Luke 17:20-21 (NIV) 20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
“The Kingdom of God” is still a strange phrase for most modern ears. But we know pretty much how the first century Jew understood the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God was the truth of God and the rule of God over all the world. The Kingdom of God is what Israel existed for. They saw a day coming when the LORD would become king over all the earth. The Zealots fought for that day. The Essenes organized for that day. The Pharisees studied and prayed for that day. The Sadducees manipulated and compromised for that day.
To the Pharisees, Jesus preaching sounded like a politician’s promises and they came to Him asking “where is it?” and “when is it?” Have you ever wondered the same? If Jesus did bring some kind of Kingdom, where is the evidence? Has anything really changed? Jesus either lied, was deluded, or the Kingdom He announced is different than the Kingdom expected. The Kingdom of God is not a change of governments, a change of the Roman oppression. The real issue is oppression itself.
When Jesus announced the coming of a Kingdom, He spoke of a power that had come into the world that would be confronting evil and causing good. And, He acknowledged that this power would not be obvious to everyone. His power would not cause the fall of Rome or the rise of Israel to prominence. The miracles give evidence of this power and this rule, but only a small bit of the evidence. The miracles were not done on a large scale for the whole of Israel, and often they were done in secret because Jesus knew that miracles could attract the greedy and the gullible as well as the faithful, and we see that still.
The Kingdom could also be seen in the life He taught. Jesus was saying in His teaching that we can see the Kingdom in the way its citizens live. The Kingdom could also be felt in the authority of Jesus. Jesus had the power and the ability to convince people that He was right about God, right about people, and that He was right about the way they were to live. Jesus spoke His message about a God who cared and about a life of love and service, but He left the matter of acceptance of His authority to the mystery of the divine will and the working of the human conscience. Why did He do it that way? Why didn’t He do more to convince people that He was telling the truth? Because that is the way God works in people. God does not overwhelm our responsibility and our right to chose.
Where is the Kingdom of God? It is wherever lives are being changed to conform to the will of God. The best evidence we can give is the evidence of a changed life. The changes that God makes in us are still the most reliable base we have. Trust that God is at work to change you. Believe it.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope March 14, 1993
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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