Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 4 Study # 1
September 23, 2007
Lincolnton, N.C.
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<378> Thesis:   In the beginning, people were primarily concerned about their physical lives. Introduction:   In our study last week we made the claim that Luke 6:12-16 marked a major turn in his record of Jesus. By means of this paragraph Luke revealed that he was turning to Jesus' activities as One Who was committed to the establishment of the Kingdom of God. This means that we are going to be seeing Jesus as a Kingdom Builder from this point. One thing we need to be very clear about as we speak of kingdom building: the Kingdom of God will be built of people who live in this present world, but its expression as a period of authoritative rule will not come to pass until this world has been destroyed. I do not use "world" to refer to this earth, but to the system of rebellious authority that is permitted in the longsuffering of God while He gathers out those who will be heirs of His vast goodness. When Jesus was in this present evil world, He warned Nicodemus that no one would see or enter the Kingdom of God without a regenerating new birth (John 3:3-5). Until it pleases God to send His Son back to this earth in power and great glory to destroy the systems of rebellion that are currently tolerated for the sake of the heirs of His Kingdom, it is the task of the Church to do what Jesus began to do in Luke 6:12 -- focus upon preparing people for their future in God's eternal kingdom. So, starting this morning, we are going to begin to see Jesus as our Kinsman-Redeemer Whose main focus of activity was upon the preparation of people for their eternal future.