Open—Cornel Visan
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Psalm 145.
Starting at verse.
We could start at verse 9. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord, and Thy Saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of Thy Kingdom, and talk of Thy power to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts and the glorious majesty of His Kingdom. Thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom.
And thy dominion endures through all generations, and.
So here we see that the the Kingdom of God is glorious and majesty.
And we find out that the Kingdom of God consists not of not only of material things, but of spiritual also. So it says, we find this the verse that says the heavens declare the glory of God.
The heavens are part of his Kingdom. It's part of what he has created.
And so they declare the glory of God. Well, what about the waters? What about the mountains? What about the grass? What about the the the cells? Last night it was mentioned that we have somewhere between 35 and 60 trillion cells. What about each cell in our bodies, individually and collectively? Do they not declare the glory of God?
And it says here all thy works.
The Lord is good to all, and all His tender mercies are of all His works. In Ephesians we have that God who is rich in mercy. The mercy of God is not doesn't have only to do with salvation.
But it's over all his works.
So in the Kingdom of God, we're just going to take a few moments to see some of the characteristics of the Kingdom of God.
So what should our worldview be? How does God see what he has created? God created the heavens and the earth as his Kingdom.
And he has placed man in there for that very purpose. So that should be the way we should view the world, the heavens and the earth. And it says here that thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, Thy dominion through all generations.
We could go back and.
Just read real quickly.
That verse, Those verses that were referred to earlier in First Chronicles 29.
First Chronicles, 29.
Thine, O Lord, verse 11, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the Kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.
That is the correct worldview, and if we don't get anything else as out of this meeting or as of this time, it is to come with that, to leave with that, that the heavens and the earth is the Kingdom and the Lord is above all.
So you say, well, you know, I look around and I see a lot of stuff that's bad and, you know, the news doesn't seem that good and there's all these things. So it's kind of hard for me to believe that.
I understand we're going to talk a little bit about that, how we how that plays into things, but.
We have to take the testimony of Scripture as to what it says to us.
And we go by the testimony of Scripture, not necessarily by what the news or what we see.
So the Kingdom of God.
The Lord in John says, I did not come of my own will, but the Father sent me. And he says again, The words that thou gave us, me I gave them.
So when the Lord Jesus came into this world, what?
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Words.
Did he?
Proclaim to the people What were the words that the that the Father gave him the message for him to proclaim to the people, knowing full well that the the people, the nation and and the world was in darkness.
Was in sin, was enslavement. So what was the message that God gave to the Son to give to us? So for that, let's turn over to Luke chapter 4.
Luke chapter 4, verse 42.
And when it was day, he departed, and went into a desert place, And the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. And he said unto them, I must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.
If Walla Walla was a city in Israel.
2000 years ago.
And we were there as belonging to that city and the Lord Jesus.
Came to Walla Walla at that time.
What would he preach? What would he tell us of?
The Kingdom of God.
He says I must go to other places and preach the Kingdom of God. For therefore, for this reason I am sent God, sent the Lord Jesus to preach the Kingdom of God.
Moses in the Old Testament says, And the Lord will raise up a prophet from among your brethren like unto me, hear him.
There is a thought in that statement that as the Lord had brought something into this world through Moses.
That the Lord now was going to bring something through this prophet which we know is the Lord Jesus. So he says, hear him. The Lord Jesus did not come into the world to repeat what Moses brought in.
The Lord came to bring something else so.
Let's go to Luke chapter 16.
Luke chapter 16, verse 16.
The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the Kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it.
The Law and the Prophets. Moses.
Was until John. From that time the Kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it.
So we see here a separation, we see something a break and something different brought in.
And the Lord Jesus was the one that brought that in.
He was sent for this.
Every man presses into it.
There are different philosophers that have come up throughout the ages.
And.
They seek to answer a number of questions, and two of those questions are what is reality?
What is real?
And who is well off, or who is blessed, or who has the good life?
To describe what the good life is.
So what is reality?
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Reality is God.
And his Kingdom.
Reality is God and his Kingdom.
We have to deal with God and we have to deal in the world that He has created.
And that's what reality is.
And what is the good life?
The good life is those that are born.
In the Kingdom of God.
The blessed life is those that are born in the Kingdom of God.
Now in the world, you're not going to be told that. In the world you will be told that the good life is the people that make a lot of money.
In the world, you'll be told that you see all these advertisements, that the good life are people, that.
Are beautiful people.
They have full head of hair, you know, they have nice teeth and things like that and that's the good life.
It's people that are like that or the good life are people that are famous.
And things of that nature.
What the Lord says is that the good life, those that are blessed are those that enter into the Kingdom of God, those that are partakers that are citizens in the Kingdom of God. That is the life, the good life that God has determined to be. And we'll see why that is.
And when you have, when you are part of the Kingdom of God, it doesn't matter then whether you're rich or not. It doesn't matter if you're wealthy or not, or if you're doesn't matter your social standing. It doesn't matter if anybody knows you're, nobody knows you. None of those things matter because you are in the Kingdom of God and that is all that matters.
So the Lord said that people press into it. How do we enter into the Kingdom of God? And before we we we look at that like to give a definition. So the Kingdom of God is the the realm, the area where the effective will of God is.
Taking place. And so we see that God's will, effective will, is in heaven.
And on Earth?
They're His and what He wills happens in heaven and on earth. So from a creation standpoint of you, that is true.
There is one place, or one area I should say, where the effective will of God is not, and that is in the heart of an unbeliever.
And that's what God wants to do is he wants to come in and have his will be done in your life, in your heart as well. And when the will of God by the Spirit.
Comes in and rules in your life. You are in the Kingdom of God and that's where he wants you to be. That's the place of blessing that God has for us.
Just really quickly with before.
Before we look at how to enter the Kingdom of God.
We'll see that this was a prominent topic that the apostle Paul had on his heart and and part of his ministry. So let's turn over to Acts chapter 18.
Acts chapter. Sorry, chapter 19.
Pause an emphasis.
He meets the disciples of John and he prays and the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They're about 12. And so verse eight he says, and he went into the synagogue. This is an Ephesus and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God.
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Verse 10 and this continued by the space of two years.
And then Acts chapter 20.
Now he's speaking the defeat of the Elders when he's taking leave from them.
And he says.
Verse 21, testifying both verse 20 and how I kept back nothing that was profitable to you, but I showed you and I've taught you publicly, even from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 24 But none of these things move me, neither count I might my life dear unto me myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the minister which I have received the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God, shall see my face no more so.
He first when he gets Ephesus for three months he's disputing about the Kingdom of God, and now he says.
He had spent two years there. He says, you know, I have gone from house to house publicly and privately, and I've preached the Kingdom of God to you. What a tremendous thing that Paul was occupied with and so.
You don't have to turn to it, but I'll just read at the end of his life for two years. He's in Rome and it says and Paul dwell two whole years in his own hired house received all that came unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. No man forbidding him.
Beautiful. So what the Lord began.
Preaching the Kingdom of God, Paul continued.
It's a very important topic. So now, real quickly, let's turn to John chapter 3.
John chapter 3 we'll start verse one. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except the man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and a spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
So the Lord first tells a result of what happens. What can a person that is?
Born again, What can they do? A person that is born again can see the Kingdom of God.
A person that is not born again cannot see the Kingdom of God.
But then he says that unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. So our entrance, remember we the Lord said that people press into to enter into the Kingdom. So the way we enter into the Kingdom of God is through the new birth, through the birth of the water and of the Spirit, the Spirit. If we're not born of the Spirit, we're not, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
So I'm not going to take the time, but I'll just point out that the 1St.
So the Lord, now what is happening here is that Nicodemus, who is a chief ruler, obviously he was not, he was not one of the people that would have been in the audience to hear the Lord teach, because the Lord was considered somebody. He was considered somebody that is leading the people astray because he had not been brought up into the Pharisee.
And the religious schooling so.
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The people were saying that he's leading the people astray. So he didn't Nicodemus, but he, he had this information somehow that the Lord was doing all these miracles. And so he says, Lord Rabbi, we know that you're come from God because nobody can do these miracles that you do except God be with him.
But the question is, how is the Lord doing these miracles? Well, he answers that in Matthew. You don't have to turn to it. He says, but if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you. The Lord Jesus was doing these miracles through the Spirit of God. And the Lord said, if that is true, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you.
What a tremendous thing that he was revealing to them.
That the Kingdom of God had come to them and that they could enter and he made the Kingdom of God accessible to people. You don't have to be. You don't have to be college educated. You don't have to be.
A hero you don't have to anything. The Kingdom of God is accessible to everybody.
So it's by the Spirit.
So in this chapter, what the Lord is doing, first he's telling what God's part of it is because he says then he'll begin explaining, says, well, you don't know how the Spirit moves. So he tells about how God, God's part of it, and then he tells man's part of it. So he says just as Moses raised up the serpent, those who looked on him were were healed.
So, so the Son of Man will be raised up and those who look to him believe on him.
Will be healed.
So what one of the things that were on the minds and on the hearts of the people of Israel was is the Kingdom of God coming?
You had Anna, and Simeon says that they waited.
Nicodemus was one who Joseph was, a man who waited for the Kingdom of God. So in Luke we could turn there to Luke chapter 17.
Luke chapter 17, verse 20.
And when he was demanded.
Of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God.
Cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo therefore, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.
The Kingdom of God is within you if you have the Spirit of God. If you have been born of the Spirit of God, you have the Kingdom of God within you.
So it was not some big outward show that the Kingdom of God would come.
But it was one person at a time.
And so we are carriers of the Kingdom of God. So what happens is the Lord tells the disciples, go and preach the Kingdom of God, and in the city that refuses you, says, when you leave, shake off the dust of your feet, but tell them this, that the Kingdom of God has come near.
We, each one of us, wherever we go, we take the Kingdom of God with us.
Because it's within us, through the Spirit.
So let's turn over to Romans chapter 14.
In Romans chapter 14 we find Paul writing these verses. This verse for the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
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Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't.
So what we find in the Kingdom of God is exactly opposite of what we find in the Kingdom of men.
Or if I could even put it in the Kingdom of darkness, Satans Kingdom. Because Satan has his own Kingdom. So what we find in the Kingdom of God is righteousness. What we see in the Kingdom of of men is unrighteousness.
And everybody complaints about that. Everybody complaints about their government because somehow or another their government is unrighteous and they're not doing things the right way.
Whether a person is a Democrat, they'll complain when a Republican is in power or when.
And vice versa.
So we complain about unrighteousness, but in the Kingdom of God it is righteousness.
Kingdom of God is peace.
We don't have to belabor this point. Peace is so sorely lacking in our world, but not only in our governments and politics and things like that, but among people.
In the Kingdom of men there is not peace.
People are not peaceful.
And in the Kingdom of God, we have joy.
In the world, there is no joy, so that's why the world has an entertainment system that continues to manufacture joy, so people can fill this void because they can't go on living in in a state of sorrow, which is what they experience in this world.
Because they're living in Satan's Kingdom and not in the Kingdom of God.
So we have these three things, righteousness, peace, and joy.
In the Holy Spirit.
Are we experiencing those three things in our lives?
And to what measure?
And notice that they're not dependent. Well, if my job is going OK or if my health is going OK or whatever.
Then I'm going to experience these things. No, these things are there. It is. They are the fabric of what the Kingdom of God is, and they are the result of what the Kingdom of God will produce. So a person that's living in the Kingdom of God will experience these things.
Regardless of what's going on in their lives.
So I'm not going to turn to it because my time is limited, but you all, I'm sure, are familiar with Acts 16 where Paul and Silas.
They're in a jail.
And their backs had been beaten.
And it's around midnight.
And what are these two men doing? They're praying and praising God.
There are other, there are other people that were were prisoners in that same jail, but they were not praising and they were not praying, they were not praising God. So here we have one jail, we have two groups.
One set of group of people, they're not in the Kingdom of God.
We have another set which are these two people, Paul and Silas. They are in the Kingdom of God and so even though their situation is the same.
Outwardly, yet they're living in two different kingdoms.
And the outcome is that Paul and Silas can rejoice and praise God.
Even though their backs were beaten and they were in shackles.
How is that possible? Because they were living in the Kingdom of God, which produces.
Righteousness, peace, and joy.
That is the message that God gave the Lord Jesus to give to us.
One more verse.
And I apologize for having to go through different scriptures, but that's where they're located and I want you to see them so you could further study on this. You don't have to turn to it, but it's First Corinthians chapter 4, verse 20.
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So Paul, he's now speaking to the Corinthians and he's bringing up this topic again, but he says this at this time, for the Kingdom of God is not word, but in power.
The Kingdom of God is not Word, but is power.
When we take our place.
As being part of the Kingdom of God.
Then we have power to go and live according to that.
So what would your day look like?
If in the morning.
You might say something like this.
God is here with me when you wake up.
God is here with me.
I'm in the Kingdom of God.
And the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy, and power.
What do you think that the outcome would be? You would you go out into the world, into your daily life, feeling defeated, feeling overcome, feeling like you're fighting Goliath because of the problems that you're dealing with?
No.
If you take your place in that which you are in, if you're born again, you're in the Kingdom of God.
Then, oh, I'm in the Kingdom of God.
Then I'm going to act according to this.
You know.
Just as an illustration.
We, we came from Romania. We came to the United States. When we came to the United States, it did us no good to start talking Romanian to everybody because nobody knew Romanian. We had to learn the language of the country. And once we learned that language, then that empowered us to communicate with people and to go get a job and and live life.
So it is by adopting those practices of the place that we're in that made it possible for us to to progress and to to live our lives.
And so it's the same thing when you take your place in the Kingdom of God that gives you power.
Because if the Kingdom of God is righteousness, then I belonging, I'm in that.
Then I will be able to produce righteousness myself. If the Kingdom of God is peace, then I will enjoy that and I will be able to be peaceful and have peace in my life because my life is no longer just kind of open season, but it's within the Kingdom of God.
God is in control. His will is working in that place.
His will working in my life.
And when I have that, when I have that I take my place in the Kingdom, I have joy. Why?
Because the Spirit of God, that's what he produces. He produces joy in my life.
I have joy of what has been done to me, meaning the Lord died on the cross for me. My sins are forgiven. I'm going to heaven. I have that joy right now. Not not in the future when I get to heaven, but right now. The Kingdom of God is to be experienced here now on the earth.
When I take my place in the Kingdom of God.
Kingdom, God is power.
It is eternal. It's not going to go away.
The Roman Kingdom came and went, the Babylonian Kingdom came and went, the Grecian Kingdom came and went, and all other kingdoms are going to come and go. But the Kingdom of God remains. It is power.
God.
Is we say God is in control, God is on the throne, on the throne of what? He is on the throne in his Kingdom.
That gives us power to take a stand.
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That gives us power to go forward because we know that the Kingdom that I belong to cannot be destroyed. I can be destroyed. My life could be taken away, but So what? I die in the Kingdom of God.
What a glorious thing.
That's what prompted those martyrs throughout the ages.
They saw.
Something else?
They saw the Kingdom, Scripture says. We look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen.
The natural man cannot see the Kingdom of God, but we can.
We can because we've been born anew. And so that's why Paul says he prays. I pray that your eyes might be the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened, that your understanding might be enlightened. Why? So you could see this Kingdom which is real.
And so all then the instructions that we have in Scripture take on a new meaning because so the Lord in in Matthew chapter five, he talks about anger.
So he says, you know what, in the Kingdom of God there's no anger.
That's not the way we behave, the Kingdom of God.
In the the Lord talks about scorn there about about thinking less of your of your neighbor. He says no, that's not the way we behave in the Kingdom of God.
And so you see the Lord Jesus in Matthew, he says, you know he has the Kingdom of God in his heart.
And in his mind, and that was what God had told him. So he's, he's always looking for ways to help people understand what it is. He goes, what should I like in the Kingdom to So he's looking for things that are familiar to us so he could teach us about the Kingdom.
And one of the things he says?
He talks about, you know, the forgiveness, the man that owed his master $10,000, let's say, and his master forgave him and then he somebody else owed him $100 and he didn't forgive him.
So what he's saying is, in my King, God's Kingdom, we operate on the basis of forgiveness.
In our relationships.
And think about that.
Think how different that is in the Kingdom of men and the Kingdom of the world. It doesn't matter if it's in the United States or in China or anywhere else. The man operates on the same thing. You know, forgiveness is probably the hardest thing a person can do.
But the word says that's what God's Kingdom is, and I want you. Since you're part of God's Kingdom, this is the way you need to behave.
In the Kingdom of God.
Men love their wives.
As Christ loved the church.
Well, in other places.
Men beat their wives.
So you see all these things, then take a they have, they have a purpose. They're teaching us what the Kingdom of God is like.
So.
Last night it was mentioned by our brother that things have changed.
From when he was younger, economic and things like that, and we see things are in a constant flux and change in the world.
But there's something that's not going to change.
And that is the Kingdom of God.
So if we plant our feet, our lives in that.
That'll help us to give us a direction. The Lord says, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Do that first and then these things will come.
And so it is is it any wonder why he gives us this instruction to seek ye first the Kingdom of God. It's because that's the message that the Father gave him. So he says this is the message you need to you need to pay attention. You need to learn what this is in the Gospel of Matthew, you have the Kingdom of heavens, plural is 32 Times mentioned. So you have 32 data points.
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32 different things.
Points of information that the Lord gives to us about the Kingdom of heavens in the Gospel of Luke.
You have the Kingdom of God being mentioned 33 times, so 33.
Aspects. Things that the Lord wants you to know about His Kingdom.
And about your Kingdom, because that's where you've been placed.
So the Kingdom of God.
Is God's message to us.
And the Kingdom is righteousness.
Peace, joy and power.
It says when the Kingdom is preached, people press into it. Do you want?
To live in that kind of a Kingdom.
And that's the point people complain about, you know, the government and things like that and.
I'm sure they don't do things right.
But they do the same things in their own lives. They don't want to go somewhere else.
Meaning they do not want the Kingdom of God. So really what happens is.
Their hypocrisy is being shown because when an alternative is being presented to them, they don't want to do that. But if you want to do that, it says you have to press into it.
May the Lord help us that we would be able day in and day out to understand, recognize that we are in His Kingdom and that as being empowered by the Spirit of God, we have the power for righteousness, for peace, for joy, and the power to be a testimony for Him.
Till he comes.