The Kingdom is at Hand

Eric Tomeo

Kingdom of Heaven • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago • Presented 3 years ago

Matthew 3–4

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Notes

Transcript

Countdown

Something fun (eg. Game, video, etc.). It is not necessary for this to have a tie in to the lesson, but it can.

Introductions

This is culture/ introduction to the series. 10 Min

We are glad that you are here with us at bcsm and we want you to know, more than anything, that you have a community of people here that love and care about you, you have a purpose or a place within this community which means we are better off with you than without you and you have a mission outside of this community. All of that rests on this one foundational truth that we want you to hear and want you to share: God wants to have a relationship with you.

I am _______________ and before we start, let me pray.”

*Pray for God to use what you have to say to move someone further along in their journey towards Jesus.*

Today is a special day in bcsm, we are going to do things a little differently today because there are a group of kids downstairs who are about to make a huge transition in their lives. I don’t know if some of you remember this transition in your life, but for me, it was huge and intimidating, a little scary and a little exciting. They are moving from fifth grade to sixth grade.

That means that there is a huge relational shift that is about to take place. Whether they start at a new school building or not, relationships become different, right? But also between 4th grade and 7th grade, you go through huge changes physically, mentally and emotionally. Some of that stuff continues throughout high school, but by then you generally have solid relationships to help you through the other stuff.

All of that to say, in the midst of all of that, one of the big changes that happens between 5th grade and 6th grade here at BCC is you move from Bridgetown Kids to bcsm. This can be a difficult change for some students so what we try to do is over the summer give 5th graders a few opportunities to get used to who we are and what we do and how it is different.

The first step in that transition period is the fifth grader kidnapping. So here in a few minutes we are going to make our way downstairs to Bridgetown Kids and we are going to pull the fifth graders out of their class, we will take them into the fellowship hall where we have donuts for everyone.

Here is the catch, though. This only works as much as you guys participate. A few weeks ago I told you that the community here is built by you stepping into your purpose of loving and caring about the people around you. Here is a really practical way that you can do that. While we are eating donuts, we are going to have everyone discuss some icebreaker questions.

I want to see you all lead the way by making it a point to sit next to or near one or two of the fifth graders, introducing yourself to them, asking them a little bit about themselves (where they go to school or where they will be going next year, if they have any interests outside of school) and then, try to answer the ice breaker questions first. After you have shared your answers, if the fifth grader is hesitant to answer, ask them what they think about the question. Don’t like interrogate them, let them know you are curious about them. That you want to know something about them. If they are still hesitant, let them off the hook. Don’t keep them on the hot seat too long.

So then, we will head back up here and we will do our talk and discussion questions. We will not be going to big church today so after we are done, stick around for a little bit and maybe invite the 5th graders to play some gaga ball or ping pong with you. We will be letting your parents know that they can pick you up here, but if they don’t show up after 5 or 10 minutes you can leave if you want. We will not be dismissing the 5th graders until their parents show up, so it would be helpful for you to stay if you can until the fifth graders leave.

One last thing, as we head down, just move quietly.

Does anybody have any questions before we head down there?

Alright. When we get there we may need to wait in the hallway or they may let us into the room. If they do you will get a chance to participate with the Bridgetown Kids kids for a couple of minutes. Be good examples to the kids down there.

5th Grade Kidnapping!

10 Min

Donuts and Icebreakers

15 Min

Teaching

This is the main point/ story of your lesson. Everything you want your students to Know should be covered here.

We are so glad to have you fifth graders with us today. Here at bcsm you will hear this every week but we want you to know, more than anything, that you have a community of people here that love and care about you, you have a purpose or a place within this community which means we are better off with you than without you and you have a mission outside of this community. All of that rests on this one foundational truth that we want you to hear and want you to share: God wants to have a relationship with you. Hopefully you have felt that so far today.

I am _______________ , the Student Minister here.

To catch you up we are in a series called Kingdom of Heaven where we are walking through the book of Matthew in our Bibles. Matthew is what we call a gospel or kind of like a biography of Jesus. A couple of weeks ago we talked about Matthew telling the story of Jesus birth and painting this picture of Jesus as a king coming to answer all the questions that the Old Testament asks.

After the first two chapters that tell us about Jesus when he is young, the story fast forwards to Jesus when he is like thirty years old. If this were a movie they would make adult Jesus’ face fade in over top of child Jesus’ face so you know, oh this is the same guy like 25 years later or whatever., But Jesus is squinting in the sun at some guy wearing a camel skin shirt saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

This other guy is someone most people call John the baptist, but we like to call John, the Dunker. (John the dunker slide) He is standing there, yelling at the religious leaders when Jesus walks up and says, “Hey John, dunk me.” John dunks Jesus and then Jesus goes out to the desert to be tempted by the devil. He comes out unscathed and the Jesus starts saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

So a good question to start with is, what does it mean to repent? And what is with this baptism thing? And what does the kingdom of heaven is at hand mean?

Generally, the way I explain repentance is like this. You are walking one way. You repent, you turn around and walk the opposite direction. So if I am lying all the time. When I repent it means I turn around and start doing the opposite, right?

But while that is a useful definition most of the time, I think it does not quite capture what is happening in this passage. I don’t quite think John is saying, “Modify your behavior, the things you do, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is not as much about behavioral change as it is about perspective. This is about paradigms or how you see the world. Those things lead to behavioral change, but stick with me. Repentance, here is a change of perspective and it leads to baptism.

Dunking someone under water was not new in John’s day. The closest parallel to John’s baptism in that day was when someone who was born a Gentile, someone who was not an ethnic Jew, wanted to become Jewish. They would go through a few ceremonies, one of which was baptism. This was a way to signify a change of allegiance from my Gentile heritage and being adopted into the nation and the God of Israel.

But John is baptizing Jewish people. he is preparing them for the new nation… the Kingdom of Heaven.

You see the religious leaders were of the opinion that the Kingdom of Heaven would be maybe really political and religious and really Jewish. What John is saying here is this is not about politics, its not about religion, it is not about your family of origin. It is bigger than all that.

There are so many layers that we don’t have time to delve into here, but just catch this:John is saying, “Repentance, this new perspective, leads to a new allegiance.” You with me?

And all of that is good. Then Jesus steps in the water.

John is like weirded out here because Jesus does not need to repent or change his allegiance, right? So what is happening here?

I think this is a super important moment in the life of Jesus. So Jesus steps into the same water as everyone else. He does what everyone else that John had baptized does and when he comes up out of the water, the Spirit of God lands on him like a bird and the voice of God says, “This is my Son whom I love with whom I am well pleased. So this is different than all the other baptisms in some significant ways. But it is also the same.

What does this say about Jesus. He is different, but the same. This right here, this moment, is like a picture of this Kingdom of heaven where earth and heaven overlap and it all is centered around Jesus. So this is the new perspective. This is the guy. This is the one. This is who we have pledged our allegiance to.

Tension

What is the rub? Create some questions and feeling.

The Old Testament is a chronicle of God working to bring his presence back into the place where His people are so they can experience his rule as king and His blessing. Israel is, throughout the events of the Old Testament, kind of like a symbol of that perfect Garden from the first pages of the Bible. God and humans living in the same place through the Temple. But it is messy and all of that kind of falls apart because humans don’t seem to be able to stay in that right relationship. Still God is committed to the Garden/ City/ Kingdom thing.

So then John comes on the scene and he says the Kingdom of Heaven is on its way. Are you in or are you out? You see, God gives us the choice. He wants us to be in. He was willing to go to the cross to give us that opportunity, but we still have to take it. We have to repent of the old way we saw the world. We have to repent of this idea that the world will always be painful and broken. We have to change the way we think about Justice and Peace and Beauty. We have to embrace this upside down way of thinking so we can manifest the goodness of the Kingdom of Heaven in our lives. In the way we treat people. So through the help of Jesus’ personal presence in the form of the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we can turn the world upside down for everyone we meet, by turning our lives upside down for them.

And then we have to put our citizenship, our identity, our allegiance, our everything in Jesus. Repentance, this new perspective, leads to a new allegiance which leads to a change in the way we act.

Response

This is the response portion. Everything you want your students to Do should be touched on here, but you should have at least one immediate action that can be taken.

So let me say this. “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is here through Jesus.” If you are ready to do that, to switch your allegiance from following your own heart and desires to following Jesus’, you can do that today. We can baptize you today. We will want to make sure it is cool with your parents first, but if that is you. Let us know and we will have that conversation.

It is easy to say, Repent and change your allegiance. It is harder to actually do that. It takes time to move your mind from one way of thinking to another. So maybe you have been baptized. You declared your citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven, but you are still working out what that means practically in your life. I get that. I am still working through that as an adult. I think that is part of this following Jesus thing. You can even see that happening with John when Jesus steps in the water. He breaks all the categories. So you are in good company. If there is some specific thing that you are struggling with and you want to talk to someone about it, that is why each of these adults is here. I, they would love to have that conversation with you.

Maybe you are standing on the side of the Jordan river like the religious leaders, curious but not committed to the idea of Jesus, I get that too. You are welcome here. Keep coming to the river. We love it.

But right now.we are going to do something we do every week to celebrate the fact that Jesus was not just an ordinary dude. We celebrate what he did to answer all of these questions the Old Testament and even our lives cause us to ask. Where God’s Justice and His Mercy come together in one singel moment as Jesus died on a cross to solve the problem of sin and then rose from the dead to solve the problem of death so that his throne could last forever. So while I play this song, feel free to get up and move. If you would like to take communion, just make your way up here and take a chalise. Eat the bread to remember his broken body and the juice to remember his shed blood. If you need prayer or need to make a decision, or you have questions… if you need to talk to an adult, this is a good chance to do that. Or if you want to just sit, listen to the lyrics of the song, pray, or read the Bible, you can do that as well.

Song

Repentance (Reimagined) [feat. Cory Asbury] - Gable Price and Friends

Discussion

Start with Prayer

1. Talk about a time when you found out something that totally changed the way you saw the world.

2. Eric said, “Repentance, this new perspective, leads to a new allegiance which leads to a change in the way we act.” The dictionary defines allegiance as “commitment” or “loyalty.” What are some things in your life that you are commited or loyal to? Would your commitment to those things have to change if you became more committed or loyal to Jesus?

Every week bcsm posts daily devotions on thebcsm.com. This week we will explore more of what is going on in chapters 3 and 4 of Matthew.