The Good News Jesus Preached (Part 2) Sunday, February 18, 2018 Series: Have You Heard the Good News? Scripture: Mark 1:1-15 (pg. 1635) Theme: What marks a person in the KoG? A couple days ago I got in the mail 2 parts I had ordered for my Porter Cable belt sander Except it was the wrong 2 parts wasn t even close. I had ordered 2 cork shoes that look like this And I got one metal part that looked like a turkey thermometer with a nose ring attached, and one very large, flat stainless steel washer Both were labeled Bostitch something or other. I called, and the friendly man asked me if there was a label with a barcode on the package I said, Yes, and he asked me to read the number underneath & I did. Hmmm, he said, and after a few seconds of silence said, Well that is the code for your Porter Cable cork shoes. Are you sure that s not what you got? No, I answered, and then said, Each package has a second label inside the plastic that says the name of the part, and then I read him the part names. Another, Hmmm, followed by more silence. Then, I don t know what those parts are. That s not the barcode for those parts. More silence and then he said, I don t think I can help you. -2- According to the UPC on your package, you got the right part. And I m looking at our shipping records and it shows we sent you the right part. So. Well, this did not bring out the best pastoral side of me. We went back and forth a bit, with me trying to convince him that no matter what the UPC label said on the outside, what was on the inside was all wrong. And the good news is, we resolved it: I agreed to send the unwanted parts back, packages unopened He promised to try again in sending the right parts, which he did here it is Although I have no idea if the barcode on the outside means turkey thermometer or cork shoe On the inside, it was right, and that s all I cared about. Now, this whole encounter reminded me of what many people believe is the Gospel the Good News of Jesus. There s a bumper sticker that says, Christians aren t perfect, just forgiven, Which is true enough we are forgiven and we are not perfect but is that it? Is that the Good News? To be saved, many people believe, means we get a barcode that means, Forgiven by Death of Jesus on the Cross slapped over our hearts and w/out any concern for what s actually inside the label gets us into heaven when we die that s the Good News.
-3- And it s an odd thing, what our tribe has done to the Gospel this is Jesus, who one time said, I ve come here, doing all that I m doing, so that you can have life abundant, joy-filled, overflowing life. But we have reduced that to, You can be forgiven of your sins so you can go to heaven when you die. Thankfully, that is not the Gospel Jesus preached. So, I want to take you to the first words out of the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark We read this last week, when we unpacked the Gospel according to Jesus, which is: The announcement that the Kingdom of God is now within your reach, and you can live in it if you want to. But we re going to read the same passage again, because there are some really important ideas we didn t get to talk about Mark 1:1-15, pg. 1635, SLIDES ========================= Now I told you last week that our word, Gospel means Good News So the Gospel is both good And it s news that is, it isn t advice & not How to. It s news and news is an announcement about an event that has happened And the only thing you can do with news is to respond, and hopefully to respond the right way, right? -4- Now the good news that is announced by Jesus is that in him, the Kingdom of God is now here and it is within your reach And you can live in it if you want to. Now, what we did not talk about last week is, What is the right response to this good news? But Jesus did he tells us: 2 reactions Do you see what they are? Our Bibles say, (1) Repent of your sins and (2) believe the good news. Now, in truth, I must tell you, our church Bibles have added the phrase, of your sins in the original language of the Bible, it just says, Repent and believe the Good news. Now, not all English translations have added that phrase, of your sins And I really, really wish ours wouldn t have. Let me show you why If you compare our English word, Repent with the words used in the Bible you ll find they actually mean different things and this has messed us up. [SLIDE] If you look up the word repent in the dictionary, you ll discover it means something like, to express remorse about one s sin; regret. Now, if you think about it that is sin-focused.
-5- Our word repent is about an emotion of sorrow and maybe shame and brokenness connected to my sin. Now, in the Old Testament Hebrew, there is a word that is usually translated into English as Repent, and it s the word, Shuv(b) [SLIDE] This is the most famous word of all the Jewish prophets and it means, Return, specifically return to our God. It means, Leave the alternatives behind. Separate yourself from the false and empty gods and return to our God. In the New Testament, there s a Greek word that is usually translated into English as repent it is the word used here: metanoio [SLIDE KEEP ON] And it means to change your thinking to do an about face, to turn around and think and feel a new way. Now, do you see the difference between the words used in the Bible and our English word? The Bible s words are not sin-focused The do not encourage us to wallow in bad feelings about our sin In fact, they encourage us to actually turn away from it. Now, obviously, anyone with a conscience will experience regret and remorse and sorrow for the foolish, stupid and hurtful things we ve done -6- But while our word encourages us to make that the focus & kind of wallow in it The Bible s words, both in the Old & New Testament encourage us to turn around from that What we are turning to is the focus in the Bible While our word encourages us to focus on what we are turning from. It s almost 2 entirely different responses to the Good News, isn t it? [OFF] This is so important, I want to show you something: In Mark s account of Jesus, the very 1 st story Mark tells us is about the baptism of Jesus, and this is worth looking at if you still have your Bibles open In v. 4, John the Baptist begins preaching and baptizing people and what he is doing is called a Baptism of repentance and in part this was means of acknowledging you had sins needing to be forgiven and you needed to turn to God. Got that? John is engaging in a baptism of repentance. Now along comes Jesus, v. 9, and the very 1 st thing he does in Mark s account is to be baptized by John. Now, in part because of the way we understand repentance, Bible scholars & teachers really struggle with this because the testimony of all of the Gospel writers and best friends of Jesus is that Jesus had nothing to repent from
-7- He didn t have dark secrets He was never caught in a scandal Never had to delete a Tweet from his feed He didn t have to apologize for his sin. In fact, at least according to the testimony of eyewitnesses to his trial at the end, even Pilate said, after examining Jesus, I can t find anything wrong he did. There s no fault in him. Which was saying far more than Pilate really knew he was saying. So, we struggle with the baptism of Jesus and we typically say, Obviously it was not a baptism of repentance for Jesus; he did it just to identify with the scores of people who were also being baptized and to kind of place himself right in the middle of the stream of events that God is unfolding. And while I m sure that s true enough a baptism of repentance, Biblically speaking Is not only about what we are turning from It is also about what we are turning to And Jesus was, very deliberately, saying, Father, I am turning to you. I choose you. In fact, in Mark s account, the very next event we have labeled the temptation of Jesus -8- Jesus spends some very difficult and trying moments in the wilderness facing temptations And when we re tempted we don t necessarily have to fail in order to say, God, I m turning to you. We don t always to turn to God from failure So Jesus didn t turn to God from failure, but he did, on purpose, turn to his Father. When a couple gets married you could use this same language to say, that a husband turns to a woman to be his wife, and she to him That does not mean we turn from another I am not necessarily walking away from some other woman to choose this one Although it does mean others will be excluded But it just means, I choose you. And that s what Jesus did Father, I am yours. And what s the Father s response? Well, it is this extraordinarily tender moment when the Father can hardly contain himself He tears open the tissue-thin barrier between this world and Heaven s world just long enough to say, Oh my son. My own dear son. How proud I am of you. You bring me such joy. Which gives new meaning, I think, to maybe the most famous short story Jesus ever told about a father and his two sons
-9- Luke 15 we call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son Remember? The younger son collects his inheritance before his dad is even dead Runs off and squanders his money... He ends up friendless & broke & feeding pigs Which is the lowest of the low for a Jewish boy. [SLIDE] In the story, as Jesus tells it, there is a moment of repentance for this young man He is sitting in the pig slop in other words, he is literally wallowing in his sin In telling the story, Jesus says, He came to his senses That s repentance he thinks a new way his thoughts return to his father s farm and he realizes, [SLIDE] Even my father s servants are treated better than this, I will return home and ask to be forgiven and although I can t be his son, maybe he ll give me a job. [OFF] Now, do you see, repentance isn t focusing on the pig slop he already knows his life is a mess Repentance is that moment when a person says, I m going home. Just for a moment, if you know this story, you know there is an older son the obedient child, who is not at all happy when his brother comes home -10- This older brother and I am not making this up, you can read the story yourself this older brother is the real reason Jesus tells the story in the first place Older boy thinks sinners need more wallowing time So imagine older boy meets the younger brother coming home before dad sees him Older boy marches out the farm lane arms on hips scowl on his face smacks his brother upside the head and says, Do you know what you did to dad? Do you know how much of an idiot you ve been? Do you know I had to do the work of 2 to keep this farm? Look at you you smell like pig poop. You re a mess. Sleep in the barn. Can I just ask, Would that make anyone want to come home? What makes this boy come home? The knowledge of how good it was at home. [SLIDE] How different was the Father s greeting Jesus said, While the son was still a long way off, the father saw him: That s my son! And the father pulled his robes up around his ankles and he ran and ran and ran and before his boy could even stammer out his apology his father put his fingers on his boy s lips and said, Shhhh. You re home. And I am so glad. [SLIDE]
-11- So, Jesus said, Friends, I have really good news: The kingdom of God is now within your grasp. You can live in it if you want. So, repent. Which is not an invitation to wallow in pig slop. It is an invitation to quit your wallowing, and to come home. If God s Kingdom is here, if that s the news announced, Jesus is saying, the right response to this news is to come home to turn to it. And I think that s why people were drawn to Jesus. Because I think they understood, Wow, that really is good news. [OFF] Now, part 2: Believe this good news. Now, we ll talk more about this over the next few weeks because I think you know that belief, or faith, or trust, is a really big deal in the Kingdom of God So much so, we actually sometimes use the word faith to describe the whole package As in, This is my faith: I m a Christian. What s your faith? But here s what Jesus is after: If the Good News is an announcement that the Kingdom of God is here and it s within your reach To repent means I turn to it And to believe means I base my life on it. And this means, you & I are invited to come to know the Father in this Kingdom the same way Jesus did. -12- Jesus knew, for example, the tender care of his father. He knew that God is the most joyful being in the universe. He knew that the Father never loves us without also liking us. He knew that to be w/ the Father means this universe is a perfectly safe place to be. That s how Jesus lived: Confident, joyful, never worried, always at peace Because of what he believed about his Father. So, at times, Jesus described what he knew about life in the Kingdom of his Father and he said to people, You can know this, too. You can live this way. So, for example he spent an day on a hillside near the Sea of Galilee talking to people about life in the Kingdom of his Father and we ve labeled it in our Bibles the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5-7 In the middle of that talk, Jesus talks about why he never worried or was anxious, and he was inviting us to the same kind of living He said this: [2 SLIDES] If you decide for God, living a life in the Kingdom of my Father, it follows that you don t fuss about what s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.
-13- [2] Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. [KEEP ON] Jesus, in Matthew 6:25, 26 Donna has a favorite bird that she calls, My bird as in, I saw my bird in the parkway today. It s the blue heron I think technically they re called, The Little Blue Heron as compared to the Great Blue Heron They re making a comeback in the Lehigh Valley you see quite a few Sometimes when we go for a walk, Donna will say, Let s go look for my bird. She loves spotting this pre-historic-looking birds slowly, deliberately, walking along the shallows of ponds and streams. Last summer, I had gone up to our farm to set up tents for what was going to be the last 2 days of our youth stay-athome mission trip From our farm dips down into a low little hollow where there is a little pond and there is often a heron or two fishing for frogs at this pond. So I was setting up the tent, on my knees and I poked my head out the door and I looked down the road- And there is this great, pterodactyl-like bird, 10 off the ground, flying right up the middle of the road, straight at me -14- His great wings, flapping slowly he flew right up the road, slowly climbing the hill And where the road takes a sharp right turn, he flew straight into our yard And then, now just 5 above the ground, he flew in slow motion right in front of me, not 5 yards away I saw his great gold, unblinking eye I heard the motion of the whooshing wind, moved by those awesome wings I could see flutter of individual gray-blue feathers. I could see this long, brownish legs and black toes tucked tight under his blue heron heiney It was breathtaking I got on the phone and called Donna, You ll never guess what I just saw I saw your bird fly right in front of my face. And the Father in this Kingdom, I m sure smiled and chuckled, Noooo, I am so glad you liked it, but it s my bird. He s mine, and Oh how I love that bird. He is marvelous, isn t he? And Jesus once said, Of how much more worth to the Father are you? Oh, how he loves and cares for you. Do you think Jesus meant it? I think he actually did. Jesus lived this way: Look at the birds, free and unfettered. Careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than the greatest of the blue herons. [OFF]
-15- This is how Jesus lived Because of what he came to know about the Father in this Kingdom. And his good news invitation is, You can live this way, too. Turn your life over to this King. Believe the good news. Trust the Father in this kingdom. Who wouldn t want to live in a kingdom like that?