Lesson 05/27/07

DISSATISFIED WITH THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

      The Bible presents us with a number of questions. In fact, I have read that Frederick Buechner in a book entitled Wishful Thinking, said:
"Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives, start by listening to the questions it asks.   There is perhaps no stronger reason for reading the Bible than that somewhere among all those India paper pages there awaits each reader, whoever he is, at least one question which for years he may have been pretending not to hear. It could be a central question of his own life."
      Here are some of the questions we find in the Bible.
- Am I my brother's keeper?
- Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
- Where can I go from your Spirit?
- Where can I flee from your presence?
- What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?
- How is your beloved better than others, most beautiful of women?
- What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
- Who is my neighbor?
- How can a man be born (again) when he is old?
- If God is for us, who can be against us?
      Simple questions, profound questions. Questions that force us to think about ourselves, our work, our neighbors, our God. But the Bible raises other questions, unspoken questions that are nevertheless very real to us.
      It is the unuttered questions that usually take us a long time to pin down, to clarify what is nagging us. We have a question of God, or perhaps he has one for us, but we're not able to verbalize it. We're not able to spell out what is troubling us.
      In my case, something is troubling me in regards to the Kingdom of God. Or maybe something is troubling me about what I see in myself. The New Testament speaks of the Kingdom as if it were a present reality. Christ, it declares, is the promised Messiah who has come to establish his Kingdom among men. The kingdom of heaven, he declares, is at hand.
      Then, in Matthew 13, Jesus spelled out the nature of the kingdom. It's nature is not what Israel, or anyone halfway familiar with the Old Testament, was expecting. In particular, based on prophetic passages such as we find in Daniel 7:26 - 27, everyone was expecting a political kingdom. We read,
      "But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. 27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him."
      Daniel was told that despite what he saw in regards to the upheaval on the international political landscape, despite the power he saw invested in one dominate individual, God's Kingdom, a political kingdom, would be established on earth. It would be an everlasting kingdom and all rulers would worship and obey the Lord.
      But we do not see a political kingdom, a kingdom akin to the Davidic Kingdom of old, in the pages of the New Testament. We see a kingdom that quietly goes about the business of the king. We see what appears to be an insignificant kingdom.
      Then, as if we were mere gatekeepers or custodians, you and I have been given the keys of the kingdom so that we may open the door for others to enter. And, as we know, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born again. We also know that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. It's hard because in order to enter you need to be fed up with the world. You need to be willing to turn your back on all that the world has to offer you. And for those with more than their share of the world's wealth this is difficult.
      Even though we have the keys, we have to admit that not only is this kingdom not what we were expecting, in light of Old Testament prophecies about a real kingdom being established where no one would "train for war anymore," it is not what we want either.   But what is interesting to note is that it is not what Jesus ultimately has in mind either. For when Jesus spoke about prayer he said we should pray like this:
      "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our . . ."
      He said we should pray that the kingdom would come and that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.   Evidently, he understood there was a twofold aspect to the kingdom of God. He understood it to be present in the world now and that it was yet to come.   In telling us to pray for its coming, he, in a very real since, expressed his own uneasiness with its present form.
      But in general we don't handle our dissatisfaction through prayer. We tend to express our impatience, in one way or another. Maybe we grumble about life as it is now or perhaps we just hang out with discouragement as our constant companion. Or maybe, like the disciples, we pester Jesus about it. For in Acts 1:1 - 9 we read:
      In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 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. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
      So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
      He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
      After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
      My guess is that when Jesus spoke to them about the kingdom of God, just prior to his ascension, he wasn't reminding them of the present nature of the kingdom. I think he was talking about the kingdom that is yet to come. So naturally, they leaped to what everyone wants to know - when? "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
      In response, he told them two things. First, he told them that as to the times or dates it was none of their business. This past week someone asked me what I thought about prophecy. It was a good question, but I didn't have a good answer. Now that I have thought about it, however, my problem with those who look into what the Bible has to say about the last days concerns this matter of times and dates.1
      I don't have a problem with having a good handle on what the future holds for this old world.   For in his grace God has sufficiently opened our eyes as to the events of the last days lest we be deceived by the evil one. Plus, he has, for whatever reasons, partnered with us in bringing about the kingdom. But when we spend out time trying to figure out the dates and times, as a few do, we're not only misusing our time we're bordering on being shamelessly arrogant.
      The second thing Christ told the disciples is that in the meantime he had a job for them to do. Their job was simple, by the power of the Holy Spirit within them they we're to bear witness to Christ Jesus. This is also our job.
      If pestering doesn't hurry things along, we resign ourselves to positioning ourselves so that when the kingdom does come we've guaranteed ourselves a position of some importance. The disciples had this in mind when the mother of James and John asked Jesus for a favor. In Matthew 20:20 - 28 we read:
      Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
      "What is it you want?" he asked.
      She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom."
      "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"
      "We can," they answered.
      Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father."
      When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
      You see, here is the bottom line. Here is why you and I have a nagging feeling that there is something wrong with the present form of the kingdom. We're dissatisfied because instead of co-reigning with Christ over all the kingdoms of the world - as we are quite capable of doing, we're called to be servants.    That's the nature of the present kingdom. It a kingdom best fit for those willing to serve and to suffer for the sake of the world.
      So here is the question that nags me. Am I okay with being a servant? And here is God's answer to me. Here is what he has asked me to consider, all over again. He reminded of what the psalmist said in Psalm 84:10. We read:
"Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked."
      You see, that is where we have been assigned within the present form of the kingdom. We're to man the doors with the keys of the kingdom in our hand. Are we happy to do so? Am I happy to do so? Or, am I trying to position myself in light of the future? Simple questions, tough questions!

1 When Christ was on earth he declared that he didn't even know the times and dates of the coming kingdom. We see this in Matthew 24:36 where we read: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

JESUS & THE KINGDOM OF GOD 05/27/07 1

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