The Book of Daniel: A Temporary Kingdom vs. an Eternal Kingdom

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Daniel 2 (read for us in Portuguese) about the king’s dream and Daniel’s response. Discussion points: Worldly kingdoms are fragile and temporary, this world is only our temporary home, we should invest in the kingdom of God rather than in worldly kingdoms that are temporary.

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  Preacher: All right, good morning. My name is Fletcher. It's a joy to be with you this morning. You know, when you were a kid and you would be given a deck of cards, but you don't know how to play cards. So you just start building card houses, you know, and, and you just put the two cards together and if you are lucky enough to get those two to stay, you might put two more next to that. And then you, you know, the, the crowning jewel would be to put one across the span of the two TP houses that you just made and then you put, you keep going, you, you just build a house. But then inevitably if you have a sibling, they just breathe in your direction and the whole thing falls apart. Or maybe you have a younger sibling and they just like, kind of run down the hallway and the house shakes. Just a little.

  Anybody know, you know what I'm talking about. You know, your ho anybody feel like your life is just kind of like that house where, where you just barely holding it together like you, it's like if I just barely tipped to this one this way, the whole thing would fall over. Yeah. Life, life kind of feels like that sometimes, doesn't it? Like we can barely balance it all, we can barely hold it all together. What if I told you though? That that's not necessarily a bad thing and that's probably how your life should feel. In fact, that's how our lives feel in general. All of us. You're not alone. That should give you a little bit of solace to know that you're not alone.

  And normally it would be a lot more encouraging for a pastor to be like, you know, it's not really like that, you know, like your house is gonna, your, your life is gonna be fun. But what, what if it really was kind of like a house of cards that could fall over at any moment? That feels more true, does it not.

  Daniel 2 tells us that that is true. And in fact, Daniel 2 tells us this is a common passage and it was planned this way that we would preach this on the week of the election because no matter which way this election went, this is gonna be a message that we all need to hear. We have people on both sides of the political spectrum in our church. There's people who are happy about the results. Somerville in general, 90% of Somerville voted for Harris. So I suspect that there's many people that are not happy about the results of the election as well.

  And what Daniel chapter two does is it teaches us that our lives are fragile, our kingdoms are fragile but that God reigns eternal. Amen. It's a good truth for us to have this morning D Daniel chapter two just in some, OK. We only read a small, a small portion of the, the book when we read through it just now. We just read Daniel's praise to God. We'll get to that in a few minutes. But it basically tells the story of a tyrannical leader named Nebuchadnezzar who wakes up one morning on the wrong side of the bed. He has a dream and he wants to understand what it means. In fact, he goes so extreme with this interpretation of the dream that he falls into. He succumbs to a murderous rage and threatens to kill, not just his own supervisors, his own advisor, but he threatens to kill all the wise people in the entire land. All those who claim they might be able to give meaning to dreams. He threatens to kill.

  And it's at that moment when Young Daniel, I mean, this dude's, he's probably just a teenager. Honestly, he has to step in and stand firm on behalf of the people of God and on behalf of all of those who might be killed by this crazy leader that they have of a global power, probably the strongest nation in the world at this time. It's an apt message for us today. So without any further ado, let's just jump into it. Ok? So if you have your bibles, you can turn, we'll also be putting the, the passages on the screen for you as we go through.

  Verse number one, we're just gonna work our way through the passage. We might not read every single verse. It's a long chapter, but we'll, we'll get through most of it. And verse one in the second year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. Now, remember from last week, if you were here last week, a lot of things were building. This is a story that builds throughout the week. So it will help you to, to hear week after week. But last week, we learned that when it gives you like in the second year and whatever year of a Pacific king that's basically telling you the historical date in which this event occurred. So because of what we read here, we know that this happened two or three years since Daniel and his friends were removed from the land and they were put into the ba the Babylon Leadership Development School for boys who look good.

  And remember Daniel, he was like a a well looking guy, Nebuchadnezzar said, hey, go get the, the good looking nobility guys and bring them to me. He's like looking for a guy who's you, I'm looking for a man like Daniel youthful without blemish 65 blue eyes. Nebuchadnezzar had dreams though. Verse one, he had dreams, his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Anybody ever had a night of sleep like that, you just have dreams and your sleep. It's I love the way I put it. It says his spirit was trouble and his sleep left him. Well, where did it go? Well, how can I get it to come back? I don't want my sleep to leave me. I love sleep. I mean, I, I feel like this is just a recurring theme in sermons. Just how much I love sleep. When you have three kids, you just are reminded of how much you love sleep. Verse two, the I have nothing else to say about that other than that no spiritual meaning to that. I just love it. I thought I'd let you guys know.

  Verse two, then the king commanded the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king and the king said to them, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans said to the king and Aramaic o king live forever. Tell your servants the dream and we will show you the interpretation.

  All right, a couple of things to note here first, the language switches to Aramaic, right? When it says the word Chaldeans verse four, then the Chaldeans and then it says, it said to the king and Aramaic, everything after that in this book. And through chapter seven is in Aramaic, that's a big shift. You would never know it if you're reading in English. But from here forward, we have Aramaic. Half of Daniel is written in Aramaic and then it switches back to Hebrew. That's bizarre. It ha it's hardly the only book of ancient times. This is a, a artistic choice that the author of Daniel made. There's other books written in ancient world that's half one language and half another. And Aramaic is this cousin language that we have to Hebrews. So a lot of people who spoke Aramaic could also speak Hebrew.

  In fact, Jesus himself, his primary language was Aramaic. That might be surprising to you. But Jesus walked around, most of his teaching was in Arabic it was the, the lingua franca of the day. It was the primary language that people spoke in this time. And so it's swapping back to Arama and it's like one of those things where it's why, why is it doing this? And there's a lot of different reasons. No one really knows why Daniel is switching to Aramaic. But one thing that we do know is that it's a choice that he made. So one thing that we can think about is maybe this is just an artistic choice. Ok.

  Like this summer, my wife and I, or maybe it was last summer whenever Oppenheimer came through Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer, whichever one when it came to the theater, we like went to the Jordan's theater and got the, the good IMAX experience of Oppenheimer. And in that movie, there's saying, I'm not gonna give away anything, although it's a historical movie. So it's all given away on Wikipedia. But the, there's scenes in the movie that you're watching, you're like this one's in black and white and the other ones are in color and you're just spending the whole movie. Like why is this part in black and white? I don't really understand and it's trying to communicate to you with the shift of the color tone that something different is happening.

  Maybe that's what Daniel's doing. Maybe he's saying, look, chapters two through 71 coherent thing. They go together and then you have the, the, the prologue and then the post log after that, maybe that's kind of what's happening also because Aramaic was a more popularly spoken language. Maybe the book of Daniel is meant to be written for people who are outside, not just inside of the people of God. Maybe it's written in a more accessible language so that more people can read Daniel and understand it. We don't know exactly why, but there's a few, a few things and I just felt like it was worth noting to you all, even if I didn't have an exact reason, like, hey major language change here also. Ok.

  So Nebuchadnezzar calls his servants over. I love how he says it. He says, so they came in and stood before the king and the king said to them, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. OK? Hold that in your mind for just a minute. His sir, the Chaldeans, they respond to him. O King live forever. Huh? If you've read the story before, it's supposed to be funny. It's a funny remark because that's exactly what the dream does not mean. The dream means, the king is not going to live forever. That's like the meaning of the dream. And so when he calls in his yes men to come and tell him the meaning of the dream. The first thing they say is the exact opposite of what the dream means. Oh, King live forever. No, no, that's actually not it, but they say sure we can interpret the dream. Just tell us the dream. We'd love to know the dream, we can do that.

  And the king answered the, the Chaldeans and said to the Chaldeans and he said the word from me is firm. If you do not make known to me, the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb and your houses shall be laid in ruins. oh, the king is grumpy kingy weeny didn't get enough sleepy. This is not a good situation. They want, he wants them to tell him not just the meaning of the dream, but the dream itself. Now why? Maybe he forgot the dream that happens. Sometimes your sleep leaves you and you're like, I was having a dream. I think it means something. I don't remember what the dream was.

  Maybe he remembers the dream and he knows that these advisers that he's brought in are yes men. There are people that just want to tell the king what the king wants to hear. Maybe the king doesn't want to hear just what they he thinks. They think he wants to hear. Maybe the king wants to hear what the dream actually means. So he said, if you have an actual interpretation of the dream from a God or the gods or whoever God is. Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar's mind, if you have an actual interpretation, then you could tell me not just the meaning of the dream, you could tell me the dream itself because if you're hearing from God, why couldn't God tell you the dream too? And so maybe he's just putting them to the test, whatever his rationale is, the penalty is dismemberment like that is not good.

  The wise man to the king responded, bro, they answered the king and said, this is not, there is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand for no great and powerful king has a asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult and no one can show it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh. Mr King. This is an impossible task. Only a true person from God or the gods themselves could tell you the answer to what you're looking for.

  Well, the king didn't like that response and it made him more angry. And because of this, the king was so angry and furious verse 12 and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon, not just those standing before him who failed, but all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed, of which Daniel is included and his friends that we know most commonly by their Babylonian name, Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego. Well, that's not good either. So Daniel goes to this guy, he gets word that of what's happening. So he goes to this guy, his name is Arioch. And it says in the ESV that he's the captain of the King's guard. But in many translations, it says that he's the captain of the executioners.

  So Daniel knows he's about to get killed because they can't translate the, they can't interpret or tell the king his dream. So he goes to the chief of the executioners or the captain of the king's guard and he says, give me a shot. I want a shot. Why are you gonna put me to death? I haven't even had it. My try. So give me a shot. And the captain of the king's guard is like, really, you wanna do this? And Daniel said, yes, I have a God who can tell me the king's dream and its interpretation.

  That's faith. Look at Daniel stepping up. He hasn't received the interpretation of the dream. He hasn't received the dream. He's just like, well, this is my chance. This is my only shot. Give me a chance, give me a chance. Give my God a chance. He is real. And so Daniel has the faith that God will reveal this dream. So he goes home and he tells Hananiah, Meshael and Azariah, AKA Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego about the situation and they start praying.

  That's the first thing they do. They turn to prayer, they turn to prayer and they, they seek mercy from God begging God to give them insight into the King's dream and begging God to, to help them to be able to interpret it. And so Daniel then receives the insight and he responds to God in poetic form. So God delivers them. God gives them the dream. He tells them the meaning of it. And Daniel receives all of this in a vision or something and he responds to God.

  It's written in poetic format. It's what we read earlier. But anytime you're reading through your Bible, well, if you're, if you have your Bible open, you'll see that there's just this big chunk of narrative. And then you get to this section right here and it's written as prose. It's, it's poetry here. And when you have something written like that in your Bible, it's meant to be read more slowly. OK? When you see that, just slow down, read it twice, maybe three times. OK? This, you can read once because it's the story. You get to this slow down a little bit. Let's just think about that one. You're supposed to ponder it a little bit, maybe have a cup of tea. How look out the window for a second in between readings, something like that.

  So we're just gonna read it again. I think it's helpful. Verse 19. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven and Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him. To you, O God of my fathers I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might and have now made known to me what we asked of you. For you have made known to us the king's matter.

  I just want you to see one. It has so much truth in, in the little poem. It's, it's a fantastic little piece of poetry that Daniel wrote. But I also want you to see that Daniel lacks anxiety in these dealings. He knew that God would reveal the dream. That's why he went to the captain of the king's guard. And then after he received the meaning of the dream, the vision, he doesn't run in anxiety to tell the king. He pauses and he gives thanks to God. He recognizes that all good things come from God, that this vision has come from God and that God deserves his praise, so many great things here.

  After this, Daniel does go to meet with the king and verse 26, 26 it says the king declared to Daniel whose name was Belteshazzar. That's his Babylonian name. Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation? I just want you to see the power dynamics that are going on here. The Daniel, the, the king is probably on his throne, the leader of the, the most globally powerful nation in the world at this time. And he's speaking to little Israelite, Daniel who's come up through his development program, but who he probably doesn't have a close relationship with.

  And Daniel answered the king and said, no wise men, enchanters, magicians or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. And he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar, what will be in the latter day. Nebuchadnezzar likes to think of himself as a God. All the ancient kings did, but Daniel is witnessing to Nebuchadnezzar. He's speaking truth to power in this moment. And he's telling Nebuchadnezzar there is a real God and he can give you the meaning of this dream.

  And here's the dream. I'm just going to describe it. I'm not going to read it. Ok. So the dream is Nebuchadnezzar was watching and he saw a, a giant statue, a huge statue before him. And the statue was made in his own likeness. It was a, it was an image or a statue that's actually the same word in Aramaic image and statue. And it was huge, bright and actually unnerving. Have you ever seen something that's like so large it's like unnerving to you. When you see this up close, the head of the statue was made of gold. The torso of the statue was made of silver. The the mid part of the statue was made of bronze and the feet were made of iron and clay. They were half iron, half clay.

  So there's this huge statue made of four different materials that kind of decrease in value as they go down. And then what he sees is the stone fly in and strike the feet of the statue. And the whole thing comes toppling down. And in fact, in the dream, not only does the statue come toppling down, but it turns into chaff, it's like dust, it becomes nothing. And then the stone that flies in from heaven or wherever hits the ground, it starts small and it grows into a huge mountain and then it's over, that's the dream. It's unnerving and I can see why his sleep left him.

  And so Daniel explains what the dream means to King Nebuchadnezzar. And he says, king, the head, the gold head, it represents you and your kingdom, this Babylonian empire that you've created, that is who you are. The glorious part. And each level below that represents a kingdom that would come. And so we know from history and we know from later in this book, how, how it's described that there are four kingdoms that come after Nebuchadnezzar and the first kingdom of Silver is represented, that's representative of the Meadow Persian Empire.

  The next kingdom is the, the Greek empire and the next kingdom is the Roman Empire. And so as it goes down, it's representing these four different empires throughout the history of the world. And what is teaching that is that in the days of the, of the empire represented? I don't know if Daniel had these exact words, but this is what we, we gather from the book of Daniel in the days when that's represented by the iron and the clay, there will come a stone to topple them all and that God will set up a new kingdom that shall never be destroyed, it will break into pieces all other kingdoms and it will grow to fill the entire world is what it says, that the mountain filled the entire world.

  That's the interpretation. That is what Daniel told him that all kingdoms are going to be toppled and that the kingdom of God is going to come and fill the earth. So how did Nebuchadnezzar receive this? If I was in Nebuchadnezzar's shoes, I would be like, well, that doesn't sound good for me, but instead Nebuchadnezzar, he hears it and he, it's like he stops listening whenever Daniel says, you're the head made of gold and he's like awesome. That's great. It's like he doesn't even care about anything after that. And you know, he stops listening because what he actually does, this is wild. I never saw this until this week. He receives this horrible dream about the statue. Look at the first verse of chapter three, we split it up.

  But then the first verse chapter three, King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth six cubits. He just went and made the statue. He did not listen, did not care. He completely missed the point. He said, I'm the good part, everything else, I'm leaving to someone else, but the king does reward Daniel and his friends. He gives them many gifts and positions of influence in his government. And so that's where we're going to pick up the story next week.

  What do we do with all this? How do we apply it? How do we work it into our lives? I think that there's a, a few different ways you can do that as we think about what is the point here. Some people might say so, work to a position of influence so that you can speak truth to power when the time comes. And well, that's not a bad thing. And you see that example happen in the Bible often. I don't think that that's the point. I think that the point is this earthly kingdoms, they come and they go, but the Kingdom of God rains forever earthly kingdoms, they come and they go. But the Kingdom of God remains, I have two points to apply things. OK? As I as I apply all this, all this story in chapter two to your life.

  The first point is this: worldly kingdoms are fragile and temporary. Worldly kingdoms are fragile and temporary. This is at the heart of this passage. No matter how strong and how glorious worldly kingdoms are, they will all fall, every worldly kingdom will fall. That's the point of the dream. That's the point. Look at the history of the world, even no kingdom reigns forever. Look at a map of the world from 100 years ago. There's gonna be nations on that map that do not exist today. They are going to be borders that are different. The world changes. Kingdoms, they come and they go, our nation is fragile.

  I grew up thinking and you know, part of me still thinks this at times, you know, America is the greatest nation in the world in the history of the world. Any American grew up thinking that that is what you think as an American. Ok? If you're from another country, I'm sorry. The the stereotypes are true. That is what we think. Ok, America does Americans do feel like America is the best that's just baked into the cultural ethos. But America is temporary and fragile. We even say it in our pledge of allegiance. We have a pledge of allegiance to the flag, other, other people from other countries think this is crazy Children in our nation stand and put their heart, hand over their heart and look at a flag and recite a declaration to it every single morning. They still do this in schools, so I learned.

  And they say one nation under God indivisible. And what, what are we trying to say? We're basically saying that America cannot fall. But the truth is we are divisible. We've been divided. It wasn't that long ago. We had a civil war in this nation. Our country will not last forever. You might as well just graft in the Statue of Liberty into Nebuchadnezzar stream. It will also fall. And I know that's like not a, not a very uplifting thing, but it's something we need to remember that the kingdoms of this world do fall but not only are nations fragile and temporary, the small kingdoms that we build around ourselves are temporary and fragile.

  You might not be a powerful person in government, but there is somewhere that you feel power, whether that be only within your own home or you reign as tyrant or whether it's at work or school. Maybe you just have a video game where you feel very powerful. Maybe you're an online troll. God help us. The kingdoms that we build around ourselves are fragile and temporary.

  I'm going to use a case study here of a man named Ronnie Coleman. Does anybody know Ronnie Coleman? Yeah, Ronnie Coleman, the greatest bodybuilder of all time. This man could squat and dead lift 800 pounds. He was massive. Oh, just, and he was unstoppable. He made Arnold Schwarzenegger look puny. I mean, Ronnie Coleman is where the action was at. This dude was jacked. And for eight years he won Mr Olympia eight years in a row, he won best physique in the world. I mean, this, he had muscles on muscles, ok? He, he made the rock look little. It was just, oh, this guy was huge. He's the goat. Look up what he's doing now though. He's 60 years old. That's not that old. Ok. He can't walk, he's in a wheelchair, he can't lift weights the way he did. He could just do a little bit of upper body stuff.

  No matter how powerful you are at the moment. It is temporary and fragile. All earthly kingdoms are. But that's good news to us because when we realize that earthly kingdoms are temporary and fragile, it makes it easier for us to resist the temptation to invest in the things of this world. It makes it easier.

  When Megan and I first moved to Boston, we moved to Boston, 12 years ago, over 12 years ago now, 12.5 years ago. and when we first moved here we did what almost everyone does and we moved into an apartment on Com Ave, for a short amount of time. Ok. Many of us, I'm sure know people that have lived on Com Ave. So we were on Com Ave and we were living right at the end near B see, and we found this delightful little apartment, it had a pool for the apartment complex. It was a one bedroom. It was perfect for us before we had kids and we had our little dog and, and we moved in and, you know, there were some frustrations about it. Like BC students would puke out in the little grass in front of our, our house and our dog would roll in that puke and we'd have to wash her all the time and, but it was really a nice apartment.

  We liked it so much that when we got it, we went and we said, hey, let's make it feel home like and we painted every surface in that apartment. Oh my gosh. I don't think I've, you can ask me to help you with your house, but I don't paint. Ok. That's just, I don't do it anymore. That house broke me. And we painted every single surface. We painted all the walls, we painted the trim. I swear we were painting the ceiling in this place. And we, we wanted to stay there for a little while, but then come to find out our landlord had made a mistake and he came to us and he said, look, I made a mistake. I thought you could have a dog in this condo. But the condo association has informed me that you cannot have a dog in here and that you actually need to move because of your dog or get rid of the dog. And trust me, I was thinking about getting rid of the dog after all of that paint. That was a better option to me, but we moved out and we still have the dog. She's a geriatric Westie. Here's a picture. She's still getting into trouble rolling in things that she shouldn't be, but that is, that is her.

  And I tell you that story because I just wanna ask you this question if you're renting, if you're renting, do you invest in the apartment that you're renting in? Like sure you might throw, you might throw some, some paint on the walls, but you're not gonna rip out the cabinets and put a new counter in. OK? That's, that's something that you only do if you own the place. If that's your permanent home, when you have somewhere that you know, is your temporary home, you do not invest significantly into it and this world is not your permanent home, it is a temporary place. And so we, we should temper how much we invest into it.

  Now, I know some of you are thinking you might be drawing conclusions. OK? I am saying that invest in the things of God. Don't invest in this world. Some of you though have used this to neglect being involved in a church or to making true community or becoming a member in a church and I just wanna give you the encouragement that, that's not what I'm saying. Ok. So don't use it in that way if you think, if you want to think about it that way. that, that's, that's not what I'm trying to say at all. Really, you don't know how long you're going to be in Boston. No one does.

  When, when my wife and I met, it was only because she was planning on going to college. But she had started attending this local church and she ran into the pastor one day and the pastor was like, hey, you should think about being a member. She's like, oh, I'm about to move to college and he's like, well, you know, go ahead and become a member. You really don't know what's gonna happen. You, we, you can come back or you can join another church when you go there. But you know, this way you at least you have a church home and she did, she became a member of the church and then the God God just changed all her plan. She ended up going to college at a different school. Everything changed. And she already had a church where she was a member and that's where we met was at that church.

  And I'm just saying, you don't know how long God has you here. You, you should invest while you can be completely where you are, and when you invest in the church, you're investing in the Kingdom of God, which is always worth it. And so I'm just saying, don't, don't use it as an excuse to get out of investing in relationships, the temporary nature because aren't all of our relationships temporary when you think of on a grander scale.

  Friends, do you feel like you're barely holding it together? Like the life that you've built is really just a house of cards waiting for a firm wind to blow. And I'm here to tell you the good news that that is true that it is fragile and temporary. The Kingdom of God comes to shatter our kingdoms and that's good news.

  The second point. And really, I'm gonna conclude with this is the Kingdom of God is powerful. The Kingdom of God is eternal and the Kingdom of God is subversive. How does Daniel describe the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is this stone that comes from somewhere? We recognize it as heaven itself and it comes and it shatters the kingdoms of this world and it hits the ground. It starts so small and it becomes a huge mountain that fills the entire world. And we understand this translation to being that it hits that we interpret it, it hits the feet, which is the Roman Empire itself and it fills the whole world.

  What's he talking about? Well, if you grow up in church or if you're a Christian. It should be rather obvious of the cornerstone sent from heaven. Jesus Christ as a young child come to bring the kernel of the kingdom of God that though it's the smallest seed, when it's planted as the mustard seed, it becomes the largest tree in all of the garden. Jesus is described in the New Testament as the cornerstone. He is the king of kings sent from heaven to topple the kingdoms of this world. And he established a kingdom that is powerful and eternal, but it is subversive. It is not what you expect because the way that it topples the kingdoms of this world isn't through might and power but is through subversive, denial of self and love of neighbor.

  Daniel says it like this. 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 of kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all the kingdoms and bring them to an end and it shall stand forever. But this subversive kingdom isn't what we think. Listen to a few of Jesus' teachings. He says, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. He said, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. He teaches that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

  He says, that if you want to become great, you must become the servant of all the true love. He said none other than this that a, that a man lay down his life for his friends. That if you really wanna follow the kingdom of heaven, that you don't just have to love your friends, but you have to love your enemies turning the cheek. When others revile you, you see the Kingdom of God is not like an earthly kingdom. It infiltrates all of the earthly kingdoms. It is subversive and we are to be a counter kingdom in the world that we live in a kingdom of love of compassion. But that kingdom is powerful and eternal and it will never be toppled. A kingdom of humility and love.

  Friends, if you're not a believer here this morning, if you're not a part of that kingdom, I invite you to join us. It's a powerful place to be that will never be toppled, that will last eternally. The invitation is open for you to put down your personal kingdom and to follow the king of kings. But if you are a believer, I just want to give you next steps and, and they're so simple. I'm just gonna quote from Jesus and I'm gonna let you draw the conclusions. OK? Two Jesus quotes. And that's all I've got this morning.

  Matthew six chapter 19. Do not lay for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is your heart will be. Also Matthew chapter five verse 14, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

  Friends invest in the kingdom, shine the light of Christ, invest in the kingdom. Shine the light of Christ. That's the message in this moment. We're going to have an opportunity to respond. If you'd like someone to pray with you, I know it's a heavy week for many of us. You, you're allowed to feel that. Look, I I'm up here saying that like I'm not up here saying, hey, the world's not ending. I'm up here saying the world's gonna end, ok, like all of our kingdoms are, are going to end and that's heavy for, for many of us.

  So if you'd like someone to pray with you this morning, we invite you to, to receive prayer, we'll have some prayer counselors in the back that would love to pray with you. But if you would like to receive this meal. We do a sacred meal each week, which is a communion meal that on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus initiated this meal and he took a loaf of bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body broken for you. And he took a, he took the cup and he said, this is my bloodshed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so when we take of the bread and the, the, the wine or the juice, we're reminded that Christ had to die so that we could be made one with God.

  He died on behalf of our sins so that we could be brought into relationship with them and join the kingdom of God. But it's actually where he was enthroned as king. You know, he was put on the cross crown of thorns cape, they nailed above him in three different languages, not just two, they nailed above him, king of the Jews. And it was in that moment of weakness that he was made king of kings. And here we're saying I want to be like him and follow him and I'm going to die to myself, to live for him. And so if that is true of you this morning, you're reminded of the grace of God, you can come and participate with this communion meal. It's not because of anything you've done, but it's because of what he has done. Would you stand as we prepare our hearts to respond and to, to follow after Chris this morning.

  Father, as we come to this table, we, we thank you for providing the way for us. And God, we pray that you would help us to delight in you as our king to follow after you and to be a kingdom representative shining the light into our world. Father, I pray for those who are anxious. Would you help them to see that the Kingdom of God lasts forever? And how God would you comfort them in their pain? And would you, would you help them to connect with you? And God, we pray for, for those who, who feel on top of the world today, God, we, we pray that they would see also that they need you and that we all do. And so God as we receive this meal, would you just remind us what Christ has done for us, fill our hearts with love and affection for Him and help us to shine as his light and invest into His kingdom. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.