When I was a kid Communism had quite a grip on this world. It seemed like an almost unstoppable force; atheistic, yet so powerful to clean the clock of those Far more tuned to God. I went to a Christian High School for two years and my history teacher my senior year set aside the study of history for 6 weeks and all we talked about was the spread of Communism, The threat of Communism to our present daily lives, and the almost certain role that Communistic countries like the USSR would play in the future of our country and even the end of the world.

Times change…. The football sized computer is now held on your lap. Your name is unfortunately in every file all over the world. The European Common Market has become the European Union and has far more then ten countries in it and more coming all the time, and Communist USSR has disintegrated from within with a domino effect bringing down one regime after another.

With it has evaporated the fear mode that many of us lived in forty years ago that world destruction was perhaps right around the corner. Now we live with the constant threat of terrorism but it seems to lack the ability to cause more than localized destruction.

I spoke with someone this last week who was trying to visualize the rise of the antichrist, a single person who the whole world would follow after, and, to me, it’s much harder now to visualize than it was forty years ago. When we read of massive a evil world power in the end that can only be stopped by the second coming of Jesus Christ who will conquer with a divine power more potent than all the world’s weapons of mass destruction it’s becoming increasingly hard to have a mental framework to put those biblical facts into.

To you who are less than 30 years old, let me assure you that there have been many times in history when people were crying our for Jesus to come and rip the foot of some world ruler off their neck. The first 200 years of Christianity, the end of the tenth century, the late 1300’s, during the time of Napoleon, WWI, the reign of Hitler and Mussolini; at every stage people were sure that Christ had to return because things couldn’t possible get any worse. Christ didn’t return but each time a Sovereign God would right the wrongs of evil men.

That same cycle of total fear, hope, then disillusionment has literally filled up the pages of Israel’s history. Throughout their history they begged God to come and deliver them from their oppressors. At no time was it more potent than at the beginning of the first century. How desperately they were crying out for the Messiah to come and break the back of the Roman empire who so controlled their lives…

And that was the time God chose to send the King of the Universe into this world!

I. The King Arrives

In Jesus day, Jews were pouring over the same passages in Daniel and Ezekiel that we do today to try to determine when Christ will come to set this world free from sin. There was no EU to worry about, their was nothing in Europe but some barbarians, Russia didn’t exist. Their troubles centered in a circle 2000 miles around their small land, the cradle of civilization, and they were begging God to break the back of this latest tyrant in a long line of tyrants; Greeks, Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians….

Into that mess, to affect all other messes that would arise in the world, God sends his solution;

His Savior,

His Messiah to the world,

The One who would set the world free

The King of heaven and earth

If they were waiting for their divine King to arrive they weren’t disappointed with what they heard:

Angel Gabriel:

(Luke 1:31-33) You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

John the Baptist:

(Matthew 3:1-2) In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

Jesus:

(Mark 1:14-15) After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

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To the Jewish mind that statement could only mean one thing. Glittering armies, great military victories, big parades with the capture tyrants in chains…They remember King David’s huge successes and each of their minds are painting new picture to go with the old images.

…And Jesus seems to feed their fantasies.

(John 1:49-51) Then Nathaniel declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

(Luke 10:22-24) "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

(Matthew 12:42) The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.

II. To Catch a King

Jesus uses this phrase 53 times that are recorded in the book of Matthew alone and Matthew is only recorded a tiny bit of Jesus three years of ministry. This was a phrase that came out of Jesus mouth apparently every few sentences. He worked it into every different kind of conversation. But one thing is very clear:

When Jesus talked about His Kingdom the picture it drew in the mind of those listening and the picture it drew in his mind were two very different pictures.

It’s almost like he insisted on using a phrase that everyone was preprogrammed to misunderstand. The reason Jesus was so accepted in the beginning of his ministry and so rejected at the end of his ministry was because his words painted such promise in the minds of his followers at first but his actions as time went on were not what they expected from a Messiah.

The Jews were looking for Jesus to set up a visible earthly kingdom where he would rule the earth and break the rule of ungodly tyrants. Jesus claimed to be on earth to set up a kingdom but seemed determined that it would not be, at all, what everybody was expecting. At one point:

(John 6:14-15) After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. (NIV)

III. Who is this King of the Jews?

How easy that phrase rolls off our tongue… Remember that that phrase largely sticks in our mind because of a man named Pontiacs Pilate:

(John 19:2-21) The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" ……. "Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. ….." From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."…….. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," …. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign…. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews." Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

The great irony of all times is that this one who so failed to meet up to people’s expectations of a king is known to all of history as a King. His name Jesus Christ is actually his name plus his title. “Christ” means anointed one and refers to the ancient method of anointing kings. When you are referred to as a Christian is doesn’t just mean you are a follower of Christ it means you are in the line of the anointed one. You are in the strictest sense of the term… the:

Kids of the King!

Stay with me here…

In spite of the fact that Jesus constantly refers to himself as the arrival of the Kingdom of God he never really tells anyone exactly what that means.

He gives all kinds of metaphors that describe what the kingdom is like;

(Matthew 13:24-58) Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away…

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."…

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

"Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.

"Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked. "Yes," they (rep)lied. He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

Jesus is trying to teach them that the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdoms of this earth are not at all alike. Early kings are judged by their power, their ability to impose their will on others, their strength in defeating their enemies.. The Kingdom of God, unlike earthly kingdoms comes far more subtly than anything we know of here on earth as a “kingdom“.

Throughout the centuries people have not understood this: Constantine went into battle with the symbol of the cross splashed all over everything and the motto “by this sign conquer”! Calvin and Zwingli during the reformation evangelized by the sword. Be saved or die! The crusades…the mere mention of the word got President Bush in trouble. Still today large segments of Christianity try to legislate what the Church should be like and all kinds of groups are fighting to position the church in the present political climate.

All of that completely misses what Jesus says the kingdom is all about, how it is formed, how it grows in society, where it’s power comes from… listen…listen to Jesus words:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."…

That’s the story of the spread of Christianity in a nutshell;

The tiniest seed, thought to be of least significance, walked on by the powerful of the world as if it didn’t exist, slowly takes root, grows larger, those who used to walk on the seed begin to walk around the young tree, then they are walking under the tree, then they are buried under the tree while they tree grows on using their ashes as fertilizer!

The kingdom Jesus brought didn’t care a moment who was in power at the time, He was completely unimpressed with who was shouting the new order of the day because his kingdom would just be getting up a good head of steam when they were rotting in their graves.

Imagine him looking into the face of Pilate…refusing to answer his taunts about him being the King of the Jews. He could have said: Pilate in two decades you will be a rotting pile of bones. Your beloved empire will bring about it’s own destruction from within. Within three hundred years it will be stripped of power. All the greats of today will barely be remembered. The only city left to bear it’s name will be the capital of a tiny country with no political power in the world whatsoever. Your empire will be looked back on largely for it’s debauchery and the insanity of your emperors….

Oh, and just so you know… during that same three hundred years my kingdom will spread over the entire civilized world and a few hundred years after that will spread across the ocean to places that you can’t even conceive to exist…. Just so you know

Jesus didn’t tell him that.. Jesus was unimpressed with Pilate’ s temporary position. Jesus was far more interested in building into a tax collector, and a zealot, and a group of fishermen, and a half breed Samaritan with 5 husbands and a prostitute who washed his feet with her tears this “kingdom of heaven”.

When Pilate asked Jesus point blank if he was the King of the Jews Jesus responded:

(John 18:36) Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

Allegiance to this kingdom allows one to be less concerned with the events of this life and more concerned with the “kingdom life”1

To the Pharisees Jesus said:

(Luke 17:20-21) Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

As you read through the Gospels you begin to understand that Jesus is painting both a

Here Now and a Not Yet view of his kingdom.

The kingdom arrived when he arrived. He brought God’s kingdom… he is God’s kingdom! He then set out to implant God’s kingdom, himself into the lives of a few.

He knew the seed would grows from one person to the next until it swept across the face of the earth, outliving by millions of years every earthly kingdom that would rise and fall. Because of that he could say to his disciples… the Kingdom is at hand… the Kingdom of God is within you. However…..

Even now, even with the kingdom growing inside of us and inside our churches, and inside our communities; when he teaches us to pray he teaches us this phrase:

Matthew 6:10) (May) your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In some very important ways the kingdom has come…Jesus is here in our hearts

In some very important ways the kingdom is yet to come…Jesus is coming again into our world.

When he arrives the next time not one soul will doubt the King of the whole universe is in place. At that point every person will claim allegiance to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ!

We would have probably done it all differently…but then we all still tend to think in terms of an earthly power by force kind of kingdom.

C.S Lewis- Why did God land in this enemy occupied world in disguise and start a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why did he not land in force, invading it? Is it not that he was not strong enough?. Well Christians believe he is going to land in force.. we don’t know when. But we can guess why he is delaying, he wants to give us the chance of joining his side freely.

God will invade.. but I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when he does. When that happens it is the end of the world…When the author walks onto the stage the play is over!

The Kingdom of God is here in the new life growing within us. At the second coming of Christ the Kingdom will appear in all it’s fullness.

When Jesus lived on this earth he made the blind to see and the lame to walk; he will return to rule over a kingdom that has no disease, no disability. On earth he died and rose again; At his return death will no longer exist. On earth he cast out demons; when he returns he will destroy the evil one! He came to earth as a baby born in a manger; he will return as the blazing conqueror of the book of Revelations

The kingdom he has set in motion was not the end…it is only the beginning!