The Time Is Fulfilled...

Hello and welcome to Kingdom Offerings. This is the podcast environment of 100 Fold Ministries. My name is Dave Scherrerrer. I'm the president and founder of 100 Fold Ministries and these podcasts are important to us. In them, we take a look at the Kingdom Offerings that are found in Scripture with a special emphasis on the texts that celebrate and advance the Gospel of the Kingdom. We are all about the Gospel of the Kingdom. So you've turned into the second podcast in a four-part series that's called Help! I Can't Pass This Essay Test. The two questions that I raised in our previous podcast were, what exactly is the Gospel of the Kingdom? And the second one is, what difference does this Gospel of the Kingdom make in my life right now? And since the Kingdom of God is such a central teaching point of Jesus' life, as followers, we need to be able to answer these questions for ourselves. So that's why I said, can you pass this essay test? What exactly is the Gospel of the Kingdom? In this series, we are exploring Jesus' first public words of ministry that's recorded in Mark chapter 1, right at the get-go. There he famously says, the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel. That's verses 14 and 15 of Mark chapter 1. So today, I want to start unpacking with you that very first part of the verse where Jesus makes it clear that the time is fulfilled. First, let's get some historical context concerning where this passage lands in the life of Christ. I think that would be really helpful. Matthew records this same message of Jesus. When he records it, his proclamation is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and there are three important events in the life of Jesus that has just happened before this proclamation. The first one was Jesus' baptism, and that's found in Matthew chapter 3. The second big event was Jesus had just endured the 40-day test and temptation in the wilderness, and that's in Matthew chapter 4. And then a little bit later in chapter 4, John the baptizer has been tossed into jail. And so these things have just happened, and so when Jesus says the time is fulfilled, one of the things that he's referring to here is the time of preparation for his public ministry has now come to a close. His formative childhood, his adolescent life with Mary and Joseph is now long over. Jesus is in his 30s. He has moved to Capernaum on the north side of the banks of the Sea of Galilee. And following the direction of his Heavenly Father, he has been actively waiting. It's an interesting term, isn't it? Actively waiting for the prompt to start his public ministry. He's been waiting for the time to be fulfilled. Even before Jesus started teaching and healing, his baptism, that first big event we talked about, displayed the announced favor of his Father and the descending presence of the Spirit. That meant that each member of the Triune Godhead was in agreement. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all in on this Gospel of the Kingdom thing that was about to be unveiled. And then, the second big deal, shortly after his baptism, he was whisked away by this same Spirit. Really, he was directed, led, for Jesus' final test of ministry preparation. He was led into the wilderness and for over a month he suffered this isolation and he found himself physically weak from hunger and desperate in thirst. Socially alone. You know what? That might have been the worst part, being all by yourself. No one to speak to about this tempting voice of deception. So I'm imagining cold and weary and tired of mind and heart. It is at this moment that personified evil is permitted to tempt the Lord in this dark hour. So we can't get into it all right now, but I really feel like this is the defining moment of Jesus' preparation. Jesus is not going to face as consequential a test of faith and obedience until the Garden of Gethsemane. And happily, for all of humanity, Jesus passed this and every test of obedience. So, it was, wait, wait for it, not yet. And then finally, now. The time is fulfilled. The Godhead agrees and it is time to unveil the plan, the gospel of the kingdom. But, that's not the whole story to this announcement that time is fulfilled. You see, there's a bigger, I would call it grander meaning to this statement that helps us define the kingdom of God piece of this puzzle. So let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine and go all the way back to even before creation, even before time itself, I would guess. From the very beginning, it was the plan of the Godhead to establish a kingdom that would worship and celebrate and obey and glorify the Almighty. This would be to magnify Himself by creating humanity in His own image to share His dominion over the earth and frankly, over creation itself. Who could have imagined? What a glorious plan. How amazing it was for humanity in that moment, experiencing the first vestiges of a coming, living, breathing kingdom of God. The plan was in place, except sadly and tragically, when man and woman disobeyed God's strict command to not eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the grand purpose of forming God's kingdom fell with them. So be aware, as we dive into this biblical kingdom gospel concept, we need to be mindful that we're not just discussing the forgiveness of personal sin, and that's a big deal. But additionally, we are witnessing the eventual invasion of Jesus Christ into our fallen kingdom here on earth, where Satan currently rules. You see, Satan now is offering us the kingdom of this world, rather than the gospel of the kingdom. He's offering a deadly and an impotent worship of worldly idols and self in exchange for loyalty to himself. So this doctrine of salvation and kingdom is an important doctrine, so we'll be spending a fair amount of time wrapping our minds about this. So in wrapping up into this broken and lost world of humanity comes the divine baby king, the rightful ruler of all things. 30 plus years later then, Jesus begins His ministry by exclaiming, the time is fulfilled. He is hearkening all the way back to the garden of Eden. With the miraculous incarnation of the Son, He has declared war on our adversary, the devil. Jesus has come into our world to rescue and redeem the hopelessly lost, that would be me and you, and the good news of salvation that's offered by His grace. And what we're learning in the gospel of the kingdom is that He will one day establish once and for all, over all things, His kingdom. Jesus, the all, a world filled with the forgiven and the empowered kingdom followers who will with Him restore the physical kingdom of God on earth to its rightful king. And then one day we will rule with Him in heaven. Today, right this moment, the time is fulfilled and the choice is before you. So for goodness sakes, we need to choose life. We need to claim the hundredfold blessing of life abundant and the eternal hidden joys of Christ. So this is A Hundredfold Ministries, our podcast environment, and I look forward to checking in with you again as we continue on in this series. Help, I can't, I can't pass this essay. This is Dave Scherrer, this is A Hundredfold Ministries.