The Joy of Growing God’s Kingdom Together: Part 2

All of you online that aren’t able to be with us today, we’re so glad that you’re able to tune in. We had some technical difficulties last week, but last week’s sermon is online. So y’all just give us a big shout out. Give us a thumbs up, give us a hallelujah. And I, you know, and your icons and everybody here in the place, welcome to people online.

When you welcome the people online, let’s just give her and those of you who are new with us today, we’re so glad that you’re with us. We are. And we’d love to connect with you. You have a blue connection card in your bifold, and if you would fill that out for us and let us know a little bit about yourself, you’re not obligated to do that, but we would love for you to do that and connect with somebody over at our table. And we can tell you more about our church and where we’re going.

And we’ll have our guest connect next month, which you can be a part of, to learn more about our church. We’ve got a few things coming up. Okay, guys, I want you to be ready because next Saturday, next Saturday is our salt the city, okay? Our salt the city, okay. My family’s going to be there.

We got a lot of families that are going to be there. We’d love to have you as a family there, too, to serve. And we’re meeting at the wine Coop chiropractic and starting right there on Laskin Road. If you need more information about that right at the table. And I would love for you to sign up today.

Sign up today. We’ve got. We got sign ups at the table if you’re computer illiterate, but if you are an app person, I heard a giggle over here about being computer illiterate. Somebody said, who’s computer illiterate today? But there are those.

How do I sign up? If you’re familiar with our church app, the church app is connected to our planning center application that we use here at our church. It’s our main application for giving and everything. If you’ve given or been any part of the church, you know, church center, if you go in there, click, click on the side and go to sign ups and go to serve day, you can fill out your information, your family’s information. If you would do that, you got my permission even now to go into the church app and register and let us know.

We want to know who’s going to be there because we’ve got a few things we want to do here in our community and salt the city is an incredible time to serve and let the city know that we are here for them. It’s not just about us, it’s about them. And my heart is that one day we can as. As we grow as a church and we can do more, and the city would just really notice us. I’m telling you, even as a small church, we’ve had the city.

The city’s recognized us for a lot of things. Just by us being here in this community, we’ve been able to accomplish a lot. We’ve been able to accomplish a lot. There’s been a lot of life change. People are.

You’re salt and light. You’re salt and light. Salt church. You’re the salt of the earth. You are a light to the world.

And this is a great way for us to get out there. And it’s fun. And if you want fellowship, it’s a great opportunity to fellowship. If you’re new to the church, it’s a great way to get connected to some people here in the community and get to know some people. That’s a beautiful way.

It’s going to be a fun day. We will have breakfast provided. Amen. Okay, so it starts at 08:00 you come in, we eat, and then we go. And then we’re usually done by early afternoon.

So it’s not going to take up your whole Saturday, unless you want it to. And you just want to go out and serve all day, that’s fine. Won’t keep you from doing that. But you will be able to have the rest of your Saturday if you don’t want to give up the entire Saturday. But this just really means a lot to me when we roll up our sleeves and we get out there and we serve, and we’ll let you know about those projects that we have when you arrive.

And we’ll, for instance, an example is, I’ll be at the beach giving donuts, handing out donuts and things to local surfers and people there in the community. We did that a couple years ago, and it was really a cool thing. They got to know us, and we got some people come to our church as a result of that, you know, and that’s the key, you know, get them to Jesus, get them to the altar. Amen. It’s a great way to serve our community.

Also, next week, we will be over in the smaller ballroom, just so that y’all know, we won’t be in the big ballroom next week. We’ll be in there. And we’ll have kind of a reduced setup and some acoustic worship and some fun stuff like that. So cool, cool, cool thing to be a part of. Just come on out.

Just don’t come here. Go over there. You’ll see signs and everything. And we’re going to have an amazing time ending our summer of salt series. All right, guys.

All right. And by the way, we will be starting Nehemiah in August. Nehemiah. In Nehemiah, they talk about, start doing the good work. We’re going to talk about doing the good work.

It was a lot of work, but a lot of work that was done easy because everybody was involved. Amen. Amen. When everybody’s involved, the work is the labor. The laborers are few.

And we’re going to talk a little bit about that. I’m going to roll on here because I’ll start preaching on Nehemiah now. All right, I’m, I’m preaching on the kingdom of God, the joy of growing God’s kingdom together. The joy of growing God’s kingdom. And the thing about the kingdom of God, I love teaching on it, and I could teach on it for months, honestly.

There’s just so much on the kingdom, because everything in the Bible is the kingdom. It’s all about the kingdom. And God hasn’t called us to wait for the day that we’re going to heaven when we get saved. We’re not. Hey, you know, I’m saved now.

When is heaven coming, God? Because this world’s pretty bad, right? He calls us to live out the kingdom in the place that he created for us. He created this earth for us. And it was originally intended to be good and sin entered the world.

But God is going to restore the kingdom of heaven on earth. That is his plan. That is his goal, is to restore the kingdom of heaven on earth. And he wants us to live out the kingdom of heaven now. So the moment we come to the knowledge of Christ, for those of you who are christians, those who are saved, and you’ve given your lives to Jesus, you live eternal life now.

You don’t wait till you get to heaven to live eternal life. Eternal life begins with you, in you now. This is the beginning of eternal life. If you give your life to Jesus today, if you make a decision for Jesus today, guess what? Eternal life.

Life begins today, and that’s available to everyone. And we are to usher in the fullness of the kingdom of God. And it’s not just any kingdom. It’s a good king. It’s a good king.

It’s a perfect king. It’s a righteous king. It’s a just king. It’s a king that is full of wisdom and full of knowledge and full of understanding. It’s a king that always has the right answers.

It’s a kingdom that will reign forever and ever, as revelation tells us, in a kingdom that will. No more tears, no more dying, no more crying, no more pain, no more suffering, no more issues that we all come with in this place, right? All those will be gone. But it starts now. The kingdom of heaven actually starts now.

And God moves now. And God brings goodness now. And God brings a hope now. And this king is interesting because kings usually come in and conquer as kings, as warriors, right? But Jesus traded in his crown for a cross.

He gave his life so that we could be citizens of this kingdom. And the kingdom is here, but not yet. The kingdom is here, but not yet. I love how John Piper puts it. I shared this last week.

The kingdom of God is God’s reign, his sovereign action in the world to redeem and deliver a people, and then, at a future time, finish it, and he will renew his people and the universe completely. He is king of the entire universe, not just the earth, the entire universe. And he will redeem the entire universe to himself, and he will rule and reign over all people. So just a simple definition of the kingdom of heaven. It’s God’s reign and rule through Jesus Christ and all his citizens up underneath him in a good kingdom, a perfect kingdom.

And we live in expectation of that kingdom, that kingdom come. Right? Amen. So I want to review, because many of you probably weren’t able to make it last week. So just a quick review of what we talked about last week to set us up for this week.

The kingdom of God is here, but it’s not yet. The kingdom of God is here, but it’s not yet. Why is the kingdom of God here? Not yet. Well, it’s here by virtue of Jesus Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom and his church.

His church brings the kingdom here. The kingdom is near. The kingdom is right here. And by you being here, you are an avenue in which the kingdom is in this earth. We see that through salvation, through the changing of lives, and through societies that are made better by way of the church of Jesus Christ, his body organizations, hospitals and adoption agencies and orphanages, and all the good first responder, crisis prevention stuff, all of these things, many of these great things that we see today, major organizations were started by people who lived out the campus kingdom of God in their hearts.

The American Red Cross, started by Christian Salvation army, started by the Christian. Can I go on and on and on and on? Yes. Hospitals, numerous hospitals. You can even hear in this city started by people who’ve lived out the kingdom of God.

It brings betterment to society, it brings betterment to culture. And we see that. I had, I was out surfing at first street one day, and this surfer was talking to me and tongue in cheek, he said, you know, you messed up first Street. I said, what do you mean I messed up first street? He said, back in the day, nobody would surf out here because you’d get beat up if you didn’t know, if you didn’t surf, and you don’t know who they were, right?

Like that localism thing. And he says, now all these christians are out here and everybody’s friendly, everybody’s kind, and everybody wants to come out, you know, and they’re being nice to each other. And I just laughed. I said, well, that wasn’t me, man. That was.

That’s the kingdom of God, bro. You know, that’s what God does. And I accept that criticism. I’ll take that on, you know, if that’s me and living out the kingdom of God in my life, and I’m a part of that, then great, great is our God because he brings betterment to everything when he’s involved. When the kingdom of God is there, he brings it also.

It is here. It is here, but not yet, because one day there’s still suffering in this world. They’re still hurt in this world. You’re going to walk out here today and you’re still going to be against challenges and heartache and disagreements and all these things that happen, they’re still there. But one day, one day in the future, God will bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, fully restored and made what it was originally intended to be.

And it’s priceless. We talked about it being priceless. We have a priceless thing. It’s like a pearl of, as Jesus said, where this man finds this pearl and then sells everything he has to buy this pearl. It’s like a treasure in a field.

And he sells everything he has to buy this field so that he can have that treasure. It is a priceless thing. It is something that we gotta grasp that it’s so good, it’s so full of hope and full of God and who he is. It’s something, if we even had a little taste of it, which many of us do, we have glimpses of God’s miracles and his restoration power, how he restored your family or how he restored your marriage or how he healed you at a time, physically healed you, maybe spiritually and emotionally healed you, maybe. I don’t know what that might be for you, but many people are experiencing God in the kingdom of heaven, and it’s so priceless.

If we could just get hold of how much of a treasure it is, we would do anything and everything to sell everything we have so that we can obtain this and share it with the world. A heart for the world. And it’s global. It’s not just us. It’s all over the world.

It’s everywhere. People are worshiping right now, all over the place, all over our city, all over our nation. We are a global church movement, a movement that began with Jesus Christ and a few ragtag group of people, and they change the world. And it’s continually expanding. It’s like the universe is expanding.

The kingdom is expanding. The kingdom is expanding across the earth. It continues to expand by way of us, by way of the church. And we do everything we can to reach people for God. And he loves the earth.

He loves the earth, believe it or not, because it says, for God so loved the world, or God sent not his son into the world to condemn it, but that it might live. So it’s. So we need God’s heart. We need God’s heart. That’s what we shared last week, God’s heart.

And do we have God’s heart for the entire world to the ends of the earth? Do we believe that? Do we hold on to that? Have we captured that? And that’s the question we have to ask ourselves.

Why don’t we have that if we don’t have that? God’s heart for the earth. See, Jesus was so preoccupied with the kingdom, you see it over and over again. And in his commandment, in his last commandment, his great commandment, he said, you need to reach Jerusalem. You need to reach Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth.

You need to reach Jerusalem. Where’s Jerusalem? Jerusalem is right here. We are Jerusalem. We have our Jerusalem.

Virginia beach is our Jerusalem. We need to be reaching Virginia beach. Amen. I don’t think anybody in here right now doesn’t want to see our church grow, and they don’t want to see people not be reached for Christ. So we’ve got to listen to Jesus commandment.

He says, we got to reach Jerusalem, we’ve got to reach Jerusalem, and we’ve got to reach Judea. Judea and Samaria. That’s those. We span our outreach and then we’ve got to reach the world. We’ve got to capture God’s heart for the world.

And we can do that. When it starts here, it starts in Jerusalem. The more people we reach here, the more people we can reach out there, because that’s how Jesus told us to do it. Jerusalem. He said, go back to Jerusalem.

They said, I don’t want to go back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where you were crucified, Jesus. Why would I want to go back to Jerusalem? No, go back to Jerusalem. And they went to Jerusalem.

And what happened? The Holy Spirit fell. And everything was different after that. Boldness, courageous people walking the streets, preaching the gospel, rending people to Jesus. Boy, I want a church like that, man.

Can we be a church like that? Can we? Could we? By the power of the Holy Spirit, by an anointing of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus continually talked about the kingdom.

Let’s go back in Matthew 417. From that time on, Jesus preached, began to preach, and he preached repentance. He repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. He says, come near. Underline that.

Come near. If you got your notes, you can pull out those notes. Come near. Matthew 114 says, jesus went to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come.

He said, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe. The good news is, come near. Repent and believe. And then in Matthew ten seven, it says, as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

At hand. You hear that word a lot in the Bible. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. What does that mean? It means it’s near.

It’s right there. It’s right here. It’s near. Jesus was preoccupied with the kingdom of heaven being here, being near, and people repenting. And you know Jesus in this scripture.

I don’t know about you, but when I read this scripture, or when I first read this scripture, I thought about Jesus standing on a podium, on a corner, preaching. You know, like, was the preacher, like, you need to repent. Come to, you know, come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, you know, and the truth is, he was. He was that. He claimed.

He said, repent, everybody come. But maybe not in the same way you’re thinking. Maybe you’re thinking, the angry God Athenae says, you’re all going to hell. And that’s true. If we don’t know Jesus, okay, I don’t.

So if you have a problem with street corner preachers, then you have a problem with Jesus. So let’s just get that out of the way. Okay, I know some of them do it wrong, but let’s not condemn them all, because Jesus actually did that. So. But he did it in a different way.

He said, repent. And he hung on this word, repent. What does repent mean? It means to turn, to change one’s mind. He’s asking people when he goes out, change your mind.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Change your mind about the kingdom of heaven. Change your mind about the kingdom being way up there somewhere where we can’t touch it. Change your mind because the kingdom of heaven is right here. The kingdom of heaven is within.

The kingdom of heaven is in your midst. It is right here. It is near as your hand is to your face. If you hold it up right there, that’s how close it is. And we think we’ve taken it to mean that he was, like, angry and he was frustrated with people, which a lot of me included sometimes can be very frustrated with people when they aren’t experiencing the kingdom of heaven.

You get really upset as a pastor. You’re like, oh, man, guys, will you just capture what it really can mean? But that’s really not what it was. It was misunderstood. He just meant to change your mind.

Change your mind because I want to show you something. Is what Jesus said in Luke 17. He was having a conversation with the Pharisees, and he said this once, or Luke wrote this once. On being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, jesus replied, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of God? The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed.

So it’s not like out there. It’s not like this king. They were expecting a ruler, right? They thought he was going to come with a sword and on a horse. And he was just going to take over and slash everybody to death, burn them up and then take over.

Right? That’s what they were thinking. But he didn’t say it like that. He said, it’s not to be observed, nor will people say, here it is. There it is.

Because the kingdom of heaven is in your midst. It’s in your midst. It’s right here. It’s right here with you. Matthew 1333.

It says, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. That a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. If you know anything about baking, when you put leaven in, it doesn’t take much leaven to make the yeast rise. But if there’s no leaven, the yeast won’t rise. You mix up the the bread and leaven.

And everybody knew that you can’t see the leaven. A little bit of salt goes a long way. A little bit of leaven goes a long way. The kingdom grows when a little bit of leaven. You are a part of what God is doing.

A little bit of leaven and the thing rises. A little leaven makes a difference. And here’s the thing. When we’re communicating the kingdom of God, which we all need to be doing, I did want to make this point, and I added this to your notes afterwards. I added this, like, Friday after I’d already submitted the notes and stuff.

But it says, everyone is welcome to share in the kingdom of God. Praise God for that. Amen. Everybody. Anybody.

Any social class, anybody. But some will foolishly reject it. They’ll foolishly reject it. And I reminded of the story in Matthew 22, wherever the kingdom of heaven is, compared to a king who invited everyone to a wedding feast, he had this wedding feast. The king says, I have a wedding feast.

Who would not want to be invited to the king’s wedding feast in that day? You knew what a kingdom was. You knew what a king was. And when he said this, they were like, I would be there, just like that. And he sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

They refuse to come. When we’re sharing the kingdom of God, there are many that will foolishly reject it. And that’s okay. It’s okay. So he went.

He sent his servants to those who have been invited to the banquet, and they refuse to come. And then he sent some more servants and said, tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner. I’ve got steak, I’ve got oxen. Guys, why would you not want. I’ve got the best.

I’ve got a feast. Fattened cattle, and they’ve been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. I mean, he’s just putting the kingdom right there for everybody to see. It’s right here.

It’s available for you. Come. I want you to come. I want you to sit at the table with me. But they paid no attention and went off to their fields, into their businesses, because they were too stinking busy to really experience what God really had for them.

Does that sound familiar? I’m so busy with my life. I’m so busy making a living. I’m so busy with my family, I’m so busy with my job, I’m so busy with my business. Instead of seeing it from the other, other end.

God gave you a family, and God gave you a business, and God gave you fields, and God gave you the ability to do something with those fields. And you’ll never experience the joy of the kingdom of God if you’re on that side of it, where I’m just too busy. I’ve never known anybody that’s happy being busy. They’re just so busy. So busy.

They’re usually complaining when they say they’re busy, right? We are to be busy about the kingdom of God. And they went off and six and seven, I don’t have this written down in your notes. It even says that are up on the screen necessarily. But it says they seized the servants, they mistreated them.

And what do you think about that? Sometimes we’re going to be mistreated when we’re sharing the kingdom of God. Sometimes we’re going to be isolated and rejected and we’re going to be seen as foolish. We’re going to be. We’re going to be the weird ones out.

Right? Consider that an honor. Consider that an honor. When you’re changing environments, when people don’t curse around you because Leon’s in the room, we better not curse. That’s a good thing, right?

Let’s be ethical in our business practices while he’s on our team or she’s on our team. That’s a good thing, right? We change things, we make a difference in our environments. And it even says he got angry and he destroyed those people that had hurt his people. That’s how much God cares about his kingdom.

When sin, when the devil, when his demons, and when all those things try to attack his demon, eventually he’s going to have justice. When he comes again, there is a just God. There is a God who is a kingdom, who will come back with the sword and he will make things right. So the servants went out to. So he said, he said then in verse eight, then he said to his servants, the wedding banquet is ready.

But those I invited do not deserve to come. Do not deserve to come. Go out through the streets and invite anyone else. Just invite everybody in. Come on in, guys.

Come on in, girls. Come on in, everybody. Let’s come in. So the servants went out into the street and gathered and all the people they could find, they gathered both good and bad. Woo.

Bad people in church. The good people didn’t want to come. The church people didn’t want to come. There’s busier things to do, right? We’ve already got salvation, we already got fire insurance.

We don’t need to do anything else. But deep down inside themselves, they know. They know that this is not what they were meant created to be and do. They were meant to create, to grow the kingdom of heaven. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

It grew. The kingdom of God grew. God wants us to grow the kingdom of God. There’s joy in growing the kingdom of God when we see something grow. And it makes God’s heart happy.

It makes God’s heart happy. So we invite. So we grow. So we work on Jerusalem. So let me just give you a few practical things this week.

That was kind of. I meant for that to be a very short intro, but I got a little carried away there. But that’s a bit what we talked about last week. For all of you who weren’t here, now you’re caught up, and you can go back and listen to it, the details later on, if there’s more details. So what does that mean for us to change our mind, to be concerned for everyone?

What are we to do to extend the kingdom of God? I’m going to give you some things today that we’re going to do as a church. First of all, we’re going to anticipate. We got to have an anticipation that God. An expectation, if we want to put it in those words, that God can and will do things beyond us.

We’ve got to build that expectation. We have God living inside of us. We have the Holy Spirit in us. You have God almighty guiding you. I mean, Joshua was fearful.

He was afraid. He was. You know, Moses was the man. Moses got the Ten Commandments up on the mountain. He was in the presence of God.

Moses was this, Moses was that. He had all these accolades. How can I ever be a Moses? He was fearful, but Moses told him, he says, it is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you.

He will not leave or forsake you. So do not be fearful. Do not be dismayed. Joshua. Go, church, go.

Let’s build confidence and courage. We need to anticipate that God will be with us. It builds courage when we anticipate, when we believe, when we expect God to do mighty things. John 14 says this in verse 16. And he says, I will ask the father, and he will give you another advocate who will be, who will never leave you.

He is the holy spirit who leads you to all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. Okay. The world’s not out there looking for him, but you know him. You know him because he lives with you.

Now and later will be in you. And when he went away, the Holy Spirit come upon them. And now the church has it in them. So he’s speaking to us today. It’s in you.

And no, I will not abandon you as orphan. As an orphan or orphans. I will come to you. Do we believe that today? John 14 says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me.

The works that I do, he will do also the greater works than these he will do. Because I go to my father. You can do even greater works than God or Jesus himself. My bad. Because he sends his spirit.

It is God that does the work through you. Let me correct that real quick in case some of you are saying heretic, heretic. Okay, let me back up a little bit. Greater works than Jesus you will do. Why?

Because Jesus said you will do greater works than him. He says, I’m going away to my father so I can send the Holy Spirit. Because when you’re empowered by the Holy Spirit, you can anticipate and you can expect great works to be done through you. I don’t care who you are. One to ten you will.

You may be a one in the world, but you’re a ten in God’s eyes, and he wants to use you to do great things. Ephesians 320. Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more, this is what Paul prayed to the church all the time, more than all we can ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within what us. The power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, is in us. He is working in us.

To him be the glory in the what church he’s glorified through his church, through the power of his, of his kingdom in the church Jesus Christ, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. So my question is, do you expect, do you have anticipation when you walk into church today? Did you have expectation that God was going to do great things? When you walk out of church today, are you going to have expectation and anticipation that God is going to do great things through you, or do you believe that?

Do you have courage to do that? That God is going to use me immeasurably? More than I can even ask or think? I can ask all I want to, but he is going to do more than that. Do I have that?

The second thing we need to do is pray. If we have anticipation and believe it, we have to pray that the Holy Spirit would be upon us. We got to pray that his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven.

Meaning when Jesus inaugurated the kingdom, when his inaugural address, the kingdom of heaven, is at hand, he brought in a kingdom and went through his death and through his resurrection, his life, death and resurrection. The veil has been torn, the veil has been thinned so that heaven is available to us right now through prayer. And when we pray, that thinning of the veil even becomes thinner until the point where heaven is on earth. And whatever has been decided in heaven, whatever works in heaven. The overarching plan of God through Jesus Christ for the entire world is happening now.

We align with that will. We align with God when we pray and his heavenly presence comes down and works through us and works in us, and we pray and we pray and we pray. And we’re going to do that. We’re going to do that before church today. Praise God for my team that works here in church.

I was ready to move on to my word. Says, let’s pray for Pastor Leon. They got around me and we spent about 15 minutes praying, praying, and I felt the power of God. I’m preaching today in the unction of the power of the Holy Spirit. Guys, I’m telling you, because I had some people pray over me, over me, over me.

And it’s different. Dwight L. Moody said when I was prayed that the Holy Spirit would come upon me and the Holy Spirit came upon me. He says I was preaching the same sermons, but something was different about what I was preaching. Something was moving, something was doing something different.

And it’s so true, guys, when we pray, heaven opens up and in August we’re going to have Tuesday night prayers, prayer service, and I want to see some people. My heart is that we would be here ready to receive what God wants for our church. As we head into the season of the fall, as we’re anticipating and expecting God to take us to new levels, to grow our church, to find our permanent home and all those things that we’ve been praying for for a long time, we’re going to seek heaven and we’re going to ask heaven to that we are aligned with what God wants to do with our church, that we make sure that we are where we need to be with God. So we’ll have that opportunity in August and you can come out. And if you need healing, if you need prayer, it’s a great opportunity to come out, have people pray over you.

If you need an answer to prayer, that’s a great time to come out. Next thing is, we got to give, if we believe that we have this priceless treasure and are we willing to give everything? And I’m not just talking about finances here. I’m talking about everything. I’m talking about our hearts, because what does it say where your treasure is?

Your heart is also. Where is your treasure? What’s holding you back? Mark ten says it like this. Jesus started on his way, and a man ran to him and fell on his knees before him.

He said, good teacher, what must I do to get eternal life, to inherit eternal life, how do I do that? And then Jesus sets up an answer to that question. He says, why do you call me good? You don’t know me. No one is good except God alone.

You know the commandments. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false witness.

You shall not be, you shall not. Oops. Defraud. Honor. I got to put on my glasses because I can’t read.

You shall not defraud, Honor. Your mother and father and teacher, he says, I declare, I’ve kept all these since childhood. I’ve kept all these since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him. That’s what I love.

He’s getting ready to correct him a little bit, but he loved him. He loved him. He loved him. He said, you got something in the way. You lack one thing.

He said, go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. And at this time, the man fell to his face and he went away. Sad, sad Christian, sad. Jesus follower here because there’s something he just could not let go of because he had great wealth.

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard is it for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? He didn’t mean earthly treasures per se. He was using a symbol there to indicate anything that we have in the way of the joy that we can experience in the kingdom of heaven. He’s got so much. This priceless pearl that he has for us is available for us if we’re willing to give up that thing.

I don’t know what that thing is. I love how people in South America, Central America, and Africa, when I was in Africa, they talked about how they catch monkeys. And if you know anything about monkeys, those are some, those creatures, man, they’ll steal anything. They’ll go in your, you know, if you have a tent, they’ll go in there. They’ll take your cameras out.

And, I mean, they’re little, little kids. They’ll whine if you try to get it back. I mean, those things are just. They’re horrible. They’re horrible little creatures.

And what they do to catch monkeys is they get a jar and they put something in that jar valuable that that monkey might want. And that monkey would go to the jar and reach in that jar and grab that thing and fist up, and their fists would become larger, so they would get locked in and the hunters would go out and the monkey would be there struggling, and they’d capture the monkey because they couldn’t get away from the jar. Jar was just too heavy for them to lift and get away. Why? Because they just couldn’t let go of that thing.

They did everything they could. They had to have that. I’ve got to have that thing. I got to have that treasure. And they’re trapped.

How many of you are holding on to something so tightly that you can’t get away from the jarved? You’re trapped. You can’t get away. You’re keeping yourself from experiencing the joy of the kingdom of God because of that thing. It might be a treasure.

It might be anger. It might be bitterness. It might be frustration. It might be fear. It might be doubt.

But what do you have that’s keeping you from experiencing God’s kingdom, the joy of. Of God’s kingdom, the joy of even growing. God cannot use you if you’re holding on to something. He told him, you can’t follow me unless you get rid of that. What are you holding on to?

It’s more important that we hold on to the priceless treasure than the treasures of this world. And then we serve. Mark 1228. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer.

He asked him, of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, Jesus answered, is, hear all Israel. And he starts quoting scripture. The Lord, our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

The second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than. And he emphasizes these, these, not this, and then that. He says, it’s equal.

You love the Lord your God with all your heart, and you love your neighbor as yourself. It doesn’t say, love the Lord your God with all your heart, but your neighbor’s second. And if you don’t do that, well, that’s okay as long as you love the Lord, because you cannot love the Lord with all your heart. If you don’t love others, if you don’t love your neighbor, it’s impossible. And this man said, well, teacher, the man replied, you were right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.

To love him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. And he says, this is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. This man had it right. And when jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, you’re not far from the kingdom of God, meaning the kingdom of heaven is really, really close. Serving others and not just serving people that look like you and act like you and talk like you.

They’re the most defeated people that need to be ministered to the most, the most hopeless people, those who are going through the most trouble. There was a guy just this morning, I saw a post by a friend of mine who serves in prisons. And he talks about these people in prison, that they’re coming to church and they’re serving and they’re worshiping God and they’re praying for their families. And they found Jesus in the most hopeless place. And he said, I was in prison myself, and I found Jesus in prison.

I found Jesus because people came in there and they didn’t look down on me. They didn’t count me out. And he said this, and I may misquote it, he says, don’t count out a man that’s down. We don’t count out people because they’re messed up. We don’t count out people because they haven’t got it right yet or whatever it is.

We still. We’re still ministering to those people. We still want to love those people. We still want to give them the opportunity of grace. Jesus says, the least of these.

The least of these, we need to reach for the least of these. Not the most of these. The most of these are those who Jesus talks hatefully about honestly, but he talks about the people who are the least of these. It’s not far. In fact, you know, no matter our position in life, we need to serve.

We need to serve. We need to get down on our hands and feet once in a while and scrub some floors and clean some bathrooms, rooms. I don’t. I mean, if we’re a great example of this. A pastor was sharing a story.

He pastored one of the largest churches in America. And a man, a prominent doctor, surgeon, was coming to his church and they were having an event. He came out and he was scrubbing toilets and cleaning bathrooms and putting up tables and stuff like that. And the pastor felt bad. He’s like, oh, my goodness, this guy.

He’s like a, he’s like, successful. Everybody in the city knows him. And he goes up to the guy, he says, you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do that. You know, you’re so and so.

You’re blank. You don’t need to be doing. Somebody else can do that. He says, pastor, and he rebukes them. He said, how dare you say that.

I love doing this. I love growing the kingdom of God. I love serving the kingdom of God. I love serving the church. It gives me joy to be able, after a whole hard week of work, to do the thing I’m actually created to do.

He said, I’m not too far. I’m not that high. I can get down on my hands and knees once in a while, too. Who are we serving? Do we want to grow the kingdom of God?

And I added one more right before church. You know, I’m just. God spoke to me and says, guys, you have to invite. You have to invite, you have to invite people into the kingdom of heaven. We can pray and we can do all that.

But if we’re not actually making movement towards it, who are you inviting? We got cards out there. Charlie’s car was broke down at First street the other day. He shared with me. He was handing out cards.

He says, well, I better make best use of the time. Get out there and start inviting people to church. You know, the opportunities in work and play where we live. Are we inviting people to know Jesus? Are we inviting people with the opportunity?

They’re looking. They’re looking. They’re waiting for it. They’re waiting for it. Do you want the kingdom of God to go out?

What’s keeping you from being apart? Because imagine a church. Imagine a global church. Imagine a local church, a Jerusalem church, a Virginia beach church that has the same heart for growing the kingdom of God. That everything in them, they’re willing to give up everything.

We could not keep the doors closed, people coming in church, because we have the heart of God. The heart of God to grow the kingdom of God. And I’ll leave you with this last analogy. As we close. I imagine the kingdom of heaven as a sword poking through the veil of heaven.

We have a sword. God’s given us this sharp sword, and we sharpen that sword when we’re at church, right? We get that sword sharp. But we go out during the week, and that sword we use that sword. We start poking holes in the veil, because remember, the veil is thin.

Jesus brought in a thin veil. The veil is actually torn. If you’re a believer and we’re just working and we’re poking and the kingdom of heaven is coming in. Kingdom of heaven coming in. But if we show up on Sunday and our swords are still sharp, my question is, what are we doing?

Here’s my sharp sword. Your sword should be dull coming in on Sunday morning, your sword needs to be sharpened again. That’s why you come to church, so you can hear messages, so you can worship, so you can be equipped and be inspired, so you can go back and work that sword again during the week. So are we coming in with dull swords? Are we wanting to see the kingdom of heaven expand across this earth?

What’s keeping you? What’s keeping you? I can’t tell you what that is, but you know, because God’s already revealed that to you and you need to take the next steps. You need to get involved in God’s kingdom. You need to connect to God’s kingdom.

You need to work in God’s kingdom. And what I will promise you if you give God, I say from today till this time next year, give God a full year of surrendering your life and everything that you have to him, and you will come back so joyful, you won’t know what to do. I promise that. Why do I promise that? Because God promises that the joy of expanding his kingdom.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your word, Lord. Thank you, God, that you are expanding your goodness. I thank you that we are able to enjoy the benefits of this kingdom. I thank you, Lord, that you’ve given us an opportunity right here today and now to be a part of your mission and your vision for the world.

And I thank you that you’ve given salt church a specific calling, a specific mission for this world. And I thank you that there’s no mistaking that everybody that is in the house today was here to hear this message. Because now is the time. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. We are ready to usher in your kingdom, Lord.

So we lay all of our treasures at your feet. We lay all of our hurts out your feet. We lay all our pains at your feet. We lay all our angers, our desperations, our joys, our loves, and we align them all with you, Lord, so that you can accomplish super great things in our lives immeasurably, more than all that we can ask or think according to the power that is within us. And Lord, if there’s one that does not know you today, may they surrender their lives to you.

May they make you king of life. May they come into the kingdom and experience all that you have for them by confessing their sin and say, I turn. I change my mind. I’m surrendering to you, Lord. I’ve missed a mark.

I’ve done awful things. But, God, through your cross you cover a multitude of sin. Every sin in the book you cover. So I’m changing my heart, holy spirit drawing me to you and I give my life to you today. If that’s you, just give your life to Jesus today.

Give your life to Jesus today. Say Jesus, I give you my life. I give you my heart. I give it all to you. Come into my life.

Forgive me of my sins. I walk with you. I walk into eternity. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.