Pub Night Dallas

Jesus steps into a weird predicament.

He shows up and, as Luke declares in the 4th chapter of his Gospel, his primary message was the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

The good news was (and indeed still is, despite the loose use of the word “Gospel” in our world today) that God was, in fact, King.

Now this is weird because…the Jewish people in Jesus’ day had loads of expectations built upon generations of leaders that promised one day, though things were hard now & God felt distant, that God would be King again. That he would decisively intervene and restore the nation of Israel (the people of God).

And as we look at strange stories like Pilate’s murder of the Galilean pilgrims in Luke 13 and Jesus’ corresponding and equally strange response, we see that the Jewish people had lots of methods that tried to “force” God to be King. Things like:

-Maybe God wants us to start the war and then he’ll show up and fight for/with us.
-Maybe God wants us to go separate from everyone and live in the woods and then he’ll find us desirable enough to come back for.
-Maybe we have too many dirty, filthy, poor “sinners” in our midst. Perhaps if we could shame them into pious behavior, THEN God will act decisively in our favor as our King.

That God would show up, in power, and do something amazing.

But none of these things tended to work. Instead they promoted national pride, violence, shame and exclusion, and perverted piety. 

This is where the predicament occurs. Because Jesus shows, continually, that God will not be forced to be King by human means. In fact, he even offers something more incredulous and hard to swallow—that the Kingdom has already been at work—that God has, in a way, been King all along.

But their hearts refused to believe it.

In the work of Jesus, we see that he believes something incredulous is happening.

God’s reign is breaking in. Everywhere. And it looks nothing like you expected.

But the question we’re going to contemplate over the next 7 weeks is this: 

What does it mean for God to be King?

Specifically, what does it mean for God to be King and to have power when our experience of the world declares something altogether different? What does it do to our faith when our experience of daily reality seems to suggest that God has lost control? 

Note: This is the preface to a 7 week series called “The Kingdom Comes” and reflections the teaching from January 3rd, 2012.