Greg Boyd and Cedrick Baker highlight the difference that the kingdom of God makes and how it contrasts with the kingdoms of this world. They help us understand how the two kingdoms often are combined, which means that the kingdom of God becomes something other than what it should be. Greg and Cedrick also provide some insight into ways that we can practice kingdom distinctives in our everyday lives.
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The Set-Apart Kingdom
• Cedrick Baker, Greg Boyd
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In this sermon, Greg Boyd and Cedrick Baker cast the vision for the kingdom of God, contrasting it with how many have merged God’s kingdom with the kingdoms of this world. Greg opens by sharing his own journey, when, as a young pastor in the 1980s, he saw the rise of the Moral Majority and the call to “take America back for God.” This led him to dig into the biblical nature of God’s kingdom and he saw how Jesus refused to co-mingle it with the political agendas of his age. The more he understood the kingdom of God the more he realized how antithetical the kingdom of God is to all the kingdoms of the world.
The word “kingdom” means the domain of a king’s reign, which means that the kingdom of God is the domain of God’s reign. In the focus scripture above, Jesus tells Pilate that the kingdom that he rules over is not from this world. Every human kingdom originates in human will, ambition and ingenuity, but the kingdom that Jesus brings originates in the heart and mind of the eternal God. Wherever people are intentionally seeking to bring about God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven,” God is reigning. The following is a list of contrasts between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world:
| Kingdom of World | Kingdom of God |
|---|---|
| Satan is ruler | God is ruler |
| Power over (sword) | Power under (love) |
| Self-interest | Other’s interest |
| Control behavior | Transform hearts |
| Destroy enemies | Love enemies |
| Eventually collapses | Lasts forever |
In the second part of the sermon, Cedrick provides a brief survey of the development of Christendom, or how the church and politics became enmeshed. The primary marker in history occurred in 313, when Emperor Constantine declared that Christians could practice their faith without oppression. This was a good thing. However, Christianity became the official religion of the state, and it was enforced upon the people. Christian leaders saw this as an inroad to power. This eventually meant that Christian theologians had to rethink the teachings of Jesus, especially those related to the killing of one’s enemies. They offered a logic for picking up the sword and putting down the cross. Instead of seeing God in the image of a slain lamb as shown to us by Jesus, God was depicted as a power broker like that of an emperor.
Standing for a kingdom that contrasts with this marriage between the church and the state does not mean that we opt out and try to find a spiritual enclave. We are not to hide from the realities that our world faces. It simply means that we engage our world as Jesus did, by the power of the cross. We are in the world, but not of it. We get involved but not coopted.
The ways that we get involved include the following:
- Remember, Jesus is our only Lord.
- Commit to living in humble love.
- Guard your heart.
- Put your hope in the coming eternal kingdom.
Topics: Kingdom of God, Nationalism, Politics
Sermon Series: Political Distortions
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Focus Scripture:
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John 18:36
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."
