Transcription
The Gospel of the Kingdom
So what is the gospel? The gospel is you can trust Jesus. That's it. That's the simplest form of the gospel. But not something he said about social evils. Not something he did to secure your forgiveness. That's all in there. But those are not the gospel. The gospel is Jesus. His availability. Put your confidence in him. Come under the rule of God. God at work in your life.
Life of coherence
Now see, all of us have this in bits and pieces at least. But there is a coherent whole here, of finding our life in the Kingdom of God. And we've talked about Matthew 4:17; we've talked about Matthew 6:33. I haven't said much about Romans 8:1 through 14. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walked not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God did by sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh..." and showed up sin for what it was. Right. And the result of that is those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, see they have deliverance over sin. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Now then you have to settle in your thinking, is that imputed righteousness, or is it also imparted righteousness? The Ryrie way of setting it up is, that's imputed. We fulfill the law because we trust Jesus who died to pay off our sins, and we owe nothing to the law. That's the way that's read.
Life of the Spirit
You read it that way, you can't make any sense of what follows in Romans 8. Because Romans 8 is not talking about forgiveness of sins. It's talking about life. It goes on to say - it goes on to contrast the life of the flesh and the life of the Spirit. They that live in terms of the flesh, it's hard to translate prepositions like kata, but I think if you put it in terms of, they that live in terms of the flesh, verse 5. "Those who are according to the flesh," my version says. "But who live in terms of the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh." That is to say, that's what they think in terms of. Flesh here is what you can do in your natural human abilities. You individually and you socially.
That would mean that you would look in your planning of your churches and your own life, you would simply expect things from natural sources, and that would be all. Those who are, who live in terms of the Spirit, kata, they mind the things of the Spirit. If your mind is set on the flesh, the outcome is death. The mind set on the Spirit, life and peace. And he goes on to develop that you see. It's talking about life.
Life from above
John 3 is not a forgiveness passage. John 3:16 is not about forgiveness. It includes forgiveness, but it's about life from above. This is one of the most shocking things that I often say to people; it's because they always thought in terms of John 3:16 meaning forgiveness. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever put their confidence in him would not perish..." go to hell, "...but have eternal life..." go to heaven. Right. Now, if you read the passage you'll see it's not about forgiveness; it's about life from above.
That means that John 3:16 is not just about what happens after you die, but what happens while you're alive. The life you lead will be an eternal one; that means that the things that you do - go tie it in with the Romans passage - will be of the Spirit, and therefore will not be perishing. Will not be death. The mind of the flesh is death. Why? Because it puts its focus on, it involves its life entirely with the things that are natural.
And so, we often wonder if God didn't exist, would our church be any different. And if it's simply a human operation, the answer is it wouldn't be. Because people would do the things that are needed. So, I just invite you to take these kinds of verses... I mean, you just pile them up. An inductive Bible study is what you need to do. You take the words you're focusing on; you study them through the Scripture; you get the context.
Salvation in the Kingdom
Here's what salvation is on this view. And since that's the really big deal, try this on. Try it on in your life, in your ministry, and above all in your study of Scripture. Salvation is participating now in the life which Jesus is now living on earth. Of course that involves forgiveness, and heaven afterwards. It's not a question of omitting those. It's a question of making that the whole deal, see.
So now, do hang on that Colossians 1, Colossians 3:1-4. "If you then be risen with Christ," see, that means participating now in the life that Jesus is now living on earth. "If you then be risen with Christ, seek then those things that are above." So, you don't become passive; you become active. Seek those things that are above. Now, above doesn't mean beyond the moon. It means where God is acting in the first heaven, and beyond that of course, where Jesus is on the right hand of the Father.
Now he manages to do that and be here as well, all right. "Seek those things that are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of the Father. Set your affections on things above, not on things on earth. Because you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," see. That's now.
A Hidden Life
So now, you have to bring that together with the theme of the divine conspiracy, because this is a hidden life. Now, go back to John 3. What did Jesus say about those that are born of the Spirit? Precisely that they have a hidden life, which is the real thing that is going on in them. Now, that hidden life will manifest itself in great transformations, not just of character, but if you like signs and wonders language, it will certainly show up there too.
Mysterious effects
Now the onlooker will not know what's going on. That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus, wasn't it. The wind blows where it lists. You hear the sound; you don't see it. You see its effects, you perceive its effects, and that will also be true. (John 3:8) But now here's the crucial point for the understanding of the divine conspiracy. A person who wants to explain them in some other way will do that to their satisfaction.
And that is a part of what God has in mind with the whole process of things here on earth, is to allow people who wish to go another way, to go another way. But to allow people who wish to know him to find him. Because the promise, as you recall, in Jeremiah, is that, "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Right.
Real presence
So God is present. God is present in you. He's present in the people of Christ. The salvation that is running, that we're a part of now, is one that actually is there for anyone who wishes to seek and to find it.
Wonderful man named Bill Craig; I don't know if you know him, but he's - and Bill is from a more Reformed position. At one point, he got worked up about John Wimber, and thought he should... But Bill is a wonderful, loving man, and while he can disagree with someone, he can also be open. And he... This was many years ago, 1988, Bill sent out a prayer letter, where on - we received them.
And he's talking about power evangelism. And power healing. And he has theological disagreements with John Wimber, and that's OK. John Wimber would never have been troubled about that at all. A man of incredible and irenic Christlike spirit, and he would understand.
And here's what happened. Bill Craig - he's writing this from Belgium I think it was. "Even if we do not have the gifts of healing," because he's one who had trouble with the idea of gifts, "we can pray for the sick." Interestingly, that's of course also true of John MacArthur, who has trouble with gifts, but still believes in miracles, and in prayer.
Bill says, "When I returned from our first conference back in November, my thoughts kept turning to a young woman here," in Belgium, "named Sue Cooper, who had been recently stricken with multiple sclerosis. It was a terrible tragedy, and the question kept forcing itself, why don't you," to Bill, "why don't you lay hands on Sue Cooper and pray for her healing. When I shared about the conference with my Sunday School class, Sue, who was in the class, said why don't you pray for me. So I did something I wouldn't have done before."
That is, before reading Wimber's books and hearing him teach.
Miraculous life
"I invited Sue to stand in the center of the room, and the others in the class to lay hands on her and pray. Pray for her healing. Nothing extraordinary happened. But Sue was grateful, and we continued with the lesson. After a couple of months, the Coopers moved back to the United States, and Sue was pretty resigned to the fact that she wouldn't be healed. But now we received word from her that her doctors can find no trace of MS in her body at all. And the doctors said that she should no longer say that she has multiple sclerosis."
Well. What do you know? What do you know? See that's... We're participating in a life that really moves with us. And us with it, and that's what we're learning as disciples. Faith in Jesus means that we have confidence in him for everything. It doesn't mean that we have confidence in social teachings, or that he hates people in power or who are rich, and wants to cut them down. Send them to hell. I've heard people say that. Right. Cursed be you rich.
Isn't that pretty strong? Didn't Jesus say that? Didn't Jesus say that the rich are cursed? Well, looks like that. Luke 6. See, if you've got your mind on something, you can find a place in the Scripture to support it.
Complete confidence
Not just something he did. Even suffering for us. That isn't discipleship. Faith in Jesus the whole person. I have confidence in him for everything. Everything that he said about life and death is right. Everything he commanded us to do is what is good for us, not something that's supposed to make us miserable. It's good for us. Discipleship is not bad news.
Oh, someone says, I understand that Jesus says that if you're going to be a disciple of his, you have to give up everything. You have to hate your mother and your father and brothers and sisters and... your own life also. Sounds awful, doesn't it.
The Cost of Discipleship
But you have to remember that's the other side of the parables of the pearl of great price. Those go together. You have to count the cost to be a disciple, yes you do. That doesn't mean you just look at what you pay. You also look at what you get. See, if you go to buy a new car, you have to count the cost. That doesn't mean you just count the money you have to pay; that means you have to count what will happen if you don't buy the car.
How do you like being stuck on the freeway? Well you see, you get a car that runs, that you don't have to worry about that so much. All right. So you have to look at what you get and what you pay, and that's what Jesus is talking about when he talks about counting the cost.
But then it comes down and we have a book written, wonderful book by the way, on the cost of discipleship.
The Cost of Non-Discipleship
Now see, no one knows the cost of discipleship who does not understand the cost of non-discipleship. Right? So, how about you writing a book on the cost of non-discipleship. Could you do that? You preach on that. What it costs you not to be a disciple of Jesus. Well, you spend the rest of your life being dominated by hatred and lust. How's that? That sound good?
Well, of course, if you're far enough gone it could sound good. But if you have your wits about you you'll realize, hey, that's worth getting rid of. How about living a life full of love and joy and hope and peace. Confidence in God. Is that worth something? Well, that's the cost of non-discipleship, because if you don't have discipleship you don't get that. Am I making any sense to you? Please say yes or no. OK. All right. Good. Thank you.
You see. Now, I didn't leave that up there long enough for you to look at, but see, that's what faith in Christ means.
What Is the Gospel?
So now, just to rehearse it, say what are we saying? What is the gospel? The good news that we can live now in the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ means I have confidence in him for everything. I want to be as close to him as possible, and learn from him everything I can. I want to believe, and I do believe, that all of his commandments are for my benefit.
So anything he tells me to do is for my good, and I will be much better off when I do it. I'll be much better off. Now, you can only understand that if you get the background of the Kingdom. If you don't get that, you don't get it.
The Great Questions
Now, here, if I had time I would go back to these questions that I put up last night... Oh, it's OK. These great questions you see, that I put up last night, the great questions that Jesus answers, and we could talk about how he answers them when we come in this way, see. What is reality? Who is well off? Who is a good person? How do you get to be a good person?
Now see this is a framework for genuine witnessing for Christ. You want to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. You bring those questions to the mind of people. And I have never seen a person - I use these questions in my classes at USC. Because that's what all the philosophers and the thinkers have tried to answer through the ages.
And that's what we want to keep before the people we teach, the people in our fellowships. That's what we want to bring to, to people who are not in our fellowships, but are people we are trying to bring the witness of the Kingdom to. These are the questions that we have to press.
Where Has the Kingdom Been?
So now, we want to bear down just a little more on the - what discipleship, the content of discipleship is, and why the gospel of Jesus that he preached is omitted, because this becomes a serious problem. Why don't we - why isn't - why don't we hear the gospel of the Kingdom?
I included again in chapter two here, of The Divine Conspiracy, some interesting statements by Peter Wagner and some other people about the gospel of the Kingdom. Here's what Peter says. Peter Wagner says this, he says, "It is the unanimous opinion of modern scholarship that the Kingdom of God was the message of Jesus."
Now, it's not quite right. What the message of Jesus was the availability of the Kingdom of God, not just the Kingdom of God. This on page 59 of the book The Divine Conspiracy. Now he says, "I cannot help wondering out loud why I haven't heard more about it in the thirty years I've been a Christian. I certainly read about it enough in the Bible. But I honestly cannot remember any pastor whose ministry I have been under actually preaching a sermon on the Kingdom of God. As I rummage through my own sermon barrel, I now realize that I myself have never preached a sermon on it. Where has the Kingdom been?"
Whole life involvement
Well, now, again, I don't want to be legalistic about this. You can preach the Kingdom without using the word. On the other hand, the words are pretty obvious in the Scripture, and raise the question, perhaps we should use them. And at least raise the question - do we have a better way of putting it?
And I'm not saying we can't, and I believe that actually that it has been done without the wording through the ages, repeatedly, by people who had other language for it. But as I said earlier this morning, there's always the fact that there is an emphasis on whole life involvement with Jesus as Lord.
And if you can get that in the manner of Keswick talk or Franciscan talk, or Benedictine talk, or Quaker talk, or Baptist talk, or Catholic talk, or whatever kind of talk, if you get that it's OK. That's fine. But you have to have that, regardless of the language you use.
Well, there's some other references in that part of The Divine Conspiracy on this issue of not preaching.
Lessons of Discipleship
Now, let's look at these three areas there, because we have to develop these later now. In being a disciple, there are three areas that we need to think about.
Do what Jesus said
One is just learning to do the things that Jesus said. And I say again, and from now on I'm going to be repeating this, don't get legalistic about this. Doing the things that Jesus said is not a matter of trying to do the things that Jesus said. It's a matter of becoming the kind of person who would naturally do them.
And that's where we go back to our circle diagram. The focus is on changing the stuff that's in those circles. You change the stuff that's in the circles, and the behavior will change. So, to stick with our simple case, you know, blessing those who curse you. You don't want to try to bless those who curse you. If you do, you'll fail. That's all you'll do.
See, the problem is the stuff that's in the circles pops out before you have time to think about what you're doing or not doing. That's why the Pharisee always fails, and winds up in hypocrisy, because they aim at the action and not the change in the person. But still, the things that Jesus explicitly said to do are guidelines, and we need to have in mind becoming the kind of person who does that.
So now we have a lot to say about that later. That's just the general point.
Learn to live without explicit guidance
The second thing is how to live life in areas where there is no explicit command. No explicit command. How do you live? Most of the stuff that we do, God - Jesus didn't say anything about, there's nothing about it in the Bible. Didn't say anything about automobiles, for example. What kind you drive, how you drive it, and that sort of thing.
But still, there is a way he would do that. And so now... This is a combination of learning how to do the things he explicitly talked about, but also how to do stuff that we have to have guidance with. And we have to be spoken to about. That are particular, and not in general terms, they're particular.
And here we have to learn to hear the voice of Christ, to listen for it, to learn to follow. And this might involve everything... This is where our investment bankers and lawyers, and others, everyone, needs to be able to listen and learn how to do the particular kind of work they do with Jesus at their side.
And to hear his promptings and his directions, so that life as a whole is lived in the Kingdom and not just the explicitly religious kinds of things, or the moral commandments only. This includes areas of prudence as well as morality.
What is the wise thing to do? Colossians 3:16, I quoted it to you the other night: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. Speaking and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart unto the Lord." See that's, that's a whole life kind of - the wisdom of Christ is what we need here.
I think we ought to include for example our business decisions. Issues about our family's financial welfare. And all kinds of concerns that have to do with ordinary life that we might not think about, if we just looked at the Bible alone. So we have to take care.
Act with power in the Kingdom
And then the final category here is how to act with power in the Kingdom. I said, I think, earlier that prayer and giving are the two baby steps in learning Kingdom life. If I didn't, I'll say that later. Prayer and giving are the two ways that we take tiny steps for learning how to act with the power of God in the Kingdom.
The letter from Bill Craig is an illustration of this. He didn't know how to - what to do with that. And so then now he heard some teaching, and it impressed him, and he had theological problems with it, but given all the theological problems, still at the moment, he was prepared to do something that he had never done before. And he observed the result.
See that's learning under the third category here. Now go back to our earlier statement that we ought always being - we ought always be undertaking to do things that we can't do. Right. That is the - that's built into our nature. Cause we're meant to live in the Kingdom of God, under the direction of God.
So that means we would always be undertaking to do things that we can't do. That's learning to act and live in the power of God. And that would cover everything from teaching Sunday School to a little child and talking to them about Jesus, about life and death and heaven and righteousness and all that, see, you'd talk to a little child, you're counting on God to do a work there.
If it's leading a big meeting or writing a book, or if it's starting a business, and so on. It's all in the same area. Cause we want to be acting in the power of God.
The Gospel Jesus Preached
Now, why is it that the preaching of the gospel of Jesus is omitted? I'm going to have to limit myself here, and again I'm saying carefully, study - five minutes - carefully study the Scripture on this. Read carefully the New Testament, the Old Testament, to see, what is the gospel.
There's one issue in particular that comes up over and over, both on the left and the right theologically, and that is the idea that Jesus preached one gospel and Paul preached another. And you have to face that out on the basis of your understanding of Scripture. I want to tell you that there is no such difference, and the gospel that Jesus preached and the gospel that Paul preached are the same.
If you have time at some point, and I had thought I might have time here but I won't, to walk through the book of Acts, and watch how the gospel of the Kingdom and the gospel of Jesus come together. And you will see them separate at the beginning, and together at the end.
And this was a - this was a matter of putting a face to the Kingdom, and a Kingdom to the face. See you have to understand that people did not know what Jesus was talking about, when he talked about the Kingdom of God.
And I've already mentioned that in Acts 1 when they go out - when he's getting ready to leave, and they're still asking the question in the wrong terms. But Jesus is still talking about the Kingdom of God. Look at Acts 1:3. "In the forty days that he was with them," in and out with them, "he spoke of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." That's what he spoke about.
The good news
There are very crucial passages such as Acts 8, where Philip is ministering in Samaria. You remember that they'd had a big meeting up there before, and Philip went back. And now he's preaching. Look at what the good news is about in verse 12 of Acts 8. It's worth your time to mark this verse; you may not have seen it. "And Philip" ...and we read here in verse 12, "But when they believed Philip preaching the good news."
Now stop there a moment and register, good news. What's the good news about? It's about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus. Now let me ask you. What do you suppose that name of Jesus stuff is about? What was the good news about the name of Jesus? Think. What was the... Authority. And I'm going to translate that, Dan, as meaning that in the name of Jesus, you can invoke the action of the Kingdom.
See that's the key. That's what they had to learn. The name of Jesus. Now, in the early chapters in the book of Acts, and you'll notice how that issue - the name of Jesus - comes up over and over in the first chapters of the book of Acts. By the time they get here, they have learned that when you ask and act in the name of Jesus, the Kingdom comes into action.
So now then I've quoted repeatedly Colossians 3:17, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." That's why that name stuff is important, is because it ties in to Kingdom.
And you - I'm going to have to leave it to you to do your inductive Bible study. Take a walk through the book of Acts, and watch the Kingdom and Jesus come together, so that by the time you get to the end of that, and you're now living in the area where the letters were written, and the church was emerging as a separate kind of entity in the world, you get to the end of that you will see the face has been put on the Kingdom.
It's the face of Jesus. And a Kingdom is presented in terms of the King, who is Jesus. But a king always brings a kingdom with him. So they come together. And that's the way it was understood in the New Testament.
Spirituality and Ontology
I know I started way up in the middle of the air, you know, like Ezekiel's wheels. (Ezekiel 1) And, you have - I believe you have to do that, and that if you don't start there, things will not clear up. And when you get down to the more specific level - I think we can illustrate that in what we're going to be talking about now - you will invariably wind up in legalism.
So here's a saying for you. "Spirituality without ontology produces legalism." Ontology is the theory of being. It's the understanding of reality, though, that's why we have to go there. And it applies not just to God, but it also applies to us as human beings.
What really matters in us, is the hidden aspect, the sources of our behavior. And we have to understand that we are spiritual beings. That's ontology. What... When we get the ontology right, and we get the order right in the person, then we're able to escape legalism. Spirituality without ontology produces legalism. And that will be pharisaism.
And that's why religious people often are so angry, and can be very mean. Is because they're focusing on behavior, on faith and practice, and they're judging themselves and everyone else in terms of that. And it produces mean Christians. And contemptuous Christians. Just think of the things that Christians have done to one another.
Avoiding legalism
And where does that come from? Well, it comes from the insistence on behavior. And on specific beliefs, and right and wrong, and so the Inquisition and all the religious wars and all those things. You say, how could that happen? It's because they try to understand spirituality in terms of explicit behavior or faith and practice, or explicit kinds of belief.
So now if we come to Jesus, we have to have beliefs about him. You can't come to him any other way. But the significance of the beliefs is not so we will be identified as having the right answers. See very often salvation in terms of going to heaven is presented in terms of you being kind of like a driver's test, you know. Here in California you miss three you have to take it over. Except in this situation, you don't get to take it over. You have to go to the bad place. Because you didn't get the right answers.
And the significance of faith is not having the right answers. The significance of faith is being enmeshed in reality, in the way that accords with truth. And when you do that, then your life is different.
Take something that in past generations there's been huge battles over. Virgin birth of Christ. Well what's the significance of that - to believe the virgin birth of Christ? Well, it isn't getting the right answer. It's that if you believe Christ was born of a virgin, you've got a different world than one in which he was not.
So now you're going to be relating to him in a different way. I mean, you hear now of course constant discussions among Christians about, was Christ divine? Well, one way of thinking about it is if I say that then I pass the test. God will let me in because I got the right answer.
Effects of True Belief
Now I'm hoping that you are thinking, that surely isn't the way it matters. See, if I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he was uniquely divine, I relate to him differently than if I write - relate to him just as a nice man who was, had a historical significance. We ought to be like him or something of that sort, you know.
So, my belief is designed to integrate my action with reality. And that's why, that's why it really matters. So we seek the Kingdom in Jesus; we come to him; we begin to listen to him. If the Holy Spirit and the Word works faith in our heart, then we begin to say, this is the Son of God. This is equal with God.
And now then, we have a different kind of person that we're relating to. And hopefully all that we've been saying spells that out. And so we come to seek the Kingdom in Jesus. We live out the righteousness and the peace and the joy that is of the Holy Spirit. And we live in uncompromising obedience. We're learning to do that.
Now, do we have to be perfect? Well, no, obviously not. Why? We're not accepted on the basis of perfection or performing. We're accepted because of our relationship to Jesus. When I go to heaven, the place of God, they're not going to check the computer to see if all of my sins have been paid for. They will see another friend of Jesus coming. That's what they will see.
A disciple may be very green and very imperfect. What characterizes the disciple is not the level of their perfection. What characterizes a disciple is that they are learning. That they are progressing. And before very long, they're very different in how they behave, because their inner being has been transformed.
An Inversion of Two Kingdoms
Now, we want to look at the way, the form that Jesus' teachings of the Kingdom begins to take, as he opens up his main teachings. And running through all of his teachings is the principle that, again, it's not a new principle, but it is the principle of the inversion of the two kingdoms.
The two kingdoms in question here - now are they, well actually they're what the New Testament calls the world. Remember there're three things that the early Christians - when you confess faith in Christ, you took a stand against. You disowned. And that was the world, the flesh, and the devil. You disown those three things. The world, the flesh and the devil.
The Kingdom of the World
Now think of the world; the world is socially organized, historically developing flesh. It is superintended by the prince of this world, who is Satan. And the primary job that he has is to direct the ideas of this world in such a way that people are controlled by a false system of belief.
False rankings
And that false system of belief has as its - probably one of its primary components the way people are ranked. And you may have noticed that in human beings. It's called sometimes "pecking order," because among chickens there is an order in which chicken gets to come and peck. This is a silly, brutal kind of thing. But it has to do with ranking of people in terms of who is up and who is down.
And it is a pitiful thing. You watch how little children, for example, suffer from it. Very, very heartbreaking to see it. You watch a group of children on a playground, and among the most brutal scenes on earth are playgrounds in schools, where little children suffer all these things and get involved in these rankings. And it hurts you just to even think about it.
Course it goes on as you grow up. As you grow up you get hardened to it, both in terms of engaging in it sometimes, and in terms of how you get ranked.
False qualifications
And of course this is where contempt comes in, because contempt is tied to the rankings. And who is worth, and who is not worth. And Jesus is very conscious of this. And he's especially conscious of how that's tied to the theology, and how human rankings are identified with God's rankings. Does that make sense?
Because now this is the key idea that we have to talk about, now. Central to Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom, is the inversion of human ideas about rank, and the insistence that God has a different ranking. He ranks people in different ways.
So now that is why you have this statement of Jesus that shows up over and over: The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Sometimes it's worded different. Many who are first shall be last. Many who are last shall be first. But he's always referring to those two orders of ranking.
What human beings regard as good, as respectable, as decent, as to be applauded and striven for, and the people who wind up in those places as being well off, as being good, to be respected. And then the tacit idea here is that if you're in those good rankings that means God's on your side. Right.
So, and one of the biggest things in this, in this respect to God being on your side, was wealth. And social influence. And having the right qualifications. Qualifications. Very important.
The Kingdom of God
Let me show you something about Paul. Said the other day, Paul was really the first one who got it, and if you look at Philippians with me for just a minute, you'll see what I mean by that I think. Paul is talking about his qualifications in Philippians 3. "Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble for me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of false circumcision." (Philippians 3:1-2)
And then he talks about the true circumcision. Now the false circumcision was the circumcision of the flesh. It was a mark of propriety in those circles. You were in if you were circumcised, and you were not if you were out. If you were not you were out. You were a heathen.
Look at verse 4. "Although I myself might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." So here's... "Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. A Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee."
Now you understand, these are regarded as good things. Paul was, in terms of the first Beatitude in Matthew 5, Paul was someone who was rich in spirit. He was rich in spiritual things. "As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness which is in the Law, blameless." That's the upside in the scale of blessedness. Of God's favor.
Human qualifications are worthless
Now, here's what Paul says about it. "Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that I count all those things..." (Philippians 3:7-8) Now all those things he's referring to are the things he listed. His education. His attainments. His family.
Now, if you don't have that sort of stuff you're what we call today a nobody. Did you ever know a nobody? You're a nobody. That's fascinating language. You don't exist. What does that mean? That means, in that order of that pecking order, you don't peck. You're out of it.
Now Paul says, all those things that put me up on the upscale of the pecking order, I count as loss. These are... As loss what does he mean? He means they are drawbacks. "I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish." (Philippians 3:8) My New American Standard, a very nice translation.
So some words it can't translate. Rubbish. It ain't rubbish. It's much worse than rubbish. It's what you step in when you walk across the lawn where the dogs have been running. Isn't that a nice way of putting it? Now the old version has a nice - dung. That's OK to say dung. But don't say that other word. We're nice. But being nice, we don't get to it.
I mean, that's what Paul's attitude is. These were the upscale things. Right.
Human riches do not guarantee blessedness
Now, what Paul knew was, what he'd learned from Christ was, you can have all of those things and not be blessed. And you can be blessed and have none of those things. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Two kingdoms. The things that are thought to be up, on the human kingdom, do not guarantee blessedness.
Rather, what guarantees blessedness is life in the Kingdom of God. So look at Luke 6. (Luke 6) I'm not going to have time to go over all these verses, but I do encourage you to understand that this is a general principle now. That you see over and over.
I've listed some of the great inversion passages. The Song of Miriam. (Exodus 15:18-19) Hannah's celebration. (1 Samuel 2:1-11) These Psalms do the same thing. (Psalm 34, Psalm 37, Psalm 107:31-43, Psalm 113) Mary does it in the Magnificat. (Luke 1:46-55) We see the same thing. Paul does the same thing in 1 Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 1:25-29) But I won't have time to go over those. I just encourage you to read them to see the teaching there, as a part of the whole scriptural teaching that opposes the one kingdom to the other.
The Beatitudes
Now let's do look at Luke 6. Now this is apparently another version of the Matthew passage, preached in a different place possibly. And he using - uses interestingly different formulations. Matthew 6:20. "Turning his gaze on his disciples, he began to say, Blessed are you who are poor. For yours is the Kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20)
Now, what's the assumption? The assumption is that if you're poor, God isn't for you. You remember the rich young ruler? You remember how Jesus told him that he had to get rid of his possessions, and how he couldn't do that? And how he turned away? See that, question that came out of that.
Jesus said, "How hard it is for those who are rich to enter the Kingdom of God." (Mark 10:23) And this just hit his followers in the teeth. Because they had the understanding that if you were rich it was so only because God had blessed you. So you were in special favor if you were rich, otherwise you wouldn't be rich.
See how the reasoning goes. This passage has confused many people, because riches and poverty are such a big issue for people. Jesus didn't say it was easier for poor people to get in. He didn't say you couldn't get in if you have riches. What he did was he head on confronted the teaching that if you are rich, you are in with God.
Poverty in the Kingdom
So now he says, "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20) He's looking at poor people. Blessed are the poor, because yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are those who are hungry. Blessed are those when men hate you. Ostracize you. Cast insults at you. And spurn your name as evil for the sake of the Son of Man.
So, are those good things? No. They are things that are regarded as bad by human beings, and if you're in those positions, you're not blessed. But Jesus is saying, no, if you're in the Kingdom of God, you're blessed even though you're in those positions. And you're equally blessed. You don't suffer by comparison.
Now is he saying that everyone who is poor is saved and going to heaven when they die? No, of course he's not saying that. Anyone who's known poor people knows that they can be just as wicked as rich people. Actually, poor people can be more hung up on wealth than people who have it.
Because they dream that it can do things that it cannot do. They trust it more, sometimes, than people who are rich, because people who are rich have found how little it can get you, as well as what it can get you. He's not saying everyone who's poor is saved.
And I have heard people preach that if you don't do what the Beatitudes say, you will not be saved. And I'm not going to mention the names of these people because they're well-known names, and names that we've already used in our discussions here. I've heard them get going and just say you have to be poor in spirit. You have to mourn. You have to... And they think up ways of suggesting how you can do that.
And they miss the whole point of the Beatitudes, which is the inversion of kingdoms, and the availability of the Kingdom to people who are not up in the world's system. And the unavailability of the Kingdom to some who are up in the world, in human estimation.
Wealth in the Kingdom
But I've heard people say if you're rich you'll go to hell. Now see, if you're obsessed with the issue of going to heaven or hell, you're going to have a hard time reading the Bible. Because it isn't always talking about that.
So if you read blessed - oh that means saved. It doesn't mean that. Got something to do with it, but that's not what it means. Look at the other side here, because you get woe-be's in this version. Verse 24. (Luke 6:24) "Woe to you who are rich." Isn't that pretty plain, if you're rich you're in trouble.
Now, I've worked on this material at great length in a book called The Spirit of the Disciplines. There's a chapter in there, "Is Poverty Spiritual?" And it's a discussion of the back and forth over all this issue. And if you find it's something that you'd like to read, then I invite you to read it.
Because this is a huge tangle in contemporary thought and life. And you do have huge segments of the church visible, that believes that richness, riches, are a sign of decadence. And you couldn't possibly be rich or powerful and be right with God. That God is in favor of poor people over rich people.
All sorts of confusions, and in a large measure they do derive from misunderstanding these teachings. The Beatitudes don't tell you to do anything. They're announcements about the reality of the Kingdom of God, in relationship to the kingdom of men.
How Jesus Teaches
In order to understand them, you have to understand how Jesus teaches. And looking at these passages can help us with that. Jesus does not teach generally by laying out general truths, but by contradicting prevailing assumptions, and allowing... And causing you to think about that.
And you have to remember that they didn't have computers. They didn't have ballpoint pens and pads to write on. They didn't have recorders. So they came with nothing and they listened. So if you're going to teach in such a way that they get it, you can't lay out systematically a body of doctrine.
You have to find ways of putting stingers into what they already believe, and so jarring them, that they will not have a problem remembering it. Did you hear what that man said?
Questions assumptions
He teaches that way. He teaches by questioning prevailing assumptions and practices. And when you look at the Beatitudes, you have to understand that's what he's doing. So when he says, "Blessed are the poor," he's not saying all poor people are blessed.
He's saying, "Your assumption that the rich are blessed is false." Because there are poor people who are blessed too. And they are blessed because they are... If your assumption is that rich people are all well off, sorry. Because there are rich people who are in real trouble.
Now, I hope that this is not too difficult for you to get. Luke 14 is a good place to see it, because Luke 14... You have to understand how he teaches if you're going to get what he says, otherwise you'll turn it into legalisms and wind up where people do who discover, for example, that Jesus wants you to hate your mother and father.
He said that, didn't he? Well, if you don't understand how he teaches, and that teaching that you should hate your mother and father you'll think he's making a generalization. Whereas what he's doing is contradicting a generalization.
The generalization that your mother and father should determine your life. That if you respect and love them you'll do what they say. So imagine how Zebedee felt standing in the boat with his kids taking off down the coast with Jesus. (Mark 1:19-20) Right, you remember that? You could imagine Zebedee would say, "These children must hate me. They left me here to deal with all this business, and they're going after Jesus. They must hate me."
Jesus of course is not teaching anyone to hate anyone. He never taught that. But he did realize that the interpretation of loving, which meant that you would simply do what your parents said, even after you had grown up, had to be corrected because parents often misdirect you and you have to have a place to stand in the Kingdom of God to redeem family relations.
Questions practices
Well in Luke 14 here you have him going to a dinner, and in verse 7 he starts teaching. He was invited by - and he says, he watches people as they take the places of - around the table if you wish. And he says in verse verse 8 of Luke 11, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you may be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, You get up now, and you move down there, because I want this man to sit up here by me.
And you in disgrace, get up and slink down to the last place in the table." Now, you think Jesus was actually concerned about that? About you being embarrassed? Think he's actually concerned about that? "When you're invited, go down to the last place, sit down at the last place, that when the one who has invited you comes, he'll say... Where's Joe? Oh Joe's way down there. Joe come on up here! I want you to sit by me. Friend, move up higher. Then you'll have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you."
Now, do you do that? Then you're disobedient to Jesus. He told you to do it, didn't he? Look at the next... verse 12. "When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives."
And some people might say, I've really been looking for this verse. "Or your rich neighbors. Lest they invite you in return, and repayment come to you. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed since they do not have the means to repay you and you will be repaid in the resurrection."
So does that now actually say you should never have your relatives over for dinner? No. It's addressing a general practice. And Jesus teaches in this way when he's down at the very concrete level. He addresses a general practice, and he addresses it by putting a particular case before you.
Contradicts expectations
So, with reference to the Beatitudes. He's not saying that only those who are poor in spirit or poor in money are blessed. He's saying, contrary to the human expectation, the poor are often blessed because the Kingdom of God belongs to them. And the rich are not blessed, because they're not in the Kingdom of God.
See, it's all relativized to the Kingdom. So the meaning of the Beatitudes is to understood in the light of this great inversion. They are primarily proclamation of the availability of the Kingdom.
What are the Beatitudes?
The Beatitudes don't tell you to do a thing. And if you just look at the grammar, you'll see that that certainly seems to be what he's doing. He doesn't tell you to do anything. It's proclamation of the Kingdom. The availability of the Kingdom. It's not guarantees of blessedness or unblessedness.
And you'll see that when you understand how he teaches, and you realize what he's doing.
Answers the great questions
The two great questions that we've mentioned that have to be answered, and Jesus answers them in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5) Who is well off? And who is a good person? And he answers who is well off in the first section up through Matthew 5:17.
And he answers the question who is well off in such a way that it is shocking and revolutionary, and he has to say to the people who are listening, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law." When do you say that kind of thing to a group? You say that kind of thing to a group when you know they're thinking that, don't you?
Now why were they thinking that? They were thinking of that because of the shocking proclamation that he had just made about wellbeing, or blessedness. He had just announced that people who were on the list of unblessables in the human order can be blessed.
And their blessing lies in the Kingdom. And then in Luke of course, he adds the woe-be's. (Luke 6:24-26) The list of people who are thought to be - to have it made, in the human order, in the Kingdom of God can be totally left out.
So now what's the essential message? The essential message is, in the familiar words, whosoever will may come. Whosoever will may come. It doesn't matter, the human distinctions that may be drawn.
Extends generosity
Now then, go back to the verse about, that I gave you earlier about Matthew 11, 11 and 12, and Luke 16:16, where it talks about, since John the Baptist, people are violently taking the Kingdom. And taking... See, that's - the Beatitudes are about that. The Beatitudes are saying...
Now then tie that in with Jesus' practice. What was Jesus constantly in trouble over? Associating with the wrong people. Associating with the wrong people. Listen to this. Luke 15. "Now all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near to him to listen to him." (Luke 15:1) Those're the wrong folks. See, they're like lepers, and they should be going the other way.
"And both the Pharisees and the scribes begin to grumble." That's a feature of Pharisees and scribes. They grumble a lot. And here's what they said. "This man receives sinners." (Luke 15:2) And to top it off, he eats with them. He eats with them.
And he told them a parable. About the lost sheep. (Luke 15:3-7) And about the lost coin. (Luke 15:8-10) And about the lost son. (Luke 15:11-32) You see, the meaning of the Beatitudes is the openness of the Kingdom to all who trust in Jesus.
See that's the story of the Gospels now. Have this in mind, go through, read the... What do you see? Person after person coming to Jesus. You see the remarkable generosity of Jesus in the Kingdom of God. He's comfortable with all of them, because he's solidly situated in the Kingdom of God.
So he can be with anyone, he can be anywhere. That isn't necessarily always true of us. And we have to grow as his disciples before we can enter into that kind of thing, but we ought to have in mind that we can like him be anywhere with anyone, and perfectly safe, and perfectly strong in the Kingdom of God.
The Prophecy of Daniel
Now, just a final word. The prophecy of Daniel. (Daniel 2:35) Why does this upset people so much? Why do we constantly try to go back and civilize the Beatitudes? Why do you have people invest such efforts into how mourning will save you?
And how being poor in spirit is really a matter of thinking that you're poor. That's so amusing to watch people try to translate these in ways that will fit into the legalistic mindset of human beings. And they are disgraceful. They are, they're like the prodigal son. And the older brother is standing there looking with reproach.
You see, this is actually the announcement of the Kingdom that is cut out without hands. The stone that is cut out without hands in Daniel. (Daniel 2:44) That comes and crushes human order and fills the whole earth. And that's the eventual outcome of the Kingdom of God.
It shakes the foundations, in Haggai, so that the things that remain will remain, and those that are not eternal will disappear. It is the kingdoms of the world have become that of our Lord and of his Christ. And that's what puts the hallelujah in the sHallelujah Chorus, isn't it.
The Gospel and the Great Inversion
Well now, I know I've raised a lot of questions, and we're going to have time later on to talk about those, so keep those things in mind about the meaning of the Beatitudes, and what it means for the poor in spirit to be blessed, and for the rich to be woe-be'd, and we'll come back to those.
But this is a very essential part of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, because that gospel inverts the natural human orders, or the human orders that we see about us in the wisdom of the world. In our fellowships of disciples, we will not respect the human order, the human pecking order of values.