The Great Ends of the Church:

The Exhibition of the Kingdom of God

by Parrish W. Jones, Ph.D.

©2005 All rights reserved.

 

 

Psalm 103:1-18

Isaiah 11:1-9

Matthew 5:17-20

 

We began with the Great End of the church "to Proclaim the Gospel for the Salvation of Humankind" and close with consideration of exhibiting the "Kingdom of Heaven to the World". I think it not hard to see that by doing so we will close the circle today. Even our lessons imply a link between the Great Ends—especially so the ends of proclamation, righteousness and the Kingdom of Heaven.

We could get lost in a discussion of the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven because it is worthy of a seminary course. We do not have time for that today.

Just a sketch though: It is generally recognized that the phrase Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God are synonymous. Oddly, these two phrases appear almost nowhere else in scripture except in the Gospels. That does not mean the notion is not implied, just that the phrases are not used. The concept of course implies that place where God governs and has supremacy.

In North America the notion has taken some strange directions that are found almost nowhere else in the world. People have taken the implications of a number of texts of scripture that point to the kingdom of Heaven as something that will happen in the future to mean it is only a future thing. Thus we have a host of teaching that tells us that the kingdom of heaven is other worldly and a divine rejection of the sinful and unrepentant human race. A good example of this are the recently popular books of the Left Behind series, a series I do not recommend because I believe it distorts the Bible. We call this kind of theology Apocalyptic because it focuses on a grand catastrophe at a future time that will lead to the universal dominance of Jesus's reign, read that a reign of Christendom.

Another strange view of this notion is that the kingdom of heaven is fully present in this or that religious movement or nation. Such a view assumes that the movement itself is called to establish and/or spread the reign of Christ throughout the world. This idea sounds a lot like what we call missions, but it has strange twists that go back to the founders of our country and we hear on the lips of politicians today who have presumed that the United States is God's "city set on a hill." That view emanating from the Massachusettes Bay Colony took hold and became what we call Manifest Destiny, a doctrine later institutionalized as government policy with the Monroe Doctrine. This development is a seditious use of religion to promote economic and political agendas. I say that because the majority of our founding fathers were not very religious, and, of those who were, few would meet the doctrinal standards of most of the loudest religious voices in our culture today.

This particular take on the manifestation of the kingdom of heaven on earth is extremely dangerous. Apart from its arrogance, it leads to serious mistakes in international policy and in mission initiatives. It took the expulsion of U.S. missionaries from Mexico and much of Latin America earlier in the 20th century to wake the Presbyterian Church up to the idea we were pursuing missions in an arrogant and highhanded way. We often were promoting U.S. values and lifestyle over the gospel and failed to honor the gifts of the people to whom we were missionaries. Today, we do our work with other nations collaboratively and with respect for their culture. Such strains of thought also lead to a nationalism that is not Christian. It also ignores that the church is international so nationalism has no place within the church. The notion of manifest destiny is simply a heresy that leads to treacherous foreign policy.

Historically, the church has understood the Kingdom of Heaven to be a now but not yet reality. The kingdom of heaven is present in the life of the church, but it is not yet a finished reality. Complete realization of the kingdom of heaven will come only in the fulness of time, which leads us to eschatology, a subject for another time.

The value of understanding that the reality of the kingdom of heaven is both a present reality that is yet to be complete is that it protects us from two dangers. The first is that it protects us from believing we can be anything more than an expression of the kingdom. Nothing we can do will ever bring the kingdom to completion. No matter how faithful we are to the Gospel we will all always be in the same place Jesus was when he said, "Only the Father knows the time."

The second danger it protects us from is thinking we are the providence of God. The now but not yet nature of the kingdom reminds us that we are only a part of God's divine providence when we participate faithfully in the work of the kingdom on earth by the expression of personal and public righteousness. In this we recognize the blessing of life within the kingdom and the hoped for blessings in the vision of God's providence in the age to come. Yet, we remain open to the fact that God is still at work in the world and we best be open to that work.

So when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we ask, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." These words we utter week in and week out speak of the confidence we have in God's providence. But what is it we are praying for?

In a sense that is what this series of sermons is about. How do we as Christians participate in and live the kingdom of heaven?

1. To do that we have to learn what the kingdom of heaven is and how to live in it faithfully. That is in a sense the point of the sermons of the Great Ends which are: "the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship for the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world."

We learn what all this means not through a series of six sermons which is at best only a beginning. Many of you have been working on an understanding of this a very long time. Others of us have only begun. Wherever we are, we are all called to ponder what is meant when we pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven."

We do that through participation of this glimmer of the kingdom of heaven we call the church—through its worship, Christian education, music, fellowship programs and activities, through groups that meet to build relationships, and through the ministries of outreach and service in the community.

When we participate here in the church we are called to a different way of being while at church and in our witness at home. We do not stress enough in the church that the Christian is called to a high and defining moral and spiritual life through our salvation.

2. This is a second point. The exhibition of the kingdom means that we will exhibit a new life. The community that Jesus called into being was one  in which we can be sheltered, cared for, and nurtured as the children of God so that we learn how to be with God and our neighbors in God's way.

This community Jesus brought together was the caldron for shaping the lives of his disciples into students of the ways of God. For them to become as Jesus was calling them, Jesus had to correct them, challenge them, direct them, even at times to force them away from himself, and then call them out.

Thus it is our call to help each of our members nurture within themselves the qualities of discipleship. That means, at times, disciplining them for behavior in the church or at home that is not becoming a disciple, a student of the ways of God. It also means hearing a sermon that will challenge some basic commitments we have made outside the church in profession and lifestyle.

Sadly, we have led our members who are husbands to believe that if they were sexually faithful, earned a good living and showed up for the children's performances, that they had fulfilled the role of father and husband. In like manner we led women to believe that if they were sexually faithful, took care of the house, provided healthy meals, cared properly for the children, and saw to their religious training that they had fulfilled their role. However, in both cases we have failed to nurture the larger picture of discipleship that is not just about being nice. It is about  exhibiting the kingdom of heaven in our lives.

Evidently, the work must begin on a deeply personal level. It must begin with intentionally reforming our lives through prayer and biblical reflection so that we exhibit Jesus in our lives. If our husbands, wives, children, brothers and sisters, or parents cannot see Jesus in us, then it is impossible for the church to exhibit the kingdom of heaven.

This is a challenge to each of us. It is a challenge to me. Yet, it is the call of God and the mission of the church.