A Kingdom Call AM Sermon 11/14/10

NT Wright tells the story of Americans visiting the British Parliament for the first time. The American tourists were in the House of Lords and one of the British members of Parliament came by them with all his regalia and was all dressed up for the formal meeting of the House of Lords. He happened to see one of his friends down the hallway and his friend’s name happened to be Neil Martin. He wanted to get Neil’s attention and he yelled out down the hallway – NEIL !! with that the American tourists knelt down before him because they thought that was what they were supposed to do. Something between the two cultures that are very close in proximity – America and Great Britain- was lost. They were confused.
The same can be said of our gospels many times. We have read these stories to the point that they have lost their zest and original meaning. We have shaped them into our own image instead of allowing God to shape us by these stories.
The Bible is a book to be read as one that shapes and molds our lives. This is a book that should challenge us every time we read it.
Another true story was told of a public school teacher that decided one Christmas holiday to read to her students about the Nativity story of Christ.
Many of the students in this school came from a background in which they had never attended Church and were from a multicultural background.
The students were captivated by the story of Jesus and hung on every word that the teacher told them about Jesus.
When she was finished one of the students spoke up with something very peculiar and asked his teacher why the baby in the story was given a ‘swear’ or ‘curse word’ for the baby. To some people in our day and age the name Jesus Christ is merely a curse word.
As a matter of fact many Christians have no idea that Christ is not Jesus surname. Many people act as if Mary and Joseph were Mary and Joseph Christ and Jesus just took their last name. The name Christ is not a last name but a title of Jewish royalty.
It is literally Christos in Greek which is a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah.
Literally it means Jesus Messiah.
This morning I want to take a big panoramic view of a theme that is shot all through the Gospels but it is one of the misunderstood and least talked about theme and that is the Kingdom of God or as Matthew’s gospel puts it the Kingdom of Heaven.
This problem of grappling with much of the Gospels goes way back in Church history and I want paint for you a very simplistic picture as to what happened over the history of Christianity that lead to this situation.
If you go back to the time right after the Apostles you will find a church Militant that is fighting for the faith. The Apostolic Church was a church that is on fire for the Gospel but also under persecution. The Church is on the bottom side of power and under fire by the Romans.
About 300 years after Christ was crucified a Roman Emperor came to Power that claimed to be a Christian. His name was Constantine and Constantine was a very powerful man.
Constantine also issued a law called the Edict of Toleration which made Christianity legal under Roman Law.
Contrary to popular belief, Constantine did NOT make Christianity the official religion of Rome but just made it legal to be a Christian. It wasn’t until Emperor Theodotian that Christianity would become the official religion of Rome.
Under Constantine the Church come out of hiding and become a vocal part of Roman society and with that brought debates.
Most of those debates centered around the Divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. The church for one of the first times was on the brink of being ripped apart by various heresies and false teaching.
Because of this threat to sound doctrine on the Divinity of Christ and the Trinity a council was called of all Church leaders at the time. The model that they looked to was Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem but a critical element was missing and that was the living voice of the Apostles. They felt that the Scripture or the writings of those Apostles would have replace the living voice of the Apostles and they took Scripture and said, “What does the Bible teach about the Trinity?” and from that they formulated what we call the Nicene Creed.
Many churches around the world recite the Nicene Creed in all of their worship services.

Originally the Nicene Creed was just going to be a statement about the essentials of Christianity over and against the Heretics.
The problem that arose in the years after the Creed and through the Middle Ages was that the Creed became the teaching rubric of the Church.
In other words, whether intended or not, the Creed formed the direction of most Christian instruction and many people became ignorant of many of the teachings in the Gospel about what Jesus was all about.
The Creed focused on the Divinity of Christ, the Trinity, Baptism for the remission of sins, the Church as being one and holy, Jesus resurrection from the dead, and Jesus Second coming.

All of those I think, or hope we would be in hearty agreement with but a problem arises when one just focuses on the Incarnation of Christ in flesh and His birth then it short circuits straight to His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven.
That is super important and without the resurrection all of this discussion would be moot but we forget something really important.
The teaching of Jesus about His KINGDOM gives meaning and impetus to His death, burial and resurrection.
Because the Church focused on just the birth of Jesus and His Passion things like the Crusades were possible.
People had forgotten the radical Kingdom call of Christ.
Because of ignorance of the Kingdom one could have corrupt state Churches that would lead people like our Founding Fathers to revolt and set up a government separate from the Church.
People had forgotten that all governments had merely borrowed their power from God and Christ’s Kingdom super cedes all other Kingdoms.
One of the goals of the Protestant Reformation was to reclaim a lost heritage of reading the Bible afresh and grappling with these issues.
What in turn happened was controversies that were fought within the Protestant Movement about matters of how one is justified by faith. This will lead to more creeds and confessions of faith to prove fidelity to truth.
Things like the Westminster Confession of faith came about because of these controversies and once again Biblical study focused mostly on what the Creeds and Confessions stated and once again Jesus radical Kingdom call was neglected at our own peril.
Two men in the Restoration Movement in the United States of America set out to make the idea of God’s Kingdom a major part of their teaching and they felt, and rightfully so, that this teaching had been neglected by Churches.
David Lipscomb and James Harding, the schools Lipscomb in Nashville and Harding in Search, Ark are named for them, were two men that emphasized God’s Kingdom Movement in the Ministry of Jesus.
This morning I want to point out to you some important places in the Gospel that give us some insight into that Kingdom as well as our response to that Kingdom Movement.
I think there has never been a better time for the Restoration Movement to go back to our Kingdom movement roots more than now.
We live in a time when Churches that claim ties with the Restoration Movement are turning to emphasizing parties, pop Bible studies that draw spiritual lessons from Andy Griffith, and basic spiritual fluff.
What has been left behind is the rigor of hard Bible study, Discipleship, and a vigorous evangelistic outreach that marked our Movement from the beginning.
Instead of transforming the religious landscape of America we have become complacent in our own skin and allowed the American Pop culture to infiltrate and water down the Gospel.

1) First misconception – People have a hard time understanding that God’s Kingdom could begin in the Ministry of Christ and still have a future fulfillment in the Second Coming.
There are two extremes when it comes to God’s Kingdom coming in the Church and looking totally to the future.
Some say , If God’s Kingdom came in the ministry of Jesus and the teaching of the Apostles then why do we still see a world upside down?
There are two ways to understand this
In the world that Jesus lived in there was already terminology being used that specified what was happening at the present time and what was to come.
In the Inter-testament period the terms arose ‘THIS AGE’ and the ‘AGE TO COME”
We find Jesus use this terminology in His sermons. We see this terminology about the Present and Future in Mark 10

Mark 10: 28-3028 Peter began to say to Him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You." 29 Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions ; and in the age to come, eternal life.

Jesus tells Peter that those the give up for the Kingdom will receive an entire new family identity in which Jubilee fellowship will occur when the Church will take care of each other and will be FAMILY and you will receive Eternal Life in the AGE TO COME – or what we would call the SECOND COMING

In the teaching of Christ you could have the KINGDOM COME in the Present AGE but not be totally realized until the Second Coming.
This tension is called the NOW and NOT YET concept or realized ESCHATOLOGY

Mark 1: 14-1514 Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand ; repent and believe in the gospel."

This passage is direct fulfillment to Daniel Chapter 9. In Daniel 9 there is a timeline given for the Time be Fulfilled for the Kingdom of God coming and the Messiah. Messianic expectations were high in time of Jesus because of this prophecy in Daniel 9. In Daniel 9 the prophet prophesied about a 70 week period which was interpreted to be 490 years.
This time period had the Messiah coming in the time of Jesus. People were at a fever pitch because of this.
They knew that the time was nigh for God to set up His kingdom.

In Matthew 4: 23 we see the healing ministry of Jesus connected to the coming of the Kingdom and the preaching of the Kingdom.
Healings, teaching, and casting out of the demonic were all equated with Jesus Kingdom activity.

In other words, when the power of God’s kingdom came to this Earth things started to happen like the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, the demon possessed being freed. All of this is connected to Jesus Kingdom activity.
Now, we may look at this and say if Christ came into our world to set up God’s Kingdom why does it seem that things are not a ton better. The world is still upside down and is flying in the wrong direction.
The answer is that we must see the Kingdom through Jewish eyes. They had no problem with the Kingdom being inaugurated with a look forward to a more fulfilled sense of the Kingdom.
Let me give you an example of how this worked in the time of Jesus.
100 years after Christ a man came along named Bar Kochba. Bar Kochba was endorsed by the leading Rabbi of the day named Akiba. He was hailed as the Messiah the Christ.
He lead a revolt against the Romans. This is just 30 years after the Jewish Temple had already been destroyed by the Romans.
Bar Kochba raises an army and takes on Rome and wants to rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount.
Here is the important point. On the first year of the rebellion Bar Kochba has coins minted with the year 1 on it. He had reset the clock because he felt he was the Messiah. This rebellion lasted 3 years so there were three coins minted for the years 1, 2, and 3 under Bar Kochba. Each one of these coins had a picture of the Temple on it that laid in ruins.
If you went up to one of Bar Kochba’s followers and said, Has Bar Kochba ushered in the Kingdom of Heaven? They would have emphatically said YES!
But do you think that meant that they could go back to the fields and work and act like life goes on? Do you think they looked and said you know what the Temple is ruins and the Romans are strong so we better wait until God comes and does something miraculous?
NO, they understood that the Kingdom, in their minds, was inaugurated and it was time to fight.
That is the same idea of the Kingdom that Christ set up.
It was inaugurated in 27 AD with His Ministry, death, burial, and resurrection and things have changed. It is time to go to work and bring about this Kingdom proclamation and godly rule.
But at the same time it is okay to look forward and long for a greater realization of that kingdom when Christ returns.

2) AFTER the Realization that Christ has inaugurated something new in the Kingdom of God in our time, what should our response be?
Isaiah the prophet had a vision of what perfect peace is all about.
He is looking forward to a time when God’s Kingdom will be fully realized in the New Jerusalem.

Isaiah 32: 16-2016 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness And righteousness will abide in the fertile field. 17 And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever . 18 Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places ; 19 And it will hail when the forest comes down, And the city will be utterly laid low. 20 How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters, Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.

Isaiah is speaking of a time of God’s peace or SHALOM when every thing will be made right. A time when you can live in your home peacefully and you will not have to worry about war. You can sow your field beside waters without worrying about seasonal flooding. This is a picture of perfect peace that only God can bring back to this world.
We are now living in the Tension of the in Between. We are living in the Kingdom awaiting its final fulfillment.
So how do we live?
We are strangers first of all, this world should seem weird and out of joint for us. It should anguish us at times what this world is like sometimes. Kingdom living sees that this is not our ultimate home that we are citizens of another place.
The other day we were watching Sports Center on ESPN and they were broadcasting from a German base where our American soldiers are stationed and you could see a girl in the background with a big sign that said ROLL TIDE! I thought I hear you sister, you may be in Germany but your heart is in Alabama.
That is how we are to feel about God’s Kingdom. We are firmly planted on this earth, on Terra Firma, but our hearts, minds, and all are in the Heavenly courts. The Hebrew writers lays out this vision of what Kingdom living is all about.

Hebrews 11: 13-1613 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.
The Hebrew writer paints for us the picture of what it is all about. The Hebrew writer uses the heroes of faith of old as our example. Particularly people like Abraham that was called to leave his home country to go to a new land. He never looked back but expected God to lead him.
They saw their identity as something new. In the same way we are strangers or aliens in this world.

Paul tells us that our citizenship has changed.
In Philippians 3:20 Paul tells us that our citizenship is in Heaven and not here in this earth.
The Christians of Paul’s world found themselves in a peculiar position. They had been kicked out of the synagogues of the Jews and they could no longer go the Gymnasium of the Romans.
They really were strangers in a weird place. They had become sojourners in this world awaiting a better city to be revealed.
We are citizens of Heaven here to bring that Heavenly rule to our world.
What would it look like if we were to bring Heaven’s rule to this earth?
What would happen if Christians started to see themselves more as Heaven’s citizens and less at home in our own culture.
Many historians say that in the Restoration Movement that at some part of the mid part of the 20th century the Church got real secure and comfortable in modern American culture and less Kingdom minded.
In other words compromise was made with the world and there was a loss of reading the Bible with a Kingdom mindset, praying with a Kingdom mindset, and evangelism that had a sense of urgency about it.
Peter reminds the Christians living in this corrupt time and it do well to hear him again from this perspective:

1 Peter 2: 11-1211 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Peter uses the word in Greek for Aliens and Strangers that could also be translated as refugees or foreigners.
We are literally in foreign territory.
Something that moves me is the testimony of man named Justin Martyr. Justin lived in the generation after the apostles and was a pagan convert who eventually was killed for the faith.
Justin wrote and made these points:
I formerly rejoiced in uncleanness of life but now I live in chastity
I formerly made the pursuit of wealth as my only ambition but now we bring all of our possessions into a common stock to take care of anyone in need.
We once hated one another, killed one another, would not eat with one of another race but now we pray for our enemies and try to win over those that hate us without just cause.
Justin Martyr lays out what it was like in the early Church when one came into contact with God’s Kingdom.
This was not in the time of the Apostles but just one generation later. These folks still had a fervor for the Lord that would make them totally change their lives.

As we consider this lesson, let us think about some points=
1) Are our lives ordered in such a way that people recognize as distinct from the world? Do we act just like others around us or are we different?
2) Are we constantly trying to bring God’s just rule and wisdom to every situation?
3) Are we ready to put God’s Kingdom first in everything? Will our actions show it?

In the years 1014-1035 there ruled over England a Danish king named Canute.
King Canute tired of hearing his retainers flatter him with extravagant praises of his greatness, power and invincibility. He ordered his chair to be set down on the seashore, where he commanded the waves not to come in and wet him.
No matter how forcefully he ordered the tide not to come in, however, his order was not obeyed. He wanted to prove a point to his subjects that he was not the greatest power of all.
Soon the waves lapped around his chair. One historian tells us that, therefore, he never wore his crown again, but hung it on a statue of the crucified Christ.
This is a fitting example of what the Kingdom should mean to us.
All things are subject to the Kingship of Christ.
If there is anything in our lives that we have not made Jesus the ruler over we need to really reconsider what we are doing.
Today let us pledge anew to make Christ and His Kingdom first in everything we do. From the way we talk, the movies we watch, how we spend our money, to the company we keep – Christ needs to rule ALL.