rich’s blog

This is a not-exact copy of my recent message “Framing the Issues: The Gospel.”  This message started a new series we’re working through at SRBC re: what Christianity has to say about all sorts of things.  It’s pretty rad.   

Introduction to New Message Series: 

 

So, does Christianity matter?  Does it matter?  Do we believe that Christianity matters? 

 

A lot of people don’t. Christianity, when it doesn’t bother them, isn’t that big a deal; sort of a harmless club for weirdos; sometimes they’re nice sort of moral weirdos, but not always.  Christians can be pretty bothersome (and not always for good reasons, right) so people do get bothered by Christianity and it moves from this sort of benign, weirdo club, to a negative, harmful, horrible force in the world, from their perspectives.  

 

People have written whole books on the way Christianity has harmed women, harmed the environment, harmed entire ethnicities and social classes, and the problem is that, honestly, the books aren’t all wrong.  Because guess what happens when get a group of messed up people together, who would rather act than think deeply about things, pray through things, commit to the hard work of really figuring out what Jesus asks of them in particular contexts: you get a messed up group of messer-uppers, right?  

 

The miracle of the church is that we still exist, and are growing, and that occasionally we are able to communicate the truth of God’s love and mercy and hopes for everyone in a way that is positive, and constructive, and honest–instead of manipulative, coercive or thoughtless.  We aren’t irrelevant, we aren’t simply happy, fairly moral, little weird mindless robots.   We have true perspectives on things that are important, and valuable, and we’re supposed to offer the world.  They need them

 

So, over the next few months–with interruptions here and there–we’ll be exploring ways to engage with the world around us that are a lot more positive then they are destructive or condemnatory or just ignorant. We’ll be looking at ways we can answer questions that the world is asking, we’ll explore the answers we have to problems the world wants to talk about.  

 

We’ll be talking about what our faith has to say about things like sex, and cash, and creation, and abuse, and politics, and spirituality.   Today’s message–which will be longer than some, I’m sorry–will be followed by two more that will sort of set us up to discuss these sorts of things.  Today we’ll talk about the Gospel–what it is, really.  Next week, we’ll talk about Jesus & ethics–did he have any, and if so, what does it matter, right?  The week after we’ll talk about the resources we have to live Christianly.   After that we’ll begin to engage with these things that really do matter–sex and money and work.  

 

What will be asked of us

But talking about things like that can get a little personal, can’t it.  A little uncomfortable.  There’s no way to make a conversation about money and possessions comfortable.  There’s no way for us to look forward to talking about sex during worship; maybe there are, actually.  I don’t know.  So here’s what I need from all of us, honestly, for the discussions we are going to have to work, to really engage us, so that we can engage with the world that’s going on around us, that we’re a part of.  

 

We need to be ready in our hearts to talk about things that we feel strongly about.  You know.  We need to be prepared to think deeply about things are sensitive and personal.  

 

We need to have a sense of humor about some of these things. 

 

We need to pray for this series of messages, and (if you’re up for it) even pray for me, that the Spirit would be in charge here, directing things and thoughts and words and hopes. 

 

 We need to pay attention…not Sunday mornings, necessarily (though that would be great!).  But when we leave, and go to work and home and wherever–we need to pay attention to what people think about Christians.  And we need to begin to prepare our hearts to engage with people and issues when we’re out there living with all those people who think it’s dumb and we’re saps for ever having gathered together in here.  

 

Here’s what I’d ask that we bring with us when we come together on Sunday morning for the next few months: love.  I’d ask that we come together in love, defined by the love that pursued us, that brought us into the faith, that is supposed to be what we are all about, and the defining virtue of God.  If we can’t, for some reason, act with love at least toward each other then maybe all those people who think Christianity is irrelevant or harmful aren’t too far off.  

 

The First three messages:

So again: today is part one of what’s really a long three-part message about the gospel, Jesus and his ethics, and our resources for living Christianly.   

 

But before we get started talking about the gospel, I’d ask, I guess, that we start thinking loving thoughts.  Because I’m pretty sure that I’ll offend someone’s sensibilities today.  Because what I’m going to do is paint for us a pretty big picture of what God did through history, through Jesus, for us: the “good news” of it all.  So if you have a problem with something, talk to me.

 

And I pray to God that I can incorporate all the things we tend to believe about this stuff into this picture, but I might be highlighting things in a way that we may not be used to.  I’m not presenting a different gospel than what you’ve might heard; I am, though, presenting us with as full a picture of the gospel as I can. 

 

Does this make sense?  Are you all totally cautious and slightly distrustful now?  I hope not.  Now, finally, let’s pray. 

 

Prayer:

God takes this bunch of words that I’ve grouped together as an offering; it’s not much, but it’s what I have to give you.  And take the time that we’ve used to meet together again in your name for your glory, as an offering of thankfulness.  We love you.  We need you so desperately; remind us of both our neediness and your loving providence.  Take away my voice if you want to.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen. 

 

Why Bother?  

So.  Why bother talking about the gospel–or good news, if that’s what your translation of the Bible rolls with (they’re the same word in greek): why bother?  Especially when, I mean, I’m literally preaching to the choir here, right?  I’m directing this toward you all, who by and large are people who joined their lives to Jesus’ a while ago.   You are people who statistically speaking, probably have a pretty good understanding of what “gospel” means and how “the gospel” relates to you.

I think there’s a couple of really important reasons we need to start with talking about the gospel.  Honestly, you know no matter if we’re feeling high or low, if faith, hope, & love are strong in us or more like strangers right now, what we believe about what God has done through Jesus affects the way we think about what it means to be a Christian.  Does that make sense?  The Gospel is one of those foundational sort of beliefs, that we stack other things on top of; how we think about the gospel affects how we live our lives.  It just does.  

 

And also, how we think about the gospel affects how we communicate what God has been up to in the world, what Christianity is “all about,” you know?  Smoky Row is an “evangelical” church–a church that has been influenced by, and places itself right in the middle of, a historical Christian religious movement–evangelicalism.  And foundational to “evangelicalism”- this religious movement that has so totally influenced the way we think about Christianity–is the “gospel.”  The gospel, or good news, is called in greek the “euangelion”–we take the “u” pronounce it like a “v” do some linguistic gymnastics and you end up with evangelism, evangelist, evangelicalism, etc., etc.  Evangelists are those who share the “evangelion”–the good news, right?  Evangelicals are those who care so much about sharing the good news that they’ve named themselves after it.  It sounds nicer than “Gospelizers,” you know? 

 

So if we care, so much, about sharing the good news, the gospel, it’s probably a good idea to be pretty honest about what it isn’t.   Hear me: what it isn’t, right? 

 

Isn’t

The gospel is not believe in Jesus and you’ll go to heaven.  First of all, the going to heaven bit isn’t the goal of following Jesus–Jesus’ return, and the resurrection of the dead that’s been promised to us is; the time after death, where the Bible tells us we’re in God’s hands, and with Jesus, and all is great: great!  For those who we’ve lost that are there, it is awesome; they are at peace and are happy in a way none of us alive right now know.

 

But it’s sort of like a graduation party or something, right?  I mean it’s wonderful to be at the party, it’s great to have tasty food and be surrounded by people who love you: there’s nothing bad about it at all (in a best case scenario; metaphors only go so far).  But you didn’t go through high school, or college, or graduate school, for the party, you know: you went for what’s on the other side of the party.  Life!  Being a grown up!   

 

We look forward to the same things: life, renewed, complete, the way it was supposed to be without sin and terror and pain and illness: Easter, all the time, right?  That’s goal, and it happens when Jesus comes back.

 

So there’s that, but also–and we’ve all heard some sermon on this, but “believe in Jesus” can be a weak phrase sometimes, honestly.  Maybe “believe” by itself, or “trust in” is better.  “Believe in” so often implies some sort of acknowledgment about the existence of something: I believe in a theory, or a set of principles, or the power of some virtue or something.  

 

In fact, pretty much everywhere in the New Testament where it says “believe in,” the greek implies  something a lot more like “believe into.”  Which is totally weird in English, but you can kind of get the sense of casting your lot with something, right; tossing all of yourself behind somebody, and putting all of your belief into the person, so that there’s just not any left to put anywhere else.  We can believe in peace and believe in the death penalty; maybe we can’t believe into–be sold out committed–to both at the same time.  So the gospel probably isn’t simply “believe in Jesus and you’ll go to heaven.” 

 

And we could say all sorts of other things the gospel isn’t, couldn’t we; which honestly would be very Christian of us, wouldn’t it?  Because Christians, as far as most people in America are concerned, are well-known for what the stand against, and not known at all what they are for.  It’s my hope that as we move forward in this series we can begin to talk about what we are for in constructive ways, instead of building defensive little negative outposts where we fight against and react to the world instead of converting and leading it.  Whatever.  

 

So, what’s the gospel? 

So what is the gospel?  Or a better question would be something like, “Tell me the gospel,” right?  Gospel me, baby: evangelize me.  Because “gospel” isn’t a thing that we’re supposed to define necessarily, so much as it is a message we’re given, or are supposed to give. 

 

We’ve talked about this before, some time ago, how that word, “euangelion” was originally a political word; a word that referred to the message or report, some “good news” that Caesar had done, like conquering some people group, or razing a town–runners would go from town to town sharing the “good news or  gospel” of Caesar’s victory over the enemies of his Empire.  

 

In the Old Testament (the greek version, anyway) this term “good news” described, as someone else puts it “God’s intervention on behalf of his people” (M & R, 2003, 390).  The point is, that when the earliest people heard Jesus talking gospel both these notions would have come to mind, this political sort of context and this God’s at work on our behalf context.  

 

And when someone says I’ve got good news!  We don’t say, “Sweet.  I’m so glad.  Take it easy!”  We say, “What? What’s the good news,” right?  

 

The gospel might be a shorthand way we talk about all sorts of stuff, but we had better be aware of what we’re summarizing when we say it. 

 

So what was the content of Jesus’ good news?  His gospel?  The one we talk about all the time?  (Here’s a secret; it’s no good asking a rhetorical “think about it” question when the answer happened 15 minutes ago.  It’s silly!)

 

Luke 4:42-44.  Let’s read it again.

 

Luke 4:42-44: 

 

At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.  But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (luke 4:42-44 niv)

 

 Jesus says he was sent to preach the good news of the kingdom of God.  For Jesus, the good news was his message about the Kingdom of God.  And if any of you are like me, and no matter how many times you hear “king” or “kingdom” you think of Disney, then maybe a a refresher isn’t a bad idea.  

 

Kingdom Refresher 

We modern Americans Understand “law” as a body of things that we should conform to for the greater good; in a kingdom, the law isn’t a “body of codes”–it’s a body, a person–one ruler, making all the rules.  

 

The law is a will of one being, one person in power, and what he or she says goes—this person’s the boss of you…and your parents, and your siblings, and everybody. 

 

But what’s worse, is the english word “kingdom” isn’t really the best way to translate the greek word that stands behind it, which is “basilea” 

 

We hear “kingdom” and we think “place”–a kingdom is a place, where there is a king.  This makes sense.  (the king’s dom, I guess).  But the word “basilea” in Greek emphasizes not the place, but primarily the activity of the one who is king.  The king’s activity, namely, the king’s capability, and right to rule over others. 

 

Do we follow this?  Jesus says his good news, why he came, was to preach about the kingdom of God: He says that the gospel he has is one concerned with the capability and right of God to express his will, and his purpose, and his goals. 

 

But how does this fit into everything else we know about life, history? 

 

Locating All This: A Quick Review of Life: 

See, God had made people: Made humanity: Adam & Eve, supposed to steward creation and enjoy it, they were supposed to live without anxiety, fear and have competition-free relationships with each other and God:  But they were tempted by God’s great antagonist, the devil, to distrust God, and in an act of distrust their relationship with God and each other and even creation was broken: and that brokenness–sin–covered over humanity.  Death happened, and sin spread; and people’s relationship with God was broken.

 

But God wanted people back; he loved them.  In mercy God worked to create a special people for himself who had a special task, which was to be in relationship with God, and bring others into relationship with God.  God gave to this race of people, who became the Israelites–a way to deal with the brokenness and sin that they were still messed up with.  But things didn’t work out, just didn’t work out: the law, which was graciously given to them so that they could deal with their sin, be reconciled to God, and live the way God wanted them to live–it required a lot from them, and it kept pointing out just how far off the mark they were. 

And people kept dying; and that first sin of distrust kept affecting everything; and wars happened, and death happened, and shame and competition and anxiety and fear kept on marching throughout all creation.  But God kept making promises and reminders: promises that he’d work through Isreal still, promises that the original hope for people–of a life without sin and death in it–would someday come true; promises that people from all ethnicities and races and nations would gather to God, and with that promise a reminder that they were supposed to be a light to the nations about God’s greatness and love for all the world.  They were told promises of a day when God’s own spirit would fill them, too; and they wouldn’t need to do all the things they were doing to draw close to God, because God would draw close to them, would give them his own power to live the way he wanted them to live.  They were promised a day when God would deal with sin and it’s effects in a final, total way.  

 

But kings and kingdoms came: empires arose, and Israel found itself feeling forgotten, with old promises and old routines.  They hunkered down, and kept their access to God through their rites and rituals to themselves, and found themselves in a season of waiting for God to make good on his promises.  

 

Jesus spoke “gospel” into this: 

And into this mess Jesus comes.  He never sins; never gives into the devil; and he comes proclaiming the gospel, the “good news,” that God’s Kingdom has arrived, and he takes as his mission statement a passage primarily from Isaiah 61, all about God’s interruption into history on behalf of his people.  Jesus says: 

 

 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, 

      because he has anointed me 

      to preach good news to the poor. 

   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners 

      and recovery of sight for the blind, 

   to release the oppressed, 

   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

 

This passage is from a long promise in Isaiah of what it would be like when God returns to his people; and Jesus is saying that the hopes of Israel for their God are realized in him; that with his arrival God’s reign over the world has come about.  The Gospel, as far as Jesus is concerned, is that the Kingdom of God is happening–and it’s happening through him.  Through him, God has come to Israel, and God’s “Kingdom”–God’s capability and right to rule over whatever he wants is being realized.   

 

And Jesus reveals this kingdom through all these things in this passage–things we see him doing all throughout the gospels, things he reaffirms in Luke 7 when he tells John’s followers to “report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. 23Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

 

Blessed is the man who doesn’t fall away on account of me.  That’s weird, too, right: but reasonable.  Because while Jesus reveals the will of God, acts with the capability of God to act, he also says some things that this group of Israelites, who had been waiting for this moment for ages, weren’t really happy to hear. 

 

“He begins to challenge…to tear down…the religious movers-and-shakers…” (cf. Matt 5:20, 6:1-18)

He begins to challenge people’s understanding of what it means to be faithful to this covenant God has with them; he begins to tear down the false credibility that the religious movers-and-shakers have, begins to undermine their neatly-packaged theologies, and their shallow moralities.  

 

“…because they’re uncomfortable passages that talk about how God loves non-Israelites, too…” cf. Luke 4:20-30, Matt 21:28-46

He begins to highlight parts of scripture–passages and verses–that people just don’t look at too much or too deeply, “because they’re uncomfortable passages that talk about how God’s Kingdom is for non-Israelites, too, and how God doesn’t want people to do the very least they can do and still be in relationship with him.  

 

“His sinless life, unbent and untwisted and unaffected by the terrorizing world around him, serves as the antidote to death…” (cf. 2 Cor 5:16-21) 

And he gathers around him people who really believe that his “gospel” is real; that the Kingdom of God is being revealed through his life: it’s hard not to believe it if you’re been brought back to life, like Lazarus was, or healed from a lifetime of blindness, or been around while any of that’s happened; and he even empowers them to go and do the same stuff, and he willingly dies on their behalf.  Jesus loves them so much; And in his willing, loving, self-sacrifice he destroys the old way of being faithful to God.  His sinless life, unbent and untwisted and unaffected by the terrorizing world around him, serves as the antidote to death; it frees people from the terrors of the devil and the terrors and retributions of sin.  

 

“…and he opens up God’s covenant with Israel to everyone, a thing Israel was never able to do…” (Cf. Acts 28:17-31, Rom 10:4; 16:25-27)

But Jesus doesn’t stay dead.  He comes back to life; and he opens up God’s covenant with Israel to everyone, a thing Israel was never able to do. “Good News” for pretty much everyone in this room, right?  Is anyone here Jewish?  Paul calls this a mystery; something no Israelite during Jesus’ time ever expected.   

 

“…and being united to him, receive his own faithfulness as their own…” (cf. Col 2:1–3:4)

Those who believe “into” Jesus, who totally cast their lots with him, find themselves right with God; they are found in Jesus,  and being united to him receive his own faithfulness as their own.   

 

“…we…live as new creations, with our sins taken away and our lives empowered by the Spirit to obediently fulfill the call for love that lies at the heart of the law…” (Gal 5:16-26; 6:15, Romans 13:8-10) 

They–we Christians–live as new creations, with our sins taken away and our lives empowered by the Spirit to obediently fulfill the call for love that lies at the heart of the Law.  We look toward our future resurrection as the final declaration by God that we are justified before him; Paul calls it the “inheritance” that we’ll receive.  

 

And when we receive it, the gospel–God’s Kingdom–which Jesus declared as happening in the world will be finally totally consummated.  It will be awesome. In the meantime we wait for it, and we live our lives in light of it; because we standing justified before God because of our trust in Jesus’ life and his own faithfulness. 

 

So, what’s the gospel?  

It’s that the kingdom of God has arrived in part; but not fully.  God worked through Israel, and then through Jesus to make this kingdom known throughout the world.  Even even those outside Israel can be a part of it.  And Jesus is the lynchpin on which everything rests for the Christian; without him there is no declaration of the kingdom, there is no one faithful to God’s covenant, there is no Spirit given for us to live empowered and obedient lives before God, there is no resurrection, and no end of sin or death or the devil’s power of us.  But Jesus did live; and does live, and so the good news of God’s Kingdom still stands, pushing us from the past, from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and pulling us from the future, when all we’ll know is God’s reign throughout the world. 

 

Conclusion:

 

So when was the last time you thought of sharing the good news of God’s Kingdom with someone? When was the last time you thought of your life, your faith, as part of this great story that stretched from the beginning of humanity to it’s very end?  When was the last time you thought of God’s relationship with all of humanity, and all the work he’s gone through to figure out a way to get us back to him?  The gospel isn’t easy to share; over and over in the gospels and in Acts we see God’s people taking a lot of time and effort to explain what God has been up to in order to reign again, reign over death and sin, and draw us to himself.  Next week, we’ll talk about Jesus’ life; how he lived it and if that matters at all for how we live our own; but does the “good news” that he–and later Paul–shared of God’s Kingdom and work in the world matter for you?  Or is it old history, that is simply not that important?