Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about the Kingdom of God. Let's go back to the year 30 AD. That year began, just like any other year. Jewish priests offered up daily sacrifices in the temple. Farmers were out working in their fields. Women washed their clothes in streams. Fishermen hung up their nets to dry on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. But suddenly, a prophet named John burst upon the scene.
Clothed in camel's hair and a leather belt, John made quite a striking figure, and he brought with him a startling message: the Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of God is at hand? Well, to the Jews, this meant that the Messiah was about to come. They thought it meant the overthrow of Rome. To them, it meant that they would soon have back their independence as a nation. Well, no wonder John's message caught everyone's attention.
People began flocking to him to find out what they needed to do to prepare for this kingdom. However, later, when John identified Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah, most Jews were not excited. Jesus of Nazareth? The son of Joseph the Carpenter? Well, he didn't seem at all like the Messiah they were expecting. He was obviously no warrior, and he didn't even attempt to organize an army to liberate the Jews from the Romans. In fact, he didn't even preach against the Romans. Well, what did Jesus preach about?
I want to ask you that question. What was the theme of his preaching? Was his theme man's need for salvation? Was it God's love for mankind? Was it the necessity to be born again? Was it the fact that Jesus would die as a ransom for us? Well, Jesus certainly spoke about all of those things, and they are all essential truths, but none of them was the theme of his message. After all, the scriptures record only one occasion on which Jesus talked about the new birth. That was in his private discussion with Nicodemus.
He mentioned his dying as a ransom for us only one time. In fact, there are only five or six passages in which Jesus even used the word salvation. So those things were not the theme of Jesus's message. The theme of his preaching was the Kingdom of God. You know, there are nearly 100 references to the Kingdom throughout the four Gospels. Furthermore, most of Jesus's parables were about the Kingdom. In fact, Jesus said that the reason he was sent to the earth was to preach about the Kingdom.
I want to read to you from Luke 4, verse 43. He said, "I must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent." Now, that's not what we're used to hearing, is it? We've all been given the impression that the primary purpose of Jesus's coming to earth was to save us from our sins. And that definitely was one of the purposes of his coming here. But it wasn't the only purpose, and it wasn't necessarily the main purpose.
In fact, wherever he went, Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God. I'm going to read to you just some passages from the four Gospels. Matthew 4:17 and 23.
It says, "From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.'" Further along, Matthew 9:35, it says, "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people." Again, Luke 9:11, "And the people, when they knew it, followed him, and he received them and spoke unto them the Kingdom of God and healed them that had need of healing." The irony is that
although the Kingdom of God was the theme of Jesus's preaching, the message of the Kingdom is almost totally missing from the Gospel that's preached today.
What's the theme of most preaching today? Let me ask you that. Well, from the sermons I hear, I'd have to say the theme is man's personal salvation. And that's probably been your experience too. It's not the Kingdom of God. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Okay, maybe Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God, but it was different with his disciples. He told them to preach about the new birth and about salvation, not about the Kingdom, right?" No, wrong.
When Jesus commissioned his disciples, he specifically told them to preach about the Kingdom. Let me read to you some passages where he gave instructions.
Matthew 10:7, he said, "As you go preach, saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.'" Luke 9:2, "And he sent them to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." Luke 10, verse 9, he's speaking to his disciples and he says, "And heal the sick that are therein and say unto them, 'The Kingdom of God has come nigh unto you.'" And please understand that these aren't a few isolated proof texts that I'm just picking here and there.
In nearly every passage where Jesus gave preaching instructions to his disciples, he told them to preach about the Kingdom. You no doubt remember the disciple who said he would follow Jesus, but he had to bury his father. Now, what did Jesus tell him? That's Luke 9:60. We all remember the first part. Jesus said unto him, "Let the dead bury their dead, but you go and preach the Kingdom of God." I can say we remember that first part about let the dead bury the dead.
But you know, I had never realized until just recently that he ended that by saying, "But you go and preach the Kingdom of God." In fact, the Kingdom is the only thing that Jesus labeled as the Gospel, as good news. He made it the second petition in the model prayer that he gave us in the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come." That's how high it ranks in the priorities of Jesus Christ and where it should rank in ours.
Now, when I was sharing this once with a group, someone told me, "Okay, that was up until Jesus's death. They were preaching the Kingdom of God when he was here on the earth up till his death and resurrection. But then with the founding of the church and Acts and all that, they're not preaching the Kingdom of God anymore." Really, go read the book of Acts and you'll find something quite different if that's what you think. For example, Acts 8, verse 12. This is when Philip went down to Samaria and preached there.
It says, "But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." So what was he preaching in Samaria? The Kingdom of God. Acts 19, verses 6 through 8, it says, "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about 12.
And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God." So when Paul went to the synagogues and preached, he wasn't just preaching a personal salvation message. He was preaching the Kingdom of God. Now, our salvation is tied up with the Kingdom of God. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, that I'm saying, "Oh, we shouldn't talk about salvation or be concerned about people's salvation." Of course, we should be.
But if we're going to follow the example of Jesus and his apostles, we'll focus on the Kingdom of God. But let's jump to the end, the very end of Acts. We have Paul. He's under house arrest in Rome.
Acts 28, verse 23, it says, "And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified about the Kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening." So of course, he preached Jesus Christ, but what else did he preach? The Kingdom of God. The two go hand in hand.
And verse 30, right at the very end of Acts, it says, "And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all who came into him, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." So the Kingdom of God was also the central theme of Paul's teaching. But again, I'm in no way minimizing our need to be born again and to be saved. Those are crucial aspects of the Gospel, but they are a means to an end.
Jesus told Nicodemus, "Unless you be born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God." The new birth wasn't an end in itself. It was the means to get into the Kingdom. Jesus never intended that his followers would preach about salvation and the new birth apart from the Kingdom of God. They were meant to go hand in hand. The Kingdom is an absolutely crucial aspect of the Gospel. When we tell people about salvation but say nothing about the Kingdom, we are not preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If we present Christ without his Kingdom, then we're sharing only half of the Gospel. Likewise, if we present the Kingdom without Christ, then again, we're only sharing half the Gospel. Jesus and his Kingdom are inseparable. So many people today say, "Well, Jesus is the answer." But as one Christian pointed out, Jesus is the answer only if our Gospel includes what he said the answer is. And what did he say the answer is? The answer is he himself, the King and his Kingdom.
We can't have the King apart from his Kingdom. Preachers today call people to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, but do they ever call them to become citizens of the Kingdom? So often they don't. Again, what Gospel was it that Jesus said would be preached throughout all the world before the end would come? Well, let me read you. It's Matthew 24:14.
It says, "He said, 'And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all the nations, and then the end shall come.'" Now, certainly a Gospel is being preached throughout the world today, but is it the Gospel of the Kingdom? Sometimes I wonder. Now, let's talk a minute about just what is this Kingdom of God. Well, every kingdom has four basic components. You have a ruler or rulers. You have subjects, citizens. You have the domain or the area that the rulership is over.
And you have laws. I know of no earthly kingdom that doesn't have those four things. And God's kingdom is no different. It has a ruler. It has subjects, citizens, that is. It has a domain, and it has laws. However, because God's kingdom is a revolutionary kind of kingdom, these four basic components take on rather unique aspects. To begin with, God's kingdom has no earthly ruler. Its ruler is Jesus Christ, who reigns from heaven.
Now, earthly kingdoms periodically change their rulers, and they certainly change their policies a lot. But with Jesus, his policies don't ever change. The scriptures tell us Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He's eternal. His laws, his methods are never going to change. Well, who are the subjects of this kingdom? Who are its citizens? The Jews? No.
Jesus told the Jews quite pointedly, "Therefore, I say unto you, the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." It's Matthew 21:43. So the test or method of possessing the Kingdom of God is to bring forth the fruits thereof. That lifts the Kingdom of God out of identification with any existing nation, any existing church, any earthly movement. The Kingdom of God includes everyone. That is, everyone to the degree that they bring forth the fruits of it.
It excludes nobody but those who exclude themselves by not bringing forth any fruits. So the Kingdom of God cannot be identified with any earthly nation, whether it be the Jews, the Romans, the British, the Americans. Paul told us Galatians 3, verses 28 and 29, "There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." So to be a citizen of this kingdom, we have to belong to Christ. We enter the kingdom through the new birth. We're not going to be able to produce the fruits of the kingdom without the new birth. You can't just read Jesus's teachings and think, "Okay, I'm going to start living by them. I'm going to start producing this fruit." This fruit is a result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
In writing to the Gentile Christians of his day, Peter addressed them with the following words.
He said, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special people that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in times past were not a people, are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." So we Gentiles at one time were not a people, that is, not a people of God, but now we are the people of God, those of us along with our fellow Jewish Christians who have the new birth and who
are producing the fruits of the kingdom.
But the only ones of us who can truly be citizens of this kingdom are those who are willing to be called to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. This was exactly what the ancient Jews were called to be, but never were. Now, one unique aspect of the Kingdom of God is that its subjects don't occupy a certain portion of the earth, as do subjects or citizens of other kingdoms. The citizens of God's kingdom are interspersed among all the nations of the world.
And this fact has caused continual conflict for the Kingdom of God. That's because when you're a citizen of God's kingdom, you always live under two different kingdoms. There's one of the kingdoms of this world to whom you belong as a citizen, and there's the Kingdom of God to whom you belong as a citizen. And often those two kingdoms are in conflict.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman, "Woman, believe me, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem worship the Father." You see, God's kingdom would have no earthly capital, no holy shrine that you could go to a certain place on earth and say, "Aha, here's the Kingdom of God." Now, needless to say, this was all something totally beyond the experience of both the Jews and the Gentiles of Jesus's day.
The kingdom that the Israelites had possessed had encompassed a specific geographic area, and so had all of the kingdoms of the Gentiles. The Israelites had always had a physical location where their tabernacle was located or where the temple was built. And for a thousand years, that place had been Jerusalem. Every human kingdom has always had an earthly capital, but God's kingdom doesn't. Its capital is in heaven. There is no earthly center of God's kingdom.
Now, as if all of this wasn't astonishing enough, Jesus told the Jews something even more startling. In Luke 17, verses 20 and 21, we read, "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, 'The kingdom of God does not come with observation. Neither shall they say, 'Look here' or 'Look there.' For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.'" Now, what kind of kingdom is this? A kingdom that's within you?
Jesus was truly introducing something marvelously new, something revolutionary. This was not just a new kingdom. It was a new type of kingdom. It was a type of kingdom that was totally different from what anyone, Jew or Gentile, had ever heard of before. A kingdom that is within you. In fact, the Kingdom of God is the most radical proposal ever presented to the mind and allegiance of man.
Oh, I see you may be thinking, "Jesus was talking about a spiritual kingdom, not a real one." No, Jesus was talking about a real kingdom. The ancient kingdom of the Israelites was certainly a real kingdom, wasn't it? It had real kings, real subjects, real laws. Well, the kingdom of God now is just as real as the ancient Israelite kingdom had been. It too has a real king. It has real citizens, and it has real laws.
Its domain encompasses the entire earth, even though most of earth's population are not citizens of God's kingdom. But what did Jesus mean when he said that the kingdom of God is within you? Tertullian, one of the early Christian writers, commented on this phrase with this explanation. He said, "Now, who is there who does not understand the phrase 'within you' to mean in your hand or within your power?
That is, if you hear and do the commandments of God." You see, anybody can choose to be a citizen of the kingdom of God if he's willing to make the needed commitment. A person doesn't have to travel anywhere. He doesn't have to pay any sum of money to become a citizen. As we said, his kingdom has no national boundaries and no earthly king. It also has no military forces here on earth. His subjects live within the midst of the peoples of this world. And yet the people of this world cannot see the kingdom of God.
You remember Jesus also told Nicodemus, "Unless you be born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God." So this world doesn't see the kingdom. They see churches and individual Christians, but they don't see that there's a kingdom of God out there. Yet becoming a citizen of God's kingdom is within reach of everyone. In fact, what makes people the subjects of this kingdom is something within them, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Now, a lot of Christians have the idea that the kingdom of God is something only in the future. But no, the kingdom of God is something that's here right now. For example, Paul wrote to the Colossians. He said, "Who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." It's Colossians 1:13. Now, notice there, Paul is speaking in the past tense. He didn't say he will translate us or transfer us from the kingdoms of darkness into the kingdom of his Son.
He says he has done that. God has already conveyed us into his kingdom. He doesn't bring us into his kingdom after we die. He brings us into his kingdom as soon as we are born again. And if we haven't entered the kingdom here while we're on earth, while we're living, we're not going to enter it after we die. But it's so sad that most professing Christians don't even realize that the kingdom of God is a present reality on earth.
In fact, I'd say probably most Christians, most people who use the name Christian, don't even know what the kingdom of God is. As one author pointed out, one of the greatest losses in the long history of Christianity has been its loss of any real understanding of what the kingdom of God is.
And the understanding of the kingdom was lost because beginning in about the third century and certainly the fourth century with Constantine, the church has repeatedly reduced the kingdom of God into something less than what it really is. The church has equated it with ecclesiasticalism. That is, the institutional church is the kingdom of God. That's what's been taught. Or this particular denomination is the kingdom of God. Or sometimes people have equated it with a certain country or a certain political movement.
Oh, that's the kingdom of God. And so little by little, over the centuries, a true understanding of the kingdom of God was lost. Now, you may be wondering, "Well, what difference does it make whether I understand the kingdom of God or not? I'm still saved either way." Well, the difference is that you may have been saved, but it's going to be a lot harder for you to remain saved if you don't understand the kingdom of God.
Now, kingdom-oriented Christians instinctively turn to the teachings of their King, Jesus Christ, for an understanding of what salvation and the Christian life are all about. Now, in John chapters 14 and 15, Jesus went into considerable detail to explain how salvation works. He likened it to being a branch on a vine. He's the vine. We're the branches. He specifically said that if we don't bear fruit, his Father will prune us off of the vine to be burned up.
So just because we have been saved, just because we're on the vine right now, doesn't mean we're going to stay there. As I mentioned, he said we must bear fruit, which is what we've talked about the kingdom, that the kingdom will be given to those bearing the fruits thereof. Now, the greatest of these fruits, according to Jesus, are to love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Now, in that connection, he also said if we love him, we're going to keep his commandments.
Now, theoretically, you can keep his commandments at least to a degree and not love him. So it's not a matter of just a legal relationship. I follow this set of laws like we're back under the Mosaic law again. It's not that. It's if we love him, if we truly love him, we're going to want to obey him. We're going to appreciate so much that he suffered and died for us that it's going to be unthinkable to us to just ignore the laws that he's given to the subjects of his kingdom.
So if I had to just sum it up in a nutshell, the difference between kingdom-oriented Christians and those who profess to be Christians but have no realization of the kingdom is that kingdom-oriented Christians tend to obey Christ's commandments. Christians who don't see the kingdom typically ignore his commandments, at least many of them. Let me give you some illustrations to help you to see how this works out in real life.
Now, let's say you became a citizen of the United States that you're from Saudi Arabia, and there they allow polygamy. But you immigrate to the United States, you become a naturalized citizen, but then you decide you're going to have two wives. Well, no, that doesn't work. When you become a citizen of the United States, then you have to leave behind you your loyalties to your former nation and the laws of that nation. You're under a new set of laws.
You can't be a citizen here and think you can bring in these laws from another country. Well, it's the same way in the kingdom. When we live in the kingdom, we have a set of laws from Jesus Christ that govern so many of the aspects of life, including marriage. And if we're truly a citizen of his kingdom, then it doesn't matter what the laws of our country might say. If they contradict Jesus's commandments, well, his commandments prevail because we are citizens now of his kingdom.
I'm going to give you another illustration. During World War II, the United States was at war against Germany and Japan. Now, let's say that you were an American citizen, but your parents had come over from Germany, or that, let's say, even you yourself were a German citizen. You gave up that citizenship and became a naturalized American citizen. But now America is at war with your former country, Germany.
So you decide, "Well, I'm going to take up arms with the Germans, join their army, and fight against the Americans because, I mean, after all, this was my place of birth. This is where my loyalty resides." And surely the American government will understand that. Well, no, the American government won't understand that. You are a traitor if you do that. During World War II, you would have probably been shot.
Nowadays, I don't think they do that, but you would be put in prison, maybe spend the rest of your life in prison to take up arms against the United States. Well, it's the same thing in God's kingdom. You now have a whole new set of fellow citizens. And it doesn't matter if your country that you are also a citizen of, the earthly kingdom, that it's at war with some other earthly kingdom.
You're not going to take up weapons and kill your fellow citizens because the kingdom of darkness that you have left now is at war with another part of the kingdom of darkness. Well, that has nothing to do with you as a citizen of God's kingdom, even if the government is going to put you in prison. If you don't take up arms and kill your fellow citizens, you're not going to do it.
And it goes even further than that because Jesus, our King, one of his commandments is that we even have to love our enemies and not resist evil, he said. So not only do we not take up arms and kill our fellow kingdom citizens, we're not going to even kill non-kingdom citizens because that would be disloyal, disobedient to our King, Jesus Christ. But you see what happened to professing Christians who didn't see the kingdom of God? Look at the American Civil War. On both sides, you had Baptists.
Both sides, you had Presbyterians. Both sides, you had Methodists. Both sides, you had Lutherans, Catholics. You can go down the list. And when a kingdom of this world said, "Okay, you take up arms and you kill your fellow Baptist, your fellow Methodist, your fellow Christian," because they were born on the wrong side of this geographic line and this kingdom of darkness is at war with this other kingdom of darkness, well, a true citizen of God's kingdom says, "I'm sorry, that's not my fight.
That is not an issue of the kingdom of God." We settle our differences as brothers. We don't take up swords and cannons and bayonets and kill one another. But most people who profess to be Christians during the American Civil War, like I say, they had no hesitancy whatsoever to slaughter their fellow citizen of the kingdom of God, or at least people who profess to be citizens, who profess to be Christians. And that's totally unacceptable to Jesus Christ.
In fact, Paul says it's wrong for us even to take our brother to court and to sue them. I'm going to give you one last illustration to help you see what it means to be a citizen of God's kingdom and why it's so important, what the difference is between a kingdom Christian and someone who professes to be a Christian but doesn't see the kingdom of God. Now, up until about 10 years ago, the country of Ireland did not permit divorce for any reason.
Now, let's say you were an American, but you left America, went to Ireland, gave up your U.S. citizenship, and became a citizen of Ireland. But then you decided that you wanted to divorce your wife or divorce your husband. And you said, "Well, okay, I realize that here in Ireland, you don't allow this, but we were married in America. We were both at one time American citizens, and so we're going to follow the custom of our country. We're going to get a divorce." No, you can't do that.
If you become a citizen of Ireland, you have to follow the laws of Ireland. You can't say, "Well, where I came from, they allow this or that, and therefore it should be allowed to me." Well, likewise in the kingdom of God. When you leave the kingdom of darkness, as Paul calls it, and enter into the kingdom of God's beloved Son, well, then you have new laws that govern marriage and that govern divorce.
Jesus said in Luke 16:18, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery." So you see, his laws don't let us divorce our spouse, but the laws of the United States allow it. So then there's a test. Which nation, which kingdom has our real loyalty? Are we really a citizen of God's kingdom, or are we a citizen of one of the kingdoms of this world?
Well, for so many professing Christians, they show they're citizens of this world. They do not see the kingdom of God. They do not acknowledge its authority in their life. It would be like, as I said, a former American who moves to Ireland and decides, "Well, I don't care what Ireland says. I'm going to divorce my husband anyway or my wife anyway." No, it doesn't work that way in the kingdom of God. If you want to stay in the kingdom, if you don't want to be pruned off the vine, then you obey Jesus and his laws.
You're under a new set of laws. Okay, now, do you see the difference between a Christian who lives as a citizen of God's kingdom and one who professes to be a Christian but fails to recognize the kingdom and therefore never accepts Christ as his Lord or his King? You see, so many people imagine that they can have Jesus as their Savior but not as their Lord, but they are dead wrong. Now, let's talk for a moment about have you made the kingdom commitment.
You know, when foreigners desire to become citizens of the United States of America, they're required to take an oath of allegiance. I'm going to read to you what it says. "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.
I swear that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic." And then there's other commitments you must make. When I said you have to take an oath, they also allow a person to affirm to those things. The United States, like most other governments, isn't going to allow those who want to become citizens of the United States to straddle the fence.
A naturalized citizen, that is, someone who was not born here, can't claim their loyalty and allegiance belong to the United States if they retain allegiance to some foreign government. Our government won't allow that. It wants undivided loyalty from any who apply for citizenship. So it should come as no surprise that Jesus, our King, requires similar loyalty from those who wish to apply for citizenship in his kingdom.
In fact, Jesus demands an even greater degree of loyalty than earthly governments do because he said, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
And again, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple." You know, the United States doesn't require persons to forsake all they have to become citizens of the United States, but Jesus does. In his kingdom, there can be no divided loyalties. Jesus will not be relegated to a subservient role by anyone or anything. He requires all or nothing. In fact, that's the very reason Jesus told us to count the cost before we decide we want to join his kingdom.
He said, "For which of you intending to build a tower doesn't first sit down and count the cost whether he has sufficient means to finish it? Lest happily, after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who behold it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'" Now, Jesus has no desire for us to start something that we're not going to finish.
As he said in Luke 9:62, "No one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." Jesus requires total submission. And yet, total submission to Jesus Christ produces total freedom. When a person belongs to Christ and his kingdom, he is the most his own. We were made for the kingdom. We find fulfillment in his kingdom and true freedom. In contrast, earthly totalitarian governments, when they require total submission, they bring people into total bondage.
So if we truly understand the kingdom of God and grasp what it means, it will be more precious to us than anything we own. It will be more precious to us than even our loved ones.
As Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid, and for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls who, when he has found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. It's Matthew 13:44-46.
Actually, in times of war, even earthly governments expect their citizens to put loyalty to their country ahead of every other loyalty, including their own families. I mean, it sometimes happens in times of war that fathers and sons fight against each other. This happened in the American Civil War, and that soldiers killed their very own fleshly brothers. In fact, during war, earthly kingdoms expect their citizens to lay down their own lives, if necessary, for the good of the country.
I mean, any real government expects this type of loyalty from its citizens. And Jesus expects no less of his subjects. Why? Because his kingdom is a real kingdom. And unlike earthly kingdoms, the kingdom of God is always at war. As Jesus said, "Don't think that I have come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's foes shall be those of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He that finds his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it." So Jesus requires of his citizens the same level of loyalty, love, and commitment that fervent patriots give their countries during time of war.
Let me give you another illustration of how the kingdom of God works when we're citizens of it. During World War II, the United States government rationed a large number of items. I think rubber was the first one to be rationed, and then gasoline soon followed that. Before long, the government was rationing sugar, coffee, meat, butter, canned goods, dried peas and beans, and just about anything you can name.
I mean, it went so far that people were even restricted on items like shoes and clothing, how much they could buy. Now, what would Americans have thought of one of their fellow citizens who claimed to be a zealous patriot? He was out there waving the flag all of the time, wearing a flag banner on his shirt and all of that. But then he was caught stealing gasoline from a local refinery, which gasoline was needed for the American armies over in Europe and in the Pacific. What would people have thought of him?
What if they found out that this same man was breaking numerous other wartime laws? Would anyone have called him a true patriot? Certainly not. They would have called him a hypocrite, a fraud, a traitor to America. Well, it's no different in Christ's kingdom. As we've talked about, Jesus has issued various laws and commandments, and all of his laws are wartime laws because his kingdom is always at war with the kingdoms of darkness. When we break the laws of Jesus Christ, we show ourselves to be traitors.
We reveal that we really don't appreciate the suffering and sacrifice he made for us. We show we have no real love for him and for our new kingdom. We want to enjoy the benefits of living under his government. We want eternal life. We want our sins to be cleansed, but we don't want to incur any hardships or inconveniences.
Well, Jesus sees right through that sort of fake patriotism for the kingdom of God, this artificial love for him that moves us to proclaim him, sing songs of praise to Jesus Christ in that, but then to ignore him when he gives us commandments that we don't wish to obey. Now, I realize that probably most of you listening to this have been told that there are no laws for Christians. So many preachers say, "We no longer have commandments. That was under the Mosaic law.
We're under grace, not law." Well, all I can say is, if that's the case, please explain these statements of Jesus to me. I'm reading from John 14 and John 15. He said, "If you love me, keep my commandments. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Again, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
He who does not love me does not keep my words." Again, "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you." One last one, "If you keep my commandments," that was an if, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." So how can anyone say, "We have no commandments? We're just under grace?" I mean, Jesus Christ said, "We have commandments," and his view is the only one that counts.
Where there are no laws and no commandments, there is no kingdom of God. And where there is no kingdom, there is no Jesus. We cannot have Jesus apart from his kingdom. Any theological system, any system of hermeneutics that nullifies the plain words of Jesus Christ, all I can say is that theology, that system is not of Jesus. Jesus didn't spend his last night before his death repeating over and over to his disciples that we must keep his commandments. That's in John chapter 14 and 15 that I just read.
Only to tell them later, "Oh, I don't really have any commandments after all." Near the end of his sermon on the mount, Jesus forewarned us. He said, "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and in your name have cast out demons and in your name done many wonderful works?' And then I will say unto them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'" It's Matthew 7:22-23. So Jesus said he would reject any professing believer who practiced lawlessness.
Now, my dictionary defines lawless this way. It says, "Not regulated by the authority of law." So those who practice lawlessness are professing Christians who refuse either to recognize Jesus' laws or commandments or refuse to live by them. So Jesus concluded his sermon on the mount by saying, "Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock." Now, those words are rather straightforward, aren't they? The only way we can build on the rock, according to Jesus, is to do the things that he taught. If we don't do what he taught, then we're building on the sand. It's that simple. His grace is truly unchanging, but he extends it only to those who love and obey him.
I alluded earlier to Jesus' illustration of the vine and our being branches on it. Let's just go ahead and read that passage. If you're at a place where you can get out your Bible, go to John 15. We're going to read verses 1 through 19. And here we read, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you.
These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." You know, I have heard literally hundreds of presentations of the gospel message of salvation from various preachers and evangelists.
And you know, I've never even heard one of them use this illustration that Jesus used or to read this passage as part of their presentation of the gospel message of salvation. Now, when I read this passage and try to sum up what Jesus said in a few words, I think the best way to sum it up is that we are saved through an obedient, love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ. We don't earn our salvation, and we're not saved by simply believing that he died for our sins.
We're saved by abiding on his vine through this obedient, love-faith relationship, a relationship that bears fruit. Now, the entrance into the kingdom of God is personal. We don't get into the kingdom because we happen to be born in the right church and we attend church regularly and follow the teachings of our particular church. No, we don't enter the kingdom collectively. We enter it singularly. It's a personal matter. We only enter to the new birth, and people don't receive the new birth en masse.
We receive it one by one. But then once we're on this vine, once we're in the kingdom, the nature of the kingdom is social. It's not something we can experience alone. We were meant to exist as part of a church. We bear fruit by being in a congregation with other fellow citizens of the kingdom. Growing up in the '50s, I often heard talk about the American way. Now, that term, the American way, referred to the American set of values, particularly in contrast to the values of the communists.
Now, among these American values was a strong belief in the freedom of religion, in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, in due process of law, in democracy, into a government that was answerable to the people. All these made up the American way. Well, similarly, there's a kingdom way. Jesus' kingdom comes with its own special set of values. Now, the values of God's kingdom seem upside down to most people. That's because many of the kingdom values are the exact opposite of everyday human values.
But the important thing to remember is that kingdom values are rooted in eternity, and things take on different characteristics when they're subjected to the light of eternity. It's similar to the changing characteristics of the chemical substance we know as H2O. Now, when this substance is above 32 degrees Fahrenheit and below 212 degrees, we call it water. It's a liquid that flows through a pipe. You can drink it. You can swim through it.
But when you get below 32 degrees, H2O takes on an entirely different characteristic. All of its properties are suddenly turned upside down. What you could formerly drink, now you can eat. What you could formerly swim through, you can now walk on or skate on. Well, it's the same way with eternity. Everything, possessions, talents, activities, values, all of these things take on entirely new characteristics when they're viewed through the eyes of eternity.
The things that are a blessing from an earthly viewpoint often become a curse when seen through the eyes of eternity. In the kingdom, eternity isn't the main thing. It's the only thing. Everything else is ultimately irrelevant. And that's the whole reason why we should expect the laws and values of God's kingdom to be different, to be revolutionary, because these are the laws. These are the values of eternity. Of course, they're going to be different from the values of things on earth.
Now, in this message, we don't have time to go through all of the different kingdom laws and kingdom values that are different from earthly laws and earthly values. But I'm going to just mention just a few of them. We've already talked about the prohibition on divorce and remarriage. Jesus said we're not to swear oaths. We've talked about loving our enemies, not resisting evil, not taking our brothers to court. See, all of those things are different from earthly values.
Many of those things wouldn't work for an earthly kingdom. But we're looking at the values of eternity for a kingdom that is not of this world. Another kingdom teaching is not serving mammon or money, not storing up treasures on earth. See, that's just the opposite of earthly values. Not adorning ourselves with jewels, cosmetics, expensive clothes. Again, kingdom values are the opposite of the things the world values. Living and functioning in the kingdom of God requires a radical paradigm shift.
Now, the word paradigm basically means a model or pattern. It can mean an overall concept or the sum total of our assumptions that enable us to understand or maybe misunderstand a particular event, a scenario, or even life in general. We make a paradigm shift when we think the reality of something is one thing, and then later we discover, no, it's something else. And so we have to shift all of these assumptions that we've had.
One example that occurred in science was when Louis Pasteur and other scientists discovered that it's germs that cause disease. Up to then, people thought that it was bad air or something that you could catch from a damp climate. They didn't know there were germs. They didn't think it was important for a doctor to wash his hands before he did an operation or treated someone.
And so then when the discovery came that there's these tiny microscopic organisms called germs or bacteria that cause disease, well, they had to shift all of the assumptions that they had before and change the way that they treated sick people. One of the best examples of a paradigm shift is a story that was related in the magazine of the United States Naval Institute. It's called Proceedings, the name of the magazine. Anyway, it gave this illustration.
There were two battleships that were assigned to a training squadron off of the East Coast, and they were going through several days of battle maneuvers. This was during World War II, I believe. And the visibility was very poor because there was heavy fog. And so the captain of the lead ship, he remained out on the ship's bridge to keep an eye on everything just because of the fog, and he wanted to make sure they wouldn't run into another ship.
Well, shortly after it turned dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Sir, there's a light bearing on the starboard bow," that is, to the right of the ship. And the captain said, "Well, is it steady or is it moving astern?" The lookout replied, "It's steady, captain," which meant that the ship was on a dangerous collision course with the other ship. So the captain called down to the signalman. They use these flashing lights to pass signals to other ships. He said, "Signal that ship.
We are on a collision course. Advise you to change your course 20 degrees." They sent it out, and then a signal came back from the other ship saying, "We advise you to change your course 20 degrees." Well, the captain was rather flabbergasted. And he said, "All right, you send that ship this signal. I'm a captain. Change your course 20 degrees." Well, back came the signal through the fog saying, "I'm a seaman second class," which means you're just about at the bottom of the totem pole.
"You had better change your course 20 degrees." Well, by now, the captain was furious. He couldn't believe the insubordination out there. And so he said, "You send him this. Change your course 20 degrees. This is a battleship." Well, through the fog, another message came back, "No, you better change your course 20 degrees. This is a lighthouse." Now, if you hadn't heard that story before, you probably went through quite a paradigm shift in your own mind.
You're picturing these two ships about to collide when really it was a ship and a lighthouse. Well, the paradigm shift we have to make to enter the kingdom and to remain in it is just as radical as a new citizen of God's kingdom. We discover that things that we thought figuratively were ships are actually lighthouses. Our whole worldview changes. Our view of marriage, our view of our relationship to our fellow man, to our government, all of these things change.
Fortunately, most people here in America have probably heard the teachings of Jesus many times. That is, the words from the Sermon on the Mount. Unfortunately, that means that so many people have heard them over and over that they've become numb to what they actually say. The revolutionary teachings of Jesus Christ have been reduced to clichés, to little trite sayings, nice thoughts for the day. People talk about the Beatitudes or the Golden Rule or going the extra mile.
Something nice to think about, something to maybe carry out someday here and there, but nothing to take too seriously or too literally, certainly nothing that involves your salvation. In fact, in my Bible, the first seven verses of the Sermon on the Mount, which are called the Beatitudes, are actually printed in poetic format as though these were just simply beautiful words, something to admire the words, not something to take seriously.
But Jesus wasn't reciting poetry to the crowd who had come to hear the Sermon on the Mount. He didn't want them to go home and talk about the beautiful words they had heard that day. No, Jesus was challenging them to the core of their very souls. He wanted to give them a whole new set of values, a whole new set of laws, together with a new life. What he was doing was revealing the true reality of things.
He was saying, "This is the way things are, and you had better come to grips with it because this is the reality of eternity." Man was designed and structured for the kingdom of God. And so when we obey the laws of the kingdom, we are obeying the laws of ourselves because we were made. We were fashioned to belong to the kingdom.
The most miserable people in the world are the people who are selfish and self-centered, who won't do anything for the good of anyone else but for themselves, the ones who are the furthest from the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is God's all-out answer to man's total needs. The kingdom of God is something we live. We know and experience the kingdom of God only to the extent that we practice it. A 20th-century missionary to India, whose name is E.
Stanley Jones, who wrote a very remarkable book about the kingdom of God and spoke many places about the kingdom, both here in America and in India as well. Anyway, one day he was speaking to a group of Hindu Indians about the kingdom of God. And at the end of his message, he sat down, and the chairman, who was a Hindu, he came up and he said this to his fellow Indians. He said, "If what the speaker has said isn't true, then it doesn't matter. But if what he said is true, then nothing else matters."