Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world” (Week 4:2)

Topic: Week 4- Jesus and the kingdom of God
Theme for 6 Weeks- Who is Jesus and what difference does it make?

Read John 18:36; 17:15-18

Jesus not only makes it clear in what he says but in the very way in which he lived: his kingdom, the kingdom of God, is in sharp contrast to the kingdom of the world. We see it splashed over the pages of the New Testament.

When Donald Kraybill used the title phrase of his book, “the upside-down kingdom,” it stuck with many of us. It is an apt description of the kingdom of God. Down is up. The last are first. Life comes from death. The cross is power. Servants are elevated, etc., etc.

Our Lord, the embodiment of the kingdom, rides in the parade exalting him as king on a donkey, not the victor’s horse. He gives his life in the greatest act of love and power in history. It’s the grand reversal of things. Flipping logic on its head.

This is a complete contrast in the way of the kingdom of the world. It’s that contrast that we see lived out and taught by Jesus, and then giving that call to us, his followers, the body of Christ in the world.

But, this is important not to miss: while the contrast of these kingdoms, in the way they operate and function, is clear, followers are not to opt out of the world! This is not a sectarian view: stay away from the “world;” don’t get stained by interactions with it.

Jesus says the opposite. In essence, he says this, “You are different. You live this upside-down way of self-sacrificial love, this servant love. But, I’m not pulling you out of it. In fact, I’m sending you into it! Penetrate the world, as kingdom-of-God-people. Let them see this type of love and servanthood, and I will empower you to live this way.”

Contrasts? You bet. So, do stay off to ourselves? No way! Go into the world, Jesus says, and he is with us.

Question: What are some of the main contrasts you see between the way the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world operates?

Prayer: “O God, go with me into the world, for you have sent me. May I be, increasingly, a light in the world of your ‘upside-down kingdom.’ And may we, as a community who follow Jesus, be a corporate light in this world. It’s in his name that I pray, Amen.”