Hey guys, how's it going? I am just getting this camera arranged in a
certain place. Awesome. Well, yeah, I think we're all good. Good to see you guys. I
hope you guys are doing well and we're just gonna wait for a couple of people
to tune in but of course you can watch this live or you can watch this
afterwards and we're about to go live. I'm about to teach on Kingdom Culture,
the fourth pillar. There are five pillars. I'm going to do the fifth pillar this
week and I'm going to be talking about the purpose of the kingdom and each of
these five pillars have been really foundational. They've been very, what's
the word for it? They're possibly aspects of the kingdom, truths, things
that you may have heard before but I hope to to put a little bit of a
different spin on some of those things and then we're going to use these
things and we're going to teach from each of these pillars and it's going to
be super fun. So we're just going to wait for a couple more people to jump
on. Feel free to, as I'm teaching, to make any comments you want to make or feel
free to ask questions. I'm not sure if we'll be able to answer them but you can
absolutely ask them. And yeah, so cool. I hope you guys have had a really good
weekend. We had a great weekend at church. We had a guy at church got born
again in the most amazing way on Sunday. It was really fun to see God touching
him. He was really dramatically moved by the Spirit of God and so that was fun to
see and I've been having some amazing testimonies come in. I had a testimony
the other day of one of our people, one of our Bethel crew. She was catching up with
someone who had had a stroke and they'd had a stroke and they hadn't been
able to walk. I don't know if they could stand. They might have been able to stand
up but they hadn't been able to walk and they hadn't been able to talk since they'd
had the stroke and she prayed for them and they stood up and I think, if I
get the story correct, that they spoke and they said, I'd like to go for a walk.
Can we go for a walk? And they went for a walk together. So, wow, amazing. Just some
really cool testimonies and the kingdom of God is thoroughly alive and growing
and thriving in the world right now. So, awesome. Cool. Hey Sylvia, good to see you
there. Awesome as. Okay, well I think we'll just get started. There's a few of us on
here now and we'll get started and people can jump in as we are
progressing through the session. And like I said, we'll do the fifth session at
another stage this week. Kingdom Culture Pillar 4. And I want to talk to you
again, just to reiterate, I want to talk about the purpose of the kingdom. And
here really is the purpose of the kingdom. I'm going to give it to you and
then we're going to flesh it out a little bit. So, the
purpose of the kingdom really is this. To bring all creation under, or you could
say back under, the rule and the reign of Jesus Christ. You know, the disciples,
they asked Jesus, how do we pray? And you'll hear me use the Lord's
Prayer, what's commonly called the Lord's Prayer, often in my teaching because it's
such a, it brings such a revelation of the heart of God and such a framework of
the kingdom. Not to mention, obviously, the way that we pray and the way that we
connect with God. But he says in the Lord's Prayer, he says,
your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The disciples
are asking Jesus, how do we pray? And Jesus' response, as a part of His response,
is this. When you pray, pray like this. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your
name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So,
your kingdom come, what does that look like? When the kingdom comes, what does it
look like? Well, here's what it looks like. It looks like your will being done. What
is God's will? God's will is for everything to come under the rule and
reign of Jesus Christ. And for things to come under the rule and reign of Jesus
Christ is for everything in all creation to come back into its original identity
and its original purpose before God. In other words, the reason and the
actual thing that God
created it to be when He first created it.
And so there's two things that I want to bring out in this.
When the Kingdom of God comes, it looks like the will of God being done.
The will of God looks like Jesus Christ.
Two things.
It first of all implies this, it implies that not everything that is happening in the world
right now is the will of God.
The first thing we need to acknowledge is this, that when we walk through life, when
we look through Facebook, when we scroll through Instagram, when we read the news, watch the
news, listen to the news, when we are confronted with issues, when we are cancelling a friend
who's just gone through a really hard time and we don't think they deserve to have gone
through such a hard time, when we are confronted with issues in the world that seem unjust
and that seem like this is just not right, then what we do not have the right to do,
according to at least if we are being true and living true to Scripture, living true
to the life of Jesus, we don't have the right to say this, God why did you let this happen
or why did you do this?
How could this be your will?
Because we can plainly see that that's not the will of God.
There are many instances on earth right now where the will of God is not being played
out.
Otherwise, Jesus would not have asked, when you pray, pray, this is God instructing His
disciples, this is God in the flesh saying, when you pray, pray that the will of God be
done on earth.
In other words, you don't need to pray that prayer if the will of God has already been
done on earth.
So there are many things happening in the world right now where that is not the will
of God.
For example, often people will say when someone dies, they'll say, man I just don't get it,
I don't understand why God chose to take this person home when they did.
It feels so unfair.
Feels like they were taken way too young.
And I would like to say this, possibly it wasn't God who took them.
Possibly it's God who caught them, God who received them, but not God who took them.
And Jesus would never have instructed us into the ministry of raising the dead if people
didn't die before their time.
Many people die before their time, many people are sick, and that's never the will of God.
Bad things happen to good people, and that's never the will of God.
But it's our job as disciples of Jesus Christ to not only pray that the will of God be done,
but to actually spend our lives in bringing the will of God about on planet earth.
So the first thing is, not everything that happens is God's will.
Many people say this, I've heard this as a, Jordan, hey how's it going?
And many people say, you know, listen I've been thinking about God, I've been thinking
about Jesus, but the one thing that I can't get out of my head is, why do bad things happen
to good people?
And here's what the presupposition to that statement is.
What people are really saying is this, if God is in meticulous control of all things,
why do bad things happen to good people?
You have to make that assumption first, you have to make that assumption that God is in
control of everything.
Therefore because of that assumption, we can then say, why do bad things happen to good people?
Well here's just, I'm not going to, this whole message is not about why do bad things happen
to good people, although that would probably be a good message to share to be honest.
My notes just disappeared.
Well here's the thing, God is sovereign.
God has the ability to be in control of everything.
God if he wanted to be in control of everything, could just go bam and be in control and cause
his will to, he could take free will out of the question and he could just go bam, I'm
now in control of everything, martial law, heavenly law, boom.
But that's not how he works.
God is a God of love, therefore he allows a radical amount of free will because love
is never forced, love is always offered and must be received.
And so why do bad things happen to good people is because God, I believe, and this is what
I would say in my answer to that question, God is sovereignly out of control.
He has chosen to be out of control.
The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.
You have authority.
You have the kingdom.
There's a responsibility that you have and that I have on earth to bring the will of
God about.
And so the reason that God's will is not fully outworked on planet earth is because men,
human beings, have been given authority over the planet and we have by our own free will
chosen, and of course I haven't and if you're watching this you probably haven't,
You probably haven't, you've probably come back to Jesus, but there are many people making
decisions on planet earth that are not following the plan of God, the voice of God, or the
will of God.
And because of that, they are actually bringing about things on the planet that are other
than the will of God.
Therefore, it's our job to influence the world in a way through the grace and the power.
We've talked in other sessions about the how of the kingdom and things that you can look
through on some of those other sessions.
But it's our job to influence the planet in a way where people come under the authority
and submit to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, as their Lord and King.
And under that Lordship, they begin to make decisions with the voice of God in mind, the
heart of God in mind, and the will of God in mind.
And then in that, the will of God starts being manifest on the planet.
And the will of God, when it's manifested, is so attractive that everyone wants to be
a part of it.
So it gathers momentum until the whole world is wrapped up in the will of God.
When the whole world is wrapped up in the will of God, then everyone will be in submission
to Jesus Christ, who is the greatest leader that has ever walked the planet.
Everybody wants a leader like Jesus.
So not everything that's happening on the planet right now, this is very important,
I'm going to say it again.
Not everything that's happening on the planet now is the will of God.
Why?
Because God is a God of love.
God is not a God of ultimate meticulous control.
God is not a crazy, cosmic, wild dictator.
God is a God of love who offers Himself to His creation, to His people, but waits for
His people, waits for humanity to receive Him, and once received, His will is then outworked
through those one's lives.
And His will trumps and has authority over other things that happen on the planet.
That's why we can pray for the sick and we can release healing on the sick, and the will
of the enemy is destroyed by the authority of the will of God and the power of the kingdom
flowing through our lives.
So we have authority to bring change and to bring things into submission under the authority
of Jesus Christ in everything that we do.
The other thing that we need to assume from the scripture is that God wants His will done
on earth in the same way that it's done in heaven.
So what is the will of God?
Well, the will of God is perfectly outworked in heaven, and the will of God is not perfectly
outworked on earth, but God wants His will outworked on earth.
God doesn't want to just rapture everyone from planet earth and eject us all into heaven
and then leave the earth to burn.
At least that's not my opinion.
From scripture what I see is that God actually has a heart for His creation.
He has a heart for the earth.
He has a heart for every person and all of creation, and He wants to restore all things
back to their original identity and original purpose by bringing them under submission
to His kingship and bringing them into the expression of His culture.
And so God has a heart for the planet.
Now I know that seems obvious, but some people maybe don't believe that that's the case.
In fact there have been whole theologies that have caused people to just be kind of in the
space of just praying to leave the earth and go to heaven because, man, I can't wait to
leave this evil God-forsaken earth and just be in heaven, and we just need to get as many
people to heaven as we can because, man, the earth is going to hell.
We just need to get out of here.
The heaven bus is leaving soon.
Get on the heaven bus because, man, this whole world is going down, but I don't believe this
world is going down.
I believe that God has a heart for this world.
He has a heart for every person and all creation, and His will is that His will is outworked
not just in heaven but also on earth and not just through Him but through His influence
through you and through me.
God doesn't want to work out of the blue.
God wants to work through me and you.
So with that being said, let's turn to—I want to introduce you to a term that you've
already been introduced to, but I want to reintroduce you to the term and talk about
it a little bit.
We're going to go to Luke 6.13.
Luke 6.13 feels like I'm just—I'm right now in my dining room, so it feels like I'm
just kind of—I've got some friends over at my house, and I'm just having a little
chat to you guys.
So I hope you guys are enjoying this, and it's good to see you guys.
Hey, Francis.
Hey, Jordan, again.
Woo-hoo!
Yes!
Out of free will.
Come on!
All right, so Luke 6.13 says this.
Now, it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray, and continued
all night in prayer to God, and when it was daytime, when the sun had come up, he called
his disciples to himself, and from them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles.
He chose twelve from his disciples, from his followers, from those who were his students,
he chose twelve, and he didn't just call them disciples, he called them apostles.
Now, the term apostle was a somewhat strange term to use, and you may have heard some of
this before, but I'm going to reiterate some of this stuff for you if you've heard it before.
People were used to the term prophet, that was a term that good disciples or rabbis were
used to.
They were used to the term teacher, they were used to the term disciple, they were used
to these different terms, but they weren't used to being referred to as apostles.
Now, the reason is because the word apostle was a Roman title and a Roman term, and Hebrews
and Romans were kind of like oil and water, they didn't mix together.
For a Hebrew to take on a Roman idea was kind of like, we don't take on Roman ideas, and
for a Roman to take on a Hebrew idea was like, we don't take on Hebrew ideas, we are Roman,
and our culture is not conducive to Hebrew culture, and Hebrews were like, our culture
is not conducive to Roman culture.
So for Jesus to say, you're an apostle, was to actually borrow kind of like, some of his
hearers at the time would have heard it like this, to borrow the enemy's term, but to bring
that term and to kingdomize, to bring the will of God around that term.
And here's what the term apostle was referring to.
It was referring to a particular class of general in the Roman army, and this particular
general was the leader of, the general of his particular group of people, and his team,
and his job was to go into an already, now his job was not to conquer, clear?
So point one, the apostle's job was not to conquer, the apostle's job was to go into
the land that was already conquered, and to establish Roman life, rule, and culture
in the already conquered land.
Let me reiterate that.
The apostle's job and the apostle's responsibility as this particular type of general that he
was, was not to conquer new land.
His job was to find land, to be sent to land that the kingdom of Rome, the empire of Rome
had already conquered, to go into that land with a team of people, and to make that land
look like Rome, so that when the Roman emperor came, or when the king, the ruler of Rome
came from Rome to that particular land, they would feel as at home in that land as they
did in Rome.
This is amazing.
So we are, the apostle was commissioned from Rome into the land that was conquered to establish
the rule, and reign, and culture, and life of Rome in that land.
Now we, as the people of God, have been commissioned into an apostolic mission.
We have been commissioned into the, we have been co-missioned.
We have been joined to the mission of heaven.
We have been joined to the mission of Jesus.
We have been included into Jesus' mission.
What did Jesus do?
Jesus conquered the world.
Jesus is victorious.
Jesus has already conquered all of the seven mountains.
Jesus has already conquered everything.
Jesus has already defeated death.
Jesus has already conquered it all.
Jesus won the victory.
But our job in this, in the mission of Jesus, is to come in like the apostles of Rome did,
and to come into the already conquered land, and to bring the rule, and reign, and culture,
and life of heaven, the rule and reign of Jesus, into the already conquered land.
Everywhere that God will ever send you is already conquered.
already conquered. The New Age world is conquered. I mean, I've got to be careful what I say.
Every people group, every nation, every issue in the world that is standing in opposition
to the will and opposition to the Kingdom of God is already conquered, but the culture
of heaven has not already been established there. The rule and reign of Jesus maybe has
not yet been established, been conquered, but not established there. And so the role
of the apostle and the role of not just that you might not be called to an apostle, but
you might be called, well in fact you are called, and God has commissioned you or is
in the process of commissioning you into an apostolic mission that is probably led, and
I could, I think I could pretty safely say, will most definitely be led by an apostle
or be maybe not led, but connected to an apostle in some way. You are commissioned into that
apostolic mission to establish and bring the culture of the Kingdom of God and the rule
and reign of Jesus into that place. So where you see things in that place that are standing
as an affront to the Kingdom of God or that are obviously anti the will of God. Now let
me just name a few things. I'll just throw these words out there. Abortion, slander,
gossip, gossip on Facebook, broken families, sickness and disease, people dying early or
dying young, poverty, all these things that the Kingdom of Heaven is not like that. Those
things are an affront. They are a fading culture. They are part of a fading conquered world
system. Satan and his world system has been conquered by Jesus and his ways are fading
right now as the Kingdom comes in with strength. As we stand in, as the people that God has
called us to be in God and in the power of God and in the freedom of God and in the life
of God, we establish and we enforce this culture in the areas that Jesus has already conquered.
So this is pretty cool. Matthew 16 verse 19 says this. It's a story of Peter. He's called
Simon at the time. And this is where he actually gets his name changed. And he says, you know,
people are saying you're this and that. What do you say? Some say John the Baptist, some
say the prophet, blah, blah, blah. And Jesus says, well, who do you say that I am? And
Peter, who was Simon at the time, he says, you are the son of the living God. And Jesus
said, flesh and blood is not revealed to this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And
he says, upon this rock, upon this revelation, I will build my church and the gates of Hades
shall not prevail against it. I will get I behold, I give you the keys of the kingdom
of heaven. I love that. I'm just saying that for a second, because Jesus gave the keys
to Peter. Peter is this this person who's commissioned into the mission of Jesus as
an apostle, receives authority to unlock and to establish the rule and reign of Jesus
on the planet. He has given the keys. Now, you know, Jesus gave the keys. So now who
unlocks the kingdom of heaven on earth? Who has the power to unlock the kingdom of heaven
on earth? And this is part of what it means where Colossians says, Christ in you, not
just you individual, but you plural, Christ in you, Christ in you guys, Christ in the
church is the hope of glory. Why? Because Jesus has given the keys of the kingdom to
you and to me, to the church. As we've come into this apostolic alignment, as we come
into this to the alignment with the body of Christ and we take our place, we find our
space, our place of expression within the house of God, within the body of Christ, and
we come into alignment with our brothers and sisters and with God himself as our father,
then we realize we have a key in our hands. God has given the key. Maybe God, I mean,
maybe I could be so bold to say this, God gave the key, which means maybe God doesn't
have the key, but maybe he gave the key to you. Now, maybe he could take it back, but
maybe he won't. And maybe he's waiting for me and you to use the key that we received.
Maybe God's will, maybe the purpose of the kingdom on earth and the capacity for that
purpose to be outworked on the earth is all waiting on me and you to turn the
key. Now there's no condemnation in that. There's no shame in that. There's none of
that in that. But there's just an opportunity. There is an invitation to be
ones who turn the key. Now in that we can get to this point often where we
realize we have authority. We realize we have power. We realize that the kingdom
is our hands. We realize that the will of God being outworked on planet earth
that we actually have been sent by God with authority to bring that to pass on
earth. Now that's all true but then this is what can happen and this is what's
happened to me many times is that we are confronted with a situation that we know
we have authority over but it seems like the authority doesn't it doesn't seem to
work. Now I've prayed for many many people and seen amazing kingdom
breakthroughs. Seen the will of God crash into people's worlds. I've seen you
know and you guys have heard some of the stories but seeing tumors disappear, arms
straighten out, deformed bodies be healed, blind eyes open up in front of my eyes.
It's body parts recreated. I remember being in Redding, California at the
healing rooms. I remember praying for some for some people and people were
getting healed. At the end we're telling testimonies and as we're telling
testimonies of metal dissolving in people's bodies I remember a cloud of
bright hot pink feathers just went poof and exploded over our heads and just
gold dust and feathers just filled the room. I mean it was just I mean there's
there's amazing stories of victory and breakthrough but I've had other times
where I've prayed for people and either it takes longer than I feel and that
what I read in the Bible that it should take for those people to be healed or
for the kingdom of God to be established in that person's body or
that person's life and other times they just simply don't get healed. I've prayed
for people with cancer and and you know not immediately after the prayer but I've
prayed for people and a few days or weeks later they've died of cancer. Now
am I okay with it? I am freaking not okay with that. Do I have questions about that?
Yes I've got questions about that but I want to I want to let you know the
purpose of the kingdom never changes and the intensity of that purpose never
changes and my understanding and perspective of God and His will on the
planet is not shaped by external circumstances. It's shaped by what He
says in Christ. It's shaped by the Word of God. When I say the Word of God
I mean Jesus Christ. It's shaped by God in the flesh. It's shaped by the life and
reality of Jesus and as I meditate and marvel at the life of Jesus my external
circumstances slowly but surely come into alignment with what I spend the
most time gazing upon. That's another session but but I want to read to you a
scripture that's been really helpful for me in the on the journey of of being a
person that has understood my authority that has acknowledged that I have a key
in my hand that has acknowledged I have been given authority I've been
commissioned into an apostolic mission and and that began with Jesus that I
have the same Holy Spirit that Jesus had when He walked the earth the same Holy
Spirit lives in me and I realize that I'm a son of God like Jesus is the Son
of God he's my elder brother and I have this expectation that my life really
should look like the life of Jesus that that the same miracle power that flowed
through Jesus hands is actually flowing through my hands when I pray for the
sick that I fully I fully believe and fully acknowledge that however there's
not one example in the Bible where Jesus laid hands on a sick person I'm of course
referring to sick to healing sick people at the moment quite a lot but the kingdom
of course goes way beyond that but there's no example in the Bible of Jesus
praying for a sick person have not been healed therefore that's never to be my
expectation I'm never meant to have a grid for that but but here's here's a
helpful here's a scripture that's been helpful to me Hebrews 2 and let's start
in verse 5 for he has not put the world to come talking about the kingdom what's
the kingdom what does it look like it looks like the will of God being done on
earth as it already is being done in heaven we have the keys of the kingdom
to bind what has been bound and loose what has been loosed this is amazing the
world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels but one testified
in a certain place saying this what is man now you might you've probably heard
me use the scripture before I actually use it quite a lot because it's a very
very pivotal and helpful scripture what is man when it says man it's talking
about human what are human beings what is
It's talking about me and you.
What is man?
I'm not talking about males, I'm talking about men.
So I'm talking about females, males, men and women, I'm talking about humanity.
What is man that you, with a capital Y, God, that you are mindful of him, him with a small
h?
Or the son of man that you take care of him?
You have made him, little h, talking about us, mankind, you have made him a little lower
than the angels, or it's actually mistranslated, it should be Elohim, which means God.
You, you, capital Y, have crowned him, small h, talking about humanity, you and I.
You have made him, you have crowned him with glory and honor and set him, set who?
Yeah, that's right, me and you, set us, humanity, the sons and daughters of God.
You have set him over the works of your hands, in other words, the land that you have conquered,
you have set him, you have set humanity, you have sent apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers
and teams of people, the sons and daughters of God, to go and occupy that land and you
have set them over the works of your hands.
You have put all things, all things, all, in my Bible it's spelled A-L-L, which literally
means all, which is excluding zero, nothing, it means 100%, all, all things in subjection
under his feet, small h, not big h, small h, under your feet and under my feet.
We have authority over all things, we have authority from God to bring the kingdom of
God, the will of God, the purpose of God, which we see perfectly outworked in the life
of Jesus.
If you ever want to know what is the will of God, just read Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John and read the life of Jesus.
He has put all things in subjection under our feet as we stand in Christ.
And then it says this, and this is what I have just been telling you, is that we have
authority, for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put
under him, but now we do not yet see all things put under him.
And I can relate to that, I don't know if you can relate to that, but I certainly can
relate to that.
I can relate to the deep seated conviction that all things have been put underneath my
feet.
I can relate to the deep seated conviction that I have authority, that God himself has
given me the keys of the kingdom.
But I can also relate to the side of the story where, man I believe that, but I do not yet
see that fully and properly and perfectly outworked in my life.
And then it gives you a what to do in that situation, in the next verse.
Verse 9, here we go, here it is, are you ready for this?
Get ready to catch this.
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than Elohim for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone so that
no one else would ever need to taste it again.
What do you do when things don't seem to be working out?
What do you do when you have all authority but it's not been perfectly outworked in your
life yet?
What do you do when you've been given a pair of shoes and your feet aren't quite big enough
and they haven't quite grown enough to grow into them yet and you don't have the full
use of them and you're still tripping up and you still don't have the, you haven't matured
into the size of your calling and to the size of your authority yet?
Well this is what you do.
You keep your eyes fixed on Jesus who is the perfect picture of the purpose of God outworked
on the planet.
The perfect picture of the purpose of the kingdom outworked on the planet.
To help you, I had a, I want to share an encounter that I had with Jesus a few, well many years
ago now.
It was one of the first kind of encounters that I had with Jesus after I got born again.
I was on, I think I was on Bucklands Beach or somewhere in East Auckland and I was praying
and I was asking God, you know, God tell me what my calling is like.
Tell me how do I walk in my calling?
How do I walk in my purpose?
How do I walk in the power of the kingdom?
How do I walk as the man that you've called me to be?
How do I step into this?
What is the thing that you've called me to do?
God, I know, and I was saying things like, God I know you've called me to revival.
I know you've called me to preach.
I know you've called me to these things.
And I was just kind of like talking at Jesus, you know, just talking, just unloading my
heart to Jesus and my heart's desire at the time was, God just show me the way forward.
Show me how I can step into the power of the kingdom that I see in Jesus' life.
Show me how I can step into the purpose of the kingdom outworked in the same
manner and ferocity and vibrancy that I see in Jesus' life. I want to see
revival. I want to see a move of God. I want to see my generation.
I want to see the prophecy of the knowledge of the glory of God
covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. I want to see every person I
know just so baptized in the love and power and glory and fire and wonder of
God. I just want to see it God. And he took me into this vision. I saw this
vision as clear as day. And to this day I don't know whether I was seeing it
outside of my like an open vision or an internal vision. But either way it felt
the same. And what I saw was I saw a big rock in front of me. And in that rock was
this massive sword. And it was way too big for me. But it was this massive
amazing epic sword. And it was kind of it kind of looked like this Excalibur. You
know King Arthur's sword. And he said try get that sword out of the rock. And so I
put my hands on the sword and tried to wrench it out of the rock. And it didn't
come out of the rock. And this is what he said. He said your calling is great.
Your calling is heavy. Your calling is is it's like a heavy-duty calling. And
and I'm not saying that just for me. I'm saying that for you. Your calling is also
that. And he said the strength that it takes to take the sword out of the rock
is the strength that will be required to wield the sword once it's out of the
rock. And there's an authority that you've been given. There is a
responsibility that you've been given. There is a stewardship that you've been
given. There is a calling that you've been given to bring the purpose of the
kingdom. The purpose of God's heart. The purpose of heaven. To bring the will of
God into actuality. Into fruition on the planet. In a way where where everything
that is opposed to the will of God bows its knee to the name of Jesus. Where the
culture of heaven is fully outworked on the planet. But in that
responsibility and in that stewardship, it requires a strength. It requires a
maturity. And it requires, it's so massive, it requires a growing into. A maturing
into in order to grasp and receive everything that's been given to us. So
while we have been given all authority, we have not yet fully received or grown
into the all authority that we've been given. And we are therefore, we find
ourselves in this wrestle. And for me, I often refer back to the picture of the
sword. Where I was wrestling with the sword. And it didn't, you know, wrestling
isn't always very much fun. You know, like when you're trying to wrestle a sword
out of a stone. I don't know if you've ever tried to open a, I mean I'm sure you have.
Like I got, I got given a jar. My wife gave me a jar a few days ago. And said
could you, could you open this jar? I can't open it. And I tried with all my
might to open this jar. And I couldn't. I was trying to wrestle the lid off
this jar. But it just wouldn't come off. And then of course I said I can't get it
off. I just can't get it off. And then we gave it to to my brother-in-law. And he
just went and just came off straight away. And it was just super frustrating.
But you know, sometimes wrestles aren't that much fun. Sometimes it feels,
sometimes all you want to do is just get the lid off the jar. Or get the sword out
of the stone. Or get, you know, the, you know, the mature into and have your
capacity grow to the capacity that can receive the amount of authority that
you've already been given by God to walk in. And that wrestle can be hard
sometimes. But when the wrestle's hard, this is what I want to say. Look to Jesus.
Look to Jesus and let Jesus continually be the definition of the purpose of the
kingdom to you. Look to the life of Jesus and let it continually be God's
definition to you of what His purpose in your life, and what His purpose on earth,
and what the purpose of the kingdom is. Because the purpose of the kingdom looks
like Jesus. The purpose of the standard of His purpose, the authority to bring
His purpose to pass, it looks like Jesus. That's the expectation that we're
meant to live with as sons and daughters of God. And so, yeah, that's what I
want to say about the purpose of the kingdom. We're gonna, as I said, I'm gonna
go into the pillar five, the fifth pillar, which is where is the kingdom? Obviously
there's a little bit of overlap between some of these sessions, and that's just
just the nature of what we're talking about now. Everything that we're talking
about does overlap in a pretty massive way. We're gonna be talking about the fifth
pillar of the kingdom, which is where is the kingdom? We're talking about the Holy
Spirit. We're going to be talking about a few things, also some practical things that we
can do.
Yes, I'm just reading a comment right now.
I'm going to need both hands to hold this sword.
Amen.
Thank you so much, Matt.
Amen.
Yes, you're going to need both hands to hold this sword.
Yes, absolutely.
We all have—God believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, and He's entrusted
us to such a glorious and wonderful responsibility.
Sometimes I pinch myself and I feel so humbled to have been trusted by God with such—it's
sobering to be trusted with such a responsibility on the planet, and so it does require both
hands.
It absolutely requires both hands.
So let me pray for you, and then we'll see you in a few days with Pillar 5.
Boom.
Also, feel free to drop a comment if there's any questions you have or if there's anything
that you would—you're like, man, I'd love it if you taught on this, or if you answered
this question, or if you went into this, or during the Kingdom series, if you talked about
this or that or the other thing, just feel free to drop it in the comments, and we'll
definitely be considering that, and we'll try and cover that in some of the sessions
in the future.
But Father, right now, I just thank You for every person tuned in, and I thank You for
the purpose of the Kingdom, and everywhere in anyone's life where Your will is not being
played out, where Your will is not happening, it's not taking place.
Right now, I declare the authority of the Kingdom over every person's life that's tuned
in right now, over their families, God, over their minds, over their finances, over their
health, over their bodies.
I declare right now a manifestation of Your Kingdom right now to come flashing in like
light in the dark, lighting up the room, God.
I declare the light of Your glory all over every person in their family right now in
the name of Jesus, and I thank You, God, for bringing people into alignment with Your
Kingdom.
Your Kingdom looks like Jesus.
The purpose of Your Kingdom looks like the purpose of Jesus.
Thank You, God, for the apostolic.
Thank You for bringing us in and showing us, God, that everything that we look at is already
being conquered.
It just needs to be cultivated until it looks like heaven.
God, thank You for the stewardship that we've been given.
I just bless every person right now with a renewed mind and with a renewed fire and passion
for the purpose of the Kingdom in their lives, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Awesome, guys.
Well, I love you, and I'm going to be seeing you guys in a few days, but until then, ka
kite, and we'll see you soon.