The Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (20)

“The Kingdom of God?”
Mark 1:15

1. I want to talk about something today that is one of the most important things “to get” in the Bible. In fact, if we don’t “get” this, I don’t think we’ll “get” the Bible or Jesus or the gospel or the church like God intends us to.

2. “getting” what I’m going to talk about today will also help us “get” how we are to relate to culture & politics & war & peace & even the environment.

3. what I want us to “get” is what Jesus talked about all the time. Well over 100 times in the gospels. In fact, Jesus talked about what I want us “to get” more than he talked about anything else.

4. and what I want us “to get” & what Jesus wants us “to get” is something that most of us, I believe, don’t “get.” I’m not even sure if I “get” it.

5. what I want us to “get” is the kingdom of God. Or better yet, that’s what I want “to get” us.

6. now that I’ve got you totally confused, let’s jump into Mark’s gospel.

how Jesus starts
1. Jesus has been baptized by his cousin John. His Father has affirmed him before he’s even entered the work/ministry force – You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. He’s spends 40 days in the desert, sent by the Holy Spirit but tempted by Satan. He’s receives word that his cousin John has been locked up in prison.

2. and then the carpenter Jesus breaks 30 yrs of silence with these words (Have you ever thought about that? 30 years of quiet. How did Jesus keep from teaching? Healing?), “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” Jesus’ short 3 years of ministry is both launched & framed by these words.

the time has come
1. Jesus spoke Aramaic. Mark wrote down the words of Jesus in Greek as the Holy Spirit guided him. The Greek language has 2 words for time – chronos & karios. Chronos means chronological time, time in a line, the time by which we date things. On November 24 th 2006 the Beavers beat the Ducks 30-28. Mark didn’t use chronos.

2. he used kairos. Kairos time is a critical juncture of time. It’s not about the timeline; it’s about what happened on the timeline. Kairos in the Bible is when God does something significant.

3. Jesus says the time has come. This is a moment in time that will forever change time. Jesus says, God is now going to act in a new & decisive way. God has been silent for 400 years, since the time of the prophet Malachi. Hold on to your seats, says Jesus, that is about to change.

the kingdom of God is near
1. this kingdom is a God thing NOT a human thing. This kingdom comes NOT from Israel or the Romans or the Greeks. BUT from God.

2. this kingdom drawing near in Jesus is absolutely & unmistakably God’s.

3. he’s the Sovereign King. He rules. He reigns.

the kingdom of God is near
1. kingdom is an Old Testament word. God’s kingdom starts in Genesis. What God was up to with Abraham Isaac & Jacob; with Samuel, David & Solomon; with Isaiah, Jeremiah & Hosea, God is now up to again in Jesus.

2. in Jesus his Son God is invading human history & setting up his kingdom. What he promises in the Old Testament he now fulfills in Jesus.

3. the kingdom of God can be tricky to explain & understand. Basically, it is the reign & rule of God in the world IN CONTRAST to the reign of earthly powers – Jewish, Roman & Greek or American, North Korean & Iraqi.

4. don’t think of a spatial or geographical kingdom at this time (that’s eventually to come). Think dynamic reality. The Sovereign God intervenes in human affairs to achieve his unfading purposes.

5. there are 2 aspects as to the timing of this kingdom:
§ the kingdom of God has already come in Jesus & in his followers = there is a partial fulfillment within history
§ the kingdom of God has not yet fully come in Jesus & his followers = consummation at the end of the age

6. as followers of Jesus we live in tension. Jesus has already come & inaugurated his kingdom. The kingdom shows up as love, salvation, healing, deliverance, compassion, a new ethic, a concern for the poor & downtrodden, etc. But this kingdom has not yet fully come. The world is still turned against God & we have to work out our salvation in this world.

repent
1. how were Jesus’ followers to enter the kingdom of God? How are we?

2. the operative word is repent. Here’s how Brian McLaren explains repentance in his book, The Secret Message of Jesus:

The first move is to hear from the heart & to think deeply about what you hear. It means rethinking everything in light of (Jesus’ message). It means that you begin looking at every facet of your life again in this new light – from the way you think about God to the way you treat your spouse, from your political affiliations to your spending habits, from what makes you angry to what makes you happy. It involves a deep sense that you may be wrong, wrong about so much, along with the sincere desire to realign around what is good & true.

3. to repent is to realign ourselves with God & his kingdom as seen & experienced in the person & work of Jesus. Repent is a word full of hope & new beginnings.

4. in the early days of Imago Dei (church in Portland) when the church was a small group of people, Rick McKinley (pastor) called the church to start meeting every Wednesday night to pray for Portland & repent. Writes Rick in his book, Beautiful Mess:

Things got honest real fast – I hate my neighbor; I don’t think I love you, God; I want to care but don’t; I’m afraid to follow you completely. Week after week we prayed for Portland & told God the truth about our own hearts. For 6 months we prayed. Gradually, something happened. Something in us was turning. For the first time we were experiencing an authentic “want to.” With God’s help, we were beginning to embark on a new way of being & of seeing the world. A new way like socks & cigarettes, for example. Christian & Joy and others in our group started passing out socks & cigarettes to the street youth of Portland. 100s of kids living on the street were confronted with the kingdom through socks & cigarettes. The socks & cigarettes met needs, spoke their language, announced that someone cared, and showed them that in the kingdom of God, no one is a throwaway.

5. what’s the Canby version of socks & cigarettes? I wonder what would happen if we began to meet once a week to pray for our community & repent & to ask God to show us how to bring his kingdom to bear upon Canby?

believe
1. repenting is followed by believing. Saying “yes” to Jesus & his kingdom & his teaching & his call upon our lives. Even a “Yes, I believe; help me in my unbelief” will do.

2. repent & believe are 2 sides of the same coin. They go together. You can’t truly believe until you repent. Repentance opens you up to belief.

3. both repent & believe are commands. There’s urgency to kingdom matters. It’s life or death.

4. Jesus didn’t come suggesting that people consider the kingdom of his Father. He didn’t throw it out as a good idea. He came strongly urging you & me & all of us to repent & believe. The stakes are high BUT we often treat them like they are low or non-existent.

5. one morning this past week I was listened to Colin Cowherd (host of a talk radio show on ESPN) interview Pete Carroll (USC football coach). Cowherd asked Carroll what he was like in during the season, how hard he worked, how much sleep he got, etc. Pete Carroll went into a rave about his commitment to coaching USC football. He multi-tasks. He works hard. He’s sleep deprived. Early mornings. Late nights. He’s got one thing on his mind – football.

6. and I thought of the kingdom of God & Jesus’ words – repent & believe. According to Jesus, the kingdom should have our full attention, devotion & commitment. What if we matched Pete Carroll’s obsession with football with our devotion to the kingdom of God? This church, this community, this state, parts of this world would never be the same again.

7. when Jesus says repent & believe, he means to say, lay it all out on the line!

the good news
1. repent & believe lead us on a trail to the good news – the gospel. What is the good news?
§ Creation – God has created our world & pronounced it good
§ Fall – sin in the form of self-centeredness & rebellion against God has entered our world & broken our relationship with God
§ Redemption – God has entered our world in the person of his Son to redeem us, save us, take care of the “sin” problem by dying on the cross in our place
§ Restoration – in Jesus & his present & eternal kingdom the whole creation is going to be restored to its original purity, beauty & innocence.

2. the good news of salvation includes not just souls but bodies & the whole created universe! As evangelicals we’ve got the soul part down, sometimes get the body part, but seldom the whole created universe part. We have made salvation too individualistic at the expense of community & creation (but that is another sermon).

church and kingdom: how do they relate to each other?
1. the kingdom of God transcends the church. The kingdom of God was here before the church & will still be here after the church is gone.

2. you can have the kingdom w/out the church BUT you can’t have the church w/out the kingdom.

3. the church is not an end in itself. It’s a means to an end. The end is the kingdom of God.

4. I find help in the way Brian McLaren talks about the church & the kingdom in his book A New Kind of Christian. The church exists to be a catalyst for the kingdom. It exists for the benefit of the kingdom. The church is to grow numerically & spiritually but that growth matters so the church can become more & more catalytic for the kingdom of God, for the good of the world. The church grows so the world can receive & enter God’s kingdom.

5. Jesus founded the church as an instrument of his kingdom in the world. The church exists to advance the kingdom more & more into the world. That’s why all church work should be kingdom work.