2_Clash of Kingdoms

I think that I am safe in saying that we are living in troubled times. You may rightly say that’s an understatement. There are a multitude of factors like political instability, economic uncertainty, social divisions, climate change, and ongoing global conflicts that are evidence that we are living in a turbulent period in history. There is a collective sense of uncertainty around the world about what tomorrow will bring.

Each region of the world faces its own set of problems with a growing sense of unease and a concern that the solutions being offered by their leaders, past and present, will not make things better, even though that is what they promise. Is it that the problems we face are too complex, or is it something else?

There may be a lot of factors at work. Some of the problems are complex, and there are lots of opinions being offered to resolve them. Our leaders may even have their own personal agendas that supersede providing that kind of leadership that is needed to resolve them.

Kingdoms

In this Kingdom Thought, I want to introduce another factor that is at work that is at the root of the uncertainty and unrest that we are experiencing. It's what the Bible describes as a Clash of Kingdoms.

The word "kingdom" may seem like an old term that applies to the kings of the past who ruled over kingdoms. One kingdom would go to war against another kingdom either to gain more territory or to defend their people and their land. From history, we learn about the rise and fall of kingdoms. But that’s not the kind of clash between kingdoms that is of concern to me as I write this. It is a much bigger and more consequential problem that I want to bring to our attention.

The clash of kingdoms that I will focus on is of a different kind. It is, for the most part, invisible to us. We can sense it and see evidence of it in our world and even in our own lives, but much of the clash between these two kingdoms goes on behind the scenes.

Kingdom is Central to the Gospel Message

The concept of "kingdom" is central to the gospel. It is mentioned 162 times in the New Testament. Of those, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is mentioned 135 times.

In Matthew 3:2, we find John the Baptist calling for people to "repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Likewise, Jesus began his ministry with a kingdom-central message. Matthew 4:17: "From that time Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

What did Jesus and John mean when they declared that the kingdom of heaven is at hand? What is this kingdom? It was obviously central to the message they preached, but what implications does this have for us today? Where does the kingdom of heaven fit in the life that you and I are living here today on planet earth? That's what we are exploring in this Kingdom Thought.

As we look together at the relevance of the kingdom of heaven to our lives, it is my hope that we will be inspired by the message Jesus preached, and that it will energize us with hope and confidence in the message of the gospel.

We Live in a Divisive Culture

I can’t begin to explain how things have seemed to change during my 70+ years of life, especially how divided we are as citizens of our countries and citizens of the world. Perhaps it is just that I have been made more aware of it because of the access to information that we all have. But it seems more than that.

Whether it’s viewpoints about cultural values and many other issues, we are bombarded with many differing perspectives as citizens of our country and as a world community. I don’t intend to address them directly in this series. What I will try to do is share some biblical principles that we can wrestle with as we consider some problems we all face.

That We Would Be United

Just hours before Jesus was arrested by a mob that fateful night before He would suffer on the cross for the sins of the world, He gathered His closest disciples around Him to pray with them. He prayed aloud so that His disciples would hear the words of His prayer. What did He pray for? We find it in John chapter 17. I want to focus on the central request that He made of His Father and our Father.

John 17:11 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.”

He prayed for our unity. As we think about the world we live in, the fulfillment of what Jesus prayed for seems a big ask … close to impossible. Yet this was on the heart of Jesus, the Son of God.

Unity of His Church continues to be on the heart of God and is something that I personally long for. Not a false kind of unity that is the result of making compromises, but a unity centered on the truth of God’s Word.

Our Real Enemies

As we consider how we could ever experience unity in our relationships with each other, it is important to be clearheaded about the enemies that we face. When we think about enemies, our attention may be drawn to “those people” … yes, those people … the ones that we don’t like. People that are on the opposite side of important matters that we face. These are the people who belong to a different political party and people who hold different doctrines or philosophies. These sorts of differences naturally divide us into different alliances or tribes that we see ourselves as belonging to.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, we see this kind of tribal warfare as the Israelites battled with neighboring nations and sometimes with each other … Judah and Israel. The New Testament brings another set of enemies into focus … the world, the flesh, and the devil. For hundreds of years, our church fathers have zeroed in on these three as the chief enemies that we face as followers of Jesus. These three verses help bring them into focus:

The World ... 1 John 2:15

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.

Our Flesh ... Galatians 5:17

The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

The Devil ... 2 Corinthians 4:3–4

If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

These invisible enemies are working behind the scenes to work against the purposes of God in our lives. Their work is invisible, but it has a powerful effect on each of us. There is a purpose behind their drive to influence us. They want to divide us and try to make us see someone who is different from us as our enemy. I will focus more attention on each of these enemies in future Kingdom Thoughts. For now, I want us to consider the possibility that these are our real enemies. Does that mean the person in that other party or the one that holds to that other doctrine is not my enemy? Hold on to that thought.

Relating to Our Enemies

As we consider the divisions that exist between us, we need to understand some things about how Jesus viewed His human enemies. He did have them. His enemies sought to put Him to death because His teachings and His actions didn’t fit into their view of how to worship and serve God.

It is important to take note of how Jesus responded to those who positioned themselves as His enemies. I have asked a group of people from time to time, "What is your favorite picture of Jesus?" Sometimes someone will say that it is Jesus clearing the temple. They picture a kind of John Wayne kind of Jesus ... a man's man kind of Jesus. Jesus wasn't weak! Far from it. The Bible teaches that as He preached and taught, He did it with authority.

But we could draw some wrong conclusions as we picture Jesus clearing the temple or the tough words that He had for the religious leaders of His time. Those were brief moments from the ministry of Jesus. It is important to fix our attention on what He taught us about how to treat those who we might consider our enemies.

Let’s start with something Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel: Luke 6:27–30 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back.”

Love Your Enemies

Jesus repeats the statement “love your enemies” in verse 35 and tells us to be merciful to our enemies in verse 36. I don’t want to dismiss those rare occasions when Jesus cleared the temple or dressed down a religious leader. He wasn’t timid and would do what needed to be done in the moment. But it is important to realize, though, that everything that Jesus has done was motivated by His love.

In various ways, Jesus taught His disciples and us that it is what is inside of us … our being ... that’s important.

Our being is the real us. Jesus taught that all of what we do and say flows from who we are on the inside. Jesus' being was motivated by love.

The Great Commandment

One day while Jesus was having one of those tough back-and-forth dialogues with some of the religious leaders, He was asked, “Teacher, which of the laws is most important?” By getting Jesus to pick out a particular law as the most important, they were hoping to find a way to criticize Him. Notice what He says in Mark’s gospel:

Mark 12:29–31 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

Jesus boiled the Ten Commandments and all of the Law or the prophets down to these two commandments … loving God and loving our neighbor.

Who Is My Neighbor?

In Luke 10:29, we find another religious leader asking Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers him by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the story, a man is robbed and injured and left half dead. Laying there injured, two religious men passed by offering him no assistance.

Along came a Samaritan who tended to his wounds and brought him to an inn to care for him. Before he left to resume his journey, he left funds to pay the man’s expenses with the promise that he would repay the innkeeper for the man’s care while he recovered.

Samaritans and Jews had been enemies for ages. Both groups were strong in their convictions and their hatred for one another. In answering the question raised concerning “who is my neighbor?” He picked representatives from these two camps.

After He told the story, Jesus asked: Luke 10:36–37 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Motives of Mercy and Love

Everything that Jesus did flowed from His being. That should be true of us as well. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for us because of anything good about us. We were sinners … enemies along with those that actually drove in the nails when He was put on the cross. His motivation was love and mercy.

Those of us that call ourselves “Christian” are called to become more and more like Jesus. This involves becoming like Him in our being … who we are on the inside … and our doing … what we do and say. As we grow in love and mercy, it will influence what we say and do.

What About Our Neighbors?

Sometimes our neighbors look a lot like enemies. First of all, they are wrong about so many things. And they are so disagreeable and unreasonable. They are clearly sinners of the worst kind. How can we ever love them as Jesus taught us? I think that it is important to consider how God views our enemies. He loves them in spite of their sin just as He has loved us.

Notice what the Apostle Paul says about people who are sinners of the worst kind in the second chapter of his letter to the Romans: Romans 2:3–4 But do you suppose this, you foolish person who passes judgment on those who practice such things, and yet does them as well, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

Paul emphasizes that it is God’s kindness, not His rough treatment of sinners, that leads them to repentance. In his first letter to the Corinthian church Paul writes: 1 Corinthians 2:14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

No matter how much we debate with our enemies, it is going to be difficult to reason them into the Kingdom of God. If we think that we can beat them down in a Facebook post and expect them to think differently, we are wasting our time. Our flesh might feel better, but we are probably driving our preceived ememy further away from the gospel.

They have to have a new heart and come to faith in Jesus themselves. In all of our efforts to make them see the truth that is right in front of them, as we post our opinions on Facebook, we might be driving them deeper into their beliefs that we Christians really are not who we say we are. When we try to overpower people, we can damage our witness and the witness of the church.

I believe that it is helpful to realize that much of the tension we experience with people that we don’t agree with has to do with another kingdom at work behind the scenes to get us focused on other people as our enemies. This is one of the aims of our real enemies ... the world, the flesh, and the devil.

This is something Jesus never did even when He was cleansing the temple and sometimes dressing down religious leaders. His motives were always redemptive.

I am not certain that we realize the importance of our witness. It is something we don’t want to waste, especially as it has to do with those people whom we may consider our enemies. Jesus wants to work through us to draw them to the Father.

Some of these brief thoughts will be covered more in depth in future Kingdom Thoughts, but I need to end this one here with these questions:.

Questions to Consider

1. What do you think is behind the tension and divisiveness that we are experiencing in our world, our churches, and our families?

2. Are you focused more on your being … what is on the inside of you or your doing … what you say and your actions?

3. Who is your neighbor … yes, that one … the one who is difficult for you to love like Jesus loved?

4. How effective is your witness? Are you leading people to Christ with a heart of mercy and compassion?

About This Message Series

This is a message series about God and His kingdom. We will look and work to understand some things important to what we know about God and how we connect with Him. There are, of course, many different perspectives and viewpoints about matters like this that could be offered. For my part, I will use the Bible as my primary source for information and truth.

The messages that will be shared will be intentionally brief. I have learned that it is hard to keep someone engaged with a lengthy post no matter how interesting the subject might be to the author. I find that hard myself.

You are invited to subscribe to receive new postings. That will be one of the ways that will inform me concerning the relevance of what I am sharing.