series I m sharing the essentials of the New Testament and showing how they are relevant to our

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Jasmin Horton
5 years ago
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1 Page 1 of 9 Today is the second Sunday of a three week sermon series called Essentials. In this series I m sharing the essentials of the New Testament and showing how they are relevant to our lives in This is part of a Year of the Bible focus we re taking at Chain of Lakes this year. Let me share where we ve been and where we re going. I started this series last week by sharing an overview of the New Testament. I gave some images of the Bible that I don t think are helpful. Some people carry an image of the Bible as a rock. When we have a rock in our hand it s easy to throw it at people. This is what happens sometimes. People throw the Bible at others as a way to judge others and keep others in line. The Bible becomes a book of judgment. Another image that some people carry of the Bible is a script. People memorize scripts and spend time memorizing select Bible passages. Memory work can be healthy, but when we memorize passages without a sense of the context of the Bible or the overall storyline of the Bible then these passages lose their relevance. When the Bible is a script we might know it with our head, but it doesn t move into our heart. Some of the meanest people I know are very knowledgeable about the Bible. They could tell you many Bible passages, but it hasn t taken root. SLIDE An image of the Bible that I think is helpful is two Windows Media players on top of each other. I wasn t sure I really communicated this image well, so let me try again. The top media player shares the story of the Bible. It lasts for 66 minutes to correspond to the 66 books in the Bible. The first minute is the story of Genesis; the second the story of Exodus. The bottom media player is the story of each of our lives. Each year of our life corresponds to one minute. The first minute is when we were an infant; the 18 th minute is when we graduated from high school.

2 Page 2 of 9 The Bible becomes powerful when we find connections between the two Windows Media players when something in our story connects with the story of the Bible. For example take the 23 rd Psalm there s a part of the 23 rd Psalm that goes even though I walk through the shadow of death I fear no evil. When we experience the reality of that Psalm the Bible is powerful. For example when we go through a very hard time health issue or a family issue and we understand that we need not fear because God is always with us. Wow. That s powerful. Are you tracking me? Last week i went on to share a simple outline of the books of the New Testament and a chronology of the New Testament. If you misplaced that simple outline or chronology you can find it on our web site. That s where we ve been. Next week I m going to share a sermon on the letters. Today I m going to look at the gospels. I want to encourage you to get out this brochure that is in the bulletin. This week in the devotion I started a three week study on the gospel of Luke. I want to encourage all of us to read a chapter a day of Luke. Reading a chapter of Luke will take about five minutes; the devotion and pray takes about five minutes. I want to encourage us to find ten minutes a day to read through Luke. Luke has 24 chapters, so over about the next four weeks you have a chance to learn or re-learn this wonderful gospel. In the brochure you have a place for prayer requests. This week the Barna Group released a survey they did for the American Bible Society about the Bible. It s a fascinating survey. Look at this: SLIDE (each bullet point is one slide) 47% of American adults believe the Bible has too little influence in society today 55% read the Bible to be closer to God, down 9% (from 64%) in 2011

3 Page 3 of 9 79% believe they are knowledgeable about the Bible but 54% were unable to correctly identify the first five books of the Bible On average, 85% of U.S. households own a Bible; the average amount of Bibles per household is % of Americans read the Bible less than once a year or never while 33% read the Bible once a week or more 25% of people ages think the Bible has too much influence 21% of people ages don t feel excited about reading the Bible What I want to do in this series is help us get excited or more excited about the Scriptures. I don t think we can get excited unless we know the essentials. When I talk to people who know nothing about the Bible they share with me that the biggest obstacle to reading the Bible is they are lost in the story. They don t know the essentials. Today I m going to look at the essentials of the gospels. Let s start from the beginning. What is a gospel? The greek word for gospel is euangeilion. SLIDE It comes from the Old English word godspel, or godspiel. We can split these words up to say god or good and spel to mean news or tidings. It s good news. Remember the Broadway play Godspell. Good news. When we read the first four books of the New Testament we are reading good news. The purpose of each gospel is to share the good news according to the perspective of the writer. The good news, of course, is Jesus. It is as if they were saying. Come read my gospel and you can read this good news about Jesus. Each of the first four books of the Bible is called a gospel. But there is a difference between the gospel or the good news and the words that we read on the page that is called a gospel. The gospel is the message about Jesus; the gospels are the four books that share the message.

4 Page 4 of 9 SLIDE If you looked at the title page that preceded the first book in the New Testament we read this: The gospel according to Matthew. Often when we say a book of the Bible we just say the name of the book Matthew. Really this book is not Matthew. It s the gospel according to Matthew. This is Matthew s retelling of the gospel story. It s a little confusing. We have a gospel that shares the gospel. Some people have questioned, Why do we have to have four gospels and not just one gospel? It would have been wonderful if Jesus had written down his story and shared it with us. We don t have a gospel according to Jesus. What we have is one story and four versions of the story. I think the gospel is much richer with four versions. Let me tell about each of the gospels. I m going to share a little bit about the person who wrote the gospel and one characteristic of each gospel. There are many views about each of the writers of the gospels and when they wrote. I m going to share the traditional view today. Let s talk about the gospel according to Mark The traditional view is the author was John Mark. He traveled with Peter. John Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabus on Paul s first missionary journey. People think that John Mark wrote his gospel in Rome about the year 70. This is important as the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in the year 70 and many Christians were persecuted. This year is not long after the great fire in Rome when many Christians were persecuted by Nero. John Mark was writing during a time of persecution and destruction. Most people think that Mark was the first gospel written. It s the shortest gospel, only 16 chapters. It does not have the story of Jesus birth. John Mark started the gospel with Jesus as an adult.

5 Page 5 of 9 John Mark used the word immediately often in this gospel forty-two times. There was an urgency to what John Mark wrote. He wasn t messing around in what he shared. John Mark presented Jesus as a much different leader. Remember this was a time of persecution the Roman emperor Nero is persecuting Christians. To John Mark Jesus was much different than Nero. Jesus was the Messiah, but he was a suffering Messiah. His power came from his suffering. Three times in Mark Jesus made a prediction about himself that he would suffer, die and be raised. Let s look at the gospel according to Matthew. For thousands of years people thought that Matthew was written by Matthew the tax collector. You Might remember the story of Jesus calling Matthew or Levi. Matthew s life was changed when he met Jesus. These ancient traditions say that Matthew died as a martyr. In the last 100 years people have wondered if Matthew was really written by Matthew the tax collector. Whether you believe that Matthew was written by the tax collector or someone else, it s clear that the person who wrote this story was very committed to Jesus. In Matthew you ll notice the importance of the Old Testament. Often Matthew wrote about an event then said the event was a fulfillment of something that was predicted in the Old Testament. Fourteen times Matthew did this. Matthew shared the Sermon on the Mount three chapters that shared an ethical vision of the world that Jesus desired to see. This vision was important as Matthew wrote this gospel after the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in the year 70. It s as if Matthew was saying that people s faith did not have to rely on a building in Jerusalem. Instead our faith revolved around the teachings of this man Jesus, especially the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

6 Page 6 of 9 Matthew was the longest gospel 28 chapters. It contained the story of Jesus birth story. The last part of Matthew was the famous Great Commission go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let s look at the gospel according to Luke. Luke is my favorite gospel. If you ve never read a gospel I encourage you to read Luke. This is why I want to encourage us to read Luke over the next few weeks. I think Luke is the easiest gospel to understand. Luke was a physician who traveled with Paul. He never knew Jesus personally, but he had heard about Jesus through the stories of Paul. Luke also wrote Acts. Here is a tidbit of information. Luke wrote more chapters in the New Testament than any other person including Paul. Paul wrote the most books of the New Testament, but Luke wrote the most chapters. Luke wanted to write an orderly account of the story of Jesus. He started out his gospel by writing this: SLIDE Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. Luke was like a historian wanting to get the details right about the teachings and life of Jesus. Luke wrote a similar introduction to the books of Acts. Luke shared many stories of Jesus loving the outcasts. In Luke we will read the story of the Good Samaritan. We don t find this story in any other gospel. A Samaritan helped a Jewish man who was dying on the side of the road. In Luke we ll find the story of the Prodigal Son. A father welcomed back his son who had been away for years. Luke highlighted the role of women Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene. These women were significant and important

7 Page 7 of 9 They were disciples. And Luke wrote about the Kingdom of God. He shared that the key to living out the kingdom fo God was sacrificial love. You are going to love reading Luke over the next three weeks. The final gospel is the gospel according to John. John is different than the other three gospels. Matthew, Mark & Luke are called synoptic gospels which means similar. John is completely different. The traditional view is this gospel was written by John, the son of Zebedee one of the 12 apostles. Not everyone believes this. Some people belive that John was written by the beloved disciple, some people have even said that Lazarus wrote John. If you like poetry you ll like John. John is more poetic than the other gospels. It started out with eighteen verses that said In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God The Word of course was Jesus. There are fewer stories in John compared to the other gospels. And the stories that John included were not included in the other three. In John we ll find the story of the women at the well and the healing of the blind man, and the story of Jesus and Nichodemus which is not in the other gospels. John used many metaphors. Jesus was described as the bread of life in John 6. Jesus was described as a vine that nourished us as branches. He also was described as Living Water. If you enjoy poetry and metaphors you ll enjoy John. That is some basic info on the four gospels. The key question behind all of this is what different does it make. What difference does it make in my life in 2012 that I know the essentials of the gospels. My response is fairly simple. Knowing the gospels will help us fall in love with Jesus and it will help us fall in love with others. And it will help us negotiate the tricky parts of life.

8 Page 8 of 9 I have a four part mission statement for my own life. One part of that mission statement is love as Jesus loved. These four simple words come straight from the gospels. I pray over them every morning. I m sold out to loving as Jesus loved. I m willing to give my life to these four words. This isn t a sweet little prayer. This is the most important purpose of my life love as Jesus loved. It s hard. I had an example this week. As I was thinking about how to illustrate this idea of love as Jesus loved I walked out of my office and talked to Jennifer. She was working on the computer. She was upset. She had received an that was unfriendly. The person who had written this was pushing Jennifer s buttons. All of us have our buttons pushed all the time. Negotiating our life is negotiating what to do when our buttons are pushed. Jesus was very clear on how to respond when our buttons are pushed. Loved as Jesus loved. When our buttons are pushed it s much easier to spew all over cause pain to everyone who comes near us. Retaliate. Some of us don t respond the opposite way. When our buttons are pushed we avoid the problem. We hope it will go away. When Jennifer shared what was going on I told her don t send back an right away. Talk to the person in person. Jennifer is the type of person who doesn t need me to tell her that. But all of us when we get our buttons pushed can do things that we regret. That is why when we are immersed in the Gospels and in Jesus we can step out of patterns of behavior that are so destructive. Our world needs this love. They need a movement of people who are captured by the love of Jesus Christ and who want to share this love. That s why I came to start this new church in the north Metro. I believe that in a new church we have a unique opportunity to create a group

9 Page 9 of 9 of people who are captured by the love of Jesus. Christ. I didn t come here to build an organization. I came here to facilitate a movement. We re called to push back on anything that gets in the way of this love. This is why we learn the essentials of the gospels. We learn them to come into contact with a source that can change the world; we learn them to come into contact with a source that can give each of us satisfaction in the deep parts of our soul; we learn them to become the people God desires for us to be.

Today is the first Sunday of a three week sermon series called Essentials. Over the

Page 1 of 9 SLIDE Today is the first Sunday of a three week sermon series called Essentials. Over the next three weeks I m going to share the essentials of the New Testament and show how they apply to