Rick Warren’s opening sentiment in Purpose Driven Life is succinct and to the point: "It’s not about you." He then proceeds to tell us about bigger things and about God’s plan or purpose. But, in reality, God’s plan for us is incorporated into an enormous plan for this world through his Kingdom. There are more parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of God than anything else. Leaven, mustard seeds, a fish net, a sower and his seed, a costly pearl, a hidden treasure, a field with wheat and weeds and the list goes on with metaphor about this invisible Kingdom. Jesus’ stories were filled with Kingdom talk. Before he ascended to heaven it was so pervasive that it even dominated the post resurrection conversation (Acts 1:3). His model prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) for us begins with acknowledging God as Father and His heavenly dwelling. Before any of the personal issues of daily bread or dealing with temptations or the messy matters of forgiveness or debts, he launches the purposeful part of prayer by saying "Your Kingdom come" and naturally flowing to God’s will being fully exercised (which would naturally happen in his Kingdom). Jesus’ prayer, parables, pre and post resurrection focus was on the dominion, will and exercise of the righteousness of God- both in heaven and on earth.
Whatever happens in this life, the advancement of God’s Kingdom should be our greatest joy and our most sought after hope. The study of the Kingdom of God is far too rich and deep to exhaust in a brief blog. I promise not to preach. But, at the center of Jesus’ conversation was always the Kingdom of God. It should be in ours as well. We should naturally be talking about the King of the Kingdom (Our Father), its citizens (the church), the culmination point (heaven), the rule (God’s power exercised in the world), its enemies (Satan and his minions).
Kingdom talk is so much higher and more noble than the little conversations over the little issues with which this world is wholly consumed- money, temporary power, land grabs and temporal laws and customs, turf wars and prideful attempts to make marks in history- that are central to the temporal kingdoms. Though the media spends almost all of its time on the activities of the visible and temporary kingdoms, the body of Christ is doing everything possible to honor the King and work to advance his Kingdom. We take the Kingdom issues (worshipping God, helping the poor and disenfranchised, blessing the weak, speaking the good news, caring for the creation, and stewarding everything he has given us) and bring them into our kingdoms in which we live. But, our focus is a Kingdom one.
I say all of this for one reason today. In conversation in the hospital the other day, our son Mitch said, "As much as I want to be well, I want God’s Kingdom to be advanced and His will to be done first and foremost. This is not about me, but about God’s Kingdom. What will advance it? How will we best live in it? How can we invite more people into it? How is the God of the Kingdom best worshipped." That launched us into a great conversation about the big plan. It has brought me back to the Kingdom parables that I often study for ministry in the church. Now we are looking daily at how we can be the best part of God’s Kingdom and how we can pray for it to come with greater power. Smallness of temporal things fall away pretty quickly when Kingdom conversation is front and center.