How can we reduce the Kingdom

How can we reduce the Kingdom?

by Derek Brown

 
To reduce the Kingdom means to replace it with something less than what it is. It doesn’t mean we reject the Kingdom but rather that we replace it with something we feel more comfortable with. Lets consider some examples.

1. Making the Kingdom of God an individual experience now and a collective future experience in heaven

The result of this type of thinking is that Christianity becomes privatised and marginalised. It is only relevant in areas of personal morality – it has nothing to say to wider issues. We see this in our society today when the Church is criticised for speaking out on social and political issues. To many people including many Christians this is not the province of the church. When we see the Kingdom of God we realise that it embraces all of life. The bible says we as Christians have the responsibility to bring the message of God to all of life, to every sphere of society. It is not limited to personal life, to the family, it has relevance to all of life.

2. Making the church and the Kingdom synonymous.

Without perhaps realising it many Christians see the Kingdom of God and the church as synonymous. If you were to ask them where God was at work many Christians would point to the growth in churches. Therefore what happens in the church is the beginning and end of their focus. As a result you can hear a lot of teaching on the church but no mention of the Kingdom. It is much less challenging for Christians to focus on building churches than producing the fruit of the Kingdom in society.

The church should be the most visible manifestation of the kingdom but it is not identical with it. If you remember back to the diagram we had in session 3 you can see that dividing the world into the good guys and the bad guys leads to the conclusion that the Kingdom is on the good side and the other side belongs to Satan.

This leads to a narrow view of the church’s mandate which is – prepare for Jesus’ return through prayer, Bible study, worship and witnessing. Charles Colson – “If we focus exclusively on these disciplines – and in the process we ignore our responsibility to redeem our surrounding culture – our Christianity will remain privatized and marginalised. Turning our backs on our culture is a betrayal of our biblical mandate and our own heritage because it denies God’s sovereignty over all of life… If the church turns inward now, if we focus only on our own needs, we will miss the opportunity to provide answers at a time when people are sensing a deep longing for meaning and order.”

The answer for the church to become relevant is to rediscover the kingdom. The Kingdom of God brings to the equation a sense of who God is – reflected in our attitudes, our compassion, our acts of mercy, our desire for justice and our example of righteousness.

3. Believing the coming of the Kingdom relates only to the Second Coming.

If you look again at Acts 1:6 when the disciples asked about God restoring the Kingdom to Israel – Jesus answered by saying “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). What is about human nature that is so fixated with knowing the timing of things that lie in the future? What is about human nature that reduces the Kingdom of God to issues that represent our personal priorities? Israel is not the kingdom of God – nor is the second coming – nor indeed is the church.

You might say that a person’s belief about the Second Coming won’t affect your view of the role of the church – but it can. One of the catch-cries of some end time teaching goes like this “Don’t polish the brass on a sinking ship” In other words the world is doomed to imminent destruction so don’t waste your time trying to redeem it. Just focus on saving as many souls as you can from the sinking ship.

Jesus said it is not for you to know the end of time – rather you need to be about my Father’s business – preaching, practicing and producing the Kingdom in the earth. This is the main game. (Matt 24:14)

4. Confusing the Kingdom of God with right wing political philosophy

Some reduce the Kingdom by equating it with right wing political philosophy. Let me share a scary thing I saw on TV recently. Here was a well-known US Christian right-wing leader looking down the camera and telling his audience that America would be well suited to assassinate a dictator from South America because this would be much cheaper than a long term campaign to overthrow him. This is a Christian leader who preaches the ‘gospel’ regularly through his television network. How could he reduce the Kingdom to this type of thinking? Can you imagine Jesus saying the same thing?

The kingdom of God is not right wing. I don’t care who you vote for, the kingdom of God is not right ring nor left wing. It is much bigger than that. Some aspects of the Kingdom might be championed by those from the right but equally those on the left are passionate about other Kingdom principles. So to say a Christian could not support the Labor Party in Australia shows a lack of seeing what the Kingdom really is.

Take an example from history – the fight against slavery in England. This was led by an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce who for decades campaigned to rid his country and the world of this evil practice. Do you know where most of his opposition came from? The establishment and the church. It was common both in the US and in England for the Bible to be used as an authority to support slavery – talk about twisting the nature of God and His kingdom.

Wilberforce was considered an unpatriotic radical because he dared to challenge what was an established part of his culture. Wilberforce understood the good news of the gospel of the kingdom – he knew God had made all men and women equal and that to treat anyone as a slave was a violation of the nature of God. It was those who didn’t understand the kingdom of God or had reduced it to something convenient who opposed him. Wilberforce with his left-wing concern for social justice was an offence to his right wing political opponents – but on this issue who represented the Kingdom?

What about today – there are people fighting for a reduction of debt for the third world countries. Does this reflect the principles of the kingdom of God? In the Old Testament they had the year of jubilee in which they forgave all the debts and said we are going to give you a chance to start again, you can start free. It’s a guy like Bono from U2 who is a leading protagonist for debt reduction. He comes from a Christian perspective and is someone who has seen the kingdom in the wider perspective. Maybe its because he is a bit out there and more radical in his thinking that he is prepared to address areas that many Christians wouldn’t go near.

Charles Colson who went to prison for his Watergate involvement – turned this around by establishing the Prison Fellowship and now one of his major causes is to work on reform within the judicial and penal systems. That is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not limited to that which is easy and comfortable and makes us feel good about ourselves. It touches the real world with the real God in a way that makes a real difference.

One final example – we have a young man in our church who is working in Uganda to help the children who have been traumatised by being drafted as children to fight in what they called “Lord’s Resistance Army”. Rob is a child psychologist so he is using his professional skills to develop programs that can help rehabilitate these kids and given them a future hope for their lives. This is the Kingdom of God in action.