Easter: You are Worth Fighting For!

We watched this recently, and, while I thought the movie as a whole was 'good' this scene was 'great.'  God ministered to me through it; helping me to experience the brokenness of humanity, and the power of the gospel.

United to God

There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prizes which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?

Quality

Here is just a thought...

Eternal life is not at all about quantity of life (ie years). If that were the case, then everyone has eternal life. (Doesn't the Scriptures teach that all will be resurrected, some to heaven, some to hell?)

Eternal life is about quality...

Eternal life is not something that will begin after we die, and last 'forever,' but rather a type of life that is being offered to us now. A type of life that is so solid and real, that it cannot be effected by anything, even death.

The Good News

I have tried to point to a problem within the evangelical understanding of salvation; this problem stems from an inadequate understanding of how to read the Bible. We have inherited the lenses of our age* (reducing all knowledge to its smallest parts; dividing disciplines into an ever greater diversity of study; assuming that the whole is the sum of its parts) and we wear these lenses when we read our Bibles. It is, quite simply, inappropriate to think that we can pick and choose which words of Paul to use to define our understanding of certain ideas, or to do the same thing to the words of Jesus, or to do the same thing to the Bible as a whole.

This fragmented approach to the Bible, as well as the person and teaching of Jesus, is what has led us to understand the gospel in such a way as to actually exclude the teaching of Jesus from the message. Our hermeneutic forces us to ignore the many passages that refer to Jesus “preaching the gospel” because we do not believe Jesus preached the gospel. We believe the gospel is that “Jesus died on a cross to get evil people into heaven;” how then could Jesus preach such a message if He had yet to die on the cross? This forces us to ignore many passages of the four Gospels, and to do great violence to other passages as we continue our hermeneutical and exegetical gyrations.

Here comes the fun part…

We have spent a post and a half talking about what isn’t the gospel, now let us begin to describe what is the Gospel of Jesus!

Jesus message was one of the present availability of God’s presence; from his inaugural address (Luke 4) to his description of salvation as “living water welling up from within,” from his life of compassion and power to his death and resurrection, everything about Jesus words and deeds screams out “God is here and present, available in a way that He never was before!” Jesus very words, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” could be seen as the summation of the gospel message; “God is available to you here and now, your black heart is no barrier to his love, turn from yourself and your ways, give yourself to Him and His ways, step into His Presence, His Authority, His Rule, His Realm of Influence!”

The Gospel

God exists!

God is a being so pure and real that He is a unity, and yet so loving and alive that He is a plurality. God is a community of divine love and selfless submission; the Father who is, the Son who reflects His glory, and the Spirit who proceeds forth; and all seeking the glory of the other, a glorious dance.

God is Beautiful! He is unlike anything else in holiness and righteousness, beauty and power, justice and mercy, energy and creativity! His very being screams out life! His words drip with unimagined realities, his breath is the sweetness of life itself, his activity is the world made – unmade – and remade in an instant…

He is the source and fountain of all goodness, He is the source of all existence, He simply IS!

God made man in the very image of Himself. Man was created to be with God, to be loved and known by Him, and to love and know Him. Man was created to be like God and to take care of the creation that God spoke into being. Man was the regent who ruled in the king’s stead; given charge to rule and bear responsibility as God’s representative.

God is heartbroken over man’s desertion of his place in creation. God is sick with grief over the decision to forsake Him. We have chosen to abandon our responsibility to creation, but even more, we have cast aside the imago dei, the very imprint of our creator, His DNA, and have thrust ourselves into the maelstrom of abyss. We exist apart from He who provides existence and so share in the part of that which does not exist; we are the “once-men” who were and no longer are. And God weeps…

…into this world steps Jesus. He lived a life that revealed who God is, He healed the sick, chastised the self-righteous, protected the helpless, raised the dead, proclaimed freedom to those in bondage, declared love and compassion upon those who suffered, brought justice and mercy to all who would receive it; and for this we destroyed Him.

God was willing to risk everything, and pay any cost, to redeem all things. By way of the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus (who was the Christ, the Son of God) all things have been reconciled to God, things spiritual and physical, heavenly and earthly. In the person of Jesus is restoration of God’s image to mankind, and the created order put right as man steps into his rightful role as regent over the earth. In Jesus can be found the restoration of friendship with God, as He once walked in fellowship with mankind, so does He desire to do today.

Jesus offers us this restoration, a renewed fellowship with the God of All Things, a restoration of His image, a re-commissioned responsibility over the created order. By rejecting ourselves and the death we had become, and by accepting His life and choosing to live it, we can regain what had been lost. By simply trusting Jesus enough to receive what He desires to give us, we can once again experience life on God’s terms, free from the chains we have shackled ourselves with. By way of simply accepting what Jesus said as true to the point where we are willing to act upon it, we can share in the very nature of God (which was destined to us); namely hope, righteousness, peace, love, power, faith, eternity, truth, justice, abundance, beauty, infinity, purpose, and mercy.

Acts 1-4

I read Acts 1-4 out of the message the other day. It was really amazing to me because I hadn't read it out of the message before. It was amazing it made things more real for me. Peter was nuts for the Lord. It was really neat to read about him in the first few chapters of Acts. He wasn't the guy you read about in the book of Matthew. This was Peter, the Rock that Jesus was going to build his church on. And he was doing a great Job. I think he preached like 4-5 times since the book started. He took EVERY opportunity no joke. The book starts and right off the bat the 11 disciples are in a prayer meeting and they are trying to determine who will replace Judas. Then they decide on a guy named Mathias. Then Pentecost happens and people are wonder what is happening because all this crazy stuff is going on and people are speaking in tongues, and some people understand them and they are like what's going on, then Peter steps up and he's like, "Hey this is what's happening, this is what Jesus said would happen, and the prophets of old!" Then he tells them about Jesus, and 3,000 people come to know the Lord that day and Acts 2:42-47 happens.

41That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. 42They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. 43Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! 44And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. 45They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.
46They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, 47as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

Hello! This book is dang amazing! Then Peter and the disciples were in their way to the temple and they heal this guy and he gives his life to the Lord! They all go into the temple and the Bible says, " Peter saw that he had a congregation and so he started to preach." 12When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people:

Then he started to tell people about Jesus, and eventually he and the disciples get arrested. The priests were trying to stop them but the word says that during that night the news of Jesus had spread to about 5,000 people, and they gave their lives to the Lord! Then they go to the trial and Peter tells the lead dudes there about Jesus too and they say, "Well maybe this is a fad that will die off, and if it really is God then who are we to stop him?"

Peter rocked the house he didn't think twice he just took every opportunity to tell people about Jesus! It was amazing! I was praying while I read this and I was like God forgive me for all the opportunities that I didn't take! Forgive me for not being willing to get uncomfortable for the sake of these peoples souls! I want to take every opportunity! People everyday die without knowing Jesus! I can do something about it though! I can take every opportunity and tell people the good news that was told to me! Somebody had to get outside of their comfort zone to tell me about Jesus! I want to get super uncomfortable so people can know Jesus! And I know that the more I do it the less uncomfortable I will be! Maybe telling people about Jesus would become like second nature to me! That would be a glorious day!

"I Never Knew You..."

Many today have taken the following passage (Romans 10:9-10) to mean, “acknowledge Jesus death on a cross, acknowledge that you are a sinner, ask Jesus to make His home in your heart, and you will be forgiven of your sins so that you can enter heaven after your physical death.”

If the gospel is to be understood as such, what are we to make of the following words of Jesus:

“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”

…what else could possibly be meant by these words than what is the plain and stated meaning of the words!

I guess as evangelicals committed to both the gospel of Jesus, and the authority of Scripture we must come to a new and deeper understanding of just what the gospel is. This passage and others simply do not allow for the atomized, formulaic, and self-focused gospel that has been the mainstay of the Church during my lifetime.

Let us begin by saying that I do not want to denigrate anyone who came to faith in Jesus by way of the “American Gospel” (as this is how I came to faith), nor anyone who has led others to faith in this way (I have also led others to faith in this way); simply to clarify the gospel. Sincere men and women have been describing the gospel in terms of “heaven when you die,” with nothing but heartfelt passion for Jesus and a firm commitment to serve him here on earth. I applaud their devotion to Jesus, and point to their very devotion as yet more reason to rethink the common language of the American Gospel. The compulsion that they feel to live for Jesus this side of heaven, is reason to doubt the message they preach that Jesus only concern is what happens after they die.