The Kingdom Church

By Benjamin Sealey

"Jesus is preparing a new work with His church. He is readying men and women of God who are willing to do whatever it takes to draw near to Him and to follow Him. The day is coming when He will build through us, where all that we do will truly flow from the King himself. In such a time, His church will be a force for good as nothing else. As the world grows increasingly dark, His people will shine like never before, not because of our good works, but because of Him. This is the call upon the Kingdom church."

Aimed at both His people and His church, This book reveals Jesus' desire to move in a mighty way upon the earth. It is both a study and a call of what it is to live in His Kingdom and to follow Jesus. Broken down step by step with the Bible, it examines what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God and what that should mean for our lives and our churches.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Sealey
• Release date: Jul 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311061881

Benjamin Sealey

Benjamin Sealey is a British pastor with a passion to see God's church know Him greater, and to encounter all that He has for us. If you have any questions about his works, please feel free to contact him via the links.

Book preview

The Kingdom Church

By Benjamin Sealey

Smashwords Edition

© Benjamin Sealey 2015

About the Author

Benjamin is a pastor and worship leader from the UK. His passion is to see the church become all that is called to be, a church that is intimate with Jesus, and that knows Him and walks in deep union with Him.

Benjamin regularly speaks at conferences, churches and house groups around the world. If you would like to contact him for speaking engagement, or to talk about any of the issues in this book, feel free to email: [e-mail] or connect with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Benjamindsealey

His book specifically dealing with a lifestyle and heart for worship, Restoring the Heart of Worship is also available for free on Kindle, or email for a PDF version.

Introduction

From that time on Jesus began to preach, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Matthew 4:17

When Jesus came to this earth, He came carrying a message, the message of the Kingdom of God. The phrase Kingdom of God (or the synonymous phrase Kingdom of Heaven,) actually appears 106 times in the NIV version of the Gospels. When Jesus spoke, He often referred to the Kingdom of God in His teachings, using parables to explain and demonstrate what the Kingdom is and how it operates.

Given the importance that Jesus placed upon proclaiming, explaining and demonstrating His Kingdom, it follows that if we as His people are to truly fulfil all that we are called to upon this earth, then we must understand what His Kingdom is, and its implications for how we both carry and implement Jesus’ message.

There is a new awareness within the church of the term Kingdom, but there is a danger that we pick up the phrases of God without walking in the understanding or reality of what those terms mean. Within this booklet I hope to share with you the heart and the passion that Jesus has for both His people and His church. His church is called to be the most powerful and the most beautiful body upon the earth. It exists to represent Jesus in all His glory, to be that light to the world, a world that is becoming increasingly dark. When we as His people understand what it is to live in His Kingdom and to follow Him, we will represent Jesus’ heart, character and power amongst the nations in a way rarely seen before. This is our calling, to be a people that walk in the reality of the Kingdom of God and all that He is. This is Jesus’ purpose for his church.

The Kingdom of God

The area over which a King has authority is called a kingdom. Even today there are still countries that are ruled by monarchs that are called kingdoms. Jesus came upon the earth to enact the authority of His Father, or as He phrased it, the Kingdom of God, establishing the rule of God upon the earth.

In the beginning of the Bible, the whole of the earth was under God’s direct rule and He created man that he might, …have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (Gen 1:26.)

This was the first demonstration of God’s Kingdom order in the Bible. God, the supreme power and creator of the world, or to put it another way, the King, created man and gave him both the responsibility and the authority to subdue and to take care of the world. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field (Gen 2:19-20)

It was the purpose of man to walk in complete submission to God, in perfect union with Him, and in doing so to carry out the Fathers will upon the earth. Since sin, or rebellion, had not yet entered the earth, man used his authority only in that submission to God, and that authority was only used for good.

In the third chapter of Genesis, we see man rebelling against God, and using the freedom that he had been given to align himself with Satan, after Satan distorted the truth of what God had said. From this point on there was conflict in the world. God never takes away man’s authority. It is in God’s nature to allow man to decide how he will use his authority, to allow him to decide to choose to follow God or Satan. The gifts of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29,) and once God releases His authority to us, He will not take it back. With the authority that was placed with man, man could now choose whether to obey God, or to obey Satan.

It is often asked by people why so many bad things happen in this world, why would God cause them, but the truth is He does not cause them. His plan was, and still is for mankind to walk in union with Him, taking care of His creation for good, but when rebellion entered man’s heart and he sided with Satan, man also had a choice to use his actions for purposes it was not designed for. These actions taken in rebellion towards God is what allows evil to progress in the world.

When Jesus came, He proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was at hand. God was providing a way for the works of Satan to be undone, and for the authority of God to be established, through Jesus Himself. Due of the sacrifice that Jesus made upon the cross, there is forgiveness for our rebellion, and in addition, Jesus made a way to the Father, that we may once again walk in that unity with Him that we lost when we rebelled against Him. It is God’s desire that we walk in genuine closeness and unity with Him, just as we did in the Garden of Eden, and he made a way for that to happen through the blood of Jesus.

In the Old Testament, God reveals His heart and character to His people, but with the coming of Jesus, He once again began to establish His Kingdom. The reality of God is not just something that we enter when we die,