Musings on my ideas about the Kingdom of God

I’m not sure where this is going, if anywhere at all, but it’s a little something that I’ve been working out with God over the past semester thanks to Dr. Roger Olson’s Kingdom of God class. These are just… unfinished journal thoughts that have ended up in the “possible sermon idea” binder, or the “possibly need to learn to read scripture better and get a better theology” binder, so take them for that. Thank y’all for listening as always.

The Beginning is Near: The Kingdom of God

Like our salvation, the Kingdom of God will not be dependent on our efforts. We cannot save ourselves, and nothing we do will affect the timing of God’s return.  But also like our salvation, we must respond to it.   Paul writes to the Philippians, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:12-13) God has a use for us in this world.  We are not to focus inwardly or upwardly towards “the mansion in the sky” at the expense of our neighbor.

Where does this allow us to rest?  Jesus tells us, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ( Matthew 11:30) Consistently working “to be perfect”, knowing the result is outside of your control sounds far more demoralizing than it does peaceful.   The trick is in knowing that we delude ourselves when we pretend that our will is what is done. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus asks. (Matthew 6:27) The ends, how things work out, is always out of our control.  But when we stop worrying, when we stop fighting the Will of God and prayerfully petition God in a model consistent with Philippians 4:6, we find none of it matters.  God has found us, God is our Father, we do not adopt him.  Augustine writes in City of God that we are regenerated as Children of God.(book 15) God cares more about spending the next steps of the journey with you than he needs you to do anything. We get to constantly start anew each day, each hour and each moment with God.

This world is not our world, it is still Gods.  Jesus is not our hotel housekeeper, and we cannot treat the world like a hotel room we can trash and leave, knowing it will be clean for the next inhabitants.  Scripture tells us to be careful stewards of what God entrusts us with. This involves the earth, as it suffered in the fall. The Kingdom means we are servants in God’s palace  “here on Earth”.