Commissioned - Kingdom Lifestyle | Andy Elmes | 13th June 2021
Today is the last in the current series by Pastor Andy Elmes
‘Commissioned’, with this week’s message being about Kingdom Lifestyle. We've
been looking at Matthew 28 verses 19-20. God says go into all the world and
make disciples baptizing them teaching them to obey. People get really carried
away with loving the word grace and love and mercy, but obedience is equally a
powerful word. Matthew 28, 20 does say “teaching
them to obey everything”….this means, training people to abide, to walk, in
obedience to all that Jesus commanded.
Jesus taught about Kingdom living, a new higher way of conducting
ourselves. If we look at the teachings of Jesus in the gospels He often says to
his disciples “go and declare the kingdom”. When Jesus walked the Earth, He
didn't preach a gospel of atonement - He was the Gospel of atonement! He spoke
of a kingdom, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven that was present now,
on earth. In Matthew 5 and 6 Jesus talks
about Kingdom life and how to live it. In this message Jesus suddenly begins to
redefine so much of what people thought was normal, but he brings fresh
definition to it and says, no, that's not how you live. This is how you live to
me. That's what the Lord is asking us to do when he says “ …teach people to obey my Commandments”, - the ways that I've taught you to live. He
talks about being Salt and Light and so much more in these two chapters.
Romans 12:2 (NIV) says “Do not conform to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”.
This is the Holy and best possible way for us to live beyond
anything we ever imagined. In those moments in the battlefield of our minds we
need to make sure the way He's taught us to live overcomes any previous way we
may have lived before. This is when the victory that's contained in the word breaks
into our daily lives.