My Kingdom is Not of This World Sermon
Today, the Church celebrates Christ the King Sunday and this is where we focus on Christ being the King of creation, king over the heavens and the earth, king and ruler over your life and mine.
We celebrate that Christ is the ruler of all creation. In the Christian faith, we believe that Christ existed with God before creation, that Christ was the agent of creation, and that Christ is the ruler of all creation. That is, Christ is the Lord of creation.
We also celebrate that Christ is the ruler of all nations, the ruler of all kings, and that his reign lasts for all eternity. All the kings and kingdoms of the earth will have their moment in history and fade away and die.
The kingdoms of this world are shakable and will eventually fall…repeat!
Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 2:6: about “the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.”
The Bible commentator Moffatt refers to them as "the dethroned powers who rule this world". Secular powers are still ruling, but in reality they are dethroned…dethroned in the sense that the sentence of doom has been passed upon them. They do not acknowledge God’s kingdom and so they will suddenly collapse or are in a process of silent decay.
Illus: Hitler, Communism, Saddam…
In recent times, Hitler believed his evil empire would reign for a thousand years; the follower’s of Communism have seen their regimes implode or self-destruct in most parts of the world and Saddam Hussein’s despotic rule is over…or has it simply been replaced by another one?
My point is, there is only one king who outlives them all…Jesus Christ the king.
Illus: Jesus…
Tonight as we celebrate together that Christ is the ruler of our lives; we will learn that the kingdom of God is the primary teaching of Jesus when he lived here on earth.
Jesus wanted his disciples to enter into the kingdom.
Jesus told parables about the kingdom and gave teachings about the kingdom and worked miracles of the kingdom.
Jesus wanted all people, everywhere to be part of his kingdom.
However, the world in which we live has a different slant on kingdoms, hasn’t it?
Illus: Christian writer and Pastor Chuck Swindoll suggests that the world system is committed to at least four major objectives, which can be summarized in four words:
Fortune
Fame
Power
Pleasure
First and foremost: Fortune…money. The world system is driven by money; it feeds on materialism.
Second: Fame…that is another word for popularity. Fame is the longing to be known, to be somebody in someone else’s eyes.
Third: Power. This is having influence, maintaining control over individuals or groups or companies or whatever. It is the desire to manipulate and maneuver others to do something for one’s own benefit.
Fourth: Pleasure. At its basic level, pleasure has to do with fulfilling one’s sensual desires.
It’s the same mindset that’s behind the slogan: “If it feels good, do it.”
Illus: A couple of hundred years ago, Bible expositor and evangelist D. L. Moody wrote:
The church is full of people who want one eye for the world and the other for the kingdom of God. Therefore, everything is blurred; one eye is long and the other is short; all is confusion...When the Spirit of God is on us, the world looks very empty; the world has a very small hold on us, and we begin to let go our hold of it and lay hold of things eternal. This is the church’s need today.
But what about us?
Have your ever day-dreamed about winning Gold Lotto?
What about being Bill Gates, Richard Branston, Oprah or Madonna for a day?
What would you do?
When I was younger, I used to indulge my imagination and pretended to be famous, wealthy, and powerful. Of course I grew up when reality of the real world kicked in…YOU KNOW, THAT DIRTY WORD CALLED WORK!!...but occasionally those fantasies returned.
In fact, multi-billion dollar industries are dedicated to making those dreams come true these days, aren’t they?
There are numerous examples that jump out of the media to grab our attention every day.
But only for a while…and always for a price!!
Let’s take the ultimate indulgence for a moment.
We’re going to join God and Bruce in the irreverent movie, “Bruce Almighty”, where God explains the rules to Bruce about taking his place for a day… Jim Carrey stars as Bruce Nolan, a discontented man who accuses God of doing a bad job running the universe. When God gives Bruce his powers to see if he can do a better job, Bruce eventually realizes that love and humility are more important than getting your way.
Illus: “Bruce Almighty.”…start 8:0:34:36…end 8:0:39:34…
So what does it really mean to be "king of the world?"
Is it anything like Bruce depicted in the clip we’ve just watched?
I think not!!
Illus: Scripture passage John18:33-37…
I’d like us to focus tonight on verse 36 where Jesus says: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Jesus is saying here that “His kingdom is not of this material world.”
This is not a kingdom that can be easily shaken or swept away like a Third Reich or a Communism Russia…
I would like to suggest to you that this king and the spirit of his kingdom lives on and are the strongest force in the world. This kingdom will be forever challenged but never defeated.
In our material world, all kings die…all presidents die…all dictators die. Every one of them has died and few of them are remembered. In the thousands of years of history, their names are already or will be gone, disappeared, forgotten, but there will be one king...one name that will continue. The spirit of his kingdom is alive today as much as it was 2000 years ago…Praise the Lord!!
What I am suggesting to you is that “they” attempt to execute Jesus in every generation, but no one has been able to kill the king.
Illus: Jesus is just another poster on a billboard somewhere for some…
No one has been able to kill the spirit of his kingdom. Kings have come and gone, and kingdoms have come and gone; and intellectuals have come and gone. All of them have at one time challenged this king with their weapons or intellect, and then, they have all died…except the King!....AMEN!!
But what about us?
Where is our kingdom?
Where is our focus?
We are supposed to be kingdom people are we not?
Do our lives reflect that?
We must be genuinely grateful we belong to a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
I remember reading my Bible one night in my hotel room in New Delhi last year and turned to Hebrews 13:8 which says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
This made me think of the line from one of my favorite hymn’s when I was a kid, “Abide in Me”: “O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” Change can be found everywhere, but not in Him. He is the unchanging Christ in changing times.
How often do I change my mind or my position on something of importance to the kingdom?
You and I belong to a kingdom which does not have a dead end. It’s sad that for so many of us, we have a tendency to cling to the unimportant or trivial things of life and miss the central thing…the unchanging nature of the kingdom of God.
Illus: A newspaper I read recently included a report about a development company which is testing different types of rock to see which will make a suitable foundation for a particular project.
The ages have tested the foundations on which men and women have built their lives, and only one has proved to be solid and dependable…the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:33: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
If you seek something else first then your life will be off-balance, out-a-whack…can anyone relate to that at times?
I sure can!
When your primary concern is for something other than the kingdom of God, then everything in your life will be out too.
The kingdom of God was if you like, the motif or brand name running through everything Jesus taught.
Jesus made it the central note of His preaching and also His praying, didn’t He?
It is time now to ask ourselves:
What exactly does Jesus mean when He uses the word kingdom?
The root of the word kingdom in the Greek means to rule or to reign.
The kingdom of God, then, is the rule or reign of God in our lives for which we are to pray for and to seek…Repeat!!
Jesus spoke of the kingdom as being in the present as well as in the future.
In Luke 17:21, Jesus said: “the kingdom of God is within you.”
Wherever there is a heart that is surrendered to the claims and demands of Jesus Christ, there the kingdom exists…
But there is a day coming, says Jesus in Matthew 8:11: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
In other words, Jesus is saying here that “when both small and great will sit side by side in the kingdom, and realize that in God’s order of things there are no favorites.”
Illus: Martha Snell Nicholson puts it this way in her poem entitled:
Christ’s Plan for Me
When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me;
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see.
How I blocked Him here and I checked Him there
And I would not yield my will,
Shall I see grief in my Savior’s eyes?
Grief though He loves me still?
Oh, He’d have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While my memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I can’t retrace.
Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With tears that I cannot shed.
I’ll cover my face with my empty hands
And bow my uncrowned head.
No. Lord of the years that are left to me
I yield them to Thy hand.
Take me, make me, mold me
To the pattern Thou hast planned.
Jesus Christ has a unique plan for each one of us…we need to be ready and open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit so that we do not miss out on what this means for each one of us.
We need to understand that throughout Scripture, all revelation of God’s Word to us is an invitation. In other words, all that God reveals to us in His Word invites us to live with Him forever...these are the words of eternal life!!
This is the reality of Jesus’ kingship... His kingdom…Jesus is Lord, so we might live near him in love. He is King of the World, not over us but for us and with us.
A challenge for me this week is this: What one area of my life can I hand over to the King of my World, Jesus Christ, this week?
What about you?
In Jesus’ Name, AMEN!!
