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.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” John 18:36-38
The scenario in this verse is familiar for most of us that know anything about the events preceding Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. When reading these verses, our focus usually zeroes in on Pilate’s question, “What is Truth?” or upon the unjust sentence of death against Jesus, since Pilate declared in his own words to the Jewish leaders, “I find no basis for a charge against him” (vs 38). However, we should pay more attention to Jesus’ statement to us concerning His Kingdom: “My kingdom is not of this world.” There are kingdoms of this world, but Jesus’ kingdom is not one of them.
Presumably, this leaves a choice—in which kingdom will I place my allegiance?
This question is posed to us everyday, and specifically, posed to us today in this election season. For Christians, in whom will we place our trust? The Greek word for to believe ‘πιστεύω’ (pisteuó) is translated “to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing); by implication, to entrust (especially one’s spiritual well-being to Christ)—to believe, commit (to trust), to put in trust with.”*
For many Christians or people of a traditional mindset and Judeo-Christian moral framework, the world and country are run amok. Little babies are killed and sold for their parts; the word, “marriage” has been redefined to mean something it has never before meant; many things seem upside down. I really get all that. Isn’t that upside-downiness the predictable product of the kingdom of this world? The kingdom of this world does not operate by means of Jesus’ kingdom principles, but by the principles of a world alienated from Him. That is why Jesus stood up to Pilate and fought him for control. Oh, wait, that is not what Jesus did. “He was like a lamb, led to the slaughter.”
Jesus fought a battle, but not a worldly one.
He was not seeking political control and certainly not exerting political or natural efforts to bring His Kingdom. Jesus was not the little Dutch boy, plugging the holes in the dike that were letting some bad stuff into the status quo. Jesus was dying and rising to enable a radical remake of the world, so that we could live in a different kingdom. In His kingdom the rules of the dike-world do not apply; in Jesus’ kingdom, people are made new, rather than having to continuously struggle in fruitless, fleshly efforts to change themselves and the world system around them. Fruit comes in doing God’s work, God’s way, through His calling and empowerment. No “Kingdom of God” fruit is born through human striving; expending any means necessary to force the world to comply with what we think is God’s will is definitely not part of God’s kingdom plans.
I actually spent quite a lot of years being active politically, trying to plug the hole in that dike through the political process. I felt that God wanted me to do it, and maybe He did. I am not saying that God can’t or won’t direct people to be involved in government or activities that are political. But, my conclusion from those years was that, although I could try to vote responsibly and even work hard for a candidate that I had prayerfully and carefully selected, the outcome of my attempts often disappoint me. Candidates often don’t hold tightly to those things in which they have committed; or once they are elected, they might gain more knowledge about how things really work or how difficult change-making would be. Perhaps, the elected official can’t communicate to us on the “outside” the details of what they have done because of secrecy, strategy, privacy, or because we, who voted them into their positions, are outside the workings of the system and we just don’t understand.
Perhaps we understand it, all too well.
No doubt, it’s true that many candidates vying for the attention of Christians, do so with, at best, mixed motivations. Many such people start out with Christian ideals at their core. However, too often the need to get votes, get money, and get ahead leave humility, public service, and personal integrity behind. Some candidates want to use Christians and their dearly held beliefs just to get votes. When such candidates become elected officials, they aren’t the same people that we thought they were when we worked so hard to get them there. Such officials depend on the hard work and sweat, the money and devotion, of thousands of supporters, who travel to conventions, wave flags at rallies, door-knock in their neighborhoods, erect lawn signs, donate hard-earned cash, and generally, devote emotional, financial, and personal loyalty to “their guy.” Such efforts are earthly kingdom building exercises.
Advancing oneself or one’s cause through earthly kingdom building is what Jesus meant when He told us, “My kingdom is not of this world” in John 18. Trusting in one’s own power is the human (natural) way to go about advancing yourself and your interests, but not the Christian (supernatural) way to advance Christ’s kingdom, although Christians are called to devote our labors, sweat, blood, money, talents, and time to build God’s kingdom. What then is the difference here, since both require humans and both require effort? I believe that the difference in kingdom-building has to do with how we try to accomplish God’s purposes: using God’s ways and power or our own fleshly methods. When Christ’s followers are working and giving their all to accomplish God’s purposes, as directed by him and through the empowerment that comes only from the Holy Spirit, Christ’s kingdom building will take place. That is what Christ’s kingdom building is, in a nutshell.
So what exactly is it that Christians care about so much that gets them out to vote today?
Dire consequences await our country and our world because so many people are turning away from truth and leaving behind the fundamental liberties that have made our country great. I agree with that. However, to me, it seems obvious that Christians have also come to a point, where they must decide whether preserving these political liberties at all costs, is more important than our living out the kingdom of God and the values of Jesus Christ on this earth. Today, people are defending bad behavior and ungodliness in political leaders, whitewashing what a candidate does and says, in order to gain or protect an earthly system. But, we should know by now that the ends never will justify the means for Christians; instead, such white-washing shenanigans are evidence that we Christians want to justify ourselves and our lifestyles. For Christians to flock to support and excuse one ungodliness, while decrying another kind of ungodliness, is hypocrisy. Taking a hypocritical stance does not at all build the kingdom of God. It builds an earthly kingdom.
Is that what we really want? Just an earthly kingdom?
Of course, clearly, people are upset, disappointed, and afraid of what is going on in the world and in our country. Things are not right. We want to change this and turn things around for God. But isn’t there a danger lurking behind our motivation to work for change politically, something that reflects more our desire for the ease and comfort of being left alone by the “icky” things in the world so that we can live lives that are, for the most part, unbothered by the people in the world and neighborhoods around us? Most of us don’t want to do the “hard” things—praying, repenting, giving, sharing a cup of water with a stranger, telling people about the love that drove Jesus to the cross so that we could have a relationship with Him. We want things to be nice, even if it is only being nice on the surface so that we can go to our churches and run through our lives unbothered by the harder scriptures that ask us to count the costs for our following Christ.
We are facing a terrible waste of our efforts, if we work only for an earthly kingdom. Not only that, we are wasting our chance to make the difference that we say we want made.
Christians feel very passionately about the cause of the unborn or preserving marriage. Because people feel such passion for the causes that seem based on godly principles, they also feel that advocating politically for those things is heroic and kingdom building for Christ, thinking, “Since the issues are bigger and more important than me, isn’t it completely self-less on my part to try to turn things in our country around politically? I am doing it for Christ.” No matter how the change is accomplished? However, we can’t make excuses for behaviors that are not born of the fruit of God’s Spirit. If we try to get God’s work done in ways that are not based on Christ’s principles of behavior, we are actually working against God’s purposes, instead of working for them.
Suppose that we give in to anger or excuse name-calling, disrespect, or even bear a kind of hatred or prejudice toward people whom God loves and wants to reach. Do you realize that your failure to show the fruit of the Spirit in your everyday life and conversations—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23)—might be just that thing that fails to show Christ to someone who needs it? Christians need to see that all these “issues” that they want to vote about—abortion, gay marriage, immigration, welfare, terrorism, or whatever—actually, affect lots of the people that most of us interact with all the time—in our neighborhoods, work places, schools, and families. People around us are hurting and they need to hear the message that Jesus loves them and died for them. What message are we telling them? What kingdom are we telling them about? To which kingdom are we allocating our time, passion, and energy?
Don’t we believe in prayer for changing things or showing love to change the hearts of people around us, for whom Christ died? Have we traded in a pursuit of God’s real kingdom values for a pottage of political power that will only give the nutrients found in a bowl of ashes? Are we serving a kingdom of this world?
* “Strong’s Greek: 4100. πιστεύω (pisteuó) — to Believe, Entrust.” Strong’s Greek: 4100. πιστεύω (pisteuó) — to Believe, Entrust. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 July 2016. <http://biblehub.com/greek/4100.htm>.