Kingdom Come

I mentioned this morning, and I'm just gonna use the same introduction, and then we'll sort of go a different path for this message.

But I mentioned this morning that in the early 1980s, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, there was a lot of tension that was arising in industry because of the Japanese imports to, automotive imports into America.

The bottom line was the Japanese cars were better than most of the American cars.

And it was a time where, particularly with General Motors, they were losing sales and they were losing quality.

And the plant that was in Vermont, California, was actually shut down.

It was deemed the worst plant in the country.

And so they said, this is irreversibly broken.

They shut it down and fired all of the staff.

I think it was about 900 staff.

The Japanese car company Toyota heard about this and they wanted to mend relationships and make sure things were okay with this massive market in America.

So they came up with an idea.

They said to Toyota and General Motors, they said, let's do a joint venture in that Fremont, California plant.

But we want to train people in our philosophy of building cars.

And it's called the Kaizen philosophy.

And it's all about, in a summarized version, a team effort where everybody's looking for quality and excellence.

And so that's what they did.

They said, we want to restart that plant, take everyone to Japan, train them up in the Kaizen philosophy, put them back in, and then see how they go in that plant, the same staff.

They did that.

Within two years, there was an utter transformation.

And that GM factory was producing the highest quality and the greatest productivity of any GM plant in the world.

Good job by the Japanese, hey.

Well, Mark is writing a Gospel account which is outlining a new way of living, a new way of society to function.

It's called the Kingdom of God.

And like the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, which revolutionized businesses in the 1980s, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom Come, revolutionizes life itself.

Mark wants us to know there has been a new beginning.

Jesus has come.

He has got in human form and he's lived a perfect life that we could never live.

And he's died of death on the cross for our sin.

And he's risen from the grave and he's ascended to heaven and sent his spirit.

And that changes everything.

The Kingdom has come.

And it changes every life that comes under the truth of its power.

So tonight, we're in chapter 1, verses 14 to 15.

It's only a small section, but it's where Jesus starts to unveil this great idea of the Kingdom of God.

And this is the second part of this morning's message, which was called The Kingdom Come.

Let me read again the last part of what Jase had read.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

The time has come.

The Kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

The text after John was put in prison is the NIV translation for after the delivering up of John.

And it's really significant to point this out.

Mark uses the Greek word for handed over, paradidome.

Again and again, this word, if you looked it up in a strong concordance and then track it, I think it's 12 to 15 times it's used, paradidome, in the Book of Mark, and it means handed over.

Can you think of times where it says Jesus was handed over?

Sometimes the word is translated betrayed, handed over to wicked men, betrayed by his mate Judas Iscariot, handed over to death on a cross.

It's really significant that at the very beginning of Mark's Gospel, in the first chapter, just before the Kingdom of God is started to be explained, there's an idea that the Kingdom of God involves being handed over, handed over.

Everyone who follows Jesus in the Kingdom of God will experience our sense and a true experience of being handed over.

It means carrying you cross.

It means submitting to a pathway of servanthood and sometimes suffering.

John the Baptist wasn't just a herald.

He was a forerunner.

Have you ever read the story of John the Baptist and thought, whoa, this is a bit brash.

This is a bit brutal.

This is a bit harsh.

Like isn't John the Baptist meant to be a really significant character in the story?

You might not have read it, but it's in Mark chapter 6, verses 14 to 29.

It's actually a really big section of Mark's gospel that he gives to the death of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus.

There's a woman that Herod is in love with, and the woman has a daughter who Herod is also infatuated with.

And if you remember the story, the young girl, probably a teenager, dances in front of Herod, the king, and he says, I want to give you something as a gift.

I'll give you anything, up to half my kingdom.

And this young girl goes to her mom and says, what do you think I should ask for?

And the mother says, ask for the head of John the Baptist.

Ask for it to be brought now to this banquet on a food platter.

And that's what happens.

John the Baptist, an executioner goes, beheads him and they bring back his head.

And you sort of think, wow, what's going on?

Why would this happen?

It's because he is a forerunner of what would happen to Jesus.

Do you picture that?

Jesus will have a short life, and he will die a sudden and brutal death.

And this is what John the Baptist highlights for us.

It's like he's the first act for the main act.

Jesus went into Galilee.

I'm just going to work through the text, verse by verse tonight.

Proclaiming the good news of God.

After John had done his job, leading up to his being handed over, Jesus began proclaiming the Gospel.

And this doesn't mean that he started just teaching good truth, though of course what Jesus taught was amazing truth for life.

It's more when it says that he started proclaiming the good news of God.

He's announcing an event.

He's announcing something is and is about to happen that will change everything.

God's timing has come and this is it.

I want to let you all know around Galilee, this world changing event is going to happen in my life and it of course is going to involve his death and resurrection where he will conquer sin, death and the devil once and for all.

It's important to know that when he talks about this, this proclamation, it's different to any other spiritual, philosophical world leader you could ever hear about or read about.

He's not saying, I've got a great idea about the way to live.

He's saying, I am the way.

Amen.

He's saying, I am the way, the truth and the life.

He is not the same as just another guru along the way in history.

This is absolutely unique and significant.

He starts proclaiming that good news, the good news of God.

After John, verse 14, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, he was handed over, proclaiming the good news of God.

And what he said in verse 15 is, the time has come.

The time has come.

And that word time could be kairos, a Greek word kairos, or it could be kronos.

Kronos time is the time that we tend to live our lives in.

Kronos, chronological, one day after another.

But how do we remember our life?

We remember it in kairos time, in moments, in significant moments of time.

And that's kairos.

Kairos is God's timing.

It could be a lengthy season, but it's God's timing for our lives.

Or it could be a moment in time.

For Jesus, it's like a three-year period.

The time has come.

The kairos of God has come.

The prophet Daniel prophesied about this time.

Isaiah prophesied about this time.

Zechariah prophesied about this time.

Ezekiel prophesied about this time.

This is the time for Messiah to finally solve the problem of sin that God promised he would do.

And then he says the kingdom of God has come near.

The kingdom of God has come near.

When I first went to Theological College, I don't know if they're still doing it, Abby, if they still make you do an essay on the kingdom of God.

Oh, they do?

But it was this famous essay.

You got to Bible College and then you had to write an essay on the kingdom of God.

Now, you're not at Bible College, but I'm going to survey you tonight and see if you can come up with some answers.

I want to do a quick who, what, where, why, how, when on the kingdom of God.

So just yell out some answers.

Who is the kingdom of God?

All of us?

I'm not going to sort of say yes or no.

We'll just give some answers because it's actually a challenging concept.

What is the kingdom of God?

Christ in the church, God's reign, the good life, righteousness.

Now we're on fire.

Wow.

Where is the kingdom of God?

Here and not here?

Very nuanced.

All of creation.

Why is the kingdom of God?

How we're created and designed.

Why?

Salvation.

Yeah, absolutely great.

To glorify God.

How is the kingdom of God?

The Church.

It's always a good answer.

Yeah, how is the kingdom?

Through Christ.

Was there something out the back?

Believe in Christ.

Yeah, how is the kingdom of God?

When is the kingdom of God?

Now and not yet.

It's good.

The kingdom of God, if there's one succinct way of describing it, it's often called the realm of God's eternal reign.

The realm of God's eternal reign.

It's what Jesus taught most about.

You need to have an understanding of the kingdom of God.

He talks about it all the time in parables.

He'll say, the kingdom of God is like, and then he'll talk about it.

It's so important to recognize, the kingdom of God is not a long way away.

It's not sort of way up there in the clouds.

The kingdom of God is close.

We read this morning about the heavens being torn above Jesus as Isaiah prophesied, oh, that you would rend the heavens, you would tear them and let God out on the loose.

And that's what is happening after the baptism.

God is on the loose in Jesus, and we read about what it's like when God is on the loose.

There's power and there's authority manifest all over the place against demons and the storms and truth to be told and healings of physical ailments.

The heavens are torn open, God is set loose.

The kingdom of God is right here.

It's close.

The kingdom of God is manifest wherever the king is king.

Amen?

The king of the cosmos is king.

There comes his reign.

So he says, repent and believe the good news, because guess what, people that are hearing, the king's here.

Jesus, I'm here.

The kingdom of God has come.

I'm the king of the cosmos.

I made it all.

I rule it.

I run the place.

And I'm here and I'm telling you, the kingdom has come.

So there's something you need to do when the kingdom comes.

Repent and believe the good news.

You're not left unchanged.

Repent and believe.

We spoke last week about our sort of idea of a theme for the year, Go24.

Repent and believe is a no and a yes.

It's a response to the proclamation of what Jesus has done in the Gospel.

Repent is essential if you're going to become a Christian.

It means when you're walking in one direction, and to repent is to abandon, abandon the allegiance you have to the zeitgeist, the way of the world that's taking you like a current, just in a direction is to say, no, I'm not going to live with those desires, those idols, those attractions, those goals.

I'm going to turn by God's grace and face the Father, face God.

That's repentance.

And when I say no to that, I say yes to Him by His grace and I believe.

So that's the simple idea of repent and believe.

After John was put in prison, I'm just reading it again, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

The time has come, he said, the kairos moment is here.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Jesus is there, the king of the cosmos.

Repent and believe the good news.

And now this is for people who are considering giving their life to Jesus, primarily.

But it's, I think it's not just that.

I've found in discipleship, this idea, this verse, is a really helpful couple of verses.

I didn't do that because I'm preaching a message on it.

That's my Bible.

Mark 1, 14 to 15 is a really significant couple of verses for me and my life.

And I want to just talk about why that is.

It's about discipleship.

The way of the master that we are following, if we're followers of Jesus, is made up of kairos moments.

Would you agree?

This morning, there was a kairos moment for two people.

They just came to church.

They didn't know the pool would be filled up.

But in the hour that we were together, the Spirit of God went, get up there and tell the world that you believe Jesus is Lord and Saviour.

And so, two people have had a life-changing experience.

It was a kairos moment.

Kairos moments can be successful, and they can be failures.

I've found that with mentoring, asking the simple question, have you had any kairos moments, is a fantastic way into a discussion for an hour.

So, what kairos moments are you having?

What is God using in your life that he is bringing change through?

Life tends to flow a little bit like this, I suppose.

We go along in kronos, chronological time, day after day, and then something happens.

It can be a kairos moment.

We get angry at the cat and do something in our anger.

Doesn't have to be a kairos moment, but it could be.

We get hurt and we suffer offence.

I won't ask for hands to go up, because that's life.

We get tempted and maybe we experience lust and we have to do something with it, and maybe we act on it.

We get a promotion that involves a big payday and a pay rise, and it makes us feel pride.

It's a kairos moment, but it has a response in our heart, or we feel overwhelmed with greed, and it ends up being a kairos moment, and we feel overwhelmed with jealousy about another person.

We make a mistake, and we feel this deep sense of guilt, and we want the feeling to go away, and we find some way to make the pain go away.

And it looks like this.

We talk about this as a circle of life.

You're moving along the kronos time, and then this kairos moment happens.

And it can be good, or it can be bad.

It can be success, or it could be failure.

But we find a way to respond to it, and we call it a discovery, and that brings relief.

Often the X is pain.

It's just a painful experience.

And sometimes we want to take away that pain.

Maybe it's just boredom, and we find a discovery.

It's like a self-administered drug in a way, pain relief.

And then, unfortunately, there's a relapse.

And so this is sometimes also called the cycle of addiction, because you can see that when that discovery is a negative thing and possibly a sinful thing, there's a law that is being applied to this all the time.

It's called the law of the diminishing rate of return.

And the discovery that used to take away the pain, the discovery that used to give you that, aha, this is wonderful, doesn't give you as much relief anymore, and the relapse happens quicker.

And it's a pretty yuck cycle.

It's called the cycle of addiction.

And the cycle of addiction is built around a simple idea of the habit loop, which is the next slide.

Have you heard of the habit loop?

We've certainly talked about it here.

It's sort of the way our neurological setup works as human beings.

There's a cue, because our brains are wired to want to have easy ways to function.

Just give me that cue.

If I learn a routine, I'll do it.

If I get a reward, then that will build the loop even more strongly in my brain.

So there's a cue, typically a craving, and then we have a routine response which gives us a reward.

And then, can you see the way that's linked to that cycle of addiction?

Anybody?

Can you see this in your life?

The cue could be a smell.

The cue could be a word that could be a place you go to.

And then you move into this routine.

And I would say that really there's...

I haven't found many things that describe sin as well as those two circles.

It's just...

it's the habit we get into and it's hard to break.

But Christianity is about a renewed mind, which is a renewed bunch of habits, a renewed way to think.

We're doing this, you know, Bible memory verse for the month, Philippians 2, 5 to 11.

And when you just hang out in that and sit there watching it, what does it say?

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, or the other translation, the newer NIV says, you should have in your relationships the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

And that struck me this week in my notes, in my diaries, I was going, yeah, mindset.

You need a mindset to appropriately interact in relationship, don't you?

And what is that mindset?

That mindset is humility, that's Jesus, Philippians 2, 5 to 11.

So you need humility to get out of this cycle, because we often need help.

And so in mentoring over the years, I've found it to be a really helpful thing to go to the next slide.

And Mike Breen with his discipleship material talks about this, that there's a kairos moment, and then just to think about the right side in that green box is the repent side.

Observe, reflect, discuss.

So there's a kairos moment, and to observe is just to go, what happened?

When did it happen?

How did it happen?

Well, just observe and then reflect.

And you do this with someone, like a mentor or just in Christian community with a friend, and you trust that the Holy Spirit's with you in the process.

And you've got the Word of God as you guide.

And in community on the right, you're thinking, how do I repent?

How do I turn?

How do I change?

How do I reflect and discuss what God wants me to learn?

So I get off this roundabout, because it's just this constant roundabout of a cycle.

Because if I have a kairos moment, and I keep on getting angry about the same things, and it manifests in a way that is unhelpful, I've got to stop, observe, reflect, discuss, which is a process of repentance, to get out of there.

But I don't want to stay there, I want to do a belief process, which is plan, account, act.

So I want to think about, okay, how am I going to change the routine that got me there in the habit loop?

And then how can I be accountable to this friend about changing those habits, those loops?

And then I want to act.

I want to put this all into practice.

I find that a really helpful bunch of circles, and talk about it a lot with mentoring.

And yeah, all I can say is, I just leave it with you and say, try it.

Try applying that in community, because they're powerful ideas.

And I think they're powerful because they come from the launching truth that Jesus gave.

The kingdom of God is here.

It's at hand, it's right here.

So what I would suggest to people is, if you have a kairos moment and you're a Christian, Jesus is right there.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

If you're struggling and you feel like you can't make heads or tail of whatever's going on, stop and listen to Jesus.

The king is there.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe and move on in his grace.

Following Jesus involves a daily cycle.

This year, we're talking about Go24.

It's like Go2024.

Let's set some plans in the grace of God, in the goodness of God, about how we can best use our lives.

But a year, 2024, is made up of a whole stack of 24 hours.

So Go24 is that, isn't it?

That idea of habit loops.

Go24, how am I going to live in such a way that I move towards Christlikeness?

Every time, if you just go back to that last one, thanks, Trinity, every time I go on the left and I go in a negative sinful pathway, that is an investment in neural plasticity to learn a habit.

That's an investment in becoming the very person that would act that way as a habit.

To not do it and by God's grace, learn a new way of living in the kingdom, to learn a new mindset, that's an investment in godliness, amen?

Now, to say this is easy would be sort of naïve I think, but it is possible.

It's possible to become more like Jesus.

It's a process of formation and sanctification.

And in the history of the church, literally in the history of the church, we have not done it well.

We're good at stating what we believe, but we're good at living in cognitive dissonance between that statement and how we live.

So what we're sitting in when you think about formation and discipleship and you start reading through a book like the Gospel of Mark, you're challenged about how am I going to put in practice the way Jesus says I can live?

And that's just a process of yes and no and start and stop and acknowledgement of failure and appropriating the abundant grace of God that is available to us because, yeah, we will all fail.

But I just want to encourage you that Go24 is about yes and no, start and stop.

It's about the kingdom of God and us playing a part in it.

So it involves saying no to sin, but also saying yes to servanthood, saying yes to obedience, saying yes to stepping out in faith.

Let me finish with a fascinating story of a kingdom go.

So this is a kingdom go, Go24, Acts 8, verse 26.

An angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go.

It's fitting, isn't it?

Go south to the road, the desert road, and Philip said, I don't feel like doing that.

I don't feel like going.

So we never heard about the Ethiopian eunuch.

I was listening to a book by Craig Groschel yesterday, and Craig now leads Life Church, and he leads the most widely attended church in the history of North America.

That's Life Church now.

Isn't that an interesting stat?

Like, well done, because we've interacted with his stuff with online from Life Church.

But what really moved me to tears was when he was telling his testimony about getting saved sovereignly.

He just opened up a gideon's Bible, read the Gospels and got saved, just got saved.

And then he went to a church, had a terrible experience, it was boring as.

He thought, hey, is this what church is?

Then he's walking around the university, he sees a bunch of Christians, and they're smiling and he's drawn to them.

And he walks up to this Christian group on campus, and they go, Craig, we heard, we heard you.

Is it true you became a Christian?

And he goes, yeah, yeah.

And they went, we've been praying for you for about two years.

And I just started to weep, because I thought, how important is the prayer, are the prayers of God's people?

God says to a bunch of students, there's a bloke over there, you don't know him from Adam, I want you to pray him into the kingdom.

They don't even test, they don't even witness to him.

Do you get that?

It's a sovereign work of God, but God wants to use people to pray in the process.

So, that's brought to my mind because those students had to say yes to the Spirit, I'm praying for that bloke.

He gets saved, he ends up leading a church that becomes one of the most generous churches in the history of the church, 2,000 years.

Let us give everything away.

And they end up becoming the biggest church in the history of North America.

All started literally by a few people deciding, yes, Lord, we'll pray.

Yes, Lord, we'll pray.

So Philip, Philip has a go from the Spirit, go south to the road, the desert road, that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

So he started out, he said, yes, no worries, I'll do that.

And on his way, he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Kandaka, which means queen of the Ethiopians.

This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot, reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet.

The spirit told Philip, go, go to that chariot and stay near it.

Even that, it's just so classic, isn't it?

She's like, okay, what am I doing?

I'm just following your guidance, Lord, what do you want me to, go near that chariot, go near it.

Philip runs up to the chariot and heard the man, and even that is so odd, like the chariot's going along, Philip's running along.

Runs up, and here's the man reading Isaiah the prophet.

Do you understand what you're reading?

Like, isn't it classic?

Philip asked, maybe, stop the chariot.

How can I unless someone explains it to me?

So he invites Philip to come up and sit with him.

And this is the passage of scripture the eunuch was reading, the classic one from Isaiah, about Jesus.

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation, he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants, for his life was taken from the earth.

The eunuch asked Philip, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?

Then Philip began with the very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

That's a great yes, isn't it?

That's a great go.

And as they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, look, so somehow he's explained in that short amount of time how important baptism is.

You can't argue that he didn't.

Like, that's clearly what he did.

And the Ethiopian eunuch goes, look, there's some water.

Who can stand in the way of me being baptized?

And Philip's like, well, I'm not going to.

And he gave orders to stop the chariot.

Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.

It's just a great story, don't you reckon?

It's a great example of the spirit moving and a follower of Jesus saying yes.

It's a great example of the time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news.

The kairos moment is now, go.

Yes, no, start, stop, go 24.

What is the Holy Spirit asking you to do in your life?

That's a nagging truth that you just know in your heart that on the other side of that is some sense of liberty.

On the other side of that is where I need to be.

I just want to encourage you in Jesus' name, step into it.

Step into it.

If it involves repentance, repent.

Talk to someone about it.

Discuss it.

Get some help.

The kingdom comes in power when we respond in humility.

Amen?

It really does.

So as I promised before, I found out that we have one, unless this person has changed their mind, we have one person already who wants to be baptized.

So that's great.

I was filling this pool up yesterday for about two and a half hours at 10 o'clock last night, and I was feeling like, Lord, I hope you want someone to get baptized because there's a lot of water.

I'm going to get scalded by the deacons for this.

It's bad stewardship.

So Lord, I'm grateful.

I'm grateful.

But I just want to say that that's just an example.

As a pastor, what does it mean for me to do Go24?

Well, I want to do that.

I want to say, Lord, I feel like there's a prompting of your spirit.

So yeah, how can I step out in faith?

And so I want to ask you, what's stopping you being baptized as a follower of Jesus tonight?

It's not about discipleship.

Getting baptized is not, I've now understood the whole gamut of theology.

The Ethiopian eunuch didn't know anything much.

But it's a mime of the Gospel.

It's for followers.

It's for people who say, I believe Jesus died for me and rose again.

I'm going to get baptized and come out looking like a drowned rat.

I'll embrace humility.

I'll feel that sense of what the grace of God has done in my life.

And I'll go on from here and see what's next.

And again, I just want to encourage you, if you want to be baptized now, just head over to that corner now.

We're going to watch the video that Ben did last week, and it talks about Jesus is worth it, because I think it's a real encouragement about why it's worth stepping out in faith.

And if you want to be baptized, don't wait for the end of that video, just come straight over to that corner, and Gin and Leanne will help you find appropriate clothing and a towel, and we'll come up and baptize you up here.

So let me pray.

Thank you, Lord, for your word, and for this roof over our heads in the rain.

Thank you that you are speaking to all of us.

If there's someone here tonight who doesn't know you, Lord, I pray sovereignly you would turn their heart to you and save them, in Jesus' name.

And for those of us who are struggling in habitual cycles of addictive behavior to sin, Lord, thank you that your heart is grace and you want to break us free and give us the blessed life that is truly happy.

And I pray that you'd help us take the steps towards that.

Maybe baptism is part of that process.

For those who need to take this step, would you give them courage now in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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