For we are also executors of the Kingdom and of the joy God wants all people to know. Here there is work to do. The instructions for us as executors are simple: Plant this seed, water and fertilize it, protect and care for it, so that it will bear the fruit promised on the package. The fruit is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, as we have seen. That fruit is borne in our lives, the lives of those we cultivate for Kingdom living, and in everything to which we turn our hands. The consequence of the fruit-bearing seed of the Kingdom is joy.

A Christian Guidebook: Why Has God Saved Us? (3)

And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that
Seeing they may see and not perceive,
And hearing they may hear and not understand;
Lest they should turn,
And their sins be forgiven them.’” Mark 4.11, 12

The things of God
God has saved us because He delights to delight us with the things He has freely given us. Those include a myriad of daily blessings as well as the new spiritual life and orientation we have in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

It pleases God to extend His delight to us so that we can enter it, know its great pleasure, and rejoice, because He has made us for joy and saved us for joy, and the things He freely gives to us are the various means whereby He transports us into His joy.

And of all the things God has freely given to us, surely one of the greatest is the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

Wait. How can that be? A mystery, by definition, is something difficult or impossible to explain, something secret or obscure, understanding of which continuously eludes us. How can we know this mystery of the Kingdom of God?

Because God has given it to us! And even more amazing, it’s not merely that we have been given “to know” the mystery of the Kingdom. In Mark’s version that phrase is not in the original language (it does occur in Matthew and Luke). What Jesus said is, “To you the mystery of the Kingdom of God has been given”. The mystery of the Kingdom has been given to us; we have been conveyed into it (Col. 1.12, 13); we are citizens in that mystery and ambassadors of it; we may seek more of it; and we spread its effects to the world around.

We are beneficiaries, stewards, and executors of the Kingdom of God. And that’s why God has saved us, that He may bless and employ us, and this great gift He has given to us, to spread more of His delight and joy to the world.

What’s the mystery?
If we doubt that the Kingdom of God is a mystery, try this: Ask a fellow believer to explain the Kingdom of God. Through an uncomfortable few minutes of stammering and babble, a small gem of true understanding may emerge. But don’t count on it. Most Christians have almost no understanding of the Kingdom of God, even though this mystery has been entrusted to them.

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