The Whole Gospel

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We exist to awaken this generation to new life in Christ.

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Well, we're in a series called This Is Good.

And uh 2020, we need some good news, don't we?

In light of all the bad news.

And so we're talking about some really good news.

We started a few weeks ago saying this is good, the heart of God is good to welcome you home.

Last week we looked at this is good, the healing pool, that there's no such thing as a magic healing pool.

Only Jesus will satisfy and bring healing and wholeness.

And this morning we're gonna look at this is good, the whole gospel.

And I want to ask this question today.

What makes Jesus good news today?

Like what actually makes him really good news in this moment when we're going through a global pandemic?

When our nation has their eyes open to racial injustice and inequality, when when we're looking at the fires that are burning and displacing people and economic uncertainty.

Like in the middle of all that, Ryan, are you telling me that this is still good?

What is it that makes Jesus such good news today?

Well, today I want to tell you about the whole gospel.

See, I I would like to suggest that perhaps part of the reason why we struggle with the connection of how Jesus is such good news today, and not just way back when, is when we're thinking about the gospel, many of us have just learned half of it.

An important half, to be sure.

A vital half, absolutely, but only half of the gospel.

So let me unpack for you what I'm calling the whole gospel.

If you got your Bibles, would you open up to Luke chapter 4, verse 14?

Luke 4:14

Luke chapter 4, verse 14.

Luke 4:14

When Jesus began his earthly ministry, he actually heads to his hometown, he's showing up, and he says something that is so bold about his purpose on this planet, that is so staggering that it echoes through to today and is staggeringly good news for every single person on this planet, even now.

We pick it up.

Verse 14.

It says this Then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.

Well, this isn't where we're going today, but I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on this.

You're looking at, well, where did Jesus return from?

Well, he returned from 40 days in the wilderness.

He returned from 40 days of temptation.

It was the preparation before he stepped out in ministry, and he returned from that.

And here's just a little observation, and this is for someone.

Somebody needs to hear this today.

Is Jesus' wilderness experience was preparation for ministry?

Now let me say it again.

The wilderness was preparation, not punishment.

And for some, you're in the wilderness right now.

Globally, we feel like we're in the wilderness.

And could it be that God wants to use that as preparation in your life for ministry and impact, that you would have the outward stripped away and you would engage, and the Spirit of God would begin to use you in ways you never dreamed or imagined, but would you shift your understanding of the wilderness?

All right, that's not even where we're going.

Let's get down to it.

He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

I mean, he's he's starting to catch momentum.

Now, he went to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

This is his hometown, and on the Sabbath day, he was in went to the into the synagogue as was his custom.

Now, he stood up to read, and now this is what would happen is you would stand to read God's word uh in the synagogue, and then you would sit down to teach God's word.

And so he stood up to read, it says, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

Now, now it says this unrolling it, he found the place where it is written.

So he is looking for this.

The spirit of the Lord is on me.

We already know he's walking in fresh power of the Spirit.

Why?

Because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

That's our word we've been talking about.

Uangelian, good news, news that causes joy, that makes the heart sweet.

They just go like, oh, thank God for that.

He anointed me to proclaim good news to a people who had only been hearing bad news, who had only been receiving bad news, to a people who didn't just have a 20-20 year, they've had a 20-20 life.

Well, what kind of good news is it?

He sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and then notice this to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

And Isaiah, his prophecy here, he's referring to what in Israel, when they were set up, is known as the year of Jubilee, the year of rejoicing.

It's it's came every 50 years.

And every 50 years set up in the nation of Israel, every slave was freed, every debt was canceled, and every ancestral property returned.

In fact, they had a system upon which there could be no systemic oppression or poverty.

Every 50 years, it was like, whoa! It was a party, it was a celebration, it was liberation.

And Jesus is reading this in this moment, and then it says, and he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, sat down.

The eyes of everyone in the synagogue are fastened on him.

Okay, so think of this.

He sits down, he just reads it, sits down, and they're like, Okay, this is the big preacher.

This this is the guy everybody's talking about.

And then he says this.

This is this stunned him.

He says this.

He began saying to them, Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

That person that we've been waiting for, longing for, hoping for, that person that is going to bring liberation and healing and sight and deliverance is sitting in front of you in the synagogue.

It's right here.

You've been waiting and looking and hoping and wondering, and maybe it's true and doubting whether it is, and he's saying, I have arrived.

No.

As we're thinking about this with the whole gospel, listen to what Jesus is saying.

He's saying the whole gospel addresses the whole of the human condition.

The whole gospel addresses the whole of the human condition.

And what we have done in Western Christianity is we've bifurcated the gospel.

We've made it a spiritual thing, we've made it solely a personal thing, we've made it a private thing, and it's just about me and God and how do I have this relationship?

How does God make my life better?

He says, no, no, no, the whole gospel, if we want to expand it out, the whole good news of Jesus Christ, no, no, no, listen, it addresses the whole of the human condition, the whole of the pain and suffering, the whole of the issues that we're facing and wrestling and struggling with.

Well, what does that look like?

Well, let's talk about the first half of the gospel, the part that I think many of us are aware with.

The first part is the spiritual part, the spiritual reality, that we're dead in our sins and separated from God.

Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God, that that the wages of our sin is death, that we're fundamentally broken, hurting.

He says the gospel addresses our deepest longing and need, and the fundamental deepest longing, need, and need of your soul is to be in right relationship with your heavenly father.

Don't miss this because this is the deepest, most important need of our soul.

And this is why there's so much emphasis on this for us.

Our deepest longing, our deepest need is to be in right relationship with God, to experience new life, to be welcome into the family of God.

It's our spiritual condition of awakening to new life.

That is the gospel.

Now, the gospel is spiritual with social implications.

See, Jesus taught this when he was asked on a day, what's the most important command?

And he said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Be in right relationship with your heavenly Father.

And then he said, and the second is like it, meaning that you can't disconnect it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

That it is this right relationship, vertically right relationship with God that has horizontal implications with every single person on the planet.

In fact, what Jesus was addressing in that day with the Pharisees and the religious people in a way of going about it was a people that believed they could do and say and believe the right things about God and treat everyone else terribly and be okay with God.

And Jesus said, that is not good news, and that is not the heart of God.

That is not the gospel.

See, the whole gospel, you're dead in our sins and separated from God spiritually, but it has social implications.

Socially, when it comes to injustice, poverty, sickness, exploitation, the marginalized.

The gospel now becomes our operating system for how we engage in the world.

That we're agents of good news to those that are poor.

We're agents of good news to those that are oppressed.

We're agents of good news that are experiencing sickness and devastation and harm.

That is the gospel and the good news.

It's not just how do I get to heaven when I die?

It's how do we have heaven invade earth through our lives?

That's the invitation.

That's the calling.

See, it's not somehow do I work my way to earn God's favor.

It's you have God's favor, so how do I give it to everyone else around me?

Notice what Brian Lauritz in his book, A Cross-Shape Gospel, says.

He makes this connection.

He says there are two beams of the cross, one vertical and the other horizontal.

It tells us all we need to know about the gospel.

The cross-shaped gospel has to do with a man being reconciled to God, the vertical beam, and to one another, the horizontal beam.

Through the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah who died in our place and for our sins.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me.

He's anointed me to proclaim good news to who?

The poor, those who experience bad news their entire life.

I'm coming with good news, whether you're oppressed spiritually or physically, whether you're blind spiritually or physically, whether you're impoverished or stuck in caption, a captive.

See, there's been a lot of conversation lately as we look at the brokenness of our world, as we look at the brokenness of our nation.

And a lot of conversation about how our government's broken and needs to be fixed.

And I don't want to argue with that.

And I, in fact, I don't even want to get into that.

But but here's what I would say bigger government is not going to fix the deep issues in our country.

Followers of Jesus who live out the whole gospel of us.

See, we we don't we don't need a program.

We need Jesus followers.

We need Jesus followers who say, God, you have radically saved me.

Spiritually, I was once dead, now I'm alive.

I was once blind, but now I see, and so I can no longer see anyone else the same way.

They are precious because of you.

You died for them, and so I will come and serve and love them.

This is the whole gospel.

The question then What in the world does this look like?

Now, Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 begins to tell a story as he's explaining what the kingdom of God is like.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And he's explaining this, you know, when Jesus was walking on this earth, he would say it this way.

He said, The kingdom of God is near or at hand, the kingdom of heaven, like heaven's breaking forth because the Son of Man, heaven is right here.

And he would try to explain it in stories.

And he began to explain one particular story near the end before he was crucified, Matthew 25, that should give us pause.

That should be a calling to us as a church.

We pick it up in verse 31.

He says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all angels with him, he'll sit on his glorious throne.

All nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.

He will put the sheep on the right hand and the goats on the left.

And you're like, okay, what's going on?

This is judgment day.

We will be judged for what we do and how we live.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my father.

Take your inheritance and the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

Why?

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in.

I needed clothes and you clothed me.

I was sick and you looked after me.

I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer the Lord, When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?

When did we see you a stranger and invite you in?

Or needing clothes and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?

And the king will reply, Truly I tell you, wherever whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

What does this look like?

Very simply, the whole gospel is expressed as a show and tell.

If we're going to express the whole gospel, it's expressed as a show and tell.

See, what we do is just the tell part of it.

We're good at telling people.

I don't know if you remember as a kid having to do the show and tell, and you go, like, here's this, and let me tell you all about this.

It's this my coffee cup from Verve.

Awesome.

You know, and you have these things, and I just saw actually uh one of my friends' daughters was um showing off uh they did on Instagram showing off the snake, and I just got like they have a pet snake, and the snake just gives me a hebie jeebies.

I'm like, oh gross.

Uh and I can't believe they own it.

But she was like, This is amazing.

This is her pet, of course.

And God's saying, your life is to be on display, to declare the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

That's why Jesus would say it this way in Matthew chapter 5, I think it's verse 16, that you know, that we are the light of the world.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Let your light so shine before men that they see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

That we love the least of these.

See, we don't do good work to earn our way to God or to be saved.

We are saved to do good work.

We have experienced his grace in order to do good work.

The whole gospel is show and tell.

It's like I'm gonna show you the love of Jesus.

I'm gonna show you his grace, I'm gonna show you this is good.

And as you see it is good, you'll want to know more.

And let me tell you about this Jesus who changed my life.

See, Matthew 25.

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Jesus showed special concern for the poor and the marginalized.

And so his followers are to show special concern for the poor and the marginalized, for the least, for the last, for the lost, socially, economically, culturally.

No, sociologically.

Let's try that again.

Sociolog Soci Social I'm it's like two weeks in a row, can't say words.

Sociologist, close enough, Rodney Starks, made this comment.

It was the early churches, care for the poor, in his estimation, that was allowed this early fledgling movement to expand and grow and be embraced.

See, the early church actually took Jesus literally.

When he said, love the least of these, they said, Done.

Why?

Because they saw Jesus do it and they just started doing what they saw Jesus doing.

And so, how did they do this?

When it came to the vulnerable and the voices, there was a practice in the Roman day, if you had a baby that was maybe disformed or or had some sort of problems, or maybe it was the wrong gender, you know, you wanted a son, but you didn't want a daughter back in that day, and so you would leave that baby on a trash heap to die.

And the early church people would come around and find these little babies and then begin to raise them as their own and love and care for these little ones.

They cared for the vulnerable, for the voiceless.

When it came to racial and social, you think about this.

The Roman Empire was divided between the haves and the have nots, whether you're a Roman citizen or not a Roman citizen, were you free or a slave, whether you're a man or a woman, and there was different classes, and that gave you worth and dignity based on what class you were, based on your affluence and influence.

And then the Apostle Paul, later unpacking the teaching of Jesus, would say, There's neither Jew nor Greek.

Like there's no more racial divide.

There's neither, you know, slave nor free, there's no socioeconomic divide, there's neither male nor female.

Like, we're not gonna allow gender to break this down.

And the place of level ground in the Roman Empire were in the gatherings of the church, unparalleled to anywhere else, unheard of in the ancient day, where you would have those who were mistreated on the outside world being lifted up within the context of the church.

In the church service, if they saw someone poor come into theirs, the person who was preaching that day would give them their seat.

The church just said, We're gonna take Jesus literally vulnerable, voiceless, racial, social.

Well, the poor and the oppressed.

Much of the early church was poor and oppressed, by the way.

That was that was the movement that began.

And whenever they saw someone in need, They would sell some of their property to take care of others in need.

In fact, you'll read through the New Testament, you'll find that Paul's talking to the church in Corinth as they're giving an offering to help the church in Jerusalem that's going through a really hard time that has experienced a famine and aren't able to supply for their needs.

They took care of widows and orphans and gave financially to make sure that those that they knew were needing were taken care of to their own hurt.

In fact, uh Bruce Walkie says this, and he's it's a commentary on the Proverbs.

He says, The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community.

The wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.

And the early church took this seriously of disadvantaging themselves to advantage those who are in need and hurting and broken.

And then the sick and the diseased.

They weren't quite pandemics because it didn't have the global scale, there were plagues that would pop up in the ancient world.

And one of the great testimonies of the church in that day is they would, as everyone is fleeing a city for safety, they would go in and love.

Care.

Be the last voice for those who had been left by their own family members to die.

And many died along with them.

In fact, Dionysius, the third century bishop of Alexandria, writes this as some of the Christians' actions during plagues.

He says, Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.

And with them departed this life serenely happy, for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors, and cheerfully accepting their pains.

Friends, 2020, this has been a rough, bad, no good, terrible year.

And we have a heritage and we have a calling that says, in the face of that, we're gonna love the least of these because that's what Jesus did, and that's good news.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in.

Tertolian, the early church father, said that it is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of our opponents.

Church, my prayer is that we have an incredible opportunity that this would once more brand us in the eyes of our opponents.

Not asking people to believe what we believe.

Go, man, this whole risen Savior thing and some of the morality things and ethics you hold, I don't hold, but I cannot deny how you're living your life, how you're loving your neighbor, how you're expressing and disadvantaging yourself for the advantage of those you don't even know.

May that be our brand once more.

So the question: how do we get back to the whole gospel?

I just want to read the words of Jesus.

This is our memory verse, and it's the call.

It's the call to be a disciple of Jesus.

Now, a disciple is one who does and walks in the ways of his master.

Luke 6.40 says, when a student or disciple is fully trained, he'll be just like his master.

And a blessing that someone would give when they're starting off with the new rabbi is that you would be covered in the dust of your rabbi, that you would follow their ways and their pattern of life so closely that you would just be covered in it.

They're dust, like you're literally just walking so close behind them.

And so Jesus is gonna invite you here to be his disciple.

He says, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves.

So it will cost you.

Jesus says that up front.

We live in a world, discover yourself.

Discover yourself.

He says, Deny yourself.

Take up your cross daily.

It will be sacrificial.

I don't want to say it's not, it will.

And then follow me.

Follow my ways, follow my teaching.

Then he says this for whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

See, what will shrivel up your soul more in this season than anything else is an absolute focus on yourself.

We become just inward focused.

We become looking inward, and we're just kind of like, I need to get mine.

There's not enough around me.

And it says, if you want to save yourself, you're gonna lose it.

And then he goes on.

But whoever loses their life for me will save it, will find it.

True and lasting life.

If you want to have the flourishing life, the fulfilled life that will only be found in giving your life for the sake of Jesus.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their very self?

You can try to get rich, you can try to get fame, you can try to get all these other things, and the reality is, is it will leave you empty and hollow because there are no magic healing pools.

Remember that.

Would you take up your cross?

Would we once more be the church that loves those in front of us?

We have great opportunity when it comes to the racial injustice.

And I just think of our team that's starting that off.

We have great opportunity.

We have a team that's doing homeless ministry right now.

We have great opportunity.

We have a team that's engaging in the foster care system.

We have great opportunity, like never before in this season, to be the church.

What if COVID is a divine opportunity?

What?

Excuse me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You heard me.

What if it's actually a divine opportunity for the church to return to the whole gospel?

You can't go to church.

We were never built to go to church.

Since we can't gather, then the church can go.

You can go.

I can go.

Walking in this morning, I had this experience.

You know, I've been prepping this and thinking about this, and this is really impacting me.

And there's a homeless guy in a um in a wheelchair.

And I just want to give you where I honestly would be at.

My first response, I saw him there, my heart was kind of tugged.

And I'm like, I'm kind of busy.

I'm preaching a sermon on loving the poor.

Um and I've had lots of conversations with my kids about this as their hearts and the longings for others.

It's like we can just love them.

So I came into our office, I found some different food items for them.

I took them out there and kind of brought them to them, and we're starting to talk, and I'm, you know, getting his whole story.

And I don't have time to give you his whole story, but you know, he he's he's hooked on math.

He's told me, I mean, he he drinks um hand sanitizer just to get, I mean, like, how hard is your life and things that you're addicted to over your life?

And just sat and talked with him, heard his story.

At five, he was in foster care because his mom was addicted to cocaine.

By 15, he was a full-fledged addict himself, been living on the streets since he was 18.

I've just been convicted because my first response is task over people.

I gotta get this done, I gotta get after this.

And what Jesus is asking us is people over task.

Would you be aware?

And would you look?

Would you take time?

You're not too busy.

And the needs that are in front of you, the people that are in front of you, would you just love them?

Would you bring them some food, some water?

Whatever you do for the least of these, Jesus says, You do for me.

And the Son of God is hungry, and I'm not gonna pass by him anymore.

The son of God is thirsty and I'm not gonna walk by.

The son of God is hurting and sick and needing, and he's saying, I've put my image in these people that are all around you, and I died for them, and the whole gospel says, love them.

May we be that church once again, Jesus.

I ask that you would use this moment in our lives for us to step in and to step out of our comfort zone, to step beyond our prejudice and presuppositions, to allow your spirit to do the work in us, and we would step forward to be your hands, to be your feet, to bring your good news to a world that's only heard bad news, to a people that are struggling and needing your grace in Jesus' name.

Amen.