Created for This

What is the Gospel? As people who have a vested interest is spreading the Gospel, its probably pretty important that we are able to answer this question right?

Is the gospel the first 4 books of the new testament?

Is the gospel how someone gets to heaven?

Is the gospel really good soulful music that you can’t help but tap your toes to, sway to, and shout alleluia to?

Or is the gospel something else… or maybe all of these things.

Today we are beginning a new message series that will help us to define, understand, and articulate just what the Gospel is, and so I’ve named it “The Simple Gospel.” What I think that we are going to find is that the gospel is simple… but it’s not nearly as narrow as our culture and modern Christianity has made it out to be.

Are you intrigued? Are you wondering if I’m about to commit several heresies? Good. That should keep you interested :)

The earliest document that we have that details the life of Jesus, as well as uses the word “Gospel” in a Judeo-Christian context is the Book of Mark. It begins this way:

Mark 1:1 NRSV

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

You’re probably like wait the word Gospel isn’t even there… and you’re kind of right. This translation is cutting through the Christianiese and getting right to the point:

Gospel means “good news.” The greek word is Euangelion and how it was normally used in the greater Greco-Roman culture was to announce “the good news” of a new king — namely Caesar.

So for Mark to begin his account of Jesus’s life, declaring that this story was “good news” implied that it was a story about a new king… which is really tracks with the first sermon that Jesus ever preached 13 verses later.

Mark 1:14–15 NRSV

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Do you see the correlation here — kingdom of God, Good News. Every Kingdom needs a King, and Good news is the announcement of a king.

Ok, that got really technical really quick. You’re like “wait I thought this was going to be simple…” So let me simplify it. The Gospel begins with the fact that Jesus Christ is King, and not just King, but Lord.

So lets all say this together: Jesus Christ is Lord. *Jesus Christ is Lord*

Ok this is our starting point for the whole discussion here. Now, if someone were to ask me if there is one verse or section of the Bible that sums up the Gospel, I’d say there are a few. But there is one that has stayed with me for my entire life — even when I wasn’t following Jesus. And it’s this:

John 3:16 NRSV

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

I know, it’s like the most cliche 90s Christian thing ever. But I’m telling you that this one sticks with people for a reason. It’s this great beacon of hope for our own futures. But today I want us to focus not on the future, but rather on the past.

I want us today to spend our time looking at the first clause — for God so loved the world.

And here’s the question I’m going to ask you… Why? Why did God love the world? And in particular, why did/does God love humans?

Like of all the beings in this world, why does God choose to love humans so much to give us such a wonderful gift of Jesus Christ, his only son.

Like puppies, bunnies, kittens, koalas — I can understand loving these guys so much. They’re super cute.

Humans, not always so lovable. And yet, scripture says what scripture says. So let’s take a look back to where this whole thing started. Bible, page 2.

Genesis 2:4–6 NRSV

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—

Right here we get right into the plot of our Bibles. God has created everything… the sea, the land, the sky and all of the creatures that inhabit them, but theres a problem. We’ve got no plant life springing up yet. The conditions are there, but God hasn’t allowed them to start growing yet, because there’s no one to care for them.

When I was 16 I worked for a property management company doing landscape and demolition work in Philadelphia. It was difficult work under normal circumstances, but one day we learned that my boss had purchased a new property.

The house was a massive 3 stories with a basement, purchased as is. It had been essentially abandoned for years. And we had to clean it up… inside and out.

This yard was an absolute jungle. Pure chaos. It took us days just to get the vegetation knocked down enough that we could see the danger that was looming underneath it all. Like random yard tools, lawn mowers, rusty furniture, all that stuff. And definitely snakes.

It was a prime example of what happens when there is no one around to tame and care for nature… It just takes over.

And honestly I think God knew this reality. So there in lies kind of the first dramatic moment in the Bible. God has spent 6 days creating and ordering the world, saying at every stage of the game: it’s good. Then we get to this moment and there’s a problem. There’s no one to work the land and care for the plants. The elements for life are present, but there’s no one to represent God and do the work of keeping this creation from succumbing to the inevitable chaos it will face.

So God goes on to make this right.

Genesis 2:7–9 NRSV

then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So God’s solution: Create a human, plant a garden, stick him in there, let the plants grow, and see what happens.

And this is not just some random detail. This is something that is incredibly important for us to understand about the nature of humanity. Our relationship to God and our relationship to this earth that we walk upon are inextricably linked to one another. Genesis 1 says that God created humans in his image and told them to subdue the earth and have dominion over it.

And that doesn’t mean that God gave us free reign to trash the earth, but rather that God gave us the charge and vocation to not allow chaos, disorder, and violence to spread. God placed humans here to care for this world and all of its creatures.

Genesis 2:15 says this

Genesis 2:15 NRSV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

To work the garden and to protect it.

This is the original vocation of humanity. When we care for God’s creation in all of the many ways that we do that, we are actually living out our human identity to the fullest. We were made for this.

And so how does this all relate to the Gospel? Well it means that we have an original status that we were created to live out. We are representatives, stewards, images of God who are placed on this earth to care for it in place of the Lord, the King, the one whose place it truly is.

You see, God so loved the world because God created the world. And God loves humans because humans are made in God’s image, carry the very breath of God, and have been given a divine purpose.

This means that the Good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ as King and Lord of the world, calls us to remember who we work for here on this earth and for all of eternity. If Jesus Christ is Lord, and we are stewards of of his creation, then we have work to do.

In JRR Tolkein’s masterpiece “The Lord of the Rings” we meet a character named Denathor. Denathor is the steward of Gondor, a fictional nation of humans who stand as the best hope for to stand against an ultimate evil that seeks to bring chaos and disorder into the world. Gondor is, and has been, without an official king for quite some time, but Denathor has been assigned to care for Gondor in place of a king.

But here’s the problem… Denathor is unwilling to do what is necessary to live up to his call to lead Gondor in place of its king. He’s willing to ignore and then bow down to the threat that looms at the border of the nation he’s been entrusted to oversee until the heir and true king of Gondor returns. And everything begins to devolve into chaos. It isn’t until the king returns that Gondor can overcome the evil that they face.

All of this is to say that the message of the Gospel, the good news, is a message that begins with us recognizing our place in this world. Humans, you and I, are stewards of this great kingdom that God has given to us. It began with the first human in the kingdom of the Garden of Eden, and it continues with us as the people of the church who are called to do God’s will on earth so that the Kingdom of God invades this place that we live.

For too many of us the Gospel message that we heard or grew up understanding was a message of escape. It was a message that said, believe in Jesus and you will get to leave this broken world behind some day. But that’s not where God’s story about us begins. God’s story for us begins with us doing God’s work here, in the broken world, attempting to make it less broken, less chaotic, and more ordered so that it promotes and sustains life.

The world is a gift that we have been given to steward. And so as we prepare to move through the rest of this “Simple Gospel” story, it’s important for us to take a look at ourselves, and take an inventory of the gifts that God has given to us. Where has God placed you? What is God calling you to do in that place where you are? How are you doing with that? Are you being a good steward of the world, of the church, of your neighborhood, of your family? Or if you’re honest, are you a little more like Denathor than you’d like to admit.

This little inventory is not something we do in order to induce shame. It’s something we do to get real with ourselves about where we are, and how the Gospel message can really transform the way we see this world, and how we live in this world. It’s something that will prepare us to learn just how much we need God’s help to actually live up to God’s plans for us. And that is a good good thing. The Gospel is simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. It wasn’t easy for Jesus — the main character, and it isn’t easy for us who call him Lord. But it is good good news. And that’s enough for me and it’s enough for you today.