1. Jesus Preached One Central Message – The Kingdom of God

1. Jesus Preached One Central Message – The Kingdom of God

· He often started out with, “The Kingdom of heaven is like”

· We think that what He has to say is instructive, how we should be living here on the earth. i.e. “The Good Samaritan”

1. Jesus preached one central message – The Kingdom of God

· He often started out with, “The Kingdom of heaven is like”

· Jesus would then end with “For those who have ears, let them hear”

He’s saying – don’t miss what I am telling you

Jesus died for your sin, His resurrection gives His power to overcome, if we believe and receive that Jesus died for your sins, you are saved and will go to heaven someday

His death and resurrection hadn’t happened yet!

· We interpret this message as “you better change, because God is coming and He will be ticked if you don’t get it together”

John 1 tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God”

JESUS’ UNDERSTANDING IS ETERNAL

4. The Kingdom of God – all that was in Him to dream and do

Beyond all of creation we can see, there was God, and all that He is

4. The Kingdom of God – all that was in Him to dream and do

· LOVE

· Hebrews calls His love a consuming fire.

· So aggressively loving, can’t stand anything hurting the object of His love, even if the object of His love is hurting itself

4. The Kingdom of God – all that was in Him to dream and do

· POWER

· From His mouth come universes and solar systems

4. The Kingdom of God – all that was in Him to dream and do

Romans 14:17 also tells us that His Kingdom is peace, joy and righteousness in the Holy Spirit

· PEACE - Tangible state of the atmosphere.

· JOY

· RIGHTEOUSNESS – Blueprint of how GOD designed the world. When things are right

· There was light before the sun, life before living creatures

· God put into creation the life that already existed

5. Matthew 22 - The Kingdom of God is Like a King Who Threw a Wedding Feast For His Son

· We have applied our self effort and religious pressure to our lives (and the lives of others) in an effort to bring about repentance

Metanoia – to think differently afterward

o Describing a process, the point in time when the process begins

Metanoia – to think differently afterward

o Describing a process, the point in time the process begins

o To repent means to change the way we take in reality

Apply this to “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand”

o Is He telling us to straighten up? Or is He telling us there is a Kingdom within our reach, but we need to change the way we see reality to receive it?

7. The Way We See -The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

“Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

· Until they ate the fruit, their source was God

This shift for Adam and Eve from God as their source to their knowledge of good and evil as their source is like unplugging the power cable on a computer and trying to use the data cable for power

· Knowledge of evil – You shouldn’t have done that

· Knowledge of good – You better straighten up and try harder

· Knowledge of evil – showed Adam where he was insufficient

· Knowledge of good – couldn’t fill him up with life

· “If you knew who I was, you would ask and I would give you rivers of living water”

Jesus is confronting her source

· Not shaking a condemning finger, but applying pressure to wrong thinking

· Won’t stand for anything that would harm the object of His love, even if it’s the object itself

It’s an invitation; the Kingdom of Heaven is within reach

She needed to look with the eyes of heart, to see Him as her source

She can now be plugged into the source that made her who she is in the first place