Having a Passion for the Kingdom

Speaker: 
Andrew Fountain
Date: 
Sun, 2022-09-11

Video cover image by James St. John CC BY 2.0

  • The Kingdom message of Jesus was deeply challenging.
  • He told the story of a man who saw a priceless pearl and sold every he had to buy it.
  • Does that describe your passion for the Kingdom? and what would life look like if it did?
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Sermon Slides - Having a Passion for the Kingdom

Goal

For Jesus to challenge us deeply as we start a new season:
What is your life about?

Having a Passion for the Kingdom

  1. No more Lukewarm
  2. What does “the Kingdom of God” actually mean?
  3. How do we express a passion for the Kingdom?

1. No more Lukewarm

1. No more Lukewarm

  • “You were made to live with something worth dying for” (Edwards)
  • We are living in an age that is screaming out for something real.
  • Buried in the human heart is a desire to devote ourselves totally to something that we believe in
  • Paradoxically we live in a comfort culture, dedicated to insulating us from the slightest discomfort
  • The words of Jesus are a culture-shock to us:

Jesus was not lukewarm

Matthew 10

  1. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,
  2. but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
  3. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
  4. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
  5. And a person’s enemies will be those of their own household.
  6. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
  7. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
  8. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
  9. “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

Matthew 6

  1. Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
  2. For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
  3. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

2. What does “the Kingdom of God” actually mean?

2. What does “the Kingdom of God” actually mean?

  • not = Church
  • Equivalent to “New Creation”
  • It primarily means God’s rule
  • What does the Kingdom look like right now?
    • a POWER and a PEOPLE

3. How do we express a passion for the Kingdom?

3. How do we express a passion for the Kingdom?

  • No compartments in our lives
  • God is involved in everything and prayer pervades everything
  • But most of all it has to do with what our priorities are
  • Edwards says: “Write eternity on our hearts that we would live by the age to come.”

Kingdom means warfare

  • Most spiritual warfare is not very glamorous
  • saying no to temptation
  • saying no to what Paul calls “the old man” or “the flesh”
    • actually habits, reaction, old ways of behaving
  • saying no to fear and unbelief
  • believing we can trust Jesus, and acting on it

Updated on 2022-09-11 by Andrew Fountain