I want you to hold Matthew
5. Those first couple of chapters that we
were at reverses that we were read this
morning.
In your mind as we get into this
sermon
because it has a lot to do with
kingdom, and that's what we're gonna be talking
about today is the kingdom of God.
And what that means. And so I know
that I tend to throw that phrase around,
the kingdom or the kingdom of God or
the kingdom of heaven quite a bit, And,
that doesn't always make sense to everybody. So
this morning, we're gonna spend a little time
unpacking what that means and just kinda do
a overview of that theme
biblical.
I should say, I owe a great deal
of this to nt right and to the
bible project who both have excellent resources on
all of this stuff. And if you want
to think deeply about this or the sermon
on the mount, a go look up the
bible project. They are very good
and they've got some...
I I would say maybe not deep thinking
in terms of, like, an exhaustive study if
you're gonna go do your dis rotation on
it, but it's good
good material very accessible and and helps to
clarify
what I might not get super clear.
And it's free.
Unless you have a conscience.
And then you have to I'm like, oh,
lord. Okay. I'll give them money.
Now I have to now I have to
pay the money because I made it sound
like I do that, but I haven't yet.
It has been free so far.
Alright.
Let's pray before I just discredit myself any
brother.
Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for your rest
action in our lives.
We think you that you've not given up
on us. We ask that This morning as
we trace this theme of kingdom,
through the old testament and up into the
time of Jesus
that you would help us to be applying
this to our hearts.
Teach us what we need to learn Lord
about who you are and what that says
about who we are
about what you've done and about what that
says about what we do
as a response.
Father, we love you, and we thank you
for your love for us.
We ask that the words of my mouth
and the meditation of all of our hearts
will be pleasing to you in this time.
Amen.
Alright. So like I say, I think about
the word kingdom a lot.
I think it... And more probably as time
goes on, like, as as my life moves
forward it, I keep thinking this phrase kingdom,
it comes up, and I see it. More
and more everywhere. When I think about death
and dying, I start thinking in terms of
the kingdom.
When I think about disciples ship, I think
about the kingdom of God. When I think
about all hunger or justice or
reconciliation or restoration,
I think about the kingdom of God.
When I think about family, I think about
the kingdom of God.
It's 1 of those concepts that has managed
to kind of sneak its way and to
pretty much every sphere of my thinking. And
because I probably overuse the term or
I'm you know, if I'm not over using
it, I think it's at least safe to
say there are times when I'm not adding
clarity to what that is in the conversations
when I use that term without explaining. So
this morning, I thought Let's just kinda go
over and take a look at what this
is because it's a really
foundational fundamental part of who we are as
the church and as believers and as Christians.
So I do get to the question outright
occasionally as well, though. And I thought today,
let's just unpack this theme. And so,
because it's a major theme in the bible
and it stretches from really, if you wanted
to, you could stretch it all the way
back to Eden to revelation So it's like,
cover to cover 1 of these concepts that
works its way through the Bible.
And the better that we understand that concept
of kingdom. The better that we're actually going
to understand Jesus who comes into the middle
of this story and brings definition to it.
Not only who Jesus was, but what he
was doing
and why he was doing it, the way
that he was doing it.
And this is our
primary tasks as disciples of Jesus, as followers
of Jesus, it's our job to understand who
Jesus was,
what he was doing
why he did it the way that he
did it,
all in the hopes that we could do
it like him, that we would be light
Christ that we would be little Christians, little
Christ.
To the world around us. This is the
goal of Christ's first disciples and it's still
our goal as disciples of Christ
Now when we hear the word kingdom outside
of any sort of, like, church or biblical
concept. But I think if you're like me,
you probably conjure up thoughts of, you know,
knights and shining armor and Camelot and King
Arthur and all of this other kind of
stuff. And it's not wrong to think that.
I mean, I think the people that were,
you know, I'm just gonna go out on
a branch here and say,
Camelot
fictional. It's not a it's not actually existing
in history, but But it does. The concept
the the heart of Camelot does exist and
what they're driving at really is like, what
it looks like for a good king to
rule over his dominion
as the way that god intended to, And
it's it's the playing out of, like, what
that would look like if we could be
writing all of the wrong. So there's a
certain value set that goes with Camelot and
with King Arthur and all of these things.
That I think does... It certainly does har
back to what we're trying to learn in
the Bible.
We're trying to see
what are the values of that kingdom? What
what does the king value and what does
he send his knights out to go do?
Right? What what is important to him? What's
important to living inside of that kingdom? What
kind of things are they willing to die
for? What kind of things are they willing
to risk their lives for? What are they
willing to do in order to make and
establish this kingdom kingdom And and what will
they not tolerate? What won't they say is
okay. And so this concept of kingdom actually
does... Apply to the Bible, and the bible
uses it. You know, Authors to talk about
the armor of God. They're not referring to
camelot, but they're referring to Rome, and the
empires that they lived in. And of course,
they live in kingdoms and their experience of
this is
pretty normal. And while Rome is an empire
while they're there not technically a kingdom I
suppose, but it's an empire, the concept is
all the same. Rome has a set of
values that it's saying, this is who we
are. This is what we stand for. This
is what we do.
Why we do it and the way that
we're going to do it the way that
we're doing it. And so they're going to
bring a lot of really good and beautiful
things to the world. Right? Like, you're gonna
get Aqua ducks. You're gonna get running water,
and that is good for the health of
all the people. That is a that is
a really nice thing. For people, but they're
gonna do it at the cost of, like,
en people to do that. Right? The amount
of people that die
in order to provide these kind of things
that give their lives
to something like, you know, building a gym,
or building a a big bath house or
building 1 of these is incredible. It's staggering.
And so there's this value set behind it.
That says this at all cost and not
this, And God's kingdom is constantly
in attention with the kingdoms that are around
it. Right? The people of Israel, they do
become a kingdom eventually, but they're at attention
with the kingdoms around them.
So
as hinted that earlier,
the concept of god's kingdom does go all
the way back to the garden of Eden.
And it's a place where God's clearly on
the throne. Right? God is with his people,
and he's dwelling in harmony with them. Adam
and Eve, they're created in God's image. They're
representing God and the way that they were
made to represent him, and they're representing them
in how they steward the garden, how they
care for the animals, how they treat 1
another. They're living out.
This reality of, you know, God's perfect dwelling
place or his kingdom in a sense. It
was put briefly a place where God and
humanity lived together.
Reconcile.
He was their God and they were his
people. Of course, it doesn't take long for
that to go sideways, and we're pretty familiar
with that. Adam, and you take the fruit.
They take the 1 thing that God did
forbid. Right? The 1 don't do, they did.
And that value of the kingdom was trans.
Because in choosing the fruit, Adam and eve
decided they wanted to actually be their own
king. They said, actually, I I want to
be in charge of how I
make my decisions. I I get to decide
what's good or not good. Right? That's my
job to do now.
They wanna rule their lives according to what
they thought best, not what God tells them.
And this is the beginning of the separation
then the rebellion that we currently understand all
too well.
So as a consequence,
Adam don't eve leave the garden and and
they're prohibited from coming back into it. Now
they're outside of this, like, perfect kingdom. Right?
This perfect rule and reign of God. The
kingdom is closed,
and they still speak with God and they
have a relationship with them, but it's forever
tainted marred or affected by this sin and
disobedience, which is passed on to their own
children, and through them is a condition that
we also have inherited.
Who doesn't
want to have knowledge of good and evil
after all.
That's the name of the tree that they
take the fruit from. Right? The tree nausea
is a good and evil.
Who doesn't want that. I think we all
kinda do
This sin separates them and us from the
fullness of relationship that they had previously enjoyed
with God and it grieve God deeply.
It also brings death just like God said
it would bring death. Right?
Which also grieve God,
And it's not to say that the key
right on the spot. Right and live boom
they're dead and the story closes because that
would not be a very good story. And
it probably wouldn't have survived this long if
that were the case.
But the death that Adam and Eve die
happens on a much deeper level, and I'm
the kingdom
experiences a death as well. Right?
It's more than just a physical death. It's...
It's it's an experiential reality.
It's a death to innocence. It's a death
to trust.
It's a death to their full assurance of
the goodness of the Lord.
And in this sense,
this death is also
the birth,
of cy
of mistrust, of doubt,
of fear of all of these things that
mark this other kingdom that they were building
into
God sets about to reconcile this for humanity
and in his love, he launches us into
the rest of the story of scripture.
The big story of the many books that
make up the bible is ultimately the story
of god,
reconciling his people back to himself until 1
day he has restored us back to be
who he created us to be,
living as he created us to live,
and doing what we were created to do
in the way that he created us to
do it. Does that sound familiar?
That's the same definition of disciples that we
gave earlier to Jesus. Right?
So we're all track.
So after Adam and E, we're introduced to
Noah, and we see the ramp and broken
ness of God's creation don't worry. I know
what you're thinking. You're thinking is he gonna
do the whole thing today. And I'm not.
We don't have time.
But we get to we get to know,
And I wanna just touch on some of
these really quickly because I think they're important
for our understanding I really need to establish
this. I think, in the old testament as
a as a theme. So
with Noah,
and we see, you know, the the broken
ness of God's creation everywhere, and we see
these... 2 kingdoms kind of at war and
competition with each other. And we see after
the flood, the first of many recreation narratives
in the Bible. Which reminds us of the
original creation story of God, who's hovering over
the chaos waters, and he's separating the waters,
you know, previously, it was rain and the
waters of the earth, they all become 1,
and we have this, like, 1 water. And
now at this
recreation moment, god is separating the waters above
from the waters below.
Dry land is coming out of them. Right?
They come off of the arc onto dry
land. The first thing that noah it does
is he plants a garden, like a a
vineyard. Right?
And the it's... We have a picture of,
like, let's do this again. Let's try this
again. And the original readers, if you're reading
it as the jews were reading it, they're
gonna see this thing
here, and you're gonna have lots more examples
of that actually throughout the scriptures. It's a
very interesting thing.
But this is also supposed to sound familiar.
We hear the story in the way that
Jewish audience heard it, and we're hearing this
repeated theme of god's trying again. He's rebuilding
things he's recreating things he's giving us another
chance,
will we be able to live inside of
the? And it lasts, like 0 time at
all,
Before Noah is drunk on his own wine,
and then there's a bunch of deb battery
that happens, and the whole things gets broken,
and and then we see this like long
laying out of, like, what it's gonna be
like. But before all of that, god bless
Noah and his family
with an already familiar
be fruitful and multiply. We heard that before
too. Right?
And he makes a covenant with him, and
then the new covenant he makes with Noah,
We see again, God's commitment to reconciling humanity
and reconciling this relationship that he has with
his creation at any cost.
He literally at the end of it. When
he's hanging up his bow. He's hanging up,
it's it's not like a a rainbow, like,
I mean, it is a rainbow.
But we're supposed to hear This is God's
war bow.
Right? This is, like, the bow that he
goes to war with his enemy. He hangs
the bow up, in the heavens and he
promises that he never again is he gonna
wipe out the earth in this way.
But notice
who the bow is pointing at.
It's like god saying I hate death and
I love you.
Death is always gonna have some part to
play in this relationship now
because of the sin,
so let's do something about that. And then
he points the bow at himself. And again,
this theme is repeated throughout the scriptures. It's
in the covenant with Abraham. You'll see God
standing in the place of, like, I'm am
going to take this thing, and we don't
have, like I said, time this morning for
the full retailing, but 1 of the major
themes running throughout the length of the Bible,
is the concept of God restoring
humanity through his chosen people Israel, so we
can all once again dwell together with God
in the way that we were attended to.
We're going back to Eden. The old testament
also a story of Israel's sporadic obedience
and frequent dis disobedience.
Their frequent failures acting as a vehicle through
which God would bring this peace to Earth
once again.
They want a king. Israel demands a king.
They wanna be like the other kingdoms. They
wanna be like the other nations, so they
want a king, and god grants in this
through samuel despite
prophetic warnings to the contrary you're going. This
is not a good idea, but okay if
you insist,
again, a story of occasional success
and triumph, but frequent failure,
the now official kingdom of God is quickly
divided it doesn't last very long. You go
through those kings, most of them are not
great. Right? And and the and the ways
that they're not great. They're catastrophic
not great. And then the ways that the
good ones are good, it's just... You're always
feeling like, man, this is just not enough.
They need a good king, which is why
David is so celebrated, but it's only, you
know, a generation after David that boom. It
goes the kingdom. It's gone like it's divided.
And now
this kingdom, this place that they thought, maybe,
you know, in Jerusalem. And God's holy city
in this temple that we've built for God
God will dwell with us. He will be
our God. We will be as people, but
their own sinful ness, Their own broken ness
prevents this from happening.
And all of a sudden,
this kingdom that they've built up. This this
center point for where God would be able
to extend his rule and reign and sovereignty
and bring peace the whole Earth is lost.
The city's lost, the temple is sacked by
the enemy,
and Israel, god's people
go into exile.
The constant longing of the people
in exile is for god to restore the
kingdom. That's what they hope for the most.
And what we hear so often repeated by
the prophets during that time, are promises of
God, like, I will be their God, and
they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor or
say to 1 another, know the Lord because
they will all know me from the least
of them to the greatest declares the Lord.
That's in Jeremiah 31.
This is har back again to what it
was like when Adam and Eve could walk
with the Lord in cool of the garden.
They just knew him. They didn't have to...
What's he like? What it gonna be like?
I like this in C s Lewis book.
The great divorce. He goes up to this
kind of intermediate state. I don't know what
it is. Place between heaven and hell, and
there's this artist there, and he has painted
these beautiful pictures, and he is he has
open people's eyes on earth to the greatness
and glory of god, and he's like, I'm
gonna do the same thing in the kingdom
of heaven. Or in in heaven, and he's
like,
well, they could just look at God
and
do it that way. And it goes, well,
and then like, I I have a thing.
I'm important here. I matter. Right? And goes,
well, actually no. You don't. What you did
was really important Was a beautiful gift, and
it was an active worship to the lord
on earth while you were doing it when
we were all looking us through a glass
dim. But here now, we we get to
see and behold him. This is the eventual
long for hope that we have is that
we will behold god face to faith, and
this is what the prophets are declined. They
will just know the Lord. They're all know
me. From the least to the greatest declares
the Lord.
And we hear and there the echoes of
Eden. And again, an Ezekiel God declares my
dwelling place will be with them. I will
be their God, and they will be my
people. And the nations will know that I
the Lord make Israel holy when my sanctuary
is among them forever.
Now imagine this while those sanctuary is destroyed
jerusalem gone, they're living in exile, and they're
just longing for this day when God's gonna
establish his kingdom.
There's a calling forward to a time when
god is going to establish his rule and
reign and he's gonna bless the whole world
through Israel just as he promised abraham him.
And then Daniel,
focus here a little bit more this morning.
The language of kingdom is really explicit. The
book of Daniel writes about Israel's exile, out
of the kingdom of Israel and into the
kingdom of Babylon.
It's... I mean, they're the great enemies. Right?
And the and they have done just these
atrocious things. And it's a story of Daniel
the,
and the rule and reign of God in
the middle of the rule and reign of
the Babylon, the median
the persians,
and all these kings and rulers that they're
living with in Babylon,
Consistently throughout the book the sent to the
power and authority of those earthly kings
is given boundaries by an invisible god.
And these guys are, like, unstoppable tyrant. They
are like, absolutely Mega,
like, they they say a thing and people's
lives hang on the balance. You don't defy
their power or authority and yet throughout the
book, where... To understand that God is actually
pulling all of the strings here. God is
actually in control of Israel and of Babylon
while he's outside of the temple.
Consistently, we see this displayed.
The god who alone tells him what their
dreams mean. He closes the mouse of lions.
He does all of these things that the
kings can't explain or understand They can't... They
don't have access to what God can do.
The god who
is
saving Israel in the middle of all of
this stuff.
In fact, Daniel gets pretty bras and speaking
to the kings.
He says the God of heaven,
well, he he interprets Ne Dream. Right? And
Ne nes, if you're familiar with veggie tales,
you'll maybe remember Ne.
If that's how you read the old testament.
But he tells another your magic to you
are the king of kings.
The God of heaven has given you
dominion and power and might and glory. In
your hands, he has placed all mankind and
the beasts of the field and the birds
of the sky. Wherever they live, he has
made you, ruler
over them all. You see what he's doing
there. He's flattering him, but he's also, like,
don't get confused about where this is all
coming from Ne Desert.
Book of Daniels a picture of God's power
and authority,
even when he has no throne, no city,
no temple. God is sovereign.
And the kings of the earth still look
to God for wisdom.
Ne has a dream of this great tree.
Right? And all of the animals of the
land they come and take refuge under its
branches, and this is this beautiful thing.
But then, in the middle of the dream
an angel comes down from heaven an cuts
down the tree and he leaves only a
stump and he's all bound up. Daniel's
interpretation, you Ne. Your majesty. You are that
tree.
And then we get another contrasting glimpse of
how God's kingdom
differs from all earthly kingdoms. Daniel tells Ne
desert 7 times will pass for you. Until
you acknowledge that the most high is sovereign
over all kingdoms on earth
and gives them to anyone he wishes
your kingdom will be restored when you acknowledge
that heaven rules.
Therefore, your majesty,
reno your sins by doing what is right
and your wicked by being kind to the
oppressed.
That's kind of a para of Daniel 4
there at the end.
All kingdoms on earth. God is sovereign over
all of them, and this is gonna go
on up a until you can acknowledge that
until you can pro preclude that because This
has all gone straight to his head. He
can't see this. This is the big problem,
but this whole book of Daniel is really
trying to communicate to Israel. Even when your
in Babylon,
God is on the throne.
Even when Ne is on the throne,
God is on the throne. Even when darius
is on the throne. God is on the
throne. Even when Be is on the throne,
God is always on the throne. He's is
never off of the throne. And they have
to get this into their minds. They have
to understand that this kingdom is not necessarily
going to be bound by a physical
vacation. It's not going to be, like, here's
the thing that you can put walls up
around and then fight battles over, and then
then only then, will the kingdom of god
be established. This kingdom of God transcend all
of that.
Finally, after Daniel and Tu his dream, ne
quickly goes off the deep end, and he
has his moment out in the wilderness, and
it's a good story. I won't spoil it,
but After all that happens, Ne returns from
his own exile, and he has apparently fully
learned the lesson, and he proclaimed. This comes
out of of his mouth. Now I ne
can has praise and ex and glorify the
king of Heaven because everything he does is
right and all his ways are just... And
those who walk and pride, he is able
to humble.
Now for lack of time, I'm gonna ask
you to trust me that this theme repeats
it... Itself, not only throughout the book of
Daniel with ne darius bo are. And it
ends actually speaking prophetic of future kingdoms as
well that the israelites are going to be
subjected by. The But key for all of
this is that the israelites remember
God's sovereignty over every earthly kingdom despite the
outward appearances.
They need to know this. They need to
leave Babylon
understanding that God is always on the throne,
and that his kingdom works differently.
Then earthly kingdoms.
God gives Daniel a really key vision in
chapter 7, and it's a vision of warring
kingdoms
and in the midst of them comes the
son of man,
who approaches the ancient of days, with God,
and who has given, quote, authority, glory
and sovereign power all nations and people of
every language worship shipped him, as he's seeing
in vision. Right? His dominion is an ever
lasting dominion that will not pass away and
his kingdom is 1 that will never be
destroyed.
Later on, the dream is interpreted. The ancient
Days comes and he pronounce his judgment in
favor, the holy people of the most high
and it says, a time came when they
possessed the kingdom.
This is what they're looking forward to. This
is what they're sitting in the midst of
exile,
longing for God's kingdom.
And that kingdom represents righteousness. It represents h.
It represents justice. It represents peace. It represents
people being fed, and there's not there's not
sq there's is unity and reconciliation, It represents
all of these things. It's not just power
and authority and control, and now we get
to hold the guns. It's like, no. Nobody
has to hold the guns because there's no
need for any of that stuff anymore because
God's kingdom has been established.
Now,
the israelites cling to that promise. They're expecting
the sun man to come to liberate them
from the oppressive kingdoms of earth.
And
for that time when God himself will establish
his kingdom and the holy people of the
most high will take possession of it. That's
what they're looking forward to.
And then they go into 400 years of
silence,
and God doesn't say anything.
For really long time, you gotta think about
400 years that that's a older than Canada.
That's a long time for people to shape
an opinion to shape to shape a culture
to shape a of a, kind of feeling
about who god is about
the values that they're going to live out.
It's also as long as they spend
in in slavery in Egypt as well. Right?
And this is how long it takes them
to come out of this
mentality of, like, we're still slaves in Egypt.
It's a long time in the desert. You
know, you get the israelites, as they say,
out to Egypt, but it takes a lot
longer to get Egypt out of the Israelites.
It's the same thing. These guys are 400
years of silence. And they're waiting on hanging
on these promises, and they're seeing
some pretty incredible kingdoms and empires spring up.
Seeing the Sal. They're seeing
Alexander the Great. They're seeing the Roman empire.
They're seeing told me. They're seeing this whole
lake. They're they're seeing the world start to
really flex its muscles. And, I mean, Rome
is still
major influence on our culture today. It's still
a huge part of how we shape our
own society, the things that we value, the
way that we structure our government, this the
the... Philosophy that we kinda hold to, democracy.
The whole thing is like, we've got Rome.
It's still here. I mean, that's a significant
kingdom.
So for 400 years, they're watching how the
kingdoms of earth work,
and they're clinging to that promise,
and they're expecting the son of man to
come and liberate them,
and then they hear nothing, and then Jesus
comes onto the scene.
And the first thing Jesus does after his
baptism,
and then temptation in the desert. The first
thing he does in Matthew's gospel he goes
around, and he begins to preach this really
radical message, which Matthew sums up in Matthew
4
verse 17. It says, as From that time
on,
Jesus began to rep preach.
Repent.
Why?
For the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Times coming.
The kingdom that you all been longing for,
the kingdom is coming,
and it's here.
There's a mic drop moment for people.
Because Jesus is just this like, he is
not a king like they would be expecting
a king. He's not gonna be the guy
that overthrow the government. He doesn't look like
Alexander The great. He doesn't look like sister.
He doesn't look like any of these people
who have, like gained prestige and military power.
He doesn't have tons of influence. He doesn't
have these things. And yet
from this
place of humility,
comes the messiah.
And Jesus is claiming
the kingdom of Heaven has come near. And
then just shortly after that in chapter 5
He... I mean, he goes around to all
the people. He's healing people. He's kind of
demonstrating
his sovereignty over the earth and everything in
it and he's saying in a sense, I'm
the king. Here's this new kingdom is coming,
and I'm actually the king.
And that doesn't not a lot of people
get that,
as they're watching Jesus life unfold, and it's
a tricky message to understand, but the people
that do follow him there's great crowds of
gentile, and it's typically not a real religious
thing, but they're going, yeah. You know what?
Because Rome,
you know, my uncle and brother and so
and so and so and so they all
died building the stupid a and the sewer
system for these guys. And Jesus is proclaiming
something, like, when you're hurt, when you're, you
know, when you're not able to work when
you're not useful to Roam anymore, what's Rome
got to do with you. What's wrong care
about you.
What are they gonna invest in you? Not
a lot.
But Jesus kingdom is a little different than
that. Fact it's radically different than that. It's
completely the opposite of Rome.
And so when we're looking for kingdoms,
were tempted to miss it because a lot
of years of kingdoms have coming gone, and
we're pretty close to our American neighbors to
the south who have a a pretty good
king and we got a pretty good thing
going on ourselves.
But the contents of the kingdom of heaven
has come near when Jesus is telling people
repent the kingdom heaven has come near, the
contents of what that is going to mean
and what that is going to look like,
but is the sermon on the mount. This
is where Jesus goes, this is the values,
the ethics, the understanding of what it looks
like to be behold and to and to
walk in this kingdom. This is what it
looks like to be 1 of the knights
of the... Or just a a citizen of
heaven. Right?
And so we're gonna start in the next
couple of weeks,
unpacking
the sermon on them mount, and I'm really
excited about it.
And here's the thing about the king to
Heaven though. Our expectation for it
often
can make us blind to it. We want
it so bad, and we've been so accustomed
to looking around to other competing kingdoms, and
we we see it especially. On a man.
It's an election time in the states. And
I'm I'm American, and I hear all about
it. You know, like, we're looking for, like,
we're looking for, like,
and captain America Jesus. You know what I
mean? Like, it's a real blending and sync
of like, of these 2 systems,
and they've... Jesus has done nothing but show
us that that doesn't exist. Like, you're not
gonna find the guy that's holding the rocket
launcher,
and wearing the to and sitting on the
cross. Right? You're either the 1 nailing into
the cross or you're the 1 on the
cross.
And Jesus shows us a pretty direct and
alarming way of the kingdom.
And most of the people that Jesus was
teaching about the king them didn't really get
it.
Certainly, those in a position of relative power
had a harder time getting it. Whether they
were the religious elite or the
mighty or the rich. Those who had the
most to lose are often the slowest to
give it up.
And so as we go into this sermon
series,
we have to recognize that most of us,
because we live in a very affluent part
of the world,
have a lot to lose
when we consider the kingdom of God.
Jesus kingdom
is for the meek,
and for the mourners.
They're not an influential bunch.
It's for the poor and spirit.
It's for the ones who's hunger for
righteousness,
whose hunger and thirst for righteousness
and justice
exceeds their hunger
for power and control,
and influence or money or the other promises
of our culture.
And because of this,
They don't become wealthy people. They don't tend
to become very influential people.
They're relegated off to the kind of corners
of history
and we don't hear a lot about them.
These
have found the pearl of great worth.
3 they have sold everything to obtain that
treasure hidden in a field
that nobody else can see.
They are the mustard seed.
They are the good soil upon which
the seed flourish is,
and this is the call of Christ.
Christ enters into the most powerful empire of
all of human history, arguably, I would stand
by it.
If you're an American watching this. I'm sorry.
Rome is all around us you guys. Roam
it's in our art. It's in our architecture.
It's in our language.
It's in our literature. It's in our laws,
We understand empire. We understand
we understand power and influence. We know what
it takes. If we wanna shape this culture,
we know how to do that. We've seen
it done before. We've seen the kinds of
things that shape this culture,
and
we're being asked not to believe it.
Jesus is showing us an alternative way.
We can't do this thing,
In the Canadian way or in the American
way or in the way of the empire,
we can't afford to do it because that's
not how it works.
We can't have our cake and eat it
too, unfortunately.
It would be really nice if we could.
But I don't think we can.
We are Roman
in a sense. We are empire.
But we are also told that we are
citizens
of a different kingdom of a heavenly kingdom,
and that we can live in these 2
kingdoms at the same time. We can be
citizens of the 1 and so journeys to
the other.
And that's the whole trick of living this
thing out.
How do we live out our beliefs? How
do we express these values? How do we
express this kingdom
to the people around us. And this is
I wanna close on this.
When Jesus is presenting this. This is the
very center of his teaching. That's what he's
going to do. He starts off saying,
repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Let me explain to you what the kingdom
of heaven looks like. If you're gonna follow
me, this is what you're following me into,
and then he gets himself crucified for his
troubles. He gives up everything he has. He
has all the power, and it is a
display of power and authority
to be crucified on the cross.
Is the greatest display of power and it
third because he has the authority power over
death itself, and he has gained that, and
he says, Now you too can face these
things. You have that kind of power and
authority to be able to face death to
be able to face person. Execution to be
able to face hunger and to be able
to face the injustices of this world as
a citizen of that world as a citizen
of heaven as a child of God, blessed
are the peace makers for they will be
called children of God. Right?
Blessed of the pure and heart for they
will see God.
This is who we are, and we have
to live that thing out inside of this
culture.
And we've done this thing and this is
a western way of thinking
we think about religion, we think about spirituality,
we think about Jesus or Christianity in terms
of a logical set of propositions. And when
we share and evan,
or when we're, you know, doing this
evangelical or you Eli or how you wanna
say that the Greek word of...
Evan
when we're doing that, that word means good
news. Right? People would run in and say,
you know, There's a king. There's a new
kingdom and a new king and they're bringing
an evangelion. They're bringing the good news.
And Jesus comes and they pick up on
this, You know, when when Daniel is talking
about this good news of the kingdom, the
Sep translate it as even Eli.
Evangelion. That's how it translates. It uses that
same word. Good news.
And so this is what we're coming into.
This is what we're sharing. But we tend
to think of good news as like a
thesis,
and we're like, I gotta tell people all
of these proposition of truths. But more than
that,
The people that get it that Jesus talking
to are the people who have nothing and
they're willing to give it all up to
follow Jesus.
And there's this radical new way of what
it looks like to be alive and to
interact with this world around us, and it
looks a lot like laying ourselves down in
front of it,
of subject ourselves to crucifixion of of putting
going the whole distance of and and trusting
God and obedience in the midst of this
chaos and the crazy that we live in,
and we live in it.
That's evan.
When we do that thing. We pro
the greatness of God. We pro the sovereignty
of god over all of this when we
face that stuff with confidence,
knowing that god can provide for us that
he can take care of us and that
he is still
on the throne, no matter whose
elected into what position God
is on the throne.
And we have to ask ourselves, because Canada
is now post nation,
and we're faced with the same question that
god's holy people have always been faced with
are we going to scramble for power and
influence?
Are we gonna play by the rules of
earthly kingdoms
or of God's kingdom?
What will the kingdom of heaven teach us
about how god structures this church?
How we structures our relationship?
With the town and the culture and the
politics around us?
How do we treat power and authority, who's
important?
To us, who has influence? Who do we
care about?
Where do we spend our time money and
talents?
What do we invest in
Who is rich?
Who is poor?
These are all questions we need to be
asking.
And for this, I'm very excited about the
upcoming series on the sermon on the mount
because it's going to be a sustained reflection
on these things. And so I'd invite all
of us,
in the weeks ahead to just
dive into that thing, allow it to challenge
you,
allow this thing to settle you, It's a
very important
thing to have on unsettled us because it's
really at the center of what crisis is
trying to teach us.
And when we live there,
we experience God. We experience the power and
sufficiency of God
and God is on the throne.
Let's great.
Father, we thank you for your sovereignty.
We thank you for loving us for restoring
us for bringing us
back into this
kingdom
of setting before us a vision for the
for your kingdom for your glory,
for your good.
Think you that we can see it even
now,
spring up around us
and in cups of cool water
when we visit those
who are sick or in prison.
It's in these small acts of justice and
righteousness.
Of reconciling people to you
that we see you that we see your
kingdom
and we thank you god that
despite all the kingdoms of the world,
yours has persisted,
yours will last. It's not going anywhere.
You are still on the throne.
Here are praise this morning and be pleased
we ask in Jesus name.
Amen.
Let's stand and sing praise the Lord.
Hope
in
god
Pray for.
Father we thank you.
Thank you again for the gift of your
son. Thank you that you are on the
throne that we can have confidence in this.
Help us to remind each other of this
as we go out, would you remind us,
Lord that it doesn't need to be a
great thing, but the opportunities for your kingdom
lie all around us.
Opportunities to invest and who you've called us
to be to to be who you say
we are and to do the things you
tell us to do in the way that
you've created us to do them.
God thank you for giving us your son.
As a guide as a way of showing
and for your spirit who teaches us and
moves us into these things.
Help us to claim your goodness,
your sovereignty,
your power and your might, and the way
that we give our lives up for the
world around us.
Help us to follow you, Lord. We ask
in Jesus name.
Amen.
Be blessed. You are dismissed. Happy Sunday.
And
keep
and
keep
make his face on,
pawn
we agree
amen.
And thousand
generations
your