If the kingdom of God is already here, what does that actually mean for how we live today? This episode dives into the original, often-overlooked instructions that Jesus and the apostles gave for kingdom living—stripping away the layers added by centuries of tradition. Discover a simpler, more powerful vision of faith rooted in love, forgiveness, service, and authentic community. If you’re ready to rethink what it really means to be a kingdom citizen, this episode will both challenge and inspire you.

"The kingdom comes first. Everything else finds its place after that." - Tim Winders

Access all show and episode resources HERE

Episode Resources:

• NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Kingdom Is Here

00:35 NT90 Reading Journey

02:44 Episode 12 Setup

04:32 Layers Over Scripture

07:44 Simplify Kingdom Living

09:45 Love God Love People

11:02 Make Disciples

13:01 Forgive Relentlessly

14:54 Serve Not Dominate

16:21 Seek Kingdom First

17:58 Be Peacemakers

19:07 Bear Spiritual Fruit

21:38 Real Kingdom Community

26:09 Steward Your Gifts

27:39 Justice Mercy Humility

28:55 Peter’s Growth Trajectory

29:36 Final Letter Context

30:54 Faith to Love Ladder

31:39 Self Control Hinge

33:20 Progress Not Arrival

34:37 Drift Toward Decay

35:56 Stewarding Toward Love

37:22 Church Metrics vs Kingdom

40:47 First Century Lived Faith

42:02 Modern Misread of Fruit

42:33 Kingdom Today Politics Work

45:43 No Buildings Required

48:21 Next Episodes and Invite

If the kingdom is already here, what are we supposed to do?

The New Testament does not give a numbered list, but when you read it in

order, certain instructions keep showing up over and over, and most of them are

not what the church emphasizes today.

Let's find out how the New Testament actually tells us to live now.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

This is Tim Winders here.

This is all a spinoff from me recently reading the entire New

Testament in 90 days, and boy, it had such a huge impact on me.

I didn't really read it in the order that most of us see in our Bible.

I actually put it in the order that it was written in, and the

order that it was released to the audience of the first century.

And, man, it was powerful.

What I found, it surprised me, challenged me.

It just kinda got me thinking about a lot of things.

It changed the way I understand scripture, changed the way I see a lot of things, and

actually kinda rocked some of my theology.

And what we've been doing in this series is kind of a

spinoff of all of those things.

I've just been sharing them.

I mean, they- I was just taking notes as I was doing it.

And this series is just a continuation of that, and I don't

know how long this is gonna last.

I've got all kind of notes and things keep building.

But this is just where I share those discoveries.

I'm not really trying to, I don't know, convince or anything.

I'm just sharing what I came up with and kind of my goal is to get you thinking and

maybe digging and studying on your own.

And so what I encourage you to do is maybe do what I did.

Read the New Testament in order in context.

You can get the reading plan that I created at k2m.foundation/nt90,

k2m.foundation/nt90, and, just check it out.

I do recommend trying to go in the order that I listed those out, starting

with the Book of James and then going to Matthew and Mark and Galatians.

Kinda cool.

And, and then also try to do it as compressed or as quickly as you can.

Seems like the longer you spread it out, then it's easier for

kinda life to get in the way.

I pressed it into 90 days, and boy, that was significant.

So the link is down in the notes.

Go get it, read it, and see what happens with you.

It impacted me big time.

Let's, let's talk about what we're going to do In this episode, this is

episode 12 of this, you know, what I found when I read the New Testament in

order series, I guess, and it's titled The Kingdom Is Now: What Jesus and

the Apostles Actually Told Us to Do.

In the last episode, I made the case that the kingdom arrived in the first

century, and it's the foundation of everything that is going on right

now and everything that works.

It's, it's the rock, to use the language that Jesus used.

In an earlier episode, I also cleared away some things that most of us

were taught that are not in the text.

But clearing away the clutter is really only half the work, and truthfully,

a lot of the things I've been doing is, I don't want to say negative,

but they've been kind of doing this, this is what's not in the Bible.

This is what's not there.

This is what it doesn't say.

In this episode, I am hopeful that it'll be a positive and uplifting, these are

the instructions that we actually see in the New Testament on how we should live.

It's kind of what remains, what the text keeps repeating over and over again.

So it's kind of the flip side of the not in the Bible, and,

uh, I think it's a good thing.

I'm hopeful that I can be positive and uplifting instead of negative

and, ugh, this is, this is bad stuff.

So, uh, so this is the opposite of what we saw in, I think it was episode

seven that was the not in the Bible.

Um, but let's sort of recognize the pattern and kind of see

how we got to where we are.

God gave the law at Sinai, gave it to Moses and the nation of Israel.

The Pharisees continued building layers of oral tradition and

interpretive rules on top of that.

Hundreds of additional regulations.

You know, fence laws, purity codes, rulings on top of

rulings, interpretations.

And what we saw by the time Jesus came on the scene is whoever gives

the rulings or whoever's in charge of the rules and the code, they sort

of are leading by either default or fear or whatever you wanna call it.

And so they had really buried the original by the time Jesus arrived.

Jesus spent probably about half his ministry, if we really look at it,

cutting through the layers to get back to what God intended, and he really

spent a lot of time, I'll just say, busting the chops of the Pharisees

for allowing it to get to that point.

Now, here's the challenge.

Jesus cleared the decks.

He set up a new, simpler, and easier system with what was

shared in the New Testament.

But over the last few thousand years, religion and our current church structures

have really done the same thing that the Pharisees did by taking what was

in the New Testament and adding to it.

The apostles gave pretty clear instructions, we're gonna look

at those shortly, for kingdom living, and they were written in

unique first-century situations.

They were Rome, they were … You, you know, there were just a lot of

things going on, the approaching destruction of the temple, the

end of the old covenant age.

But the core instructions were not tied to those moments.

They reflect the character and ethic of life in the kingdom, which was quite

a contrast from what the Roman culture was, and it was also a contrast to the

temple system of the, of the old covenant.

And so just like the Pharisees, what we, and I use we, have done, because

we've done it and we've also allowed it, we just kept adding to it.

Attendance requirements, tithing formulas, doctrinal checklists, membership classes,

you know, moving your letter from one church to another, worship styles, voting

guides, how you should vote and which political party you should be part of.

Layer after layer until the additions buried the original again.

If we truly wanna say the Bible is our foundation, we should look at what the

actual New Testament instructions were for kingdom living, not what got added later.

What the text says.

The question is no longer, "How do I get in?" It's, "How do I

live as a kingdom citizen today?"

And let's hope that we can maybe simplify it.

You know, I, I read a book years ago that was a biography on Vince Lombardi,

and I've got … Y'all can't see it, but on my wall in the office that

I'm at here, I've got a What It Takes to Be Number One by Vince Lombardi.

And in that book, it, uh, it, it's, it's a really cool book.

I, y- you know, it's been a long time since I read it, but I remember that

one thing that they said that Vince Lombardi would do to professional

football players And for those that do not know, Vince Lombardi's Packers won

the first two Super Bowls over 50-plus Super Bowls ago back in the '60s.

They won the first two.

And Vince Lombardi would stand up during their preseason, during their,

early part of their practices, and he would hold up a football, and he would

simplify the game by saying, "This is a football." Well, what I'm going to

attempt to do here, and it's probably gonna be a little more complicated

than that, is say this is what the New Testament says about how we should live.

And I don't know about you, but I desire for Scripture and the New Testament to

be my guide as much as I possibly can.

So let's attempt to do that and see what the New Testament actually

instructs us kingdom citizens to do.

It doesn't really give a list.

We have to kind of pull from it in different places, but they keep

showing up time and time again if we see what Jesus said, if we see

what Paul said, and also Peter are the ones that we really see often.

We're going to look at it, and we're gonna try to put it in … I think I've

got a list of about 10 here, but don't use this as a checklist or doctrine

or really any type of teaching plan.

These are just the basic items that we see in the New Testament for how to live.

And so, let's, let's dive in and see what it says.

All right, ready?

You've heard this one, first one that I've got here.

Love God, love people.

37-39, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and

with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus said that the whole law and the prophets hang on this.

Not the Ten Commandments, not a doctrinal checklist.

love God with everything, and love your neighbor as yourself.

I sorta could say there might be three things there, that you

probably need to have a love and honor and respect for yourself.

You need to keep it in order, but love God, that's foundational, and then love

your neighbor as you love yourself.

Don't love yourself more than your neighbor.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Love both, and I think that foundation begins with loving God.

That didn't expire.

That didn't go away.

This is an Old Testament carryover that got fulfilled.

This is the foundation of kingdom living.

Number two, second one, make disciples, not converts.

19-20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am

with you always, to the end of the age."

There's that end of the age there.

Now, one of the things that's cool in here, teaching them to observe all that

I have commanded you could actually be this list that we're going through.

So not only are we doing this, but we're also making disciples

and teaching others to do the same thing, how to live in the kingdom,

in the kingdom that we are living in.

That is really what many title the Great Commission.

the m- the main verb is actually not go, it's make disciples.

Going, baptizing, and teaching are how you do it.

All nations, that's groups of people, told a Jewish audience that the mission had

no ethnic or geographic fence anymore.

It was everywhere, and it crossed all boundaries.

It went to all places.

It went to all peoples.

It went to all people groups across geographic boundaries,

countries, et cetera.

And then, here's a quote, "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded

you," that- Is lifelong formation.

It doesn't stop.

You don't get to a place where you've arrived and say,

"Oh, look, I am now there.

Walking with people, helping them see how Jesus' teaching reshapes how

they handle money, conflict, power, relationships, grief, and hope.

forgive relentlessly.

This one could be one of the tougher ones that we see.

14-15, Matthew 18:21-22.

"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father

will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." That's Matthew 6:14-15.

And then Peter -- let's look at this.

"Then Peter came up and said to Him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin

against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' And Jesus said to him, 'I do

not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven times.'" Matthew 18:21-22, which is

basically infinity is the reference there.

Peter asked how many times.

Jesus said, "70 times seven." It's not a math problem.

It's a posture.

It is unlimited.

It is relentless forgiveness.

That is what we are always to be doing as kingdom citizens.

I'm not saying any of this stuff's easy, especially this one at times.

But kingdom people release debts.

We don't hold onto them, not because the other person earned it, because holding

onto it is choosing the wrong kingdom.

And I know, I know this is not popular.

Forgiveness is one of the hardest instructions in the New Testament,

but Jesus was not wishy-washy about it, not ambiguous.

It was pretty clear.

All right, let's look at the fourth one.

Serve instead of dominate, Mark 10:42-45 and John 13:1-17.

"You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles-"

lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

But it shall not be so among you.

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would

be first among you must be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to

give his life as a ransom for many.

That's Mark 10:42-45.

Jesus washed feet.

We don't necessarily understand the magnitude and significance of

that in our modern culture, even though it would probably seem

pretty weird if someone did it.

That was some of the ultimate servitude during the first century, because

feet were considered dirty, they were impure, and it is not what someone who

was in a leadership role would ever do.

Jesus washed feet, not as a leadership technique, as identity.

That's who he was.

The greatest is the one serving.

All right, let's look at number five.

This is one of my favorite, and it was one of the things that has triggered a lot

of what I'm doing right now 10 years ago.

The verse Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, "But seek first the kingdom of God

and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." And I

have to tell you, I've done this study.

It is the only thing that Jesus said to seek first.

Maybe we should take it seriously.

Before provision, before anxiety, before ambition, align with what God is doing.

Make sure you are submitting to the King and understand

that you are in his kingdom.

The rest follows.

This is not a formula for getting stuff, for prosperity

gospel or anything like that.

It is a priority statement.

The kingdom comes first.

Everything else finds its place after that.

And picture what the kingdom looks like when there are massive numbers of people

all over the world that have that posture, seeking the kingdom first, living by these

principles that we're talking about here.

Is it perfection?

Do we all get it right?

No, of course we don't.

But we are attempting to move in that direction, and we are seeking the kingdom

first All right, let's look at number six.

Be peacemakers.

In Matthew 5:9, in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed

are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

Not peacekeepers, not conflict avoiders, peacemakers.

That may not be passive, that might have an activeness to it, but it

also is understanding the mission.

The mission is peace, not conflict, Peacemakers, people who actively bring

shalom into broken and conflict-driven spaces, which those world systems

are totally all about conflict.

We, as kingdom citizens, bring peace into those situations.

The Hebrew concept of shalom is not just the absence of conflict.

It is wholeness, completeness, things as they should be.

Kingdom citizens build peace.

They do not just avoid trouble.

All right, number seven, bear fruit.

1-8 and Galatians 5:22-23.

"I am the vine.

You are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing." That's John 15:5. And then this

one that most of us know, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,

peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23.

Now, keep this one in mind because in, in, in just a moment we're

going to look at some scripture from Second Peter, I believe it

is, if I'm remembering correctly.

And what's interesting is that one begin-- it kind of goes in the

opposite direction, kind of starts with self-control and ends up with love.

I do believe that the way we can interpret this is the pinnacle, the ultimate

kingdom principle is love, and these others probably build up or spill into

love, and we'll see that when we look at the scripture from Peter shortly.

But the currency or the foundation of the kingdom, in my opinion,

from reading through all that we've read and from looking at

these principles- Would be love.

The evidence of life in the kingdom is not attendance or theological correctness

or, I guess even purity or sanctification or any of that kind of stuff.

It is love.

Then joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control.

Jesus said you will know them by their fruit, not by their doctrine, not by how

much they know, not by how well they speak or do a podcast or anything like that.

By love.

Not by their denomination, not by their political alignment, by their fruit.

Paul called these the fruit of the spirit, not the fruit of effort, not

the fruit of religious performance.

The spirit produces this in people who are walking in the kingdom.

Number eight, live in real community.

This is Acts 2:42-47, Hebrews 10:24-25.

But in reality, most of the New Testament as we get into Acts and

then also as Paul travels, as Peter mentions things, and others, the entire

portion of the New Testament becomes examples of this kingdom community.

But let's look at some scriptures here.

"And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship,

to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were

being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common." Acts 2:42-44.

And then, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and

good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but

encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

That's the day of the Lord or the end of the age that was gonna

be coming in just a few years.

This is from Hebrews 10:24-25, which was written in 63 AD, just seven years

until that day drew near, the day that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

And you notice this doesn't say, "Go to church. You must attend the

synagogues," or anything like that.

It says, "Be the church.

Share life.

Bear burdens.

Encourage one another." You know what I hear that as saying?

It is not an event on a Sunday or another day, it is 24/7.

How are you living?

How are you treating your family?

Is that word love permeating how you deal with those around you all the time?

When you go into a work situation or a business situation or anything else, are

you being that church that's showing love?

The early believers really did not even attend services.

They shared meals, resources, and accountability.

They were in each other's homes and lives.

25 was written to people facing persecution and tempted to

give up on each other and go back to the Jewish synagogue temple system.

It is about not abandoning the community, not about showing up to a building.

The community was where suffering also got carried.

Let's look at Galatians 6:2.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Carry what

your brother or sister cannot carry alone.

This is why community is important.

1-12, the paralyzed man's … We love this story.

The paralyzed man's friends carried him, tore open a roof, and lowered him in.

Jesus saw, air quotes here, "their faith." The community's faith carried

the one who could not carry himself.

1-7, widows were overlooked in the daily distribution-

The apostles restructured the leadership to close that gap.

Nobody said, "Pray harder." They built a system so nobody fell through.

The kingdom did not promise that every individual would be healed.

It promised that no individual would be alone, that there would be mechanisms

around them to take care of them so that that healing either could occur in that

setting or, and we know this occurs, that there could be a miraculous healing occur.

So it's very interesting.

We're, we're gonna talk more about this later.

This is really important for those that might have this thought that, everyone

should be healed and in perfect health.

It's important.

We'll come back to this, but we'll dig deeper into suffering in the next

episodes and when we get into the hardest topics that are coming up.

I just wanted to kind of mention it that that is what that community is for.

Number nine, steward what you've been given.

14-34, "It will be like a man going on a journey,

who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.

To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according

to his ability." That's Matthew 25:14-15.

Time, money, influence, gifts, talents, all of those things, relationships.

The kingdom ethic is faithfulness with what is in your hand.

For those people that are in leadership roles or you run businesses or

companies, that's included here.

You are a steward, and, and you're not chasing things.

You're not going after things.

It's what you have been gifted with.

The parable of the talents is not about making money.

It is about trust.

The master entrusted resources and expected faithful use.

The one who buried it did so out of fear, not wisdom.

Stewardship is broader than money.

It includes your gifts, your platform, your health, your time,

your attention, all of those things.

We've talked about stewardship before.

We'll probably talk about it again.

Powerful foundational principle of the Kingdom of God.

Number 10 We're gonna kinda look at a little more broad aspect of the

way Jesus operated, but basically we're talking about do justice,

love mercy, and walk humbly.

And we're gonna dip back into the Old Testament because Micah 6:8 is

echoed throughout Jesus' teaching.

And here's what that says.

"He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." That

is almost a description of the way Jesus operated during his earthly ministry.

So we're gonna use his example.

It's, that Old Testament ethic that Jesus embodied and amplified.

Justice, mercy, and humility.

Three words.

Not programs, not buildings, not systems.

It's the baseline for kingdom citizenship.

It is our model.

Not complicated, but it is pretty demanding and can be difficult.

All right, I mentioned Peter earlier, so let's look at

that in a little more detail.

Peter's framework on what maybe growth or progression in kingdom citizenship

and kingdom living looks like.

And it's sort of a trajectory.

I'm not gonna say it's exactly in this order, but it's actually

instructions on, on what to do.

Peter tells us how we grow into it, faith to love.

Each quality builds on the one before.

Self-control is the hinge.

Discovery is the posture.

This is what we really want to look at.

All right, let's take a look at what Peter actually said.

In 2 Peter, that is Peter's final letter, so let's get the context here.

He actually knows it's all, in all likelihood his final

letter because he says so.

"I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord

Jesus Christ made clear to me."

That's in 2 Peter 1:14.

He is facing execution.

We believe this was written in the late '60s, maybe 64 to

66, something in that range.

The temple is about to be destroyed in just a few years.

The old covenant age is ending.

Everything the Jewish world was built around is about to collapse.

And with his last words, his final instructions to the people that he loves,

this is what he chose to leave behind.

Not a doctrinal statement, not a political strategy, not even

an institutional blueprint.

A character development ladder, kind of a trajectory from faith to love.

That really tells us, I believe, what Peter thought mattered most.

We need to pay attention to this.

When everything else was about to burn, both literally and

figuratively around him, this is what he wanted them to carry forward.

This is from 2 Peter 1:5-7, the character of a kingdom citizen.

Peter laid it out in the kingdom.

He says, "This is what it looks like," a trajectory.

Really not a checklist, but something that's built upon.

And here's what it says, "Faith, then virtue, then knowledge, then self-control,

then steadfastness, then godliness, then brotherly affection, and then love."

Like I said earlier, almost the opposite order of what we

saw from Paul in Galatians.

Each quality seems to build on the one before it.

You cannot get to love without self-control.

You cannot get to self-control without knowledge.

Self-control, I think in the Greek it says enkrateia.

It's the hinge.

It's kind of like the beginning of it, the direct antidote to the

disordered craving that drives the decay of the world and our flesh.

Things in our world, we know this, put the dang phone down.

Eat.

Spend time.

Consume time with people with intention.

Focus on others.

Look to love.

You know, don't truthfully sit there and scroll all day long.

Don't sit there and, and stream, you know, show after show after show.

"But yeah, I'm sitting there with my wife or with my kids."

You know what?

Looking at a screen is not the same thing as looking into someone's eyes

And I think that's something that erodes many of our, our abilities to operate

as kingdom citizens in our world today.

I think it's, that's a big distraction.

When you feel the pull to react or have impulse, pause.

The pause, I think, is the self-control and the practice.

Peter said, "If these qualities are yours and are increasing,

you will never be ineffective or unfruitful." That was in 2 Peter 1:8.

The measure is not arrival, it's movement, it's progression.

Are you growing?

And the warning, "Whoever lacks these qualities is nearsighted and

has forgotten that he was cleansed."

He says that in 1:9.

Standing still is not neutral.

It's actually the first step backward.

Now, I want to mention something here, and that is something around this word

expectations and how it can be a trap.

People often expect spiritual maturity to look like arrival, like you get to

it, and when you're in some of these church settings, you know, people

that reach a certain title or level, they are looked at, at people that

have arrived, and people put them on pedestals, and we see this often.

But you get there and you feel like you've got it figured out.

You stop the struggle and, you know, you start reading your press clippings.

Ego starts kicking in.

You start losing some of that self-control.

Things start happening.

We see this time and time again in our current church world.

Peter actually says the opposite.

He said it's a trajectory.

The measure is movement, not perfection.

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, if you expect growth

to feel like completion, you'll actually quit when it gets hard.

The text says, this is a tough one for us, struggle is the point.

Expectations of arrival keep people from seeing progress that is already happening.

And then the other trajectory that we see is what happens without growth.

That's in 2 Peter 2.

Peter describes the false teachers as the fully developed version of

what happens when you stop growing.

Lust, greed, exploitation, sensuality, arrogance, bondage.

Unfortunately, we see that in today's world with many of our leaders in

the political arenas, business, and unfortunately, we also see that in

church world in the areas of ministry.

They feel as if they've arrived, and then they stop growing.

All of these things enter in.

This is not a rival kingdom with its own throne.

It is decay.

Phthora is the actual Greek word.

It's really odd.

It's P-H-T-H, so phthora.

I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but it's what happens when

disordered craving runs unchecked.

There is no neutral ground.

You hate to say you're either growing or dying, but that seems

to be what Peter is saying here.

You're either growing toward love or drifting toward decay.

The kingdom life is the trajectory.

So let's talk briefly about stewardship and that trajectory.

Each quality is something that's entrusted to you that you manage faithfully.

It is a gift.

It's something that's been given.

Faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control.

These are not achievements that you own and you beat your chest and let

everybody know, look what I've done.

They are actually things that you steward.

You take good care of them.

They are capacities the king develops in you that you steward for the

benefit of others, for the kingdom.

The trajectory ends at love because stewardship always

points outward to others.

As we do that progression, it will always lead to a focus on others, or

at least that's what it appears to be the thing that Peter is saying at a

very challenging time for those that are reading this letter from him.

1 Peter 4.10 says, As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as

good stewards of God's varied grace.

The gifts, the growth, the character, none of it is yours.

You manage it.

You grow it.

You give it away.

That is kingdom stewardship.

Now, let's talk about a bit of a gap or contrast that we see

before we start wrapping up here.

The New Testament instructions are about character, relationships,

and how you treat people.

Love, forgive, serve, make peace, bear fruit.

Walk humbly.

Unfortunately, what most churches of our day emphasize are things like attendance.

You need to be here.

You need to be part of this.

You need to be serving here, tithing, doctrinal agreement, voting guides,

how to gr- how to vote, how to change the government, building

campaigns, building a new building, worship style, membership classes.

We've turned make disciples into a conversion count.

We've turned love your neighbor into a bumper sticker.

We've turned serve instead of dominate into a corporate

leadership model with a Bible verse.

We've replaced bear fruit with make sure you're here every time the doors are open.

And steward what you have with you gotta give 10%.

The same pattern that the Pharisees created is what we see in many of

our modern-day church cultures, layer after layer until the

additions buried the original.

The gap is not between the Bible and the world.

That's very clear.

The Bible and the Roman system, the world system.

The gap, the struggle, the challenge is between what actually the New Testament

says that we've just gone over and what we see in many of our churches.

Here's some good news, though.

These instructions are not complicated.

They are demanding.

Th- they're not easy.

I'm not gonna sit here and say they are.

I, I falter on these all the time, but they are clear.

You don't need a seminary degree to understand love your neighbor.

You do not need a commentary to explain forgive.

We kinda know what that means, and they work anywhere.

A recovery group, a 12-step process where people confess honestly and carry each

other, that is forgiveness and community.

I mentioned in the last episode how much I love business startups because of this.

They share risk and serve the mission instead of their own titles.

They're all focused on that one thing that they're chasing,

that stewardship and service.

And again, I think I mentioned a mentor or coach that works with

someone and helps them achieve and accomplish and get to where they

can be what God hopefully created them to be, hands-on, life-on-life.

That's making disciples the way it appears Jesus designed it.

These instructions are already running in places most people

would never call a church.

They're out there.

The principles work because the Creator wove them into reality.

The difference is whether you know whose kingdom you are actually in

and you're not confused about it.

All right, let's, uh, let's look at some things here and start wrapping up, okay?

What it meant then, and then we'll look at how it's developed and what

it means now as we finish up here.

In the first century, these instructions were not theoretical.

Love your neighbor meant sharing your table with a Roman soldier's family, and

that began occurring as those groups grew.

Forgive meant releasing the debt of someone who reported your

gathering to the authorities.

Serve meant washing the feet of a slave.

Make peace meant refusing to join the zealot resistance even

when Rome crushed your city.

The early believers did these things while the temple still stood

and the old covenant was fading.

They were building a new way of living inside a world that was

falling apart all around them.

The instructions were survival manual and kingdom blueprint at the same time.

There were no programs, no curricula, no small group sign-up sheets, just people

in each other's homes doing what Jesus and some of the other apostles said.

The simplicity was the power, and in a world that was trying to kill

them, literally, it was also survival.

All right, let's look at where maybe in our modern times we have misread this.

The fruit of the Spirit became a checklist instead of evidence.

Am I patient enough?

Am I kind enough?

Instead of, am I walking with the Spirit and watching these things grow naturally?

We turn character into performance metrics, and I am guilty of that myself.

The New Testament describes fruit that grows.

We turned it into fruit you produce.

Now, let's look at what it still means for us today.

How we treat people.

Every instruction on this list is relational.

Love, forgive, serve, make peace, bear fruit.

None of them work in isolation.

The kingdom is a community project, not a solo performance.

How we do religion in church.

If your church measure, measures success by attendance and budget, but it cannot

point to disciples being formed, burdens being shared, and enemies being forgiven,

the institution may be healthy, but the kingdom instructions may not Be followed.

All right, here's a tough one.

Let's talk politics.

Seek the kingdom first.

Not the party first, not the geographic country or area that

you live in, the kingdom first.

Not the nation, the kingdom.

A lot of people talk about America as if it is God's country.

It is not.

No nation is.

The kingdom was here before America, and it will be here long after.

I know that is not a popular statement, and I will probably have

people picking up the stones out of their pocketbooks ready to stone me.

America's awesome.

I am so thankful that I live here.

I am thankful for all our freedoms and all that we have.

It is not the kingdom of God.

It applies some of the principles, but it sometimes does them

well and sometimes doesn't.

The political structure, geographic political structures are not the kingdom.

If your politics come before your king, you are not seeking

the kingdom for- first.

You have the order wrong.

That one instruction, taken seriously, would change how every Christian engages

with politics and others overnight.

Business and work.

Stewardship is not just about money.

It includes your time, your influence, your attention, and your platform.

The parable of the talents is not a prosperity teaching.

It's a trust test.

Are you faithful with what you have that's in your hand?

I attempt to do this.

I'm helping run a company right now.

I'm-- I've got a title called COO, and I attempt, probably mess up at times,

but I attempt to bring these principles into business on a day-to-day basis.

I spend more time around those people than just about anyone else.

They need to see the kingdom of God working and operating through me.

These instructions that we've talked about here, they do not require a

building, a budget, or a pastor.

They require people willing to live differently.

That is what the kingdom has always asked, and it is still asking.

Now- I want to say this.

If you are operating this way and you happen to go into a building every

Sunday, what a cool place that would be if the people in there were operating

with these principles and they were just going to this building just to be around

other people that were doing the same.

That would be super cool.

That would be an awesome kingdom of God gathering.

All right.

Every one of these instructions, they were plain, repeated in the text.

I did not pull anything.

In fact, I ran through these items over and over again attempting to say, am I

inserting anything that's not in the text?

All of this is in the New Testament text.

Most of the time, multiple times.

None of them required buildings or systems to follow or even a membership card.

You know, I joke at times that we have our passport in the

kingdom of God, but there's no documents to be in God's kingdom.

That's stamped on our heart.

That's really what the mark that we hear often is.

That's the mark we have.

That's there.

That's the individuals carrying it around.

There's nothing that we can look at other than that fruit to say, hmm,

this person's part of the kingdom.

What the New Testament actually tells kingdom citizens to do is what we've

tried to look at in this episode.

If you've been carrying a version of the faith that was heavier than this,

more complicated, more to-dos, 600 and something, do this, don't do that,

more institutional, et cetera, I want you to consider the possibility that

what God added was not from the text.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything like that.

It's just not from the text.

And if we don't build off that foundation first, then I think it's

real easy to major in the minors or get confused as to what the foundation is.

As for me, I hold the Bible in high regard.

I do believe that it's God's inspired word.

And I'm attempting to learn what the text says about how

Tim should live in the kingdom.

they are more about who you are becoming than what organization you belong to.

All right.

Over the next two episodes, I'm gonna do something that I probably shouldn't.

I'm going to look at some of the hottest and most debated topics of our time.

War, slavery, abortion, homosexuality.

My guess is that I will make almost everyone mad with where we're

headed with these next few episodes.

But what I really wanna do is I just want to see what the New Testament really

says about each one of these hot topics.

To me, that should really be our guide if we are kingdom citizens

and followers of our king.

Join me, hopefully, and let's see what the New Testament

really says about these topics.

And again, all of this is coming from the reading plan that I mentioned

at the beginning of this episode.

It's free.

Go get it, k2m.foundation/nt90.

I wish so many of you would be just reading along with me and saying, "You

know, I agree, Tim," or, "You know, I'm not sure that I agree with that.

Here's what I found when I did it." Please do that.

I desire that.

That's what I want.

I really want what I'm doing here to challenge and force

you to say, "You know what?

I need to dig in myself.

I don't think I wanna listen to Tim.

I don't think I wanna listen to, you know, Joe whatever on YouTube, or, or

this person that stands up on stage with a microphone, has the spotlights on

him and the smoke machines behind him.

I wanna know myself." That was what triggered me to do this.

k2m.foundation/nt90.

That will get you the plan.

It's down in the notes.

I am Tim Winders.

Keep digging, keep studying, keep seeking.

Live the kingdom life.

See you on the next episode.