The Kingdom of God

Yesterday, my good friend from school, David Heffren, wrote about the preaching of Jesus as he began his ministry. And in verse 17, Matthew gives us the dominant thought, the big idea, the main thing that Jesus' preaching consisted of.

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

So what is the kingdom of heaven? If this is the central teaching of Jesus, we need to know it and have it also be the center of our teaching and preaching as well.

Matthew uses the term, "heaven" interchangeable with "God" in referring to the kingdom because he was a Jew and did not want to speak the name of God so that they wouldn't use his name in vain accidentally. So Matthew, as a good Jew, interchanges the name of God with heaven. So the Kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same thing.

This term is used 96x's in the NT and 58 of those times are in Matthew and Luke. And this term is a political term.

Jesus was a political figure.

Now some of you may have winced when I said that, but that is because our experience with politicians is a very negative one. My example for an oxymoron is a clean politician.

But I think that if we examine what the word political really means, and what Jesus was coming to do and how he was political, I think it will help us understand what being the kingdom of God is all about.

The word, political, comes from the Greek word politeuomai, which means 'to live as a citizen.' To live as a citizen of what? Of a kingdom, of a socially identifiable group of people that look, act, and hold the same allegiance to a certain entity. For Americans, that is the United States' government. For Britain, the allegiance is to the crown.

Jesus was political in the sense that he did these four things: 1. he was a person who was public rather than private. This basically means that the people had access to his ideas. 2. He was creating a sociologically identifiable group of people. This he accomplished by establishing twelve disciples as his core group of followers to rule in his new kingdom with him. 3. He had a social agenda. This sounds bad, but the agenda was not evil in the sense that we see earthly politicians having agendas. Jesus' agenda was ultimately to bless all the nations through his death on the cross and through his followers who were citizens of the new kingdom he established. And lastly, 4. He exercised power. Now when we think of power, it seems to always include some form of oppression on the downtrodden. Yet Jesus exercised power, but what kind of power?

This is where our problem with Jesus being political really hits home. All the kingdoms of this world operate politically with two tools. They use two kinds of power; violence and propaganda. Yet this is not the tools that Jesus uses. He actually tells his disciples how to operate in his kingdom, what his political tools are. They are indiscriminate love and truth. This is rooted in the passage found in Mark 10.45. This is what Jesus says to the twelve disciples when James and John try to finagle their way into being the greatest in Jesus' new Kingdom.

⁴¹ When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. ⁴² Jesus called them together and said,“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus said, his political tool, the way he uses power is to sacrifice it on a cross and serve humanity. And that is what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God. This is Jesus' political strategy. He wants to create a socially identifiable group of people who are identified by their indiscriminate love and truth, by their sacrificial service for the world!!! He wants to create a group of people who will bless the nations!!!

This is the group of people you are a part of. You are a part of a kingdom that demands your total allegiance in order to bless the nations!!! And this is done by picking up a cross and serving someone.

Bless the nations, pick up a cross and serve the world.