So Much More: Moving Beyond Kingdom Principles to Kingdom Power (14 page)

So when Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again, you can’t enter the kingdom of God,” what was He talking about? He was talking about his spirit needing to be reborn. He was saying to Nicodemus, and ultimately to each one of us as well, because of sin, your spirit is dead and you can’t enter the kingdom of God unless your dead, lifeless spirit is infused by the very Spirit of God invading your life and connecting with your spirit and bringing it back to life again. Apart from that you can’t really know God, you cannot relate to God, and you cannot be a part of His kingdom. So Jesus is saying that the only way that Nicodemus, or any human being, can enter the kingdom of God is to be born again.

Paul tells us the same thing:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the way of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

—E
PHESIANS
2:1–3

Do you see why religion won’t work? Do you see why we can’t simply turn over a new leaf? Do you see why we can’t enter the kingdom of God by keeping laws? Because we are dead. Our spirit is dead. That part of us that was created to relate to God is dead in transgression and sin.

Not only is our default mode that we are spiritually dead, also because of this we find ourselves in a kingdom already—the kingdom Paul calls the kingdom of air, and it is under the rule or dominion of Satan. Our default mode is that we live in his kingdom. So without being born again, we are dead and we are part of Satan’s kingdom.

Paul said that this applies to all of us. Just in case we wonder whether this really applies to us—this default mode of being dead in transgression and sin, he clearly tells us this is true of every one of us. We were all at one time spiritually dead, and we were all at one time part of Satan’s kingdom.

He goes on,

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

—E
PHESIANS
2:4–9

This new birth originates with God. He is the only one who can resurrect your dead spirit to life by His grace. He sent Jesus to die in our place and pay the penalty for our sin, which is death, so we can be born again. This happens by faith. The Spirit of God draws our spirit to a point of faith. When we get to that point of faith and there is a personal transaction between us and God where we place our faith in Jesus and surrender our entire life to Him, at that moment God infuses us with his Holy Spirit and we are born again. That part of us that was dead because of sin then comes alive in Christ and we enter the kingdom of God—not someday in the future, but that very day. We are rescued from the kingdom of death and brought into the kingdom of life. We are transferred instantly from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light. All of a sudden there is a new relationship with a new King and everything about our life changes because we can now connect with and relate to God the way we were created to in the first place.

But it takes the work of the Holy Spirit for this to happen: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14,
NKJV
). In our natural state we can’t understand the things of God. They seem like foolishness to us. This is because we are living in the kingdom of darkness and our spirit is dead. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). Naturally, we are blind to the things of God. They don’t make sense. They seem like foolishness to us. Hearing the concept that we are sinners and need Jesus as our Savior will seem ridiculous to us without a work of the Holy Spirit. We will think, “I’m a good person, why would I need a Savior?” The idea that we will live eternally somewhere makes absolutely no sense to us at all. The man who is still dead in sin—who has not been infused by the Spirit of God and his spirit brought back to life so he can connect with and relate to God—this person cannot even understand the things of God. They won’t make sense to him because the god of this age, who still rules the kingdom that he is living under, Satan, has blinded this person’s eyes. Without a work of the Holy Spirit infusing our dead spirit and bringing about a new birth, we can’t know God and the whole God thing will seem like foolishness.

Just a side note, this is why it is absolutely foolish for any Christ follower to witness to someone and tell them about the things of Christ without inviting the Holy Spirit to first of all work on their hearts. You aren’t going to simply debate someone into the kingdom of God. You cannot lecture someone into the kingdom of God. You cannot argue someone into the kingdom of God. The only way any person’s blind eyes can be opened and they can begin to see the things of God is by a work of the Holy Spirit on their hearts. He has to open their spiritual eyes to the things of God. So, it’s much more important to pray than to lecture, to invite the Spirit to open the door of someone’s heart than to try to beat the door down. It doesn’t work. Jesus said, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

Now there are some other verses that we can’t ignore that also speak of entering the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 18 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (vv. 3–4,
NAS
).

And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3).

These verses both speak of humility as a means to enter the kingdom. This is not something different or additional from being born again. It is the means by which we receive the new birth. When the Holy Spirit works on our Spirit and opens our spiritually blind eyes so we can see the truth of our need for a Savior, then we have to decide, is this the truth? Am I really poor in spirit, spiritually bankrupt? Do I really need a Savior? Do I really want to become like a little child humbly and completely dependent on my Father, or do I want to continue living life the way I want to live it? It takes humility to receive the new birth.

This kind of humility was lacking in many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They thought they were in God’s kingdom because they worked to the best of their ability to follow God’s laws and keep His commandments. That is very much where Nicodemus found himself; but Jesus told him without the new birth, he was still spiritually dead. It was this kind of spiritual pride that was evidenced in the lives of the religious leaders that caused Jesus to say on one occasion, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (21:31).

The only way we can enter the kingdom is by being born again. When the Spirit works on our hearts and causes us to recognize how dead we are and that we need new life—that we need to be born again, only those who are humble enough to recognize their own sinfulness and need for a Savior will enter the kingdom of God.

Chapter 8
POWER SOURCE OF THE KINGDOM

T
HE
G
OSPELS CLEARLY
indicate that every time Jesus took authority over demons, every time Jesus healed diseases, every time Jesus raised someone from the dead and ultimately through His own resurrection from the dead, He was demonstrating that the kingdom of God was at hand. The primary message He preached demonstrated that the kingdom of God was at hand, and the ministry He did demonstrated that the kingdom was at hand. Again, we cannot separate the words that Jesus spoke about the kingdom from the works that Jesus did that demonstrated the kingdom. The two go hand in hand.

The question we need to ask next is, so what? What does that mean for you and me? You may be thinking: “Of course Jesus demonstrated authority over the demons, disease, and death, but He was the Son of God. He may have come to preach the message of the kingdom and do the ministry of the kingdom but what about you and me? Do we have the same authority and power to advance the kingdom?”

Before we answer that, let’s start with another question. Where did Jesus get the power to fulfill His assignment and destroy the works of the devil? By what power source did He drive out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead? You might quickly answer, “He could do all those things because He was God in the flesh.” Because He was God incarnate, we should expect there to be omnipotence displayed in His ministry. It is, of course, absolutely true that Jesus is, has been, and will always be God. There is no denying that in Him dwelt all the fullness of God (Col. 1:19; 2:9), meaning He had the ability to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent because of His divine nature. So, you might automatically assume that the power to destroy the works of the devil was just a by-product of Jesus being God in the flesh. But I do not believe that is how the Bible answers that question.

The apostle Paul wrote this as he tried to help us grasp the mystery of what we call the incarnation: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:6–7).

Clearly these words affirm the deity of Christ. Paul wrote that Jesus was in very nature God. For all eternity Jesus has been and will be by very nature God. But also notice that even though Jesus always was and is God, in some way when He became a man He set that godly nature aside. He chose to willingly restrict Himself in the use of His divine attributes when he took on human form. As He emptied Himself of that divine nature, Jesus fully embraced the nature of a human being. Jesus became hungry (Matt. 4:2), thirsty (John 19:28), and tired (John 4:6). He limited himself while in a human body to only being at one place at one time. In His humanity, Jesus like other children “grew in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). In His adult ministry, He learned things through natural means (Heb. 5:8). He said of His second coming that He didn’t know the day or hour but only His Father did (Matt. 24:36). Instead of depending on His own power for healing, He waited until the “power of the Lord was present” to heal the sick (Luke 5:17,
NKJV
). And there were times when, because of the unbelief of people, He was limited in His healing ministry (Mark 6:1–6; Matt. 13:58).

If Jesus had been only God and not fully man, then He would not have been qualified to die for the sins of mankind. He could not have really faced temptation and overcome if He was only God. It would have been no temptation. So, even though Jesus was fully God, He allowed Himself to take on the limitations of humanity in such a way that He did not heal the sick, prophesy, or minister out of His divine power; but He did minister in power. The sick were healed, the blind received sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, demons fled, and death was conquered.

Where did this power come from? His power came from being filled with and complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. If Jesus did these things as God, we would be impressed. But if He did these things as a man, without sin, in right relationship with God, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, then He becomes an example for anyone without sin, in a right relationship with God, and filled with the Holy Spirit to follow.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah repeatedly prophesied that when the Messiah came He would be completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the L
ORD
will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the L
ORD
—and he will delight in the fear of the L
ORD
.

—I
SAIAH
11:1–5

Again we read, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations” (Isa. 42:1).

The Spirit of the Sovereign L
ORD
is on me, because the L
ORD
has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the L
ORD
’s favor.