Kingdom Culture | Week 1 | Pastor David Brown
MESSAGE NOTES
Episode Notes
Kingdom Culture- Week 1
November 02, 2025
Teacher: Pastor Dave Brown
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
— Peter Drucker
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
— Matthew 4:17
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near…People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
— Matthew 3:1-2, 5-9
Repentance was what Israel must do if her exile is to come to an end.
— N.T. Wright
If repentance carries the tone of ‘what Israel must do if her fortunes are to be returned’, it can also have a much more down-to-earth ring: to abandon revolutionary zeal.
— N.T. Wright
The repentance for which Jesus called, then, was not at all like the regular repentance of individual sinners when they recognized their sin and underwent the normal Jewish practices for restitution. That could take place, in principle, at any time in Israel’s history…Jesus’ summons was more radical by far…Jesus was urging his compatriots to abandon a whole way of life, and to trust him for a different one.
— N.T. Wright
He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.
— Leviticus 16:21-22
At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for[a] their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself. “Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
— Ezekiel 3:17-21
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
— Matthew 4:17
The good news is about the living God overcoming all the powers of the world to establish his rule of justice and peace, on earth as in heaven, Not in heaven later on. And that victory is won not by superior power of the same kind but by a different sort of power altogether…The kingdoms of the world run on violence. The kingdom of God, Jesus declared, runs on love.
— N.T. Wright
Stop trying to bring about the promises of God through your own effort and worldly means.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
— Matthew 5:3-12