Dear Parents and Friends of CCS,

I pray your year has begun well, and that you are experiencing the grace and goodness of God!

I wanted to take a moment to share with you some thoughts about the Sermon on the Mount, and its implications for a Gospel-Centered Education.

The Sermon on the Mount is often considered Jesus’ greatest and most important sermon, the fountainhead of all of His other teachings. For today, let’s zoom in on a command of Jesus that precedes the Sermon and gives the context through which the Sermon must be understood.

“From that time (see v. 12-16 for context) Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (parenthetical mine)

This statement by Jesus contains a whole world of meaning, far beyond what we can unpack in this article. In summary, I believe that if we miss the deeper context-giving truth of this statement, we cannot properly understand the Sermon on the Mount.

The call to repentance that began on earth in those days has echoed throughout the centuries, giving hope and light to millions of seekers desperate for a new life, a new way of living, that makes more sense and more powerfully connects with their true desires than the one the world offers.

“Repent”, Jesus cries out, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” It’s helpful to note that the phrase “at hand’ can be understood as meaning “right here in front of you”.

In a very real sense, Jesus is telling His listeners, and, by extension, us, that He is the embodiment of the Kingdom, the rule and reign of God that is partial now and will be fulfilled upon Jesus' second coming.

All of Jesus’ teaching must be understood in the light of this Reality: the gospel of the Kingdom, synonymous with the “Kingdom of Heaven”, changes everything. It requires re-orienting our perspective on virtually every aspect of our lives.

I’ll close with one simple application, one that is not easy to implement because it pushes back on cultural norms.

It has become normal in our culture to judge someone based on an external attribute or a position they appear to hold on any one of a number of hot topics.

The Bible, of course, does speak often about behavior, as well as the beliefs and views that we hold on real world topics. Indeed, our theme verse for the year, 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 commands that we “stand firm…”.

Yet there is no Kingdom value in pre-judging someone based on these sorts of criteria. Instead, Jesus exhorts us repeatedly to consider the heart of the person involved, especially if they’re a fellow Christ-follower. It makes Kingdom sense to suspend judgment until we get a more complete picture.

Certainly at the end of the day we may disagree, and say so out loud. But there is a world of difference between responding in thoughtful disagreement, and person- or group-centered anger and hostility.

One of the mandates of Gospel-Centered Education is to help people take what they are learning in church and their families about how the Kingdom works, and apply it in real time in the real world, being careful to consider applications to their chosen field of endeavor (jobs, families, etc.).

This becomes more effective as people begin to understand what God has to say about every subject they study, and every area of their lives. Nothing is off limits to this application of God’s truth, no matter how inconvenient it might be or how much it might temporarily disrupt our lives.

Providing this sort of education is exactly why CCS exists. It also forms the central theme for our upcoming podcast, “Gospel-Centered Education” launching on January 18.

Through GCE we will take time to unpack how education, culture and Biblical theology interact, and why that matters to us in our daily lives as parents, grandparents and students.

As I leave you today I want to re-emphasize that because the gospel of the Kingdom is true, it is relevant in our lives - all of our lives. And until Jesus comes we have the mandate to live like Him in all respects, trusting Him to work HIs will out in the world through us, His servants.

This is a glorious truth, and one that we will spend a lifetime exploring.

Thank you for choosing to join us on the journey!

For CCS and the Kingdom,

Tom