Tag Archives: faith

Eternal Life in the Kingdom of God

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The Kingdom of God and Eternal Life (#8)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Recapitulation

Brothers, sisters and friends, in the last several messages we have studied different aspects of the kingdom of God; I hope that the glory of the kingdom of God will attract you to pursue after it. Today we are going to look at one important topic: eternal life in the kingdom of God.

Introduction

Many years ago I met a Christian sister, she said that having eternal life is different from entering the kingdom of God, because the term “eternal life” and the term “kingdom of God” never appear together in the Bible! According to her reasoning, if you want to have eternal life, you only need to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then you can have it right now! But if you want to enter into the kingdom of God, you have to obey the commandments of the Lord Jesus, which are very difficult! She said that if you believe Jesus is the Son of God, you will receive eternal life right away; after that even if you don’t obey the Lord’s commandments, you won’t die, because you already have eternal life! Someone who has eternal life would not die, right? If you don’t obey the Lord’s commandments, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God, but it won’t affect your eternal life!

This teaching is dangerous; it can lead to very serious consequences in people’s lives because people would simply disregard the commandments of the Lord Jesus as well as the commandments in the Old Testament Law, they have nothing to fear anymore! Indeed there are whole groups of people who believe this teaching. Through all these years, the more I know about the Bible, the more I see the danger of this teaching. That’s why I decided to address this wrong teaching.

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Who Is The Greatest in The Kingdom of God ?

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The Kingdom of God and Eternal Life (#6)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Brothers, sisters and friends, in the past few weeks we have seen that being in the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you don’t experience righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, then you are not in the kingdom of God; If you are not in the kingdom of God in this age, then you won’t be in the kingdom of God in the future when the Lord Jesus comes back. Today we are going to look at another aspect of the kingdom of God.

NAU Matthew 18:1 – 4 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Some people may say, “That’s nothing new, I have known this for a long time!” But have you ever put this teaching into practice? How are you going to practice it?

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Peace in the Holy Spirit

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Christmas Sermon (#1)

The Kingdom of God and Eternal Life (#4)

Luke 2:14

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Introduction

Today is December 24th , Christmas Eve; December 25th is the date the western churches celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ; but the eastern Orthodox churches celebrate on a different date. Actually no one knows when the Lord Jesus was born, and I am not going to debate about the exact birth date of the Lord, but I will look into the meaning of his birth. 

NAS Luke 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

This is the praise from the heavenly angels to Yahweh God on the night the Lord Jesus was born. It says “peace among men”, but through two thousand years history we see that wars and more wars have been happening all the time, pandemics and natural disasters happened everywhere and all the time. Where is the peace? Why is it like that? Let’s look at the Bible to find the answer.

Different aspects of peace

We look at the peace in the Bible. The Bible talks about different kinds of peace:

  1. Peace from physical harm;
  2. Peace in our hearts;
  3. Peace in our relationship with God and with other people.

But the Lord Jesus said specifically that his disciples will have trouble in this world, he did not promise there will be no physical harm to his disciples.

NIV John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Here the Lord Jesus specifically says that in this world his disciples will have trouble; This statement of the Lord has been fulfilled. In the two thousand year history of the church, many many faithful Christians have been persecuted and killed for the sake of the Lord Jesus and the gospel; even today there is still severe persecution against Christians in different places in the world. Christians being persecuted is inevitable, we cannot avoid it. The Lord never promised that we will not be persecuted, but he said that as long as we stay in him we would have peace of heart, not physical peace.

We can ask Yahweh God to protect us from harm, but there is no promise of physical peace for us in the Bible. Therefore we don’t study peace in terms of physical harm, we will only study peace in our hearts and peace in our relationship with other people.

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Righteousness in the Holy Spirit

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The Kingdom of God and Eternal Life (#3)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Recapitulation

Brothers, sisters and friends, welcome to the zoom church service. Last time we saw that the Lord Jesus proclaimed the gospel to the spiritually poor, the spiritual prisoners, the spiritually blind and the spiritually oppressed, and all those who submit to the kingship of God would be set free from sin. Today we continue to study the kingdom of God and eternal life in the Bible.

Introduction

Two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God has come near, and he preached the gospel of the kingdom. Since then more and more people have submitted to the kingship of God. But some people might say, “Before I submit myself to the kingship of God, I want to know how my life would be like in the kingdom of God; I need to know more about the life under the kingship of God.” This is a fair request. When people want to move to a new place, they would like to find out about that place; the same is true for people who want to submit to the kingship of God, they want to know more about the life in the spiritual kingdom of God.

NAU  Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Here apostle Paul says that living under the kingship of God has nothing to do with eating and drinking, what you eat and drink doesn’t make any difference, what you eat and drink doesn’t affect your status in the kingdom of God; the most important things are righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That means if you truly live under the kingship of God, you would have righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; but on the other hand if you don’t live in righteousness, peace and joy, then you are not living under the kingship of God. Please remember if you are not living under the kingship of God now, in the future when the Lord Jesus comes back to establish the kingdom of God on earth, you will not be in the kingdom of God either, you will be thrown out of the kingdom of God. Being thrown out of the kingdom of God is destruction in the lake of fire.

Therefore we have to make sure that we are living under the kingship of God now, that means we have to live in righteousness, peace and joy.

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