Message Six

Called into God’s Kingdom and Glory

Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 2:12; 2 Thes. 1:5;
Mark 1:14-15; John 3:3, 5; Rev. 1:9

1. God has called us to enter into His kingdom and glory—1 Thes. 2:12:
   1. The kingdom of God is the sphere for us to worship God and enjoy God under the divine ruling with a view of entering into God’s glory—Matt. 6:13b.
   2. Paul’s work with the new believers nourished them, cherished them, and fostered them to walk in a manner worthy of God so that they might be able to enter into His kingdom and participate in His glory—1 Thes. 2:12.
2. The New Testament is a book of the kingdom of God; the entire New Testament is on the kingdom—Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Rev. 11:15; 12:10:
   1. The kingdom of God is a divine sphere for God to work out His plan; it is a realm where God can exercise His authority to accomplish what He intends—Matt. 6:10.
   2. The kingdom of God is not only God’s reign over the universe in a general way by His authority and power but also God’s reign in a particular way in the sense of life—John 3:5, 15; Rom. 14:17; 8:2, 6, 10-11.
   3. As God incarnate, the Lord Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God, to establish a realm in which God can carry out His purpose through the exercise of His authority—John 1:1, 14; 3:3, 5; 18:36.
   4. The New Testament preaches the gospel in the way of the kingdom; the gospel is for the kingdom, and the gospel is proclaimed so that rebellious sinners might be saved, qualified, and equipped to enter into the kingdom—Mark 1:14-15; Matt. 4:17; Acts 8:12.
   5. In the New Testament, the kingdom of God goes with His salvation, and God’s salvation goes with the kingdom—Eph. 2:8, 19; Rev. 12:10.
   6. Repentance is mainly for us to enter into the kingdom of God; unless we repent—that is, have a change of concept—we cannot enter into the kingdom—Mark 1:15; Matt. 3:2; 4:17.
   7. The kingdom of God is God Himself, and God is life, having the nature, ability, and shape of the divine life, which forms the realm of God’s ruling—Mark 1:15:
      1. The drawing near of the kingdom of God is the drawing near of God Himself.
      2. The nature of the kingdom of God is divine because it is the kingdom of God with the divine attributes of love, light, holiness, and righteousness—1 John 4:8, 16; 1:5; 2:29; 1 Pet. 1:15-16.
      3. Only by having the divine life can we enter into the divine realm.
      4. The only way to enter into the kingdom of God is to receive God as life and to gain God Himself—John 1:1, 14; 3:15; 1 John 5:11-12.
      5. Because through regeneration we receive the divine life, the life of God, regeneration is the unique entrance into the kingdom—John 3:3, 5, 15.
   8. Through regeneration we have been transferred into the delightful kingdom of the Son of God’s love—a realm where we are ruled in love with life—Col. 1:13.
   9. The kingdom of God is a realm of the divine species; in order to enter into this divine realm, we need to be born of God to have the life and nature of God, thereby becoming God-men in the kingdom of God—John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5.
   10. The kingdom of God is the Lord Jesus as the seed of life sown into His believers and developing into a realm over which God can rule as His kingdom in His divine life—Luke 17:20-21; Mark 4:3, 26.
   11. The eternal kingdom of God is the increase of Christ in administration—Dan. 2:34-35, 44; Mark 4:26-29.
   12. Today the believers live the kingdom life in the church, for the church is the kingdom of God in this age—Matt. 16:18-19; 1 Cor. 6:10; Eph. 5:5:
       1. The church life is the kingdom in a developmental stage, a preliminary stage—Rev. 1:9.
       2. When the authority of God’s kingdom is allowed to operate in us, righteousness, peace, and joy will characterize our daily life—Rom. 14:17.
       3. The work of the church is to bring in the kingdom of God—Matt. 13:43; 6:10; 12:22-28; Rev. 11:15; 12:10.
       4. God’s goal is that we live a church life that will usher us into the kingdom; this means that we should live in the preliminary stage of the kingdom that will lead us into the full manifestation of the kingdom—Matt. 13:43.
   13. The New Testament emphasizes the cross, the church, and the kingdom; the cross produces the church, and the church ushers in the kingdom—16:18-19, 24.
   14. To enter into the kingdom of God, we need to pass through sufferings; to be “accounted worthy of the kingdom of God,” we need our faith to grow, our love to increase, and our endurance to be maintained—Acts 14:22; 2 Thes. 1:5.
   15. After we have entered into the kingdom of God through regeneration, we need to go on to have a rich entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by experiencing the full development of the divine life as revealed in 2 Peter 1:5-11.
   16. As a result of the growth and development of the divine life to maturity and of living in the reality of the kingdom in the church life today, we will inherit the kingdom of God—cf. 1 Cor. 15:50; Gal. 5:21.
3. God’s glory goes with His kingdom and is expressed in the realm of His kingdom—Matt. 6:10, 13b; Psa. 145:11-13:
   1. The kingdom is the realm for God to exercise His power so that He may express His glory—Rev. 5:10, 13.
   2. The shining of the kingdom is for the glorification of the Father—Matt. 5:16.
   3. The kingdom of God is God being manifested through us; the expression of God from within us is the kingdom—vv. 14-15; 1 Cor. 4:20; 10:31.
   4. First Thessalonians 2:12 indicates that we enter into the kingdom of God and into the glory of God simultaneously.
   5. The kingdom of God is God’s manifestation in His glory with His authority for His divine administration; hence, to enter into the kingdom of God and to enter into the expressed glory of God take place at the same time as one thing—Heb. 2:10; Matt. 5:20; Rev. 21:9-11; 22:1, 5.