Episode 22: Kingdom Principals Part 2

In this episode we focus on the importance of embracing the Kingdom and allowing it to influence our actions. Living in the Kingdom is establishing its relevance to our everyday lives. The Kingdom is Now!!

Transcript

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It was his home. It was the full makeup of his existence. So when he was telling the disciples, hey, I've come to preach the gospel of the kingdom, he wasn't just saying, I've come to tell you about my homeland. No, he's saying, I'm come to tell you about the place that I reside, the place that I relax, the place that I rest. I've come to teach you a new way of living that is set up by where I live. So we started last episode, we started a new era or a new theme, a new arena of conversation on the podcast. Beforehand, we were talking about establishing these key belief systems that I believe are essential to navigating the Christian life. Now we're going to start we start talking about these four realities that every single Christian should be experiencing in the kingdom. Now, but before we get to those four experiences, last episode I started talking about what about these key principles about the kingdom. And the purpose of me going through these is to kind of give you a definition or a context and how the kingdom operates, how it operates for the Christian and what the Christian can come to expect. Because these are going to be the foundation, these are going to be setting the stage, kind of giving you a lens so that when we start getting to the realities, when we start getting to those pieces that you're so that as Christians, these are the things that we are supposed to be experiencing. Once we set the stage and we we can safely define what the kingdom is or how the kingdom is supposed to look like in our uh according to our point of view, then it'll be easier to navigate these key realities. So the last episode we talked about, I introduced to you the three principles that I'm going to be talking about that is going to set the stage for the definition of the kingdom, or in other words, how do we see the kingdom, how we partner with the kingdom. The three foundational principles are that the kingdom is your residence, the kingdom is now, and the kingdom is in you. If you remember from the last episode, we mainly I talked about that first one, which was the kingdom of God is your residence. Now, what that means is that it is the place in which you reside. You have been transported, you have been moved from one arena, one way of life, one home, if you will, and you've been translated into a totally different way of existence. Um, the old way was ruled by Satan or the kingdom of this world, the new the new way, which is the kingdom of light, is ruled by Jesus. And we do we went through all that, we kind of said, we we emphasize that there's a different way of living, there's a different way of speaking, talking, uh ministering, all that sort of thing. So I encourage you to go back and look at that episode so you can get caught up to where we're gonna go today. Now, for this episode, we're gonna start talking about that the kingdom of God is now, that the kingdom is now. And the scripture, there's gonna be two main scriptures that we're gonna look at, but the first one they're gonna mainly focus on is on Mark chapter 1, verse 15, and it says, And saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. This is when Jesus is basically collecting his disciples, okay? Also, I want to look at Luke chapter 10, verses 1 through 9. Okay. Now, both these verses, I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time dissecting them like I usually do, uh, but there is a key element that is expressed in these two these two verses, these two segments of scripture that I really want to pull out. Um, so verse one through nine, Luke chapter ten, verse one through nine. After these things the Lord appointed others seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whether he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways, behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves, carry neither purse nor script nor shoes, and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house you enter, first say peace be to this house, and if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it, if not it shall return to you again. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his hire, go not from house to house. And into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things and are set before you, and heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. Now, here is the key thing that I want to emphasize, because when the on the left you can kind of we talked about the kingdom is your residence last episode, and we're talking about the kingdom of God is now, right? And so I want to like this one if not handled in a specific way, it can actually be a repeat of last episode, right? Um, but I want to shift your focus with this one because when we talked about residence last episode, you can kind of get this idea that we're talking about that it's the place that you live. In other words, your your residence it sets the boundaries and the protocols in which you live. It gives you the rules, it gives you the procedures, it gives you kind of a context of what it's supposed to look like, how you navigate it, all that. That's what we're talking about when we're talking about the residence piece. But today, but when we but I want to emphasize a different focus, okay? That to the on this episode, I want to move from the fact that the residence is your boundary or it's the way you live, but I want you to start focusing on the fact that this is where you're living in now, okay? This is not something that you're going to arrive to, that you are now in the kingdom. This is your red last episode we talked about the nature of it being your residence. Now, on this episode, I want you to start taking the nature that we talked about last episode and start embracing it. Say, this is my existence now, okay? This is the focus I want to emphasize that you're not moving into it, but you are currently now living in the kingdom. Okay? The kingdom is a now place, not just a future place. It's uh it's not just a place that you will live when you go to heaven or when you you quote the right number of script scriptures. No, it is a place that you currently live in now. There are many Christians that know about the kingdom or they have an idea about the kingdom, um, but they subconsciously are not even really meaning to. They haven't fully embraced on the fact that the kingdom is a now concept. It's not just this this reality that you think about on Sundays. It is literally a thing, it is literally the uh the encomp the entirety of your environment of every single day of your life. Okay, just like when you go into your home and it's the place that you rest, it's the place that you you you relax, it's the place that you plan, it's the place that you just you detox from the world. The kingdom of God is just like that. It's your residence, but it's not something that you're going to get into, it's something that you are currently right now, as I'm speaking, if you are a Christian, it's the place in which you live in now. Okay, so this key word now is what I want to focus on. Okay, so so the question comes to play, the the question comes to mind, how do you know if the kingdom of God has taken this place in your life? That it's not something that you're just aware of, but it's actually taken the entirety of your existence, that it is the full makeup of your life, okay? How do you know that that the kingdom of God is so important to you that you've embraced this thought to such a degree that it is literally, it is literally everything that you do, everything you think, all that. Okay? It's very simple. Both verses, both chapters, especially the the account in Luke, they both emphasize a key concept when we're talking about the kingdom, okay? Jesus, if you if you did not know already, he was fully immersed in the kingdom of God. Okay, it was not just a topic that he said, Hey, I've come to preach the kingdom. No, no, no. The kingdom of God was his habitation, it was his home, it was the full makeup of his existence. So when he was telling the disciples, hey, I've come to preach the gospel of the kingdom, he wasn't just saying, I've come to tell you about my homeland. No, he's saying, I'm come to tell you about the place that I reside, the place that I relax, the place that I rest. I've come to teach you a new way of living that is set up by where I live. Okay? And so the point here is that what did Jesus do to emphasize that the kingdom, that the kingdom that he talked about had had embraced, that he had embraced it to such a degree that it it actually flowed in everything he did. Is it is a very simple concept, okay? He talked about it. Okay? He talked about it. That that's it. I know I hope you weren't expecting some of this big, big revelatory information. No, no, no. No, no, he just simply talked about it. How do you so so let me make put to a more simpler way? How do you know that the kingdom of God is not something that is just a thought in the future, but it is something that has taken root in your existence now? It is important to you, you have embraced it fully to the point where the kingdom influences every single thing that you do. How do you know that you have embraced it to that such a degree? It's because you talk about it. Okay, and it's not just that the kingdom is like evangelism. When I say talk about it, I'm not saying that you go out of your way and you start preaching the gospel to every single person that's on the street. That's not what I'm talking about. It can be included in that, okay, but that's not the the niche that I'm that's not the focus that I'm talking about. I'm talking about that it is it comes out in conversation naturally because it's just the way you live. Picture that you're picture if somebody were to ask you, describe your home, right? You'll be very natural, you'll be very cordial, you'll be very um detailed about it because you live there, you're familiar with there, you're you're familiar with it, right? You are fully aware of the surroundings of your home. It's the same picture that I want to present to you when we're talking about the kingdom. When you are fully aware of the kingdom and that you are currently living in it, you are in it now. Not something that you're gonna step into tomorrow, but it's something that you are in now. You've spent time there, you are um you are familiar with it, you are aware of it, and in that manner, that is the wording that paints the pictures that you present when you talk about your home. Okay, so this is not evangelism. It that's I mean, it can be a form of evangelism, but I'm talking about you're talking about your it's not like knowledge, it's not something that you have never experienced. Okay, you're explaining something that you have experienced, it's your way of life, not something that you have heard about. Okay, so for those of you who who are like you've been a Christian for a very long time, you're very familiar with this, this is this is this is uh this is probably making sense to you. There have been times that at at work or uh when I'm even at church, even at church, people will ask me about about my choices or what do I plan to do with my life. Okay, every single time that people ask me, what's your plans, la la la, I it is always God focused. I say things like this is what I sense the Lord's leading me down. This is um I prayed about it, this is what I got. That is language of the kingdom because if because like I talked about last episode, the kingdom of God is your current residence, it's where you live. You don't do the same things that you did in the previous home, right? On the last home, you were you were afraid, you made you afraid, you were fearful, you uh made decisions on a whim, you did things out of, oh, I'm passionate for this, I feel like I can make a living out of this, so that's the thing I'm gonna do. But when you're in the kingdom, you don't make decisions based on money, you don't make decisions based on I feel like I can make a living out of that. No, you make decisions based on the person who purchased you with his blood and is saying, This is the plan, this is the roadmap I want you to follow, right? In the kingdom, there's a different way of living. We've talked about that in the last episode. And those who are fully aware that they're living in this kingdom now, they talk like that. They don't just they don't say um things like, Well, I hope this works out. No, they say things like the Lord brought me to this, he told me to do this, and because I know that he is not a liar, and I know that he's not a man that should lie, and that when he's not going to tell me to do something that's gonna fall apart, I believe this is turning out to be a success because he told me to do it. People who are unsure, people who are unsure about the outcome of a moment, chances are they did not get it settled with God before they approached the moment. I see this all the time that they're people there that in church or in my or my personal life, people are struggling with the outcome of events and they're freaking out, they're freaking out because they and they're wondering, is God teaching me something? Is God learning me something? And am I supposed to be learning something in this in this in this season? And there's nothing wrong with learning something during a trying area uh time. There's nothing wrong with that. But you have to learn, we have to embrace the idea that I need to inquire of the Lord before I get to the battle. So when the battle goes weird, when things don't go according to plan, I have the confidence of a conversation I had with my maker to fall back on. Right? Is I hope this is making sense. Okay, so when someone is talking about the kingdom, when someone is at when they're talking about their life, when they're talking about their plans, when they're talking about their future, it's laced, it's it's it's filtered through kingdom language. It's like it's like every time they open their mouths, God is there on their tongue. And and and to people that are not Christians, it can be somewhat annoying. Totally get it. I understand that because there is a way of living that they are not they're not exposed to. But to the everyday Christian who has embraced that the kingdom of God is a now kingdom. I'm living in this now. Their language is now language. Okay? In other words, they're talking about an existence that they're living in now. That they believe that there is a God who is alive and well, who is speaking to them, who's guiding them, who's comforting them, who's making a way where there seems to be no way, who's providing for them, who's healing them, who's delivering them, who's in who's who's imparting glory, power, anointings upon them. You get the picture. There is an active and an end an active God that is interested in everything that we are currently doing. And then when someone asks them about their lives, they release it. Not in a not in a way to get people saved, but it's just the outflow of what they are fully aware of. Does this make sense? And so this echoes, this echoes that the very language that we speak in the kingdom is something that I like to call now language. Okay? Now language. The kingdom of God is now, but the language of the kingdom is now as well. In other words, when you're talking about the kingdom, you're talking like it's in existence now. You're using now language. Now, I'm gonna use this opportunity to kind of kind of talk to you about the language of the kingdom, okay? And I'm probably uh when I later on, if the Lord allows me, I'll probably do a major session on this. But the language of the kingdom is faith. I love teaching on faith, it is one of my favorite things to teach on. But I'm gonna give you a small snippet of this that goes into the theme of what we are talking about, okay? Scripture says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, it says this now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Okay, I am not going to teach that entire verse, that'll be for another time. But I want to focus on the very first word. Now, faith, when someone is talking faith, they are talking now language. Faith is not a futuristic thing, okay? Faith is a now thing. Why? Because it is the language of a now kingdom, right? So when you're talking about how God is operating in your life, you're not saying things like, well, God will heal me. You're not gonna say things like God will make a way, seem like God will make a way. You're not gonna say God will do this. No, no, no. Will implies that it's futuristic, and faith is not futuristic, faith is present, it's now. The kingdom is now, so our language is now. So you would say, you would say, according to scripture, I am healed by the name by the Christ of by the stripes of Jesus, right? That is a now statement, right? I am provided according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. That is a now statement. So when we're talking about the kingdom, when we're talking in faith, we are using now language, we're using present wording. Okay? So when if something goes screwy or something goes weird, we don't say God will make a way, we say God is making a way. How do I know God is making a way? Because it's promised in scripture that he turns all things around for my benefit. Right? Again, we go back to the very beginning of the podcast where we said we get acquainted with his nature and character so we can talk like this, right? This is the mindset, this is the perceptions of someone who lives in the kingdom. They are lit, they they're not just walking down the streets wondering what's going to happen. They are walking down the streets knowing that there is a God that loves them. He's active, he's attentive, he's wanting to be a part, and he's currently operating and acting on our behalf. It's not something that he's gonna do in the future, he's doing it now, right? Faith is now. He's healing me now, he's providing for me now, he's talking to people, he's making crooked paths straight now, right? I am the righteous of God in Christ Jesus now. I am the healed of the Lord now. Are you you see my point? Okay, so this is so when we're talking about that the kingdom of God is now, it's something that we are so acquainted with that we are so aware of that it is actually infiltrating our everyday language. Not in a weird way, like we're trying to prove something, but is just so casual, just like me talking about Star Wars. Those of you who know me, you know that I absolutely love talking about Star Wars. It's Bible of Star Wars, that's Nathan Horton, okay? Um, but if you are aware of his kingdom, if you are aware of his nature, if you're aware of his character to such a degree, even the simplest question about what is your plans for your future, the god that the God of the universe will just come out. Why? Because he is a part of your future. You have spent time with him, you have spent time in prayer talking about it, planning it, getting the steps together. You see my point? Okay? So again, last episode talked about that the kingdom, that the kingdom is your residence. In other words, this is the place you live. It sets the boundaries, it sets the context in how we live. The kingdom of God is now. In other words, it's not something that we're moving into. We are currently there. And because we are there, we are able to interact with it, we are able to talk about it, and we are and and and we are so acquainted and aware of it, it just gushes out of us when we're just talking normally. Not trying to prove we're so spiritually uh gifted, but because we're so we're talking about a place that we're so familiar with, we can't help it, it just comes out. And here's the thing, guys, if you're concerned about being flaky and weird, if it's natural to you, it will be naturally received. Yeah, that people might think, well, that's a little weird, but they people are able to sense if it's flaky and weird, if you're trying to force something. Okay, don't force it if it's not natural. Take it, take a step back and say, okay, if is Nate, is what Nathan explaining? Is this how I operate? Does the word does God or does scripture naturally come off my tongue because that is a world that I am so acquainted with? If that's not the case, don't force it, don't fake it, make the necessary changes so that you so that that that evidence, that language easily comes out. Well, why is this important? Because the language, the the fact that that God or the things of God easily come out tells you that you're so acquainted with his way of doing things. Right? If you're not acquainted with him, who else are you acquainted with? The ways of the world. Right? And we talked about this last episode. We're no longer a part of that world, we're a part of a different kingdom. Because we're a part of a different kingdom, we are currently living there now. We need to learn how to talk and be acquainted with our new place of residency. Okay? So I hope this has been a benefit to you, and I'm looking forward to the next episode where we're going to talk about that the kingdom of God is within you. Not only have we moved into this kingdom, not only are we living in this kingdom now, but the not only are we in the kingdom, but the kingdom is also within you. We'll talk about that next episode. Hope you have a good rest of your day or night. God bless you.