Kingdom Myth 4. Christians are called to build the kingdom.
Young people are often captured by a vision to improve the world.
When they get older, however, most of them realize that the vision was mostly informed by idealism. There may have been progress made, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a dent.
The problems of injustice, oppression, racism, sexism, hatred, violence, and war have been with us since the fall. (The first child ever born into this world was a murderer.)
These problems will always be with us until Christ returns and sets all things right.
While there have been improvements to society, few if any of them have brought Jesus Christ into unmistakable prominence.
The kingdom message of the New Testament isn’t about “building” the kingdom. It’s one of “manifesting” the kingdom by being an alternative to the world system, and then demonstrating the grace and glory of the King to society as the Spirit leads.
It’s about living in, as, and for the kingdom of God in the midst of a fallen world.
If you study all the references in the New Testament on the kingdom, you will never see a single text that says we are to “build” the kingdom.
God is the one who advances His kingdom, and we are called to cooperate with Him by submitting to the lordship of Christ individually and collectively (as a local community of believers).
So God builds the kingdom. We simply labor with Him in this work.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Similar to preparing an omelette, we can prep the onions, slice the tomatoes, chop up the garlic, mix the eggs with milk, but only God can put it all together to build the omelette.
Therefore, we can build for the kingdom, but only the Lord builds His kingdom.
As E. Stanley Jones once put it, “In the New Testament, we’re told to ‘see,’ ‘enter,’ ‘proclaim,’ and ‘suffer for’ the Kingdom, but never to ‘build’ it.”
Stay tuned for next week’s installment – it’s perhaps the most controversial.
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