[To download the sermon, right-click on this link and select "Save As": A Letter to the Exiles - Seek the Gospel]

This month, we’re going to step out of Exodus the book
But not out of what it means to be living a life of exodus
We’re going to continue to look at life thru the eyes of exile
Using Jer 29 as a springboard

The people of God are a people of exile: A people NOT in their homeland
It’s a repeated scenario in the OT..

Then in the NT, Peter calls those who follow Jesus to live as exiles, sojourners, strangers with regard to their life here (1 Pet 1:1, 2:11)

Follow up:

Heb 11:13 we’re to say that we strangers and exiles on this earth because we’re seeking something better

We’re HERE, but we’re not HOME

So how are we to live HERE, if this is not our HOME?

Purpose for this next month: Using Jer 29 as a springboard

We want to understand what it means to SEEK ….. What, how, why

This is NOT our theme for 2008 ….
This is OUR MISSION
This is who we are, and who we are to be as a church, called to enjoy and embody the gospel for the glory of God and the good of St. Augustine (others)

Jer 29 gives us a window into understanding that.
That’s our goal for the month…

>>>>>>>>>>>

TODAY, we want to focus on understanding what is at the core of that statement…

We want to enjoy and embody THE GOSPEL

What is the gospel?
“Good news” … about WHAT?

So often, we equate “the gospel” with “my salvation”
That’s not wrong
Eph 1:13 speaks of “the gospel of your salvation”

But is the gospel SIMPLY salvation?

One of the difficulties is that the gospel isn’t neatly defined for us, at least not in the NT

The gospel is what the exiles in Babylon were waiting for: good news

One way to understand what the gospel is, is to understand what an exile is…

Imagine being conquered, defeated, forced out of your house, off land, away from family, torn from your culture and all you know, enslaved by brutal captors

Welcome to Babylon, ~ 600 BC

The Babylonians have finally conquered Judah and Jerusalem and in 3 deportations, they’ve steadily bled the people out of the land, leaving only the poorest of the poor to manage their newly conquered kingdom.

Just 400 years earlier (~1000 BC) you were the world powerhouse with the mightiest, badest warrior king ever (David), followed by his wise, rich, awe inspiring son (Solomon).

But just 400 years before that (~1450 BC) you were coming our of about the same situation you’re in now … slavery, oppression…different place (Egypt), same story.

The exiles in Babylon were waiting for “good news”

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In the NT
76 x “the gospel”
54x verb form “to tell, proclaim, preach the gospel”

But what is this good news? The good news/gospel OF what

Mark, in the opening of his account of the gospel, has Jesus giving us a big clue

READ Mark 1:14-15

Good news of a Kingdom (4x)

What’s a Kingdom … that over which a King reigns

20x Gospel OF God, Jesus Christ, Christ

READ Isa 40:9 good news, good news … behold, YOUR GOD!

Very simply, the gospel is this: GOD
As John Piper has titled a book “God … is the gospel.”
(and I’ll let you read him and you’ll see how much he’s influenced me)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So when you think gospel, think Kingdom and think of the King

As a kid, we would go to Walt Disney World, the Magic Kingdom
I never went to Disney to see Walt Disney,
I didn’t even linger around to see Mickey Mouse
I went to ride the rides

I was there for the Kingdom, not the King
One of the pervasive problems with Christians today: we’re like kids hopped up on cotton candy and rollercoasters, seeking the Kingdom without primarily seeking the King

The Kingdom is nothing if the King isn’t everything!

So the gospel is radically God-centered, King-centered

The good news IS about salvation, but only in that it is about THE SAVIOR

Doesn’t remove you and your salvation from the equation,
but it makes you more of a variable, not THE CONSTANT
and certainly not the sum of things.

It takes me out of the center of my universe, and God’s universe,
and makes God the center of His universe, and therefore my universe.

The gospel is radically God-centered … think gospel, think King!

>>>>>>>>>>

But the gospel isn’t about just a King … it’s about a VICTORIOUS KING

19x that “good news” is used in the OT, it refers almost exclusively to a report of military success, victory in battle

READ Isa 52:7 (Rom 10:15) … God Reigns!

This is the heart of the gospel, a victorious, reigning king

And he’s not just a victorious King, but understand what this king is like!

READ Isa 61:1-3

This is the good news that the exiles in Babylon were waiting to hear

But the people had kept propping up kings that did not fulfill this description
In fact, the kings were the downfall of the people
ANE: king stood as representative of the people
Today, in Great Britain, we see them as figure heads

But in the ANE, as goes the king, so goes the people

>>>>>>>>>>

So it’s no small thing that Jesus comes along, not only announcing the Kingdom of God,
But in Luke 4:18-19 he takes Isa 61 as his “life verse”
And says (Lk 4:21) to those listening
“today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus is the promised king, from the line of the Great King David (Acts 8;12, Rom 1:1-3)
But fulfilling all that the earthly kings could not.

How? B/c he is the true King, not just a son of David, but the Son of God, the True King
After all, it was God who was the TRUE King of the people (1 Sam 12:12)

So when you think gospel, think Kingdom, think King, think Jesus

This is the gospel, radically God-centered, Kingdom-centered

>>>>>>>>>>>>

What is it to believe the gospel? It’s to pledge allegiance to the King, surrender to King Jesus,
And follow Him and find in Him your complete satisfaction

The Kingdom is nothing if Jesus isn’t everything

And to follow a King means you are SEEKING WHAT … His Kingdom

Seek FIRST the kingdom (Mt 6:33, Lk 12.31)

SEEK: zeteo (intently pursue, strive for, actively desire)
Ekzeteo…careful search

If we are seeking the Kingdom and the King, then we will seek what He seeks, right?

>>>>>>>>>>>>

What does Jesus seek? What is his mission?

1. Jesus seeks the Kingdom by seeking God’s GLORY

READ Jn 17:1, 4-5

Jesus goal: to glorify the Father, and share in that with him

If King Jesus seeks the glory of God, what are you to seek?

Once again, the God-centered gospel

2. Jesus seeks the Kingdom by seeking subjects … the lost (Lk19:10)

39x Jesus speaks of himself as being “sent” by the Father”
34x in John

WHY? READ Jn 17:3

We exist to SEEK God

READ Acts 17:27 seek God and find him

If King Jesus seeks to make God known, what are you to seek?

Jesus desire for us to go and seek the lost …. book-ends the cross
Jn 17:18 just as you sent me, so I send them (pre-cross)
Jn 20:21 Risen Jesus re-iterates “Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you”

King Jesus did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, held onto
Don’t consider a relationship with God a thing to be kept to yourself

So we see that the gospel is:
radically God-centered

AND radically other-centered

>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is why we say that we are called to enjoy and embody the gospel for the glory of God and the good of others

We’ll be talking in the weeks to come HOW we are to flesh this out
HOW and WHY we are to SEEK GOD (Enjoy) and SEEK THE CITY (Embody)

>>>>>>>>>>

Today, I want to encourage you … don’t take the gospel for granted!

We often assume too much, thinking that we “get it” and that others “get it”
One dis-service of democracy has been robbing us of the concept of King and Kingdom

John Piper says: we must proclaimed the gospel and explained the gospel

Christmas sale at School for the Deaf and Blind
Christmas ornaments dangling
hanging from a bike rim, horizontal, that was spinning on a shaft

I saw it and understood it. And then, a young guy, a student at the school, who is blind, started asking me questions:
What is it, why is it, how is it

He didn’t have the categories and framework that I have assumed all my life!
I was struck at how I take these things for granted

Don’t take the gospel for granted!

Turn it over and over and over again in your heart and mind
Read it fresh, describe it in the bible’s words and re-describe it in your words, and then re-describe it in other words.

If you know a second language, explain the gospel in that language, it will make you really struggle with words and definitions and seek to make it understandable

Learn how to explain the gospel to children

Seek to understand the gospel by making it understood

proclaim the gospel, but also explain the gospel
and begin with yourself

>>>>>>>>>>>>

We all need to better understand what it means to embody the gospel

Some of you have no concept of what it means to embody the gospel, b/c you have no idea what it means to enjoy the gospel…

To enjoy the gospel means to apply the good news to yourself … to believe

That in seeking the King and His Kingdom, you’re actually seeking your ultimate good, your ultimate joy, satisfaction, hope

If you’re waiting to get your brain wrapped around everything before you believe, you’re expecting the impossible.

You need to, as St. Augustine said, “believe that you might understand.”

Seek God and Trust His promise in Heb 11:6
rewarder of those who seek him

Here’s grace: the true seeker is God

Why? B/c the father is seeking worshippers (Jn 4:23)

In fact, Rom 10:20/Isa 65:1
God has shown himself to those who were not seeking him

The grace of God in finding us, in taking us captive by his grace
Of pressing us into service into his kingdom of grace

This is the gospel…Good News of a Kingdom of a King
whose glory is beyond comprehension
and whose grace is beyond deserving

When we truly understand this, we will ENJOY it
When we truly understand this, we will EMBODY it

For the glory of God and the good of others.