Midweek Messages
October 13, 2021
This week’s sermon will be:
Entrusted with the Kingdom of God
This week’s readings are:
The Gospel follows immediately from last week’s reading of the young man who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life.”
People like to use this passage to skewer the wealthy.
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Wealth and oppression of the poor is not the
point of this passage.
o
There is plenty in the Scriptures about the
oppression of the poor.
o
The Scriptures also present wealth as a blessing
from God.
o
Poor-ness is not more sanctified than rich-ness.
o
The point is where does one put his/her
confidence, and the rich have an additional temptation here.
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Perspective: Most (if not all) of my hearers are
comparatively rich.
o
Haitian nurses - $200/mo., $2400/year.
o
Nurses in the U.S. average $75,000/year plus
benefits.
Jesus’ message in Mark starts with: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
In Mark 10 we are seeing how different the kingdom of God is from our normal assumptions about life – assumptions rooted in the logic of this world.
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Divorce
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Children
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Wealth
This section is followed by Jesus foretelling his death for the third time and a request for places of power and glory for James and John in Jesus’ kingdom.
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Their minds are formed by the world.
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Our minds are formed by the world.
Mark 10 is first and foremost about the kingdom of God and how we relate to it.
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Keep the Law?
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Be important?
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Be wealthy?
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Faith!
o
Faith will form our relationship with these
other issues, too, but as fruit growing from a tree, not as a work to secure
one’s place in the kingdom of God.
We are entrusted with God’s kingdom.
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Not a place – a relationship.
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God’s reign – REIGN – kingly activity
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God’s mercy and salvation, his attitude and
actions of love and forgiveness in Christ.
This is what we have been entrusted with to deliver to the
world.
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Not politics.
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Not economics.
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Not even morality – which we often judge by the
world’s standards instead of God’s.
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We are given the kingdom to spread it’s love and
salvation, and its power to transform sinners.
Comments
Christ" as C.S. Lewis says. This is one of my challenges. LK