Matthew 28: 18-20 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go t...
Matthew 28: 18-20
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority
has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of
all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to
observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.” Amen.
Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling
people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth.”
Mark 16:15-20
15 And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach
the Good News to everyone. 16 Anyone who believes
and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be
condemned. 17 These miraculous signs will
accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they
will speak in new languages. 18 They will be able
to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t
hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be
healed.”
19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, He was taken up into
Heaven and sat down in the place of honour at God’s right hand. 20 And
the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the Lord worked through them,
confirming what they said by many miraculous signs.
Facts concerning the Kingdom of God
King-dom in Greek is “Basileia” – Primarily,
this means the Rule of God and secondly, the realm over which the
rule and reign is exercised. To accept God’s rule requires a change of
heart and mind known in the scriptures as repentance leading to conversion
a turning around to follow the King.
The Kingdom is “Soteriological, that is it
leads one to salvation. The object of the divine rule is the redemption of men
and their deliverance from the powers of evil. Christ’s reign means the destruction
of all hostile powers, the last of which is death. The Kingdom of God is the
Reign of God in Christ that destroys all that is hostile to the Divine Rule. (1
Cor. 15:23-28).
As we approach the responsibility and challenge of advancing
the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven, we want to begin to understand
and embrace The Principle of Kingdom Expansion.
The days of Christians who love the Lord remaining stagnant
and stationary in regards to the promotion and profession of our faith, are over.
God is calling all of us who call on the Name of Jesus to
learn how to take a stand and to learn how to be witnesses of the Saving Grace
of Jesus Christ and the establishment and advancement of the Kingdom of
God. This isn’t just a job for preachers and ministers; this is a job for
every born-again believer in Christ. For this reason, we must begin to learn
how to execute The Principle of Kingdom Expansion.
One of the first things we need to establish in regards to
The Principle of Kingdom Expansion is that Jesus’s primary interest is not
so much the church as an “organized congregation” but the church as an
organized Army of the Lord. If you’re like me, then you grew up in a church
that consisted of a local congregation of members that met every Sunday, under
the leadership of a pastor. Nothing’s wrong with this model, but this is not
the complete model of the Kingdom of God. With this model, the focus becomes
primarily the maintenance and growth of the church itself, the local
congregation; not the advancement and expansion of the Kingdom of God. This
is not the Will of God. It’s not God’s Will for us to grow our local
congregations, it’s God’s Will for us to advance His Kingdom. Therefore, there
needs to be a shift in Focus and Priorities. As Christians, we can no longer
afford to concentrate strictly and solely on the welfare of “our” church. This
keeps us looking inward. What we now have to do is focus on building the
Kingdom of God, which takes our focus out into the world (John 3).
In reading the first chapter of the Book of
Acts and Jesus’s Post-Resurrection Ministry to the disciples, we find that His
primary focus was the Kingdom of God. He doesn’t reference the church; He
speaks of the Kingdom. In Jesus’s rehearsal of the things pertaining to the
Kingdom of God, He then gives them a principle to abide by which will allow
them to expand the Kingdom of God appropriately.
Acts 1:8 – Jesus said to them,
8 But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling
people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and
to the ends of the earth.”
Herein lies The Principle of Kingdom
Expansion.
Matthew 28: 18-20
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority
has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of
all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to
observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.” Amen.
Let’s unwrap
this a bit, starting with the first word, “go.” It does not say “sit and
wait,” but rather GO! Next, it says what we are to do: make disciples.
The marching orders are to make disciples. Next it says where to start:
baptizing them. Implicit with the command of baptism is repentance, because
water baptism is called a “baptism of repentance.” No repentance, no salvation:
period. Now, the final marching order: teach them to observe all Christ’s
commands. This is for ALL believers. The important takeaway here is that the
central mission of the Church is the Great Commission; that is, making
repentant, obedient disciples—radically transformed lives. These disciples are in
turn responsible for doing the same (since they obey His commands, and His command
is to make disciples). All other ministries must be understood in the context
of the mission.
We can easily complain that the problem with the harvest is
that the soil is too hard. However, Jesus said there was another problem: “The
harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of
the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Luke 10:2). Jesus Himself
concluded that the greatest bottleneck to the fulfilment of the Great
Commission is the lack of workers. And it is my contention that we already have
the labourers; they just are not being mobilized.
The first thing Jesus exhorts them to do
is start
at home. Jerusalem was home for the disciples. This is
what all of us need to do. There is a home-assignment that God has established
for all of us. Home simply means local. Therefore, Home could mean your family.
Home could mean your job. Home could mean your church. Home could mean your
neighbourhood. Home could mean a particular club or organisation that you could
belong to. But I can assure you, in regards to The Principle of Kingdom
Expansion, there is something that God wants you to do right where you are on a
daily and local basis.
Then Jesus tells them to minister in Judaea
and Samaria. Judaea was a neighbouring city to Jerusalem, and Samaria was where
the people that the Jews didn’t generally associate with lived. At this point
Jesus is telling the disciples that in order to truly advance the Kingdom of
God, you’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone. This is the same
challenge for many of us today. We’re going to have to stretch our boundaries
and move beyond our areas of personalised familiarity. This is one of the
reasons why the Gospel of the Kingdom doesn’t go too far, because too many
Christians will only take it where they are familiar. We must begin to stretch
our faith and allow God to lead us into areas for which we would not regularly
travel and enter. This is part of The Principle of Kingdom Expansion.
Lastly, Jesus tells the disciples to expand the
Kingdom of God to the uttermost part of the earth. We need to recognise the
fact that the Ministry of the Kingdom of God is a global ministry. Jesus is an
Imperialist. He’s not just the King, He’s an Emperor. That’s why He’s called
“KING of kings”. He’s an Emperor. And if you study history, you’ll find that an
emperor always had the desire that their kingdom would literally “rule the
world”. This “is” going to happen when Jesus comes back (Revelation 20). But we
don’t have to wait till His Return to expand the borders of His Kingdom
throughout the world. I am of the belief that God has a global ministry for
every believer that is available to be used by God at that level. This is the
goal of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ, and it is part of The Principle
of Kingdom Expansion.
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