Episode 23: Kingdom Principals Part 3

In this episode we we talk about the last defining characteristic of the Kingdom before we move into the 4 Kingdom realities that every Christian should be experiencing throughout their spiritual journey. We discuss how the Kingdom of God is always present, and therefore, accessible at all times. Listen in as we learn about this final Kingdom Principal. 

Transcript

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I re I just re-emphasize this. You have full access to the kingdom, everything that you need, everything that is required. You have full access to that all the time. So I hope you have enjoyed these last two episodes where we've been talking about these key principles about the kingdom. Now to give you a quick to give you a quick reason on why we're doing this, um, I plan starting on the next episode to start revealing to you these four kingdom realities. These are uh realities that every single Christian should be experiencing from the moment they get born again from the moment when they go on to glory. And in fact, the chances are we might still be experiencing these even when we go to heaven. Um but I wanted to take the time in these last three episodes, including this one, to kind of set the stage of where these realities are going to play out. When you go to a play, the stage is set, the the background is set, the the props are in place, everything is put into position in order to facilitate the uh event that you're about to experience. That's the same concept that that's the same uh picture that we've been do talking about over the last couple of episodes. I have been setting a context, painting a picture of what the kingdom of God looks like, how we view it, um, all that stuff, so that when we start talking about the realities of the kingdom, we kind of have an idea of what everything looks like and what it all how it all fits. That will become more clear as we get closer to the end of this episode. This episode might be a little shorter. I don't know. Let's just see how everything goes. Let me do a quick review over the last two episodes. The first episode, so we've been talking about these three key principles of the kingdom, okay? The first one that we talked about, which was on episode 21, was that the kingdom of God is your residence. In other words, it's the place where you live. Um, it's the place that you call home. It's the it's the area where you relax, you detox, your guard goes down, you just you rest, okay? And so that it it also sets the boundaries and how we live, it sets the protocols, the procedures, all that. And so that's how the kingdom operates. It's the place where we live, it sets our procedures, it, it's, it's, it's, and we talked about how the way you used to live, the live when we lived in the kingdom of dark darkness, when we were sinners before we got saved, that was one way of living. If you want to have a picture of it, just look how the world lives. Fear, um, uh very, very, very uh stressed out, all that. That is how the world lives. But to the Christian who now lives in the kingdom of God, we are ruled by a different ruler, Jesus Christ. He's not a he's not he doesn't push, he doesn't force, he guides and he leads and he directs, right? And so we understand that this residence, this new kingdom in which we live, sets our protocols, our procedures, our boundaries, and helps us navigate our everyday life because we're supposed to be living differently than the rest of the world. So not only is the kingdom of God our residence, it's also the kingdom of God is now. Now, when we started talking about this on the lab sess at last episode, I asked you to kind of shift your focus to the fact that the kingdom is a yes, it's a place where we live, yes, it's a place that sets the protocols and the procedures and how we live. But it's also now, it's not something in the future, it's not something that we will access when we get to heaven. It's no, it's it's current, it's present, it's something that you can you can reach out in and navigate. It is the it is the very boundaries, the set, the protocols of how we live now. Again, this is not a futuristic thing. This is not something that Jesus died for that we will get into when we get to heaven. This is something that you have access to now. Now, the third one that we're gonna talk about today is that it's that the kingdom of God is within you. The scripture that we're gonna focus on is Luke chapter 17, verses 20 through 21. Now, let me quickly read this. Luke chapter 17, verses 20 through 21. And it says this, now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, He is Jesus. He answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. Now, in that was the the NASB version or the New American Standard Bible translation. The King James, where it says, in your midst, in the King James it's reworded as it is within you. So let me here's the point. You have the Pharisees, which are basically the rulers, the leaders, the religious scholars of the day. They come to Jesus asking him, When is the kingdom coming? How will we recognize it? When is it coming? To understand what's what they're really asking, you need to understand some some culture of the time period. The Jews were in basically in bondage under the Roman Empire. And their belief system was that the Messiah, when the Messiah is to come, in other words, it's Christ, that when the Messiah was to come, he was supposed to establish his kingdom on earth, and this kingdom was supposed to basically destroy their enemies, deliver them, deliver the Jews, and they would serve and and live in the kingdom of God for the rest of all time. And but the emphasis is that the kingdom of God is going to show up, be established, and yet break the control of the Roman Empire off the Jews. And so that's what the religious leaders were looking at. So they were asking Jesus, when is it coming? Because in their eyes, they were still in bondage, the Roman Empire was still in existence, so it doesn't really show that the kingdom of God has shown up yet. And Jesus is walking around basically claiming to be the Messiah. And so they're basically kind of testing him, but also somewhat, I bet some of them were mighty even curious. Okay, you're saying you're the Messiah, this is what's supposed to be happening. So how do we so when is this going to happen? And notice what Jesus says in verse in verse in the latter part of verse 20, he says, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst, or the kingdom of God is within you. So this is what Jesus says. He says, You ask if the king when is the kingdom of God coming? And I tell you, it's not coming with signs for you to observe. In other words, it's not gonna be this big, spectacular, obvious looking thing. The emphasis here is that it's not something that you can see or something that you're gonna be looking for because it's already here. It's not coming, it's already shown up. And Jesus emphasizes that it is within you. Now, so what's what's the point? We talked about that the kingdom of God is your residence, it's where we live. We talked about how the kingdom of God is now. It's not something that it's going to be in the future, it's not something that um we have to look forward to. No, it's something that we are we get to live in now. But then Jesus adds a different spin and says that the kingdom of God is within you. Let me set that kind of set you a picture to to basically explain this concept. Our homes, which in this in this context is the kingdom of God, but naturally our homes is the place where we rest, it's the place where we relax, we detox, we uh we let our guard down, we everything, okay. Eventually, we have to leave our homes, right? We have to leave those places of comfort, we have to leave those places of relaxation and detox and detoxing. We have to leave and actually go out into the world and live and and get an earning, okay, get a job, all that stuff. We and go out and socialize. We eventually have to leave our place. We have to leave the place of our comfort, we have to leave the place of rest, we have to leave the place in which we get we we uh detox, relax, and get our comfort, okay? Eventually we have to leave these places. In the to the Christian world, in the Christian world, that's not the case. Because, like in the natural world where we eventually have to leave where we live, in the kingdom of God, we never leave where we live. Because our residence, it's it's now, but it's also within us, it's always accessible. In the natural world, again, we eventually have to leave. But in the kingdom of God, the place where we get our comfort, the place where we get our rest, the place where we relax, the place where we where we we spend our our time, that place we never get to leave because it's always with us, it's always in us. Jesus says that um I'll never leave you nor forsake you, right? And so that this this idea of the kingdom of God is within us means that it's always accessible. It's it's it's never so far off where we can't where we can't reach it. And it's always 100% present. It does not matter where you go, it does not matter what mistakes you make, it does not matter if you go to a party or if you go to a bank or if you go to a job or if you go to a family event, it does not matter. 100% of the time, the kingdom of God is always accessible. Yes, it's your residence, it's the place where you live. But the place where you live, where you get your comfort, where you get your ideas, where you get your revelation, where you get your instruction, where you get your uh your where you rest and relax and get comforted and get uh rejuvenated. That place, the place in which we live, it is now, now, it's not in the future, it's now, but it's also forever always accessible, no matter where you go. Right? So so you some Christians they take their Bible everywhere they go. That's fine, that's awesome. But yet I want you to understand that the kingdom, the the source of everything that you need, everything that pertains to life and godliness is within the kingdom, which is the community of where you live. If if you notice, if you know we all know this that in our natural world, no matter wherever you live, the community in which you live, everything you need to live is found in the community, right? You have your food there, you have your security there, you have your education there. Okay, so everything that you need to live to have an everyday life is found in the community. It is the same thing with the kingdom. Everything that we need that pertains to life and godliness is in the kingdom, it's in our residence, and not in the residence where we live, the kingdom of God, it is now and it's always with you. So you can always access anything that the kingdom has, right? Jesus says, there's scriptures where it says that Jesus is in heaven, that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In other words, Jesus is in heaven, therefore we are seated in heaven, right? But there are other scriptures that say that Jesus is within us, right? Well, if Jesus is within us, what's also within us? The kingdom of God, right? And so because of all this, we have access to everything that Jesus has 100% every single moment of the day. So Jesus is provision, therefore, we have access to provision every single day, all time of every single day. We have access to healing, we have access to sound mind, we have access to um wise business decisions, we have access to comfort, we have access to um to strength. You get the point. Joy, peace, love, sound mind, all these things. There is not a thing, there is not a concept, for we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Where are those blessings located? In the kingdom, and the kingdom is within you. Therefore, you have full access to it all the time, every day. Right? So this kind of sets up the stage that that the Christian should be successful in every environment, every arena, every situation, no matter where we are at. Why? Because we have access to everything that we need to be a success, no matter where we are. Right? No matter where you are. If you're in a if you're in an environment where you're about you're about to go to a business situation and you're stressed, and you're like, okay, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, you have comfort there within you. Because Jesus is there. If you're about to make a business choice, a business, and you're struggling on the decision, you have the the creator of all the cosmos who put those stars in order, who put the planets in alignment, all of that right there with you, ready to give you instruction, give you guidance, right? And so I re I just re-emphasize this. You have full access to the kingdom, everything that you need, everything that is required, you have full access to that all the time. Okay? And so I hope that is of comfort to you. I hope that it's an encouragement to you, that no it does not matter if you feel prepared or not, just understand this that success is already there. Revelation is already there. Guidance, instruction, comfort, it's already there. All we have to do is learn how to access it. Okay? But just understand that the kingdom of God, which contains everything that we need that pertains to life and godliness, is already within you. Therefore, it's accessible at all times. So, what I want to do as we start closing this off, what I want to do is kind of set the stage over the next couple of episodes. Because we've been talking, what what we're gonna be talking about are these four realities that the Christian should be experiencing again from the moment they get born again to the time where they go to heaven, where in this or chances are that we'll probably be doing them again in heaven. I'm not gonna tell you what those four are. Uh, we'll be going over detail over the over the next couple of episodes. But um I want to I want to kind of re-emphasize what we have talked about to kind of set the stage of what we're going to talk about. So, again, we've talked about how the kingdom of God, these three principles that it's our residence, it's now, and it's within us. It's where we live, it sets the boundaries and the protocols of how we live. It's now, in other words, it's not something that in the future, it's something that we have access now, and it's always with us. Therefore, we have all we always have access to it every day, all hours, all minutes of the day, right? Now, since that is the stage, since that are the principles of the kingdom, the thing I want you to grasp before we step into these realities is that all four of these realities, they exist within the kingdom. And so, because they exist within the kingdom, they take on the same parameters, the same characteristics of the kingdom. So, so let's let's let's let's look at this. The residence, the kingdom is our residence, it's where we live. These realities exist in where we live, right? And since the kingdom of God is within us, in other words, it's always with us, we have full access to these realities, these four realities that we're gonna be talking about. We have full access to these realities every single day, every single time. There'll be times where you'll be driving down the road and you'll have one of these realities happen to you. There'll be times where you could be in a movie, you could be in a movie, watching a movie, and in a theater, and one of these realities hits you. You could be in church, right? Daydreaming about something that has nothing to do with church, and yet one of these realities will hit you. So it's this idea that the kingdom of God, it is everywhere we live as a Christian. Just like the word, just like the kingdom of darkness, where sinners and where the rest of the world live, that that and that makes up their entire existence. And similarly, the kingdom of God is just like that to us. The kingdom of God should make up our entire existence, everything we live. There should not be a place, there should not be a corner of this globe that we go into where the kingdom of God is not active in our everyday life, right? And this goes beyond just the miraculous and all the the spiritual gifts. I'm totally for that. But let's make this more practical, okay? You should be having these realities, not heal the sick, speaking in tongues. Yeah, all that you should be you should be doing, but I'm making this a little bit more practical. Just the everyday goings of the Christian, right? And because the kingdom of God is now, they happen now, right? They should they should be, even while you're listening to this podcast, some of these realities might be popping up. Some of these uh these ideas that I will be talking about over the next couple of episodes, they should be popping up, right? And because they and because the kingdom of God is always accessible, these realities are always accessible, okay? So I just I kind of want to just encourage you that to kind of set the stage that as we're moving into this over the next couple of episodes to kind of keep an eye out, to kind of say, okay, these are the realities that I should be experiencing. These are the realities that is the norm for the Christian. They are for my benefit, they're for my success, and they're also for me to enjoy life with, to learn about my purpose, to learn about to connect my relationship with God, all that sort of thing, to to establish experiences with God, to establish trust with God. All of these realities are designed to exist as you live within the kingdom. So keep your eyes out, keep your your your your spiritual radar out, if you will, to get ready to actually start saying, okay, as we're moving through these, these are the things that I need to be keeping a look out. I need to be yielding myself to the Holy Spirit to say, okay, these things should be the norm. I should be experiencing these every day of my life. So I hope that this episode has been beneficial to you. It's been um enlightening, and I hope you learned kind of how the kingdom of God functions. It's where we live, it's now and it's fully accessible. And because it's where we live, and because it's now, and because it's fully accessible, the realities of the kingdom are based on where we live. They are also now and they are always accessible. Okay? So I'm looking forward to the next couple of episodes as we start diving deep into these four kingdom realities that every Christian should be experiencing. Hope it's been a blessing to you, and hope you have the good rest of your day or night. God bless.