Build Kingdom is a new teaching series at NTC Ministries, and this first message lays its foundation: God has already given His children everything they need, so believers can stop worrying, stop striving and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Dr. William P. Hohman shows from Matthew 6, Ephesians 1 and 2 Peter 1 that righteousness is a gift, that mankind was given dominion in the earth, and that Jesus is building His church through people who understand how His kingdom works.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This message opens a new series at NTC Ministries, which Pastor Hohman calls building God’s kingdom, or building Kingdom. He says it draws heavily on the series of the past two years, so the first half reviews what the church has already learned about righteousness and being blessed with heaven’s best, and the second half introduces the kingdom of God itself. He calls the whole message his introduction and says the series will run for a couple of months.
His central text is Jesus’ instruction in the Sermon on the Mount not to worry about food, drink or clothing, but to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. From there he moves through dominion, the new birth, and the church Jesus promised to build.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Dr. William P. Hohman |
| Series | Build Kingdom, part 1 (introduction) |
| Main text | Matthew 6:25–33 |
| Key theme | Living from the gift of righteousness instead of worry, and learning how the kingdom of God works |
| Length | About 72 minutes |
Righteousness Is a Gift, Not a Wage
Pastor Hohman begins with the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which has made us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Under the old covenant there were 613 laws, and a person was righteous only by keeping every one of them perfectly.
The law of the Spirit of life works differently. When we commit our lives to Jesus, believe He is the Son of God and live for Him, He makes us the righteousness of God. “We’re not good as God but we’re as right as God,” Pastor Hohman says. Our actions are not perfect, but the righteousness we have been given means we can receive everything as if we were perfect in every way. Your worst day and your best day, he says, are the same day to God.
That is why God withholds nothing. Romans 8:32 asks how He who did not spare His own Son will not also freely give us all things.
He then reviews Adam. God created everything first, planted the Garden of Eden, which Pastor Hohman describes as massive, and placed Adam in it simply to guard and keep it. So when God walked with him in the cool of the day, Adam had nothing to ask for; everything had already been given, and he ruled it all.
From the previous series, Blessed With Heaven’s Best, he rereads Ephesians 1:3–6: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame, and made us accepted in the Beloved. He teaches that the word accepted is used elsewhere only when the angel greets Mary as highly favored (Luke 1:28). Favor is an internal working of God, not the result of how great or how good you are.
Do Not Worry About Your Life
Pastor Hohman also reviews 2 Peter 1:2–4: His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him. He underlines the past tense. Through these promises we become partakers of the divine nature, and when we truly receive what God has done, the greed and lust for more begin to fall away.
With that foundation he opens the first text of the Build Kingdom series, Matthew 6:25–33. Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.” Birds do not sow, reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
You cannot add a cubit to your stature by worrying, he says; you cannot even grow an inch. The lilies neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of them. You do not need great faith for this, he says; simply say that God has you.
He links lack to striving. James asks where wars and fights come from (James 4:1–2), and Pastor Hohman answers that people fight because they want what they cannot get. The cure is Matthew 6:33: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Seeking His righteousness means understanding how you have been made righteous, as a gift, so that you reign in life through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17).
“Faith for a Christian is like water for a fish,” he says. A fish is not trying to get water; it swims around in it. Faith is the environment you live in. The question is whether you are living in the confidence that God provides everything for you, or in the anxious question of how you are going to make ends meet. In Christ, he says, the Lord is your defense and your provider, who supplies all your need according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19).
A King, a Kingdom and a Royal Family
Pastor Hohman explains why religion works against Christianity. Religion is about your work, what you are doing and how you are doing it. Christianity is a family. God is your Father, not a master you serve, and Jesus is your big brother. “The whole Bible is a story about a king, a kingdom and a royal family,” he says.
He adds that the whole Bible is built on gifts. God began His relationship with Adam by giving him everything. When it seemed all was lost, God gave another gift: He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). Even faith is a gift, because we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves (Ephesians 2:8). Then the Father gives the Holy Spirit, who in turn gives the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8–10).
The natural mind cannot receive this (1 Corinthians 2:14), and it frustrates people. Yet Pastor Hohman says Christianity is that easy. As we accept God’s gifts, our whole nature changes: joy instead of worry, peace instead of depression, and concern for others instead of ourselves. Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10:8). Refusing God’s gifts, he says, is false humility.
Supply comes from the inside out, he says, never from the outside in. A new job feels wonderful for a few weeks and then grows old, because external things cannot change the internal. Jesus said it is not what goes into a person that defiles him but what comes out (Mark 7:15). The answer is to live off His perfection, not yours.
He warns that a lack of knowledge of the kingdom lets Satan steal truth from people’s lives. Without faith it is impossible to please God, who is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). God is not the one who takes from you; the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). And Jesus said that when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one snatches it away (Matthew 13:19). So we need to hear the message of the kingdom until revelation comes.
Who Has Dominion in the Earth?
Jesus is the King of the kingdom, seated at the right hand of God, and the Holy Spirit is the governor of the kingdom in this world. But Pastor Hohman pushes back on the common saying that God is in control. If He were, he asks, would Adam ever have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion.” Psalm 8:4–6 says God made man to have dominion over the works of His hands, and Psalm 115:16 says the heavens are the Lord’s, but the earth He has given to the children of men.
That is why God could not simply take over. He is omnipotent, Pastor Hohman says, but He set the bounds Himself, so His Son had to come in the flesh, live perfectly and take back the right to rule. The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45).
When Adam sinned, Pastor Hohman teaches, he did not lose his authority so much as stop using it, because condemnation took his strength. If Adam had simply said “God, forgive me,” he would have been forgiven. Jesus took condemnation away: there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and in Isaiah 54:9–10 God swears He will not be angry with His people.
Wherever the King is, His kingdom is established, and the kingdom of God advances by love, not by force. Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13–14), and from the believer’s heart flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Psalm 103:19 says His kingdom rules over all, and Revelation 5:9–10 says He has made us kings and priests who shall reign on the earth. So, he says, we do not merely resist evil; we overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).
Seeing and Entering the Kingdom of God
Pastor Hohman notes that one verse says you must be born again, and the church rightly makes a whole doctrine of it, yet he counts 101 verses about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven that few people are taught. Being born again lets us see and enter the kingdom, but without teaching about the kingdom our lives will not produce what they should.
In John 3:3–8, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God, and unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter it. Pastor Hohman teaches that born of water here means natural birth, when a mother’s water breaks, not baptism of any kind.
He says the kingdom of God has been administered in different ways according to the condition of man’s heart, each with a new covenant. Paul spoke of the dispensation of grace (Ephesians 3:2), and Pastor Hohman defines dispensation as an administration. The table follows the seven he lists.
| Dispensation as taught | Period |
|---|---|
| Innocence | Adam in the garden |
| Conscience | From the fall until the flood |
| Human government | From Noah until Abraham |
| Promise | From Abraham until the law |
| Law | From Moses until Jesus died on the cross |
| Grace | The present age, while Jesus rules from heaven |
| Millennial reign | The thousand years after the second coming |
The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). After the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19). Pastor Hohman teaches that the phrase kingdom of heaven describes this present period of grace, when we reign on earth while He rules from heaven.
In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith (Romans 1:16–17), and it is through righteousness, he says, that we obtain the blessings.
Build Kingdom: I Will Build My Church
The closing section of this Build Kingdom message centers on Matthew 16:13–19. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said flesh and blood had not revealed this to him, but His Father in heaven.
He teaches that the name Simon pictures a reed easily blown and shaken in the wind, while Peter means a rock, a boulder the breeze cannot move. The rock on which Jesus builds His church is not Peter as a pope, he says, but the revelation that Jesus is the Son of God. That revelation stops us from being tossed by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14).
Jesus then gives the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The one with the keys is the owner of the house. Like the scribe instructed in the kingdom who brings out treasures new and old (Matthew 13:52), we cannot give away blessings we do not believe are ours.
To those who say they do not believe in the organized church, he answers that Jesus said, “I will build My church,” and building means gathering parts and assembling them. God has set the members in the body just as He pleased (1 Corinthians 12:18). In Ephesians 2:19–22, believers are fellow citizens with the saints, built together on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the chief cornerstone, into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
In Ephesians 4:11–16, Jesus gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, until we all come to the unity of the faith and to a perfect man. Pastor Hohman explains four Greek words for stages of growth to show what maturity means:
| Greek word | Stage as taught |
|---|---|
| Teknon | A nursing baby |
| Paidion | A child from one to twelve years old |
| Pais | A child from about eleven to twenty, often used of a slave |
| Huios | A mature son, skilled in battle, able to take ground and hold it, led by the Spirit and not easily offended |
All creation, he says, is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19). That maturity comes as we assemble and sit under all five ministry anointings. The body builds itself up in love as each part does its share, and that is why it matters that we learn how the kingdom functions, because we are the ones given the mandate to make it grow.
Living It Out: Kingdom Steps This Week
Pastor Hohman closed with a prayer of salvation. Here are the practical steps drawn from this first Build Kingdom message:
- Trade worry for trust. When you catch yourself asking how you will make ends meet, say aloud that God has you and everything is yours, as he led the church to do.
- Seek His righteousness, not your own. Read Romans 5:17 and thank God that righteousness is a gift you received, not a wage you earned.
- Refuse condemnation. If you fail, say “God, forgive me” and go on, instead of hiding like Adam.
- Take responsibility for your dominion. Stop blaming others for what has been put in your hands, and practice self-control as fruit of the Spirit.
- Give away the treasures. Pray for someone who is sick, share the kingdom and bless people out of what you have received.
- Be built together. Gather with the church and open your heart to every kind of ministry gift, not only the one you like best.
Timestamped Outline
- 2:30 Introducing the Build Kingdom series
- 3:37 613 laws versus the gift of righteousness
- 4:42 Your worst day and best day are the same
- 5:47 Adam was given everything
- 6:48 Ephesians 1: blessed with every spiritual blessing
- 10:00 2 Peter 1: all things already given
- 11:07 Matthew 6: do not worry about your life
- 14:21 Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness
- 15:29 Faith is like water for a fish
- 18:09 A king, a kingdom and a royal family
- 20:36 Supply comes from the inside out
- 24:35 Hearing the word of the kingdom
- 27:55 Is God in control?
- 29:16 Genesis 1:26: let them have dominion
- 32:54 The earth He has given to men
- 35:37 No condemnation in Christ
- 39:29 His kingdom rules over all
- 41:52 Kings and priests: Revelation 5
- 45:29 John 3: see and enter the kingdom
- 49:58 The seven dispensations
- 55:03 Matthew 16: who do you say I am?
- 59:36 The keys and the organized church
- 1:03:15 Built together as God’s dwelling
- 1:05:50 Growing up: from infant to mature son
- 1:11:17 Prayer of salvation
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this mean Christians should never ask God for anything?
No. Pastor Hohman says he does ask God for things, but that most of the time it is the Lord who prompts him to ask, and then it happens. The difference is the position you pray from. Adam had nothing to beg for because everything had been given, and believers have been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. Prayer becomes fellowship with a Father who already knows your needs, not anxious pleading.
Is the kingdom of heaven different from the kingdom of God?
Pastor Hohman says the kingdom of God always was and always will be, and both phrases describe the same kingdom. He counts 69 verses that say one and 32 that say the other. When the Bible says kingdom of heaven, he teaches, it is describing this present period of grace, in which Jesus rules from heaven at the right hand of God while His people reign on the earth.
Can I be a Christian without belonging to a local church?
Pastor Hohman says he had an independent ministry himself, but he always supported a local church and had a pastor who gave him oversight. He teaches that the five ministry gifts are given to mature the body, so someone who stays away misses those anointings. There is a corporate anointing when believers are built together, and God’s house is meant to be full, not desolate.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Matthew 6:25–33 — do not worry; seek first the kingdom
- Ephesians 1:3–6 — every spiritual blessing
- 2 Peter 1:2–4 — all things that pertain to life and godliness
- Romans 5:17 — the gift of righteousness
- Genesis 1:26 — let them have dominion
- Psalm 115:16 — the earth given to the children of men
- John 3:3–8 — born again to see and enter
- Matthew 16:13–19 — I will build My church
- Ephesians 4:11–16 — the ministry gifts and maturity
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
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