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20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” ~ Luke 17:20-21
The kingdom of God is the theme in the remainder of Luke 17. In the first coming of the Lord Jesus, He came to establish His internal, spiritual kingdom. At His Second Coming, He will consummate His internal work in His millennial kingdom which will come after the seven years of tribulation yet to come. After that this universe will be destroyed and He will create a new heaven and earth in which eternally and for the first time since the Fall both kingdoms are merged into one.
God is sovereign over the physical and the spiritual realms. When He created this world, He made mankind unique, He made us both material and spiritual. Everything He created is under His sovereign control, yet, the kingdom of this world is in a state of rebellion.
As a result, this world has been infected by sin and has been stunted from seeing the spiritual realm. In addition, this universe, which is also fallen, is winding down. The second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, has been unleashed by man's rebellion. And, as a result, all of creation is in the process of disintegrating. It is headed toward a disastrous conclusion where the universe will melt with fervent heat.
Due to mankind's rebellion, doubt has been assigned to the sovereignty of God. Yet, He has been known to allow it to appear that His sovereignty should be questioned, as before. Remember the cross? It appeared the enemy won and then it became clear on the third day, God is still sovereign.
The teaching of the Lord Jesus in Luke 17 is about a kingdom that exists within a kingdom. God is King universally by creation and He is King personally by revelation. He is King universally through what we could call natural revelation. He is King personally through special revelation, the revelation of Scripture, aided by the Holy Spirit.
Now, the Lord Jesus came into this world not to establish a universal kingdom, He already had established that. He has controlled over the sea, death and disease. No, He came into this world, our world, in order to establish his Kingdom in our hearts. The kingdom of God begins in the believing heart of those who come to the end of themselves.
In v.20 we read, "Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed."
This word translated “observed” means “to observe the future by signs.” It includes the idea of spying, and even scientific investigation. The Lord Jesus points out the kingdom of God would not come with great “outward show” so that people could predict its arrival and plot its progress.
The Pharisees’ question was tragic, for the Lord Jesus had been ministering among them for some three years, and these men were still in spiritual darkness. They did not want to understand who Jesus was or what He was seeking to accomplish. Their views of the kingdom were political, not spiritual; Jewish, not universal.
In v.21 we read, “the kingdom of God is in your midst.” The kingdom of God comes when it is welcomed into our hearts! The Greek preposition used in this word can mean “within,” “among,” or “in the midst of.” We are not to look for the kingdom "out there," it is discovered within our broken hearts.
I've discovered the enemy tries to distract us from what is most essential by tempting us to think God is not aware of us, nor is He involved in our lives in a specific way. It is essential for God to be involved in our lives for His kingdom to come to and in us.
With that said, we must have a healthy divine imagination when it comes to our fellowship with God. Some say we are arrogant to think God speaks to us. But to this I say, didn't He promise to speak to us? Didn't He promise to sup with us and lead us? We must have faith to believe that He is involved deeply in our lives and that He is leading us as we follow Him.
The sooner we yield to His sovereign will, the better off we will be. It is foolish of us to think that we can run our lives better than He can. God's kingdom is only experienced through a cross-centered approach to life. We must be wise to embrace a theology which is very counterintuitive to even most in the Church. It is a theology which informs us that God is ever-present in our lives, including in our weaknesses. The key is to die to self daily and to yield to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And, when we do this we discover God’s tool to set us free is the cross of Christ.
The cross of Christ will not only lead us to death to self, but is leads us to be transparent about our own suffering for the sake of others. We live in a broken world. And, we are a broken people living in a world with other broken people, and we must have God's intervention in our lives in order to make it.
The Lord Jesus came to tell us the Christian life is not so much our movement toward Him as it is His movement toward us. We will never outgrow our need for God’s daily distribution of His grace into our lives. And, the distribution of His grace comes through the most unusual and unexpected means.
