Sermon Tone Analysis

The Master of the Kingdom

In Matthew 13 Jesus uses many parables about the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God.

To begin to understand these you must understand the King of the Kingdom of which He refers.

The King is Jesus and if you do not understand Jesus you will not understand His Kingdom.

And if you do not understand His Kingdom you will miss the heart of the King.

You are all probably familiar with the following phrase in Matthew 6:10:

But do you have the understanding of what it means.

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, this was His response.

It is a traditional rabbinic prayer.

The first part of the prayer, about sanctifying the Lord’s name and the arrival of His Kingdom, hails from the Kaddish קדיש (Prayer Hymn “Holy”), one of the central texts in Jewish liturgy, as well as from the Tefilat HaAmidah תפילת העמידה (Silent Standing Prayer).

Moreover, both those texts are almost contemporary to the time of Christ.

The second part of the prayer finds its origins in various parts of the Talmud and its treaties.

(https://hozana.org/en/prayer/our-father/origin)

But why did Jesus respond with this?

What was He trying to get across to His disciples about prayer?

Was it about what you pray or how you pray?

Or was it more about the heart of the one praying?

Are there key principles within this prayer that reveal to us the Kingdom of God?

Let’s say you are a professional plumber.

One day I hire you for a plumbing job for a house I am building.

We make the agreement for the work to be done, the standard for which I expect and the price I paid.

But each day, instead of being on the job doing what I hired you to do, you are off doing whatever it is you want to do each day.

This is often how we view salvation.

We are forgiven and redeemed and so nothing else is expected of me.

I now get to live however I want free of any boundaries or responsibilities.

Because we all know that the Kingdom of God is a reckless irresponsible Kingdom, right?

God has no set ethical standards or moral judgments, right?

You know deep inside that these teachings are a lie from Hell.

I am not saying that you are saved by your works.

Heaven forbid, it would nullify the work of Christ.

But I am saying, that you were saved with a purpose.

You were redeemed for a purpose.

Salvation is just the beginning of the intent of God in the grand scheme of His glorious Kingdom.

What they hated in Christ’s time was the gospel or political edit He brought.

To Israel and to Rome, the message of the Christ was that there was another King and another Kingdom.

It is the same today.

The world is pushing their own political gospel and the edict is that those with the power are king and they are pushing their kingdom on everyone.

All the while, the real message of the Christ has grown mute in the pulpits of America.

It is getting to where almost every business, sports industry, education, entertainment, everyone is pushing their agenda of perversion on us all.

They demand that we take part in the celebration of sexual perversion by at least continuing to purchase their products and use their services as they market the emblems of their perverted idolatry and abomination.

Our lives are more deeply assimilated into this world and it’s kingdoms than we realize.

It is a test of what we are willing and unwilling to do without.

It is only the first step to demanding that you not only acknowledge the celebration of their kingdoms values, but at some point they will demand that you bow to it and give your children to it as well.

But Jesus did not come and do all He did for you to be a cowardly Christian, to compromise with culture, or sit back in silence.

He came to establish His Kingdom.

Even the disciples had misconceptions about Jesus’ Kingdom.

They were expecting some physical hostile takeover.

Some were expecting some covert strategic political play to overthrow the wicked and set Israel up in social and economic power.

It is no different today.

The church is waiting for some divine political intervention.

But there already has been.

Listen to Jesus’ word in Acts 1:8:

Pentecost (Shavuot שבועות; Feast of Weeks or Harvest; Day of First Fruits) was preparation for a Kingdom visitation.

What we need in the church today is another Kingdom Visitation.

What happened in Acts 2:1-13 was Backwards Babble.

At the Tower of Babble they were divided by languages, here they are unified by the Kingdom power of the Holy Ghost.

And language was not the focus, it was the power of the Holy Spirit, the manifestation of the transforming power of the Kingdom of God, and impartation of God’s presence dwelling within His people.

It was evidence that the Kingdom of God had come among them.

And as Jesus had said, the gates of Hell could not stop or snuff out this Kingdom.

The Pharisees were not really interested in the Kingdom of God.

They were building their own.

This was not a question of sincerity but a question of hostility.

Basically, they were telling Jesus to put up or shut up.

You are preaching about the Kingdom of God coming, then show us some evidence.

So what did Jesus mean when He said, “The Kingdom of God was in their midst”?

He did not say this in some humanistic or pantheistic New Age context of some mystical manifestation within your subconscious self.

Surely, the very ones rejecting Him as Messiah did not possess the “Kingdom of God” for which He was referring.

Instead, He was telling them that the Kingdom of God was presently within their midst.

How and why?

Because the King of the Kingdom of God was here.

In this series we will look at:

1.

The Master of the Kingdom - The Messiah; the Brides Groom and how to better understand His teachings of the Kingdom of God in the context of the Ketubah כְּתוּבָּה (Marriage Covenant) and Torah תּוֺרָה (Law of God; God Marriage Covenant).

2. The Model of the Kingdom - The foreshadow of the Kingdom of God from the Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle to the work of Christ and His return in Revelations.

3. The Methods of the Kingdom of God - Application in your daily lives for a deeper relationship with Christ that marks you for the day of harvest.

In Deuteronomy 33:6 there is a concept presented that the average Christian would never even concern themselves with.

However, most Christians who believe in the return of the Messiah would say they have a general understanding.

It is the concept of the “Second Death”.

Jesus uses this concept in Revelations 2:11:

Two things you need to know here to understand:

What is the Second Death?

What does He mean by conquer?

Both have to do with the Kingdom of God.

One has to do with who does and does not enters His Kingdom and the second with who builds it.

In Deuteronomy 33:6, Moses is blessing Reuben, specifically the tribe of Reuben, the he live in this world and not die in the World to Come.

“The Second Death is a rabbinic expression for the total extinction of the utterly wicked” (Barclay; David Guzik on Deut.

33).

Reuben required such a blessing because he had been chastised for defiling the bed of Bilhah (Genesis 35:22).

He had committed a wicked act and Moses is praying that his sin not bring the tribe to extinction.

Moses knew that because of this wicked act, Reuben had forfeited his inheritance of the Promised Land.

You see, the Kingdom of God is about an eternal inheritance that only comes through the King of Kings who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

If you do not have covenant with the King, you don’t get into the Kingdom.

Remember this Christian, such were some of you.

And some, still are.

Sitting in church and doing “churchy” things makes you no more a Follower of the Christ than sitting in a barbershop makes you a barber.

So, who will inherit the Kingdom of God? Who are God’s Kingdom People?

We are called to be a holy nation within a fallen nation to reform a nation unto the Kingdom of our God.

So, you say as a Christian that it is hard to watch the wickedness prevail in our nation; to watch the perversion of our children; the moral depravity of our society; the murdering of the innocent in the womb; and the dragging of generation after generation to lifestyles of abomination while you tolerate it?

But you do not want to offend or be canceled.

You do not want to be marked or stand out from among those who live by such anti-covenant, anti-Christ ways of life.

How will you ever survive without Oreo cookies, Netflix, and Major League Baseball even though they flaunt the celebration of the “Gay Pride” kingdom and their god of perversion?

They are pushing another kingdom on the church while the church knows so little of the Kingdom of their God.