Based on a True Story: Act Four (Luke 10:1-24)

Big Idea: What did God do when his plan to restore a messed-up world seemed to fail? He sent His own Son.

When God’s plan to restore a messed-up world seemed to fail, he sent His own Son.

Purpose: To center the story line on Jesus.

A drama always involves a crisis. The”happily ever after" part never comes until the end, otherwise it would be a very boring drama.

The drama of Scripture contains a crisis too. Review: God created the world; sin messed up the world; God chose a people to begin restoring the messed up world.

The problem: Those people failed in their job.

Biggest indication: Exiles (a reverse-exodus): 722 BC, the northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria and went into exile; 587 BC, the Temple was destroyed by Babylonians; 586 BC, the southern kingdom went into exile.

Although they were eventually allowed to return to their land, only a minority did so. And even those that returned were dominated by one foreign power after another, as if their exile had never ended.

They believed one day that God would first judge and then restore His people. They longed for”the kingdom of God" – when there would be no king but God; the land would be cleansed from those who trampled it; Israel would live in communion with God; God would again dwell among his people.

**What did God do when his plan to restore a messed-up world seemed to fail? He sent His own Son.

Who He Was

He is the Son of God.

It becomes clear that He came to do Israel’s job. He becomes the true Israel:

• His genealogy is given to show that God’s promises to Abram and David are being fulfilled in Him
• The events of Jesus’ life do the same – The threat to his life as infant; his flight to Egypt; his time in the wilderness; his baptism in the Jordon
• Jesus saw himself as the Temple

His Message

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.”The time has come," he said.”The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:14-15)
Also Luke 10:8-11

It is the central message of Jesus. What is the Kingdom? One definition: Power of God in Christ by the Spirit to restore creation (especially humanity) to again live under the rule of God.

It’s broken in; it’s not yet fully present.

What He Did

Demonstration of God’s Kingdom:

Blind see; lame walk; deaf hear; sick healed; dead raised; poor/ lost received; sinners forgiven; cursed creation restored; demons cast out; lives changed (cf. Lk. 7:21-23; 10:17-20 – the defeat of Satan at the hands of Jesus)

He also created a kingdom community – Luke 10:21. He even welcomes sinners and outcasts.

All of this is what was longed for in Act Three – Luke 10:23. God’s plan to restore a messed up world are back on track.

And we haven’t even got to the climax yet:

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in human flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

Jesus conquered sin: death; Satan; forms of sin (hatred, greed), results of sin (suffering, sickness).

We live in the”already, but not yet" world of the Kingdom.

The Difference Today

Jesus died to restore His creation……we participate in that new creation as we trust in Christ.