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The Message of Jesus

Salt Church - Bolton


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“Remember the height from which you have fallen!
Repent and do the things you did at first.”
Rev 2.5 (NIV)

We need a radical turn back to Jesus model - not to restore


Christianity, but to re-discover God's kingdom.
 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the
Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And
he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed
to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat
down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on
him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is
fulfilled in your hearing."

Luke 4.16-20 (NIV)


He has anointed me to preach good news of how to go
to heaven

To make people have the right beliefs and doctrines

He has sent me to proclaim damnation and


condemnation to those who have wrong doctrine
understandings and recovery of heaven to the hell-
bound

To set those in error straight

To proclaim the right way to go to heaven after you die


All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words
that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me:
'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we
have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "
 
Luke 4.22-23 (NIV)
Wrong Expectations
• He is a local guy
• We heard that he healed people in
Capernaum
• He seems to be a strong leader
• Being a local, of course he will privilege us the
most.
 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his
hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in
Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and
there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not
sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of
Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of
Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only
Naaman the Syrian."
 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard
this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the
brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw
him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and
went on his way.

Luke 4.22-30 (NIV)


"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.“

Can we find this same message again in the Gospels?


 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his
knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to
inherit eternal life?"  "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered.
"No one is good—except God alone. You know the
commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not
steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honour your
father and mother.'"
 "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said.
"Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
 At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had
great wealth.
Mark 10:17-23 (NIV)
George Verwer

Our 7 Global Concerns


Children at risk
Abused women
The extreme poor
The HIV/AIDS patient
People with impure water
The unborn
The environment
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single
pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like
transparent glass.
 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty
and the Lamb are its temple. 23The city does not need the sun or
the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the
Lamb is its lamp.
Rev 21:21-23 (NIV)
From “The City without a Church” by Henry Drummond,
1949

Where are you to begin? Begin where you are. Make that
one corner, room, house, office, as like Heaven as you can.
Begin? Begin with paper on the walls, make that beautiful;
with the air, keep it fresh; with the very drains, make them
sweet; with the furniture, see that it be honest. Abolish
whatsoever worketh abomination – in food, in drink, in
luxury, in books, in art; whatsoever maketh a lie – in
conversation, in social intercourse, in correspondence, in
domestic life.
This done, you have arranged for a Heaven, but you have
not got it. Heaven lies within, in kindness, in humbleness, in
unselfishness, in faith, in love, in service. To get these in, get
Christ in. Teach all in the house about Christ – what he did,
and what he said, and how He lived, and how He died, and
how He dwells in them, and how He makes all one. Teach it
not as a doctrine, but as a discovery, as your own discovery.
Live your own discovery.
Then pass out into the City. Do all to it that you have
done at home. Beautify it, ventilate it and drain it. Let
nothing enter it that can defile the streets, the stage,
the newspaper offices, the booksellers’ counters;
nothing that maketh a lie in its warehouses, its
manufactures, its shops, its art galleries, its
advertisements. Educate it, amuse it, church it.
Christianise capital; dignify labour. Join Councils and
Committees. Provide for the poor, the sick and the
widow. So you will serve the City.

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