Trying to Enter the Kingdom by Force

This week our beautiful daughters have both had a birthday. They 
are both working to be agents of grace in God's kingdom and 
for this we are deeply grateful! 

Scripture:

Luke 16:16   “The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force. ¹⁷ But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.

Luke 16:18   “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Observation:

Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees because of their attitude toward wealth, their penchant toward idolatry, and he wraps it up with the system they had created for divorce. Through their behaviors, they had distanced themselves from the law which they professed to hold so dear. By sheer effort of their own will they were hoping to enter the kingdom of God. Having established more rules than most could track, they actually blinded themselves to God’s design and plan for all of humankind. 

Jesus was opening up a pathway into the kingdom through grace, while the religious leaders had been focused on force by way of the law. Their rigid attitude toward the law meant that they were judgmental and rigid in their beliefs. Jesus had something entirely different in mind. 

Application:

We can find ourselves on two extremes when it comes to entering the kingdom by force. Whether we want to admit it or not, it’s easy to become dependent upon following a set of rules. In this way, we are forcing ourselves, as well as others to measure up! If people don’t meet our expectations when it comes to particular behaviors, we may have a tendency to write them off. I’m not sure Jesus would respond that way. Over and over again, he reflected a grace that the religious leaders, at times, found hard to accept. 

The good news proclaimed through Jesus Christ provided a way of radical transformation. This was not found through adherence to a set of rules, but through faith in Jesus, alone. To believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the son of God, was to have the law written upon your heart. This was not a forced, outside-in transformation, but an inside-out action on the part of God, whereby the kingdom of God was revealed in the life of the individual. 

The second extreme that we find today is a new type of adherence to good works for salvation. This is coming to us from the secular world, but is being adopted by some in the church, and is a real temptation to those within the Wesleyan/holiness tradition. We have always believed that radical life transformation led to kingdom engagement in the world. We believe that we are called to partner with God in his mission of kingdom expansion. That’s why we pray with Jesus, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” However, if we become engaged in social transformation without personal spiritual transformation, we are just as guilty as the Pharisees. Suddenly we judge others by their engagement in social change alone, creating a new list of rules which are to be followed. Sadly, social change without spiritual transformation is simply trying enter, or expand the kingdom by force. In this paradigm there is little or no room for the supernatural work of God, or the need to proclaim the good news found in Jesus Christ. 

We are to be a people who understand the “both-and” of the kingdom. This is the transformational work of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the good news which leads to missional kingdom expansion. Anything that is done outside of this paradigm simply becomes  an endeavor of human will to force themselves into God’s kingdom. 

Prayer:

Lord, I pray that I would seek you and your face every single day that I might join you in your kingdom activity. Amen.