Eastgate Church Sermons - Wilson

Jesus spoke about the kingdom in ways that created a surprising tension. He said the kingdom was “at hand,” or had drawn near. He said it had “come upon” them. He said it was “in their midst.” Yet He also taught His disciples to keep praying, “Your kingdom come.” So the kingdom was near. It was present. It was already breaking into the world through the King. And yet, in another sense, it was still coming. The great surprise was not whether God’s kingdom would come, but how it would come. We tend to trust what is big, visible, immediate, and measurable. So when the gospel seems small in comparison to the powers of this world, when the culture seems increasingly resistant to Christ, or when the work of God appears to be slow and hidden, we can begin to wonder whether His kingdom is really advancing. But Jesus warned us not to worry about small beginnings and little influence. The kingdom may begin like a mustard seed and work like leaven, but what God has purposed through His Son cannot be stopped. In Matthew 13:31–35, Jesus taught two parables revealing the surprising manner in which the kingdom of heaven enters and advances in the world.

A parable is more than an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Jesus’ parables were simple stories drawn from everyday life that revealed the mysteries of the kingdom to receptive hearts. Parables don’t merely illustrate truth. They expose our response to truth. They reveal our spiritual receptivity. And that raises a very personal question for us: How receptive are we to the King and His kingdom? We can sit in church, hear the Word, sing the songs, know the prayers, and still have a heart that is resistant to what God is saying. The problem is not that God is silent. The problem is that sometimes we aren’t really listening. Jesus will describe four people who all hear the same message. The same sower. The same seed. But dramatically different results. The difference is not the seed. The difference is the soil. And the condition of the soil represents the spiritual receptivity of the heart.

Over the last 2 weeks we have discussed the first two devotions that foster real connection. They are a devotion to God’s Word and to Christian fellowship. Now we come to the third, which is the breaking of bread. That’s why we’ve titled this message, From Screen to Table. Because we long for the connection a shared table provides, but we have traded the table for a screen. We have bigger kitchens than our grandparents ever dreamed of. Islands. Double ovens. Farmhouse sinks. Marble countertops. And nobody comes over. We have a dining room, but nobody uses it. It's the room you walk through on the way to the recliner. But it’s not merely the table, but the way we gather around it. Have we come around the meal with undivided attention and a heart focused on fellowship? In a world where we spend more time gathered around screens than around tables, have we lost one of God's ordinary means of growing us closer together and of growing His church? In the book of Acts, Luke described how the early church grew not only through worship in the temple but also through fellowship around the dinner table. We can grow in Christian community by sharing life around the dinner table.

So far in The Story, we’ve traced it from creation and the garden, through the fall and the flood, to God’s covenant with Abraham; from the exodus and the law, to the conquest and the kingdom under David; through the heartbreak of exile—and then last week, to the arrival of Christ, the long-promised Savior who stepped into history to redeem what was lost. But today, in this message, we reach the climax. If the Bible is the Story of everything, then the Resurrection of Jesus is the hinge upon which everything turns. We aren't just celebrating a religious holiday; we are celebrating the day the ending of your story might be rewritten… from "Death" to "Life." To understand how we fit into this victorious story, we must look at how we respond to the "first importance" of the Gospel, which is the Good News that Jesus saves! In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he reminded them of the first importance of the gospel he had preached to them in order to strengthen their faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and warn them from believing in vain.