The Kingdom of Peace

A tale of two Kingdoms

“The World” and “The Kingdom” are really two kingdom mindsets. The kingdom of Peace which is ruled by Jesus, and the biblical concept of the Empire of Pharaoh and later Caesar. They are direct opposites in many areas: Living by the Empire model we live in bondage to sin, in the kingdom model we are saved from sin. Empire means working for a hopeless bottomless rat-race of survival by our sweat as slaves of a system of unrelenting power Kingdom means faithfully serving a loving and responsive heavenly Father as co-heirs. Empire means fear, Kingdom means faith.

Today we are going to focus on the Kingdom of Peace and why we can trust our King completely.

Exodus 17:1–7 NASB95

1 Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.” 5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

Hebrews 11:1–18 NASB95

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the men of old gained approval. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. 4 By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. 13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; 18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.”

David heard a ppromise that whoever kills Goliath gets a place in the royal household. So he went after it. Moses struck THROUGH God to strike the rock and the people were saved. Abraham recieved a covenant whereby GOD promised to take upon HIMSELF any negative outcomes. Noah lived in a time when evil was so ramant that there was only one faithfilled family on the entire planet Even in the Garden God enacted a plan that allowed death to aflict humanity, BECAUSE HE HIMSELF would now need to die on our behalf. Jesus came in a time when Israel had once again been reduced to a slave nation, subservient to the rules, laws, and paganism of Rome. And in THAT place at that time the Prince of Peace came to earth.

Everything God does is out of love. God’s Justice is subject to His nature, and His nature is Love. God’s discipline is issued in love. God’s anger and even hatred of sin is from a place of love.

We can put our faith in this God and trust Him entirely. This is the road to peace in our lives.

The kingdom of God has ALWAYS been about establishing peace. Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection we have been restored to a place of peace with God. Our sins are forgiven. We can let go of any of our own ways that are rooted on the sand of empire building, and live for another kingdom.

1 Corinthians 10:1–6 NASB95

1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. 6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.

Under the new covenant, filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul is telling the church in Corinth, and he is telling us today, it is possible to walk with Jesus, to drink from Him, and still live for the wrong things. We’re not gonna do that. The Empire of this world informs us that our security is built on money, power, the opinions of other people, our reputation, our “success”. And even in the church we can find ourselves comparing our lives to each other, comparing our theology to that of other churches. We can tie our faith in God with our love for our worldly man-made structures. Let’s not do that. God demonstrated to Abraham on the mountain that HE would provide Himself as the ram, caught in the thicket of our sin. God showed Moses that the way to get the life giving water was to strike the rock, and then the presence of the Lord positioned Himself before Moses. Moses would have to strike THROUGH God’s Glory there to reach the rock. God demonstrates over and over and over that He is saving us and making a new life available to us. When Jesus came and went to the cross He fulfilled every prophecy, every picture, He fulfilled the law, He fulfilled the old covenant. The new covenant was not replacing the old. The old was done. The new is what we are living now, BECAUSE the old was fulfilled in Jesus. Now we can truly be free of our need to live relative to the pressures and demands of Empire. Our life in the kingdom is a life of peace, guaranteed to us by the Holy Spirit. So let’s take some time now and let the Holy Spirit fill us. If you look at your life and know that there are areas that are not subject to God’s Kingdom of Peace, then I want to invite you to come to the front and surrender that to Jesus. Lay your burdens down. If you know that you have sins that have kept you ashamed or stuck in your walk with Him, I want to invite you to the front to receive His forgiveness all over again, and to let His Spirit touch your life in those areas. If you are troubled by the condition of the world and need Peace to soothe you and let you give up the fight, and truly enter His rest, I want to invite you to come. And if you just want another drink of the Spiritual water that comes from the Rock that is Jesus, I invite you to come. If you have been through our ministry team training please feel free to go among the people and simply bless what the Lord is doing.