Becoming God’s Good News

Today, we close out our sermon series on how we are family purposed to welcome. Throughout the history of Israel and the disciples, God has shown us this purpose in so many ways. With so many things to think about we can sum it all up in another way. We are meant to become God’s good news for the world.

The most important part of this new statement is that we are supposed to be God’s good news. This is an important distinction because if it's not God’s good news then it either isn’t good news or at most, it is really fickle good news. We could look at any celebration in our society or our lives and most of the time we can see that a win for us meant a loss for another, or we can see that a celebration created happiness that didn’t last that long. This isn’t truly good news because it may just be good for us, or maybe even just those closest to us, it is not good news for the world.

In the passage from Isaiah, we get a contrast, or actually more like an irony. God is talking to a huge group of people that are seeking him out and fasting. They seem to be doing everything right. They look like they want a relationship with God and to know his teachings as they go to the temples and synagogues to discuss and read Scripture. They look like they are humbling themselves before God as they fast, bowing their heads, and putting on sackcloth and ashes. They look like good Christians or Jews, but the problem is that they don’t really know God and they surely aren’t doing it for Him.

The joy of coming closer to God, of worship, of learning incredible truths is all wonderful and comforting, but we can’t just be coming to church or joining this community for ourselves. It has to actually be about God and his will. It has to be about helping his garden spread by sharing the bounty we have discovered. It has to be about sharing his heavenly reality here on earth. It has to be about welcoming people into His family and love.

It is also wonderful to be commended for our actions. To be seen for what we do and acknowledged. Words of affirmation and physical accolades can be ways we experience love, but again if it is about us it won’t last. Instead, we are meant to bear God’s name and not our own. We are meant to be his light and not the dull, lackluster version we can muster. We must give fame due to the Lord, by giving back so even our successes are ultimately God’s, and others experience them as well.

Here we come face to face with a common hypocrisy of faith. Why do we come to God? Very often we come to God for ourselves. We come because there is comfort here. We come because we find community. We come because it fills us with something we lack. Ultimately, God wants to replace all of those reasons with, we come to God for God. Until that happens, we will keep being the people that come to God to know him but never act out his redemption. Until we live for God, we will keep being people that practice faith, putting in the motions, but not living faithfully for those around us. Until we live for God, we will never be his light and peace in this world.

Ultimately, we need both of the greatest commandments. Loving the Lord God with all that we are - being willing to give up to him all our emotions, our lives, our thoughts, and our bodies or as God says our hearts, souls, mind, and strength, but if we ever forget who God is he reminds us that a natural outpouring of love for him, is loving our neighbor as ourselves.

How do we become the good news of God for others? How do we become the good news we have experienced? How do we share God in this world? God gives us a whole lot of ways and every encounter is a new opportunity to become God’s good news.

The next part I will admit, I struggle with. God tells his people the kind of fast he desires and it is all about caring for those in need: “loose the chains of injustice”, “remove people’s burdens”, “set the oppressed free”, “share our food”, “provide shelter”, “cloth those who are naked”. I struggle with these actions because I struggle with the ways they are done today. First, I struggle because our actions to serve those in need are so often divorced from our and their other needs, especially their spiritual needs. You might remember from the book of Luke that almost every need was first rooted in a need for God, so Jesus often served one and then the other in word and action. We must know God’s justice before we can share it. We must trust God enough for the load to be shared. Jesus even reminds us not to worry about food or clothing, and that it starts with understanding that we are deeply cared for by God. The second reason I struggle with modern social justice is that our actions so often remove us from those we serve or keep us in control. For Jesus, every healing, every act, was personal and relational. This took him to very dangerous and difficult situations, sitting beside prostitutes and tax collectors, touching lepers, forgiving sinners, carrying the lame, and weeping for those who mourn. I struggle with this second part of caring for the needy not just because it is less common in today’s world but I struggle with serving in this way because it is scary. If you have ever seen a documentary on Mother Teresa’s life you will know, being relational to house, feed, or cloth those in need is scary. You put your life on the line. You have to step out every day with an eye for lost people and places. You have trust and give of your time, your money, your body, and your faith. Most of the time we would rather give something and run.

God ends this whole list with “Do not turn your back on your own flesh and blood”, which both gives us another thing to think about, but also helps to sum up all of these acts. It is great that in English our own flesh and blood have two meanings. It means caring for our family and caring for our own selves. It should remind you of what God has already shown us: we are one great big family and caring for another person is caring for ourselves. We should be asking ourselves in every interaction and especially with those in need, what would I do for them if they were my family, what would I do for them if they were me, how can I be God’s good news?

One of the struggles is that we actually have to know what God’s good news is. We have to know the hope of paradise. We have to know what heaven is like. We have to know what God intended for family. We have to know God and believe these truths.

In our passage from Ephesians, Paul tells us that God’s love and welcome for non-Jews had somehow remained a mystery. I have shown after the last few weeks, through God wanting to make us a blessing to all nations, through how God shows all nations come from the same family, how Israel’s most important leaders and stories were bound up in the welcoming and embrace of people outside of Israel. God had always been inviting outsiders in. Yet somehow it remained a mystery for them. It just shows our blindness and unwillingness to actually come and know God. He has always been doing this work of inviting others in to share in the inheritance of Jesus Christ; we either didn’t notice or didn’t want to admit how deep it went.

God goes on to tell us why this care for others out of love for him is so important. When we really take care of others, then God says “your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

If we live out God’s love and do the work of being his good news for all people, welcoming people into his family, then our lives and the world around us can be transformed. Just imagine: In the darkness that surrounds us, we can be God’s light. Even when the whole world seems engulfed by darkness and people can’t see the sun, the night will be like the middle of the day for us. When we act and live like Jesus then God can be our guide. When we provide for others, we can trust and will see that God will provide for our needs. Even in desolate places and times, it will be as if we live in the lushest gardens. Through working to rebuild others' lives, we will join with God in rebuilding great His fortresses and kingdom.

This should actually be intuitive. By being good news and seeing it in the world we too experience the good news. As we share love, we too often are loved in return or at least see love's work and spread. As we build a foundation for those around us, we too have a larger and broader foundation. Caring for others as God wants us to care for them, is caring for ourselves as it is caring for our own flesh and blood, our own image, as it is caring for God himself. We are a family purposed to welcome so that together we might grow in God’s love and care.

What part does caring for others play in the gospel? Either the books or the Good News.

?What does it look like?

Isaiah 58:1-12 (care for those in need)

What are the people doing?

Why are these seemingly good things like fasting, humility and learning God’s word not enough?

What does God want us to become?

Ephesians 3:1-12 (God's plan for the gentiles)

What was the mystery Paul is talking about?

Why is this considered a grace?

With everything that we have learned about God’s historic purpose to make us a welcoming family, what does the fact that this remained a mystery tell us about our ability to listen, understand, and our need to know God better?

How does knowing God relate to becoming the gospel?