The Irresistible King

I wonder what the best news that you have ever recieved is? Turn to the person next you and tell them what the best news that you have ever recieved is.

For me there have been a few. Getting into uni despite my grades not being good enough was good news. Being able to see friends and play sport again after lockdown. I think the best news that I have ever recieved was probably almost 1 year to the day when I asked my wife to marry me and she said yes. Whatever your best news is, today we are talking about good news.

Yesterday we introduced this theme of Jesus being irresistible. Crowds of people flocked to see this guy. But Jesus said to the leper, despite healing him, not to tell anyone. The message was more important than the healings, despite their incredibleness. Today I want to take us through that message. I have titled this talk, the irresistible kingdom. We rewind to the first chapter of Mark, Mark chapter 1 where it says this.

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,

I want to stop there what does it mean good news. in other translations it says gospel. It is a word that you might hear a lot. But what does it mean. I’m passionate about understanding the Bible and what it might have meant for first century Jews. Remember that is who Jesus was saying this stuff too. Well the word gospel comes from the Greek word, Euangellion. Which means good news. In those times the Jews were ruled by the Romans. And The word gospel was used in the roman empire to announce the good news of a new emperor. It was all about royalty.

Who has watched any of the royal weddings or announcements? It was like that, everyone would have heard about it. You can’t get away from it. So this is a royal announcement

If anyone ever says what is the gospel, what is the good news, what is this royal announcement. here it is in three parts, …. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near and repent, believe in the good news.

The first part. The time is fulfilled. I wonder if you have ever had a time where you have had to wait a really long time for something. I hate to bring it up, but like most of the country, this past summer I had the pleasure and pain of watching England at the Euros. ‘This will be our year.’ Like most of us here I have never seen England win a major trophy. Ever since 1996, we have been waiting for football to come home. And still we wait. And we wait with expectation. I just about remember 1996 and since then there has been an expectation that it will happen. I remember the golden generation. But that came and went. The pressure was too high. Then all of a sudden, we had players who weren’t as good and we did this really weird thing. We knew that pressure was killing us and so now there wasn’t any pressure we would perform to or ability. Therefore if we performed to our abilities and no one expected England to win, it was like we now expected England to win. And then, finally, we reach a final. Well we are still waiting….. and the Jews were waiting too

In order to understand what this means, we have had to understand what this would have meant for the Jewish listener. England fans know what it means to come home. My wife is an Aussie, she has no idea what that means. In fact, we watching the final with Simon and Beth Barber and she fell asleep, genuinely. So we have to learn what a Jewish hearer would have thought. We have to do a quick bible overview. We might wonder what was being fulfilled. But the Jewish hearers knew.

To start we have to whizz back to the very start of the Bible. In the beginning God creates the earth. Humans are created in God’s image and are given authority over creation. It says in Genesis They are to to ‘be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature. We were created to co partner with God and cultivate the earth as kings and queens of the whole of creation if you like. The garden of Eden is the kingdom of God. Whenever you hear the words kingdom of God, it basically means reign of God. God is in charge.

But humans, the co rulers, rebel against God. To become rulers of their own lives. To rebel against God is to embrace death because you’re turning away from the giver of life himself. They leave the reign of God and it is anarchy, injustice, violence and death. But God loves his people and he chooses Abraham to be the father of a nation and through that nation the whole of humanity will be saved. Eventually the children of Israel are enslaved by Pharoah and God frees his people from slavery in the Exodus and they become the kingdom of Israel. They have kings but they also have the temple, because they know that ultimately God is the king.

But every king that was supposed to co rule with God, like Adam and Eve, fails. Even King David, the greatest of them all, fell woefully short. We realise that the nation that was supposed to save the world, needs to be saved itself. Israel ends up being exiled, the glory of God departs from the temple. Yet through the prophets God shows that he has not given up on his people. The prophets announce good news that they had not been abdonded by God. He will raise up a Messiah, like David. His kingdom will be greater than David’s and he will bring back the kingdom of God to his people. And the Jews. Just like all England fans, were still waiting. And then Jesus turns up and see says

The time is fulfilled.

What does that mean?

In Luke chapter 4. We read Jesus takes one of these prophets Isaiah and he reads it.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [2]

He rolls up the scroll. Today this scripture has been fulfilled. Essentially he says This is me, look out cos here I come. Mic drop. The message is far greater than being merely a healer. He is the one who will restore the kingdom of God, back to how it was in Eden.

So when Jesus says these words, he is saying look. I am the Messiah that you have been waiting for. The time is fulfilled.

So in Mark 1:14 he says that the good news is that the time is fulfilled. He then says that the kingdom of God is near.

As we look through the Luke chapter 4. What does the kingdom of God look like? It means, that good news is brought to the poor. It means that the captives are released, the blind see and the oppressed go free. This is the irresistible kingdom. No wonder people flocked to see Jesus. If you heard that someone was announcing that they were the messiah, were healing people. You would want to check this out. But here is the thing. The good news is different to how people expected it to be. If you know anything about Roman politics, you will know that politics was a bloody violent affair. Taking power through force. For those listening to Jesus they would have expected the messiah to take the kingdom by power and instill those aspects of Luke 4.

But, But, as you read on through the gospels. We read that the kingdom of God is not like any other. What does Jesus mean by the kingdom? We are going to watch a video that desribces this so much better than I can.

Video

So when Jesus talks about the good news. This is it. The kingdom of God, is now. The announcement is that Jesus is King. We have been freed from our own rebellion through the cross where Jesus defeats death.

NT Wright in Simply Jesus says this

Jesus came to believe that the only way one could defeat death itself, and then launch the new creation for which Israel and the world had longed, was to take on death itself, like David taking on Goliath in mortal combat, trusting that Israels God, the creator of life itself, would enable victory to be won. And, since death was seen in the scriptures as the ultimate result of human rebellion against God and the failure to obey him, if death was to be defeated, then idolatry, rebellion disobedience and sin would be defeated along with it.

The kingdom of God, the reign of God is here.

The last part of Mark chapter one is this. Repent and believe. Repent is a strange word. The English dictionary has this definition. feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin. The Greek word here is μετανοεῖτε which literally means to change your mind. The text here literally reads, change your mind and belive in the good news. What is the good news?

It is that the time is fulfilled, Jesus is the one who the Jews were waiting for and it is to believe that through the Life, the teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus, God is king. Why is this irresistible, its because Jesus didn’t come to free the captives through force. He came to free humanity from the ultimate oppressor. Sin and death. Its an upside down kingdom, Jesus, is God.

Who is the king of your life.

That is the choice each of us have. Who was Jesus? Is he God, or is he King?

CS Lewis writes this.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

Tomorrow I am going to talk about the sort of king that Jesus is and then follow up with what this means for us now right here on Thursday. But tonight that is the message that Jesus came to bring and still is the message today.

[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Lk 4:18–19.