Already, But Not Yet | Ps. Nate Capshaw

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Take your seats, guys.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Man, it's good to be here, huh?

So good to be here.

Uh, if you've heard me uh speak at all in any setting uh that's here, uh I always say that and I always mean it.

Uh it is so good to be uh here with you, uh worshiping, uh being challenged by God's word, uh just uh in community with one another.

Thank you so much for being here.

On behalf of our lead pastors who you just saw, Pastor Keith and Pastor Megan, I want to extend a special welcome to all of you who are with us uh for the first time.

Uh, if we haven't had the chance to meet you, we'd love to do so uh uh after service.

So please uh come meet us out in the courtyard.

I'd love to introduce myself and uh uh care for you any way that we can.

That's that's why we're here.

All of you uh who are tuning in online, thank you so much.

We are so glad that you're here as well.

Uh if you are willing and able, and if you're in the area, we'd love to we'd love to meet you.

We'd love to have you right here on a Sunday morning.

Um, usually we have the in-person audience welcome the online audience, but uh uh today I'd like the online audience to maybe drop an emoji in the chat and welcome the people in person.

We won't be able to see it, but we'll sense it.

I don't know what a welcome emoji is.

I don't even use them.

So, anyways, uh if you missed last week, uh here's what I want you to do.

I want you to carve out some time this week and to go and listen to the message last week because uh we're believing that actually we're gonna look back on last week as a milestone for our church.

It's very pivotal that we understand who we are, right?

And what we're here to do.

And so Pastor Keith unpacked that for us last week.

And so, what it's gonna look like for Celebration Church moving forward is in that message.

And every decision that we make as a church, everything that we do is going to stem from these pillars that Pastor Keith laid out.

So if you haven't had a chance to watch online or to listen to the podcast, please, please, please do that uh this week.

The things that he shared with us, I just want to reiterate really quick.

Number one, we celebrate the goodness of God.

We are celebration church, and we believe that God, in his nature, he is good, and that's something we're celebrating.

Amen.

So we are always going to celebrate God's goodness.

Number two, we engage the presence of God.

We engage the presence of God.

Wherever we are, we believe that through the Holy Spirit, God is with us, and so we engage that presence.

We're active, we're we're we're we're in a posture of being able to receive from Him.

And that's just not here on a Sunday morning, but like Eileen said, that is through groups as well.

If you've never been a part of a group or you're uncomfortable about getting in a group, it's for you.

So after service, go out and meet one of our group leaders.

Go online.

You can see all the information.

You can email a group leader and ask questions.

Uh, and so we're just believing that this is a powerful, powerful thing for our church to grow closer to God and closer to one another.

Amen.

The next thing is we believe in the power of God.

We believe that God has ultimate power and authority and what happened in the scriptures, what we read about in the Bible is for us as well.

We believe that God moved on behalf of so many, and obviously everything that we see is because of him, and we believe that that power still rings true today.

So when we're believing for incredible things, we're believing that God's gonna do it.

And finally, we demonstrate the love of God.

We demonstrate God's love.

We we are not passive, we are active.

Our faith requires us to move because of his goodness and grace to us.

So we demonstrate God's love.

That's how we're gonna reach the lost, that's how we're gonna equip the found, and that's how we're gonna help the hurting.

Amen.

Sound good?

So make sure if you haven't listened to that, you do so this week because we believe that that's what it means to be a part of a kingdom church.

What do you think of when you hear that word, kingdom?

What what what comes to mind?

It's a phrase we use a lot, and you probably hear it a lot here uh at our church, especially.

But but but what exactly does it mean?

Well, today I'd like to take a step back.

I'd like to zoom out, if you will, and take kind of a 30,000-foot view at what it means to be a part of the kingdom.

Uh I'll request that you kind of view this message as a prequel uh to last Sunday's message.

And all the Star Wars fans just got PTSD because they heard the word prequel.

Episode one wasn't that bad, guys.

Two and three, okay, I'll give it to you.

Here, before we begin, here's two things I want to ask.

I'm asking of a lot this morning, but oh well.

Uh, number one, no matter where you are in your walk, no matter where you are in your walk, I want you to listen.

Not to me, but I want you to be attentive to what God would speak to you.

Whether you've been walking with God for a day or a decade, I believe that he has something for you.

He can speak to us collectively and individually at the same time.

We believe in his power.

And number two, this is important, don't take my word for it.

Don't take my word for it.

Just because I'm up here on a platform uh uh preaching doesn't mean that that you can't go back in your notes that you're gonna be taking today, look back at what I said and measure it against Scripture.

God can speak to you just as much as He can to me.

So don't take my word for it.

What do you think of when you hear the word kingdom?

What comes to mind?

Is it a throne?

Perhaps you think of a crown or a scepter, maybe you think of high walls or a grand army.

What do you think of when you hear that word kingdom?

Perhaps you think of some popular shows or movies.

The crown on Netflix comes to mind for me, one of my favorite shows about the British monarchy.

Maybe Game of Thrones and all the real Christians were like, absolutely not, I would never watch such filth.

How dare you?

Maybe you think of some classics like J.R.

Tolkien, The Lord and the Rings, or maybe you think of something like Sword and the Stone.

Well, what do you think of when you hear the word kingdom?

How about when you hear us use the phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven?

What comes to mind when you hear those phrases?

You know, the kingdom, it's a little bit difficult to explain.

It's kind of hard to define, and uh there's many debates about what the kingdom actually is.

Scholars and theologians, basically, these people who dedicate their entire lives to studying and reading about the things of God, have different differing viewpoints on what it is.

Jesus himself, even when he's talking about the kingdom, he uses simile to try and describe it.

He he uses parables and stories to help us understand, to fit a human construct around something that that is is almost unexplainable, a very spiritual matter, but nevertheless is so true.

This is not a new question.

What is the kingdom?

It's not a new question.

And today we're gonna look at the question asked a couple thousand years ago.

Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

And Vinny, as if it wasn't hard enough to try and explain this, I'm only gonna use two verses to try and do so.

So set myself up for a win here, right?

Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

We're gonna be starting in verse number 20.

Hope you have your Bible with you, your Bible app.

If not, it'll be on the screen behind me.

Luke 17, 20.

One day, the Pharisees asked Jesus, When will the kingdom of God come?

Jesus replied, The kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs.

You won't be able to say, It's over there.

Or it's here it is.

For the kingdom of God is already among you.

The kingdom of God is already among you.

If you're joting down notes so you can refer to these later this week, you can jot this down already, but not yet.

Already, but not yet.

Will you bow your heads in prayer with me?

Heavenly Father, we we we are so thankful for the moments that we share, God.

We're so thankful for your word and and that it still speaks to us today, God.

God, um, I need you.

We need you, we need you to to be here with us.

Um I pray, Lord, that that we would see you and that we would hear from you.

Uh, because if it's just me, um, this is a colossal waste of time.

So we need you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

You ever had unmet expectations in life?

You ever been uh hoping for something, a certain outcome, a certain answer to a question, and you got it, and you were very, very disappointed.

Yeah, everybody's like, yes.

I have too.

Uh I remember about uh 10 years ago uh when I decided to move here to Orlando uh and um ended up uh learning that the traffic here was a little bit different than what I was used to.

And all the people from New York or LA are like, phew, you don't know what you're talking about.

Nevertheless, it's something that I didn't experience, so the traffic here was a little bit uh abnormal to me.

Uh however, I I lived on the east side of Orlando for for a few years and uh near UCF campus, go nights, and uh that's right.

And uh so I didn't have to deal with I-4 that much.

I kind of stayed uh in my little pocket over there.

But uh eventually uh my wife and I got married and we decided to kind of settle on this part of town near the downtown area and had to utilize uh what is I-4 uh a little bit more.

Uh and and but if you remember about 10 years ago was when this construction project, the renovations began.

Uh and so we were promised, you know, just a few years and things would be up and running and smooth and good to go and alleviate the headache, and so let's do it.

Uh so we move uh to the downtown area, and uh uh there's this like ramp and an exit that's like within a few feet of one another, and so people from the left lane are always trying to exit, and people from the right lane are trying to get to the it's kind of a mess, but uh so we uh we're like okay, let's just give it some time, and things start to evolve, and you start to see the sign.

Okay, cool, they're they're finishing it, and uh again, you know, a few days uh go by, and again, we're like, okay, well, just give it some time, we'll we'll trust the process here.

And finally they're starting to wrap things up a little bit, and I'm still dealing with the same headache.

My expectations have not been met.

If you've worked on this project, I mean no offense to you.

Uh the city of Orlando or Orange County doesn't come after me.

I'm you know just trying to use it as a point to illustrate um what we're trying to talk about today.

But nevertheless, my my expectations haven't been met.

I've been a little bit disappointed.

The Pharisees had expectations about the kingdom.

Uh they they felt like they knew what it should look like and how it should be.

If you know anything about them, they're they're very zealous about the word of God.

They're very strict uh and rigid about God's word up until this point.

And um I think I would have probably been a good Pharisee.

I'm pretty black and white, so if I know something, that's the right way to do it.

Uh that's the way it's gonna be done.

Uh and if you don't believe me, I've got Dwight Truth socks on that say fact right now.

So if you know, you know.

But the Pharisees, they are uh they're very strict, they're rigid.

Uh so whenever the Pharisees interact with Jesus, what they're usually trying to do is they're usually trying to trap him.

They're usually trying to get him to say something that they can lodge against him.

Whatever uh you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, that's not a new thing, right?

They they're always trying to trap Jesus to say something that they can condemn him with.

Their questions are not normally genuine.

They know the scriptures inside and out.

However, they've seem to have forgotten a portion of their own history.

If you know anything about the history of Israel and uh and its onset is God set it up so that he would be their sovereign, so that he would be their king, their ruler.

And not just in a religious sense, not to just govern those areas, but but to govern the civic sense as well, to govern their economy, everything would be under the rule and reign of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

However, they start to look around and have a different idea.

They start to see the kingdoms next to them and go, man, they they've got a king.

They've got a man that rules them and they seem to be doing well.

Things seem to be going okay for them.

Well, hey, uh Samuel, who's the prophet this time, why don't you go ahead and ask God?

Just let him know, hey, we want a king too.

We want to look like the other nations as well.

We don't really want to stand out, right?

So Samuel goes, hey, God, I don't I don't know.

They're wanting me to install a king here.

What do you think about it?

And God tells him, well, if they choose that, here's the things that's going to happen to them.

So Samuel goes back and lets them know, hey guys, if you really want a king, here's what's going to happen.

Ah, we want it anyways.

Okay.

So God bends to their request and grants them a king.

And what happens?

Well, if you read the story, everything that God laid out happened.

They go from one king who fails to another, from one king who fails to another, and up and down, and in oppression, and and and being taken slaves and their land taken over, and it's just a roller coaster ride.

Sounds a lot like me, if I'm honest.

Hey God, uh, I see that everybody else has this.

I want it too.

Yeah, I haven't called you to have that.

I called you to be different, I've called you to be separate.

Yeah, but you see, it's working out for them.

Everything's fine for them.

From the outside, maybe.

Everything's everything's look looks just fine.

I I want it too, God.

And sometimes I can hear God say, Okay, here's what's gonna happen if I give you this.

And he goes down to listen, I go, I I'm different.

I'm gonna be able to handle this different, Lord.

I'm gonna be able to take care of this way better than the other guys.

And so sometimes he bends to my request and he says, Okay.

So much like the children of Israel.

What about you?

What are those things in your life?

We fast forward to the conversation that we're reading about now, and just like their ancestors, the Pharisees believe that they know what the kingdom should look like.

They have an idea of what it should be.

So if they know the what, they probably want to know the when, right?

If you know what's coming, you probably don't want to know when it's coming.

You probably want to know how it's coming and how you can know.

And so they ask what appears to be a fair question.

Hey, Jesus, when is the kingdom of God coming?

And in typical Jesus fashion, his answer is quite profound, right?

What does he say?

The kingdom of God is already among you.

The kingdom of God is already among you.

Some translations say it's in your midst.

One either says, it's within you, the kingdom of God is already among you.

Now we don't have the Pharisees' response, but I can only imagine what they thought.

What?

This is the kingdom?

Roman oppression is your grand idea of the kingdom?

You gotta remember at this time they're under the empire of Rome.

Caesar is their ruler.

And so when they say, when they ask him, okay, well, it's obviously not now, so when is it?

And he says, Well, it's already here, they gotta be walking away going, okay, we got something on this guy now.

This is the guy saying he's the Messiah and this is the kingdom we've been expecting.

Now, there's many takes on what Jesus meant by it's already among you.

And today I'd like to propose a take for you.

I'd like to propose to you that perhaps what Jesus was saying in his response was you're asking the wrong question.

You're asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking when, instead of asking what, instead of asking how, you should be asking who.

You should be asking who.

Why?

Because the very definition of a kingdom is this.

A kingdom is a country, state, or territory ruled by a king.

What gives a kingdom its identity?

It's the very fact that it has a king.

And so they're asking when, how, what, what are the signs?

And Jesus is saying, you should be asking who.

It's been about God from the beginning.

Spoiler alert.

It's been about the king from the very beginning of time.

Psalm 24, 1, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

The world and all its people belong to him.

Psalm 47, 2, for the Lord most high is awesome.

He is the great king of all the earth.

Isaiah 66, 1, this is what the Lord says heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.

Jeremiah 10, 10.

But the Lord is the only true King.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

Jesus had been with them this entire time.

Jesus had been teaching that the kingdom is near.

Repent.

Turn to the kingdom.

He's been doing miraculous signs and wonders, and still they're asking, when they're expecting something different.

Their expectations are not being met.

They're disappointed.

Israel rejected Yahweh as their king.

They rejected God and they said, Bring us a man.

So God did.

And a few hundred years later, he brought him a man again.

Only this time it was Emmanuel.

This time it was the image of the invisible.

This time it was God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.

And guess what they did?

They rejected him as well.

They rejected him as well.

What about us?

It's always the question, the uncomfortable question we like to ask when we're examining ourselves against Scripture, right?

What about us?

Are we so consumed with our little kingdoms and our constructs that we can't see Jesus performing signs right in front of our very eyes?

Are we so consumed with what we think, our expectations of what it should be, that when Jesus shows up, we don't recognize him?

What about us?

These are questions that we've got to ask ourselves.

Are we asking when?

Are we asking what?

Are we asking how?

Are we asking who?

Are we trying to get Jesus to conform to our kingdom?

Are we trying to conform to his?

So how do we change that?

Right?

I mean, if it's a problem, let's try and fix it, okay?

How do we change that?

Well, first and foremost, the grace of God, okay, we get that checkbox.

But second of all, let's look at some ways that we do that.

And first, the greatest place to start, again, is the king.

Let's look to the king, let's look to Jesus and see how that we can recognize it.

You see, our king is not uh a typical uh tyrannical uh lord.

He did not come to intimidate us, he came so that we may emulate him.

That's the point of him being here.

There's a couple key components that I think really uh really help us define what kingdom culture is and how we can begin to see it in our lives.

And just like the sermon title indicates, these seem to be a little bit paradoxical in nature, okay?

But but bear with me, and even more so, once you start to walk these out, once you start to live them, they become all the more real and they start to ring true as and they start to be a foundation firmer than the ground that you walk on.

Number one, I think the way that we recognize the kingdom is this ruling in the kingdom comes by serving.

Ruling in the kingdom comes by serving.

Mark chapter 10, verses number 42.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

You know that the rulers in this world world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them, but among you it will be different.

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Do you want to be great?

Do you want to achieve greatness?

I think we all, if we're honest, like, yes, of course I want to be great.

I mean, look at Jesus.

He was great.

He changed the course of history.

I think sometimes as Christians we can get conflicted because we look at these things like humility and meekness and we wonder how they can coexist with greatness.

What I think the Lord's trying to share with us is that greatness is okay.

It's just the manner in which we get there.

It's just the manner in which we try to achieve it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be great.

But the way that the world does it, through greed, through trampling over one another on the way to the top of the ladder, is contrary to the way of the kingdom.

Because Jesus tells us that by serving, we are great.

I wanted to have a great marriage, and who doesn't, right?

I wanted to have an incredible marriage as best as it could be.

And so whenever I was in the engagement process, I was asking tons of questions, including, should I do it?

But I wanted to have a great marriage.

Thank God it was one of the best decisions of my life.

I love you.

But I wanted to ask questions.

I wanted to learn from people who had been there, done that.

I wanted to learn from their mistakes.

And so some of the best marriage advice that I got was from a friend of Jen and I, and uh he told us both, he said, you'll have a great marriage if you choose every day to outserve one another.

Well, what he wasn't trying to suggest was that it be a competition.

That wasn't what he was trying to get at.

He wasn't saying, okay, what you do is in your kitchen you put up this plaque here, and then uh every time you serve, you just put a tally mark next to it.

That's not what he was saying.

He was trying to help me change my mentality.

He was trying to help me understand that it's not about me.

He was trying to help me see that our marriage could be great.

Ruling in the kingdom comes by serving.

The second thing I think is just uh embodies what kingdom life actually is.

Living in the kingdom comes by dying.

Living in the kingdom comes by dying.

And you're thinking, well, Nate, that's really gonna get the masses in here.

I'm just gonna go to my job and say, hey guys, you want to be Christians, you gotta die.

What?

But the scripture teaches John chapter 12, verse 24.

John 12:24

I tell you the truth.

Unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone.

But its death will produce many new kernels, a plentiful harvest of new lives.

Those who love their lives in this world will lose it.

Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.

What Jesus is referencing here is he's referencing what's about to happen to him.

He's referencing the fact that he is about to die.

He is about to be that colonel that's going to be buried.

He's letting us know that in order for us to have life, he has to give his up.

In order for us to have life, he has to let go of his.

Now it's our turn.

Now it's our turn to emulate him.

We must die to ourselves, number one, so that Christ can live through us.

You see, I don't want people to see me.

I don't.

Because if they look at me close enough, they'll realize that I'm flawed.

They'll realize that I can't measure up.

But if I die to myself continually, daily, if I make that decision, people start to see Christ.

And that's exactly why he came.

Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

We must die to ourselves so that Christ can live through us.

Why?

Because the only way we can have true kingdom impact is if Christ is our king.

That's the only way.

You know what the number one killer of Christians is?

It's complacency.

It's complacency.

I punched my ticket to heaven, I'm good.

I'm on the J train.

I don't know if you remember that song.

Toby Mack, way back in the day.

Kind of cheesy, but it's funny.

It's good.

I punched my ticket, I'm good.

I'm coasting.

We have to lay hold of these truths, guys.

We have to embody the fact that we must serve.

If we want to see the kingdom come, the will be done.

If we want to know, if we want to recognize the kingdom among us, we have to serve.

If we want to recognize the kingdom among us, we have to die to ourselves so that Christ may live through us.

And eventually so that others around us can see that, and so that they can have life as well.

We can't just nod our heads and clap our hands and say amen.

It's got to be real.

We must live it out, live this out, and that's how we recognize the kingdom in our midst.

That's how the kingdom is within us.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the band back up with me here.

Um we've talked about the already, right?

We've spoken about the already.

What about the not yet part?

Philippians 3, chapter 20, in the message version.

But there's far more to life for us.

We're citizens of high heaven.

We're waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ.

He will transform our earthly bodies into glorious bodies like his own.

He'll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be under and around him.

As Scripture says, um, Christians, um, the death of us promises not only new spiritual life, but one day it'll promise new physical life as well.

Resurrection.

Just as Christ was buried and raised, so will we.

That's a good hope.

That's good news.

That's that's a good promise that we can have, that we can stand on, that we can believe by faith.

And then one day the kingdom will be inaugurated in full.

Just like it was in the beginning, where heaven and earth collided, where they intersected, and the Lord walked among us face to face with Adam and Eve.

That's gonna be a beautiful day.

Until then, though, guys, our commission is to go.

Our commission is to go and make disciples, not to just sit around and wait for Jesus.

We must embody these.

We must live these out, guys.

We must serve, we must lay our lives down.

One, so that Christ can live through us, and two, so that others can experience that as well.

We look forward to the fulfillment of that kingdom.

I don't know about you, but I am.

I'm looking forward to that fulfillment.

But right now we can celebrate the fact that it's already among us.

It's already among us.

The kingdom of God already, but not yet.

You're so good.

You're so good, God, and we're so thankful for your word.

And it speaks to us thousands of years later.

It's alive, it's real.

Lord, what it requires of us sometimes can be hard and difficult, but what we understand is that you empower us to do it.

We understand that if we die, Christ can live within us.

So we believe that.

We receive that.

We want to live that out.

Perhaps you're in here this morning or online or maybe later, and you're not really sure about kingdom life.

Yeah, I may have laid it out for you a little bit.

Um, but you want to know more, you you you want to experience more, you want to you want to actually have a relationship with Jesus so that He can teach you, so that you can walk with Him.

I just want to give you an opportunity to respond to that.

We're gonna pray here in a moment, and you can ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life, to be your King.

So if you would, on the count of three, just gonna ask you to lift a hand, and we don't believe that the hand really does anything except it symbolizes and it confirms what's going on inside.

Online, you can let us know as well in the chat if you want to accept Christ, and we're gonna be here with you every single step of the way.

So on the count of three, if you want to walk in the kingdom, if you want to be renewed, one, two, three, you can lift your hands.

Amen.

God bless you, amen, God bless you, amen, God bless you, amen.

Can we celebrate everything that God has given us?

If you made a decision this morning, uh, like I said, we want to walk alongside you.

This is about community, this is about doing it together.

That's what the church is for.

We'd love to have a conversation with you outside.

We'd love to point you into some next steps.

If that if now's not your time for that conversation, you can simply text the word decide to the number on the screen behind me, and uh, we can reach out to you and have a conversation later.

A great next step for deciding to follow Jesus' baptism.

And we're gonna be having baptisms in a couple weeks on the 27th.

So maybe you've never been baptized, you just made a decision, or maybe you were baptized as a kid and didn't really understand what it was all about.

You'll have that opportunity to sign up for that next week, but but stay tuned for that.

Go ahead and stand to your feet.

I want to bless you on the way out.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May He make His face shine upon you, may He give you His favor and His peace.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

We love you guys, and we'll see you next Sunday.

Thanks again for listening.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and review and share what you've heard today.

If you'd like more content like this, or you'd like to connect with us, go to celebrationorl.org.

We hope you join us next time.