Kingdom People: Part I

When I picture believers living out their faith as citizens of God’s kingdom I see the ministry of Jesus reenacted through his church; the lame walk, the blind see, the demonized are set free, the dead are raised and more disciples are brought into the kingdom.  In this picture kingdom equals mission. When we do the work of Christ we are living the kingdom life.  The problem with this scenario is that God doesn’t “do” mission – being missional is a part of his nature.  Giving believers a “to-do” list of principals to follow and good deeds to perform falls short.  If we are to live kingdom minded, missional lives we must first recover an understanding of our identity not only as created in the image of God, but as recreated through the blood of Christ.  Secondly, we must embrace the identity of the church as a kingdom community. Believers and churches must first be who God has designed them to be before they can consistently experience Kingdom mission in every area of their lives.

In his book, Faith as a Way of Life, Christian Scharen correctly gives the reason for our loss of identity being “that the spheres of modern life have semi-independence, each operating according to its own logic and values. Because we each live in and through them all, we internalize the value conflicts between them and compartmentalize as a mechanism for surviving the tensions.”[1]  Values and therefore identity are a result of exterior environments rather then inner knowing.  We are who our environment tells us to be. This leads even Christians to experience a fractured self.  Caring mother, charismatic church leader, shrewd businesswoman; the primary self is whoever is needed at that moment.

This kind of life is in direct violation of our design as believers. God desires to be the one who defines us and from that place of knowing who we are, we can do what he has prepared for us to do; “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Eph. 2:10, NRSV).  He created us in his image to be stewards of his kingdom in every environment (Gen. 1:26-31). After the fall we became powerless to live up to the ideal design God had for the masterpiece of his creation. God’s goal wasn’t just to save us but also to restore us to his original purpose. This is why Jesus was incarnated and why “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Through Christ we can become who God has created us to be – as the saying goes “Jesus became like us so that we could become like him.”

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[1] Christian Scharen, Faith as a Way of Life: A Vision for Pastoral Leadership, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008), Kindle E-book, Location 220.