The Rock King

Class one day I was given a challenge: Completely relay the Gospel message in 30 words or less. Needless to say, that wasn't too easy, but I think I got it down.

God came to earth in human form as Jesus. He lived a perfect life then died for our sins, then rose again three days later defeating death and sin.

Bam. 29 Words.

That is the essence of what I wanted to get at yesterday, telling of what the Gospel is. I went a bit deeper than just 29 words last night, but I still told of what the Gospel was, the Good News of Christ. With that we began to lay down a foundation that we can continue to grow and build on.

To recap, the foundation is Jesus, with the cornerstone being his identity as Messiah, leading to him as Savior, which is the Gospel Message. That's where we're coming from, the foundation on which we will not only begin building on, but also be putting together.

Today we go to step one of that task.

Step one is defining what it means to Jesus as King, Messiah, or Christ.

Jesus' main teaching in the Gospels, and we see this especially in Matthew, is the Kingdom of God/Heaven. What exactly does this mean? Well going back to yesterday, Israel had no human king for a long time, with God being their only king over them. Eventually they wanted to be like the countries around them and have a human king over them. So God gives them what they want, and they get a King over the nation of Israel. This comes at a price, the king will abuse and extort them, ultimately being a regrettable decision for them. They say, "Oh well! Do it anyways!" and get their new king, Saul. He goes nuts, dies in battle at his own hand (or someone else's depending which book you read), and David becomes king. Then there's a long line of kings eventually ending in them being taken over by numerous enemies throughout the years, finally leading up to the Roman Empire taking over and the only king that they have then is Caesar.

This brings us to Jesus who comes up and says that he is the promised Messiah, the promised King of Israel, saying that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Now looking back to the previous paragraph we may be thinking that the Kingdom of God is a nation with God as king. Yes and no. When we come into the family of God we become a part of the new nation of Israel, with God as our King yes, but there is more to it than that.

Back to the beginning of time Adam and Eve have a personal, intimate relationship with God, where they walk with him every day, talk with him in person every day, and he is physically there with them. Not only was he their God, but their King and Friend. This is the original Kingdom of God: Having God as a personal King in your life whom you can go to at any time about anything. Israel's kingdom needed people to go between God and the people, they couldn't go to God themselves for fear of death. Yet with Adam and Eve, they could be around God before the Fall.

So with Jesus coming as Messiah he came to usher in the Kingdom of God, with him being King over our lives. No longer do we have intercessors between us and God. The only intercessor that we have is a form of God himself (Rom. 8.26).  Not only that, but that form of God that intercedes for us is constantly with us, meaning part of God, which is fully God, is always with us. God is always with us. How much closer to the original Kingdom of God can we get?

This is what it means to have Jesus as Messiah, as King. That he brought the Kingdom of God to us, allowing us to be personally under the Kingship of God as our personal Lord and savior. Any of you baptized? Remember saying that? "I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and my personal Lord and savior." A lot of good stuff there we'll probably look at later. But if you repeated this phrase you are saying that you are making Jesus the only God, the only King in your life, and you will serve him to the best of your ability, which can only happen when you lean on him, which is why we need him to be personally involved in our lives.

All of this is the cornerstone which the rest of the foundation will be laid in relation to.

The rest of the foundation is pretty easy. We see all through scripture who God is, and we see through the New Testament who Jesus claims to be: The Good Shepherd, the True Vine, the Living Water, the Bread of Life, etc. It is your job to go look at these and see who Jesus is. Compare it and relate it to him as Messiah, and lay that stone down to build the foundation for your life.

Now since we know the basics of the Gospel message, we'll be getting deeper into it throughout the time it takes to get all these things out of the way. I don't know how long this is going to take, but it'll be worth it. Today's post is only a part of the Gospel. Tomorrow I think I'll talk about why we needed Jesus to come bring the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we'll see where it goes from there.