Living the Kingdom: Ethics, Work, and Community

I’ll never forget the first time I wore prescription glasses. Apparently, my eyesight had been declining for several years, but I had no idea. I had only noticed a month or so prior that I couldn’t read the chalkboard in my fifth grade classroom. After an eye exam, I learned I needed corrective lenses.

On the drive home from the optometrist, I was stunned. Trees, houses, and signs came into sharp focus. I felt like I could count every leaf on every tree! Such a small change put the world into clarity. 

Years later, I had a similar revelation about the Kingdom of God. I would learn about a future reality in which every wrong would be made right. Just as importantly, though, living in light of that Kingdom gives meaning and clarity to our lives today. 

What Does It Mean to Live a Kingdom Life?

If you’ve attended church for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the call to “live a Kingdom life.” What does that mean?  We are currently waiting for the return of Christ. When Jesus comes, the kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15).  However, this life is more than a waiting period for that future Kingdom—it is a call to live according to the ethics and values of that Kingdom now.

“Thy Will Be Done”

Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. Within that prayer is the familiar line: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, ESV).

This part of the prayer is a petition, or an appeal, to God. It is a request that God’s future Kingdom (cf. Revelation 11:15) would come soon. But it’s also an appeal that, in the meantime, God’s will would be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 

This is how Jesus taught his followers to pray. It follows, then, that this should shape our lives—and not just our prayers. Our ethics and work as Christians should revolve around reflecting God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. This is what it means to live a Kingdom life: while we wait for this future reality to come to fruition, we work faithfully to display a preview of that Kingdom in the present.

Jesus on Living the Kingdom

Luke 4 documents the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He begins his ministry in his home region of Galilee. As Jesus prepares to move on, Luke records: 

And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:42–43, ESV).

Jesus mentions preaching “the good news of the Kingdom of God” as his purpose. We might expect Luke to record a number of those sermons next, but that is in fact not what we find. On the contrary, Luke overlooks the content of the sermons themselves (cf. Luke 5:4) to instead focus on what Jesus does. He writes about a series of Jesus’ miracles: he cleanses a leper (Luke 5:12–13), heals a great crowd (Luke 5:15), heals a paralytic (Luke 5:24–25), and a man with a withered hand (Luke 6:10).

What is Luke’s point? When Jesus healed a leper or a paralytic, he wasn’t merely showing compassion—he was demonstrating the restoration that would characterize God’s coming Kingdom. He was preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God with his words, yes, but in his deeds, too.

When Jesus told the disciples of John, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear” (Luke 7:22, ESV), he wasn’t just quoting Isaiah 35—he was making Isaiah’s vision of the future come to life. Jesus was giving people a preview of God’s perfect, restored world. 

Jesus as a Walking Embassy

I’ve heard it said that Jesus was a walking embassy of the Kingdom. What is an embassy? An embassy is an official headquarters of a nation that is placed in a foreign land. If you are out of the country and walk into a U.S. embassy, you are entering an official representation of the United States in a foreign land. And similarly, when Jesus encountered sickness, suffering, or demons, it was as if they were on Kingdom “soil.” Jesus reshapes the world around him to reflect what the future Kingdom will look like. 

We see this clearly in Matthew 12. The Pharisees are debating about what power or authority Jesus must have in order to cast out demons. In their contempt, they postulate that it must be by the power of demons that he casts out demons. He responds, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28, ESV).

Jesus says that when he works by the Spirit of God, the Kingdom of God has come upon them. This is not to say that the Kingdom has come in its fullness or permanence. Rather, Jesus opened a window into that future reality. This is how Jesus lived a Kingdom life: by showing a glimpse of the restoration of all things. 

We Are Ambassadors of the Kingdom

If Jesus was a walking embassy of the Kingdom, then by extension, we are called to be its ambassadors. An ambassador is a representative acting on behalf of another nation. Paul uses this same language: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20, ESV, emphasis added).

We are representatives, agents, and ambassadors, acting on behalf of God and Jesus. In this case, Paul reminds the church in Corinth that their role is the ministry of reconciliation between God and humanity. However, if our ministry is only about the words we say, we’ve fallen woefully short of the example Jesus set.

Jesus’ ministry was not simply about being a force for good. He proclaimed the Kingdom and demonstrated its character, giving people a preview of the restoration God will ultimately bring.

We live in the tension between what God has promised and what we currently see. The Kingdom has not yet come in its fullness, but its future reality gives shape to how we live today. Following Jesus’ example, we work to give people a glimpse of what this future reality will be in this present age. 

Living the Kingdom in Our Ethics, Work, and Community

Colossians 3 is a prime example of this identity shift as ambassadors of the Kingdom. We’ve put away the ethics and practices that characterized our former way of life, such as sexual immorality, impurity, passion, and covetousness (Colossians 3:5). Paul likens this change to changing clothes. He says our new “uniform” is compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love (Colossians 3:12–14). Those are God’s ethics and character, and we put them on display in the world as His representatives. 

Living the Kingdom life affects more than just our ethics. Paul goes on to say that our new identity affects our work, our relationships, our families, and our marriages. In Colossians 3:23–24, he says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (ESV). Kingdom living is therefore not confined to what happens in church or to our private moral choices. It shapes the way we work, the way we treat people, and the communities we build.

This instruction comes in the middle of Paul’s instructions for relationships within the household and community. How ought wives to treat their husbands, and husbands their wives? How should fathers treat their children? How should servants treat their masters, and masters their servants? The guiding principle through it all is that we are ambassadors acting on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ. We work ultimately for him. 

Opening a Window 

Our conduct as Christians is about more than simply following rules. It’s bigger than staying out of trouble. It is even more than simply trying to make the world a better place. Our conduct as Christians is a way of living as citizens and ambassadors of the coming Kingdom. We are living the Kingdom life.

That means, when we treat others with compassion, love, kindness, and patience, we’re showing what life will look like in the Kingdom. When we care for orphans and widows, feed the hungry, and care for the sick, we’re following Jesus’ footsteps as an ambassador for the Kingdom. We’re giving the world a glimpse of what life in the Kingdom of God will look like. We’re opening a window into the future that God has promised to make a reality.

Want to dive deeper into the topic of the Kingdom of God? Sign up for the Disciple Collective and stay up to date about their upcoming course on the Kingdom.