Let's look again tonight at the attempt we're making to define the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. This is the second time we've talked about this particular aspect of the kingdom. Jesus said that except you're born again you will not be able to see the kingdom of heaven. Hopefully those of us that are born again are seeing the kingdom of heaven. I know that we are. But the clearer we can perceive the Kingdom and conceive of it, then I believe the more we will be able to serve the Lord in His Kingdom and with greater intelligence and with conformity to the Word of God. If we're going to preach the Word of God to unbelievers, and we're going to preach the We've gone through messages where we try to understand how pervasive this idea of the kingdom is in the New Testament and how many things it's associated with. What is it that we're telling unbelievers? What are we proclaiming to them? How should we confront them with the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom? endeavoring to define the kingdom so that we ourselves can understand it in order to better proclaim it. And we're using a little acronym, WORD, W-O-R-D. I may use some of those letters multiple times. Don't hold that against me. But we started out by saying that the kingdom of God can be identified by the worship that occurs in the kingdom. and last time we drew a great contrast between the localized carnal, as it were, meaning the carnal ordinances that were imposed on the nation of Israel until the time of Reformation when Christ came, and the contrast between that local, meaning in Jerusalem, meaning carnal, By that we mean the priest could be seen, the animals could be touched, the incense that was burned could be smelled, the temple itself could be seen and so forth, and the sounds could be heard. All of these things could be perceived by our natural carnal senses. And that's in a tremendous contrast to the worship that occurs in the kingdom. Jesus told the woman at the well that it wasn't going to be like that. The hour was already there. The transformation was already happening from a time of worship at Jerusalem to a time when God would be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Now, I think there's something that we need to be very careful about We mentioned this last time. By defining the Kingdom of Heaven this way, we are not saying that spiritual worship did not occur until the Kingdom of Heaven came. Spiritual worship occurred, Abraham worshipped, Moses worshipped, the patriarchs worshipped, the high priests worshipped, in spirit and in truth, no less. Isn't that true? Well, what does Jesus mean when he says that God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth? Well, let's try to give this some more definition. And let's go to the O letter and begin by saying that the kingdom of God is defined by its organization. By organization. And again, let's draw the contrast to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the king was at Jerusalem, we had the high priest that was at Jerusalem in the tabernacle, you had the Levitical priesthood, you had the others that were You had Aaron, his descendants were the priests. You had the other Levites and so forth that were assistants in the temple. You had the division of the land into the tribes. They had their geography that they were responsible for. The organization in the kingdom of heaven is quite different from that, isn't it? There's still a temple. And there's still an altar, and there's still a sacrifice, and there's still a high priest, and there's still a king, and there's still a country, and we're citizens of that country. But of course now the capital of the kingdom is in heaven. The mouth that we have come to and where we reside is not one that can be touched. It's not one that shakes and burns with smoke. And if someone breaks through, they're to be thrust through with a dart. We come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to Mount Zion. We come to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, to the spirits of just men made perfect. And we interact with them. We interact with this heavenly Jerusalem. In fact, we're sons and daughters of that capital city. We're citizens of heaven. And so our organization is a lot different. Now, there's also the aspect of the organization of the local churches. uh... that's involved in the kingdom i like the song that we signed up called on it i love our kingdom lord but it's almost as if the writer of that him is equating on a one-to-one basis the church uh... and the kingdom and i would beg to differ with him a little bit about that definition i don't think the church is equivalent precisely to the kingdom, even if we say the church is the total number of God's elect. God's elect have always been in the earth. God has always looked at them as a people from all eternity. He wrote their names in the last book of life. He chose them in Christ. He saw us in Christ. So just the fact that we're His people does not make us His church, and neither does it make us His kingdom. Now there's a relationship, yes. But I want us to have a more precise view and definition that we can lay hold of when we talk about the kingdom. I'm going to offer this to you and I'd be very happy to get your comments about this. I'm going to give you a definition of the kingdom that I've never seen written in a book. It's not stated this way in the scriptures anywhere. But I've tried to come up with a definition of the kingdom that I can share with you that you can lay hold of and conceive of the kingdom And I'd be happy to hear what you have to say about this. The kingdom of God is the manifestation of the rule of God in covenant-defined terms. The manifestation of the rule of God in terms defined by a covenant. Now, I want us to understand God's kingdom over all things is forever. It's never changed. His rule in that sense is never changed. But that's not what we're talking about in the New Testament kingdom of God that can come, can grow, can be transferred, and can have a consummation or an end. say that the kingdom, as we're to conceive of it in that sense, is the manifestation of the rule of God according to the terms of the covenant that's in effect at that time. You see where I'm going with that? This definition allows us to conceive of the kingdom as it existed under the Mosaic law. There was a kingdom, there was a manifestation of the rule of God in the earth defined by the old covenant that defined this priesthood, that defined the tabernacle and the furniture in the tabernacle and all the rituals. They were constituted as a kingdom of priests to God, Exodus 19, 6. But there were prophecies all along. After Israel was thus constituted as a kingdom, there were prophecies all along, like Daniel 7, 18, where there was this other kingdom that was going to come, and the saints were going to take it. They were going to take hold of it. And then we come along and Jesus and John the Baptist start preaching about the kingdom of heaven being at hand, and they proclaim the nearness of it. And Jesus says to Israel that the kingdom of God, Matthew 21, 43, shall be taken from you. Now, from whom? Well, not from the true people of God, but from the typical people of God, the nation of Israel that had constituted the kingdom of God in the old Mosaic covenant. They were the manifestation of the reign of God in old covenant terms. And Jesus says that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, Israel, after the flesh, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." The holy nation, the spiritual people of God. And now we have a situation where the saints are coming to sit down in this kingdom with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the children of the old kingdom are cast out in Matthew chapter 8 verses start with verse 10 when the centurion had manifested his faith Matthew 8 10 Jesus heard it And when he did, he marveled and said unto them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel, in fleshly Israel. The centurion was not a member of Israel, but he had manifested this great faith. And Jesus says, I haven't found faith like this in the kingdom itself. And he says, I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west, meaning outside of the nation of Israel. By the way, this includes us. We have come from the West to sit down in the kingdom with this centurion and with these people he's about to mention, from the East and the West and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. We need to consider ourselves, brother, if we're going to get an idea about the kingdom, we need to be thinking, I'm serving God under the manifestation of His rule and reign according to new covenant terms. Now, the new covenant terms are that God has brought heaven and earth together. through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob's ladder has now been manifested, and we see angels ascending and descending. Heaven and earth have been made one now. And we interact in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. My mom and I took a trip about a week ago, I guess it was last week, down to Birmingham. On these trips to see her doctor, we have time. In fact, we went two days in a row to Birmingham. We have time to talk. We started talking about my dad, who passed away a couple of years ago. She and I got into a conversation about Can the saints that have passed away know anything about what's happening here on earth? And I have this theory, and I think there's some scripture to back this up. I have this theory that they can. Now, probably God has got a super-duper internet screen filter. that keeps them from knowing a lot of stuff, perhaps. I don't know how much they know. But I know that Hebrews 11 pictures a stadium full of departed saints that are watching us run our race, and we're on the track down in the stadium and running an Olympic race, and they are cheering us on. I've got to think about my dad. Because my mom now is reading the Bible more than she ever has. She just recently read through the Bible for the first time in her entire life. She's told me several times, she says, did you know so and so was in the Bible? Did you know this story was in the Bible? It's just wonderful. And she's reading it a second time now and you can talk to her about biblical things and she knows more about it. And I told her, I said, Mom, I wouldn't be surprised if Dad knows that you're doing that. And there are other indications that, you know, the rich man had some kind of awareness that his brothers weren't yet converted. He was in hell, and he wanted Lazarus to go back and warn his brothers. So there's some kind of awareness, I believe. And I got to thinking about my dad. I wonder if my dad has had a conversation with Abraham. Then I got to thinking about what about Moses? Then I got to thinking about what about Jesus? What if my dad has talked to Jesus Christ? And I'm not a pure mystic. But I do believe that we need to have an awareness that we are interacting with the saints of old. And when we come together to worship, we're coming together and they're coming together with us. The angels are observing and we're coming together to worship God. We're with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. we're experiencing the ministry of their words and their lives and the promises that were made to them and the spirit that inspired those things and led them has now led us. And we're experiencing fellowship with them. But the children of the kingdom, that is the children of the Old Covenant kingdom, the manifestation of the rule of God is defined by the Old Covenant shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And Jesus then heals the centurion's son. So as we look, to come back to the organization thought, as we look at our headquarters in heaven and our interaction being with the saints that are already passed away and with the Lord in His presence, in a higher way than we are even, then we also need to think about the local church, as we've talked about before, that is the house of God. Now let's just go back to that 40,000 foot level here. I think last time I said 23,000 miles, but now we're talking about a 40,000. Let's go back up and look at this kingdom of God. It was prophesied that this kingdom would grow and spread. and it would spread from jerusalem the prophecies said that the word of the lord would flow out from jerusalem and the kingdom would grow from there well what does that look like well as we're looking at it from forty thousand feet we look down and here's this kingdom and as we said the last time these dots start forming and now we see a church here and a church there and a church And these churches are multiplying. And these churches are doing the work that God has given them to do. And this is the way the kingdom grows. This is the way it grows. So if we're praying for the kingdom of God to grow and come in a greater degree, what we're really praying for is for evangelism to take place and to be successful. and for baptisms to take place and for new churches to be formed and existing churches to be built up. That's what we're desiring. Now to me that is very tangible. We don't want our little church here to be edified and built up in numbers just so that we can say we had a successful effort at having a church here. Or so we can talk about, wow, we've had three families added in the last two days or something like that. Wouldn't that be nice? I'd call Brother Zach and tell him about it, I guess. But no, we're not doing it. We don't desire that. just so that we can pat ourselves on the back and say we did a good job of preaching the gospel. That's not it. The reason we do it is because this is what brings honor and glory to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it means for the kingdom to grow. Now, what happens when these churches grow? All right. Here's what happens. When the churches grow, Families are created. Because men and women are taught what it means to live under the manifestation of God's reign in the new covenant. Men and women start leading godly lives. They have their thinking changed. And instead of the kind of people they were attracted to before, they're now attracted to Women are attracted to men that are godly. Men are attracted to women that are godly. And they desire to have a union of Christians, men and women, that form Christian families. This doesn't ensure that their seed are all of the elect, or that their offspring are all elect. But it does mean that they will endeavor to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And what happens when that happens is that society is populated with young men and young women that have morals and have a clarity of thought to become leaders in the society. The society becomes a better place to live because of this. And society has a place to draw its political leaders, its educational leaders, its artists, its nurses and doctors and attorneys and engineers and architects and teachers. And because the churches grow and have an influence in people's lives and families are formed and children are taught In those families, the society is elevated. And that's the way it's designed to work. That's the way it's intended to work. I know the family was formed first, but I think that we must realize that all the relationships, husband and wives, children, in the fall really, really took a huge hit and there has to be some agency that teaches people what it means to live in God's kingdom in order for the effect of that to be reversed. The kingdom is defined by how it's organized and the local churches play a tremendous part in this. Now, let's look at one other word that begins with O. The kingdom of God is defined by its occupants. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. It's amazing as Jesus is on the mount, not the Mount of Olives, This is another mount, but this is called, Matthew 5, 6 and 7, is called the Sermon on the Mount. And usually we think of this passage as dealing with ethics, how people are to live. And that is true, it does. But all through here there are descriptions. By the way, it's kingdom ethics. as we'll see here in just a moment. This is kingdom, these are kingdom ethics that Jesus is talking about. But all through this discourse there are descriptions of people who are in the kingdom, the occupants of the kingdom. Look for instance with me at Matthew chapter 5 and verse 3. The very first blessing, the attitude as some people call it, says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The occupants of the kingdom of heaven are people that realize that they are poverty stricken. when it comes to dealing with God. They love the invitation to come and buy bread and buy wine without price because they know that they don't have anything to give. They don't have anything to offer God. The occupants of the Kingdom of Heaven are those that are broken and contrite in heart. They're not proud. broken by the Spirit of God. They've been brought to the place where they realize that they are abjectly despicable in the eyes of a holy God. And they know that they're utterly dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. They have no righteousness of their own. They're totally dependent upon the righteousness that God gives them. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Here we go again. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Who is it that occupies the kingdom of heaven? It's the people that have all these characteristics. They're the blessed ones. They're the ones that have been made to be inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Those that are willing to be persecuted for righteousness sake and will accept it gladly. He goes on and let's get down to verse 19. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Verse 20 says, "'For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, I know that we ultimately have to let righteousness imputed take our part, like the song says. uh... or is it, anyway, I may have the words wrong a little bit on that song, but the righteousness imputed is what really makes us more righteous than the Pharisees. But before we leave off the idea that this is talking about a practical righteousness, then we need to consider what some of the other scriptures have to say that we'll see in a little while, a little bit later. We may not get to it tonight, but we will soon. Let's skip over to Matthew chapter 6 in verse 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the moral, for the moral shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I wish I could learn that lesson. I wish I could learn that I'm not to worry about what's going to happen even tomorrow. The evil for today is sufficient. My job is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. says not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Okay, we got to one of those verses sooner than I was thinking we were going to. When Jesus says that, except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, I don't believe he had exclusively in mind the idea of imputed righteousness. I think he meant the literal working out of righteousness in our lives. Now the scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, the very word hypocrite, we understand why Jesus had such a problem with them and he denounced them so much. It's because they said one thing and did another. With their lips they glorified God, but their heart was far from it. And Jesus is saying, unless you're different from that, you're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. You're not going to enter the manifest rule of God under new covenant terms. So it's not the one that says, Lord, Lord. And it's really pious. It's going to enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says. But he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? I'm sure that they had. Or at least thought they had. and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works and then will I profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity the ones that God never knew are the ones who are characterized as working iniquity the ones that God knew from all eternity are characterized by righteous works and doing the will of the Father. So, these are the occupants of the Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 18, verses 3 and 4 gives us another characteristic of these occupants. Verily I say unto you, Jesus says, Matthew 18, 3, Verily I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." And I'll just say to our young people, especially our young men, Because I've been there and I know what a temptation it is and I probably still encourage it far too much. We project and try to picture and portray manhood by strong, muscular, macho, you know, knock people out of the way men. You know, if you're a big football player and you can knock the quarterback loopy and he can hardly walk to the sideline, man, you're a man. If you're the big hulk guy that can jump off the ropes and squash the other guy, you're a real man. That's the way a lot of people think about it, I guess. But Jesus doesn't say that, does he? Jesus says the mighty, the man that's mighty in his kingdom is the one that can humble himself and become like a little child and just accept what God gives him and be thankful. Not demand a lot and not try to impress people a lot. And to act dependent, act like you're dependent, act like you're grateful. These are the occupants of the kingdom. So, I want to ask you something. Jesus said that among them, this is Matthew 11, 11, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Do you see the kingdom that way? Do you see the kingdom in such a way that as an occupant of it you can feel and know and believe that you occupy a greater position than John the Baptist or Isaiah? or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Daniel. That sounds almost presumptuous, doesn't it? Because Jesus said this. Jesus said that those of us living in the kingdom are greater than the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. Now here's what we have to understand. We have to understand that He's not talking about us personally. I am not a greater man than Moses. Brother Ron is not a greater man probably than Abraham. He's a really good man, but he's probably not, Sister Sharon, I know you think otherwise, but he may not be as great a man as Abraham was, but he's not talking about you personally. He's talking about the administration of God's covenant manifestation of his rule. The position you occupy is greater than any of those people. They were the people of God outwardly. They were born of the flesh. They were circumcised in the flesh. And all of those things defined their kingdom. It defined their walk with the Lord. That's not the way it is with us. We have the spiritual reality that those things only pictured. Let's see. Sister Laura, do you think that you are a greater woman than let's say Cleopatra was? No. But would you trade places with her? I thought about Julius Caesar. I'm telling you, just on the carnal realm, just the natural realm, we are greater. Each normal, average, everyday citizen in America is greater than the Caesars or the Pharaohs. You understand what I'm saying? They didn't have air conditioning. They didn't have heat. They didn't have automobiles. They didn't have airplanes. They didn't have pilots or cell phones. Their status and their privileges and the quality of their life is not nearly what ours is. We're greater than they are, not individually. But our lives are tremendously more elevated than theirs were. and in the kingdom of heaven we enjoy a status and a privilege and a quality of life that far exceeds the greatest of the old kingdom the old testament prophets so let's thank the lord for that and meditate upon that and when we're preaching the kingdom this is what we're preaching we're preaching an existence a place of occupancy, if you will. We're preaching an environment or a status that's organized in such a way that to be in it is far superior to being in any other organized structure. There is no organization on earth There's no philosophical system. There's no religious system. There's no political system. There's nothing on earth that ever has been that can compare to what we enjoy in our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what we're proclaiming with joy. It's come. It's here. And we're thankful for it. Father, we thank you for the establishment of the long-anticipated kingdom. I pray that you would help us to form clearer and more precise conceptions of what it is so that we can proclaim it and preach it with power. And Lord, I pray that you would bless us to do so in your Spirit and that you would bless us, Lord, in days and years to come. to see the growth of your kingdom in this place. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.