The Gospel of Jesus Christ (21) The Mission of the Kingdom of God (2)

​“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1Co 15:58)
 
Review
For the last two weeks, we talked about what the kingdom of God is. The kingdom of God is the most important topic that encompasses all other topics in the Bible.
 
The kingdom of God was the central theme of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus started His ministry by proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God, and the last thing He taught His disciples during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension was also about the kingdom of God.
 
So, in order for us to truly live as Jesus’ disciples, we need to learn about the kingdom of God and make every effort to live out the values and teachings of the kingdom. What is most important to Jesus must be most important to us. If the purpose of Jesus coming to the world was to build the kingdom of God through His death and resurrection, that must also be the purpose of our lives.
 
Two weeks ago, we talked about common misconceptions about the kingdom of God. The biblical concept of the kingdom of God is not a spiritual realm where our souls go after we die. Rather, the kingdom of God is something that we should pray to come on earth. The kingdom of God is not a place we can only go after death because we can experience the presence of the kingdom of God right now here on earth.
 
In the Bible, the word “kingdom” is used to refer to three things: people, territory, and most importantly, sovereignty and reign. When we think of these three elements of the kingdom together, we can define the kingdom of God like this: the kingdom of God is wherever God’s people are under His reign, following His will and submitting to His sovereignty.
 
That’s the whole story of the Bible. Last Sunday, we compared two perspectives for reading the Bible. The first was the salvation story, which consists of four parts—creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. God created the world, but people fell into sin in their obedience. As a result, death came to all humans. In order to save people from sin and death, Jesus came to the world to pay the ransom for their sins through His death. And on the last day, salvation will be made complete when Jesus comes back and we join in His resurrection. This is a great story that we should all know. That’s what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about.
 
But, this story does not cover all of the important principles and concepts in the Scriptures. It does a great job explaining why we need salvation and how God achieved individual salvation through His Son, but it doesn’t cover how God rules over the whole world, which is the kingdom of God.
 
So those who only know about the story of salvation can become locked in their individual, personal faith, which prevents them from fulfilling their mission as the people of God's kingdom on earth.
 
Therefore, even though it’s good to read the Bible through the redemption perspective, we need to know that there’s a perspective that includes the salvation story but is greater than it and encompasses all the important concepts and principles written about in the Bible. This perspective is called the kingdom story.
 
The central plot of the story of the kingdom of God is that God reigns through His people. When God created the world, He made human beings in His image to let them rule over everything He had created.
 
The garden of Eden was the first model of the kingdom of God. God was King in the garden, but He didn’t rule over His kingdom directly. Rather, He created Adam and Eve to be His representatives and put them in charge of the garden.
 
But Adam and Eve failed because they refused to be under God’s sovereignty. They rebelled against God by disobeying His command, thus rejecting Him as their King.
 
But God didn’t give up on ruling over the earth through His people. In order to build His kingdom on earth, God made a covenant with Abraham and promised to give him three things—a land, a nation, and a blessing, which are three important factors of the kingdom of God.
 
God was the King of Abraham and his descendants—the people of Israel. He ruled over them as their King through human leaders such as Moses, Joshua, and 12 judges.
 
However, things changed when the people of Israel began to ask for a human king. They rejected God as their king and wanted to have a human king like other nations. From this point on, God ruled over Israel through human kings, especially descendants of David, and continued to build His kingdom through them.
 
But, Israel ended up failing the mission to build God’s kingdom because the kings also rebelled against God in their sins and disobedience. But God still didn’t give up. Rather, He promised that He would send the Messiah, a descendant of David, who would rule over Israel forever with His justice and righteousness.
 
And in accordance with this promise, God sent His one and only Son to the world, and Jesus laid the foundation for the kingdom of God to come to earth.
 
First, He paid the ransom for our sins through His death so that we can truly be God’s people who are righteous and holy. Second, He taught many lessons about the kingdom of God. In fact, every one of His teachings is connected to the kingdom of God. Third, He showed the perfect example of how to live under God’s sovereignty by putting God’s will first and obeying His command to the point of laying down His life.
 
That’s the reason Jesus proclaimed, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk 1:15)
 
The kingdom of God began in earnest with the first coming of Jesus Christ. Now, God reigns over the world and builds His kingdom on earth through His people, who are justified and sanctified through the precious blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
And the kingdom of God will perfectly come true on earth when Jesus returns. On that day, all the kingdoms of the world will fall, but the kingdom of God will stand. And God’s people will reign with the lamb of God forever. That’s the ending of the Bible.
 
Already, But Not Yet
We can talk about the coming of the kingdom of God in three ways. First, it began in earnest with the first coming of Jesus Christ. Second, it is coming now through the work of the Holy Spirit and through those who accept Jesus Christ as their both Savior and Lord and try to follow God’s will wherever they are. And finally, the kingdom of God will be fully realized when Jesus returns and becomes the King of kings and the Lord of lords over the whole world.
 
These ideas about the coming of the kingdom of God are best described with the phrase “already but not yet.”
 
The theological concept of “already but not yet” says that believers are actively taking part in the kingdom of God, although the kingdom will not reach its full expression until sometime in the future. We are “already” in the kingdom, but we do “not yet” see it in its full glory. The kingdom of God came with Jesus Christ, but the good news of the kingdom has not yet reached every corner of the world.
 
So the kingdom of God is present now in Christians’ lives, but at the same time it is still in the future. The kingdom of God is both present and future. This concept is also expressed in theological terms such as “present without consummation” or “eschatological existence”.
 
So, we’re basically living in the tension between the “now” and the “not yet.” Because of this, we may feel a gap between the idealized picture of God's kingdom and the reality of the kingdom we are living in now.
 
The kingdom of God has already come, but when we look at our lives, the church, and this world, they don’t seem like the kingdom of God. We’re still sinful and it’s hard to find sincere Christians, even in the church. The world is still in darkness, and it seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on. These are the things that prevent us from seeing the kingdom of God that has already come and is present in our lives now.
 
There are two extreme ways people tend to respond to this gap. The first is unrealistic optimism. It's like a utopian view. It's the idea that the world will get better and better, and that it will eventually become a utopia, a paradise-like world with no problems.
 
This view was once dominant, and people, including Christians, were eager to develop science, technology, and democratic policies to this end. But nowadays, most people are skeptical of this view. No matter how much science and technology advance, the problem of sin and evil won’t just go away.
 
The second extreme response to the gap between “already” and “not yet” is hopeless pessimism. Those who belong to this group claim that nothing can be done until Jesus returns and makes everything right.
 
They say that this world will not change no matter what we do because the forces of evil are so strong. So they just give up on doing anything against social injustice or other problems happening in this world. They turn their backs on all social concerns and insist that “evangelism” is the only thing that really matters.
 
But neither of these perspectives is biblical. So then, what perspective should we have as Christians? We need to walk a third path called biblical realism.
 
This perspective is not silent about the problems we have now. What we believe is that the more people follow God's will on earth, the more God's kingdom will expand in this world, and the more this world will be transformed into a better place to live.
 
But at the same time, this perspective is not completely optimistic about the future. The problems of evil and sin will continue to exist until the day our Lord returns. We will not be able to solve all the problems completely. But still, we’ll continue to strive to follow God’s will on earth, doing what we can, while lifting up things outside of our control to God.
 
I think Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer does a great job reflecting biblical realism.
 
He prayed,
 
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
— Reinhold Niebuhr
 
This prayer is called the Serenity Prayer. Reinhold Niebuhr was a very influential American theologian who wrote several books on Christian ethics. I came across this prayer when I was in seminary in Korea, and it changed my perspective.
 
This is a prayer that tells us exactly what biblical realism is. There are many problems that we can’t solve on our own. For example, there are countless children in the world who are starving. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 733 million people are malnourished. It’s said that around 9 million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases. Even now, a child dies from hunger every 10 seconds.
 
You can easily get this information by looking up world hunger statistics on the internet. It’s hard to believe, but it’s the reality that we’re facing now. What's even sadder is that an estimated 1.6 billion tons of food is thrown away every year, worth about $134 trillion.
 
Then, as Christians, what should our attitude be in the face of this enormous crisis? World hunger is just one of countless problems that seem beyond our ability to solve.
 
When we are confronted with this hopeless situation, it’s easy for us to simply close our eyes to this devastating reality, thinking that no matter what we do, this world will not change.
 
That’s true in part. It's impossible for one individual to solve the hunger problem. Even the richest person in the world wouldn’t be able to do it.
 
But that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do. We can’t save every person suffering from hunger, but we can at least help one child through Christian organizations such as World Vision or Compassion International. And there are a lot of different ways to help. All we need is a little courage and the wisdom to distinguish between what we can't do and what we can.
 
We must never forget that every little thing we do according to God's will is being used to build God's kingdom here on earth. So we must not be silent about the problems caused by sin in our world just because we are powerless to stop them. Instead, we should look for what we can do, no matter how small, and do it. That is how we live on this earth as people of God's kingdom. That is how God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
 
The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:58,
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1Co 15:58)
 
Paul encourages us to continue to give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord because our labor in the Lord is not in vain. It means that everything we do for the kingdom of God in the present contributes to the glorious kingdom of God that will come true with the second coming of Jesus Christ.
 
Even when the kingdom of God is fully established on earth, our work will not be in vain. The things we strive and labor for now will not be completely eliminated when God's kingdom comes. We don't know what exactly we will look like in that kingdom, but we will still be reigning and ruling over this world under Jesus, who is the true King of the world.
 
That’s what we need to keep in mind. Our efforts will not be in vain. That is why we must continue to look toward the glorious kingdom of God that is yet to come while continuing to fulfill the missions that God has given us now, faithfully and to the end.
 
In any country, people are given rights along with responsibilities. Belonging to God's kingdom comes with rights and promises of protection, but it also requires loyalty to our King.
 
Again, the kingdom of God is where He reigns with His sovereign will through His people. The reason Jesus came to the world and suffered and died on the cross wasn’t only to forgive our sins and make us righteous. What Jesus really wants to achieve through His sacrifice is to make us people of God’s kingdom who are eager to do good according to His good will.
 
Salvation itself is not the purpose. It’s a privilege or right we have in Christ. But we should remember that the right to become children of God and the privilege of being freely justified by God’s grace requires us to carry out duties and responsibilities as citizens of the kingdom of God.
 
So after saying, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8), Paul continued, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10)
 
Paul also said in his letter to Titus, “[Jesus] gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Ti 2:14)
 
If we are grateful for the saving grace God has freely given us through Jesus Christ but neglect our mission as people of God's kingdom, it means that we are only worshiping God the way we want to. Seeking only blessings from God while neglecting our duties is not the kingdom mindset.
 
Just as John the Baptist was called to prepare the way of the first coming of the Lord, we are called to prepare the way for the return of Jesus Christ.
 
Jesus, who came to the world, will come back the way He ascended to heaven. On that day, the kingdom of God will perfectly come true.
 
So then, how can we prepare the way for our Lord’s return? We should live in the world as people of the kingdom of God, doing what we can according to God’s will, no matter how small they seem.
 
Remember, all the works we do now for God and His kingdom won’t be in vain. God will use them to build and expand His kingdom on earth, and He will praise us and glorify us with heavenly rewards. So, let us strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees and prepare the way for the Lord’s coming together. The day will come when He returns and brings us to His kingdom.
 
Let’s pray.
 
[Prayer]
Dear Lord, thank You for giving us this great time to think about who we are in You and the great mission You’ve given us. Thank You for making us people of Your kingdom. Thank You for freely giving us citizenship in Your kingdom.
 
Now Lord, we want to work for Your kingdom. We want to see Your kingdom come and Your will be done everywhere we go and in every area of our lives. So we humbly lay down our thoughts and invite You, Lord. Please be the Lord in every area of our lives and guide us to Your way.
 
Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference so that we may continue to be devoted to following Your good will in the world without being discouraged by the evil happening around us.
 
In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. What are some problems you see in the world that you think are unsolvable? What are small things you can do to help address them?
 
2. What are some things you are doing now or want to do in the future to help God’s kingdom come on earth?
 
3. Being a citizen of a country means that you have obligations to that country along with the rights it gives you. What do you think are rights and duties you have as a citizen of the kingdom of God?