The Coming Kingdom - Part One

Our scripture reading this morning is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

I will be reading verses 20 through 37.

We'll be considering the first portion of that passage this morning.

Luke chapter 17, beginning in verse 20.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

And if you happen not to have a Bible with you this morning, there uh should be one located there in that uh shelf pocket in front of you.

And you can find the scripture passage on page 876, and I'd encourage you to turn there with me.

And if you're here this morning and you don't have, you don't own a copy of the Bible, please take that uh Bible that you're holding, take it home with you as our gift.

We want you to have it, and it's our privilege to be able to give you that, and so please uh take it and read it and study it and then bring it back, and we'll continue to go through God's word together.

Luke 17, beginning in verse 20.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them.

Nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

And he said to his disciples, The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

And they will say to you, Look there, or look here.

Do not go out or follow them.

For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.

They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

But on the day when Lot went out from that from Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.

So it will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

On that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away.

And likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

Remember Lot's wife.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken and the other left.

There will be two women grinding together, one will be taken and the other left.

And they said to him, Where, Lord?

He said to them, Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

This ends the reading of God's word.

They began with a very simple question.

The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come.

They didn't understand the full impact of that question, and I think we ask that same question with different understanding, with different background.

We ask, when will the kingdom of God come?

The Bible tells us that Jesus is coming back, that he will fulfill all prophecy, and he will consummate his kingdom that he inaugurated at his first coming.

As we study this passage, I want us to put things in perspective of what Jesus is driving at here.

And all the questions that we might have regarding the last days aren't answered in this passage.

He doesn't make reference to Daniel's 70th week or the details of the tribulation or God's rescuing of his people or bringing his wrath on the wicked in detail.

We don't find a detailed discussion of the millennium or the great white throne judgment.

Jesus' focus is simple that he is coming back, and it is a time of dividing.

And the time is now to recognize who Jesus is.

What is the kingdom?

Let me share three authors coming from three different theological backgrounds and yet all saying very much the same thing in regards to the kingdom.

One author says this, Graham Goldsworthy, he says the New Testament has a great deal to say about the kingdom.

But we may best understand this concept in terms of the relationship of rulers to subjects.

That is, there is a king who rules, a people who are ruled, and a sphere where the rule is recognized as taking place.

Another author, well, Graham Goldworth puts it this way.

He says, put it another way, the kingdom of God involves God's people in God's place under God's rule.

Alvin J.

McLean, in his book, The Greatness of the Kingdom, writes something very similar.

He says, This a general survey of the biblical material indicates that the concept of a kingdom envisions a total situation containing at least three essential elements.

First, a ruler with adequate authority and power.

Second, a realm of subjects to be ruled, and third, the actual exercise of the function of rulership.

And Darrell Bach, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, talking about the present aspect of God's kingdom, adds this the church now is a part of God's promised kingdom program.

Since it has a ruler, Jesus, evidence of a reign, salvation authority exercised as the Christ, salvation itself, the distribution of the Spirit, baptism in his name, and Jesus functioning as the judge of the living and the dead, and a realm, believers in Jesus Christ.

As we study and understand the idea of a kingdom, we find that the Bible looks at this concept in many different ways.

In one sense, we can understand the kingdom is God's rule and reign, and in one sense, God sovereignly rules over all of the created order.

That he is king, he always has been king, he sits on his throne, he is not moved, he is not shaken, and everything comes under his sovereign providential authority.

And yet, in another sense, we can understand and see the kingdom as it's outworking and unfolding within redemption history.

Jesus could say that in his first advent that the kingdom of God was in their midst, that he was the king, and he was in the process of establishing his kingdom.

And yet we see, in a full and final sense, we recognize that the kingdom is something that we look forward to that we long to see fully realized.

In fact, some of the very familiar passages that we study in the Bible, in the Lord's Prayer, in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 and 10, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, and they pray, 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

And there's a prayer for God's kingdom to come.

At the Last Supper, Jesus could tell his disciples as he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

Jesus says, in one sense, the kingdom is here in the advent of Christ, it is in their midst, that he is the king, and yet, in another sense, the kingdom is not yet here, it has not yet come.

What the Jews of Jesus' day didn't realize, they didn't understand that ultimately Jesus Christ is the goal of all redemptive history, and all things are fulfilled in him.

In Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, it says, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Hebrews 1:1

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 20, For all the promises of God find their yes in him.

2 Corinthians 1:20

That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory.

In Acts chapter 13, verses 32 and 33, it says, And we bring you good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus.

Acts 13:32

In fact, Jesus, after his resurrection and talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus, it says this, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

We find in 1 Corinthians 15 that ultimately the kingdom of God will be delivered by the Son to the Father.

Paul writes this at the at the end of the ages and the consummation of all things, he says, but each in his own order, Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ, then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God, the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

Paul goes on to say that in the consummation of all things, when all things are subject to Christ, verse 28 of chapter 15, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

And so the idea of the kingdom has many components.

It has an already of the reality that Christ is come.

We're going to see Jesus talking about that.

And yet there is a future aspect of it that we look forward to and long for.

And so we find ourselves in this middle time between the already of Christ's first coming and the not yet of his second coming.

What the people of Jesus' day miss, that Jesus Christ not only inaugurates the kingdom and consummates the kingdom, but that he is the king.

And that the kingdom itself is summed up in him.

People in Jesus' day were thinking about a military king when the Pharisees asked Jesus this question.

We're going to see Jesus talking about the already of God's kingdom first.

The Pharisees asked Jesus a question, and it was pregnant with assumptions of what they meant by it.

They asked when the kingdom of God would come.

In their minds, they thought of a military, political kingdom.

They were looking for the Messiah to come and to be a warrior, to sit on the throne of David, to come in power, in conquest, establishing the kingdom of God.

Immediately, they were under the weight of Roman rule, and they longed for the day to be freed of that when the Messiah would come.

In their minds, that would be the moment when he would rally the troops and decisive victory would come.

And so they were looking for a political warrior king.

There would come riding on a white horse to unify the Jewish people, to throw off the shackles of the Roman rule and to establish the kingdom forever.

And yet Jesus didn't fit their expectations.

He was the Prince of Peace.

He came not riding on a war horse, but on the back of a colt.

They were expecting cataclysmic displays and signs in the sky, ushering in the kingdom.

And yet Jesus came meek and mild with no place to lay his head.

And so Jesus answers the question and he challenges their thinking.

He answers them, he says, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.

Nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

Now I need to clarify one point.

Some translations, uh particularly the King James Bible and uh some earlier translations of the of the NIV Bible, uh, say the kingdom of God is within you.

And and grammatically that is a possibility when you look at the original languages, the uh the prepositions that uh can take on a variety of meanings, and so some translations will say that the kingdom of God is in you.

I do not believe that is what Jesus is saying, particularly because of the context.

Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, he's talking to people who have rejected him, who do not believe in him, who do not have faith, who do not trust in him.

And clearly Jesus is not telling the Pharisees that the kingdom of God resides within them.

What he's saying here is the kingdom of God is in the midst of them.

And what he is saying is that he is the king.

That God's king is here and they don't see it.

Jesus' first coming was not in displays of signs in the skies and wonders of his glorious arrival.

And this is what Jesus tells them.

In verse 20, he says, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.

And that word here is only used here in the New Testament with signs to be observed.

And the word for observation is a medical term, and it's like a doctor examining his patient looking for symptoms.

And what Jesus is telling the Pharisees is that his first coming did not come with signs that the people expected.

It wasn't by outward observation, but was apprehended by faith.

Jesus, when he came, he preached the good news of the kingdom.

The kingdom was demonstrated in Jesus' miracles and casting out demons.

It was demonstrated in the dead being raised, the blind receiving their sight.

These men wanted signs, but they were blind to the reality of who was right before them.

J.C.

Ryle, an old pastor and writer from a previous century, noted this.

He said, The vast majority of men are utterly deceived in their expectations with respect to the kingdom of God.

They are waiting for signs which will never appear.

They are looking for indications which they will never discover.

The people in Jesus' day were looking for and they had their own expectations of who the Messiah was going to be, and so they missed the king who was right in front of them.

In Jesus' first coming, we find the breaking in of God's kingdom.

In Jesus' death and resurrection, all the promises of God are fulfilled.

He is the God man who is prophet, priest, and king.

The Bible tells us in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is the second Adam.

Paul tells us that in Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

In Galatians chapter 3, we find that he is the seed of Abraham, that he is the prophet like Moses, that he is the son of David.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Jesus himself says that he is the temple, that in three days this temple will be destroyed and rebuilt.

That he is both the Lamb of God and the high priest.

And yet they didn't see who he was.

But Jesus is telling him, is telling them that the kingdom of God is in their midst.

Well, now he turns to his disciples.

In verse 22, and he and he he moves from the already of the reality that the king has come to the not yet that the king is still coming.

He says in verse 22, and he said to the disciples, The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it.

And they will say to you, look there and look here.

Do not go out and follow them, for as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so it will be, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

I wonder what the disciples understood at the at Jesus' statements here.

You know, we have the privilege of having the rest of the New Testament.

We have the privilege when we read a passage like this, our minds begin to piece together all of the other understanding that we have about the second coming of Christ.

Our minds go to Matthew 24 and here and later in chapters 21 and 22.

Our minds go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and 2 Thessalonians and the book of Revelation.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention 1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

We begin to piece all of this together and try to understand all of the details.

But I wonder what it was like as they heard this and tried to understand what Jesus meant by this.

What was Jesus saying?

The fact that the kingdom of God was in their midst, and now he's saying the kingdom of God is yet future.

And that there's going to come a day when they long to see the king.

They look forward to the coming of the king.

And how they understood that.

Remember, even the disciples, even after the resurrection, they were still piecing them together.

We'll see later that uh that they're jostling for position.

They're debating about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom, who's going to sit on Jesus' right hand and on the left.

And they they even send their mother to try to get Jesus to uh to give them a privileged position.

We find even in Acts chapter 1, after the resurrection, they're still asking, okay, Lord, is it now, is it at this moment now that your kingdom is going to be established?

Acts 1 · chapter mention

There was this growing awareness and understanding.

And I wonder as they began to hear this, that the kingdom of God has come.

It's that Jesus Christ is the King, He is the one who was promised.

He was coming to die on the cross.

And he talks about that, and yet there is a sense in which he is still coming and he's not here yet.

Notice what he says here.

He says, You will long to see, you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Now, some think Jesus was uh telling them that they were going to look backwards and long for when he was here on earth.

I don't believe that's what Jesus is saying here.

He's saying there is going to be a time when Jesus physically is not present on this earth, and we are going to long to see his return.

We are going to look with longing and wonder, how long, O Lord, before you return?

That there is going to be a pining away in our hearts of looking for and anticipating and longing for the day of Christ's return, of the consummation of all that we experience in part now.

We have the promises of God in Christ, and we have experienced the first fruits of our salvation.

We've been forgiven for all of our sins.

We have been placed in Christ.

We have been redeemed.

We have been declared right in his children.

We've been adopted into his family.

We have all the rights and the privileges of a child of God.

We have the first fruits of our salvation, the Holy Spirit, and yet we long for so much more.

This is just a foretaste of what we will experience when we are with him, when Christ returns, when he establishes his kingdom, and after the millennium and the great white throne judgment, it says that we will be with him forever and ever in the new heavens and the new earth, and we will behold his face.

And what was now faith will be sight, the veil will be removed, and we will experience the fullness of our salvation.

We long for that.

We find ourselves in this body of flesh, we find ourselves struggling with sin and temptation and the weight of this world and its wickedness.

And we long for his return.

We long for the consummation of the ages.

Jesus Christ is not here yet in the fullness and power that one day he will be.

And all of that was established when he came and died on the cross.

And every promise that we have is found in Christ.

He says we will long to see the Son of Man and we don't see it yet.

Do you feel that longing?

Do you feel that weight, that tension of living in the already of knowing that we are his and that he is ours?

And yet we see through a glass dimly, we long for a day when faith will be made sight, when we will see him as he is and we will be like him.

Do you long for that day?

Do you long for the day?

Or do we, and we're going to see this next time we study this passage, do we look back?

Do we look at this world and long for this world?

Do we long for the return of Christ?

He says, you will long for it, you will desire it.

There will be a day and we live in that day.

And we wait and we watch and we look and we long and it's not here yet.

And we might even begin to wonder will Jesus ever return?

Jesus tells them to ignore people who claim to have inside information.

Look at what he says here in verse 23.

He says and they will say to you look there or look here, do not go out and follow them.

Ignore those who have inside who claim to have inside information and I'm constantly, I think, daily or weekly at least getting emails about proof positive about different things in regards to the end times.

It wasn't too long ago I was sitting in a lecture and I was told at that time that emphatically that within six weeks there was going to be war in Israel and that was going to be the beginning of the end and that we could anticipate that the rapture was going to happen as World War III began.

I remember being told years ago that the Antichrist was already alive and living in Europe, just waiting to ascend to power and and and and that we could we could know these things with certainty.

That we could discern the signs of the times and begin to know when Christ is going to return.

But remember what Jesus said.

Jesus said in Matthew 24 36 but concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only Jesus in his humanity at that moment in time in the incarnation, even he was veiled from the knowledge that he has as God in the reality of when the second coming would happen.

As a young Christian I remember being told that we could be sure that Jesus would return by 1988 because that was 40 years from the generation of the reestablishment of Israel in May of 1948 and so that we could look at the calendar and we could tell that within that time when I was first told that to 1988 that we with certainty would know that Christ was going to return for his people.

Some of you may remember that.

Some of you may remember 88 reasons why Christ will return in 1988.

Rosh Hashanah September 11, 12th or 13th of 1988 and there was a book that was put out I have it in my file still I bought it on the 14th at a deep discount.

But we were told emphatically that that would we could piece together all of the details and we could know.

The Anabaptists predicted the world would end in 1533.

The Presbyterians foresaw it twice in 1695 and 1763 the the Adventists the Millerites in 1844 the Mennonites in 1889 and 1891 the Assembly of Gods around World War I.

Many of us remember it wasn't that many years ago when Harold Camping was saying that the world was going to end on May 21st 2011 and when that didn't happen he revised the date to October 21st even though he had already predicted it in September 6th of 1994.

Jesus tells us that he's going to return but he says that we need to be careful that we don't lose sight of that reality and begin to listen to people who say they have inside information of every detail of his second coming and that they can predict it with certainty.

No man knows the day or the hour we may look and discern the signs of the times and yet we need to have a caution of thinking that we can predict and mark on the calendars exactly when it's going to take place because Jesus tells us that no man knows.

And yet we ought to long for and look for and wait for that day with expectancy.

Now notice what Jesus does say here about his return.

And again keep in mind he's talking in general terms not going into all of the details he says in verse 24 for as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be in his day.

He says when he returns it will be sudden, it will be obvious it will be powerful it will be unmistakable.

It will be like lightning flashing around the world that it will be universally recognized and unmistakable.

Again the text doesn't answer all of the details of the questions we might have and it doesn't fill in all of the understanding we have from other passages.

Jesus is focusing here on the reality of his second coming but we see enough to know that Jesus' first advent came he came in humility to bring salvation and in his second coming he comes to rescue his saints and to bring judgment on those who reject him.

And all things culminate in the cross and resurrection and that's where he leaves his first section.

In verse 25 he says but first he must suffer many things.

In the Greek there is a word that is used here that it is an emphatic word of necessity he must it is necessary first that he suffer.

And so Jesus turns his disciples' attention to the reality that before the glory comes the cross he wanted them to begin to understand that yes he is coming back in glory and power yes he is coming back to establish his kingdom he is coming back to judge sin and to rescue his people and to right every wrong and to establish his kingdom.

But first he must die on the cross it's necessary it's a divine necessity that he must suffer and die.

And friends we live between the already and the not yet we live between the first coming of Christ as we look back and we see what he has done for us and we look forward and we long for his second coming so we live in this time of tension between the already of salvation and the not yet of the fullness of what God has promised us.

Do you feel the tension?

Do you long for Christ's return?

There are some mistakenly who try to claim everything that God promises for the future and claim it now.

There is a day when we will have healing we will have resurrected bodies there is a day that we will have health and we will never be sick we will never struggle with sin.

We will never have sorrow we will have power we will have provision.

There is coming a day but it's not yet we live between the inauguration the beginning of the establishment of Christ's kingdom and the consummation the fulfillment of all that God is working towards the kingdom of God has begun and yet this present kingdom this fallen world has not ended yet.

And so we live between two worlds we still have sin and sickness and sadness and death.

We've been made genuinely new creatures in Christ as one writer said but we're not totally new.

Even when we come to Christ and we are genuinely made new creatures in Christ yet we struggle with temptation and sin.

We find ourselves in a battle we live in tension we long for deliverance we struggle with temptation our desires are divided and we live in strength through weakness that's the tension that we face and we look to the cross we there are kingdoms in conflict the Bible says that the God of this age has blinded the mind of unbelievers.

When we came to Christ we have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son.

We have become children of the king we are heirs we are in Christ and yet we find ourselves right now living in a fallen world that there are two kingdoms simultaneously that we have been translated out of one kingdom into the other and yet we live in a world that is ruled by the God of this age.

And he's blinded the minds of unbelievers.

The Bible calls it the kingdom of darkness it talks about Satan as the prince of the power of the air it talks about unbelievers as the sons of disobedience the Bible tells us we are in the world but not of the world.

We are aliens and strangers.

And yet God has left us here for a purpose and I want to remind us of that in these closing moments we look back and we see the death and resurrection of Christ we see the the fulfillment of what he had come for to die on our behalf and we look forward to Christ's return.

But what do we do in the meantime?

Why are we still here?

You know I always thought it was great and when I was a new Christian I thought wouldn't it be great if the moment we accepted Christ we just immediately got raptured?

And in some ways I mean I thought that would just be that that would just be amazing but then the problem is who would be left to tell other people about Christ before he returns God has left us here for a purpose.

We're in the time of the of the already and the not yet but why did God leave us here?

He left us here so that we could be a part of his rescue operation so that we could have the privilege of being his ambassadors to a lost and dying world to people who are still in darkness and point them to the light of Jesus Christ.

That our lives could so shine among men that they will see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

I'm reminded over and over again that other people are not our enemy.

That's what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 he says we do not wrestle we do not fight against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers the mistake that we make sometimes we look at unbelievers and we see them as the enemy they're the collateral damage with our enemy and we have been left here as part of a rescue operation until Christ returns people are not our enemy we do have an enemy and we are in the midst of a battle we are caught between the tension of the already and not yet we feel it within ourselves and in our struggle with sin and temptation in this world and the pain and the sadness and the sorrow and the death and yet God has left us here for a purpose.

Ephesians 6:12

And that purpose is to be his agents of grace in this great rescue operation that Christ provided for in his death on the cross.

And we can tell people that Jesus Christ came to die as a penalty for sin and that if you turn to Christ all of your sins will be forgiven and you will have new life in Christ.

And we look forward to and we long for that day when faith will be made sight.

But we don't do that sitting on a hilltop we don't do that staring out into the skies we do that by looking into the eyes of others of people who are lost and dying people who are caught in the grips of sin and holding out Jesus Christ the one who is the one who was and the one who will be forever and so I want to encourage you in this tension of the already and then the not yet that God has given us a mission and that mission is to tell people about Christ will you join me as I lead us in prayer Father God as we sit here feeling the tension I think in my own life of 30 years of being a Christian and longing for that day when sin will be no more when temptation will be no more in my life and we all face that reality and fight that battle I think of looking around and seeing the the sin and the sadness the depths of depravity that people fall into and the world and all of its lies and the enemy blinding people from the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and I long for that day when Christ returns and yet Lord I know until that day until that day you have a plan and a purpose for each one of us to hold out the message of light the message of the cross the person of Jesus Christ and so Father I pray for us that in the midst of the already and the not yet we don't lose hope.

We continue to long and we continue to love to love you and to love others until that day we pray in Christ's name.

Amen