Two beliefs have remained constant in the orthodox strands of the Christian tradition. First, there is a firm belief in the physical, visible return of Christ. This is the doctrine of the second coming. Second is a firm belief in some form of a future, real kingdom in which the sum of all God’s promises and covenants will be fully enjoyed by the righteous, as well as a future judgment visiting God’s unmitigated wrath on the unrighteous. As Christ taught of the kingdom, there are sheep and there are goats (Matthew 25). There are those to whom the kingdom of God belongs, while there are those to whom it does not. These two constant beliefs find a home in the creeds of the early church and in the confessions and catechisms of the Protestant traditions.
pg. 45

Although we live for the present in a sinful and broken world, we must understand that, ultimately, God has already won the battle and will be victorious over all evil in the end. Indeed, this victory is part and parcel of his very identity, that he might bring glory to his name.
pg. 60

The Kingdom of God
edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:33

Who Do My Opponents say that I am?

The conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leadership two millennia ago was grounded in fundamentally different perceptions of who he was and the authority he possessed for what he was doing. Either he was a blasphemer or the agent of God destined for a unique exaltation/vindication. Either he was a deceiver of the people or the Son of the Blessed One. The claims Jesus apparently made were so significant and the following he gathered was so great that a judgment about him could not be avoided.
By Darrell L. Bock,…Jesus as Blasphemer

Also in the book you’ll find essay’s by:

Michael F. Bird…Jesus as Law-Breaker

Dwight D. Sheets…Jesus as Demon-Possessed

Joseph B. Modica…Jesus as Glutton and Drunkard

James F. McGrath…Jesus as False Prophet

Lynn H. Cohich…Jesus as King of the Jews

Scot McKnight…Jesus as (‘Illegitimate Son’)

Who Do My Opponents say that I am?

Edited by
Scot McKnight and
Joseph B. Modica

Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah

Matthew 16:13-20
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Wesley A. Kort explains why we often sell them short:

Generally we hold narrative to be optional, to be a matter of taste rather than of necessity. We may even disdain narrative as a form of discourse more suited for children than for adults or more for ancient and otherwise under develop people than for the educated and sophisticated. As modern and enlightened adults we have the strength to view our world as it is without the illusions and comforts of narrative wholes. We have little patience for narrative and are tempted to press for an enumeration of facts or a set of clearly and sharply formulated ideas.

Also:

Eugene Peterson challenges Us:

Why is the story so often dismissed as not quite adult? Why, among earnest pastors, is the story looked down upon as not quite serious? It is ignorance, mostly. The story is the most adult form of language, the most serious form into which language can be put. Among pastors, who have particular responsibilities for keeping the words of Scripture active in the mind and memory of the faith communities, an appreciation for the story in which Scripture comes to us is imperative.

And:

David C. Deuel, in (Frequently Asked Questions about Expository Preaching)

Using Old Testament narrative only to illustrate New Testament teaching, however, results in ignoring much Old Testament instruction that may serve as background for New Testament theology, or else as teaching not repeated in the New Testament. Creation, law, and covenant are in Old Testament narrative which, if ignored or used for illustrations only, will create many problems of biblical imbalance. An adequate theological framework must included the whole Old Testament (“2 Timothy 9;16, All Scripture…”).

I’m currently reading:  The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative by Steven D. Mathewson

Just a note We are all called to be witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Our Lord and Savior.

On the Road to Emmaus: Luke 24:13-35

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

InChrist

It is by the Grace of Our Great God that He has called Us to service

C. S. Lewis

The possibility of pain is inherent in the very existence of a world where souls can meet. When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men.  The Problem of Pain

God in the New Testament

If, as the NT texts seem to insist, discourse about “God” now must include reference to Jesus, then this marks a significant alteration from the way that “God” was understood previously. In particular, Jesus’ resurrection constitutes the emphatic reaffirmation of Jesus (and precisely as the embodied human figure) as there after uniquely to be included in the understanding of divine purposes and even (per traditional Trinitarian faith) in what is meant by “God”. To use Trinitarian language, “God the Son” is eternal, without beginning or end. But in the incarnation “the Son” became genuinely an embodied human, and in Jesus’ resurrection this incarnate move was irrevocably reaffirmed by “God”. In short, from Jesus’ resurrection onward, “God” in some profound way now includes a glorified human. That, I believe, represents quite a significant alteration!

Hurtado

Although Paul is the one who introduced this “new creation” vocabulary into the primitive Christian assemblies, this language was being used by Paul’s Jewish contemporaries in a variety of ways. Following Isaiah, the prophetic visionaries responsible for the Jewish apocalypses written during this era looked forward to God’s “new creation” of heaven and earth, when Israel would be vindicated and the oppressing Gentile nations would be finally overthrown (e.g. Jubilees 1:29; see Isa. 66:22). Closer to Paul’s usage here is the imagery found in Joseph and Aseneth, a Hellenistic romance of Diaspora Judaism. In this fictitious work roughly contemporary with the New Testament, the patriarch Joseph prays for the conversion of the beautiful Aseneth, whom he would later marry (Gen. 41:45). The words of Joseph’s prayer bear a striking resemblance to the themes found in 2 Cor. 3-5:
Dr Hubbard!

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”