The Gospel of the Kingdom (Part 1)

When Jesus stepped into public ministry, He did not come with a self-improvement plan or a set of religious rules. He came with an announcement. Mark tells us exactly what He preached.

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Mark 1:14-15 (NKJV)

Before He healed a single body, before He called a single disciple, this was the message: the gospel of the kingdom. Not the gospel of getting your act together. The gospel of a King who has come near. If you want to understand what Jesus meant, you have to go all the way back to a mountain in the wilderness.

A kingdom of priests

At Sinai, before there was a temple or a single sacrifice, God told Moses what He was actually after.

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Exodus 19:5-6 (NKJV)

Hear what God says. All the earth is Mine. And you will be a kingdom of priests. God's plan was for God to be King over His people, and for His people to be kings and priests. Through God they would present God to the nations around them, and through God they would represent those nations back to Him.

This clears up something that troubles a lot of modern readers. We read the Old Testament stories of God telling Israel to go and destroy the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, and we wonder, how is God commanding this? But look again. Does Israel not “destroy” the Canaanites when the Canaanites become Israelites? Abraham Lincoln once asked, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I turn them into my friends?” That is how Jesus conquered you and me. He loved us and gave His all to us until we willingly surrendered ourselves to God.

What God really wanted

Here is the part we keep missing. God's preferred plan was to dwell among the people, to live in them and with them. Every single Israelite was meant to have God in them and with them. It was never supposed to be the exclusive privilege of the kings, the priests, or the prophets.

Anyone, anywhere, at any time could have God living in them and doing great things for God through them. A nation of kings and priests. That is the gospel of the kingdom. That is what your King has been after from the beginning.

In His days the righteous shall flourish, And abundance of peace, Until the moon is no more. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.

Psalm 72:7-8 (NKJV)

The idols that crowd God out

For roughly 420 years God patiently tried to work this plan with Israel. And each time, the people would drift. They kept the God of Israel, but they went looking to other gods for protection, for fertility, for success. And every time they followed the ways of other gods, they came under bondage and suffering and captivity.

Idols are the enemies of the kingdom of God in your life. Every idol will make you a slave. If you serve God but look for protection, validation, or life from anything other than God, that thing will enslave you and, in the end, it will kill you.

And before you assume the pastor is only talking about money, sex, and power, let me name some of the idols that we tongue-talking Christians carry around.

• Doctrinal accuracy. Do you need everyone around you to believe exactly as you do? No one has ever been saved by being doctrinally airtight. People are saved because they met Jesus. Chase perfect accuracy and you will spend your whole life pursuing something you can never reach, wrecking friendships at the altar of being right.
• Traditional family. Marriage and children are genuinely good. But remember why Israel ran after Ashtaroth and Baal: those idols promised good families and fertile wives. They did not chase those gods because they were evil, but because they seemed good. The moment you make a good thing your god, you have made it an idol.
• Your own opinion. Why do you need to be right? Why does a rejected idea feel like personal rejection? Why must you have your way, even when it damages relationships? Why does holding tightly to money make you feel safe?

The number one enemy to your receiving the good news of the kingdom is other things sharing God's space in your life. Do not be deceived. We all carry idols. And the fact that my idol looks different from yours does not make me better than you. Today the time has come to turn from idols to the living God. You can pray a simple, honest prayer: Lord, expose my idols to me, and send me deliverance.

Two very different gospels

Many of us think the gospel is mainly about being rescued from our sins so we can live good lives. But watch what happened across those 420 years of the judges. This gospel of sin management, delivering you from sin so you can have a decent life now and heaven later, will never sustain you long-term.

It is no wonder our pews and pulpits are full of Christians who love God but struggle to make any real impact, tangled in the same fights and quarrels as everyone else. Even after thirteen judges, Israel was a total mess. The gospel of sin management does not eradicate sin; it only manages it. But the gospel of the kingdom does more than deal with sin. It ushers in the power of God so that your life makes an impact in this world.

Give us a king

This is the setting for one of the saddest turns in Israel's story. Samuel had grown old, his sons had gone crooked, and the people came with a demand.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”

1 Samuel 8:6-7 (NKJV)

God was not upset that Israel wanted a king. God was upset that Israel wanted to be like all the other nations. He had said, all of you will be kings, and they answered, no, give us one king over us. Back at Sinai He had said, all of you will hear My voice, and they answered, no, let a prophet go up and hear God and come tell us what He said.

And notice something tender about God here. He heard their no. He did not force Himself on a people who kept saying no. That is worth learning. God persuades; He does not manipulate. Samuel tried to persuade them and then let them choose. May we learn to say no and mean it, and to honor it when others tell us no.

What God did for one man

So God did for one man what He had longed to do for the whole nation. He sent Samuel to find a tall young Benjamite named Saul, out searching for his father's lost donkeys, and He told the prophet in advance: this is the one.

Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him and said: “Is it not because the LORD has anointed you commander over His inheritance?”

1 Samuel 10:1 (NKJV)

One man was anointed to carry what all of them were meant to carry. But hear the good news that Jesus came to announce. God's preferred plan has never changed: anyone, anywhere, at any time can have God Almighty in them and with them, living their life through God to do great things for God. That is the gospel of the kingdom.

The time has come for God's nation of kings and priests to arise. If that stirs something in you, do not rush past it. Tell the Lord you are done with your idols. Tell Him you are through saying no to Him, and that today you say yes. Ask Him to change the way you think, because when your thinking changes, the way you live will change too. That is where the kingdom begins in you.