What Does the Bible Say About the Kingdom of God?

Many kingdoms come and go…but only one Kingdom remains forever. Yet many Christians seem confused. Does Jesus presently reign — or will He only start when he returns to Jerusalem? If He is reigning, is His kingdom on earth? And if so, where exactly do we see the government upon His shoulder, and is it increasing without end? What is the gospel actually doing…what will it achieve…and how important is it to get this right?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

And welcome friends to Generations. Kevin Swanson, your host with you now, Joshua Suiso in studio with me right now, and he is the publications director for Generations. And today we're going to talk about another What Does the Bible Say About That? And this time, what does the Bible say about the kingdom of God? Now we're going to touch maybe a bit on eschatology, but to me this is a trunk issue. I refer to trunk issues as those fundamental issues. We can talk about the leaves, we can disagree on the leaves, but it seems there's points at which we need to come down to trunk, the core matters of the Christian faith. And if we can't agree on the core matters, we're up the creek without a theological paddle. So I want to be sure that everybody listening, every Christian, every God-fearing, Jesus-believing Christian is listening, will agree with what we're saying today. I I think this is a big one. This is a fundamental.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, and if you cut down a tree trunk, you don't have any branches in no life. Don't have anything. We want to make sure that we keep the tree intact and understand what this is.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yeah. So today the question what does the Bible say about the kingdom of God? And in Ephesians 1.20 is pretty clear. So we need to begin with the clear text. Yes. And you brought this out off air briefly, and I wanted to be sure we started here because always begin with what's clear. Yes. What's absolutely crystal clear. We can talk about the unclear later, but this is one hermeneutic tool that's so, so very crucial for understanding the Word of God. We start with what's clear. And here in Ephesians 1 20, God has raised him, Jesus, from the dead and seated him, Jesus, at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet. Yeah. That's the Psalm II kind of language. That's the already done. He put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The king reigns now. That's right. The kingdom is now. There shouldn't be any question in the Christian mind as to where Jesus is and what he's what he's doing. He is on the throne, he's putting he's put all things under his feet and given him to be head over all things to the church, which means he is the sovereign ruler of the universe. Now, what that means, we're going to get into the details of what that means. But let me ask this question first. How significant is this? Josh, if I was to say Jesus does not reign over the world, Jesus does not reign over the rulers of the earth, and his kingdom has not come and is not coming right now on earth as it is in heaven, what would you say to that? Am I abandoning a core element of the Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I believe if you stated it the way you stated it, we would have to say you have abandoned the core core message of the Christian faith as presented in the New Testament. I think people thankfully are often inconsistent to some of these claims and present it slightly different ways. But this is central to the New Testament teaching about Jesus' Lordship. Well, I think about Ephesians 2.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I mean, you hear out of the gate. The Apostle Peter is saying, Okay, here's the deal, guys. He's preaching the gospel for the first time, and he preaches the resurrection, and he goes directly to this in verse 33. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of the God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. So that seems to me to be a huge emphasis on the part of the apostles. And if we deny this, the kingship of Jesus Christ on the right hand of the Father, and if it is not an emphasis, as much of an emphasis as it was for Peter and Paul, then we're in trouble. Then I don't know what we're talking about. But we're not talking about whatever they were doing.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Exactly. Yes, yeah. And I think uh the of the significance, Kevin, of Acts chapter two, that this is the first New Testament sermon after the ascension of Christ. So this is the first call, the first apostles' sermon uh that's given after Jesus goes to heaven. This is pretty significant to understand what the proclamation is to be.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

You better be taking notes. Well, what if somebody in the audience, uh, excuse me, excuse me, Pete Peter, Peter, excuse me. But but actually, um, he he's not reigning yet. Yeah. And uh we're hoping someday he'll come back to Jerusalem. But you know, at this point he's not reigning, Peter. So what what would Peter say to somebody a detractor like that? Yeah, yeah. To the guy like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Well, effectively, that detractor he's saying, uh, Peter, you shouldn't quote Psalm 110. That's the wrong application of Psalm 110. That's for thousands of years from now.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yep, yep. So let's go.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

And uh I think Peter would be saying, uh, you missed it. Excuse me, would you please sit down?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, right. I'll have a conversation with you later.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

But the rest of us are going to uphold the kingly reign of Jesus. I'm trying to uphold his lordship here.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

So Well, okay. So what does it mean to say that Jesus reigns? Well, first of all, we know that God is sovereign.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yes, in general, he rules over the nations. That's true in the Old Testament, right? Before the reign of Christ and his kingly role.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So what's the difference? Now it's Jesus, and that's a big difference, right? Yes, he's a good thing. In the sense that the Son of God is now in the position. Yes. And apparently a position that is taking effect in AD 30, AD 33, somewhere in there. And so this is something new. This is something developing that's that's established by the Father in AD 33 and is still in force as far as you're concerned.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

And and the significance is that it it activates, we might say, the Old Testament prophecies about what that Messiah and Lord would do. Isaiah 9, unto us a son is given, unto us the child is born. Uh he's the Prince of Peace, wonderful counselor, mighty God. But then it says, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. And so there's an activation of that prophecy in light of the context of the world.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah, what I'm seeing is a DXDT.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, it's gonna go up.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Okay, for those who define that, I mean understand calculus. Okay, delta X over delta T is in positive. Okay. Or if if if you're you know MX plus B kind of guy, you know, you're just you've just taken your seventh grade algebra.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, and I didn't do well in either algebra or something. You remember your seventh grade algebra, Josh.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Remember the MX plus B?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I was an English guy. You want to be sure that you got a positive M. You're gonna have to get me an English illustration, but I've spent enough time with you. I know what you're talking about, Jennifer.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Okay. Of the increase of his government, there shall be no end. Which means what? Which means the M, the M is in the positive. Yes. What is the M in the positive? It means that there is an increase year by year of the government of Jesus over the nations, and he is bringing his enemies under his footstool one by one. It's progressive, it's happening. Seems to me that's pretty obvious. Who could possibly disagree with what I just said? It's a little bit of a bit of a joke, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

It seems obvious to us, but then other theological systems get inserted to sort of create uh parentheses and divisions and partitions.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Oh no, no, no. Yeah, we can't.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I don't believe the New Testament gives us.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

The reason why I think this is important is because I I just think it's uh it's dishonoring to Jesus to say you're not. You're not doing this. I'm sorry, Jesus, you're a failure. I mean, I I I just that sounds almost potentially blasphemous. Yeah, I think I don't know that anybody is saying that.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, they're trying to represent it with other charts and distinctions and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

So is is anybody bowing the knee to Jesus? You know, I wrote an entire book on this called Under God, which means that all the kings of the earth are under God. Now, many are rebels still, they will not bow the knee. That is a problem. And that's of course what what he's doing. He's he's bringing them to the point where they will bow the knee to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But is anybody bowing the knee to Jesus? Right. And that includes the rulers of the earth. And you know, of course, you know, if you read my book, Taking the World for Jesus, which to me is probably the most important part of our curriculum. So if you're gonna buy any part of our curriculum, I'd recommend Taking the World for Jesus to give you a Christ-centered, realistic view of what has happened since AD 33. And okay, there have been kings throughout Europe by the hundreds, if not thousands, that bowed the knee to Jesus. And I I realize the last hundred fifty years or so, there's been a lot of apostasy. I I get it. I get it. I wrote a book on apostate as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, can you talk that about that angle?

SPEAKER_02 9:01

But but let's not negate the fact that every president of the United States, and this is in my new book under God, every president of the United States has acknowledged God to the extent that they have at least given lip service to the fact that they are under God. And if they're under God, according to Scripture, they must be under his son. Does that make sense? That's right. You can't just be under God because God the Father has placed his son as the ruler over the kings of the earth on his right hand.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

And in the case of those presidents, they're all at least generically referring to the Christian God, the one true and living God, even if they were insincere and hypocritical, they were still that was still their reference point. Sure, that's what they're talking about. They're talking about Allah. They weren't talking about the Hindu gods. No, no, no. They're talking about the Christian gods. All 44. 45. 46. 47. Well, about 46 total.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Okay, 46. Okay. I think so. Okay. So um are there more people bowing the knee to Jesus today than there were in 80 thirty-three. Okay, in 80 33, there were 120 in the upper room.

unknown 10:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Are there more than that today? Times billions or compared to billions, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Well, we got 2.3 billion that acknowledge. Yes. So is 2.3 billion greater than greater than sign?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah. And I track with you than sign. I remember. Remember that? That's second question. This is an easy one. Give me this one.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Is 2.3 billion greater than 120? Okay. I need somebody who's good with math to answer this question. Okay. This is an obvious, my friends. That's why we have a generally optimistic, Jesus-centered, kingdom of God-oriented kind of curriculum. And I think one of the reasons why people are effectively dishonoring Jesus in history is because they don't have a Christ-centered history. And and Josh, I have to tell you that that has probably been the thing that has animated me most to get a new curriculum out.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Right. Yeah. If you have a curriculum that's not saying anything about the reign of Christ and his kingdom, you're missing the biggest story on the planet.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

That would be the elephant in the room.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

That's the elephant in the room. There's an elephant over there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Well, and when you read Secular Histories, and they're about kingdoms. Oh, I know. Wars, presidents, and kings. But if you don't talk about the kingdom, the king, the conquest. What happened to the elephant? You lost it. Yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

You need to throw it away and start over. Right. So that's actually what I did when I wrote uh taking the world for Jesus and preparing the world for Jesus. I mean, I it was a completely new paradigm, which I mean it shouldn't be. But I actually read Acts 2.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

And 1 Corinthians 5, 15, and I thought to myself, um, if this is true, then we need to rewrite all of history.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, that's right. And you were on track with that.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So is Jesus conquering the world today? That's the next question I have for you because I I realized the whole Revelation 20 thing. Is it 19 or 20 in which he's on the white horse? He's coming out, sword coming out of his mouth, which means he's a sword swallower. That kind of circus guy that swallows swallows swords.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Well, and he has the sword of his word. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a word that comes forward.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Why don't you hold it up for just for a moment? Okay. Josh is right now holding up the sword. So you you're you you believe that you should not take prophecies so literally as to conclude that Jesus Christ is a sword swallower.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You ever seen these sword swallowers?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

They actually put it all the way down in their guts. That's creepy stuff. But it's creepy, yeah. Jesus doesn't do that. It's actually the word of God by which he conquers nations. Do you think he's done that?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Absolutely. I mean, history is a testimony to that.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

2.3 billion, roughly.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah. Now, whatever you believe about the end of history, you know, the final years of history before Jesus' return, you have to acknowledge what he already did.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And that's critical.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yes. That's critical.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

It's just already a fact. That's absolutely critical. Okay, so is Jesus conquering the world today? Now, the Psalm 2 proclamation was what, and I've only repeated this 647,000 times. Kiss the sun lest he be angry and he perish from the way, lest his anger be kindled but a little. You judges of the earth, right? Yeah. Kiss the sun. So so is this applied to today? Now it's interesting. Acts 4 the people the people of God are gathered in the room and they're having this prayer meeting, and they're saying they're quoting Psalm 2.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

As if it applied to the current contemporary situation.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, they're saying these rulers right now are opposing King Jesus, so do something about it, right? Empower us to be witnesses. And notice their conquest is actually about witnessing the gospel. That's actually how they envision the You're right. That's how they're envisioning the application of the world. They're not saying, you know, Lord Jesus, come back with your physical sword and slay all these people. He's it's saying, give us boldness so we get to bear swords, kind of start like poking people with this is how Jesus is the sword. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Can you demonstrate how to poke somebody with that? Just just poke me. Like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

It's sharp and double-edged, but it doesn't cut the skin the same way. It doesn't cut the skin the same way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

So Josh, for those of you listening on the radio, um, Josh just uh poked me with his printed sword, his Bible. Um so so do you do you believe that as the apostles and the disciples in the room in Acts 4 were quoting Psalm 2, that they believed that all of Psalm 2 applies to the contemporary situation?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yep, absolutely. And that's very clear in terms of how they quote it. It gets quoted a bunch of times in Acts. I was just thinking of Acts uh 13. Um they do the same thing. Really? Uh Acts 13, 32, and we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you. So that here Paul is saying, God fulfilled Psalm 2 by raising Jesus from the dead, and therefore all of Psalm 2 is in effect, we might say, right. So you would agree that Jesus is conquering his enemies.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

He's he's riding forth to conquer, and he does it primarily not through the civil magistrate, but by his word.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

By his word, that's right, yeah. Hebrews 1, you know, quote Psalm 45, which says, you know, go forth, ride victoriously, destroy your enemies, so forth.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, pull from Hebrews 1 just for a moment, because this ties in as well. This this introduces Jesus as the king.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

That's right, yeah. So in Hebrews 1, you have um verse 3, it says that he has been uh exalted to the right hand of God. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And then that connects to, he quotes Psalm 2, You are my son, today I have begotten you. He quotes Psalm 110, again, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. And he quotes Psalm 45, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. And then if you go back to Psalm 45, you're gonna see the broader context, which is to ride forth victoriously, conquer your enemies, your arrows are sharp in the hands of your own. Meekness, righteousness, and yeah, and he's gonna do all of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Okay, and then here's here is a clincher for me. Maybe others are already convinced, but this was a clincher for me. Revelation 1.5 speaks of Jesus as the prince or the ruler over the kings of the earth. That's right. In the present tense. And that's before you get to all the prophecy in the sub subsequent chapters of the book of Revelation. So evidently, Jesus absolutely is right now prince and ruler over the kings of the earth. Now, whether or not they're acknowledged to be so. Now, what I'd like to do is I'd like to say, what is this kingdom? Jesus rules, Jesus is the king, Jesus is acknowledged to be the king by Pilate himself. Yeah, yeah, wrote it, wrote it. Wrote it. Said it. What is written is written. That's right. And uh and it's it's one of the greatest ironies in all of human history. Where's the thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Jews wanted to say he said he was the king.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah, it turns out he was the king and he was riding forth to conquer, right? Even as he was being tortured to death on that cross, writhing in agony and pain. Yes, at that moment, he's overcoming the prince of the world. Yes. He is smashing the devil's head, he's overcoming sin, death, and the devil for us. And and so he's our he's our amazing king and conqueror. That's right. Beginning at the cross and by the resurrection, and now on the right hand of the Father. And I don't want to depreciate any of that.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

That's right. It's so central and so hope-giving, too. Uh, but it does tell us then that the kingdom advances in ways that are different than other kingdoms, right? So as you pointed out, he he he conquers through death, and interestingly, his servants also conquer through the blood of their uh the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, and not loving their lives unto the death, in Revelation 12, I believe it is. And noteworthy too that uh in John, or I'm sorry, Revelation 1, verse 9, after saying Jesus is king, ruler of kings of the earth, he says, I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus. It's like, wow, so the kingdom is connected to tribulation and patient endurance. We're we're partaking of all these realities at the very same time. It's a fascinating way of expressing the presence of the kingdom.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Again, Josh, I want to define the kingdom. Yes. I mean, we're asking the question: what does the Bible say about the kingdom of God? The kingdom is actually throughout Matthew, throughout the parables, throughout the gospels, right? We get a fair amount of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is in you, the kingdom of God is at hand, on and on and on. Okay. So there's a lot of introduction of kingdom throughout the Gospels. Uh, but one of the things that we have to remember is that the kingdom is not reduced to the political realm. Yes. And this is a massive lesson taught by the New Testament. If you don't get this, if you don't get the idea that the kingdom of God is not about Jesus getting to be a political king who sits on a throne in Jerusalem or in Rome or anywhere else, if you don't get that message, if you can't quite pull that off, the Jews couldn't either.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

And the Pharisees and Sadducees couldn't get it. Disciples are sometimes confused.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Lord, will you restore at this time the kingdom to Israel? And they were looking at the people. They struggled a bit with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

But uh at some point, at least those of us who have had access to the Bible for the last 2,000 years, we should at least come to this conclusion. This is this is a massive issue. If if if you can't quite get your head around that, there's a problem. And I think the problem is that socialism and big government, everything back in the 1800s, indoctrinated all of us, including evangelicals, into believing that the kingdom was primarily political in the modern sense of the word. But that's certainly not the way it's intended. Colossians 1 13. Uh he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Now, how do he do that? How do you do that? He he does that by by coming in with guns blazing, kind of the Trump, you know, just launch the missiles on the bad guys.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

And the Colossians didn't have like a new world government over them in an external sense. They're still living in the Roman Empire at that point. Sure, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:49

But but he did it by the power of his Holy Spirit and by his death and resurrection. Yes. So he also says this my kingdom is not ek this world. I use the Greek word ek. Yes. My kingdom is not of this world, but no, the kingdom is not from this world. Okay. So the wrong word used. I mean the word is ek. It should be obvious to anybody who studied, you know, three months of Greek.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Of this world isn't helpful potentially because it suggests the idea that there's a total disconnect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Bogusness, yeah. No, no. It's the word means deriving from, originating from. My kingdom does not derive from Jerusalem, Rome, or even St. Louis, Missouri, if you're a Mormon that happens to be listening to the program at this point. Um so it's my kingdom does not derive from, but the kingdom subsumes the world, right? It spreads out over the world. Yes. The kingdom derives from heaven, he rules from heaven, he rules from the right hand of the Father. And politicizing or materializing or limiting Christ's rule to these puny civil magistrates on earth is another insult to the king over all kings. Jesus makes his people willing in the day of his power. Now that's you know one takeaway from Psalm 110, right? Yes. Jesus makes his people willing in the day of his power. Now, Obama didn't do that for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Right, he doesn't make me willing to I was actually rather unwilling. Yeah, a lot of unhappy people with pretty much every president along the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But they're not exactly making me willing in the day of his power. Right. They're not helping me to willing to do of his good pleasure. Thank you and change the heart of the thing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Thank you. It's pretty big.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Right. I mean, I think Obama wanted to do that. Yeah, he'd love to have hearts of everybody and his great. So would Trump, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yes, of course. But these guys want to pray. The ability to manipulate everybody's heart and make us, you know, do what he wants us to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Of course, you know, manipulating a heart is a difficult thing. Jesus does it by regeneration and by the work of the Holy Spirit. And he makes us to the point where, yes, our free will is now freed from sin and freed from the bindings of nature upon us, such that we can make uh righteous choices.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Yes, and sets us free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

So what is the kingdom? The kingdom is not equated to the church. I see the kingdom bigger than the church, and I use this analogy off air. Um, and I want your thoughts on this. The church I see as the castle.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Okay. But the kingdom goes beyond the moat of the castle. Now you understand, you know, a kingdom. The kingdom of I don't know, King John or whoever. Yeah, there's a realm. He has the castle. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

The castle is kind of where he's operating. It's a place of defense, right? But a place of government. But the kingdom extends beyond the moat that surrounds the castle. Yeah, he rules over all the dominions. And we can say a similar thing about, you know, the whole world is, of course, already under Jesus' feet, as Ephesians 1 says, but the present manifestation of you know stopping the rebels is an ongoing process. But the church is only one part of that.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

And I don't find anywhere in the New Testament where the kingdom of God is the church. Yeah, we don't see that. But I do find this the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Was that Romans 14? And so, Josh, that being the point, the kingdom I mean, hey, it's defined. If someone says, Well, what's the kingdom? The kingdom is that's that's a good hint.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

That's how points, yeah, exactly. It's like, here's a definition. This will help you. If you're wondering, well, what's the kingdom? It's the kingdom of God. The kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. And that's anywhere. There's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which has to be beyond the church walls.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah. And so you might think of like a small town with a bunch of Christians. You know, let's say a bunch of faithful churches and a bunch of Christians in a town of 5,000. There's a bunch of churches, of course, but what are those Christians doing? Well, they're bringing the kingdom of God in whatever they do, right? They're bringing righteousness to their business places and to their town government. They're bringing joy in all their relationships and interactions, they're bringing peace between people. The kingdom of God's coming to that town. Even though the church, of course, is a central part of that, it's not limited to that.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

So it's effectively wherever Christians go.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

If you show up in a civil magistrate, if you show up in culture, if you show up in a business realm, if you show up anywhere on earth, you have taken the kingdom of God with you. And to the extent that you are living out that righteousness, the righteous requirements of the law, what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his son the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemns sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. So the fulfillment of the righteousness in the day-to-day walk, because of the death of the resurrection of Jesus, is possible in the business realm, in the political realm, anywhere we go.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

That's right. Yeah, and I think of like the parable of the leaven helps us too, where the leaven leavens the whole lump. The kingdom of God is like that, where it spreads. And so the idea has to mean from that parable the kingdom is going to have an effect. It's going to leaven the lump. And then the mustard seed tells us it's going to fill the whole world, right? So all of these parables fill out the picture for us. So let's end with this.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Okay, all this discussion on the kingdom of God. Does it really matter? Need we bring this up? And I was thinking of this this morning, and I was thinking, I don't really speak of Jesus as king, as Lord, as much as I could in my day-to-day walk. I mean, I'm upset with Obama and others who don't acknowledge Jesus as King of Kings in the civil magistrate. But what about me? Actually, I was thinking about this just this morning. I thought, do I acknowledge the king in my home or in my business or in this ministry as much as I should I write it into textbooks, but I'm talking about intentionally bringing it into day-to-day conversations. How important do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, absolutely. You might think of like an old uh a kingdom where you know there was a sense of honor for the king, you know, where it says we don't speak of his name that way. And so that's a question is do we how do we speak of the the name of Jesus? And also how do we uphold his kingly priorities, right? And of course, the lordship would begin with me doing the will of the Lord, but then also teaching our children to, uh, upholding his honor in our home. There's a variety, there's so many applications to it.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

It should render an optimism as well. And then we touched on this earlier, but that's one reason for the curriculum. We're trying to present a curriculum that's realistic and an optimistic because, guys, okay, 2.3 billion is greater than 120. Okay, basic math for you, right? But it should render some kind of optimism and hope.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah, and so in our like let's say there's the political setbacks of our present day in different areas, we could look at that and think, you know, we're defeated, you know, the Christian faith is being defeated. Or we could recognize that King Jesus is is over all these things and he's directing all things for his kingdom purposes.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

And he's already made major progress. I mean, come on.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

And so whatever he's doing here is not contrary to his kingdom purposes, it's ultimately going to be worked out for that. And I think this also should give us a strong sense of our role.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. We're ambassadors, right? For the king. That's right. Yeah. And we're reconciling others to him. There's a verse on that.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yes, 2 Corinthians 5. That was a 2 Corinthians 5. Be reconciled to God. And it does actually speak in that text about we're the ambassadors.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

We're ambassadors, ministry of reconciliation itself, right? Exactly. So it should be a strong sense of why we're here as representatives of the king, the king over all kings and over all the rulers of the earth. Well, that wraps it up. I'm already encouraged. I hope people are encouraged by this. I mean, does this encourage you? I mean, are you gonna be some of you going, well, yeah, I'm feeling better already. Well, that's I guess part of the reason why we do this, and friends, it's what does the Bible say about that? That's a segment. If you have a question to ask about what the Bible says about this or that, simply email us at mail at generations.org. I'd recommend you to our book, Strong. Strong. It's a new book I just put out a couple of months ago. Uh recommend it to you because I really think we need a stronger view of the kingdom of God, a stronger view of Jesus. That's a whole chapter, a stronger view of his lordship, stronger view of the gospel. I tell you what, this whole gospel thing's been watered down. And hopefully you've got a little bit of a shot in the arm this morning by this uh presentation, but uh be sure you get a copy of that little short little paperback called Strong that we put out just a couple months ago. Available at generations.org. This is Kevin Swanson and Joshua Squeezo inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.