"Communicating the Forgotten Foundation of the Gospel" by Shawn Miller

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. This is Strength to Strength, and I want to welcome you all. Thank you for joining us this morning. It's a blessing to be gathered here virtually. Our goal here at Strength to Strength is to provide simple biblical teaching that will edify the Kingdom of God all over the world, so that brothers and sisters in any country can join us live or find the material online at strengthtostrength.org, and on YouTube and any podcast platform, and be edified and built up in their faith and encouraged.

And it's a blessing to be here. We have Brother Sean Miller joining us this morning from State College, Pennsylvania, and he's going to be sharing, communicating the forgotten foundation of the gospel. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say about this.

Let's bow our heads for prayer.

Eternal Father, thank you that we can come to you this morning with our hearts open and minds open to you, to your teaching. Father, I pray for Brother Sean as he shares the word that you've laid on his heart. Thank you for his willingness to participate in this way. I pray that the message would go forth and your Holy Spirit would be present to communicate it to the needs of each one of our hearts. Just bless him this morning. I pray that his mind would be clear and that truth could go forth. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Brother Sean, maybe before we get started, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? I believe it's your first time sharing on Strength to Strength. Could you give us a little background, maybe a little insight into your life? Sure. So I'm Sean Miller, and I'm living currently in State College, Pennsylvania. I've lived in various countries so far in my life. Grew up in Haiti for 10 years where my parents were missionaries.

Then we moved to Ohio, which I consider home. I've lived in Mexico for a few years working with an indigenous group down there and also in Bangladesh with a refugee crisis. Ended up in State College to attend Penn State University and get my master's degree as a family nurse practitioner, and I'm currently practicing in family medicine.

I have a wife and one daughter that we're blessed with. So that's a little bit about us. That's wonderful. Yeah. I understand that you're a birder. That's right. Can you tell us how many birds you saw last year?

I think we saw 200 this year. Last year, this year, we're at about 134. And I'm planning to take a couple of boys out this morning after the talk here and do a little bit more birding. That's wonderful. That's good. Is that looking okay there? Okay.

All right. So yeah, it's a wonderful privilege to be here sharing the marvelous kingdom of God. It's a topic I love to talk about, and it's so important and foundational. And it seems like a lot of Christianity has forgotten this basic foundation of the gospel of the kingdom. So I want to start with a story from when I was in Bangladesh. So in January of 2019, I had the privilege of working in Bangladesh with the Rohingya refugee crisis. And during the time that I was there, there were elections happening, and I was working with a number of Bangladeshi coworkers who were very anxious about the outcome of the elections. And while I was there, there was a lot of chaos going on.

So they have these little three-wheeled vehicles called CNGs. They run off of compressed natural gas, and they use these as public transportation. And they would mount loudspeakers on top of these CNGs, and they would go down the streets just blaring their campaign messages. It was very, very noisy. They would have rallies as well where a whole group of people would get together and just walk up and down the street, blocking all the traffic, shouting their campaign messages.

And then three days prior to the elections, all the cellular data was shut off, and you couldn't really communicate with each other. So there were two ways that people could go in and vote. They could go to a booth and electronically vote, or they could do paper ballots and throw it into a box.

So on election day, my Bangladeshi coworkers went to vote, and some of the ones went to the electronic booth. And when they got to the electronic booth and signed their name and everything to cast their vote, something popped up that said, "Your vote is cast already," and they never got to vote.

Others told me that when they went to fill out a paper ballot, they went to put it into the box, and the boxes were already full with ballots before people ever threw their ballots in. So just crazy times. And it was fascinating to watch. And during this time, I had a friend who's a Bangladeshi doctor, and he was very sensitive, thoughtful, and conscientious.

And he asked me during this time who I had voted for in the last American election, and I told him, "I don't vote," or, "I didn't vote." Later that day, as we were waiting for our ride home from the clinic, we were working together at a clinic, and we were waiting for our ride home. He asked me, "So why didn't you vote in the last election, or why don't you vote?" And my initial reaction was to give him a quick explanation and response about why I don't do that. But on further thought, I told him, "Well, let me actually come to your house some evening, and we'll talk about this further, and maybe we can explain it a little more."

So a few evenings later, I ended up going to his house, and we sat on a mat on the floor, which is the way we did things over there. And I had him sitting beside me on my right side and another very dear Bangladeshi friend on my left side. And I asked them for a paper and a pen, and I would draw up to them what I believe about the Kingdom of God and why I didn't vote. Took about 30 minutes, and he really appreciated it. And I have used this method for a few different people already. And this PowerPoint that I want to share this morning comes from that conversation. And the PowerPoint covers the theme that seems to be so largely forgotten among Christianity, and that is the theme of the marvelous Kingdom of God.

And so these are not necessarily new thoughts this morning, but I'm a visual learner, and hopefully this can help visualize what the Kingdom of God may or could look like and maybe solidify some of these themes that we have been hearing previously.

So this is typically an interactive PowerPoint, but since we're on Zoom, it makes it a little more difficult to do that. So we'll just go through the PowerPoint. So what was the theme of Jesus' teaching and ministry? So the word kingdom is used 125 times, and this is just in the Gospels. This is not the rest of the New Testament. So the word kingdom is used 125 times.

And I often like people to make guesses on how often they think these terms are used. The Kingdom of God, that phrase, is used 55 times, again, just in the four Gospels.

The Kingdom of Heaven is used 33 times. The word salvation is used 11 times. Born again is used only two times, and that's in John chapter 3, where Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and Jesus told him what it means to be born again.

And repent or repentance is used 19 times. So there's an obvious theme going on in the Gospels. There's an obvious theme about what was Jesus' theme. It seems to be, obviously, the Kingdom of God. So today, Christian lingo often encompasses terms like salvation, born again, being saved, but they don't as often use terms like the Kingdom of God. And a lot of modern Christianity is more about being saved so that you can go to heaven. But there's a much better way to look at that. And in the book, The Marvelous Kingdom of God, which I definitely recommend as a good read, they say, "The Kingdom of God is here. Let your life be transformed and live heaven's way right now on earth and in the age to come."

So this Kingdom of God presentation here, hopefully this can be a tool for you as you process what the Kingdom of God is, both for yourself and for people that you interact with, and maybe it can be used as a tool in your tool belt.

All right. So what does the Kingdom of God look like? There are four components that are needed to have a country, a nation, or a kingdom. So kingdom is used interchangeably with country or nation. They're all synonyms there.

There are four basic building blocks that are needed to make a nation or a country. So first of all, there needs to be a leader of the country. Various countries have different titles for their leaders: president, prime minister, dictator, king.

And then they also need laws. There needs to be laws in order to have a country. There needs to be a land area, and there needs to be citizens. And these are the four building blocks of what it takes to be a nation.

A fairly basic concept here, but let's just work through the United States of America. What does it look like in the United States of America? So here's the principles. Right now, we have President Joe Biden as the president or as the leader of the nation.

We have laws called the Constitution in the United States of America. We have America as a land area, and then we have Americans as the citizens. Here again, very basic building blocks of what it takes to be a nation or a kingdom. So since I lived in Bangladesh, I just want to look at Bangladesh as well. What does it look like in Bangladesh?

So currently, they have a prime minister, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. She is the leader of the country currently. And every country has a set of laws. In the United States, we call it the Constitution. In Bangladesh, they call it the Constitution as well.

Now, other countries might have a different name for that, but every country has a set of laws. And obviously, in Bangladesh, the country is Bangladesh, the land area, and the citizens are called Bangladeshis. Again, very basic principles.

So here we have two distinct nations. We have two distinct laws, two distinct land areas, two distinct leaders. They have their own identity. So keep this thought, these building blocks, this concept in mind as we discuss a few terms. I want to discuss some terminology before we circle back to this thought of what a nation looks like. So hold on to this thought.

So terms. Let's define a few terms. The first term I want to define is translation. What does translation mean? Well, it's a rendering from one language to another. It conveys meaning. So in English, we'll say one, two, three, four. In Spanish, we'll say uno, dos, tres, cuatro. So just that's a direct translation from one language to another. Very basic there.

There's another word called transliteration. So people who are translating or transliterating, this means to represent or spell in the characters of another alphabet. It conveys sound. So take Jesus Christ for an example. You can almost hear Jesus Christ sounded out in other languages.

So for example, in English, obviously, we say Jesus Christ. In Spanish, they say Jesucristo. In Creole, they say Jésus-Christ. And in German, they say Jesus Christ. You can almost hear that sound in the various languages. So that's what transliteration is.

Another example, in Mexico, when I lived there, they tried to say my name, Sean, and they could not pronounce it properly. And so they would try to transliterate it into something that sounded like Sean in their language, but it just didn't come out very good. So I ended up going by my middle name, David, which they could translate directly into their language. It's also why when we read the New Testament or the Old Testament, when we are reading through a list of names, they're really hard for us to pronounce because they just don't sound familiar to our English ears. That's because these names are actually transliterated. They convey the sound, not the meaning.

One other term, gospel. This is very easy to define. It just simply means good news. So when we talk about the gospel of Jesus, it means the good news of Jesus.

Lastly, Christ. This is why I wanted to walk through this translation and transliteration, these definitions, because Christ is actually transliterated, and it should have been translated. Christ is not a name. It is a title. That means the anointed one or the king. So if Christ would be a name, we should be able to say something like Mr. Christ if that was Jesus' last name. And it just does not make sense at all. So Christ is not a name. It's a title, and it should have been translated versus transliterated. And there's a good book about that called The Problem with Christ, where it goes in depth about what Christ means and how it should have been translated.

And if you read through the New Testament and you replace Christ with king or the king, it can give you a very fascinating and interesting perspective to this concept of the Kingdom of God if you read verses with Christ and just simply replace it with king or the king.

So with that in mind, let's go to what the Kingdom of God looks like. So God's kingdom also has four components.

First of all, we have King Jesus. So obviously, king, we could say Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ, or we could say King Jesus.

And in David Brousseau's book, he wrote this: "Earthly kingdoms periodically change rulers and policies. In contrast, Jesus is eternal, and his policies don't change. Here is a holy nation you can commit to because here is a leader who will never die, retire, nor be forced out of office due to scandal. Here is a servant king whose reign is eternal." And that's beautiful. King Jesus' kingdom will never end.

So what about Jesus' laws? What about the laws of the Kingdom of God? So I would contend that the Constitution of Jesus is Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Now, it's not limited to this. This is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount. The Kingdom of God, the Constitution of Jesus, is not limited to this. It encompasses all of the New Testament, but a lot of the bulk of Jesus' teachings can be found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 in the Sermon on the Mount. And I would contend this we could view this as the Constitution of Jesus.

And it's very interesting because Jesus' teachings have little, if anything at all, in common with the codes of this world. They don't match up with the codes of this world. As one speaker one time said, "The Sermon on the Mount hides what we want to show and shows what we want to hide." It's reversed from what our flesh desires.

All right. What about a land area? Does the Kingdom of God have a land area? Well, it doesn't necessarily. It's throughout the whole world. In the New Testament, it also talks about the Kingdom of God being within us. It does not have boundaries. Jesus' kingdom is international. He came as a king with all the intended consequences of that terminology.

And his citizens, known as Christians, are dispersed throughout all the nations of the world. It is an international kingdom. It is not limited by boundaries. And I think we have various countries represented here this morning on the call. And that's such a blessing because God's kingdom is not limited to a land area. It's throughout the world.

And Christians, or all who genuinely repent, believe, and are baptized, can become part of this Kingdom of God. And to be a kingdom person means to be under the reign of God or the reign of Jesus.

In 1 Peter, it calls us a nation. It says, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." So we are called to be a holy nation before God. And we as Christians are citizens of this kingdom fighting for a cause that lasts throughout all eternity. Praise God for that. This is how I visualize the Kingdom of God.

Now, there's many verses that proclaim Jesus as king, and I won't read them word for word here. If you want to look through these again, the PowerPoint will be uploaded to the website then. So in Matthew chapter 2, there were wise men that came looking for Jesus, and they said, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?"

In Luke 19, when Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, the crowd was saying, "Blessed is the king that comes in the name of the Lord." In John chapter 18, Pilate asked Jesus when Jesus was on trial, "Are you a king?" And Jesus said, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world."

In Acts 17, there was a mob that was crying out, "These that have turned the world upside down are come here as well, whom Jason has received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

Amen."

And then I love this prophecy in Daniel, where it talks about the coming of the Kingdom of God. "And in the days of these kings, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed."

Beautiful. Beautiful verses proclaiming the Kingdom of God that has come to the earth.

Okay. So going back to these two countries of the United States and Bangladesh, and the reason I chose these two was simply because these are two countries I have lived in. But how do these kingdoms correlate with each other? And how does the Kingdom of God correlate with these kingdoms here as well? What is our position as Christians in these kingdoms? Because obviously, I'm a citizen of the United States. So this is how I view the Kingdom of God. Jesus' kingdom is an overarching kingdom. Christians in the various nations comprise a citizenry of heaven that supersedes all other loyalties.

So the Kingdom of God gets our primary focus and attention because it's an overarching kingdom.

When the laws of the Kingdom of God contradict man's laws, we need to obey Jesus first. And there are times when that will happen, and it has happened throughout world history. So we are part of the earthly nation because we are in the world, but most importantly, we are part of a heavenly nation.

We are in the world, but we are not of the world. Earthly kingdoms will rise and fall. This has been throughout all history. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall, but the Kingdom of Jesus will last forever. And that is why I want to commit, as a believer of Jesus, to the Kingdom of God first and foremost, because this is the only kingdom that will never end.

So one way to view this is that we are ambassadors. So living in the United States of America, I can view myself as an ambassador to the United States representing the Kingdom of God. And what does it look like to be an ambassador?

So here are things that ambassadors from the United States of America need to commit to. So the ambassadors of the United States of America need to speak with one voice to others on U.S. policy. They need to be united in what they're saying.

Also, in the Kingdom of God, Christians need to be united with one voice. The ambassadors of the United States of America are committed to cooperating with the U.S. legislative and judicial branches so that U.S. foreign policy goals are advanced. So that's one goal of the ambassadors is they're advancing the goals of the U.S. We, as Christians committed to the Kingdom of God, are also called to advance the teachings of Jesus throughout the world.

Ambassadors from the United States are committed to serving Americans with professional excellence, the highest standards of ethical conduct, and diplomatic discretion. So they're called to serve Americans in whatever country that they're living in, whatever country that they are ambassadors in.

We, as Christians, are also called to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ as part of the Kingdom of God. And lastly, ambassadors of the United States need to take direct responsibility for the security of the mission, including security from terrorism and protecting all U.S. government personnel on official duty.

We, as Christians and part of the Kingdom of God, are called to protect each other, to pray for each other rather than fight against each other. It's a high calling.

All right. So I have four scenarios that I want to work through as we think about what the Kingdom of God looks like. And scenario one is breaking the law. In the book of James, it talks about whoever keeps the whole law, all the laws of God, and yet stumbles in one point, he is guilty of all.

We, as Christians, have the privilege of coming into an obedient, love-faith relationship with Jesus the King, which means that we are called to keep the constitutional laws of the kingdom. So living in the United States, if I break one of the constitutional laws, I can't justify myself in front of a judge by saying, "Well, I've kept all the other constitutional laws, but this one law, well, I didn't keep that one." You can't justify yourself like that. That would be rather ridiculous.

And as a citizen of the United States, I also don't have the privilege to reinterpret the constitutional laws to fit my biases.

We, as the citizens of the Kingdom of God, also do not have the privilege of reinterpreting the laws of Jesus to fit our biases. Jesus really meant every word he said. And what if we, as Christians, actually obeyed everything that Jesus taught?

I think that would be heaven on earth.

That last verse talks about people who recognize Jesus as Lord and yet did not do what Jesus taught, and Jesus calls them workers of lawlessness.

Scenario two, I want to talk a little bit about civil war. So in the 1800s, the United States of America went through a civil war, and it was horrific. Americans were fighting against Americans. And it was utter chaos.

During this war, there were two brothers, Alex and James Campbell, who ended up fighting against each other in the same battle. And Alex wrote a letter home to his wife, and he wrote this: "We are not far from each other now. This was a war that there never was the like of before. Brother against brother." He was horrified that he ended up fighting in the same battle against his very own brother.

President Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." But essentially, he was just repeating what Jesus had said about 1800 years earlier. Jesus said, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls."

So when there is division in a country and there is a civil war, it puts brothers against brothers. And when this happens, chaos reigns. So the key takeaway here is chaos reigns when fellow citizens fight against each other. When we, as Christians, fight against each other, whether with words, weapons, or ideologies, there is a lot of chaos.

But when we are truly part of the Kingdom of God, there will be no war among Christians, whether with words or weapons.

Okay. Scenario three, world war. So let's just pretend that there is a world war going on between Bangladesh and the United States.

And let's pretend that these two leaders decide that we're going to fight against each other. So there's a clear division. Now, probably today, the better example would be Ukraine and Russia or Israel and Palestine, where there's actually wars going on right now. There's no war going on between Bangladesh and the United States. I'm just giving this as an example.

So as we think about the Kingdom of God and this concept of we, as Christians, being part of the Kingdom of God, should we, as Christians, participate in war? And this is a huge topic, but I just want to, with this visual, I want to present what it would look like if Christians join in the army.

So I know for a fact that there are Christians in Bangladesh, and I know for a fact that there are Christians in the United States. So when Christians join in the army, if I would join the army of the United States and other Christians in Bangladesh decide it's okay to join the army as well, what is actually happening is that Christians are fighting against Christians, which is citizens and brothers in Christ fighting against each other.

And as we saw in the civil war of the United States, when these things happen, total chaos reigns. Christians are part of the international Kingdom of God. Therefore, Christians fighting against Christians is equivalent to being in that civil war.

So does it seem right, we, as Christians, who are part of the overarching Kingdom of God, to fight against each other for our earthly countries? There is a conflict there. However, let's just suppose that there would not be Christians in Bangladesh. There's only non-Christians. This is obviously just a hypothetical situation.

Would this allow Christians in the United States of America now to fight against people in Bangladesh? My answer is no. According to the teachings of Jesus, this would be wrong because one of the things it would do is that if we, as Christians, are fighting against non-Christians, we are sending them prematurely to judgment, and this goes against everything that the New Testament has to say about Christians, about how Christians should relate to non-Christians.

One sad thing is, so this is hypothetical, and there's Christians. I believe there's Christians in every nation of the world. And so if there are Christians in every nation of the world and there are Christians that do not hold to the teachings of Jesus, we will end up having civil war where there are Christians fighting against other fellow citizens and Christians.

Someone once made the comment that during World War II, it was Christian Germany fighting against Christian allies. And this should be stunning. This should stun us. This is shocking that we would call Christian nations, and they're actually fighting against each other.

I think Christian nations is not necessarily a proper term either.

But wouldn't it be much better if Christians would unite under one banner, the banner of Jesus, and that they would recognize that we are fighting for a higher cause, not an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly? And the way Christians fight is so much different. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal or fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. What if Christians would unite together under the banner of Jesus and love each other, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, and visit those who are in prison? This is what Christians are called to do, to obey all the teachings of Jesus and be united under the banner of Jesus rather than fight against each other.

There's a lot of verses that support this. Jesus said, "My kingdom isn't of this world. If my kingdom was of this world, then would my servants fight? But now is my kingdom not from here?" In Matthew chapter 5, it talks about loving our enemies, praying for those who hate us. And in Romans chapter 12, it talks about allowing God to take vengeance. "Vengeance is mine. I will pay," says the Lord.

All right. And the last scenario, scenario four, I think is very, very important to this time and age because, obviously, elections are happening this year in the United States. So what about voting? This is the topic that I discussed with my Bangladeshi friend. And so this is definitely something I wanted to hit on. So, obviously, there's no verse in the New Testament that says, "Thou shalt not vote." There's no verse that we can point to that says that. But if we have the concept of the Kingdom of God and how that looks, should we vote or not?

So I'm going to give about five reasons why I don't plan to vote in this upcoming election as a citizen of the Kingdom of God. And I welcome pushback on this. So, first of all, ambassadors don't have a right to vote in the country they are serving. They only represent their country. So the American ambassador to Bangladesh, while he was in Bangladesh, he could not vote in the Bangladeshi elections because it would be a conflict of interest. He is from America, and his first and foremost allegiance is America.

We, as Christians, are ambassadors of a citizen and citizen. Sorry. We, as Christians, are ambassadors from a heavenly nation. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Should we vote in an earthly nation?

Secondly, politics and voting divide Christians. There are Christians on all sides of an election that feel equally strong about voting for their party's leader because he or she has better policies. So most leaders have some kind of immoral, non-Christian behavior.

Therefore, the division among Christians about who to vote for is usually based on their worldview of which one's policies is the lesser of two evils.

The third reason why I do not plan to vote in this upcoming election is that our primary allegiance as Christians is to the international people of Jesus rather than our personal national state.

Fourth, there is a conflict between the commander-in-chief and the prince of peace, Jesus. We can't vote for both.

Home for the Christians is the church, not the nation. Nationalism is an enemy of the gospel of the kingdom, just as surely as is racism, classism, or sexism. That's a quote from the book, The Marvelous Kingdom of God. It's a very powerful quote. I'll read that again.

Home for the Christians is the church, not the nation. Nationalism is an enemy of the gospel of the kingdom, just as surely as racism, classism, or sexism.

And lastly, the next elected president will drop a bomb. Every president does that. So whoever we vote for, president or leader, they are the commander-in-chief. And so they will be the ones that say where we go to war, when we go to war. I mean, they will help make these decisions. Obviously, they're not by themselves on this.

And so do I want to support that by voting for the next potential leader? These are things to think about. I welcome feedback on this, but these are reasons why I do not plan to vote in the next elections.

And here again, I'm talking about the United States a lot, and I know there's people from other countries on this call, and I'm sure these principles apply to wherever we, as Christians, live. So just to recap a little bit here, Jesus' kingdom is an overarching kingdom. And because I am a citizen and an ambassador of the Kingdom of God, I don't plan to vote in the next election.

I will not fight against my fellow citizens of God's kingdom, nor against non-believers, lest I send them prematurely to judgment. Because I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I will uphold all the teachings of Jesus by the grace of God.

Can we, as Christians, unite under the banner of Jesus and fight valiantly for the Kingdom of God and for a kingdom that lasts throughout all eternity?

All right. Here's just a little picture drawing of how I draw it up when I speak with people one-on-one about this. Now, admittedly, my handwriting is not very neat, but this is something that this is a way that you can, if you're interested in using these principles to talk with someone about the Kingdom of God and the teachings of Jesus, this is one great way to do it because it really stimulates a lot of discussion. From this basic concept, these discussions can go any which way.

You can talk about voting, war, divorce and remarriage, oaths, wealth, the Great Commission, or whatever else that the teachings of Jesus encompass. So it's a great way to talk through the teachings of Jesus and about the Kingdom of God with people. Takes about 30 minutes if you would do it this way, unless it can go much longer as well if people dialogue back and forth with you about this.

All right. So one last thing here. I wanted to discuss what the demands of the United States citizenship looks like. So if you're from another country and you want to become a citizen of the United States of America, here is what you need to say.

I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen, that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law, that I will perform non-combatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law, that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law, and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.

So help me God. That is a high calling, a high demand when you want to become part of the United States of America. And if you commit to this, you are committing to a lot of things. Well, what are the demands of a kingdom Christian? What are the demands of the Kingdom of God? Jesus lays out a high calling here as well. He says, "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. So therefore, anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." This calling is much higher and much greater than the calling that it takes to become a citizen of the United States of America. The Kingdom of God has a high calling. Are we willing and ready to commit to such a high calling?

The kingdom is so different that we cannot enter it without an immense shift in our thinking. And lastly, how do we enter the Kingdom of God? By God's grace, we can enter in through the blood of Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. And that's how we enter the Kingdom of God through Jesus.

It's a high calling. Are you willing to step into the Kingdom of God?

And lastly, I do love to interact with and hear from other kingdom Christians, so feel free to reach out to me via WhatsApp, Telegram, or email. Thank you again for allowing me the privilege of sharing this talk on Strength to Strength.

Amen. Thank you, Brother Sean. I was encouraged and invigorated again by that simple but powerful message. Thank you for the work that you put into that. And we will make this PowerPoint available. It'll be on our website when we post Brother Sean's message.

You'll be able to find it there. So this is our interactive time. We open it up for questions for Brother Sean. Even if you want to unmute yourself and rejoice in the kingdom, go ahead. We love to hear people's responses to the talks here.

It's a beautiful message, and I think you're right when you mentioned that it's the forgotten foundation, the message of salvation, which is beautiful, and we all rejoice to have salvation has sort of eclipsed the message of the kingdom. And it is foundational to our faith. So thank you for this.

One question I have to start this off would be, what has been the response to this message when you share it here in the United States? It's been a really fascinating response because it just stimulates a lot of conversation. And because it's a quote largely forgotten good news of the kingdom, the concepts are not ingrained in our thinking in the West here. And so it's always fun to introduce this concept of, "Hey, we're part of another kingdom." And it's like, "Oh, yeah, that's a good way to look at it." And then it always stimulates a lot of good conversation. And then conversations can just go any which way from there because that's a foundational principle.

Yeah, that's great. Politics often comes up in conversation, especially around election time, but it can anyway. People complaining about policy or complaining about different things that are going on. And my brother-in-law just recently, his neighbor was chatting with his neighbor on the sidewalk, and his neighbor was talking about something political and kind of complaining about something. And he was looking for an opportunity like this to bring up the Kingdom of God in a conversation about politics and say, "Well, we actually have pulled some different political views and shared it with him." And it kind of shocked his neighbor a little bit. He wasn't sure what to say about that, but he did figure that that would probably cure things.

If people believed in the kingdom, that would probably be, if I remember right, it would be a remedy to the political issues of the day, basically. So does anyone else have any questions or comments to add here?

Yeah, I have a question, Sean. Thanks for sharing, Isaac, here. My question is, I've noticed that a lot of gospel tracts I've noticed that a lot of gospel tracts pretty much focus on just salvation, like prayer, prayer, get saved. I was going on my way to work this week, taking the train, and some person I don't know handed me a track. So I took it, and it got me thinking about what are the tracts that we pass out? What are they saying?

What's the message that the person on the other side is getting? Because I've given out tracts and I've also received tracts when I'm committing to work. So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts. What are the kinds of literature that we should be distributing to the people around us?

Yeah, sure. That's a good thought. And first of all, God can work in many different ways. So he can use our imperfect means to spread the kingdom of God. As far as tracts, yeah, like a lot of the tracts, like I said at the beginning of the talk, we focus so much on salvation, being saved, and being born again. And that's not necessarily actually the theme of Jesus' teaching. Obviously, it's an important part of entering the kingdom, but it's not his full theme.

And with that is tracts, they're quick, they're easy, and that's what people like, is something simple. Just give me the basics of what I need to do. But I think if you actually sit down and spend more time investing into the lives of people who are interested and giving them something more to think about, I think those are I think it's valuable to go deeper than just handing out a tract, although God can use tracts in good ways. And along with that, Gary Miller has published a few books like, what is the title of it? Did Jesus really mean that? I think it's like a little booklet. There's quite a number of them out there.

And it goes a little more in depth. I think those are a little bit more valuable, something that gives a little broader view than just how to be saved.

So, Sean, when Americans travel internationally, they're usually viewed as coming from an aggressor country. So how did your Bangladeshi friend or any other internationals respond to you? Right. So it's very important to build relationships. That's very, very important as you start into these conversations. So I had a relationship with a good he was a good friend, and we had talked about various things already. So we had somewhat of a foundational friendship already prior to talking about this. So the response was great. And he was a thoughtful person, so he just wanted to hear my perspective on it. I don't necessarily know that if you can just go and sit down with someone for 30 minutes and talk about these concepts without having some kind of interaction before that.

But I think you could, but relationship is key to a lot of these things as well when we present the gospel.

Amen.

We had a message come in on the chat here. How does one answer the common interpretation that Jesus' kingdom is yet to come and how much of that interpretation holds weight?

Yeah. So when Jesus came, he said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." And I think that meant now. There is a present aspect of the kingdom of God, and there is a future aspect of the kingdom of God. And it's not one without the other. Both are a reality. We are experiencing the kingdom of God right now here on earth, but we're going to experience a different reality of it in eternity. So I don't think one can be without the other. Right. It's like we experience it in part now, but it'll come in its fullness in the end. Yeah.

Also, if you check in your chat, we've linked the we sell the marvelous kingdom of God on Strength to Strength, and we've put a link there. And also the book that was mentioned, Jesus Really Said That, by Gary Miller. There's links in the chat to those two books for those of you who would be interested.

Speaking of the emphasis on salvation or the emphasis on the kingdom, just the thought came to me that so much of the emphasis on getting saved is about my own skin or about myself. And being introduced to the gospel as the gospel of the kingdom, we join the kingdom not I mean, obviously, there are perks. I mean, if you can call it that, there's a benefit to us, the salvation. And I'm grateful, and it's glorious to be saved. But it's about the king. It's about the purpose of the kingdom. It's about so much more. It's like if you use the ambassador analogy, you don't think of an ambassador going to a country for his own purpose.

He goes there for the purpose of the country that he's representing. And obviously, there's benefits to him to doing that as well, if we can use that analogy and take it a little bit further. I think for me, when the concept of the kingdom became clear to me, it opened up my mind to so much more than just me getting to heaven, so much more in this life, so much more purpose, so much more understanding of who Christ is and how we serve him. So that was very helpful for me in my understanding.

Sean, thank you for that message. One thing that really hit me when you were talking about the two brothers fighting in the Civil War. And that's really a good example or an analogy of Christians who are convinced that they are free to join the military and fight the enemy, whether it's Nazi Germany or any other nation.

Jesus so clearly said, "A kingdom divided against itself shall not stand." And if you think about the Civil War, that was a very vulnerable time for the United States where an enemy could have attacked, and we were in the weakest spot.

And the enemy, it was just it was a time where the enemy could have really gained an advantage. And think of the kingdom of God. Will the kingdom of God stand if Christians are fighting against Christians? And of course, that would also go for quarrels or fights within the church that are not physical. That allows the enemy a foothold to come in and destroy. And yeah, that's a very good analogy of especially most