A City-Wide Movement of the Gospel

So our new vision statement starts by saying that we and our family of church plants that we've planted over the past 10 years

Seek a citywide movement of the gospel

So that'll be our focus a little bit this morning and across the next few weeks

But it's certainly not our source. So no vision statement is the source from which we teach or preach

It's not our authority not at all, but it's written only because we we look across the Bible and see God calling us

Towards that mission and so a citywide movement of the gospel is nothing more for us here than revival language

We seek revival we long for it

We ask God for it a movement of the gospel in our city and so

We're simply saying in that that we hope

We pray that God would offer to this city the good news the pronouncement of what Jesus Christ has done that it's good news

Not good advice and we long to see God work

We think that there are about two percent of Edinburgh that our gospel believing followers of Jesus

That's about 20,000 people in the metro population of one million people in the city of Edinburgh plus students and

We long we seek we pray right now for a citywide movement of the gospel

Where two percent in our time and ministry and our generation becomes ten percent?

And two percent to ten percent would be an extra eighty thousand

Gospel believing people in the city of Edinburgh and so these are the kind of things we long for we pray for and this is what our vision statement

Is all about if you've read much on church history in Scotland and our city God has done this before

And so we're coming in this series to simply say Lord do it again

We ask that God would do it again and so what is a movement of the gospel?

What is a movement of the gospel? Let me give you a specific way to talk about it a movement of the gospel is an

intensification

intensification of

the ordinary work of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary ways the Holy Spirit loves to work the preaching of Jesus Christ and

the witness to Jesus out in the city they're talking to people about the gospel and

Sharing the vision that the light of Christ through compassionate deeds of mercy so it's an intensification of the normal work of

The Holy Spirit that's a movement of the gospel and it's you see it. You know that it's happening

When nominal Christians are converted people who have often set maybe in church for years and years and not yet believed

The truth about Jesus nominal Christians are converted

Sleepy Christians are reawakened awakened

The community outside the church is evangelized and from that there's a plethora of

Perichurch ministries and good works compassionate deeds of mercy that rise up from that

That's when you see a movement of the gospel. That's how people have typically defined a revival a gospel revival across the city

And so Martin Lloyd-Jones the great preacher in London in the 20th century

He says there is no subject of greater importance than revival

It should be the theme of our prayers the theme of our teachings the cry of our hearts and he says

I'm an 18th century man

and a

Revival a movement of the gospel is when God first comes down into the life of the church and does these things and

Then uses the church as an instrument in the city. He sends us out into the city to do this work

And it's all by the power of the Holy Spirit

And so we get this from places like Matthew 28

The the final thing Jesus told us as you're going out into Edinburgh make disciples

baptizing teaching them everything Jesus commanded

Then in Acts chapter 1 Jesus says you will all be my witnesses and

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Jerusalem and then to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth and Edinburgh is our little end of the earth that

God has given us and then in Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes down and thousands of people in the city of Jerusalem

Were cut to the heart and they came to Christ and became members of the church and we see this call for a citywide movement

This request that we make to God today all across the Bible

And so all we want to do today for a few minutes

Because we'll be talking about this throughout throughout the next couple of months and looking at the different elements that we've got written here on these cards

All we want to do today is ask from the scripture

What do we need most to seek a citywide movement of the gospel? What do we need most here today?

Christians to reach this task seek this task pursue this task and we learn about that many places in the Bible

But one of them is Luke 1941 the passage that for read from for us just a moment ago

Thomas Guthrie you might not know his name

But you have walked by his face many times if you go to church here more than once

Thomas Guthrie is the statue. He is

Right at the front door when you walk in St. Columbus. He was our founding pastor

1845 April this coming Easter will be a hundred and eighty years of St. Columbus history

And Thomas Guthrie in 1858

preached from right there

three sermons on Luke 1941 and

He translated that text Jesus beheld the city and he wept and

Like the period if you've read the Puritans at all if you've read people like Charles Spurgeon

One of the things you know is that in the old older world

They would take one verse and they would ring it dry

You know, they would take one verse and they would get every drop they could out of it for weeks

And I know you're thankful maybe that I'm not gonna do that but

Thomas did that for three weeks. He he rung this verse dry Luke 1941 and one of the things he said

And that those sermons have been printed in a book called the city it sends and sorrows

He he said that his ultimate prayer to this this community in 1858 was he said I pray that you will take up the heart of

Christ for Edinburgh and here we are again

170 60 years later and it's the same cry. It's the same longing and so let's think just about that today

What do we need most?

To seek a citywide movement of the gospel we need to take up the heart of Christ for Edinburgh that Christ's heart would become our heart

For this great city and so let's see that what we're gonna see that in three ways Jesus Christ beheld the city

Jesus Christ wept for the city and then let's ask how can we?

How can we?

So first Jesus we see here beheld the city. He looked at it

What did what did Jesus see when he looked out at the city here in Luke 19?

Most of you probably even if you're a tourist today, you've maybe been on Caughton Hill or

Arthur's seat or on the Castle Mounds or one of the seven hills of Edinburgh and you've

You've seen the city you've beheld the city

You've looked at it and it's glory its majesty its beauty all the people scurrying about and

Jesus saw the same thing is happening. He's coming down the backside of the Mount of Olives here

we we saw that in just the previous passage to this one and

He sees the city you can get a pretty good view of Jerusalem from there

so he sees the panorama and

He he he begins to weep

What is he seeing and if you back up if you have a Bible just a couple verses to verse 38 39 40

As he's coming down the backside of the Mount of Olives

The disciples as Jesus enters Jerusalem. They say blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord

so they pronounce that Jesus is the king coming into the city of David and

The Pharisees in verse 39 rebuke Jesus and say are you going to tell your followers not to say things like that and

They they think this is blasphemy what they've said about Jesus as he comes down from the Mount of Olives and then in verse 40

Jesus says if they don't say it then the stones are gonna cry out and say it the rocks are gonna say it

So he says if people aren't here to shout

Hosanna here comes the king into the city of David the rocks and the trees will start to sing it and

It's at that moment that we say that it's the text then turns and says Jesus looked at the city and he wept

what was he looking at and

He was certainly seeing the panorama like you're standing on the top of Colton Hill and seeing the greatness of Edinburgh

He saw the greatness of Jerusalem

But one of the things in context there is he's looking straight into the heart of the city of Jerusalem

And he sees a sampling of that heart through his interaction with the Pharisees who are saying

What the disciples have just said about you is blasphemy and they say how can how can you let your followers say?

Blessed is the king who's coming into the city of David in the name of the Lord and

JC Ryle he when he's writing on this passage he comments like this. He said

Jesus knew the character of the city. It's inhabitants very well

Their cruelty their self righteousness their stubbornness their obstinate

Prejudice against the truth their proud heart was not hidden from him

He knew only too well what they were gonna do to him a few days from then

Jesus looked out of the city and he saw the heart

More than the panorama and he wept for it

He knew he knew it was in the hearts of the people of the city and in verse verse 42

We read it. We learned a little bit more specifically of what that is. It says they do not know what would make for peace

So he knew that there were all sorts of people in Jerusalem at the time and in Edinburgh in

2024 that are walking and looking for peace in the midst of the holiness peace in the midst of turmoil peace in the midst of

Meaning that they have yet to find and Jesus is there the king standing in front of them

And he says they don't know what makes for peace

They refuse to look and in rile comments. He says they won't look at the evidence. They won't look at the God

Who's standing right in from their faces. We didn't read

Down to verse 43 and 44, but he goes on to say it goes on to say they did not know the one who had visited them

They did not know the time of their visitation. They didn't know who was standing right in front of them now

Cities across the Bible often have this reputation

Cities in the modern world often have this reputation and the reputation is that the rocks will cry out that

Jesus Christ is God before most of the people will

The reputation is that many people come to the city from

Maybe a rural setting to sometimes lose their faith

That's been the reputation of the city throughout human history

And so Thomas Guthrie in 1858 when he was teaching on this passage. He said

Great cities many have found to be great curses

That has been well more many

Let me say that again

It has been well more many an honest country lad and many an

Unsuspecting young woman with hopes of higher wages and opportunities of fortune

many a foot

That once lightly pressed upon the heather

Or bush the dewy grass that wearily trodden in darkness and guilt and sin upon these city pavements

Now that's old 19th century English, but what did he say he said many a young man once

Tramped across the heather in the Highlands and many an unsuspecting young woman

Thinking that they would come to the city and find their fortune and instead he says they came and lost their faith and

so many often

Times it has been that this has been the reputation of the great world cities that people come to be pulled away

from worship of the living God and that makes some sense because when you you know

When you pack a lot of people into a smaller space, what do you expect?

I know that if you've grown up in a rural setting and a suburban setting and a village setting and a hamlet

You'll know that there's a lot of messiness in towns a lot of messiness and sin and suburbs a lot of sin in

villages

there is and

When you bring all those sinners into smaller spaces

It just means that you get a lot more of the same a lot more sin densely packed into fewer square meters

Now let me ask you when you were

Walking through the city streets during the fringe

Did you feel like as the pavements got more and more crowded that the fruits of the spirit were coming more out of your heart or less?

Right when you pack so many people so many centers into such a small space you find that temptation

tends to increase that that

Being moved away from God tends to increase quite often throughout human history and that you know, this is the case in the Bible

so in the Bible

the Bible starts off with a very negative view of cities and

And Kane the very first city was built by Kane and that did not go well and lamek one of his sons

it got worse and worse all the way to

Babel in the scattering of the nations from the group the first great world city the Tower of Babel and remember Sodom and Gomorrah and

Nineveh and so many other places that the Bible doesn't have a positive view of cities at the beginning and

It seems to have the theme that it's the place where faith comes to die

Where the rocks will cry out before the people will

that Jesus Christ is King like that our God that the Christian God is the real God and

Let me just say what did Jesus do as?

He looked upon a city that largely rejected him and would reject him just a few days later. What did he do?

He wept he cried and so secondly

Jesus wept for the city and we don't have to take very long on this to see the point

But when you've got this higher density of people higher volumes of humans sin

So many people in Jerusalem in the first century in Edinburgh in our time rejecting the claims of Christianity

Jesus looked out and he wept and why and it is because

His heart that the heart of Jesus Christ is so big and

So wide that he longs for the entire city to come to him

He loves

every single person in this city and in the city of Jerusalem in the first century and he he longs for all of them to come to him

Now I think our natural instinct

Is to think that when Jesus looks out at a city looks out at a space and he sees so many people rejecting him

So many people living lives that are far apart from God

When he looks out a city like Edinburgh and he sees the French posters

Have you seen the French posters? He looks out you the instinct that we have is that he looks out in

disappointment with a frowny face and

Instead when you come to a passage like this, what do you see is that?

The these are tears of longing and compassion

That instead of looking out in disappointment he looks down and he weeps because he says I want these people to come to me I

Want them to find I want them to find hope I want them to find what makes for peace he says and

We read this all across the Gospels Matthew 23 I long to gather you children of Jerusalem

Like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

He talks about himself in this maternal image of gathering the people of the city like a mother hen under his wings and

Matthew 11 what does he say come to me come to me all you who are weary and you're burdened and I want to give you rest

I want to offer you rest and so you see all across the Gospels and in this moment this lamb like tenderness

For people who are looking for hope and peace and haven't yet found it

We are too you know we

Jesus what's quite often in the Gospels and we are too stoic for that for him, you know, we're too stoic

Do we look out at this city and have the compassion of Christ?

Lamb like tenderness for the people who are looking for hope and peace

What do we learn when we can move to the final thing?

Well, I think we learned simply this that Jesus Christ loves Edinburgh much more than we do

He loves Edinburgh much more than I do and boy that that's good news

That is isn't that good news. He loves Edinburgh much more than I love it love this great city and

Who you know think about who came to him in the Gospels? Who did he move towards?

And you read across the Gospels and you see he moved towards the physically impaired the disabled

He moved towards the sick. He moved towards the materially poor

He moved towards prostitutes the sexually scandalous in his day

He moved towards tax collectors who were friendless men of treachery. He moved towards tax collectors who were also short

Which is good. Isn't that good news?

Like Zacchaeus he

He moved towards the Pharisees he did he moved Nicodemus came to him and Joseph of Arimathea and he moved towards

Scholars who think they knew way too much to follow him

The scholars in our city who think they know way too much to follow him he moved towards them and

He moved towards women who were displaced in that particular culture and he they followed him and he honored them and he moved

Towards Samaritans and Jews and Greeks and Romans and every ethnicity that was represented in that time

And he moved towards children and boy

Did he say do not stop the children from coming to me the children of the city?

He gave a harsh warning do not do not stop the children from coming

He came to the city he longed for every type of person to gather them all that was his heart for them

And you see in that Jesus Christ instincts

Let me move on to the final point, but I

Think if you ask a question like when you read the Gospels would what is the best way to describe the instincts the heart of Jesus Christ?

To describe who he was lots of things we can say

Undoubtedly he was a brilliant theologian right he he was a better theologian

He knew God better than every single scholar across the street at New College and Edinburgh Theological Seminary

Right. He was a great scholar himself. He could unpack the Old Testament unlike any anybody, right?

He was an epic teacher

He could gather a crowd and teach better than anybody could much better than Plato or Aristotle ever knew

He was an unbelievable man of wisdom. Yes indeed

I've read Nietzsche and Plato and Aristotle and Foucault and all the guys and all the great philosophers men and women and

None of them had the wisdom of God in their hearts like Jesus Christ had and does have

but I think if you read across the Gospels the best way to get at the instinct the heart the

reality of who Jesus is for

The city of Edinburgh for us is to simply say Jesus Christ is the son of God who is a compassionate redeemer

Jesus a compassionate redeemer and

There has been no other religious leader in human history who you can say that about

Many many people have founded great movements, but nobody can be called the compassionate redeemer of

humanity except for this man

thirdly and finally

What do we need to seek a citywide movement of the gospel as we step into this vision of value series?

simple answer the same one that Guthrie gave in 1858 we need

Regular attenders members believers in Christ today. We need the heart of Jesus for Edinburgh

we need to take on the heart that Christ has for our city and

We can say today that only God can bring a movement of the gospel to Edinburgh we can

We could we pray we prevail it we prevail and prayer for this

But what the Bible does teaches that it's not a zero-sum game only God can bring this movement and

We can build the altar

Asking that God bring the fire down to our city

That's what we see across the scriptures and so let me just close we're gonna be talking about that for the next couple of months

Let me just close with two questions to finish and they are simply this why should we long to reach the city of Edinburgh?

Very briefly and then lastly, let me just ask where can we get the power for this? Where do we get the power?

Why should we long to reach the city of Edinburgh as a church and as a

Community of gospel churches across our city lots more to come on this

But I just want to quote to you from from Guthrie one more time remember that quote. He said great cities

Some have found to be great curses

many a young lad and

Young woman have come to the city thinking that they would have a great fortune and instead they've lost their faith

He writes in the 19th century and

Then I didn't finish the quote because this is what he says right after he says yet. I

bless God for this city

That's what he writes and he says the world would not be what it is

Without the great cities without Edinburgh the disciples were commanded to begin at Jerusalem

Paul and the book of Acts threw himself into the cities of the ancient world

Cities have been the lamps of light along the pathway of true religion

Cities have stood on the surface of the earth like the great breakwaters

Rolling back the tide of oppression

Cities have been the cradles of human liberty. They have been the radiating centers of almost every church reformation

And he says I have no sympathy with those who regard them as tumors of a disease

I bless God for this city. He writes

The Bible has a subversion story when it comes to cities and that subversion story is that in Genesis 11 the Tower of Babel

The great first world city the first great world city

I should say it was scattered because it was evil

So many sinners packed into such a tight space and God sent it out and when you come to Revelation 21

You see that what's what was once the city of man by the power of the gospel has now in Revelation 21 become the city of God

That God is now re-gathering the nations into a space to dwell together forever in eternity that God takes

What was broken a city and he flips it on it said through the gospel and he makes it into the city of God ultimately in Revelation chapter 21 and 22

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

One day the city the city of God will cry out like the rocks do

Blessed be the king who enters into Zion

Lots more to come on that. Let me finish with this. Where do we get the power?

Where are we gonna get the power?

It's very difficult to maintain love

for a city for people as

Sinners as Christians who are justified yet sinful and where are we gonna get that power?

180 more years we pray that God would use this church community long

After we're gone 180 more years 200 more years of using the free church and other gospel preaching churches in our city

To seek a citywide movement of the gospel, but let me close with this

We read here that Jesus Christ looked out upon Jerusalem and he wept I

Think in that moment one of the things you can say is that his heart?

Was so wrapped up with our hearts the hearts of humanity

It was like he tied his heart into a knot

With the human heart, you know, he became human

fully human and

When he did that he tied himself to us

he made himself human and

in the book of Hebrews we read about the fact that when

He became human his joy became wrapped up in our joy

So any possibility that his people human beings could have joy became completely wrapped up in his joy

And his joy can't became completely wrapped up and knotted with our joy

And you see the writer of Hebrews talk about that all across the book of Hebrews and when he cries here when he weeps

Tears of compassion tears of longing

Don't miss this that he is not crying for himself

He is not crying as he ponders the cross that he's about to face

That's not what he's crying about here. No when he looks at the city and weeps

He cries for the people he weeps for the people his compassion is poured out upon them

Because he wants them to experience the joy and the peace that he has in his own heart

and in order to do that

In order to do that the tears in this moment as he enters Jerusalem by Thursday

Will become the tears that he weeps in the Garden of Gethsemane

In the Garden of Gethsemane he shrieked he wept and in that moment his tears

His tears are for something else his tears are for the fact that he knows that his joy is so wrapped up with our joy

That if we would ever have joy and peace in our lives, he's got to be wrapped up in our misery

If we would ever experience what makes for peace as he puts it

He has to experience total unrest a total loss of all peace and so the tears that he offers on this moment for

Jerusalem for Edinburgh for us

Become the tears of knowing that he is about to step into the moment where he will cry out my God my God

Why have you forsaken me?

He came to be so wrapped up for your joy his joy tied into your joy that he got wrapped up into your misery

He wants you to have peace to such a degree that he was willing to lose all peace to go to hell for you

To go to hell for me to go to hell for the people of this city on the cross. I

think one of the ways to say it

This is not a perfect illustration. They never are

but

Some of you don't have to imagine this but imagine

having a desperately sick child and

I've had very I've had fairly sick kids and I've been in the hospital in hospital with my kids on several occasions

but never a

desperately sick child and

I think anybody in this room who has experienced something like that or

Has watched somebody else experience something like that knows and would say probably the same thing

You don't have to be a parent to say this you don't have to be a parent in this room today to feel this not at all if you are

next to the bed of a desperately sick child and

You look at them. I think one of the things probably in all of our hearts. We would say is I would rather it be me

Right you say I would take your place

I don't want this for you if I could suffer for you. I would right in Jesus Christ

He looks out in the city and he weeps. What is he? What is he thinking? What is he weeping the compassion?

How do you capture it?

He's looking out at what does he say I'll long to gather you like chicks like children under my wings

He's looking out and you saying I'd rather it be me. I

Would rather be the one to die. I would rather be the one to suffer

I want to take the misery that the justice you deserve into myself so that you could have the peace that I deserve

He wrapped himself up so much with us like that now listen friends Christians believers

Maybe if you're not a Christian day a skeptic or you're curious

Let me just say one thing

You might come to say you you know

I've made a shipwreck of my life and it is beyond repair. Let me say Jesus has you right where he wants you in that

He has a lamb like tenderness towards you. He he says to you today. I want to take your place. He did

But to the Christians of the believers today the members of this church as we think about the vision

He became what our city deserves so that so many people in our city could experience the city of God one day and

That means that to take on the heart of Christ for Edinburgh

If we're gonna do this if we're gonna take up the heart of Jesus for our city

We have to look at the heart of Christ for us

You've got to see it. You've got to experience it. You've got to taste it every day the heart of Christ for you

Is the only way you will ever have the power to have the heart of Christ for this great city

For a citywide movement of the gospel we pray may his instincts become our instincts

Let's pray father we ask

For the instincts of Christ the heart of Christ and we thank you for the heart of Jesus for us at the cross

So we just plead today Lord that you would change us transform us bring somebody today

To faith in Jesus for the first time we ask and

Send us all out strengthened in the mission you've given us for a citywide movement of the gospel

Not for the glory of St. Columbus or any church or ourselves

No matter what you do with these institutions Lord. We just simply want to want we want to long

For the souls of so many like Jesus does and so we pray for this heart in Christ's name. Amen