One of the comments I got about the post was a question on how to live out that kingdom. The statement was made that it is great to recognize that our hope is the resurrection, but what do we do with that? How do we live that out? Tell me what to do. It's taken me almost a month to come up with an answer.
Do Nothing.
Now I know what many of you are thinking. Didn't Jesus tell us to do a bunch of stuff? Didn't you even write a blog about how people in the kingdom take care of the poor? What about the Sermon on the Mount? Aren't these all things we should be doing?
The answer is yes . . . but . . .
Jeremiah and the Sabbath
The prophet Jeremiah once talked about Sabbath rest. He gave a prophecy from the LORD about not carrying burdens into the city on the Sabbath. He said that if the people of God did these things that they would prosper.
Why?
Well the Sabbath was an important thing for Israel. It was day of remembrance. It was a day of rest. It was a day to cease from work and give praise to the creator who made all things. This was because God rested on the seventh day of the week. It would seem that six days of work with a seventh day of rest was important to God.
Yet, by the time of Jeremiah the people of God were ignoring the statutes of God. They had forgotten to rest. They had forgotten where their power and wealth comes from. Jeremiah says as much. He declares that when people remember the Sabbath then God will be praised. This wasn't simply about rest, it was about focus. Resting in the LORD means that we put our focus on what really matters.
Rest for Your Souls
Jesus understood this message of Jeremiah. At the end of Matthew 11 we have a passage unique to this gospel. Jesus quotes from Jeremiah 6 declaring that He will give them rest for their souls. Yet this idea of easy yokes and light burdens conjures up images of Jeremiah 17, especially when one notices that Matthew 12 deals with work on the Sabbath.
Jesus was declaring the same thing that Jeremiah had. The Sabbath was rest not a burden. Just like Jeremiah declared that burdens should not be carried into the city, so Jesus was declaring that laws about the Sabbath should not be a burden. The Sabbath was made for us. It was designed so that we could focus on our creator. It was supposed to be a weekly celebration of all the blessing that God had given.
At this point many of you are asking What does the Sabbath have to do with the Kingdom of God?
Well . . . everything.
Kingdom of Rest
Jesus entire mission on earth was to bring reconciliation, healing, and rest. We see this in Luke 4. Here Jesus reads from Isiah 61. It is a passage about God setting things right. it is a passage about hope. It is a passage about the forefinger coming to God. Jesus was declaring that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom where all are welcome. It is a kingdom where the poor are rich. It is a kingdom where there is no disease and no sickness. It is a kingdom without sorrow. This is the kingdom we see in Revelation 21
OK, but what does this have to do with rest?
Well, for that we need to look at other kingdoms. We can go back to Matthew 12. We find that Jesus was rebuked for "doing work" on the Sabbath. Now I could go into all the details of how this happened, but the long and the short of it was that the Pharisees had made laws that were not of God. These laws created unnecessary burdens on the poor. They meant that on the Sabbath the poor could not eat food that was left specifically for them.
Why did the Pharisees do this?
Well because they had their own kingdom. They had created laws to make sure that they didn't break the laws of God. But in creating these laws they made the blessings of God a burden. This culminates here in the Sabbath. Jesus confronts them on this because that is not the Kingdom of God. The Pharisees here claim to know God, but if they really knew God then they would not condemn the innocent.
Clash of Kingdoms
I know. I still haven't answered the first question. Well here it goes. If we truly want to live in God's kingdom then we must rest in the resurrection. See what the Pharisees missed - what many Christians miss - is that our salvation is not something we work toward. It is not something that we need to achieve. The resurrection means that we have the promises of God. We don't need to fear losing it.
"We don't need to work toward the Kingdom of God, we work out of it."
The Pharisees had created laws to make sure that they didn't break the laws of God. But this missed the point. The laws were not supposed to be a burden. They were supposed to bring life. The whole point of being the people of God was to bless the nations. Not keep people from God.
The laws of the Pharisees created a kingdom around them. It created a way of life that put them at the center. Their kingdom told them that they were the most important. They went into public to pray so that people would see how holy they were. They tithed everything, even spices, but neglected to bring justice to the needy. Their kingdom was a weight to all who tried to carry it.
Jesus declared the opposite. The Kingdom of God is a light burden. It is a place where God is the center. It is a place where people are free to worship. It is a place of rest. Jesus knew that if we worked toward our salvation we would never achieve it. That is why he died and was resurrected. We don't need to work toward the Kingdom of God, we work out of it.
Doing Nothing
I say that we do nothing, because we need to understand that the Kingdom of God is not about our work. Yes, in the Kingdom of God we work. We feed the hungry. We give to the poor. We clothes the naked. Giving to a charity or working at a soup kitchen are good things, and way to show the kingdom to others. But if we are doing them to earn something then we are missing it.
Our response to the resurrection shouldn't be work. We shouldn't think that we need to pay back God somehow. We can't. When we do this we are declaring our kingdom over God's. We are saying that we are more important than our creator. We are making it about ourselves.
Guess what? It's not about you.
Our response to the resurrection should be praise and thanksgiving. I could give you a thousand things to do in the Kingdom, but if you are doing them out of obligation then you are missing the point. A branch doesn't produce fruit because it tries hard. It abides in the vine and the vine produces the fruit in the branch.
If we seek first the Kingdom of God. If we desire to spend time resting in the love of our creator. Then we will be able to do the things that he desires. Then we will see changes in our lives. Then we will produce fruit. But that only happens when we stop working towards our salvation and start working out of it.
Guess what? It's not about you.
Our response to the resurrection should be praise and thanksgiving. I could give you a thousand things to do in the Kingdom, but if you are doing them out of obligation then you are missing the point. A branch doesn't produce fruit because it tries hard. It abides in the vine and the vine produces the fruit in the branch.
If we seek first the Kingdom of God. If we desire to spend time resting in the love of our creator. Then we will be able to do the things that he desires. Then we will see changes in our lives. Then we will produce fruit. But that only happens when we stop working towards our salvation and start working out of it.
May you learn to rest in God. May you find that the Kingdom of God is a blessing. May you abide in the vine. And may you produce fruit.
Amen!
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