The Kingdom of God is Upside Down - NewCREEations

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“He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” — Luke 9:2

In many ways the kingdom of God is completely turned around from what we would expect it should be. That’s why Jesus had to use so many different parables to help us get our minds around how things really work in God’s kingdom.

Let’s look at some principles of the Kingdom of God that seem completely upside down from what we normally see in the world around us.

To Become a Leader, Be a Servant

One of the things I like about the Gospel accounts is that they portray Jesus’ disciples as regular guys that I can relate to.

Jesus had a couple brothers on his leadership team, James and John. One day their mom went to Jesus to lobby to have her sons appointed to the top spots in his organization. Naturally this caused some grumbling amongst the other disciples.

Let’s pick up the story there.

And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”— Matthew 20:24-28

Normally we look at great men and women as those who have authority, money and power. But Jesus said in the kingdom of God the truly great people are those who serve others.

When we truly have a servant’s heart then God can promote us because he knows we will be faithful to do the assignments put in front of us with humility and compassion for those we serve. Someone with a focus on serving others is not scheming and manipulating folks so they can be promoted.

But so many think the only way to advance is to somehow push others down so they can rise above them. Most folks look for shortcuts to get ahead.

The kingdom of God is upside down.

To truly find life, die to self

There are a great many philosophies in the world that say we should look inward to find our true identity and answers to our life’s problems. Jesus said that doesn’t work.

In fact Jesus goes beyond that and says we have to die to ourselves to truly find life.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”— Matthew 16:24-25

Then just to be sure there is no misunderstanding he talks about the futility of gaining the whole world yet losing your soul.

Our natural world is all about instant gratification. Do what makes you feel good right now! Get all you can! You deserve it! Everyone’s a winner!

Another time Jesus pointed out that the issue is priorities, not stuff. He explained that God knows we need stuff. But the right way to prioritize things is to first seek the kingdom of God. Then God would add all the stuff we needed without us striving or stressing about it.

The kingdom of God is upside down.

To get back at your enemy, love him

When someone wrongs us and hurts us the natural thing to do is to look for ways to exact revenge, to get back at them for whatever perceived slight we received from them no matter how slight. Jesus said that’s the wrong approach in the kingdom of God.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.— Matthew 5:43-44

That totally doesn’t make sense to our natural minds. Then Paul steps it up a notch and says that not only are we to love our enemies, but doing so is actually a way to get back at them for wronging you, in a manner of speaking.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord. Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.— Romans 12:19-21

So instead of looking to revenge every wrong that comes our way we should look to love our enemies. It happens to be a better way to “get back at them” than going for revenge anyway.

The kingdom of God is upside down.

To Become Rich, Give Money Away

This one is a total mind bender. The natural way to get more money is to save and hoard what we have.

When we don’t have enough money to pay our bills, common sense would say that giving some of what little we have away would be stupid. But here is what Jesus says:

“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”— Luke 6:38

Jesus said that giving triggers something in the kingdom which causes the same things we gave away to come back to us. It’s important to note that this principle applies across the board.

In the scripture above Jesus is talking about how we relate to one another. It is true that our relationships with others encompass far more than money issues. But it is also true that those relationships include money as well.

Jesus had a lot to say about money and how we relate to it. In Luke chapter 16 at the end of the parable of the shrewd manager he says something interesting: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.” (verse 8)

In this chapter Jesus explains that the true purpose and priority of money in the life of a believer. In the next verse he goes on to say this.

Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.— Luke 16:9

We tend to fixate on the quantity of money as if it’s a valuable thing. But money itself isn’t valuable. What is valuable is what money can accomplish.

Paul really goes into depth about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. There he equates the concept of giving and receiving to a farmer planting seed and harvesting a crop. In verse 6 he points out that anyone who only plants a small amount of seed (i.e. gives little) harvests small crops. Listen to what Paul goes on to say.

For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.— 2 Corinthians 9:10

One thing about seeds is they always produce after their kind. You can’t plant corn seed and harvest maple trees. If you plant corn you harvest corn. If you give money you receive money.

Ultimately it is not about the money. It’s about our attitude towards money. If the only reason we give is so that we can get more money we have totally missed the point and that attitude will likely have a negative impact on our harvest.

However, when we give out of a genuine desire to bless others, then the harvest will come for us to receive.

What Paul is saying here is that when we build the habit of giving generously then God will give us the money to give (the seed). Then on top of that we also get to enjoy the harvest we receive that results from seed we planted.

Once we get this principle working in our lives Paul says that God will provide the gifts for us to give and then let us keep the rewards from giving those gifts. Of course when we start to see this working in our lives, the wise among us will continue to give out of the harvest we receive too. It can snowball into a chain reaction of giving and receiving.

When that starts happening in our lives things can get pretty exciting. The people who live here are the ones who have some of the best stories of God doing things in their lives and in the lives of the people around them.

And here’s the best part. When we get to that place then there will always be plenty for us to keep and use as well. It’s like we mentioned earlier, Jesus said it this way.