Aligning With The Kingdom Series

When there is a kingdom expanding, there is another one shrinking. The one that is shrinking is the kingdom of Satan. As evidence of that, we talked last week when we referenced a passage where Jesus had just driven out a demon in a mute and what did he say when somebody accused him of being a demon himself? He said that is crazy. I am going to tell you what, if I drive out demons by the power of God, in other words if I am doing this miracle, then that means “the kingdom of God has come to you.” What he is saying is something is happening. Pay attention people. One kingdom is coming on strong and another kingdom is shrinking. So when he says “repent” or as The Message says “change your life”, he is saying choose. Choose which kingdom you want to belong to. There are two options. The kingdom of Satan or the kingdom of God. We know that the good news is when you accept Jesus Christ as Lord, as Paul implies, there is immediately this transfer because you have accepted this invitation from Christ to enter into his kingdom. You may not have thought about that at your baptism or conversion, but that is what is going on. In fact, Paul equates it with a rescue operation. In Colossians 1:13 Paul says “For he has rescued us from the dominion (or kingdom) of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” If you need a visual to think about it, it is basically like this. You have the cross. You have God’s kingdom going on expanding so the area around there, the dominion of darkness, is beginning to shrink. That is what is going on there. When you accept Christ, it is a rescue. It is taking you out of a hostile territory and putting you into someplace very good and very nice. A good, positive place.

I know some of you have probably seen on the news all the refugees that are leaving Syria and looking for a host country. Statistics are as high as 4 million people have left Syria and gone looking for a host country and not really knowing whether they are going to hit something positive or negative. That is what is going on in the spiritual realm. When you accept Christ, there is something going on where you are immediately transported out of the dominion of darkness and you are put into the kingdom of the Son. Unlike those Syrian refugees who have no idea what they are going to meet, a mean president, a welcoming president, a wired fence, are they going to be welcome? We know when we are transported into this new kingdom, we know what is going to happen. We know that we are going to receive a big welcome. It is going to be a positive experience. It is going to be a great experience. There is an author, Eugene Peterson, who says it like this “Jesus brings us into a world without fear. In his world, astonishingly, there is nothing evil we must do in order to thrive. He lived and he invites us to live in an undying world where it is safe to do and be good.” It is a good place, but as this passage implies, it is a strange place. Down is up and up is down. The rules are a little bit different. We are not quite used to it. That new kingdom is quite different from the old kingdom, the dominion of darkness. In the dominion of darkness we see things like hatred, anxiety, jealousy, pride, fear, anger, lust, impatience, meanness, insecurity, a whole host of things. We could go on and on. In the kingdom of the Son, we see what some would call the fruit of the spirit and plus things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, humility, safety, compassion. The kingdom of God is a safe place to be. But because it is an unfamiliar place, we have never navigated it. We are used to living in the dominion of darkness. That is our world. We are surrounded by that. We need some sort of a guide. Somebody who knows what they are doing. Somebody who knows the ropes. And who but Jesus. Jesus knows the ropes. He is our guide. He will help us navigate this new and unfamiliar territory. He will keep us in alignment with the kingdom of God. We are talking spiritual realities. That is why it is so hard to grasp. Even though at our salvation or our born-again experience, we are being transferred behind the scenes from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the Son. It is a spiritual reality. The reality is that we often find ourselves pulled back into that old dominion of darkness. Not totally in a spiritual sense but in a mental sense, in an emotional sense, a bodily or physical sense. It is like a gravitational pull. That you are being pulled back constantly into the dominion of darkness. That is what happens. We know that inherently we want to believe that verse, but we find ourselves being pulled back. That is why we have to continually realign ourselves with God and his will.