Sunday, September 29, 2019
Welcome to Anderson’s & Girls Orchards
One of the more interesting chapters can be found in Matthew 13 where Jesus speaks of several parables and during the chapter He gives us a reason for the parables as a means of teaching “kingdom” truths. These parables clearly relate to different time frames. Some impact the present, teaching 1) the need for kingdom people to have hearing ears; 2) the breadth of the kingdom’s spread; and 3) the cost of the kingdom’s acquisition.
Others relate to the future, teaching 1) the final disposing of the fruit of the Adversary’s hindrance and 2) the final disposition of the mixed in-gathering from kingdom outreach. In mixing these two aspects of the “kingdom,” Jesus helps us appreciate the kingdoms as both present and prospective.
The message of the kingdom is two-edged and relates to two frames of time; first, God, in Christ, is now recovering man from his double loss – relationship with God and of ruler-ship under God. He promised this at man’s fall, illustrated it in the patriarchs and Israel’s history, and now the King has come to begin fully bringing it about.
The kingdom is being realized presently, in partial and personal ways, as it is spread through all the earth by the Holy Spirit’s power in the church. Second, the kingdom will be realized finally in consummate and conclusive ways only at the return of Jesus Christ and by his reign over all the Earth. What we experience of His triumph now, n part, will then be fully manifested.
You are loved, Pastor Don
Cornerstone Worship Center 