Cadyville Wesleyan Church

Fundamentals: Week 1: Imagine a Kingdom

Jesus' life was marked by scandal. From his birth through his miracles, teaching, death, and resurrection, scandal seemed to follow him. It wasn't without reasons: Jesus taught and modeled extraordinary things, and called his followers to an extraordinary life. But the most shocking, and offensive, of Jesus claims wasn't regarding personal transformation or even individual salvation but is found in his institution of the Kingdom of God here on earth. With authority, Jesus proclaimed that God's Kingdom had come and that he was King. In the what could be called the founding documents of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus laid out what it meant to be a citizen of heaven, how your allegiances change, your tactics differed, and your motivations shifted. In three chapters, he challenged our way of seeing the world, the way of seeing ourselves, and the way of our seeing God. It was in these verses that he gave us the building blocks of an upside-down Kingdom. And the world would never be the same.