‘The Case for Christ: Kingdom of God (cont)”

Once again, our text is found in Lu 16:16: ‘The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is pressed to enter it.’

Tonight, let us look at the ‘kingdom of God’ and, again, see it in the light of three particular characteristics: first, briefly, of its ‘judicial foundation’; then, of the ‘many’; and, third, of its universality before the ‘end’.   

And, since we are still considering the parable of the unjust steward, we will continue to think in terms of stewardship in His kingdom. 

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Jesus told the stewards of His kingdom that they could not think of trying to serve two masters.

But how would they be kept from the temptation of trying to intersperse the world’s ways with His ways?

That would come only through the foundation He would lay by His satisfying the demands of the law.

The Old Testament is ample proof that it could not be done as God intended living in His kingdom should be. 
 
So it was John the Baptist who introduced Jesus as the embodiment of the kingdom of God. It was Jesus Who would satisfy the law’s demands and make the way. 

‘The word which God sent... announcing peace through Jesus Christ was preached...and began at Galilee, after the baptism that John preached.’ (Acts 10:36-37)  

It was after John’s mission, after he had done his work, that the new dispensation of the gospel of the kingdom started.

The future of what John preached came into reality at the start of Jesus’ ministry.

This was the moment when all the Messianic prophecies that had been future in the Old Testament were pressed into the present and all of the demands of the law were being fulfilled.

Now - the kingdom of God was here - lived in a new way!

This is why, when Jesus started His ministry, He began to ‘preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven ‘has arrived’ or ‘is upon you’. (Mt 4:17)

He was already the present reality of it. He was the revelation of the mystery to fulfill the judicial part of the law of God.  

It was ‘...the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.’ (Rom 16:26)

God had promised to make a new covenant with His people. He would forgive their sin, write His law into their hearts, and they could live a new way.

Jesus was here to make that promise good. God was validating it through Him.

This was the preliminary character of His Kingdom. 

In other words, Jesus was creating a new possibility for the continuing on in earthly living. It was to be founded on what He would accomplish in fulfilling God’s judicial demands for all.

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In relationship to this, let me also say the following: because of this righteous act that fulfilled the demands of the law, two tremendous, earth-shaking provisions were born. 

First of all, God appointed a kingdom for His Son.

He said in Isa 53:12: ‘Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great and with the mighty ones shall He apportion gain for He poured out His soul unto death...’. 

Jesus was given a kingdom, not to judge, but to save. (Jn 12:47) That is, those pressing into it no longer would stand under God’s judgment of condemnation.

A new level was reached: based on the acquittal and the renewal through Christ’s work, the old passed, the new - that is still moving to final completion and perfection - came in - made up of willing participants in it.

Thus, Jesus could say to His disciples in Lu 22:29-30: ‘I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me; that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom...’.

So - as God kept His Word to appoint for Jesus a kingdom, so Jesus would keep His promise of appointing a kingdom for His followers.

Thus, as the parable of stewardship in His kingdom suggests, this promise of eating and drinking with Him in it, based on their unconditional faithfulness and their willing commitment to Him, would take place when Jesus completed His part in establishing the kingdom God appointed for Him.

They would only need to make His kingdom a priority; they must set it as a precedence in their lives! Even Judas was given the choice to do that!
 
This is what was contained in Jesus preaching about stewardship in His kingdom. It was one appointed to Him by His Father made up of willing members and He conferred it upon His stewards who make it the priority of life.

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Now - here is the other bit of good news of this primary character of the kingdom of God: there was a postponement in the final consummation of it.

Why? There was a good reason for this.

It is this: it was the gracious divine arrangement set up so that the kingdom could fully develop after Jesus’ ministry on earth.

In Isa 53:10, the prophecy of Him was: ‘He shall see His followers. He shall prolong His days; and by His hand shall the Lord’s will be advanced.’

His ‘days’ were prolonged. Why? It was so that ‘by His hand the Lord’s will shall be advanced - shall prosper.’

Do you remember how it was after the glory of His transfiguration that He charged those disciples with Him to tell no one about it until ‘the Son of Man were risen from the dead.’ (Mk 9:9) 

They thought it a strange request. They questioned ‘one another what the rising from the dead should mean.’

It was only in the ‘afterward’ - after His atoning work - that the veil of His glory could be lifted.

It was only in the ‘afterward’ that His disciples could speak freely of Him in all His glory.

It was then that the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom could become the preaching of the glory of His death on the cross  - of the glory of His resurrection from the dead - of the glory of His ascension and of the glory of His present, ascended work! 

Until that time, the message of the fullness of His glory in the kingdom of God was not clearly understood nor wholeheartedly received.

But it was in the ‘afterward’ that it could be. 

And that was because the time for it was graciously continued, extended. They were given the time to speak so freely and so truly of His glory.

It was the time of the ‘day of grace’ - that ‘grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ’ - when God’s will, by the hand of Christ, would advance to the final day of consummation! 

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Final judgment will take place for those who reject the ‘day of grace’ but God is still withholding it, for the judicial part of it has been met.

For those who are yet to join, it is still that ‘day of grace’. It is still the continuation of the time of ‘whosoever will may come’ to eat and to drink at His table’ for He is the only Master worth serving!

To see that fact in clarity, His day of ‘grace and truth’ still continues! There is still time to press in - to accept it willingly! There is still opportunity open to ‘behold His glory’ - to speak freely of and to live freely in the glory of His salvation! 

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Jesus also said: ‘many’ shall press into His kingdom.

Along with this character of the judicial foundation of the kingdom that Jesus laid is the character of its development in ‘many’ pressing in.

He said of Himself: ‘...even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to give His life as a ransom for many.’

There - He talked specifically about the ‘many’ for whom He was to give His life.

What did He mean by ‘many’?

The word ‘many’ stresses the immeasurable effects of Jesus’ atoning work.

Isaiah prophesied, in Isa 52:13-14 and 53:10-12, of the ‘many’: ‘many were astonished’. He ‘...startled many nations’, ‘...My righteous servant shall justify many’.

The book of Revelation gives a sense of the ‘many’ who are included. 

It is much greater than just the disciples and those others who surrounded Him or attached themselves to Him during His earthly life.

Listen to the numbers it records: ‘...Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue and people and nation...and the numbers of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands...’!

The ‘One Man’ died for the ransom of the ‘many’ - so many that ‘no man can number them’! (Rev 7:9) 

His messianic work grew beyond measure as it took on its importance from the standpoint of His atoning work. 

The parables He told of the mustard seed, of the effects of leaven, and other such parables are illustrations He used of how His kingdom grows and grows and grows in ushering in the ‘many’.

This multitude is the fruit of the gospel that Jesus preached and the fruit of the testimony of the stewards of His kingdom.

And, as it grew - and as it grows - it develops in strength and power during this time left to communicate it.

And it will expand to an imposing and magnificent growth - to ‘blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.’ (Isa 27:6)

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And this brings us to the third characteristic of His kingdom: that viewpoint of the trumpeting of its message through all the world.

In Mt 24:14, Jesus told His disciples: ‘And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations - so that all nations may hear the truth - and then shall come the end.’

As long as Jesus still had the work of the cross ahead of Him, the kingdom could not see completeness yet.

Even after His redemptive act, the kingdom was given time to gain its purpose and to bear the fruit of the ‘many’ still pressing into it.

So we see the reason for the great thrust that Jesus gave to His disciples to spread the word of the good news.

After His ascension, He explained the reason for the suffering He had to endure.

‘And He said to them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me.’ (Lu 24:44)

And, it was after that  - that He could go on to say to them, in Mt 28:18, - ‘All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.’

After Jesus fulfilled all things, God, His Father, gave Him the promised royal authority. He was given a power and an authority that embraced heaven, as well as earth. 

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What was to happen with this power and authority? There were two particular things.

First, it was to be put to service in the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom to all the world.

His stewards must be witnesses of the message of the kingdom, the message ‘...that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name - that teaching about a change of heart should be proclaimed on His authority - among all nations.’ (Lu 24:47)

It must be trumpeted throughout the world - for it is the last trumpet to be sounded before the end.

How long that trumpet would sound was not theirs to  know.

The early Church heard its beginnings when the good news of Christ’s salvation was reaching the then-known world and they talked much about the ‘end’.

But the ‘end’ was not then!

And how long before it will be is known only to God the Father.

But what His stewards know of the glory of God’s salvation in Christ must be preached.

Then, secondly, besides putting Christ’s authority and power to service in spreading the good news, this infinite power called the disciples to continue on in faithful and committed stewardship. 

In His power, His stewards must stand firm, or ‘endure to the end’ (Mt 24:13), be witnesses of it to the end of their lives, as individuals.

And be witnesses, corporately, until its final consummation.

This was Jesus’ message to them in this parable of the unjust steward.

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But how is this message to be received by us today?

Jesus told His disciples: ‘Unto you is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.’ (Mk 4:11)

Why in parables? ‘so that they may look and look but see nothing.’ (v 12) How could they see without ‘the obedience of faith’!

That is the effect of ‘not hearing aright’. There is not the deep heart’s desire to ‘press’ into His kingdom so that the
‘mystery of the kingdom’ can take effect. 

Question: Way down within the very depths of our hearts, how important are these basic mysterious characteristics of the kingdom of God? 

How can these, and other mysteries, be communicated to our hearts if we know so little of ‘the obedience of faith’?

‘So great a salvation’ must not be spread with a surface-wise face! How dare we feed the hungry only husks! 

As it is written in Job 17:9, ‘Righteous men grow more settled in their ways; those whose hands are clean add strength to strength.’

Job learned that the aspect of things is transient. Its effect continually differs so that never twice do we see or estimate a subject at the same value. 

It is the extent of our perceptions of things that must grow.

They will take on their true and actual value as they grow into the more settled way.

But not all men end their lives in this way. 

Thus Jesus warned His disciples, saying: ‘Take heed, then, what you hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you; and unto you that hear shall more be given. 

For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that which he hath.’ (Mk 4:24)

Yes - just as for the disciples, so it is today.

‘Take heed what you hear: be careful how you listen’.

Why?

It is because ‘...with the measure you get, as you give your minds to what you hear, the more will be given you.’

And, then, Jesus warned of the opposite effect: ‘...the man who is not careful of how he listens, even the little he has will be taken from him.’ 

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I will stop here for tonight. 

I trust we will move these things carefully before the Lord as we go through this next week.

May He bless it to our hearts and give us the grace to more and more understand and embrace the mystery of the kingdom of God in the power of Jesus’ Name.

Amen!

Let us pray.