The Universal Gospel of God Isa 40:21-31, Ps 147:1-11, 1 Cor 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
Introduction
In his final sermon last week Dale pointed to Paul’s great prayers in Ephesians, that the Church is “his (Christ’s) body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Eph 1:22-23) and “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). When he was preaching on these passages, he became quite excited. Is this because he is a temperamentally excitable person? Or is it because something of the fullness of God in the Church was being manifested at that very moment? Surely inner intensity and outward expression are organically linked, so that in the Bible spiritual fulness flows into outward communication of the gospel of God (Rom 1:1; 1 Pet 4:17). When the Holy Spirit infilled the Church at Pentecost the people of God necessarily moved to take out the saving message “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 2:4; 13:47). This dynamic of mission holds together our readings for today.
God’s Unlimited Creative Power
The notion that everything that exists was brought into being by a single all-powerful Creator was first expressed in the Hebrew Bible. Other ancient peoples either thought a host of “gods” fashioned the world or the universe never had a beginning, which is the dominant view of Hinduism and Buddhism. These theories, and the same is true if the current “big bang” hypothesis is understood atheistically, leave human beings stranded in a completely uncaring endless expanse. No wonder the modern irreligious Western world has entered an age of fear and anxiety. Children are being taught that unless we step up and rescue the world from climate change life as we know it will come to an end. Humanity has been exalted to the level of carrying the responsibility of God without God. This is a load we were never made to bear. As a result, alcohol, prescription medications, entertainment, sex, comfort food, travel, and every other possible means of altering moods have become “essential” ingredients to sustain a full life. Nothing however can replace the “one God” (1 Cor 8:6). I received this on a WhatsApp during the week, “My neighbour said this morning, disease, fires, cyclones, what’s next, famine?” I was on the phone the other day to someone who lives in the northern suburbs and when he mentioned ash was falling on his house it sounded just like an end-time apocalyptic event (cf. Rev 9:2). The words of Jesus, “people fainting from fear and the expectation of the things that are coming upon the world” (Luke 21:2), has become true in our generation.
Compare this with the perspective God’s Word gave to Israel through Isaiah, “Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing. ….The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” (Isa 40:26, 28) The Lord exalts his own omnipotence as Creator so as to provide an assurance for weary saints, “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isa 40:30-31). Human strength is limited, but our God is unlimited in his care and comfort whenever we turn to him (Jer 23:23 cf. Acts 17:28).
Psalm 147, titled by one commentator as “God of stars and broken hearts” is even more forthright in linking God’s universal sovereignty with his provision for birds, beasts, outcasts, and afflicted people. I remember when I was studying full time in Brisbane had 4 small children and half our income was going on rent. The day before my scholarship cheque came in I would go down to the local shops the day with the little cash I had and buy day old bread and cheese. During that difficult time I was out praying in the bush one morning and came across a clearing with birds frolicking around, the Lord spoke to me directly, “If I as a heavenly Father provide for the birds (Matt 6:26) will I not provide for your family?” Which of course he did.
Faith grasps that a God who calls mere stars into existence by name (Ps 147: 4; Isa 40:26; Heb 11:3) calls every human life into being by name. Every person needs a revelation of a heavenly Father who called her/him into conception and salvation by name (cf. Ps 139; John 6:44). At the heart level of intimacy with the Lord we need to know that our names, to quote scripture, were “written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Rev 13:8). Revelations like this impart an incredible sense of security and safety to the children of God, whatever is happening around us (Phil 4:7). We are in an hour of opportunity to communicate the gospel.
For centuries people living in Western societies had a sense that over this temporary world there was an abiding eternal heavenly reality which gave everything final meaning (“sacred canopy”). This conviction has been totally lost. When I dropped in at the local shops last Sunday afternoon the selfish panic buying was a clear sign society has rejected the overarching protection of God. Guess what sales escalated most in the panic time…. Alcohol sales went up 740 percent, i.e., people bought up a week’s worth of grog in an afternoon. With the pushing of all God-related values and beliefs to the margin and the substitution of a technological worldview, when natural disaster, like pandemic or fire, strikes our modern world people really do feel like they have “lost everything” (Luke 12:13-21). How does this tragic state of affairs relate to the good news in Christ?
Universal Gospel: Jesus
“Our God contracted to a span, Incomprehensibly made man.”, says the hymn writer John Wesley. The immensity of the Creator has been concentrated in something as visible and tangible as a single human life. This makes the merciful life of Jesus a full revelation of the heart of God to the needy (John 14:8). In our gospel reading today Jesus has been healing every form of illness and demonic oppression, when suddenly the scene shifts to a higher plane: Jesus goes to be alone with the Father in prayer. When the disciples and local people (see Luke 4:42-43) try to keep Jesus in their region, he asserts, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” (Mark 1:38). Much the same language appears later in Mark as Jesus describes his essential saving ministry, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners…. the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 2:17; 10:45).
The call on Jesus which directed his entire life-mission (Matt 16:21) was to proclaim and enact the kingdom of his Father (Luke 11:2) to all who will listen wherever he went. Communicating the gospel remains an essential part of the nature of the Son of God until, in the End, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev 11:15). Only when there are no more poor, sick, afflicted, distressed, homeless, broken-hearted, weary and lost will the Lord stop moving ever onward ever outward to save, heal and restore by the power of his Spirit. This is the heart of Jesus for a world which has utterly no hope (Eph 2:12) until it comes to him as Lord and Saviour. Having returned to the Father, Jesus moves onward and outward forward through his Church (Acts 1:1-11). Paul is an excellent example of this.
Universal Gospel: Paul
Today’s reading from 1 Corinthians opens a window on the apostolic-evangelistic life of Paul. Who can forget these words, “though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:19-22). In his willingness to become like every type of human being to help them come to salvation Paul is just like Jesus (John 1:14; 1 Cor 11:1). He is committed to an endlessly adaptable life (cf. Incarnation) so that every nook and cranny of humanity can come to Jesus. The authority and influence of the apostle flows from him being a living embodiment of the universal gospel of God in Christ. The gospel is not a form of words about Jesus, it is the living, loving, sacrificial life of Jesus communicated first through the apostles (Eph 2:20; Phil 1:21) then through us. To live a gospel-shaped life is the immense challenge set before us.
Conclusion
God’s singular passion is that the good news of his own life be communicated to all people everywhere, whatever the cost. This was the passion that gripped Isaiah, the psalmist, Jesus and Paul, and such a passion should fill all of us. This is the mission of God, but sadly it is resisted by many confusions. Some friends from another Anglican congregation recently shared their distress over the teaching that all people will end up in heaven, no matter whether they have a relationship with the Lord in this life or not. What is it that exposes this teaching as utterly false (2 John 7). It produces lazy believers unwilling to sacrifice for the cause of the kingdom of God. It fails the ultimate test; it fails to constrain us (2 Cor 5:14) to live out a Christ shaped life in the power of the gospel. It is an avoidance of the way of the cross (1 Cor 1:18; 2:4).
To escape the ever-intensifying climate of confusion surrounding us today we must believe that the sovereign Creator of all things is fully communicated in the name of Jesus (John 1:16; Acts 4:12; Col 1:29; 2:9). And we must believe that it is the calling of the Church to continue this gospel communication. The life of the invisible God supremely concentrated and made concrete in Jesus (1 John 1:1-2) now becomes visible and tangible through ordinary Christian people. This very high calling is “Love so amazing, so divine, (it) Demands my soul, my life, my all.” (Isaac Watts). As a community of faith we called to a way of life corresponding to the missional life of Christ, we are called to “becoming all things to all people, that by all means we might save some.”