Series review:

-Jesus taught us to pray with these three words that are proving profound in these days: “Thy Kingdom Come”

-The kingdom is “God’s reign” - His action & His Lordship

-In Jesus, the king has entered into our reality to show us what the kingdom is all about.

-We believe that one day the king is coming back to make all right in his kingdom again, and we also believe that the kingdom matters today. His kingdom can break into our present day reality.

What was it that made this teacher not far from the kingdom?

-There’s something this teacher knew: the rules of the kingdom.

-Every kingdom has rules and expectations, and this kingdom is not different.

-We have been given access to the kingdom, by faith. And what we do in response matters.

-Jesus declares these two commandments as most important in his kingdom: love God with all and love others.

We must not view these as separate instructions or disconnected ideas, but rather ideas building on one another:

-Act justly

-Love mercy

-Walk Humbly

-With God

We cannot separate the command to love God and love others. They are interconnected. In the same way, we cannot separate the call to act justly from our love of mercy, our posture of humility, and our complete dependance on God.

If we are serious about living according to the rules of the kingdom, there are two important implications:

1. God’s kingdom is not a human kingdom.

2. God’s kingdom calls us to a radical view of a loving and generous community.

It's as if Jesus is saying, "act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly….because I have been so generous to you!"

As citizens of the United States, we often focus on our rights as citizens. In fact, the Bill of Rights is one of the most important founding documents of our nation. So we think about rights a lot, demanding them, insisting on them and often complaining when our rights are infringed.

But you don’t live primarily in a Republic or Democracy, your citizenship is in a kingdom, serving The Great King. Therefore…