An Invitation to Join a Kingdom Advancing
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10
I envision the kingdom of God advancing, strong men on wild beasts brandishing their swords as they push time forward, ever expanding a kingdom that will know no end, making the way for Christ followers from all of eternity to join them at some designated point in time to live and reign forever. I am envisioning a Braveheart remake, enhanced with all of the cinematic advancements that have been made over the last 16 years.
What I read in the word of God doesn’t quite align with my thoughts. The kingdom of God came as an infant, who slept on the ground. It came as a man seeking out those who were lost, downtrodden, broken and outcast by traveling on foot from one village to another. It came as a man, who following His resurrection, would prepare breakfast for His friends over a fire beside the water. It came as a vision of a man standing beside a throne to welcome home a faithful servant whose body was broken by stones thrown out of opposition and hatred. It came as a bright light heralding the words, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” The kingdom of God came in flesh and blood, breaking into our world.
Perhaps the kingdom of God coming looks more like a silent, steady invasion moving at a rhythm set by the Father than a remake of Braveheart pressing forward and out into time.
Perhaps the kingdom of God coming looks like Jesus moving into this very moment, this very space to find the likes of me and the likes of you.
Perhaps the kingdom of God coming is an invitation for you to come in close and know the Father.
Perhaps the kingdom of God coming looks like an army of volunteers tending to the lost, downtrodden, broken and outcast. An army comprised of humans brandishing swords that look more like ancient words inscribed on their hearts. An army, moving not on wild beasts, but on human feet. Feet moving to the rhythm set by the Father, quiet, steady and persistent. An army that breathes life and not death.
Advancement of the kingdom of God is by no means dependent upon our agreement to join the effort, to love, to pray, to teach, to give, to listen, to go. His kingdom will advance, His purpose will not be thwarted or changed. But for some unfathomable reason He allows us, by invitation, to join in and participate. He even goes so far to uniquely gift us, to set us in a specific space and time, such that our participation matters.
The world is abuzz with the rhetoric of inclusion. There is nothing more inclusive than the invitation sent by the Father through His beloved son. An invitation sent to you and to me. An invitation not just to sit at the wedding party table, but to bring others with us to the wedding party. Oh, and by the way, the invitation is for you to not just come to the wedding party, but to be a part of the wedding party. More accurately, the invitation is for you to stand as the beloved one in the wedding.
This is how the kingdom of God comes.
I saw a meme this week and it hurt my heart. It gave reference to a “man in the clouds who loves you unconditionally, but only under certain conditions”. This cloud man came into this world to find a broken woman at a well, to restore another women plagued by demons, to physically reach and touch those that had been socially cast as untouchable. They weren’t looking for Jesus, Jesus came looking for them. Jesus Christ left His throne in the clouds to bring His kingdom here, so that the love of the Father could reach you and me, unconditionally. His love for us doesn’t stop when we don’t choose Him back. Our choosing has to do with our willingness to join His kingdom, not His willingness to invite us into it.
In my Braveheart movie imagination, I see every knee bowing and every tongue confessing the LORDSHIP of Jesus Christ out of fear, angst, forced by power of magnificent presence. I have encountered the kingdom of Jesus Christ breaking into my life. My knee bowing and my tongue confessing His LORDSHIP looked more like a broken and contrite spirit in awe of the glory of a King who would come to find me, to know me, to love me and to put His name on me. This is a King who will not force His will on anyone, and yet everyone will bow and confess.
When your time in eternity intersects with the coming of the King, it will be your will that takes you to your knees and opens your mouth, not His.
If you have not yet encountered the King and would like to, His invitation stands. Paul writes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Every accepted invitation is an open door to join a kingdom advancing.
For those who have accepted an invitation to be part of a Kingdom, we are called to invite others. We are not called to scrutinize their worthiness first (oh, how quickly we forget), we are called to invite. Jesus came as a Hebrew into an era swarming with Romans. He invited men and women of no reputation to join Him. He invited a murderer to take news of the heavenly invitation to the corners of the civilized world. He invited this same man to write down the invitation so centuries later, you and I could see His words penned on a page, including us in the quiet, persistent advancement of a Kingdom that knows no end.
Who (Jesus), being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11).
