Building Kingdom #2 teaches that the whole Bible is about a King, a kingdom and a royal family, and that believers already belong to that family. God has already blessed us and given us His righteousness as a gift, so the Christian life is not performing for God but seeking first His kingdom and receiving what He has provided. The pastor also explains why this age is called the kingdom of heaven and why God builds through a church that functions together.
Below are the full video, a structured summary, every Scripture linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway, a timestamped outline and practical steps.
Sermon at a Glance
This message was preached at NTC Ministries in Merrill, Wisconsin, and posted on April 8, 2025. It runs about 72 minutes. It is the second message in a new series the pastor calls building kingdom, or building God’s kingdom, which follows his earlier series on the names of God, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and being blessed with heaven’s best. Each series, he says, builds on the one before.
He opens with a warning: whenever believers focus more on end-time events than on Jesus, they lose power, intimacy and revelation of grace, and drift into law and strictness.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | The pastor (not named in the recording) |
| Series | Building Kingdom, #2 |
| Main text | Matthew 6:25–33 and Ephesians 2:19–22 |
| Key theme | The royal family already has everything; seek first the kingdom and His righteousness |
| Length | About 72 minutes, ending with an invitation to receive Jesus |
A King, a Kingdom and a Royal Family
The pastor sums up Scripture in one line: the Bible is about a King, a kingdom and a royal family. There are events, he says, and studying them can be interesting, but every event points to Jesus. Revelation itself calls the book the revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1).
He reviews the previous series with Ephesians 1:3. God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Has blessed, he stresses, is past tense; we do not have to beg Him for it. In 2 Peter 1:2–4, His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Jesus, not through the knowledge of an event.
Those promises are exceedingly great and precious, and through them we partake of the divine nature. As Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). The royal family simply opens up and receives.
Receiving requires understanding righteousness. The law of sin and death, he explains, is performance: you must do something to get God to respond. Jesus took the handwriting of ordinances that was against us and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14). The law was holy, but it was weak because of our performance. Jesus came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), and in fulfilling it He took condemnation out of the picture.
By one man, Adam, death reigned; by one Man, Jesus Christ, righteousness came. Romans 5:17 promises that those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through Him. When you give your life to Jesus, you become part of that royal family.
Righteousness Is a Gift You Can Use
To make the point, he invents a scenario. Imagine that only royalty owned cars, so anyone without a car was plainly not royal. One day the king notices you and brings you into his family, and with that comes a car. People who knew you before might still see you as just Donna or just Scott. Would you be afraid to say you have a car?
Some ministers, he says, teach Christians that they cannot call themselves righteous, because all have sinned and there is none righteous (Romans 3:10). That is true until you give your life to Jesus. Then He gives you righteousness, and like the new member of the royal family, you say: I have it, it was given to me, and I am using it. We are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
He is careful about what that means. We are as right as God is right, not as good as God is good, which is why we are not to compare ourselves among ourselves (2 Corinthians 10:12). He who began a good work in you will complete it (Philippians 1:6), because of His righteousness, not your effort.
Then he goes back to Adam. Everything was finished before Adam was created; God even planted the garden first. Adam was made in God’s image and given dominion over the works of His hands. So when Adam walked with God in the cool of the day, what would he ask for? Many Christians think prayer is mostly asking, he says, but Adam already had everything.
Jesus is the last Adam, a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45), and like the first Adam the royal family has been given everything. Satan still tells the old lie that you must measure yourself by performance, but you are righteous, and your performance has nothing to do with it.
Seek First the Kingdom, Free From Condemnation
The heart of the message is Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:25–33. Do not worry about what you will eat, drink or wear. The birds neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. The lilies do not toil or spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Jesus picked the two most basic needs, food and clothing, and showed that God supplies both without any work from the bird or the flower. How much faith does that take? Only enough to believe that God is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). “I need a revelation of God,” the pastor says, “who he is, what he’s done for me.”
Then he has the church read verse 33 aloud: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” It is so simple, he says, that only God could have thought of it. Seeking His righteousness does not mean trying to become perfect on our own. It means understanding how God made us right with Him, without shame, because His intention was to take away all condemnation.
Condemnation, he teaches, is what crippled Adam. Adam began to work by the sweat of his brow when he condemned himself for disobeying God. Here was a man with authority over everything, and condemnation made him cower from his responsibilities. Every one of us does the same, he says: under condemnation we shrink back from what we are supposed to be doing.
That is why Romans 8:1 matters so much: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Walking after the flesh, he explains, is the attitude of trying to earn it and prove yourself; walking after the Spirit is living by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Seeking first the kingdom also deals with covetousness. God supplies all your need according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19), so the royal family rules and reigns in this life, not by force but by love and care. If your enemy is hungry, feed him (Romans 12:20), because the royal family has the goods to do it.
The Kingdom of Heaven Through the Ages
The kingdom of God, the pastor says, is wherever the King is. He walks through the dispensations of history, also called administrations or economies. Each changed because of the condition of man’s heart: as hearts grew harder, the rules grew harder, from seeds and vegetables in Eden to meat after the flood to clean and unclean foods under the law.
God never truly wanted sacrifices, he adds, but a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:16–17). The table follows the sequence as he teaches it.
| Dispensation | How he describes it |
|---|---|
| Innocence | Adam ruled with authority in the garden |
| Conscience | People were ruled by what they could touch, taste, see, feel and hear; ended at the flood |
| Human government | People did whatever they wanted; ended when Abraham was called |
| Promise | Abraham lived by God’s promise, which is why he is the father of our faith |
| Law | The law came through Moses |
| Grace (the kingdom of heaven) | Grace was poured out when Jesus died and rose from the dead |
| Millennial reign | Jesus rules on the earth for a thousand years, with peace |
The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). That grace is the age of the kingdom of heaven. The pastor previews his next series, on kingdom faith, noting that many Christians live by the faith of promise and repetition, so their faith never finds its launch pad.
Why learn about the kingdom at all? Matthew 13:19 warns that when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one snatches it away, stealing the truth behind Jesus’ promise of greater works (John 14:12).
God gave man dominion (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8:6), and the earth He has given to the children of men (Psalm 115:16). Adam lost that authority, so Jesus came legally as a man to take back what was lost.
He tells of a crusade in a Muslim area of Uganda where he saw signs, wonders and miracles. Two young men asked for his power, but backed away when he said they must renounce their god and serve Jesus, the King of kings. Would a local king give you his power if you refused to serve him? Neither will Jesus.
Psalm 103:19 says His kingdom rules over all, and Revelation 5:10 says He has made us kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. When we give our lives to Christ, heaven comes to us. We become ambassadors, and like an ambassador overseas, we carry the full backing of the kingdom we represent.
Born Again to See and Enter the Kingdom of Heaven
Many churches, the pastor says, build their whole message on being born again. It is incredibly important, but there is much more beyond it. In John 3:3–8 Jesus says 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. Born of water, he explains, means natural birth, when the mother’s water breaks; born of the Spirit means born from heaven.
First you see the kingdom, then you enter it, which is why to those who receive Him, God gives the right to become children of God (John 1:12). Not “I go to church so I’m a Christian,” but a brand new creation in the kingdom of heaven, with evidence that comes from heaven.
It is called the kingdom of heaven now, he teaches, because the risen Jesus sat down at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19), while the Holy Spirit is here as the governor of the kingdom. Jesus said it was better for Him to leave so the Spirit would come (John 16:7).
In Matthew 16:13–19, Peter confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and Jesus answers that flesh and blood did not reveal this, but His Father in heaven. Simon, the pastor explains, means a reed easily shaken, but Jesus calls him Peter. The rock is the revelation that Jesus is the Son of God. On that revelation Jesus builds His church, and to those who receive it He gives the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
When you receive Jesus, He takes out the hard heart and gives a new heart and His Spirit. Then, like the scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven who brings out of his treasure things new and old (Matthew 13:52), we have every promise to give to anyone, qualified or not.
Building Kingdom Together: the Church and the Mystery
Some people say they do not believe in the organized church. The pastor answers that Jesus came to build His church, and every builder puts each part where it fits. Individually we are the church, but corporately we function differently, the way a single cog accomplishes far more when joined to the whole machine.
1 Corinthians 12:18, which he reads from the Amplified Bible, says God has placed the members in the body just as He pleased. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). So pray about where God wants you placed, then work to advance the kingdom.
Ephesians 2:19–22 says we are no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens and members of God’s household, built on the apostles and prophets, with Christ as chief cornerstone, being built together into a dwelling for God by His Spirit. There is an anointing that comes corporately, he says, like the river whose streams make glad the city of God (Psalm 46:4).
When brethren dwell together in unity, there the Lord commands the blessing (Psalm 133:1–3). Church is not about being told to shape up, he says; it is about receiving and celebrating God, and the wealth He brings is for the kingdom.
In Colossians 1:24–29, Paul calls his stewardship a dispensation and speaks of the mystery hidden from ages and generations but now revealed: Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Greek word, he explains, is mysterion, a word for something like a fraternity with a secret handshake. A mystery is not something you cannot know; you have to come in to know it.
The password, he says, is Jesus: confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). And “it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2). At the church’s egg hunt, toddlers find eggs in plain sight while older children must search. The more mature you become in the kingdom of heaven, the more you dig.
Revelation is also corporate. Paul was not at the Last Supper, yet he passed on what he received from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23–25). The pastor recalls a church in Niagara, Wisconsin, where 92 people were born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. That is the difference between religion and the real church.
Living It Out This Week
The pastor closes by inviting anyone listening to put down every other god, believe Jesus is the Son of God and receive a new heart. Here are practical steps drawn from this building kingdom message:
- Thank God in the past tense. Read Ephesians 1:3 and thank Him for blessings He has already given instead of begging for them.
- Use your righteousness. When condemnation says you are not good enough, answer with Romans 8:1 and keep doing what God called you to do.
- Seek first the kingdom. Before you worry about provision, ask what would build God’s kingdom today and put that first.
- Find your place in the body. Pray about where God wants you placed in the church, then serve there instead of just taking up space.
- Search out a matter. Pick one passage and dig into it like a king searching for hidden treasure.
- Celebrate together. Gather with other believers this week; the commanded blessing rests on unity.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 A new series: a King, a kingdom and a royal family
- 3:27 Review: Ephesians 1:3 and 2 Peter 1:2–4
- 5:48 The law of sin and death versus the law of the Spirit
- 7:54 The royal car: claiming righteousness
- 12:48 Matthew 6: the birds and the lilies
- 16:10 Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness
- 17:17 Condemnation and Romans 8:1
- 18:41 The dispensations of history
- 23:42 Matthew 13:19: understanding the word of the kingdom
- 26:08 A crusade in Uganda
- 29:41 Kings and priests who reign on the earth
- 30:56 John 3: born again to see and enter
- 34:11 Why it is called the kingdom of heaven
- 39:00 Matthew 16: the rock of revelation
- 43:25 The organized church
- 47:19 Ephesians 2:19–22: fellow citizens
- 50:58 Psalm 133: the commanded blessing
- 53:30 Colossians 1:24–29: the mystery revealed
- 1:05:08 Proverbs 25:2 and the egg hunt
- 1:09:24 Closing prayer and invitation
Building Kingdom Series
This message is part of the Building Kingdom series at NTC Ministries. Continue with the next teaching:
- You are here: Building Kingdom #2: A King, a Kingdom and a Royal Family
- Next: Building Kingdom #3: God’s Love Through Every Administration (Easter Message)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is God in control of everything on earth?
The pastor teaches that God gave the earth to the children of men (Psalm 115:16) and gave man dominion in Genesis 1:26, so saying “God’s in control” in the usual sense misses that. Adam lost his authority, which is why Jesus came as a man to take it back, so believers can live with the right authority and do the works He did.
What is the difference between ignorant and stupid in this sermon?
He draws the distinction while answering people who reject the organized church. Ignorant, he says, means you do not have the understanding yet; you simply do not know. Stupid means you have the understanding but refuse to apply it to your life. His point is that many who reject the church have not yet understood how Jesus builds it, which is why the enemy can steal the word of the kingdom from them.
Does seeking the kingdom mean God wants me poor?
No. The pastor says God is not withholding from you, and that healing, prosperity and freedom from debt are available to the royal family. But the wealth God brings is for the kingdom, not just for a bigger house or car. He also notes that God can turn the wealth gathered by those who do not know Him toward the righteous, so believers can meet needs.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Ephesians 1:3 and 2 Peter 1:2–4 — every blessing already given
- Romans 5:17 — the gift of righteousness
- Matthew 6:25–33 — seek first the kingdom
- Romans 8:1 — no condemnation
- Psalm 115:16 — the earth given to men
- John 3:3–8 — born again to see and enter
- Matthew 16:13–19 — the keys of the kingdom
- Ephesians 2:19–22 — fellow citizens
- Colossians 1:24–29 — Christ in you, the hope of glory
- Proverbs 25:2 — the glory of kings
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
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