A kingdom that cannot be shaken
Receiving the unshakable kingdom
On the first day this series named the promise from its dark side: what can be shaken is shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Now turn the same verse over and read the bright side. The writer to the Hebrews does not stop at what is being removed; he tells you what you are receiving in its place. We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. While the made things fall away around us, an unshakable kingdom is being handed over into our hands.
Daniel had already seen it. In his vision a stone is cut out of a mountain without human hands, and it strikes the great statue of the empires and grinds it to chaff the wind carries off — and then the stone becomes a kingdom that shall never be destroyed and shall stand forever. That is the kingdom Hebrews says we are receiving. The shaking, then, is not pointless demolition after all. It is the clearing-away of everything breakable so that the one unbreakable kingdom can be seen for what it is, and taken hold of. And the right response, the writer says, is not panic. It is grateful, reverent worship.
“Receiving a kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God, with reverence and awe.”
— The letter to the Hebrews — Hebrews 12:28 (WEB)
“In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed... it shall stand forever.”
This is the telos over all four phases — what the whole shaking exists to leave standing, and a preview of where the series finally lands. Disconnect, disorientation, reorientation, reconnect: every phase is in service of this, the clearing of the breakable so the unbreakable kingdom can be received with thanks.
Stand in the wreckage of your upheaval and do a hard, clarifying accounting. Everything the shaking has taken from you was, by definition, shakable, or it would still be standing. Grieve them honestly, but do not mistake them for the kingdom; they never were. The certainties that cracked, the securities that gave way, the arrangements you leaned your weight on: they fell because they were made to fall.
What you are left holding when the breakable things are gone is the only thing that was ever finally worth holding — a kingdom that cannot be moved. The temptation in any upheaval is to spend your strength clutching at what is already sliding away, as if gripping harder could make a shakable thing permanent. So loosen your grip on the falling things and receive the standing one. The proper posture in the rubble is not a white-knuckled fist; it is open hands, and reverence, and a strange and stubborn gratitude.
When the wider Church watches its structures tremble, it can forget that the kingdom was never the structures. The institutions, the budgets, the inherited prestige are all shakable, and in this generation much of it is being shaken before a watching world. But the kingdom those things were built to serve cannot be moved. Daniel saw it: a stone cut without human hands grinds the empires to chaff and then becomes a kingdom that stands forever. That is the kingdom Hebrews says the Body is receiving even now. So the great rummage sale is not pointless demolition of the Church; it is the clearing-away of everything breakable so the one unbreakable kingdom can be taken hold of again. The response from the whole Church is not panic, but reverent worship.
The kingdom that cannot be shaken — Daniel's stone that breaks the empires and stands forever, Christ and His unending reign. What cannot be shaken is, quite simply, this: the one kingdom you are receiving while everything else is being cleared away.
- What has my upheaval taken that was, in the end, shakable?
- Am I clutching at falling things, or receiving the kingdom that cannot be moved?
- What would grateful, reverent worship look like from inside my rubble?
Lord, I have been gripping the things that fall as though my grip could save them. Open my hands. Let me see that everything the shaking took was shakable, and that I am receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved. Teach me reverence and gratitude in the rubble. Amen.