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THE DAWNING OF THE KINGDOM!
In 1965 Campus Crusade for Christ International
came out with a small booklet entitled "HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE FOUR SPIRITUAL
LAWS? In a concise easy-to-present format it presented the good news
of Christ Jesus to anyone who was willing to give you a little bit of their
time.
In fact, I can remember sharing the first two
of the four laws with an elderly gentlemen when he stopped me and asked, "Could
we stop here so I can think about these first two laws?" He wasn't
hostile, nor was he rejecting what he had heard. It was just so new to
him that he had to take time to think about it. Several weeks later
someone else shared the remaining two laws with him and he prayed to receive
Christ.
To this day I wish I had been the one to finish
what I had started. But in reality, it was not me, but the Spirit of God,
who had started working on this man's heart. I just happened to be the
one who was there when he was ready to have the gospel spelled out in black and
white. He gladly absorbed the first two laws, mediated on them, and a few
weeks later he was ready for the remaining two laws. At that time, the
Spirit sat someone else down by his side to reap all that had been sown
into his heart by an untold number of people - including myself.
The booklet was so well received by the evangelical
community and used by so many that among Christians the first law became as well
known to them as their middle name. It reads: GOD LOVES YOU,
AND . . . As far as I know this law and the remaining three laws continue
to be used around the world to bring people into a saving relationship with Christ.1
But this gospel presentation, as good as it is,
would have been and is, simply a small slice of the gospel as it was preached
by Jesus and the early church. It's not that the FOUR SPIRITUAL LAWS are
incorrect, it is that they are too narrow. The good news preached by
Jesus and the early church was far more encompassing than what you and I tend
to perceive as the gospel.
The gospel preached by Jesus and the early church
riveted their attention on the kingdom of God. I know this is hard to believe
in light of the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus for you and for me. But
the New Testament is quite clear in this regard. Take a moment
and read the following verses:
After his suffering, he showed himself to these
men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over
a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:3
They followed him because he had amazed them for
a long time with his magic. 12 But when they believed Philip as he preached
the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized,
both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he
followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. Acts
8:11 - 13 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly
there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. 9
But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned
the Way. So Paul left them. Acts 19:8 - 9 They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day,
and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. From morning
till evening he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried
to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. 24
Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. Acts
28:23 - 24 For two whole years Paul stayed there in his
own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. 31 Boldly and
without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Acts 28:30 - 31
This was the language understood by those who
were waiting for a king. Also, in telling the story of the kingdom of
God the early church put the death and resurrection of Christ in context, a
context the hearers understood.
This same good news, the good news preached
by Jesus, was also far more encompassing than that preached by John the Baptist. Yes,
it is true that John and Jesus both preached, "Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is near." But when John the Baptist preached this message
he did so as the forerunner who looked forward to the Messiah and his kingdom.
John pointed others toward the long-awaited
Messiah and rightly identified Jesus as the one. But he did so with an
incomplete understanding of the nature of the kingdom. In his
mind he undoubtedly pictured it in light of what he knew about the former days
of glory under Solomon. But when Jesus initially preached the same message,
as the one who was about to inaugurate heaven's kingdom on earth, he knew the
kingdom was quite different, and a far more glorious kingdom, than anything
John could possibly imagine. He also knew that the good news of the kingdom
was so near that it was actually ready to dawn on others - literally.
This dawning of the kingdom of heaven is first
seen in Matthew 4:12 - 25. We read:
When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison,
he returned to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum,
which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali- 14 to fulfill
what was said through the prophet Isaiah:
15 "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the
Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles-
16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in
the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."
From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is near."
As the dawn of the kingdom breaks, it breaks
over the land of Galilee. The dawn first broke where people lived in
a land of darkness. That is, it first broke on those who were without
the religious advantage of living in Jerusalem and Judea. In essence,
it broke on those who were living in the shadow of death. Its light broke
on the Galilee of the Gentiles.
It's odd that the king of the Jews would first
shed the light of the kingdom in the land of Galilee instead of Jerusalem. If
Jesus wanted to throw off the bondage of Rome, if he wanted to inaugurate the
long-expected kingdom, it would have more sense for him to use Jerusalem as
his launch-pad. But to truly liberate Israel, and to foreshadow what
would eventually become crystal clear - that the gospel was also for those
beyond the borders of Israel, Jesus inaugurated his kingdom is the shadow of
death, in Galilee.
In other words, he inaugurated his kingdom in
an unexpected place and, as we shall see, in an unexpected manner. The
kingdom, in the person of Jesus, was indeed present but not in the sense that
Israel imagined it. Instead of inaugurating the his rule as most politicians
do, Jesus inaugurated the kingdom through his public ministry to the everyday
man in the street and by taking on the enemy, the real enemy, on his own turf.
Having chosen the place to inaugurate the kingdom
of heaven he began by calling others to follow him. In Matthew 4:18 -
22 we read:
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee,
he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting
a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 "Come, follow me," Jesus
said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 20 At once they
left their nets and followed him.
Going on from there, he saw two other brothers,
James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father
Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately
they left the boat and their father and followed him.
We shouldn't be surprised that Jesus called
some to follow him. What is surprising is that he called ordinary people
to his side. Normally when someone takes office or inaugurates a new
state of affairs they surround themselves with powerful people; people who
know how to get things done. Normally people are called alongside who
are already involved in the political drama of the day. Jesus summoned
people to his side to become characters in the drama, to live as citizens of
the kingdom.
What is equally surprising is that Peter, Andrew,
James, and John immediately left their nets and followed him. These men
weren't on vacation nor were they retired. They fished for a living. They
had careers and yet they dropped what they were doing and followed someone
they hardly knew. His claim and call obviously resonated within their
souls.
Dietrich Bonnhoeffer in his book The Cost of
Discipleship points out that Scripture is strangely silent about what may have
been behind the prompt responsiveness of those Christ called to follow him. The
reason for the silence, he suggests, is that whatever they were thinking it
wasn't the primary reason. He writes:
Unfortunately our text is ruthlessly silent on this point, and in fact it regards
the immediate sequence of call and response as a matter of crucial importance. It
displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reasons for man's
religious decisions. And why? For the simple reason that the cause
behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It
is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once. This
encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority
of Jesus. There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequence
but obedience to the call. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority
to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus summons men to follow
him not as a teacher or a pattern of a good life, but as the Christ, the Son
of God.3
In regards to you and I, following Christ does
not always mean leaving our careers or our retired life behind - it does mean
altering our views of them. It means taking our own dreams and aspirations
and making them secondary to the leading of God in our life.
It is interesting to note at this point that "follow
me" was the first thing and the last thing Christ said to Peter. Jesus
knew that Peter's basic instinct was to cut and run when things got tough so
he gave him a two word rule to use whenever he considered falling away. It
was good advice for Peter and it is good advice for us. Failure to listen
to this "follow me" rule invariably results in exchanging satisfaction
for shame, delight for disappointment.4
I would also have you note that followers don't
cut deals or ask a lot of silly questions. They just follow. It
is a relationship that confronts uncertainty and our own natural bent to control
everything with trust. For followers all the question marks fall into
line behind Christ, who is the exclamation point.5
In addition to inaugurate the kingdom in the
place of his choice and by calling some to follow him, Jesus confronted the
enemy, the real enemy, on the turf Satan claimed as his own. In Matthew
4:23 - 25 we read:
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease
and sickness among the people. 24 News about him spread all over Syria,
and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering
severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed,
and he healed them. 25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem,
Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
Those who were waiting for the Messiah expected
him to come as a conquering king. He did, but not as they imagined. They
expected him to overthrow Rome, instead he confronted the real enemy and did
it on his own turf, or rather what Satan believed to be his own turf. In
reality, this planet that we live on has always belonged to the Father.
What this means for us is that when Jesus and
the early church preached about the Kingdom of God their message included the
idea of reclaiming this planet - taking it back from the one who wrongly claims
it has his own. This is the gospel - reclaiming the planet and redeeming
those who are in bondage through the work of Christ Jesus - the one you and
I know as the King of kings.
1 .
. . HAS A WONDERFUL PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.
2 As found in: Joseph M. Stowell, Following CHRIST,
Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 49530, 1996, p. 63.
3 See Matthew 9:9 for the call of Levi.
4 Joseph M. Stowell, Following CHRIST, Zondervan Publishing
House, Grand Rapids, MI, 49530, 1996, p. 53.
5 Ibid., p. 61. JESUS & THE KINGDOM OF GOD
01/14/07
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