The Gospel of the Kingdom (Part 2): How You Enter

In Part 1 we saw what the gospel of the kingdom actually is: God's plan that anyone, anywhere, at any time can have Him living in them and with them. Israel said no, give us one king instead, and so God did for one man, Saul, what He had wanted to do for the whole nation. Now we come to the question Part 1 left open: how do you enter this kingdom and live it out?

Watch what Samuel promises Saul on the day he is anointed. It is a picture of everything the kingdom offers.

And the Spirit of the LORD will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee; for God is with thee.

1 Samuel 10:6-7 (KJV)

The Spirit will come. You will be turned into another man. God is with you. Hold those three phrases. They are the heart of the good news.

Two gospels, one Preacher

There are two gospels, but Jesus preached only one. We constantly confuse them. The gospel of sin management says, “Here is what you must do so that sin does not keep you from the good things God wants for you, chief of which is heaven when you die.” Notice what sits at the center of that gospel: you, and what you do or fail to do.

The gospel of the kingdom says something entirely different. Our great, good, and powerful God has invaded this earth. Heaven has broken into the world. And no matter who you are, where you are, or where you come from, you can be a part of and a beneficiary of what that God is doing right here and right now. The gospel of the kingdom makes God, and what God is doing, the center of the universe.

And here is the thing. The gospel of the kingdom also deals with your sin, because “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil,” and sin is chief among them. It does not ignore sin. It obliterates it, and then it fills you with God's power.

The Beatitudes describe, they don't prescribe

It is because Jesus preached this gospel that He could stand up and pronounce the Beatitudes.

• You who are poor, who have been told your poverty is God's punishment, hear this: you too are blessed in the kingdom, and God will supply your need. Remember the five thousand He fed, and the early church in Acts where not one person lacked.
• You who mourn, who have been told that sorrow is simply your lot, are blessed, for God will comfort you. Ask the widow of Nain, whose son was raised. Ask Mary and Martha, who got Lazarus back.
• The meek, those the world dismisses as pushovers for refusing to fight for their rights, are the ones to whom the kingdom hands the whole earth.

Do not misread these. The Beatitudes do not prescribe what you must become in order to be blessed, as if you should go make yourself poor. They describe what happens to anyone, poor or grieving or meek, precisely because the kingdom of heaven has invaded their life.

God announced this to Israel first

As we saw in Part 1, God first offered this to Israel at Sinai. I have come, He said, so that all of you can be a kingdom of kings and priests. Israel said no; let the prophet just tell us what to do so we can be okay. And after roughly 420 years of the judges and sin management failing, the people who were all meant to be kings came and asked for only one of them to be king. That is how we arrived at 1 Samuel 10 and the anointing of Saul.

The Spirit at the center of it all

Look again at what Samuel told Saul: the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you. At the very heart of the gospel of the kingdom is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “If I by the finger of God cast out devils, then know that the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Paul said the kingdom is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” The kingdom means God has come near to you, and His power and presence are available to you.

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Acts 10:38 (NKJV)

One of the greatest lies the enemy has told the church is that once you speak in tongues you are automatically full of the Holy Spirit's power. And so our churches are full of people who speak in tongues but in whom you see no other operation of the Spirit at all. Tongue-talking, powerless Christianity is not the gospel of the kingdom. Notice that the sign Samuel gave Saul was a sign for others to see. Speaking in tongues follows those who believe, but it is not the point. The point is power, dunamis, the ability to be and do what you could never be or do before.

When the impossible becomes logical

Here is the good news in plain words. Because God has invaded your life, what was impossible for you as a mere human is now possible, because God is with you. If everything happening in your life right now can be explained by natural causes alone, then you are not yet living in the kingdom. When you come into the kingdom, what was impossible with men becomes possible, and what once seemed impossible starts to look logical.

Consider what that means. Because what God cannot do does not exist:

• It is possible for you to be done with anger for good, because ridding people of anger is exactly what God is doing on the earth right now.
• It is possible for you to be set free from pornography, sexual immorality, and lust.
• It is possible for you to live without worry, like the sparrows and the lilies that God Himself takes care of.
• It is possible for your yes to be yes and your no to be no, for you to live with clear boundaries, saying what you mean and meaning what you say.
• It is possible for the coward to become brave, the procrastinator to start finishing things, and the gossip to become discreet.

Samuel told Saul, you will become another man. How is it possible to have been with Jesus and yet still be the same old you? It may be impossible to become another person by your own effort, but not with God. For with God all things are possible, and that same God has now come to be with you.

Follow Me

So how do you enter? By being with Jesus. That is why He said, “Follow Me, and I will make you.” You do not make yourself. He makes you. To follow Jesus is to become His apprentice, to learn to be with Him so that you become like Him and begin to live like Him.

In practical terms today, following Jesus means living in a real, ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit, being with Him the same way the disciples were with Jesus. It means putting yourself where the Spirit, who has come to be with you, can actually have access to you. It means presenting yourself to God.

So do that. Do not just admire this from a distance. Say yes to following Jesus, and start living where the Spirit can reach you: in the Word, in prayer, in honest surrender, in the company of God's people. God has come to be with you. Your only response is to draw near and let Him make you another person.