God Establishes His Kingdom
Notes
Transcript
We are talking about the kingdom of God, and God as King. A kingdom needs a few things. First and foremost, in order to have a kingdom, you need a King. You also need territory. Everything else is kind of assumed. Things like subjects, walls, an army, food sources, and on and on.
We must remember that The Holy Scriptures are inspired by God Himself. So when we read in the Scriptures that God is described as a loving Father, we must remember that God chose to describe Himself as a loving Father. He wants us to view Him as a loving Father. He wants us to view Him the way He describes Himself in the Scriptures. And one of the ways He wants us to view Him is as a King over a kingdom. So if God is a King, then where is His Kingdom? The simple answer is everywhere.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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So as King, God created territory for Him to rule over. He spoke the spiritual realm and the physical realm into being. The Earth, the sky, the Universe, and the spiritual realm as well. He spoke it all into existence and therefore is by default the ruler over it all.
1 This is what the Lord says: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where could you possibly build a house for me? And where would my resting place be?
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And again:
19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
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But then He does something very unexpected: Let’s read it together
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” 29 God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, 30 for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
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Skipping to verse 8 and 9 of the next chapter we read
8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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skipping down to verse 15:
15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.
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We read that God established His throne in heaven and rules over all, but then on earth He creates a creature in His own image, and then He gives that creature authority to rule the whole earth. Let’s read it again
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
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God as King, makes Adam a king and Eve a queen and gives them the whole earth, and every creature on it to them as their kingdom to rule over. Now obviously they can’t rule the whole earth very well by themselves but they are told to be fruitful and multiply and to spread out over the whole earth, but for now, let’s just start with you two, and here is a garden, a territory small enough to be able to manage, and as you multiply then you can spread out across the earth and rule it a little more at a time.
Everything is perfect, and they don’t know evil, and therefore, are not a danger to each other or to any other creature, but God still gives them a command to not eat from a certain tree. Why? Two reasons. One because if they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then they will know evil, which God would not have taught them, but that leads to the question of why did He put such a tree in the garden in the first place. And that leads to the second and more important reason. As their King, they must choose to obey Him. That is what the word Lord means. One you obey. So in order for them to be obedient to Him as their Lord, or as their King, whichever word you want to use, they must choose to obey Him. So they were given a choice to obey Him as Lord, or as King, or to disobey Him. So He told them the consequences of their obedience and disobedience. If they disobeyed him and ate from the tree then they would die, but if they obeyed Him they could eat from the tree of life and live. And we all know which choice they made, the same choice that we would have made if it had been us
1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. 15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. 16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. 17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.” 20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them. 22 The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
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We see that the results of not obeying God as our Lord leads to pain and death, and that sets the stage for the rest of the Scriptures. Where Jesus will ultimately come as the second Adam or the last Adam and live a perfectly obedient life and then die in our place, accepting the punishment for our sin and imputing His righteousness to you and me. But just because Jesus obeyed God perfectly when we could not, does not mean that we don’t have to obey God for the rest of our lives. God still requires our obedience to Him, that is why He has given us the Scriptures, so that we can learn from them.
Peter and the apostles were told not to preach in the name of Jesus and this was their reply:
29 Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than people. 30 The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted this man to his right hand as ruler and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”
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Peter says that those who are saved and have the Holy Spirit are those who obey God as their Lord.
John says that love for God is obeying Him:
3 For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,
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And Jesus said if you don’t obey Him, then you shouldn’t call Him Lord.
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?
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Jesus said that calling Him lord won’t save you if you don’t actually obey God
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
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But if you are willing to submit to Him as your lord then when you confess Him as Lord and actually mean it then you will be saved.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
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You see, Jesus either really is your Lord, or He’s not your Lord. If He is your Lord, then you are saved. If He is not your Lord then you won’t enter the kingdom of Heaven. But calling Him Lord, doesn’t make Him the Lord of your life, obeying Him does.
Do you know, do you know, do you know that you are born again, saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, washed, and sanctified, eternally sealed for ever and ever? If you don’t, today is the day of salvation.