If you want to follow along today, we are going to be looking at two verses. It is out of the gospel of Mark 1:14-15. We have been going through this series on the theme of discipleship. If you were here last week, you know that we have defined discipleship as ordinary people learning to live everyday life like Jesus. We talked about how here at Bellevue Christian Church we have come up with three primary ways that will help facilitate discipleship here at the church. Those three primary ways are that we gather, we train, and we go. Last week, we talked about the idea of gathering. How we gather on Sunday morning. We gather the first Wednesday of each month. We gather in small groups. We gather one on one. Disciples were known to gather around Jesus. Also, we train. We submit ourselves to the teaching of others and to the curriculum of others to learn and grow in our faith. And also we go. We take the things we are learning in the church and things we are learning in the small groups and begin to apply them, particularly in the area of service, in the church, in the community, and ultimately the world. I also mentioned how just because we know that some of the stuff may be overwhelming to us, we are testing out this concept called discipleship coaches. Discipleship coaches are just people that are willing to come alongside somebody and help them along in their spiritual journey. We also showed a video last week that summarized what I just said in a nice little four-minute video. If you haven’t seen the video yet, I encourage you to go to the Facebook page or the website and watch the video. As I mentioned last week, we are going to take this theme of discipleship and we are going to take it into the fall and we are going to take it into next year. We are starting this theme with a 12-week series on discipleship. Last week, if you were here, I introduced the concept of discipleship by talking about a hard concept. I talked about it as the problem of just being saved. The problem relates to the fact that many people see the gospel of Jesus Christ or they see becoming a Christian simply as me getting my sins forgiven and getting my free ticket into heaven. That is part of the gospel, but it is an incomplete part of the gospel. It really does affect discipleship. What happens is discipleship becomes this optional activity. In other words, if you are going to heaven, what is the point of doing anything with your life now? What is the point of working on your character issues in this world? You begin to see discipleship as an optional activity. What we mentioned last week when we looked at 1 Peter was it presented the Christian life as the opportunity to experience a brand new way of living. He called it a brand new life.
Today, Jesus is going to introduce that life as the kingdom life. What I want to do is expand on this concept of kingdom and especially how discipleship connects to the concept of kingdom. When you begin to understand that, you will be able to understand how discipleship fits within everything. I wanted to start off by asking a question. How many of you were at least a teenager or older in the 80s? How many of you remember the 80s? I am surprised more people remember. In the 80s, I was a student at Portland State University working on my Bachelor of Science Business Administration and reading all sorts of fun books like accounting and marketing. When I wasn’t getting bored with my books, I was out on what they would call the quadrangle or commons area of the campus. It would seem like every week we would get somebody who would come along that we would refer to as a Jesus freak or a street preacher. They are kind of obnoxious and they just come in and start yelling. I wasn’t a Christian at the time. I found these types of guys very annoying. Maybe somewhat entertaining but in no way inviting. They would use scare tactics to scare me into heaven. I realized over time that these guys didn’t really care whether I got into heaven or hell. They just had a message to preach and all they did was preach the message and yell at the people who were mocking them. That is all it was. Unfortunately, we still find people in the world today who take that turn or burn approach to try to get people into the kingdom of God. Although it might work for a few people, I think for the most part it is a turn off for many because it gives Christianity a very bad name. You begin to think of Christianity as all about avoiding hell rather than embracing heaven. What if we were to rethink the gospel? What if we were to rethink it as an invitation into something grand and glorious that no one on this earth has ever experienced rather than avoiding something like hell?
I really think that is the approach that Jesus took and what we read about in Mark 1 where it says “Jesus went into Galilea, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” We want to dissect this passage a little bit. The first thing you might notice is that he calls it the good news of God. We think of the good news and we think of the gospel. But we forget that that good news finds its source in God. Although we receive good news in a variety of ways throughout the week, the news we receive could be good or bad depending on who you are. We know that the good news that we receive from God is indeed really good news. Not just for a few people but for all of humanity. The good news of God proceeds from a God who is caring, who has a divine plan, who cares for his people. It gets us out of the mindset that the good news begins with us, with our pain, our sin, our situation. It gets us off of us. It gets the good news off of us and onto a loving God who really cares for his creation and desires to commune with them.
The question is what is the good news. Fortunately, Jesus goes on to explain it to us. He starts by saying “‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near.’” This is where I have to talk about the concept of time. When Jesus said the time has come, he wasn’t talking about the time on a clock, he was talking about a pivotal point in time. You may recall I did a sermon when I talked about how the Greeks had two ideas of time. Two words. One was called chronos and the other was kairos time. Chronos time means chronological. It has to do with the seconds and minutes and hours and days and months and years. In fact, if you have ever punched a time clock or record attendance, you may notice on some of your time clocks it says chronos. There is actually a brand name named Chronos. That is one form of time. The other form of time is called kairos. That is dealing with a specific event or a period of time. An example of chronos time would be the date September 11, 2001. The kairos time is 9/11. Do you get the difference? Chronos time is the date on the calendar. 9/11 is the pivotal event that changed all American history or possibly the history of the world. When Jesus says the time has come, he is suggesting that in his coming there is a very unique happening. God is releasing his kingdom. God is unfolding his kingdom in the world in a way that has never happened before.
This is where I have to stop and unpack a little bit more the idea of kingdom. Even though the word kingdom appears in gospels alone over 100 times, I think we have a wrong understanding of the kingdom. I think it is a word we just kind of gloss over. We see the kingdom of heavens in the Bible and we think he is talking about heaven. He is talking about something in a far, far away galaxy that only the Starship Enterprise can get to. The reality is he is talking about something that is occurring not down the road but is happening right now. The easiest way to think of kingdom is to think of a realm of influence. Think of a realm of your influence. In that regard, everyone in this room has a kingdom. Some kingdoms are small. Some are very large. Most people have a small kingdom that maybe begins in their house and extends over their children and possibly their pets, unless they have a cat. Then the cat has the kingdom right! I have learned that the last year. All kidding aside, that is the kingdom of some people. That is their realm. That is the realm of control. That is where what they want to get done gets done. It is where your will gets done. Some people’s kingdom extends farther out into the community. People that are on school boards and city council. They have a little bit larger kingdom because they have more influence in the kingdom. What they want gets done in the community. Then you have people who have even expansive kingdoms. People in the business world that may be overseeing a few employees or hundreds or possibly thousands of employees. That is the realm of their influence. That is their kingdom. That is where their will gets done. Then you have people who have control over a country. Like Obama or Putin or the guy in North Korea. Those people have their realm of influence where what they want done gets done. So think about a kingdom as what you want done or your will to be done that is how you want to think about it. That is the kingdom realm that Jesus is talking about here. The difference between our kingdoms and God’s kingdoms is, one, our kingdom is very limited. Even the men who run countries. Very limited. We know that because if that kingdom begins to expand and encroach on somebody else’s kingdom, there is trouble. If you don’t believe me, go home and try to move your fence about 10 yards over into your neighbor’s yard. You are encroaching on their kingdom. That is what you are doing. But God’s kingdom is unlimited. It is ever-expanding. It just continues to grow and grow where he wants his will to be done. Unlike man’s kingdom that is controlled by power and greed and all that kind of stuff, God’s kingdom is loving, kind, compassionate, it is a safe place to be is the bottom line. In that context you begin to understand why Jesus, when the disciple said Jesus teach us how to pray, what did he say? He said “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We separate those two things. Your kingdom come, your will. It’s the same thing. The kingdom of God is where his will is done. It is the effective range of his influence. You have to understand that concept. We are not talking about a place. We are talking about the spiritual realm where God wants to get something done is done. What Jesus is saying by his coming, he is inaugurating this wonderful, expanding beautiful kingdom into the world. It is moving forward. This is 2,000 years ago. It is getting momentum. It is getting bigger and bigger. As we have already implied, when you have a kingdom that is getting bigger and bigger, you are going to start pushing into other kingdoms like kingdoms of self. You are going to run into Satan’s kingdom. What happens is somebody has to give and it isn’t God. God ain’t gonna give. He backed off for a while but through the coming of Christ he is expanding his kingdom farther into Satan’s domain. We know that is happening back in Jesus’ day just by a couple stories and one story in particular.
Remember the story when Jesus was driving out a mute demon for some reason. A Pharisee came up and said something like one demon casting out of another. He even called Jesus the chief of demons, Beelzebub or whatever the name was. Jesus was like that logic is no good. He says how can one person of the same kingdom drive out another. If you start doing that kind of stuff, then it is only a matter of time that that kingdom is going to collapse on itself. Then he goes on to say some very key words. He says “If I drive out demons by the finger or the power of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” This is 2,000 years ago. He is saying something is up. Something is happening. The kingdom of God is coming in. The kingdom of God is expanding. The kingdom of Satan is shrinking. I don’t have time to look at the passage, but it is Genesis 3:15 or something. Remember when Satan deceived Adam and Eve. God basically said you have bruised the heel. If you ever get bruised on a heel it hurts. How about when he says I will crush your head. You have bruised the heel, but I am about to crush your head. What this passage represents is the crushing of the head has begun and it is continuing on. The passage where Jesus is saying the good news is here. The kingdom of God is unfolding. It is expanding. Satan’s kingdom is shrinking.
And just so we can’t sit back and say that is a nice story in the gospel, he expects a response. In fact, he commands a response. He goes on to say “The time has come. The kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe the good news.” The word repent is a word we don’t use much. If you told somebody to repent, they would probably look at you like you are an alien. We just don’t use it. It is a shame because it is a good word. In some sense it has the idea not just that I am feeling terrible about my sins and I need Jesus. It is the idea that you are going one way and you turn the other. It is really even more than that. It also implies a sense of rethinking your situation. Rethink your thinking. Think about your life. Think about where you are in life. Think about your attitudes. Think about your behavior. Think about what you do. Then in light of the fact that God’s kingdom is rapidly unfolding, determine which kingdom you prefer to be in and if you prefer to be in God’s kingdom, then he says change your life. In fact in The Message that is how he says it. He says “Time’s up. God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the message.” Are you getting this? He is basically saying what you begin to see is that the gospel isn’t just about an invitation to have your sins forgiven so you can get your ticket into heaven. I don’t see that in Jesus’ words too much. Where did we pick that up? That the gospel is I feel bad about myself. I don’t want to do anything about it, but I will accept Jesus because then I will get my ticket into heaven but don’t ask me to do anything else. Where did we get that? Whatever the case, Jesus is offering you an invitation here. An invitation to a kingdom life that begins here and goes on into heaven. As opposed to the dominion of Satan where many people, including Christians, still live and don’t want to leave. He goes on to say don’t just change your life, don’t just think about your life, but do something about your life. That doing is about believing. The word believe is another word that we tend to not use very well or really explain correctly. A lot of times we think about believe as a mental ascent to certain core doctrines. Maybe it is the Apostle’s Creed. Maybe it is the Westminster Confession. Maybe it is the church list of doctrines. That is not belief. That is partially belief. And don’t get me wrong. Those doctrines and beliefs are very important because it gives a sense of structure and identity to a church and keeps them in the realm of what we would call orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is just right thinking. And generally, most Christians, in spite of their differences, think generally about the same sort of things. Doctrine is important. But doctrine by itself is absolutely nothing. Jesus wanted belief and he wanted action.
As I said, I did this conference. It was called the VIP Workshop. It was at Hosanna Church. I talked about the importance of being an intentional disciple. An intentional disciple was someone who didn’t just know what they believe. They acted on what they believe. They became intentional. They took intentional acts towards changing their life. God wanted you not simply to believe. He wanted you to act on that belief. It is easy to affirm that is what Jesus was saying because his half-brother James wrote it in his book. James was the guy that really had trouble with some of these Christians who said I have faith. I don’t need to do anything about it. You got works. I got faith. Really it doesn’t matter. James was very sarcastic. He says you believe there is one God. Good. So do the demons. They believe that too and they shake in their boots about it. So what if you believe there is one God! It doesn’t matter unless you act on that belief. Don’t be memorizing core doctrine. It is not just about believing the right things. It is belief plus action. I used an example yesterday. By a show of hands, how many of you believe that planes can fly? Most of you. You might believe it so much that you decide I am going to be an expert on that. I am going to go to school and I am going to study that. I am going to study about the pilots and the Wright Brothers. I might even memorize the parts of a plane. But until you step onto that plane and allow this thing to take you 30,000 feet into the air into the heavens, you haven’t believed in that plane. You haven’t trusted in that plane. It is the same thing with Christianity. A lot of you say I know what I believe. Yippy skippy. You can answer some questions on Jeopardy about it. It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing by itself. Belief is a verb. It is active participation. I had a professor in seminary who I borrowed a lot of this stuff from. He makes a quote that seems to fit here. He says “Belief means something like to trust in, rely on, and cling to the kingdom announcement of Jesus. Belief is obedient participation.” Obedient participation is what he is talking about here. Obedience plus action.
Our time is limited today, so I have to bring it to a close. I hope it is not that complicated. All I am saying is Jesus said the good news is that the kingdom of God is unfolding. Getting expanded. Satan’s domain is shrinking. Jesus offers an invitation to come into that kingdom. It is up to each of us whether we believe enough to act on that and move into the kingdom. Not that hard, right? The question is what does this have to do with discipleship? I would say everything. Absolutely everything. It puts discipleship into the right story. There are people that operate in the wrong story. We need to put discipleship in the right story. The wrong story is that I am a bad person and Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I am going to heaven when I die. It is a partial story, but it is an incomplete story because it lacks the motivation to become a disciple. If you know you are going to heaven down the road, why change now? Why allow your heart to be worked on? Why do you allow your vices to be cleaned up? Why would you even want to care about looking like the character of Christ? What is the motivation? I am getting to heaven. Jesus has forgiven all my sins past, present, and future. That is the wrong story. Call me a heretic or whatever you want. The right story is the story that Jesus is telling. The kingdom of God is unfolding. Entry into that kingdom is not the finish line. It is the starting line. When you get baptized, and I hate to say it, but many people take this attitude. I am baptized. I am in. I am out of here. I might go to church once in a while but don’t expect me to do anything. I am getting to the point where I don’t want to baptize anybody unless I think your heart is right. Most people don’t want to be disciples. He is saying this is an invitation. Take it seriously into the changed life. This is what is happening at your new birth. If I had time to look at John 3, he says no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again. So there is an assumption that if you are born again, you are in the kingdom. There is a passage in Colossians that affirms that. Paul affirms that when he says “For he has rescued us from the dominion of the 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 are a born-again believer, you are in the kingdom. So act like it. As we know, when you go into a new culture, what happens? Anybody been to a different country? Isn’t it weird? Don’t you feel out of place? Different language. Different customs. Different attitudes. You are hoping you have a translator and a guide that is going to help you through that stuff. We have a translator. We have a guide. His name is Jesus. Someone who has lived his entire existence and beyond in the kingdom of God. Someone who has lived his entire existence in the realm of God. Someone who has lived their entire existence in the kingdom of God. If you want to be a good citizen, if you want to learn how to operate in the kingdom of God, it makes sense, attach yourself to Jesus. Don’t let go. He is the only one that knows the way and how to navigate the strange world towards the kingdom of God where down is up and up is down. It is a very confusing place to be, but you have to attach yourself to him. He will guide you through it.
More importantly, this idea begins to put all of our discipleship efforts into its proper context. Churches do all sorts of stuff related to discipleship. Sign up for classes. Go to this. Go to this marriage conference. Go to financial peace. Go to all this kind of stuff. We don’t even know why we are going to them. If you asked somebody why do you go do small group? I like the fellowship. I like to hang out. No. What happens is when you begin to think that the kingdom of God is unfolding and you are being invited into that kingdom and you need to begin to act like a citizen of that kingdom, then those small groups move beyond just a place where you go to eat some cheesecake to a place where you are expecting people to help you grow in the character and action and mind of Christ. If you are spending time in your small groups arguing about doctrine, you aren’t getting it. I will be honest with you. You ain’t getting it. You are faking it. Anybody can argue about doctrine all day long. When you get a small group where somebody last week says you told me last week you are dealing with anger. How is it coming? I don’t know. What are you going to do about it? Helping them along. Getting rid of the stuff inside of you that doesn’t fit in the kingdom of God. That is what small groups are about. Do you get that? Go into financial peace. It is because the way you manage your budget is not in line with how God sees money in the kingdom of God. How you parent your kids or how you deal with your spouse. It is all becoming better at living in the kingdom of God as a citizen of the kingdom of God. I will talk more about this next week when I talk about aligning ourselves to the kingdom of God, but are you beginning to see where discipleship fits into this whole concept of the kingdom? When you begin to see how it fits, all that stuff begins to be purposeful. You begin to see that if you are really serious about being part of this kingdom of God that begins today and carries on through all eternity, you begin to say what do I want to be? If I knew I was going to live forever tomorrow, what type of person do you want to be and who would you follow? That is the question you need to ask. Not if you die tomorrow are you going to go to heaven. But if you lived today forever, what type of person do you want to be? You get there by being a disciple of Jesus Christ. By being someone who is qualified to live in the kingdom of God as a citizen of the kingdom. Beginning today and carrying through all eternity. Let us pray.
