Kingdom Come | Jimmy Witcher | Joni Table Talk | Joni Lamb

so what is the kingdom of god and when will the kingdom come is it somewhere off in the distant future or could it be that it's available to us now well today's special guest is here to answer these questions and share why he believes that we can experience heaven on earth right now but first joining me around the table is my daughter rachel are you ready to experience the kingdom of god now i am i was thinking my head i am experiencing heaven on earth with my little judah judah brave but yes i've always want to learn more about how i can walk in my god-given destiny and purpose right now yeah yeah and spread it around because we just we wait and god wants us to live in abundance and fullness for everything he has for us that's right now over here on earth that's right dorothy you have seen god bless you continually as you would surrender your life even when trouble comes and god shows up every time doesn't it every time every time that's why i don't believe in waiting i believe in being present in the moment because this is part of it you know so i'm anxious to learn more about the perspective rebecca welcome to the table thank you what about this subject that kingdom come this is such an important subject and i think i don't think it's talked about enough in the church and this is a topic that applies to every believer so everyone should be listening no matter what your age gender it applies to everyone it does you think about that prayer lord's prayer of thy kingdom come thy will be done yes wait on earth as it is in heaven yeah we believe that yes absolutely and i think coming to the place with not my will but thine be done yeah the thing i love about your story cindy and we've shared it if y'all haven't seen cindy's share story look it up on on demand is that even when trouble comes the kingdom of god can still be established in your life it's not like he is sorted or god's plan is sorted for your life because something happens and then you can live in that total trust yeah that no matter what happens in your life god is there and he has a purpose and a plan for you that's right well jimmy witcher welcome to the table thank you here with you it's so good to have you here the pastor of trinity fellowship church in amarillo texas it is a great church and uh you have now taken over as lead pastor of the church that we know jimmy evans was that's right yeah pastor jimmy was there and still is pastor jamie still a big part of what we're doing yeah so that's good and you must have to have the first name jimmy do it exactly it does create a little bit of confusion sometimes unless you've got jimmy and that was that was your dad's from jimmy to jimmy father's name as well well did jesus come to earth to live and give his life for us just so that we could make it to heaven when we die obviously that's the most important decision we can make in accepting jesus and knowing that we have eternal life but it's our time on earth just something to be endured or does it mean more than that well according to pastor witcher the truth is that we can access the kingdom of god today all we have to do is make the choice you know in your book you talk about what seems to be the central question of christianity uh which is do you want to go to heaven but sometimes even for some churches it kind of stops right there yeah i mean so often and i think pastors mean well and obviously we want everyone to go to heaven we don't want anybody to miss the opportunity to spend eternity uh with god in order to eternity with jesus but yet when we leave it in this when we stop the story there we turn it into something more like fire insurance you know if you can just get saved and then you get towards the you know then you know where you're going but what about between here and there so to speak right so um tell us a little bit about your background we like to hear a little bit of your story because uh there was a like at least like one little supernatural story i'm sure there's been many since then that happened to you when you were young where god really showed up and said hey you know i am who i say i am yeah so you know i've i've been married for 32 years married my high school sweetheart kim and so we uh met at 16 and got married at 20 and all through our time together when we were dating and we were together we uh we're always involved in ministry i mean church was important to us i got saved when i was eight and remember being in the baptismal and reverend roy asking me that question are you ready to make jesus the lord of your life and i said yes and so obviously didn't always stay on the path but always was a believer and loved the lord and so then we were married and uh we had our my wife was pregnant kim was pregnant with our daughter and so we were young life leaders you know so we were volunteering in life loved working with high school kids in particular and so we went on a winter ski trip to go away with the mountains i had a cabin full of young men and our job was to kind of spend time with them and encourage them but also every night we would talk about the gospel and the last night of this camp we were there and the goal was to to encourage them if they wanted to make jesus the lord of their life for them to go pray about it and so my job as a counselor was to kind of walk around the camp and make sure that you know nobody was out of line you know and they were all taking the moment seriously but as i'm walking and praying for my cabin suddenly i just have this doubt that just comes over and i'm like well what if what if this isn't real i mean what what am i i am selling this really hard and i'm encouraging these young men to to embrace that and so i'm and so then i kind of forgot about them and i just started my own little prayer journey it was a beautiful cold winter night we were at a camp called silver cliff there in colorado and it's called that because there's this beautiful kind of white stone cliff and it's night and the stars are just glorious you know it's a freezing night and so walking along the path and i'm just praying and i'm wrestling with these questions and i'm not even paying attention to where i'm going and and suddenly i just had this thought god all right i'm gonna i'm ready to do this for the rest of my life but if it's true i want you to prove it to me i want to see a shooting star and then my immediate next thought was oh but you're not supposed to test god you're not supposed to test god you know and then i thought well i'm just going to look up anyway and see what happened all of this i'm just thinking and i looked up and i'm standing i've walked up against this cliff so there's really not much sky i can see there's just a thin sliver and i just saw shooting across perfectly parallel from as far as i could see from one side or the other the shooting star that went across and instantly i knew two things instantly i knew god was real this is real this is what we're supposed to be about and then the second thing scared me to death and he just heard every single thing that i thought yeah that even said he was listening to my very thoughts and so ever since then it's just been a real encouragement to keep going where do you think that doubt crept in i think i think that's doubt that sometimes all of us at some stage you know as christians sometimes we don't talk about that you know we don't talk about our doubts and our fears but i think it's the enemy in many ways obviously trying to to come against us but it's just that those moments that we have when things maybe aren't always going our way or we're just not sure where things are going and we just need those touch points of like okay god i just i just need to know that this is this is real and it's okay by the way those of you watching to share with the lord those thoughts you have that's the key that you've got to lean into god yes in those moments and it can actually be a pathway to intimacy which is kind of what you had you know god's not you know offended by our doubts as long as we prostrate ourselves towards him and lean into him it could actually be turned into really beautiful things which is what happened to you yeah absolutely let's talk a little bit about the kingdom yes because some for some people that you know they'll be like wow i've never heard anybody really talk about that you know the kingdom of god being here on earth because we you know we've interviewed here people at the table they've gone to heaven come back nobody wants to come back by the way but um what what are you trying to uh share with those that are watching today as far as positioning yourself in in a way to believe that we don't just have to hold on until jesus comes i know a lot of people are feeling like that right sure especially in this scene yeah we don't have to just wait until the end to experience heaven everything that jesus talked about in fact jesus rarely when he used the the concept of heaven was talking about the afterlife jesus was almost always talking about here on the earth embracing him the kingdom of heaven you know it starts in matthew when jesus begins to teach in his ministry the very first words of jesus in the book of mark are you know go and preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand you know jesus said i've come so that people might repent and turn back to god and experience the kingdom of heaven experience god's kingdom here on the earth how do we live in that well the living in it is first of all we got to recognize that it's real right and then we press into it you know you think about things even like the lord's prayer that we were just talking about earlier our father who is in heaven you're amazing you know your kingdom come your will be done so even when jesus is teaching about the most basic daily prayer he's talking about living in the kingdom he's talking about how we can embrace this reality that our father who loves us and cares for us is in heaven and his desire is for us to pull heaven into every part of every day of our lives so your kingdom come your will be done so as we pray every day and we press in and then as we do things his way you know we talk about uh you know one of the things that we often do and we don't mean to but we separate our spiritual lives from everything else and uh and so what god wants us to do and what jesus certainly wants us to do is put everything under his lordship so you know i'm sure you guys have talked about tithing you know when we operate in generosity and ties in offerings what are we doing we're moving our finances into god's kingdom realm right when we think about our relationships our marriages when we do things god's way and kim and i are mutually submitting to one another you know we're moving our marriage under into god's kingdom realm that's a safe place yes just like you see the kingdom of heaven in god and when you're obedient to his word in those things it's like then your finances come underneath that and the blessing that comes with that obedience is going to penetrate into your world in a kingdom way the same thing as you are a husband or a wife that god has called you to be then you're not over here anymore you come underneath that covering i love that i love that and you think of so many other examples of course uh jimmy evans and karen talk so much about marriage and and that's really something that has been attacked and how important is it as far as the kingdom is concerned oh i i think it's it it's critically important you know the marriage as pastor jimmy has you know shared many times you know marriage is the foundation of society uh the family is the foundation of our society and so the enemy always wants to attack marriage he always wants to attack family and yet when we do things god's way we we bring it in you know you said joni talking about the blessing i really believe that when we do things god's way we get his protection we get his provision and we get his blessing which blessing just means favor and growth and he just breathes on those things so as we bring those things into the kingdom it allows all of those things to flourish one of the things that dr rutland taught me that i love is he says that you can almost interpret the lord's prayer to say instead of on earth you can say in earth yes and one of the things jesus said is that the kingdom of god is within you what did he mean when he said that well obviously when we accept jesus and in his lordship and we're marked with the holy spirit we actually have his kingdom living within us yeah and it what it begins to do is motivate us then it becomes the driving force of of how we begin to move and bring the kingdom out so we have the kingdom so you know paul says we're ambassadors for christ well what is an ambassador an ambassador is a representative a legal representative of the king so we get to be an ambassador for the kingdom of god when we go to school when we go to work when we go to the grocery store and we go to a restaurant you know everywhere we go it's the 24 7 thing it's actually an eternal thing it's 24 7 while we're here and then when time goes away it's there forever as well and i think sometimes people get confused because we like we associate the church as a building but it's people and so when you think of the kingdom of god is within you then it's like it shifted my focus that i need to go after people because that's how you expand the kingdom of god is by getting other people saved and helping other people and because peter says we're like living stones coming together to build god's temple and so it completely shifted my mindset that we're after people yeah and you know so many people are struggling to live that um you know kingdom of heaven here on earth because they don't know what their destiny and their purpose is right how can people begin to walk in all that god has given them yes so we find our calling right we find every i believe everybody has a calling and i think sometimes we overuse that word a little bit but i believe everyone is called and everyone is called to serve the lord and we're all called with a position in god's kingdom god's kingdom realm and so as we are obedient as we're pressing into the things and as we're being good stewards of the influence god has given us okay then god begins to open up doors you know so often we're waiting for some moments yeah exactly that's being obedient in your day-to-day life every moment of every day something i always taught my kids living life is just you know um so that we can go be with the lord someday it's preparation for eternity and one of my my oldest said well why is there so much bad there's so many trials and tribulations he said which was so important it's so hard to live in the present when so much bad is happening and it's supposed to be good here on earth so what would you say to a child just a young mind how could they really appreciate you know heaven here on earth yeah well you know when we talk about the kingdom of heaven obviously when we get to heaven right our eternal resting place it's going to be glorious it's going to be wonderful but god is looking for us to partner with him to bring that good on the earth you know when when adam and eve fell and they because they partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you know evil entered the earth and so mankind god is it is love gives all of us a free will we get to choose and that choice creates uh all that chaos that's around but that's what he's calling us as his church to do is to bring the kingdom to come meet that chaos to give people hope and to help lead them through and there's a real devil at work and there's people you know the kingdom of heaven and what jesus said was so black and white he was like either you're serving me my father you're serving satan and so if they're not in the kingdom that's who they're serving and that's why we got to go after them on the sermon on the mount jesus was teaching about the kingdom and he's you said in your book all we need to do is recognize our inadequacy it says our dependency on god grants us access into the kingdom of god can you talk about that sure well the very first beatitude and you know i i i'm a big fan of first you know as a as a communicator you know the old saying you know tell them what you're going to tell them and then tell them right and so when jesus was giving the sermon on the mount the very first beatitude the very first blessing that he gives is blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven and what is the poor in spirit those are the ones that recognize their dependency and their need upon god and it's you know and i think so much in the especially in the western world where you know for a lot of people i know there's a lot of folks that are struggling these days but really if we think about it our struggles compared to people in the other parts of the world really are nothing so when we don't have those struggles sometimes we you know god becomes somebody we call on when we're in crisis yeah uh and and that's not being dependent you know i think that's why jesus continued in the lord's prayer you know give us today our daily bread you know we need to pray every day we need to put our dependence upon our lord every day and that's the manna you know exactly it wouldn't last you know they had to go every day for it so you know we were talking earlier about um how surrender is a big important part of this and you're dorothy talking rachel in that um you know we've got to be truly surrendered to the lord on the earth for his kingdom to come and for you uh you're a businessman i was and you did not even think for a moment probably early on that you were going to be full-time in ministry so tell us about if you will your kind of kingdom come moment and when you realized hey that there were some other things that god needed you to do because there are people that are watching that you know you've kind of established and you're doing your thing you know but you have never really 100 percent surrendered totally to say well wait let me ask god is there anything that you need me to do because you may be surprised at what he may ask you to do well for sure and and and i think sometimes he wants the surrender is the most important thing once we get to that point and so i was i was you know in a career and i was uh doing business you're doing well it was doing well experiencing success and some things like that but it was consuming me you know part of part of my personal story is when we were in high school due to some circumstances my dad ended up losing his business so we lost everything and and we didn't know that was coming so suddenly there was this total loss that had to be a big shift it was a big shift lost cars and houses and all that stuff and so it caused this mindset of me like okay when it comes to things like money i've got to be in control because you know we can't trust god for those so when i started a career i was driven to be successful and and you know make money and all that sort of thing and i wasn't releasing any of that to the lord and then we went to a conference and just had an overwhelming encounter with god i actually was down on my face on the floor i had this picture i actually could see the feet of jesus i heard him draw a sword he pointed at the back of my neck i could feel the tip of it on my neck and he literally said are you ready to die and i knew he wasn't messing around and i just thought yeah i i think he didn't mean to die physically no he did not he wasn't but he was real serious in that spirit he died spiritually and i said yes and i said okay yes i am so i give up career i give up pursuing money i give up trying to be successful did that happen with kim too or just you she had a little bit different journey but almo i mean identical we both were on the same track your wife that's my wife yes of course okay so what happened after that because like there are people watching that honestly will pray a prayer and say well yeah lord you've blessed me here there you know but the season and time that we're in you know perhaps there's more that you would have me do and as you listen to the holy spirit you're going to be surprised at some of the things the lord may ask you to do and become a part of to make a difference for the kingdom of god absolutely and so we we left that moment both of us knowing all right ministry is our calling we're going to full-time do this jesus thing and help people find jesus and uh and we were so excited about it we were going to go to uh africa to be missionaries we were talking to some missionaries we had it all planned it all planned out we're gonna sell our house take our three little kids and we're gonna move off and we were ready to go and every single door shut i mean it was like heaven was silent on the issue and about two months later i actually got my first offer to be promoted to a vice president and i went home and told him i said i'm they you know the president wants me to be vice president the owner does and she's like we got to tell him no we're going to africa any day well but they're going to pay more money for now and there's no doors and you know the short of it is it was 12 years wow uh later before we would come into ministry and it was kind of like paul in arabia yeah for 14 years but that's usually when the preparation happens exactly and it was the best and in fact it was 12 years to the month wow when i was uh went full time and i was standing before the staff and you were still going to church searching oh yes we were doing all of that but you the lord listen when you try to open doors and the lord shuts down oh yeah just be still and wait keep it shut how important is it to wait when things are not opening the way they should well i think it's important to wait but it's an active waiting yes you didn't quit your jobs and just wait yes and served where we could serve we were serving in ministry we were starting ministries and doing small groups do you know how many people quit their job before they actually have the plan and then they end up losing everything and then you miss the opportunity because we try to make something happen i think you said it best when you say active waiting yeah and that's what that's what people miss all the time it's like that's how did you eventually make the jump eventually uh we actually had gotten a prophetic word in 2002 by pastor robert morris i know you guys are friends with pastor robert and he had come didn't know us at all and he had just said over kim and i spoke over us in front of the whole church and just said you were wondering you just need to know you've been called to ministry nail it down it's all going to be good you know there's a process you're in business now but god's going to call you into ministry and he just said and the elders are going to come to you and ask you to come into ministry and so what that allowed us to do is just rest in knowing okay i don't have to make the timing happen god's got the timing right and i know what the trigger is the elders are going to come to me and it was 10 years later wow before the elders asked we experience blessings but what is the responsibility yeah our responsibility i think is to steward whatever it is that god has us you know i think joni said it earlier we need to be careful about not despising the small beginnings whatever those might be so we take whatever influence god has given us i mean if you you may think you don't have any influence but if you can get a small group together you know at your local church if you can serve anywhere in the church we can hold open a door serve in the nursery serve on the worship team i mean whatever it is be active steward what you have and god will then begin to bless it you know or even like moms like with your with your family like seriously the same thing i i had to take my son to church this weekend my husband was uh playing at church and so i had to get him already by myself and it was just so much and so hard and i just thought man i can't imagine single moms that have to do this like every day but those women that are showing up every day and serving their families are making the biggest difference in their world so then you went a little further on i saw on social media where it so impacted you being by yourself that you she asked for people who knew some single moms she could bless with the gift card i mean i think that's so important that we be sensitive when the lord shows us things like that and you mentioned about your dad that was kind of a difficult time i'm sure for your family and season when you lost everything because here you'd always you know felt comfortable you felt secure and stuff and so how did that impact your view of abba father because i know as a young man you're thinking well i don't know if i can really trust my father because this happened and so many times our earthly father will resemble our heavenly father in our hearts and minds yeah you know that's so much in my early life i i prayed to god you know i didn't pray to father i prayed to god so i had this kind of dispassionate you know view of who god was um and so then to begin to see him as father and to begin to experience the father's love the father's acceptance i remember one day just realizing that god can never be disappointed he knows all things he knows where i'm going to make mistakes so he can't even be disappointed in me uh because he's not you know he doesn't have that expectation of perfection and so to just begin to embrace him as abba you know daddy uh it just really transforms our view i know kim and i were in israel and we were at the jordan river and you know doing the whole thing and there was this little boy who kind of misplaced his dad maybe three or four years old and obviously it was a jewish family and he's looking for his dad he finally sees him and he starts screaming running across you know with this sweet little voice yeah and it was so precious and it just was a picture of like okay that's who he is and that's who he is for us yeah wow you know it's interesting i didn't even realize this when i was a teenager but i can remember having dreams if you would about myself as a little girl running i'm just picturing the throne room and him sitting there and me jumping up in his lap and feeling so safe and so secure he really is that father that can be trusted what about people watching who have a father who's disappointed what would you say to them to encourage them to open up a relationship with abba father god well i would i would definitely say you know we've got to be careful about superimposing our parental views and experiences on top of god now obviously we can take the good things you know my dad was a very loving man he was a very affectionate man so i can it's easy for me to see god as affectionate but then we've got to take the other things where maybe you know all of us as parents you know are not as perfect as we need to be and just begin to press into the father pray listen to his voice one of my favorite things to do we call it writing the thoughts of god is just to journal a conversation that's really where transformation came is just hearing his affection towards me and actually writing it out uh and and seeing it literally written what would that look like if you don't mind no not at all it's one of my favorite uh things to do it for prayer it looks like going to the coffee shop getting my coffee putting in my headphones yeah and uh and writing a letter so i would i do this almost every morning i say you know good morning father and then i put a little bracket and he says good morning son and then we have this carry on this conversation and then you write down what he says to you absolutely that's so important like okay quickly we're just about out of time for people watching they're like well i want to hear god speak to me how how long did it take before you could actually discern his voice from your voice or some other voice yeah you know it's pretty quick and we've actually led people through this exercise you would be surprised if you just sit down and say holy spirit i want to speak with the father come speak with me and then begin to write the key is to write in first person write what you believe god's saying and then it's real easy to look at it and compare it against scripture you know he's never going to say something that would disagree with scripture right but i i'm telling you we've done this for thousands of people and and then we'll have them read them and you will just be god wants to speak abba wants to speak to his children what is one thing that abba father has said to you that has stuck with you all these years well the thing that he says to me all the time because that's what i need to hear is i'm proud of you oh i love that i love that i'm so good well we're almost out of time but i want to leave you with this heaven is real and it's closer than you might think eternal life is promised to all those who believe in jesus and make him lord and savior that's such an amazing gift all by itself but what we're talking about today is that you can experience heaven on earth right now by choosing to live each day in the kingdom of god and you know as you study god's word there are spiritual laws that supersede natural laws and when you begin to walk in those when you love your enemies you pray for them that despitefully use you i mean when you begin to live your life based on the principles in god's word you literally invite the kingdom of god into the atmosphere and into those around you well if you have something on your mind and you'd like for someone to pray with you today maybe we've talked about some things today that have encouraged you or pricked your heart you're saying you know what i believe there's more that god wants me to do that's why that prayer line number is on the screen and we have prayer partners available 24 hours a day seven days a week i was up here yesterday on actually on a sunday and um there were prayer partners praying for people in the prayer department and no one else was in the building so again if you happen to get a voicemail leave your name and number i promise you a real person will call you back you can also go to daystar.com click on prayer send your prayer request in that way and we have uh pray over all the prayer requests that come in from around the world well i want to thank jimmy for joining us at the table you are definitely going to want to read his book kingdom come living in heaven on earth it's available now and to find out more about jimmy's ministry be sure to visit him at tfc.org if you want to join the conversation we'd love to hear from you just leave us a comment on facebook instagram or twitter thank you so much for joining us and hey i'm excited about what god's going to do for this time for this season how he can use me how he can use you to be a blessing to those around you we'll see you next time bye bye for today

Channel: The Way Of Life Church

Views: 9,130

Rating: 4.8158994 out of 5

Keywords: the way of life church, groeschel, lifechurch, life.churchtv, church, god's word, sermon, Christian, bible, God, Joni Lamp, Joni Table Talk, Daystar, Kingdom Come, Jimmy Witcher, Jimmy, Kingdom

Id: 7RshCA0BnvY

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021