Demand of the Kingdom

The Gospel of the Kingdom  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Welcome

I am excited to dig into this new series with everyone and in this series we are going to do something a little new.
Instead of reading a psalm and jumping straight into worship we are going to slow down.
Some background here is that God has really been challenging me lately and the challenge has come in the form of a question.
Why do people come to church?
Like why should people give up time in their busy schedule?
Emma and I discussed this a bit and we really came to this answer, the reason we come to church is simply this.
We come to church and gather with our brothers and sisters to encounter the presence of God who we adore.
We are the Body of Christ, We are the Temple, in our gatherings is where the presence of God is. We are people of the presence.
This is what makes us different from the world. And this is what we and the world needs is the presence of God.
The world does not need another sermon, although sermons are good.
The world does not need another rock concert, although concerts are good.
The world does not need more people who are trying in their own way to help, although that is good too.
The whole world needs the presence of Jesus.
The whole world needs Jesus words, which bring life and are truly good
The whole world needs to worship, which brings life and is truly good
The whole world needs people partnering with God in their everyday lives, which brings life and is truly good.
The whole world needs to be able to access the presence of God. Where are people to go to find this presence?
To Church…
Has the church always been good at fostering the presence of God…no, but it is our function.
We are the Temple, the temple is pointless unless the presence of God is in it.
The greatest service we offer to the world is the presence of God.
We need to know this, we need to own it, it is what makes us unique.
Like we talked about last week, we are defined by our relationship with our God. No other God has a relationship with His people like Jesus does with us!
He gives us our Identity and our purpose.
We find our wholeness and peace in His presence.
This is why Matt18.20 is so important!
Matthew 18:20 NRSVue
20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Jesus tells us He will be here.
In todays culture we have become so individualistic and I think it is the enemies way of destroying the temple of God.
The ideal state for us is unity.
What we are going to do is I am going to read a passage and we are going to slow down with it.
There are many ways to interact with scripture. We should study it and we will, but that is only one way.
We are going to read it with the Holy Spirit, this is not to break it down academically this is to let the Holy Spirit speak to us through it.
So I am going to read it
While I am reading it, open your ears, open the deepest parts of you and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you, then we will have a moment of silence to just listen to the Holy Spirit, ask Him to speak to you, ask Him for a word for you and for us and just listen.
After a period if the Holy Spirit has given you a word for us or for someone, I want you to be bold and speak it.
If the Holy Spirit has given you a prayer to pray whether that is praise, adoration, repentance, or intercession, I want you to pray it out loud so that all of us may join and say Amen.
Does that make sense?
Let’s begin
Come Holy Spirit
John 17 NLT
1 After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. 2 For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. 3 And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. 4 I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began. 6 “I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world. They were always yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, 8 for I have passed on to them the message you gave me. They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me. 9 “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. 10 All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. 11 Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. 12 During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold. 13 “Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. 14 I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to this world any more than I do. 17 Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. 18 Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. 19 And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. 20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. 22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. 24 Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! 25 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”
Pause and spend some time here.
Now we turn this into Praise

Worship

Announcements

Gospel of the Kingdom

In a way we already had the sermon before the sermon which is awesome now we come to the learning part.
One aspect of Scripture that I love is that it is community literature. It is something designed for a community to engage in and so I love the time when we can open it together, study, learn, grow and apply.
As we start our new series we are going to explore “Kingdom”
but before we begin let’s pray
Pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us
Holy Spirit enlighten our minds, open our hearts, help us to see and hear what you have to say, guide our hands to apply what you teach and open our mouths return Praise for all you do for us!

Background

I feel like I open every sermon with a form of this question but it is an important one.
What is the thing we are talking about?
This is important because in todays day, it is unwise to assume that we all know exactly what each other is talking about.
Even among Christians we use the same words as each other, but they often carry wildly different meanings and interpretations.
When we talk to unbelievers, the same thing is true, but often to a greater degree.
Remember for unbelievers their perception of what we mean is often fuelled by the media, whether it is the news, social media or pop media.
What it isn’t from is Scripture.
So often what people think Scripture says…and what Scripture actually does say can be quite a canyon between them.
Kingdom is one of those church words that simply has a lot of baggage with it.
Words are like cargo ships and as they go through time they just pick up additional meaning and sometimes that is good and sometimes it is not very helpful.
Our goal always when it comes to Scripture is to figure out what did the author mean when He said these things, as it applies to the Gospels being eye witness accounts of Jesus, we can say what did Jesus mean when He said what He said and what is the author trying to tell us by presenting this information in this way.
So, for this series that is what we are going to explore.
What did Jesus mean when He said Kingdom?
What is the Kingdom?
What did Jesus teach about the Kingdom?
What does this mean for us today and in the future?
For this series what I am going to ask of you all listening, is that you try to hear this fresh, whatever you already know about the Kingdom or teaching that you have heard. Push Pause and Listen, this is an expansive topic that has a lot of implications for how we do our day to day life.
As such it is like eating an elephant we have to do it one bite at a time and we are going to spend some time going through it together.
Our main reference for this series is
The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God by Dr. George Elden Ladd

What is the Kingdom?

Rhetorically and Literarily the Kingdom of God is the main subject of Jesus’ preaching.
Jesus spoke about Kingdom 211 times in the Gospels.
It was His main framework that He used to teach almost everything He said.
If you use something two hundred and eleven times, it is going to have an expansive meaning.
Ladd puts it like this:

When the word refers to God’s Kingdom, it always refers to His reign, His rule, His sovereignty, and not to the realm in which it is exercised

One reference in our Gospels makes this meaning very clear. We read in

The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (

We must also “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (

I appreciate Ladds writing is easier to understand than some other scholars but it is still a lot to take in.
This is a foundational understanding.
The Kingdom of God, primarily refers to God’s reign as King. His authority as King.
Now these things have implications, it is silly and incomplete to think of a King taking no action. To be King and do nothing…is still nothing and therefore not important.
Ladd continues:

However, a reign without a realm in which it is exercised is meaningless. Thus we find that the Kingdom of God is also the realm in which God’s reign may be experienced. But again, the Biblical facts are not simple. Sometimes the Bible speaks of the Kingdom as the realm into which we enter as present, sometimes as though it were future.

We as humans live on earth, earth is the space made for us, but we are meant to be in the Kingdom of God, namely under His rule and Authority. This is our preferred and best state. To be ruled by God, that is not location dependent. I can be in the Kingdom, where ever I find myself.
I can be under His rule at work, at home…anywhere and anytime. In fact I am meant to seek it as a matter of first priority.
That said, anywhere I am, speaking of a location, can be the Kingdom of God or said another way can be impacted by it, because we exist and live on earth and because we belong to His Kingdom and are agents of that Kingdom.
Ladd closes this way which I can not add anything better:
It is a bit lengthy

Our problem, then, is found in this threefold fact: (1) Some passages of Scripture refer to the Kingdom of God as God’s reign. (2) Some passages refer to God’s Kingdom as the realm into which we may now enter to experience the blessings of His reign. (3) Still other passages refer to a future realm which will come only with the return of our Lord Jesus Christ into which we shall then enter and experience the fulness of His reign. Thus the Kingdom of God means three different things in different verses. One has to study all the references in the light of their context and then try to fit them together in an overall interpretation.

Fundamentally, as we have seen, the Kingdom of God is God’s sovereign reign; but God’s reign expresses itself in different stages through redemptive history. Therefore, men may enter into the realm of God’s reign in its several stages of manifestation and experience the blessings of His reign in differing degrees. God’s Kingdom is the realm of the Age to Come, popularly called heaven; then we shall realize the blessings of His Kingdom (reign) in the perfection of their fulness. But the Kingdom is here now. There is a realm of spiritual blessing into which we may enter today and enjoy in part but in reality the blessings of God’s Kingdom (reign).

We pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The confidence that this prayer is to be answered when God brings human history to the divinely ordained consummation enables the Christian to retain his balance and sanity of mind in this mad world in which we live. Our hearts go out to those who have no such hope. Thank God, His Kingdom is coming, and it will fill all the earth.

But when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” we also ask that God’s will be done here and now, today. This is the primary concern of these expositions, that the reader might meet the Kingdom of God, or rather, that the Kingdom of God might meet him. We should also pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” in my church as it is in heaven. The life and fellowship of a Christian church ought to be a fellowship of people among whom God’s will is done—a bit of heaven on earth. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” in my life, as it is in heaven. This is included in our prayer for the coming of the Kingdom. This is part of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Why is this important?

When we talked about presence earlier… this is what we are talking about.
We are talking about the presence of the King. His rule, His power, His authority. The Kingdom of God is all about the King.
Often times in the Vineyard we adopt Jesus’ language and instead of saying His presence we say His Kingdom, saying Kingdom can become a shorthand way of saying all the blessings associated with His presence.
So when we in the Vineyard say Kingdom from a certain perspective, we can mean His presence.
In ancient understanding, a Temple is where a God reigned from, the Temple was that dietys base of operation. It is similar to us, when we say we are the Temple, it conveys that same idea, The reigning God comes and exercises His Kingdom in and through us.
He could do it Himself, He has chosen not to, He has chosen to exercise part of His rule and authority through us Humans.
So how do we respond?
By making a decision, how do I receive someones rule? By saying Yes.
By saying yes we become willing participants in God’s rule and more importantly He will use us to further it, which connects us to our purpose.

Next Week: Now and Not Yet

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