Luke has quite a view of Christ and how he sees the world through the lens of the Fulfilled Kingdom of God.

He tells us of the Centurion- That all Truth is God’s truth no matter where we find it.
He tells us about his Family- That in the Kingdom of God, his family is made up of those who hear and do the will of God.
He tells us of the feeding of the 5000- About how we need to accept responsibility as the Church and stop selling our birthright to worldly governments and institutions.
He tells us about what it means to Worry- And asks us the question, “Where does your worth lay?”
He tells us the parable of the Lost Sheep- And we find that we have a purposeful, determined God whose will is that none should perish.
He tells us the famous story of the Lost Sons- And we are asked to come to a place were we stop believe the false story we tell ourselves and start believing the story God tells of us.
He tells us of the fate of the 2nd Rebel- Where does the Kingdom of God start and end for us?

That is the “What” of the Gospel. That is what Christ saw the Fulfilled Kingdom of God to be and what it is to look like in this world for his people.
That was his “Good News”. In Christ’s view, the Gospel -the Good News- is not just one event frozen in time or a story of 33 years. It is the working of God in the world from the first day of existence in the Garden to the day when the Kingdom is indeed fulfilled.

And in chapter 24, Luke brings us to the “How” and the “Who”.

What does this story tell us about those ideas?
What does the story tell us? What stands out?

Jesus is dead.
And it’s the women who were the ones to stay and see what happened; the ones to see where the body was buried. So as they were faithful in the life of Christ, they are now faithful in his death. That couldn’t be said for most.

The women went to prepare his body and yet it was they who were the ones who were prepared. They just didn’t know it.

They went early in the morning. –That might turn me away right there.
They stood in awe at the rolled-away stone. –Scared? You better believe it.
They meet 2 angels. –Another opportunity to turn and run. But in their fright, they didn’t run, they bowed. Don’t try to tell me that wasn’t a testament to their character.
They were told they were looking in the wrong place but ya know, I love that at least they were looking.
How must these words from the angels have seemed to them? Like foolishness?
They finally run home to tell the disbelieving disciples.

-Women- 1st to preach the Gospel. Charged by angels to do so.

So tell me, who is allowed to preach the Gospel? Who is allowed to tell of the Good News of an ever-faithful, persistent God?

Who is forbidden from it?

It doesn’t mean that anyone who says anything is always right and we should just accept it.
The individual and the Church work together on this. But to systematically disqualify over half of God’s children from this sacred trust… I cannot accept that.

How do we convey this message?
What ways are acceptable and what ways do we outlaw?

While we should never conform the Gospel to our culture, we must always be contextualizing it for the culture.

The truth of Christ trying to bring the Fulfilled Kingdom of God into this world, here and now, can never change but how that truth is presented often does.
Doesn’t mean the other ways are bad or wrong. Quite the contrary, they have been of great help to many.

It’s a bit of what we are doing here.
We are starting small groups that we will help us be the Church to those who may never step inside this building.
We are going to be, slowly, bringing new songs to the worship service. Someone might even bring a guitar up on stage.
We are going to be reaching out to youth and college kids and 20 something’s, not so much to tell them that they can come and sit with us but to give them opportunity to explore their mission as ministers of reconciliation. To give them a place to make a difference in ministry.

I understand that change is not the easiest thing in the world. I get it. I really do. But relationship, with ourselves, with each other, with God, requires change.
It’s outside of a lot of our comfort zones and that’s ok.

Not everything changes and those things that do will not change overnight.

But the Church has never been asked to do its job until it finds a place where it’s comfortable and then to stop.

So we won’t stop. But we will do all of this as the body, as the Church, together.

Over the years, we have seen people have experiences with God in many, often very different ways.
In Acts, the Ethiopian eunuch comes to God after a disciple miraculously appears next to him and instructs him.
Martin Luther, cowering under a tree during a lightning storm, promised God that he would seek after God if he would only spare his life.
C S Lewis was a staunch atheist who set out to prove the non-existence of God and that search led him to a real encounter with a very real God.
St. Paul was blinded on a road.
The prophet Samuel grew up always knowing God, even sleeping right next to the Ark of the Covenant as a boy.

And today the experiences are wide and varied. People meet God in churches, homes, fields, mountain tops, hospital beds.

In chapter 23, we find Luke wrapping up his story of how Christ views the Kingdom of God.

We find two men next to Christ hanging on their own trees. Two men- same crime (They were rebels against the Roman Empire. Most versions call them thieves and while they might have also stolen, Rome crucified its rebels to show an example of what happens when you defy Caesar as God and ruler), same sentence, same opportunity, same struggle, same trials.

And yet for one of those two rebels, the Kingdom of God started right there, on a cross. Life started on a cross.

Where does the Kingdom start for us? When we’re dead? In heaven?

1st rebel- Still believed in his pride, in his anger, clung to it, believed only in salvation being earthly and immediate and that he deserved it

2nd rebel- Nothing more to give, nothing more to believe in, all his ego and pride gone, nothing but Christ was left

1st rebel- Angry over his sentence. The unfairness. How could things not have worked out to his benefit in life?

2nd rebel- Accepting up his sentence. Realized who he was.

In the end, what did either of them have to bring to Christ?

We shake our heads at the 1st rebel but it should be a stark lesson to us about how pride can affect us even in the direst of circumstances. Maybe it’s even worse on us in those situations, maybe it makes us grip tighter to our pride, to our own sense of worth. We want to wallow in the idea that our worth is based on the things we do and how we feel and that our actions are going to be enough to get us out of our mess if we would just try hard enough. Try again. And again. And one more time with feeling.

And we hang upon our cross screaming about how the world isn’t fair.

But this whole time, Luke has been pleading with us to see where our worth really comes from. But it’s hard to see things differently than we always have. It’s hard to believe a different story about ourselves than the one we have always known. We feel like we need to make a deal with God so that he will let us eat the scraps that fall from his table. We feel like we can coerce God into giving us what’s fair by showing him all the good we’ve done for him in our lives.
Those ways do us no good. In fact, they actually negate the truth of our pain and suffering because those solutions are illusions. And when you try to cure a very real sickness with imaginary medicine, you are saying that you don’t really believe in the realness of the pain to begin with. You certainly aren’t serious about healing when this happens.

“Worry not about what you will eat or what you will wear or what you will do when your lungs fill up with fluid and you literally drown on a cross.” I know that’s hard to do. Everyday we have to remind ourselves that God knows who we are to him. Everyday we have to remind ourselves of our worth even in the midst of very real pain and suffering and confusion and fear. Because fear will steal that quicker than we can imagine.
All week my pride and ego have wanted to give into fear. Those things have wanted me to doubt my worth to God. And every day I have had to get up and step back on the line. Every day I have had to remind myself of worth. I’ll tell ya, it doesn’t relieve the consequences of the things that I have said or done. It doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have been wiser in my dealings with people and I can’t say that it makes it easier or the heaviness all that lighter. Not yet. But there is comfort and joy in it knowing that all of it is blessed as the Kingdom of God works its way backwards into my life redeeming the bad parts of my life. Especially the bad parts.

We often speak of where we meet Christ in our lives but is there something about where they met Christ in his life? At the height of his suffering, pain, humiliation and abandonment.
What reason did they have to believe? And yet one did.

In Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones we saw that with God, there is never a “too late”. There is never a time with our relationship with God, with others and with ourselves reach a point where it becomes impossible to start again fresh and clean and with purpose and worth.

Where does the kingdom start and end for you?

In the first part of Luke 15, Christ tells us a story of the Kingdom of God and how the ruler of that kingdom was a relentless searcher. One who had purpose and intent.
And in there was the dichotomy of our free will and a God who desires that none should perish. And after it Jesus expands on what all of that means.

He tells us another story. Actually, he tells us 4 stories. He tells us the story of a young man who left. He tells us the story of a young man who stayed. And he tells us their father’s story of both of them.

The 1st son’s story of himself is one of pride; of disrespect, not only of his father and family on a personal level but also bringing shame on them throughout their whole community; of a rejection of authority; of a rejection of love.

The 2nd sons’ story is also one of pride; of acceptance of authority for the wrong reasons; of a rejection of love.

The father’s story for the both of them was one in which they were still his sons even after all they had done and thought and said.

Even as the first son disowned his family, as he lay in a pig pen, covered in mud and filth, even as he begged to be a slave, the father knew the real story of the boy, that he was always and could never have been anything other than his son.

Even as the 2nd son hardened his heart, as he maligned his brother, even as he never stopped to realize the true nature of his father, the father knew the real story of the 2nd boy, that he was always and could never have been anything other than his son.

There are consequences of the story we choose to believe about ourselves.

The 1st son thought he could take what he wanted but took the wrong thing. And once all his illusions of security had dried up and faded away, he tried to see what he could give to get back into the good graces of his father.
What kind of deal can we make with God in order to make him love us?

The 2nd son though he could give enough to please his father but gave the wrong thing. And when he discover that his illusion of worth was torn apart, he tried to guilt the father into giving to him but again asked for the wrong thing.
Which of our “good” deeds can we hold over God so that he will see things our way?

1st son- his consequence was to live alone far longer than he should have.
2nd son- his consequence was the same. Being alone. Even alone in the midst of a huge celebration.

I have often expressed how God views our worth and about how if we could start to see what Christ saw, that Fulfilled Kingdom of God, we would be able to understand that our worth is based solely and alone on who we are to God.

That’s part of the story that Jesus tells us here.
1st son- worth based on what he could get from the father, both leaving and coming.
2nd son- worth based on what he could do for the father.

The father seems to dismiss those reasons entirely and base their worth on who they are to him. Both sons. Both valued the same and both having unlimited access to the father and his love.
How often do we base our worth on what God can give us? Health, money, good family.
And if we do, what does it say about God and our worth when we find we do not have those things?

And stuck in that view, we find ourselves crawling back to God on our bellies, begging of God to let us be less than something we really are.

How often do we base our worth on what we can do for God? Church attendance, tithing, missionary work, being nice to people.
And if we do, what does it say to us about God and our worth when we find that we can’t always live up to those expectations?

And stuck in that view, we find ourselves towering over God trying to twist his arm so that he will give us our right and fair share of something we never earned.

There are consequences when it comes to which story about ourselves we will believe.

CS Lewis once said that in the end, there are really only two kinds of people in the world– those who say to God, “Thy will be done.” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.”

You get to choose your story from a wide variety of sources. Choose the story that comes from the one that truly knows you and knows what you are worth.