A dimension of the kingdom that we need to get a hold of and be released in is the power to move in signs and wonders and miracles. And this is how Jesus began and sent his disciples out to begin. Go and heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out devils and tell people the kingdom of god has come near them.
Math 5-7 as a result of the miracles great multitudes followed him. Now he does not see them as saved and added to the church. But he sees them now as receptive to the possibility of coming into the kingdom. And this concept comes again and again in the gospels. He looks at a multitude that have been healed and sees them as sheep harassed and helpless and needing laborers to go into this harvest field and reap the harvest.
A healing ministry without a careful harvesting of souls actually does not produce anything for the kingdom, except the possibility of sensitizing people to receive the word. We see this repeated again and again in the ministry of Jesus, and it will be no different for us either. Seeing this multitude Jesus went up on a mountain side and he sat down. He sat down on his throne to speak with authority from that throne.
The Sermon on the Mount is set in the context of the kingdom. At the end of math 4 he has done the works of the kingdom. From math 5-7 he is now bringing out the detailed teaching of the kingdom.
He is saying to people who have been sensitized to supernatural signs and wonders and is saying now look this is what needs to happen to you for you to become effectual members of the kingdom. And it begins with the nine beatitudes. There are nine attitudes which we have to be. We need to check out the list to see if they have been realized in our lives and whether we are teaching this to our leaders and to our churches to be realized in their lives.
For that to become a practical reality it is a challenging list.
If we allow these beatitudes to be our life, then we will become like him, the light of the world. Jesus did not come to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. Whoever does these commandments and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Unless our righteousness exceeds the scribes and Pharisees we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven-Math 5:20
Eight times Jesus mentions the kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. And he is connecting the kingdom of heaven to the law. Christians say well that is just law or it is old covenant.
Everything in the kingdom goes way beyond what the law requires of us, but it provides a totally different means of getting there.
Everything in the kingdom is higher than what it was according to the law, it is never lower. Kingdom living is way above-the efforts of the flesh trying to comply with the rules and regulations of the law.
Under the Moses law you could be in a rage at someone but as long as you didn’t do anything physically you were o.k., you were still clean before the law.
But in the kingdom you can’t even have it in your heart. Under the law you could not commit adultery as long as you physically kept control of yourself, you could lust after women without doing anything physically you were still clean before the law.
Once you get into the kingdom if you think in your mind an unclean thought you have already committed adultery in your heart and you are already in sin. This is the difference. And it goes through everything like that.
There has to be a power much greater than our own effort. And this is the key and the heart of the kingdom . There is only one way to get there and that is by entering the kingdom. And it is only in the kingdom that the full power of what the bible calls grace is liberated and made available to us, so that all these things become a possibility. And we will find that everything that is said in the law is replaced in the new covenant by something which is much better and much higher.
In the New Covenant the reality replaces the shadow, they sacrificed animals in anticipate of the great Lamb of God. Once the Lamb of God was slain, animals were no longer necessary. The shadow was replaced by the reality. And many of the ceremonial things of the law have been put away because they have been replaced by the reality which they shadowed and represented. So we don’t do them anymore so to go back from the reality of the shadow is to insult what Jesus had done for us on our behalf.
The second way the law is fulfilled is that it is superseded by something much higher. We are told by Paul that every requirement of the law was good and it was just, but it didn’t produce life because in our own self-effort we could not live according to its standard. So instead of working life it worked death in us. Instead of obeying the law, the law became our judge which condemned us because we couldn’t live according to its standards.
A Jewish boy up to the age of 12 was not expected to keep the law; he was free from the law. Paul lived those days of not having to keep the law, but he was being trained and taught to what the law was going to be. When he had his bar mitzvah, he became a son of the law, then from that day he was required to keep the law.
Paul was quite sure he could do it but was stunned to find that he could not do it. So the law instead of bringing life it brought death. The purpose of that was to bring us from that failure of religion to a place where we desperately need the grace of God to come and do it for us. Grace lifts us to places which were impossible by our own effort.
All of the law in terms of moral standards of behavior are swept away to a level which is much higher. If I by the law gave a tenth of my income and gave offerings from time to time, in the kingdom I am going to do much more than that. But we are doing it for a totally different motive. We become fully compliant to the law without even thinking about it. The kingdom is liberating but it takes us to a higher standard.
If we get into the kingdom we will live at a higher level. The law was like an examine paper to test us in ten places whether we were living right. If we are living right according to the kingdom we could have a thousand laws to test us and we would pass all of them because of the way we are living.
So we forget about the law, but at the same time we are living above the law. This is the power and the freedom that the kingdom can bring to us. In the kingdom we do not live below the law. We live better than the law. We exceed all the just requirements of the law but we don’t do it by our own effort, we do it by the relationship we have with God. And it is by the power of grace that this is accomplished.