Edited by Rev. Rich Knight
Colonial Sunday, October 18, 1998

Introductory Comments: I wish to thank Father Moody for his support. He’s a man of God & a friend. It’s also nice to be here with my wife Elizabeth. I usually travel by myself. She’s a very understanding woman. Once I was gone for 2 yrs on a preaching tour. On our honeymoon I preached twice a day.  Often I preach 3 or 4 times each day.

 My sermon text this morning is Romans 14:17 -- "For the kingdom of God is not meat or drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."

 As God shall enable me, first I shall endeavor to explain what you are to understand by the phrase, "The Kingdom of God." Secondly, I shall endeavor to show that "the Kingdom of God is not meat or drink." And thirdly, I shall show you what "the Kingdom of God" positively is, namely, "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."

 We are to take the "Kingdom of God" in
the text as signifying that inward work of grace, the kingdom which the Lord Jesus Christ sets up in the hearts of all that are truly brought home to God. So that when the apostle tells us, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,"  it is the same as though he had said,  "My dear friends, do not quarrel about outward things;  for the kingdom of God, or heart & soul religion, does not consist of what you eat or what you drink. The Kingdom of God does not consist in abstaining from a particular meat or drink.

 But I shall take these words in a more comprehensive sense, and shall endeavor to show you that the kingdom of God does not consist in outward things at all. For instance -- Denominations. The Kingdom of God does not consist in being a part of a particular sect or group. My dear friends, if you were asked to give a reason for the hope that is in you, perhaps you could say no more for yourselves that than you belong to this church and worship God in the same way that in which your fathers & mothers worshiped God before you. But you must learn to be more catholic ("universal"), more unconfined in your notions. For if you place the Kingdom of God merely in a particular denomination, you place it in that place where it does not exist!

 Father Abraham Story. One of the stories I’m most famous for is a conversation I had in the middle of a sermon with Father Abraham above.
 "Father Abraham," I cried out, "do you have any Episcopalians in heaven.
 "No."
 "Father Abraham, any Congregationalists?"
 "No."
 "Any Calvinist Methodists?"
  "No."
 "Well then, whom do you have there, Father Abraham?"
 "We don’t know those names. We only go by the name of Christian here."

 God help us all to forget our denominational names and just become Christians in deed and in truth! You must not make a Christ of your denomination!

 And . . . . You must not make a Christ of your baptism. The Kingdom of God does not consist of merely being baptized when you were young. There are many who have been baptized with water who were never savingly baptized with the Holy Ghost.

 Thirdly, You must not make a Christ of even your theology. The Kingdom of God does not consist in merely being orthodox in your theology. You may have orthodox theology in your heads, and still have the devil in your hearts! You may be able to speak with the tongues of men & of angels about the Gospel, but you may never have felt the Gospel in your own soul. Do not make a Christ of your Denomination, your Baptism, & your Theology!

 Perhaps I have not reached you yet. Therefore I will go further. The Kingdom of God does not consist in a dry, lifeless morality. Do not think that you are Christians simply because you are not vicious and because you now and then do some good action. Self-love can cause a man to perform all sorts of moral actions. A man perhaps will not get drunk for fear of making his head ache. A man may be honest because it would spoil his reputation to steal. And so a man who has not the love of God in his heart may do moral actions. But if you depend upon your own morality to save you, if you make a Christ of it -- if you try to establish a righteousness of your own, you are building a rotten foundation. And the Kingdom of God is not in your hearts!

 I speak from mine own experience. I know how much I was deceived with a form of godlines
   I fasted.  I prayed.  I went to church.  I received the sacrament. And yet I knew nothing of inward religion in my heart, until God was pleased to dart of ray of light into my soul, and show me that I must be a new creature or be damned for evermore. So I speak with sympathy to you who are resting on a round of duties and a model of performance.

 Still others of you are saying, "Well, if a man can go this far and still not be a Christian, ‘Who then, can be saved?’" Oh that I could hear you asking this question in earnest! I have told you thus far what the Kingdom of God is not--denominations, being baptized, having orthodox theology, nor is it a lifeless morality or a dry piety. Now I shall show you what it is.

 According to the Apostle it is "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." First, the Kingdom of God . . . is Righteousness. By righteousness, we are here to understand the complete, perfect, and all-sufficient righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have no righteousness of our own. Christ’s righteousness must be imputed and applied to our hearts. It must be brought home to our souls. You call yourselves Christians and you would count me uncharitable to call that into question. But have you ever been made to see your need for Christ? Did you lay hold of Christ by faith? Did you ever close with Christ? Was his righteousness ever applied to you? Was it, or was it not?
 "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, the righteousness of Christ applied and brought home to your heart." What follows then . . . is Peace.

 The Kingdom of God is righteous . . . . . and Peace. It is a peace of God’s making. It is a peace of God’s giving. It is a peace that can be felt. It is a peace that results from having Christ’s righteousness brought home to your soul. Have you ever felt peace flow like a river upon your soul? So that you could say, "Now I know that God is my friend. Now I know that Jesus is my Savior. Now I call him, ‘My Lord and My God.’ Now I now that Christ has died not only for others, but for me!"

 Oh my dear Friends, it is impossible to tell you the comfort of this peace. But there is something more . . . . there is the joy in the Holy Ghost! I have thought that if the Apostle Paul were to come and preach now he would be one of the greatest enthusiasts on earth! He talked of the Holy Ghost, of feeling the Holy Ghost. And so we must all feel it. We must all experience it. We must all receive it, or we can never see a Holy God with comfort. There are a great many people, I believe, who think that religion is a poor melancholy thing. And so they are afraid to be Christians. But my dear friends, there is no true joy, till you can joy in God and Christ. Those who have joy in God have a joy that no man can take from them. It amounts to a full assurance of faith that the soul is reconciled to God through Christ  -- that Jesus dwells in the heart.

 My friends, how few are there here who have been made partakers of this kingdom. God Almighty knows whether some of you may not drop down dead before you go out of this churchyard. And yet perhaps most are strangers to the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts. Perhaps curiosity has brought you out to hear a poor babbler preach. But, my Friends, I came to promote God’s glory. And if the Lord should make use of such a worthless worm, such a wretched creature as I, to do your precious souls good, nothing would rejoice me more than to hear that God makes the foolishness of preaching a means of making many believe.

 I know what it is to be led captive by the devil, to have the kingdom of the devil in my heart. And by God’s Free Grace, I know what it is to have the Kingdom of God built within my heart. It is God’s goodness that such a poor wretch as I   . . . am converted.

 Let me draw out my soul and my heart to you, my dear friends, my dear guilty friends, who must shortly take your last farewell and fly into endless eternity. I could almost weep over you, to think in how short a time every soul of you must die. Some of you to go to heaven, and others to go to the devil for ever more. My Dear Friends, there are matters of eternal significance. I did not come to tickle your ears. I came to touch your heart. What shall I say to you?

 Open the door of your heart, that the King of glory, the blessed Jesus, may come in and build his kingdom in your soul. Make room for Christ - the Lord Jesus desires to have fellowship with you today. Christ is willing to come into any of your hearts that will be pleased to open and receive him.

 My dear Friends, I would preach with all my heart till midnight, to do you good, till I could preach no more. Oh that this body might hold out to speak more for my dear Redeemer. Come, poor, lost, undone sinner. Come, just as you are to Christ. He will receive you with open arms. The dear Redeemer is willing to receive you all.

 Let us pray. Lord Jesus, come into our souls. Take up residence within us. Be our righteousness before a Holy God, so that we may each know your peace and your joy -- now and forevermore. Amen.

Rich Knight