and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
4 sermons cite this verse
… sending out these 12 on a short-term mission is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Matthew's account, Jesus said, as you go, preach, saying, here's their message, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Luke chapter 9, he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read things like this, I wonder, okay, how did they do it exactly? When they first came to that town, how did they approach people to witness to them? Was it one-on-one? Did they go, excuse me, have you heard of the four spiritual laws? Or, you know God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Was it one-on-one? because, you know, that's how I used to do it. Not that I use that formula, but I would, when I dated my wife Lenya, we would go up to people on the Huntington Beach Pier and just have conversations with them and share the gospel with them. …
I don't want to be a person that is unaware of the time, unaware of the fact that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus said that so often, and I didn't look it up, so I don't know the exact number, but Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's here. What are you gonna do about it? How can we manage spiritual time blindness? Well, I think these are a few things that we could do, things that came to my mind. number one, repent. Repent of your time blindness. And you might be saying, but it's not intentional. It's not purposeful. I just forget. Well, whether it's purposeful or not, we need to come to a place where we realize that we have been blind to the time, that we've been blind to the time that God's given us that we have right now to the fact that Jesus is coming quickly, the fact that our lives are a gift, our breath is a gift, and what are we doing with the talents, with the goods, with the services, with the gifts that God has given to us? Repent. Repent. And what that word means is you're going in one direction, and you stop, and you realize that that's not the direction that you want to go. And so you turn in the other direction and then you go that way. And that's what we want to do. We want to be quick to repent of our sins. We want to be quick to repent of where …
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Might you have a seat. So last week we started this new series, the series through Advent called Waiting Well. And the reality is we call it Waiting Well because we don't know how to wait well. Here is a season of Advent, season of preparation, obviously. But it's also a season of waiting. I mean, just think of how much we dislike the season of waiting. Because right now, probably, you know, December 7th, we are probably already in a place of having gone to maybe already one or two Christmas parties that we, full disclosure, we had a Christmas party last night for our alumni. On Friday, we had a Christmas party for all of our students. And yeah, why? Well, we wanted to get in before the end of the semester, all of those things. We have excuses, but do you? No, we all have excuses. And the excuse is we don't like waiting. We want it to be here. In fact, there is actually a whole science on waiting, on the study of waiting. …
… a light has dawned. Now pay attention close to verse 17. From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. Now what we've got to realize is this is the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. Beginning of this chapter, he's tempted, resists temptation, and then he starts his public ministry. And from the very beginning, one message resounds from his mouth. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. That phrase is used, not just the whole phrase, but especially the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is repeated over and over and over again throughout the book of Matthew. And what it is, it's not a kingdom as in a place. It pictures the rule and the reign and the dominion and the authority of God. Wherever his rule and reign is acknowledged and submitted to, there we see a picture of the kingdom. And that's what we see all throughout the book of Matthew. Now, where do you get radical abandonment for the glory of Christ from there? …