Boundaries of the Kingdom of God

(1 Cor 4:3 NKJV) But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

We live in a time, where Christianity seem to have little boundaries, venturing into the marketplace, Business, Politics, Finance, Arts, Music, politics, media to extend their influence, beyond the traditional religious space. Satan offered to Jesus, the Kingdom of this World, and now it is Christians who has been enticed believing that they could change the Kingdom of this world to the Kingdom of God, despite Jesus having nothing to do with it. We thought we have conquered the World, but could it be that the World has conquered us? Without the following boundaries, the differences between the Kingdom of Christianity and the Kingdom of this World will be hard to be distinguished:-.

a) Boundary on the limit of judgement and authority - We do not have the right to go beyond the walls of the church to insist that Gays outside the boundaries of the local church be criminalised nor is there a precedence in NT Christianity to proclaim judgement of criminal conduct whether within or outside the church. Bringing internal theological disputes and issues within the church, out to the court of law and public judgement such as proposition 8, or 377a, exposing ourselves judgement by the public. Once, we open the door to judge others, we too are open to their judgement of us in the same manner. For example, the supporters of proposition 8 sought the court to prevent the revelation of those who supported the proposition, but they just cannot hide. They failed to get this special right of exemption. The Ted Haggard affairs attracts attention and harsh judgement because the church has judged Gays very unfairly. When we go out of our boundaries of authority and judgement, we tend to judge with hypocrisy and people will have the full moral rights to judge us back based on the scales which we have used to judge others.

b) Boundaries of loving others as ourselves - in the context of the summarised law, we have not loved others for if we had the same sex orientation would we want others to treat us the way we treated gays. Do we really love God? why then do we condemn His creation for our narrow theological views. Gay mannerisms are so natural to gay guys, they did not consciously choose it, nor are acting it out just as Straight mannerisms are natural to straight guys. When we love others as ourselves, we begin be consistent in our reflection. Is our Heterosexuality natural, or is it a conscious choice that we have to actively decide for straight people. We judge consistently and without hyprocrisy when there is a boundary of love. There is unrestrain and lawlessness when our actions are not be based on love, because we will have one law for ourselves and another law for others.

c) Boundaries of causing no harm - When Peter took out the sword even under duress, Jesus commanded him to put it back, because Jesus came to die for us to take the cup of suffering and not to cause more suffering. We are called to love, not to limit rights of a very small minority. At the end, what harm is gays having the same basic right that we have. It does not impact our rights nor our marriage. Yet, we distort the facts, to deliberately cause harm. Christians are called to give up our rights for righteousness sake, but we demand special rights for unrighteousness sake. Breaking their promises, the proponents of Proposition 8, decided to push for the dissolution of exisitng gay marriages not satisfied with banning new Gay marriages. We go all out of our way to cause harm, even though we suffer no harm ourselves. We rationalise our judgment and fail to see our evil heart when there is no boundary of harm. There is unrestrain and lawlessness without seeing the harm that we have caused.

d) Boundaries of ensuring justice - The bible is very conscious and particular when injustice occurs especially by the majority against a small minority defenceless community who are too weak to defend itself. When we act without common decency and fairness, there would be injustice done. Justice is properly served when there is retribution against those who broke the law against others. Have we killed and stolen from the Gay community, and deny them of worshiping God? We have for so long through our condemnation and persecution, taken away the lives of Gay men, putting them into closets or making them take their lives. The question should be asked, is what if Christians had been wrong about homosexuality? and our interpretation of the bible, subject to grave error. We do not fear retribution from God when there is no boundary of Justice. That is what the bible meant by lawlessness. It is not the absence of law, but the absence of justice contrary to what is preached by churches such as City harvest. There is unrestrain and lawlessness wihtout seeing that justice may be damanded and we taken to task for the injustice done.

e) Boundaries of the Gospel Mandate - We are mandated to continue the ministry of Christ and not the ministry of the Pharisees. The Kingdom of God is the reality of Jesus Christ in the presence of our lives, our kingdom. They always had the temple of God following them, but when Jesus came, He preached, the Kingdom of God is near, for His death and resurrection will bring the reality of God into the hearts of many who accepted Him. Their circumstances may not change, they were still poor, and had many issues, but God came into their lives, into their kingdom, into their every day lives and circumstances. It was the presence of God, the presence that manifested just as He was with the disciples two thousand years ago. When we go outside the boundaries of the Gospel message, we will go astray and compromise the Message..

(Mat 23:27 NKJV) "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

(Mat 23:28 NKJV) "Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Without firm boundaries we live in a Christianity where the end justifies the means. Lawlessness comes not because the lack of law as asserted by City Harvest Church, it is not recognising the depths of our sins and forgetting the depth of grace in Christ Jesus. The Pharisees thought they were righteous and the most law abiding amongst the people, but it was self righteousness and this resulted in hypocrisy and lawlessness. Are the Wall Street people who cheat billions out of the Main Street and caused many to loose their life savings any more sinful than than the poeple visiting Geylang? By the Law of the Land and the 10 commandments, the people on the Wall Street did nothing wrong. But, by the Spirit of the Law, represented by the boundaries of the Kingdom, they sinned greatly. The Jews had to further define the 10 commandments to many thousands of laws because it was too general, and subject to rationalisation without being specific to a particular circumstances? Does the Law makes them less lawless?

The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of order and self control with boundaries on the limit of judgement/authority, Boundaries of loving others as ourselves, Boundaries of causing no harm, Boundaries of ensuring justice, and Boundaries of the Gospel Mandate. Without Kingdom and biblical boundaries, there is lawlessness, ie no kingdom boundaries where the people are not constrained and the centre of the world becomes themselves exlating their own pride and self righteousness just like the Pharisees of old. They sent Jesus to the Cross, by the law, and called it biblical, so too we sent Gays to our crosses to be presecuted. The church is steep in lawlessness and hypocrisy with the biggest church of more than 1.1 billion worshipping man made saints and exalting them as God. But we too worship our own idols - ourselves, and our self righteousness that Gays become an object of our scorn and claim of moral superiority.

According to the Christianpost article, the mega church City Harvest Church claims that the greatest treat to Christianity is lawlessness. There was another group in history who thought likewise. The Pharisees had the law and claimed to abide by it. But they ended up killing Jesus. Iromically, ;lawlessless is not the absence of the Law but is caused by people becoming more self righteous and proud that they were able to keep the laws and ended up being people without constraints, without boundaries of the Kingdom of God. Countries such as Iran are very strict law based but they end up killing thousand of gays, and became an incubator of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

(Mat 6:32,33 NKJV) "For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things."But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Let us seek first the Kingdom of God, and His ways and righteouness personifed and made flesh in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. We have worried about too many things, about being lawless, not having enough wealth, our evangelism not working, or even that the kingdom of God is under threat. As a result we have been trying hard to be God, moving ahead of God's will to conquer kingdoms that we should never have thus going out of our Kingdom boundaries. We have conquered many kingdoms indeed - in the political arena and Business area but have achieved nothing much to bring people to Christ but yet left an incredible harm, injustice, and hatred against the gay community. We are called first to seek His kingdom, and not our kingdoms or our religious beliefs, and trusting the rest to God, believing by faith that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently. May His Kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven.