Our Eternal Kingdom

Confirm Who You Are:

“Make every effort to confirm your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10).

 The Apostles were forever startled by their new identity in Christ. They were ordinary men, and now look at them! The amazement never left them.

• Peter is a “servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.”

• John says, “See what kind of love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1).

• Paul says that we are “heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).

• You must begin to identify yourself in terms of the Heavenly Father’s love for you, his calling and election. You will only be secure now and forever when you locate yourself in his love lavished upon you as his child.

You confirm who you are--your profession of faith--by cultivating these eight essential spiritual vitamins. They are the badge of your authenticity.

• For yourself: “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

• For others in the family.

• For outsiders who need faith in Christ.

Your effort is to become more like God himself in mind and heart. This is a personal pursuit of holiness.

Your effort is also to conform your exterior behavior to your interior life of faith. This is integrity—the integration of what you say you believe with how you live your life.

• You have been called to God’s child and God’s servant.

• You have been chosen, elected, by God for this very purpose.

“For if you do these things, you will never stumble” (2 Peter 1:10). The word “stumble” is “fall into misery” so that you have no more hope. In other words, you will never fall down and be unable to rise again. You will always have the spiritual resource necessary to get up and get going. This is the assurance of perseverance.

 

Anticipate Your Rich Welcome:

“you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11)

This rich welcome is predicated upon your commitment to developing these qualities that Peter has enumerated—these eight essential vitamins.

• God’s love is unconditional. His salvation is free.

• There are some things about heaven that are conditional. This truth appears not only here but in many places in the Bible.

• God has rewards for those who are faithful rather than slothful in their work for him. Some people’s life’s work will be like a mound of hay—burned up in a quick fire. Other people’s work will be gold and silver—enduring through eternity.

• Jesus said that some servants will here “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

We live in certain governmental jurisdictions.

• The word “Kingdom” is drawn from politics, obviously. It implies a kind of government—rule by a king. This was the most common form of government in the ancient world although Rome itself was building toward a more democratic process in the Roman Senate. But it would be centuries before democracy would take root around the world.

• Virtually everyone on this planet has an earthly citizenship. The Apostle Paul spoke of his Roman citizenship often. He called upon that citizenship when he sought justice in the courts in Philippi. The Philippians were very proud that they were a Roman city, a chief city in that district of the Empire. Paul exercised his unique rights as a citizen of Rome to obtain favored status and a certain kind of jurisprudence. His citizenship was recognized by the authorities in Philippi, and it made them anxious and fearful when they realized that they had beaten a Roman citizen without a trial or just cause.

• Your citizenship on this planet is equally important to you. Many of you are citizens of these United States of America. That citizenship is important to us. It guarantees us some special privileges that people around the world long to obtain. In fact, people all over the world look to the USA as a haven for those who suffer injustice from their governments. We give political sanctuary to citizens of other countries who are being persecuted for their faith, for instance.

• We enjoy the amazing liberties of speech and the press, freedom of assembly and, most importantly freedom of religion. Our government guarantees us that we can worship as we see fit in this land of ours. We consider this to freedom of religion, however, to be a human right granted to us by the Creator God, not a right that is conferred upon us by any government. Legitimate governments must recognize this right of the individual to live according to the dictates of his conscience. It is fundamental to all other liberties.

• We feel very blessed to be US citizens. We feel like we are part of the greatest country on earth.

• Yet we know that this nation is flawed, as are all nations. Every government and every jurisdiction suffers from injustice. This is the curse of sin upon us individually and collectively. The “principalities and powers” are often at odds with the purposes of God. We feel this in our land today in certain ways.

• Peter was not a Roman citizen, as far as we know. But he rejoices, as does Paul, in a citizenship that transcends any possible citizenship on this earth—the Eternal Kingdom.

The Eternal Kingdom is the Place that best matches Our True Identity:

 

Here we often feel like strangers and aliens. The old song says it: “this world is not my home, I’m just a traveling through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world any more.”

We are in a temporary dwelling place: “I live in the tent of this body” (2 Peter 1:13).

• Abraham and Isaac lived in tents. They drove their tent pegs shallow because they knew they would be pulling them up soon, moving on to another place.

• A tent is not a permanent place. It is a mobile dwelling. And it subject to the sun and rain and wind and all the elements.

We are going to put aside this body: “I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me” (2 Peter 1:14).

• Jesus told Peter, “Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.' Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, 'Follow me!'" (John 21:17-19)

One day the only thing left for you will be the Eternal Kingdom. You also will put aside this tent you are living in. And you will show up in eternity to stand before God and give an account of your life in his world.