I want to share my thoughts about last night a little differently. I want to add some commentary around our topic for the night.

There is this constant confusion around the Kingdom of God. And sadly- rightfully so. In the teaching last night, we discovered that for early Christ followers it would have been unfathomable for them to hear about those who proclaimed to be disciples of Christ who did not understand and orient themselves around the Kingdom of God. Why? Because Jesus constantly talked about it. A few examples:

“The time has come,” [Jesus] said, “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15 NIV).

“The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you” (Mark 4:11 NIV).

[Jesus] sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick (Luke 9:2 NIV).

“Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33 NIV).

There was a constant reality of the Kingdom of God, the place where God had complete reign and control.

Check out these verses from a widely known passage of Scripture:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10 NIV).

You can’t necessarily see this from the English translation, but in the original text, Jesus used a really interesting literary tool. Now, before you exit out of this tab because this sounds too much like a grammar class, hear me out. He uses something we call parallelism. Basically, parallelism is like saying the same thing twice but using different words. It was a really common practice in the ancient Middle East.

So Jesus was saying, “Your Kingdom come = Your will being done.” Basically, someone’s will and someone’s kingdom are linked together; God’s will and God’s kingdom are connected. That statement would have meant that God’s kingdom coming is the same as God’s will being done here in this world. All of those verses we looked at referring to God’s kingdom actually mean God’s will. In other words, God’s will is near, God’s will is what we seek, etc.

Jesus’ message was, “I am bringing God’s way of doing things into a world where things have gone terribly wrong. God’s way is coming.” Essentially, Jesus Himself was a walking example of what God’s kingdom would look like. By living a blameless life, He was saying, “If you want to know what God looks like, it’s Me. If you want to see what God’s kingdom looks like, watch Me.”

And when Jesus came to the world, He was in the business of restoring wholeness to people—be it physical, mental or spiritual. All of the things that were broken in the garden because of sin, Jesus came to restore. He restored sight to the blind because blindness was not part of God’s original plan. He healed the sick because sickness was not part of God’s original plan. He comforted the hurting because sorrow was not part of God’s original plan. But most importantly, when Jesus came He restored our relationship with God. His life and His death became the bridge for us to have an ongoing relationship with the Creator of the universe. What was destroyed in Eden was restored on Calvary.

Jesus restored what was broken; that was the purpose of His kingdom then and that is how His kingdom comes now. So basically, if we had to sum up God’s kingdom with one word, it would be restoration. But here’s where things start to get messy. Very rarely are your kingdoms and my kingdoms about restoration. If most of us were honest, we would admit our own personal kingdoms really are centered around that whole “King of the Hill” mentality—we push anything and anyone away that messes with us ruling our kingdoms. And while the idea of Jesus’ kingdom sounds good in theory, it starts to lose some of its appeal when our personal kingdom is at risk.

It feels so opposite from how most of us are wired. See, our kingdoms, in an effort to profit ourselves, often involve a lot of breaking, a lot of fracturing and a lot of damage all for the sake of “me.”

So where is your kingdom? The church answer would be “I live in God’s kingdom,” but you and I both know that we all have those places where we want God to take His hands off our lives and let us function how we want to operate, not how He wants us to live. We all have ways of thinking, grudges we hold on to, habits we feed, relationships that are too intertwined, things we want to say, places in our lives where we know what God wants to do, and we just say, “No thanks.” We would rather be in the business of preserving our kingdoms. If your kingdom is your iPod, what is on there that is influencing you more than you’d like to admit? If your kingdom is your relationships, what guy/girl has such a grip on your heart that you really don’t care what God says? If your kingdom is this group, what are you so afraid of? What causes you to avoid new people who come here? If your kingdom is your own comfort, why are you afraid to do something that you know will stretch you and help you experience God in a new way by serving others?

Following Jesus is not easy. Our will often wants to coerce, manipulate and be greedy. To invite Jesus’ kingdom to come into our lives, our worlds, means we invite Jesus to be king instead of us. We invite His way of doing things, His will, to take precedence over ours. We get out of the way.

But before you can even begin to seek God’s kingdom, you have to find your own. You have to identify that area or those areas of your life where your kingdom rules, the areas where you exert your will. So today, start there. Find your kingdom. Before you can surrender all your kingdoms to God, you have to start pinpointing what those are, and looking at what it would take to make that surrender happen. It will require something more from you than a simple prayer. It will require you living and even thinking differently. We’ll talk more about on the 22nd, but for now, ask yourself, “Where is my kingdom?”