“The Case for Christ - The Messiah/King of the K/G”

When Jesus announced the ‘Kingdom of God is at hand’, He announced the coming of a new creation!

From the very start, as we study the Scripture, it was obvious that changes were in the making.

I stated last week that He had come in a very different way than it was expected. The way the prophecies about His Messiahship were interpreted were so contrary to the way it actually was.

He changed things that the ‘true Messiah’ would never do! He changed the religious system to a system so foreign and unlike from what it had been. He went about preaching and teaching in ways that were so confusing, so opposite, so incompatible to how a King should do things.   

Those revisions were so unexpected - that was not the way it was supposed to happen when the ‘true’ Messiah/King came! But this was His mission, His office as He said: ‘The Kingdom is at hand...I must preach the Kingdom of God...for therefore I am sent.’ (Lu 4:43) ‘I must preach the Kingdom of God’ - this was the passion He operated under.

To establish the Kingdom of God meant very radical changes in how God was viewed and how He intended to bring His Kingdom upon earth through the Messiah/King.   

Jesus tried to let the people know that. He tried to get men to understand Who He was and why He was doing things as He did. 

As His public ministry progressed, He tried to show His disciples how the Kingdom of God operated. It certainly was not a Kingdom of inherited power and authority in which a man was just thrust into a governing place.

No - it was in an entirely radical way from their ways! It first meant that the Messiah/King had to go the path of suffering and death to be crowned King in full glory. 

That was certainly an unconventional way of a King coming in to establish a Kingdom! 

But - yes - that is right! He was showing them that His Kingdom could only come in power by the way of the Cross, by way of destroying the old and constructing the new in His divine way.

Listen to what Mark 9:31 says: ‘...He began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected...be killed...and after three days, rise again.’

They were mystified about this, they were afraid of it, they shuddered when they thought about it. In fact, Peter made it a point to personally object to it. He even had the nerve to 
rebuke Jesus privately about Jesus’ talk of suffering and death.

But notice the stern, shocking reprimand Jesus gave him: ‘Get thee behind Me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.’  

‘...thou savourest not the things that be of God’ - ‘...you are not intent on what pleases God, you are not regarding the things of God. You look at things, not as God does, but as man does’. 

Here the passion of Jesus is made clear - here was the reason for this radical way of God’s Kingdom coming. 

It was so men could forthrightly and truly savour the things of God with a perfect view of it. 

The nature of the office of the King and the Kingdom are not of this world. The world is like a gigantic mountain that blocks out the view of it. 

It is impossible to ‘savour the things of God aright’ from a worldly viewpoint!

The Kingdom of God, not only must be a kingdom of bread dealing with man’s necessities - and Jesus certainly took care of those things during His public ministry - but it must go infinitely beneath that - eternally beyond that!

It must go to the ‘things that be of God’, to the ‘things that be of God’ - to the savouring, the relishing, the appreciation, the tasting of the Kingdom of God as ‘daily bread’.

It must be a Kingdom of fellowship with God where He deals with man’s spiritual nature. It must be a Kingdom of power where it can conquer and change man’s inner nature. 

It must be a spiritual Kingdom in power where all the enduring violent assaults and all the opposing forces against can be withstood in its spiritual power.

It must be a Kingdom of beauty and of glory where all the highest things of beauty that are in harmony with the one Kingdom of God and His Christ are realized.

This is the view of it that still baffles the philosophy of the age and time. The ‘things of God’ are still opposed to the ‘things of men’. 

After explaining to His disciples the ‘way’ to understanding the Kingdom of God and the path to it, Jesus closed His teaching with these words: ‘...there be some...which shall not taste death, till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power.’

‘...who shall not taste death, until they see the Kingdom of God come...’. How? It will not come at this time in its finality and it will not come in its perfection, but it will come in power!

And for that, it must first suffer ruin, suffer loss, suffer the Cross where death is nailed there - and - then, be raised in ‘newness of life’.  

This is the divine way to power, to victory: the Kingdom of God comes in power only by the way of the Cross.

This was the supreme thing in Christ’s ministry. When He asked His disciples ‘Who do men say that I am?’ and He asked the disciples ‘Who do you say that I am?’, He was making them realize the importance of Himself in the work of the Kingdom of God.

He did not ask about what men thought of the work He was doing. He did not ask about what men thought of what He was teaching or what they may have said about His teaching. 

Oh no! He just asked: “Who do men say that I am?’

And, here again, we must learn to interpret this in  heavenly ‘terms’. Our thoughts would assign Him to arrogance with such a question as this: ‘What do men think about Me?’ 

‘Why would He be so concerned about Himself as the supreme thing in His ministry? Is He not conceited?’, we would be prone to ask. Is that not man’s way?

It was Peter who answered the question aright when he told Him: ‘Thou art the Christ’...‘Thou art THE CHRIST!

‘Christ’ means ‘Messiah’ or ‘anointed One’. This was not His Name - this was His office - what He was to be - THE MESSIAH/KING!

All prophetic references to Messiah announced the Messiah was going to be King to come to establish His kingdom.

But - surprise of surprises - the kingdom He came to establish was to be THE SUPREME KINGDOM with THE SUPREME KING as its King.

And until Christ, the Eternal Son of God Who had come for this one mission, in this one office, is seen in His office as King, in His office of supremacy, in His Kingship, the Kingdom of God is unrealized.

Peter, in Acts 2, after having gone through much tribulation and a truly great spiritual change, made public the ‘keys to the kingdom’. He declared Jesus, not as the One Who was a murdered victim, but as the Victor over all circumstances including the death to which He went. It was God’s determinate will that He should become King over His Kingdom in this way. Can you imagine what a shock this must have been to some of his audience?

There is no doubt in my mind that Peter, now, was ‘savouring the things of God’. He was a changed man! 

Much of what Jesus had said and done raised questions and doubts in him before this time, I am sure. His heart must have challenged them over and over again as he often wondered if these things could really be so!

We can just imagine him thinking: ‘what is this strange mystery of the Messiah dying such a horrible, cruel, unjust death yet triumphing over them?’

But Jesus made him see the Kingdom of God in the Messiah/King - no longer as an ideal outside of Peter - but as a power operating within Peter, prevailing in strength.

In Peter, it certainly was not in perfection and finality - but it was IN POWER, with mastery and with force mastering the things that kept pushing against it, and going onward toward its final glory.

It was when he could understand the Kingdom of God and Who Jesus was that he could begin to focus in on the Person of the Messiah/King.

He could ‘see’ Jesus making the palsied man whole in Acts 9:34. After he ‘kneeled down and prayed’, he could ‘see’ Jesus raising Dorcas from the dead. (vs 36-40) 

When Peter was in prison and chains dropped from his hands, Peter could see the ‘work of God’ in his rescue from prison. When ‘...he came to himself, he said, ‘Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.’

Peter could ‘see’ Jesus - Peter could ‘see’ the Kingdom of God operating within himself.

Forces were pushing against the Kingdom of God as they
watched Peter, but Peter just kept on going, mastering the things that came up against him in the power of His Messiah/King!

Mastering - always mastering those forces pushing against the Kingdom of God and His Christ and doing it in the power of this ‘strangely different’ King!

Yes - the Kingdom of God still comes in this way of power, but it comes only by the way of the Cross, and only by those who name the name of Christ and bear His cross in truth and in reality.

It is not easy to believe. It is not easy to bear. It is not always easy to be consistent and steadfast. It is not always easy to understand all the workings of the Kingdom of God. It is not always easy to learn on the level with Jesus. It is not easy to always ‘endure to the end.’ 

It is easy, however, to try all other means of our own doing and making to reproduce or copy it. That has been done for ages. Men are experts at bungling and botching their attempts at duplicating God’s Kingdom and Christ’s own work! It has failed, it is ineffectual, always has been, and it will never work, and - yes, it is ‘easy’ to miss. 

The reason we miss it, the reason we keep spinning ourselves in circles is really very simple: we miss it because we miss the great watchword of the Kingdom of God!

And that watchword is not a passion for service in the Kingdom of God. It is not a passion for evangelizing souls. It is not a passion for experiences. It is not even a passion for fruitfulness.

Let me say this, as well: there is an attitude of heart toward Christ as Messiah/King that cuts us off from seeing the Kingdom of God come in power.

Yes - we may live our lives and yet never see anything of the Kingdom of God in operation. That is the sad part about this.

Judas Iscariot never saw the Kingdom of God come in power - he cut himself off, became his own executioner! But it need not be that way!   

What is it that we are missing then?

We tend to miss the passion for the Messiah/King Himself - for the PERSON OF CHRIST HIMSELF - THE SUPREME KING!

Only He can bring the Kingdom of God in power to our innermost beings, and He can only do that as King. And when He is King, He comes with power to master everything that comes against it. If we miss that we miss it
miserably!

He only comes in power by the way of the Cross and only through the divine power of the Holy Spirit in cooperation with Him!

And, even though we ‘walk through a valley dark as death, there is no need to fear for His strength and support comfort us.’

Every day we ought to be going onward in that power of His Kingdom operating within. ‘He makes life afresh within, and for His name’s sake, guides in the right path’. 

Every day we keep our eyes steady upon Him, discovering fresh beauties about the King.  

Every day the power of heaven is new and the power of earth is new as the glories of heaven and earth in the Person of the Messiah/King of the Kingdom of God shines out in a new creation. 

Do not be afraid to crown Him as Messiah/King! We learn to let Him be King in our innermost beings first and we will see Him as supreme King in the Kingdom of God. Amen!

My prayer is that He will strengthen and establish our faith daily to grow exceedingly in Him this week. May He bless you in this way throughout each of its days! Amen! 

Let us pray.