1.  As Americans, we have a basic antipathy toward kings, don’t we?  It’s in our bones.  We resent any kind of royalty – except the ones we create – and the privileges of dynasties – except those who run for elected office.  It’s been so from the beginning.

“In England a King hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”
– Thomas Paine from Common Sense

“It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can.”
– John Adams

“Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred Majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!”
– Thomas Paine

We want liberty – not royalty.  We want freedom – not being ruled by inheritors.

On the other hand we want security and sometimes at the price of both.  That is why I say we are ambivalent.  We want the same security Israel desired when they asked for a king.  “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to out before us and fight our battles.”  We want to eliminate the risk in our lives.

Both unchecked liberty and the desire for security lead to tyranny eventually.

But there remains a desire in us that God created.  It is the desire for a king.  Not in order to be like Israel but there is a created impulse and right desire to bow down, to submit, to kneel and to worship.  Not out of subservience or fear but out of recognition of His majesty and glory.  It is not being conquered but drawn to Him.  That is the true King we were designed to desire but like so many other desires that one has been corrupted.  We can accept Christ as savior but not as king.  He can rescue us and we are grateful but we will not be ruled.  Once we are safe we need not serve.  God is my co-pilot but not my king.

2.   What is the nature of this king who came to visit his kingdom?  Was it like a Presidential visit to another country?  Armored cars, staff, security, advance planning teams, pools of journalists and distinguished guests?  Not exactly.  God chose to make a royal visit in a way that would illustrate the nature of His kingdom.  He came as the unexpected and almost invisible.  It was like Samuel anointing David.  “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but The Lord looks at the heart.”

There is no better passage in Scripture to describe the nature of the King than Philippians 2:6-8:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

The Christ of Colossians – the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one in whom the fullness of God dwells, the one through whom and for whom all things were created and held together in heaven and on earth – chooses to enter our world by emptying himself of all this and coming in humility and obedience.  Not exactly a State visit, is it?  No blocked off streets, sirens, cordons of police and military, rope lines of donors and supporters.  Had we known we might have been better prepared.  We would not have been caught off guard. But, he came in humility to seek and to save that which was lost.  “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  Even those who received him could not believe he was serious about his way of being king.  A king must rule and he must confer on his supporters the right to rule as well.  Otherwise, what are the benefits of believing?

3.  What is the nature of those who are in the kingdom – those who received him and believed in his name and became the children of God?

a. It is a kingdom of suffering. “And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred on me…” It is what some have called the fellowship of suffering. “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.” (Hebrews 2:10-11) There is no way around it. It is not joining the fellowship of excitement but the fellowship of suffering and that is the only way to real

b. It is the kingdom that has not yet come. “In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet, at present we do not see everything subject to him.” (Hebrews 2:8). The kingdom is not of this world. If it were Christ would not have suffered and died. As he said to Pilate, “If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Like the disciples, we want a kingdom here. We want a kingdom we can fight for and protect and preserve. But that is impossible. It is why we’ll never have a Christian country, Christian organization or mass Christian culture. We can have a culture or country or organization that is built around values that are derived from various sources of wisdom and morals (including Christian) but it is like a movie based on true events. It’s real up to a point but it’s a selective interpretation that leaves out some parts in favor of others. Could we really build a country on turn the other cheek, humility, think of others more highly than yourselves, suffering, sell all you have and give it to the poor? No. The kingdom of Christ is not merely moral. It is supernatural and revealed.  We have created a kingdom in our own image and imitation of righteousness.  It’s better than tyranny or immorality but it is not the kingdom.  Liberty is a better religion than tyranny but it is not the nature of the kingdom.

c. The kingdom is almost invisible – but not quite. How does he describe it in the parables? The kingdom is like a mustard seed. It is like yeast. It is like buried treasure. It is like a child. It is like a seed that is planted and dies. It is small.

d. The kingdom is not a cause but a fellowship. I like what Bonhoeffer said about those who have made creating a community their cause. “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly. It is not we who build. Christ builds the church. Whoever is mindful to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it, for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it.”

Here is how Alan Jacobs at Baylor puts it: “Similarly, we Christians cannot set as our goal the becoming of a counterculture for the common good. Nor can we directly seek the elimination of the vices and illusions that constrain our attempts to love our neighbors as we should. We will strip away our self-deceit and become a true light unto the nations only by seeking and becoming faithful to the call of the Gospel. If we eventually become a true counterculture for the common good, that counterculture (and that good) will simply be the product of our faithfulness.”

It does not mean we love only ourselves.  I do think it means those who are called to caring for the world should do it with the support of the church and the wisdom of fellow believers in the church.  I have seen too many well-intentioned people become frustrated with the glacial speed of the church and leave the support of the church for their mission.  In doing so they have burned out or drifted from the body.  If we are going to work outside the bounds of the church – and we should – we need to be careful that we have the support and accountability of a small group inside the church.

e. The kingdom is not about prominence – remember Christ’s words to the disciples about who will be the greatest – and it is not about happiness or success or baptizing common sense. It is a kingdom that reflects the nature of the king: humility and obedience.

4.  How then are we prepared to live in this present kingdom and the next?

a. It is not with titles, position, power, visibility and prestige. I seriously doubt Jesus would have much encouraging to say about what we have done in building his church on all those things. We are prepared to rule by serving one another in humility. By obedience. By making it our ambition to lead a quiet life, work with our hands so that our daily life may win the respect of outsiders. We are to live such good lives among the pagans that they may see our good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. We are to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves and look not only to our own interests but to the interests of others. We are to be faithful.

In Matthew 24:14 Jesus says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”  I have wondered if our merely preaching or proclaiming the gospel is not what Jesus was talking about.  That’s not how we are to practice the gospel or to live it.  It is our daily lives and good deeds – not just our preaching – that will cause the yeast to rise and the seed to sprout and the pagans to glorify God.  It is our testimony – not our tracts – that will win the respect of outsiders in ways we cannot imagine.

b. We are in all things to fix our thoughts and our eyes on Jesus. (Hebrews 3:1) There are so many other good distractions and compelling causes. There are so many activities, studies, books, opportunities for knowledge and contributions. There are so many controversies and divisions. In all of this we are tempted to fix our thoughts on these instead of Jesus. In doing so, we lose our way.  Oswald Chambers puts it this way:  “As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness we we shall never get near the reality of Redemption.  Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness, and not for God.”

c. Finally, we are to fix our eyes on things above. I quoted C.S. Lewis last week and he is right about this. “Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”

It would be like a school that thought their mission was merely to increase the graduation rate and think nothing of what a student did afterwards.  The purpose of all this preparation is what?  As we said several weeks ago, the reward is more responsibility.  The reward is that we will reign with him in the kingdom that is coming.  This is our apprenticeship.  This is where we are learning some basic skills for the work that lies ahead.