Citizens of God's Kingdom

{Ephesians 2:19-22; NLT} 

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. 

 

There are two kingdoms. 

There is the kingdom of this world and there is the kingdom of God. 

 The reality of life, apart from Jesus, is that we are excluded from God’s kingdom. This means we are strangers and foreigners in the very kingdom that God created us to call home. 

Things can be different! 

Our citizenship can be changed!

 Not only can we become citizens of God’s kingdom, but we can even be adopted into God’s family! 

Before, while we were in our sin, we were outsiders, we didn’t belong to God’s Kingdom, but now we do. We were citizens of the world, and foreigners in the Kingdom of God, but now our citizenship has changed. 

The world is no longer our home, we are pilgrims in this land, because our citizenship is now in Heaven.

 I want to point out two implications that come with being citizens of God’s Ki ngdom. 

1. We are not alone. I am not the only citizen of the Kingdom, and though it might feel like I am all alone at times, that is just a feeling and not reality. In this Kingdom reside all the faithful who lived under the Old Covenant as well as all of the faithful who follow Christ Jesus. The writer of Hebrews writes of a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). It encourages me to think about all the people who have lived faithful lives, because it reminds me that I am not the only one to experience the struggles of faith. 
2. There is a standard for living. God expects His people to live in a certain way. One of the expectations God has for His people is that we will be servants. We need to help those people who are in need and in the process bring God’s love and hope into their lives. A second expectation is that we live moral lives. The moral standard that we live by needs to be better than the standard the rest of the world by. People need to recognize that there is a difference in the way we live and the they live. 

What a word of hope we find in this passage. 

We are part of God’s Kingdom! Being citizens of God’s kingdom is going provide us with some challenges. It will be a challenge simply because our purpose of life has changed. The fact that we are citizens of God’s kingdom and members of His household needs to shape the way we live.

Why? 

It needs to shape our lives because we no longer live for ourselves. Now we are representatives, ambassadors, of God’s Kingdom, and is essential that we to play the part.

Questions to consider: 

• What was your life like before Jesus? 
• Do you gain any hope from knowing you are part of God’s kingdom? 
• How can you be a good representative of God’s kingdom?