The Master Teaching: the Kingdom of God

The sovereignty of God is the primary message of the Old Testament. As Psalm 139 explains, "The Lord sits enthroned in the heavens, his kingdom rules over all." The prophets speak of God over all nations, pronouncing his words not only to Israel, but also to each nation: "He shall judge between nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples." (Isaiah 2:4) God is not just the God of Israel, but the God and creator of the whole world and all peoples. As John Piper says, "When we say God is sovereign, we mean he is powerful and authoritative to the extent of being able to override all other powers and authorities. That’s my effort at a definition." (What is the Sovereignty of God?) The sovereignty of God is absorbed into another proclamation in the New Testament. Jesus's primary message is "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15) Let me untangle this a little. First, the kingdom of God is not a place or a time. It is God's ruling, his action, his influence in all of the heavens and the earth. The message of God's rule so present in the Old Testament is now being announced as the good news in the New Testament with the emphasis that the kingdom is "at hand." Jesus is proclaiming the good news that the kingdom is now accessible in ways it has never been accessible before. Roughly speaking, the sovereignty of God is the kingdom of God. Now let's explore what that means. It is well-known that the kingdom of God is "already, but not yet." God's kingdom has never not existed. He has always had power and authority over all he has made. Jesus was not announcing the kingdom coming from non-existence with his presence.The kingdom is now accessible through Jesus in ways that it was not accessible before. This is how the kingdom is "already." God's sovereignty is also "already" as seen in the Old Testament. But we also know that the kingdom of God is "not yet." God rules over all, but his kingdom is not fully manifested in this present age. We anticipate God's rule and influence to be much greater. We anticipate that it will be absolute in the sense that we will not be able to hide from it or avoid it any longer. I believe this is also the current status of God's sovereignty. God is able to override all other powers and authorities. God has won the war over all powers and authorities. But God's sovereignty is not complete in this age because there are other rulers and authorities that interfere with God and his kingdom. So we are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We pray this because God's kingdom has not fully come and his will is not fully done on earth as it is in heaven. But even more exciting, we can understand much about God's sovereignty by studying and pondering Jesus's teaching on the kingdom in the parables. God's influence in the kingdom and his rule as our Lord cannot be separated. So, it would generally follow that God's sovereignty is like a treasure in a field and a pearl of great value. But his rule is also like a sower throwing seed on different kinds of soil or a man who has an enemy plant weeds in his field. (Matthew 13) Like the kingdom of God, the sovereignty of God is not in any trouble in this present age. It is always at hand and never at a loss even though there are other rulers and powers set against it, doing what God does not want them to do. I believe that Jesus's teaching on the kingdom of God stretches over all the great themes of the Bible and the deepest concerns of humankind. Not only does the kingdom of God draw in the sovereignty of God, it also draws in justice, grace, and the church. Each of these we see as "already, but not yet." They are fully present in the will and work of God, but thwarted by God's permission according to his good and loving judgment. We see perfect justice in Jesus and in the kingdom of God. We see complete grace as well. We also experience some of the called-out saints of the church. When some people talk about justice, they are really looking to the kingdom of God. The same with grace and the church. So the parables of the kingdom of God have much to teach us in all these areas. Jesus teaching on the kingdom of God also shows us how the aspirations of humankind can fall short of what God is doing now. The "already, not yet" aspect of each of these important areas teach us that God wants to be with us more than over us. God wants to be our friend more than to be fair. God wants us to grow in grace more than get his grace. God wants our life to be church more than for church to be our life. All of these are evident in the present reality of the kingdom of God and are expressed in these different areas as well. It is not surprising that the Master teacher would know this and give us what we need to navigate these ideas with grace and truth.

Prayer and the God Who Wants to Know You

Search me.O God, and know me. (Psalm 139:23)

And he walks with me; and he talks with me,
and he tells me I am his own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

HOW WE ARE KNOWN BY GOD

One of the foundations of prayer is knowing that God wants to know you.  The invitation of the psalmist is not that God would know something that God does not know propostionally, but that God would become familiar with him.  Also, that he would have the experience of being known by God.  That experience is laid out in intimate detail in the psalm:

You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue,
You know it completely, O God.

Perhaps the psalmist intended for this to be read as a description of what it is to be known by God instead of as an argument for God's omniscience.  God knows because God cares.  He knows where I am because he cares about where I am.  He knows my thoughts and my ways because he is so familiar with my voice, how I speak, and what I like to do.  He knows what I am going to say before I say it because he adores me and knows mr as his child with a love I can only dream about.

Maybe this is what it means to walk with God.  If we are to follow Adam's fallen path in the Garden and hide from God, God must hide from us.  We will not be known and familiar to him.  We will escape from the experience of being known as only God can know us.  Walking with God is the opposite of hiding from him.  Walking with God is a continual longing to be known by him.

That longing can only come if we realize he wants to know us.

HOW GOD GETS CLOSE TO US

You hem me in behind and before;
You have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me
Too lofty for me to attain.

It may be that we have trouble grasping God's love for us because it makes no sense.  It is "too wonderful," "too lofty to attain."  The value of each human being is incalculable.  That comes from God's accounting.  It makes no sense.  We are not only small in the scheme of things, we are often despicable.  We may not see this in ourselves, but we are quite conscious of it in others.  How could God bear to have us "hemmed in" so close to him?

The amazing thing in knowing and following Christ is that we discover how God can come to know us even when we can be so small and despicable.  He has a plan to change all of that.  Christ's death on the cross reveals how helpless we are.  Like the Pharisees of Jesus's time, our religions only end up rejecting this God who is with us.  Like the Romans or the first century, our governments gladly crucify him in favor of their own convenience and power.  Like Peter his follower, even our friendship with God turns to betrayal.  We are indeed helpless in our brokenness, in our darkness, in our disregard for God.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light become night around me"
even the darkness will not be dark to you,
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

In the cross of Christ, our darkness becomes light.  He sees a way through it and makes what is horrible into a good thing.  The cross shows our deep value to God.  He gave his own Son to keep us near him and to find our worth in him.  He also gave his Son with hope, knowing that we could be recaptured and rejuvenated as rulers over his creation.  In order to know each of us as worthwhile creations of hope, he made a way for each of us to know him.  Through Jesus we can really come to know a God who wants to know us.  He sees us in our darkness and we are not hidden from him.  He reaches out to us with the light of Christ, who died for us.

RENEWED MINDS AND BETTER PRAYER

Here is the ground of prayer.  We must begin with a God who longs to know us.  He wants to walk with us in our hours and days, months and years.  Although such knowledge can be too wonderful for us, we can find certainty of that knowledge in Christ.  As we come to trust him, we find a God who made us, let us go our own way, and yet called us back to him.  The deeper we are grounded in God's heroic love for us in particular, the more prayer will make sense to us as a part of that searching and saving God.  Only in the light of God's work for us through Jesus can we find ourselves able to say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.  I know that full well."

Our minds must be renewed by knowing God in this way for our prayers to begin to be effective.  God wants to know me.  God wants to know you.  If we do not care about this, then we will not care about praying.  If we do not believe this, then our prayer will be marked by uncertainty.  We must weigh the evidence that we are given in Christ and his followers and allow it to deepen our faith.  Our certainty depends on it.  We must remember how far God has brought us and see it as an indication of how far he will take us.  As we  ground our minds in such thoughts, we will find prayer is more natural, more real, more beautiful, and also more effective.  With a God like this, who wouldn't pray?

Made by God and Loving It

It is not an abstraction called Humanity that is to be saved.  It is you, . . . your soul, and in some sense yet to be understood, even your body, that was made for the high and holy place.  All that you are. . . every fold and crease of your individuality was devised to fit God as a glove fits a hand.  All that intimate particularity which you are can hardly grasp yourself, much less communicate to your fellow creatures, is no mystery to Him.  He made those ins and outs that He might fill them.  Then He gave your soul so curious a life because it is the key designed to unlock that door, of all the myriad doors in Him.  (C. S. Lewis, penciled in the flyleaf of his copy of von Hugel's Eternal Life)

What if Lewis was writing not to some imaginary hearer, but to himself?  What if he was reminding himself of his particular worth to God?

I could see myself doing this.  I spent a long time in college saying to myself, "I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made and Your works are wonderful."  (Psalm 139:14)  I guess that shows one of my struggles: low self-esteem.

Yet even that low self-esteem has been a place where God can grow something.  My self-loathing exposed to the light of my loving wife and kids brings me pain.  I realize that I "enjoy" it in some strange way, but in the eyes of my family it becomes something terrible and hurtful.

Self-examination and honesty are good.  I guess there is a limit, though.  The limit is where I want to determine my own identity on my own, rather than in the loving arms of God.  I have been long in avoiding him.  It's time to fall.

Lord, why do I try so hard to figure it out on my own?  Why do I purposely plug my ears to your help and encouragement?  Forgive me.  I am tired of being a self-made martyr.  Make me lie down in your green pastures, lead me beside your still waters, restore my soul.  Amen.