Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Jesus Wants You in Israel's Story | Who Is Jesus? | Isaiah 52.7

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Before we hop in, I want to tell you what we are going to start doing in January. Starting right at the very beginning of January, we are going to read through the Gospel of Mark together. And our goal is that people who are setting goals would join us. I just find that at the beginning of January, a lot of people say, I want to start reading my Bible for the first time, or I want to start reading it again, or I just want to read it more. And that's a great aspiration.

Starting point is 00:00:39 Maybe you're thinking that for yourself. And so I hope you'll join us as we read through the gospel of Mark. We actually will have, it's really cool. It's called a guided Bible reading plan. It's a little devotion. It has three devotions in every single week, and it walks you through questions that not only explain Mark to you, but help you apply it to your life. But here's the key. If you're listening to this, you're doing something already in your life to get the Bible into your life. But my guess is that you have a friend or maybe a spouse or a parent or a coworker who would love to be in the Bible, but they're not going to do it unless they have a friend to do that with. Why don't you think about that person and invite them to not just listen to 10-minute Bible talks,

Starting point is 00:01:16 but to download that little devotional and begin making this a new habit, a new goal in their life starting right at the beginning of the year? We have links to that in our show notes. In 1961, John F. Kennedy made a bold claim. He said that the United States would put a man on the moon. And that story captivated the nation. After that, he went to visit NASA at Cape Canaveral. And on his visit, he steps into an empty room, or what he thought was an empty room. Inside in one of the corners with the lights off, there's a janitor sweeping up the floor. And the president, I guess, feels a little awkward and just asks him, what are you doing? The janitor thinks about it for a moment. And he responds, I'm putting a man on the moon. That janitor saw himself as part of a bigger story. He wasn't just in there emptying trash cans, sweeping up the floor, cleaning toilets.

Starting point is 00:02:08 No, he saw what he was doing as a part of helping NASA overcome the odds by keeping the building clean. That was his part. He kept the building clean so that NASA could do the impossible. He saw himself in a story, and he saw what he did as a role, as a character in that story. Jesus saw himself in a story too. And he sees you, by the way, in that exact same story that he saw himself in. He didn't see his life as a long, repetitious cycle of eat, sleep, and work. He saw his life in the scope of a bigger purpose, in the scope of a bigger story.

Starting point is 00:02:40 And again, he wants you to see your life the same way. How do we know that Jesus saw himself in a story? Well, we know it because he had this really weird habit of talking about fulfillment. In Matthew 517, he says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets? And that's just a way of talking about the Hebrew Bible, which is, by the way, what? it is mostly narrative. It is basically a story. Because I haven't come to abolish the old story. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus thought, and this is a crazy whenever you think about it, he thought that his life brought the old story, beginning with Genesis,

Starting point is 00:03:16 to its climactic denouement. And that means that if we really want to understand Jesus, we need to understand that story. We need to see what story he saw himself in. Otherwise, we're going to be that annoying dude who shows up halfway through a movie and keeps saying, hey, what's happening? Who's that? What's going on? So what story did Jesus see himself in? Well, clearly it was a kingdom story. The word kingdom alone is used more times in the gospels than grace, sin, love, faith, and holiness. That word, kingdom is a word that not only connects to the gospel, which is the good news that Jesus is king, it's a word that actually points backwards to the old story. What's the kingdom story that we read about in the Old Testament?

Starting point is 00:03:58 Well, it starts right on page one. Because on page one, God creates a kingdom. It's our world. And God makes humanity in his image so that they can co-rule his world. It was a huge risk, but it was also a tremendous gift. How would we co-rule? Well, God tells us, he says, you need to spread the boundary lines of Eden until my garden of love, justice, and mercy fills the earth, until my kingdom engulfs everything.

Starting point is 00:04:22 Now, you know how the story goes. it doesn't go well. Humanity refuses God's kingdom calling. And instead of filling the world with his love, justice, and mercy, we filled the world with violence, injustice, idolatry, pride, and sexual selfishness. We destroyed God's world. We end up building a counter kingdom to God's kingdom. And that counter kingdom is ugly. But God doesn't give up. He reboots his kingdom. How does he do it? He does it through a dysfunctional family. I mean, God's got a weird way of doing things, but that's what he does. He works through the family of Abraham. Abraham was far from perfect, but he was characterized by one key trait, faith. He trusts God and he gives God's kingdom his allegiance. And so God promises that through Abraham and Abraham's

Starting point is 00:05:07 descendants, he's going to bless people from every nation. Again, the goal is to spread the boundary lines of God's kingdom. Just like Adam and Eve are called to spread Eden, Abraham and his descendants are called to spread God's kingdom to fill the earth. But as you might guess, the counter kingdom strikes back. Abraham's descendants are enslaved by Egypt. Pharaoh works his descendants to death. He murders their children, and he constructs his own counter kingdom. Eventually, God raises up Moses, and he rescues his people from Pharaoh's grip. At Mount Sinai, God becomes their king, and he doesn't give up on his kingdom mission. He's going to keep going. He's going to reboot it. And so he makes Israel into a kingdom of priests, reflecting his image, blessing the nations, and

Starting point is 00:05:52 spreading the boundary lines of God's kingdom, bringing his love, justice, and mercy to bear on the world. But the cycle repeats. Israel doesn't build God's kingdom. They build their own counter kingdom. And so God gives them King David. He says, hey, maybe David will bring you back. But David's descendants just lead them further away. And after hundreds of years of this, God finally says, look, if you want to be a counter kingdom, you can just go to one. In 586 BC, the empire of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. They carried the remaining population off into exile in Babylon. Eventually, God brings a remnant back, but their return was inglorious. They ended up living as exiles and slaves in their own homeland. They desperately longed and waited for God to end their exile by returning and reestablishing his kingdom

Starting point is 00:06:41 and reigning on earth again and again. The prophet Isaiah expressed this hope well. Isaiah 52-7. He's foreseeing a day that will come. How beautiful on the men. mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. He's imagining a runner, and he's running towards Jerusalem, and he's got good news in his hand. And we know from the wider context of Isaiah, part of that good news is that Babylon has fallen. The enemies of the people have been defeated. Isaiah continues, he proclaims peace, brings good tidings, proclaims salvation, and what does he say? He says to Zion, your God reigns. The ultimate hope is that God would end the exile, and he would return to reign again. But people didn't know how God was going to do this. How would he

Starting point is 00:07:26 reboot his kingdom? How would he rescue Israel? How would he deal with this continual problem of human sin and evil, which aborts every new attempt at bringing God's kingdom on earth? Yahweh does it ultimately by becoming a human. By becoming a human Israelite named Jesus of Nazareth. You see, this is the part of the story that Jesus enters into. And what we just heard was the story that Jesus believed. Jesus saw him himself is coming to deal with the problem of human sin and evil. That's the problem which always causes us to build our counter kingdoms. He invites us to turn away from our idolatry, corruption, violence, pride, and selfishness, and to give him our trusting allegiance. King Jesus goes around and he's healing the sick and he's casting out the powers of darkness and we see him establishing his kingdom,

Starting point is 00:08:15 not by spilling the blood of his enemies, but ultimately by spilling his own. His spilled blood pays for our rebellion against God, and it washes our sin-sick hearts clean. By dying, our king declares forgiveness to all. And at the cost of his blood, he redeems his whole creation. As the story goes on, we know King Jesus didn't stay dead. He rises up. And by rising up, he declares his victory over sin and death and the devil. They couldn't hold him down. He came out on the other side of death. But that's not where Jesus saw his story ending. You see, Jesus knew what was leading up to him, and he understood. what was going to come after him. God now wants to do what God has always been planning to do. He wants to spread the boundary lines of his kingdom. He wanted Adam and Ian to do it. He wanted

Starting point is 00:09:01 Israel to do it. And Jesus ultimately began it. But now he's going to do it through Jesus' people. He's going to spread his boundary lines through us. And how do we do that? Well, it's not by taking over governments and beginning new national entities. We spread those boundary lines by making disciples. We may falter, we may fall short, but by the Spirit's power, we live upside down, cross-shaped lives. And when we do that, we are spreading the boundaries of God's kingdom on earth. We, of course, look forward to the end of the story. And that's when Jesus returns, and the kingdom is fully realized. When this happens, he's going to renew every square inch of creation.

Starting point is 00:09:42 He's going to fill it perfectly with his love, justice, and mercy. Jesus saw himself in that old story, and Jesus saw himself as its climax. as its most important moment. And we need to see ourselves in some senses as the conclusion to that story. Like all stories, though, it asks us a question, which kingdom will you give your allegiance? The counter kingdom? The kingdom of pride, violence, corruption, idolatry, selfishness? Or will you turn from the counter kingdom? Will you confess your rebellion and give your allegiance to king Jesus, God's kingdom? Will you reflect his image and your obedience and your actions and your words? will you join his people in spreading the boundary lines of his kingdom? Will you see your life in a grand

Starting point is 00:10:23 story, which is really about the renewal of everything? Jody Taylor said that history is just one damn thing after another. And that's wrong. History is a story. It's the story that Jesus saw himself in. It's not one thing after another. It's a story that began with creation and continues into this day. It's not just one thing after another. History has a direction. It is headed somewhere. And you need to know where you were headed. to see where the story is going. There's an old parable of two stone cutters. The first has asked what he's doing, and he looks at the person and says, rather cynically, what's it look like I'm doing? I'm cutting stones. The second has asked what he's doing, and he responds by looking up at the building before him, which is unfinished. And he says, I'm building that cathedral. When you know what story

Starting point is 00:11:10 you're in, you'll never just be cutting stones. It's not just one thing after another. You'll be building the cathedral of God's kingdom on earth. Quick reminder, we are starting Mark in January. So set a goal, read your Bible. More importantly, find a friend to do this with. Who is that friend? I want you to stop before you do anything else and text that person right now and say,

Starting point is 00:11:33 hey, I've got a great idea. Let's read our Bibles together in January 2020. We're going to start in the Gospel of Mark. I've got a devotion that you can read, a podcast you can listen to. They're going to feel cared for, and they're going to be excited to do this with you. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:11:48 If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Jesus Wants You in Israel's Story | Who Is Jesus? | Isaiah 52.7

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.