The Kingdom "Good News"

Larry Siegle
11/19/23 - Sun AM

Link to sermon video: The Kingdom "Good News" - L Siegle

The Kingdom “Good News”

(Colossians 1:9-14)

INTRODUCTION

1.  The title of this message is, “The Kingdom “Good News”

2.  It was the late Chicago-Sun-Times Journalist, Sidney J. Harris, who wrote: “History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.”

3.  There is a raging epidemic of increased “anxiety” about so many of the problems and issues we face today, in our nation and around the world.

      a.   There is a feeling of instability and uncertainty about what can be expected to occur in the future:

            1)  Inflation, and higher prices as the ‘cost of living’ continues to rise…

            2)  Fear of another impending pandemic and the reality that COVID remains,

                  lurking in the shadows…

            3)  The reality that the world stands of the threshold of WWIII, as the tensions continue between Russia and China, with no end in sight to the conflict in Ukraine, and now war in the Middle East involving Israeli forces and Hamas.

      b.  Discussions continue over Climate-Change, sustainability, and a host of other

            environmental issues.

                      c.   In the midst all of these wonderful discussions, there is also a vast assortment of

                             concepts that strikes at the very core of Christianity and the values we cherish as

                             believers.

                               1)  In difficult times, it is important for believers to pause and to ponder the depth and the value of what it really means to be children of God.

                               2)  The world around us continues to experience cycles of distress, fear, and anxiety.

                   4.  Years ago, in 1983, recording artist Anne Murray, sang, “I sure could use, a little good

                         news today…”

                         THE GOSPEL IS THE GOOD NEWS

                         1.  As the apostle Paul, writes from his Roman confinement in about 62 CE, about the same time as his letters were being written to the Ephesians and Philemon.

                         2.  The purpose and goal of both Ephesians and Colossians is quite similar in primarily addressing these letters to those Gentile believers who had obeyed the gospel of Christ and of becoming fellow members of the “same body” (Eph. 3:1-21).

                               a.   There is a terrible war of suffering that has engulfed those people living in the Middle East today—the modern-day Israeli forces against Hamas and the Palestinian people—with innocent people on both sides of the conflict whose lives are being sacrificed and taken—but that misses God’s “purpose of the ages” (Eph. 3:11).

                               b.  In the United States there has come a host of violent protests with people taking sides when the reality is that both need to the experience the love of God and the power of the “gospel of Christ” (Rom. 1:16) to change and transform their hearts and lives.

                         3.  The issue within the first century, between Jew/Gentile was that only the gospel

                               of Christ could break down the walls of strife and division that existed (Eph.

                               2:11-14).

                         4.  True peace and reconciliation would only come through the gospel and the

                               “blood of the cross” (Col. 1:19, 20).

                               a.   The temporary, artificial solutions and negotiations of world leaders—then and now—fail when human wisdom is chosen over the provision that God has made IN and THROUGH Christ.

                               b.  This is WHY there remains conflict in the hearts and lives of people suffering, pain, and death.

                               c.   The word “gospel” means GOOD NEWS.

                       THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM IS THE SOURCE OF RESCUE

                         1.  The gospel account of Mark begins with the very source of where and with WHOM the “good news” is found (Mark 1:1).

                               a.   Israel was told to “repent” and “believe” the gospel (Mark. 1:14).

                               b.  There was 100% continuity between the preaching of John the Baptizer and that of Christ as the beginning of His ministry (Matt. 3:1; 4:17).

                         2.  The Zionist movement in our world today continues to espouse a physical

                               solution—that someday, somehow, some way, Jesus Is coming back to physically

                               sit in the earthly city of Jerusalem, on an earthly throne of David—when the

                               message of God, in the first century was that the kingdom was “at hand” (near)

                               to the time of realization.

            a.   Millions of people today continue to press the concept that the promise of

                  the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the

                                      heavens is “yet future” to our own time.

                               b.  The very essence of the genuine message of the “good news” is that God’s Kingdom has already been established, that freedom, peace, and strength is

                                     already a present reality to be partaken of—not postponed to some unknown

                                      time in the future.

                               c.   Notice what the apostle Paul told the Colossians (Col. 1:9-18).

                                     1)  People needed to be “filled with the knowledge of HIS will” (v. 9)—not human wisdom.

                                     2)  It is HIS “glorious power” (v. 11) that would produce the desired results.

                                     3)  God is the one who “qualified” believers to stand before Him victorious (v. 12)

                                     4)  God has already provided the solution of “rescue” (deliverance) from the KINDGOM of darkness (v. 13).

                                     5)  God has already brought into reality “the kingdom of the Son of His love” (v. 13).

                                     6)  Forgiveness and redemption (release by ransom) are provided through the shed blood of Christ on the Cross (v. 14).

                       ONLY THE POWER OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD CAN RESOLVE HUMAN CONFLICT

                         1.  Our central focus and prayer MUST be all about the centrality of the “gospel of

                               Christ” as the means through which there can

                               be genuine people for people here and throughout the world.

                         2.  The attention of the world is captured by war and conflict, pain and suffering,

                               and in elevating “this side” or “that side” because of what we see in the news

                               media.

                         3.  At home, human suffering has taken the form of inflation, unemployment, and an

                               endless barrage of ‘social issues’ that creates a continual ‘distraction’ from the

                               central focus of who we are as believers and what we know in the deepest parts

                               of our being is the real solution.

                         4.  The “good news” of the Kingdom of God is the essence of the “gospel of Christ”

                               because ONLY when each of our lives is

                               changed and transformed by the message does genuine change ever come.

                         5.  It is the “blood of the Cross” that brings about redemption and reconciliation in

                               every nation, tribe, people and tongue (Rev. 7:9 14:6).

                         6.  Our prayers must focus, not on what APPEARS to be “them” vs “us” in our

                               thinking, but rather in the reality that ALL SIDES need Christ as Lord and Savior

                               and the gospel of the Kingdom is here, waiting to be received.