Jesus and the Sea: A Narratological Understanding of Evil and it's Evaporation (Inside Shalom)

The Bible teaches that evil is a terrible and horrible thing, yet its time in Gods world is temporary. It is defeated by Jesus, Romans 1:4, and it is doomed to evaporation, "the sea was no more".

Grace and peace.

Jesus and the Sea

Inside Shalom is the ministry and blog site of our own John Howell.

Join the Revolution...

With a domineering sense of entitlement, we often confuse our wants with needs. We camouflage greed with being relevant and materialism with the fruits of our labor. Self-restraint is viewed as weakness and overindulgence is often accepted and celebrated and pursued.

Ironically, our pursuit wealth and comfort has actually made us quite poor and full of stress. Stressed, overly busy, often worried, and at painfully at odds with the people we should love, joy, peace and rest seem to be perpetually fleeting.

The teachings of Jesus, love your neighbor as yourself, forgive and bless your enemies, it is better to give than to receive, etc. often seems upside down or backwards. But, given our state of anxiety and discontentment, perhaps we’re are the ones upside down.

Come. Let us sit at the feet of The Great Rabbi and listen as He invites us into a renewed way of living. We call it the Kingdom of God and, yes, it is Gospel (good news) to our soul!

May we embrace the invitation to come into the Kingdom through Jesus the Messiah; and may we join the revolution in daring to believe that the seemingly upside-down ways of Christ are actually right side up.

Hope to see you Sunday as we continue in our series on The Sermon on the Mount - UPSIDE DOWN IS RIGHT SIDE UP. All are welcome so bring a friend!

Being the Kingdom in the Here + Now - Upside Down is Right Side Up

“The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed. It is the nearest thing to a manifesto that he ever uttered, for it is his own description of what he wanted his followers to be and to do.” 

~ John Stott

Judging by the crowds and various groups of people gathered to listen to the words of The Great Rabbi, The Sermon on the Mount was most likely delivered at the height of Jesus’ popularity (Matt. 3:25-4:1). Jesus forgoes his normal teaching style, the parables, and teaches his disciples, as well as the listening crowd, in a more straightforward manner. It is an extreme sermon for it calls us to an extreme life, i.e., a Kingdom of Heaven kind of life. One author writes, “at times we will find ourselves wishing it were less clear” because its words are so convicting. As we study the sermon we will realize that these instructions lie at the heart of our Savior’s message. If we are to understand Jesus and his agenda of the Kingdom of Heaven, we must begin to make sense of this sermon.

Now, the sermon as a whole is the outworking of what Jesus called The Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew, the author of this particular Gospel, has just informed us, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.” Matthew is now elaborating on exactly what the gospel (good news) of the Kingdom was.

The first thing to realize about Jesus’ Kingdom talk is that it was a new way of describing God’s redemptive activities. Outside of John the Baptist proclaiming, “the kingdom of heaven is near” the phrase is not found in the Old Testament or in any of the intertestamental writings. But yet Jesus spoke about it all the time. The kingdom of heaven this, the kingdom of God that…he talked about it constantly.

Why? What was he doing?

The Kingdom The word he was using for “kingdom” could also be translated or understood as dominion and royal rule, kind of like an empire. The Jews and Greeks gathered to listen to Jesus knew a lot about empires. The were smack-dab in the middle of the one of the most successful empires known to man – the Roman Empire. And the Jews knew even more about empire, particularly oppressive empires. Their history is marked with one oppressive empire after the other – the Ancient Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Seleucids, and then the Romans. Embedded deep in Hebrew expectations was a coming a Messiah who would finally and ultimately put an end to oppressive empires and establish the Davidic Kingdom promised long ago (2 Sam. 7; Psalm 89 and 132).

Jesus was deliberately drawing their attention to those messianic promises made centuries before as he was preaching “the gospel of the kingdom.” However, Jesus went about teaching the Kingdom in a very different way that almost all of them expected. Rather than leading them into yet another violent revolt or war to establish empire/kingdom, Jesus was teaching them a better, more powerful way. God’s way of establishing his eternal Kingdom here on earth was going to go in a completely against-the-grain and unexpected route.

Just what was that unexpected, counter-cultural way of ushering in God’s Kingdom into this world? Well, that’s just what Jesus’ sermon was all about. It was a sermon defining and describing Kingdom living in the here and now.

“Blessed” – The Way Life Should be Lived The sermon begins with the famous Beatitudes. Each beginning with the word μακάριος (makarios /mak·ar·ee·os/ adj.) which is translated “Blessed.” Sometimes this word is understood to simply mean “happy.” But Jesus is speaking about much more than our feelings. He is not stating how people who live like this may feel, but what God thinks of them and declares them to be: they are “blessed.” The priestly blessing given to Aaron in Numbers 6 may best represent what Jesus is talking about when he refers to the “poor in spirit” as being blessed: “…may the LORD bless thee, and keep thee; may the LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; and may the LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” The Beatitudes begin with a gospel (good news) to the spiritually bankrupt – those who thought they were divinely rejected are now proclaimed to be divinely accepted!

So, much more than a temporary or circumstantial feeling of happiness, to be “blessed” is a state of well-being and divine blessing that already belongs to those living like this (i.e., recipients of the kingdom of heaven, the inheritors of the earth, the comforted, the satisfied, those who receive mercy and see God, etc…). John Stott writes, “Just as The Beatitudes describe every Christian (at least in the ideal), so the eight blessings are given to every Christian . . . The eight qualities together constitute the responsibilities, and the eight blessings the privileges, of being a citizen of God’s kingdom.” It is much more than a mental state but a condition of a blessed life – KINGDOM LIFE – where God is with you and within you.

Being the Kingdom in the Here and Now! The Beatitudes begin and end with the phrase “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus was explaining “the kingdom” by describing what the participants of “the kingdom” are and do. The rest of the sermon continue on those lines.

We are to seek and strive to be the “kingdom of heaven” here on earth, albeit imperfectly, from now until Jesus returns! 

May the words of The Great Rabbi guide us to that end!

Shalom, Human Flourishing, + the Evangel

This Sunday (February 23, 2014), we'll be talking about the hebrew concept of shalom and how The Evangel of Jesus Christ as to serve + renew humanity. As recipients of this wonderful Gospel (i.e., Good News) we too are called (or you could say, restored into) a lifestyle of shalom working. This is what Paul meant in Ephesians 2:10 - "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Here's a video of Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, author and professor of Philosophical Theology Emeritus at Yale University, answering a question on the nature of the Hebrew concept of Shalom and how that affects justice, art, education, etc. as part of human flourishing.

It's simple, yet insightful. (Plus, you got love a guy who blows his nose into a hankie while speaking to a large crowd. Very honey-badger-like. Got to love it.)

Click picture to see the video.

Also, listen to some of Wolterstorff other answers to questions about justice and righteousness here - https://vimeo.com/channels/291350.

Why We Gather...

And let us not neglect our meeting together… Hebrews 10:25

REASONS WE GATHER:

• to corporately experience and ponder the beauty of God - "Religious people find God useful. Christians find God beautiful."
• to remember that there is a KING and it's not me.
• to remember grace is free, but not cheap.
• to remember that the worship service doesn't begin at church on Sunday morning; it's everyday + everywhere.
• to experience the counter-cultural truth – “it is better to give that to receive” (Acts 20:35).
• to “encourage one another daily…so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Heb. 3:13).
• to remember that our lives do not center around us.
• to remember that HE is superior to the many fruitless joys + fleeting thrills found in this broken world.
• because when two or three gather is HIS name, HE is there is a special way.
• to spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Heb 10:24).
• to worship the ONE who will one day set all things right (Acts 17:30-31).
• to be reminded of what our KING wants - valiant devotion + courageous love.
• to center our lives on the transformational Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.
• to equip the saints for works of service and to "live sent" (Eph. 4:11).
• to see and experience God’s truth the way it was intended to be – i.e., in community.
• to be reminded that nothing is ever truly ours unless it is given away (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
• to remember that life is a journey and to honestly examine our current course of life.  Are we headed in the right direction?
• to remember that we are God’s blood-bought and redeemed people, created for “good works” (Eph. 2:10).
• to be reminded that we weren't made for this world (the way it is); we were made for another world (how the world was and one day will be).
• to center our lives on what's most important.
• to remember and experience the fact that we are eternally accepted and loved.
• to be reminded that repentance, not perfectionism, is the sure sign of the Gospel taking root in one's life.
• to be encouraged to let go of our failures and fears and to grab hold of the forgiveness and healing found in GOSPEL.

Join us at the Sunday's Gathering.
"All are welcome."

#whywegather

Kingdom Community: Disciple Making and Curse Reversing

"From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand". ~ Matthew 4:17 (NASV)

Being raised in a Baptist home as the son of a preacher I can say that I have no idea how many church services and sermons I have witnessed and been a part of, how many "alter calls" I have heard or how often it has been pressed on me to know that Jesus died for my sins. In fact every year for my birthday my grandmother sends me a five dollar bill and a tract containing Romans Road... "just in case".

Yet of all the sermons and preaching, I can honestly say that growing up I never heard anything about the Kingdom of God. As an adult I find this amazing, especially since the phrases, "Kingdom of God", "Kingdom of Heaven", and "the Kingdom" appear so many times in the Gospels. I am even more amazed that I have grown up hearing so much about the "Gospel" yet very little about the "Kingdom".

The majority of the Evangelical church culture is under the opinion that the Gospel is "the good news". But this begs the question, "the good news of what?". The term Gospel is the word εὐαγγέλιον, meaning "good news". We have already spent some time discussing the context of the word, Gospel. The Roman machine was an empire of domination conquering a fourth of the Earth's population. The Empire assured her conquered oppressed peoples that they were better off as Romans, that now they would have the "Good News" of the Roman Peace. Rome would provide justice and usher in a new era for humanity better than anything before in history.

Jesus and the early Christians would take the term Gospel and apply it to God's covenant and mission. The good news was not found in Rome, but in Jesus. Jesus was Lord, Cesar was not.

Jesus movement begins and stays as Kingdom movement.

The above text, Matthew 4:17 is very telling about what Jesus thought and taught. Notice the text does not say "this is one of the things Jesus began to teach...", or "for a little while Jesus taught...". No. "From that time" refers to Jesus' public movement. Jesus went into the wilderness and succeeded in defeating the Satan (Matt. 4:1-11) and upon returning hears the news that John the Baptist, who was himself leading a revolution movement never before seen in Israel, has been arrested. According to Matthew, it is then that Jesus begins his public ministry. So from the time he goes public he preaches that the Kingdom of God is here, and this is the foundational, essential message of his movement all the way to the cross and beyond.

The Kingdom community, making disciples.

Matthew then tells that the proclamation of Kingdom by Jesus is involved with the action of recruiting and making people disciples. After telling of the message of Jesus' public movement, Peter and Andrew are called and come follow Jesus. Matthew then again reads in verse 23 that "Jesus was going around Galilee (with his disciples) preaching the gospel of Kingdom and healing every kind of sickness and illness".

The Kingdom coming was the true good news and this was evident from the fact that wherever the Kingdom Community went, disease and sickness were no more. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God was here and proved that this was the Gospel by demonstrating the power of God's Kingdom. God's Kingdom was now at work reversing the curses of sin and death that had been hanging over the planet since humanities disobedience and expulsion from the garden in Genesis 3.

Gospel according to who?

A startling conclusion I have come to from reading the Gospels is that what most Christians say the Gospel is is something very foreign to the historical gospel demonstrated in the New Testament works with Gospel as their title. Jesus was born and he did die, yes. But like every other human, his life was more than a beginning and end.

What did Jesus dedicate himself to?

What was his vision and mission?

If one uses the new Testament, and particularly the Gospels, to answer these questions one will find a Good News containing more than individual salvation and forgiveness, more than atonement and a promised entry into heaven upon one's death, more than what most Churches in our culture preach it is. The Gospel is the Good News of the Kingdom, that it has come in Jesus and that we are apart of its glorious victory.

The Cross is the great climax of history where Jesus claimed victory over sin and death and secured for himself a people. Not a people for a heavenly afterlife however. Through his death Jesus exodused a people out of darkness so that they could continue his movement of bringing light to a broken world until He returns bringing a consummated Kingdom of God to earth - where "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

We, his eternally blood-bought people, are bought and purchased for the good works of the kingdom (Ephesians 2:10). It is our prayer that Grace Church of Dunedin will be a people conscious of our identity as the community of the Kingdom, a community bringing the good news to Dunedin and surrounding communities.

Mark Driscoll Defines the Kingdom of God

At its simplest, the kingdom of God is the result of God's mission to rescue and renew his sin-marred creation. The kingdom of God is about Jesus our king establishing his rule and reign over all creation, defeating the human and angelic evil powers, bringing order to all, enacting justice, and being worshiped as Lord. Tragically, there are many erroneous views of the kingdom that misrepresent the glories of God's eternal kingdom. The kingdom is not like the cartoonish inanity that shows heaven as a white cloud upon which we will sit wearing diapers and playing harps with wings far too small to carry us anywhere fun. The kingdom is not the naive dream of liberalism, that with more education and time sin and its effects will be so eradicated from the earth that utopia will dawn. The kingdom is not the deceptive dream of Christless spirituality where all learn to nurture the spark of divinity within themselves and live out their true good self in harmony. The kingdom is not the political dream that if we simply get the right leaders in office and defeat all the bad guys good will rule the earth. The kingdom is both a journey and a destination, both a rescue operation in this broken world and a perfect outcome in the new earth to come, both already started and not yet finished.

From Doctrine, Chapter 13. Kingdom: God Reigns 

Get into Heaven Before You Die!

Dallas Willard's book, The Divine Conspiracy, has been an extremely helpful and formative book for me.  Willard paints a beautiful picture of Kingdom of God and what Kingdom-life, in the here and now, looks like. 

"When Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “on earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer, we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence...Within his overarching dominion, God has created us and has given each of us, like him, a range of will – beginning from our minds and bodies and extending outward.... His intent is for us to learn to mesh our kingdom with the kingdoms of others. Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But if we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rules with God’s. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule, of God." ~ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Here's a clip from John Ortberg interview with  Dallas Willard at last year's Catalyst West about what the church is getting wrong today. In a nutshell, Willard says we're getting the Gospel wrong.  Many people view the message of Christianity is getting into heaven when you die; Willard argues that Christianity is about getting into heaven before we die...

“Any new testament scholar would tell you, I believe, “What did Jesus preach?” They would say the Kingdom of God.  That’s not quite right, because what He preached was, the availability of the Kingdom of God; to everyone, where ever they were, and whoever they were. And so he announces this, and by His own presence makes it available.  And once you get that idea, you read the Gospel and say, ‘Hey that’s what’s happening....The important thing to understand is the Kingdom of God, is God in action.  That happens to turn out to be the same thing as Grace. So Grace now becomes a part of our lives. And we experience it with us, by faith.  We have to learn how to do this, because we’re usually in charge of what’s happening, and we have to learn how to turn loose of that, and how to live with God being in charge.”  ~ Dallas Willard

Are we getting Jesus right?

"Perhaps even 'his own people' - this time not the Jewish people of the first century, but the would-be Christian people of the Western world - have not been ready to recognize Jesus himself. We want a 'religious' leader, not a king! We want someone to save our souls, not rule our world! Or, if we want a king, someone to take charge of our world, what we want is someone to implement the policies we already embrace, just as Jesus contemporaries did. But if Christians don't get Jesus right, what chance is there that other people will bother much with him?" 

~ NT Wright, Simply Jesus

Two Gospels

"This is the man, this is him, whom you so often hear promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified, who will make a Golden Age again in the fields where Saturn once reigned, and extend the empire beyond the Libyans and the Indians" - Aeneid book VI , Virgil

This month is always a busy and hectic one: Gift giving, family visiting, party throwing, overtime working (especially for the hospitality industry), the holiday season is for many the craziest time of the year. This is a big reason we wish to remind the community that though we are bombarded by everything our culture has made this time into, it is also a great time to reflect on what this time really is, the season of Advent. And the Advent means the gospel has come in the kingdom movement of Jesus.

Pastor Heath has done a masterful job with the current sermon series, "Thy Kingdom Come" and after relistening to and reflecting on the many things and challenges made the past few Sundays I wanted to drop a brief encouragement to all, the Gospel of Jesus is truly really authentically genuinely good news.

The above quote would have the Roman readers of the time believing that the Emperor was the son of god and that his reign was one that would usher in a golden age. The reality however is that one fifth of the worlds population was under the rule of Rome and most of those held in an oppressive grip of domination, there was no golden age for them, no good news to be found in the rule of the supposed "son of the Deified".

Many today would have the world believe that the Gospel (good news) is to be found in the right education or political solution, in having enough money or in societal standing. Like the fallen Roman empire of old those who hear this version of gospel find no true hope in this message either, no real good news.

 The gospel of Jesus is that he has come and he is victorious. Jesus is Lord which means that Caesar  as any of the persons, leaders or "solutions" of our day, is not.

This season take time to remember what really matters and why we are really here, to build a kingdom that cannot fail, a kingdom of Shalom, the Kingdom of God. In Jesus true justice finds a standing in our world, beauty again flourishes, evil is bade to slither away once and for all. The hope, peace, joy and victory of the Kingdom of God inaugurated in the movement of Jesus is good news.

Let us rejoice and be glad!

Give the Gift of Church Planting!

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
~ Jesus, Acts 20:35

Merry Christmas to all the friends, supporters, and encouragers of Grace Church of Dunedin! 

Christmas is always a fun (and busy!) time of the year - family, friends, Christmas songs, claymation, Rudolph, stockings, eggnog, shopping, Adam Sandler's Hanukkah songs, mistletoe, Christmas lights, sparkling grape juice, etc.  In addition to all those jolly activities, the times of corporate worship during Advent Season are always some of my most favorite.

A lot of Christians talk about keeping Christ in Christmas and come up with great ways to remember the advent of our Lord; but have you ever considered how Christmas and church planting go together?  Yes, as Christians, Christmas/Advent is a special/sacred time to remember the gift of Christ; but it should also be a time of remembering why he came! 

What is “the reason for the season?”

In our current teaching series, Thy Kingdom Come, we've been learning about the Kingdom of God, why Christ came and is coming again, and what it means to live in his kingdom in the here and now.  According to Isaiah 9:6-7, Christ came in order to bring the Kingdom of God to earth; and with that Kingdom comes peace, redemption, and life as it should be (i.e., shalom). Verse 7 concludes with stamp of God's zealous promise to do it.  In the New Testament we learn that God's plan to "do it" is the through the expansion of the church, i.e., church planting (Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:7-8; 15:41; 16:5; Matthew 16:18)!

Give the gift of church planting - give to the cause of the kingdom!

So, this Christmas season, may I encourage you to consider giving the gift of church planting.  There is still much Kingdom work to do; and the Gospel transforms lives and communities primarily through local churches.  As one leading missiologist, C. Peter Wagner writes, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven."

Of course, you can give to Grace Church, because we are still a new church plant!  We still have a lot of goals that can only get done through additional and continual income.  But, as you know, we eagerly desire to come along side and help other young and new church plants, laboring intently to see lives redeemed and communities renewed.  We have given money and resources away to several new plants and organization during the past 10 months; the last recipient (of $1200.00) was Unveiled Church in New Port Richey.  (We are excited about what God is doing there!  Please pray for them!)

So, prayerfully consider if there's anything extra you can do this holiday season.  There's much Kingdom work to do!  As you are probably well aware, there are 3 Ways to Give to Grace Church.  Remember, every dollar helps, no gift is too small to make a difference in building the Kingdom!

On behalf of the other Grace Church elders, James Gleichowski and Steve Lee, we wish you and your family a most blessed Christmas! We also hope and pray that your partnership in building the Kingdom through church planting will mirror the redemptive love of our Savior who went to where the people were, cared for them with compassion, and spoke to them the good news of the kingdom.

Thank you for praying for and laboring with Grace Church!

grace + peace,
Heath


P.S. In order to receive your 2012 tax-deduction, your end of the year gift needs to be in by January 31, 2012.

For more on giving to Grace Church and questions about our budgets, please email James@GraceChurchofDunedin.com.