Will you turn with me to a very well-known passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 3? John 3, from verse 1.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
the same came unto Him by night, and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew.
I want to add to that Matthew 20, from verse 24.
And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation concerning the two brethren.
But Jesus called them unto Him, and said, Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister;
and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant:
even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
I want to add to that one last Scripture this evening, in the Second Corinthian letter of the Apostle Paul, chapter 3, from verse 17.
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, my portion in this conference is the character of the kingdom.
We are living in days of darkness, turmoil, confusion, and revolution. I think this darkness is going to grow. I think all the economic problems, the financial problems, and the climatic problems we are facing are going to grow and grow.
We are in the last days. We are near that time when the Antichrist will appear. And, blessed be the Lord, we are near the time when the Lord Jesus shall return.
We need the character of the kingdom. It is not enough to be born again. The Lord Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, or born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” But then He added that we must be born anew if we are to enter into the kingdom of God.
Once we are born of God, there is a sense in which we are born of the King. He has saved us. But it is interesting in the Word of God that it speaks of entering the kingdom through much tribulation. In another place, it speaks of a great entrance to the kingdom being ministered to us.
I therefore want to share with you this evening, and in the further times I have, a few more thoughts. I want to share with you just two matters that are essential.
The first is very simple. I think the simplest person here should understand it: the character of the King is the character of the kingdom.
I really feel that all I ought to do is say, “Listen to Dana,” because whatever he says is the character of the King. That is the character of the kingdom.
Let me take this a few steps further. The character of the kingdom is derived from the character of the King.
It is very interesting in the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians that he speaks of us beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord and being changed into the same image, from glory to glory.
This Greek word is an interesting word: metamorphosis. We have it in English. “Transfigured” is another way of putting it in English; “transformed” is yet another way; “changed” is another. It all comes to the same thing.
As we see the King, as we behold something of His glory, if only as in a mirror—that is, a reflection of His glory—we are changed into His likeness.
If there is no change taking place in the believers in this auditorium, there is no kingdom. The kingdom of God means that you and I, if we are born again, if we are to enter into that kingdom in reality, must undergo a change. We have to be transformed, changed, transfigured. In some way, this marvellous work of the Holy Spirit has to be done in every one of us.
When was the last time you took a step in the Lord? When was the last time the Lord challenged you?
It is so easy to have a comfortable Christianity. We go to meetings at least once a week. If we are good, we will go to the prayer meeting. If we are not so good, we will go to the Bible study.
We have a comfortable kind of routine Christianity. Nothing ever disturbs us. It is a kind of idea that we are being wafted into the glory of the Lord, that somehow or other we are being carried on a bed of roses into the kingdom of God.
Dear child of God, this is a fallacy. You and I have to be changed. We have to be transformed, and we have to be transformed into His image, into His likeness, into His character.
Could you imagine what would happen in all the families represented here, in all the places of work represented here, and in the communities of unsaved people among whom we live, if every one of us was being changed into the image of the Lord Jesus? If there was movement in our lives, a change taking place?
The Apostle Paul puts it this way: we are being changed into His likeness from glory to glory. But T. Austin-Sparks used to say, “Dear child of God, that is from tribulation to tribulation, from one affliction to another.”
Is that being too hard on us all? You and I, by nature, are such comfort-loving creatures that we will never be changed unless the Lord disturbs us by relationships, disturbs us by circumstances, and disturbs us by the enemy being allowed to play games with us.
“Oh,” you say, “Jesus would never allow the enemy.” Well, I do not know what kind of gospel you have, but the fact of the matter is, if you are a child of God, you have been born into warfare.
What is that warfare over? It is over whether the enemy can keep you the kind of person you were when you were saved, instead of the kind of person that God wants you to be.
I do not think I could make this matter more clear than that.
It is interesting to see also that the world takes notice of people who are being changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. So often they call us hypocrites. They look upon us as religious. Often, it is true: we are religious Christians.
But when we are being changed into His likeness, it is the purpose of God that is being fulfilled in your life.
Then the Lord takes all the circumstances, the relationships, the difficulties, the tribulations, and the afflictions, and these are used to disturb us until we take a step further in the Lord—and another step, and another step, and another step.
We are told in the Word of God to walk by faith. What is walking? It is so simple. I can do it for you, if I do not wobble and fall over. Look: one, two, three, four, five. I have taken five steps. How have I taken those steps? For me, by faith.
I have taken those steps by faith. Nobody ever takes a step further into the Lord, into being changed and transformed into His likeness, unless it is by living faith, which is the gift of God to you.
Then you are entering in, and you are using the very things that should destroy you. They are being used to bring you into the likeness, the character, of the Lord Jesus.
In Acts 14:22, it says that we enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations.
I think of the Apostle Peter’s first letter. Now, I am going to quote it first of all from the old King James: “The proving of your faith.” But actually, in the Greek, it is not the proving or testing of your faith; it is the proof of your faith. In other words, God is proving that you have living faith.
Something is being done in you. We sometimes think of it as our being tested, our being tried. But in fact, the Lord is so loving—listen carefully to me—the Lord is so loving that He will never put you into a test which destroys you. He will only put you into a test which proves that you have living faith.
Think, then, about this: what is the character of the kingdom of God? It is the character of the Lord Jesus. And you and I are being changed into that character of the King.
How are you doing? Did you hear me? How are you doing? Is there any movement in your life? Is there any progress in your life? Is something happening in you?
Now, it is very interesting if you take the Apostle Paul as an example. In almost one of his very first letters, he speaks of himself as being a sinner. But in his last letter, he speaks of himself as the chief of sinners.
Is not this extraordinary? You would have thought that here is the apostle who began by seeing the King of glory, by being knocked out by the risen, glorified Messiah Jesus. You would have thought, “Well, is this not tremendous?” He went through all these troubles. We have all the record of the scourgings, the imprisonments, and the different things that happened to him.
We would have thought that at the end he would have said, “Dear friends, I am so glad that I have been changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus.” Instead, he calls himself the chief of all sinners.
This means that the Lord knows that there is pride in every one of us. As soon as we have won a few battles and feel we might be an overcomer, we immediately begin to preen our feathers. You know, we are something. “I have got through,” you know.
But the Lord keeps us extremely humble when He is changing us into the image of the Lord Jesus.
Then we are learning of the Lord. We are being changed into His likeness. His character is being developed in us. But we are only aware of how hopeless we are, how poor we are, how little we are, and how far short we fall of what we feel we should be.
The character of the kingdom is the character of the Lord Jesus, and that character has to be formed in us.
You know, there is not a person in this room who did not come into this world naked. Think about it. You had no clothes on when you were born. You were naked.
And when you come to go to be with the Lord—or, to put it more boldly, when you die—you will be naked again. All those degrees and titles, all that jewellery, all the things that you have possessed and built up, the businesses, the homes—you will leave it all.
You came into this world naked, and you will go out from it naked. The only thing you will take with you is what the Lord has done in you.
When the Lord produces character in us, it is forever. It has to do with the kingdom of God. It has to do with the throne of God. It has to do with service—eternal service.
Think. I used to wonder why God wipes away tears. It says it in the last but one chapter of Revelation: “And God shall wipe away all tears.” Why would He be wiping away tears?
I think it is because we never allowed the Lord to do in us what He wanted to do. We have spent our whole lives circling around ourselves. Our whole Christian life is centred in ourselves.
We are glad we are saved because it is our self that is saved. We are glad we are children of God. We are glad we know the Lord because He will clean up all the messes that we make.
No wonder we shall weep when the Lord says, “I sought to change you into the likeness of My Son, and you would not.”
God needs candidates for His kingdom. He is looking for people who can reign with Him through the ages to come—people who can reign with the Lord Jesus, people who have the same character as the Lord Jesus.
That is the character of the kingdom: the character of the Lord Jesus.
If you and I are not being conformed to the image, or the likeness, of the Lord Jesus, what point is there in our study of the Bible, our praying, our witnessing? What value is there in our human life if we are not being changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus?
No, let me put it yet another way. It seems to me a waste of a human life if we have not been changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
You have only one life. Now, if you are like our brother Stephen, you will live to ninety-seven. But if you are like others, you may only live to thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty.
That little life of yours is a pinprick compared with eternity. It is like dust. It is so small, even if you live to be as old as dear Stephen, or others I have known—like F. F. Bruce, a hundred and four this year. I mean, it is a pinprick compared with eternity. It is nothing.
Why do you and I throw away the opportunity that we have in this pinprick of life that God has given us to be changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus?
Catholics believe in purgatory, that place where you are put into ovens and cooked and changed, as it were, because they feel so many people need a little more time than this little life. So they believe in purgatory.
But I do not think there is a purgatory. As I see it, you have one single life, and you do not know God’s appointed time for that life.
Satan has a tremendous propaganda machine, because he tells you, “You do not need to start getting serious about the Lord now. Wait; you are young. There is plenty of time. Wait a little while.”
Then you get married, and the enemy comes to you and says, “No, look, please look here. You have got too many worries now. You are married. You have got a young family. Do not get serious. Put it off. It will be all right. When you are middle-aged, you will have plenty of time.”
Then, when you are middle-aged, life has become comfortable. You take it comfortably. The enemy says, “You do not have to get all disturbed about things. Silly people like that preacher, talking to you about being changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. Just wait a little while.”
So you wait until you can hardly see, and you cannot hear, and you totter around. Then you think, “I am now a little too old to change.”
How clever the enemy is to do this with us—to string us along right through the whole of life.
What a wonderful thing it is when the Lord uses our circumstances and relationships, our business life, our home life, and even the national life of the nation from which you come, to change us into His likeness.
That is the first thing I want to say this evening.
Here is the second thing: the supreme calling of the King and the kingdom is to service.
Just recently Britain had the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. She had reigned for sixty years. She has been an example, I think, to the whole of the British people of service.
She gets up early in the morning. She reads all the Cabinet papers. I cannot believe how she does it—they are so boring! But she reads all these Cabinet papers. She reads everything that different members of Parliament have said. It is all recorded.
Then she goes off to open hospitals, children’s homes, or other big things, entertaining. No person has worked as hard as she has been.
Those in a republic, if I may be so bold to say—especially in the light of Independence Day—do not fully understand what a real king or queen is all about. They think it is something like Claudius, where they just sit on golden thrones, lift a little hand, and some flunkey rushes off to get something and bring it back on a cushion.
They sit there and are admired by everybody. They do not realise how much real work a real, good king or queen undertakes. Queen Victoria reigned for sixty-three years. She was a remarkable woman who gave to the British people a spiritual tone to their life.
What is God’s idea of a king? “Oh,” you say, “someone powerful, someone authoritative, someone who can rule, someone who is the centre of everything, who lifts his hand and it is done.”
God’s idea of a king is that he is a servant. Did you hear what Matthew recorded? “For the Son of Man came to serve.”
It is very interesting that in that passage I read to you from Matthew 20, from verse 24, Stephen made mention this morning of that little spat they had. You know, the mother of James and John—she was cousin to Mary.
What she was saying to Jesus was, “Jesus, You should keep this whole thing in the family.” Now, you who are Chinese will understand me: keep it in the family; do not let it go out of the family.
And, of course, when the rest heard it, they were indignant. Stephen told us all about that this morning.
Then the Lord Jesus said something. Listen. He said, “If you want to be something in the kingdom, you must be as a servant.”
He said, “If you want to be first, you must be a bondslave.” Then He said, “For the Son of Man came to be such a servant, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
There are two words in Greek which, in our English translations, are both translated “servant.” One is a hired servant, and the other is the bondslave.
There is a world of difference between a hired servant and a bondslave. A hired servant has rights. A hired servant has hours of work and hours off. A hired servant has wages.
A bondslave belongs to his master twenty-four hours of every seven days of the week, of all the fifty-two weeks of a year, of all the years of his life, to the year of Jubilee. He is at the beck and call of his master.
Jesus said something incredible here. Sometimes I get queries from people who want to be servants of the Lord. By this, they mean they want to have authority over other believers. We train people for this task. I mean, we have a whole system.
Jesus said, “Yes, if you want to be something, you can be like a hired servant. Have your rights, have your hours, have your wages. But if you want to be first of all, you have to be a bondslave.”
Now, is it not interesting that in Philippians 2 it says that Jesus, being on an equality with God, did not see it as something to be grasped, but humbled Himself and became a bondslave?
So to be changed into the likeness of Jesus is to be ready to be a bondslave. Does that come to you as a shock?
It is very interesting that a number of the apostles—not all of them, but a number of them—when they wrote their letters, called themselves servants. You will read it in English as “servants,” but the word is “bondslave”: a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
At His beck and call. Totally His. Ready to do anything He says, small or large.
What is the character of the kingdom? Supremely, it is service. It is not service where you have hours and time off, service from which you can retire at a certain age.
It is service which takes your whole being. Have I made myself clear? Is it depressing you?
You know, fancy the Lord Jesus being described as a bondslave. Think. No wonder it says:
Wherefore also God highly exalted Him,
and gave unto Him the name which is above every name;
that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Your Saviour was a bondslave. Your Lord was a bondslave. He did it for you. He speaks again and again of Himself as serving the Lord, His Father, God the Father.
Have I got that home to you?
Listen to this. Here is the apostle again, Paul, and he writes this in Romans 12:1.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service.
You have a whole number of different versions of the Greek here. “Your reasonable service,” it says in one. “Your worship,” says another.
Years ago, when I looked at this, we had a Cambridge don in the fellowship, and I was confused by it. I finally went to him and said, “Yes, but I do not understand it.” He said, “Well, it is extremely difficult to understand.”
He said, “Being a living sacrifice is your spiritually intelligent worship and service.” I had said to him, “Could I say that it is your spiritually intelligent worship? Because those are the words used in the Greek.” He said, “No, unless you add ‘and service’—your spiritually intelligent worship and service.”
In other words, my worship, your worship, my service, your service—if it is emotional, if it is just from our flesh—it means nothing.
It is when you, in cold blood, become a living sacrifice that is your spiritually intelligent worship and service, and nothing less.
“Oh,” you say, “that is far too high a standard for us.” I cannot do anything about it.
That is the character of the kingdom: a living sacrifice.
“Oh,” you say, “what does that mean?” What do you think a living sacrifice was under the old covenant? That poor animal that was being sacrificed was alive. Its blood was being shed. Its life was over.
Actually, it would be a burnt offering. It would go up in smoke.
So much for all this idea that we should consecrate all our talents and everything else to the help of the Lord, that we will throw ourselves behind the Lord, and bless Him with our talents and with everything else that we have got. The church has suffered so much from the talent of its people.
Oh, to have the kind of service that means you and I are living sacrifices. Half the squabbles we have in the church, the confrontations we have in the church, and the difficulties we find with one another would disappear if we were all living sacrifices.
And that is precisely what the apostle says, for he goes on to say that you might be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
You can never be transformed except by being a living sacrifice. Have you got it? Is it too much?
You will never, never be anything in the kingdom of God if you are not a living sacrifice.
Look at this. The Apostle Paul has written the greatest exposition of the gospel in the New Testament—in the Bible, including Old and New Testament. This Roman letter is accepted by everyone as the greatest exposition of the gospel.
He takes eight chapters to describe, right from the beginning, sin and its awfulness, right the way through to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, and ends with those wonderful words:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Then he goes into something else. Why did he do that? What has that got to do with the gospel? Three whole chapters about election. “Oh,” you say, “do not bring up that subject.”
But here it is. The whole problem the apostle is facing in this question of the gospel is: can the Lord elect and unelect? Can He save and unsave?
He takes Israel, the Jewish people, as the incredible example of this election of God. Then he speaks of all the elect Gentiles coming into the salvation of God.
Then he speaks in the last part that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. He speaks in those immortal words, “I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery”—the mystery of Israel—“lest you be wise in your own conceits; that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved.”
Mercy.
Now he sums the whole of these eleven chapters up in one single marvellous way. Listen to it: “I beseech you, therefore.”
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, “Always take note of the small little words: wherefore, therefore, but, and so on, because often on them hinges a whole lot.”
Why did he say, “Therefore, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God”? By the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, who became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. The mercies that God has expressed to us—and then election.
Can you believe it, that God could be so faithful to unfaithful people? How could He do it? Mercy. This wonderful word in Greek—eleos—in Hebrew, chesed. This marvellous word is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament and hundreds of times in the New Testament.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Out of this comes proving what is the good, perfect, and acceptable will of God. Out of this comes the church. Read it in Romans 12.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the character of the kingdom. Does it find you out? Does it find me out?
I must finish. I have bored you for long enough.
There was a man, a nobleman, an aristocrat. His name was Nicholas, Count von Zinzendorf. He was unsaved. He was a Moravian—from what we now call the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
He went into a museum one day, walked around the museum looking at all the various things, and suddenly he saw a painting. It was a painting of the crucified Christ.
He stood in front of that painting for two solid hours and did not move. Underneath, written in German, were the words: “I did all this for you. What have you done for Me?”
Count von Zinzendorf was converted. From that moment, he became a living sacrifice. No half-hearted Christianity for him; no comfortable kind of Christianity, no self-centred Christianity for him.
He became a bondslave of God, of the Lord Jesus. He turned his estates in Moravia into a place of refuge for all the persecuted believers fleeing from Catholic persecution.
What happened among those people is one of the most glorious chapters in the history of the church.
When the Holy Spirit fell upon them, after a big argument they all had—which is normal among Christians—something huge happened. It began the hundred-year prayer meeting.
You know, those people who were filled with the Spirit that day became missionaries to the most unlikely parts of the earth. They went to the Eskimos. They went to Tibet.
They actually contracted leprosy—not willingly, but while looking after lepers—and then rejoiced in the Lord that now they were lepers, able to speak to lepers with understanding.
They even sold themselves as slaves on slave ships with captive Africans being taken across to the New World and to Britain. They actually became slaves in order to reach slaves.
It is one of the most glorious chapters in the history of the church.
But just wait. There was an old legalist called John Wesley. He did everything by method. That is why they called his followers Methodists. Everything was done by method.
He felt, unsaved as he was, that he should preach the gospel. He decided he should preach the gospel to the Red Indians. So he went across to Holland and found a boat crossing the Atlantic to the colonies, from which you got your independence, which you will celebrate in a few days.
He preached the gospel to those Red Indians everywhere. He wore himself out preaching the gospel. In the end, he decided that he was hopeless, let alone the Red Indians.
He wrote in his journal, “O God, I came to save the Red Indians, but who can save me?”
Now, on his journey over to the colonies, a terrible storm hit the ship. The captain and the seamen were all convinced that the ship was going to capsize and go down. They threw overboard all the cargo, everything they could, but it did nothing. They were sure the end was coming—and so was John Wesley.
Then he heard singing, and he thought, “Oh, I have drowned. I am in heaven.” Then he saw a light shining through a partly closed door.
He moved over to it and gently opened the door. To his amazement, there were forty Moravians in the bowels of the ship, sitting all over that room—babies in arms, toddlers on their laps—singing hymns.
He thought, “Who are these people, that they have such faith?”
That was the seed that took root in John Wesley’s life. Then he came back, a failed missionary, to London. He heard of a Moravian preacher who was going to preach in Fleet Street, so he thought, “I am going to hear him.”
Now he was by then a vicar, so off he went to hear the Moravian preacher, who was actually reading a commentary of Martin Luther on one of Paul’s epistles.
As the Moravian preacher read it, John Wesley said, “I felt the strangest warming in my heart.” It was the beginning of the first great evangelical awakening. John Wesley had finally been saved.
You know, that man lived to ninety-four. He travelled all over Britain on horseback. He was a well-known figure. Even in the night, people used to hear the horse as it sped by with John Wesley.
He preached four times a day in all kinds of weather, which is saying something if you know anything about British weather. Your American weather is nothing like it. It is dreadful at times.
At ninety-four years of age, he preached four times a day, sometimes travelling thirty or forty miles between each place on horseback.
A mistress of King George, who was partly responsible for your rising up in fury, said to the old fool—who actually did not believe in God—“Sire, cannot you do something about these dreadful preachers?”
“Which preachers?” he said. She said, “John Wesley and Whitfield, George Whitfield, sit all over the place preaching. Thousands are coming to them in the open air—not preaching in churches, out in the open air. It is disgusting, Sire.”
So he thought for a moment, and he said, “Well, I could make them bishops. That should take the fire out of them.”
When Wesley finally went to be with the Lord, the Lord had changed the face of Britain and saved it from the French Revolution.
Incredible. He was a living sacrifice, a bondslave of God the Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
When he died, that old king who did not believe in God decreed that there should be three days of mourning in the whole of Britain, and that Wesley should be buried in Westminster Abbey.
Dear child of God, this is the character of the kingdom.
It is people like these who have given up everything to become a living sacrifice, to serve the Lord, to be under His command, to be totally obedient to Him.
They sacrificed career. They sacrificed their own will. And in so doing, they became overcomers.
This is the character of the kingdom. This is the character of the Lord Jesus.
Shall we pray?
Lord, we realise that we really do not often have this kind of character in us. But Lord, we ask You: do something in our lives. Challenge us.
May it be that we shall surrender to the Lord Jesus everything we are. He may choose the path we shall go. He will choose our career. He will choose everything for us, and we will serve Him from the heart.
If that is the case, He will take full responsibility for you in everything. He will bless you. He will protect you. He will provide for you. He will be everything you ever needed.
Do it, Lord, we pray, for every one of us. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.