I’m the kind of person who loses things a lot. I simply cannot remember where I put my things, whether it’s my wallet, my phone, my keys, my AirPods, my garage remote, you name it. (Things got so bad that I ended up attaching them all.) Therefore, I often find myself looking for things. Truth is, we’re all looking for something. A job. A girlfriend. A boyfriend. Recognition. A crew. A mark. Happiness. Success. Peace. Health. We’re all looking for something. What are you looking for?

This morning, I was reading through Micah. It spoke of a day that is coming when

Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree.
Micah 4:4 NIV

The vine and fig tree symbolise a world free from fear and conflict under God's reign. It envisions a time of peace, provision, security and flourishing.

If God exists, why won’t he make himself more clear? Why won’t he show his face so I can see him with my eyes? Why won’t he speak to me with audible words that I can hear with my ears, like when we spoke to Samuel in 1 Samuel 3? Or why won’t he write up some words on a wall, like he did for King Belshazzar in Daniel 5? Why doesn’t he have a word for these guys but not for me?

Yesterday morning, I was reading through Psalm 138 in my trusty NIV Bible. One verse stood out to me in particular. Verse 1 reads: “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.” One word in particular stood out to me: the word “gods”. And not just the word “gods” but also the inverted commas. This stood out to me because, in most other places in the Psalms where “gods” are mentioned in the NIV, there are no inverted commas.

Recently, I had the privilege of doing my first-ever house blessing. A family from church was moving into their house later that day, and they asked me to come and share a Word from the Bible and pray for their new home.

In the previous post, we began to consider how we should respond to the good news of the gospel. In Mark 1:15, Jesus calls people to “repent and believe” in response to the gospel. In the previous post, we thought about what it means to repent. It means to stop living our way and start living God’s way. This post considers what it means to “believe” or “have faith”.

News worth hearing demands some kind of response. In the last several posts, we’ve been reminded of the core truths of the gospel. But how should we respond to this good news of the gospel?

In previous posts, we’ve seen that Jesus came, he lived, he died, he rose, he rules, and he’s returning. We’ve looked at how he came: fully God, fully human, living a sinless life in full obedience to God. And we’ve even seen why he came: to die in our place for our sins, to defeat death and bring everlasting life, to rule all things at God’s right hand, to judge and bring us home. However, the reasons given so far as to why he came have been penultimate. In other words, they are second to something else, a greater reason for which he came. What is that greater, ultimate purpose for which he came?

In the previous post, we saw that Jesus rules everything and will continue to rule forever. But if Jesus already rules everything, why is the world still such a mess? Why is there still so much evil? Why doesn’t Jesus return immediately and take us home? And when he does, what will home look like? What else will happen?

In the previous post, we saw that Jesus rose, defeating death and bringing new, everlasting life. We noticed that there was a now-but-not-yet aspect to Jesus’ resurrection. He has given us new life in the present, but there’s also a sense that we don’t yet have this new life. He has already defeated death when he rose from the dead, and yet the defeat of death is still to come. We live in an overlap of ages. We experience many good things that arise from what Jesus has accomplished, and yet there are still many things that we don’t yet experience.

Previously, we’ve seen that Jesus came, lived, and died. Often, when people share the gospel, they finish there. But, when you look at the New Testament, you realise that the resurrection really needs a look, too. In fact, when the apostles preach the gospel in the book of Acts, they mention the resurrection 25% more than the cross! So why is the resurrection so important? To unpack this, we need to understand the problem and God’s solution, and then we can get to the reason why this matters. Then, we’ll also take a look at how we should respond.

In the previous post, we saw that Jesus lived a sinless life in full obedience to God. We were told that this would set the stage for the great exchange that we’ll find out about in this post. But first, the problem.

In the previous post, we learned that Jesus came, fully God and fully man. The following post will consider how Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

But what about the stuff in the middle? Why does Jesus’ life matter? Is there any significance in the fact that it was a man in his mid-30s who died on the cross rather than a baby? In this article, we’ll explore the importance of Jesus’ life, which theologians sometimes refer to as Christ’s “active obedience” (distinct from his “passive obedience” on the cross). But before we get into Christ’s life, we must clearly understand the problems that Christ’s life overcomes.

In the previous post, we learned of the bad news of the Bible. We’re all sinners who have rejected God, and this leads to suffering, death and judgment. In this article, we turn to the good news of the gospel of Jesus.

But why does it have to be Jesus who saves us? And why does he actually have to come? Why can’t he save us from heaven? Or, why can’t we save ourselves?

These questions lead us to our problem.

Most of us like to think that we’re good people. “I’m a good guy/gal, right?” Sure, some people like to say they are “bad boys” or “bad girls”, but even when we say that, we don’t really think we’re bad. Sure, we slip up. Sure, we’ve done bad things. But overall, we’re pretty good. Unfortunately, the Bible has some bad news for us. News that we’d probably prefer to ignore.

A few months ago, I was reading through some responses to a questionnaire I gave to the youth at my church. One of the questions asked, “What is the gospel?” Many of the answers said, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John”, while a couple said that the gospel equals “good news”. These answers aren’t wrong. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are gospels. The word “gospel” does mean “good news”. But what actually is the “good news” contained in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? It occurred to me that I haven’t taught my youth very explicitly what we mean by “the gospel”.  We mention “the gospel” all the time. But it’s been a while since we did a deep dive. 

Someone once told me that if you’re asked to do the Bible reading at church, and you find that the set reading is Psalm 119, you need to run away. It’s really long. Psalm 119 is probably most well-known as the longest chapter of the Bible, with 176 verses and 1065 words in the original Hebrew (Psalm 117 happens to be the shortest chapter in the Bible). This also makes it the longest acrostic poem in the Bible (for other acrostic/near-acrostic poems in the Bible, see Psalms 9–10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 145, Proverbs 31:10–31, Lamentations 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 ).

In 410 AD, Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Rome, sending shockwaves around the world. It was a symbol of the decline of the Western World, shattering the invulnerability of the impenetrable Rome, the “eternal city”. For Christians, this was particularly confusing. Christianity had just been declared the state religion of the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius just a few decades earlier, in 380 AD. The status of Rome kind of seemed to be tied to the status of Christianity.

This morning, I was reading Hebrews 8. I was struck by verse 13 (NIV):

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

The Old Covenant is obsolete. This made me pause and reflect. Earlier in the year, I spent a bit of time thinking about Matthew 5:17 where Jesus says:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”

In Psalm 55:11–14 (NIV), David describes feeling betrayed by someone. He writes: "Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets. If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, 14 with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers."