April 19, 2015 · Acts 1:1–3

Forty Days After Suffering

In my first book, Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day that he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he chose. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days, and speaking about the kingdom of God.

“The problem is that we deny the authority of that king. We deny the kingdom of God. And humanity has always been ignoring the rule of God. We rebelled against the kingship of God. So when Jesus comes to earth, he's like, here's the kingdom. Welcome to the kingdom. Jesus is the inauguration, the continuation, and the culmination of the kingdom of God. And he made this kingdom finally present on earth in a human form, as a God-man. And now sometimes we kind of mistake the church. We mistake the church for the kingdom of God. Is the church the kingdom of God? You know what I would say the church is? The church is a gathering of people who are the servants of the king who rules over the kingdom of God. Do you get the difference there? The kingdom of God is everything is over. But we are the servants of the kingdom of God. And by his will, we're helping make tangible on earth the kingdom of God. Where God rules over every sphere of life, every inch of this universe. And we know that there's false kings at work. There's a false king who's setting himself up as a king. They could be evil angels. They could be evil nations. They could be evil corporations. They could be evil individuals. Or it could just be like the evil that's in our heart. The kingdom of God was established by Jesus on this earth, and he conquered over death.”