TEXT: Luke 17:20-37

SUBJECT: Luke #65: The Kingdom Already and Not Yet

The topic of today’s sermon is the kingdom of God. The phrase—and others like it—are found all over the Bible and allow for some variation of meaning. What it stands for in v.20, for example, may not be exactly the same thing it refers to in some other part of God’s Word.

Underline the word, exactly. Even though the Kingdom of God is a big idea with many ins and outs, its basic meaning is clear and can be summed up very nicely:

• The Kingdom of God is God’s Rule in the world.

• It is not His Rule that began at the creation, but rather, God’s Rule through His King, the Messiah.

This is what the Kingdom of God is; it’s what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer; it’s what Jesus Christ is talking about in today’s story.

The conversation begins with a question. The Pharisees wanted to know when the Kingdom of God would come.

They had every reason to expect it. The Old Testament Scriptures often said it would come some day (though they don’t say when) and the preaching of John the Baptist made people it was near—right at the door.

But the Pharisees hadn’t seen anything of it—at least not what they expected to see. They want the Lord to tell them when it’s coming. If He claims to be the Messiah, then surely He must know. They want a day and an hour. (Perhaps they wanted to discredit Him when His date came and went with nothing happening). In any event, they want to know when the Promised Rule of Messiah would begin.

The Lord’s answer is not what they were looking for. He says

What does He mean? He means the Kingdom has already come, but they didn’t see it because they were looking for the wrong things!

They were looking for a Knight in Shining Armor, sitting on a white war horse with an entourage of subject blowing trumpets and shouting, God save the King!

What they got was a ragged carpenter, on foot, with a handful of fishermen, publicans, fallen women, and Samaritans in tow. With the arrival of this poor Man, the Kingdom of God has come.

Many Christians don’t know this. Their idea of the Kingdom differs very little from the Pharisees’. They see it as still future and mostly Jewish. The New Testament, however, says otherwise. It teaches—often and very plainly—that the Kingdom of God has come.

John the Baptist called his people to repentance, for "The Kingdom of God is at hand". There’s no way you can make a Kingdom at hand into something at least two thousand years in the future. Luke 11:20 is a second example:

A careful reading of the New Testament will show you that many of the Royal Prophecies of the Old Testament have already been fulfilled in the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many sincere believers are still waiting for the King to be seated on His rightful throne. The wait is over! On the Day of Pentecost, Peter quotes Psalm 16 and Psalm 2—both referring to the coronation of David’s Son and Israel’s King—and says King Jesus was crowned at the Resurrection and was put on His throne when He ascended into heaven.

If the King has taken His throne, the Kingdom is possible, but there’s still something needed: a people. A king without a people is no king at all. But that is fulfilled too! Grubby, no-good people, like Peter, James, and John, Lazarus, Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan leper—and you and me—have been put together and made into

If you put together a rightful king and a people sworn to him, what have you got? You’ve got a kingdom. If that rightful King is the Lord Jesus Christ and His subjects swear by Him and serve Him from the heart, what have you got?

The Kingdom of God—here and now.

The hymn of longing has been answered with joy!

The Kingdom has come—God has set up His Rule in the world, by the only Man worthy of it—the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Pharisees have had their lesson for the day—the Kingdom has come. But, now, the disciples will learn a little more about it. The second lesson does not contradict the first, but it shows another side to the Kingdom.

The Lord wants His friends to know the Kingdom has come, but He also wants them to know it has not fully come. He takes this up in vv.22ff.

He starts off by saying it won’t be long until they very much "Desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it".

These are heady days for the disciples. Their Master is doing all kinds of great things and they’re excited to be part of it. But the party won’t go on forever. Pretty soon, they’ll be crying with the martyrs,

You understand the frustration, don’t you? The world is a big mess—it’s turned upside down. Innocent people suffer and guilty people don’t. Proud fools are in power while the humble and wise are pushing brooms and changing diapers. Things are not right in the world. Not right in the Church. Not right in the soul.

Some people will be so upset by the state of the world, that they’ll start saying the Day of the Lord is at hand! They’ll say, "Look here! Look there!" (the Lord has come—they mean—or will in the next five minutes or maybe the next seven years!)

You want to believe their predictions! But the Lord says, don’t do it.

Because one great even must occur before the Kingdom comes in all its fullness. What is it? What’s the one big thing that must happen before the Lord comes again to set up His Perfect Kingdom in the world?

On this point, both foolish and wise have speculated—men as crooked a dog’s hind leg and as straight as an arrow—have sought the answer. If they had read their Bibles with less speculation and more sobriety, they would have found it. The one, big, giant, earth shaking event that must occur before the Second Coming of Christ is…

The crucifixion.

This must have shocked the disciples in a way we cannot even guess at. God’s King—the Messiah—is going to His Throne by way of the Cross.

The Kingdom can fully come at any time—after the cross. That’s what the Lord wants us to know. After that, He’s rather fuzzy on the details.

We would do well to be satisfied without the details. Our Lord says "No man knows the day or hour"—not even the angels know it. You ought not to listen to men who say they do. Because they don’t. And—even if they did—what difference would it make? What would you do if you knew—for sure—that the Lord was coming back next Thursday morning at 8:17 PST? Whatever you would do if He were coming back then, do anyway—for He doesn’t want you to meet Him standing there, gawking up at the sky—but living the Christian life.

Live the Christian life and you don’t have to wonder when He’s coming back—or worry about it.

What will the world be like when the Lord comes back? Pretty much the same as it was…in the days of Noah…in the days of Lot.

What does this mean? Teachers often say it means a time of extreme wickedness—for the world before the Flood was in an appalling state and the very word, Sodom, reminds us of how bad things were with Lot.

But—note carefully—this is not the point our Lord is making! It’s not the unusual wickedness of those days that stands out, but quite the opposite: the ordinariness of those times! These were not crisis times! They were times of same old, same old. Ordinary, boring, nothing exceptional was happening in those days—till God’s judgment fell from heaven!

What makes people start thinking about the Second Coming? Big, scary, exciting things: earthquakes, famines, wars, terrorism, dictators—these things do the trick. But the Lord says look the other way. The real things than indicate the Second Coming are things like—

When you see people living ordinary, boring lives—watch out! The Kingdom is Coming! It’s not here yet—but it’s coming. And all the devil’s mockery won’t change that.

The Kingdom of God is still in the future.

There’s nothing preachers love more than topical sermons. They’re so easy to preach—especially if you space them out over several weeks or months. By April, no one remembers what you said last July.

But I don’t have that luxury! Just now I said the Kingdom is yet to come—it’s still in the future. But a few minutes ago I said the Kingdom has come—it’s with us here and now.

So which is it? Is the Kingdom present or is it future? Has it already come or is it still on the way?

The short answer is…Yes!

The Kingdom of God has come and is coming. It is both present and future. Liberal scholars have emphasized the now aspect of the Kingdom; they don’t believe in the Second Coming. Conservative Christians do believe the Lord is coming again—but in doing so, we have largely neglected the Kingdom already come.

We do the future Kingdom no favor by denying its present status in the world.

I believe the Kingdom of God is both now and then for the same reason I believe Jesus loves me:

Knowing the Kingdom is both already here and not all here does so much to untangle the knots of theology. Issues like the Millennium, the future of Israel, the place of the Church in God’s plan, the prophecies of the Old Testament, and so on, are easy to figure out if only you know the Kingdom is both present and future.

This is all fascinating stuff, but I don’t have time to get into it at the moment…

…Because the main use of this doctrine is practical. Knowing the Kingdom of God is both present and future has a real effect on your life.

It tells you who you are.

What is a Christian? He is a saint and a sinner at the same time. He’s a saint because the Kingdom has come; he’s a sinner because the Kingdom hasn’t fully come. This means:

He must never be proud of himself. The holiest men in the world are not immune to the worst diseases of sin. Think of David committing adultery and murder; think of Peter denying the Lord three times; of Elijah giving into despair; of Solomon setting up idols in Jerusalem; of Hezekiah showing off his wealth; of Josiah waving off the Word of God; of Noah getting drunk; of James and John wanting to nuke the Samaritans for not giving them a room for the night. The list goes on and on and on. You and I are on it, too. We are saints who sin.

He must never despair. The most sinful saint is still a saint: He was chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This means his sin—though real and wicked—will not get the best of him. He will stumble over and over again, but he will keep getting back on his feet and he’ll persevere to the end. Because the Kingdom has come and that means—for the worst believer—

He must live with his frustrations. Preachers always tell us to expect problems in the Christian life. They’re right, of course: "all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution". What they’re not so quick to tell us is that most of the problems are of our own making! I don’t like others mistreating me, of course, but what really drives me crazy is me mistreating me!

It is frustrating to fall into the same sinful habits time and time again. We ought to repent of our sins, pray for grace, go to church, read the Bible, and other things that will help us, but—let’s not fool ourselves: life will frustrate you any way!

Paul says so—but he doesn’t just say so, but he explains why:

The holiest Christian is aggravated with his life because—though he is saved—he is not fully saved. The Kingdom has come—but it’s not all here. Not in the world and not in our souls! This means there is a tension and will be till the Lord has come again brought the whole kingdom with Him.

If the Kingdom has come the Church is the People of God—not in the way Israel was (in name only), but the people of God from the inside out. Because of this, you ought to love the church, be thankful for it, and play some part in its ministry.

But, if the Kingdom has not fully come, the Church is not what we ought to be. Like believers, the Church is torn between what it should be and what it is. This means: you ought not to pin all your hopes on the Church and you ought not to be too disappointed when we let you down.

It also means you must beware of being too fussy about church. It’s easy to stand back and find fault with the church, but it isn’t right. Better to join in and make us the holy, wise, and zealous people we ought to be!

It gives you hope.

If the blessings we have in this life are real and valuable, just imagine how wonderful they must be in all their fullness! In this life, you can have a clear conscience, but how thrilling it must be to have a conscience cleared by the audible voice of God and without any chance of being dirtied in the future! In this life, you can have fellowship with God and His people. But what must it be like to have this fellowship untouched by sin or selfishness or even weakness?

We are living in a fairy tale! At the moment, we’re somewhere in the middle of the story—maybe in a witch’s oven or an ogre’s castle or drifting at sea with sharks all around us. But don’t worry, God is the Author of our story and He’s given us a peek at the last line. It reads:

For the Kingdom that has come will come. And all believers will be forever with the Lord! And we have an inkling of what that must be from the down payment He gave us when we believed: