Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 121
TRANSCRIPT
Have you ever noticed that the Kingdom of God is really upside down? The Kingdom of God operates in a much different fashion than the world we live in. In today’s podcast we are going to look at just a few of the things that are upside down to the ways of our world.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. I am going to tell you right up front my purpose for this podcast. The first thing I hope we will see is that the Kingdom of God does not always make sense to the human mind. If you have listened to these podcasts very long, you know that I am not very fond of religion. Religion has taken this amazing and intimate relationship that God wants to have with you and me and has put it into a list of rules and regulations. Religion puts a vibrant and interactive relationship with a loving Heavenly Father in a box so that we can figure it out and understand it. That was never God’s intention. He wanted a relationship that takes intimacy in order to figure it out. If I tried to live my relationship with Cindi by a list of rules and guidelines, I would miss out on so many wonderfully unpredictable moments, not to mention I would get very cold sleeping in the garage. Don’t let religion tell you how God wants things to be done based on how He has done them in the past. Go to your Father God and ask Him how He wants you to live this life. It will be exciting.
The second thing I hope you will see is that the Kingdom of God is not founded on gathering all of the perfect religious people together, people who have their act together. No, the Kingdom of God is founded on God calling sinners, people who have messed up so badly that no religion on earth would want them and making those people into saints who become the righteousness of God in Christ. It is the opposite of what we are often taught in the world. You can’t read the bible very long until you realize that the kingdom of God called the outcasts (fisherman and tax collectors and good old-fashioned screw-ups like me) to be the ones who changed the world. As the old phrase goes, God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. That is each and every one of us, my friends.
Today’s verse is Matthew 19:30 “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first.” Then this same kingdom principle is reversed in Matthew 20:16, “So the last shall be first, and the first, last.” The kingdom of God works in a much different fashion than the world we live in. This world lives by slogans like, “Only the strong survive”, or “the one who dies with the most toys wins”, and “you can’t count on anyone other than yourself”. The operating principle of this world is you have to be bigger, better, smarter than everyone else in order to be successful. Anyone less than that is told they are unworthy of admiration and success.
The Kingdom of God operates by truths like “you must die to live”, “you must lose to win”, and “the weak are strong”. These things don’t make any sense to this world. Understanding and living by Kingdom principles will enable you to experience the fullness of the Christian life. The more we live God’s ways, the more we will experience the peace and joy that Jesus came to give.
The place to begin in understanding this upside-down kingdom is by looking at the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus. God could have introduced Christ into this world in any number of dramatic ways that would have convincingly announced the arrival of the Messiah to the entire world. Instead, God chose to introduce Christ as a 7 ½ pound baby boy. Why would God introduce His Son, the Messiah, to this world in this way?
I know if I was in charge of bringing the Son of God into this world, I would have brought Jesus on the scene in a dramatic and unmistakable way. I might have had the announcement of His arrival plastered in lights across the heavens and had Jesus brought to earth in a parade of flaming chariots driven by brilliantly glowing angels, right? And forget the whole baby thing. I would have had Jesus enter the world as the victorious champion of all of mankind instead of a weak and helpless baby. Instead, God chose to bring His son into the world in an obscure little town with a bad reputation (can anything good come out of Nazareth?) born to a girl and her boyfriend who was not even yet her husband which made the baby a disgrace. The birth was in a smelly stable filled with dirty smelly animals, and the first people to greet this newborn King were smelly shepherds. You get the smelly part? Not a grand entrance by any means.
God chose to have His son born to a very young and I am sure very scared virgin girl in an obscure town. Imagine this. Jesus was just like any other baby. He was totally dependent on His mother Mary. As a baby, Jesus was just like every other human being born on this planet in that He was helpless. Just imagine Mary, this scared first time mother had the Messiah, the Son of God nursing at her breast. Jesus was totally helpless and dependent on His mother for everything.
I think God was demonstrating a principle of this upside-down Kingdom. Our power and authority for living the Christian life comes out of our dependance on our Heavenly Father. In fact, that which is most dependent has the most authority. The times when you feel the most helpless are the times when you are most receptive to the power of God in your life. Our humanness wants to say “I can do this” or even “I can do this with God’s help” which is really claiming that we can do something of importance out of our own power and ability. It is when we admit that we are utterly dependent on God to do anything that He is able to release His abundance to live through us. As the scripture says, His power is made perfect in our weakness.
Another principle in this upside-down Kingdom is that the smallest is the greatest. The one who makes himself small in the world’s eyes (humbles himself) is the greatest in the Kingdom of God. Not smallness in physical stature but smallness in the opinions we have of ourselves. God uses the small to confound the great. He uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise of the world. By smallness we are not talking about the person who is down on themselves and sees themselves as not good enough or inferior. The smallness here is the recognition of our total inability apart from God. Jesus lived His life this way. Jesus was in every way God in the flesh, yet He did not hold Himself up as equal with His Father God. He kept Himself small by only doing what His Father told Him to do, and only saying what His Father told Him to say. John 5:19 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same way.” And again in Philippians 2:5-7 it says “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.” This is completely opposite of the way of this world. It is totally upside down. Yet in the Kingdom of God the small (humble) are made great.
Another way of the upside-down Kingdom is that the more you give away the more you will be given. Luke 6:38 says “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” In God’s Kingdom when you give you will be given back in return. And not just a little, but pressed down, shaken together, and running over. God gives back to us according to how we give to Him. When we give a little, we will get a little in return. When we give extravagantly, we will be given extravagantly in return. It says that with the same measure we give we will be given in return. Most of what we see in this world is that you keep what is yours to save it for later in life, because you never know what is going to happen in the future. You have to provide for yourself so save, save, save. Don’t give too much because you might need it. The major reason many people in the US give is so they can receive a tax deduction off their income tax.
The Kingdom of God is opposite of this mindset. 2 Corinthians 9:6 “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” God’s Kingdom principal is to give your gift to God, not out of duty or obligation, but cheerfully. And God will make sure you have all sufficiency that you may have an abundance for every good work. Notice that it says that we are to give as we purpose in our heart. God does not force you to give. He does not guilt you into giving. God offers you the opportunity to invest into His Kingdom as you have purposed in your heart. I might get in trouble for saying this next part, but many of us were taught that we were to give a certain percentage of our income to God. Giving a set percentage makes our giving into a religious exercise. I believe God wants us to ask Him what we are to give and then give it cheerfully. Asking God about the amount we are to give forces our hearts to deepen our relationship with Father God instead of just giving a religiously set amount.
We have to include the next few verses from 2 Corinthians 6. It says, “Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness,while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.” What an upside-down kingdom. God is even the One who supplies the seed for us to sow. We are not our own provision, God is. And as we sow what God has given us, God is going to multiply our seed so that we can have more abundance. That is amazing. So, when we are told to sow abundantly, we are sowing seed that God has given us so that God can multiply our sowing so we are enriched in everything for all liberality. So in this upside-down Kingdom you sow seed that you did not earn, to reap a harvest so you can sow again.
Before I end this podcast, I want to mention that today is election day here in the United States. It is the most important election of my lifetime. If you have not already voted, please go and vote according to Biblical values. If you have already voted or you do not live in the US, please pray for God’s will to be done in our elections. Our elections have a direct impact on what goes on around the world. We need a president who will fear God and stand up for Christian values including honoring and protecting Israel. We need people in our congress who will rule according to Godly principles. And we need local officials, including local school boards who will not give in to the pressure to let boys in girls’ locker rooms, or to have pornographic books given to our children in the school libraries. It is time for Christians to stand up and be heard, and voting is one way we can express our voice. Remember that you are voting for policies and not for a personality.
Prayer
Father God I am amazed at your upside-down Kingdom. So much around us, including some of our churches, are telling us to live by what we think is right in our own eyes. Would you help each one of us see if we have been deceived into believing something that is not from you so we can repent and turn from those ways. Father, I pray for the elections going on today here in the US. Please protect the US from the evil one. Give us leaders who will honor your ways.
