Earlier I made a sermon about the dream of Nebuchanezzer, we know that in this dream the king had, there are several things he saw that was later translated to him by Daniel as being different kingdoms, although there were several different kingdoms that Daniel foretold of the one I want to study about is the one he mentions last in Daniel 2:44-45. So we see here this kingdom Daniel tells the king of is apparently a very strong kingdom, and also we see that this kingdom will be set up by God himself. As christians know this kingdom Daniel was speaking of is the kingdom that we now belong to. It is a very powerful kingdom and like any kingdom this kingdom does have a king, one who rules over his people and makes the laws and rules that are to be obeyed by his people, so let's study more about our kingdom let's find out as much as we can about this kindom we are members of. Now christians realize also that this kingdom is different than the kingdom's of earth, to start with and probably one of the biggest differences is that people cannot see this kingdom as they would one built by men. And that alone probably leads a lot of non christians to wonder how and why we believe in something we can't see or handle, many times this can be a hard question to answer, but what christians must do to give answers to questions like this is to rely on the bible, just because it is the guidence given to us by our king, so to begin let's try to answer this question why do we believe in this mighty kingdom we claim to be members of. 1) 1Cor. 5:7 so first of all we must walk by faith we must believe those things that are told to us by our king because if we walked by sight only we would never believe the things we do. Another thing you will notice is that the occupants are different than those of a earthly kingdom. John 18:36 so here you can see Christ tells pilate that his servants are different if this were a physical kingdom than his servants would begin to fight to protect their king. Members of this kingdom cannot see their king in a physical sense but they still believe he exist. John 20:29 now none of us have seen our king but hopefully all christians believe in him . We do believe we have a ruler over this kingdom. So who is our king? In John 18:37 we hear Christ tell pilate that yes he is a king and for that cause he was born into the world. Have you ever wondered why our king Christ and his kingdom are a spiritual kingdom, well there's probably alot of reasons, we could say that first of all it would take alot more faith to believe in something we cannot see. If you held out your hand and in it you had an apple and you said to me there's an apple in my hand then it would be very easy for me to believe because I could see the apple plainly, but if you hid your hands behind your back and told me you had an apple in your hand then I would have to have faith in you to believe it is there. Anotyher reason may be because no kingdom of this earth has ever stood forever, time and men have destroyed every mighty kingdom that has ever been but I guess the most important thing is that that's the way God wanted it so again comes faith for us to believe his way is the best way. Also you can see that to become a member of this kingdom one has to be born again John 3:1-8 Nicodemus was having a hard time understanding what Christ was saying to him but he was thinking along physical lines again there would have to be faith to believe, another thing I would like to do is to look at the members of this kingdom, we've already seen this kingdom that it is different in many ways than an earthly kingdom so also must the residents be different the first thing you might notice is that the occupants of this kingdom must seek the kingdom first Matt. 6:31-34 I'm afraid that many times we make important things to do, the car payments the house payments, the worry over our jobs, the struggle to have better things for out families and on the very bottom of this huge list kind of like the small print on a loan agreement we put the kingdom and we try to squeeze it in wherever we can. But even if we have found ourselves doing that it's very simple to fix just mark it off the bottom of the list in small print and write in bold letters across the top in front of everything else. These members suffer tribulation Acts 14:22. Members of the kingdom preach the kingdom Acts 8:12. Members pray for this kingdom Matt. 6:10. Members also work in it col. 4:11. We are told to work in it. matt. 6:33. But how can we seek that which cannot be see? A person may be told to travel to some part of the world to find a particular kingdom where do we find this kingdom? 2Cor. 4:18 Along with our lesson we've also talked alot about faith. Because we must have faith to believe in the kingdom the one chapter that tells us alot about faith is Hebrews 11 here the writer pretty much gives us a history of faith, he tells us of all the great things that all these people did through out history and all of it was based on faith one in particular the writer mentions is Noah and he says that Noah by faith made and built an ark for the saving of himself and his family. Now we know that God warned Noah and told him to build the ark, but he didn't build it for him in the same way today we have been warned, but we must have faith to become members of this kingdom it is our choice whether we will coose salvation or not.
