One Story: Kingdom

Playing Games

What comes to your mind when you think of a kingdom? There’s probably lots of images that come to your mind right? But I’m going to gander a guess that each of those images has at its head some type of dignitary. A King, a Queen, a Prince, or some other person of high stature typically sits atop some type of throne, using their power to rule over, influence, and direct the course of the kingdom.

You know, I was a king once. Yeah I was, I was a king and I had a throne and everything. The year was 1996. I’d just turned 11 years old and my Dad, who is to this day a software engineer, came home with a game for the computer called Civilization 2. And in this game you led a fledgling society from a lowly band of settlers into an empire. I probably played this game for like 7 years, so I really got the hang of ruling over my little kingdoms from my computer chair throne.

Now, one of the things about the game was you would be given the option to research and implement new forms of government. But one of the fatal flaws of the game was that the best, most strategic, and advantageous form of government was always the monarchy. The people were happiest, the production was highest, and the military morale and efficiency was best when your title was king or queen.

Now I’m not telling you this to try to suggest that George Washington messed up when he refused the offer to be the King of America, and that the Monarchy is the form of government that we should strive for. I’m telling you this because I think what I always capitalized on was the fact that this game was programmed to operate based on the highest possible ideals that each form of Government could embody.

It assumed something about you, about me, the one who was in control. I assumed that I would always and in every way act in the best interest of my growing empire and the people within it. Which makes sense, because I did — that’s a major part of how you won the game. You see the game could be won in one of two ways - Conquering the whole world, or sending a space ship to colonize the planet Alpha Centauri.

Basically, you won by fulfilling the mission of any respectable kingdom — spreading its influence across the known (and even unknown) world.

Into the Land

If you been with us and tracking with this sermon series called “One Story” then you know that we are examining the story of scripture in a really zoomed out way, to see how it is one story that leads to Jesus. So we’ve discussed how God is a god of creation, who’s purpose is to create a world that promotes and sustains life. We’ve talked about how humans really messed that up, but how God made a covenant, a promise to one family that he would give them land and use them to bless the world, making it a place that promotes and sustains life. But that family found themselves in a lot of trouble, enslaved down in Egypt.

So God liberated them, and then brought them to the base of a mountain where he gave them a Law, a set of ethics to live by in order for them to be capable of blessing the world. And where we left off, this family, the Israelites, were sitting just outside of the land that God had promised them.

Now the leader of the Israelties, Moses, has passed away and they have a new leader, a man named Joshua. And God comes to Joshua and tells him it’s time for the people to enter into the land of Canaan. The problem is that the land is inhabited by some other people, so this isn’t going to be easy. Also these people have a heart problem as we’ve talked about last week. They aren’t very good at following directions. But regardless, God says this to Joshua...

Joshua 1:6–9 NRSV

Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

There’s some really important points in here that are going to set up our understanding of our whole discussion today, which is going to revolve around the Israel’s development into a Kingdom, and what that kingdom means to us today. But first we need to define what a kingdom is. The best definition of a kingdom (and in particular God’s kingdom) comes from a scholar named Dr. Patrick Schreiner. and he says this (slide)

“The Kingdom is the king’s power over the king’s people in the king’s place” - Dr. Patrick Schreiner

So let’s hang on to that and look back at this dialogue with Joshua. God says “I am with you wherever you go, and follow my law and things are going to go well for you” - This is a display of God’s power

And obviously this is God’s people and they are heading into God’s place — the land that was promised to them.

So we’ve got God’s power over God’s people in God’s place. The makings of a kingdom. Which is what Israel will eventually become.

Joshua leads the people into the land, they conquer and settle most of it and then they fumble around trying to figure out how to live. And they are like, really, really bad at it. They don’t have a king, because at this point God is supposed to be the king of Israel. They go through these cycles of Judges, who were rulers that God raised up to reign in the sinfulness of the tribes and eliminate external threats, but they are only temporarily successful. And the reverberating refrain of the scriptures throughout the book of Judges is (slide)

“In those days there was no king, and the people did what was right in their own eyes”

Basically they are a train wreck. And they know it. So they decide they need something different. They demand a human king.

But the king they want is not a good man. He’s a man named Saul who doesn’t lead according to what God had told Joshua. He doesn’t care about God’s law, he doesn’t care about partnering with God. He cares about his own power, to the point where he becomes intoxicated by it, seeking to kill anyone who might threaten it — including the one that God had anointed to be the next king — a man named David.

United Kingdom

So, Saul eventually dies. And David is made king of Israel, but he’s got to squash some civil wars — because Israel isn’t really a kingdom. It’s a confederation of tribes. But David is eventually able to unite all of the tribes under his rule. And this is what God tells a prophet named Nathan to tell David:

2 Samuel 7:8–11 NRSV

Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

The King’s power over the king’s people in the king’s place.

Look also at what God calls David - a prince. Not a king, of course that doesn’t mean that David wasn’t a legitimate king of Israel, it means that he wasn’t the highest authority in Israel. And this is a critical and fundamental characteristic of Israel’s monarchy. The King was always meant to be subservient to THE KING. God was the legitimate rule of Israel, the King was meant to rule over Israel as God’s steward, seeing that God’s will was done.

Ok, that’s all well and good, but humans die. So how long can this last? Well, God says that he will make David a house — which is a Hebrew idiom for saying “I will make you a line of descendants” which he will continue to elaborate on as the scripture goes forward:

2 Samuel 7:12–16 NRSV

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.

This scripture is two fold. God is talking very literally about David’s son Solomon, who does mess things up pretty badly. But this final line hints at where this kingdom is truly headed. The family of David and the kingdom that they reign over is going to be established forever.

This promise doesn’t seem like it’s going to come true, because Israel’s kings don’t do well. Eventually the kingdom splits, and both halves are conquered and carted off to other lands. But that’s a topic for another day. The point is, this promise from God seems empty and so very far away as more and more time goes by.

A New King

That is until, of course, the ultimate king comes. Born in a manger, in the city of Bethlehem, the city know as “The City of David” to a family that was descended from the line of King David. This king, born in a humble manger, hunted at birth by a cruel and power hungry false king, who sought refuge in Egypt would grow up to announce the coming of a new kingdom — The Kingdom of God. This kingdom would be unlike any kingdom that the world had ever known. It would be the fulfillment of the kingdom of Israel, the way that God would win the game by spreading his influence across the entire globe.

It’s no coincidence that Jesus came with an offer of a different kingdom in the social and political climate that he did. He came to Judea, the place where his ancestor David’s offspring were meant to rule with truth and Justice. What he found was a corrupt puppet king who ruled with an iron fist at the good pleasure of a higher authority — Caesar himself. Israel’s monarchy was hijacked by the Roman Empire and its worship of power, money, military might, and Caesar himself.

Jesus’s entire ministry was a means of subverting the ways that this society had corrupted the ways that people understood and interacted with their world. That’s why the overarching refrain that began Jesus’s parables was “The Kingdom of God is like...”

Jesus’s desire was to prepare people for a new manifestation of the Kingdom that Israel was meant to be. A place that is ruled not by self-serving and comfort, but a place that is characterized by self-giving love and sacrifice.

This is what the cross ushered in. Jesus, by means of humiliation, was beaten, clothed in robes, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross with a sign that said “The king of the Jews.” What Jesus’s accusers and executioners could never have known was that when that cross was lifted up and placed in the ground they had put the king on the throne once again.

When Jesus came out of the grave, the promise of God to David was fulfilled, one of his descendants would sit on the throne forever. And when Jesus ascended into heaven he took his seat at the right hand of God to rule over his kingdom for eternity. And at the end, he will return to take his throne in the new creation. The king’s power over the king’s people in the king’s place will be a physical reality.

But until then, this kingdom is a place that we have been invited to foster. And it’s broken, and it’s a mess, and for us it looks like the church, because the church is God’s best chance to show the world what the kingdom of God looks like in this world

Who’s Our King

So I suppose that begs us the question -- Are we showing our best representation to the world of what the kingdom of God is like? Do you leave here thinking to yourself, well darn if that isn’t the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place, I really don’t know what is?

And for you, in your life. Is the King’s power really the guiding light in your life? The true king, not the false puppet kings that we tend to follow. Do we follow the kings on our television screens and our cellphones that tells us how to feel, who to care for, what’s real and what’s not, whats true and what’s false — or do we follow the true king. The king of kings, Jesus. Jesus who came to show us and tell us what the kingdom of God is.

And I’m here to tell you that the kingdom of God is like an outstretched arm. The kingdom of God is like a warm embrace. The Kingdom of God is like a welcome home. The Kingdom of God is like an alcoholic who gets sober. The kingdom of God is like an addict who gets clean. The Kingdom of God is like food in the belly of the hungry, like a shelter for the homeless, like power to the powerless, and like release from the chains that grip us as individuals and as a society.

The Kingdom of God is like a 130 year old church in that place where Orange, 7th, and Avenue A meet, filled with peacocks and the smell of Haitian food. A place where a community on the outskirts can come and plant a garden, send their kids to school and to camp. Where artists can come and practice their craft and you can hear laughter from the office all the way down the halls. Its a place where a long haired, tattooed, trouble maker of a pastor is welcomed with love and where folks who have loved and lost can come and be embraced as family. The Kingdom of God is like First Church. I whole heartedly believe that, and I hope that you do too.

We not have new buildings and smoke machines and rooms packed with young families right now. But we have the king. And we have the king’s power, we have the king’s people, and we are most definitely in the king’s place. And for me, thats what the kingdom of God looks like, for now until the Kingdom of God looks like this in the age to come.

Revelation 21:1–5 NRSV

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

The King’s Power over the King’s People in the King’s place. But until then we wait, and we do our best to make this place, this slice of God’s kingdom as much like the kingdom to come as we can.