Mark 1:1 (KJV 1900)

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

The King Has Come

The Chicken and the Pig

One day a chicken and a pig are walking down the street together.

The chicken says to the pig, “Pig, I’ve got a great idea for a restaurant!”

The pig replied, “You don’t say. Tell me Chicken, what is your idea?.

The chicken goes on to tell him, “It will be a breakfast place, and we can serve Bacon and Eggs!”

Now, the pig knew exactly what that meant and he told the chicken, “Chicken, thanks, but no thanks.”

The chicken didn’t understand why. To him, this was a brilliant idea.

So the chicken asked the pig, “Well, why not pig? Don’t you think we’d do well? I think we’d kill it!”

The pig stopped walking and he looked directly at the chicken and said, “Chicken if we serve Bacon and Eggs, you’d only be involved. But I would be fully committed.”

That’s an old business joke…

Transition

Just as the pig understood the cost of commitment, the early Christians understood that following Jesus required more than just involvement—it demanded their whole lives. This is the kind of commitment that the Gospel calls us to, and it's a commitment that has profound implications for how we live our lives today.

For the early church, the Gospel required total commitment.

And for today’s church, it’s become casual involvement.

Why is that? What changed?

That’s what we’re on a journey to discover in this series. Has the Gospel changed? Or, has our posture towards the Gospel changed?

The Modern Gospel

Growing up in church all my life I’ve heard so many applications of the word Gospel. Let me throw some of those out at you.

There is a genre of music called Gospel Music. This is most common in African American Churches, but it’s also embraced by other cultures. In the time that I was growing up in the church we did not have Forrest Frank, Hulvey or Lecrae. So a lot of my peers embraced Gospel music because it was a welcomed alternative to many of the hymns that were being sung in churches.

I’d also hear someone call the end of the service a Gospel Moment, when the preacher will ask the room if anyone wants to make a decision to follow Jesus.

And of course, the most well known description of the gospel; the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

These are all ways that the word Gospel has changed to fit different applications in the church, but I want to take us into the immediate context of the day when the word gospel was first being used. What did it mean to the people using this word and to those who were hearing this word.

So let’s go there together…

Euangelion

The word Gospel comes from the Greek word euangelion (εὐαγγέλιον), which means “good news” or “good message”.

The word is not a Jewish or Christian word. It’s a secular word. It’s a secular word that was reappropriated by followers of Jesus.

let’s step into our history books for a second this morning…

Where do we first find the use of this word?

I want to show you something called the Priene calendar inscription. This is an ancient stone dated 9 BC, which is before the birth of Jesus, and recovered in Priene, which is an Ancient Greek city in what is present day Turkey. This is the inscription on the stone:

“Since Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance (excelled even our anticipations), surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good tidings [εὐαγγέλιον] for the world that came by reason of him,”

On this stone we see the word euangelion, or what we call Gospel. This particular stone was saying that the birth of Caesar Augustus was the beginning of good tidings.

This was the gospel of Caesar Augustus.

But it wasn’t just used by Caesar Augustus. This was common throughout the Roman Empire.

We started seeing this word used during the conquests and reign of Alexander the Great. As he would conquer a nation he would then give them His Gospel. It was the gospel of Hellenism. It was political propaganda, and it positioned people to start treating the Caesar’s not just as King’s but as Saviors.

Euangelion

"was used at the time of the Roman Empire to herald the good news of the arrival of a kingdom - the reign of a king that brought a war to an end, so that all people of the world who surrendered and pledged allegiance to this king would be granted salvation from destruction."

Simply put, euangelion, or the Gospel, was a new way of life.

Now, let’s step out of our History books, and back into the story of scripture. The word gospel is first found in the New Testament because the disciples re-appropriated his word that was used towards a Hellenistic way of life and used it to now describe the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 4:23 (NIV)

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news (euangelion) of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Just as the Roman Empire used the term 'Gospel' to announce the reign of a new king, the early Christians used it to declare the arrival of a new kind of kingdom—one not of this world, but of God. This redefinition challenges us to see the Gospel not just as a personal salvation story, but as a transformative announcement of Jesus' reign over all creation.

The Kingdom Has Come

Now let’s step into the text together…

I want us to embody what this message was like for the Jewish person who first heard this. Why a Jewish person?

Because the Gospel first came to the Jews:

Romans 1:16 (NIV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

So the first hearers of this gospel are Jews. And at the time of this hearing, Jews are a vassal state. They are under the rule of Rome. They have their own land, but they do not have their own authority. They do not have a King, because they do not have a Kingdom.

And for hundreds of years there are these prophecies of a Savior. Someone who would come and would free them from the rule of Rome. They believed that just as Yahweh had brought them out of Egypt, and just as Yahweh brought them out of Babylonian and Persian Captivity, once again a Savior would come and He would free them from their oppressors.

Now enters Jesus.

And THIS is the Gospel.

This is the Gospel

The Gospel is not a genre of music.

The Gospel is not a moment at the end of the service.

And, the Gospel is not just the “the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.” That’s an incomplete or a truncated gospel.

The scriptures teach us that, the Gospel is the announcement that Jesus is King and His Kingdom has come.

You see, the church has been preaching an incomplete gospel and it is creating incomplete Christians.

When we treat the gospel as a an event - the death, burial, and resurrection.

Then we treat following Jesus as an event - the day that I got saved.

And what we unknowingly do with the gospel is we make it about us, and not about Jesus. “The gospel is me being saved.”

Baby girl, no it’s not. The Gospel is about Jesus becoming the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords because He defeated death, hell, and the grave.

Paul talks about the gospel in this way:

Romans 1:2–4 (NIV)

the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

For too long the church has made the gospel about us. Listen to me, the gospel is for us, but it is not about us.

Jesus is not your divine life coach in the sky.

He is your savior.

He lived a sinless life so that he could become the perfect sacrifice.

He submitted himself to the cross, even though He is the Son of God.

He took on the sins of world so that the world could be forgiven from its sins.

He allowed the soldiers to pierce him in his side, and lay him in a tomb. And when the kingdoms of this world thought that they had defeated the Son of God, He rose up on the third day taking captivity captive!

The gospel is about Jesus.

He is our King!

He is our Savior!

And His Kingdom has come.

The Gospel Message

And I want you to consider for a moment what it must have been like for the first messengers of the gospel.

You see the advancement of any gospel depends on messengers who will take that gospel to the world.

After Jesus ascends into heaven, and is seated on the right hand of the Father, he tells his disciples and his followers that it was now their job to announce His kingdom.

Doing this, would lead to persecution and death for the early church.

Peter was crucified upside down.

Paul was beheaded.

Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross.

Thomas is believed to have been speared to death in India.

Philip was put to death in Africa.

Matthew was believed to be stabbed to death in Ethiopia.

Bartholomew was either beheaded or flayed alive.

Simon was sacrificed in Persia.

Mathias died by being burned alive.

James was killed by the sword by King Herod Agrippa 1

As I said earlier in this message, for the followers of Jesus in the early church, it required total commitment. Not just their involvement.

I have this mental picture of Mark seeing a calendar inscription of prienne, posted in Rome, and he begins to write His gospel. This is the beginning on the gospel of Jesus… and then he begins to write about everything he saw Jesus say, do and teach…

And if you are wondering why and what this has to do with you today, I need for you to understand that you are hearing a message this morning about a man named Jesus, and all of these men died to make sure that this message, this gospel, got out.

[Transition]

If you are wondering what would motivate them to do this, look no further than the example of Jesus.

(Conclusion) The Greatest Love Story

I’ve got a lot of work to do over the next two months to unpack the fulness of the gospel. But everything hinges on this one thing. If you get nothing else, please get this one thing.

Jesus loves you.

He is madly in love with you.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Everything that Jesus did he had to do in order to save you.

And today, I want to ask you, would you follow someone like that?

Let’s just pause and consider for a moment all of the gospels of this world right now:

The gospel of politics… you may be passionate about your favorite politician, but he or she didn’t die for you.

The gospel of success… you can spend your whole life chasing success, and when your life is over nothing goes with you into eternity.

The gospel of money… you can chase all the riches of the world, but we all know that money cannot buy you happiness, peace of mind, and eternal security.

You see, there are a lot of gospels in this world. But there is only one gospel in which to hero of the story doesn’t use you in order to obtain his victory. No, the hero of our story dies in our place.

And that is a person worth following.

Call

"Understanding the Gospel as the announcement of Jesus' kingship means that every aspect of our lives is under His lordship. It challenges us to live differently—to love our neighbors, push back against the darkness we are seeing in our time, to seek justice, and to walk humbly with our God. This is the transformative power of the Gospel in action."

If you have never made a decision to follow Jesus, right now I am going to give you a chance to make a decision to follow Him today. You may be thinking, “But hey, I don’t know everything yet!” And that would put you right in the same place as every other person who has said Yes to Jesus. You start with accepting Jesus. You don’t start with accepting a religion. You aren’t accepting a church. You are accepting a person - the only King who died so that you would live.