Who's in Charge Around Here?

Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath! I have to get used to having this big microphone in my face. Welcome to our visitors who are here today, and I guess this is my first time being up here actually seeing your faces. So, in quite a while. And yes, it is good to see your faces, in case you were wondering. One of the things I find really interesting to observe is group dynamics. How many people have ever been part of a group project, whether it's at work or at school? And probably most of you have some gory tale to tell about a group project that you've been in. And what's one of the biggest common denominators about a group project that just goes bad? It's usually lack of clarity about who's in charge, isn't it? Because typically, and especially when you get group projects in school, nobody's really in charge. You've got a group of people, and everyone's got to figure out who's going to do what. And some people try to hide in the corner and not do anything. Others decide that they know better than everybody else, and they're going to try to tell everyone else what to do. And the whole thing kind of tends to spin out of control until somebody jumps in, gets control of it, and gets things figured out. It's a common question that you hear, don't you, when you walk into a chaotic situation. Who's in charge around here anyway? Because people want to know. And usually, if the situation's real chaotic, people don't know or they're not really sure who it is. Our title for today's message is exactly that. Who's in charge around here? And we're going to take a bit of time to talk about God's rulership and how it works. And if you're like me and you've been around different churches for a while, you probably cringe a little bit when you hear the term rulership or government, and you wonder where in the world things are going. But I would like to look at this maybe a little bit more from an academic perspective and think about the ramifications on how we spend our time and resources as Christians. That might seem like a weird thing around the whole concept of rulership. It's also interesting to observe that we think very often of what Jesus Christ very correctly said, which was that we shouldn't act like the world around us, exercising authority over one another, where to serve one another. And that's very true. It's an interesting contrast to that, that there's a lot said in the Bible about rulership. I'm not sure if we've actually thought that much about it. So let's start with what we can say about certainty on this topic, and that is that God is going to bring a kingdom in which he will unquestionably be the ruler. And there's no doubt a lot of what's said in the Bible about rulership is looking forward to that time in the future where God and Jesus Christ will rule. So like I often do, I've got three sections to this message, and Tim is already smiling here because he expected that.

And let's talk first about the coming kingdom of God, rulership in God's kingdom. And I don't know if we think about it or not, but rulership is actually central to how any sort of a kingdom or nation is governed. We talk a lot, we hear a lot in the press about the rule of law, don't we? What does the rule of law mean? Has anyone experienced challenges in the rule of law? It's not really something we run into that much in this country.

But it's certainly something that we see in third world countries. You might have talked to people who are ministers with United or who are in other religious groups that visit places like Africa or parts of Asia in the Middle East, where, for example, bribery is pretty much expected. If you want to cross a border, if you want to get through passport control, you're pretty much expected in certain countries to offer a certain amount of money. It's just the way it works. And odd as it sounds, you could actually find yourself thrown in jail if you don't offer a bribe versus a place where there is rule of law, like here, where you might get thrown in jail for offering a bribe.

When I lived overseas, I traveled quite a bit, and I was with some colleagues in Russia, and we were sitting down for dinner and just having a conversation over dinner. We were talking about policing, and this colleague of mine in Russia was telling stories about how I just completely try to avoid the police. They're just out to get bribes from people, and you can't trust them. And he went on to tell this story, which just, you know, from where we come from and what we're used to, just completely out of left field. But he was talking about how one Friday evening he was out with colleagues from work and had a healthy dose of vodka to drink well into the evening. The next morning, his wife wakes him up, and he had promised his wife that on Saturday morning they were going to go shopping together and go to the shopping mall. So his wife pokes him at eight in the morning and wakes him up, and he's still groggy, and he sort of shakes it off, gets a cold shower, and jumps in the car with his wife to go to the mall. And sure enough, they're on their way to the shopping mall, and the police pull him over. And because of the amount of vodka he'd had to drink before, notwithstanding the fact that he'd slept through the night, his blood alcohol level was still above the legal amount, which the police pretty quickly figured out. And over there, it could lead to suspension of a license for six months for one offense.

But the policeman was very friendly. He said, hey, no problem at all. There's an ATM just a half mile down the road. Just follow me, and we'll head over there. And so he thought for a moment, six months, ATM with the policeman, got in his car, followed the policeman to the ATM, withdrew the amount of money that the policeman was asking for, and everyone walked away happy. Now, it sounds really strange to us, doesn't it? To be in a situation like that where the rule of law, you've got blood alcohol level over the limit, but you can just get around it by being accompanied to the ATM by the policeman, it just seems like a strange way for things to work. And it shows that you can't run a regular, quote-unquote, society, one where citizens can count on safety and predictability and all the things that we value in a society if you don't have the rule of law. Now, actually, even today is a day that we can think a little bit about the rule of law. I don't know how many people have paid attention to it, but today is actually Juneteenth. Does anyone know what Juneteenth is? A few people do. Back in 1865, Juneteenth is the day that slavery was ended or announced as having been ended in Texas. It was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which is amazing. Now, why was that? Again, it was an issue of the rule of law because Texas at that point in time was on the far western side of the Confederate States. And it took that long after the Emancipation Proclamation for Union troops to make it and impose United States law back on the state of Texas after succession. And so on Juneteenth was when there was control and Union troops were able to make that announcement. I forget the name of the general who announced emancipation to that last part of the United States. So rulership, who's in charge? Their ability to project law onto the lands that they govern is an essential part of a kingdom. Now, this is no different for God's kingdom either. If you look, for example, at Revelation 11, verse 15, one of the hallmarks of God's kingdom coming to this earth has to do with rulership.

We read over these scriptures a lot, especially around the feast. But there's a clear message here about who's going to be in charge. Revelation 11, verse 15. And here it's announced by the person revealing this. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. It's that announcement of rulership. Jesus Christ is going to rule in that kingdom. Turn with me, if you will, to Philippians 2. Paul writing to the Philippians on this same theme, talking again about Jesus Christ. We know, of course, that Jesus Christ, when He came the first time, didn't come to disrupt what was happening in the world in terms of systems of governance. We would say He disrupted a whole lot of things by what He did and giving His life for our sins. But there's something bigger that's to come, and it's in His kingdom when everyone will worship Him and He will rule. Philippians 2, verses 9 through 11. Therefore, God has also highly exalted Him, talking about Jesus Christ, and given Him the name which is above every name. Talking here about preeminence, talking about a position of authority. In verse 10, in case there's any question about it, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Now, we've seen probably pictures of people, whether they're being knighted by the queen, for example, they would get down on one knee, right? And the sword comes out and they're knighted. Or if you're before different types of rulers, it can be respectful to either bow to them or even to get down on a knee out of respect for that ruler. That's what's being referred to in verse 10. At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, ruler, to the glory of God the Father. So again, Paul, in his writings, making no doubt about the fact that the objective here, the end result, the goal of everything that's happening, is going to be the absolute preeminence and authority and rulership of God through Jesus Christ.

Let's look at one more passage. This one in the Old Testament will turn to Micah 4, and we'll read verses 1 through 5. These verses will probably again sound familiar to many of us. And I don't know how often we think about the idea of rulership connected to these verses. We think about them as times to come in the kingdom. But let's start in verse 1 of Micah 4.

Now it shall come in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills. And so in prophetic language, mountains and hills are talked about as governmental entities or perhaps nations. And what it's talking about here is that the Lord's house will be the tallest of the mountains. He will be, as we see written about in other places, king of kings, because he will have preeminence over everything else.

And people will flow to it. Many nations in verse 2 will come and say, Come and let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us his ways and will walk in his paths. For out of Zion the law will go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and rebuke strong nations far off. We think about the rule of law. It's talking about law being operated from Jerusalem by God.

As a result of that, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But everyone will sit under his vine and his fig tree, and no one will make them afraid. For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all people walk, each in the name of his God, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. So it talks about here a system of rule, a rule of law, and it's also going to have a result in this kingdom. And that result is peace, and its prosperity, and its safety. No more making weapons and having the plenty and the peace that humans yearn for all the time. We can sometimes gloss over sort of this fundamental element of God ruling in the kingdom, because it's something as Christians that we look forward to, isn't it? We look at the world around us, we can see the things that are broken, the things that aren't working the way that we know they should. But not everybody necessarily feels that way. When we think, for example, about Revelation, it talks about Babylon the Great. It talks about this incredible system that's in existence in the earth before the return of Jesus Christ. And what does it say about Jesus Christ's return and those who are part of that system? It says there's great weeping, because that system is brought to an end. So the rule of law that comes through Jesus Christ, through God's law being applied to this earth, is also going to end other rulership that at this time is enriching some people. And it's not something that everyone's necessarily going to be happy about. So we look forward to this kingdom, we pray for this kingdom that's coming, and we yearn for it. But even as we do that, it remains out of our reach in this life. It remains completely out of our reach. Turn with me, if you will, to Corinthians 15. We'll see this also stated very, very clearly in the Scriptures, because as long as we're human beings, we can't be part of this kingdom. 1 Corinthians 15, and starting in verse 50.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. So we know this kingdom is something in the future, because we are flesh and blood. It says that we can't inherit it. Behold, I tell you a mystery, we will not all sleep, will be changed in the moment and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And so when all this happens, the mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. So we see that that's the point at which we can inherit the kingdom of God. We have to wait until there is immortality, because as human beings, as flesh and blood, we can't enter into that kingdom.

So flesh and blood can't inherit God's kingdom. How does God's rulership extend to human beings? He's going to rule that future kingdom, we know. But what is it that happens right now, and how should we think about it? How does it operate?

That brings us to the second of our three elements of this message. So we're going to shift gears here for a moment, and think a little bit more about views of God's rulership in the human world. And I'm going to get into a little bit of theology here, because I think it's relevant and it's interesting. Professing Christians don't actually differ that much about the fact that there's going to be a coming kingdom of God.

If you talk to most professing Christians, they accept the fact that at some point in the future, God is going to rule. It's hard to deny the things that we see in the Bible around those things. What happens in the meantime, though, is a different story, and especially as it has to do with the millennium. You see, again, I'm not sure... I didn't really think about this carefully before, but the millennium is the one time that's described in the Bible where God rules on the earth over all of mankind. Humans, not spirit beings. You see, the kingdom, as we read about in 1 Corinthians 15, is a time you have to be a spirit being to be in God's kingdom.

It says very clearly, only flesh and blood cannot inherit that kingdom. But the millennium is a time when God, through Jesus Christ, will rule over human beings. It's not a concept that's unique to the teaching of our church. The millennium is a concept that's been there for a long time, but it's been understood in different ways.

And in fact, getting to our theological terminology, there are three schools of thought out there in the professing Christian world about the millennium. They're referred to as pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, and a-millennialism. Pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, and a-millennialism. Wow. It's a mouthful. So the key text that gives rise to these schools of thought is in Revelation 20, verses 1 through 7, which we probably know fairly well.

It talks about Satan being bound for a thousand years and the saints ruling with Jesus Christ for a thousand years. Now, as the greater Christian world has tried to make sense of that, they've come up with these different theories and these theological constructs. Let me just read from an article called Pre-millennialism, Post-millennialism, or a-millennialism. It's from a magazine called Evangelical Focus Europe, written by a guy named Will Graham back in August of 2016. He writes, classic pre-millennialism, stemming from the time of the Church Fathers, and when they talk about the Church Fathers, they're talking about the people who immediately came after the apostles that we read about in the Bible, believes that when Jesus returns, He will establish His kingdom upon the earth for 1,000 years, which may be symbolic or literal.

However, it does not hold to the idea that there will be a secret rapture before the time of the Great Tribulation. This historical perspective understands the new people of God to be the Church, and therefore, the promises God made to national Israel will be fulfilled in the history of the Church, both before and after the Second Coming. Now, if that sounds relatively familiar, it should, because, again, if we were applying the language of theology, what we believe is pre-millennialism. We are living in a time that comes before the millennium, and after this time, Jesus Christ will return and establish that millennium.

That's referred to as classic pre-millennialism. We won't delve deep into it, but just for sake of understanding, there's another school of thought that's called dispensational millennialism, which believes that there's a rapture and that God will rapture away Christians before the Tribulation that precedes His coming.

And we're probably familiar with the term of the rapture. So that's pre-millennialism in a couple of different forms. Post-millennialism, going back to the article, in stark contrast to pre-millennialism, believes that the millennium occurs before Jesus' Second Coming rather than after. There's actually a school of thought that the millennium comes before Jesus Christ's Second Coming.

Since Scripture speaks of the millennium as a time of great prosperity for the kingdom of God, post-millennialists are inherently optimistic. The world, as they see it, is in an ongoing golden process of progress. And although this view is scarcely mentioned by the Church Fathers, it was championed by many of the English Puritans who believed that a huge awakening was soon to occur amongst Jews and Gentiles before the Lord's return. And some of you might know from history the great awakening that took place right around the time that the Puritans were coming to the United States.

The one thousand years, the article goes on, do not have to be a literal in post-millennialist thought. They merely symbolize a long time of advancement for the cause of the Gospel. Post-millennialism reached its zenith amidst the cultural buoyancy of the 19th century, but it was promptly struck down following the horrific tragedies that characterized the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. And that's not terribly hard to understand, is it? Because if you believe that we're living in a time of advancing goodness and prosperity for people that actually can be characterized by what we see as the millennium in the Bible, living through the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War would kind of dash those hopes, wouldn't it?

And you could also understand in some ways, perhaps, why people living through the Industrial Revolution and seeing all the developments that happened during that time might have thought that they were living in something like a millennial time. Going back to the article, last but not least, we come to amillennialism, which etymologically means no millennium. So what about Revelation 20 verses 1 through 7? Well, it would be unfair to say that amillennialists do not believe at all in a millennium.

They simply believe that it's symbolic, a heavenly reality and not an earthly one. They believe Christ is ruling right now over His church from heaven alongside His saints, and Satan is currently bound in the sense that he cannot prevent people from hearing the gospel and believing in Christ.

Like premillennialism, amillennialism enjoyed good standing amongst the church fathers, but unlike the premillennial stance, amillennialists are persuaded that Christ will not establish a 1,000-year reign on the earth after His second coming. Once He comes back, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. So, hopefully that didn't put anyone completely to sleep, only partially. So, three schools of thought that are out there, premillennialism, post-millennialism, amillennialism. Why is this important? So, one reason I think it's at least useful, just from a sense of knowledge, is I think it's good to have at least some level of understanding of some of the thought that's out there and how people in the world view this.

We run across people every day. We might get into some of these conversations, not necessarily about post-millennialism, but it does help to know the frames of reference that are out there and why people might believe something different than what we do. But more importantly, for today's topic, how we understand, how any person understands, the idea of God's millennial rule has a direct bearing on how one understands God's rulership today in the world. Because when we think about it, when I just read through those different definitions, the idea of post-millennialism carries with it an idea that God is trying to work through people today to drive an outcome in order to pave the way for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Let me read a few brief quotes from post-millennialist views. The first one says, Post-millennialism places the church in a role of transforming whole social structures before the Second Coming and endeavoring to bring about a quote-unquote, golden age of peace and prosperity with great advances in education, the arts, sciences, and medicine. Another quote, Third quote, So we see here, as we look at these quotes, as the idea that this post-millennial idea, the idea that God's rule, the millennial rule, is going to happen during this physical lifetime, brings on it this idea that we as Christians and institutions, Christian institutions like churches, are here to engage in developing cultural institutions, ways of doing things, ushering in a golden age through physical Christians today that embodies the millennium.

And after that takes place, then Jesus Christ will return. And what it implies and brings with it is a completely different idea of how we engage with a culture around us and how we should be involved with, whether it's the social institutions, the political institutions that are going on or ruling in the world today. And that's why the frame of reference that we have, the viewpoint that we have towards God's rulership, and how it's working in the world of mankind today becomes very important to how we act.

So to sum it up, there's a divergence of thought in theological circles about God's rulership in the human world. Post-millennialists believe that there's an element of God's rulership taking place now to be driven forward by Christians in the world. It leads to a belief that Christians can and should create righteous outcomes through exercise of power in this world. It can lead to the establishment of institutions that claim to represent God's kingdom on this earth.

And as we've already talked about, our beliefs would not fall into this camp. Ours would fall into what theologians would categorize as pre-millennialism. We believe we're living in an age where God is allowing man to exercise his own rule on the earth. We look to a coming millennium that follows the return of Jesus Christ and precedes the kingdom of God. So this leads us to the last of our three sections of this message, which is understanding God's rulership today and how it should impact our actions as Christians.

And this also provides some additional support, I think, for why we believe in pre-millennialism as what's laid out in the Bible.

So the topic of God's rulership today is a big one. I'm going to kind of hit it from the viewpoint of some overall themes and encourage everyone to dive in a little bit deeper as they think about it and consider what the impacts are on our lives and how we act on a day-to-day basis. But as an overall framework, what I thought would be interesting to do is look at what did Jesus Christ do and how did he exercise authority when he was on the earth?

And then secondly, how did the writers of the New Testament talk about God's rulership and how we should be reacting to it and how it operates in the world today?

So think, if you will, about Jesus Christ and what he did on the earth.

In what ways and what places did he show authority while he was on the earth? In which areas did he not exercise authority?

I've bullet pointed out. I haven't even counted them. I guess there may be seven or eight of them. We won't turn to Scriptures for each one, but I'll refer to some that you can look up later, and that could be a good follow-up if you're interested in this topic and digging a little bit deeper into it. So Jesus Christ actually showed authority over a great many things while he was on the earth. The first one is the forces of nature. Who can think of ways that Jesus Christ exercised authority over the forces of nature?

You can remember probably the Sea of Galilee. We've got several hands. Many are probably thinking about the Sea of Galilee. Jesus Christ is on the boat with his disciples. A big, huge storm comes up. Jesus Christ is sleeping. Disciples are scared to death, amazed that they have to actually wake him up as they're fearing for their lives. He gets up, calms the waves in the sea, and they're amazed. What kind of person is that? Even the waves in the sea obey him. So Jesus Christ was very clearly exercising authority over the forces of nature. Another one, which is just sort of an offbeat kind of a story, was the fig tree. I think most of us can remember the episode with the fig tree. They're walking into Jerusalem. Jesus Christ sees a fig tree. It's not bearing figs, and he curses it. And what happens to the tree? It withers up and dies right there on the spot. So again, Jesus Christ showing that he had authority, not only showing that he had authority, but he exercised while he was on earth authority over the forces of nature. Secondly, living creatures.

Now, this one's maybe a little bit more obscure, but if you can remember a debate about taxes, and someone threw a cast, I forget if it was a net or a string, into the water, caught a fish. What did the fish have in its mouth? It had a coin. How'd the coin get there? I don't think it picked it up off the bottom of the water of the lake or the brook or whatever.

Jesus Christ exercised authority over living creatures, produced a coin in the mouth of the fish. There's another one. I was looking at some different articles to pull these together that I hadn't thought of, but it was the writing of the cult into Jerusalem. So when Jesus Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, they brought him a cult that had never been ridden. I'm not much of a horse person, but I can see Jan nodding back there. Just what the experience usually is like if you try to get onto any sort of a horse, using that term very broadly. Get on a horse of some sort that hasn't been ridden before. It's generally not going to be docile and let you walk in a nice procession into a place like Jerusalem. Jesus Christ, in this case, was able to exercise authority over that living animal and do something that was actually miraculous because it's not something a normal human being could do. Another one pretty obviously would be sickness. One of the probably the biggest thing that Jesus Christ did, the thing he did most often while he was on earth, was miracles of healing. And there are countless miracles of healings that are in the Gospels. And it showed that he was not only had, but exercised an authority over sickness. Another one closely related would be death.

We talked before about the number of people who were resurrected from the dead in the Bible. It's actually not many. It's less than ten. Three of those were by Jesus Christ. Lazarus is probably the one we remember the most, but there were others. There was a young girl as well. The third one doesn't come immediately to mind, but if you search a little bit in the Bible, you can find those fairly quickly.

Jesus Christ showed that he had authority, power, over life and death by resurrecting people. If you remember, Lazarus, to me, that's just one of the most real passages in the Bible as they say, you know, look, we know he's dead. Don't go into the sepulchre. It's smelling in there.

The decomposition of that body was already happening. There was no doubt about the fact that Lazarus was dead, and Jesus Christ was able to raise him.

Another one that happened fairly often was related to demons or evil spirits. Again, there are multiple accounts within the Gospels of Jesus Christ encountering evil spirits of different types and casting them out, and showing authority over them, some of them even recognizing who he was, and he told them to be quiet.

And so it was clear that he had authority and was exercising that while he was on the earth as a human being. Angels as well were under his authority as a human being.

In Matthew 26, when he was going to be taken in order to be scourged, tried, and crucified, he said, look, let it happen. If it was against my father's will, I could call legionate angels down from heaven, and they would repel these Roman troops.

And so he made it very clear that he had power over the angels. He made a decision not to call on them, because it was not in accordance with God's will, but he made it clear that he had the power to do that.

And then the last one that I'll mention is the law of Moses. He had authority over the law of Moses. You can remember, and you can search for the passage in the Gospels where everyone was astounded at hearing him.

And why is that? Because he spoke as one having authority. He wasn't like the other teachers. He spoke as one having authority.

And as we've talked about in a previous sermon, for example, where you go to what's commonly talked about as Christ magnifying the law, he says, you know, you've heard you shouldn't commit adultery.

I say to you that if you lust in your heart, you've already done it. He was speaking from his own experience. He was the lawgiver.

And he was simply imparting to those people, look guys, here's what I meant when that single law came down and was written. Here's the whole context that was behind it.

And he was showing that he had the authority, and he could speak as one having authority because he was the one that gave those laws. He also called himself the Lord of the Sabbath.

The Lord of the Sabbath. And it was also evident in his treatment of the scribes and the Pharisees.

He didn't talk to anybody else in the Bible with the same level of what would you call it? Vitreal? Energy? Attacking, even? As he did the scribes and the Pharisees.

And that was because they were supposed to be administering the law, interpreting the law for the people. And Jesus Christ, as one with authority over the law, could see how they were misusing it and how they were using it for their own power.

And that's probably a good one to end with and to make a turn, because what's very interesting is the way he treated the scribes and the Pharisees versus how he treated the Roman authorities.

Can you find any passage where Jesus Christ spoke to Pilate, to a centurion, to any of the Roman authorities in the way that he talked to the scribes and the Pharisees?

It's very interesting. You can't. Because that was an area of his authority that he was not there on the earth in his first coming to exercise.

He made it very clear to his disciples, if we read in John 6, for example, there's a whole passage. It's the Bread of Life section, the I Am's that happened in John 6.

And one of the things that happens in that section is that people become really disillusioned, some of them because they thought he was going to strike down the Roman government.

They were looking for a physical savior, and he made it clear that wasn't going to be him. He was talking about this weird stuff about drinking his blood and eating his flesh, and it just kind of creeped them out, and it just wasn't what they were looking for, and so they stopped following him.

If you read John 6, it's a very interesting passage.

So he clearly said he didn't come to overthrow the Romans. That wasn't a part of his authority that he was exercising on the earth. He showed submission to their authority.

We see that in his arrest and his crucifixion, which he did not resist.

And it's explicitly stated in John 18, verse 36, he said it himself that his kingdom is not of this world.

His kingdom is not of this world. That's an area that I think we have to think about when we consider rulership as well as our actions in the world today.

Jesus Christ made it very clear his kingdom is not of the world. We've already seen the fact and understood the fact that to inherit his kingdom, we have to be spirit.

So his closing words where he claimed authority, I think, are also very interesting. Because there are very few passages in the Bible where Jesus Christ said, I'm in charge. I've been given power. He did some of these things that we've talked about, but then right at the very end, he sat down with the disciples. And he spoke a couple of what ended up as verses in the Bible that started with, all power or authority has been given to me. Can anyone think of what the punchline was after that? Let's turn to Matthew 28 verses 19 and 20. So I think it's important to think about what Jesus Christ said to do in the context of the fact that all power was given to him. Because it has to direct our actions as Christians as well as helping us to understand some of the things that we're not called to do as Christians. Matthew 28 will read verses 18 through 20.

So what he said is important, not only in what he said, but what he didn't say. Because what he said was very much a view of spreading the gospel, spreading the word about who and what Jesus Christ is, the fact that he died for our sins, the fact that salvation and forgiveness can be had through him. And what did he not say?

He didn't say, go become part of the cultural governing institutions and drive change so that you'll be part of my millennium on earth so that I can then return and bring the kingdom.

His silence was very powerful in terms of what he said after this idea of having all power and authority. He made it very clear that what Christians should be about is making disciples of the nations, spreading the word. And we know, of course, through other scriptures that it's God who calls and chooses who it is that he's going to convert, but we're still supposed to go out there, spread the gospel, be an example for his way of life. So let's shift from Jesus Christ to other writings in the New Testament and see what's emphasized in those writings. First of all, submission to God's authority in our lives.

We'll start in the book of James. We'll just read a very short passage that most of us have probably heard before. James 4 verse 7 simply says, Therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So we're told very clearly that we are to submit to God. Again, when we think about rulership and authority, hear James talking to Christians, we are to submit to the rulership of God.

Going further in Paul's writings, Romans 6, the way you might think about it in the world today is that God is ruling very small pieces of real estate. Those pieces of real estate happen to live between our ears, because what God is after is ruling in our heads, right? In our hearts, figuratively, in our minds. That's where he wants to rule today through those who he has called. Romans 6, 12 through 14.

So we're under the rulership as individuals, the rulership of God. When we give our lives to him, and we talk about this often about the fact that we give up our lives, we're buried in a figurative grave when we go through baptism. We live a new life because we live a life that's now ruled by Jesus Christ. So that's the first thing that's emphasized, and you can find that through all the writings in the New Testament, as a very, very common theme. The fact that God wants to rule within us. And that's why we have to purge out the old leaven. That's why we look at the fruits of the flesh versus the works of the flesh versus the fruits of the spirit, for example. All of these things, as we work in our Christian lives to allow the rulership of God to be stronger and stronger in our lives. Now, what I found really interesting was when I went into a search engine and looked up the term, submitting, submit to God, what surprised me was the number of passages that came up about submitting to human authorities. And actually, that term is used quite a lot in the New Testament writings. Let's turn to 1 in 1 Peter 2, verses 13 through 17. In contrast to the idea that Christians are supposed to be out there taking over instruments of power in this world and turning them to Christian use, what's written a lot in the Bible is the idea that we're to submit to authority or submit to the government that's around us. And keep in mind, this was written at the time of an extremely brutal Roman government. They weren't living under a benign democracy. They were living under a brutal Roman government, and they were still told to submit to that government. 1 Peter 2 will read verses 13 through 17.

It's interesting how much being in submission to the physical authorities is bound together with being ruled by God. And unless those authorities are expressly telling us to do things that are against the law of God, what we're being told here, and there are many other passages that bring out a similar light, is essentially the fact that God has delegated authority and rulership in the world that we live in today to human government. And whether it's being done well or not, those human governments are exercising that authority which he has allowed them to have. And he wants us as Christians, as part of allowing him to rule in our minds, to also be submissive, to be under the authority of those human governments. And of course, we understand that the exception to that is when they demand that we break God's law. We see examples of that as well in how Paul, for example, conducted himself. We don't have time to delve deep into that. So what do these examples of Jesus and the New Testament writers then tell us about God's rulership today? First of all, Jesus stated that his kingdom is not of this world. It's easy sometimes, especially the way society is today, for us to get this idea that everybody's standing up and screaming for their rights and pounding the table. And sometimes we think that our job is actually to get out there and cause righteous outcomes through human institutions today. And that's not what it is. Jesus clearly said his kingdom is not of this world. We were told through the writings of Paul and others in the New Testament not to disrupt civil authorities. Jesus didn't do that, and the New Testament writers echoed that. There's clear instruction that God's rule needs to extend powerfully into our own minds and our own hearts, and that's the place where we are supposed to occupy ourselves. There's clear instruction, as we read in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20, to spread the gospel through our words, through our examples, and in a way that leads others to want to submit their lives as well to God's authority. And really, that's a natural outgrowth of God ruling in our own hearts and minds, is that we would show those fruits that are resulting from repentance. You'll notice that I didn't mention the church in the context of God's rulership, and it's probably worth talking about for just a moment. The role of the church is a completely separate and different topic that could be covered in probably a series of sermons.

But the one thing that we should make clear is that rulership of God's people is not a function of the church.

If you read, for example, in 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, I'm not going to turn there, but it makes it clear there's one mediator between God and man, and that's Jesus Christ.

So any religious system that tries to superimpose itself between you and God and say that your pathway to God must go through that individual or must go through that religious system or organization is not in line with the Bible. It is not exercising authority that's been given to it. And that's made extremely clear in these passages you can read in the book of Hebrews as well. The fact that we can come directly to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. We are forgiven directly by going before God's throne and asking for forgiveness. No intermediaries. Now, that's not to say the church doesn't have authority. It's not to say the church doesn't have an important role. It absolutely does.

But the role of the church is to strengthen the relationship between the individual Christian and the ruler of that Christian, which is Jesus Christ.

The church and the ministry is there to nourish and strengthen that bond between individual Christians and God. And it's also there to protect the flock. And that's probably the biggest place where authority, rather than rulership, is exercised within the church when there are dangerous two members of the flock. And the church, and more importantly, the leadership of the church, is responsible in that situation to deal with those things, as we see our pastor doing from time to time.

So, as we submit ever-deeper ways to God's rule in our lives, we should keep reflecting on what it is that's happening in this element of rulership. And especially how it comes to how we're using our time and energy. You know, it's so easy, especially in our country. You know, we're blessed with a vote, and we're blessed with a voice, where we can say whatever we want to about the government. And it's interesting, you look around the world today, and people are jailed for simply saying what they think.

And we take it for granted sometimes, and we get, even as we heard about last week, a little careless sometimes in the way that we talk about those who rule over us, the civil authority. Because of that freedom that we've been blessed with, because we can express ourselves, and we're allowed to do that, the challenge that comes with it is that can consume our time. I think, to me, this is where this all comes home, is when we think about rulership and how it's being administered in the world, how God is ruling people, which is us as individuals in our own minds and hearts, how we use our time as a result of that becomes really important.

If we go back to this idea of, does God want us as Christians to force change in the world today as a millennium on Earth, or does He want us to wait for His return and to be ready? It implies a very different way that we use our time. We can use our time and energy if we're not careful getting so wound up in all of the things going on in the world around us today, as though we have the ability to change it, as though it has the ability to produce a righteous result, that we forget the fact that what we're to be about is being ourselves under the rulership of God and working out His will, letting His will work its way out in our lives.

So when I think about it, to sum it up, in terms of our individual lives, I think about it kind of as concentric circles. You see, you recognize the shape of you drop a pebble in a pond, right? You see the circles kind of spread their way out from where the pebble has dropped. But we think of ourselves and God working within our own minds and hearts as being at the center of that circle. And the circle then works its way out, right?

Because as God is ruling within us, as He's changing our minds and our hearts and converting us and turning us into completely different people, the ripples go out. The relationship with the people we're closest to is probably where it starts, in fact, where it should start. Our spouses, our families, is where it should start. And then it goes out to the next set of ripples, which is our church community.

And then it goes out to the next set of ripples, which is our neighbors, the people that we live among, the stores where we shop every day, the people that we work with. And then as it goes out to another level, perhaps it goes out to, you know, social contexts that we have, clubs that we belong to, people that we participate in hobbies with. And these ripples start to work their way outward.

And as we examine those ripples and how they work their way outward, it's a good way to consider whether the rulership of God in their own lives is working the way that it should. Now, if you're like me, if you've been around the church for a while, you've probably met people from time to time who are very hooked on, you know, whatever the idea is, whether it's a conspiracy theory, something else going on in the world. And then you look at those ripples that are going around in their lives.

And, you know, and I'm not going to name names, I've known people through the decades, their children won't talk to them. They can't get along with their neighbors. They go through job after job after job because they can't get along with anyone. But they can sit down for three hours and they can tell you intricately this conspiracy that's working its way out and this, you know, whatever organization that's going to do these things and, you know, why that's important to God.

And so we have to think about those elements of rulership in our lives and how that's working. And is God's rulership working out what it should in those circles as they work their way out in our lives?

So as we wrap up this message, hopefully it was at least somewhat interesting to you. Who's in charge here is an important topic for us to understand as Christians because it has ramifications in how we live our lives. God's kingdom is going to come in the future and in that future time, He's going to exercise authority over the entire earth. Before that time, there will be an era of time, the millennium, when Jesus Christ rules over all of humanity. But the millennium is not now. It's a future event and we're not called to drive a cultural victory for God through today's government and societal systems. Rather, God's rulership through Jesus Christ exists today in the lives of those He's called, and we're to be active in submitting to that rulership in our lives, expending our energies on growing as Christians and being effective ambassadors for God's way of life. Hope you have a great Sabbath.