Kingdom 101

Well, hello, welcome to Kingdom Offerings again, the podcast environment of A Hundredfold Ministries. My name is Dave Scherrerrer. I'm the president and founder of A Hundredfold Ministries and on these podcasts, we love to unpack the offerings of scripture with a special thought to the texts that celebrate and advance the gospel of the kingdom because we're all about the gospel of the kingdom and the kingdom of God here at A Hundredfold Ministries. We're going to begin a new series called Kingdom 101. So I'm remembering from college that you take a 101 class, you're usually getting the overview. So economics 101 is kind of an overview of economics. So we're going to get to the basics of the subject of the kingdom of God. We're going to go back to the basics and we're going to start unpacking some of the great parables of Jesus, his little stories that are packed with so much kingdom, truth and joy and glory. So I'm especially excited about this series because number one, we're talking about the kingdom of God and especially as it applies to the church and by that I mean the church with a capital C. There was a book a few years ago by Rick Warren that took the world really by storm called A Purpose Driven Life and there was a subsequent book after that called A Purpose Driven Church and I love that idea of a purpose driven church. The trick is just to have the right purpose in mind, right? It's not about building a great big church. It's not what they call bricks and mortar. It's not about that. It's about experiencing and expanding the kingdom of God. That's our purpose and so I want to talk about these kingdom parables and how they relate to our lives and the life of our church. So I feel like we need to launch into our kingdom parables today and kind of get an idea of what we're up against. So we'll start just talking about parables and kingdom parables and then we'll start getting into the stories. We have come to know these parables as Jesus spoke them as stories that are floated somewhat simple ideas. So they're a simple idea to understand so that then we can later understand an even bigger, more complex and in this case a more divine idea. The word parable comes from a Greek word to come alongside. So a parable, a more simple story, comes alongside the bigger idea. In other words, the story is simpler, illustrative story inspires us to think bigger. So then of course the kingdom parables are offered by Jesus that we might begin to understand the bigger good news of the kingdom of God. After all the gospel of the kingdom is Jesus' big idea. That's his whole life and teachings. So Jesus specifically says things like the kingdom of God is like and then he creates a word picture for us to meditate on that is simple in form but inspires us to look at a bigger picture. And if you think about it, the kingdom of God truly is a glorious and magnificent reality. Our finite eyes and hearts can't be expected to fathom all of the kingdom of God and kind of it turns out that the infinite is difficult to wrap our minds around. Sure, but God is kind and God wants us to apply ourselves to the idea of the kingdom of God because the faith and peace and hope that this unseen reality brings to our lives and our broken real is real. So now you're thinking to yourself, but wait a minute, didn't Jesus speak in parables so that some people might not understand them? So that's a little bit of a conundrum, isn't it? Because it's true in Mark chapter 4, Jesus says this in regards to the purposes behind his teaching in parables. He says, the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, speaking to his disciples. I'm in Mark chapter 4, verses 10 and 11. It says, the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those on the outside, everything is spoken in parables. So that many quotes of verse in Isaiah, so that they may be ever seen, but never perceiving, ever hearing, but never understand. Otherwise they might turn and be forgiven. Wow, that's confusing. So we're not going to get into that verse today in answer to that conundrum about, why would Jesus want some people not to understand and be forgiven? Well, we want to talk about that. Where I want to land today on this passage is that these parables are really important. You see, by perceiving and understanding them, we can understand the kingdom of God and it is easier for us then to yield and be forgiven. That's the big point. And so apparently, the very eternal end of life circumstances depend on our understanding these kingdom parables rightly. I think in part Jesus is saying, read past these parables at your own risk. And I feel like much of my life, I read past a parable and said, huh, I wonder what that means and then just kept reading rather than taking the time to meditate and pray over what these great truths have in store. There are several kingdom parables. The count kind of depends on who's counting, but we'll spend the next several weeks studying a portion of them. There's one in Matthew 13 and again in Mark 4, that's the parable of the four soils and that lets the kingdom of God be visible when it applies to our hearts. Then there's the parable of the tears where the weeds come up amongst the wheat. And this tells of the action of the kingdom in our world. And maybe you remember the parables of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven. And those essentially teach the same truth that the kingdom is coming, but it's coming slowly and surely until the kingdom of God will have no competition in our world. It's like that one day the kingdom will be like a great tree in which all of humankind, that would be the birds of the air, may find a place of rest in it. Well, we'll talk about that some more. And there's other parables, the parable of the pearl and the treasure hidden in a field. These bring us to understand that the kingdom of God is something that we must pursue with all costs. So there's a lot to talk about. The dragnet, the kingdom of God, where he's drawing people to himself, both good and bad. So I find it interesting. Lots of kingdom parables seemingly really important to Jesus. And don't you find it odd that the teaching and preaching of the kingdom of God is so rare in the church today? When was the last time you heard a sermon series on the kingdom of God preached at your local church? It seems like they're kind of rare today. And also, don't you think it's sad that the church in Europe and America, North America, seems to have lost its power and its authority? Huh, we're not preaching about the kingdom. We've lost our authority. I wonder if those are connected somehow. I kind of think they are. Alan Richardson in the theological word book of the Bible says the kingdom of God involves Jesus's whole understanding of the gospel, is the sum total of his person and of his work. Wow. So this is as far as we're going to get today. I hope it whets your whistle for the next several weeks. I so firmly believe that when we see the scriptures, the gospels, and the teachings of Paul and the other apostles, when we see the scriptures through the lens of the kingdom, we'll begin to see all that God has set aside, not only for you, but the church, the big church as well. So there'll be another installment of kingdom offerings in a couple of weeks, and we're going to dive into these parables. You can also check out on our webpage, our homepage of our website, 100foldministries.org. There's a button on that homepage for some 21st century kingdom parables. Maybe you want to check that out. There's a place there to contribute to the conversation about those parables as well, and you and I can chat about them for a bit. Anyway, I hope you'll take a look, and I hope you'll come back and visit not only 100 Fold Ministries podcast, but our blog as well. So this is Dave Scherrerrer, and this is Kingdom Offerings. Peace to you.