The Kingdom of God is Near
Text: "The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
Mark 1:15
a) What is the Kingdom of God?
Kingdom Hall
Ever since I was 5 years old the word ’Kingdom’ has intrigued me.
When I went to my Primary School there was a big sign over the road which read ’Kingdom Hall’, and as you probably may have guessed this was the place where the Jehovah Witnesses met in Camberley, my home town.
Now if I’m honest, it probably wasn’t until I was about seven or eight, that I came to understand what the word Kingdom meant, but as a child brought up in a Congregational Church, I found it very odd that at Sunday School we would hear about God’s Kingdom, and say ’Thy Kingdom come’ within the Lord’s Prayer, and yet whenever I asked my mum, as to what the Kingdom Hall was all about, she became instantly dismissive and her attitude implied that I really didn’t want to know anything about this matter.
Winchester
As I grew up into my teenage years I used to go on long bus rides with my friend Phillip, and we would sometimes go down to Winchester. If you’ve ever been to Winchester, one of the most prominent landmarks, which you can hardly miss, is that of the statue of King Alfred.
King Alfred is the King who is reputed to have burnt the cakes, however in my History classes at secondary school, we learnt that England, in Saxon times, was divided into a number of Kingdoms, and King Alfred ruled over the Kingdom of Wessex, which from my memory covered most of the South of England, as well as Devon and Cornwall.
Here then was a Kingdom where there was a ruler who controlled an area of land, people and belongings, and to do this he needed to have a strong military back up, to fight off any invaders who might usurp this territory and call it their own.
So with those examples of where the word ’Kingdom’ can be found at the back of our minds, we now turn back to the Bible and look at the ’Kingdom of God’.
So what is the ’Kingdom of God’? That is one of the questions that many scholars have pondered upon for many a year and still not really come up with a perfect definition.
The term kingdom was always on Jesus’ tongue, and therefore you would think that we ought to be able to understand it, - and yet many people don’t.
In my handy, dandy, ‘Dictionary of The Bible’ it states that:
’The idea of the Kingdom of God springs from the conviction that God the Creator is King of His Universe’.
Throughout their history, the Jews longed for a King who would be anointed by God, to lead their nation. Consequently Saul, followed by David and Solomon were appointed to lead them in Kingship.
However after a long time without a King, the first century Jews were looking for another king like David, an anointed Messiah to lead them to political power through military might.
But when Jesus spoke of the kingdom, he wasn’t talking about an earthly, nationalistic kingdom, nor was he speaking solely of a futuristic, heavenly kingdom, He was announcing the establishment of His rule on this earth.
We only have to look to King Constantine of Greece, to see an example of a King without a Kingdom, a King in name only. He may theoretically have a land which he is the ruler of, but in reality the majority of the people do not support his claim to Kingship.
So, to be an effective King, you need to have a loyal following of people who will acknowledge such a Kingship.
All the great Kings throughout history have been those who lead their people from the front and are willing to put their own lives on the line for the good of the people.
Surely there can be no greater King than Jesus who came to earth, not to be served, but to give his life to be a ransom for you and me.
When Jesus came to earth, His kingdom was, and still is, centred on the hearts of His people. When we give ourselves over to Jesus we let him into our heart, and as a result, all the hurtful things that we do and say become replaced by a kind of Peace and Joy which fills the void and changes our lives.
Sometimes this transformation appears almost instantly, whereas more deeper hurts and sinful ways may take a time to be cleansed.
This cleansing process does not depend upon what Jesus Christ is prepared to do for us, because there, [POINT TO CROSS] on the Cross, he has already paid the price for our sin, but often our healing is limited because we do not let Jesus into all areas of our lives.
Too often we fear opening ourselves up because we can become vulnerable and out of control, and yet if we are to move closer to Jesus we must let Him take over our lives completely, and let Him take control.
b) Why is it near?
Jesus told us God’s Kingdom is near.
Opposes
As we have seen throughout history, whenever a Kingdom is established there is always someone or some organisation that opposes the authority of that Kingship.
In the Bible, we read in Genesis chapter 3, that there is a fallen creature whose sole purpose is to prevent God from establishing His Kingdom order in the earth.
In the great conflict in the garden of eden, man failed to take dominion over the creeping serpent, and instead of having dominion, man became dominated - by sin, by himself and by Satan.
Instead of remaining representatives of God’s Kingdom, mankind became subjects of the kingdom of darkness.
Declaration of intent
When God gave us His only Son Jesus, He made a declaration of intent - no longer would Satan have complete dominion over the earth and its inhabitants -Jesus had come with one main purpose in mind: to destroy the activity of Satan in the world. Spiritual war has been declared. Jesus has come to invade Satan’s kingdom and to defeat it.
Two of the ways Jesus did this during his time here on earth were to heal the sick and cast out demons. Here were instances of conflict between Jesus and Satan.
The battle was fought over the ownership and rule of human beings, and if you look at the Bible you will see that it is a battle manual, and one of its basic premises is that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but rather against the spiritual enemy that has dominion over our lives.
Text
My text for this sermon is:
"The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
2,000 years
Jesus made this statement nearly 2,000 years ago, so how can the Kingdom of God be near, when it has taken so long to happen?
Our interpretation of time is limited by our life span of three score years and ten, or there abouts! But time in God’s eyes is not so limited.
Let us remember that the dominion that Satan achieved over man occurred many centuries before the coming of Jesus, so when taken in that context the Kingdom of God may be some time coming, however one thing is certain - we are far nearer to that day than the early Christians.
D-Day
’Oscar Cullman in Christ and Time talks about World War II’s D-Day and VE-Day. D-day was June 6th 1944. For all intents and purposes, the result of the war in Europe was decided on this long day of battle. The allies were victors. The war in Europe was not over, however, until VE-Day, May 7th, 1945.
There were more lives lost during this period than at any other time during the war. Even so, the outcome had been determined; the war was to be over soon.
So it is with Jesus. God planted his flag in the form of the cross of Jesus. The earth is the turf. God has overthrown the enemy in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The war is not over, but the aftermath is assured, the Church being called as God’s army - will continually assault the citadels of Satan, and through them God will bring about His rule.’
c) So how do we enter the Kingdom of God?
Repent
Jesus told us we must ’Repent’.
Marks and Spencers
I guess one of the things that always springs to mind whenever I think of the word ’Repent’, is the man who stands outside Marks and Spencer’s in Nottingham, or the one who is outside Stokes in Lincoln, with a huge poster or sandwich board which displays a text like ’Unless you repent, you too will all perish’.
I don’t know about you, but such people either turn me off completely, or otherwise I stand there marvelling at their commitment and courage to stand up there and do what they do.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and it is a real experience just to stand near-by and watch the lengths that people will go just to avoid eye contact with the chap who is spouting off his evangelistic spiel.
It fascinates me to see the number of people who suddenly take an interest in the shopping they are carrying, or the state of the pavement beneath their feet.
Some of the smaller businesses must loathe the effect upon their trade. You’ve probably seen it yourself, how shoppers suddenly put a spurt on to quickly get by this chap, in case he should turn on them and start to question their relationship with God.
Going to hell
The last thing the average member of the public wants, is to be told that they are going to hell. As far as they are concerned the chap with the sandwich board is a religious nutter who is to be avoided at all costs.
Called
And yet many of these evangelists are called by God to do just that - to stand and preach the good news out in the open where everyone can hear.
John Wimber, the American evangelist, claims that it was a man with a sandwich board who came along and disturbed a drug deal that he was negotiating that led him to become a Christian.
So just because we have difficulty in accepting this method of Evangelism, doesn’t mean to say that it isn’t effective. We only have to look to the first century equivalent - John the Baptist to realise its worth in the whole scheme of things.
Sinners
The trouble is that people don’t want to hear that they are sinners - that unless they repent and change their ways they will die and go to hell.
Everyone deludes themselves to a certain extent. How often do we read in the papers, or hear on the TV, that a lad is convicted for a heinous crime only for there to be a follow up quote from his mother - ’Oh he’s a wonderful boy, he could never do anything wrong.’
The fact that this 15 year old boy has raped a ninety three year old woman seems to be totally ignored by the doting mother.
Ostrich-type attitude
The same can be said of us as individuals, who know deep down that we are sinners, and yet we adopt an ostrich-type attitude of sticking our head in the sand and saying ’Sin, what sin?’
God has, throughout history, been forced to bring forth prophets or other righteous people, who will hear his Word and draw this to the attention of sinful people who have turned their back on Him and his ways.
Sinner?
May be you consider that your life is not a sinful one. You haven’t robbed anyone, you haven’t murdered someone, you live an ordinary life where you pay your bills, you go to Church on Sunday, put your money in the collection, perhaps you have helped out in times of need in the Junior Church, you get on well with your neighbours, and generally you are considered to be an all round good egg.
So why should you and I repent?
Firstly, no matter how good we are, we can never be as good as Jesus, because He was without sin. And yet he is our role model. It is His lifestyle that we should follow.
Born sinful
But secondly, we all need to acknowledge that we are human, and being descended from Adam we are all born sinful.
You only have to look at very young children who love to spite their parents in order to test them, and see just how far they can go, to realise that. Our sinful nature is what we are given from birth, however Jesus came to show that there is an alternative, and this is to believe in Him and be saved.
Painter
There is a story of a painter who was not particularly noted for his honesty. This painter decided to water down the paint but charge his customer for the full amount he should have used.
Unfortunately for him, he carried the process rather too far with the result that the finished work looked so bad that even the most short-sighted client would notice it.
’What can I do now?’ he wailed.
From the heavens a great voice boomed:
’Repaint! And thin no more!’
JESUS... Jesus... jesus
I have a card at work which I bought from the local Christian bookshop and I have placed it on the wall behind my desk. It shows a man getting closer and closer to Jesus and as he gets nearer and nearer his voice decreases in volume
and there is a caption which reads:
’The closer I get to Jesus the less I have to shout’.
Closer to God
Likewise, the closer we are to God the more we recognise our own sinful ways and begin to cringe at the thought of living a life that indulges them.
However for many, that first step towards God, and therefore recognition of their own sinfulness, depends upon an acceptance, that they are going the wrong way, and that only God can help them.
John Wesley considered that being aware of ones’ own helplessness is the beginning of repentance, and repentance is the way that leads to the Kingdom of God.
Believe
Jesus told us to believe.
Budgie illustration
This past year I have bought myself 5 budgies. The first two, ‘Sydney’ and ‘Adelaide’, I bought from Geoff Capes, the former World’s Strongest Man, who lives locally in Stoke Rochford and is really into budgerigar breeding in a big way. Interestingly I have found how each budgerigar has its own character.
The evangelist David Pawson tells a story about a budgerigar that sang hymns. He belonged to an old lady in Cardiff and could sing a whole verse of ’What a friend we have in Jesus!’
And when visitors come to this old folks home they heard a little voice saying ’What a friend we have in Jesus,’ and they look around and there’s this budgie in a cage and for some reason they push money through the bars of the cage.
And the lady who owned it sent the money to a Missionary in Africa.
That budgie was doing more than most church members, because it was actually praising God everyday, and supporting a Missionary in Africa. The old lady had sent over £175.
It’s was only a budgerigar, - it wasn’t a believer, and there are an awful lot of budgerigars in Church, saying the Creed, singing their little hearts out, and filling the pews.
When you believe the ’good news’ you can’t simply hold onto it like a treasured possession. For God’s Kingdom to come, Jesus must rule in the hearts of His people, and we must be the ones who go out and spread the good news.
When you leave this place will you be telling others about what Jesus means in your life? Or are you going to be like the servant who went and hid his talent away?
I’d like to end this sermon by reading to you a hymn by John Pantry, the words of which I feel are most poignant:
He came to earth, not to be served,
But gave His life to be a ransom for many;
The Son of God, the Son of Man,
He shared our pain and bore our sins in His body.
King of kings and Lord of lords,
I lift my voice in praise,
Such amazing love, but I do believe
This King has died for me.
And so I stand, a broken soul,
To see the pain that I have brought to Jesus;
And yet each heart will be consoled,
To be made new, the joy of all believers.
And from now on, through all my days,
I vow to live each moment here for Jesus;
Not looking back, but giving praise
For all my Lord has done for this believer.
King of kings and Lord of lords,
I lift my voice in praise,
Such amazing love, but I do believe
This King has died for me.
I pray that you do believe that Jesus died for you,
I pray that you do believe that he is your King, and
I pray that you do believe that his Kingdom is near because His Kingdom begins right where your heart is.
Amen.
References
Notes from an article ’The Kingdom of God: Establishing Christ’s Rule’ by John Wimber in ’Equipping the Saints’ Conference handout.
Notes from page 51 and 52 of ’Overcomimg the Dominion of Darkness’ by Gary D. Kinnaman.
Notes from sermon ’The Way to the Kingdom’ by John Wesley, as recorded in ’Sermons On Several Occasions’.
Hymn - ’He came to Earth’ by John Pantry, copyright Early Rain Music/ Thankyou Music 1990.
Budgie illustration - from a video ’Unlocking the New Testament Volume 1.’ by David Pawson.
Painter illustration - from ’Frogs in Cream’ by Stephen Gaukroger & Nick Mercer.
Bible quote from NIV.
D-Day quote from ’Christ and Time’ by Oscar Cullman taken from ’The Kingdom of God: Establishing Christ’s Rule’ by John Wimber.
