The Bad News Bears and The Gospel of the Reign of God.
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Intro –
So, what do the Bad News Bears, Grade School Basketball and the Beatitudes have in common?
Intro – Bad news bears – Grade school Basketball team – This is exactly what the Beattitudes are about.
Bad news bears – Grade school Basketball team – This is exactly what the Beatitudes are about.
3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be satisfied.
7 God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
9 God blesses those who work for peace,
for they will be called the children of God.
10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. 12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
This is not a list of qualifiers – This is not a list of “Do this and you get in”
This is not a list of qualifiers – This is not a list of “Do this and you get in”
Why – Because
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
29 After all, is God the God of the Jews only? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is. 30 There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. 31 Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.
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Jesus is not saying your life is blessed because you are a spiritual 0
Jesus is not saying your life is blessed because you are a spiritual 0
Jesus is not saying your life is blessed because you are a spiritual 0
Jesus is not saying your life is blessed because you are a spiritual 0
Jesus is not saying your life is blessed because you are a spiritual 0
He is saying your spiritual 0 life is blessed because you are welcome into his Kingdom.
The mourning mother who lost her child is blessed in the Kingdom because God comforts her and gives her a confidence and peace that passes all understanding.
The Meek and scared become blessed when they enter God’s reign and through Him they will take the world.
Those who hate the darkness inside them are blessed when they encounter the King for he frees them and gives them His righteousness.
Blessed is the girl who has been raped, and abused, blessed is the child who was molested because in the Kingdom of God, Jesus will heal their scars and give them true justice.
Blessed are those who show mercy and are walked over by the powerful for God in Jesus will give them eternal mercy.
Blessed is the teen who is pure in heart and made fun of, picked on, and ridiculed for it. Because they will see God face to face.
Etc.
These are the people the world systems reject and look down on.
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This is Jesus saying - the world’s left overs are blessed when the Kingdom of the Heavens captures their hearts.
This is Jesus saying – My rule and righteousness are freely available to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus himself.
This is God saying – In Jesus I am going to take in the world’s rejects and give them the life that humanity was meant to live.
This list of people are blessed not because of what they have done, but because Jesus has accepted them in and then transformed them.
Jesus has opened the reign and righteousness of God to everyone.
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Jesus says they are blessed –
Jesus says they are blessed –
The Greek word here is what the Greek myths used to describe the blissful lives of the gods.
The Biblical writers used the word to describe the blessed life humanity was meant to live, rather than a cursed life.
Jesus is telling us he is taking the cursed and rejects and turning their cursed lives upside down and transforming those lives into blessed, joyful, beautiful lives.
When the zeros, broken, addicted come into the reign of God, they become radically changed and Radically blessed.
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What this list might look like today:
A list by Dallas Willard:
“Blessed are the physically repulsive,
Blessed are those who smell bad,
The twisted, misshapen, deformed,
The too big, too little, too loud,
The bald, the fat, and the old –
For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus”
Blessed are the seriously crushed ones; the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burn-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and divorced. The HIV positive and herpes-ridden. The brain damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant-too many times or at the wrong times. Blessed are the parents whose children live on the streets, the lonely, incompetent, the stupid emotionally damaged and the emotionally dead. The Kingdom is available to you regardless of circumstances. The life humanity has been searching for through the ages is quietly attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus the King.
What about the immoral, the terrorist, the murderer, the rapist, the racist, the cheat, the Atheist, the blood sucker, the liar, the vengeful?
Blessed, Blessed, Blessed.
As they flee into the arms of the Kingdom among us, the reign of God found in Jesus.
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Now you can feel a little sympathy for those who hated Jesus.
“This man is friends with sinners and even eats with them.”
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Through Jesus the Kingdom of God has opened its gates for all to enter in and to be radically changed.
Through Jesus the Kingdom of God has opened its gates for all to enter in and to be radically changed.
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This is who God is and who He has always been.
This is who God is and who He has always been.
(, , , and the list goes on.)
1 Then Hannah prayed:
“My heart rejoices in the Lord!
The Lord has made me strong.
Now I have an answer for my enemies;
I rejoice because you rescued me.
2 No one is holy like the Lord!
There is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
3 “Stop acting so proud and haughty!
Don’t speak with such arrogance!
For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done;
he will judge your actions.
4 The bow of the mighty is now broken,
and those who stumbled are now strong.
5 Those who were well fed are now starving,
and those who were starving are now full.
The childless woman now has seven children,
and the woman with many children wastes away.
6 The Lord gives both death and life;
he brings some down to the grave but raises others up.
7 The Lord makes some poor and others rich;
he brings some down and lifts others up.
8 He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the garbage dump.
He sets them among princes,
placing them in seats of honor.
For all the earth is the Lord’s,
and he has set the world in order.
9 “He will protect his faithful ones,
but the wicked will disappear in darkness.
No one will succeed by strength alone.
10 Those who fight against the Lord will be shattered.
He thunders against them from heaven;
the Lord judges throughout the earth.
He gives power to his king;
he increases the strength of his anointed one.”
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This is who we are to be
This is who we are to be
If our church is full of nice, clean, perfect people we have missed the boat.
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This is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God
This is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God
Send me the losers, the broken, the weak, the imperfect, the ugly, the immoral, and I will transform them into a Beauty that will put to shame this world.
26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. 31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”
No one is too lost, no one is too far for the Kingdom of God.
No one can boast in themselves but we all can boast in the mercy and transforming power of Jesus.
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We will end today with worship and communion.
If you know someone you thought was too far for God to reach, I want you to thank God that no one is too far gone for His Kingdom.
If you, yourself are ready to enter God’s Reign and allow Jesus to turn your cursed life into a blessed life, then I invite you to go to a prayer team in the back and pray with them today.
For the rest of us, use this time to worship the God who accepted you in and has been transforming your life.
Today is a day to rejoice because we have GOOD NEWS.
Today is a day to rejoice because we have GOOD NEWS.
Next week we will talk about how God takes these dregs of the world and uses them to preserve, give beauty, and transform our world by the might of His Kingdom.