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We have a mandate and we are to occupy until He comes — what are we doing?
Redemption to the Nations Church aspires to become the most loving church in the world. Our purpose is to demonstrate the Kingdom of God and we exist to become a global voice that crosses every racial, generational, and socio-economic barrier by evangelizing and restoring people from all walks of life through the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Hey, everyone. I'm Kevin Wallace from Redemption to the Nation's Church. And I'm grateful that we are going to have this opportunity to bring this message of hope, healing and restoration to you and your family today. I want you to stay with me till the end. I'm going to come back and pray. Be blessed by the Word of the Lord.
Just put up what I told you in the back. There it is, verse 33. Then pilot entered the Pretorium again, and he called Jesus and said to him, Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered Him. Are you speaking for yourself about this or did others tell you this concerning me? Pilot answered, Am I a Jew?
Look at this. Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, I don't want you to miss this Jesus answered. My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that. How many know that? You never need to be confused about it just because we don't fight.
Don't mean we can't fight. Fight. The fact that we don't fight is a choice based on our loyalty to the king. Amen. Somebody. So that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom say now my kingdom is not from say from. Those are two very important words. I hope to explain that to you in a moment.
But now my kingdom is not from here. A pilot, therefore, said to him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say, rightly, that I am a king for this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world. But I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.
I want to preach a message today, and this is really not a message. I don't know what this is, except what is on my heart. I just need to have a talk. I want to. I want to I want to preach this. I want to talk about what are we doing? What are we doing? What is the church in the world doing right now?
What is the kingdom? Citizens of of the kingdom? What are we doing? Look at somebody. Say, What are we doing? I pray today, God, you will provoke us to consider what we're doing. In some ways it's working well. In some ways we're just not getting it done. And I pray to that God, not only for those who are in this room, but for all those that will hear this message wherever and whenever they hear it provoke in us.
Oh, God, I pray a response to that question. May we take an inventory of our lives? May we see what it is that we are doing? And may we make sure that our faith is in you today? Lord, I pray today that people who are listening and hearing the word of the Lord would see beyond their church membership, see even beyond the natural, and may we see into that spiritual realm where you have called us to operate in kingdom authority and may we not come out of the Spirit in these very, very turbulent times?
May we walk in the Spirit, in the Name of Jesus? And everyone said, amen, be seated in the presence of the Lord. Oh, now this message today is going to seem perhaps a bit radical, but I have found out that the times we are living in demand, clarity or else chaos and confusion will reign in our generation in the text before us, Jesus is in the middle of His passion.
He has begun the suffering required to be our Savior. By this point. In John's Gospel in the 18th chapter, Jesus has felt the kiss of betrayal given by Judas. He has been incarcerated. He's been carried to the High Priest, denied by Peter, slapped by a temple officer and drugged before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilot, to be interrogated and questioned about his crimes.
And what was the crime that he was accused of? What was it that the Jews it was the Jews who accused Jesus, by the way. And what was the crime that they accused our Lord of? Some theologians find it difficult to specify the one crime that the Jews accused Jesus of perpetrating. But as we consider the crime he was accused of, we must understand that the crime was against Rome.
How do we know this? Because he had the crime he was convicted of been against the Jewish people. They would have stoned him because the Jewish method of taking a life, both old and even in the New Testament, was death by stoning. So the fact that Jesus died on the cross means that his violation transcended beyond the violation of Jewish law.
It was something he did to violate Roman law, and it was because he violated a specific Roman law that the Roman government sentenced him to crucifixion. Now, yes, the Jewish people were complicit with this crucifixion, but make no mistake about it, it was Pontious pilot who made the final decree and the Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross, and the Roman government who sanctioned his death by crucifixion.
What was the crime? Most understanding Bible historians and theologians believe and even the history would bear out that James, the brother of Jesus, would say this that the crime they accused Jesus of was the crime of governmental sedition. The Jews went to Pontious pilot and essentially said to pilot, here is the king of the Jews and he is going to lead a kingdom uprising against the Roman government and attempt to overthrow Rome.
And when Pontious pilot heard this accusation, he looks at Jesus. He looks for evidence and can find nothing that all Jesus has done to even give a hint of sedition, some sort of governmental uprising. So He goes back to the Jewish leaders and he says, I find no fault in him. And they say, we would have not ever brought him to you if he were innocent.
He is not innocent. He's an evil man with an agenda. That's essentially what they were saying. And so we come to this place in John 18 that I read to you today. They have brought him to Pontious pilot and they are saying to pilot, he's a king of a kingdom with an agenda to overthrow your government. And Pontious pilot says to Jesus, They're in the 18th chapter.
I read it to you. He says to you, to Jesus, are you the King of the Jews? Are you simply the King of the Jews? Is your kingdom a Jewish kingdom, and are you a Jew as a king over these Jewish people? Do you attempt are you attempting essentially to usurp authority and to create your own governmental uprising?
And Jesus responds in a very powerful way. My kingdom is not of this world. In other words, he was saying, we are not a political group, but we will influence politics. We are not a military group, but we will shape the outcome of wars. And thus. 35 I want to identify a couple of things today. I want to examine several facts and statements made in this narrative that should shape a better understanding for us of what the Kingdom of God is.
And more specifically, I want to address the facet, big responsibilities that we as kingdom citizens have. We have citizenship in heaven, but we're living on earth. And we have often taken this scripture, the 35th verse of John 18, I have this message came out of a pretty substantial conversation, a robust conversation that I had with several ministers recently, two months ago, in which one vaguely accused me of being a Christian nationalist.
Now, let me explain. I'm not mad because I got thick skinned and I know who I am, but because I say things like America needs revival or the church should influence government and we should let God be in schools. You say these kind of things now and people go grab the worst possible tack they can think about you and label you with it and try to identify you as some sort of racist fascist because you want more of God in your country.
And I tell you, it boils my blood that Christian people born again washed in the blood and claimed citizenship in the Kingdom of God think it be a good idea to stick their proverbial heads in the sand while witches and warlocks and demon possessed people run the affairs of the nation we live in. You are out of your mind.
And if you plan on leaving because you think this message is political, you should stay till the end. Because I intend on confronting and challenging a bunch of long held notions that have paralyzed the people of God, robbed us of our prophetic voice and taken from us the ability to influence future generations. So you're only sitting in this church today because we live in a country that values freedom.
And if you don't like freedom, I can show you a bunch of places where they're huddled up in huts, having underground church, trying to find a prayer meeting because their country doesn't believe in the freedom that we're expressing today. This is a gift from God. And the church has got to maintain a kingdom focus and a kingdom center.
And I'm preaching this now because we're not in the heart of some political season. And my heart is totally dedicated to preaching the kingdom and not trying to establish a platform. But I will inevitably pick on someone on some extreme who thinks I came to the pulpit to talk about a party. I'm sick of talking about parties. I want to talk about the King of glory, and the church needs to get her hands off all this other garbage and get it back on the king.
Hey, man. Yeah, so several things we want to address here. Verse 35. First thing I want you to see is the kingdom confusion going on here. There's a lot of confusion in that, John 18 about the kingdom and what the Kingdom of God is. Look at verse 35, pilot answer to mind you, your own nation and the chief priest have delivered you to me.
What have you done? And look at the next verse. Jesus answered, My kingdom is not up. This world pilot looked at Jesus and said, Your own kingdom, your own citizens, your own people. They brought you to me. Jesus said, Hang on, Chief, they made my people. That ain't my people. Well, they're Jews. And you're a Jew. Yeah, but what I'm doing is far deeper than Jewish things.
My kingdom is not just a Jewish kingdom. I'm getting ready to say something right here. I honor the Jewish people I recognize that the God of the Bible is the one who created the Jewish people. We don't have a problem with that, and I certainly thank God for the nation of Israel and I bless the nation of Israel.
We support the nation of Israel. But I want to be very clear that those who simply call themselves God's children because of some special blood relationship they have with the Israel of the Bible, that is not the kingdom that I am talking about. Jesus Kingdom is not simply a Jewish kingdom. He is not a just a Jewish Messiah.
The Bible said in John 316, God loves the whole world that He gave His only begotten Son for the whole world. Jesus did not just come for the Jews. He did come for the Jews. But I'm a Gentile, and today I'm thankful that I've been drafted in the Divine. I'm thankful that my faith I who was on the outside, have now been brought in because of the grace, all the marvelous grace of God.
We're confused. People sitting in churches every Sunday are confused about the Kingdom of God. Oh, Jesus. Powerful and often misunderstood response here in verse 36, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. But now my kingdom is not from here part. It is confused because he sees the Jewish people delivering the Jewish king at the crucifixion and Jesus humbly corrects pilot by letting him know that those are not citizens of His kingdom.
Those are not his people. John Chapter one tells us that for as many as receive him to them gave the power to become the sons of God. Lord, I'm going to preach right here. You don't get the power to become sons and daughters of God until you receive Jesus into your heart, and you make Him the King of your life.
You don't get kingdom citizenship by religious osmosis. On Sunday morning, you come in and sit down and touch the pew and get invaded by the Kingdom of God. You don't get the Kingdom of God until you open up your heart and say, Lord, I'm tired of living. That's my own king. I'm tired of living in my own kingdom and for my own agenda.
I want you to sit on the throne of my heart and be the king of my life. And Jesus says this. This is not that's not my kingdom. My kingdom is not from this world. And here's what I want you to hear me say to you. This text is often used to support this head in the sand brand of Christianity.
This kind of dangerous thought that suggests Jesus Kingdom has no bearing on this world, and that we as Christians, our lives have no impact and influence on the world, its policies, its laws, its way of life for its standards of living. We read this text and I've heard this text quoted a whole lot recently. Jesus Kingdom is not up this world as if that is an invitation for you and I to hide our head in the sand and his kingdom not influenced the world we're living in.
Don't get quiet today. The text before us is not even a remote suggestion that Christ and His Kingdom is not involved in the affairs of this world. There is no hint that he means his kingdom does not influence history and the world. It doesn't mean that this wouldn't be impacted by the Kingdom of God when he says, My kingdom is not of this world, he is simply stating that his kingship gives the authority.
His kingdom and power are not derived nor granted by this world, its leaders, its systems. He is not suggesting his kingdom doesn't drive and influence the world. So let's stop suggesting that you can be a closet Christian gathers on Sunday and shouts to the Lord with a voice of triumph, and that somehow you walk out these doors and the God of this Bible and the Bible itself doesn't influence what you believe and how you live.
We have people in church who don't want to go to hell, so they call himself a Christian. I tell you this salvation is more than getting out of hell. Salvation is surrendering your heart to Jesus. I'm going to preach on that in a minute. I have much to say. Pray for me today. The notion that we somehow have to walk around on eggshells and tiptoe around issues and worry about offending people when we know we have the truth and we have a heart to speak it in love.
It's become apropos to suggest that Christians and their moral compass have no say over the direction of our generation. But what do we think Jesus meant when he said, Pray this way, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Do you think that the kingdom is going to accidentally manifest? Do you think that the kingdom is going to happen without our cooperation?
Do you think the kingdom is supposed to be manifested in our day, or do you just believe that the earth is swallowed up by evil? And the Christians have between the four walls of the building and we're just huddling up, taking communion till the Lord comes and rescues us. I'm going to remind you of something, and some of you are going to be incredibly mad when I say this.
But the world does not belong to the government. No.
Psalm 24. The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness there of the world. And they that dwell there in four. He had established it upon the Bloods. He founded it up on the waters who shall ascend under the heel of the Lord, who shall stand in His Holy place, He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul and the vanity, who are sworn deceitfully.
He will seek to receive the blessing of the Lord and the righteousness from the God of His salvation. This is the generation that seek you, that seek your face. Oh, God of Jacob, lift up your head o ye gate and be lifted up You everlasting doors and the king shall come here Who is this king of low for God's stronger mighty reward God mighty in battle to your side All you I feel Philip in the room right now Lift Don't you take such being lifted up everlasting doors and the kingdom all right shall come in The world does not belong to the government.
The world is the Lord's. I will remind you, taking notes. You'll want to write this down. I will remind you that when the earth was created it was not the result of great minds, not the product of governmental elected officials, local and national, who sat in some one room of higher thinking and created the world in the space that we call Earth.
Oh no, the earth was created by eternal God Almighty, spoken into existence, created in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. When this thing was created, it was not an aristocracy ruled by the social class. When this world was created. It was not a bureaucracy led by governmental officials who made the most decisions. Lord, I'm going to preach here.
It was not a meritocracy that was ruled by those selected based on their ability and their merit. It was not even a democracy which was by the people land for the people. Oh no, when this thing was created, give me a hand held microphone. Yes, when this thing was created, because I'm getting ready to preach here. And this little talk I'm having is about to turn into something altogether different.
Hallelujah. When this thing was created, it was a theocracy. It was God's work. It was God's creation. It was God's Eden. It was God's rivers. It was God's birds. It was God's cows. It was God's plants. The seeds of the plants belong to God. I want to remind you that at one point never did. It seems to be God.
It was a theocracy. It was God and his creation and his kingdom. And somewhere something happened. What was it? I'm glad you ask. It's called rebellion and everything was going as planned until the creation created in the image of God decided that it what it would listen to and by the lie of the enemy and become rebellious against the king of creation.
So you know the story. When Adam rebelled against God, it invited the curse, it invited darkness, and then invited the plight of humanity. And ever since Adam fell, we have been trying to find out who's going to have the power, who's going to have the authority, and who is going to call the shots. And the church has gotten mixed up in this congregation, pardon me, in this conversation about who is in charge.
Is it the right? Is it the left? Is it another continent? Is it the world nations? Is it the United Nations? Who's in charge? I want to set the record straight and remind someone who might be confused today that it is still God. It's still belongs to ABBA. You always still call the shots, it's still God's world. And you and I have got to stop pandering to these people who want us to believe they have power.
When all power belongs to God. He's the one who has power. Me I'm trying not to look like an old fashioned hillbilly preacher, but I feel an old fashioned anointing on me today. I'm trying to run some principalities out of this zip code. I came to inform some demonic spirits that your days of lying to us and living your life is over.
We have got a mission. We are owed a mandate. We have an assignment, and the days of our losing, our focus has come to an end. This Earth is not going to belong to God. It already belongs to God. And God is looking for the people who still believe that we belong to Him. Now, let me be clear.
There will be there will not be there will not be a complete restoration of the theocracy and government of God until Jesus returns. But it's already a done deal and until He returned. This is what I came to talk about right here. Until he comes. We do not operate in spiritual passivity or moral decadence. See? You hear me?
We don't participate in the moral decay going on around us. How the church washed in the blood and claiming Jesus, this king can stand up and say, I have no problem with laws that allow people to change their sexual identity. Don't get mad. Just you don't even need to shout. Just let me say this. I'm not saying that we should stone people who do or that we should judge people who do because man does have a free choice.
But we don't get caught up legalizing and legislating man's ability to choose. Right? Well, I believe it's okay to vote to give people their choice. Choice is what got us screwed up in the first place. I'm not talking about the issue of abortion. We've already settled that. That's already changed. And we've already praise God for the reversal. I'm talking about.
Listen to me very carefully. You and I are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Do you know you want to know the choice? We had the choice to serve Jesus. Do you know that when you made that choice, you lost all other choices? Well, I'm a Christian, but I want to choose what I get to do with my life.
It's because you think you're your own king. You stay in your notes, Wallace. Stay in your notes. We need to embrace the mandate. People of God. What mandate? Look. 1913, he said, I'm coming back. But till I get back, Occupy, Occupy. Can I tell you this? This morning Jesus is going to return. If you're worried about how much longer I got on page four, page six.
So you can make it. Just hang on, Jesus is going to return. But I want to wake you up and tell you people of God, I want you to be encouraged, citizen of the kingdom, that what you do while He is gone will determine what you get when he comes back. There should be evidence. I feel the anointing right now.
I know we're not running and people falling out. Some people are mad and being confronted. But I'm telling you, before you leave this building today, it's been my prayer all week long that the scales would be peeled from our eyes, that our hard hearts would be be sensitized again to the things of the Spirit of God. We don't have time to sit around him in this political mess that's going on in our life.
We've got stuff to change. There should be evidences, demonstrations and commercials of the coming kingdom in our lives and in our day to say America or any other nation can do what it wants and that the church should be quiet, acquiesce and watch it happen. It's a flagrant dereliction of kingdom duty. You will not go to a land with a party, stick to its talking points and hide from the conflict.
Stop listening to mainstream political people, false prophets, politicians and pulpit pimps. Go all making bank while the church is becoming more bankrupt. Be aware of them. They thrive on division, succeed in confusion, and by preaching another Jesus and another gospel say better. I'll be alone. I want to make an announcement. I am not first and foremost a Caucasian American citizen.
I recently filled out an application for credit and it said, Are you Hispanic? Let me look at guitar espanol. But no, I'm not Hispanic. Are you Asian? No, I'm not from ancient descent. I'm I'm white as wide as white can be. Somewhere down on the inside of some chocolate tripe. That offends some of you. It's part of it.
I can't help it. It's just down in me and that's who I am. And I love every minute of it. So are you Caucasian? Are you? And I kept reading and I thought, What about the citizenship of the kingdom? See this? Why won't you want to be identified by your choices so that they can put us all in our separate groups and get us all mad at one another and hating each other?
I am not, first and foremost a white Caucasian American citizen. I am a sign of the living god and a citizen of a kingdom that is not up. This one is. This is why the church is still the most and I'm just getting started now. This is what the church is still the most divided place. On Sunday morning in this nation, because we are known by what we look like rather than what we were born from and the spirit o o.
And when the Kingdom of God is not our mantra and our mission, we get involved in the dumbest stuff. Now, some of you are about to get real uncomfortable, but I'm going to say it all today. Do you understand? That's why we had to deal with slavery in America for hundreds of years now. See, of course, the church didn't know how to be a prophetic voice, and we were scared of ticking off the wrong party.
And so we kept our mouth shut while our brothers and sisters in the African-American community, African-American communities, suffered the plight of slavery. It was not until the church, the real kingdom, people stood up and said, You're not going to do that anymore. To our brothers and sisters when we don't keep the king, I feel it not coming to look for it.
I'm coming to look for it. I want to find it and run it out of this. I want to run it out of this city. I'm telling you right now, when we're not on point and we're not on mission, we get caught up in the dumbest things. We become accomplices in the enemy's plan to destroy a generation. When we're not on point, we do the dumbest things.
We don't know if the slaying of 50 million children is right or wrong. If you're not sure, it's only because you've been listening to somebody other than Jesus talk to you about like life. Oh God, life is not an option. Life is not a choice. Life is given by God. When did the church ever lose? We lost it.
When we're not on point an on mission, we do dumb stuff in the church and we have hindered the journey and the mission by not staying minded about the kingdom. But be careful. Church. I had some dreams recently and I'm not going to go into them all because my dreams are not infallible and they may not be at all from God.
But I'm concerned about the future of our nation because a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. It will fall. And the church has become an accomplice in this fight of division. And we have lost our prophetic moral compass, and we've lost our prophetic edge, and we've even lost our prophetic voice. And today I recognize that my message may seem alienating because I'm trying my best to stand with the king.
And much of what I'm saying reveals that the hearts of many have wandered away from the king, and they are wondering now at their own altars serving their own God in the name of their own religion that they think is Christianity but does not bear the image of the King of the Kingdom. We are not here to be torn in one direction or the other, right?
We have our own direction. I preach the message of two years ago called the man in the middle one thief on the right, one thief on the left, and Jesus was in the middle. Both the right and the left are filled with thieves and walking. But there is a man in the middle. He doesn't come to serve the agenda of those on the right or the agenda of those on the left.
He came to establish his own kingdom that was not born. It was not hatched. It was not given to him from anyone on planet Earth. It was given to him by the Father. He came from heaven to earth, was born through the womb of a virgin named Mary, showed up on the backside of a Bethlehem ship field. And when he showed up, Angels did not say, Look, the elected one is here.
They said, Joy to the world. The Lord has come, let earth receive her. KING Get your mind out of the gutter. CHURCH What are we doing? We are not here to serve them. We are here to serve him. Pastor, why are you so whatever. Today I've been carrying this for about ten weeks. I've been carrying this for a lifetime.
The church is being distracted. So are we saying, Pastor Kevin, that we shouldn't be involved in the governmental affairs of our countries and our nations? Oh, no. I'm saying you ought to run for government. Come on. Oh, you missed it. You missed it. You missed it. You missed it. You missed it, you missed it. I'm saying we ought to be the ones who run for political office.
Yes, we ought to be the ones the ones that are full of the Holy Ghost, because that is well, I just prefer to praise the Lord on Sunday. And he had such a wonderful time taking communion, and I just let it all play out. I'm not going to let it all play out. I'm going to pray until something happens.
The first problem is there is kingdom confusion. The second problem in this text is that Jesus, his people were warriors without weapons weight. They had natural weapons. I know they did because Peter got a sword out and cut an ear off. And if you think he was trying to cut his ear off, you hadn't watched a good Western movie in a while.
He was trying to cut his ear off. He's trying to kill him. That's what the church does. We take weapons of the flesh and we wound people who need to hear the gospel and we cut their ear off before the preacher ever starts preaching. Oh, so we got a whole generation made by a bunch of religious people who are zealous about their political point, but they have no love in them, which is the earmark of kingdom citizenship.
Jesus did not say that you won't be known by your tongues and by your gifts. And by how high you can sing and by how loud you can preach. And he did not say you will be known to the world, but how much money your church has in the bank. He said this, is how men will know that you are my disciple, that you have love one for another.
Now, up by the fees, faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is not just are you talking in tongues, my brother flip flop prophesying in the name of the Lord. The greatest of these is love. And if you don't have love, I don't care how many gifts you have and I don't care how much money you give.
You better run to an altar and get baptized in a gospel so that when you walk out in this world, that's still your job. So what do we do when we encounter somebody full of hate? You ready for this? We get hateful back here. What if the next time somebody picks you off politically or spiritually or morally, what if the next time, instead of getting picked, you weep?
What if you cried over their soul? What if you prayed for their future? I'm telling you, God did not say bless those that bless you. He said, bless those that curse you, bless your enemies, pray for them who does spitefully use you and put a blessing on those who out you got. Where's he had on all this? I hope you can't find it.
I hope I don't fit on any of your sides. I hope I line up right beside Jesus. I hope I stand right beside him because his truth exposes our ill and reveals the fallacy of the kingdoms of this world. So weapon was warriors. What do you mean, Pastor? All of these disciples around him and none of them understand authority.
And Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. If it were from this world, my men would fight. I would tell you right now, they are some rough jokers in this church. This morning, but we don't get stuff done by our muscle and our military power. But I do have a sword. This is the problem in the church.
We think we got to fight with physical swords and we have forgotten that there's more power in the sharp two edged sword. Then there is the sword of the flesh. I want to tell you right now, we're moving into a day church where the kingdoms of this world are trying to provoke a fight from the people of God.
Our fight will not be won on a corner with a sign in our hand and hate in our heart. Our fight won't be won with tears streaming down our face on our knees in prayer, praying in the. I don't know what time it is, but I'm telling you, I'm about to hit another gear and I might need to go do this by myself because somebody in this room has been on the battlefield of our generation.
You are getting your tail kicked. You are losing your joy. You have lost your mission. You have lost your focus. You are all tangled up in the affairs of this world and you have begun to box against the air swinging and missing. Cause there's nothing for you to hit. I'll tell you while you are praying in the flesh against carnal problems.
So weapons of our warfare are not going on. They are mighty through God to the pulling down a strong cold, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, spiritual wickedness of the darkness of this world. Why are we fighting people when our weapons don't work on people? Weapons work against the devil, having done all of us stand, stand and let God be true.
And that man a like, whoa, this one's a disaster for television. But if nobody else and be careful, if nobody else wants to hear the message of the truth. God, give me a church that will not get caught up in the foolishness of our day. But we'll stay focused on mission and focused on the king and focused on why he sent us to this earth.
I'm not done with this confusion regarding the Kingdom. I wish I had more time to talk about warriors who didn't know their spiritual weapons. But the saddest thing about this text, it's found over in the 19th chapter. I didn't read this to you, but it's over there. I believe. Verse maybe 18 pilot looks at the Jewish people and he said, You want me to crucify your king?
And they said, We have no king but Caesar. We have no king. But Joe, we have no king. But the dawn. Some of you are just catching what I'm talking about. I want you to hear me real clearly. My king was not voted King.
He wasn't elected. He was an appointed king. We all have a duty to do everything we can when we walk into the ballot boxes and when we walk and have to make votes on issues in our communities and school board members, we all need to read the Bible and be informed about the King's agenda. And if you can't honor the King with what you do, don't do it right.
My King and the king of this kingdom that I'm preaching today was not elected, wasn't voted, wasn't appointed. He was born a king. Yeah. And the church is going to figure it out. How to honor the king and influence the society that we're in without making the society we're in. The God, the kingdom of Jesus is not from this world.
If you got love in your heart, stand with me. I'm through preaching. If you got love in your heart, you ought to be able to weep with those who weep the we ought to be able to weep with you. When there are people in our church family who are hurt, we ought to be able to rejoice when things happen in our country that more appropriately reflect and honor God.
But I was told that I was told that I lost some people when I stood up and prayed for Ahmad Arbery's family and when I celebrated, the people who viciously murdered him were put in jail. I thank God for that justice. I was told some people got mad about that. So what did I do? I let them stay mad.
I was also told that we lost some people and made some people mad when we celebrated the overturn of Roe versus Wade. So what did I do? I let them stay mad because when Jesus starts talking about the kingdom, he's not trying to draw a crowd. He's trying to reveal who belongs to him. And I think God wants to do something through us and in us.
That would be a sign and a one for his glory. I just want to make sure everybody in this room understands. We need to know what we're doing. It's not protecting our pet projects and our agendas and it's making sure our eyes are on the king. So I want to pray for you today. I want to pray for me.
I want to make sure that I don't get confused about whose kingdom this is and where it came from and what's going on. I don't want my kids to inherit a church full of ideas, but not full of his ideas. I don't want my sons and daughters and your sons and daughters to grow up in a church where they have friends who couldn't be a part of our church because of where they came from or how much money they don't have my prayers when people walk through those doors, they not know us by the flesh, but they sense something.
Even if they don't have the words to articulate, it may it be something that they all say, I just want to be a part of that place. I went to connect track Wednesday night. 3 minutes will be done. I went to connect track Wednesday night. There were over 50 people in Connect Trek who are going to be members of our church family and amen.
Thank you, Tori. That's right. Praise God. I looked up I looked across that room. People from every age demographic, people from all sorts of places on the socioeconomic ladder, people from different races and cultures and I said, Lord, it's happening. And I'm going to tell you right now, the devil don't want it to happen. And I'll tell you something else.
He can't stop it, because what I do believe God's raising up is something that looks like heaven on earth. And when you get to heaven, it's going to blow your mind. We're not all going to be talking in South Appalachian English. Hey, y'all. M.R. Ducts are not OSA. RC And we know it's not going to be that. It's going to be every nation, every tongue ever traveled.
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And here's what I have been saying and what we will say for the rest of our days. We don't have to wait to heaven to see it happen, but we do have to confront what's stopping it from happening now, if you receive this and you're with me and he's your king and this is your kingdom, you're a citizen first and foremost of the kingdom of God.
Throw your hands up right now. I want to pray for you. Jesus. I yield my heart to Your Lordship today. I don't want to live for my agenda or build my dream. I want to see your kingdom come and your will be done on this earth as it is in Heaven. Would you grant this house the grace to demonstrate the Kingdom of God in a way that pulls people from every walk of life, every cesspool of failure, everything that the enemy has done and attempted to destroy and divide.
Would you let this house a tobacco stay? Hello, Moesha. How would you let this house be a place that operates in a measure of Kingdom demonstration so that the voice of deception and lies are run out of business? I pray that the miracle of what you want to do because of the Body of Christ. I pray that would happen in this house.
Take your neighbor by the hand right now. We're going home. But I want to pray for one another. Jesus. Today we recommit to your kingship. We recommit to Your Lordship. We say yes to your will and your way. We are reminded today, Lord Jesus, that we are not first. We are not first. Red, yellow, black or white. We are not first Republican or Democrat.
We are not first rich or poor. We are first citizens of the Kingdom of God. I pray that would begin to define us and shape us. And I pray it would begin to inform our thinking that we would have love one for another. I pray in Jesus name that you would remove all bitterness, envy, malice, hate those things in us that are not like you.
Jesus, take them far from our hearts today and pour your spirit out on us. Now, here in this room, dude, say, Pastor Kevin, I need an opportunity to come to the Lord. I need to give my life to Jesus. And I know I was hoping you would pray for us, for people who need to come home. I want to get saved today.
I want to give my life to Jesus. Today I'm counting to three. And if you're in this room today and you say, Pastor Kevin, I need to give my life to Christ. Kids are bound. Eyes are closed all over this room. Give me just a few more minutes right here. If you're in this room and you would say, Pastor Kevin, I need to be say pray me, I don't care how long you've been living, the way you're living, how screwed up you think you are.
I don't care what you've been smoking or snorting or who you slept with or what you do for a living, or how messed up you feel. If you need Christ to save you, He will. All you have to do is let him in your heart. Today, if I'm talking to you today and you need to give Jesus your life, I want you to lift your hand when I say three.
One, two, three. Lift that hand. God bless every one of you. Jesus. Thank you. You can put your hands down right now. I want you to ask the person on your left and on your right one question. I don't care if you've known them your whole life or you've never met them before. Today, I want you to ask them this question.
Do you need someone to go to the altar and pray with you? And if you lifted your hand or you should have? When they ask you that question, just nod your head. Yes. And I'm going to stand right here and wait on anybody who wants to ask Christ to come into their heart. We're going to pray for you today.
I love you and God's going to save your life. Ask your neighbor right now, do you need someone to come to the altar with you? I saw four or five hands. Thank you for coming. God bless you for coming. Yeah, come on. They're taking a step for Jesus, and we celebrate it. I'm giving my life to the Lord today.
Anyone else who wants to pray. God bless you, sweetheart. God bless you, sir. God bless you. Anybody else I want to give my life to Jesus. God bless you for coming. God bless you for coming. So would you that I'm staying if you got to go. We understand. We love you. Go in the peace and the blessing of the Lord.
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. But if you can stay for just a moment, stretch your hands toward this altar while our prayer leaders pray for them. I want you to pray for them like someone you wish someone would have prayed for you the day you gave your life to Christ. Come on, pray for them today. We thank you, Jesus.