31. Love and the Rebirth of the Universe [Matthew] - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

good morning how are you guys happy Sunday my name's Tim and yours is whatever your name is welcome to our votes good have you guys hear a lot of you know a lot of you I don't know I'm sure you're very nice and welcome to door fo I invite you to grab a Bible and open it with me or turn it on to the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 22 what we do every Sunday and our gathering is this right here and then we read stories about Jesus we hear Jesus teach we learn about it we internalize it and then we respond in worship and taking the bread in the cup together so that's what we're going to do with the rest of our time here we're in Matthew chapter 22 and while you're finishing turning there or whatever so here we are at the end of 2015 and at the end of every year I think it's true for most of us there's something about this time of year the transition to the new year it's just memory time you know you guys with me it's just kind of like a last year and ten years ago and I have a really particular memory this time of year from 15 years ago anybody remember y2k do you remember that thing that happened how the world didn't end and all that the computers and everything so my memory of y2k is very specific I was pursuing dating Jessica who would become my wife year so after that and when you're you know in that season of a relationship you are often willing to do things that you wouldn't otherwise do and so I found myself on Weiss UK in friends basement with some friends and Jessica watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers do you guys know the musical Matthew 22 just wait for it wait for it verse 23 verse 23 now that same day the Sadducees who say that there is no such thing as a resurrection they came to Jesus with a question teacher they said Moses told us that if a man dies without having any children his brother must marries the widow and raise up offspring for him now there were seven brothers but only one bride I'm sorry that's all that that story had to do with anything just what happens in my brain when I read the story now there were seven brothers among us the first one married and then he died and since he didn't have any children his wife with left to his brother and then the same thing happened to the second and the third brother it's unfortunate right on down to the seventh finally the woman died too now then Jesus at the resurrection whose wife will she be of those seven since all of them were married to her jesus replied you're stupid [Laughter] they're so stupid what a stupid story now that's my paraphrase of course but it's a good one you're hard not to paraphrase you are so in error what are you even thinking you don't know the Scriptures you don't know the power of God Jesus says at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage they will be like the angels in heaven and about the resurrection of the Dead haven't you read what God said to you quote I am the God of Abraham the god of Isaac and the God of Jacob end quote so he's not the god of the dead but of the living and when the crowds heard all this they were astonished at Jesus's teaching what on earth um pressing issues of our day will I be like an angel you know like um what who was thinking about this when you woke up this morning you know pressing issues of the day so to heaven resurrection marriage angels what you know we're out of left field some of you just had World War 3 in the car on your way here to charity oh you don't want to let anybody know that that happened but that's what's on your mind this what on earth is this about it's a great question it's a really great question um what what some of us aren't in the room we're interested in theology and so topics like heaven and what will heaven be like or whatever in angels like that's interesting to us and we like to talk about it and it's you know speculate or wonder and so on the rest of you are normal and you like are concerned with day-to-day matters in your lives and just try and follow Jesus and you're like well what does this have to do with anything it's a great question what does this have to do with anything so we're first of all where are we out in the story why what on that same day that's how historial hood what day what day well if you're following through we're going through Matthew Jesus he's in his last week in Jerusalem last seven days of his life before his execution and if you remember what it's been the story so far he rode into Jerusalem acting like a king he went into the temple courts and pulled that stunt there right at the center of power and religion and public space so we did that and that made a lot of enemies he already had enemies among the leaders of Israel and that kind of sealed the deal and so the leaders of Israel you'll remember reject Jesus and oppose him in public and so then Jesus told to the same crowd three parables about what's happening as the leaders reject him and then the leaders are so ticked him they try to shame Jesus by exposing him in public debate and this is debate number two there's three debates last one remember last week 10 should we pay taxes to Rome or not Jesus brilliantly navigated that one so here now it's not a political topic it's a religious topic a theology topic like why do they care what Jesus thinks about the resurrection you know like what does that have to do with anything so it has everything to do with what Jesus is doing in Jerusalem so just so stop and think about it put yourself in the shoes of Jesus and the crew that came with him to Jerusalem you you've been you've been watching Jesus launched this kingdom of God movement up in Galilee for a couple years now gained a lot of press and then Jesus comes to the capital city and he you know says big show by coming into the city acting like he owns the place like he's a king and he confronts the leaders of Israel riot in the most public important space in all of Judaism like what what would motivate Jesus to do that that's crazy like if you were one of Jesus disciples you like he's gone nuts you know I really dug the healing the lepers and like the you know including everybody at these parties and talking about the kingdom of God this is what what's happened to Jesus he's gone ballistic and he has he's gotten really intense over the last few days what's motivating him and you can't just say well he's Jesus he just does what he wants there's nothing like what there's something motivating Jesus to confront the leaders of a nation in the capital city and he knows what this means for him he knows he's going to die he's actually been trying to tell his disciples that for a while so what would motivate Jesus despite opposition and knowing that he will get murdered if he keeps pressing this button he just keeps pressing it what would motivate him to do that and there's a number of things I think we can kind of put together from his words and his teachings but one of those things surely is the hope of the resurrection it's the hope that the kingdom of God is coming that he's at a hinge moment in human history and that God's doing something in this moment that even opposition and murder and death cannot overcome what God is doing right now for his world for Jesus to enter into a debate about the resurrection is to debate about hope for the world and it more just goes to show in our context that we think it's a kind of bizarre or that for us ideas about heaven have become just kind of harmless speculation it just shows how far we've drifted from the biblical vision of the resurrection and of hope for our world for in Jesus mind everything that he's doing is driven by this hope the human evil that the death and the tragedy and the suffering in our world the hope and the conviction that none of that gets the final word in human history that's Jesus is hope and the resurrection the hope of the resurrection is just one little piece of that of a bigger story that Jesus alluded to many different times throughout his teachings one of my favorite ways that Jesus put it is just in one little sentence of an image a metaphor that he is it was back in chapter 19 and it's about the resurrection but way more it's about resurrection for the whole universe Jesus mentioned he jesus's future hope he can describe his resurrection he can also describe it as this he calls it the renewal of all thing and you can go look it up and read the teaching in context it's really powerful but when Jesus wants to describe where he thinks history's going because of God's promises he called it the renewal of all things when the son of man that hidden himself sits on his glorious throne so for Jesus this is how the story of history ends this is how history ends and this word is fascinating it's used here and then one other time in the New Testament this word renewal and it's like who wants to try take a crack at it there's just like way too many consonants in that so Pauline Ganesha I'll Lincoln Afiya accent on the last word Pauline gonna see you try it there you go that's good it's pretty good so here's what what I love about this word and why Jesus uses it he's describing all all things all things and it's a compound word actually made up of two separate Greek words we do this in English butterfly fly made out of butter I don't know SoDo but so what do you know we put two words and put them together to me new words and so on and so the two words in Greek you can stir the two full syllable anyway whatever pollen there you go see pollen that means again or another time and then again ICEA is the root word of our English word Jenna Jenna psious do you see it in there Genesis a another verse another Genesis so for Jesus the story of the scriptures and the story of his hope is the story of the rebirth of the universe the new birth of our world and one put and humans are a part of God's good world and so when you want to talk about the rebirth of humans he'll use the word resurrection or he'll also actually I feel like born again and I feel like Jesus talked about that once or twice you must be borned you remember that so Jesus had a conversation with a rabbi named Nicodemus in the Gospel according to John and he said if you want to be a part of not God's new world that is itself going to be born again you yourself must be born again and Jesus doesn't see that as a process that just as we await to you only in the future it's something that starts now new birth this was a it's a powerful metaphor the Jesus used on multiple occasions to talk about his hope for the world and so Jesus he's inspired by this vision the way the world is as he experienced it is not the end of the story that there's hope because of the God of Israel and Jesus sees himself as the God of Israel among his people to do something to bring about hope that we could never do for ourselves that's the story jesus el sees himself as a part of now so here we go so let's just pause right here so we're not talking for Jesus this count is not a conversation about heaven as some comforting idea about life after death what Jesus is being challenged on is his hope for the world and his hope for Humanity so we're where we ended up in Western Christianity is so far different from what the Bible has been trying to tell us I never know what to say about well forget whatever I've been trying to say here's what I'm gonna do I could draw on the chalkboard for 15 minutes it's already quite full know and I also most of you know about my other job of which is at a small creative design studio where we're making short animated films to explain the Bible and ideas in the Bible to people on YouTube and though it's called the Bible project and it's a lot of fun so I could take 15 minutes to draw or I could just show you a six-minute video which would you prefer right okay so I would prefer to because I don't have to talk or stickum it so you may have seen this video before I don't know how many of you follow what we're doing at the Bible project this is one of our first videos about heaven and earth it's I just saw a version in Cantonese being translated now and all these languages really exciting if you've seen it before deal with it and if you haven't seen it before I think it will help us wrap our minds are out what Jesus believes here so let's watch it so in the Bible the ideas of heaven and earth are ways of talking about God's space and our space so I understand our space really well we live here there's trees rivers mountains but my understanding of God's space gets a little fuzzy and what we do get in the Bible are images trying to help us grasp God's space which is basically inconceivable to us so these are two very different types of spaces yes they're different in their nature but here's what's really interesting is that in the Bible these are not always separate spaces so think of heaven on earth is like different dimensions that can overlap in the same exact space so we talk a lot about going to heaven after we die but this idea of heaven and earth overlapping we don't talk a lot about that which is kind of crazy because the union of heaven and earth is what the story of the Bible is all about how they were once fully united and then driven apart and about how God is bringing them back together once again so let's go back to the beginning where heaven and earth they're completely overlapping yeah this is what the Bible's description of the Garden of Eden is all about it's a place where God and humanity dwell together perfectly no separation and humans then partner with God and building a flourishing beautiful world and so on but as humans we wanted to do things a different way we wanted God out and we wanted to create a world apart from him yeah so we have these two spaces now and the Bible actually uses lots of different kinds of words and phrases to refer to these two spaces to make a clear distinction so you said that these spaces can overlap though so it's rain how that works yeah this is where we have to start talking about temples because in the biblical world you experience God's presence by going to a temple that's where heaven on earth overlap now there are two types of temples described in the Bible one is a tabernacle basically a tent that was built by Moses and the other was this massive building made by Solomon and these temples were decorated with fruit trees and flowers and images of angels and all kinds of gold and jewels and so on and these are designed to make you feel like you're going back to the garden and at the center of the temple was a place called the Holy of Holies which was like a hot spot of God's present now we can go and be with God again but not so fast because the temple also creates a problem so God's space is full of his presence and goodness and justice and beauty the human space is full of sin and injustice and ugliness the result so how are these spaces overlap if they're so different and they're in conflict with each other this was resolved through animal sacrifice yeah that's kind of weird what do animal sacrifices have to do with this yeah the idea is this animal sacrifice is somehow they absorb the sin when the animal dies in your place and it creates a clean space so to speak where you are now free to enter into the temple and be in God's presence okay so if I'm an Israelite and I live in Jerusalem I might be able to be in God's presence but you said the story of the Bible was all of heaven and earth reuniting right so we have to keep going in the story where we come to Jesus in the New Testament and in the Gospel of John we hear this claim that God became human in Jesus and made his dwelling among us now this weird Wehling is really curious it literally it means he set up a tabernacle among us and so what John is claiming right here is that Jesus is a temple he is now the place where heaven on earth overlap what's interesting about Jesus is that he isn't staying in this safe clean space he's running around hanging out with sinners he's healing people of their sicknesses and forgiving people of their sins you basically creating little pockets of heaven where people can be in God's presence but he's doing it out there in the middle of the world of sin and death and he keeps telling everyone that the kingdom of heaven is at hand and he even told his followers to pray regularly that God's kingdom come and that his will be done here on earth just as it is in heaven but a lot of people are threatened by Jesus and they kill him which seems to spoil this whole plan to reunite heaven in earth but we have to go back to a scene earlier on in Jesus's story where John the Baptist saw Jesus and said Behold this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world so Jesus isn't just talked about as being a temple he's also talked about as being the temple sacrifice yeah so so the class is now the place where Jesus absorbed sin to create a clean space that is not limited like animal sacrifices Jesus's sacrifice has the power to keep spreading and spreading and reuniting more and more of heaven on earth and this is all really great but it leaves one big question in my mind which is what happens when I die don't I just fly over to God's space to be with Jesus yeah so a few times in the New Testament we learn that Christians will be with Jesus in heaven after they die but that is not the focus of the Bible story the focus is on how heaven and earth are being reunited through Jesus and will be completely brought together one day when he returns so in the book of Revelation we get this beautiful image of the Garden of Eden now in the form of a city coming to end the age of sin and death by redeeming all of human history in a renewed creation and God space and human space completely overlap once again so I hope that helpful and disrupt everything you thought you believed you're welcome for that so this is what G this is the story Jesus sees himself as a part of this is his hope and and it's precisely this hope that's being challenged and that's being at least these leaders are trying to expose a silly and ridiculous and in fact they make themselves silly and ridiculous in in the process don't they so who's this group of people that's trying to expose Jesus as a false teacher and why he's a religious fanatic who shouldn't believe silly things like this what's what's the name of this group Sadducees if you know the Bible humor joke about these folks I'm not going to say it you're welcome for that they're Sadducees so they believe that there's no resurrection why is that we actually we know very little about this group the Sadducees they're mentioned a few other times in historical sources of the period and here's what's interesting when they are described they're described here's the best analogy I think in our culture of what this group is like it's much like the Church of Scientology in American culture it's a very small group in terms of the number of people involved however the people who are involved tend to be very wealthy influential people you guys driven have you ever been driving through Hollywood Sunset Boulevard have you seen it it's so weird it's like a castle in the capital in the middle of Hollywood it's very strange anyway maybe it's not weird in Hollywood go drive by out or look at a Google Streetview whatever you want to do it's very strange right their headquarters so but somehow this is a movement that has a lot of really prominent so we know that a number of the priests people who run the show were Sadducees people who are very wealthy in Jerusalem and the little we know about them is that they only accept the Torah the first five books of the Bible as Sacred Scripture they believe that God occasionally intervenes in human history like the exodus and Pharaoh were guiding Israel through the wilderness but for the most part he's just leaving us to obey the 10 commandments and then you die there's no final judgment there's no final reckoning of the world you die and your name continues on you live on through family and children and so on and so they think that this idea of resurrection is dangerous because it inspires religious fanatics to go start revolts in the capital city of like Jerusalem and so when here's what they do they they go they have a Bible geek debate with Jesus they appeal to a law in the Torah from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 25 it's this law that is about Israel social life so Israel was a tribal farming society and so everything in this society all of the laws in the Old Testament they all revolve around this social setting of family and land that's everything in the laws in the Old Testament protection of family protection of land and so here if you men and women matriarch of patriarchs could own land but if a patriarch dies right grandpa or dad then to make sure that the widow and if there's any children are not left to survive on their own if they don't have a way to support themselves to make sure that the family land is not sold the widow marries back into the family that's the point and then if they don't have kids like in the story too so that they can continue the family name the story goes that's the law that's the law and so they make up this ridiculous story do I need to tell it again the Seven Brothers is so entertaining it was a ridiculous story about the Seven Brothers and then so here's what here's their argument here's a law in the Torah Jesus we know you value the Torah you know you think that it's God's Word so here's a law that if your ridiculous idea about the resurrection is really true then look at all the problems that are going to happen at the resurrection of the dead I mean who's this woman going to be married to so it's like a soap opera you know so surely God wouldn't contradict himself clearly Jesus you're just being stupid is what they're trying to do and Jesus turns the tables very quick and he says no you're the ones who are stupid for a couple two reasons he says first of all you don't you don't understand what the Scriptures are about the story that they're telling and then use a second you you underestimate you don't have any conception of God's power so he's saying that they they don't grasp the storyline of the Bible and that it's it's pointing towards something that naturally ends in resurrection in the rebirth of the universe and then you he says you guys lack imagination to truly conceive of what that new universe might be like that's his critique and he responds in both of those ways and they're both absolutely profound and so I want to spend the rest of our time packing this here and I am this is one of those I've loved my job I study the Bible so it's a huge part of my job and died this studying for this passage I just mind-blown in the last few weeks so I'm happy to give that to you now here's the grenade so let's take a second answer first you guys don't understand the Scriptures so he what look at the second answer verse 31 but about the resurrection of the Dead if you read your Bibles you guys this what he says and he'd have this quote what did God say to you I'm the God of Abraham the god of Isaac the God of Jacob if you have a little footnote look look down where's he quoting from from the book of Exodus chapter chapter 3 and then he concludes from that so he's not the god of dead people but of living people Exodus chapter 3 notice remember that little detail what are the books of the Bible that the Sadducees did hold a scripture remember so just the Torah so Jesus could have appealed does the Book of Daniel he could have appealed to the prophets Isaiah where the idea of Resurrection appears but he doesn't he meets them on their turf okay he meets them where they're at so he makes an argument from Exodus chapter 3 this is a famous story this is not random Jesus is never random it's a famous story of Moses in the burning bush you know the story from the Exodus story and so what's this about this is where God sees the oppression and injustice of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and he's slaughtering you know the Israelite babies throwing the boys into the Nile River and he's grinding them in slavery and so on and God sees it and God says no more that's enough and so he calls Moses to be the one through whom he's going to confront Pharaoh's evil and set Israel free and so Moses first of all says no a bad idea I don't want to be the one to do this and gods like yep no you're the guy for sure and then Moses says well what I'm going to tell people like what god am i doing all of this in the name of and he says here's what you tell people about Who I am I'm the God of Abraham the god of Isaac the God of Jacob so what is Jesus doing here he's saying God is defining himself as the God of Abraham Isaac Jacob - to do something in human history that's a part of God's mission to confront evil to defeat it into rescue people at the living active mission that God is on in our world and so God wouldn't define himself by people long-dead he would define himself by people to whom he originally made that commitment he's the god of the living not the dead now here's my hunch is that you would read Exodus chapter 3 and that idea would never occur to you that it somehow supports the idea of Resurrection and so Jesus he's not just reading this story in isolation always always you've got the whole big story the context and you're just supposed to know it so well why is it important even for us now as followers of Jesus that the god who's revealed to us in Jesus is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob what does that even mean well think through how the story works the story of the Torah right of the Hebrew Scriptures you have human beings who are ruining God's good world through their selfishness their sin through their shortsightedness through the fact that they wanted to find good and evil for themselves and flip me as we get these notices emails every once in a while from youth pastors who are angry that we had Adam flip got off in the video and we're like I know I just he flipped him off I don't just really inappropriate yeah I don't know what to tell you uh he's the one who did it so anyway and I mean uh given the absolute horror of human history and what humans have done to each other just in the last 200 years this is mild compare are you with me here is so ridiculous anyway okay so the slice all right anyway so that's like here's what humans definite humans do to God's good world from right far back as we can tell and right up through the left/right decades this is what we do to each other and what is the God of the Bible's response to a world of people who are who are unleashing hell on earth and with such evil and selfishness what is God's response right that's Genesis 1 through 11 God's response is Genesis chapter 12 he calls this random guy Abraham and he makes a promise to him through I'm going to do something through your family through which I'm going to restore divine blessing to the whole world wait what world is that that God wants the blessed get his enemies feel like I heard Jesus say something about that once or twice like he this is who God is he wants to bless his enemies and whatever that means it means that he's going to undo and overturn everything wrong that we've done into the place and there's going to be a reckoning there's going to be a setting right of what's been done wrong there's going to be a new birth for the universe there's going to be resurrection for the whole place and for people and if the story of the Bible points to anything and means anything that's the whole point of this story and Jesus says you guys don't know the Scriptures like resurrection isn't this like interest same thing you speculate about along with can God make a rock bit too big to list some things like that it's not like theological entertainment this story has teeth to it because is there any reason to hope and have hope for our world because if there is and that will motivate people to live and act in ways that are radical and that are self sacrificial isn't it convenient that people who don't believe in the resurrection are precisely those who are wealthy and in power they are getting their best life now aren't they of course of course it would be upsetting to them that the universe will be restructured and they might not be the ones in charge right this how this works and so here's here's Jesus's response you don't know the Scriptures this is where the story is going so if ok so if this is where the story is going what is the nature of a universe reborn really like what does it mean for a human to be rebirth in some trance what is it what does that even mean what will it be like and we can tell what the Sadducees think it will be what I think it's stupid all right so they don't even believe in it but when they do try and conjure up the idea they just think somehow it's just going to continue on the way it is so this lady's married and she was married seven times so she's going to have seven husbands in the resurrection like you see that they think it's just going to be this world but like rebooted in the same and Jesus says you guys lack such imagination you don't know the power of God and then here's what he says at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage they'll be like the angels in heaven okay what on earth does that mean well let's clarify first of all what did you say we will be like we'll be like angels did he say we will become angels no Oh wings for you I'm really sorry all right where that idea came from I have no idea but it's certainly not what Jesus believed so no wings for you sorry so what does that even would be like the angels and marriage and so on okay so let's stop i what i remember i remember as a brand new Christian I was twenty reading through the bought Jesus teachings all new to me and I remember the first time I read this and I was really bummed bothered I was like oh really I'm not married yet I hope doesn't return at least for a couple years you know I'd like to get married you know again you guys with me here's anybody ever maybe thought that before like man this which seems like such a rad thing why would it not be a future like what's the story okay so stop stop we need a new paradigm so Jesus is metaphor for the universe's future is new birth born again Jesus is metaphor for what hat needs to happen to humans to inhabit a reborn universe is to be reborn ourselves so let's run with that and and see where that metaphor takes us here's an image that I hope has been in front of us many times through our education it's the basic think it's called Carnegie stages of development something like that I don't know so it's the basic you know development of a human embryo and fetus so just stop to stop most of us are all going to go live in the world of star wars for a couple hours I hope you do at least over the next couple weeks and that's a fascinating universe and it's wonderful and amazing um but but if you stare at this image long enough you will realize we live for real in a universe that is far more remarkable and stupendous then are you guys with me here that look at that this here that's a human that's so amazing it's like an alien movie or some things like that like look at that so here here's here's the thing here's how it begins fluids fluid than gels is how you and I all started right and they mix together the embryo you're not learning anything I hope all right so that all happened like you exist because of gel mixing and then the cells start multiplying the egg and so on and then the uterine wall it implants and so the whole thing so then we get here we get three weeks in look at that ever so it's not every single one of us in the room was that you have to have been that to exist right now there you go but that was you that's you now you and I'm really being I'm being silly but this is I'm not being silly like you're thinking you are sitting in the chair right now you're you with that you of course I can do you used to be that like that with you so is it the same you well odds are that the number of cells I'm billions I'm sure in that little creature and billions more in your body now like probably completely different set of cells but it's you the that little creature at week three undergoes such a radical process of transformation yet it's still you so think there's there's three things so there are things that are in the future of that little embryo at week three that this little creature has no concept of and so on so try try and get you know a twenty six week old you know fetus at that point excited about star wars or pizza or something because I mean just there's no concept there's no framework for such a thing there are things that are going to happen after the birth for which this creature has no framework it's not even possible for them to dimension here's what's interesting take a keep looking and take a deep breath take a deep breath I'd hope you remember this fact well so you just took a breath from your lungs when did your lungs first start developing so the experts tell us between weeks four and five the cells that can form the little tube the bronchial tube or whatever it's called little and branch out starts right then and then they complete development somewhere between 32 and 34 weeks way on down the line so they begin that week four and five they finish development you know 30 weeks later and what are those lungs doing for those months what are those ones doing are they breathing well they are inhaling and exhaling aren't they what are they inhaling and exhaling liquid we all used to breathe liquid I told you this is a very strange universe you want to go try and breathe liquid now no no you'll die you'll die right so but you used to breathe liquid you live by every single one of us to exist at this moment you have to have breathed liquid for months that's amazing and but that wasn't about oxygen where did you get your oxygen the tube right the umbilical cord the umbilical cord but then something catastrophic happened in a matter of moments every single one of us in the room went through this transformation where our lungs stopped being full of liquid where oxygen stopped coming in through the tube and you took your first breath what was your body's response that you taking your first breath you screamed it was horrifying for you because you had no framework for any of this it was unbelievable and then all of a sudden this organ that's been sitting there for months comes into its own and fulfills its true purpose and then all of a sudden this cord that you've lived by for months becomes immediately unnecessary just like that complete transformation into your entire body in a min just a few minutes do you get it why did Jesus use the image of birth to talk about the future of the universe and future for a resurrected human so apparently there are things coming in the rebirth of the universe for which we have no categories whatsoever brand new things who knows try and teach a dog algebra it's impossible yes you're just no framework for it so let's not even waste our time on that exceptive hope that we can all whatever win marathons and stuff like that whatever in the future but who knows with that we have no category for that but then apparently there are all other things that that will continue into the new birth but they'll be transformed and they'll be transformed in a radical way just like your lungs were transformed like who saw that coming when you were 28 weeks old right but then all the sudden like there are things in you that they're there for a purpose they're not being fully realized yet but then one day won't like you just the lungs are filled with air and they're chugging right and then there will be other things that are part of the rebirth of the universe and of our bodies and of humanity where things that seem so vital and important and necessary to us now will go away and for Jesus marriage is one of those very interesting marriage so what does Jesus think about marriage well we know from a few chapters earlier right so I won't go back and rehash all of that but for Jesus if you'll recall giasses vision of marriage he derived it by meditating on pages 1 & 2 of the Bible and it's that human being marriage is about a covenant it's connected to gender connected to procreation and sex for Jesus so two two different families members of two different families they resist the biological impulse to reproduce with as many different people as possible they make a covenant to one another and those two opposite genders become one and then when they have sex again I trust you're not learning anything right now they make new humans so and for Jesus this is all in image so what he said it's an image of God that youth that when a man and women do this and out of that covenant is created new human life that's an image of God God's love it's a symbol of God's covenant loves why why does the universe exist in jesus's view God's love why is there what is the strange universe we living in isn't it fantastic and wonderful yes what wonderful thing I've ever experienced right and the Melora both inge that we've experienced at the same time and that's not God's fault that's because we've rejected God's love and we do it every day and we refuse to love our neighbor for Jesus humanity is so out of sync with the purpose of the universe the thing has to be reborn you need to be reborn because you got lungs that you're not using properly all right I mean think like you've got this capacity to love you have this capacity to feel compassion for others but somehow we just act on it only half the time and most of time we're lazy with it right or selfish and like we have the noble thought to do the right thing and then we don't do it I'm the only one alone in this okay so there's that and so for for Jesus marriage is a symbol at this stage of the universe's development it's a living symbol of how covenant love creates new lives is marriage the only way that human beings image God's covenant love through marriage to say no no because last I remember Jesus never got married never got married so apparently for Jesus he he was one of the first religious teachers teachers ever to elevate unmarried lies to be an honorable even desirable way of living in society and the early church blew everybody's categories in the ancient world on that one so for Jesus what's the meaning of life the meaning of life it's not marriage and is certainly not sex what's the meaning of life for G what's the meaning of the why are we here and a convenient because it's been that very next story you just sums it up in one phrase is to to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself love to receive the generous life creating love of God and to know it and to respond to that love by loving your Creator by loving your neighbor as yourself it's the meaning of the universe and we've done such a poor job at it we've ruined this stage of development so much that the thing is not going to get scrapped but it has to be reborn and so just imagine here's I think this is what Jesus is trying to say I'm pretty certain and it blew my mind once they started thinking about this so think about think about this person on this planet you care about the most so a family member a friend or perhaps a spouse or a child so think about the best of you that comes out when you act in love towards that person but when human beings love each other it's remarkable but what's interesting is that our love is really limited isn't it I'm only capable of giving my love and energy and time to right now three people my wife and my two cavemen and then I have the co-workers friends around me have some neighbors who I live by and that's it I'm maxed like I would love to be your friend Peter will be glad to be here Fred okay like I just like my plate small and I my capacity is not big I just can't I don't have the capacity you guess with me here like we are love has limits imagine you guys imagine a universe where that limitation is removed imagine a universe where nobody feels unwelcomed imagine a universe where every life is cherished everybody's knows that they belong that they have a place that they're loved and imagine that you were capable of giving that love to everybody that sounds awesome that sounds awesome and you get tastes of it don't you when you do the right thing when you love your neighbor for some people that comes through different experiences but for Jesus that's why is he doing what he's doing in Jerusalem because of that hope hope that God so loves our worlds that he won't leave us to our own devices he will defeat our evil and he'll remove it from his good world and let the thing undergo new birth and there will be all kinds of realities that we now experience that will pass like the umbilical cord and it seems weird to us now but I doubt that it seems weird to an infant to lose the title do you remember having your cord cut it was actually really important for your survival that you did stuff and for Jesus there's going to be all kinds of things marriage is one of them how you guys done this passage spun in my brain and I hope it's spinning yours too so let me close and close with this for Jesus this never remained speculation right for Jesus if the universe is going to be reborn where love of God and love of neighbor is just second nature it's just how the universe works for Jesus the whole point is that the future becomes present if this just remains a nice idea for you you're not following Jesus because Jesus is whole vision was that this becomes a reality now that you become born again starting now that the kingdom come and that God's will be done here on earth as it is in heaven and so Jesus is not ashamed of this belief it motivates everything that he does and if you're a follower of Jesus that means adopting this view of the world in your life which means this it means that for some of us you have a very difficult time accepting and believing and hoping that the universe is a safe place for you and that you are left and cared for because there's very few people in your life who are showing that to you and so for you one of the most dramatic steps of face will be to begin to live in a universe where that's true but trusting Jesus trusting that Jesus loves you that he died for you that he was raised for you and that he has your life in his hands and that he's stronger than death there are others of us who are here and we do believe that but we're lazy and we're annoyed with people in our lives and we don't show them love and when we do that we're acting out of sync with the universe Jesus says it doesn't make any sense you need to love your neighbour doesn't say you need to like them says you need to love them and so as we eat the symbol of Jesus's love for us and the bread and the cup I'm just going to pray that Jesus would speak to us what exactly each one of us needs to hear let me close into word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 51min 13sec (3073 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2017