To your bulletin to Daniel chapter 2, Daniel chapter 2. Our theme today is the kingdom of God. I hope you picked that up as we were working through our service. There were lots of different hints. The church seeks to build throughout the service what we will focus on in our passage.
And today we're studying the kingdom of God. And we're particularly looking at how does the kingdom of God speak to evangelism. That is to sharing our faith. I looked at this last week as we looked at Judges chapter 19. We're looking at it again this week. Same topic. Through the lens of the kingdom of God. One of the visions or one of the values of this church is fervent witness.
Matthew and I went to seminary together. And when we were in seminary we just were pounded over and over again. If you're not equipping Christians in the pews on how to share your faith. We're not doing our job. And one of the things that we love to do. Me on a college campus. Matthew here is to think with you all.
On how do we take what many of us have believed for many years or what we confess as Christians and speak to it persuasively, kindly, but firmly to our friends who are not yet Christians.
People that you work with. People that you share a neighborhood fence with. People in your family who perhaps have been in the faith and have since left the faith.
We all know people who we wish would follow Jesus with us. And how do we welcome them and challenge them into that life together.
And so that's what we're going to look at today. Particularly looking at it in the lens of the kingdom of God.
And so we're going to read Daniel chapter 2. And then we'll make. We'll look at it together.
So Daniel chapter 2 starting in verse 31. This is Daniel. He says he's interpreting a dream from Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. Asks the people of God. Asks for his magicians to interpret it. But only Daniel is able to rightly interpret it.
I'll say more on this in a minute. But starting in our text it says,
You saw, O king, and behold a great image. This image mighty and exceeding brightness stood before you and its appearance was frightening.
The head of this image was of fine gold and its chest and its arms of silver and its middle and thighs of bronze and its legs of iron and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
And as you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand.
And it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them into pieces.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.
And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found.
But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Verse 36.
This was the dream.
Now we will tell the king its interpretation.
You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom the power and the might and the glory,
and in whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens,
making you rule over them all.
You are the head of gold.
Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze,
which shall rule over the earth.
And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things.
And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.
And as you saw the feet and the toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom.
But some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.
And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.
As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage.
But they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed,
nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.
It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and shall bring them to an end, and they shall stand forever.
Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hands,
and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.
A great God shall make known to the king what shall be after this.
The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.
This is God's word.
Would you pray with me?
Lord in heaven, as we study your kingdom this morning,
we pray that your spirit would be with us,
and that we would behold the goodness, the grandeur, the surety, the might of your kingdom,
and that we would be persuaded by it.
In our hearts, in our minds, with every part of our being, so persuaded
that you would give us the courage, the confidence, the words to share it with our friends,
and that you would be glorified in it.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So in 1992, a political philosopher, a guy named Francis Fukuyama,
he's one of the brightest scholars that has ever written about political philosophy.
He wrote a book called The End of History.
The End of History.
And in it, he argued that Western liberal democracies and market capitalism
had become so dominant, so triumphant in the world
that the prospect of global war, of international conflict,
and even of political ideological struggle was irrelevant, was gone, was impossible.
He argued that the West had won the Cold War.
China was increasingly adopting pro-market strategies and policies.
Southern continents like Africa and South America
were either moving toward democracy or knew they should be,
knew that democracy and capitalism were the best, most peaceful,
most prosperous forms of government.
Global organizations like the UN and the EU and others were ushering in
a new era of civility, camaraderie, and peace.
And history, he argues, Fukuyama argues, history,
which is the tumultuous rise and fall of nations,
the grist of war, the conflict of ideas,
communism, capitalism, liberalism, socialism,
all of this history, he argues, was effectively over.
It's done.
There's a new era of confidence, a new era of optimism.
There was a lot of, if you were alive back then, I was barely alive,
you remember that in the 90s, there was a lot of hope.
The Cold War was over.
The market was on the rise.
Things felt very peaceful.
And then, September 11th happened.
And we were challenged in this, this new idea of radicalized Islam pops up.
Then, in 2008, the stock market crashed.
Whether or not it was a recession or a depression depends on whether or not you
had a job, but it was a thin line.
Then, in 2020, a global pandemic happens.
We thought we had won against modern medicine had triumphed,
and we realized how quickly and how vulnerable we were to even a small COVID bug.
And brought with it not just illness,
but tremendous market political and social upheaval.
And the unity that we thought we had was gone.
In 2022, you know this, Russia invades Ukraine for the first European war since 1945.
Now, we see the AI revolution is challenging the very question of what is a human being?
What is human society?
Closer to home in the U.S.,
the 2016 presidential election reveals significant political divide in the U.S.
that we did not think was present.
The right and the left moved to the extremes.
And this is only a tiny percentage.
All the things I've just talked about, you know this.
You read the news.
You watch the, you scroll.
A tiny percentage.
We could go, I've read, I mean, this is an area I love,
books and books and books about all the upheaval that has happened since,
let's start with 2020, let alone 1992.
Racial tension reemerged.
Cultural issues of what is gender, what is sexuality.
The rise of the reemergence of Soviet and Russian era.
The emergence of China.
The last few memes, the last few years,
there's been a meme that circles around on the internet for my generation.
I'm a millennial.
And whenever something happens,
the meme is that millennials are,
it says, I'm tired of living through another unprecedented event.
You've seen the memes, right?
Of how many times do millennials have to live through another unprecedented event?
Something that's never happened in human history,
it's happened again.
It's just wham, wham, wham.
Every eight months, something new happens.
In fact, just think about what happened last week alone.
The U.S. takes out, does regime change in three hours
on a level that we've never seen.
Tumult of whether or not Greenland should be ours or not.
And again, huge ideological conflict in our own nation in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis.
All in one week.
Michael Bird and N.T. Wright have a book.
I highly recommend this book.
It's called Jesus and the Powers.
Jesus and the Powers.
They write this.
They say,
We are not the first to say so, but Francis Fukuyama was wrong.
The 2020s appeared to be the most precarious and perilous time in human history since the 1930s.
And the optimism of the early 1990s died in the killing fields of Kosovo,
the ruins of the World Trade Center, and the valleys of Afghanistan.
History has struck back with a vengeance.
History, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall conflict of ideas,
has struck back with a vengeance.
And we have all felt this.
We've all felt this.
Through our swiping, through our conversations,
through the awkwardness of getting together for Thanksgiving dinner,
there was another meme that went around that was just like,
How are we going to make it through Thanksgiving dinner
when all of our family gets together and we start talking
and politics comes up and everybody's just like,
Oh, heavens no.
Oh, man, how are we going to talk about economics?
We've all felt this.
There has been an increased anxiety in the air.
And we could attribute this to,
it's definitely attributable to the access that we have to news,
which is truly unprecedented.
We have access to 24-7 news channels,
which bring in tons of money by being extravagant.
Bad business sells money.
And yet, at the same time,
there is an undeniable sense of political and economic instability in our world.
We all feel it.
And this is particularly true among my generation and the younger generation,
the generation I minister to, Gen Z.
Gen Z is increasingly pessimistic about their own personal prospects,
about a nation, about the nation of America, and about the globe.
They don't expect to own homes.
It's the first generation ever to say,
We probably won't ever own our own home.
They don't expect to have their job that they desire to have.
Listen to this.
For college graduates, this is 2025,
only 30% of college graduates got a job in their own field,
in the field they studied.
30% got a job.
And 33% right now are unemployed.
It's the worst ever.
Both on the right and on the left,
there's a sense that America is increasingly unstable as a nation.
We see this in our political cycle, 2020, 2024.
The American Psychological Association did a survey,
cites that at the 2024 election,
around two in five adults reported that the state of the nation
has made them consider moving to a different country.
40% and political environment in their state
has made them consider moving to a different state.
In addition, nearly two-thirds, 64%,
of adults felt that their rights were under attack.
Even this week, like I said,
we feel the turbulence politically and globally.
What's the point?
You and, here's the important part,
your neighbors worry about global peace,
worry about economic prospects,
worry about culture and values.
They fear that their personal political values
and their economic prospects are not good.
Now, we can talk at length about the legitimacy of these anxieties,
where they come from,
wisdom in navigating them.
I love that conversation.
What I want to start with is,
regardless, regardless of those,
the reality of the anxiety is true, real, and felt.
We all feel it.
And, here's the fun part,
I'm convinced,
I'm convinced that those anxieties that we feel
are tremendous open doors for talking about our faith.
Those are open doors for talking about faith.
The Bible, here's what's amazing,
the Bible is very confident in the presence
and in the midst of unprecedented events.
The Bible's very comfortable
in the presence of unprecedented events,
the rise and fall of nations.
And, there's no better picture of this
than a text that we've just read.
Daniel chapter 2,
the book of Daniel is part narrative
and part prophetic literature.
Part of it is a history.
It tells the story of God's people,
particularly for men in the midst of God's name,
God's history.
And, it's also partly prophetic.
That is, it is speaking from the divine lens
about what God is doing.
And so, the narrative part
is that it exists in one of the most tumultuous times
in Israel's history.
Israel had been,
or God's people, Judah,
had been in deep spiritual rebellion
and the consequences of that rebellion
is they are exiled from the land.
And so, after a prolonged period of God saying,
please repent, please come back,
they fail to do so.
And so, God does what he promises.
He sends a foreign nation into Judah
and obliterates them,
wipes them out culturally, politically, militarily.
In 586, the Babylonian Empire invades
and takes out, exiles most of the Israelites.
And he takes with them their best,
their brightest,
their most culturally,
their most potential that they have.
And when he does this,
when the Babylonians,
when Nebuchadnezzar does this,
he attempts complete,
total culture annihilation.
He brings the best of the best out
and says,
I'm going to train you,
not in your culture,
but in my culture.
I'm going to beat you so bad
that your children don't even remember
who they are or where they came from.
Chapter 1, we see this.
Daniel is among them.
Four Jewish men resist this.
Daniel among them.
And you can read more about this.
But then in Chapter 2,
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon,
has a dream.
He has a terrifying dream, a vision,
and he challenges his spiritual elite
to interpret the dream,
and they can't.
They're unable to interpret it.
And so only Daniel can interpret it.
So Daniel is brought to Nebuchadnezzar
to interpret the dream.
And Daniel describes to Nebuchadnezzar
what he sees.
He sees a huge statue,
a giant terrifying statue.
You can read this in verse 31.
A great image, exceeding bright,
stood before you,
and its appearance was frightening.
And it's made of a series
of different materials.
There's a gold head,
a silver chest,
bronze thighs and legs,
and then a mix of iron and clay feet.
And then, interestingly,
in verse 34,
something interesting happens.
A stone,
not cut from human hands,
comes and destroys the whole image.
Destroys the image.
And Daniel says,
the dream means that there will be
a succession of four kingdoms.
Four nations will rise and fall,
and then a fifth different kingdom
will destroy them all
and grow to fill the whole earth.
That's what the dream is.
Now, what does it mean?
Daniel here is describing,
prophetically,
that is,
from the lens of God,
from God's standpoint,
the rise and fall of nations
and kingdoms in human history.
And most scholars reading this
think that he's probably
immediately concerned
with the particular next 500 years
of politics in the ancient Near East.
And so he says,
you, O King Nebuchadnezzar,
are the head of gold.
You, Nebuchadnezzar,
are the Babylonian Empire.
And then after you
will come another kingdom,
the Persian Empire,
which will take over
the Babylonian Empire
around 530, 540 B.C.
And then after them will come,
we know our history,
the Greek Empire
with Alexander the Great.
And then after them
will come the Roman Empire,
which is a mixer of iron and clay.
One nation will rise,
and then it will fall,
and another nation will replace it.
And so here Daniel is describing
the next 500 years of geopolitics.
But here's what's important,
that it's not just 500 years
of geopolitics,
because Daniel is not just literature,
or it's not just narrative,
it's prophetic literature.
And as prophetic literature,
he is also describing
a spiritual reality.
Daniel is also describing
a spiritual reality.
Biblical prophecy,
the genre that this book
is written in,
is a literary tool.
It's beautiful,
because it can use
historical events,
the rise and fall
of ancient nations,
to reveal the spiritual dynamics
happening underneath and behind.
It uses historical events
to reveal spiritual truth.
That's what biblical,
one of the things
that biblical prophecy can do.
And so Daniel here
is more than just anticipating
or prophesying
about the next few hundred years
of geopolitics.
He is showing how and what
God is doing behind all of that.
Namely, that God is orchestrating
the rise and the fall of nations
for his own glory
and for his own purposes.
For his own glory
and for his own purposes.
Prophecy is less about
telling the future.
Often we think, you know,
a prophet is somebody
who just kind of blurts out
this is what is going
to happen tomorrow.
But it's more about describing
theological forces
and spiritual motives
at work in human affairs.
Daniel here is revealing
spiritual dynamics
behind and beyond
what we see.
Namely, history from God's standpoint
and under God's direction.
And from this,
Nebuchadnezzar's dream,
if this is true,
it tells us two things
that are really, really important.
One, nations rise and fall
under God's command.
And two, God has and will
establish an eternal
spiritual kingdom
that will only grow.
So first,
nations rise and fall
under God's command.
Look at verse 37.
This is the dream,
verse 36,
and now we will tell the king
its interpretation.
You, O king,
the king of kings,
to whom God of heaven
has given the kingdom,
the power,
and the might,
and the glory.
Now there's a subtle,
almost irony here.
He says,
you're the king of kings,
but God made you that way.
God is the one
who gave you this authority.
God is the king of kings.
He's the one
who even you
are subservient
and submitting to.
God is the true sovereign.
And any human authority,
any human who has
any level of authority,
has been delegated from God.
Here's our truth,
and this is very important
and very good
for our world today.
Any human political power
exists only because God
in his providence
and his power enabled it.
Providence is God
working in and behind
everything that happens
to accomplish his purposes.
Think about,
think that there's another place
where Jesus talks about this.
Jesus is on trial with Pilate.
Pilate,
this great Roman ruler
who has the authority,
the capacity to kill Jesus.
And Jesus says to him,
you have no authority
over me at all
unless it has been given
to you from above.
Pilate's authority,
significant as it is,
has been given to him
by God.
Romans 13,
Paul says it even more clearly.
There is no authority
except from God,
and those that exist
have been instituted by God.
There is no authority
except from God,
and those that do exist
have been instituted by God.
Over and over and over again,
the Bible is very clear
that God alone,
our God,
is the king of the creation,
and every human political ruler
and system exists
because God created it.
And Daniel recognizes this.
You can flip back
just a few pages,
a few verses
in chapter 221.
Daniel prays this,
Blessed be the God,
blessed be the name of God
forever and ever
to whom belong wisdom
and might.
He changes
the times
and the season.
He removes kings
and he sets up kings.
Behind the rise
and fall
of nations
is the hand of God,
his providence,
his final,
ultimate sovereignty.
Nebuchadnezzar
is only a tool
in God's hands.
And Nebuchadnezzar himself
grows to recognize this.
We'll read in a minute
how he understands
and internalizes this,
that the total supremacy
and eternal dominion
belongs to God.
And this means
that God has planned
and accomplished
the rise of the Babylonians
and the fall
of the Babylonians.
The rise of the Persians
and the fall
of the Persians.
The rise
of the British Empire
where the sun never sets
and the fall
of the British Empire.
The rise
of the American
power
and someday
the fall
of the American power.
First thing
that we see here
is that God
sets up
every nation
for his purposes.
Second thing
is that God
has established
and will protect
and grow
a spiritual
and ultimately
non-spiritual kingdom.
Verse 44.
And in these days,
he's talking about
the stone,
and in the days
of those kings,
the God of heaven
will set up
a kingdom
that shall never
be destroyed,
nor shall the kingdom
be left to another people.
It shall break
in pieces
all these kingdoms
and bring them
to an end
and it shall stand
forever.
Just as you saw
that a stone
was cut from a mountain
by no human hand
and it broke in pieces
the other kingdoms.
What is he saying here?
A stone
made without
human hands
appears
and destroys
all of the other kingdoms
and it so thoroughly
destroys them
that they become
like chaff,
dust in the wind,
right?
What's the great
Kansas song?
Dust in the wind.
Are we all
dust in the wind
that gets thrown
up in the air
and blows away
and is gone forever?
The kingdom of God,
this is something
unlike anything
that a human being
could conjure up.
A stone
made without
human hands
will rise up
and decimate
in the truest
sense of that word.
Obliterate,
annihilate,
pick your word.
all of the human
schemes,
powers,
rulers,
and authority.
And,
the vision tells us
it will happen
at a very specific
moment in time
in the kingdom
mixed with iron
of iron and clay
which we know
is the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire
and what does Paul
say in Galatians 4?
In the fullness
of time,
the right time,
God sent forth
his son.
God sent forth
his son
and when Jesus Christ
appears in the Roman Empire
in human history
30,
31 AD,
something like that,
what does Jesus'
first words say?
The first words
that Jesus says
in the Gospel of Mark,
the time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God
is at hand.
God in the middle
of human history
establishes,
builds a separate
kingdom
that will grow
and expand
not through
human political power,
not by the might
of armies,
but through
what Paul would say
is the foolish
and weak
proclamation
of good news,
the Gospel.
The proclamation
of the Gospel.
And even that word
Gospel
has a kingdom
ring to it.
The word Gospel
comes from the old
Greek word
euangelion,
which was the word
of victory in battle.
When a Roman
or a Greek king
would win,
they would send
a soldier up ahead
and say he would bring
the good news
of victory.
And so when the Christians
first appear,
they are proclaiming
the Gospel,
the good news
of victory,
of a king
who has come.
Richard Loveless,
great theologian,
writes this,
the recurring
conflicts between
nations
represented in
Daniel's vision
as segments
of a human statue.
The Son of Man
is presented
before the Ancient
of Days
and is given
dominion
and glory
and kingdom
so that all peoples
and nations
and languages
should serve him.
Daniel is anticipating
something beyond
a human political
system
that will come
and create something
beyond a human
political system.
A trans-political
kingdom
that will endure
despite
and beyond
the rise
and fall
of nations.
Again,
right and bird
and Jesus
and the powers.
Successions
of empires
rise
one after another,
Daniel tells us.
But the kingdom
of God
or sorry,
the God of heaven
will set up
a kingdom
that will never
be destroyed
nor shall his
kingdom be left
to another people.
It shall crush
all these kingdoms
and bring them
to an end
and it alone
shall stand
forever.
I encourage you
to go read
there's a poem
by Percy Shelley
Ozymandias
that talks
about this.
It talks
about this
great statue
this great
statue
of a great
old ancient
king
and he's
powerful
and he's
almighty
but now
thousands
of years
later
he's this
crumpled
statue
in the middle
of a desert
with sand
whipping around
him
so much
for all
his might
Percy Shelley
writes
a great
statue
only in
dust.
So what's
the point
here?
Daniel is
showing us
that God
has
and will
establish
a kingdom
that will
exist
beyond
and within
the rise
and fall
of nations
and that
is the
gospel
and that
Jesus
is the
king
who came
and announced
that kingdom
and has
been
and is
welcoming
and inviting
others
into
following
him.
That is
what our
text shows
us.
That is
what the
Christian
faith
tells us.
Now how
do we
begin to
apply this
to evangelism
to sharing
our faith?
I hope
it's obvious
after I did
the setup
of talking
about the
anxiety
that we
feel
but I'm
going to
take it
in a
slightly
different
angle
and then
we'll
get to
the
obvious
part.
Here's
the thing
the first
and most
urgent
thing we
must do
is recognize
that the
Christian
is first
and foremost
a citizen
in the
eternal
and trans
political
kingdom
of God.
The first
thing that
you and
I must
do,
the first
thing that
Cheyenne
Mountain
Prez
must do
and be
is an
outpost.
This is what
Matthew talks
about all
the time,
an outpost
of the
kingdom
of God.
What does
Paul say
in Philippians
3?
That our
citizenship
is not
here.
First
and foremost
it is
we are
citizens
in heaven.
This
means
frankly
the
first
task
we
must
do
and
this
is
hard
in
America
is
to
understand
ourselves
as
exiles
and
pilgrims
here.
We
do
not
belong
here.
I was
reflecting
this
on this
as I
was
driving
over
the
great
temptation
that we
have
is to
think
that
I
this
is
where
I
belong
this
is
my
home
this
is
my
people
and
this
is
true
but
this
is
where
I
belong
this
is
my
people
the
person
next
to
you
and
we
are
but
exiles
and
pilgrims
as
Daniel
was
living
in
and
among
a
nation
that
did
not
like
him
was
seeking
to
dominate
him
in
every
other
way
and
he
was
to
point
to
and live
in
the
kingdom
of
God
Stephan
Pass
he's
a
missiologist
great
book
called
pilgrims
and
priests
writes
this
listen
closely
this
is
amazing
from
the
expulsion
of
Eden
Genesis
to
John's
exile
in
Patmos
Revelation
the
Bible
is
a
book
of
uprooting
and
displacement
Christians
have
oriented
themselves
from
the
beginning
to
the
end
especially
in
stories
and songs
that
were
written
about
Israel
and
its
captivity
in
Babylon
as
people
who
do
not
belong
in
597
to
586
the
Babylonians
conquered
Jerusalem
and they
carried
a large
part of
the
people
away
in
exile
we
are
people
in
exile
we
do
not
live
here
we
look
to
a
kingdom
that
is
far
greater
the
kingdom
of
God
this
is
of
course
the
theme
of
the
city
of
God
Augustine's
great
work
which is
frankly
probably
the most
important
piece
of
literature
written
after
Christ
it's
incredible
it says
this
Augustine
says
the
heavenly
city
that is
the
kingdom
of
God
that
part
of
it
which
is
on
pilgrimage
in
this
condition
of
mortality
and
which
lives
as
the
basis
of
faith
must
use
must
make
temporary
peace
temporary
peace
until
this
mortal
peace
mortal
state
for
which
this
peace
is
essential
passes
away
and
it
therefore
leads
to
what
we
may
call
a
life
of
captivity
in
this
earthly
city
as
in
a
foreign
land
what
is
Augustine
saying
Augustine
says
that
we
live
in
the
city
of
man
we
live
in
America
and
we
use
the
blessings
and
the
pieces
that
it
provides
but
we
know
that
we
are
this
is
not
where
we
reside
we
know
that
this
is
not
our
true
citizenship
we
live
as
captives
anticipating
a finer
and
greater
city
to
come
Daniel
understood
that
he
did
not
belong
in
Babylon
even
though
he
knew
he
would
die
in
Babylon
he
belonged
to
Israel
he
was
a
child
of
God
he
is
a
pilgrim
this
is
how
first
Peter
describes
us
as
exiles
and
sojourners
now
what does
this
mean
for
evangelism
it
means
that
we
must
form
communities
and
habits
that
reveal
our
citizenship
in
heaven
the
church
the
community
here
becomes
so
much
more
than
a
social
gathering
but
this
is
amazing
church
coming
here
on a
Sunday
morning
becomes
in a
way
a
form
of
protest
against
the
status
quo
your
coming
here
this
morning
says
I
belong
to
something
greater
than
America
I
belong
to
something
greater
than
the
rise
and
fall
of
nations
I
anticipate
something
bigger
than
anything
that
our
economy
anything
that
our
nation
anything
that
liberalism
anything
that
democracy
can
accomplish
and I
will
show up
on a
Sunday
morning
to
believe
and
entrust
and
reinforce
that
it
becomes
a
protest
against
the
status
quo
it
becomes
a
protest
against
the
allegiances
of the
rise
and
falls
of
one
government
over
another
we
are
a
people
with
a
king
beyond
this
king
and
what
this
also
means
is that
we
must
not
pin
our
earthly
hopes
or
anything
that
we
would
hope
even
our
spiritual
hopes
on
any
temporal
nation
no
nation
on
earth
today
has
God's
special
blessing
they
are
tools
in
the
good
providential
hands
of
God
to
establish
his
purpose
but
the
primary
tool
that
God
will
use
to
establish
his
kingdom
is
the
church
proclaiming
what
the
gospel
of
the
kingdom
of
God
through
what
the
proclamation
of the
death
of
the
king
and
the
new
life
of
the
king
and
the
proper
administration
of
the
sacraments
that
is
what
we
hope
in
not
in
the
strength
of
our
military
not
in
the
power
of
our
economic
motor
not
in
the
goodness
of
liberal
democracy
as much
as I
love
those
things
they
will
go
away
at
some
point
and
just
by
doing
that
by
believing
that
by
showing
up
here
on
a
Sunday
morning
by
being
in
your
home
group
by
learning
and
being
catechized
and taught
in the
Christian
faith
we
become
missional
people
we
become
people
who
proclaim
the
gospel
which
is
beyond
this
world
Abraham
Kuyper
is a
brilliant
theologian
and
politician
he
was a
!
politician
in the
Netherlands
he
was the
president
but he
understood
what I'm
talking
about
he
says
though
the
lamp
of the
Christian
faith
only
burns
within
the
walls
of
the
churches
as
it
shines
through
its
windows
to
areas
far
beyond
illuminating
all
the
sectors
that
appear
across
the
wide
range
of
human
life
and
activity
through
the
administering
of
the
sacraments
exercises
of
discipline
forming
of
disciples
the
church
nourishes
a
vibrant
core
of
believers
who
infiltrate
and
leaven
the
whole
society
one
of
the
ways
I
often
talk
with
my
college
students
about
campus
ministry
is in
some
ways
we're
like
special
forces
I'm
not a
military
man
I've
never
been
well
I
love
I
know
more
about
it
than
most
but
what
we
do
is
we
go
on
to
a
college
campus
we're
too
small
and
not
to
be
able
to
change
the
campus
through
a
full
frontal
attack
we
just
can't
do
it
but
you
know
what
we
can
do
is
go
into
a
college
campus
classrooms
other
clubs
cafeterias
and be
public
Christians
not
annoying
not
offensive
not
argumentative
but
public
Christians
and
that
whole
process
infiltrates
and
leavens
like
yeast
this is
how
Jesus
talks
about
it
yeast
in
the
whole
lump
the
whole
things
changed
and the
kingdom
grows
what's
the
takeaway
do
church
publicly
do
church
publicly
tell your
friends
I can't
go hiking
with you
on Sunday
morning
I'm going
to church
tell your
friends
that my
kids can't
compete
on Sunday
we are
church on
that morning
Sunday
is a
special day
for our
families
to reflect
on the
Christian
life
that is
a
missionary
statement
there's
this guy
I see
regularly
at a
coffee
shop
he grew
up a
Christian
in
Colorado
Springs
and he's
left the
faith
and he
and I
have gotten
to know
each other
regularly
and we
got in
coffee a
couple times
he's
interested in
the Christian
faith
and I've
just been
very present
in his
life
and open
about my
faith
open about
my job
in front
of him
things like
hey I
can't hang
out that
day I'm
taking my
kids to a
choir
Christian
choir
concert
or I
can't
hike
I'm
going
to church
would you
like to go
to the
Christmas
concert
with us
and just
last week
he texted
me and said
hey can
I come
to your
church
home
group
I'm
curious
about
spirituality
that's
a huge
win
that's
a huge
win
just by
me saying
I'm a
Christian
I belong
to something
bigger
than
myself
Christian
faith is
more caught
than taught
the Christian
faith is
more caught
than taught
be a
Christian
live in
the kingdom
of God
do it
publicly
and others
will see
it
now the
obvious
application
we live
in a
world
that's
deeply
and highly
anxious
deeply
I describe
this to
you
and they're
anxious
about
economics
politics
ideas
struggles
of culture
the rise
and fall
of nations
the tumult
that is
described
in Daniel
2
we have
the opportunity
you have
the opportunity
as it comes
up and it
will
you know
it will
around the
water
cooler
when somebody
asks
what do
you think
about what
happened
in Venezuela
when somebody
asks
how do you
make sense
of Minneapolis
when somebody
asks
what are we
doing in
Denmark
you can say
I don't
know
I don't
know
but I
have hope
and confidence
in something
far bigger
something far
greater
this is
particularly
applicable
for Cheyenne
Mountain
Prez
where most
of you
are or
have been
involved
in the
military
this is
your job
the rise
and fall
of nations
and you
get to
say
I will
participate
but I
will hope
in something
far
greater
and I
will join
a people
that is a
part of
what does
Hebrews 12
call it
an unshakable
kingdom
that will
fill the
whole earth
as the
waters
cover the
sea
that's
hope
that's
peace
in a
world
that's
deeply
anxious
and that's
what we
get to
share
it's
the
gospel
it's
the
good
news
that
is
what
evangelism
is
and that
kingdom
changes
hearts
it even
changed
Nebuchadnezzar's
it's one of my
favorite passages
in the whole
Bible is
Daniel chapter
four
because
Nebuchadnezzar
has goes
through a
bout of
insanity
absolute
insanity
because he
thinks that
he is
the king
of kings
and then
God in
his mercy
restores
him to
sanity
and he
prays
chapter
four
listen to
what he
prays
I
blessed
the
most
high
and
praised
and
honored
him
who
lives
forever
for
his
dominion
is
an
everlasting
dominion
and his
kingdom
endures
from
generation
to
generation
this
is
the
head
of
gold
and
this
is
what
he
says
all
the
inhabitants
of
the
earth
are
accounted
as
nothing
and
he
does
according
to
his
will
among
the
inhabitants
of
the
earth
and
none
can
stay
his
hand
or
say
to
him
what
have
you
done
now
I
Nebuchadnezzar
praise
and extol
and honor
the
king
of
heaven
for
all
his
works
are
right
and
his
ways
are
just
and
those
who
walk
in
pride
he
is
able
to
humble
this
is
a
man
who
encounters
the
kingdom
of
God
and
says
I'm
in
even
in
all
my
power
it
changed
his
heart
this
is
what
we
welcome
our
friends
into
it's
a
great
kingdom
that
offers
hope
and
security
and
permanence
in
a
world
that
feels
the
opposite
and
so
go
be
a
citizen
in
the
kingdom
of
God
and
welcome
others
into
it
would
you
pray
with
me
Lord
in
heaven
thank
you
that
your
kingdom
is
an
unshakable
kingdom
it's
one
that
will
not
pass
away
it's
one
that
you
will
establish
not
through
power
but
through
weakness
through
the
death
of a
mere
human
who
also
was
God
Colossians
one
all
rulers
and
authorities
are in
submission
to
you
so that
in
you
may
be
preeminent
in
all
things
and
so
we
do
pray
your
kingdom
come
preserve
your
church
and
make
it
grow
destroy
the
devil's
works
do
this
until
your
kingdom
comes
fully
when
you
will
be
all
and
in
all
it's
in
Jesus
name
we
pray
amen
as
Thank you.