Sermon Notes: Kingdom 2026
https://www.youtube.com/live/UJyIp4FGuig?si=2fkwRxDNI8KLgdse
In January we begin our year by remembering who we are as a church.
Why do we do this?
1. Set our hearts on God’s call on the local church as a part of our foundation for unity as a church pursuing God’s call on his church.
2. To know and love the good news of the kingdom and what God accomplishes with the good news so we might be prolific in preaching it and working it out on mission.
Vision (Why do we exist?): For God’s glory, disciple the nations.
Why, “For God’s glory.”? Romans 11:35-36 (CSB) 35 And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid? 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Colossians 1:16 (CSB) 16 For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him.
The Triune Creator, God, created and did what he did for himself that he would be glorified. God seeks his own glory because it is the ultimate expression of love for his creation.
God seeking his own glory results in the sustaining of creation by God operating according to his order of operations that is natural to him and life giving for us. Humans experience God’s love when we are fulfilled by seeking God’s glory through faith in Jesus Christ. We were created for this relational joy in seeking God’s glory. By operating in God’s order of operations humans live on the rails of optimal human function.
When humans are saved and dwell in God’s love, we find our joy in Christ and thus we glorify God for preaching the truth of himself to us so we could glorify him by our joy in him and thus live for his glory.
Why, “Disciple the nations.”? From the opening chapter of the Bible, God’s scope of work for mankind is to fill the earth, subdue it, and multiply in it.
All of creation is to be stewarded and maximized by humans as God’s co-regents. Humans, as image-bearers of God, exercise his image when we are his representatives in stewarding creation.
This truth speaks to the vocational means God has given us to represent him and reach the nations. But it’s worth mentioning here because from the beginning before the fall of mankind God’s scope of mankind’s vocational pursuit is the whole of creation.
Where do “the nations” come in to play in the global scope of the good news? We’ll address that when we talk about the good news of the kingdom of God in a few minutes.
That’s vision. What about the mission?
Mission (What are doing to pursue the vision?): Be and produce Radical followers of Jesus.
Radical followers of Jesus are John 15 disciples who live in the three relationships of John 15 we see consequently lived out in the book of Acts when the church is filled with the Spirit.
We say “radical” in the botanical sense of the word: growth coming from the root.
Radical followers of Jesus are intimately connected to the root, the trunk, the source of life, Jesus. This relationship informs, empowers, and defines the other two relationships.
A radical follower of Jesus who abides in him lives in these relationships Jesus gave us. We call them: UP/IN/OUT.
UP: Followers of Jesus have been reconciled to God through Jesus, and they abide in Jesus, the root, the shoot of Jesse, the trunk of the tree. IN: Followers of Jesus are birthed by the saving work of the good news into the local church, the family of God, and they love each other because they are abiding in the love of God because they are abiding in Christ. OUT: Followers of Jesus, as families united to the family of God in the local church are sent by the church on mission to bear much fruit everyplace they set their feet and prove that we are Jesus’ disciples.
Our mission is first about a state of being that leads to the fruit of that being that is completely natural and unforced due to our state of being: radical followers of Jesus.
Being a radical follower of Jesus is an identity before it is anything.
We want to “BE” a radical follower of Jesus. If we can get that identity down, get rooted in our identity as transformed followers of Jesus Christ, and wait on him, we will naturally produce what we are from where we are rooted. Apple branches produce apples because they are rooted to apple roots and trunks.
That’s the nature of ontology. Beings only produce like beings. If we can abide in that first relationship of being reconciled to God and rooted in Jesus, the nature of God’s kingdom will reproduce in us the fruit of God’s kingdom.
This leads us to our strategy.
Strategy (How do organize for the vision and mission?): Radical Life - UP/IN/OUT.
The Radical Life is the cycle of these three relationships of our mission and are our organizing framework.
The cycle of these three relationships is the Radical Life.
Us to God. Us to each other. Us together to all of creation.
Each of these requires ongoing participation in each and flowing from each.
Tactics (What are our actions that help us implement our strategy?) Corporate Worship - Preaching / RK / Student Ministry / RL Groups / Local Engagement / Global Engagement / Hospitality / Administration, Finance, TRC Events / Teaching - Training / GlocalNet Hub /
This is the vision that gives direction to TRC.
The truth is that we could make that vision soar with some loans, we could buy property and trick out a building, we could run a sharp marketing campaign for an attractional sermon series, we could hire childcare workers/babysitters so parents wouldn’t have to do that pesky raising kids together with folks we’re covenanted to, I could dress a little sharper, and we could grow a big church.
You don’t need the Word and the Spirit to grow an organization and call it “church”.
Sharp and some not so sharp humans create organizations with tried methodologies every year. I teach the methodology every year to good folks. It’s not hard to grow an organization and call it a church.
What is difficult in prosperity and know-how and personal ability is taking our place of anonymity and letting the good news take center stage to grow Jesus’ church rather than our abilities and know how. Nothing wrong with ability and know how. But those things must be in their proper place.
The Word and the Spirit advance the kingdom, and the kingdom is different from organizational church. We distinguish between the kingdom framework and the church framework.
What makes this vision possible?
Our DNA fuels TRC’s vision: KDSC.
KDSC is the spiritual blood, the good news power that flows through the veins of TRC to fuel the vision.
Kingdom/Disciple/Society/Church
We begin with KINGDOM because God begins with his kingdom.
Let’s read about it together: Mark 1:14-15 and Matthew 4:23
Mark 1:14-15 (CSB) 14 After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Matthew 4:23 (CSB) 23 Now Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
“Proclaiming the good news of God...The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.”
“Preaching the good news of the kingdom...healing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
What do we need to observe?
1. Jesus is preaching.
Note: Observations 1 and 2 really go together but I kept them separate to highlight some distinction between method and content. Jesus is not just hanging out hoping to build relationships and hoping someone asks him what he’s doing. Jesus is on a mission because the time has been fulfilled. He’s here on purpose for this time. Jesus is taking the initiative because that’s the mission.
Jesus’ takes the initiative to communicate a message with missional urgency. The word both Mark and Matthew use that is translated differently is “kerusso”, and it means to preach or proclaim news that is good. Because of how Jesus used this word and thus how his apostles used it, the word became synonymous with the good news itself. When Christians say “preach” the implication is that the content is the good news, the totality of the metanarrative.
NOTE: The metanarrative of the good news should be the bedrock of every sermon preached from the Bible and should be delivered with the missional initiative and urgency defined by the Lord.
Preaching is God’s appointed means of seizing the initiative and telling the good news.
Thus, preaching has God’s blessing in it when it is used to convey his word.
The New Testament gives other means of telling the good news that fits within different settings, but the predominant way employed by Jesus is “preaching”.
2. Jesus is preaching the good news.
Jesus is preaching a message, and the message is “good news”.
The word translated “good news”, or “gospel” is a compound word: “eu” – good, and “aggello” – to proclaim, to tell.
Jesus is preaching a message that is good and therefore must be communicated.
The word “gospel” has baked into it the necessity of proclamation. The reason the word gospel assumes proclamation is because good news is always heralded. “euaggélion” originally meant “reward” because the herald had good news and would be rewarded for running to tell the news (See 2 Samuel 18:22, 25).
So, Jesus is preaching a message that is good.
3. Jesus is preaching God’s good news.
Jesus is proclaiming the good news that belongs to the God of the Old Testament and therefore is not new news. Jesus’ content is old news, and the old news is good news.
Jesus’ old news that is good news is that what God promised and preached is being fulfilled in his presence. The good news is that what God has been preaching since Genesis 3:15 and has come to pass in Jesus’ coming and his work to establish the kingdom of God and advance his supernatural rule in all creation.
4. God’s good news is that his kingdom is at hand, and Jesus tells us how to enter his kingdom.
Jesus’ preaching of God’s good news is that the time has come for God’s kingdom to break out like Isaiah 65:17-25 promises.
Jesus preaches that people get into his kingdom by repenting and believing the good news of his kingdom’s arrival.
Entrance into God’s kingdom is by hearing the preaching of the news, turning from other kingdoms by turning to Jesus’ and his kingdom, and believing that he is the King of God’s kingdom.
NOTE: There was as basic understanding of kings and kingdoms and the metanarrative of the kingdom of God for Jesus’ audiences so Jesus’ preaching falls in a framework his audience already had. You will need to lay that framework by preaching he metanarrative of the good news using the framework we have taught you: creation/fall/redemption/restoration.
5. Jesus confirms that God’s kingdom has come by signs and wonders.
We know God’s kingdom has arrived because Jesus begins healing what sin has broken in creation and will continue to do those signs and wonders according in order to show that the kingdom of God has come.
Thus he will send the disciples out to imitate his ministry to heal and preach the good news in Luke 10:1-12. Their setting right what sin and the dark kingdom made crooked set the stage for them to preach that Jesus’ kingdom has broken into creation and folks needed to repent and believe.
NOTE: Our healing of creation through our families and our engagement in the public square is where we display that the kingdom is breaking into creation, and when we set right what sin has made crooked, we peach the good news just like Jesus told us to do.
Not rocket science. Just hearing and obeying God’s word.
6. Jesus claims he is the God of the Old Testament as his authority for what he is preaching.
Jesus will tell us he is Yahweh who has taken on flesh yet distinct from Yahweh as the Son of God.
John 8:58 (ESV) 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Jesus claims that he is Immanuel, God with us.
Jesus will claim he is the Son of Man, the Son of God, distinct from the Father, and the One promised in God’s word who would crush the head of the Serpent Dragon and restore the order, health, and rightness of what was lost in the rebellion.
7. Jesus preaches the good news of the kingdom.
So, what is the good news of the kingdom that is the message we are to preach?
The good news Jesus preaches is the metanarrative of the whole Bible that the God of the Bible is Father, Son, and Spirit and the lone Creator of all things.
He is and he is the Great King of all.
His kingdom was rebelled against by one of his creatures, setting up a rival yet unequal dark kingdom. God still created all things for his glory, and he created mankind in his image.
The rebel creature, the seraph Serpent Dragon, enticed the human image-bearers into his dark yet unequal kingdom with deception, and the curse of that sin has broken all things including our access to God and his Edenic kingdom. This fall, this rebellion has inserted the dark deception that mankind can fulfill himself with something other than God and his kingdom.
The Lord promised that this deceiver would be crushed in the fullness of time by sending One who would be a descendant from the woman. In the meantime, there would be two kingdoms at war. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. It will be these two kingdoms that define the conflict between every kingdom of man on earth.
God still rules his world, yet darkness was given its time and space for an appointed time until the Lord fulfilled his plan.
God being powerful, good, and rich in mercy, in the fullness of time, did it. Advent happened.
God broke into the darkness with the kingdom of his Son, the kingdom of light and truth, and all people everywhere can now know for certain who the Serpent Crusher is, and his name is Immanuel, Jesus, God with us!
Jesus came, took on flesh, fulfilled the holy standard he requires, was executed in the place of sinners to pay for sin, was buried, rose on the third day, ascended to the Father to place his blood on the altar of heaven for us. Jesus then sent the Holy Spirit to mark and fill those who would believe his good news, and he sends us to preach his good news to all nations and all creation.
The good news must go to all nations. The nations exist from the ongoing rebellion of the Serpent Dragon and his follower’s war against God and his image-bearers. Genesis 6-11 tell us this story.
They seek to destroy humanity with a coordinated effort in Genesis 6, but God destroys that rebellion with a flood and preserves Noah and his family to repopulate and send the Promised One.
The rebellion’s war continues at Babel as the Serpent Dragon has weaseled his seed into humanity again. His children are trying to recreate the mountain garden of Eden with a manmade mountain. They do this to worship these evil beings of the Serpent Dragon’s team on the tops of these man-made mountains in a dark and bizzarro re-creation of Eden. So, God scatters the people throughout the earth with a forced sending to fill it like he created them to do, and he scatters them into family nations that will ultimately become the nations of the world we know today.
Then God calls Abraham from one of those nations, saves him, and makes from him a people who will carry the good news of his kingdom and bring the Serpent Crusher to inaugurate the breaking in of his kingdom.
God navigated Abraham’s descendants to the appointed time of Christmas, the Advent when Jesus, the Serpent Crusher would come.
Upon Jesus’ advent, the kingdom of God has broken into the darkness, and now the King of creation calls all men everywhere among all nations to repent and believe this good news that Jesus the good King and has come and fulfilled God’s word.
When Jesus dies, rises, and sends the Spirit he reverses what happened at Babel, and new creation began sprouting up in the earth until we, with his great power and help, preach the final sermon to the final nation who will finally believe and he will come again.
That’s the good news of the kingdom. That’s the message that will change the world by changing hearts.
Let me ask and answer one question about the good news of the kingdom, then we’ll make application.
Why is the order of KDSC important and why do we talk about the kingdom of God first?
The order of KDSC is important because Jesus started his ministry preaching the good news of the kingdom.
We have to begin with the kingdom because that is where Jesus begins.
KDSC is the sequence and framework of the gospels and it’s the order that is worked out in Acts as captured by the inspired authors.
Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom in Mark 1:14-15 and Matthew 4:23 comes before disciples believe and the command is given to the church to disciple the nations.
Therefore: it is K - D - S - C
KDSC is the inspired sequence of events in the gospels.
The kingdom of God makes us understand that disciple-making is much more robust than escaping God’s wrath at sin and sinners and going to heaven.
Application: How can we apply the truth of the kingdom of God?
1. Preach the good news of the kingdom.
Heal through leading your families well. Your family is a battleground of spiritual warfare. Invest in them.
Heal through leading yourself and your family into creation through God’s appointed means of the public square and any vocation he may give you from mom to dad to engineer to preach the good news of the kingdom.
Don’t get hung up on your vocation and whether or not your vocation is acceptable to anyone or your feeling about your vocation. Do what God has given you to do with the confidence of his Word and the Spirit. Heal. Preach. Make disciples. Send.
There was an old man at Potts garbage site who would preach to me every time I took our garbage off. When I told him I was a pastor, he told me he didn’t care. He wanted to make sure I had believed the good news. I assured him I have, and we fellowshipped every time I took off my garbage. I don’t know if he preached to others like he did me, but he preached to me.
He was not sensitive about his retirement gig. He just used it to bless me with preaching.
Do likewise.
2. Read the Bible through the lens of the metanarrative of the good news then learn to see all of creation, history, current events, and the future through this developing lens.
When we do this, we will begin growing up into maturity in Christ and we will be seeing truly, seeing reality, seeing things the way God sees things.
This framework for seeing all of life makes us salt and light.
3. Pray for God’s kingdom to come in its fullness on earth as in the realm of heaven and combine that with fasting.
When you begin to pray this prayer you will begin to pay attention to Jesus’ words and you will become more aware of his kingdom. The prayer changes our vision.
When you combine prayer and fasting, you begin to break up darkness in your own self and then in the world around you. See Isaiah 58.
The kingdom is the rule of heaven, the breaking in of the supernatural forces of heaven, the rule of Jesus Christ over all things. To ask that his kingdom come on earth as in heaven is to ask that heaven rejoin creation like it used to be before the cherubim were set to guard access to the realm of God’s presence, which is heaven.
Pray for this. As he opens your eyes, speaks from his word, and quickens you, would you obey him in all things?
4. Pray
Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV) 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.