Introduction

The gospel is a message, which Jesus and his followers preached, the message was all about the kingdom of God and how Jesus Christ enables us to live in this kingdom. When reading the words and life of Jesus, you may notice that he was the first person recorded to preach the gospel. “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mar 1:14,15 Now to understand why this is good news, we must take a look into what this kingdom is all about. There are seven points I would like to share when discussing the goodness of this kingdom.

1. God is ruler
2. Kingdom on Earth
3. Kingdom in Future
4. Righteousness
5. Peace
6. Joy
7. All welcome

God is ruler

The word kingdom denotes, a rule of a king. The kingdom of God is basically his rulership over a people and area. In this kingdom, a key thing is that God’s will is done. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Mat 6:9,10. When we are asking for God’s kingdom to come, we are asking for his will to be done. This means that in his kingdom, things are done as the way God wants it to be done. Now how does God want things to be done? Every Kingdom has laws and the Kingdom of God is no different, The bible describes God as being the embodiment of Love. As God is the ruler of the kingdom ruling principle in this Kingdom is love, and Jesus taught this when he said that the two governing laws in this kingdom are that, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Mat 22:37,39.

The good news about God being ruler is that God is a very good ruler. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” Pro 29:2 He makes the best decisions for his people, and serves them selflessly rather than trying to benefit himself. Another great thing about God is that in most kingdoms, the citizens never get to meet with the king. But in God’s kingdom, everyone gets to meet and talk with God personally. There are two aspects to this kingdom the first is the spiritual kingdom and the second is the physical kingdom.

Spiritual Kingdom

The spiritual kingdom is the kingdom we can enter into now. Right now we can receive the benefits of being part of God’s kingdom. Although it is spiritual, the benefits are manifested in our physical world. Jesus says “the kingdom of God is within you.” Luk 17:21 and in this sense, the kingdom is God being ruler over your thoughts, feelings and actions. This kingdom comes to us now through the rulership of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We all have demons which lead us to do bad things, i.e. get angry, gossip, steal, desire things we know we shouldn’t and often times, these things have controlled our life. As we are under the control of these thoughts, feelings and actions, we are unfortunately under the power kingdom of the devil. Jesus came to set us free from these demons, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” Mat 12:28. What Jesus is saying here, is that when the Holy Spirit removes demons from the life of an individual, the kingdom of God is come to that person.

The final thing about the spiritual kingdom, is that we can meet God personally through prayer, and he will talk to us through his spirit. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Heb 4:16 Paul lets us know that we can come directly to Jesus with our requests, Jesus is on the throne of heaven, showing that he is King of heaven. Jesus also teaches us that when we pray, we are to call God father, so right now, we can come to the king of the kingdom, and talk to him, let him know what is happening in our life, give him thanks respect and honour and also ask for what we need. The great thing about all this, is that if we ask him, the king of the universe will listen to and answer our prayers.

Physical Kingdom

Although, God’s rule in our life is amazing now, it brings us into fellowship with other like minded people, it is simple and enjoyable. There is one problem. Right now this spiritual kingdom is within the midst of another physical kingdom, the kingdom of the devil, where instead of having righteousness, peace and joy. You get death, sickness, pain, sorrow, and temptation all as a consequence of the results of sin. These are a result of the devil ruling the earth. Jesus understood that his spiritual kingdom would be in the midst of another evil kingdom and told his disciples… “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Joh 17:15,16. He wanted his disciples who were not of the world, i.e. in Jesus spiritual kingdom, to stay in the world, in the evil fallen kingdom of the devil to spread Jesus’ spiritual kingdom.

As in the world around us, where one kingdom attempts to take over another kingdom, there is always a fight. We see this, in the battle between God’s kingdom and the enemies’ kingdom. The thing today, is that the devil has a slight advantage, Jesus’ kingdom DOES not use physical violence. God’s kingdom does not force or blackmail people to do anything. When talking about this issue Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” [ESV] Joh 18:36. The devils advantage is that he does force, blackmail, fight, kill, trick and deceive. So we see throughout time, he has done this to people to get them into his kingdom, as because his kingdom is so rubbish, the end results are so terrible, no one would want anything to do with it. So he MUST use these methods. On this earth although we may have peace inside there is always going to be bad stuff around us, impacting us and causing us pain. However, while in God’s kingdom, internally we can be shielded from all of these things the devil throws our way.

God’s kingdom is all over the universe where the influence of mans sin has not reached. God’s kingdom is in heaven and it will come to earth at the time of his second coming. When this time comes, all evil and wickedness will be destroyed “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Rev 21:4

Now that I have briefly touched on the two aspects of God’s kingdom, I want to focus on the really good news about this kingdom which makes the good news so amazing.

I want to emphasize that although, we have to wait for Jesus’ second coming for all badness to be wiped away. We can fully experience the kingdom within, right now. Paul teaches that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Rom 14:17 He makes it clear that it is not a physical thing but a state within, which we receive through the Holy Spirit being ruler in our life. Lets look at the significance of these three things.

Righteousness

At the beginning of this post we established that the governing law or principle of this kingdom was Love. When we enter into this kingdom, we understand and accept that God loves us and then this love becomes the motive for all of our thoughts and actions. When looking at the word righteousness in the bible we see that it is connected with a clear path to living life. Whereas the opposite; evil is a path which leads to death. Here are a few examples of where the bible teaches this.

Pro 11:19 As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.

Pro 21:21 He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honour.

Pro 13:6 Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner.

Pro 11:4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.

In essence, the good news about this kingdom is that it allows you to live life to the full, it allows you to experience life as a human being as we were supposed to experience it, and we can experience this now, even while we are on earth. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Joh 10:10. This is why Jesus came, and this is the purpose of the gospel. When the motive for every decision we make is based on Love God first, our lives will be transformed, because every decision we make will be good for us, as God only asks us to do things which will be beneficial for us. The next is that when every decision we make is based on Love for people we will have such a positive and uplifting impact on the people around us.

Peace

Peace in God’s kingdom comes from God, but can be divided into two sources. The first is that God is our father, and because he is our father he will look after us, he will answer our prayers and he will give us everything we need. Because God is our father we do not have to worry about anything. One point to mention is that Jesus teaches that to enter into the kingdom, we must become as children. Children, do not really worry about things, they do what is around them, do what they are asked to do and trust their parents for the rest.

The reason we experience peace when we enter into the kingdom, is that we do not have to worry about making bad decisions, or the consequences of bad decisions. As we have done our best to follow God’s will, we can be sure that everything will work out fine, and also we do not have to worry about past mistakes we have made because Christ has died for all of these mistakes. “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” 119:165

Joy

The final aspect is Joy. Jesus says that “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Joh 15:11 When we operate in Gods kingdom, we will be so joyful, this is because the principles to live in his kingdom are designed that we will truly enjoy life. A problem many people have with Christianity, or not wanting to give their life to God is that, it is boring. This is far far far far far from the truth. The good news is, that, being part of the kingdom is much more fun than being part of the world. Come on, take a moment to think about it. If this kingdom is set up by a God that made this earth, that created this universe, who formed every single element, who invented physics and science itself, do you think he is going to be boring. Nope, you have to be mad to be believe this. However, I understand why many people think this to be true. A lot of people who say they follow God are miserable, boring and not fun, so they make it seem like God is not fun. Nah, it’s not true.

All welcome

This kingdom is open to each and everyone of you, it is not just for Christians, muslims or jews, it does not care which religion you call yourself, it does not matter what colour you are or what country you are from. Jesus teaches this when he talks about the roman centurion had great faith, “I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” Mat 8:11. The living as part of the kingdom is not about what you call yourself or who you say you serve it is all about living by the TRUE principle of Love. Well, how do I know if I am in the kingdom? You can know if you are in the kingdom, if you feel alive and you are living life to the full, you can know you are in the kingdom if you feel at peace, and have a joy that cannot be taken away by the trials of life. You know you are in the kingdom when the fruit of the spirit is pouring out of your life, you experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” Gal 5:22,23 coming from deep within. When asking the majority of people this question, their answer is no, and at point of writing this, I am not there yet either. But the good thing is Jesus describes the kingdom as something which grows, we can never have full patience, it is a thing we grow in, we can never have full joy, because these things are eternal, there is always more joy we can experience. This is why Jesus says we must continue to “seek first the kingdom of God” we will always be seeking it, no matter how old we get, the seeking will not stop. This word seek can also be translated, to aim at or strive after.

Conclusion

So this is the gospel, it is the good news that right now, there is a God who loves us as children, wants to play an active part in our life and has set up principles for us to live by which will allow us to live life to the full, be at peace and have a life that is fun. All this happens right here right now when we believe this is what God has for us and we begin to obey the principles he leads us to. Jesus says the kingdom starts of small and then grows within us like a seed growing into a tree, how about letting this seed into your life.