Sermon Tone Analysis

A New Age

Big picture: the good news of the Kingdom begins a new epoch - under the same good king

Introduce me

A different morning

our pattern to work piece by piece through the bible, currently looking at Luke

means we don’t set the agenda, pick and choose what we’d like to emphasise, what to avoid

Today we come to a section addressing a topic I wouldn’t have chosen to speak on

But Jesus has something to say to us - so let’s listen to him together

This section seems to stand apart from what comes before + goes after - it’s unusual

Also addresses a topic which is sensitive and needs careful handling - so I’ll be talking a little longer than usual, and we won’t finish our time with discussion or open Q&A as we normally would.

Sarah’s going to come and read to us from Luke 16 v 16-18 - and this is Jesus speaking

1:30 Reading: Luke 16:16-18

2:00 Prayer for enlightenment

2:30 Dawn of a new age

So what have we got here?

That first verse seems to be talking about a new age dawning: like turning over a page in a book, one chapter ending another as another begins.

And John - that’s John the baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, a key character we’ve seen earlier in this story - is like the dividing line between the two.

Up until this John showed up, back at the start of Jesus’ story, the Law and the Prophets had centre stage, Jesus says.

What does he mean by “Law and Prophets”?

That’s Jewish short hand for the teachings from God that they had recieved and handed down through the history of their nation: the story of their people, the commands they had heard from God through Moses and others, the challenges and rebukes which had come through different prophets, messengers God sent over the years.

But now there’s a new chapter.

The page has turned.

There’s news, good news, a change that is being announced: the good news of the Kingdom

3:30 The good news of the kingdom =?

But what on earth is that?

Let’s break it down: the Kingdom, simply, is the realm within which God is acknowledged as king.

That’s fairly straight forward.

There’s a sense in which he’s king everywhere and always, but here we’re talking about a realm where he is acknowledged not ignored, where he’s actively ruling.

The kingdom.

But what’s the good news to go out about this kingdom?

What’s changed which sees the kingdom take centre stage?

The good news is that it’s come near, it’s at hand

That’s what we’ve seen so much of as we’ve walked through the story of Jesus: at long last, he, the king, is coming.

John prepared the way for him and how he's here.

And he’s bringing his kingdom with him, his active rule.

He’s restoring things that are broken - that’s why there’s so much healing of the sick and casting out of demons; that’s why he spends so much of his time with the wrong sort of people; he’s renewing things that have grown cold, been forgotten or been covered - that’s why he’s teaching so often, calling for a renewal of devotion to God in the right spirit.

The kingdom has come near.

The kingdom is at hand - that’s good news, the good news that’s being preached, being announced in this new age.

And everyone is being urged to enter it - this is a new kind of kingdom, one where anyone and everyone can be welcomed in, can become a part - not a kingdom that comes to conquer and overpower, to thrust aside, crush and destroy, but a kingdom you can join, one you can enter into.

That’s probably the sense that the last section of v16 is trying to get over - the translation there is tricky.

So there’s a new age dawning, a page turning from the Law and Prophets to the Kingdom of God.

5:15 But what’s new about the new age

But what’s new about this new age?

What’s the distiction that Jesus wants to highlight for us here?

Well it’s not the king.

This isn’t a good cop/bad cop sort of thing, where the mean old god of the old testament gets the first chapter but the Jesus, all woke and warm, turns the page to the new testament and gets to write the second happy chapter.

That’s heresy - and an old one at that.

Marcion in the second century.

The king is still on his throne.

The same king: one God, unchanging through it all.

It’s not a new age because there’s a new king.

And verse 17 shows us something else: it’s not his design for his kingdom that’s changed either.

“It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”

This is just Jesus’ way of saying his design for his kingdom is still the same: the way it should operate, the way it should work, the way we should conduct ourselves within it.

There are some things in that Law that Jesus is talking about which anticipate Jesus’ coming and what he will go on to do at the cross.

Things like animal sacrifices and temple worship.

These things haven’t changed, they’ve just fulfilled their purposes.

His design for them is exactly what it ever was.

These all looked forward to Jesus and pointed us to the signifiance of what he would do.

Always part of the plan - and still a part of the one plan God has had all along now that we look back.

There are other things in the Law which set out how to run a nation, how to administer justice and the like.

Again these haven’t changed, they’ve just fulfilled their purpose.

Israel’s role as a unique nation state, tasked with showing the world what an earthly nation living God’s way would be like, had a set time and place within God’s plans.

And now those things in the Law have fulfilled their purpose.

His design for them is exactly what it ever was - always a part of the plan.

And most of all, his design for life and for living, the fundamental ways we should conduct ourselves towards one another and towards him, haven’t changed.

And if you think about it for a minute, you can see that would make sense: If God is good and loving, as he reveals himself to be through the bible, then his design for life, his design for how we should live, will be a design for our good.

Not just arbitrary rules to make things difficult or to squeeze all the fun out of life.

God’s way is the best way.

His design for living doesn’t change beause it was and is always a design for our good.

And more than that, it’s a reflection of God’s own character, an expression of who he is.

What’s truly good cannot change - it’s rooted in God himself.

I mean, imagine this: imagine one day it’s right that children obey parents but imagine the next day it’s right for parents to obey children.

How could that be?

How could something like that ever happen?

Only if the idea of what’s right wasn’t fixed, didn’t really have any objective anchor, wasn’t really attached to anything.

Only if “right” could drift wherever it liked - or wherever culture thought it should go.

But Christians believe the fundamental idea and anchor of goodness, of what’s right, is God himself; he defines what’s right - and by implication what’s wrong.

What he does is good and it defines good.

So even as a new age dawns, God’s design for the right way to live hasn’t changed - it can’t change because God, in whom right is anchored, doesn’t change.

He’s the same, yesterday, today and forever, as he tells us.

So the king hasn’t changed; the design for his kingdom hasn’t changed.

What has changed?

8:30 his coming

Well first, it’s his coming - like we talked about already.

Something dramatic, something fundamental has changed when Jesus comes onto the scene: the king has come, and with him his kingdom, the Kingdom of God, has drawn near.

“The Kingdom of God is at hand”, as the bible puts it: touchable, tangible, something you can experience here and now.

Good news!

But there’s more than that, there’s more which has changed: this is a new age, an age of grace has begun.

Flashback to this guy John.

The king hasn’t changed.

The design for his kingdom hasn’t changed.

We don’t measure up to that design.

So when John arrives on the scene, dressed funny, “proclaiming the good news” as Luke 3:18 tells us, we have to consider cafefully what that good news actually is.

Matthew, one of the other gospel writers lets us hear how John goes about proclaiming the good news: shouting “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand!” - Mt 3:2.

He’s proclaiming good news, and that good news is “repent!”

How is that good news?

It’s good news for people who don’t tick all the boxes, people who haven’t got everything right, people who’s life isn’t totally sorted.

You see we have no place in God’s people, no chance of being a part of God’s kingdom by right - because how could a holy, perfect and good God allow someone like that into their kingdom?

Or have anything to do with them?