2026 has just started. There is a lot going on. There are a lot of things causing great concern for people across our world. It is times like this that we need to ask some critical questions of ourselves and our faith. We do not need to live in fear or wobble.
Stability is a word and a hope that our
world needs right now. God’s kingdom is all about stability.
God’s kingdom is where God rules and reigns in entirety in heaven. He brought
this kingdom to earth in Jesus, so that we could see in person what it was all
about. That’s when he chose to step down and come close to us in human form.
Every word from Jesus while on earth was telling us what the kingdom is all
about and how we can be a part of it. We step into it when we choose to follow
Jesus and everything he represents. We get to show what it’s like here on earth
by the way we live and love, and we get to bring it down onto earth as in
heaven when we act on what Jesus taught us. When we die and go to heaven we
will experience it in completeness. So, in the Lord’s prayer when we say, ‘Thy
kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as in heaven’, that’s what we are
talking about. That’s what Jesus taught us to do in our praying. He was giving
us the very basics right there on how to live as representatives of his kingdom
here on earth.
Instability is a word that our world feels
like right now. The instability is brought about from
people in political worldly empires trying to rule in their own power, which is
not God’s power. Worldly empires are about themselves, their greed, power and
control. Straight away we can see those words have nothing to do with God’s
kingdom, so if we are a part of God’s kingdom, we cannot look to those earthly
structures for stability or how to live. Worldly empires are not in partnership
with God’s kingdom. They are in direct opposition to it. It’s oil and water and
the two cannot and will not ever mix. Yes, we live within these political
spaces because we live on earth, but if we follow Jesus, we need to be living
according to God’s kingdom principles. That reminds me of a Scripture that
says, ‘we are in this world, but not of this world.’
Worldly empire and God’s kingdom operate
with different power. We need to ask ourselves what power we
really want. We seem to sing about God’s power in church on Sunday and then
very quickly slip into trusting in political worldly power at other times.
Maybe it’s because we think we can see it better playing out in front of our
eyes, I am not sure. But even the focus of the power is different. God’s power
is absolute and is against evil powers that come against it. Worldly political
empires are very self-focused and mostly see people as the enemies and
obstacles in their way to complete dominance.
Even the weapons are completely different.
Worldly empire’s power uses force, fear, hate, lies, aggression, arrogance, coercion, boasting,
abuse of power and weapons that destroy people and planet. It’s very selfish
and all about winning and conquering. It’s all about excluding people and only
about a few who win and gain all the wealth for themselves. They do not care
about those they trample on to get there or what happens to them afterwards.
God’s kingdom power is one of servanthood, being co-workers, love, compassion, humility,
thankfulness and joy. It’s also always putting him as the focus and the aim of
destruction is at the evil powers, not at people or planet. It’s completely
unselfish and others focused. It’s all about welcoming, including and adding
people into the kingdom for their benefit, so that all can mutually flourish.
God’s Kingdom stays the same, always. Worldly political empires change all the time, depending on so many
different things, but mainly because they are run by human people and their own
power. Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today and forever. A steadfast assurance for his followers.
Right now, we are watching international
law crumble before our eyes, never to be the same again. But God’s
principles remain the same. We should be standing on those principles and
calling political power out when they go against them. Jesus was not silent
when people practiced injustice towards anyone. If we see hurt and harm, we
should not celebrate it, we should be saying that it is not okay. We should be
defending the poor, the marginalised and the weak. Jesus came up against
political empire the whole time he was on earth. They eventually tried to
silence him in death, but we know how that ended.
When worldly political power tries to
silence things like inclusion, equity and
diversity and we can see those are principles in God’s kingdom, we should not
be the ones jumping on the bandwagon and agreeing with empire. We should be
pointing out that those concepts are dear to God’s heart and it’s what he wants
us to practice in bringing his kingdom to earth.
Christ is a sure foundation. He is our
solid rock. All other ground is sinking sand. Reminds
me of a song many of us grew up singing – the wise man built his house upon the
rock and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. So, when the rain came
down and the floods came up, the house on the rock stood firm and stable and
the house on the sand fell flat because of complete instability. We have a
choice to make daily. Where are we going to build?
God’s kingdom is the rock. Political empire is the sand. It cannot offer anything stable. There
is no surety.
We are urged to build our lives on Christ, so it must start with Jesus and the New Covenant. We can’t have our
foundation from anywhere else, and we also can’t build on top of Christ with
anything that is not of his kingdom. So, if we put our faith in any worldly
political empire, we are building that on top of Christ. It just cannot work.
He still stays the same and solid, but we muddy the waters because we can’t
even see him anymore because of what we have taken onboard. We land up in
confusion and think that the worldly empire now has the answers. Sometimes it
comes because of fear and it looks like our fear can be relieved by trusting in
the actions of the empire.
Our trust and hope can never be in a
political empire. It is sinking sand. It stands in direct
opposition to the kingdom of God. It’s building a golden calf to bow down to in
hopes of our freedom being protected. We know the argument of separating church
from state. There’s good reason for that. The two cannot be in bed together.
There cannot be an alliance with oil and water and thank goodness for that. But
if we convince ourselves otherwise and start believing lies and we forget to
keep looking to Jesus, we will find ourselves in bed with the enemy.
It's so clear right now that we have a
huge divide in the church. We have church people posting absolute opposites
on social media. The political right and left is brought into many of these
accusations. There are arrows flying at each other. There are nasty words being
said. There is huge disagreement on big topics. It’s obvious we have a clash of
kingdoms going on. Parts of the church have climbed into bed with political
empire. They are trying to go against the principle of oil and water not
mixing. And many comments from people saying, ‘but how can you really know
what’s true.’ There has been building of other stuff on top of Christ. There
are warnings in God’s word about choosing wisely and with care how you build
onto your foundation. We can know what is true if we line up what we are concerned
about with the kingdom of God. It’s the only sure and true starting point. We
also will not get our real answers about God’s kingdom from social media, we
will only find the truth of it in God’s word and in the life of Jesus.
God’s kingdom power and political empire
power look very different, sound very different, use different weapons, they do
different things and they have completely different outcomes. The one will
benefit a few, the other will offer benefit to everyone. Let’s not get starry
eyed about the political empire that looks and sounds like it has our best
interests at heart when our baseline is fear. I saw a comment the other day
that said, ‘people have been trained to experience equality as loss and
diversity as a threat.’ That sounds like it’s been set up by political empire
so they can convince people that it’s okay to climb ladders of power, it’s ok
to exclude others, it’s okay to win at all costs, it’s okay to protect what you
believe is yours to feather your own nest, it’s okay to fight and trample
others to get ahead and to stop the threat.
It made me think in that moment to put
it alongside God’s kingdom. Do we think God’s intention for the world was
for us to experience things as loss or a threat? So, it doesn’t hold weight in
his kingdom then to be concerned about loss and threat, especially when it is
about 2 concepts that he holds highly and dearly. I mean the trinity is all
about equality, inclusion and diversity. We need to remember if we want to be
great in God’s kingdom we need to learn to be the servant of all.
Ultimately, we have a choice whether we want the stability of the kingdom of God to be able to live
within the instability of worldly political empire or will we choose what looks
powerful and mighty with a human sword? Our Prince of Peace said on several
occasions to put the sword/the human weapon away. “My kingdom is not of this
world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent any arrest by the Jewish
leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Even when Peter did use
violence to protect Jesus, Jesus reminded him and said, ‘no more of this’. He
then had compassion on the man who had been hurt (by power/violence that is not
of the kingdom) and touched him and healed his ear.
May we choose to put our trust in the only
person who deserves any accolade for peace in our world. May we choose Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the Prince of Peace, from a kingdom that is not of this world but one that helps us to
live for him in this world.
