In this introductory keynote from our February 2024 workshop, Cal Zant, president of Betenbough Homes, shares about the Kingdom of God and how we are invited to bring His Kingdom into all aspects of our lives.
If you’re a CEO or business owner and you’re interested in diving in deeper, check out our Kingdom Leadership Workshops: https://kingdomatwork.com/events/. Throughout three power-packed days, we will work together to discover God’s transformational plan for your leadership, your business, and your people.
That’s nice. It looked good on you. Y’all should take that back home. Throw that out while you’re in the Netherlands, uh, you know, we’re glad y’all are all here There is a lot of important and busy people in this room I bet you guys are the type of people that are hard to schedule meetings with aren’t you?
Yeah, I saw a little cringe right there. It’s true. Me too. That’s why the Lord is so pleased that Already got me. Lord is so pleased that you’re here today to talk about him in the middle of the [00:01:00] work week. It pleases his heart. Thank you guys for doing that. Uh, you know, this whole kingdom at work thing has been a really progressive thing for us.
For over 20 years, God has been so gentle in teaching us who he is and how we can get on in on what he’s doing. And at times we’ve been slow learners. Honestly, at times he’s worked despite us, but he didn’t get mad about that. And he’s been very patient with us. Um, it’s been a progressive thing, but like looking back, you can see a couple of big milestones that were.
really catalyst or pivotal moments for us, and one of those was in 2013 when a few of us were on a mission trip in Austria and we first heard, uh, the gospel of the kingdom of God, uh, Holly [00:02:00] and Rick were there, my wife and I, and it changed us in a really fundamental way. is a huge catalyst in a paradigm shift and in so many ways the revelation of the kingdom was a foundation and launching pad for much of what you’re gonna hear about over the next three days and We’ve learned that if we don’t start with the revelation with the kingdom a lot of the rest of this isn’t gonna make any sense So that’s where we’re gonna start right at the top of the agenda.
And this is where I’d like to start It’s actually where Jesus started from that time Jesus began to preach saying repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand You know, the book of Matthew was originally written in Greek. And the word that is translated repent there was matineo. Or at least that’s the way we say it in West Texas.
Um, which simply means to change your mind or to think differently. [00:03:00] Matthew 18 says it this way, And he said, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
So we want to start by inviting the Lord to change our way of thinking. Lord, we want to hear from you. We don’t want to hear from men or women. So will you speak to us? Our hearts are like little children, open, eager to learn. Will you give us fresh revelation today, straight from your hand? Into who you’re into what your kingdom is and what our role is in it.
We want to hear from you. Amen You know that word kingdom can be a spooky word. Can it like what does that even mean? [00:04:00] If you read the Gospels the books of Matthew Mark Luke and John Would you believe Jesus said the word that is translated kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven is it? It’s translated Matthew.
He says that a hundred and nine times And he says the word that’s translated church three times. So, Um, a hundred and nine to three, like, uh, the Cowboys don’t even lose by that bad. Ouch. Jesus wouldn’t shut up about it really. Jesus is quoted in the gospels as saying things like, um, to, uh, what is the kingdom of God like to what shall I compare it?
It’s like. a farmer who was spreading seed or a landowner who was going to hire some people or a guy who was doing some accounting, uh, that’s in there. You should go find it. Uh, Jesus would then go on to explain what [00:05:00] seemed like an alternate reality where things work differently in what seemed like.
Reverse order, uh, where the last becomes the first and the first becomes the last, where the smallest seed becomes the biggest plant in the whole garden, where the poor are invited to the feasts of the wealthiest landowner, where the person who, that tries to preserve their life will lose it, but when you lose your life.
You will find it. It all seems backwards. From the beginning to end, Jesus was incessant about talking about the Kingdom. He just wouldn’t shut up about it. The first words spoken by Jesus in both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark were about the Kingdom. The first words recorded out of Jesus mouth. And did you know Jesus never said, Seek first about anything else except for the Kingdom.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. How I translate that in my head is his right [00:06:00] order of things. And all of these things will be given to you as well. Virtually every parable he told was a kingdom parable. Every story he told, kingdom story. Every prayer he prayed, a kingdom prayer.
Remember the Lord’s Prayer? Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. You know, after Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, he appeared to the disciples for a period of 40 days. And I have to believe he had to be super intentional with what he talked about in those 40 days. Like, if I could go back to any time in history, that’s when it’d be.
Think about if you were only going to be alive, you know you’re only going to be on earth another six weeks. Who would you talk to? What would those conversations be about? They probably wouldn’t be about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, right? You’re only going to talk about important things. You have limited time, and Jesus had limited time.
So, lots of people might think that he’s like, [00:07:00] Okay, he’s trying to help his disciples understand how to organize the church, because he’s about to leave. Uh, so he might be like, Hey, Peter, Peter, I, listen up. I need you to focus right now. This is important stuff. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could be a fly on the wall to hear what he talked about in those 40 days?
And we are so fortunate because the book of Acts actually opens with what it was. It says this, After his suffering, Jesus, he appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about What do you think he spoke about? The kingdom of God! He just kept talking about what he always talked about. He basically held a 40 day conference on the kingdom of God.
That’s what he talked about. It was the most important thing to him. And if Jesus spoke about it so frequently, isn’t it odd that we don’t?
Yet the concept of kingdom might be so abstract or foreign that we don’t even know what it means. So what is [00:08:00] the kingdom of God? So when I get the word kingdom in my head, I’ll show you what picture pops up. That one, uh, like, right? Castles and moats and kings and knights and armor. Um, you know, in its simplest form, a kingdom is simply an area where a certain king reigns, where he’s seen as the one in charge.
Like a king might say, Hey, we need more workers in that field or that new road should go through here. Look at that wall. We need to fortify that wall a little bit. And he’s the one in charge. It’s not as if one morning, like the guy who lives. Way back in one of those tiny homes, he, he woke up and thought he was the one in charge.
Like, even someone just passing through this little valley didn’t have to ask anybody, who’s in charge around here? The guy on the throne in the big house is in charge. He reigns here. He’s the one in charge. And so, the simplest definition for the kingdom of God is where God rules. That’s it, where he’s, [00:09:00] his will is fulfilled, where he’s rightly seen as the one on the throne, where his priorities are made the priority.
What Jesus taught about the kingdom of God was radical to those listenings, it seemed backwards and upside down, and it still does to me today. Um, but if God is the king and the creator of the universe, and he actually designed the laws that make all of this work, maybe the way he thinks about it is the right way, and anything opposed to that is backwards.
A more specific or helpful definition might be this, the kingdom of God is the merging order of God in the affairs of mankind. But honestly still that misses the mark or doesn’t fully capture it, uh, because simply put, God’s kingdom is cosmic in scope. Um, It’s bigger than our company, our churches, our, and even our world.
It’s, it’s more than religion. It’s even bigger [00:10:00] than just faith. It’s inclusive of the entirety of the cosmos. Every, every. Everything in the universe, what has been created by God to proclaim His purpose and reveal His nature, that’s God’s kingdom. But the hardest part, especially for me, I am an engineering background, engineering by nature, I really want to not just understand that something works, I want to know why.
Like, I took things apart as a kid, it’s just who I am, how God wired me. But the hard part of the kingdom is it is a mystery. Isn’t that right, Casey? It’s a mystery. The truth is we can never fully comprehend it or capture the kingdom in words, which can be frustrating. For an engineer, at least. If someone says they figured out this kingdom thing, I would actually say you better watch them because they’re going to lie to you about something else, too.
Uh, that’s why Jesus [00:11:00] himself so often said the kingdom of God is like, it can’t be described directly because it’s eternal and cosmic in scope. We don’t have language for it. It’s infinite. It has no end. It’s too much for us to understand in our humanity, and we will spend eternity exploring it. But God doesn’t hide it from us.
He hides it for us, and there’s a difference. Uh, Jesus said this, and he answered them, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. So there’s the secret or the mystery behind it. Discovering the kingdom is not just about information, but like this lifelong adventure.
into revelation and transformation. For the longest time, uh, I thought I would experience the kingdom of heaven one day when I died in. Went to heaven or Jesus came back or something like that that It was as if Jesus was [00:12:00] describing what heaven would be like and we were left thinking gosh, that sounds nice Won’t that be nice price one day?
I hope I hope I get to go experience that and I actually had lunch with a guy yesterday That said how he always understood it was that was how life was supposed to be like inside the church Did you know Jesus never said either of those things? Scripture teaches us The kingdom has come. It is coming right now in the present, and it will continue to come into the future until it reaches complete fullness.
And just so you don’t think I’m fooling you, I’ll show you two verses. There’s lots of them about this, but the first one, And he said to them, uh, he, is Jesus here, Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power. You know, all of those that were standing there have tasted death by this point.
So the kingdom has already come with power. [00:13:00] The second one there in Colossians that that’s Paul, but he’s talking about God. He says, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. Transferred, what kind of verb tense is that? That’s that’s past tense.
I was really bad at grammar. I went to a terrible school, but I know that one that’s past tense. It’s already happened. It’s not something in the future. It has happened if we’ll open our eyes to it. The kingdom’s not a future, future thing. We aren’t supposed to be waiting around to go to heaven to experience it.
Jesus clearly taught it has already begun and we can choose to step into that reality today and be part of it. But the enemy and religion have caused so much blindness when it comes to the kingdom of God. One of the biggest revelations I’ve had in my life, one of the most beautiful truths I’ve ever heard is this right here.
God invites us. Into an active role in [00:14:00] reestablishing his order and making his kingdom reality in the here and now, today, right now. That is what Jesus spent his whole time on earth doing. Bringing heaven to earth today in the here and now. And that’s what we’re invited to do also. If you’re in God’s family, that’s the family business.
You know, as, as kingdom dwellers, and by that I mean like people who just acknowledge God is on the throne. He’s the one in charge. We have the authority and charge to expand the area over which God rules and his will is fulfilled. He doesn’t want us to wait to go to heaven, but to bring, join Jesus as citizens of God’s kingdom today to bring heaven to earth right now.
In every aspect of the world, business, politics, education, everywhere, whatever place we find ourselves, we can choose. To do it in a distinctly different way, one [00:15:00] that reflects God’s order of things, and that when you do that, it literally shifts things in the spiritual realm. As I make decisions in our business or in my family, with each one I’m declaring who’s on the throne.
Is it God? Is it me? Is it my kids? Is it our customers? Is it the shareholders? Who is it? Who is it? I get to decide with every decision who’s on the throne. So that’s what we mean by that. When, when I’m expanding the territory over which God rules, I’m expanding his kingdom. That’s what Jesus was saying.
Tragically, the church has largely abandoned the message of the kingdom. We have, uh, and we’ve replaced it with the message of salvation. You know, that’s why the call to action in most churches is to invite friends to church so they can get saved. And salvation is important. [00:16:00] It is even, isn’t even close to the full gospel of the kingdom.
In fact, the Bible teaches this about the end times in Matthew.
And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. That’s not the gospel of salvation. That’s not the gospel of the church. It’s the gospel of the kingdom will be preached. The last couple, uh, verses in Acts tell us what Paul was preaching at the end of his life.
Paul, uh, he proclaimed the, the kingdom of God. That’s what he was proclaiming. It taught about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. That’s one of the last verses in Acts. He was proclaiming the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom. Paul wasn’t proclaiming the good news of salvation or the good news of the church.
It’s the good news of the kingdom of God. I believe Satan knew if he could steal this message of the kingdom from us, if he could keep it [00:17:00] hidden, we were through, it’d be the end of us. We’d be helpless. And as a result, many believers are like blind to kingdom realities. Now the message of salvation is important, but it’s a small subset of the, the gospel of the kingdom.
Um, You know, Jesus actually didn’t talk about salvation that, that often because he saw it also that way. It was only this part of this thing he was trying to share with us. And salvation is like the doorway to the kingdom. But the picture I get in my head, uh, is God is trying to show us this massive mansion.
And he is so excited. He’s like a little kid. Come on, cow! And I’m like walking through the front door. And I get there and I’m like, wow, this is crazy. And he’s like, come on, come on. I want to show you, there’s a water slide off the third floor. Come on. And I’m standing in the [00:18:00] doorway and I say, no, I’m good.
I’m good right here. This is really crazy. And I just stand there. He’s not mad at me. He just would be so excited to show me the whole thing. So excited.
So how does the kingdom relate to the church? I want to be super clear. The kingdom message is not replacement theology. The church still has a place, a really, really important place, really important one. The church, the fact is, the kingdom doesn’t fit inside the church, though. It’s the church fits inside the kingdom.
The church is one place where God’s right order of things should be established, right? But if we stop there, we miss the whole point. You know, we’re supposed to take crown and expand His kingdom into every sphere of our influence, [00:19:00] including work. When we’re submitted to his rule, my friend Casey always said this, it’s like every time I take a, take one step, it’s like, there’s God’s kingdom right there.
There’s God’s kingdom right there. There’s God’s kingdom right there. Like I can bring it with me. And that’s expanding his kingdom. Over the past decade, the Lord has been So creative and has shown us just some of the craziest things around here. I believe the Lord wants to show us how life works best and he wants to show me a different way to run a home building company like operational, operationally, tactically.
One that’s different than any way it’s ever been done that often makes me feel crazy or unorthodox at the very least. That’s because much of it isn’t natural. Like we’re talking about supernatural things, so it’s not going to seem natural. It’s me stepping into that alternate reality that Jesus was describing [00:20:00] where the master, oh, he has to become the servant and where you have to die in order to live, where the strong are actually weak and where the weak are the strong ones.
You know, Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God. And, uh, that’s a command by the way. And the verb tense used there, we kind of lose in translation, but it’s, it’s meant to be continuous. It’s not a one time seek the kingdom. It’s supposed to be a lifelong, forever, continually be seeking God’s kingdom.
Most people Don’t see the kingdom because they don’t seek it. That’s the truth of it. But if you seek it, you’ll start to see it everywhere. You know, I just noticed this verse in Luke 17 an hour ago. I didn’t ask you guys to put it on the slides. Uh, I thought about it, but didn’t. Uh, here’s what it says.
Luke 17, verse 20 through [00:21:00] 21. Once, on being asked by the Pharisees where the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied. So they were also confused. The Pharisees, like, Where is this kingdom of God? What’s that gonna be? And Jesus replied this, the coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, here it is, or There it is.
Because the kingdom of God is in your midst. It’s among you right now in your midst. It’s there in your midst if you’ll seek it. But if you don’t seek it, you won’t see it. It was in their midst. They couldn’t see it, the religious people couldn’t see it. The truth is, we’re all seeking something first. It’s inevitable.
In fact, if I look at the evidence of your life, I bet you I could figure out what you’re seeking first. If we’ve chosen something besides which has eternal value and only God’s kingdom does, it will show in our life [00:22:00] until in pursuit of that lesser thing, we lose the greater thing.
Okay, here’s an amazing promise from Scripture. Jesus said this in Matthew 16. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. So that mansion, like he’s going to give us the keys, like the keys. He’s going to trust us with the keys. Who do you trust with the keys to your house? You just give those to anybody.
Jesus is going to trust us with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. That’s a big deal. I want to end by sharing one key. to the kingdom that we’ve never shared at a workshop or anywhere. Uh, but actually it was part of that original message of the kingdom that we heard back in 2013 and it’s a core principle in the kingdom.
Let me introduce you to King Uzziah. He is one of the many Kings told about in the old Testament. Um, he, he ruled in, [00:23:00] uh, The southern part of Israel called Judah, and most of the kings of Israel that it describes in the Bible, it says they were described as doing evil in the sight of the Lord. In fact, there are 33 evil kings.
And only five good kings. Here is how 2 Chronicles 26 describes King Uzziah. Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign. Well, that’s crazy. And he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God.
And as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. So, Uzziah is one of the five good kings. It goes on to talk about all kinds of his accomplishments, and I’ll just hit some of the highlights. It starts by, He went out and made war against the Philistines and broke through the wall of Gath. Gath.
Does that sound familiar? There’s a [00:24:00] guy, Goliath of Gath. The giant that David fought and killed. Um, Gath was his hometown. And scripture even mentions the brothers of Goliath, who were also giant warriors. Where do you think they lived? You know, David never went and sacked Gath, but King Uzziah did. He went to the hometown of the giants, and he broke down their walls.
It goes on to say the Ammonites paid tribute to Zion. His fame spread even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong. And he built towers in the wilderness and cut out cisterns, for he had large herds. He had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands. Under his command was an army of over 300, 000 people that it says could make war with mighty power.
In Jerusalem he made machines, [00:25:00] invented by skillful men to be on towers and corners to shoot arrows and great stones. But then we come to this, and his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction. He was marvelously helped till he was strong.
In the kingdom more people have failed because they were strong than because they were weak.
Human strength? Is a myth in the kingdom. Human strength does not belong. Human weakness is a strength in the kingdom. Hey, and don’t take my word for it. Let’s Let’s listen to what Paul has to say. This is second Corinthians, Paul speaking. He says, on behalf of this man, I will boast, but on my own behalf, I will not boast except [00:26:00] in my weaknesses, though, if I should wish to boast, I would be no fool for I would be speaking the truth, but I refrain from it so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.
You guys worry about that sometimes? Like, I’m just afraid these people might think too much of me. Paul goes on, uh, So, to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, all the things God had shown me, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Three times there, uh, probably doesn’t mean three times, it, it could mean thirty times, or three hundred times, or, Repeatedly. This probably wasn’t once or twice or three times. Paul continually begged the Lord to remove this from him.
And this is what the Lord’s response is. But he said to [00:27:00] me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Oh, thank you, Lord. I totally understand that. Okay, so you made me weak so that you could be strong. Have you ever praised him like that? Well, it might be coming. So after pleading for months, God said, My power is made perfect in weakness.
And Paul responded, Well, that’s a bummer. My weakness? You want me to admit my weakness to all these people? They’re not going to listen to me if I do that. No, I’m just joking. That’s not what Paul said. Here’s what Paul said. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.[00:28:00]
That makes me emotional, because that resonates so deep inside of me. That is truth. I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake. Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.
And then Paul goes into detail on all his weaknesses, and his struggles, and his hardships. Some are external, some are internal. There is the kingdom. All that needs to happen to you and me is for the kingdom of God to rest on us. For us to be so in one with the will and heart of God that we become kingdom people.
We can’t do that by reading business books or even like getting a seminary degree. [00:29:00] You know, we can’t do that by working harder, even. We can only do it by submitting to the sovereign rule of God. Those rules that are written into the very fabric of the universe. You know, let’s admit it, sometimes it’s easy to work as if I knew God so well that I didn’t much need His help anymore.
You know what I mean? Sometimes we go at it like that, don’t we? Um, I know what it takes to succeed. I know what he’d do here. And when I am strong, my heart was lifted up to my destruction, like King Uzziah. That was it, you see. If God is going to, uh, kingdomize us, he’s gonna have to remove those parts of us that just won’t work in the kingdom.
He’s not only going to have to remove the bad stuff, actually, that will be the [00:30:00] easy part, because we can all agree on what that is. He’s going to have to remove our religion, our art. He’s going to have to remove our cheap, selfish faith. He’ll take apart the part of us that when people praise us, we get this warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside.
He can’t let us continue with that. He’ll take out everything, some of which we worshipped, and he’ll have to pull it up by the roots. It might start with him helping you realize that all the things that you think you bring, or things you see as tools that put, tools that put you in a usable position before the Lord, are worthless.
And he’ll leave you, like he left Paul, broken and painfully aware of your humanity and your own weakness. The fact is, God already knows that we’re weak. He just needs us to admit [00:31:00] that, and if we will, he can do something special with that.
The good news is, God is desperately, he wants to desperately help you and me, and he will continue what he has started. Paul didn’t become a victory, a victor when he finally understood everything the Lord was saying. He became a victor when he said, Okay, Lord, if you’re saying that’s the way it works, I will celebrate my weaknesses.
And that’s when he became effective. So I pled with God and he said this my favor is all you need Paul. Well, maybe you’re thinking well I need I need more education or experience I certainly need to know more Bible verses or read some books on how to manage all these difficult people Need help with that.
And God said, no, my grace is all you need because my strength is made perfect in your weakness. They are like puzzle pieces that perfectly fit together. Oh, [00:32:00] and I’m, I’m the person in the room that should talk about this because I have a lot of weaknesses. The Lord has blessed me with a very colorful testimony, which I’ll share more about later.
But I also have a lot of struggles embracing the style of leadership that I’ve been called to here. Literally just last week, I was on a zoom call with Heath Hill, who’s a CEO in the room today, and we’re going to lead one of the breakout sessions together. We were collaborating on that, and towards the end of the call, here’s what he told me.
Cal, I’ve brought over a dozen of my team members to the Kingdom at Work workshop, and each one of them kind of might connect with a different speaker, uh, more than another. But it seems like a lot of my people connect with you, they, because they connect with like your history and your struggle with addiction, or how introverted and task oriented you are, or how much you struggle with control as a leader, [00:33:00] and they can relate to that, and it’s had a big impact on them.
Did you notice what he just itemized? Those were all weaknesses of mine. You know, it wasn’t. They all really thought you were a great communicator, or they were really inspired by your faith or your vulnerability. No, they were moved by my weaknesses. And there it is. And when I’m weak, I’m strong. It wasn’t anything strong there.
It was when I was able to hold up my weaknesses that the Lord could use it. That’s how this works. The Kingdom Principle is this. When I’m weak, only then am I strong. And that looks really pretty on a slide, and that is painful. In real life, it takes immense courage, immense humility to continually lean into that, but it’s where you will find real life and real impact because it’s written [00:34:00] into the very fabric of the universe.
That is one of the keys to the kingdom.
And honestly, that’s just one of the keys and mysteries to the kingdom. There are a lot more, and it is a lot of fun to explore it. The greatest adventure you’ll ever go on. Father, I pray that you would help us be pleased with mystery, especially those mysteries that stand against our flesh. So deliver us to your kingdom.
We welcome your kingdom right now. Would you give us deeper revelation into your kingdom this week? I want to be taught, Lord. Open our eyes to your view of things. Help us understand our role in the kingdom. Fill us with your spirit to the brim and open our eyes to the opportunities you’ve already laid before us to take part in transforming the kingdoms of this world into the [00:35:00] kingdom of our God, until it comes in complete fullness.
Amen.
Amen. So, this is a workshop, and so one of the things that this is not a retreat, this is not a conference, so in your next page in your workbook, we want you to do a little bit of work and give you time. What was the aha moment? What did the Lord really prick your heart on while Cal was talking about the kingdom?
And we want to give you a few minutes to write that down. And so go ahead and do that right [00:36:00] now.