 talks about the kingdom mandate and we have touched on many of these points earlier so I'll just you know glance over it we know that the kingdom of God is within us okay but at the same time Jesus taught us to pray thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven so from heaven let that kingdom come let it be established so as God's people now that we've understood so much about the king and the kingdom our desire must be to see this kingdom established in us and around us so with our lives we we continue to see the work of the kingdom thrive okay and how is that going to happen it's not just you know something that takes place automatically we have to do our part you know we pray for the kingdom to come and you know we we serve with the power of the Holy Spirit so we preach the kingdom of God we demonstrate the power of the kingdom of God so these are all things that we are involved in to see the kingdom of God come we engage remember Jesus in that parable he said do business till I come so we engage with whatever gift calling grace anointing that God has put on our lives we do our part we are good stewards and we represent the kingdom so the local church is the representative of the spiritual kingdom so we represent the kingdom of God here on the earth so we do our part right and doing all of these things and at the same time there is one passage this is in Matthew 11 Matthew 11 verse 12 it says and from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force okay there's one more scripture Luke 16 verse 16 and I'm on page 64 of Kingdom of God it says the law and the prophets were until John since that time the kingdom of God has been preached and everyone is pressing into it so there is the excuse me there is the thought of violent take it by force okay meaning there is a forcefulness there is a resolve there is a determination on the part of the one who is experiencing the kingdom to you know do whatever it takes to have the kingdom and then you know the next verse that I read here it says everyone is pressing into it so pressing into it also relates to the same thing that we are making very excuse me yeah we're making an effort right to have the kingdom so the kingdom of God is something that we must desire and you could say work towards so it's not it's we're not going to experience the kingdom automatically and at least that's what we are told here but when we have an attitude that says I want to see the kingdom come I want to see the glory of God's kingdom within me and around me we know God is not somebody who will withhold right he doesn't withhold giving us the kingdom Jesus said this look 12 inverse 32 he said do not fear little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom so God is happy to give us the kingdom but he wants us to position ourselves in such a way that we are pressing in we are desiring okay and we are you know it's it's like a heart crime that we have to see the kingdom of God come excuse me yeah sorry about that yeah so we we must have in other words you can put it as you know we should have an attitude like a warrior the violent take it by force so we are pressing into the kingdom now talking about the kingdom of God another thing that is key is submission to the king so the ultimate authority we talked about the authority structure and how power flows dominion flows in the kingdom in various you know spheres that that we relate to but ultimately it is God who is the king right from who all authority flows so our submission to the king in the kingdom is the primary thing okay and that is something we must never forget never forget and be submitted to the king in every way so how does this translate for us as believers we we are submitted when it comes to our thoughts we are submitted when it comes to our decisions we are submitted when it comes to our ministry right so anything and everything that concerns us we are submitted to God so we want to see his purposes accomplished in and through us so that's how it looks and that is the commitment that we should be willing to make always look to advancing God's kingdom and we've already talked about it you know we preach we demonstrate the power of the kingdom or here in our notes I like the title that has been put here I said unleash unleash you know the kingdom influence and find your position right in the in the world out there so when it comes to the workplace right God may want you to serve him in a particular way so when you find that position you know you are able to engage and you are able to advance the kingdom of God so if every believer learns to do this then we will see God's kingdom established in every place and this kingdom while we talk about submitting to the king we must also recognize that the king has all the authority but he bestows that authority dominion and power on our lives so as we go about engaging in this world extending the kingdom advancing the kingdom we have authority right authority over what authority over whom all the works of the enemy we read about Jesus one John three eight he came to destroy the works of the devil so you know that kind of authority we carry so if there's anything that qualifies as the work of the devil we can keep dominating that and keep moving forward in extending the kingdom of God so it's not that God has called us to just go ahead and do the work without empowering us to do it he has already empowered us so we can do it and we remember see in a kingdom it's not like the democratic setting right so the key person is the king and what matters is the will of the king and the purpose of the king and thankfully like you know even proverb says that when a good person rules the people rejoice but when an evil person rules the people grown right but thank God you know we have the best king we have God as our king Jesus is our king and we know that he is a righteous his scepter of righteousness it says so he is a righteous king and his purposes are what every single one of us is living for and as believers this new life that we have right and every everything that comes with it we've become a new creation we have the work of the Holy Spirit in us everything is to extend the kingdom of our king so the king is most important and that is something that we must never forget okay so this sums up the kingdom of God and the key focus of the kingdom of God and we have completed at this book and we can move on to the next book here yeah so is it is it fine can I just move on or you have anything to share okay in fact the next chapter which we will take up from the book Kingdom Builders so those of you who are looking at Kingdom of God till now you'll have to open the new book so can you please do that so we are through with Kingdom of God now and I hope you have downloaded it I had already put the link in our notes here sorry on the classwork page if you haven't then you can go to the apcwo.org slash books resources page and from there just download the PDF the name of the publication is Kingdom Builders and Kingdom Builders it's the second revised edition okay alright so yeah if you have the new one in front of you the first chapter basically talks about the Kingdom of God you know the concept of the Kingdom of God and how the church is related to the Kingdom of God now we know that the church is a part of the Kingdom of God and all of us we are the part of the body of Christ which is the church okay but at the same time when we use the term church most of us relate to the local church which is in the natural dimension but having understood the concept of the Kingdom of God we know that we belong to more than just the local church okay so we belong to the Kingdom we belong to the the large Kingdom of God which includes you know every believer which includes every believer we've also seen when we studied the Kingdom of God that it includes the believers have gone ahead of us who are now in heaven who will return with Jesus you know when he when he comes back with the Saints so they're also part of the Kingdom of God and of course in the Kingdom of God you have your heavenly beings and all of them are also included so we are a part of this big Kingdom this large Kingdom okay and it's more than just the local church and God is the King of the Kingdom Sam 24 verse 10 who is who is this King of glory the Lord of force he is the King of glory so we talk about the rule reign dominion of our King and everything is subject to him okay and we see that the local church right the local church is the representative representative of the Kingdom of God here on the earth and that is why Jesus very strongly he said I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it so the local church has been bestowed with authority has been a store bestowed with dominion and we we've seen this in the house of God you know we become the hands the feet right we execute the purposes of God and we reveal Christ to the world around us so that's the relationship of the local church to the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom and the church now because it's a representative of the Kingdom of God we have to look at it as a very powerful entity now there are many descriptions of the church in in the word of God and we would look at it no one by one but like when you think about the church we must not look at it as a very look at it as a like a feeble entity a group of people who love God you know who are faithful to God and that's about it no but from what Jesus said that I will build my church I I give you the keys of the Kingdom the church is actually an entity of great spiritual influence okay incredible spiritual influence so that is how we look at the church and the church which is a part of the larger Kingdom of God and the church has its mandate we've talked about that no we are called to preach the Gospel we are called to teach right we are called to make disciples have people come into the Kingdom so when people are coming into the Kingdom that's when we say extend the Kingdom it's growing okay so the Kingdom of God is growing and once people come in there is the establishing of all the other aspects that we talked about now we we equipped those who have come into the Kingdom with the new way of doing life new way of doing Kingdom life so there is the teaching about Kingdom culture Kingdom mindset Kingdom lifestyle so people learn right once they come into the Kingdom they learn how to be a part of this Kingdom based on the principles of the Kingdom and that's how it works so the church is constantly extending the Kingdom of God so here in our study of Kingdom builders we will touch on how how to serve well okay and how to extend the Kingdom of God now it's it is going to be about the local church but it's more than the local church that's what you know I want us to understand I know that we have another course in the same semester for your batch which is about the local church the house of God but this one has to do you know with more than just each one of our local churches so it's about how we relate to other believers in the body of Christ it's how we relate to God as the King of the of the Kingdom okay so there's a lot more that we are going to cover in this subject the Kingdom builders so there's a nice reflection questions here I thought we would take it up before we get into chapter 2 okay so this first question says you know how does the perspective of the Kingdom of God affect daily life and ministry so I just thought I would ask that to us how does this perspective of the Kingdom of God affect yeah maybe somebody can answer okay I'll try to answer yes yes we can only esteem God hire or respect God or worship him based on the knowledge and understanding we have of him and his authority so knowing him as a king yeah worship him as a king is the online the rule of everything okay okay great thank you thank you Maggie so our understanding of God right so there's that whole other dimension so far we've seen him as the savior you know as the redeemer and all those parts of his nature but now looking at him as King causes us to honor him esteem him more and serve him better that's great that's wonderful now how does it affect okay great nice nice point that Anita Anita saying fear of the future is gone yeah that's true because he's the king everything is subject to him and we are his people right we are in submission to the king okay so there is no fear of the future true true how does it affect our ministry the perspective of the Kingdom of God how does it affect the ministry that we do can I share yes yes of me please in terms of ministry you know we are connected to people from different people groups maybe states cultures but our foundation being Christ we you know we have that comfort level of being part of one family and when we are sharing with each other we are not concerned about anything else except our identity in Christ our body unity in the body of Christ exchanging love with each other irrespective of denomination irrespective of culture state or nation you know we connect because whatever time we have spent I spent as being a born again Christian God has connected me to different people in different parts of the world and so we have attended so many other churches but when we enter a church we don't feel anything other than you know you feel it's a family for us you know we may you know offices my husband joins a different office so we don't know people in the office we don't know people who are in the neighborhood as soon as we enter the church we feel at whom we feel yes this is the place we belong to and from there you know our journey begins and we feel so comfortable and then you can talk to people on the same ground and we know that they will understand us yes yeah thank you thank you I mean that's that's really wonderful to know so we feel connected to people outside of our local church because we understand the the concept of the kingdom that it's larger we can relate to the the body of Christ the larger body of Christ okay so yeah thank you thank you only yes Charles you have something to say yes when it comes to ministers and the kingdom you know in our place there are kingdoms that were instated by the current president but our our culture they did not we instated the kingdoms the kingdom in our in our in our tribe some other tribes the kingdoms where we instated and they have kings they have culturally does so they you know what it means to serve a king they you know all those things they're supposed to do but for me when it comes to to kingdom mindset again I have to again study I again study I don't know whether you are getting me because I am not brought up in a kingdom a kingdom culture so it is continuation of studying and studying and studying you know when you have a king and you have the kingdom things in your tribe then you are able to to have to have the right thing and you are able to know even when you are relating it to the kingdom of heaven but I thank the Lord that at least I you know God as my king and also that I am a subject in the kingdom and I'm supposed to serve they did I have learned about kingdom I'm able to write in my ministry thank you sure sure yeah thank you thank you Charles and I'm sure even as we are going through this book you'll understand more about the kingdom perspective okay I missed some comments here in the chat so Anita is saying we do not struggle with the humanly emotions Prabhakar decisions are not temporary okay we look at the big picture while making decisions okay yeah I think it's in relation to what we were talking about earlier so yes that's that's good yeah and the additional thought here is that once we are in the kingdom the kingdom mindset kingdom culture kingdom lifestyle these are things that can be taught these are things in which people can grow right and once that is established in our lives wherever we go we carry that we carry the kingdom lifestyle we carry the you know kingdom culture and remember we said it it is contagious right so we can spread it wherever we go so that again is something about kingdom living ah yes Anita please go ahead and ma'am like being kingdom subject to kingdom of God we are interested with hospital so as God has commanded us and he always he has always and he has always he's also given us that gifts as to carry out whatever he has interested in us you know to go boldly in the world and take the word of God yeah yes yes thank you thank you Anita so so like you engage you advance you unleash the kingdom the kingdom is within you but you know it it's like in you and it has to be released through you so you go and serve as an ambassador of the kingdom wherever God positions you so it's nice you know we we are getting the perspective the kingdom perspective now we will continue to study a little bit more about the kingdom and then we will move into talking more about how we can build this kingdom okay of God or be contributors for the advancement for the strengthening of the kingdom of God so chapter 2 has to do with exalting the king so Christ is the king of the kingdom and that's very obvious because scriptures talk about it now Paul who himself was a kingdom builder and his he was completely committed to serving this king you know he says that you know this is a great king so he describes this king in 1st Timothy chapter 6 verses 15 through 16 where you know he says that our God he is the king of kings and the Lord of Lord so he is the highest okay whom we serve we cannot talk about kingdom building without positioning the king in his place in our minds and in our hearts that is the first and foremost thing that we have to do give the king his position of respect of honor of reverence so even Paul knew that he knew that the God we serve he is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords so once we understand that then the way we go about building the kingdom will be you know inappropriate so Christ needs to be understood as the king whom we serve and all of us who are a part of the kingdom we are here to serve the king okay and and when we realize that no we are doing our part in submission and faithfulness to our God okay and in faithfulness to our king now Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 3 okay it's it's another passage where he talks about the fact that different ones of us we serve the king okay we serve the king but the kingdom is is built in whatever we have to contribute okay so this is a beautiful passage in fact 1st Corinthians chapter 3 it's there in our notes I am on page 6 of kingdom builders can someone read it please 1st Corinthians 3 there's verse 6 and then verses 9 through 11 in our notes itself 1st Corinthians 3 6 9 11 I planted Apollos watered but God gave the increase 9 for we are God's fellow workers you are God's field you are God's building according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation and another builds on it but let each one take heed of how he builds on it for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ amen yeah amen thank you thank you Anita for that so we notice here the last verse we've been saying that Christ is the king right our God is the king of kings and he is the Lord of loss Christ is the foundation it says for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ so he is the prominent one whom we must serve in the kingdom but Paul also understands that there can be different ones of us doing our part and yet serving one king and serving one kingdom so here he points out that the people who are serving right together with him so he says I planted Apollos watered but God gave the increase so he sees the people who are doing ministry together with him as fellow workers but all of them as fellow workers with God okay so God has a purpose and we've been talking about it we have the kingdom mandate and you know we have to live be representatives of the kingdom of God the local church is a representation each one of us is a representation but here Paul is saying that we are fellow workers of the kingdom we are fellow workers with God okay so whatever we are doing each of us it's contributing to what God wants done so the context of this is basically you know when Paul moves on from the the Corinthian church he hands it over to this very eloquent teacher by the name of Apollos okay and he's just trying to help the people understand that look and you know after that there were some cliques in the church there were people who wanted only Apollos and they were you know they they were sort of fans of Apollos and then some others preferred Paul but he was trying to tell the people that look you know it's not about Apollos it's not about me it's not about you know others who serve you but this is the kingdom of God so he says there can be many different people similarly even in our case different ones of us we are working but we are fellow workers together with God and we are here to build the kingdom of God in whatever we do God's kingdom is being built up and we could have you know different roles here so he says I planted Apollos watered so at different stages right so maybe somebody comes in they saw the seeds somebody comes in they take care of God's people and there's some growth that's happening and after that stage you know another person comes and you know they they probably teach some deeper truths to God's people so things like that everyone does keeps doing their part but ultimately it's God's kingdom and he's the one who brings the increase and another thing that you notice here when we talk about kingdom building okay what is it that we are building okay what what is it that we are building rather the question should be who is it that we are building so when we talk about the kingdom of God we are actually referring to people right building people because Paul says here you are God's field you are God's building so he was talking about the believers in the Corinthian church and he was saying that you know when we when we want to I don't know how to put it but the the actual growth must come in the lives of the people okay and it's not about it's not about accomplishing anything outside of God's people right so it is about people so when we talk about kingdom building it is about building people and that we must not forget you know we could just have like good infrastructure we could just build all those things you know create all those things for for the kingdom of God but if people are not knowing God through it and if they are not growing in God through it then it's of no use so that's what Paul is saying yeah he's saying when we say kingdom building kingdom is the people of God kingdom building is about building up God's people and we must not forget it okay so we are here to build people we are here as co-workers with God we are here doing our part but whatever our part is it is bringing some form of growth at some stage right wherever God has strategically put us so that is a little bit about the king and the king being the center and the way we contribute to kingdom building and in all of this you know we must make sure that our relationship with the king is what is important okay and that's the primary thing so here in 1st Corinthians 3 11 we saw for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ okay so from here Paul is letting us know that we are standing on Christ so if Christ is not there if he is not the head or if he is not the preeminent one then we have no existence we have no stability and we must never lose the foundation right without the foundation a building cannot stand we can talk a lot about kingdom building but if it is not based on our relationship with the king then the building is not strong right we can talk about ministry ministry strategies we can talk about you know how to advance the kingdom of God we can talk about you know good leadership we can talk about church growth principles so many things in ministry like you know there's there's ample resources there's information explosion out there and we can spend time on everything but you know the foundation of kingdom building is actually our relationship our dependence and our submission to the king so when we have that in order everything else makes sense but if we have everything else and not you know our submission to the king in our personal lives right in in the ministry that we do then we are really missing out on the right way of building the kingdom so every kingdom builder the first thing that they should have is a strong relationship with the king everything begins there and you know it's actually easy to be distracted by even ministry it's easy to be distracted you know with our identity you know like you know I'm a minister and I belong to and then you you you're probably caught up in your kind of ministry or your denomination or your network of ministers of God so many things but you know not that those things are bad but our focus must be our relationship with the king and when that is fine all these other things you know the ministry that we do and our relationship with other ministers of God other kingdom builders if you want to call them no it'll be healthy okay so keep the king as the focus and our ministry should be about exalting the king okay the kingdom building should be about exalting the king so we must remember that and we must make him the main person or the preeminent one here there's a scripture passage from Colossians 1 which talks about Jesus being the preeminent one or the main person and our ministry our kingdom building should do that so in whatever we do if the king doesn't become the focus right if for whatever reason the focus turns to the minister you know maybe the preaching of the minister the ministry even like you know people look at the ministry but it's not about exalting the king right if the focus shifts from exalting the king to all these other things then you know we must really be wary about that because that's that's not true kingdom building true kingdom building is it starts from our right relationship with the king our submission to the king and while we are building the kingdom we want to exalt the king okay it's not about exalting ourselves it's about serving the king and while we do that exalt the king you know we must also remember that the kingdom is gods okay in in the Lord's prayer Jesus taught us to pray thy kingdom come okay whose kingdom is it it is the kingdom of the Lord so I think I brought this up earlier in the in the previous session today you know when we say my church your church you know my kingdom my ministry I mean I see where we are coming from but at the end of the day you know the kingdom the ministry it's all the Lord's and we just said right from 1st Corinthians 3 we said we are fellow workers we are co-workers with God so we do our part faithfully but this kingdom belongs to him right and so he is the one who needs to be exalted and we must acknowledge we must acknowledge who is this kingdom is because when we do that what happens we are more focused on his will rather than how we want to take this okay and we are more focused on executing his purposes and we are more focused on you know how we can relate to the kingdom or you know kingdom building or building God's people in the right way so these are all things that we must bear in mind okay in kingdom building now once again bringing the focus to God and glorifying him alone there are quite a few scriptures that are given in this chapter about glorifying God Matthew 6 13 where Jesus taught us to pray for yours is the kingdom the power and the glory forever amen so who's exalted in a kingdom who gets all the praise you know as the king enters and it's the king the king is always exalted and we must keep it that way and the king must receive all the glory so we're not here to glorify ourselves so while we are building the kingdom knowing these things as the basics or the foundations really helps because then you know we we can build the kingdom with the right attitude so it's always about exalting the king it's always about bringing him the glory even Jesus said you know nobody if you speak of your own glory then that's not good right so one must not seek his own glory but the person must seek the glory of the one who sent him so we are here for the sake of the king and we are here to exalt him as king now you know it might sound very theoretical at this point but practically when it comes to ministry right having this as a foundation will help us answer the why questions in our hearts right so like for example I'm just giving you one example when you have a very big large opportunity maybe you can preach to a big congregation and you have been invited to preach so before you go and you preach you ask yourself the question why am I doing this okay so if I have this mindset I am part of the kingdom I'm in submission to the king the king has to be the preeminent one and the king has to be glorified that will be my motive right so I will think that okay when I preach today you know God's power has to be demonstrated people must know God better through the word through the power they might forget my name they might forget my jokes okay if at all there are any jokes that is so they might forget and are a wonderful way of presenting what we did but we leave behind the king we make sure the king is glorified okay and that is kingdom building but on the flip side if you know to the question why why am I doing this if it's more about I want to preach well or you know I must this must be my best sermon or something you know for for the style in which I'm preaching if we can have all kinds of answers to that why question but when we know that Christ is the king I'm co-working with him in building the kingdom the people are the building okay and I'm here to build people up and and I want to do it for the right reasons which is to glorify God it's not about you know a kingdom builder it's about the king God must be glorified the king must be glorified the kingdom must be extended so these are some of the foundations and as we are learning this right it it will be very helpful as we step out and serve in any capacity because we can answer these why questions okay and we will have the right heart for ministry why we are doing what we are doing okay so I think I will build on this in the next class but just something to start off our subject here on the kingdom builders so let's always remember that it's about exalting the king and it's about glorifying the king so any any thoughts on what we have just discussed before we wrap up today okay okay all right I don't think so okay fine fine fine yeah these are the basics and I think it's quite easy to to understand and we could just meditate on these things and also pray these things through and say lord help me to recognize you as king help me to serve you well to be a kingdom builder for the sake of glorifying the king right so I think this can become prayers for us okay so let's close today's class and I would like to request someone to please pray and close it out please can I pray yes yes Charles please go ahead father god we thank you so much for this wonderful morning thank you for the thoughts that we have received about the kingdom of god and the kingdom building Lord we are now told that we are for builders we are co-workers we again the building our it's a complex thing but you who is more complex we pray that you will teach us on how to understand the complexity of the whole matter and that will be able to apply all the things that we've learned and Lord that will be able to be used to build you in the kingdom building thank you for past and our lecturer thank you for all that we're able to call in and we pray that you will continue to guide us as we read and commit our times to studying the word and be able to be equipped rightly dividing the world of truth thank you we love you in Jesus name of friend believe amen amen amen thank you thank you Charles for the prayer and yeah so we are done for today god bless yes thank you everyone bye for now and we will get back next class please use the kingdom builders notes okay so from next class we will refer to kingdom builders apc publication all right thank you thank you everyone god bless thank you take care bye