So, if you're anything like me, the craziness of this current day and age has required you to ask maybe to others, but more likely just to your own self. What about the kingdom? I mean, I know the Lord is in charge of every nook and cranny in this entire creation. And yet there's promises that that ring in my ear promises like what Daniel saw in his vision. Daniel 7. One came like the Son of Man, He came to the Ancient of Days, presented before Him, and to Him was given dominion and glory, and a kingdom that all people's nations' languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and it shall not pass away, and His kingdom will be one that is not destroyed." Four passages and promises like in Revelation 11, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. So where is that kingdom? Or maybe when is that kingdom? Or is it really going to be that awesome? Or when is it really going to be that awesome? You'll remember in the first century at the announcement of the incarnation, there was great joy of all of those who noticed what was going on, right? Mary and Joseph and Zacharias and Elizabeth and the like. You know, they were recalling this greatness, this Davidic promise of a forever kingdom, and the hope that Solomon, his son, brought when the new temple was built. And Solomon was standing there before all the people of Israel, and they were reaffirming their intention to obey the Lord. And the glory of the Lord came into the temple. And of course, as they remembered, Solomon failed. And Israel failed. and the kingdom split. And even though there were new covenant promises and hope given from the Lord, prophet after prophet, prophesying judgment, with always a little bit of hope. And then, of course, Malachi being the last of the Old Testament prophets, and here 400 years before the angel comes and says, Mary, you will have a son, and he will reign forever. and the angel's son, and the wise men came from the east, and the Jewish leaders like Zacharias and Simeon praised this baby, this king, and the faithful rejoiced over the coming kingdom, thinking the kingdom is going to be now. All of that forever awesomeness, now is the time. This is a matter of rejoicing. And of course, John the Baptist and Jesus, they began their ministry. You remember the phrase, right? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is near. And of course, when Jesus started gathering his disciples, and they hear him say this, you know, they're thinking, all right, this is go time. I mean I'm looking around and the kingdom that I see I mean he's saying the kingdom is here the kingdom is here but the kingdom I see is well I know that's not the end I mean I'm just looking at it so they're thinking let's do this it is time now is the time and all throughout Jesus earthly ministry they kept asking is it now you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel is it now you're going to you know and frequently he answered their questions about the kingdom by turning it on their heads and teaching them about humility You know, a lot of times he taught about the kingdom with the scribes and the Pharisees in view. You know, they always tried to set up those traps for him. Hey, Jesus, are you really supposed to be healing on the Sabbath? And we always get confused because he ends up teaching them about authority. And he ends up saying something about the kingdom, and we're like, what's that about? The kingdom is at hand, and yet the kingdom is something else. Now here's the thing. The kingdom is not somewhere else. The kingdom is not some time else. The kingdom is not necessarily something else. But the disciples have the same questions that we do. It's the same tension. Jesus is saying the kingdom is at hand. And yet we know this is not the end. So what's up? And just in case you're not on board, remember the last question they asked? The resurrected Christ had taught them about the kingdom for 40 days. And he is, I hate to use the word literally, but he is literally going up into the air And the question they ask him before he goes, is it now that you're going to restore the kingdom? So the nature of the kingdom is a common question. It's a good question. It's a question that we ought to ask when we see that the kingdom of Christ is at hand, but we know there's something more. Jesus frequently described the new or the forever kingdom in contrast to the old kingdom, the kingdom that the scribes and the Pharisees had been given stewardship of. In a sense, we have multiple records of Jesus turning those Sabbath traps into those lessons about the kingdom. Tonight we're going to look at the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the earliest records we have that Jesus was teaching about the kingdom, and one of the most robust records of his teaching on the kingdom. Three whole chapters, one whole sermon, There's no Pharisees there. This is not a response to one of those traps. There are no scribes. There are no traps. This is just a sustained definition of the promised forever kingdom. So if you're not there yet, turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 and we'll begin. Now, you can pretty much park here. I'll cite some other places, but I'll read those to you. But you'll want to just keep your eyes because Here I am at five minutes. I want to get through the entire Sermon on the Mount and I want to get you home in time for dinner. So Matthew chapter 5 verse 1. Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. What we're going to see here, we call them the Beatitudes, the blessings for the kingdom citizens. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth, or the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Now it's easy to to turn these characteristics of kingdom citizens into entrance requirements. Jesus is going to explain, in a sense, the entrance requirements at the end of his sermon on the mount, or at least he'll touch on it. So we read these Beatitudes, we read these blessings, not if one is meek he will inherit the earth, but rather The One that will inherit the earth, He is meek. These are blessings, they are gifts, given as the benefits of being a citizen of the forever kingdom, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven. But, as we've already started asking, are these blessings for the here and the now? Or are these something we shouldn't expect until later? Is this it? Is this it? Are all these blessings here, and this is what happens? These are the similar questions of the kingdom. So we hope that these blessings are for here and for now, and they are. But we also, sometimes, we don't see them. We think, certainly, that can't be it. There's got to be more to it. So after the crowd learns about the citizens, about being citizens of the forever kingdom and the blessings of those citizens, Jesus is going to go on and he's going to reveal that being a kingdom citizen in this sense has a purpose. These citizens have a mission. As we think about this though, I want you to notice the assumption or the underlying circumstances that have to be there. A mission assumes a mission field, right? So the purpose of the forever kingdom assumes that there's something else. And you'll see what I mean here as you look there at verse 13. The first thing I want to settle in your mind, there are two kingdoms. John 18 comes to mind. Remember, Jesus is speaking to Pilate and he says, my kingdom is not of this world. That's the forever kingdom. That's the promise Davidic kingdom. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. On the other hand, 1 John 2, there's a kingdom that's passing away. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. So we have the kingdom of Christ, the Davidic kingdom, the promised kingdom ruled by David's greater son, right? And we have this world and the kingdom of this world. And as we've said already, the kingdom of Christ is at hand. Luke 17, Jesus says, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed. They will not say, look, here it is or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst or within you or among you. Both the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of this world are going to coexist, at least for a time. First Corinthians five. Paul's not talking about this directly, but listen to what he says. He says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy or swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. And what's his point? He's talking about not associating with the sexually immoral in the congregation, in the church. And he says it this way, he says, if I was talking about all the immorality out there, well then you would have to leave out there. So while the forever kingdom is in our midst, the kingdom of this world is here also. The kingdom of this world has a ruler too, 2 Corinthians 4. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. And then Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 2. And you probably know a little bit of this by heart anyway. Pretty famous. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. In other words, following Christ, entering the kingdom of the forever king, being a citizen of the forever kingdom, We're not talking about a change in geography. The kingdoms are co-located. We're not talking about a change in time period. The kingdoms are contemporaneous or at the same time. What we're talking about is a change in citizenship. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, I hope you're with me here. I hope I've convinced you, two kingdoms, all at the same time. And so, maybe, or at least one of the questions ought to be, why? What's the purpose? What's the purpose of this kingdom? What's the mission of the forever citizen? This is where Jesus goes, Matthew chapter 5 verse 13. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it, meaning the earth, how shall the earth be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Light your light this way, so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. In other words, the citizens of Christ's kingdom have a mission to preserve the earth, or the kingdom of this world. The forever citizens have a purpose, to show the way, to light the path. Maybe you're wondering, didn't he just say that that world is passing away? Am I supposed to preserve it and light the way for it? Or am I supposed to let it pass away? Yes. And this is how we know that the move from the kingdom of this world to the forever kingdom of Christ is not a change in geography. This is how we know that the move from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of this Christ is not about a change in time. Otherwise, there would be no place for this purpose and mission. Otherwise, there would be no time for this purpose and mission. The move from the one kingdom to the other, following Christ, entering his kingdom is a change in citizenship. Citizens of the forever kingdom Subjects of the forever king will have a foot in both worlds. There are two kingdoms. There are two masters. The kingdom of this world and its master are not far off. They're not in the past. They are here and now. But so also is the kingdom, the forever kingdom, the promised Davidic kingdom, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the citizens of the forever kingdom, our mission, Preserve the earth and shine shine light into the darkness of this world now if you missed it look there in verse 16 how Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works So citizens of Christ's kingdom are blessed that's the Beatitudes that's chapter 5 verse 1 through 12 and The promise is not ease and comfort necessarily, but the result is joy and gladness. And don't lose track of the original setting here, right? Jesus is speaking to people that he's kind of saying, you are these people. You are the citizens. You are the ones who are following. You are citizens of the forever kingdom. These are citizens that have a mission and a purpose. They're the salt that preserves the earth and it guides the world. And they do this by their good works. Now, how would the first century Jew know how to define a good work? What had the Lord given them to know what a good work might be? And everybody said, the law. This is where Jesus goes next, Matthew chapter 5, verse 17. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot, one tittle will by no means pass from the law till it is all fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. So the law and the prophets, they are not so yesterday. They are not old news. The Old Testament is now being fulfilled. This is what Jesus is saying. And real quickly here, it's probably just a page or two. Flip over to Matthew chapter 7 verse 12. You'll see the golden rule there. And this is nearing the end of the sermon, and I am going to get there, I promise. In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you. For this is the Law and the Prophets, the sum total of what Jesus came to fulfill. The Law and the Prophets will not pass away. They will be fulfilled. And how is it summarized? The Golden Rule. Treat others as you would want to be treated. So all of this, between here and there, we're talking about what Jesus came to fulfill. The law was never meant to create merit. We know this. This is common fair, praise the Lord, in our congregation. As creatures, we have obligation to obey the Creator. When we do obey the Creator, We have not earned anything. We have simply done what we were created to do. Now, if we obeyed perfectly, we could say that we obeyed better than another, but we still have not done anything other than what we were created to do. We have not gone above and beyond what we ought to do. We have only done our obligations. Now on the other hand, and this is part of the context that Jesus doesn't say explicitly, but it is important to remember as we carry on here, the Pharisees, the ones who had been stewards of the law, the Jewish leaders, had taken the robust law given to them by the Lord, and instead of teaching people that the law was a means of grace, whereby they knew how to do the very thing for which they were created, they used the law to build a fence. And, of course, they built it around themselves. And, of course, the people on the inside were the righteous ones, and the people on the outside were the unrighteous ones. Everyone on the inside had earned something, had status. Everyone on the outside was left wishing they could obtain that high standard of the law so that they could enter into the inside of the fence. Now, of course, I mean, I know this is true because this is exactly what I would do, right? over time you gotta tweak the fence if you're gonna stay inside of it because righteousness is pretty hard to maintain unless you shrink it in some places and maybe expand it in some other places and you gotta keep rearranging the fence but if you're the leaders you got the authority to do that you tweak the law you move the fence in order to make sure you still qualify to be on the inside because you know that the law has this pesky habit of revealing what's under the hood, right? And of course, those on the outside of the fence, looking in, perceive that that law is a standard which, if I could only get in, if I could only follow the law, I could get in. And then I could be on the inside and not here on the outside. And so Jesus is going to say that the fence that the scribes and the Pharisees built is not the same as the boundary around the forever kingdom. Those things are not the same. It's not that they're completely unrelated, but they built a fence that wasn't the boundary, you see. Now, this is important because what's next? Look there in verse 20. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Not even the scribes and the Pharisees could keep the law in a way that earned righteousness. Jesus is going to go on. He's going to give a contemporary understanding of the law. He's not going to alter the law. He's not going to lower the bar so that more people can come in. He's going to demonstrate the fullness of the law. And this is common fare. And for time's sake, I'm going to go fairly quickly. He addresses murder. And he says there's more to it than that. Anger and hatred are unrighteous, like murder. He's going to address adultery and he's going to feel it and he's going to say lust is unrighteous like adultery. He's going to say divorce causes the subsequent sin of adultery and you'll remember this one. I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, nor by Jerusalem, and so on and so on. In other words, using God's gifts as collateral for your promises is lying about the certainty of your promises. And you'll remember this. I tell you not to resist an evil person. Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him also. In other words, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. You do not have the right to personal justice. I have justice. Vengeance is mine. You execute the mission and purpose of the forever kingdom. Kingdom citizens are not the owners of their possession. They're not the owner of their pride, or their self-esteem, or anything else in the kingdom of heaven. So, it's not that obeying the law has no value. It's not that there is no reward. It's not that good deeds are without importance. It's that perfection is required if we are going to somehow try to obligate the Lord to let us into the kingdom on our own merits. This is what Jesus is getting at as he continues here in chapter six. Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, don't sound the trumpet before you like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may have their glory from men Assuredly I say to you they have the reward When you do a charitable deed do not let your left hand know What your right hand is doing that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly so this is Jesus is going to go on and give what we call the Lord's prayer, right? And he's going to warn against praying for the purpose of grabbing glory and investing it there in the kingdom of this world. The right kind of prayer puts the prayer before the Creator with nothing to offer. No righteousness to bring. No merit to bring. And we know the words. In this manner therefore pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We don't even bring enough to feed ourselves every day. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. What we do bring is a debt. As we forgive our debtors, we don't even own the right to call in our debts. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Now, you might be thinking, So, I thought you said the mission and the purpose was to do good works that people see them and they glorify God. So, are we supposed to do them so people see them or do them so people are not supposed to see them? And I don't know if Jesus took questions during his sermons. We typically don't here. I mean, I guess I wouldn't really mind it. But I don't know. I don't know if people were raising their hands like, hey, I don't get it. But there's no record of that. So we assume that everybody got it. But here's what's going on. It's where you invest this reward. If you take that good work, if you want to call it merit, Jesus does call it reward. And you invest it somewhere here. Well, you get it here in the kingdom of this world. But if you do that thing for investment toward the forever kingdom and its value in the economy of the forever kingdom, then you fulfill the mission and purpose whereby The people still here, in the kingdom of this world, see that. And they glorify the God in heaven. So, the master of this world has an economy. You can trade your goods, buy, sell, you can invest your wealth in this world. You can serve the master of this world's economy. You can invest your goods in the forever, or sorry, Or, you can invest your goods in the forever kingdom. You can serve the forever king in his forever economy. In the economy of this world, of course, we'll see here, I didn't do this intentionally, but I do recall now, this is the part that I preached on the last time, right? If you remember. So, the economy of this world has overhead, right? rust destroys, moth destroy, thieves steal, and this overhead reduces your margins in this world to the point of anxiety, right? You're not sure if you've invested enough to keep your estate intact here in this world. In the heavenly economy, there's There's no overhead. There's no rust. There's no thieves. There's no moth to destroy. Your margins are such that there's no reason to worry. In the forever kingdom, you are not just an economic pawn. You're the son of the father of the kingdom who will give you every good gift. Right? Now, at this point, I hope we and Jesus' crowd, I think, is starting to get the point. You can't get a ticket to the forever kingdom with a lot of money or a lot of religious good works in your account. Again, this is common fare for us. The forever kingdom is not for those who have their spiritual act together. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The forever kingdom is not for those who have come to terms with their sin, the sins of one another, and how sin has devastating effects throughout all of creation. No. No terms with sin. Blessed are those who mourn. The forever kingdom is not for the powerful, especially for those who use that power to forge out a nice little slice of the kingdom of this world. Blessed are the meek. The forever kingdom is not for those who already think they have plenty of righteousness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. The forever kingdom is not for those who demand justice here and now. Blessed are the merciful. While kingdom citizens exist with a foot in both worlds, the forever kingdom is not for those whose heart is divided. Blessed are the pure and heart. The sons of this world build their estate here and now, and they have to take it by force, they have to protect it by force, and this is at the expense of creating enemies. In the forever kingdom, blessed are the peacemakers. The citizens of the forever kingdom understand that they have nothing to bring to obligate the Lord to let them in. We understand that the Lord's grace is the source of everything. There is value in the forever kingdom. There are goods, there are ethics, there are rewards, but to the forever citizens, the economy of the forever kingdom are all matters of stewardship toward the mission to preserve and to shine light into the kingdom of this world. Now, it's with this perspective that Jesus turns to one of the most misused passages in all of scripture. And this perspective that we've been building tonight is going to help us make sure we don't trip on any of the landmines here. Matthew chapter 7. Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. So, because Jesus had not come to destroy the law, we know that this is not a call to destroy or ignore or minimize the law in our personal relationships. What he's saying here, and I'm gonna slow down because this is important and it's really important that you grasp it. It's so easy to trip up on this verse. He is saying that when we condemn someone, someone else for being on the wrong side of the law, We run the risk of sawing off the branch that we're sitting on. Our condemnation under the law is the reason that we are all outside of the kingdom. So when we say, you broke the law, you should be outside, it's just a matter of time until we're on the outside too. Our condemnation under law is the reason we have nothing of our own to bring into the kingdom. So, when we kick somebody out of the kingdom, we're acting as if the law keeping is what brought us into the kingdom, and the law keeping is what keeps us in the kingdom. And of course, our obedience did not earn us entrance into the kingdom, and our obedience does not keep us into the kingdom. And this is the thing that we understand, right? This is the thing that forever citizens understand about the forever kingdom. This is what we rejoice in. This is what we are glad about. This is why we're willing to let the Lord keep justice and forego it. This is why we are glad to invest in the eternal kingdom rather than put all of our goods in this worldly kingdom. That a self-earned righteousness is not the entry ticket is the good news of the forever kingdom. That Jesus Christ will give his righteousness is the good news of the kingdom. Look there at chapter 7 verse 6. This gospel, this is the good news. This is the thing that we are not to give to the dogs or cast before swine. In the sense that those who don't think they need the gospel will not appreciate Dogs do not appreciate what is holy. Pigs do not appreciate pearls. Those who think that their righteousness gets them in, they already have a good news. They cannot fathom the value of the one you have. Here's what I think Jesus is getting at. When we call out sin, when we say, hey brother, you have a speck in your eye or a log or however you want to term it. When we call out sin, we do so from the understanding that the sinner's law-keeping is meant to serve the mission of the kingdom. Not like the scribes and the Pharisees had done from the perspective that law keeping gets them into the kingdom or law keeping keeps them into the kingdom. This news that justice of the law has been satisfied, the commands of the law are a gracious gift from the creator. This is the thing that the dogs and the pigs who think that they already are in This is the thing that they will not appreciate. This is the thing that they will trample on. They will not value it, and they will reject it. So, this lowly, humble, I have nothing to merit my entrance into the kingdom kind of attitude. Remember that set of characteristics that Jesus started with in the Beatitudes? This is where he started, and this is what grounds where he's going to go, and we're almost here to the end, actually. Chapter 7, verse 6, you have nothing. Ask, and you will receive. Just as you want others to leave justice to the Lord and give you forgiveness and give you mercy in your personal affairs, do so to others. In other words, just as you want others to operate in the heavenly economy, where all of this is a stewardship and justice is the Lord. Just like you want people to do that to you, do the same to them. Rather than building your own little estate here with the resources you've been given to steward in this world, build it in the heavenly kingdom. Do this also for others. This is the whole, the summary of the Law and the Prophets. Now, men throughout ages have devised systems of law where they ultimately and inevitably count themselves worthy of entering into whatever glorious eternity that they envision. Of course, these systems inevitably destroy the Lord's narrow gate. This is where Jesus goes next, right? Of perfection. And it exchanges it for a wider gate that, well, is at least wide enough for all of them to go through, right? If you're going to create a system, you at least want to succeed in your own system. Of course, these systems always end up profiting the religious leaders who build them. These same leaders invariably claim that their man-created standards are built in the name of the Lord, of course, and that their works are done in His name. This is what Jesus is saying when He says, not everybody who says Lord, Lord. These systems always distort the law. They always confuse the law. They always misuse the law. most of the time they use it as the gatekeeper to say who's in and who's out. And of course this only works because there is a shade of truth, right? Because it's not that the law has passed away. It's not that the law is not important. But if you're creating a false system like this, you fail to see the law in its right relationship as the thing whereby we will obey and show the world to glorify God in heaven. They fail to see it in the right relationship to the mission of the forever citizens in the forever kingdom. And when that law is shifted in that way from how we accomplish our mission to the thing that obligates the Lord to let us in, we've jumped out of the whole world of mercy. If the Lord lets us in on the basis of justice, there's no need for forgiveness. If the Lord's way is that we earn our way and He would be unjust not to let us in and to stay in, there is no grace. There is no forgiveness. Blessing isn't even there. Because it's not a blessing, it's what the Lord owes you for your good works. When we shift the law to that way, all of the glorious doctrines of the forever kingdom get trampled underfoot in the name of justice. In the forever kingdom, justice belongs to the Lord. Christ has satisfied the justice. That is the fundamental principle of the forever kingdom. I don't know if you can tell, I think it's a pretty glorious one. The forever kingdom is for the lowly and the humble. Entrance is by grace. We know here, grace. precedes repentance, grace produces faith, right? The lowly, the repentant, the humble, the faithful. The forever kingdom requires not just any Messiah, and I just described him, the Messiah. The lowly, the humble, the destitute, they enter upon the merit of the righteousness, the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. Forever citizens keep the law, as a loving response in gratitude to their maker, for the purpose of the forever kingdom's ministry to the kingdom of this world, and the Messiah's perfect obedience is what keeps them in the kingdom. As I said before, the law keeping earns a reward, but the forever citizens invest these rewards in the forever economy. to the glory of the Lord. The Messiah's satisfactory payment of our penalty allows the forever citizens to leave vengeance to the Lord and to be merciful and forgiving. We're to the end here. I'm going to go carefully with this as well because I guess it's because it's been personal just the last few months when as we've seen what's happened around us in this world. So, this is an analogy, but we're witnessing multiple attacks on several fronts for the kinds of principles, the kinds of ideas, the kinds of things that have made Western society, that made America what it is. We see battles over where do rights come from? What is justice? What is fairness? What is partiality? What is equality? How do we define marriage? Who gets to define marriage? How do we define what is a man and a woman? Who gets to define what a man is and what a woman is? And if you're anything like me, at some point, you look at the people who are attacking these these obvious fundamental principles that have existed throughout all human history. And you're like, if you don't like it here, just go to that place that does it the way you want. There's places in this world that do the thing that you want. Why don't you just go there? Why are you fighting with me? Just go there, right? Now, it's easy to throw in the towel. It's easy to, here's the analogy, revert to, man, I wish the Lord would come. When, when is he, when is the kingdom really gonna get here? I mean, I know it's here already, but when is it really gonna get here? Or where, where can I go where this kingdom is already here? Like, I mean, I know it's already here, he said so, but I mean like the real kingdom, you know, like the full one, the awesome one. It's easy to revert that, but... Now, you may not agree with me politically, you may not even agree with me in all the list of things I just... That's not my point. We don't have to go there. Here you are, and here are the people that disagree with you on these sites of things, those sorts of things. Who's in the wrong kingdom? These questions are for me too. Who should leave and go home? Who should go back to where their kingdom matches how they want to be a citizen? Is it the person who's out there in the kingdom of this world doing exactly what you would do if you are a citizen of the kingdom of this world? Or is it us who has another citizenship? And we live in this time where there is the kingdom of this world and there is the kingdom of our Christ. And we are citizens of the kingdom of Christ. And our mission is to go to that kingdom and bring him over here. So it's to our shame when we say, just go where I don't have to deal with you. We're here and it's This time, I'm not going to propose how long we're going to be here. We are citizens of the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of this world exists with us. How are we going to steward the law of the Lord? Are we going to, like the Pharisees, use it to build fences? Or are we going to obey it to the glory of God? Where are we going to build our estate? Are we going to invest our resources in the kingdom of this world? Or are we going to build an estate in the kingdom of Christ? Are we going to go after our best life now? or are we going to build something for heavenly reward? Which master of which kingdom gets our service? Are we going to demand our rights, our justice, our fair share now? Or are we going to be willing to lose everything for the sake of the forever king? The kingdom of Christ is the forever kingdom. And as long as the Lord allows the kingdom of this world to exist, it's our mission to steward the law of the Lord, to be sultan-like, to invest in the forever kingdom, And this is exactly how Jesus concludes his sermon here. I'll just read these five verses and then we'll be done for this evening. Matthew chapter 7, verse 24. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall. And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his teaching, for he had taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes. Let's pray. Lord, we have labored to understand what you have in store for us in this passage tonight. Lord, we can only ask that you give us the courage, give us the strength, give us the humility to go forth and subject ourselves to the King that we all declare with our lips, the King of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.