I used to think little kids were all sweet and innocent.
Then, my wife and I had a couple.
Don’t get me wrong, my kids were amazing, and of course, young kids are indeed innocent of much of the evil of this world.
But what struck me quickly as a dad was how selfish we inherently are, from the moment we show up.
It was new and hard-hitting for me to realize we must teach our kids how to share, how to be kind, how to get along, how to not hit others. Our natural tendencies aren’t great. In our fallenness, we are all about ourselves, and we need to intentionally be taught to love God and others.
But when Jesus arrived on earth, He made a bold pronouncement:
“The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2)
Really? Isn’t Heaven “up there” somewhere, beyond this earth?
Yes, there is another realm out there, but when Jesus showed up, something changed.
Starting with Him, the Kingdom of Heaven had invaded earth. No longer the ethereal “other” place, God’s Kingdom was actively taking over the planet. Jesus was setting up a new realm on earth, where He would rule and which would spread worldwide (Matthew 13:31-33).
This new Kingdom obviously has a King, and, like all kingdoms, has rules for living. The rules are God’s perfect rule, the exact way that He wants us to live, and are modelled for us completely in the example and teachings of Christ. Through Jesus, we learn how this Kingdom works and how Christians live as its citizens.
Since humanity is sinful, this godly Kingdom challenges our natural selfishness and preferred ways of living.
In fact, this Kingdom often seems completely backwards and upside-down to how our flesh and this world tell us to live.
And yet, to be men of God, to be men of the Kingdom, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus in the way He lived and calls us to live (Matthew 16:24-25; 1 John 2:6).
As men, we need to learn, live, and share the ways of this Kingdom.
So what does that look like?
In the upside-down Kingdom:
God is God
Ever since Eden, humans wanted to take control and be their own god (Genesis 3:1-6). We wanted to live our own ways, following Adam and Eve’s example (Isaiah 53:6). But in this Kingdom, there is no sharing of rule: God is God, and we are not. Citizens bow their knee to Him and acknowledge the one Lord over all (1 Corinthians 8:6).
Lower is Higher
“Climb the ladder!” It’s the cry of Western culture. More prestige, more followers, more clicks and likes, more power, more money. We greatly admire those who climb their way to the top. But Jesus was at the top, and left it all to make Himself nothing, living a lowly, poor, and humble life, dying on the Cross (Philippians 2:5-8). And He explicitly told us that the only way to get “higher” in this Kingdom was to lower yourself, like He did, choosing the humblest pathways and places (Matthew 23:11-12; Luke 14:9-11). We become greater in the Kingdom by becoming less, not climbing higher.
Others are First
As mentioned, from infancy on, we are all about ourselves. We need to be taught to think of others, and it’s a life-long lesson. Jesus lived a life that put others before Himself, and we too are called to lay down ourselves for the sake of others (Philippians 2:3-4; 1 John 3:16). With a natural tendency towards selfishness and a culture that screams “Me!” men prove ourselves part of this Kingdom when we put others first, as Jesus did.
Weak is Strong
The world values strength, and so do men, but our King specifically chose worldly weakness when He walked the earth—no armies, no money, no political power, no coercion. He laid down His life in weakness, allowing His body to be broken on the Cross, so that God’s strength could be displayed through the resurrection (2 Corinthians 13:4). The apostle Paul noted that his preaching skills were thoroughly unimpressive, but still contained God’s power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). He noted that in his moments of weakness, God’s strength met him there (2 Corinthians 12:9). Kingdom strength looks different than worldly strength because it is in the absence of our strength that God shows off His strength most spectacularly. Men of the Kingdom embrace this dynamic.
Enemies are Loved
When my kids were little, they hit each other quite a lot. The idea of, “You hurt me, I hurt you back,” is instinctive to us, and reinforced in our culture as well as globally by the kingdoms of this world. But in Christ, God shows great kindness to His enemies (Romans 5:10). He loves His enemies, and Jesus said that when we love our enemies, we look like our Father in Heaven (Matthew 5:43-48). In this Kingdom, men lay aside our natural desire to harm enemies, and instead embrace them with love, as God did with us.
Inside is Out
Common sense says that if you want to change something about yourself, you change the behaviour. Men like this approach a lot. But in the upside-down Kingdom, we can’t change ourselves—we need to be changed by God (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Holy Spirit does the work of transforming our hearts and minds (Ezekiel 11:19-20; Romans 12:2), and as these change inwardly, outer behaviour follows. A man’s greatest effort goes into connecting with God, so that He might transform us inside, that godly behaviour would flow outwards from that.
Grace is Enough
Finally, unlike worldly nations, a man can’t earn his way into citizenship in this Kingdom. You can only enter it by receiving it as a gift from the King (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-7). Grace is the ticket of entry, and when our flesh and our culture push men to achieve and earn, grace stands against those attitudes and issues a simple invitation: trust the King, and enter the Kingdom prepared for you (Matthew 25:34).
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