Crash Course: Kingdom Of God

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Crash Course.

I'm Justin.

I'm here with Scott.

Good to be here.

Same Scott.

Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

I didn't uh say your last name and I was thinking like maybe someone out there is gonna be like, is it a new Scott?

No.

No, same Scott.

Same Scott, we always have.

But there's other there's other people who are contributors on this podcast.

Yes.

I think you are winning though, the the in terms of episode count.

I think so, and I keep track of that very closely.

Well, it's important.

And I want to stay in the lead there.

So if Megan ever tries to influence you to get ahead of me, resist.

She does.

Mainly by having my children.

That's the main way she does, which gives her a lot of points.

Here's the thing though.

We we've come up with a pay a pay schedule for these episodes.

We take your your pay rate, multiply it by the number of episodes you've been on.

That's how we get your pay rate.

Now your pay rate's zero.

Yeah.

But you have more zeros than anyone else.

Hey, that's you got a lot of zeros.

I got a lot of zeros.

A lot of people use that in the like, I got a lot of zeros, like that's like a lot of money.

Well, you have to have at least another number before those zeros for it to count.

That's what I'm working on.

And unfortunately, I don't.

All right, so uh if you're new, if this is your first episode of Crash Course, we talk about biblical concepts, we try to delve into you know the basics and get you caught up to speed if you are either a new believer or maybe you're a Christian that wants to have some knowledge to add to your faith.

Maybe you read the Bible and you come across terms or ideas and you're just like, I don't really get that, or it's hazy to you.

Our goal is to try to explain those simply, um, fairly quickly, and that's our goal.

And this episode, we're going to talk about the kingdom of God, a phrase that you see used often in the New Testament, a phrase you see used extremely often in the teachings of Jesus.

Um I will say before we jump into this, Scott, that if you haven't, I would listen to our previous episode on demons and the idea of a spiritual world, because I think that these do tie in together really well.

And Jesus, when he spoke, one of the things we have to understand about the Bible is that he spoke to a certain group of people that that already had an understanding of how things worked.

And so he there's a lot of pre-assumed ideas that the people that Jesus thought, and he didn't have to like go through immediately.

All right, let's just establish that there is a spiritual world.

Like they would have all believed that.

Right.

Um, that's why you see Jesus in some instances basically correct the way people think and go, hey, you've been taught this.

That's not how it is.

You know what I mean?

But when it comes to spiritual stuff, Jesus did not never said, Oh, you silly people who believe in crazy things like, you know, angels and demons and and Satan and heaven and hell.

You you guys are just let me let me correct you.

He didn't correct those assumptions, he really added to them.

Right.

And so you can I you could say this without with certainty that the person of Jesus believed heavily, completely, in the spiritual world that uh that is that exists and has influence over the physical world that we live in.

And from Jesus' own words, if you want to experience true freedom and true life, you need something to happen, you know, spiritually with you, if you want to experience life in the other ways that you know is best.

I'm I'm like that.

What am I even saying?

So let me shut up.

I was wondering.

It was getting it was way off.

It's been a long day.

You know, I was with all three of it.

It's my two-year-old's birthday today.

Uh so I ditched him to come here with you.

No, I've been with him, I've been with him all day.

And so uh he's uh you know that that phrase, the terrible twos?

Yeah, he's right on track.

Gotcha.

He's he's he's he's in he's in rhythm with with that.

Gotcha.

He's on schedule.

Okay, so let's talk about the kingdom of God.

When when you I think a classic example would be Jesus saying, you know, behold the kingdom of of heaven or the kingdom of God.

Sometimes those are used interchangeably, uh, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, you know.

Uh what is what does Jesus mean when he talks about the kingdom of heaven or or take it away, Scott?

Yeah, and you know, you've got to go back in time just a little bit before him to really understand what Jesus was saying.

But the Jewish people were looking forward to the kingdom of God coming to the earth.

And you think about okay, what is a kingdom?

What does it mean, the kingdom of God?

And you look the word kingdom up in a dictionary, and it's basically it's the realm where a king rules.

Right.

So it's it's that area, that realm of authority that's wherever a king's authority is recognized.

Yes, that is a kingdom, right?

Exactly.

And so the kingdom of God, the Jewish people knew that the kingdom of God was going to be coming.

They just didn't realize that Jesus was that king and that he was ushering in that kingdom.

So you think about up until the time Jesus came, the Jewish people were under the law, and their whole relationship with God was based on the law, keeping the law, being good people.

And then Jesus came along and he said, Okay, you guys got to repent, which means you got to think differently about this.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Quit worrying about the law, quit worrying about trying to be good people.

God is about to bring his kingdom here on the earth, he's about to rule, and you can participate in that.

And then it's interesting, during Jesus' ministry, he would give us signs of what the kingdom of God was going to be like.

So it's like there's one time where he gave his disciples authority to go out and preach the gospel of the kingdom and heal the sick.

And he said, And when you heal the sick, say, this is because the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

It's not even here, but the kingdom of heaven is so powerful that you've been healed because of it.

Jesus said at one point, he said that if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of heaven has come upon you.

And what he's saying is where God rules, demons can't stay.

The sick were healed because of where God rules.

There is no sickness.

There are no demons.

This is a place of God's rule.

And Jesus ushered in that kingdom.

We can live in that kingdom.

The Bible says we've been transferred from the domain, this realm of darkness, into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

So we are now part of that kingdom.

Now the day will come where that kingdom will be physically manifested.

When Jesus comes back, the kingdom of God will physically, if I can put it that way, be set upon the earth.

But right now, it is a spiritual kingdom.

Jesus was talking to the Pharisees one time and he said, The kingdom of heaven is in your midst.

I am here, guys.

I'm bringing it.

And as Christians, we have the privilege of living under the rulership of Jesus, the rulership of God, and he has given us his name, the name of Jesus, where we can enforce that authority of God.

We're no longer under the authority of Satan.

So I think a lot of times, you know, we we read the word kingdom, and it's one of those words that we both understand it, but we also attach a lot of of you know things to it.

Right.

And as people who don't live in a kingdom, right, we live in a in a democratic republic.

Um sometimes I think we get very fixated on the idea of a kingdom as a place.

You know, like England back, like it's a great example.

So England still exists, right?

United the it's the United Kingdom.

Right.

Okay.

Um, but it's not really a kingdom anymore.

You know, it still is in name, the United Kingdom, but it's not ruled by a king or or a queen.

You know, those are figureheads now that exist more for just tradition and and national pride than than for anything.

Um but there was a time not that long ago in human history when it was a kingdom, like legit, right, because what happened was dictated by a king.

And so I think sometimes we think about the kingdom of heaven, people really think about heaven itself, like the physical, you know, place that we will we will live, um, which according to the Bible is like a recreated earth.

Number one, that's a whole other podcast that we'll have to get into another day.

But but I think people think of a place.

They're like the kingdom of heaven, that's where I'm gonna go when I die.

I'm gonna go to the kingdom of heaven.

Right.

No, that's not what Jesus was teaching, right?

That the kingdom of heaven is not some place because it's not about geography, it's about authority.

Wherever a king's rule is recognized, that is where that king's kingdom is.

And so, you know, you think about it in in our world politically, okay, if I am if I'm a foreign dignitary and I'm living in another nation, am I still under the authority of the king or the ruler or the government of the nation that I am from?

It's like, yeah, I am, right?

And even in other nations, they they have you know embassies, which are basically like these small places where within those walls that nation's laws and that nation's authority is recognized and is sovereign within that room, even though it exists in a place where that is not the reality everywhere else, right?

And so if I have given my, you know, the idea of being a part of the kingdom, you hear that word a lot, you know, I'm you know, we're building the kingdom, it's God's kingdom, not our kingdom, all you know, hear that stuff.

The idea of living in the kingdom of God is living under the authority of Jesus Christ.

That if you have have put your faith in Jesus, if you believe in Jesus, you are part of his kingdom.

Because wherever you go, you know, like in this world, you're like this dignitary now, you're like this ambassador.

And the Bible calls us ambassador.

Yeah, we are royal ambassadors, absolutely.

And wherever we are, the kingdom is, because the rule and the authority of of Jesus is recognized and lived out.

You know?

So I I this is a question that I don't know, I I've just been help help me understand, Scott, how to how to live that out.

Like if I'm a new believer and I'm going, okay, so I put my faith in Jesus, so I guess I'm part of this kingdom now, I'm part of this, you know, movement, I'm part of okay, whatever.

What what is that, how does it change things for me?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think here's what's important to understand is Satan also has a kingdom.

And Jesus himself called him the prince of this world.

Right.

So there is the kingdom of the world, and Satan is the prince of that world, he is the ruler of that world, and people are under his authority.

And you know, you see people a lot of times doing things that they don't want to do, they're trapped, they're in bondage because Satan has a hold on them.

And the scripture I quoted earlier, we've been transferred from this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's their son.

So a couple of things is what that means.

Number one, we're free from the power of Satan, and anything that has kept us in bondage to Satan, we are absolutely free from.

Right.

And the only power that Satan has in a Christian's life is to lie.

And so our job is to learn the truth.

Jesus said, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.

But then the other thing is Jesus wants us, God wants us to go out and expand his kingdom here on the earth by ministering to people, Jesus, and delivering them from the domain of darkness and bringing them into the kingdom of God's Son.

And bringing to them an understanding that, yeah, you are in bondage right now.

And frankly, without Jesus, you're gonna stay in bondage because you can't fight spiritual forces with your flesh.

Right.

The spiritual realm is more powerful.

These spirits are more powerful than you.

Oh my gosh.

And I'll tell you, you you just used a phrase, spirit and flesh, right?

That's a phrase you'll see often in the New Testament.

That the idea is our our our battle as Christians is spiritual.

Right.

What holds us back is flesh.

Right.

And uh, and man, I'm even like anytime we talk about this, I even think of things in my own life like, oh man, there's so many areas of my life where I, if I'm honest with myself, I'm living according to my flesh.

I'm allowing the desires of my flesh to dictate what I do.

And I'm called and told that I'm not I'm not a slave to my flesh.

I I can say no to my flesh.

I can I can live differently than my flesh, you know, wants me to live.

And you know, you just said that the spirit is more powerful than the flesh.

A great example of that.

Think about something like depression, okay?

Um, and and I'm not saying that medication, by the way, I'm not saying if you're struggling with depression and and a doctor has given you medication to not take your medication.

So take this.

But my point that I'm saying is, okay, we we live in a time when in the last 20 years there have been more uh medication, you know, physical ways to fight depression than ever before.

There's more treatment, there's more medicine, there's more, there's more out there that you can get a hold of that will treat depression for you than ever before.

Right.

Yet depression rates are not decreasing in any way.

Right?

So you have more, you have more flesh trying to to, you know, flesh ways of addressing the flesh issue.

And, you know, for some people, great, but but overall, society-wise, it's not like, oh man, there's so few depressed people now because of all the medication that we've come up with, right?

Um so what's going on?

Well, the reality is there there is a greater force at play, right?

And you can't fight spirit with flesh, it just doesn't, it doesn't work.

You know what I mean?

Um, but Jesus would say to you, hey, my kingdom, you know, and in his kingdom is so different.

Like in his kingdom, these are some really important things.

He he uses this phraseology a lot.

In this world, you know, he told this to his disciples many times.

In this world, you've heard it said this way.

Or in this world, the wealthy and the powerful, they lord their authority over people.

But in my kingdom, in God's kingdom, it's different.

The the least is the greatest.

In my kingdom, the servant is the greatest.

So serve, right?

The kingdom of heaven is a way of living.

It's a it's a way of living under the authority of Jesus.

This is how I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong.

But it's a it's a life that we live in this world.

And I honestly want to keep going back to that idea of like an embassy.

You know, we are foreigners in a sense.

Right.

Absolutely.

The world we live in does not operate as a whole by the laws and rules of God's kingdom.

And those laws and rules, by the way, are to love unconditionally, to serve, right?

To give your life as a sacrifice, to live your life sacrificially, to give and be generous beyond even your means.

Those are the laws that Jesus has set up.

And you know, along the lines of what you're saying, the kingdom of God is just like uh in the physical realm, there are laws of physics.

And those laws rule.

I mean, they're reality, they rule.

In the kingdom of God, God has laws that are like spiritual laws of physics that are very different from the laws of the physical world.

And what God wants us to do is to, okay, how do we learn these laws?

And the fact is they're in the Bible, and the Bible tells us how to operate the principles, the laws of the kingdom.

So give you an example.

If you want to prosper financially, Jesus said, give.

Right.

Which is so like, no, no, no.

Yeah, that's so contrary to the laws of our world, right?

That you tell you completely different.

No, hoard it all for yourself, save it all.

It's all about you.

But Jesus says, and the Bible says, no, if you want to prosper financially, the generous man will prosper, give.

And Jesus said, if you want to be the leader of all, you've got to be the servant of all.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, no.

The world, the laws of the world was you lord it over the other people.

Jesus says, Not in my kingdom.

Here's how my kingdom works.

Right.

And so you asked earlier, so what does this mean to a newborn Christian?

Part of what it means is you've got to learn the laws of God's kingdom to experience the blessings that God has provided for us through Jesus.

And I think when people hear you know laws and rules, so often they they immediately go to restrictive things, like God is trying to restrict us.

Again, when you read Jesus say, you know, Jesus said, Those who who obey my commandments are my true disciples.

Right.

Right.

And it's so it's amazing how many times when you hear Jesus say to obey his commandments, read back a few paragraphs and you'll find him commanding something.

And almost always those are commands to love.

Right, exactly.

And to serve.

And what Jesus modeled, you know, what Jesus modeled, I mean, you look at the life of Jesus, and how did he live his life?

He lived, he gave his life in every sense of that term.

He gave his life to those around him.

Right.

He he he viewed nothing, even though everything belonged to him, it's like the opposite of Satan, right?

Like Satan is not equal with God, but saw equality with God as something to try to grab a hold of, right?

Right, rebelled against God.

Jesus is equal with God, but like Philippians chapter 2, though he was equal with God, he did not he did not cling to his his equality with God.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He sacrificed that, right?

So Jesus shows us humility, sacrifice, servanthood, um, you know, just an unreal generosity.

Jesus was interruptible.

One of my favorite examples of this as a pastor, because that's my my role in this world right now.

I'm a pastor.

And I hear people tell me all the time that want to meet with me.

Like, I know you're really busy.

I know you're busy.

I don't want to bother you, I know you're busy.

And I'm always like, you know, well, number one, I'm not as busy as people think.

I'm not really any busier than anybody.

Everyone's busy.

Right.

Um, but the idea is almost like, I know he doesn't have time to meet with people.

Well, Jesus had time to meet with people.

Right.

Like I'm one of my favorite favorite things about Jesus is he was interruptible, meaning like pretty, pretty inconsequential people by the world standards interrupted Jesus all the time.

You know, even to the point where his disciples would basically tell people he doesn't have time for you, and Jesus would be like, No, I do.

And so if Jesus had time for people, maybe I do too.

I think that like maybe his kingdom should work.

But what I've seen happen a lot in church in the last, you know, well, just my observation in my life is is this almost like CEO mentality of pastors.

Right.

Where it's like, well, you know, we've got to we we try to make the church look more like the world.

Right.

And, you know, so let's set up the church like the world.

And in the world, you know, I mean the CEO doesn't have time to CEO's gotta meet with the upper management so that the upper management can do their thing and it trickles down.

And you see a lot of churches organized like that now, you know, and and and cool, they've got 40, 50,000 people or whatever, and and that's great.

But I just wonder is like maybe it's not supposed to like shouldn't the world look at the church and go, man, I don't even understand how that works.

Right.

Not like, oh, you've you've created the apple of churches or you've created the Microsoft, like Jesus is the most important person in history and spent so much of his time having conversations with people who did not matter in the world's eyes.

That's upside down, which his kingdom, by the way, to our world, it's upside down.

It's upside down.

The least or the greatest.

You know, it's the servants that are the are the rulers.

It's it's those kinds of things.

And I gotta tell you, one thing that really bothers me is pastors who are not approachable, teachers who are not approachable.

You know, sometimes I go to meetings and the the teacher will not be out, the speaker will not be out among the people before they come out to speak because they don't want their have you probably heard this expression, I don't want it to ruin my anointing or take away from my anointing.

It's so dumb.

It is so stubborn.

It's not even that's like A, that's not biblical at all.

Like your anointing in the Bible, if you're anointed, it doesn't mean like just the like the idea of your anointing, like what is the idea there?

Like your anointing is is like every conversation you have, someone take a little bit of your anointing.

Give me a break.

Yeah, we're off on a little bit of a tangent for this episode.

But that's true.

But one thing I was gonna say, another point I was gonna bring up though is the laws of the kingdom of God.

Right.

And it's not that the laws of the kingdom of God, it's not like we ignore the real the laws of physics, the physical laws here.

Sure.

And I'll give you an example.

So for instance, the law of gravity is real, but there is a higher law called the law of lift.

And if you understand the law of lift, you can use the law of lift to overcome the law of gravity.

This is how airplanes fly.

And you can fly.

And that's how airplanes fly.

Kingdom of God is the same way.

There are laws that the physical world operates by.

We don't deny that those laws are real.

But the kingdom of God, the laws of the kingdom of God supersede those laws.

And that's when supernatural things happen, is when you make a decision that this law of giving is going to overcome the laws of hoarding and whatever in this world.

The law of serving is going to overcome and supersede lording it over other people.

Oh, I and I would tell any Christian to test that.

Yes.

Like, okay, think about marriage.

I mean, how the the world's way would be to see your spouse as someone who exists to serve you.

Right.

Right?

And so I'm frustrated because my wife isn't meeting my needs, or she, you know, this person isn't this enough, isn't it?

And how many marriages struggle because the other person's counting the things that that you don't do?

You know, you don't you need to do more of this, you're not doing this, you're not doing this.

Well, Jesus would say, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.

That would be his advice.

That's the Bible's advice in Ephesians to husbands.

Right.

So rather than even thinking about what, like, Jesus didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what we could do for him.

You don't see much of that.

You know, there's very few examples of Jesus getting frustrated with people because they're not doing what he's like, you're not doing enough for me.

Right.

But Jesus just gave, gave, gave.

So the law that living as part of the kingdom of God as a married person, men, it would be to love your wife that completely.

And you know what's crazy?

Like, love your wife that way, just like you were talking about liftifies gravity, like beats it.

Right.

Love your wife that way, see what ends up happening in reciprocation.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Um, parent your children with love and grace and and see what see how they turn out.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Um There just like you said, there's laws that God has established, and they're like the higher laws and the laws of love and generosity and servanthood and these things, they they just work.

Even there's a one of the greatest business books ever written.

I'm sure you've you've read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Yep.

Yeah, written in the 30s.

It's one of the best-selling business books ever.

Um, pretty much any CEO in America has probably read it multiple times.

And he has a quote in that that I love, and he's talking about being someone who's genuinely interested in other people.

It's one of the principles.

Take a genuine interest in people.

And his point is that hey, if you'll be someone who's just genuinely interested in other people and helping them succeed, you will you'll you'll like crush it in the business world for one simple reason.

Yeah.

Very little competition.

Because everyone else is out there trying to, how can I look good?

How can I look good?

And if you'll live to support others, like you're gonna be successful.

And so living as part of the kingdom of God, we'll wrap this up, and I want to let you finish with the last word.

Living as part of the kingdom of God would be us saying that Jesus has given us a new life under his authority, meaning that we have pledged our life to Jesus, so now we live under his authority, his kingship, and now his laws, his ways of life, they are the laws that we live by.

And uh they're laws that at the end of the day prove out, prove to work out in our lives and be of utmost benefit to us when we live them out, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And again, going to new Christians, learn the laws of God's kingdom, learn how God's kingdom operates.

If you want to be a success in marriage, in family, in business, in church, in ministry, whatever, learn how the laws of God works and then operate according to those laws, and that is what will bring there is a force of blessing that is on Christians' lives.

God said he will bless what we put our hands to, learn to operate his laws, and you'll see that blessing manifest in your life.

And I'll tell you if you want a practical, like read the New Testament.

Yeah.

Start there.

I mean, there's a lot of laws in the Old Testament as well, some of some of which play out still, some, you know, but I would just tell any new Christian, read, start with Jesus and his teachings, be familiar with the person you're following.

Like familiarize yourself with the teachings of Jesus, know what he's commanded you to do.

And anytime Jesus says I command you or my commandments, like pay attention to that.

And then Paul talks so much in the letters to the church.

You know, if you want to read in Romans and the Corinthians and Ephesians, Galatians, Colossians, all those, um, he spends a lot of his time really specifically talking about how to live out your life as part of God's kingdom in a world that operates very differently.

Because there are times, I'll say we'll wrap up, living under the authority of Jesus creates interesting moments when you live in a world that doesn't recognize his authority and values very different things.

Yes.

But it's it's it's totally capable to live it out that way.

All right, this episode's been a little longer than than our normal one.

So was the last one.

So the next time we record, we have to do like a really short one.

Like really short.

Like 10 minutes.

Yeah.

I was gonna say five, and I was like, that's stupid.

I'm not, you know.

We can't say hi in five minutes.

It's short.

It's this is all relative.

Uh, hope you hope you have gotten something out of this, and uh, we love talking to you guys, so we will see you soon.

Anything you want to add, Scott, before we go?

No.

No, Scott has nothing to add because I suck the air out of a room with all my talking.

All right.

See you guys uh on the next episode of Crash Course.

Hey, if you'd like more perspective on this idea of the kingdom of heaven, I'd love to recommend a video to you by a group called the Bible Project.

They do amazing videos that help put the Bible in perspective, that help enrich your understanding of big biblical concepts.

You can look for them online, just search the Bible Project, go to YouTube, uh, you can look up all their stuff there.

If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app to listen to this podcast, we'll go ahead and link the video in the actual episode.

If you're listening to this in another way, via iTunes or some other some other way, then just go to YouTube, search Bible Project, and search Heaven and Earth.

That's the name of the video, Heaven and Earth.

Uh, and thanks so much for listening.