The Gospel For Good People
Most of my ministry I’ve been sharing the hope of God’s healing and rescue, the Gospel, with people who knew they were not okay. Whether it was an addiction, poverty, a mental disorder, a criminal charge, an ongoing struggle with anxiety or depression – there was something in their life that gave them what is called “The Gift of Desperation.”
But what about the rest of us – the less desperate, the comfortable? What about all the people who go to work or school, follow the rules, pay their bills, treat people well, wash their cars, and maybe even do something to help other people from time to time? Does the Gospel mean anything to good people whose lives are holding together? Or is Christianity and God’s rescue through Jesus really only for people who have special problems that they can’t solve?
It’s an important question to ask, because I bet most of the people you know are good and decent people who are managing life pretty well. I bet you are one of these people too.
Thankfully, Jesus is not just the great rescuer, but also our great teacher. In John chapter three, we get to see Jesus address the question of what is the Gospel for good people.
Jesus had just begun his ministry of teaching and healing and people began believing that he was the long awaited Messiah – the great rescuer from God who was going to heal the world and set things to right. A man named Nicodemus came to Jesus to try to understand who Jesus was and what he was up to.
Now, Nicodemus was good – not like you and me and maybe your neighbors good, but better than any of us good. He was a Pharisee – someone who was professionally moral, someone whose primary life work was doing all of the right things and none of the wrong things. Among even those people he was recognized for his competence and character and selected to be a member of the influential Jewish ruling council. He had position, status, reputation, and wealth. To top it all off, Nicodemus was also humble. He came to Jesus, a man who was in every way – wealth, status, position, and education – less than Nicodemus and called him “Rabbi,” which means teacher.
Nicodemus was a good, good man; not good compared to God, but good compared to us. And when this very good man, came to Jesus to figure out who he was and what he was up to, Jesus made it personal. Jesus answered the question Nicodemus really needed answering. He told Nicodemus what the Good News is, what the Gospel is, what God’s rescue looks like for good people, for people like Nicodemus.
Jesus says:
3Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again….5 no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit….13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Jesus’ message to Nicodemus is loaded with cultural and Old Testament references that Nicodemus would have been completely familiar with. Jesus spoke the language of Nicodemus’ worldview, but it isn’t ours, so it needs a bit of translating. For brevity’s sake, instead of breaking it all down, I’m just going to paraphrase what I believe Jesus’ message would have sounded like to Nicodemus into language that you and I understand .
Nicodemus, I see who you are, I see all of your goodness, your status, your wealth, your education, and your kindness towards others, but Nicodemus none of that matters. If you want to enter into God’s future healing and renewal of all things, then you’re going to have to start all over. And I don’t mean you’re going to have to work harder or strive to do better. It doesn’t work that way. You’re going to have to allow yourself to be made new through accepting the gift of true life that only comes through the suffering of someone else – like how a woman brings new life to the world.
Nicodemus, I am talking to you of God’s future Kingdom in the present tense on purpose. I am talking to you about the seed, the Spirit, the life of God’s future Kingdom being born inside of you right now and growing inside of you all the days of your life. Do you remember what God foretold through the prophet Ezekiel, “One day, I will put a new heart and a new spirit inside of people. I will remove their hard hearts and give them a living heart. They will know and follow the path of life and there will be unity between God and people once more” (Ezekiel 11). That is the Good News and that is what the Messiah came to bring about. This is how God is healing the world. Don’t be so surprised Nicodemus, that God is up to something you didn’t expect.
Do you remember when the Israelite people where being plagued by snakes and God helped them by having them make a bronze snake, hold it up on a pole, and had them look at it? God brought them healing through having them look at what they most feared. In the same way the Messiah, God’s rescuer will be lifted up, and whoever will be healed and set free will have to face what they are most afraid to see – the truth of who they are and who God is.
But this scary thing isn’t to hurt, but to heal. God loves each of us and all of creation so much that God is giving up his own self that whoever abandons their own self-saving and trusts in God and what God is doing for them will have the with-God life, forever.
Nicodemus, God isn’t out to get people, but to rescue people who have no hope of saving themselves. This is what I am up to.
This is what Jesus says is the Gospel for Good People. And it is the same Good News for people who aren’t so good and life isn’t going so well. The Good News isn’t about making bad people good or God fixing the circumstances of your life – though that is often a result of God’s rescue. The Good News is God making a way for the life of God and the reality of the life-to-come being born inside of us in the here and now.
The Gospel, the Good News, of what God is holding out to us is more wonderful than any of us can possibly imagine.
We only need to say yes.
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