“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” – Matthew 6:33
Growing up in church, I learned from a very young age the fundamental tenets of most evangelical churches in America. Central to these were two main “doctrines”: 1. Believe in Jesus and you can be forgiven and on your way to heaven, and 2. After being “saved” through praying the sinner’s prayer, it is your responsibility to try not to sin anymore. Based on this, your Christian obligations were fairly simple (though much too difficult to maintain). The “gospel” of Jesus needed to be spread through evangelism. This could involve anything from handing out tracts, to “witnessing”, to relationship based evangelism (befriend sinners and then tell them about Jesus). Also, it was important to find out what you should not do (drink, swear, smoke, dance, listen to rock music, sex outside of marriage, etc.) and don’t do it! It was an interesting framework of thought, because once you are “saved” you are forgiven and on your way to heaven. The present world only mattered to the extent that you could try not to sin and invite others to become part of the more important spiritual world so that they could go to heaven too (most including myself wouldn’t put it in these terms but subconsciously this is the logical outworking of this kind of thinking). The “hope” of the “gospel” was ultimately disconnected from the present world. It was a future hope of a spiritual salvation, so the world itself was a dark, uncomfortable place that humanity is stuck in (until the rapture, of course). A great example can be found in the following hymn that I have heard in churches all over the country:
“This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door,
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore.”
-“This World is not My Home” by Mickey Gilley
It was not until I was in my early twenties that I began to hear about the Kingdom of God. In fact, at twenty I read through the Biblical accounts of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in an attempt to discover what Jesus really said about how to get to heaven. At the time, I had been severely hurt by a particular Christian community, and was at the point where I was ready to leave the faith. If Jesus looked anything like the people that claimed his name, I wanted nothing to do with him. After reading the Biblical accounts of Christ, I was all the more confused. To my surprise and delight, Jesus was much more focused on love and justice for the oppressed than on heaven. He looked nothing like the church that I had been attending. Central to his message was the Kingdom of the Heavens and/or the Kingdom of God. He rarely talked about the odd spiritual existence I thought was central to Christianity. The rest of my college years were spent uncovering what Jesus meant by Kingdom, and how that applied to this present world.
I do not blame any of my early mentors for what they taught me. It was what they had been taught and I am thankful that God allowed me to experience the pain I went through that I could rediscover Christ in light of the Scriptures. Also, I have not abandoned the truth of forgiveness and the call to flee from sin, but I now see these from within a larger context of God’s work in the world and this fundamentally changes my perspective. I am not going to go into the Kingdom in detail here, but I do want to summarize what I have learned so that what I’m proposing here has some context.
Throughout the Old Testament, God is calling out a people for himself through the seed of Abraham. The beginning of the promise was actually established with Eve. Through childbearing, one would come who will crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) – I believe the Biblical context here is referring to the defeat of the curse/death. It was then through Abraham’s seed that the entire world would be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). Abraham’s seed, the people of Israel, were to be a “kingdom of priests” for the nations (Ex. 19:5-6). The royal line continues to be narrowed down throughout the Old Testament, so that eventually what Israel fails to deliver on a national level, Jesus delivers as Israel’s representative. The Messiah who would come and free Israel (as Moses had) and establish the Kingdom (God’s rule over all things) had come.
Though this is a huge topic and has been examined in more detail elsewhere, for the present discussion I will use Jesus life and words to summarize. Jesus claimed to be Israel’s Messiah (anointed one/ King; see – Matt. 16:15-17; 26:63-64; Mk. 14:61-62; Luke 22:70; Jn. 4:25-26, etc.) and stated that the Kingdom of God had come near and/or had arrived (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; 12:29; Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20). His miracles were not random signs that He was God, but rather the King showing his authority over His Kingdom. The best way this can be understood, is to think of what the Kingdom ultimately looks like in the future (at the return of the Messiah) and one will see that those future realities began to take place in the stories of Jesus miracles, works, and teachings. In the future Kingdom, there will be no more sickness (Matt. 8:14-17; Mk. 1:40-45; Luke 5:17-26; Jn. 4:43-54, etc.), no more injustice (Mk. 2:13-17; John 2:13-22; 8:1-11), no more poverty (Matt. 11:4-6; Mk. 10:17-27; Luke 4:16-21), no more evil (Mt. 8:28-34; Mk. 1:21-28; 5:11-13; Luke 4:34-36 ), and no more death (Mark 5:22-43; Luke 7:11-17; Jn. 11:33-45). So, through Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrection, the future Kingdom came crashing into the present. This was shocking to any Jew who believed in Jesus as their Messiah. They had always expected the present age to pass away when the Kingdom had come, but somehow the Age to Come (the Kingdom) had dramatically shown up in the present age.
The Jews were waiting for their Messiah to come and free them politically from the bondage they were under. They were again in captivity with a pagan nation ruling over them. What they expected was turned upside down when Messiah Jesus brought freedom, not from Rome but from the biggest of all enemies, death itself! Through His work, the Kingdom had been brought near and, as King, he began to call a people unto Himself. These people were to abandon whatever earthly kingdoms they were serving and become part of the Messiah’s Kingdom. As part of God’s new creation (which also has been discussed elsewhere), they were now to declare the message of the good news to the world and to begin understanding Kingdom law and living it out in the present (Jn. 13:34) while both waiting and praying for the fullness of the Kingdom to “come” and His will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10).
Paul makes it clear that those in Christ will be raised as He was raised (Rom. 8:11). In Revelation 21, the Kingdom of Jerusalem comes down and is joined with the earth, and at this point “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” The coming Kingdom will be a physical reality, where the “earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
This understanding shifts one’s perspective, because salvation is not simply about forgiveness, but about leaving behind any agendas one is currently serving and becoming part of the Messiah’s agenda. It is about living out the Kingdom now in the present, physical world. It is not about a list of rules, but rather about becoming part of God’s redemptive work in the world. We are ministers of the reconciliation of all things to God (2 Cor. 5:17-20; Col. 1:15-20). If we are going to seek the Kingdom first, it means we must begin to understand the Kingdom. In the Kingdom there are no poor, no sick, no oppressed, no disregarded. There is no pain, no injustice, no self-serving. This is why James talks about serving the orphans and the widows (1:27). It’s why we take care of the poor, feed the hungry, pray for the sick, and eat with sinners (as the Messiah did). Not because this somehow pleases God, but rather because as part of God’s new creation we are living out the future reality that has mysteriously broken into the present!
This discovery revitalized my faith, and called me to a deeper understanding and relationship with the King. The news of the Kingdom is hope because it is happening now even though it has not fully come. It is hope because God can show up in the present. If the Kingdom reality has begun, then there is no limit on where, when, and how the power of God can show up. My pastor, Mike Erre, puts it this way in his book Death by Church: “The eschatological tension implicit in the kingdom is the key to understanding the Christian life. It allows us to understand we are not only new creations in Christ but also struggling sinners at the same time. It helps explain why we see some evidence of the kingdom (healings, answered prayer, and deliverance) and why we don’t see more… In the crucifixion and resurrection we can see the defeat of Satan and the powers and principalities that rule this world. And in the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we see our invitation to enter into the realm where Jesus reigns and rules over His people. ‘We have the privilege of enjoying God’s tomorrow in the world of today’” (200-201).
I am 28 years old and I have more hope now than I have ever had before. I have found that God is showing up in my community. He’s showing up in ways I never dreamed possible. Not only is He showing up in my community, but He is showing up in my life. He has set me free from things I did not realize I was in bondage to. The unintentional deistic belief system that I bought into has been shattered by the message of the Kingdom. I want to share this because I know there are others who need to know that there is hope! God can and does show up! He can and does answer prayer! The Kingdom is (and is not yet). Our God passionately cares about the state of the present physical world and is bringing healing. He will eventually heal it ultimately and completely at the return of the Messiah. The Kingdom has come and all are invited to join in, no matter your social class, your race, your heritage, your culture, your gender! The message of the Kingdom is one of hope and reconciliation and it is here right now!
“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we also have forgiven those who trespass against us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Matt. 6:9-13
