Jesus' Call to Discipleship

From Hans Bayer's, "A Theology of Mark".

"Jesus' call to discipleship reverses the fall of man and involves a renewed dependence upon God. Jesus' arrival triggers a culminating process of God's pursuing his people and calling them to himself. Discipleship is thus a reality both in the context of creation and fall as well as in the context of redemptive-historical renewal. Jesus arises as the climatic fulfillment of God's redemptive plan that was inaugurated in Genesis 3:15. He calls his disciples into a dependent relationship which reverses the primeval fall of man away from walking with God. The ultimate antidote to such autonomy and resistance is dependent upon God's grace, based on Jesus' atonement (Mark 10:45). The call to discipleship is thus a call to reliance on Jesus for restoration of life with God rather than on autonomous human effort."

Bayer, Hans F. A Theology of Mark: The Dynamic Between Christology and Authentic Discipleship. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Pub, 2012), 61-62. 

Two Things Jesus Knew

"Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisee's fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day." Mark 2:18-20

Some people like to think that Jesus was just a good moral teacher; a really nice guy who was a great leader. This passage reveals a couple things that Jesus thought about himself. He knew who he was, and that he was going to die. 

Figuratively, Jesus knew he was the bridegroom. He was the Son of God and the awaited Savior. He also knew the reason why he came. He came to die. The culmination of his mission was to defeat death by dying a substitutionary death for his people. When you read the gospel's this way, listening to what Jesus thought and knew about himself, the stories make much more sense. His whole life,  his eyes must have been fixed on his mission. He wasn't aimlessly living life trying to help people when he could. He was on a mission; he had a purpose. He was much more than a moral teacher. He was and is the Savior of the world. 

The Gospel Drama in Worship

"In worship, we are invited into God’s holy presence as adopted sons and daughters of whom he is not ashamed because of Christ’s work on our behalf. We come adoring and praising him for his goodness, greatness, and grace. We come confessing our sins and looking to him for forgiveness and strength. We come making requests on behalf of ourselves and others in prayer. We praise and admonish and pray through song. We rejoice in the work of God’s grace in one another as we hear the gospel story expressed through the lives of fellow believers. We profess enthusiastically together what we believe. We listen to God’s Word read, proclaimed, and applied. We offer our lives and our substance to him. We baptize new converts and children of believers as he adds to our number. We gather in table fellowship remembering what Christ has done in his atoning, sacrificial death in our place. We receive his good word in the benediction as he sends us forth to live as salt and light for his glory in every area of life. We are captured and transformed into greater Christ-likeness by the gospel drama represented in a carefully planned worship service that proclaims that gospel story afresh each week."

Mark Dalbey, "Gospel-Centered Worship." 171-172. 

What is the Bible?

"The Bible is an organic, progressive, unfolding, dramatic story of God creating and then redeeming a people who have intimate fellowship with him and with one another."

Mark Dalbey in "Gospel-Centered Worship and Regulative Principle"

Bad News From God

A couple nights ago my professor made the statement that "it is better to hear bad news from God than good news that is untrue."

This got me thinking to the common trend of our culture verses God's revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The trend of the culture is to mask our sin with relativism. Its mantras are: There is no real right or wrong, true and untrue. No one has the right to tell you you're wrong. Do what what feels good to you. Experience and feeling is more important than reality. You are your own god. Your own personal freedom of choice is more valuable than truth.

Compare this to what God reveals in Jesus Christ. The gospel (good news) is that Jesus did come, and with that comes bad news first. In fact, there is no good news without the bad news. The bad news is that we are wrong. There is One True God, and our entire beings are prone to wander. The bad news is that we are not god, and that one day, we will bow down before the King, whether willingly out of joy, or begrudgingly out of mandate. The bad news, as Romans put it, is that:

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools." Romans 1:21-22

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Romans 3:10-11

Just a reminder, this bad news is talking about us, not some other group of people. This is us.

But, this is a preface to the good news; the good news that Jesus Christ, who is the unique Son of God, has come to reverse this bad news. He has come to change it. Jesus bore our bad news, so that we could repent and receive the good news. Jesus took all of our unrighteousness, all of our evil, all of our foolishness and wickedness upon himself, so that we could receive his righteousness.

However, this is only possible when we accept the bad news. Receiving Christ means acknowledging the truth (often the ugly truth) about ourselves (as told in Romans 1 and 3). It is here that true freedom is found, true love experienced, and true life lived.