The Kingdom: Part 3

From the Salvation Army, you're listening to Wonderful Words of Life. Welcome back, everybody.

We're glad that you're joining us. And I want to say a happy Valentine's Day coming up this Friday. I hope that you're all doing something special for your Valentine.

Jimmy, are you doing anything special for your Valentine? You know, I've got this excellent surprise for my wife. Don't tell her. But it's going to be a good surprise. She's going to really like it. It is the thing that she values the most. I'm going to be able to provide for her.

I'm very excited. I love it. Now, Jimmy, you have a son and a daughter, as well as your wife, Ashley. So do you celebrate Valentine's Day with your kids? Like, is your daughter your Valentine? Is your son a Valentine? Yeah, depending on when Valentine's falls, sometimes we'll take our kids out and do dates with them. And just, one, we want to teach them what it really means to be valued by someone from the opposite sex. But also, we want to just show them that we love them and care so much.

You know, I'm not a gifts person, but I love it when my kids give me homemade cards and stuff. It just makes you feel so loved. Well, there you go. Well, you are loved, Jimmy. Yeah, thank you. You're loved as well. In our series, The Least of These, today, Rob and Heather continue to discuss the Kingdom of God and how we operate within that kingdom, specifically in regards to caring for people in need.

So I've had this series on my mind, and I was pulling out of our parking lot the other day. There was one of the regular individuals asking for money on the corner, and I wanted your take on this. I know a lot of people don't give money in a situation like that because they feel they may be enabling a bad habit.

And for me, quite honestly, I never carry cash these days either. So living out the kingdom, how do you respond to that, Jimmy? You know, I have the exact same situation where I see people regularly that are on the side, panhandling, asking for cash, asking for something. And you go, well, am I really going to be helping this person? Or let's be honest, are they going to go drink this? Are they going to spend this on something that they shouldn't spend it on? They say they're hungry. Are they really hungry? And I just had a conversation with the Lord about it and just said, you know, I got $5 in my pocket.

What do I do about this? And the Lord at that moment said, give them the $5. It's not your responsibility with what they do with that. It's that you're being faithful to what I'm asking you to do. And I really think for many of us, it's just what is the Lord leading you to do?

And are you being faithful and obedient to what the Lord's leading you to do? If the Lord is asking you to go buy them a meal, then ask them if you can buy them a meal. If it's handing out cash, then ask them or ask the Lord to give you guidance in that. I know people that carry around bags of food and stuff in their car and they give them notes and things like that to people. But again, it's just seeing somebody as they are, not as they are in our eyes, but that they have value and that they are the Lord's child.

And then responding through that measure as opposed to whatever your preconceived notion is. Yeah, it's difficult for sure because particularly in major metropolitan areas, you will find more people that are panhandling or asking for money. And people like Jimmy or we have a mutual friend in Mark Bell, another salvation army officer who I got to work with in Washington, D.C., who whenever someone would see him on the street in his uniform, they knew that he might be someone willing to offer help. But he wouldn't just pull out money and hand it to him. He would inevitably say, well, can I buy you a meal? You know, we'd walk into a McDonald's or a Chick-fil-A, whatever your love language is. Yeah, give my secret away.

Buy something. So whatever it is, we hope that you will at least open your eyes to the least of these in your community, wherever you are, and understand that as we encourage you through these messages to just see your fellow man as a child of God, someone with value. Be encouraged, be inspired, and be equipped to make a change in your community. Enjoy this message, and we'll see you next week on Wonderful Words of Life. So we've been talking about the kingdom, and I love how the kingdom is woven into my story, our story, and the story as we go out to engage the world, because as Jesus taught about the kingdom, even in these parables, it wasn't just from a pulpit, right? Jesus is out there with the people teaching about the kingdom, and they come in the form of these narrative parables, and some of them have different interpretations, and they can be hard to even understand. But as he brings this idea of the kingdom forward, I mean, he even says in Matthew 13, you know, they look, but they don't really see.

They hear, but they don't really listen or understand. And I guess that begins in me as I look at the kingdom. I really want to understand God's kingdom, understand my place in it, and see it and understand it.

Yeah. So, and that's fair because when we get to know Jesus as followers of him, we like want to know all the things. And if you're like me, it's because you want to know how to do all the things. You want great results. You want to do everything perfectly and never make a mistake.

You want to understand all the things maybe so you can be an expert and be impressive. But it's important to look at scripture with sober judgment, because as Jesus taught in parables, even his own disciples, were like, why are you speaking in parables like that? Right? So if we go back to Matthew chapter 13, verse 10, Jesus has just finished this beautiful lakeside conversation with crowds. And there is this teaching and it's the parable of the sower, which is, I love that parable. But after that, the disciples came to him.

And I like it because I imagine it being them, like taking Jesus to the side and being like lean and in close, like, so what's with the parable thing? Like, why are you speaking in that way? And weren't they like, are you upset with us?

Because we didn't bring bread. Okay. Yeah. So that like it goes, it goes on because the parable, the way of teaching in parables, it wasn't new, but it's obviously, it requires a little more work on the end of the listener. Right.

Which is just like Jesus. Right. So he gives us the invitation, but I have to respond to that, whether that is a salvation invitation or whether that's the invitation to discipleship, to following him, to being a believer. It requires some work on my part. And it's not like I have to rack my brain and figure it out.

It's just that I have to listen to him and lean in. And so he says to his disciples in Matthew chapter 13, verse 11, look, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given. Right. And so I read earlier that he says, you know, they look, but they don't really see. Right. Verse 13.

Right. They hear, but they don't really listen. And then he goes on right after that and he says, when you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. Now, I know I don't want to be that person that hears Jesus and doesn't understand what he's saying.

And I don't want to be that person that sees him and doesn't do what I'm supposed to do. So he goes on in this really cool place in verse 15 and he says, for the hearts of these people are hardened and their ears cannot hear. He speaks to them in parables. It's because it requires us to desire to know what he means. And there is a mixed group of people gathered there.

Right. So you've got all kinds of folks that have gathered to hear Jesus. Even in his group of disciples, you've got all different kinds of people represented. In fact, in his discipleship group of those 12 disciples, some of them had polar opposite political views. They had very different ways of living life. So even in his own group, people had differences of opinion and they didn't agree.

And there were different levels of commitment. So what he's saying is, as he's quoting from the Old Testament in verses 13, 14 and 15, he's speaking that prophecy that says, look, there's going to be people that they show up, but their hearts calloused. Like they hear my words, but it's going in one ear and out the other. They're not trying to know me.

Right. And it's, oh, gosh, have you ever had a conversation with somebody and all they're doing is listening to you to find where you're wrong. To find where they can poke their finger in a weak argument and make their point better. And so those are not people that are longing to know Jesus. Those are people that have come to a place of hardening of their heart and they're not excluded.

They get to hear it, too. But each of us is responsible for the state of our own heart. Right. And in this place of having a hardened heart, as we look down at the end of verse 15, what it says is they cannot turn to me.

Wow. So like, you know, if we end up in this place of a hard heart where what we're hearing doesn't make sense and what we're seeing, we're not able to walk it out with the authentic, the real Jesus. It means that I'm then unable to turn towards him and be with him.

Right. So then in that scenario, like who do what do we find people turning to when they can't turn to Jesus? They turn to their own intellect, their own understanding.

They turn to rules and regulations as they understand them. And Jesus actually parallels these two ways all throughout Matthew 13 and 14. And so I'm thinking about Matthew, chapter 13, verse 33.

And he is funny because the scripture starts by he told them still another parable, which is funny because I'm like, clearly there are many parables in a row. But he said the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough. So the idea is the kingdom of heaven is like this yeast. Now, you don't need a lot of yeast. And that is a ton of flour. Like 60 pounds of flour is a bathtub full at least of flour. A little bit of yeast works and affects that whole tub of flour.

Like that is outrageous. And the yeast can take that flour, that flat, tasteless flour and transform it into bread, into something that you can use to nourish people. Right. And when we're in the right posture, when our heart is in that right condition, that right relationship with God, just that little bit of yeast works its way through in a kingdom way. Like, oh, gosh, when we encounter Jesus and with him, the kingdom of God, our life can sometimes be flipped upside down.

So it looks like our priorities flip upside down. You know, like you think of like celebrities who have like a Jesus encounter. And all of a sudden they're doing something completely different than what they were doing before. And the world is like, what?

What is this? Because the kingdom of heaven just is so surprising in my own life. Like, you know, when I met Jesus, like my life flipped upside down. I made, I changed a lot of behaviors.

I changed a lot of priorities. And it's, I'm so thankful that this scripture is in here because it reminds us that when we're following Jesus, when we are building the kingdom, when we're living in the kingdom of God, we will be moved to make decisions and choices that sometimes seem very crazy to the world around us. Right.

And the kingdom is here and now. So even in that parable, there's the farmer in the field who just stumbles upon it and discovers this treasure. That's right. But the verse right after that, there's a merchant who's actually out searching for fine pearls. Right.

And when he finds them, he's all in as well. And that just leads into, you know, the comparison down below or even the Pharisees, the religious folks, they get to discover the kingdom too. That's right. It says they bring treasures of old and treasures of new.

That's right. So the kingdom is here and now, but the kingdom is also for everyone. It really is. And so as we talk about the least of these, you know, the kingdom is not something that separates us from the least of these. The kingdom is what connects us to those that are suffering and dying in a world that's lost. It's been exciting to talk about the kingdom, the kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.

Next week, we're going to talk about counting the cost. Join us next week on Wonderful Words of Life. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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