Living the Grandeur of God's Kingdom

The great thing for us always to remember is the relationship between parts of a whole and the whole itself, and what he's really saying is that you must never emphasize any one part at the expense of the whole. But then he goes on, of course, and as I say, he puts this in the form of this statement. [00:02:20]

The kingdom of God must be our controlling thought. What does that mean in practice? Well, the kind of thing that the Apostle is telling these people, therefore, is this: we must always remember that we are people who belong to this Kingdom. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into this Kingdom of God's dear son. [00:04:47]

A kingdom does not consist of a collection of individuals. That doesn't make a kingdom. A rebel consists of a collection of individuals, but not a kingdom. Where you've got a kingdom, there is a cohesion, there is a general submission together to certain fundamental laws and rules, particularly submission, I say, to the king himself. [00:07:20]

The kingdom of God is entirely different from every other Kingdom that we tend to get into trouble. And that is why our Lord, as I said just now, gave such emphasis in his teaching to this matter of the Kingdom. Now take two illustrations of that which we had in that reading at the beginning out of the 20th chapter of The Gospel According to St. Matthew. [00:09:41]

The great problem of the Christian Life, this is indeed the theme of all the New Testament Epistles. All these Epistles have one great object, and that is to teach us how to think in a Christian manner. Now, the fact that you're born again doesn't mean that you do that automatically. [00:13:11]

The kingdom of God is Not meat and drink. Now, what does this mean? Well, what he's saying is you mustn't ever conceive of the kingdom of God as merely one aspect or one part of the kingdom of God. Indeed, you must not even think of it as a collection of parts or portions. [00:24:55]

The most terrible thing that you and I can ever do is to give the impression that Christianity is something small or that the church is something small. That's what makes this verse such a vital one. I believe there are so many people outside the Christian church today because you and I have given the impression that it's something small. [00:26:00]

Never give the impression that the kingdom of God is negative. Never give the impression that it's small, that it is just something narrow. Now, our Lord, you see himself, of course, was constantly having to deal with this whole thing. So much of his time was spent, as you remember, in argumentation and disputation with the Pharisees and scribes. [00:26:59]

The kingdom of God is not doing good. There are many, many people in the world who are doing great good and are sacrificing for it, but they are deniers of the Christian faith. That isn't the kingdom of God. The Christian does good, the Christian is moral, but you mustn't identify Christianity or the kingdom of God with just one aspect or one portion. [00:36:00]

The kingdom of God is neither speaking in tongues nor spiritual healing nor any one of these things. These may be parts of the Kingdom, but the kingdom of God doesn't consist in these things. Or to put it still more generally, and it's still true, it's perhaps not as true as it once was. [00:38:00]

The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. Very well, my friend, my time has gone and perhaps something else as well, so we leave it at that for this evening. Now there you, in essence, is the negative aspect of all this. The kingdom of God isn't that. That's the point at which we've got to start. [00:39:39]

What impression are we giving of it? I'm so concerned about this because, to me, this is the thing that controls evangelism ultimately. You see all this interest in evangelism. People are outside. What can we do to get them in? And you begin to talk about details of how to approach and methods you imply and all the rest of it. [00:41:26]