Turning to Daylight (06Feb2011)
Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus (possible title for the website advertisement: The Way of Jesus)
The Way of Jesus M1 (11 02 06)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Turning to Daylight (new title)
Text: Mark 1: 14-20
BIG IDEA: When we turn to the daylight of God we experience heaven on earth.
The little village of Rattenberg is the one of smallest towns in Austria, and has been getting smaller each year.
The town has lost 20 percent of its population in the past two decades, and has now only about 440 residents.
The reason? Darkness.
Rattenberg was built in the 14th century behind 3,000 foot Rat Mountain (show powerpoint image #1) in order to barricade it from marauders.
But the mountain also blocks out the sun from November to February. Thanks to some clever new technology, the town has hopes of getting a little brighter.
An Austrian company called Lichtlabor has came up with a plan to bring sunshine into the darkness by installing 30 heliostat mirrors onto the mountainside (show powerpoint image #2
The mirrors will grab light from reflectors on the sunny-side of the mountain and shine it back into the town.
The project was cost about 2 and half million bills…
It’s hard to live in darkness…
Some 700 hundred years before Christ was born the prophet Isaiah prophesied that the people in our world living in spiritual darkness would see a great light coming from Galilee. We see this prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled in the light of the world emerging from Galilee in the Gospel of Mark.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 1:14. This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
In Mark 1 vs. 15 we come across the very first words of Jesus in the earliest of the gospels--Mark: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus. We are going to look at what it means to repent or turn toward the sunlight of the kingdom of God and what our lives can look like when we live in the daylight of the King.
But first let’s look at the term “Good News.”
In Jesus’ first recorded words he says (in vs. 15), “Repent and believe the good news.” “Good news” can also be translated “gospel.” In the Greek the word that is translated “good news” has the word angelion in it, which means “news” and the word eu which means “good.” So “good news”—or news that brings joy. Mark here is borrowing a term from the secular world, and it referred to some history-making, life-shaping news. For example, there is an inscription not long before Mark is writing which reads “the Gospel of Caesar Augustus.” It is a story of Caesar Augustus’ birth and coronation. So the word “gospel” referred to some history-shaping event that changed everything. Gospel could refer to a coronation, the ascension to the throne of someone, and it could also mean victory. For example, when Greece was invaded by Persia, and against all odds when Greece won the great Battle of Marathon, according to tradition, they sent runners (basically evangelists) to Athens and to other parts of Greece. These evangelists proclaimed: “We have fought for you. We won and you will not be slaves. You will be free people!” And that is a kind of gospel. It’s the good news about something that has happened in history—something for you that changes your status forever.
The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t at its core good advice; it is good news. 2x It is good news about something that has happened in history that can change your status before God forever. It is good news that can actually set you free. It is good news about the fact that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and through his rising from the dead—resurrection--the door has been opened for us to be set free from our sins and to be welcomed as forgiven people before a Holy God. The gospel tells us that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross mysteriously the powers of Satan, darkness, and sin have been decisively broken, and we can receive forgiveness for our sins and freedom from the darkness.
In the movie, The Fighter, which is based on a true story, actor Mark Walberg plays the role of Micky Ward, a boxer of Irish ancestry who lives in Boston. During an important fight (I don’t want give away which fight—in case you haven’t seen the movie), Micky Ward is being pummeled and beaten badly. But deep in the fight Micky lands a punch that severely weakens his opponent. The fight is not over, but the opponent has been rocked and drained of his power by a decisive punch that Ward lands.
And on the cross of Jesus Christ it looked liked Jesus Christ was being pummeled, being beaten, but mysteriously as he died on the cross for our sins, he dealt Satan and the powers of darkness and the powers of sin a decisive blow. Those forces of darkness are not dead yet. They are still active and alive, but they have been rocked. They have been drained of their power. They have been dealt a death blow.
And through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for our sins and his resurrection, not only have the powers of darkness been defeated, but a wider door than ever before has been opened to the sunlit path of God. The first words of Jesus first words are these: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
In the coming week as KP teaches, we will see Jesus calling people to repent, believe the Good News, follow him--becoming fishers of people. He calls Simon, who is later called Peter, and his brother Andrew as they cast nets into a lake. They were fisherman. Jesus said, “Come follow me.” At once, we read, they dropped their nets and followed him. We see that he calls James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, who are also in a boat preparing their nets. He called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat and followed Jesus.
There are several things that are stunning about Jesus inviting these men to follow him. One of the things that is unique about his call is that he as the rabbi is calling his students, his apprentices into his circle. In Jesus’ world prospective students would approach a rabbi and ask the rabbi to become their mentor. It was not the other way around. Like today, when you are a high school student, perhaps with exception of elite athletes, a university admissions officer doesn’t approach high school students and ask them to come and study at the university. It is usually the students who have to apply to the university, not vice versa. And so it was in Jesus’ day potential students would in effect apply to study with certain rabbis. Rabbis would not be approaching students and ask students to study with them. But we see Jesus here approaching prospective students, and saying, “Come follow me.”
Jesus approaches us, calls us, as well, to follow him, and if we end up following Jesus, as we look back, we see it is not because we initiated it as a spiritual quest, but because God placed in our heart a desire to know him. Because Jesus called us.
Jesus calling his first apprentices or disciples was also stunning, not only because he actually called them and did not wait for them to approach him, but also because his call led these people to drop their nets and leave their families to live with Jesus. It was truly a residential training program. They live with Jesus. They did not just commute in from the suburbs and take seminars with Jesus. They were truly residential students of Jesus, living with him.
This also is stunning, given the culture of first-century Palestine. In our culture it is common for people to change their careers. It’s typical for someone over their adult life to change their work eight different times. But in Jesus’day people were not in the habit of changing their careers as people do today. In fact, for people like Andrew and Simon and James and John, who were fishermen, not only had they been fishermen all of their adult lives, but their fathers had been fishermen, and likely their grandfathers, their great grandfathers. This has been who they are across the generations. And when Jesus calls them, they drop their nets and they leave their fishing careers and become fishers of men and women, influencers of people, following Jesus.
When Jesus calls his apprentices, his students, we also see in verse 20 how James and John not only left their nets, but they also left their father Zebedee in the boat. The students of Jesus also left their families. Again, in our culture---no big deal. Young adults typically leave their families to study or to start on their careers. It is natural and normal. If young adults stay at home, it is not because they feel so attached to their parents, but it is because their parents have a room in their house or a basement suite they can have to live in. If a young adult has a financial incentive to stay at home, he or she might. But in Jesus’ world people did not geographically move away from their home towns like they do today. They did not move away from their families when they became young adults in the way people do today. They tended to stay with their family until they got married. Family ties in Jesus’ day, as is the case in some Asian, African and Latin cultures today, were much stronger than family ties are for most people in Vancouver. So, for Simon and Andrew and James and John to leave their families to follow Jesus would have been radical.
Jesus’ first recorded words that he utters in the earliest Gospel: “The time has come… the kingdom of God is near,” and then Jesus says, “Repent. Repent and believe the good news” are radical. They call us to a new way of life.
What does repentance mean? Repentance simply means “to turn toward God.” Implicit in repentance is the idea of turning away from sin, but it is not a word with a distinct two-step where you 1) turn away from sin, and 2) now that you have turned away from your sin you now become qualified to turn to God. Repentance has the idea of a singular movement. It as we turn to God we naturally, in turning to God, turn away from our sin.
When I was in Grade 8, for part of the football season I played running back. If you are not that familiar with football, a running-back is the player who receives the ball into his belly from the quarterback, and tries to carry the ball down the field (hopefully if you catch part of the big game today—the Super Bowl). Now on any given play in football, when a running-back gets the ball there is a predetermined direction in which he is supposed to run. The play is designed, for example, to develop on the right side of the line behind certain, big strong players (your new best friends). You are also taught if you are running toward that certain part of the line, but there is no opening, look for daylight, look for where there is an opening to run and to take the field down the field. You are carrying the ball down the field toward the right side of the line and if things are not opening up you are supposed to pause, to be patient, and wait for something to open up. If daylight begins to emerge on the left side of the line, you are to cut left and go through the hole. Run to daylight and advance the ball. Obviously, to run toward the hole, to run toward the daylight, you have got to turn away from the clogged part of the line, so that you can run toward the opening.
So it is in our relationship with God. In order to enter the daylight of God, it means that we naturally turn away from something in our lives so that we can run to daylight. As many of you have heard, when I first moved into the daylight of God as a teenager, when I first heard the good news that Jesus Christ had died on the cross for my sins so that I could have a new beginning with God, I moved toward that light. I moved on to that sunlit path. After I made that first step at a Christian youth gathering, I remember going home, going to the garage, going into a stack of wood in the garage, pulling out a log, and then pulling out a copy of Penthouse magazine that a friend and I had bought, splitting the cost 50-50. I remember making a unilateral decision to pour gas over that magazine, toss it into the fireplace, and set it on fire.
But I also remember, as I made my movement toward the light of God, I knew intuitively, although I had not read the Bible, that it might compromise certain friendships that I had. At that stage of my life probably the most important thing in my life, other than maybe succeeding in sports, was being part of a certain group in school. I had worked really hard to become part of the popular “bad boy” athlete crowd. I just barely made it in, but I was in. I knew that running toward the daylight might compromise these relationships. Again, though I had not read the Bible, I knew that God was calling me to please him and not make social popularity the centre of my life, though I could not have articulated it that way back then.
We tend to think of repentance as burning a pornographic magazine. That is a more conventional image of repentance—turning away from something that is an obvious sin. But repentance also means that we turn away from something that has become the centre of our lives, so that we can run into the daylight of God. In some cases repentance means that we literally get rid of something. We burn the Penthouse magazine. But in other cases it simply means that something is no longer at the centre of who we are. After giving my life to Christ I was still friends with my friends, but being accepted was no longer at the centre of who I was. Christ was beginning to take that place.
Repentance means turning to God, away from an attitude we may have. I can find myself comparing myself to other people in ways that can cause me to envy others, in ways not healthy for my soul. I find I have to and want to move out of the dark room of comparison and move into the daylight of God.
So it is when Christ calls us. He may not literally call us away from our vocation, as he did with Simon and Andrew, James and John. By the way, even though he called them away from fishing, they went back to fishing from time to time. Jesus was OK with that. Even though he called them away from their families, as we see later in Scriptures, they continued to interact with their families in way. So their leaving their family and their work was not absolute. But Jesus, in calling these people to himself, was calling them to make him, and not their work and not their families, the centre of their lives.
So repentance means that we turn away from something toward God. Sometimes it means that we actually get rid of the magazine, but at other times it means that something important (and for me it was my social group) is no longer the centre of who we are, but God is the centre of who we are.
Why would we do it? Why would we turn away from something that we have an attachment to toward the daylight of God?
We would move away from an attachment toward the daylight of God because the daylight of God represents an opportunity for us to live a life with God, a life where our sins are forgiven, a life where we are set free. When a great opportunity opens up to us, we in effect repent; we turn from what we are doing toward the new opportunity that we have. For a young person who has wanted their whole life to be a doctor and the door to med. school finally opens for that person, they in effect repent from opportunities to go to other schools and study to get jobs they get right away. In order to go to medical school, they in effect renounce other opportunities to embrace the call of medicine. When you meet someone whose heart you feel utterly at home with, you “repent” and turn to that person. You can in effect move away from other potential partners to be with your beloved.
So it is when you hear the good news and you see the daylight opening up before you. It is not easy, but you do turn away from those other things that you might enter into the kingdom of God.
But, what exactly does the kingdom of God mean?
Matthew, another gospel writer, tends to use the terms “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” interchangeably. The kingdom of God refers to God’s rule, God’s reign. The kingdom of God, technically speaking, was present before Jesus came to Earth. God’s reign was active and present. Through Jesus Christ, and specifically through his death on the cross and his resurrection, as he defeated the forces of Satan, darkness and sin, drained them of their power, the door to the kingdom of God has been opened more widely than ever before. There will come a day, and we don’t know when that day will be, when Jesus Christ will return as a conquering king and his reign will be complete from sea to sea. It will be complete where his glory will be present on the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew prefers to use the expression, “kingdom of heaven,” rather than “kingdom of God”—as I said the two expressions can be used interchangeably. We tend to think of the kingdom of heaven as a place we go to when we die. The kingdom of heaven in Scripture does not usually mean a place we go to after we die, but rather to any place where God’s life and beauty and love and justice are being displayed. If we think of heaven in this more biblical way, then we will think less about heaven as a place we go to when we die and more about how we can see heaven come to Earth as the life, love, beauty and justice of Jesus is poured out on our earth.
In the book of Revelation we are told that Jesus makes all things new. There will be a new heaven and a new earth that we will one day inhabit. And the language of the new earth in the Greek is not the language that God will simply destroy this earth and rebuild it, but God will renew the earth through the second coming of his Son Jesus Christ, renew and heal this earth…the second coming of Jesus Christ. That is why followers of Christ, among other things, care for the earth.
As N. T. Wright, one of our most perceptive theologians: “Our future is not in some far-away place beyond the clouds, but our future will be on this earth.”
Jesus says, “Turn and enter the daylight of God which is around you, which has been made available through me to enter into the life of beauty, love and justice of my Father’s reign.”
I know that the expression “the kingdom of God,” or as Matthew prefers to say “the kingdom of heaven,” are somewhat abstract terms. Even the definitions the “reign,” or the “rule of the King” are somewhat ambiguous descriptions, particularly since we have a prime minister and not a king in Canada (Oh, a former Anglican just reminded we have a Queen). Let me try to give a few metaphors for the kingdom of God.
Dallas Willard is a professor of philosophy who teaches at the University of Southern California. He’s very intelligent, but also humble, gracious, and warm. As a child, Dallas lived in a small rural village in Missouri. In their small community they did not have electricity available to them. But when Dallas was in his final year of high school, power lines were extended to their community, and electricity became available to the homes where Dallas lived. When electricity was available, it changed the way people could live their lives. It changed how hot or cold the house would be. It changed how long they could keep food (fruit, vegetables, meat) without it going bad. It changed how much light they had, which for Dallas meant he could stay up at night and read.
When Dallas was in high school, they had electricity made available to them. He said it made their lives far better. The people who were extending the electricity were saying, in effect, “Repent, for the kingdom of electricity is at hand. Turn from your kerosene lanterns, your scrub boards and your iceboxes into the kingdom of electricity. Many entered and some did not.
And Jesus says, “Through me a new light, a new power, is available for your lives. Turn, and enter in.”
(Lee Kosa, one of the pastors at Tenth, in the ministry with the young adults at The Lounge has been describing the kingdom of God like a beautiful garden with sparkling streams, lush vegetation and abundant fruit that is growing up in the midst of a desert wasteland. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is a better place to live on Earth because God’s reign is bringing restoration, healing, beauty, life.)
The kingdom is the sun light lit through the light of the face of Jesus Christ.
The kingdom of God is being in the presence of the amazing person who casts the most beautiful light. We have all had experiences with people who seem to cast more shadow than light. We all been with people where we have felt drained.
But have you ever been in the presence of someone who is so centred, so joyful and loving, so at home in their skin, so luminous that they are not thinking what they can get from you, but they pay attention to you, they want to serve you? They are willing to put their resources at your disposal—practically, emotionally, spiritually. And when you are with that person, you feel (you can’t put your finger on it) a sense of peace, a sense of feeling uplifted, a sense of being in daylight. That is the greatest gift of the kingdom—simply being with the King, with Jesus—simply being in the presence of the light of the world. This kingdom, this heaven on Earth, as I said earlier is not just a place we go to when we die, but it is a life that we can live right now on Earth as in heaven.
So, what does it look like for the light of the Kingdom to shine into the ordinary parts of our lives?
After a long day of work (or school) you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind a little. But then you remember there's no food at your place. You haven't had time to shop this week and so now after work you have go to the grocery store and of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. So the store is crowded with long lines.
Our default, as novelist David Foster Wallace points out, is to just get frustrated and to focus on my hunger, my fatigue, my desire to get home…or look at how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed people seem in the checkout line; or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line.
We can stand with the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.
We can experience these situations differently if we live in the day light of Jesus’ friendship.
In the long line we can take a moment for the people around us. Again, as David Foster Wallace observes, the lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line--maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Maybe not, probably—but that person is precious to God. If we are aware that we stand in the light of Jesus, we can pray for that person.
We live in the day of Jesus as students in our jobs.
Alvin Ung works for an investment firm in Malaysia. He took some time off work to attend Regent College and attended Tenth while he was at Regent. Some of you may remember him and Fern.
In Alvin’s words: “While at Regent I read about ancient Christians who inspired me to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17-18). It sounded impossible, but I tried to put it into practice as I wrote theological papers. I prayed before my assignments. Writing prayerfully, without anxiety or rush, I would thank God for the insights. Each keystroke would be an act of worship. When the work was done, I thanked God for helping me. Slowly I began to see that my work—and the process of working—could be a form of prayer.”
When he got back to his corporate job, he talked about how stressed out he was and too busy to pray.
Then he says, “I was struck by a simple thought: I should regard my workplace as a ‘monastery’ where God is already present. I could pray quick short prayers for my colleagues during work. During lunch, I imagined Jesus Christ as our unseen conversation partner. When I felt stuck, I would ask God for help. So there were lots of opportunities to pray, because I felt stuck so many times a day! Slowly, I began to realize that God had been keeping company with me all this while…even when I did not naturally turn to God.”
Work can be frustrating. It can be boring. It can even feel soul numbing. But even in those places—especially in those places like Alvin we can experience daylight, the daylight of Jesus, the beauty, the love and the life and justice of Jesus, and be an instrument to spread that light, that beauty, that love, that justice, that peace in our world.
We can experience the Kingdom of God, the daylight of Jesus, not just in our times of worship on Sundays, in our small groups, on our mission trips to Cambodia, but in our everyday life.
As part of my Practicing the Presence routine I have been YouTubing Tim Hughes’ worship song: Everything.
God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking
Be my everything…
God can be our in our everything.
The paradox is that in order to enter this life we have to turn away from something which may feel like a death in order to run toward the daylight.
Jesus said, “If you try to hold on to your life, you will lose it, but if you are willing to lose your life for my sake, you will find it.”
The paradox is as I believe George McDonald said, “You will die unless you are willing to die.” 2x
Why would we be willing to die for someone, turn from something, and, in effect, make someone else the centre of our life, the centre of our universe? If you have ever been in the presence of someone, as I said, who is so centred, so joyful, so loving, so at home with themselves, so filled with light that they are thinking about you, they are serving you, they are putting their practical and emotional resources generously at your disposal, if given the opportunity, experience… you want to reciprocate, to serve them in some way.
That is what Jesus did for you. According to Charles Wesley in his famous hymn:
He left his Father's throne above
(so free, so infinite his grace!),
emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
When we focus on his amazing love and say with Charles Wesley “how can it be that my God should die for me,” we are willing to die for God. We are able to repent, turn toward the daylight of God, and live not because of us, but because he first loved us.
PRAYER
We began the sermon with Jesus first recorded words.
What do you hear Jesus saying to you today? How is Jesus calling you to repent and turn toward the daylight?
The Way of Jesus M1 (11 02 06)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Turning to Daylight (new title)
Text: Mark 1: 14-20
BIG IDEA: When we turn to the daylight of God we experience heaven on earth.
The little village of Rattenberg is the one of smallest towns in Austria, and has been getting smaller each year.
The town has lost 20 percent of its population in the past two decades, and has now only about 440 residents.
The reason? Darkness.
Rattenberg was built in the 14th century behind 3,000 foot Rat Mountain (show powerpoint image #1) in order to barricade it from marauders.
But the mountain also blocks out the sun from November to February. Thanks to some clever new technology, the town has hopes of getting a little brighter.
An Austrian company called Lichtlabor has came up with a plan to bring sunshine into the darkness by installing 30 heliostat mirrors onto the mountainside (show powerpoint image #2
The mirrors will grab light from reflectors on the sunny-side of the mountain and shine it back into the town.
The project was cost about 2 and half million bills…
It’s hard to live in darkness…
Some 700 hundred years before Christ was born the prophet Isaiah prophesied that the people in our world living in spiritual darkness would see a great light coming from Galilee. We see this prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled in the light of the world emerging from Galilee in the Gospel of Mark.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 1:14. This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
In Mark 1 vs. 15 we come across the very first words of Jesus in the earliest of the gospels--Mark: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
This morning we are going to begin a new series on what it means to follow the way of Jesus. We are going to look at what it means to repent or turn toward the sunlight of the kingdom of God and what our lives can look like when we live in the daylight of the King.
But first let’s look at the term “Good News.”
In Jesus’ first recorded words he says (in vs. 15), “Repent and believe the good news.” “Good news” can also be translated “gospel.” In the Greek the word that is translated “good news” has the word angelion in it, which means “news” and the word eu which means “good.” So “good news”—or news that brings joy. Mark here is borrowing a term from the secular world, and it referred to some history-making, life-shaping news. For example, there is an inscription not long before Mark is writing which reads “the Gospel of Caesar Augustus.” It is a story of Caesar Augustus’ birth and coronation. So the word “gospel” referred to some history-shaping event that changed everything. Gospel could refer to a coronation, the ascension to the throne of someone, and it could also mean victory. For example, when Greece was invaded by Persia, and against all odds when Greece won the great Battle of Marathon, according to tradition, they sent runners (basically evangelists) to Athens and to other parts of Greece. These evangelists proclaimed: “We have fought for you. We won and you will not be slaves. You will be free people!” And that is a kind of gospel. It’s the good news about something that has happened in history—something for you that changes your status forever.
The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t at its core good advice; it is good news. 2x It is good news about something that has happened in history that can change your status before God forever. It is good news that can actually set you free. It is good news about the fact that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and through his rising from the dead—resurrection--the door has been opened for us to be set free from our sins and to be welcomed as forgiven people before a Holy God. The gospel tells us that through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross mysteriously the powers of Satan, darkness, and sin have been decisively broken, and we can receive forgiveness for our sins and freedom from the darkness.
In the movie, The Fighter, which is based on a true story, actor Mark Walberg plays the role of Micky Ward, a boxer of Irish ancestry who lives in Boston. During an important fight (I don’t want give away which fight—in case you haven’t seen the movie), Micky Ward is being pummeled and beaten badly. But deep in the fight Micky lands a punch that severely weakens his opponent. The fight is not over, but the opponent has been rocked and drained of his power by a decisive punch that Ward lands.
And on the cross of Jesus Christ it looked liked Jesus Christ was being pummeled, being beaten, but mysteriously as he died on the cross for our sins, he dealt Satan and the powers of darkness and the powers of sin a decisive blow. Those forces of darkness are not dead yet. They are still active and alive, but they have been rocked. They have been drained of their power. They have been dealt a death blow.
And through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for our sins and his resurrection, not only have the powers of darkness been defeated, but a wider door than ever before has been opened to the sunlit path of God. The first words of Jesus first words are these: 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
In the coming week as KP teaches, we will see Jesus calling people to repent, believe the Good News, follow him--becoming fishers of people. He calls Simon, who is later called Peter, and his brother Andrew as they cast nets into a lake. They were fisherman. Jesus said, “Come follow me.” At once, we read, they dropped their nets and followed him. We see that he calls James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, who are also in a boat preparing their nets. He called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat and followed Jesus.
There are several things that are stunning about Jesus inviting these men to follow him. One of the things that is unique about his call is that he as the rabbi is calling his students, his apprentices into his circle. In Jesus’ world prospective students would approach a rabbi and ask the rabbi to become their mentor. It was not the other way around. Like today, when you are a high school student, perhaps with exception of elite athletes, a university admissions officer doesn’t approach high school students and ask them to come and study at the university. It is usually the students who have to apply to the university, not vice versa. And so it was in Jesus’ day potential students would in effect apply to study with certain rabbis. Rabbis would not be approaching students and ask students to study with them. But we see Jesus here approaching prospective students, and saying, “Come follow me.”
Jesus approaches us, calls us, as well, to follow him, and if we end up following Jesus, as we look back, we see it is not because we initiated it as a spiritual quest, but because God placed in our heart a desire to know him. Because Jesus called us.
Jesus calling his first apprentices or disciples was also stunning, not only because he actually called them and did not wait for them to approach him, but also because his call led these people to drop their nets and leave their families to live with Jesus. It was truly a residential training program. They live with Jesus. They did not just commute in from the suburbs and take seminars with Jesus. They were truly residential students of Jesus, living with him.
This also is stunning, given the culture of first-century Palestine. In our culture it is common for people to change their careers. It’s typical for someone over their adult life to change their work eight different times. But in Jesus’day people were not in the habit of changing their careers as people do today. In fact, for people like Andrew and Simon and James and John, who were fishermen, not only had they been fishermen all of their adult lives, but their fathers had been fishermen, and likely their grandfathers, their great grandfathers. This has been who they are across the generations. And when Jesus calls them, they drop their nets and they leave their fishing careers and become fishers of men and women, influencers of people, following Jesus.
When Jesus calls his apprentices, his students, we also see in verse 20 how James and John not only left their nets, but they also left their father Zebedee in the boat. The students of Jesus also left their families. Again, in our culture---no big deal. Young adults typically leave their families to study or to start on their careers. It is natural and normal. If young adults stay at home, it is not because they feel so attached to their parents, but it is because their parents have a room in their house or a basement suite they can have to live in. If a young adult has a financial incentive to stay at home, he or she might. But in Jesus’ world people did not geographically move away from their home towns like they do today. They did not move away from their families when they became young adults in the way people do today. They tended to stay with their family until they got married. Family ties in Jesus’ day, as is the case in some Asian, African and Latin cultures today, were much stronger than family ties are for most people in Vancouver. So, for Simon and Andrew and James and John to leave their families to follow Jesus would have been radical.
Jesus’ first recorded words that he utters in the earliest Gospel: “The time has come… the kingdom of God is near,” and then Jesus says, “Repent. Repent and believe the good news” are radical. They call us to a new way of life.
What does repentance mean? Repentance simply means “to turn toward God.” Implicit in repentance is the idea of turning away from sin, but it is not a word with a distinct two-step where you 1) turn away from sin, and 2) now that you have turned away from your sin you now become qualified to turn to God. Repentance has the idea of a singular movement. It as we turn to God we naturally, in turning to God, turn away from our sin.
When I was in Grade 8, for part of the football season I played running back. If you are not that familiar with football, a running-back is the player who receives the ball into his belly from the quarterback, and tries to carry the ball down the field (hopefully if you catch part of the big game today—the Super Bowl). Now on any given play in football, when a running-back gets the ball there is a predetermined direction in which he is supposed to run. The play is designed, for example, to develop on the right side of the line behind certain, big strong players (your new best friends). You are also taught if you are running toward that certain part of the line, but there is no opening, look for daylight, look for where there is an opening to run and to take the field down the field. You are carrying the ball down the field toward the right side of the line and if things are not opening up you are supposed to pause, to be patient, and wait for something to open up. If daylight begins to emerge on the left side of the line, you are to cut left and go through the hole. Run to daylight and advance the ball. Obviously, to run toward the hole, to run toward the daylight, you have got to turn away from the clogged part of the line, so that you can run toward the opening.
So it is in our relationship with God. In order to enter the daylight of God, it means that we naturally turn away from something in our lives so that we can run to daylight. As many of you have heard, when I first moved into the daylight of God as a teenager, when I first heard the good news that Jesus Christ had died on the cross for my sins so that I could have a new beginning with God, I moved toward that light. I moved on to that sunlit path. After I made that first step at a Christian youth gathering, I remember going home, going to the garage, going into a stack of wood in the garage, pulling out a log, and then pulling out a copy of Penthouse magazine that a friend and I had bought, splitting the cost 50-50. I remember making a unilateral decision to pour gas over that magazine, toss it into the fireplace, and set it on fire.
But I also remember, as I made my movement toward the light of God, I knew intuitively, although I had not read the Bible, that it might compromise certain friendships that I had. At that stage of my life probably the most important thing in my life, other than maybe succeeding in sports, was being part of a certain group in school. I had worked really hard to become part of the popular “bad boy” athlete crowd. I just barely made it in, but I was in. I knew that running toward the daylight might compromise these relationships. Again, though I had not read the Bible, I knew that God was calling me to please him and not make social popularity the centre of my life, though I could not have articulated it that way back then.
We tend to think of repentance as burning a pornographic magazine. That is a more conventional image of repentance—turning away from something that is an obvious sin. But repentance also means that we turn away from something that has become the centre of our lives, so that we can run into the daylight of God. In some cases repentance means that we literally get rid of something. We burn the Penthouse magazine. But in other cases it simply means that something is no longer at the centre of who we are. After giving my life to Christ I was still friends with my friends, but being accepted was no longer at the centre of who I was. Christ was beginning to take that place.
Repentance means turning to God, away from an attitude we may have. I can find myself comparing myself to other people in ways that can cause me to envy others, in ways not healthy for my soul. I find I have to and want to move out of the dark room of comparison and move into the daylight of God.
So it is when Christ calls us. He may not literally call us away from our vocation, as he did with Simon and Andrew, James and John. By the way, even though he called them away from fishing, they went back to fishing from time to time. Jesus was OK with that. Even though he called them away from their families, as we see later in Scriptures, they continued to interact with their families in way. So their leaving their family and their work was not absolute. But Jesus, in calling these people to himself, was calling them to make him, and not their work and not their families, the centre of their lives.
So repentance means that we turn away from something toward God. Sometimes it means that we actually get rid of the magazine, but at other times it means that something important (and for me it was my social group) is no longer the centre of who we are, but God is the centre of who we are.
Why would we do it? Why would we turn away from something that we have an attachment to toward the daylight of God?
We would move away from an attachment toward the daylight of God because the daylight of God represents an opportunity for us to live a life with God, a life where our sins are forgiven, a life where we are set free. When a great opportunity opens up to us, we in effect repent; we turn from what we are doing toward the new opportunity that we have. For a young person who has wanted their whole life to be a doctor and the door to med. school finally opens for that person, they in effect repent from opportunities to go to other schools and study to get jobs they get right away. In order to go to medical school, they in effect renounce other opportunities to embrace the call of medicine. When you meet someone whose heart you feel utterly at home with, you “repent” and turn to that person. You can in effect move away from other potential partners to be with your beloved.
So it is when you hear the good news and you see the daylight opening up before you. It is not easy, but you do turn away from those other things that you might enter into the kingdom of God.
But, what exactly does the kingdom of God mean?
Matthew, another gospel writer, tends to use the terms “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” interchangeably. The kingdom of God refers to God’s rule, God’s reign. The kingdom of God, technically speaking, was present before Jesus came to Earth. God’s reign was active and present. Through Jesus Christ, and specifically through his death on the cross and his resurrection, as he defeated the forces of Satan, darkness and sin, drained them of their power, the door to the kingdom of God has been opened more widely than ever before. There will come a day, and we don’t know when that day will be, when Jesus Christ will return as a conquering king and his reign will be complete from sea to sea. It will be complete where his glory will be present on the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew prefers to use the expression, “kingdom of heaven,” rather than “kingdom of God”—as I said the two expressions can be used interchangeably. We tend to think of the kingdom of heaven as a place we go to when we die. The kingdom of heaven in Scripture does not usually mean a place we go to after we die, but rather to any place where God’s life and beauty and love and justice are being displayed. If we think of heaven in this more biblical way, then we will think less about heaven as a place we go to when we die and more about how we can see heaven come to Earth as the life, love, beauty and justice of Jesus is poured out on our earth.
In the book of Revelation we are told that Jesus makes all things new. There will be a new heaven and a new earth that we will one day inhabit. And the language of the new earth in the Greek is not the language that God will simply destroy this earth and rebuild it, but God will renew the earth through the second coming of his Son Jesus Christ, renew and heal this earth…the second coming of Jesus Christ. That is why followers of Christ, among other things, care for the earth.
As N. T. Wright, one of our most perceptive theologians: “Our future is not in some far-away place beyond the clouds, but our future will be on this earth.”
Jesus says, “Turn and enter the daylight of God which is around you, which has been made available through me to enter into the life of beauty, love and justice of my Father’s reign.”
I know that the expression “the kingdom of God,” or as Matthew prefers to say “the kingdom of heaven,” are somewhat abstract terms. Even the definitions the “reign,” or the “rule of the King” are somewhat ambiguous descriptions, particularly since we have a prime minister and not a king in Canada (Oh, a former Anglican just reminded we have a Queen). Let me try to give a few metaphors for the kingdom of God.
Dallas Willard is a professor of philosophy who teaches at the University of Southern California. He’s very intelligent, but also humble, gracious, and warm. As a child, Dallas lived in a small rural village in Missouri. In their small community they did not have electricity available to them. But when Dallas was in his final year of high school, power lines were extended to their community, and electricity became available to the homes where Dallas lived. When electricity was available, it changed the way people could live their lives. It changed how hot or cold the house would be. It changed how long they could keep food (fruit, vegetables, meat) without it going bad. It changed how much light they had, which for Dallas meant he could stay up at night and read.
When Dallas was in high school, they had electricity made available to them. He said it made their lives far better. The people who were extending the electricity were saying, in effect, “Repent, for the kingdom of electricity is at hand. Turn from your kerosene lanterns, your scrub boards and your iceboxes into the kingdom of electricity. Many entered and some did not.
And Jesus says, “Through me a new light, a new power, is available for your lives. Turn, and enter in.”
(Lee Kosa, one of the pastors at Tenth, in the ministry with the young adults at The Lounge has been describing the kingdom of God like a beautiful garden with sparkling streams, lush vegetation and abundant fruit that is growing up in the midst of a desert wasteland. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is a better place to live on Earth because God’s reign is bringing restoration, healing, beauty, life.)
The kingdom is the sun light lit through the light of the face of Jesus Christ.
The kingdom of God is being in the presence of the amazing person who casts the most beautiful light. We have all had experiences with people who seem to cast more shadow than light. We all been with people where we have felt drained.
But have you ever been in the presence of someone who is so centred, so joyful and loving, so at home in their skin, so luminous that they are not thinking what they can get from you, but they pay attention to you, they want to serve you? They are willing to put their resources at your disposal—practically, emotionally, spiritually. And when you are with that person, you feel (you can’t put your finger on it) a sense of peace, a sense of feeling uplifted, a sense of being in daylight. That is the greatest gift of the kingdom—simply being with the King, with Jesus—simply being in the presence of the light of the world. This kingdom, this heaven on Earth, as I said earlier is not just a place we go to when we die, but it is a life that we can live right now on Earth as in heaven.
So, what does it look like for the light of the Kingdom to shine into the ordinary parts of our lives?
After a long day of work (or school) you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind a little. But then you remember there's no food at your place. You haven't had time to shop this week and so now after work you have go to the grocery store and of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. So the store is crowded with long lines.
Our default, as novelist David Foster Wallace points out, is to just get frustrated and to focus on my hunger, my fatigue, my desire to get home…or look at how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed people seem in the checkout line; or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line.
We can stand with the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.
We can experience these situations differently if we live in the day light of Jesus’ friendship.
In the long line we can take a moment for the people around us. Again, as David Foster Wallace observes, the lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line--maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Maybe not, probably—but that person is precious to God. If we are aware that we stand in the light of Jesus, we can pray for that person.
We live in the day of Jesus as students in our jobs.
Alvin Ung works for an investment firm in Malaysia. He took some time off work to attend Regent College and attended Tenth while he was at Regent. Some of you may remember him and Fern.
In Alvin’s words: “While at Regent I read about ancient Christians who inspired me to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17-18). It sounded impossible, but I tried to put it into practice as I wrote theological papers. I prayed before my assignments. Writing prayerfully, without anxiety or rush, I would thank God for the insights. Each keystroke would be an act of worship. When the work was done, I thanked God for helping me. Slowly I began to see that my work—and the process of working—could be a form of prayer.”
When he got back to his corporate job, he talked about how stressed out he was and too busy to pray.
Then he says, “I was struck by a simple thought: I should regard my workplace as a ‘monastery’ where God is already present. I could pray quick short prayers for my colleagues during work. During lunch, I imagined Jesus Christ as our unseen conversation partner. When I felt stuck, I would ask God for help. So there were lots of opportunities to pray, because I felt stuck so many times a day! Slowly, I began to realize that God had been keeping company with me all this while…even when I did not naturally turn to God.”
Work can be frustrating. It can be boring. It can even feel soul numbing. But even in those places—especially in those places like Alvin we can experience daylight, the daylight of Jesus, the beauty, the love and the life and justice of Jesus, and be an instrument to spread that light, that beauty, that love, that justice, that peace in our world.
We can experience the Kingdom of God, the daylight of Jesus, not just in our times of worship on Sundays, in our small groups, on our mission trips to Cambodia, but in our everyday life.
As part of my Practicing the Presence routine I have been YouTubing Tim Hughes’ worship song: Everything.
God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking
Be my everything…
God can be our in our everything.
The paradox is that in order to enter this life we have to turn away from something which may feel like a death in order to run toward the daylight.
Jesus said, “If you try to hold on to your life, you will lose it, but if you are willing to lose your life for my sake, you will find it.”
The paradox is as I believe George McDonald said, “You will die unless you are willing to die.” 2x
Why would we be willing to die for someone, turn from something, and, in effect, make someone else the centre of our life, the centre of our universe? If you have ever been in the presence of someone, as I said, who is so centred, so joyful, so loving, so at home with themselves, so filled with light that they are thinking about you, they are serving you, they are putting their practical and emotional resources generously at your disposal, if given the opportunity, experience… you want to reciprocate, to serve them in some way.
That is what Jesus did for you. According to Charles Wesley in his famous hymn:
He left his Father's throne above
(so free, so infinite his grace!),
emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
When we focus on his amazing love and say with Charles Wesley “how can it be that my God should die for me,” we are willing to die for God. We are able to repent, turn toward the daylight of God, and live not because of us, but because he first loved us.
PRAYER
We began the sermon with Jesus first recorded words.
What do you hear Jesus saying to you today? How is Jesus calling you to repent and turn toward the daylight?
posted by Shigematsu at 7:52 AM
1 Comments:
read this one too,,,oswald
my email id heynamaskar@gmail.com
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