One of our core values at Multiply is “Proclaiming Jesus and His Kingdom.” I like this. In fact, sitting down to write about the King and His Kingdom makes me want to jump up, shout, and do a backflip. It gets me pretty fired up. 

My 20+ year journey in Africa, wrestling with its challenges—war, poverty, power-abuse, and more—has brought God’s Kingdom into clearer focus.

I was in university at the time of the genocide in Rwanda. More than 800,000 Rwandans were killed by their fellow countrymen in the space of 100 days. But what made it even more disturbing was that Rwanda was supposed to be one of the most Christian nations in the world.

I wondered: How could this happen? Is this how the Church is to act? Isn’t the Church to be proclaiming—preaching, seeking, contending for—God’s Kingdom? 

To capture what it means to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom, we must look at the entire biblical story. From the start, God’s intention was on display.

Creation: God purposefully made all things and all things were good. This includes how things worked… symbiotically, synergistically, PERFECTLY.

Mankind: We were mandated to contend for, take care of, and steward God’s world.  Bearing His image means modeling but also actively living and doing the Kingdom.

The Fall: This brought separation from God, marring our identity and purpose.

Israel: God’s people, chosen particularly to know Him, were to reveal Him and His Kingdom to the world.

Then we come to Jesus. Remember that He began His ministry by declaring: “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news.” With Jesus’ arrival, the Kingdom of God comes near. He tells how we are to respond to this news: Repent! It means to turn 180 degrees—to do an about-face. It’s a turning from sin, and from sinfulness, from wrong ways of thinking about God, about ourselves, about this world, and about our place in it. We turn from the kingdom of darkness and towards the Kingdom of the Son of God. 

To repent and believe in Jesus is to take on a new and rightful identity and purpose. It means living in faith and living in a new reality, with the expectation of joining God in His work of redeeming ALL things.

Jesus traveled “from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8:1). He preached and proclaimed the principles and attributes of that Kingdom: healing the sick, casting out demons, providing food for the hungry, accepting the outcast and unwanted, confronting injustice.

Jesus said that next to loving Him, the most important thing we must do is love others as we love ourselves. That sounds pretty holistic to me. Sounds like the Kingdom.

Paul caught on to this amazing message. By the end of his life, “from morning till evening [he] explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus…” ~ Acts 28:23.

This is explosive! Jesus, and then Paul, contended for a whole new way of being. It’s a new worldview where Jesus is at the centre, on the throne, filling up the viewfinder. It defines our identity—children of the King—and it explains our purpose: to fulfill the plans and design of our Father and Lord here and now.

We all long for the Kingdom. Even those that don’t yet know the King. It’s IN us: the desire for a world without war, without pollution, without poverty. A world of equality, of peace, love, and righteousness. You know what I’m talking about. 

So what does “the Kingdom of God coming near” look like in the context of Africa?

One truth of the Kingdom is that nobody has nothing. God gives His people resources. A second truth is that one must use what they have. And it works even better when we do it together.  Nobody has nothing, use what you have, do it together.

We were teaching about the Kingdom on my last trip to Malawi and some of the testimonies illustrate these truths. One pastor stood up and announced “I dress like I’m poor, I think like I’m poor, I act like I’m poor.” Then he admitted, “This is not true.” He proceeded to explain that his family had a piece of land that they were renting out for a pittance. If they would just farm it themselves, he suddenly realized, they would have enough so that they would never go hungry. 

You see what happened there? 

At some point in his life, this pastor had acknowledged that Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of his faith. And now he’s beginning to see God as his provider and recognized that God’s Kingdom has come near. Freed from a poverty mentality, he can now join God on His mission.  His sense of identity has shifted as has his sense of agency.  He is now contemplating his future and taking stock of his life.  Jesus saying “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” comes to mind.

Another pastor in that series of meetings stood up and said, “God made me a good carpenter.” Some years ago, he had abandoned that to be a full-time pastor. But this meant that his family would often go hungry. “I need to do what God made me good at. I know we will never go hungry again.”

He’s seeing himself differently, seeing his potential differently. He plans to continue pastoring, but only part-time as he lives into his God-given gifts and takes care of his family.

The Kingdom has come near to all of us. We long for Jesus’ return and the complete fulfilment of that Kingdom. Until then, we follow Jesus’ command to seek His Kingdom first. Our belief and our longing for the coming Kingdom propels us to live the Kingdom, preach the Kingdom, contend for the Kingdom, and reveal the Kingdom here and now. 

As it draws near, the Kingdom evidences itself like this: people confessing their sins and coming to know Jesus, stepping into their rightful identity as sons and daughters of the King.  This is accompanied by a sense of purpose as we enter into Father’s business as co-labourers with Christ. Experiencing the Father’s love, we express that to others and live with a holy expectancy, ready to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom.

 Amazing!  Exciting!  What a privilege. 

PRAY

Ask God to continue advancing His Kingdom in Africa—and throughout the world. Pray for discernment about how you can join His mission. And may He give us all boldness to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom until He comes.