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About this series:
The title of our teaching series throughout 2023 is The Kingdom Of God. The essential goal is to help people understand the Bible’s teaching on the kingdom of God and raise confidence in God’s plans for his kingdom’s expansion / multiplication.
Teaching about The Kingdom Of God is a great way to address life as a church community - this is how life together under God’s reign should look like. And to address our lives in the world - demonstrating to those in our sphere of influence the reality of God and what life looks like when God is your king.
The six topics we will cover in Kingdom People are characteristics we believe to be foundational to life as a follower of Jesus. They are therefore qualities of people living in the kingdom of God - people who trust God, grow in Christlikeness, relate to others in godly ways, give freely because they have freely received, share their lives and faith with others, and seek the multiplication of God’s kingdom wherever they go.
About this talk:
Scripture: Matthew 5:13-16
God’s people have always been, in large measure, how the world knows about and experiences God. For better or worse, he is seen in/through his people. And so God has in some sense bound himself to how his people portray him to the world, as is seen throughout the Bible’s rollercoaster story.
When Jesus commissions his disciples - first the 12, then the 72, then just before his ascension (see Matthew 28, Luke 24, Acts 1) - he is sending them to continue the announcement of the good news of the kingdom that he came to bring. They are witnesses, ambassadors, and emissaries. All of which involve sharing life and faith with those they were sent to. And the same is true of us in the situations God has placed us.
In Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus expresses this in terms of two everyday images: salt and light, both of which communicate the effect his disciples will have in the world. First he says, “You are the salt of the earth.” Salt, in first century life, was a preservative and a flavour enhancer.
A preservative. In a world without refrigeration, food, especially meat, would quickly rot and become inedible. Rubbing salt into the meat would mean it would be preserved in a healthy state for a longer period of time. Jesus is urging his disciples to retain their saltiness - their distinctive kingdom-of-God quality with a kingdom-of-God message - in order to have a preservative effect on society and, more importantly, on people’s souls. We are not simply being called to help make society more pleasant, but to save from everlasting decay.
A flavour enhancer. Jesus’ disciples, by obeying his teaching, following his example and living in the power of the Holy Spirit, have a positive effect on those around them. “Life is better with you here” is something people should be able to say of a Christian; “Life is better with you here” is something a community should be able to say of the churches in its area.
Secondly, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world” - the only time he is recorded as using the same descriptor for his disciples as for himself, see John 8:12. Using a variety of images here, Jesus is speaking of the prominence his people will have and the way they will allow the light within them to be on display, with the end result that people, “may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Light dispels darkness, light allows people to see where they are going, light means that people can see things for what they really are.
Some of the challenges include:
Getting close enough to people to share our lives and our faith.
Retaining our distinctiveness (saltiness, light) as people of the kingdom.
To live in such a way and share in such a way that people are led to, “see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
We have looked at how ‘you are the light of the world’- ask yourself:
Who has God placed you near and how might he be planning for you to help them come closer to him?
Where do you find it hard to retain your distinctiveness as someone living under God’s reign?
What does it look like to be a spiritual preserver and a flavour enhancer in practice?
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