God intended. No forgiveness. No power. No forgiveness is a disconnect form the character of God and it will hinder everything you put your hand to.

So forgive, One of the biggest lies the enemy has sown is that forgiving someone lets them off the hook. That could not be further from the truth. Forgiving someone lets YOU off the hook! It give YOU freedom. It sets YOU up for seeing the power of God manifest in your endeavors and in your ministry.

Forgiveness should be like oxygen to you. We just have to go through the day in a forgiving attitude that by the way is one of the only ways that we can escape anger and irritation. Just to have forgiveness running out there in a wave ahead of us.

When you live that way, then the power of god is accessible because you are in harmony with the flow of god's kingdom.

Here I think of Matthew 6:33

Matthew 6:33 ESV

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Did you notice there are two things there to seek. The kingdom of god and his righteousness. The kind of righteousness HE has is what it's talking about. You can't seek the kingdom of god without seeking to have his kind of righteousness. They go together. That's how it works. The life that is in the kingdom of god is one that has much power in it. But the two things, the power and the character go together and it's absolutely crucial for us to understand that.

Now, it is true that we see a lot of illustrations of power without the character. Samson is one of the all-time biblical characters for illustrating power without character. And so it is true that sometimes God will allow us to have power because he wants to accomplish something and he's willing to use us. SOMETIMES god does not demand perfection to work with us any more than he demands perfection for us to be saved and go to heaven when we die. He works with us and he does want to get some things done and so you have your Saul's and your Samsons and all of the other kind of really sort of greasy people you know in the bible that cause you to say, Hey! Wait a minute. But God sometimes works through the most unlikely vessels in order to bring Himself greater glory and maybe that's a good thing for us.

But that's not the ideal. The ideal is to have the combination of the two things, So, seek ye first the kingdom of god AND his righteousness and when we seek the kingdom of god we are looking for the movement of his power. We are trying to find what god is doing and to get in the flow of that. But as we do, we also seek his character the character of god.

So let me wrap this up for today with a few observations how can we enter into Kingdom living at its fullness. Let me just give you three or four words or ideas.

One is: Acknowledge the kingdom where you are .

Most of you are familiar with one of my favorite proverbs. trust in the lord with all your heart and don't rely just on your own understanding.

And just fix for a moment on all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path

That's a great introduction, practical to kingdom living. trust in the lord with all your heart and acknowledge him

in all of your ways now acknowledging him in all of your ways ...how many ways does that leave out? Zero. So one of our mistakes is we tend to want to acknowledge him in the big deals. And in the little deals we'll say we run this on our own. That's always a fatal mistake

We need to recognize that most of our time is spent on little deals and if we don't include god in that we're going to be lonely for him. He wants to come into all of the little deals. All of the moments of of life. Something as simple as asking a blessing at the table.

whenever you have food or a meal whether you're by yourself or with someone else, give yourself time to be thankful. I mean really give yourself time. Don’t just say lord bless this food and blah blah but take a moment maybe don't say anything. Sometimes it helps to take a bite or two and then you can be more thankful for it. Hopefully. But seriously, we need to learn how to put our bodies into our life in the kingdom and one of those is to really be thankful for what we're experiencing in the way of food.

One of the great things about fasting, it really gives you a new appreciation of food doesn't it? And that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. One of the real things about fasting is it teaches you how to be incredibly thankful that god has made this arrangement where you get to enjoy eating. Just imagine if you didn't enjoy eating but you had to do it anyway. But god has set it up where it's a good thing that we enjoy and we want to use that as a way of lifting ourselves in praise and acknowledgement to god .

Next word: Invest

Put yourself on the line for the kingdom of god. What do I mean by that? I mean, take the teachings of jesus for example, about life in the kingdom of god and just act as if they were true. I mean to risk yourself on the teachings of jesus. Living a life of prayer. Look at how much jesus made of prayer and if you invest yourself in prayer when you're at your work or with other things that concern you, then you're investing yourself. You’re putting yourself on the line.

Put yourself on the line with jesus to the extent that if he doesn't do something you're out of luck. I promise you if you do that your life will be exciting and interesting and what will happen is you will see the hand of god. And sometimes it's just a simple thing like instead of praying for someone praying with them. You know there's a huge difference between praying for them and praying with them because when you pray with them you put yourself on the line in a very special way. You're stepping out there. Now who's going to be with you? Well you are making it possible not just through your acknowledgement, but also through your investing of yourself and this of course includes your money and your time and all of that, but you're putting yourself out where god has to bail you out.

That's why James says in the first chapter if you will be patient in tribulation you will become perfect.

James 1:2–4“2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

A lot of people say well I didn't have that in mind. But the reason for that is because when you're patient in tribulation you give god a chance to act. And often He does need time to act you know the passage in daniel where the comment is made about the angel coming quickly he found daniel on his knees and an old preacher said he would have to come very quickly indeed to find most of us on our knees.

See, we need to expect that it takes time and we step out and we need to learn to wait.. Cool verse Hosea 12 6.

therefore return to your god observe kindness and justice and wait for your god continually

When you step out there and you invest you're going to have to wait. And as you wait god will come through and then you will know that and then that and that brings us to the 3rd word in practical approach is ...

3. Rest.

Stop taking the offering back off of the altar. Stop pulling up the seed to see if it's growing. Leave it there. Rest it there. Put your confidence in it enough to say I am going to just trust the lord with this.

Paul's great word in philippians 4:6

Phl 4:6-7 NLT - 6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes it's a long wait. I've got some things I've been waiting on a long time. I'm sure it's partly because i'm not really not clear about it and maybe it's because i need to change.

But the important thing is to rest it there and to believe that if you're not quite got it right yet god will bring you around. That's a part of praying is learning where we're crosswise of things. So just rest it there.

So acknowledge, Invest, Rest. Last word. ...

4. Accept.

Accept accept your death. Now I'm not talking about the one you may be thinking about. I'm talking about the one that you have already had. See now here are some words from colossians 3

Col 3:1-4 NLT - 1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

We are a people who have gone to the cross with jesus christ and in embracing the cross we have accepted the fact that our natural life apart from god is over. We are dead men on furlough. It's all over and we've got this life now that's going on and if ye then be risen with christ you see that's the new life. And what that means is really the end to self concern and self consternation, troubled about what's going to happen to me and whether i'm going to get my dues and whether i'm going to be comfortable or recognized or whatever it is i'm concerned about me.

And this is what we call death to self and i'm going to be talking about that next week.

Practically entering in to the life of the kingdom really does mean that we accept the fact that we're dead. And that the life we live is a life that is hidden in god's eternal purposes and we don't even understand how glorious it is.

I am crucified with christ Paul said nevertheless i live little paradox there you see. I am crucified with christ nevertheless I live yet not I but christ lives in me and the life that i now live in the flesh i live by the confidence the faith of the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me.

When we understand that we are prepared to let go of an old life that will cause us nothing but pain and sorrow and grief, that will crush our faith our hope and our love and hallelujah we're done with it. we're done with it. And so we can just move ahead in the power of god. we still have to train to grow and develop but it's all from the viewpoint of a new life. The eternal life that jesus christ gives us through our confidence and reliance on him.

Please meditate on the scriptures that we have looked at and the two i have assigned we'll be going a little deeper into various aspects of this in the coming weeks.

But I hope you can leave here this morningwith your vision full of what it's like to live in the kingdom of god

Lets pray. father. bless these words please and use the ones that are good to bless where need is present. give us a glowing sense of the reality of your life in us and we pray it in jesus name Amen?