Kingdom Power

I am the sort of person that I have to go where God is leading. I have to preach on what I am passionate about…And while I am super passionate about our vision for families that I am going to be sharing with you next week… I just had one more thing to share with you as it pertains to the insurrection at the capital building.

Because I think this is so important to your relationship with God.

So COVID, the discord in our country over the past year and the insurrection at the capitol has all revealed something about the church that is an uncomfortable truth, but a truth that nevertheless needs to be spoken about.

God’s people from time and memorial have always had a difficult relationship with power.

Now don’t hear me wrong in all of this, Christians can and absolutely should have political power. It is one of the ways that God uses his church to bring goodness into the world.

But the Bible warns us over and over again about the dangers of political power

if you read the book of 1 Kings in the Bible, you see pretty quick that Solomon becomes king over Israel

And the first half of his story is about asking for wisdom to lead

It is about building the temple to the Lord

Then we see this Amazing dedication ceremony, where the presence of the Lord fills the temple

When you get to chapter 9 you begin to see little indications that all is not well in the kingdom of Solomon...

At chapter 9 he is called “the forced labor king of Israel” Which is an echo back to Israel’s captivity

By Chapter 10 the author wants you to know that every year, the weight of Solomon’s gold is 666 talents…This is a very Jewish way of saying that he is completely, incomplete ....Later in Revelation this will be a “mark of the beast” a way of saying your hope and your imagination is being shaped by beastly kingdoms and not the Lamb of God.

By the time we get to 1 Kings 11:4

The New International Version Chapter 11

4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

How does this happen?

Often time we look at people who have been successful in this world, especially in the christian world and we think, they have it going on!

But the Bible tells a very different story

It seems from the Bible’s perspective, any time you reach a pinnacle of power, you are in a dangerous place....

There are a precious few people in the Bible who receive political power and are able to handle it well.

Joseph, King David, Daniel and maybe a handful of others

The reality is that in the Bible is far more common for humble people to become powerful and fall than it is for people to become powerful and use that power in a Godly way

Really this serves as a warning in scripture…That we have to be the sort of people who are cautious about what type of power we pursue.

We have to be cautious to only pursue God’s power

Worldly Power

Now I want to take a few minutes and talk about power in the Bible

The change from Godly power and dominion happened in the garden

Genesis 1:28

The New International Version Chapter 1

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Now here is what we need to see in this scripture, God calls human kind to rule over creation

We are given the task and are responsible for life on earth.

What kind of rule is this?

This is a life giving rule! This is a kind of power that aids in life, that make it fruitful and bountiful…

This is an empowering rule...

But see POWER gets totally corrupted in the fall of mankind

“In the biblical account of our fall from God, we were assigned to eat our bread by the sweat of our face, the sweat comes from our own energies, which is all we have left after losing our roots in God’s own life. 

But power gets corrupted when we relentlessly try to earn our bread by the sweat of someone else's face, even when it might be easier to use our own strength.

The curse of worldly power

Genesis 3:16b

The New International Version Chapter 3

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

This is not describing how your marriage ought to work....

Human kind was supposes to rule over all of creation in beautiful unity

But because of sin...what was supposed to be a royal calling for humanity got turned in on itself....

And this becomes the problem of all humanity…One tries to rule over another

Because we have lost our roots in God’s own life

But last week as we talked about storming the Capitol, and the christian symbols that were involved.... We talked about where we find our allegiance and not using God as a political prop...

But what we didn't talk about was the theology of power that was underneath it all...

That was a lust for worldly power

So I am going to show you a very short clip, a segment of what a pastor said at the Trump Prayer rally the day before the capitol insurrection

I am not going to give you his name because I do not want to publically disparage any pastor, and I have not able to speak with him to clarify what he said

Video Clip

He says

“How many of you know this is the most consequential week in American history?”

“The is the most consequential week”

“And I believe that this week we are going to throw Jezabel out and Jehu is going to rise up and we are going to rule and reign through President Trump under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”

“Because I am telling you, the consequences are severe if Biden and Harris becomes president”

So I just want you to keep in mind that this is said, just 1 day before the capitol building was stormed

Probably most of us are thinking…What is the story of Jezabel and Jehu again?

So Jezabel is the wife of a king, Ahab…But the story kind of reminds us that even though Ahab is the King, Jezabel is really pulling the strings…She puts prophets of YAWAH to death and is know as a wicked woman in the Bible. Even the New Testament picks up on using here name in the book of Revelation as someone who is leading a church astray....

And in the story…Jezabel isn’t leading just a person astray, she is leading a whole nation away from God

And Jehu is a king who charges that Jezabel be put to death…When Jehu enters Jezebels town, the servants of Jezabel are loyal to Jehu and they climb up to her tower and throw her out the window…The bible then records that Her body is trampled by horses, eaten by dogs, and spread as dung over the field of Jezreel.

So I am listening to this pastor speak and, And I didn't see this video till after the insurrection at the capitol, but when you know this story…and you hear a pastor stand up and say, “Jezabel is going to be thrown out and Jehu will rise up”

It sounded a lot like a theological justification for violence to get power

And then the pastor says after this happens we will “rule and reign through president trump under the Lordship of Jesus Christ”

Now on one hand he is right with the biblical understanding of the structure of authority…That God places rulers over us and that we are to obey them unless it violates scripture...

But there is no scriptural basis for the church to get their power through political leader!

Our power comes through the spirit of God changing hearts and lives!

See the moment that Christians need a political leader to rule and reign through is the moment that we have a golden calf

What I want to show you is that Jesus was faced with this same temptation…The political temptation to become great!

So just real quick…I want to show you what the Bible says about these two very different kingdoms and ways of reigning because it matters!

Flip with me to Matthew 4

The New International Version Chapter 4

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted v by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

There are basically 4 temptations here:::

All through the text Satan says: IF you are the son of God…The first temptation is to the identity of Jesus

Then the next three are

Appetite: Turn this stone to bread

Approval : See if your father really cares about you

Ambition : Take a shortcut to your kingdom

Make no mistake about it. The temptation for Jesus was for worldly political power....

New Testament 4:1–11—Jesus Overcomes Israel’s Tests

This realm did not technically belong to the devil (see Dan 4:32), who owned human hearts only as a usurper. The best the devil could do would be to make Jesus the political, military sort of Messiah most Jewish people who expected a Messiah were anticipating.

What Jesus rejected here was human made, political power

Jesus rejected power man’s way

The kind of power of dominion that happened as a result of sin in the garden

This is what Jesus rejected...

But what does it mean to storm a capitol building? It means you want worldly power.

And what does it mean to overthrow Jezabel and to rule and reign under any human? It is a bad theological justification to lust after human power

But catch this.

Jesus did come and gain power and he does have a kingdom…But it is just antithetical to the kind of power that uses violence to get what it wants ...

In fact Jesus absorbed the violence of this world and received all power and authority over it!

It is antithetical to the type of power that crushes others

Jesus didn’t crush this world but allowed the weight of our sin to crush Him on the cross

So after resisting temptation from the devil and particularly the temptation to have all the kingdoms under his authority

What did Jesus do?

Matthew 4:17

The New International Version Chapter 4

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

What is hard to avoid in the Bible is that jesus is offered a political kingdom and declines…

Now Jesus obviously wasn’t going to worship Satin

But is also not the kind of kingdom that he wants to build.

But here the main message of Jesus is that he is building a kingdom too!

But this is a very different type of kingdom than the one that satan is offering....

It is not a kingdom that is dependent on human rule!

This is a kingdom where God transforms our inner life.

God has a conspiracy afoot

It is to use his power to transform your inner life

To remake you in his image

To make you into be an agent of redemption

To use you to reconcile relationships

to be a vessel of God’s power

What Jesus is proclaiming that the Kingdom of heaven is near is a claim that God is near and offering a new governance of our life. This is a new way to be and to exist, with the character of God alive within us, transforming us!

The human way of power in the Bible is to take power up, to use violence, to rule over one another...

But God’s way is to direct us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done”

God does not mean that we should pray for his kingdom to come into existence, rater we pray for it to take over all points of personal, social and political order that are now excluded. “on earth as it is in heaven.

With this prayer we are invoking God’s kingdom to come into all areas of our lives.

Toward the end of the sermon on the mount, Jesus will teach...”Seek first the kingdom of God and all other things will be added to you. “

So if you want political influence

Seek first the kingdom of God

So if you want a voice in the political system

Seek first the kingdom of God

It is through a process of laying down your own agenda and seeking first the kingdom of God that you will ever recieve Godly power.

Jesus Disciples were still trying to work this out later in their ministry

When the Mother of James and John came up to Jesus and asked for them and really for her own inheritance…if her sons could sit and Jesus right and left hand....

See she thought Jesus was going to be a powerful king like Cesar.

The New International Version Chapter 20

25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many

Here Jesus over turns the curse of the garden.

See where the curse of the garden is to rule over one another

Jesus says, if you want real power. Serve one another

Lay yourself down for one another

Call to Repentance

Our world is organized around political power....

The news media creates a lust for it

We somehow tap into that lust with every election cycle....

And I think that there is a response that God wants from us…When we look at ourselves honestly can we say...

God I have been seeking first your kingdom

Or

Would you be forced to admit that you have been seeking first your own kingdom?

If that’s you. Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand!

We know how to enter into political rule in America...

But how do you enter into God’s kingdom?

-” You can reach for the kingdom with your heart through your mouth”...with a confession that Jesus is Lord. 

Response

Have you been trying to build the kingdom of conservatism or liberalism more than the kingdom of God?