Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
From Shattered to Shalom: How God’s Kingdom Blesses Nations | Dwight Vogt
Episode Summary: The Kingdom of God is the story of God’s rule returning to the earth through Christ. It’s about all of life—spiritual, relational, and physical—being restored to the way God originally designed it. And we’re invited to be part of that story.
Through the power of the Spirit, we live as agents of renewal, bringing shalom and reconciliation into every corner of our lives and our world. This is what it means to be the people of the Kingdom. And this is what it looks like for nations to truly flourish.
In this episode, you’ll hear Dwight Vogt’s training from the 2022 DNA Global Forum as he unpacked the Bible’s big story: the Kingdom of God. Explores how the gospel of the Kingdom touches every part of life. He challenges narrow, privatized views of the gospel and invites us to recover a broader, richer understanding of God’s redemptive mission.
Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/
🎙️Featured Guest: Dwight Vogt is the former Vice President at the Disciple Nations Alliance. Prior to his work with the DNA, he spent 27 years with Food for the Hungry, serving in field-based leadership roles in Bangladesh, Peru, Thailand, and Guatemala. Throughout his career, Dwight has been passionate about equipping the global church to live out a biblical worldview and bring holistic transformation to communities and nations.
📌 Recommended Links
👉 Kingdomizer 101 Course from DNA: Truth and Transformation
👉 Video: The Transforming Story
👉 Presentations from DNA’s 2022 Global Forum
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Hi friends, welcome, or welcome back to Ideas have Consequences. My name is Luke Allen, I'm the producer of this podcast and, as many of you guys know, this is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, which is a global discipleship training ministry that has been able to reach people from over a hundred nations worldwide over the last nearly 30 years and, as such, our real focus here is on discipleship training. So from time to time we like to share one of those trainings with you guys here on the podcast. So for today's episode, we will be sharing a talk from the one and only Dwight Vogt, author, speaker and co-host of this podcast. This talk is from our last DNA Global Forum three years ago in Ethiopia. The theme of that forum was foundational principles for flourishing nations. This talk is the first session from that forum and it's on a topic that I would say is probably one of Dwight's areas of expertise and something that we can all learn from.
Luke Allen:And one last point before we get rolling today, if you are a regular listener to this podcast, ideas have Consequences, we are so thankful for your time and attention and I just wanted to let you guys know a little behind the scenes.
Luke Allen:I just actually wrapped up scheduling all of our interviews and guests for the remainder of this summer and fall and, as such, I'm really excited for the upcoming conversations and topics that we're going to be covering here on the show. So I just wanted to give that as a little bit of a tease for you guys to stay tuned here on the podcast. Ideas have consequences. And also, I guess, one final last point before we get started today. Dwight would probably appreciate it if I mentioned that he did give this talk right after an 18 hour flight over to Ethiopia, and he told me after the talk that he was actually exhausted during it. However, if he hadn't told me that, I probably wouldn't have guessed it, because I actually thought this was one of my favorite talks that I've ever heard him give, and I think that each one of you guys will agree with me as well after listening to it. So, without further ado, dwight vote.
Dwight Vogt:I've been assigned the first principle. It says this God works in history to fulfill his redemptive purpose, to redeem people and bless the nations. He grants us the privilege of participating in carrying out his purposes in the world. And then Scott read for us the verse that we often go to for this principle, which is in Genesis 12, two to three, where he says to Abram I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Dwight Vogt:Oftentimes we'll turn next to Colossians 1.20, and we're very familiar with this. It's a very favorite DNA verse, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and we're very familiar with this. It's a very favorite DNA verse, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and, through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. When you think about God's blessing to Abraham coming through his lineage, jesus Christ, we know that Christ came to reconcile us, and we're very familiar with the idea of him reconciling us to God. Colossians 1.20 takes that amazing truth and expands it and says yeah, I'm gonna reconcile you to God, I'm gonna make you right with the Father in spite of your sin. I'm gonna cover that. But then I'm gonna reconcile all things, heaven and earth. And then he gives us the ministry 2 Corinthians, 5, 17,. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting man's sins against him, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation, the work of reconciliation. So we look at all aspects of life and we're involved in proclaiming God's message of reconciliation for all things.
Dwight Vogt:The fallen world principle is different. This is probably more of materialism and atheism than anything else. But I'll just give some very brief ideas because I think throughout the week others will touch more deeply on each one of these. One would be there is no real overarching purpose in history. There is no true or transcendent purpose for human life. Most of the people groups we work with this would be the case, I think of my country. Materialism and atheism has reigned there for many years now and I think sometimes, if there's no overarching purpose, we're just going to survive, eat, drink and be happy and make the best of the day, make up your own purpose, at best control your own destiny.
Dwight Vogt:And the results are twofold. One is you're either fatalistic, which we have a growing population in my country of fatalistic people. The streets are full of homeless and drug addicted and actually apathy in our younger generation, just the idea of hopelessness and fatalism. And the flip side of that is arrogance. We saw this in COVID. It's like we can do anything we want. We can solve this disease, we can control you, we can control life, and science is the answer. And we know that arrogance really is coupled with folly. Arrogance is not wisdom is coupled with folly. Arrogance is not wisdom.
Dwight Vogt:I'm not an expert on pantheism or Hinduism or New Age spiritualism, but I know that there's a sense that we're one with the universe. That's the main concept in terms of the purpose of history. We're reincarnation, but to what? Will we be higher, will we be lower? Will we be a tree? Will we be a woman, Will we be a man? And then there's a Christian side of this, which and I wrote this just as getting in touch with the universe and your own goodness. I recently read Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. He's a Catholic priest and he's talking about how, basically, god's goodness is in us and it's our job to find that goodness and to reveal the Christ in us. And never one speaks of the cross, never one speaks of the fall. It's this idea that we're one with the universe, we're one with goodness, we're one with God. We just need to go deep within ourselves and we can find truth.
Dwight Vogt:And again, the answer is either you find out, you can't. There's a sense of fatalism or arrogance. Yes, I can Last one, animism, folk, traditional religion. But here we have our fate, our destiny, and spirits play the dominant role in all of nature and life. The best we can do is live in harmony with the spirit world, appease the spirits. There's actually a Christian side of this too. We were talking about the sacred-secular divide and there's a sense that in the prosperity gospel, if I can control God, if I can pray the right way, if I can say the right words, I can get God to do what I want him to do. And it's almost a form of animism. And again, in animism, unless you know you can control things. It's fatalistic. And the other opposite would be arrogance. So what do we do if God's working in history to fulfill his redemptive purpose and we have the privilege of participating? We share Christ's message of reconciliation with the world and, by God's grace, we participate in that reconciliation, we express it, we live it out, we demonstrate it, we experience it. I refer to this principle as overarching because I think it's fundamental really to the reason we're here this week, to talk about our role in being ministers of reconciliation and sharing that message. But I'd like to take us up a little higher than that.
Dwight Vogt:My wife and I had the privilege of teaching foster boys for about five years. This was probably three or four years ago. We finally stopped. Foster boys in the US are age 7 to 17, and they were homeless. I mean, their parents were either in jail or on the street, or maybe a parent had died. Anyway, they were wards of the state. They were put into a group home and we had the privilege of going in for an hour every week and try to teach them the Bible. They had an attention span of about five minutes and here I was trying to teach biblical worldview from the DNA and the sacred-secular divide to kids that didn't know the Bible existed really.
Dwight Vogt:Anyway, what I would do oftentimes let's say I was teaching on Sermon on the Mount, a story out of Jesus in Galilee, or teaching in Galilee, and I would take Google Earth on my laptop and I would zoom in and I would take it down to the house. I don't know if you can do this in Africa, but in the United States we have. You know, they've got maps and you can look at the house and they'd see their house and they'd see the van parked in the driveway and the backyard and the dog back there, whatever. And then I'd zoom up, because many of these kids had never been out of Phoenix, much less Arizona. So I'd zoom out and they'd see Phoenix and I'd say here we are in Phoenix, and then out and you'd see the state of Arizona, out, roll around the world, go over the Mediterranean, drop down over Israel and then start going down into Israel. Finally, I found the Sea of Galilee and then, right on the hill, we ended up on a hill, you know, outside of Capernaum or something like that I go, this is where the story is, and we give them a context. Oh, this is how I fit in, this is where it is in the world, and we have the same.
Dwight Vogt:I'd like to do the same thing, only by zooming out, by looking at the concept of the kingdom of God, and so I'd just like to unpack some principles for the kingdom of God, and actually there's four of them. I think the kingdom of God, really as an overarching concept, helps us make sense of the Old Testament, the New Testament. It helps us understand the roles of the triune God, father, son, holy Spirit. It helps us understand Jesus' life, his death, his resurrection, his sending of the Spirit. Helps us understand big words like sanctification, justification, consummation, as Daryl puts it. So I'd like to just look for the next few minutes at this idea of the kingdom of God.
Dwight Vogt:There's four points I'd like to highlight. One is that the kingdom of God is the gospel that Jesus preached. The second is that the kingdom of God is the story of God's rule coming to earth. It's the story of the Bible. Third one is the kingdom. What does the kingdom look like? It looks like God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. It looks like God's righteousness being done on earth. And the last point is that the kingdom is inseparable from the rule of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. We'll start with the first one.
Dwight Vogt:If you go to any evangelical church on a Sunday morning in the US, you'll hear the word gospel used multiple times. And that makes sense because it's central to our faith. It's central to the Christian message and what catches your attention if you're reading the Bible is that when Jesus preached the gospel, he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom. We don't usually think that, but here's some verses. Now, after John was put in prison, jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel of the kingdom of God. And saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. And he went throughout all Galilee teaching their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. Jesus speaking, the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John came. Since that time, the gospel of the kingdom has been preached and everyone is forcing his way into it. If you were at a global forum eight years ago, you would have heard Hein Van Wyk preach on that verse alone. It was powerful Jesus speaking again, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Dwight Vogt:When Jesus proclaimed the gospel, he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. This was his main message. Here it says when crowds learned it, they followed him and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God. Even after he rose again from the dead, he preached the gospel of the kingdom, and it's clear in Acts 1-3. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering, by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days. And what did he talk about? The kingdom of God. He taught his disciples to pray, and we're very familiar with this. Pray then like this our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, he said. You know he gave many things, many teachings to his disciples and his followers. He said one thing I want you to seek first, and that was the kingdom. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, he said it was at hand.
Dwight Vogt:From that time Jesus began to preach, saying repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it's a hand's length away, it's very near Matthew 12, 28,. He says but if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you, it's arrived among you, it's right here. This is interesting. When Nicodemus went to see Jesus, he said you know, you must be a teacher sent from God, because no one could do these amazing works that you do if you weren't a teacher from God. And it's like. It's like somebody comes to me and says how are you, dwight? And I go, or I ask for them how are you? And they say Dwight, you need to believe in Jesus. Because in Jesus' response to Nicodemus, he just cut through all the chaff and just went straight to this verse. Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born again, he cannot sing the kingdom of God. He told his followers proclaim the kingdom, leave the dead to bury their dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
Dwight Vogt:Out of the 40 parables that Jesus taught, 17 of them were about the kingdom. 18, sorry. So I think you get the point. Jesus proclaimed the gospel, and when he did so, it was the kingdom. The kingdom was Jesus' main theme. When your pastor on a Sunday morning is referring to the gospel, my well, I don't assume. I know that he's referring to the gospel of the cross, the gospel of the grace of Christ, and yet Jesus is speaking of the gospel of the kingdom. So then you ask well, are there two different gospels? Is there a gospel of grace that Paul talked about and a gospel of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed?
Dwight Vogt:Actually, there's one word and many of you know this, but we're going to unpack it a little bit and that's this Greek word euangelion. For all of you Greek scholars, it occurs 130 times in the New Testament as a noun or as a verb. It literally means good message. However, it's not just any message, but it's a town crier saying I have got some news for you that's gonna change your life. It's life altering. It's like the war has ended. That kind of news. You don't have cancer. That kind of news. It's life altering.
Dwight Vogt:But then we ask the question well, why are there two words in the English Bible? Now you probably I'm speaking to English Bible readers here I have no idea what your M Hart Bible says, even in Spanish. I don't know how they translate euangelion in Spanish, but in English you'll find it's gospel and it's good news. If you're reading a King James, it's pretty much all gospel. If you're reading a new translation, a modern, living translation, it's all good news. If you read ESV or NIV, it's like mixed. Sometimes it's gospel, sometimes it's good news.
Dwight Vogt:The question is, how did that happen? Well, here's how it happened. John Wycliffe, I think 1500s. Ken Ekstrom would know the exact day, I'm sure 1509 or 1522, I don't know something about earlier, okay, earlier than that. Anyway, he was the first. Wycliffe was the first to translate the Greek New Testament into the English language and at the time, old English good news was godspell and that word we don't say that anymore. It evolved to become good news, but the translators shortened the O to an A, because it sounded like God, I think, and kept the word godspell, which eventually became gospel.
Dwight Vogt:And I ask, well, why is that important? Well, for me, I give more weight to the word gospel than I give to the word good news. Good news could be the price of you know, petrol went down last week but the gospel, whoa, whoa. That's the message of Jesus, you know. And yet it's good news. It's life-altering good news. Why is this important.
Dwight Vogt:I think we can sometimes limit our understanding of the kingdom by referring to it as good news and the gospel of the cross as the gospel, when in Jesus' mind there were not two gospels, there was a set of a good news of the kingdom and there was a good news of the cross. Paul would unpack the good news of the cross and it's like Jesus knew that the good news of the cross was coming and he knew that it was critical to achieve the good news of the cross was coming and he knew that it was critical to achieve the good news of the kingdom. It's like there was going to be good news of an antibiotic, because with that antibiotic there would be the good news of healing. If you were alive in 1941 in America, you had good news on D-Day when you learned that the Allies had established a beach hold on Normandy, because you knew that good news on D-Day when you learned that the Allies had established a beach hold on Normandy, because you knew that good news was going to be good news of eventually probably winning the war, we had a sense if we could just get on the continent, the Allies could win. So one good news led to the next good news. They're both good news. So the life-altering good news, the gospel of the cross, makes possible the life-altering good news, gospel of the kingdom. My encouragement to you would be, when you're reading your Bible, if you see gospel, think good news. If you see good news, think gospel. If you give that more weight, they're interchangeable.
Dwight Vogt:The second one, the kingdom of God, is the story of God's rule coming to earth. It's the story of the Bible. It begins in Genesis 1 and ends in Revelation 22. You know the story. It began with God creating the heavens and the earth and every day he sat back and looked at his work he's the only one that really can examine his own work and said whoa, I did a good job, that is really good. He made the birds to fly and team and the fish to swarm. The birds swarm, the fish team Anyway, multiplication. And at the very end he created man. And he says what did he say? He said it's very good Because he looked at his creation and he, as Daryl says, he knew it was perfect but it wasn't complete and he knew the potential.
Dwight Vogt:He knew how well it worked. I am fascinated by finding out how biology works. These days, the scientists are taking understanding of cells and nanobiology to whole new levels. I was looking at a. I wish I had time I'd show you this video of a hummingbird and how it actually sucks nectar from a flower. It's actually got two tubes that go down and they're coils, and the coils grab the nectar and pull it back in and it happens in a 20th of a second and it's a beautiful little bird that's just flipping his wings and I'm like how did God do that? We haven't figured that out yet. Anyway, he made creation so perfect and he looked at it and said it's very good, it's going to flourish, it's going to be exactly the way I wanted it to.
Dwight Vogt:And he was in charge. We think of God's rule coming to the earth At that point in life. He was in charge. He reminded Job of this in Job 38. He said Job was going through suffering and had all these questions to God and finally God sat him down and said Brace yourself like a man, job, because I have some questions for you and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth? God was king, he was in charge. He set it up, he created it. If you make something, you own it, it's yours. You're in charge.
Dwight Vogt:What's interesting, if not amazing and you know the story and we're going to talk at length about it this week is that God created this amazing earth and then he put human beings in charge of week. He said God created this amazing earth and then he put human beings in charge of it. He said I am going to give you Adam and Eve responsible for this earth. You are the ones that are going to rule over it Psalms 8, 6,. We know that from Genesis 1, 27 and 28, but we also see it in Psalms 8, 6. You have given him dominion, rule, governorship over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. So here we're back to all things. He's going to reconcile all things, but in the beginning he put all things under his feet. Now, you and I, we can't even fathom that, because we can hardly control anything, you know I mean. Well, we can control some things, but not all things. And yet that was the way God set it up. His kingdom was that he was going to be king, but we were going to govern Darrell Miller calls. He said he made us vice regents, put us in charge. 2019.
Dwight Vogt:In the Panama, we had a global forum and Vishal Mangalwadi spoke on this verse. He said if you made a kingdom of priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth, the King James translates that you've made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. And then, if you move further on in Revelation, to the very last chapter, you see God sitting on the throne and there's people around him and they will need no light, of lamp or sun for the Lord, god will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. So you see this full circle. It started reigning in Genesis 1, and at the end we reign forever and ever and ever. I found this. I was doing, you know, definitions of the kingdom. There's a pastor in California. He's a pastor, an author, a writer. He actually wrote a book about the kingdom. He put this. He wrote he said the kingdom of God is God's reign through God's people in God's place.
Dwight Vogt:Very simple, but very clear, and I was taken back by the brevity of it and it's hard for us to see that, because we look at the world, we look at ourselves, we look at life through Genesis 3. And we know that Adam and Eve, through Genesis 3. And we know that Adam and Eve, you know, fell. They fell into sin, they followed Satan's deception. And now we know that from 1 John 5.19, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. So, basically, the kingship that we were going to hold, that we were given, is transferred to Satan and now we're under his dominion. We're captive to sin.
Dwight Vogt:But God didn't change his mind. It's not like he said wow, that didn't work. I made them rulers of all of my creation. I put them in charge of everything. They blew it. I need a new plan, got to come up with a new idea. He didn't do that. Instead, he went to Abraham, made him a promise, said I will lead you. And he chose a people of Israel and said you will be my people and I will be your God. I will lead you and bless you in a good path if you follow and obey me. And then he gave them the Torah, he gave them his commandments.
Dwight Vogt:I have a friend who's a theologian. He says if you ever read Leviticus it's like God's silverware drawer. And I don't read Leviticus that much because it's just a lot of silverware. But basically it's, you know, our silverware drawers. We put the knives here, we put the forks here, the spoons here dessert spoons on top someplace, and if you're a good husband, you don't mess with that, you keep them in their place, you don't mess them up. Basically, god was saying I'm going to teach you how to live reconciled. I'm going to teach you how to live in a way that you live in alignment with me, with yourself as a human being, in terms of your hygiene and your life, with one another and with the rest of creation. And so we see that unpacked throughout Leviticus God giving rules about how to live. But we also know that the people of Israel failed miserably. At their best they did some things, but at their worst it was a travesty. But the prophets never lost sight of God's promise and they said hey, somebody's coming who will put the world right. And we know that story.
Dwight Vogt:I took a class on the kingdom of God in college and I kept the book. It was written in 1953, and I read it about a year ago again, and I was impressed by one quote which the author said. It's John Bright. He says the Old and the New Testament thus stand together as the two acts of a single drama. The Bible is one book. Had we to give it a title, we might with justice call it the book of the coming kingdom of God. That is indeed, indeed its central theme.
Dwight Vogt:Everywhere In the New Testament, however, there is this difference the kingdom of God has become also the kingdom of Jesus, the Messiah, and the kingdom is actually at hand. So then we have to ask what does the kingdom look like? What is this thing? What is the kingdom? And I'm impressed by Bob Moffat because he takes everything and simplifies it very well, and he always goes back to this teaching on prayer to the disciples where he says if you want to know what the kingdom is, it's his will being done on earth as it is in heaven. And I like Matthew 6.33, where it also says Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, the righteousness. There is the word sedeke and it basically, if you look it up, it says righteousness is the act of being righteous. Well, thank you very much, but to dig deeper into righteousness, it's to be aligned. It's to be straight, it's to be correct. It's when a carpenter takes a plumb bob and hangs it by the wall to see if the wall is tilted or straight. Or now we use laser levels to see if the pictures are hung right. It's being aligned with God's intentions. At this point I was asking what does the kingdom of God actually look like?
Dwight Vogt:And I like what Abraham Kuyper did back in 1898 or whatever. He looked at the world and he said there's three parts of life that every religion speaks to, every philosophy speaks to. And these were them. One is what is ultimate reality? In this case I already put the answer down. In the Christian religion it's God.
Dwight Vogt:Who is man? We understand Imago Dei, the individual, who are others, who are mankind, and then what's our relationship to creation? He said that every philosophy, every religion answers questions about those three areas, and the answers you give give completely different looks of cultures and worlds. It creates discernible difference, and we know that because ideas have consequences, ideas bear fruit, and we know that because ideas have consequences, ideas bear fruit. In our case I was looking. Well, what is God's will for each of these areas. Imago Dei is in the middle, not because we're the center of the universe.
Dwight Vogt:I put it there in this diagram because God created us unique individuals. He knows our name, he knows the number of hairs on our heads. He will judge us individually and we are the ones that he is called to relate to himself, to others and to creation. So each one of us has a unique and individual responsibility before God. And try to get at this. So what's our relationship to God? We can say, well, it's to love God, it's to fear God. Fear is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It says in Proverbs trust in the Lord with all your heart, all your mind. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
Dwight Vogt:But for me, I think the word worship really captures it. The first three commands in the Ten Commandments are about have no other gods before me, don't make any other idols, don't take my name in vain. It's this idea that we lift God up. We are humble before God. He is the ruler. What does the kingdom look like? It looks like people who are humble before God, not because we humble ourselves, but because we know who God is. We can't create hummingbirds. We can't even begin to create hummingbirds In terms of ourself.
Dwight Vogt:I like the word steward. We're going to be called to account by God. Our names will be written in the Lamb's book of life and he will open that book and he'll look at each one of our lives and say what have you done with it? What did you do with your life? I put you here, I put you on this earth, what did you do? How did you live? And he calls us to steward. We think of the five talents us to steward. We think of the five talents In terms of our relationship to others. Ina will unpack this later in the week.
Dwight Vogt:I think the word love captures it, not the affection, but the attitude of love that we would seek the best God's intentions for the other person. What does the kingdom look like? It looks like people loving others and then, of course, creation. We rule, and this covers a huge, huge territory. If you think about creativity and work and play and sleep and washing dishes and making your bed and everything. Well, I heard one guy said what's the definition of creation? It's everything that is not God. So if you think of ruling everything that is not God, except for other people, you can't rule them. But that's a lot of things to rule over in every part of life. So what is the kingdom? What does it look like?
Luke Allen:It's the way you answer these three questions.
Dwight Vogt:Last one the kingdom of God is inseparable from the role of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. I will add one phrase to this Jeremy Treat this was his definition the pastor, and I would suggest we say by God's Spirit. I love this verse.
Dwight Vogt:We tend to think the Holy Spirit is a New Testament invention. But throughout the Old Testament you see the work of the Spirit of God, beginning in Genesis 1, where it hovered over creation. I like this one because Bezalel, of course, was the temple guy in charge of the temple craftsmanship and filled with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge of all craftsmanship, and filled with spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge of all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs to work in gold, silver, bronze, and cutting stones for setting and carving wood, to work in every craft. So here the spirit of God was put on Basilel and gave him all of these skills I love to do do-it-yourself projects. All of these skills I love to do do-it-yourself projects. It's to my vein.
Dwight Vogt:I think Scott just smiled at me because he knows that you know how it is when you're going on a trip and everything starts breaking in your house because your wife's going to be alone. Sure enough, the day before I was to leave, I was getting packed. All at once I sprung a leak right next to my water heater on the main line that comes into my house. Well, one way to have dominion is to just call a plumber, which is probably the smartest way to have dominion. Let the plumber have dominion, God's already gifted him. But I think, well, why spend money on something I can do myself? And so, you know, I tackled it. I looked, I think I can fix this, and sure enough I got the parts. And I got some packs and a shark bit, kind of a easy fix. Put it together, turn the water on drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. I'm thinking I did it. You know what's? I can't leave a dripping water line, you know, in my garage for my wife. So I took it like that Well, I'll just take it apart and see if I did something wrong. I took it all apart and it looked fine. And then and I often do this, but usually I pray beforehand, but this time I didn't because I was in a hurry. But I just go. Spirit of God, give me wisdom. I got to get this fixed, and to call a plumber will take another six to eight hours and it'll be late. Lord, help me. And so I call on this prayer, and so I put it back together and I'm thinking, well, maybe I just need to push harder. And I pushed, and sure enough it clicked a little bit and I thought, whoa, that was different. Put it back together, turned the water on. It didn't leak. So anyway, it's a practical Holy Spirit that he's given us.
Dwight Vogt:If you're a leader, you need the Spirit of God. We know that Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the Spirit. King Saul had two good days, If you read 1 Samuel, and on those two good days the Spirit of God filled him and he prophesied and he defeated the Ammonites who were coming against him, and then the people gave thanks to God. So his two good days were spirit-filled good days. We know that David was filled with the Spirit. He said after he sinned please don't take your Holy Spirit from me, I can't live.
Dwight Vogt:Daniel, for all of you administrators, the Bible doesn't say he was filled with the Spirit of God. It says that Nebuchadnezzar recognized that he put Daniel in charge and he had these dreams and he said hey, I know that you are able to interpret my dream, for the Spirit of the Holy God is in you. That's actually mentioned several times. It's not just Nebuchadnezzar. Darius, I think, or Cyrus, one of those later leaders, said the same thing.
Dwight Vogt:And then Jesus he was prophesied at Isaiah that the Spirit of God would be upon him. And then he, in Luke 4, opens the scroll in the temple and reads the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. And he said Today this scripture is fulfilled. In your hearing, Jesus was fully God and fully man. He was tempted in all points, just like we are. How did he do it, if he's fully man? And I believe it was because he was fully possessed with the Spirit. He was conceived by the Spirit and the Spirit was on him. We know this from his baptism, John 1.32.
Dwight Vogt:Luke 4 1, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Interesting that the Spirit of God actually led him into a very difficult situation the wilderness where he was tempted. Luke 4 14 and Jesus returned in power, the Spirit, to Galilee. We need the Spirit to live kingdom lives. I think we know that, but we need to be reminded of that.
Dwight Vogt:Romans 7 is really powerful. I mean, that's where Paul is saying I don't know why I do what I do. I have the desire to do what is right, but then I don't have the ability to carry it out. My will wants to do this, but my flesh wants to do this. And he goes on and on and finally, in Romans, the next chapter that he opens up with Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free, in Christ Jesus, from the law of sin and death. He goes on to say do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. I think that's an interesting contrast. If you've ever seen a drunk person, they're not in control very much. Jesus talked about our need for him. I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the tree, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is that bears much fruit.
Dwight Vogt:For apart from me, you can do nothing. I'd like to finish by just sharing a few verses from the Old and New Testament, and I'll just read through these. Ezekiel 36, we have this promise I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit in you and move you. And so is Paul's answer to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. The Spirit of God was going to enable people to obey to follow Isaiah 44, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. To obey to follow Isaiah 44, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.
Dwight Vogt:I love this promise. I have three adult children and two spouses that they married, and this is my prayer for my kids that the Spirit would be poured out on them. It says this they will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees, by flowing streams. I love the picture of trees and streams. If you know Psalms 1, it talks of who's the man who follows God, who walks in the counsel of the ungodly. He doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that bears fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither Again. Jeremiah 17 says the same thing, and then we see in John 7, 37, the fulfillment of that promise. On the last day of the feast, the great day, jesus stood up and cried out if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. So we have the water feeding to the trees, and now we have water flowing from his heart. Now, this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Of course, we know what happened. Jesus fulfilled the covenant by offering his life as an atonement, a perfect atonement, for our sin was taken and that paid for our sins, so God could recognize us as his children and actually give us his spirit. And Jesus was exalted and put on the throne, and now he sits with authority and power, and that power is available to us Ezekiel 47. I'm going to paraphrase it. I love this promise of the spirit he talks about.
Dwight Vogt:It says Ezekiel's talking, he goes, the man brought me back to the entrance of the Spirit. He talks about Ezekiel's talking, he goes. The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple and I saw water coming out from under the threshold, the doorway of the temple, and it was flowing toward the east. Then he looked further and he says and I saw that it was coming from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar, and when I think south, I think global south and I go. Does that mean the global south is where the outpouring of the Spirit, you know, would be? Anyway, that's going too far, probably, but it was coming from the south. And then he leads them out through the north gate. So he goes north, and it's a dry and barren land, probably, and comes to the east gate and he still see water flowing from the south.
Dwight Vogt:And then it says the man with the measuring line in his hand started measuring out a thousand cubits and the water was flowing, it was ankle deep, and he walks another thousand cubits meters and it's up to his knees and he walks another thousand measures off, another thousand meters and it's up to where His waist. Then he walks another thousand measures off, another thousand meters and it's up to where His waist. Then he goes another thousand meters and he says wait now it was a river I could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in. And then the man who was leading him around said this, son of man, ezekiel, do you see this? Do you see what's happening? Then he takes him further and he leads him up to the riverbank and he says hey, look, he saw a multitude of trees growing on both sides of the river.
Dwight Vogt:Then he said you know, this water flows toward the east and goes down into the Arab or something like that, rababa. But where it empties into the great sea, it makes the salt water fresh and there will be swarms of living creatures wherever this water flows. At one point he says where the water flows, everything will live. And he says there's going to be fishermen on the side of the bank and they're going to be throwing their nets. And I think of Jesus telling one of his apostles Peter, I will make you fishers of men. And then he says there's going to be fish of every kind, fish of all kinds, and I think of all the nations, all the tribes, all the tongues of the world. And then he goes but I'm going to leave some salt, I'm going to leave the marshes and some swamps salty. I'm not going to make them fresh. There will always be swamps and marshes. Then he goes on and says all kinds of fruit trees will be growing on the banks of this river Again, a picture of global humanity. And he says and their leaf will not wither and their fruit will not fail and they will bear fruit continuously because the water of the sanctuary, the water of the throne, is flowing to them. And then it says and their fruit will be good for food and their leaves for the healing of the nations. This was the promise to Ezekiel.
Dwight Vogt:Go to the last chapter of the Bible and what do you see? The angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city. And on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Here we have a picture of the Spirit of God flowing. People have partaken of the tree of life. They themselves have become temples of the living God. They become life-giving trees themselves, like it refers to us in Jeremiah 17 and Psalms 1. And now our leaves are the leaves of the healing of the nations, god's reign through God's people and God's place by God's spirit. The kingdom of God is a people reconciled to God, empowered by the spirit of God to live in alignment with him in bringing reconciliation to the world around them. Thank you.
