What is the way to open the kingdom and establish the church? It is by imparting King Jesus as the seed of the kingdom into others. Jesus is the king, and He is the seed of the kingdom. When we were saved, this kingly seed was sown into us. None of the kings in the world could rule over our family and home life. The president of the U.S.A. would never come into our kitchen. But King Jesus not only comes into our kitchen, He comes into every corner of our house. He cares about every little detail. He is such a king in detail. Hallelujah, Jesus is our king! And as our king He is on one hand the sower, and on the other hand the seed. The king came as the sower to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom into our very being. This is the king, and this is also the kingdom. The king, the kingdom, and the seed of the kingdom all are Jesus. Isn’t this wonderful?
How can we take this kingdom into us? The answer is in a verse fully missed by today’s Christians. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). Most Christians do not know what it means to be poor in spirit, therefore the kingdom is not theirs. The spirit mentioned here in Matthew 5:3 is not the Holy Spirit, but our human spirit. “God is Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit” (John 4:24). If we would touch Him, we must exercise our spirit.
Most people are filled with worthless things. They are full of religious concepts, human concepts, and dead knowledge of the Bible. This was the case with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were full of religious refuse and had no room in their spirit for Jesus. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? It means we are clear that religion, science, culture, philosophy, and dead Bible doctrines are all refuse, and we should not be preoccupied with any of these things. To be poor in spirit we need to pray in this way: “O Lord Jesus, all the doctrines mean nothing to me. Regardless of what I have learned in the past years, I am still poor, I am still hungry. I need You, Lord Jesus. I don’t need anything but You.” When we begin to pray like this, something deep within is flowing, living, working, watering, enlightening, strengthening, and reigning. This is Jesus as the seed of the kingdom. Once we call on Him in this way, we can never be the same. Then we realize that all the things which we have held onto in the past are refuse. Religion, doctrine, dead Bible knowledge, philosophy, and science all are refuse! Only Jesus is worth anything.
When Jesus came to preach the kingdom, He did not preach to the Gentiles, but to those who knew the Scriptures. They had the scriptural knowledge, but they did not have the King Jesus, and they did not have the kingdom. So Jesus came to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom into the people. The growing up of this seed becomes the kingdom. This kingdom is altogether a matter of righteousness. Jesus said that if our righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, we are finished as far as the kingdom is concerned (Matt. 5:20). But, praise the Lord, we have Jesus within us growing as our righteousness; so we are in the kingdom.
The kingdom is also something which absolutely fulfills God’s will. There is no more rebellion, because there is no discrepancy between God’s will and the kingdom. In fact, the kingdom is just God’s will. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21). Many Christians have done things in the name of the Lord, but the Lord will never own or approve that kind of thing. “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you [or, allowed you]: depart from me, ye that work lawlessness (Matt. 7:23 Gk.). In the Lord’s eyes, even prophesying and casting out demons in the name of the Lord not according to God’s will is lawlessness. The kingdom is absolutely a matter of righteousness, a matter of God’s will.
How can we do God’s will in the kingdom? There is no other way but to take Jesus in. We should not try to do the will of God ourselves. We will only fail. The way to fulfill God’s will is to take in the One who obeys God all the time. Jesus is the kingdom of obedience. We simply need to take Him in, to eat Him as the children’s bread. We may be the Gentile dogs, but we all have our portion under the table (Matt. 15:22-28). We all can eat King Jesus and take Him into us. All the kingly elements are in this bread. The more we eat Jesus, the more the royal ingredients will get into us. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for such a ruling element within. This is the mysterious kingdom that is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew.
Now we are clear why Jesus told the disciples at the end of this book, “All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:18-19). We are to disciple the nations and baptize them into the Triune God. When we baptize people into the Triune God, we baptize them into Christ, into the kingdom seed, and into the kingdom! Hallelujah! When we baptize people, we must exercise our faith to put them into the King and into the kingdom. This is why all the people in the churches are the kingdom people.