What does Jesus mean by Kingdom of God? | Erik Luchetta and Jeremy Marone

((music playing)) All right. Tonight we're starting a collection answering the question, what does that mean? And so tonight I want to ask you, I know we're going to talk about the kingdom of God. So I want to ask you when we say the phrase the kingdom of God, what does that phrase mean?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven shows up about 150 times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 150 times. So, imagine trying to read the Gospels and not understanding what kingdom of God means because it when it's brought up so much.

And there's a lot of confusion about what it's uh what the kingdom of God is. But basically, the kingdom of God is God's longawwaited rule coming to the earth. You see, in the Old Testament, there was this hope that one day God would fix this world. We know that this world is there's a lot of evil, a lot of sin, there's death, there's sickness, there's lack.

But in the Old Testament, there's this hope that one day God would fix this world and that the world would become all that he intended. So, when we talk about the kingdom of God, we're talking about God's long awaited rule to come onto the earth. So, for example, when Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand, here's what he's saying.

He's saying God's taking over and God is going to transform this world into to what he always intended. This is God now in charge. And so when the kingdom of God is simply God's rule or heaven's rule coming to the earth to make the earth look like heaven.

And so when we talk about the kingdom of God, we're talking about God's rule on earth as it is in heaven. That's interesting. Now I I know sometimes the phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven can be used in the gospels. Are those similar? Are they close?

Yeah. The thing is uh you know different scholars and you know people who are you know study the Bible they've tried to see well you know is there a difference between the phrase kingdom of God or the phrase kingdom of heaven which was what the gospel of Matthew uses right really there's no difference okay um they're the same so you said we're talking about setting things right so things have gone wrong right uh I think as human beings I think that's pretty clear we can look around and go things aren't right even if you're not a a person of faith Yeah.

Even if you're not a believer in any sort of faith or faith system, um if you're not a Christian, people can look around and go, "This doesn't seem right." I mean, there's death, there's there's all kinds of atrocities, there's disease, there's war, there's there's evil. And we go, something is wrong.

So, I guess my question is, what has gone wrong, right? And what needs to be set right? Yeah. Well, what went wrong is what we're all familiar with in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve sinned. And when they sinned, sin came into the world. And in the New Testament in particular, and even more particular than that, uh, the Apostle Paul's writing, sin is spoken of as a power.

It's referred to as a power of this age. And sin corrupts God's good world. It degrades it and it causes the earth to not look like heaven. We really have to keep this in mind. Heaven and earth were meant to reflect one another. Yeah. heaven. The will of heaven was supposed to be going on in the earth and the will of heaven in the earth was supposed to happen through human beings.

Human beings were the people who were to live and work in the world in such a way where the earth would reflect heaven. So what went wrong was sin. So if heaven is going to come to the earth and transform it to make it look like heaven, God's going to have to deal with sin.

And that's what we see in the life in the work of Jesus. Jesus is dealing with sin so that ultimately God's rule could come to the earth that human beings can be the sort of human beings that look over God's good world so that it reflects heaven. But just like you said, it's obvious enough that God's rule is not being done perfectly here.

Even though Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is at hand and he's saying it's taking root right now, you can look around and say, "Well, it certainly doesn't seem that way." that you know all the evidence in the there's enough evidence in the world there but make no mistake about it through the life of the church through you and I God is beginning to set things right in the end there will be a final setting right in fact that's what I get asked from time to time well well Eric if Jesus is saying God's rule is coming to the earth it certainly doesn't look that way right so when will we get to see it throughout the earth and the answer is when Jesus returns returns.

When Jesus returns, sin and death will be permanently removed. Heaven and earth will look like one another. You might say it like this, the Garden of Eden will return, and it will cover the entire world. But make no mistake about it, it's going on right now through the church.

The rule of God is beginning to be extended in anticipation of the final setting right when Jesus returns. So in the New Testament we see the word hope a lot and obviously that word can can have depending on who's using it which author is using it and how they're using it in the context it can mean different things but the ultimate hope is that is the setting right of all things and we we we see um I think Titus 2 talks about this is that the blessed hope is is he's referring to the resurrection but ultimately the resurrection is the sign that things will be set right that creation will be set right because if you can raise the dead you can do it you fix everything.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And so I think I guess my question is this. Are are the are the the hopes that we have let's say not the the big hope of everything being set right in the earth ultimately which will come but individual little scenarios and situations in our lives.

We hope for things. Yeah. We believe for things. The hope being the seed of faith and we're we're hoping on things to work out in our favor. Great question. are these signposts, little signposts along the way showing that God is actively working to to set things right. And when he sets something right in my life or when he works through me to set something right in somebody else's life, is that a sign that God is actively working in the world?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. You started out there talking about hope. Yes. and what hope is in the Bible and it can be many different things but when we talk about the one great hope we are talking about God making the world right again that's the Old Testament hope that was held out and in the New Testament it is beginning God's will God's rule is beginning to take root and here's how it should impact our thinking and I think it answers your question if I'm going through a difficult time like maybe something financially or in my health, family, just whatever it might be.

Here's what I do. I ask myself this one question. Is what I'm going through right now going on in heaven as well? So, if I'm if if I'm sick or a diagnosis or something goes wrong in my family, is this happening in heaven right now? If the answer is no, then I can trust that it's God's will to change that in my life so that my life aligns with heaven.

Here's what you have to do. Is what I'm going through going on in heaven. No. Then I can pray in absolute boldness and confidence that God indeed wants to do those things in my life. Yes. And when he does that, when when we pray and we see the results, we can say God's will is being done.

And it is a sign of what will happen in the future when everything is set right. So yes, when God causes our lives to line up with heaven right now, it's a signpost pointing to the final day where everything will be set right. And that was ultimately again the hope of the Old Testament that God would set things right.

Jesus is saying, "It's begun now in me." So you can have confidence when you pray that God wants to align everything in your life with the will of heaven. That's good. So is is I I I'm probably answering my own question here, but is this when when Jesus heals somebody or he multiplies the bread and he feeds somebody or he he tells a lame person to get up and walk who's sitting next to the bull the pool of Bethesda these things and he says here's the kingdom of God is he signaling that is he saying hey the kingdom of God is coming in it's invading yeah it's invading the earth um it's taking root um but these are the signs you will see it's it's Not just that God loves us, which is true, right?

But it's for a very distinct purpose, a very clear view of what is happening in the Gospels and why the authors included these parables, these healings, these miraculous things. They're very specific for reasons that the authors want to signal us to the kingdom coming. Yeah. On earth as it is in heaven.

And Jesus, it's such a wide variety of things that Jesus does that he's signaling these are all things that are happening as signposts to signal a greater hope in the future. Yeah. Yeah. That actually brings up a really good point is that when Jesus did miracles, the miracles aren't what got him in trouble with the religious leaders.

No. What got Jesus in trouble with the religious leaders is how he interpreted his miracles. Yes. In other words, what was happening. So, for example, in the Old Testament, prophets did miracles. Miracles weren't unheard of. And so, when Jesus did miracles, they thought he was a prophet. Prophets do miracles.

Here we go. But everything started going sideways with the religious leaders when he would do something like this. Jesus would cast out a demon and he would say, "If I just casted out that demon, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Oh, so the long awaited hope of God setting the world right, of his rule coming to the earth, is coming through Jesus and affecting the lives of people.

Jesus is interpreting his miracles as more than miracles, right? He's he's interpreting them as the arrival of the long-awaited hope of God's rule. And then on top of it, Jesus uh claims exclusivity. If you want to participate in this rule, which was their long-awaited hope, you have to follow me.

So yes, when Jes Jesus's miracles are more than miracles, they are the arrival of the kingdom, the long-awaited hope of the story of the Bible. A a hope that spans hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And when Jesus says, "It's happening now and in through me," that's when he starts to get in trouble.

But yes, the miracles are a sign pointing to the arrival of the kingdom. Not just not just miracles in the moment. It's something much bigger going on. So if we have a kingdom, it means we have a king. Yeah. So is Jesus declaring his authority in and through these things?

Absolutely. Partic well in many different ways. uh when he calls himself uh the son of man. This is the idea of going back to like Daniel 7 where this son of man messiah figure would come and all authority, power, dominion and might would be given to him and he would rule over the nations.

In other words, he would begin to repair and restore God's good world. So Jesus in many many different ways is claiming to be the long awaited king whereby God would rule through that king to bring heaven to earth that they would align with one another. That the same way David ruled over Israel, David's son would come and he would rule over the nations and it would be the ultimate setting right of creation.

That's so good. You know, it's interesting. In the book of Daniel, there's a king named Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon who he builds this massive 90 foot tall gold statue to himself, right? And he and he has everybody worship him as the king. Those are the first six chapters of Daniel.

But then we get to chapter 7 and we see the son of man that Nebuchadnezzar goes crazy. God, I mean, he goes insane because of his pride toward God. Yeah. And then in chapter 7, we see the son of man. The son of man that is prophesied about who would be the true king that would come.

And then past that, the next few chapters of Daniel all the way to chapter 12 actually signal the beasts of the earth, which are the kings and the rulers. And so we see this prophecy in the scriptures that a true king would come who would humble all the kings of the earth before him and that he would be the true king of the world the the the lord of the world.

And so it's fascinating when we talk about the kingdom of God because this is so deep. There's so many angles we could we could talk about this from. But I think that the key is is when Jesus comes there's such a powerful signal about his authority. And he he even says that, you know, in in the beginning of Matthew, he gets tempted by Satan in the desert in Matthew 4.

Satan offers him all the kingdoms of the earth. Yeah. And Jesus says, "No, it is written three different times, but that that last time when when Satan offers him the kingdoms and he resists and and Satan walks away." At the very end of Matthew, Jesus makes this statement.

I have now through his death and resurrection, I have now been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Yeah. So, Satan tried to offer him all the kingdoms of the earth. And Jesus was awaiting the authority of heaven and earth, right? Together. Yeah. And then he says, "Now you go and as my disciples, you go teach them.

You go baptize them and I will be with you." and in and through us, he's making things right because he's the true king who now has authority in heaven and earth. And so what I hear you saying is because there's a kingdom, there's a king. And that king is working in and through us to bring about his kingdom on the earth.

He's not just doing it by himself. He's partnering. He is we are co-aboring with Christ by the spirit to work out the kingdom in the earth. Yeah. And if you think about it, that was God's plan all along. all the way back in Genesis, human beings made in the image of God so that they can rule in the earth, causing the earth to look like heaven.

And we see that even through David's son or the son of man, whatever title we use, you know, from the Bible to speak of Jesus, that this was God's plan all along when things went sideways with the fall. God would raise up one ruler of heaven and earth, David's son, the son of man. we find out that that's Jesus.

But God's plan for the for the son of man and the son of David, the king, wasn't just so that there would be that king who would rule, but that a family would come from out of that king. A family would be would be formed. And through the family, God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

See, here's the exciting thing. God's rule through Jesus has come to us. We are the recipients of the blessings of heaven that our life aligns with heaven. But we're more than recipients. We are agents of that blessing. We are agents of heaven to carry out the will of God here in the earth.

So God summons us. See, here's the thing. When we became Christians, whether we knew it or not, we signed up for the call to be the agents of heaven here in the earth. That's why it's so important that we're not just praying for our own needs, but that we're very much thinking of the people around us, of society, of creation at large, because it's heaven coming through the through Jesus, through the church into the world.

And when we sign up for that larger calling, we find out what it means to be made in the image of God. Jesus is the ultimate restorer of the image of God. That's why we're conformed to his image. And so what God does through Jesus is reveal and make available his will in the earth.

And that happens primarily through his church. And so we signed up for this massive call to not just be the recipients of the blessings of heaven, but to be the agents to share that blessing with the whole world. Is this is this the language that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 5 when he says you are ambassadors?

Yeah, I believe very much. You are representatives of the kingdom. Collaborers. co- lababorers reconciling people to God. Reconciling the world. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's very much what it's about. So when we talk about the kingdom of God, you know, here here are the two main things. One, it refers to God's rule coming to the earth to change and transform it so that it better reflects heaven.

It has started in Jesus. And we shouldn't be discouraged when we see evil and sin and sickness. Our job is to take the will of heaven and to make it available. But we also know that one day when Jesus returns, sin, death, sickness, disease, all evil will be removed.

We will be raised bodily just like Jesus was on the third day. And we will be planted here in the earth and heaven and earth will be merged together. But for right now, we are ambassadors, agents of God, the agent of heaven, showing the world signs of what is to come.

So that when we feed somebody who's hungry, obviously we're saying we love them. But the message is bigger than that. We're actually saying one day nobody will go hungry. Yeah. When we give somebody something to drink or we we lift their spirits. Maybe they're maybe they're depressed. Maybe they got a bad diagnosis and they're scared and we build them up.

We pray. We encourage them. We're basically saying one day nobody will be discouraged. And so when we became Christians, we signed on to that agenda, that imagebearing agenda. And it is the single highest honor God could give anything within creation. And we ought to embrace that fully. When my girls were young, they were three and five years old or Yeah. three and four years old.

Uh my youngest one [clears throat] uh got mad at her older sister. Foster hit Finley, slapped her in the face. Oh, right in front of us. She got angry, just reached up and smacked her. And of course, my oldest one is is um is quite sensitive. She is sweet, compassionate, very merciful, tenderhearted, pure-hearted.

So, she started crying. I said, "Foster, did you just slap your sister in the face?" She said, "Uh-huh." And I went, [laughter] "Whoa." I was like, "Where where is this coming from?" I mean, just, you know, just matter of fact. Absolutely, Dad. [laughter] I did. And I said, "Um, so here's what we're going to do.

We're going to reconcile." And what I want you to do is we have a we have a thing in our house where we don't say, um, you know, if somebody comes up to us and says, um, I'm sorry. We don't say it's okay. I hear that a lot between us as adults.

I hear that in society. I hear that in my own relationship sometimes. I'll come to somebody say, "Hey, I'm really sorry." And they'll go, "It's okay." We don't say it's okay in our house. We say, "I forgive you." Wow. Yeah. So, we tell our girls, we teach them, "I forgive you."

So, I I I taught Finley in that moment. I said, "Foster, you're going to come and you're going to apologize to your sister. I want you to tell her, I'm sorry. I should not have done that. That's wrong." Yes. And now, Finley, I want you to say, "I forgive you."

And I think this is one of the things that Jesus talks about in the sermon on the mount. Forgiveness is a central idea. We don't have time to get into it, I know, tonight, but but it's a central idea of how God through human beings restores the world.

Yeah. Forgiveness is one of the central ideas in the Bible. One of the central powers in the Bible that breaks evil. Forgiveness is a way to destroy evil that Jesus because the very the very central part of the cross and the resurrection is the idea of forgiveness. Yeah.

But we teach our girls,"I forgive you." There is power in that phrase. And so, just as an example, I I think that's one of the ways that that we learned early on with our girls that we could teach them about the kingdom of God coming through them on earth as it is in heaven to say, "I forgive you.

I repent." And the other one say, "I forgive you." Yeah. Yeah. I think um just to piggyback for a second on that. I in my studies, it seems as if forgiveness is the single greatest unifying when we talk about heaven and earth coming together. Forgiveness is the means by which they come together that reconciliation.

Um we see it with Jesus on the cross. Father forgive some of his last words. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. So forgiveness is vital. Forgiveness is what brings division back into unity. And that's what God wants to see in the earth. The division gone and the unity.

And we are we are working out that unity in the present. You think about this. Jesus says to his disciples right before he's arrested and executed. The some of the last words he says will that the world will know you're my disciples by your love for one another.

That's good. And when you're talking about love and forgiveness, those are kind of the means by which God's will in heaven is being done on the earth. That's why forgiveness is a non-negotiable. Um, so yeah, I think maybe we can even do a larger teaching one day on that.

Um, it's forgiveness is so much bigger than like you said, it's okay. No problem. Forgiveness is a power that actually pain. Yeah. And and forgiveness is the means by which things become reconciled. Yeah. It's it's not okay. It's not okay. It's more than that. Yeah. Um it doesn't mean that we are It doesn't mean as especially as believers, it doesn't mean that we're allowed to hold unforgiveness and be bitter and resentful because it will only be it will only be cancer in the soul.

Yeah. Yeah. That's essentially what it will be because it's antihuman. It is. God God meant us to reflect his image. It's not easy to forgive. It's not easy to forgive. I I there was a story of a of a guy um I was watching a story uh earlier this year [clears throat] on social media and it was um a young man who had murdered a couple of people.

It was a a couple of young adults um and he had he had planned this situation and they actually were not his target. They were bystanders. Wow. And it was two families. And the the first there were two two young men that had um that had been murdered.

And the first one's mom came up and basically said, "I hope you live the most rotten, horrible existence in prison for the rest of your life. I hope that you only feel pain." And the second one who had been murdered, his father walked up in the courtroom to the podium and said, "I forgive you."

He said, "I can't. You can't bring my son back and I can't bring my son back." And he just broke. Wow. This guy who was guilty just broke. I mean, he he fell in his seat. And it was this powerful expression of the most horrible things could go on in our lives.

The most horrible atrocities could be committed against us. And the power of forgiveness frees not only the one who committed the atrocity, but the father in that moment who who's looking for some kind of reconciliation. He's looking for something. and he he could he could ask for all the punishment in the world and it won't give him peace in his soul.

Um, and I think this is I know that's a a sort of a heavy illustration, but but I think it it illustrates the very nature of what Jesus is trying to express to us in the gospels about the kingdom. Yeah. That forgiveness is a powerful thing. There's so many there's so many other things that can be said about the kingdom of God.

But I I think that's why in in the Lord's prayer when they his disciples come to him and say, "Jesus, teach us to pray. How do we pray?" Forgiveness is the only thing he repeats. That's good. In Matthew 6, it's the only thing he says twice is he starts it out with forgive and then he ends it.

And when you forgive, your father in heaven will also forgive. So forgiveness is is central even to prayer. Wow, that is awesome. All right, so what did we learn here for tonight? Um, we have the kingdom of God, God's rule coming to the earth, the long awaited hope that's spoken of throughout the Old Testament.

We now find its its beginning, the launching of heaven and earth becoming one through Jesus. We still wait for the future where sin and death are perfectly removed. But as of right now, forgiven people are now launched into the world to show signs of heaven, signs of what will be in the future.

And it's the highest honor any creature on creation could possibly be given by God. And so um but yeah, I really appreciated this conversation tonight. Absolutely. Thank you. And um so what does that mean? The kingdom of God. Finish us off with that. Yeah. God's rule coming the kingdom of God is God's rule coming to the earth working in the world in such a way where what is done in heaven, the will of heaven is being done on earth.

And that is the long-awaited hope of scripture that has been launched in Jesus and carried out through the church. Awesome. What does that mean? Thank you, Pastor Eric. Awesome.