Kingdom Mission

To understand the history of kingdoms/nations is to know that they tend to rise and fall. Some exist for the betterment of the leadership, using the populace to promote and enrich but a few. Others, though, like the nation we occupy, are intent on bringing the greatest benefits and potential to all. To abide here as one of the nation’s people is to experience the mutual benefit of safety and prosperity. While the whole world cannot abide within our borders and know this freedom, there is a passion for aspects of our way of life that can be taken to the world. Rather than just rising and falling like every other self-consumed kingdom, those who can exist for the care of their people will strive to bring all of them into the fullness of all that’s provided in this empowering freedom. Where the kingdom’s mission is to get all within its influence into collective liberty and wealth, there will be an endless extension of its meaningful existence. Any other mission will eventually falter and fail.

In Jesus’ proclaiming of His kingdom, there was a call not just to live where the blessings are available but to abide in the actual experience of His total freedom. This was His mission in coming to earth as a man, to welcome as many as possible into this new realm of freedom. His passion was to serve and not be served, that each one who joined Him would know the fullness of His kingdom’s provision. However, for each one who encounters the blessings of deliverance, healing, safety, and provision in the kingdom, there is also a reception of His mission to take this opportunity to those yet perishing in the kingdoms of the world. To live in this new life’s abundance is to become an advocate for it, desiring, like Jesus, that all would receive and know eternal life in freedom. Becoming a partaker of this goodness also takes on Jesus’ passion for those yet lost in service to sin. The more there is the experience of kingdom abundance in His presence, the greater will be His vision for ensuring that all would have eternal life. This is His kingdom's mission.

Notes

Jesus’ Kingdom Mission – Proclaim Good News

Luke 4:42-43 (NIV) 42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

Good News – Don’t have to perish/can have eternal, abundant life – must believe.

John 3:16-19 (NLT) 16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. 18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

Good news – Jesus took all our punishment in obedience to the Father.

John 12:32 (NLT) 32 And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

Spoken long before His arrival – salvation in no other – all will bow/believe

Isaiah 45:21-23 (NLT) 21 Consult together, argue your case. Get together and decide what to say. Who made these things known so long ago? What idol ever told you they would happen? Was it not I, the LORD? For there is no other God but me, a righteous God and Savior. There is none but me. 22 Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other. 23 I have sworn by my own name; I have spoken the truth, and I will never go back on my word: Every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare allegiance to me.”

Jesus’ mission – Going to them with salvation.

Luke 19:10 (NLT) 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

To see/believe is to become a witness for His mission.

1 John 4:14 (NLT) 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

Mission – all receive the gospel.

Matthew 24:14 (KJV) 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

The priority of rejoicing for those in the kingdom:

Luke 15:31-32 (NLT) 31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Luke 15:8-10 (NLT) 8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

Jesus’ clear directive

Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) 18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Overview:

The purpose in Jesus’ coming was to preach the good news of the Kingdom.
This good news is that God loves us so much that He sent Jesus so that believing in Him we would not receive the judgment we deserve.
Believing in Him is beholding Him as the sacrifice for our sins and loving this light more than the world’s darkness.
Believing in Him is the only way to salvation and escape from perishing, and at some point all will bow their knee to Him as Lord.
The purpose and mission of the kingdom is to take this good news to the whole world.
To enter in and participate in the new life of the kingdom is to take on a passion for its mission.
Seeing people come into the kingdom will rise in priority over things of the world and will be the vision that drives every other endeavor for those who believe.
Being with Jesus will mean going with Him into the world and sharing His goodness with authority and boldness.

Prayer:

Father, thank you for Your love that provided Jesus as the sacrifice for my sins on the cross. I’m so grateful that He fulfilled His mission of bringing eternal life to me, and I believe in Him now for salvation and the abundant, eternal life that is mine in Your kingdom. As I confidently draw near to You by the Blood, fill me with Your passion for the kingdom mission that made my salvation possible. As I am flooded with the light of Your goodness, let me carry that same light to a world lost in darkness. May they not perish but have eternal life as I go.

Declarations:

I have found a treasure in the Gospel that brings much greater joy and fulfillment than anything the world offers.
In beholding Christ, I see the provision of righteousness in new life that is mine by His mercy and grace and is eternal and abundant.
The more I experience this treasure of life in Him, the more I am compelled to share it with those still condemned in darkness.
In responding to His directive to go with this mission, I am given power and authority to demonstrate as He did that He is greater than any other, their Lord and Savior.