It's wonderful to be here today. And to be assembled in this
place to be gathered with each and every one of you and to be
able to be your speaker as many of, you know, about 11 years
ago. Liz and I left Bakersfield after
having lived here for a number of years, to move to Missouri,
and it's hard to believe that was 11 years ago, and then about
two years ago. So, after being in Missouri for
nine years, my family and I packed up Our life.
And we moved overseas to do work in Malaysia, in Southeast Asia.
And over the course of about six months.
After we had been in Malaysia, we took a short trip.
What was supposed to be two weeks to Australia to visit some
Christians in that area and then covid happened and we got stuck
the borders of Malaysia closed the borders of Australia closed.
And we spent the next year and a half in Australia, just trying
to wait things out to get back. Malaysia.
Unfortunately we were not able to do that but after being
overseas for two years, we decided it was time for us to
come back to America and in fact come back to California.
And so after being out of the state for 11 years, we're very
excited that we're moving back and just up the road in the
Fresno area to work with the church in Clovis.
So you all will likely see a little more of us than you have
been over the last 11 years since we'll be just a few.
Hours up the road. I invite you to turn to Psalm 72
this morning and we're going to read the entirety of that Psalm
to introduce our study. A Psalm. 72 is unique in the
psalter, which is the collection of 150.
Psalms that we have in the Old Testament portion of our Bible
because Psalm 72 is the only Psalm ascribed to King Solomon.
And Solomon wrote this Psalm to talk about a time when God's
special king would take the throne.
So let's read Psalm 72 and then we will go to God In Prayer
verse 1. Give the king your judgments o
God and your righteousness to the King's son.
He will judge your people with righteousness and your poor with
Justice. The mountains will bring peace
to the people and the little Hills by righteousness He will
bring Justice to the poor of the people.
He will save the children of the needy and he will break in
pieces. The oppressor they shall fear
you as long as the sun and moon and door throughout all
generations. He shall come down like rain
upon the grass before mowing like showers that water the
Earth in his days, the righteous shall flourish and abundance of
peace until the Moon is no more, he shall have dominion also from
sea to Sea and from the river to the ends of the Earth.
Those who dwell in the wilderness will bow before him
and his enemies will, lick the dust the kings of tarshish, and
of the Isles will bring presents the kings of Sheba and seba will
offer gifts. Yes, all Kings, shall fall down
before him all nations. Shall Serve him for, he will
deliver the needy. When he cries the poor also and
him who has no helper, he will spare the poor and needy and
we'll save the souls of the needy.
He will redeem. Their I'm from oppression and
violence and precious shall be there blood in his sight and he
shall live and the gold of Sheba will be given to him prayer.
Also will be made for him continually and daily.
He shall be praised, there will be an abundance of grain and the
Earth on the top of the mountains, its fruit shall wave
like Lebanon. And those in the city shall
flourish like grass of the earth, his name shall endure
forever. His name shall continue as long
as the sun and Men shall call him blessed and be blessed in
him. All nations shall call him
blessed blessed, be the Lord, God the god of Israel who only
does wondrous things and blessed.
Be his glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be
filled with his glory. Amen.
And amen. The prayers of David.
The son of Jesse are ended this morning.
I want to talk to you about The four pillars of the Gospel, but
before we study, let's pray at this time.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth on the
earth, God planted a Paradise Garden called Eden.
And in Eden God plays His Image bearers, man and woman.
God gave Adam and Eve the charge to be fruitful to fill the Earth
and subdue it to the honor and glory of God.
That is Adam and Eve were tasked with taking what they had in
Eden. A place of perfect union and
ship with God and covering the entire Globe to make more image
bearers, who knew the Lord and worship and honored him as their
creator, Until the Whole Earth was filled with a knowledge and
glory of God in Eden. Adam and Eve were sort of like
Royal priest. They were Royal because they
were given Authority and dominion over the Earth, and
they were priests, because they ministered in God's holy
presence, serving him and worshipping him as the Says, God
would walk in the garden. So God placed his image bearers
in the garden. He gave them their charge their
mission and then everything was ruined When sin entered the
world. Instead of accepting God's rule,
Adam and Eve decided that they wanted to be their own Gods.
They wanted to elevate themselves to decide for
themselves. What was right and wrong, good
and evil to make their own decisions and to reject the
authority of God and they did this They ate of the tree of the
knowledge of Good and Evil, but from that moment onward, When
sin and death entered, the world, when Adam and Eve became
separated from their Creator, God began to work began to work
out a rescue plan, a plan to bring his creation.
His Image bearers back into his holy presence, a plan to enable
the image bearers to do the mission.
They were created to do a To undo all of the consequences of
sin in the world. So God began to really work out
this plan when it called a man by the name of Abraham and
Abraham was a man of tremendous Faith.
He wasn't perfect or sinless, not at all.
But he was a man who was always loyal to God.
So God, made promises to Abraham, he said I'm going to
give you a great nation. I'm going to give your people
your descendants, a land of good land, a land that flows with
milk. Milk and honey.
And through you Abraham, all the families of the earth will be
blessed, God, continue to work with Abraham and his offspring
as human Partners. Until finally, a few Generations
later, Abraham's children ended up in Egypt and in Egypt, they
became slaves. They were in terrible bondage.
They were oppressed and sorely burdened by their Egyptian
overlords. So God raised up the deliverer
Moses and God Sent the plagues on the land of Egypt, Moses
shepherded the people out, he brought them safely across the
Red Sea. He took them all the way to
Mount Sinai and at Mount Sinai God appeared the presence of God
had been lost since even but now on the mountain in the smoke and
thunder and lightning and billowing fire, god appeared,
they told those people the Covenant watch what he said.
I will be your God and you will be my people.
He gave them the law, he gave them the blueprint for the
Tabernacle, which was sort of a mobile Eden.
It was a place of Sacred Space where God could come down and
dwell among his people and they could enjoy his presence and
worship and honor him God. Eventually led the Israelites
all the way into the land of Canaan that good land.
He had promised to Abraham centuries earlier.
And in the land, god set them up and told them if you follow me,
if your faith Folk to the Covenant that I have given you
everything would be good. You'll have rest, you'll have
peace safety from your enemies, abundance in the land, but of
course sin. Once again, got in the way and
the people, cyclically and generationally rebelled against
the Lord. Finally, God decided to raise up
a Prophet by the name of Samuel and he told Samuel, I want you
to go out and I want you to revive genuine religion, in the
land of Samuel did that. But when Sammy was old, the
people rejected his Leadership and the leadership of his sons
and they cried out to God, they said we want a king like all the
nations around us. And you know what, God gave them
exactly what they wanted. He gave them King Saul, who
started out, pretty, okay, but eventually rebelled against the
Lord and led the nation into chaos and ruin the Philistines,
invaded everything was going. Terribly Saul died on the
battlefield. And God said, okay, enough of
that. We're going to do it my way now.
And he raised up another king, a king who was after his own
heart. The shepherd boy, turned Giant
Slayer, King, David now, David was like, Abraham.
He was not perfect or send this David David could be cruel and
violent. He was an adulterer, but he was
always loyal to God. He never abandoned the Lord.
He never worshipped idols. And so just like with Abraham
all those years before God made some promises to David.
He said one day Day one of your descendants is going to sit on
the Eternal throne and he's going to rule over an
everlasting Kingdom, David died and looked like maybe Solomon.
Was that son? That God had promised but no, no
wasn't Solomon. Solomon allowed idolatry into
the land into the holy city of David on Mount Zion and so
because of that God divided the kingdom into the davidic dynasty
continued to rule in Judah in the South, but a north in the
North No dividend King rained in Israel.
Now, the two Nations had a few times where things were going,
okay? But most of the time the two
kingdoms of Israel and Judah basically went further and
further away from God, and during this time, God didn't
abandon his people. He never gave up on them.
He decided to send them prophets.
And these prophets would come, and they would announce God's
judgment upon the land. They would call the people to
repentance try to bring them back to Fidel.
Leti to the Covenant. But most importantly, the
prophets were announcing that God was not done in the world.
There was still an ancient rescue plan that God initiated
after the fall and he was still working that out.
God was still going to bring about a great restoration to
Israel and a deliverer and the hope of true salvation and
genuine forgiveness of sins. This prophetic message of Hope
begin to wrap around a figure. The prophets called the Messiah
and the Messiah was God's anointed God's chosen, the one
that God would send into the world to accomplish the rescue
plan, that he had promised way back to Abraham and even before
Now, eventually the Israelites went to Babylon and they spent
70 years in captivity. The Hope never died profits.
Like Daniel continued to announce that God was still at
work in the world and the kingdom.
The great Kingdom of justice and righteousness was coming.
It was an eternal Kingdom, and all the nations would be
subservient to this Kingdom. The Israelites came back from
Babylon, they returned to Jerusalem.
They rebuilt the temple. They re fortified the city, and
for a little while, things seem to be going.
Okay? Until some serious
disappointment set. In see when they built this
Temple. God didn't show up.
Oh, when they built the Tabernacle in the days of Moses
and when Solomon built the first temple as soon as it was
inaugurated and consecrated, the cloud came down and the presence
of the Lord. Build those holy places, but not
so with this new Temple and worse than that, the Israelites
were still being ruled by foreigners by heathens by
idolaters, there was no rien Throne moment of a davidic king
after their return from Babylon. So the people understood that
God wasn't done, there was still something amazing that God was
going to bring about. And so, they were waiting and
this Hope was building and the anticipation.
Building until finally. According to the Apostle Paul in
Galatians 4 verses 4 and 5 at just the right time.
God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law to
redeem those who were under the law.
And when Jesus came for the first time, the gospel was
proclaimed. Now, if I was to ask you this
little question right here, what is the gospel?
How would you answer? Sir.
How would you answer? I think many of us might turn to
a passage like this one. In First Corinthians 15 verses 3
through 5, where the Apostle Paul were hearses.
The sort of bare bones of the Gospel that he had preached,
what he spent a year and a half establishing the congregation in
Corinth. In this passage Paul says that
the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection.
And we usually stop at verse 4 with Resurrection, but actually
the sentence finishes in verse 5.
So it's actually the death burial, resurrection, and
appearances of Jesus regarding the death and resurrection of
Jesus. Paul says that these things
happen, according to the scriptures that is according to
the old scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament.
This was in accordance with the message of the prophets and this
was not just some historical event.
Paul says he said, Jesus died for our sins.
But First Corinthians 15 is not the only place where Paul does
something like this in the Book of Romans when Paul is
introducing himself to those Christians, he does something
very similar. Now Romans is the apostles.
Most thorough most complete Treatise on the gospel.
It stands 11 chapters and in these 11 chapters.
Paul is presenting to a group of Christians.
He did not really know he'd never been to Jerome what his
gospel was all about. So he introduces it right here
in the first couple of verses with these words.
He begins with Paul a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an
apostle and set apart, for the gospel of God, the gospel.
Paul goes on to say that God promised beforehand through the
prophets in the Holy scriptures. Pardon his son who has to his
Earthly life was a descendant of David and who through the spirit
of Holiness was appointed the Son of God and Power by the
resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ.
Our Lord. Now you might notice that these
two gospel presentations have a few things that are similar,
obviously they're both about Jesus, they both mentioned the
resurrection, they both mentioned something about sins
being forgiven because of the Work of Christ.
But other than that, these two gospel presentations are pretty
different. There's nothing in Romans 1
about the burial or post-resurrection appearances,
really, there's not even anything about the death of
Jesus. In Romans 1, there's nothing in
1st Corinthians. 15 about Jesus being a descendant of David or
that the spirit of Holiness was at work in cooperation with God,
raising Jesus from the dead. So what we have here are some
kind of different Brent gospel presentations.
These aren't the only ones there are more in the book of Acts.
We have all kinds of sermons that present, the gospel in Acts
13, the Apostle Paul is on the first missionary journey, he
comes to the city of pisidian Antioch.
He goes into the synagogue, they asked him to speak and he gives
this sermon that's recorded here and acts 13. 16 through 41 will
not read it. Let me summarize it for you.
He begins by talking about the Exodus out of Egypt.
He talks about the monarchy and Israel, and King, David, and the
fact that Jesus is David's, true, are he talks about the
ministry of John? The baptizer, and how Jesus was
rejected by Israel, how he was crucified, how he was
resurrected, how the apostles were eyewitnesses of all these
events. And then Paul goes to the
scripture, he quotes song to Isaiah. 55 and psalm 16 and
Paul's conclusion in this sermon is that now because Of Jesus,
the Forgiveness of sins is possible and available to all
people. And that all men and women are
made right with God by faith. All men and women are justified
by faith. In Acts 2, we have something
kind of similar but kind of different.
This is Peter on the day of Pentecost, Peter begins, his
sermon by pointing out that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
what? All those people were seeing.
And that moment was a fulfillment of the old
scriptures of Joel to. He mentions the miraculous
Ministry of Jesus. Jesus was crucified, Jesus was
raised. He quotes psalm 16, which Paul
also quotes in this sermon here, in Acts chapter 13, Teen.
And then he comes to the climax of The Sermon where he says,
Jesus is the true davidic king. The apostles are the witnesses
of the resurrection, and an axe to 36.
He sums it all up when he says, therefore let all the house of
Israel, know, assuredly that God has made this Jesus.
Whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.
What we have in these four passages are four different
gospel presentation Stations and they're different because
they're all tailored to the audience.
Whether the audience was a church, receiving an Apostolic
letter or a crowd of people hearing an Apostolic sermon.
Each time the gospel is presented.
It is tailored to the audience in a way that the audience can
understand and can respond to What I want to do with you this
morning is to try to figure out what are the core elements that
exist in every gospel presentation, in the New
Testament and I'm calling that before pillars of the Gospel,
you can call it whatever you want.
I'm not consistent. Sometimes I'll say the gospel is
preached in four movements or something like that, but what we
want to do is we want to find the four themes, the four
pillars that are included. Added and our makeup, every
single gospel presentation that we can read in the New Testament
and then at the end, we'll need to be introspective and we'll
need to ask ourselves. Do we include these four core
elements every time we preach the gospel and share the gospel
with others. That's, we're going to try to do
today. Now, before we get to the first
pillar, I want to start with a definition, this is my
definition still a work, in progress, if you have something,
Tweaks. You think needs to be made to
it? I'm open to that.
Okay, I want to give you a definition of the Gospel.
The gospel is the good news, that's what the word gospel
means. Of course, comes from the Greek
word you on galleons means good news.
Okay. The gospel is the good news that
God has victoriously fulfilled, his rescue plan in Christ.
The good news that God has victoriously fulfilled, his
rescue plan that rescue plan that started.
When sin and death and to the world, he has victoriously
fulfilled, his rescue plan in Christ.
And when the gospel is proclaimed, when that gospel is
proclaimed in the New Testament, it always includes these four
things. Number one whenever the gospel
is presented in the New Testament, it always includes
something about the history of Israel.
The history of Israel. Our New Testaments open with
four books. Matthew Mark, Luke.
And John, sometimes we call these books, the four gospels,
and that's okay, but it's not the most accurate way.
We could describe them the ancient manuscripts of these
books. All, excuse me all had some sort
of title or super scripture up at the top of them.
And they all said something like tone you Anjali on the gospel,
then the Greek word Kata, which means According to and then the
author's name, so it's not that. There are four gospels.
Is that there are there's one gospel.
And the one gospel was recorded by Matthew, Mark.
Luke and John. So it's The Gospel According to
these four evangelists or these four authors and when you open
up the four gospel accounts written by Matthew Mark and Luke
and John, you will discover that all four of them begin, their
gospel accounts with something. About the history of Israel
Matthews jumps out right away. Matthew begins without genealogy
says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of
David, the son of Abraham. And then he documents the
Fourteen Generations from date from Abraham to David and David
to babble on and babble on to Joseph who has to the Earthly
Reckoning of things. Was the father of Jesus, Matthew
loves fulfillment passages. He says this thing happened in
the life of Jesus, that it might be fulfilled.
Old what that Prophet said, he shall be called a Nazarene or
out of Egypt. I called my son everything in
Matthew hinges on Jesus, as the Fulfillment of Israel's history,
Matthew tells us that Jesus comes to fulfill the long
storied history of the nation. Israel, Mark is no different
Mark begins like this in Mark. Chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.
He says, the beginning of the Gospel, the good news about
Jesus. Jesus.
The Messiah, the Son of God as it is written in.
Isaiah the prophet and then Mark goes on to describe the ministry
of John the baptizer and he says, John came to fulfill the
prophetic hope that someone would come to make Israel ready
for the arrival of Messiah, to prepare the way for the coming
of the savior of the great king. Luke is famously.
The only Gentile who contributed to the New Testament but even
Luke the Gentile basis. Everything in his gospel account
about the life and person of Jesus on Israel's history.
Luke's favorite Bible character, his favorite Old Testament
character is Abraham in Luke chapters 1 & 2, Luke has those
birth narratives and he records the song of Mary and he records.
A prophetic announcement of Zechariah who was the father of
John? The baptizer and if you read
Mary, A song and the other one in Luke, Chapter 2 is no
different. If you read merry song Mary when
she realizes. What's about to happen with her
baby boy she says finally God has fulfilled the promise that
he made to Abraham to Abraham. What was the promise to Abraham
that all the families of the Earth would be blessed through
Abraham's line. John and John opens his gospel
account. He takes us all the way back to
Genesis 1 when he says in the beginning was the word and the
Word was with God. And the Word was God.
And then in John 1:14, John gives us that great.
Incarnation passage he says the word became flesh and dwelt
Among Us. The word.
Dwelt, by the way, is the word for Tabernacle.
So in the Old days, the glory of God came down in the Tabernacle
in that Pillar of Fire or smoke, and it was so brilliant that the
people, the, the Israelite priests could not go into the
Tabernacle. But John says, now the word has
become flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld.
His glory. The glory, as of the only
begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.
Imagine that John says, we could touch him We could handle him.
The glory of God. In a human body.
Jesus came as the Fulfillment. Israel's long storied history.
They came to redeem the people of Israel.
But now number two, The gospel, in addition to always, including
something about the history of Israel, always.
And this better be the most obvious one includes something
about the work of Christ, the work of Christ, the person life,
DC's teaching suffering death, burial, Resurrection,
appearances, and Ascension into heaven.
A heaven of Jesus. The Messiah is the story of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the four evangelists and every
gospel preacher. Whoever delivers anything about
the gospel in the New Testament route, everything they believe
and everything, they Proclaim in the work of Jesus Christ, and
who he is in what he did and where he now sits as the cosmic
King, Of Glory, the king of kings, and Lord of lords.
Now, of all that Jesus accomplished while he was here
on the earth. The thing that gospel preachers
in the New Testament, focus on more than anything else.
Is that last week in lot, in the Life of Christ that final, what
we sometimes call passion week where Jesus returns to Jerusalem
on a donkey when he confronts the religious leaders one final
time when he Cleanses the temple.
One final time when he's betrayed by a close personal
friend, when he meets with the disciples one last time.
For the Passover, when he finally is arrested in the
garden. He's tried six different trials.
He's taken to the cross at 9:00 in the morning, and for six,
grueling hours, he hangs there between Heaven and Earth, he
dies, he's buried but then he is Vindicated and he is raised by
the power of God to show. You that this is the primary
emphasis of Our Gospel accounts on look, just look at Mark as an
example. Marked whole gospel account, can
be divided into two sections, chapters 1 through 9, and
chapters 10 through 16. When you get to chapter 10,
that's when you start the final week, the passion week.
So everything here in the first nine chapters perceives that one
week and here in these chapters. If that week and the
Resurrection Sunday here in chapter 16 in these nine
chapters Mark uses a Greek word that we translate our English
Bibles as immediately. 34 x mark says Jesus went and did this and
immediately he went over here and did this then immediately he
went in there and healed that guy immediately, then he came
over here and he preached this sermon 34 x mark uses that and
these nine chapters. And when Marcus to chapter 10,
the word disappears, Ears. He never uses it again.
Mark wants us to slow down. All of this is to get to here.
To get to this week right here. That's why.
When Paul really wants to condense the gospel, even
shorter than this here in 1st Corinthians 15.
He'll say something like for I determined not to know anything
among you. Except Jesus Christ.
And him crucified. 1st Corinthians 2:2.
The gospel must include and emphasize the work of Christ.
You can't have the gospel without it.
Number three. In addition to the history of
Israel and the work of Christ. The Gospel always includes
something about the Plan of Salvation.
The Plan of Salvation. Now, please listen to me here.
The gospel is news. It's news.
It's not a transaction. We shouldn't preach the gospel.
Like it's a sales pitch. Four, five, easy payments of
hear believe confess repent and be baptized.
You can go to heaven when you die.
No one in the Bible. Ever taught the gospel that way.
The gospel is an announcement about something, amazing.
That the Creator God Of Heaven and Earth.
Came down in a body of Flesh. To fulfill the long hope of
Israel to rescue His Image bearers who had rebelled against
him and to do that by giving his own life on the cross, then
being Vindicated and raised from the dead to ascend into glory
and to sit on a throne. To rain and to rule over the
universe. It is an announcement of
something incredible. Now, when we hear news different
kinds of news, it should invoke different kinds of reactions,
okay? Those of us who are old enough
to remember 9/11. We remember how we felt how we
reacted when we heard the news of those attacks, and if you had
gone out on that day, and met someone who had also heard the
same I'm news and they were clapping and cheering and
giggling. You would think that is not the
normal reaction to this news. The Plan of Salvation is the
holy spirit outline. To how people should react to
the news of what Christ has done.
Now, Jesus taught this first and gave it to the apostles.
He told those men that when they went out and preached this when
they went out and preached how Jesus was the Fulfillment of
Israel story, and how now through Christ, God has
victoriously fulfilled his long awaited rescue plan when they
announced this to people that they should tell them if you
want to be a part of what Christ has accomplished if you want to
be. Beneficiary of the mission that
Christ has accomplished. If you want to have the
Forgiveness of sins and be part of the New Kingdom of Messiah,
this is what you need to do. Jesus said you go out and you
tell people to believe on me. To put their trust and hope in
what I have done. Tell people to turn away from
this life. In this world filled with sin
and death. This world, that's in rebellion
and opposition to God and to turn towards the Lord.
You tell people to be immersed in water.
To Mark, the time when they are forgiven of their sins.
To see their sins washed away. In baptism, you tell people come
into my kingdom, a new creation. And to dedicate the rest of
their lives to serving me. That's what Jesus taught, the
disciples to preach. Now, we have to be careful.
That we don't skip the first two and go straight to the three.
Okay, we don't want to convert people to this.
We want to convert people to this.
We want to convert people to the Lord Jesus.
And there may have been a time in America's history where we
could assume that most people had already pretty well accepted
these things. But that's becoming less and
less. The case, isn't it?
So before we get here, we've got to teach people about what God
has done in history. And how that history led to the
Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to what he has accomplished.
And now we've come to the last point.
And that is that the gospel always includes something.
About the kingdom. Of God.
The kingdom of God. Of kingdom of God, or the
Kingdom of Heaven is Matthew. Prefers refers to God's Rule and
Reign on the earth. It's like what Jesus prayed your
will be done. Your kingdom, come your will be
done on Earth as it is. In heaven.
In heaven, God's will is no longer rebelled against God's
Will and rain is supreme the kingdom of God refers to God's.
Rule and Reign on the earth Heaven, come down to the earth.
Now, I mentioned Luke chapter 1 and Luke Chapter 2 earlier where
we have a merry song and zechariah's prophetic
announcement. If you don't read Luke 1 and
Luke to you will see what the Jews were expecting.
When the news that the kingdom of God was coming, what they
expected would be included in that.
So when John the baptizer and Jesus came around say repent,
Went for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand people of the Jewish
faith knew what that meant. They knew Psalm 72.
They knew that Psalm that we read earlier.
They had prayed it for generations and generations, and
they knew that when the kingdom finally arrived, there'd be an
outpouring of justice and righteousness and Fidelity to
God. They knew that the poor and the
oppressed would be lifted up. They knew that the The crowd and
the arrogant and the violent would be brought down.
Some 72, says their face will be smashed against the dust.
They knew that this Kingdom would be a kingdom that all the
nations would serve. All the kings would bow down
before this one ruler. They knew that this King, this
special King that Solomon had announced what have supreme
authority, and the prayers would be offered to and for him.
And the praise would be given to him.
In the Old Testament, the kingdom, always included at
least four things Kingdom, always included God.
As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4 God is over all
through all and in all it starts with God.
The kingdom always includes a king.
The ruler that God has designated the ruler that God
has delegated his authority to the one who Reigns, who protects
the one who leads and who sets the laws?
That's Jesus. Kingdoms always include
subjects. Or citizens, those who live in
the King's life, those who bend, the knee to the king, who serve
him, who love him, who follow him, who go wherever he leads,
and finally Kingdom always includes land territory.
Now in one sense, all the Earth Belongs to the Lord, right?
Jesus said all authority in heaven and on Earth has been
given to me. But there are still many parts
of the earth that are an act of. I am against God, there are
still many people on the Earth who oppose the rule of God.
But in spite of that rebellion, in spite of that Insurrection
against the almighty, there is still a space.
There is still a sacred territory that God has carved
out for himself on the Earth. This is it right here.
Right here. This is a group of people.
Who have committed themselves to the king?
Who come into God's holy presence.
To worship to honor. To enjoy his Fellowship.
A group of people who accept the will of the king.
It's hard for us, we live in a democracy and we have four
generations in this country. It's hard for us to think about
ancient monarchy sometimes and what that would have been like
now, if you had a good King, my all my, everything went great
How can you have a better King than Jesus?
There's no civil disobedience in the Kingdom of Heaven.
All who want to enjoy the Kings blessings?
Obey, the Kings law. And serve him. so that now this
Outpost of heaven with the Apostle Paul calls, a colony of
Heaven, this becomes a landing point.
For the honor and fame of the king is proclaimed to the world
around. So that we can accomplish what
God created us to accomplish in the very beginning.
To fill the Earth with the knowledge and glory of God,
that's why you were made. That's what I was made.
To fill the Earth with the knowledge and glory of God.
Now we messed it up in the garden.
But God gave us a king to help us.
He gave us salvation. To bring us back into his
glorious presence and Union and fellowship.
And he did it all through Christ.
That's the gospel. God's rescue plan.
Victoriously fulfilled in Christ.
So, maybe today you're here. And you're ready to be a part of
this. This next part of our service,
by the way, is for you. We have a whole part of our
service that is dedicated. Just for you. for those who are
here, who are ready to follow the king, who are ready to
commit themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who recognize what Christ has accomplished for them for you.
And are eager to respond to it. We're going to sing a song here
in just a minute. And if you're ready to be a part
of this gospel, To stand with the Lord.
And enjoy all the blessings of the king.
During the song you come forward, you let us know what we
can do for you. We want to help you in any way
that we can. So, we'll stand now and we'll
sing together. We thank you for listening to
our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.
Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional
information or you would like to receive a free Bible
correspondence, course by mail. Please email us at info at True
Church of Christ Bakersfield.com.
Our service times are on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and
Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Please make plans to join us.
We would love for you to be our honored guest.