Thank you for joining us in this ongoing study on the Kingdom of God. For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 6, and Week 7. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.

I highly recommend completing the worksheets for a week before reading the blog or watching the teaching video – listen to what God has to teach you through His Word.

Amidst all the waiting and the wondering after the time of the prophets, the waiting for the kingdom God had promised, and the king for their throne, entered a little baby. This baby grew into a man few would recognize as a king. Because when the kingdom came, it was nothing like what the people were expecting. They were looking for something they would recognize as a kingdom – all the things they were given before. They were expecting Jerusalem to be theirs once again. They were expecting the oppressive Roman government to be overthrown. They were expecting a coronation – a man on a throne to lead them in God’s way, like their father David had done.

Yet Jesus, this unexpected King, came not to establish an earthly kingdom, as most were anticipating, but to point the way, to be the way to an eternal kingdom, one that is not of this earth. Matthew chose to rename the kingdom so that the people who had been waiting for God’s kingdom would have a new and better understanding. Matthew chose to call it “the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew was telling his Jewish readers – “I know you have been waiting for a kingdom. And, well, it’s here. But it’s not a kingdom on this earth. The kingdom you’re looking for is in Heaven.” They needed to be explicitly told to stop looking for God’s kingdom with Earthly eyes. Turn your eyes to Heaven because that is where the Kingdom of God will be found.

And because this kingdom was so much not what the people were looking for, Jesus spent His three years of ministry teaching the way of the kingdom to those who would hear. The declaration of His forerunner, John the Baptist, was also picked up by Jesus Himself when He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The first step, then, that we see to embracing the kingdom of God is repentance – a full turning from the direction we are going to a new path – the path toward the kingdom. Repentance is more than just an “I’m sorry,” but rather an “I’m broken” – I’m broken by the choices I’ve made and the way I have grieved God and I will make the distinct choice to be different, to do different. Repentance is grief over having grieved the heart of God. And it is from this humble place of bowing in obedience to God that we will have the greatest vantage point into God’s kingdom.

Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). When we have emptied ourselves of all that from which we need to repent, we will find our spirits very poor indeed, and there we will find the kingdom – this upside-down kingdom that is not looking for the rich, the powerful, the strong, but finds its glory in the poor, the helpless, and the weak. In fact, Jesus told His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15). The posture one has when approaching the kingdom of God is that of a child – helpless, innocent, humbled, entirely dependent.

This, we might consider, is exactly opposite to the way the religious leaders of the day were preparing themselves for God’s returning kingdom. They were making every effort to fulfill every letter of the law – including many they had imposed on their own. They were working hard to make themselves ready – ready for a kingdom where the powerful, the strong, the “most righteous” were rewarded. On the one hand, Jesus continually rejects this form of righteousness – the form of righteousness that puts the letter of the law over the heart of the law. And, yet, on the other, He tells the people, “[U]nless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). And, even more, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). What then? Who on earth could match this description?

And here we come back to the poor in spirit. Because I’m not sure about everyone, but that kind of weight just feels so crushing, my spirit feels very poor indeed. As though everything I’ve ever done that might be considered worthy will never measure up. The wealth of righteous deeds I have done or could ever hope to do would be counted as pennies by the standard Jesus preaches. And this is what we are meant to see. That our righteousness – that any good things we could choose to do – would never exceed that of those who have spent their lives following the entire law to perfection. And even they would never measure up to the perfection of God.

This law code that God established when He established His earthly kingdom in the Old Testament has now become a crushing weight that no man can bear up under. And that is just Jesus’s point. This is exactly where we come back to humbling ourselves like children. Children cannot provide for themselves. They must live entirely dependent on their caregivers. In the same way, we cannot provide for ourselves a way into the kingdom. We cannot pave the way with our pittance of righteous deeds. We must enter entirely dependent on the provision granted by our Heavenly Father.

Jesus beckons, then, with the words, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy leaden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). This yoke, the oppressive weight of the Law man had been trying to bear up under for centuries, was what Jesus came to bear. He, instead, granted those who would come His yoke – one that is easy, and light. This is the yoke of love.

What Jesus taught, what Jesus lived, is that this Kingdom the people are seeking has a new law code. Or, as we can read in 1 John, not a new law code, but a new way of looking at it. Compared to a list of dos and do nots that are endless, what Jesus taught was simple, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). This is the light burden of Jesus – that those of the kingdom are not caught up in outward actions that follow a lengthy and heavy law, but rather they are filled with love. A love for God that is so immense it spills out onto others. And if our every action is motivated by a love for God and a love for others, everything else clicks together. The whole of the law was for this purpose – to love God and love those around them. When we are living out of genuine love, we are living for the kingdom of God.

And I can say “we” because Jesus taught one more thing about the kingdom. It was no longer simply for those under the earthly nation of Israel. The kingdom was meant to be scattered. It would no longer be confined by the boundaries of Jerusalem or the physical land of the Promise. This kingdom, this Heavenly kingdom, isn’t found in political or geographical boundaries. It is found in the hearts of men – those who choose repentance and love and a following after Christ.

Jesus taught through many parables – stories given to the people whose true meaning was hidden to all who did not have ears to hear. These parables gave true pictures of the kingdom. In Matthew 13, He gives multiple analogies for the kingdom. The most prominent is the parable of the sower.

A man comes to his field and scatters seeds – some falls on the path and is devoured by birds, some falls on rocky ground and, lacking deep roots, is scorched by the sun, some fell among thorns and was choked out, and some fell on good soil and produced fruit. When Jesus later explains the story to His followers, He explains that the seed itself is “the Word of the Kingdom.” Jesus came to scatter this seed, the word of His kingdom, in the hearts of men. If the word is the seed, the kingdom is the crop. And to those who had hearts ready, good soil for growth, this seed of the word grows into the root of the kingdom here on Earth.

Jesus’s teaching of the kingdom was the planting of the kingdom right here on Earth in the hearts of men. And here we circle back to the concept of the Now and the Not Yet. Right now on this earth, every single one of us, whether born into the nation of Israel, or outside of it as Gentiles, has the ability to carry the kingdom within our own hearts. We who have chosen to follow Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, are ourselves Kingdom-Bearers. We are the kingdom of God on Earth. We are the kingdom Now. And as we wander this globe, this realm of the prince of darkness, we continue to spread the news of this kingdom and carry on the task of pointing the way to the Not Yet kingdom – the kingdom of Heaven – so that when we pray, as Jesus taught, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are, ourselves, the very fulfillment of this earnest desire for God’s kingdom on this earth.

We are the kingdom that is here, waiting for the kingdom that is in Heaven, living out of love so that, to the best that humans are capable, this world can reflect God’s kingdom in Heaven. Let us cling to the One who taught us the ways of Kingdom Living and rely on His strength as we carry this yoke of the Law of Love.

Find the companion teaching video for this week’s lesson here.

For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 6, and Week 7. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.