“People of the Kingdom” – 20 talks presented at the 2010 Summer School, Victor Harbor (South Australia), 3–8 January 2010.
In the midst of the kingdoms of this world, and our little or big efforts at kingdom-building, there is a people who belong to another Kingdom that is not of this world. Yet their feet are very firmly on the ground in this world, because this Kingdom has come here! They know the King—their Creator-God who rules over all—as their Father. They know that he has rescued them from the power of darkness and transferred them into the Kingdom of the Son of His love—forgiven and free.
The people of the Kingdom know that they are poor in spirit. They are often persecuted on account of the Kingdom and the King's righteousness. They know this true Kingdom is hidden from those who refuse to see or enter it. But they have met God's true king in human flesh—full of grace and truth! They have seen him bearing to death their sins and the sins of the whole world in his body on the cross. They know he is alive—risen from death! He has taken his rightful place with the Father over all and, through the Spirit of God, is personally commanding the day-by day operations of the Kingdom here and now.
The people of the Kingdom cry out: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah!' The earthly kingdoms, great and small, proffer their outraged resistance, but in the end they tremble and fall. The Kingdom that cannot be shaken comes to the fore. Loud voices are heard: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever'! |
