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The Wake-Up Call
What Is the Kingdom of God?
00:17:22
Through his message, and his ministry, Jesus went beyond words; he demonstrated that the kingdom of God was among them through signs and wonders. - - - - - - - We're preparing for another year of sowing! Help keep the Wake-Up Call free for everyone by sponsoring a day. https://seedbed.com/springsowing - - - - - - - What if the Kingdom of God is closer than you ever imagined—even breaking through right beside you at 30,000 feet? In today’s inspiring episode of “All the Things,” host Dan Wilt invites listeners to wake up to the presence and power of Jesus in our everyday lives. Whether you’re a lifelong believer or just curious about faith, this episode will challenge and encourage you to see God’s dynamic rule and reign in a fresh light. Join Dan Wilt as he unpacks the meaning and significance of the “Kingdom of God,” rooted in the teachings of Jesus and the rich heritage of Jewish history. The episode centers on a real-life, airport encounter that perfectly illustrates how the Holy...
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Foreign. Good morning Sower Nation. Today is Thursday, May 28th in the year of our Lord 2026. I am Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. We are in our all the Things series and today is a beautiful day. It's a beautiful day because Jesus is beautiful. He is in us. He is with us. He is in you. He's with you. He is here with us. And today is a meeting with Jesus. So wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration together. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Well, today's entry is titled what is the Kingdom of God? And our passage is from Mark 1, verses 14 to 15. Hear the word of the Lord. After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news, the word of the Lord. Consider this. It's another beautiful day to partner with the Holy Spirit in ministry to others in the name of Jesus. Today's story illustrates what happens when we feel weak, but we are open and surrendered to the work of the Holy Spirit. It's a story we'll come back to as we learn together how Kingdom ministry works and what the Kingdom of God is really all about. And here's a parentheses I shared at the beginning of the series and we'll keep mentioning this, that I'm sharing a lot of personal stories and I'm sharing those not so that we can go, wow, look what happened there. It's because I want to take us behind the scenes, behind the veil of what it means to just be an ordinary human being with an extraordinary Jesus living in us and through us and recognizing that Jesus by the Spirit is doing the ministry through us. That's why we move in the humility and gentleness of Jesus in this work, because this is his person moving through us. We don't want to get all caught up in what God is doing through us. It's what God is doing through us that's the emphasis. So hear this story. It's a fun one in my own journey and it will set us up for some of what we're going to be looking at through the whole series. I was Seated on an airplane beside a man who I had never met. He looked hard at me just as the plane was taking off and asked, do you believe in God? I had no idea why this was happening. I had no Bible out. It's just sometimes people are reading the moment and God is moving. A deep and an animated conversation ensued, drawing the attention of the back rows of the plane. At one point, this angry atheist got agitated and his voice rose. I quietly prayed, asking the Lord for guidance, Jesus, help. Then a sentence popped into my mind. Ask him who Rebecca is and what her place is in his life. I swallowed hard, I took a risk, and I whispered the question. I believe God speaks to us. Who is Rebecca and what place does she have in your life? Stunned, he fell silent. His eyes welled up with tears immediately. Rebecca was his girlfriend who had been begging him to go back to church. God had spoken. This broken man opened up to Jesus. The kingdom of God broke in on that flight. The kingdom of God is the central unifying theme running through all that Jesus did and taught. Let's invest some extra time today learning what the kingdom of God meant to Jesus. In Mark 1, verses 14 to 15, we see Jesus use a phrase that he will use in different ways throughout his ministry. The phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven appears roughly 80 to 85 times in the Gospels. In all those cases, Jesus is the one using the phrase in his teaching. John the Baptist uses the phrase in Matthew and once in Mark. What does that phrase mean and why did Jesus say it with such familiarity and frequency? Why did he assume his listeners understood what it was? Well, I'm going to just put another parentheses in here now. That topic, the kingdom of God and where it comes from in Jewish history, is a beautiful one, a deep one, a powerfully covenantal one. And it speaks to this long awaited rule and reign of God that would be in all and through all the shalom of God. Heaven meets earth in its fullness. The new creation. The concept of the kingdom of God is a golden key to unlocking the full meaning of the gospel that Jesus preached and demonstrated. So we're not going to be able to get into all of it here, but we're just going to touch it in a few entries just to get our frame of reference for what it means for the kingdom of God that to be near us or within our reach, a king or a queen has a kingdom or a specific realm of authority. A king's kingdom is the dynamic, authoritative reign or rulership of that king. It's the area over which that region has dominion, including people, land and resources. The People of God the Jews had a particular understanding and expectation related to what they came to call their the Kingdom of God. In their history before Saul, their first human king, they understood God to be their only king, the King of the universe. All the earth and the universe belonged to King Yahweh, the Creator. The Israelites were invited to be in covenant with their king and to carry his message of love and reconciliation to the world as as a kingdom of priests. Exodus 19:5,6. But they sinned, they disobeyed. They experienced slavery in Egypt and deliverance in the Exodus from the hand of Pharaoh. They entered the promised land and saw the rise of the great kingdom of David, a man after God's own heart. That's first Samuel 13:14. Then in the Babylonian exile, they lost that physical kingdom and were transplanted to a foreign land among foreign gods. Now that is a kingdom. Roller coaster ride. The Jews believed that when the anointed one from the line of David came the Christ, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah, Israel would finally be delivered from its long bondage. The Jewish people would enter into the fullness and wholeness of life once again living in covenant. Loyalty hesed loving kindness with their Creator, the shalom of God. God's permeating peace, his wholeness, love, goodness and justice would be established on earth. God's dynamic reign through his human regent would ensure that mercy and love would be over all and through all Eden, in all its fullness and beauty would be restored. Every tear would be wiped away. Revelation 21:4 Then Jesus arrived on the scene. He was a simple carpenter's son from a small town called Nazareth. He was nothing like the Messiah they had thought God was sending their way. He looked people in the eyes. He knew them by name. He ministered to them as a king whose reign was not over a physical territory, but rather over the heart. His table was always full with those who needed his compassion and his ministry most. Through his message and his ministry, Jesus went beyond words. He demonstrated that the Kingdom of God was among them through signs and wonders. So what happened to the man on the airplane in the story? Well, as we deplaned together, he looked at me with eyes now softened by tears. I'm going to give God a chance, he whispered to me as we walked down the aisle. The Kingdom of God had broken into his life and his heart was changed. And I expect I played just one role in what God was about to do in his life. Let's Pray our prayer today. Lord Jesus, show me what the kingdom of God is truly all about. Give me eyes to see your dynamic rule and reign in my own life. Then show me how I can participate in your kingdom coming in the lives of those around me. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And here are our journal prompts for your all the things Journal. What have you understood the kingdom of God to be up until now? When you've heard that phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of Heaven, what have you understood it to be and how has what we've talked about today maybe changed that slightly? Journal that out. And then secondly, how is that understanding beginning to change for you? What could you begin to understand the kingdom of God to be in light of Jesus being the embodiment of that kingdom moving among us? So our activation for today is this. Today, find one person in your life you believe has not invited God's dynamic rule and reign into their life. Begin to pray for them, whether they're a prodigal child, an estranged sibling, or maybe a quirky neighbor. Pray your kingdom come, your will be done in their life. Then watch and listen closely for cues to what the Father may be doing. Don't forget may I pray for you? Is the kingdom question we always carry in the pocket of our heart. We're ready to use it at any moment. But in this activation, begin to find those people who have not said yes to God's covenant approach to them, who have not said yes to the kingdom of their heart coming under the kingdom rule and reign of Jesus and begin to note them, maybe get their names in your journal and begin to pray for them now and then just always be open to God wanting you to take a next step into their life with the may I pray for you now Question. All right, well, we are on a journey together and last week and this week we're getting settled into this question that I'm calling a kingdom question. And that kingdom question of may I pray for you? Is connected to our understanding of the kingdom, kingdom of God and how Jesus and the disciples understood it to mean how they understood it to be in their time, in their place, so that we can understand what it means for us to be kingdom people and kingdom apprentices in the now. So our hymn for today is going to be a worship song and it is not in our great Redeemer's praise. And it's you are worthy of of it all. So let's worship together with that song.
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They bow before your throne and all the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God and sing, you are worthy of it all, You are worthy of it all. For from you are all things and to you are all things, you deserve the glory. All the saints and all the saints and angels, they bow before your throne and all the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God and sing, you are worthy of it all, You are worthy of it all. For from you are all things and to you are all things, you deserve the glory. Oh, you are worthy of it all, Because you are worthy of it all. For from you are all things and to you are all things. For from you are all things and to you are all things. For from you are all things and to you are all things, you deserve the glory.
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Amen. One of the things I most love about worshiping together with songs is what I said in the previous entry, that songs are a place we go. They're a place of meeting with God. We enter songs and they enter us. They're more than just words and melodies. They're sonic sanctuaries of encounter and experiencing the real, manifest presence, presence of God as we respond to his great love toward us. So let's gather our seeds together and I'll see you on the field and see you tomorrow. I'm Dan Wilt for the Awakening. Have a great day.