Compelled: Speaking and Living the Gospel - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

yeah see hey everybody how are you good that guy what about that guy um unbelievable like what have you ever seen something like that before yesterday I asked him if he would go out in the cornfield with me and play what songs for me in the cornfield and he didn't do that okay so I'm saying it in front of people trace so that one day my dream can come true wouldn't that be a great existential moment to hear that in a cornfield in Wisconsin anyway uh hello hi Kent done good - good to see you um there's probably a whole bunch of you that I I don't know and could because I haven't been around here for years so hello my name is Tim I let's see my wife and I we moved here to your wonderful town Madison so I could go to graduate school back in 2003 and we were a part of Blackhawk for nine years and the last three years of that I was one of the pastor's here and so I know lots of you but there's probably lots of you who have been here last two years and hi I don't know you I'm sure you're a really nice person three years ago I moved back to my hometown to Portland Oregon and I both to move home and be close family but also there was a church that was just two years old at the time called door of hope and I came on the team of this kind of really young church it's a right everything we do is right in the heart of the city and actually when I came on the team I was the second pastor and we were meeting in a building that was - two blocks from the house I grew up in and it was a building that I had graffiti'd as a teenager ha ha ha I'm joking so it's just a lot of ironies there and so you know the church is turning six this year and it's just been man such an amazing ride and we have a team of about six pastors now a whole bunch of other people and we're just we're trying to be a witness to Jesus in the heart of the city and it's awesome and I can't imagine being anywhere else so it's really great and but it's super fun to come back here and to see so many people that I love and care about connected to this church community so it's total privilege to get to be back here there you go that's my little personal spiel so there we go we're we we you you for the last I don't know few weeks or so in the next couple months you're in this teaching series and I'm coming and and playing a part of that you've been in this series called what ya compelled so as I understand I kind of followed online and caught up and talked to some of the other teachers in the series this is a series about how followers of Jesus shouldn't be undercover Christians and my undercover Christians I mean like you or you're working somewhere and then a year in you find out that someone else is a follower of Jesus too at your work and you're like yes that's so awesome and there's one sense in which yes that is awesome but it's also not awesome that it says a year so that's what I'm talking about undercover Christians and I'm what I'm not talking about and what the series is not about is being like obnoxious badgering Christians who yell at people or something like that's ridiculous right negative stereotypes but what we're talking about is cultivating cultivating something inside of us so that we talk about Jesus and it's not weird it's because we love him and because He loves us and if Jesus the series right title that comes from that famous statement of Paul that is the love that Jesus has shown us and that he that and that sustains us Daisley as his followers it compels us to talk about him and it's not weird you guys it's not weird to talk about something that you love for example one of the one of the first things one of her sermons I actually ever gave here at Blackhawk I talked about Pasquale nachos so today I'm going to talk about porque no tacos because I have found not just the rival but the true defeater of Pasquale nachos so so one of the wonderful things about living in the city of Portland is food it's just a big part of the culture and life of Portland is amazing food and so I have the privilege of both working close to and living close to both locations of the city's best tacos in the whole world and as a restaurant that just has two homegrown pork called porque no the the turquoise one is the one by my house and the pink one is the one by my office and there I don't even quite know how to describe these tacos to you they're just so amazing right they're so amazing especially the shrimp I've never had a shrimp taco camarones taco dude you haven't lived until maybe you have allergies or whatever I'm sorry for you but uh so I mean I I really don't know how to do I've had tacos before I have never had tacos like you know there's no Anglos working in the kitchen it's a family deal right and they make this family makes the most amazing tacos and so you also notice something though that's a bit of a deterrent for many people about porque no what do you see in both pictures to the lines and here's what happens with many people in Portland sad sad people in Portland who have never eaten important though and it's because if you go by at lunchtime if you go by at dinnertime there's always a line like that certainly out the door it's not halfway down the block and many people drive by that line and they're like that's lame you know as a half oh I don't want to you know to get wait in the line or whatever and but I'm telling you if you come to Portland which you should and if you eat at pork I know which you have to do you know no Portland the line isn't the line is part of the thing like it's part of the experience it's the most fun line you've ever waited in and they know that the lines are long so they have servers who are dedicated just working the lines and so you get your a horchata you get your drink or whatever is you're waiting in the line people in Portland are super friendly when they're closed which is most of the class about it all of it you can't take that for granted but if their clothes are usually very friendly and and so that's like it's part of the deal it's just part of the dinner experience and you're you know they they don't have spittoons but they should because the smells work you over they prepare you the smells does and all the saliva and so on in your mouth so just attune so so I don't so here you go you guys yes this is a sermon illustration but I'm actually serious you don't be stupid come to Portland and and to have four kind of tacos and I mean I've become friends you know I eat there a lot and I become friends with them and I'm on the verge of actually getting free tacos because of how I talk I talk to people about them so I might be fulfilling a pledge right now anyway so you need to come to por que no now so so let's just stop why am I talking about porque no I'm actually serious I might be annoying you because you're hungry right but I'm actually completely serious like I talked about these tacos a lot to people because there's so and it's such a fun experience to get an insight amazing anyway so you so I'm talking about something that I love right we get that right that's natural to us and it might be slightly annoying if someone hates tacos or something for the most part like who doesn't like someone who's excited about something you know and so that is there's an overflow that just happens when you love something you're compelled by it but also notice something else that I had to do as well and it is because I know that there's the lions are a deterrent and the Lions foster all of these misunderstandings about por que no by the population of Portland right about these line lines and they're a hassle and so on so if I'm compelled by something and I love it I will also care about clarifying misunderstandings right or addressing distorted ideas that people have about the thing that I love no the lines aren't lame they're a part of the experience it's flexible most fun part actually is waiting is waiting in the line you guys see how that works you guys have your version of this to whatever it is that you love your thing you guys know what I'm talking about when you talk about something you're passionate about it's not weird you just do it you just talk about it and you will by nature want to know what others might think about it and address misunderstandings or whatever and I think it's it's no different when we're talking about Jesus it's just I think it's any different and if you don't have any desire whatsoever to talk about Jesus it might just be worth asking yourself like oh maybe I'm not compelled by Jesus at all why are you a Christian Bethan like why are you following Jesus you don't I'm saying if it's not doing something to you like what's the point it should really lead to some reflection and go get a cup of tea and journal about that I'm really quite serious if you will naturally talk about something that fascinates you and that challenges you and that inspires you and if Jesus whatever the role that Jesus plays in the life of one of his followers it is that he is an endlessly fascinating challenging inspiring loving person to follow and if you are driven by his love you will talk about it and you will clarify misunderstandings and are there misunderstandings about Jesus in our world holy cow right right and so that that uh and so how do you get how do you fish that out and I have found the first thing you shouldn't do is just tell people what you think about Jesus right the most like the most natural way to find out what people think about Jesus is to find out what they think about speices it is ask questions right I mean who doesn't love to talk about what they think you know everybody wants to tell you what they think so they ask people questions right you don't have to convert them like just find out what they think about Jesus and that will tell you loads and here's what will happen 7 times out of 10 is someone will start describing to you their understanding of Jesus or of Christianity and why they don't believe in it or why they've rejected in it and then it will provide you an opportunity to also say yeah I don't believe in that Jesus either - actually I think we agree on this point like the Jesus that you've rejected is not the Jesus that I followed some some other Jesus you guys with me here so so so where do you go from there you love people you respect them if they ask you not to talk about Jesus all the time like honor that right honor it like respect people don't be a weirdo about it but pray and love people and ask them what they think and over longevity of time as you love and honor people and like the conversation will happen and opportunities to clarify so what I want to just zero e on is is one particular misunderstanding or one particular distortion about Jesus that I have found to be extremely common I mean I'm just thinking about you know my neighbors right who are on my street in Portland and the people who work at porking abidance just talk to them about find out what they think about Jesus and and the number one thing is the thing that I want to focus in on for our time here today because I think one of the greatest gifts that we can offer people is is clarifying who Jesus actually is by asking questions inviting that conversation and then offering our story and our conviction about who who Jesus is here's if you start fishing around for people's view of Jesus and what they think you believe odds are you're going to you're going to come up with a story like this and it's a story that's worth really clarifying what if this is actually somebody really thinks and the story is going to go something like this they may not believe that but they think that this is what you believe or something like that so here we all are here on planet Earth it's a beautiful and also tragic place and here here's me and you and so on and so here we are we're living our lives and you know sometimes great sometimes really sad and your friends think that you believe that you know you're trying to do pretty good sometimes you fail sometimes you do really poorly you're kind of hoping to get more on this side of the line than that side of the line but we're all kind of a mixed bag but at the end of the game God's going to you know close the curtains on history and based off of how good you've been or how bad you've been or on whether or not you happen to hold correct ideas and beliefs about who Jesus is your destiny is one of two places so one of those places will be heaven and the other place the bad place will be will be held and heaven if you kind of fish this out of people and in the popular cultural imagination is you know these are both like maybe disembodied non-physical places this has to do with clouds and harps and singing and the presence of God and this has to do with like some subterranean torture chamber or something right that right--we're God is sadistically hurting people I'm you got you guys with me this is what people think that followers of Jesus believes the vast majority of people in the West think that this is what you believe and some of you in the room might be thinking that is what what I believe and so um I just uh I love you and I care about you and and this is um this is wrong there's wrong the main problem with this story is the Bible and the other main problem with the story is the actual life and teachings of Jesus this story is shot through with so many 1/2 or 1/4 truths that is just not helpful we need to think we need to read our Bibles again with a fresh set of eyes and so here I invite you to grab a Bible and just turn with me to the Gospel according to mark chapter 1 and the way I want to frame this is just very briefly you know over the next twenty twenty-five minutes to think through a simple way for how to reframe the story of the gospel in a ways it's true to the real Jesus and in a way that I think once we get it and once we communicate it it's compelling it's a compelling story Gospel according to Mark page 1 the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah the son of God now listen stop right there what if there was a one page in the Bible where you could go to and say what is this book about it's about the good news of Jesus the Messiah the son of God what's a great candidate where should you go in the Bible I mean what do you want the beginning of the good news about Jesus and so where's ngayong okay so heaven earth heaven and hell right that's verse two all right I don't like oh no that's not verse two what's verse two just like it was written in Isaiah the prophet I'll send my messenger ahead of you who prepare your way a voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord and make straight paths for him what why is the Bible saying what it's supposed to say right now are you with me here so apparently according to the Bible the good news about Jesus the Messiah the son of God links you up to a story that's already you know we're like jumping into a rushing a rushing river right we're jumping into a story that's already you know midstream and has all this momentum already and so apparently the good news about Jesus involves something that the prophet Isaiah said that Israel story after they were redeemed from slavery in Egypt and then brought into the promised land and they did a really bad job of that one and so then they got kicked out of the land into exile and Babylon and the prophet Isaiah says on the other side of their exile in Babylon God's going to return to his people personally he's going to come on this highway in the desert and he's going to send a messenger ahead of him that's the good news about Jesus the sort of God is this simple it's not simple in one sense the Bible is not simple right once you get the basic storyline it's actually not that to get but the Bible just refuses to be domesticated and our attempts to boil it down to half-truths and submarines and this is one of those places where we have to humble ourselves and say like mate maybe maybe we've gotten this wrong and maybe I need to come back and rediscover what the Bible is actually trying to tell me and it's trying to tell me that Jesus comes as the culmination of Israel's story and there's the fulfillment of a promise that the God of Israel said that he would come to visit and rescue his people go down to verse 14 of Mark chapter 1 verse 14 after John was put in prison John who John the Baptist right at the guy that crazy guy in the desert who ate beehives and insects and so on that guy John the Baptist was put in prison so Jesus went in a galley proclaiming the good news of God here okay here we go if I ever wanted to hear what the gospel is from the mouth of Jesus this is a great candidate reckon here verse 15 and what is it the time has come Jesus said the kingdom of God has come near repent and believe the good news I'll just stop and look at verse 15 so what is the good news Jesus says repent and believe the good news so apparently the good news is something that he just said and what is it verse 15 what's the good news the time has come the time has come and something's here and that something coming here is the good news and what is that something that has come here the kingdom of God the kingdom of God so apparently in Jesus's mind the story of the Bible and who he is and what he's here to do and the gospel is about not about us going somewhere it's about God coming here you with me here it's about something that God is doing here that according to Jesus is the good news there's multiple things that are wrong with this story first of all this is a me-centered story it's about me and what I'm doing good or bad and then God just is a you know the one who assigns me a role right here at the end of the story that's not the gospel it's certainly not a story of the Bible story the Bible is about God and what God is doing in our world this is a story that focuses on me and my behavior and whether I'm good or bad enough or doe do or don't know the right information about Jesus or something that's not the gospel and that's certainly not the story of the Bible the story of the Bible is about not my behavior as the focus it's about God's activity and God's purposes and what God is doing in our world through Jesus that is good news for our world because with me here and what is that and it's that God's kingdom God's reign and his rule over our world has arrived in the person of Jesus which means that Jesus is here to address some kind of problem and he's going to resolve this problem through what he does in the next you know pages are you're going to read in the Gospel of Mark and that is the good news and it's a different story than this one right here so the kingdom of God you can read about Jesus talks all the time about the kingdom of God if you read the Gospel according to Matthew that comes right up before mark Jesus will call it the kingdom of God or also sometimes what the kingdom of heaven kingdom of God the kingdom of heaven Jesus use both terms and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven is not somewhere that you go after you die it's something that has arrived in Jesus now I'm going to draw something a little more but first I just there's a simpler way to do this a friend friend and I in Portland made a video to try and help kind of explore and unpack this you want to see it great let's what's up 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 pace 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 and earth is like different dimensions that can overlap in the same exact space so we talked 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 in 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 explain 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 the hot spot of gods 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 do these spaces overlap if they're so different than 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 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 is 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 is 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 enters 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 he's 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 the 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 cross 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 yeah yes so a couple things that helpful so if it's one of these things we're trying to change our whole sense of what the story of the Bible is and that's a slow sometimes uncomfortable process a quick a quick sidenote and I feel awkward doing this but Chris and other people here Paul and so on like are forcing me to say this threat now so the video is one example of a project I'm working on you saw the name at the end there called the Bible project and it's with a friend from college actually John who is the other voice and we started a year ago well two years ago but we released a year ago a non-profit creative studio it's creating animated short about the Bible and Christian theology and so on and we it all lives on YouTube which is this thing that the kids are doing these days or whatever okay so YouTube and it live on YouTube and you could just google the Bible project or whatever and we're making lots of videos there's a whole bunch you can just go binge and watch them all if you want and we're going to make about 60 more in the next 18 months here and we're really excited we're making a video for each book of the Bible showing its design but also how it all unites into the unified story of the Bible and then we're also creating videos that take like an idea like heaven or God's holiness or the Messiah or something and we follow it from page 1 all the way through to the last page of the Bible showing how it's all one one unified story and the fun thing about it is the the heart of the whole thing was to make them and just give them away for free to every the whole world right through YouTube and so that's awesome so we're doing that they're not free to make however and so this is our great experiment is that we said if people find them valuable we'll ask them to help us make them and so that's what's happening so you know some of you might be feeling manipulated right now I feel manipulated by myself right the wavelet let's just get right to it if you want best to make more videos give us money and we'll make a lot more videos and it's not it's go to me I donate my time it goes to the artist the see artists who are just churning illustrators animators and they need to raise their families but they've got to given them talents to make this stuff and it's awesome so help us make them if you want more people to see them help us make them and we'll make another one and go to the website there you go my commercials over it's awkward over okay so let's talk about this is more interesting so so so what I'm saying is the story of the Bible is the story about how heaven and earth got ripped apart and that that was not God's will that's something about that happened in the story that went wrong right so God God wants to partner and rule his good world together with these dignified image bearing human beings and as you know he saw in this funny scene right there that that goes wrong not because something was wrong in the way God set up the deal is because something went wrong inside of human beings right there's this this urge this urged to not trust God's definition of good and evil and to and to to seize autonomy and independence and to define good and evil as I see sit and define it for ourselves and here's what's crucially important this is a very simple way to think about communicating with it and why this story is wrong if you look at the first sentence of the Bible it says in the beginning God made heavens and what does it not say it doesn't say in the beginning God made heaven and earth and hell God didn't make whatever hell is God didn't make it it's nowhere to be found on page one of your rifle all right well God made is heaven on earth and what does God think about it it's very good it's very good so whatever hell is it comes into the story later and if you're familiar with the story how it works Hell or evil or sin the various names that it's called in the Bible is something that humans have created by our decision to seize autonomy from God now how do I know that hell's and Prius were to talk about this Jesus is brother Jesus his brother wrote a letter the cinah in your Bible is called the letter of James it's very interesting and Jesus's brother who he hung out with Jesus a lot I'm bound to trust the man when he says he's representing the teachings of Jesus James talks about the paten chapter 3 talks about the power of the tongue and how the human tongue has the power to to bless and praise God the Creator but at the same time the human's tongue has the ability to gossip about people and to tear down their character and to speak ill and poorly of them and James says this it's flabbergasting he says when humans do that with their tongues he says their tongues are lit on fire by he'll be with me now what are the implications of that the implications the hell isn't just something about like the end of the game hell is a reality that is present now it's a reality that humans unleash on each other and on God's good world to ruin and destroy relationships and to destroy people hell is something that we have created on earth and God hates hell and he the story of the Bible is a story about God wanting to heal his world and get the hell out of earth are you with me that's the story of the Bible it's God hates hell because what if hell is about the unleashing of selfishness and evil and the breakdown and the degrading of dignified image bearing human beings that's what hell is and just couldn't it the book of Genesis tells the story as Genesis chapters 3 through 11 known as the story of the fall but that's what's happening it's humans unleashing hell on earth and God hates it because he loves his good world and he loves human beings who are made in his image that what the story of the Bible is and Jesus comes onto the scene announcing good news the time has come heaven is here to invade earth and to confront evil and just start reading through the Gospel of Mark and what will you see Jesus doing you will see him confronting hell and it's disastrous effects on human beings and it takes the form of him casting evil personal spiritual evil out of people it has to do with Jesus confronting the breakdown of human relationships go to the Gospel of Matthew and listen to how Jesus talks about Hell and here's here's the context and what Jesus mentions Hell Jesus hates Hell and he hates what hell does to human beings and he hates where it leads human beings on a path so Jesus so here's something we can all agree on and Jesus would agree with us we can all agree that the sexual abuse of children for money is wrong and that it's it's a plague it's a Hellfire plague on our world we give it a more comfortable name called sex trafficking to like not think about what the reality is we hate it we want it gone from our world God also hates sex trafficking Jesus hates sex trafficking but he actually he actually takes it more seriously than we do because he we want to get rid of sex trafficking Jesus wants to get rid of lust from from his world right he talks about the root the root desire to use another human being for my personal gratification Jesus is more serious than we are about evil in our world see we look out at our world and we we see the ravage of racism and and genocide that has resulted in recent history we want that gone from our world Jesus also wants that out of his world but he's even more serious about it than we are right because he doesn't want to just get rid of racism right and genocide he wants to get rid of pride and contempt and rage from the human heart you with me see what a genocide and sex trafficking the raging hell fires destroying our world but they're ignited by the small spark of these deep-rooted distortions in the human heart and mind Jesus wants to get the hell out of his world and he wants to get the hell out of you and that's good news is good news is it it's good news but it's a double-edged story because it's sort of like okay I want God to get evil out of this world but I want him to do it without having to get rid of me right you know I'm saying like this this is the hard truth of Jesus is like we've met the enemy and he is that's not the greatest news to hear but yet at the same time it is it depends on who says it to you right if somebody is who's on intent on mowing you down with the m16 thinks you're the enemy that's bad news but if a surgeon right of a surgeon comes with a knife and he needs to cut you open to take out some life-threatening things that's that's poisoning your body is that good news is it going to be painful so store his Bible there's a story of the Bible Jesus is more serious about this than we are and so how does how does Jesus the Great Physician come to heal us and to get the hell out of us he does it it's this it's what mark tells us just go finish reading the Gospel of Mark Jesus lives this hell free existence he shows us what a human life is as God becomes human to actually be the kind of human that we are all made and called to be but perpetually failed to be is this hell free life that only gives and that only loves and that only others centered and in fact it's so offensive and so scandalous and so repulsive to those around Jesus and what he calls out of people and how he calls people out for their religious hypocrisy and their pride in the rage and their anger it's the paradox of the gospel is that God so loves and is committed to his broken world ruined by the hell that we've made here he actually allows the hell that we've created to overwhelm him and to destroy him right he Allah he allows the hell that we've created to exhaust its power on him and we call this the moment of the cross and the moment of the Cross is the healing it's the paradoxical death and resurrection of Jesus and the death and resurrection of our world are you with me in Jesus the whole train wreck of human history and its consequences of evil and of sin exhaust its power in Jesus's death but because this God is so in love with his world and with these these compromised fractured image bearing human beings he will not let he'll get the last word and the resurrection of Jesus is this moment of new life it's a moment that speaks of God's love and eternal commitment to our good world and the resurrection of Jesus is represents this offer in this opportunity of life of a hell free existence in the present and on into the future you guys with me here repent and believe the good news God wants to get the hell out of you and that's the best news right as soon as you could imagine it is also hard news to hear and so how does the story of the Bible and you know I had that image there in the video of heaven on earth coming together but what I didn't address was this what's where does this have to go it's got to get out of here somehow and so go look at the last page of the Bible where we're in what is hell on the last page of the Bible hell is God's monument to CS Lewis says to human dignity and choice if someone refuses to be healed by the Great Physician God will honor that decision but what God will not do is allow hell to continue ruining his good world and so the image that the last page of the Bible uses is of the great new Garden City of heaven on earth married together again and hell is outside the city it's outside the city god it's God's mercy to contain human evil and not to let it eternally ravage his good world and his good image bearing humans and for those who refuse to participate in God's re-creation of heaven and earth he honors that decision they remain outside the city now that there's all kinds of details that we want to know that the Bible does not give us about this what it does is it tells us good news about the person of Jesus it tells us that the Jesus is so committed to getting the hell out of his world and out of you that he lived for you that he died for you and that he was raised for you turned to him and believe the good news I guess done this is this is the story the Bible's telling and it's at the same time a challenging story that will still be challenging and offensive and difficult to talk about but I'm telling you it's a it's a compelling story because your friend who doesn't believe in Jesus also wants this are you with me you your neighbor wants the same thing that God wants are you with it right now that's going to involve a whole lot of conversation but this is a compelling story if we can if we can help ourselves understand it and you you will not be compelled to share the story personally unless you actually experiencing the loving healing power of Jesus begin to remove the hell from you and to give you new new lives and so as we come to you know the conclusion of our gathering here let's just let's just focus right there you know we have this time and space to sing and to pray and here's what I'd encourage you to do I'd encourage you to to get the names of some people that you love and that you care about and don't like put them on your list just pray a blessing over them and pray the God would open up an opportunity for you to simply ask them questions about what they think and to just prepare that that ground so that when the time is right and when the moment is right and when they want to receive it that you can talk about how much Jesus loves them and what he did for them because that's the kind of God revealed in this story amen let me close and word of Prayer Jesus thank you that you don't leave us to our own devices Jesus we're aware that we daily choose that independence we choose health in a million small and large different ways Jesus thank you that are that are our foolishness that are short sightedness doesn't deter you it doesn't compel you to stay away from us but rather you have moved towards us in your grace and in your love Jesus thank you for the compelling nature of the good news Jesus we want evil and hell to be rid of our lives and of our minds and our hearts and we want it to be rid from our world Jesus thank you for your commitment and for your character and for the hope that's offered us in the good news about you we pray in your name Jesus amen yeah I'm in

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 44min 44sec (2684 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017