On Sunday, I preached on the final act of God’s meta-narrative: RESTORATION. This includes everything that has happened since the resurrection and will happen until the end of time. At the end of the sermon, it began to rain (we were having Church in the Park) and so I summarized the three major takeaways from the Epistles on how we should live in light of the gospel as we await the full restoration of all things. I thought it may be helpful to put these out in written form, so you can read and think about them when you are dry and not wondering when the pastor will be done so that you can get under cover. Here is the answer to the question: what does it mean that the kingdom has come, but life is not perfected?
We have been redeemed
We have been given the Spirit. We have been made new. The Christian life is about grappling with the reality of who we are. We are a people who have our salvation gifted to us in Christ, but still have the sin of living in this world. Our lives then are about accepting what God promises us will happen as we put effort into doing what God calls us to do. Colossians 3.1-3 lays this out for us:
If then you have been raised with Christ (that has been done to us), seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (that is what we are to do) . For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (this is done to us).
So we are to fight to believe that Jesus is sufficient, as we allow the power that He has given us to change us.
This will be evident to others
As we struggle to overcome the sin in our lives and live in a world that has a different goal than the one that God has given us, we will begin to look different to the world. Our otherness will have an effect. 1 Peter 2.9-12 says:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
This should sound familiar because it is very similar to the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai. It should sound heavy, because it is similar to what Jesus told His disciples before He ascended into heaven. But how are we to live up to such a lofty role? Peter goes on:
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
We are to abstain. We are to have different goals. We are supposed to fight in a different way. Why? So that when people look at our lives they will recognize from the outside what God has done on the inside. Israel’s great sin is that they desired to live the same way that the godless nations did. The Christian life should show that we do not belong to this world.
In this, we manifest the kingdom
Our life is not just a picture of the kingdom of God, but He is present in our lives, giving us access to a relationship with God. This means that the kingdom of God is present in this broken world…and it is present in us. Ephesians 2.18-22 says:
For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
See what just happened. The last verse talked about us being sojourners and exiles – people who don’t belong. But God hasn’t just made us a people without a home. He has made us fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. We have a home, we have a king, we have a family (other Christian believers) to live out the kingdom with. This is what is called the Now but not yet Kingdom. We are redeemed, but we still sin. We are made new, but the old still holds on. We are united to each other, but we do everything we can to keep people away. We belong to the kingdom, but we live here.
We are in God’s story, it is still happening, and yet God shows us what the end will be. In Revelation 19 we see Jesus returning to usher in this Kingdom, to punish the sins of the world, and to once and forever banish Satan to eternal torment. While people want to argue the details surrounding this, the one thing that cannot be denied is that Jesus is coming back and He is coming in POWER. He is coming to bring full restoration to His creation. The New Heavens and the New Earth, a perfect world (kingdom) in perfect relationship with God (covenant) replaces the world broken by sin. As chapter 22 promises us:
No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
We are citizens of that kingdom. We don’t have to prove ourselves here, we have already been approved because of Jesus. Our part is to prepare ourselves and others for this kingdom. As Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28.18-20:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Jesus has the authority as the king of the kingdom. He wants us to introduce people to the kingdom. Baptize them into the church, the earthly manifestation of the kingdom. Learn and teach what it means to be members of the kingdom. All until the end of the age when we are part of the kingdom in its fullness.
As a church, we have committed the last 14 years to making disciples of all nations (as far as we can), baptizing them and teaching all that Jesus commanded. We are going to keep building toward the kingdom until Jesus returns or we pass from this life to the next.