Seek First the Kingdom of God

Matthew 6:33

Matthew 6:33 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

The kingdom of God is mentioned 99 times in the New Testament, it was a favorite theme in the preaching of Jesus, and it encapsulated the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, but we rarely talk about this important concept. The result for the church has been catastrophic in my view.

The Kingdom of God is immensely important for every believer to know because it answers so many questions about what our aim in life as Christians should be, what it means that Jesus is our LORD, and even how the Bible comes together as a coherent story.

What is the Kingdom?

The question we have to ask is where does Jesus get the idea of the Kingdom of God from? If he was unsparing in his use of the idea, he clearly assumed the people he was speaking to would know what this kingdom was

And to that question, the answer is “in the beginning.” When you read those first few chapeters of Genesis, it probably doesn’t register that what’s being described is a kingdom, but to the original Hebrew audience, the connection would have been clear.

When God created the cosmos and established the garden where he will dwell, on a little planet in the Milky Way, he was building a kingdom.

The language that is used in these beginning chapters are architectural. When God creates Adam and Eve, the words used are taken from building langauge. And when God says that he will create man in his own image, this is alluding to something akin to making a statue of his image, much like kings have done throughout history.

Unlike kings throughout history, God’s intention was to rule through his image bearing children, and to be with them in the environment he had established for them, and this environment was as good as it could possibly be for humanity. The work that God would have for us was not toilsome, it wasn’t boring, and it was work that fitted the people he had created.

In fact, the work that Adam and Eve had in the garden was akin to the work of the priests attending to the temple of God. So this work was royal, it was priestly, and it was utterly satisfying

Cultural Mandate

that brings me to an important passage

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

In Gen 1:28, God gives his image-bearers their mission: to have dominion over the earth. In this passage we learn three things about what it means to be part of God’s kingdom

1st. man’s whole life is to be governed by God’s commands. In this passage, God’s word claims the right to govern the whole direction of human life

2nd humanity is to subdue the earth and have dominion over all other creatures. Here, Adam and eve are to image the power of God’s lordship taking control over the world to God’s glory.

3rd man is to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth with human beings, imagine God, who fills the earth with his divine presence.

The Fall and the Distortion of the Mandate

we know how this plays out though. Adam and Eve choose not to be under God’s reign. Instead, they establish their own reign, and in turn, their own kingdom.

God could have started over but he didn’t. God’s glory would not be thwarted by sin. Humanity would continue to bear God’s image, marred as it now was, and would continue to build a kingdom (it was hardwired in their DNA to do so), but it would be a fallen and broken kingdom.

In response, God initiates the rescue plan, and establishes a covenant with Abraham, who was chosen to carry out the promise of the kingdom. That promise gets explained more and more as Israel’s history goes on. It prefigures the reign of God on earth through the covenant with Moses, it gets fleshed out in the covenant with David, and is finally revealed in the New Covenant with Jesus, who is the promised savior and king of the kingdom.

Jesus solves the problem of sin by dying on the cross and proving his victory by rising from the dead, but the story doesn’t stop there. Jesus commissions his disciples to do something imperative for the kingdom, disciple the nations. This is called the Great Commission.

Great Commission

What is different about this mission is that the great commission presupposes the existence of sin and the accomplishment of redemption. It recognizes that if the world is to be filled with true worshipers of God then they must first be converted to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. When that work is done, the result will be what was envisaged in the original cultural mandate.

what this means for us is that it is good and right to use the resources of this world for the glory of God and teh betterment of human life. The works of science, art, technology, government, and so on are good when done for God. However, this missions cannot be done until the Great Commission is fulfilled.

In the broadest sense, however, the cultural mandate cannot be fulfilled until the Great Commission is fulfilled

Vocation

I’ve talked alot about the kingdom in more abstract terms, describing something that might sound nice in theory, but you have no idea how this applies to you personally

the reality is, even for Adam, the kingdom was too vast for him to build by himself. The task God has given us assumes a society in which each member is playing a different role in acheieving the result. The same is true in the great commission. No individual can disciple all the nations. But the church, as a body, is made up of different members with different gifts and different callings/vocationsIn

the Medevial period, Christians applied this term to describe priests, monks, and nuns. But since Martin Luther’s great treatise on the subject in the 16th century, we now righty use this term to describe every believer’s work, including secular work.

That’s right whether you’re sharing the gospel on the streets of Toronto or sweeping the streets of Toronto, if it is done for the glory of God and for his kingdom, it is kingdom work.

We all have specific roles in the kingdom and specific roles have specific goals. Someone who is called by God to teach must strive for clarity in communicating truths. Someone in mercy ministry must seek the goal of meeting the needs of the people he/she serves

for those of you who are maybe torn about what to do for a living, whether you should go into full time ministry or take a secular job, don’t be constrained by the belief that church ministry is better or more holy than working at a bank or government. We need Christians in those roles, bringing out God’s purposes for those spheres of society if we are going to manifest the kingdom.

Ephesians 2:10

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

as renewed image-bearers whose sins have been dealt with and who are reconciled to God, we are created for the good work God prepared for us, just like God prepared the work for Adam and Eve.

I think the best way to describe that work would be to look at Christians in history who have been building the kingdom

William Wilberforce

•Late 18th, early 19th century English politician who was a high-profile evangelical and who abolished the slave trade in GB

•Movie Amazing Grace

•Ended the slave trade with the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807

•Ended slavery in GB with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 just before his death in that same year

William Booth

•19th century English preacher who founded the Salvation Army. He was named among the 100 greatest British people in a BBC poll conducted in 2002.

•In 1865, Booth and his wife Catherine had opened 'The Christian Revival Society' in the East End of London, which held regular evening meetings to share the repentance that Booth believed salvation could bring both the poor and marginalised.

Martin Luther King Jr

•MLK doesn’t need an introduction. He is one of the most well known figures of modern history and for good reason.

•He was a Baptist preacher who advocated for the equal treatment of blacks in America

•For MLK, because we are all created in the image of God, we are all equal and worthy of respect.

•Almost all of MLK’s most powerful speeches have him drawing from the prophetic literature of the Bible, holding God’s vision of justice as a mirror to America.

CCBR

•This group of people are some of the most courageous and faithful advocates for God’s reign that I know today.

•Specifically targeted by Justin Trudeau and the Federal government for their advocacy for the unborn in the Summer jobs grant issue

•Harassed and assaulted for their work but they joyfully carry out their work in ending abortion in Canada

Conclusion and Charge

The kingdom of God is God’s reign on earth, expressed in the Lordship of Christ and the faithful and loving partnership of his people.

God loves the world he has made and will restore it through his people

Jesus’ death destorys the power of sin which prevented us from loving and serving God in his kingdom

By being born again through the indwelling Spirit, and because Jesus has all authority, we have everything we need to carry out the work of the kingdom

God is using us, his redeemed people, to accomplish this purpose and Christians throughout history have played their role in building one small section of the kingdom

my charge to all of you tonight is how are you going to live your life? what priorities are animating and driving you? do you want to partner with God in establishing his kingdom? and what is that going to look like for you?