Matt Chandler - Awake to Generosity

If you have your Bibles, this is our passage, and I’m eager to dive into it. I’m going to work through it line by line, but I want to frame it perhaps differently than you might be thinking in your mind. I have had a single-minded obsession for the last 20-plus years as the pastor of The Village Church. I’ve been captivated by the biblical historical reality that the Holy Spirit can fall on a group of people in such a way as to transform a culture, drive out darkness, and establish light. I’m telling you, that’s the thing that rocks me; it keeps me up, makes me hungry, makes me pray, and makes me want to squabble with the devil. That’s a driver in my life.

If you were here in the early years, you might recall how often I tried to point out what God did in Ephesus—that the Holy Spirit fell in such a way that the whole socioeconomic system turned on its head, and those making money from sinful gain actually rioted. Can you imagine an outpouring of the Holy Spirit where it became impossible to profit from sinful gain because the people had repented and turned their backs on that wickedness? Can you envision a metroplex without strip clubs or illicit drug use, where a kind of pervasive righteousness settles over the entirety of the city? That’s what you saw happen in Ephesus. I read that and think, «Yes, I want that in my day!» You’re not telling us this in the book because it’s for yesteryear. Let’s pray for it, fight for it, and organize for it. That idea drives me—the kingdom of God is now, not later; it’s here right now, pushing back what is dark and establishing what is light. You and I have been invited into that, and it’s the kind of pervasive push in my gut. It’s the ‘why’ behind how I preach. I’m not, as Wesley said, a velvet-mouthed preacher. I’m not trying to lecture up here; I’m trying to scream. I’ve got something to say, and it’s not merely a linear consideration for you. That’s not what I’m doing here.

It’s why there aren’t fill-in-the-blank notes—nothing against that; it’s just not why I think we’ve gathered. We’ve gathered so that the Spirit of God might edify, encourage, and point us in this direction because I’m pulling all of this from the book. Let me show you this: this is Jesus in Mark 1; it’s early in the gospel, not at the midpoint. He’s performing miracles and establishing that the kingdom of God is near. Every time Jesus performs a miracle, He’s showing you what the Kingdom is like. When He heals the sick, He’s indicating that the Kingdom drives out sickness. When He raises the dead, the Kingdom has victory over death. When He calms the waters, He’s demonstrating that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

When Jesus comes, He comes preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, declaring that sin and death’s reign is over; it’s on the clock, and now it’s only a matter of time before the whole universe sees it clearly. Here’s Jesus in Mark 1:14–15: «Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God.» Now, what is the gospel of God? It’s saying, «The time is fulfilled.» The Old Testament is fulfilled—the covenants, all the promises of God, all that God has been up to since day one. He doesn’t have a day one; we do. The whole point of creation, the whole purpose that we’re here—the time is now. It’s fulfilled in what? That the Kingdom of God is at hand. That means the Kingdom is here, not a future reality, but a present reality. You and I feel the tension of that because we’re stuck in the already but not yet. You tracking with me? We’re stuck in the middle. It’s inaugurated but not consummated, right?

If you’re a history buff, Normandy has been taken. The beach has been taken, and now it’s just a matter of time. Once we had that stronghold in Omaha and on those beaches, then it was over; it was just a matter of time. That’s where we are. We still have a fight ahead of us, and yet the beachhead has been established. Later on, He explains how the Kingdom works in a great illustration where the rulers didn’t like Jesus. He threatened their money, threatened their way of life, and they accused Him of driving out demons by the power of demons. He casts out demons because that’s what the Kingdom does—it drives out darkness. In an attempt to make Him lose credibility, they say it’s by the power of Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies, that He drives out demons. Jesus has some things to say about that. By the way, it’s not a neutral question: «Is it true that you cast out demons by the power of demons?» That’s fighting language. You’re not asking a legitimate question there; you’re trying to start something. So Jesus answers their question, but we’ll pick it up there.