Matt Chandler - The Kingdom Made and Lost

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those—Genesis chapter 1. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you, and I’ve made this really easy: page 1. That’s where we’re going to hang out. Now, just to share my heart for the next 12 weeks, over the course of the last 15 years, I think I’ve preached through maybe fifteen to eighteen series, and some of those series have been like these Ebenezer rocks in the ground that have shaped or changed how we look at things, approach things, or behave as a church body. I am hopeful that this will be one of those series. For the next 12 weeks, we’re going to be in a series called «Citizens and Strangers: Living and Reigning in the Kingdom of God.» I’m hopeful that the Village Church will learn to use words like «we» and «us» rather than «I» and «me,» and I’m asking that God would show us collectively what it means to be the people of God in this place and this time for His glory and our good. So, I’m eager to see Him do those things among us. I think a more individualized Christianity, particularly here in the West, has taken from us the joy of what it means to belong to the Kingdom of God.

In Philippians 3:20, we are called citizens of heaven, and later, in 1 Peter, those who belonged to the church are referred to as exiles and strangers. The word «exile,» in particular, could mean «refugee.» Although we could just breeze through our Bible and not pay attention to these two concepts that saturate the New Testament, the first-century audience was hearing that language as kingdom language. Although they were under Roman rule, their ultimate allegiance was not to Rome but to the Kingdom. They heard that despite the comfort Roman rule provided—like Roman roads and Roman peace, things that had not existed before—they were declaring, «Our allegiance is not to Rome but to heaven. This is not our home; we are exiles and strangers here. Our comfort, our hope, has not been placed in Rome’s rule; it’s been placed in the King of Heaven.»

Now, this is hard for us for two reasons. First, all we have ever known is being part of a Democratic Republic. We have conquered tyrant kings; we don’t serve one, right? So culturally, the idea of King and Kingdom is foreign to us. As Americans, we know kings are bad. I mean, they’re so bad that we dumped our tea in the harbor, right? We aren’t having that; that is not our kind of government. The second reason is that Kingdom language in the Bible can be somewhat confusing. Jesus says, «The kingdom of God is here,» but it’s also in the future. What do you do with that? If it’s here, how can it be in the future? If it’s in us, how can it also be a place? If it’s about judgment, then how can it also be about salvation? There’s this strange language surrounding the kingdom that requires us to dive in rather than just do a cursory reading.

So, I thought it might help us at the beginning to define what we mean when we talk about the Kingdom of God. I’m going to use Steve Timothy’s definition. Steve is the CEO of Acts 29, a global church planting network, and here’s his definition of the kingdom: «The Kingdom of God is where the Father’s rule is exercised through the Son by the power of the Spirit, so it is willingly obeyed, gloriously displayed, and happily enjoyed among His people in the world.» So, when we talk about the Kingdom of God, that’s what we’re talking about. You have the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. You have this picture of salvation, and that salvation is creating, as we see, willing obedience to this King that is now gloriously displayed to the world around us, as it is happily enjoyed by His people in the world. That’s what we’re talking about when we discuss the Kingdom.

My hope today is to set the plotline for the Kingdom so that we might understand it more fully, and in the weeks to come, grow in the boldness that being citizens of heaven should bring about in the life of the believer. The plotline for the Kingdom is found in Genesis 1 through 3. I want us to look at some of this together. I won’t read all three chapters, but I am going to read quite a bit today. Genesis chapter 1, starting in verse 28: «And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.' And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth…»