Henry Drummond, a scientist at the turn of the century, speaking to a group of college students said these words. “Gentlemen, I beseech you to seek the kingdom of God first, or not at all. I promise you a miserable time if you seek it second.” ¹ These are wise words on our golden text. The most fun you will ever have in God is being directly in the center of His will and His will is to seek the Kingdom of God first. In this week’s podcast, we take a look what the Kingdom of God will end up looking like and, because of how it does, why you should take your role as a citizen of God’s Kingdom seriously.

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Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This week’s call is:

You are a Kindom citizen of the Most High God. Get busy with His will. Whether you have been actively engaged with Kingdom advancement, or laid aside God’s will for your life, in either case, get busy with His will. 

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: How will understanding you are a Kindom citizen in training, change your everyday life? Would you please share your thoughts in the comments section below?

Episode Resources:

You can find additional information on the subject of faith in the resources listed below.

1. #S2-044: What is the Kingdom of God? [Podcast]

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

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Podcast Notes

Citizenship in the Kingdom: Taking Your Role Seriously

• You cannot be a member of the Kingdom of God and a member of the world’s Kingdom.
• The Lord warns you about that in the strongest terms.

James 4:4 (NKJV) — 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

• The Greek word ‘friendship’ is the word ‘philia’ like in Philadelphia. It means the state of being inclined to help or support someone or something; especially not being antagonistic or hostile.
• As far as God is concerned, there are only two positions an individual can take.
• You can either be a friend of the world or a friend of God.
• You can either be a citizen of the world or a citizen of the Kingdom.
• You can either be inclined to help the world or support the world or be antagonistic or hostile to the world.
• If you are a citizen of the Kingdom, there is no dual citizenship option.
• So don’t think American first, think Kingdom of God first.
• So, Joshua and Elijah were right.

Joshua 24:15 (NKJV) — 15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

1 Kings 18:21 (NKJV) — 21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word.

• So, you’re a citizen of the Kingdom.
• You chose to be a citizen.
• Kingdom citizenship should, therefore, become prominent in your thinking.
• Seek first the Kingdom of God.
• This prominence should be a lifestyle display.
• It should show up in your decision making.
• Your decisions should be Kingdom decisions.
• Your dreams in life should be Kingdom dreams.
• Your thoughts should be of Kingdom advancement.
• When you wake up in the morning and you have a fresh twenty-four hours to spend, do you think, ‘What can I or what should I do that will move the ball down the field today?
• Maybe this next part will help you with your thinking.

The Kingdom of God: Inside Job or Outside Job?

Isaiah 46:10 (NKJV) 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’

• Our God declares the end from the beginning.
• That means He knows the end.
• That means He knows your end.
• He knows what the Kingdom of God is going to end up looking like.
• And that’s what He is working on today.
• We have been tempted to think that the kingdom of God is only just a spiritual something.
• And so some truths about the kingdom have not been real to us as they should have been.
• It’s verses like this next set of verses which have not been properly understood.

Luke 17:20–21 (NKJV) 20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

• How many of you thought that the Kingdom of God was just an inside job as these words in the King James indicates?
• You may have thought that Jesus was setting up some kind of spiritual kingdom?
• I taught it this way before I began to drill down into this verse and focus on the individual words in this passage.
• Sometimes, you just take the Word and look at it intently.
• So, let’s do it.
• Let’s look at this verse closely.
• What is Jesus saying here?
• Defining terms is always a good thing.
• Let’s look at the first word, the word observation.
• What does the word ‘observation’ mean?
• Jesus said the Kingdom of God does not come by observation.
• The word ‘observation’ means a close watch, a patient, and thorough look.
• The word is a noun, not a verb, hence, there’s no action.
• What was Jesus saying?
• The Kingdom does not come by people standing around and looking for it, no matter how closely they look.
• What Jesus is warning about is our inclination or propensity to stand around and do nothing but wonder and look around.
• How many of you know there are a lot of people standing on the sidelines, sitting out their Christian lives.
• These are the same ones who come to church and by just sitting and listening to the service think they have fulfilled all Christian expectation.
• Spectators don’t understand the Kingdom.
• It doesn’t come into manifestation by observing.
• The second word we must define and it’s an important one in understanding this verse is the word ‘within you.’
• The word ‘within you’ means in your midst or translated better, ‘among you.’
• The word does not mean inside your heart or inside your spirit.
• Jesus was saying, ‘Don’t look for the Kingdom out there. You’re not going to find it by watching the local news. You’re not going to see it by charting the latest social media craze. It’s not out there in the world.”
• Jesus said, “The Kingdom is among you because I, the embodiment of the Kingdom is standing right here with you. If you want to see the Kingdom, I am it.”
• What we have done, because of the King James rendering of this verse, is internalized it and said, ‘Okay, the Kingdom of God is in me and Jesus is King of my heart.’
• And then, we turned around and left it right there, because what else are you going to do with something inside you?
• And so, it’s all become a diffused pile of misunderstanding.
• But, there is more than just Greek definitions that help us to know what Jesus meant here.
• Reading this verse in context is what caps it for us.
• Because in the realm of Bible interpretation, context is king.
• What is the context here?
• It’s really easy to see.
• Just ask yourself the question, who is Jesus talking to here?
• If you look at the verse, you can easily see that Jesus is having a conversation with the Pharisees.
• He is talking to the religious leaders and He is saying to this religious leaders, ‘Quit looking for the Kingdom out there, because whether or not you believe it, the Kingdom of God is right in front of you. I am it.”
• So, the context doesn’t allow this verse to mean the Kingdom of God is inside of you because He was talking to the Pharisees.
• And, the Pharisees couldn’t have the Kingdom in them because they weren’t even saved.
• He couldn’t have been saying that the Kingdom of God is an inside job because it’s more than an inside job.
• It’s also an outside job.

What Jesus Said About the Kingdom and Daniel’s Image

Revelation 11:15 (NKJV) 15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

• This is the end of all things.
• This is what ‘The End’ looks like.
• This is what God backed up and declared from the beginning as Isaiah 46:10 has let us know.
• The phrase, ““The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever”, is that a spiritual Kingdom or is it a physical Kingdom?
• It is a physical rule.
• Watch it here in the book of Daniel.

Daniel 2:1 (NKJV) 1 Now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him.

• You know if you’ve read this passage what the dream was about.
• Nebuchadnezzar saw a great vision.
• He saw a great image.

Daniel 2:31–33 (NKJV) 31 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

• The head of the image was made out of gold.
• The chest and the arms were made out of silver.
• The stomach and thighs were made out of bronze.
• The legs were made out of iron and the feet were made out of a mixture of iron and clay.
• We know something else though from the wisdom of Bible Prophecy.
• We know that all the different parts of this image represent Kingdoms.
• We have the head of gold.
  • This was the Babylonian Empire which lasted 87 years.
• It was taken over by the chest and arms of silver.
  • This was the Media-Persian Empire of which Cyrus was a part.
  • This empire lasted two-hundred years.
• The Persians were defeated by the belly and the thighs of bronze.
  • This empire was the Greek empire which came to prominence via Alexander the Great.
  • This kingdom lasted two-hundred and sixty-three years.
• The Romans were up next. They overcame The Greeks. They are the legs made out of iron and the feet made out of a mixture of iron and clay.
  • Their kingdom lasted 507 years.
• But after the seeing these four kingdoms, Nebuchadnezzar saw something wonderful.

Daniel 2:34–35 (NKJV) 34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

• In the vision Nebuchadnezzar had, a stone, cut without hands, struck the image in its feet and the entire image was broken and crushed to the fineness of chaff.
• Chaff is pieces of leaves and seed coverings from grain like wheat.
• In Bible days, farmers would throw up a bunch of seed and chaff together knowing the heavier seed would fall to the ground while the chaff was blown away by the wind.
• That’s how the good wheat was separated from the bad chaff.
• So, nothing good remains of this image once the stone strikes the image.
• Daniel is called in to give the interpretation of the dream.

Daniel 2:36–43 (NKJV) 36 “This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. 37 You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; 38 and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. 39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

• Verse forty-four is the verse which should be central in your thinking as a believer in Jesus.

Daniel 2:44–45 (NKJV) 44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 45 Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

• This Kingdom is the Kingdom of God.
• It will never be destroyed.
• The Hebrew word ‘destroyed’ means to be done away with or undone.
• The Kingdom of God will never be done away with.
• It will never be undone.
• It is a perpetual or everlasting Kingdom.
• Not like the Babylonians who only lasted 87 years. Not like the Persians two-century reign or the Romans five-century reign.
• Don’t get hung up on the kingdom’s of this image because God could have used any kingdoms and fit them into this image.
• In our day, He could have used the United States, Russia, China, and India.
• According to the internet, these four countries have the largest military.
• It doesn’t matter, the point of the image is that these kingdoms have an end but the Kingdom of God doesn’t.
• What we need to see is how this thing is going to end up.
• There is a physical Kingdom with Jesus physically as it’s head.
• It’s not all a spiritual Kingdom.

The Kingdom Parable of the Cities

Luke 19:11–28 (ESV) — 11 As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. 12 He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. 13 Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ 14 But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ 15 When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. 16 The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ 17 And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’ 18 And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.’ 19 And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ 20 Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ 22 He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’ 24 And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ 25 And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ 26 ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’ ” 28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

• Jesus gives us a parable about the physical stone kingdom of God.
• The Pharisees were looking for it right away.
• So Jesus says this noble man went to receive a kingdom and then return.
• Jesus is coming back.
• He is returning.
• But while He’s away receiving the physical Kingdom that He’s going to be bringing back with Him, He calls ten servants and gives them jobs.
• Ten is the number of completion in the Bible.
• So, He’s referencing the body of Christ here.
• So, listen up Body of Christ to what Jesus is getting ready to say.
• He said, ‘Engage in business until I come.’
• The words ‘engage in business’ is all one word in the Greek and it means to trade or turn a profit.
• What is He talking about?
• He is talking about increase.
• He’s talking about growth.
• He’s talking about development.
• He gives each person a mina.
• A mina was approximately three months worth of wages for one person.
• When the noble man comes back with his kingdom, he calls the servants to see what they did with what he gave them.
• Based on what they did with what He gave them, and He all gave them the same, he gives them positions of authority in his kingdom.
• To one who went to the max, he gave him rule over ten cities.
• To another, he gave five cities based on what he did with what he was given.
• They were all given the same.
• The one fellow who did nothing with what he was given was placed over nothing.
• His mina was given to the one who demonstrated maximum impact with what he was given.
• Then finally, the enemies who refused the reign of the noble man were completely destroyed.
• What does this parable mean?
• The stone comes down upon the kingdoms of this world turning them into chaff.
• The wind takes away the chaff until there is no trace.
• And all that is left standing is the stone.
• Jesus said the stone that builders rejected has become the head of the corner.

Matthew 21:42 (NKJV) — 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

• The rejected stone becomes the head.
• The head of what?
• The head of the kingdom of God.
• The kingdoms of this world are become or turn into the Kingdoms of our God and He shall reign over them.
• But, how does He reign?
• The parable of the minas tells us.
• To one He gives ten cities, to another five cities.
• Who are these people?
• These are believers in Jesus who have been given assignments by Jesus the head of the Kingdom and they have been faithful and busy doing kingdom business.
• They are the ones who could have been fishing and playing golf and instead built the kingdom.
• They traded, They worked, They were faithful.
• And to these Jesus says because you have been faithful, you take New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
• And you because you have been faithful you take Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, and Naples.
• Because you have been faithful, take Broken Arrow, Tulsa, Edmond, Oklahoma City, Lawton, Midwest City, Ponca City, Bartlesville, Stillwater, and Claremore.
• You rule it. You reign it. You exercise authority over it with me and for me.
• If you can’t rule over circumstances, how are you going to rule over cities?
• Do you understand how all this applies to you right now?
• You are a citizen of the Kingdom, right now.
• You are a citizen in training right now.
• You are learning to take orders from the King for His Kingdom.
• You are learning to hear Him and to execute those assignments.
• We call those assignments the will of God.
• You are learning to put into motion the will of the King.
• And you are learning to stay faithful to the call of God on your particular life.
• Right now in the here and now all over the world are scattered citizens of the Kingdom in training.
• When the King comes and sets up the final monarchy, there will be no America, no Russia, no China, no Iraq, no Egypt, no Ghana, no any nation.
• They will all become the Kingdoms of our God.
• He is going to rule those Kingdoms the same way He is dealing with you now.
• That is your going to hear the King.
• You’re going to obey the King.
• You’re going to stay faithful to the call of the King.
• No different.
• Same thing.
• You’re a citizen of the Kingdom in training for your future role as governors over the cities of this world.
• The Kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdoms of our God.
• So, you want to have an assignment from the King.
• You want to do His will.
• You want to practice faithfulness.
• You want to learn to hear the King.
• Because if you don’t do it now, you won’t be doing it then.
• Your stuff will be taken from you and given to someone more faithful to the call than you.
• It’s not a good thing to get an assignment from the King and not fulfill the will of the King.
• ‘Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not what I say’, are the words of the Master.
• It’s not, ‘Oh He will forgive me.’
• He will forgive you all right and take your stuff and give to some one else.
• Because these people who are ignoring their assignments are proving something to the King, and they proving it right now.
• They are proving that all that God can trust them with is a lawnmower.
• And you may hear the Spirit of God say, ‘You take this lawnmower’ and you can have authority over this patch of weeds and you can mow it for the next couple of hundred years.

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