Me and the Kingdom of God

What kind of kingdom would give a crown to me?

This morning I had a few random tasks to complete before heading to church, but websites were down for maintenance. I took that to mean that God had something else for me, and I’m doing it, Hallelujah. Romans 8:28 is a familiar verse to many Christians.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

To unpack a verse of scripture, we are taught to look at several things: who wrote it, who it was written to, the context, and other verses that refer to its subject. So let me quickly do that.

The Apostle Paul wrote Romans as a letter to, well, the Romans, specifically “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people,” meaning believers in Christ who lived in Rome, where Paul himself was held as a prisoner of Caesar, awaiting his earthly fate (it is widely believed that Nero had Paul executed). Paul, born Saul, was a Hebrew, and a religious lawyer, trained by the great Rabbi Gamaliel. He was given letters authorizing him to persecute followers of Yeshua, the Messiah, as dangerous heretics. Then Saul met Jesus, in a miraculous, supernatural encounter on the road to Damascus.

After 13 years training in the faith of the believers in Yeshua, Paul left to begin his missionary journeys. He ended his long ministry in Rome, where he wrote the epistle we know as “Romans,” which is meant to be a template for sharing the Gospel. Each chapter deals with a specific aspect of a Christian’s walk with God in God’s Kingdom. Chapter 8 deals with “life in the Spirit” and the Holy Spirit’s leading for the believer. The chapter is concise, written with precision, without flowery language, which Paul detests. But it is filled with beautiful passages describing the depth of faith, love, and the power of God.

Verse 28 begins with a conjunction, “and.” That means it’s a continuation of a thought begun earlier, so to get context, we must look back. The chapter begins with a description of life in the Spirit of God versus life in the flesh (our natural selves). The natural person wants happiness, and to fulfill the carnal desires of the flesh, which is death, because the law cannot be fulfilled by any natural person. The Spirit sets the believer free from the flesh and the law. Verse 11 sums up that thought:

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Then Paul details the believer’s relationship with God: we are sons (and daughters). Verse 16: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

Paul details his own suffering and notes that it is no comparison to the glory that awaits us with Christ, that “the creation itself also will be delivered fro the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” We have no idea what we hope for, because not only can’t we see it, we can’t really conceive of what God has for us in eternity; our minds are simply incapable. So how do we even know what to pray or ask God for, if it’s beyond us?

Now we’re getting closer to verse 28. Paul writes that the Spirit knows what to pray, and works through us “with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Yeshua Himself makes intercession for “the saints” (those who are repenting and saying “Amen” to the Kingdom of God), according to the will of God, because He knows the Father’s will.

As a believer, I am in a Kingdom. God is my King, and through his Son, who is also King, by the authority of the Father, given all authority, I am a joint heir to all things that are in the Kingdom. I know that’s impossible to believe, because we can’t see the Kingdom of God, but that’s the promise that God gives, and the reason for “the firstfruits”—the Resurrection, the miracles, the signs and wonders, the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies, the entire arc of God’s chosen people, the Jews. It’s the entire reason God has given us the scriptures, and every holy encounter seeks to build up faith that this is the Kingdom.

It is God’s good will and purpose to give the Kingdom to me. What kind of King is that?

John 18:36: “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’”

Mark 1:15: “And saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”

Romans 14:17: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Daniel 2:44: “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,”

Matthew 16:19: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

And Matthew 4:17: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

There is no way to be in the Kingdom of God without repenting, and that means continually repenting. It doesn’t mean I repent once and, boom, here’s my golden ticket. It means I repent daily, hourly, minute by minute, and put my time, my very thoughts, into the hands of the Master, via the Spirit of God, who is my helper, the paraclete, the advocate, who can help me pray, or think, or choose to do the will of the Father.

The Spirit of God always guides toward “all things” because following the Spirit of God numbers us with those “who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” And that works to my good, because God is good.

It doesn’t mean I won’t suffer here. It doesn’t mean I won’t get everything my flesh wants. It doesn’t mean my life will be protected here. It means I leave my life in God’s hands, and lose it here in order to gain it in His Kingdom. And not just as a subject in His Kingdom, under a King, but as a co-heir of the Kingdom itself.

Paul brings it to conclusion. God’s love is more powerful than anything we, or the enemy of our souls, can place in its way.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

All things, with me and the Kingdom of God, are under God’s inescapable love.