Growing Into Jesus Life

Growing Into Jesus’ Life

Living His Life Community

“Growing into Jesus’ Life”

Chapter 7

The Gospel Jesus Preached

Key Verse

Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God…“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Mark 1:15

Introduction: The Culture

In the 2016 election cycle one of the Trump campaign’s spokespersons, in talking about the veracity of campaign statements, said, “one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people that say facts are facts—they're not really facts. Everybody has a way—it's kind of like looking at ratings, or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.”The comment lit up social media with a predictable round of disbelief.

The comment, though, has a long history in Western culture, and was first penned by Friedrich Nietzsche about 125 years ago, “Against [empiricism], which halts at [observable] phenomena—‘There are only facts’—I would say, no, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact ‘in itself’: perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing. Everything is subjective…”

Nietzsche was advocating a universe without moral facts, a universe without a God.Many today, would agree, regardless of our political persuasion.The Babylon Bee picked up on this in a recent post with a humorous headline, “Culture In Which All Truth Is Relative Suddenly Concerned About Fake News.”

Into this kind of confusion God sends his Son.From his birth to his first sermon to the mission of his Apostles, his arrival is called “Good News”, “Gospel”.It is not called “Good Interpretations”, nor “Good Wishes”, nor “Good Advice”… but “Good News”!It is the declaration of a decisive event that has happened in human history.This is a critical point about the Gospel.

As we take time to dig into the Gospel in a fresh way over these next chapters, we begin with Jesus’ first sermon.

The Gospel

This is Jesus’ first sermon. It is short and memorable and he calls it ‘gospel’. This word was familiar in the Roman culture. To the Romans, ‘Gospel’ is some history-shaping event that was wonderful, that would bring you joy, that would change everything. It could be the coronation of a great king, or a victory in a decisive war.A nation would be fighting for its freedom and win a great battle, and the runners would be sent out to proclaim the ‘gospel’, the ‘good news’: “We won! We won!We are saved!! You are free!You are safe!”A gospel is an event that happens in history that is so wonderful it changes your life.

Most of us think of the Christian faith as primarily good advice. It is not.It is primarily good news.There is a big difference between the two:

Good Advice says- “Do something worthwhile with your life.”

Good News says-“Something truly worthwhile has been done

for your life!”

Good Advice says- “Make something great happen.”

Good News says- “Something great has already happened!”

Every religion in the world tries to meet the crisis of human suffering and sin - with good advice about how to live.Christianity meets us in our suffering and sin with good news.

The Bible does have its share of advice – the very best advice - on what we do and how we live – but it is always advice that is linked to an announcement – not to tell us how to find God… but of a God who has come to find us.

Do you find yourself infected by the common cultural idea that ‘there are no facts’, that everything is a matter of ‘interpretation’?Where do you see this most often around you? Do you see this inside you as well?

The Bible features both Gospel and Law, or ‘good news’ and ‘good advice’ as I have phrased them in this chapter.What is the relationship between them?Another way of asking this is “What is the relationship between what God has done in Christ, and what you are to do?”Which comes first? Which is decisive? Which motivates the other?

Tim Keller says that Christians need the gospel every bit as much as unbelievers need the gospel.What might he mean by that? How could you keep the ‘good news’ of the Kingdom more central to your life?

The Announcement

The Gospel Jesus preached featured an announcement and then a demand.

The announcement is, ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’.Most people are not aware that the Kingdom of God was the most frequent theme of Jesus’ teaching ministry.Let’s dig into this.We are modern people and we don’t have kings anymore, but you know what a kingdom is – your kingdom is the place where what you say goes, where you are in charge.Everyone has an instinct – actually a God-given instinct – to be in charge.God made us to share his rule.God’s charge to Adam and to Eve was to have ‘dominion’ over the created order.Human beings were made to reign.We were created for kingdom.

But our instinct is ‘bent’, as CS Lewis would say.We are ‘curved in on ourselves’, as St Augustine and Martin Luther would say.So our kingdoms regularly become terrible places to live, hard places to live.And everyone wants to build his or her own kingdom.We can give our lives to these kind of kingdom projects – it could be political influence or a network of friends, or a team or a family or a business or a hobby – its defining characteristic is it is a place where ‘what you say goes’. This is why marital unity is so difficult to achieve, and why two-year-olds are such a proverb. Everyone wants to be in charge!

My young grand-daughter is a delightful, and quite self-confident little girl named Olivia.When she was just 2 years old, her Dad was giving her a needed lesson on deferring to her parents, drawing from his 8 years in the military.He taught her a little ‘call and response’ instruction.With a warm smile, he would say, ‘Who is in charge?’And she would give a little salute and respond, “You are, Sir!”It was so cute.Just months later, at a time when she seemed to have forgotten, he was rehearsing this with her in a gentle way with a serious hint.“Olivia, who’s in charge?”She looked back at him with a tear in her eye, and a quiver in her voice and said, “I in charge, too.”Well, I laughed and laughed.I love to quote Augustine and CS Lewis – but little St Olivia will do quite well.She is just like the rest of us.She has an instinct to take charge.

My little granddaughter thinks she is ready to reign. No, not yet. Bent things must be straightened, broken things must be mended, dead things must be raised.This will take strong medicine, and one bright day, may God’s grace prevail, she will enter the joy of her master and hear his words: “Well done faithful servant.You have been faithful over little.I will set you over much.”Until then, she is ‘in training for reigning’. Wise parents will raise their little boys and girls with that hope in sight.

The prophets promised that the day would come when strong medicine would be given.God himself would intervene. ‘His kingdom would come,’ his ‘will would be done’, when heaven itself would invade and overshadow our world.On that day, they said, the King himself would arrive; he would mend all things, heal all things, restore all things.Lions and lambs would lie down together.Enemies would be reconciled.Captives would be set free.Sins would be forgiven and ‘taken away’.Trees would raise their branches in praise.The nations would stream to the Lord.Stars would sing!That is the promise of the prophets.That is the background of Jesus’ first sermon:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

The Demand

The announcement was followed by a demand.The demand was to ‘repent and believe’ the good news.The demands of the gospel are massive, and often seem beyond our reach.So it is critical to see the order:announcement first, demand second.Good news first, then comes good advice.We are not told to repent and believe and then the Kingdom will be ushered in; that is not the way God does it.The order is the arrival of the King and his ‘mend all, heal all, restore all’ kingdom.Here it comes, Jesus says.So ‘Get ready.Turn around.Face into it.’FD Bruner phrases it, “Here comes the whole new world of God. Move!”

It is like a great landslide coming down the mountain towards you, like a tsunami rising out of the ocean towards you as you stand on the beach.There is no getting out of the way.It is alive, and surging, bursting with life and mercy, it will carry you where you could not go!Get ready!!Repent!Open your heart.Let everything go that must go.Here he comes!!

Jesus’ words of command carried with them breathtaking authority.God’s words do that; they are pregnant with his power.When Jesus says, ‘Be healed’, a man lame from birth rises up and walks. When he tells two sets of brothers to “Follow me”, they leave their nets and their family business and follow him. When he tells Satan to ‘be gone’, Satan leaves.Jesus’ words have that kind of weight.

You hear him say ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ and all of a sudden you know that your little kingdom project is a sham, just a cheap imitation, and the real kingdom is coming right at you and the king himself is speaking to you – and you let go what you must let go. Jim Elliot, missionary martyr to Ecuador last century said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”So you believe and you repent, and it is sheer gain!

There is nothing like the gospel in the whole world.At the same time, it gives everything and it demands everything – but even what it demands it gives.It is like the treasure buried in the field, like the pearl of great price.

Fr Alexander Schmemann describes it as catching sight of God’s great bridal chamber, with its breathtaking beauty and divine depth. You realize that this is what you have always longed for, always sought.But, he writes, “It is when the man sees the bridal chamber adorned that he realizes he has no garment for entering it.” And you repent in tears – and find to your great joy that even the new garments, the new life is given you in the gospel.So you throw all the old garments out.It is sheer, blessed gain.

Before your small group, read the teaching above on ‘The Announcement” and “The Demand” slowly and meditatively.Make notes on what stands out to you personally.

ReadGen 1:26-28. God has created us and destined us to rule.What are some of the ways this shows up in normal human life?

Describe your own ‘kingdom’, that place where ‘what you say goes’…How do you feel when people intrude into your kingdom?

Describe Christ’s Kingdom, that place where what he says goes.In what way is it ‘at hand’?In what way is it still to come?

Has ‘repent and believe’ in your life been become an ongoing way of life?Do you find your repentance growing deeper over the years?Is your faith getting stronger?How so?

For Further Reflection:

Read slowly (perhaps one per day?) through Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom in Matthew 13.Ponder and reflect upon them.Let them soak in until they speak.