by
Barry Henning, Pastor of New City Fellowship in St. Louis
What is the "Gospel of the
kingdom"? It is the good news that God, in his great love, has come to
redeem a people for himself, through the work of Jesus Christ, who will be set
free from their bondage to sin and enabled through the gift of his Spirit to
become a people of justice, mercy and a humble walk with God. We announce the
Gospel of the kingdom just like Jesus did - by doing justice and preaching
grace.
"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching
in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom...."
-Matthew 4:23
"For two whole years Paul stayed there in
his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without
hindrance he preached the kingdom
of God
"For he has rescued us from the dominion of
darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" -Colossians 1:13, 14
"To him who loves us and has freed us from
our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve
his God and Father - to him be the glory and power for ever and ever!
Amen." -Revelation 1:5,6
I. God's Zeal for His Kingdom Reign on
Earth
What is the kingdom of God
Are
there core values of the kingdom
of God
The
central, defining, core values of God's kingdom are summed up for us in Micah
6:8 "He has showed you, O man,
what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God."
The
core activities that God himself describes as the fulfillment of this lifestyle
include:
To
act justly:
To make sure
you personally treat others with all goodness, rightness and justice in every situation of life- as a merchant (Lev
19:36), an employer (James 5:4,5), a spouse (Ephesians
5), a parent (Eph 5), a citizen (Romans 11), a homeowner (Deut. 22:8)
But also to
take an active role in helping others when you see them being treated them with injustice. In other words, to do
whatever good we can for those who are being oppressed.
(Isaiah 58:10)
Those most vulnerable to injustice
and to whom we are called to pay special attention are the widow, the
orphan, the immigrant and the poor. (Jer.22:16; Jas 1:27; Lev19:10, 33,34; Exodus
23:9 )
To love mercy:
To be the kind of person who delights in showing
compassion for people in need - when we see
people in pain, distress or misery, to step in and take action to relieve their
need.
This applies to all kinds of need- but God calls us to
pay attention to obvious physical need: hunger, shelter, clothing, sickness. (I
John 3 , Luke 10, Isa 58) What is so unusual about God's mercy, is that it
comes from a God of grace: we extend such help even to people who are unworthy or, who deserve just the
opposite; we even show mercy to our enemies.(Matthew 5:43 ff, Romans 12:17)
To walk humbly with our God:
We will not
pursue this lifestyle from a position of arrogance, superiority or condescension, but from a humble walk with
God. A humility that trusts God to do His will,
His way - no matter what others may think, Satan may say, or our own hearts may
speak; a humility that means we
will not rely on human sources of strength, but on the Spirit's power, (Zechariah 4:6) even boasting in our
weakness (2 Cor 12:9ff) .
That humility will stem first from seeing our own need
for, and reception of God's mercy and favor in our lives through the Gospel, so
that, the deeds of justice and compassion will not be marked by a motivation of
making ourselves feel good or important, but they will be done as a true expression of the love of
God, with careful concern for the person's true need, and "quietly" - without drawing a lot of attention to
ourselves (Isa 42:1-4).
These three traits of justice, mercy
and humility are at the heart of God's character. As children of his kingdom, all his discipline, love, care and promises
will be bent towards shaping our lives
as people who are marked by these traits. They are God's summarized definition of what he means whenever he
uses the word "righteousness". The outworking of these issues defines the significance and
direction of every other issue for the
children of the kingdom- whether its loving your spouse, raising your children,
working at your job or loving your
neighbor- the one next door, the one on your way to work, or the one on the other side of the world.
In order to keep maturing as the body of Christ we
need to understand more fully where God is taking us through the trials and
discipline he brings into our lives as his children. Those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines
(Hebrews 12:5-11). That discipline is taking us to a "harvest of righteousness" produced by a solid,
unshakeable faith in the Gospel. The "righteousness" the author of
Hebrews refers to is this justice, mercy and humility that we see God calling
for in the book of Isaiah. God did not have one plan for his people in the Old Testament and a different one now.
What is different is the full, completed work and revelation of the Gospel in Jesus Christ that deepens and
expands our freedom to fulfill this work
of God.
Another part of our maturing
together as God's people is deepening in our understanding of what the Lord's will is. Paul says:
"For this reason, since the day we heard
about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with
the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And
we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may
please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the
knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving
thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the
saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of
darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:9-14
The more we look at the nature
of God's righteousness and the kind of people he is calling us to be, the more we have a deep sense of
our need for the grace of God and the work of Christ in our lives as the only source of our hope. God's desire in
maturing us is not, however, to bring us
to the point of seeing our need, have us run to the Gospel, receive God's free
mercy and love and then say,
"Ah, I am free," and stop there.
Paul
says: "You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom
to indulge the
sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up
in a single command: 'Love your
neighbor as yourself.'" Galatians 5:13,14
II. The Message and Means of the Gospel: God's Answer for Our Transformation
Isaiah's Gospel Proclamation: God's
Grace through Jesus Christ
How
do we change from being sinners (not living a life of justice, mercy and humble
walking with God) to becoming
God's glorious, holy people who reflect God's character and live out the kind of life he has called us
to?
God's
amazing answer: to become a people who love, we can only start and continue in
that process if we continually receive
God's justice, mercy and grace as a free gift through faith in the work of "The Suffering
Servant", Jesus Christ, on our behalf. The way into the kingdom of God is itself the greatest
demonstration of God's justice, mercy and humility: Jesus Christ takes our sin upon himself, grants us the
gift of his righteousness as our covering and he presents us to the Father as his "brothers",
"sons of the living God"- justice, mercy and God's humility meet us at each of these points.
So
then, we are not called to look to our own resources to become such a people of
God. As a matter of fact, Paul
tells us plainly: "What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained
it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel , who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not?
Because they pursued it not by faith
but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the 'stumbling stone.' As it is
written:
'See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes
them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'"
Romans 9:30-33
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for
God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the
righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did
not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there
may be righteousness for everyone who believes." Romans 10:1-4
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