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Lavish Love – Mark 14:1-9

This is a story of someone unafraid of demonstrating her love lavishly and publicly. It comes on the heels of strenuous questioning from both the left (Saducees) and the right (Pharisees). That section wraps with a positive discussion of the two greatest commandments – love God and love others, the vertical and the horizontal.

That’s the context of this story. It’s something, that, if it happened today, we would likely respond in similar ways. “That’s too much,” “that’s scandalous,” “that’s a lot of money.”

Both the teachers of the law and the disciples find problems with this, and in some ways it’s hard to blame them. They are, in some ways, trying to love horizontally. We certainly judge how other people spend their time and money, and we often could use our resources more wisely. But what all this misses is that Jesus is a person, and He does not call us into an efficient transaction that maximizes resource allocation – He calls us to a relationship with Him.

The whole chapter previous is about people challenging Jesus around rationality and doctrine. This woman steps into this and unashamedly demonstrates a single-minded purpose to lavish her love for Jesus, publicly and without calculation. The disciples are crunching the numbers, but she is overwhelmed with a desire to actively and abundantly love.

It ties back to the widow who gave all she had at the temple – born women gave all they had, and Jesus lifts up both women as exemplars of what we all should be (both men and women).

What does this look like for us? How do we move from a transactionally-based relationship to a love-based relationship? One way is worship, praising Jesus whether or not you are feeling it at any one moment. While our own personal styles will vary, we should worship in a way that takes its cue from this woman, unashamed and unworried about how others will see us.

Likewise in our private personal prayer and spiritual discipline, we can still be restrained, and the example of this woman calls us to a more open and lavish love for Christ in those moments as well.

And our love here should spring from the same well as this woman’s did – gratitude for all Jesus has done for us.

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, March 10, 2024

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The Stone Rejected – Mark 12:1-12

Jesus is getting into some heated discussions with the religious leaders – as he gets closer to the cross he begins saying less and less, but at this stage he is being very vocal.

He is, however, still using parables. This less him use simple things to talk about big issues. It lets him be subversive without actually riling his opposition up too early. It also enables selective revelation – those who do not want to engage with the message will not learn from it, but for those who do there are truths to be learned. Likewise, it sets that choice in front of people, whether to receive or reject the message based on the person of Christ more than the specifics of the message.

This parable was directly referencing the people he was telling the story to, but the leaders did not realize this until late, and then when they did realize it they were too afraid of how the people would react to do anything about it.

The cast of characters here is fairly straightforward. The landowner is God the Father, and his son is Jesus. The tenants are the leaders of Israel, those in power over the people. The servants sent are the many prophets, right up to John the Baptist. The vineyard itself is Israel, which is a metaphor used throughout the Old Testament in both positive and negative contexts. The imagery of a place where people have a responsibility to steward creation and mold it in productive ways goes all the way back to Eden.

Then Jesus brings in another metaphor, that of the temple building and the rejected stone that becomes the cornerstone. This comes in the context of Mark’s mentions of the temple building and Jesus promise that it would be destroyed and rebuilt within his person. Ultimately this body of Christ, Paul tells us, is we who are his members, his body parts as part of the church.

This means we are the vineyard, we are the workers who must steward what we have been given, and working to turn it back to the ultimate owner of the vineyard. And how do we do that? Elsewhere, Jesus tells us – the broken, the imprisoned, the needy, the oppressed.

That also means that when we put barriers in front of people and prevent them from coming to partake in the fruits of the vineyard, that is functionally the same as the leaders of ancient Israel who murdered the prophets to stop their testimony.

We see this concept in the Old Testament through concepts like leaning and jubilee.

Another thing to glean from this passage is the patience of God. How many servants did He send to be beaten and killed before His final retribution?

And for us, who are the prophets and voices at have ignored, beaten and even killed? As a nation, as a church, as individuals?

But we are placed right here in this particular place in our own vineyard. Let us welcome people into the vinyard to partake of the fruits that God has been growing, that we have been tending. We are the new temple building, we are the new vinyard – let us live and serve like we know it.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, March 3, 2024

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The Kid-Hearted Life – Mark 10:17-30

Do you suffer from PYD Syndrome? “Perfect Yet Dissatisfied” – where you have what you want but not what you need? The young man in this story has achieved everything a human being could want – wealth, power, youth, moral rectitude – and yet still knows there is something missing. So he comes to Jesus, which is a good start.

Anytime you see a one-on-one conversation with Jesus, pay attention, because those are the moments Jesus pushes deeply into how to live out his general teachings. In this case He pushes into the missing piece of the young man’s life.

There is a clue in the language to the problem. He asks “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What does anyone have to do to inherit something? Nothing, because it is about the relationship – the young man is conflating two very different things.

So Jesus rolls with it – He lays out commandments, but not all 10. Specifically, he lists the commandments that have to do with our horizontal relationships with others. The young man objects that he is good to go there and has checked all those boxes.

Jesus responds in two ways. First, he looks at him and loves him. This is vital context – discipleship is not about our own wisdom or capability to fix people. It begins and ends with love for other people.

Then He cuts to the heart of the matter – sell what you have, give to the poor, follow me. And that hits him where he lives, and he goes away sad. Mark leaves the question open, ending this story (like he does the whole gospel) with a cliffhanger. We don’t know what he chooses – in some ways this puts us in the able position, with the same choice.

Jesus generalizes from this story for the disciples – it is hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples are startled, living in a culture where wealth and morality were seen as related. If the ultimate man can’t do it, who can?

We all have our own “many possessions” that we put at the center instead of our relationship with Christ, both as individuals and as churches. We put wealth, church growth, material success, patriotism, all kinds of things, even good things, at the center of our lives, as the things we can’t give up.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to do enough. But Jesus tells us that He makes all things possible. Peter objects that, hey, I’ve been doing lots, giving up lots. But Jesus makes it clear that it’s not about the doing, but it’s about the relationship with God, the relationship that turns all our power structures upside down.

The story just before this one gives us the context. Jesus tells us “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” The rich young ruler was trying to enter as an adult, the disciples were making their case as adults. We see this again in the following story, where James and John jostle for position: “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.”

Eternal life is a gift of being, not earning. We receive it, we don’t obtain it.

Follow Jesus to the cross, and give up what hinders you from following.

Remember that God can do anything – he can save the wealthy, the powerful, the prideful and the self-righteous.

If we are the rich young ruler, hanging on to something that gets between us and God our us and those around us, let’s not end on a cliffhanger. Let’s not go away sad, but engage in relationship with the Christ who makes all things possible.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 25, 2024

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The God Who Sees… All of Me – Genesis 16

As we walk through the names of God, let us pray that we learnThis passage is about God seeing us in our suffering, but it is also about much more.

First, God understands us within our context – the context here is thorny. Second, God restores – what did God say that changed things for Hagar?

This story takes somewhere around the turn of the 19th century BC. Sarai and Abram cannot have children (we know that changes, but at this point they don’t). It takes place in a culture where there were various forms of servanthood, slavery and concubinage, all of which were very different than American chattel slavery or modern human trafficking. The idea of a servant coming in as a second wife and bearing children was a well accepted concept, and the raising of Hagar’s status was a natural result.

Unfortunately, Sarai’s messy response was also natural. Often our best laid plans go wrong and when they do, we often blame other people.

So Hagar is sent away, and is then met by the angel of the Lord who asks her two questions. “Where are you from, and where are you going?” But Hagar only answers the first one, because she does not know where she is going. And so the angel provides an answer to that question, and the answer is, back into the context she came from. That’s where a typical sermon might end, with the idea that sometimes God keeps us in our hard situations in order to bless us further.

But that’s not this sermon, so let’s go back to verse 4. Hagar begins to despise Sarai. This despising comes out of pride. CS Lewis sets the stage for this particular sin:

There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are  more unconscious of in ourselves.  And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others…

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.  Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of
it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

So what we can learn from this story is that God sees us not just in our suffering but also in our contempt and our pride.

— Sermon Notes, Paul Cabellon, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 18, 2024

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In Awe – Mark 9:2-9

Mark’s story of Jesus is now on the downhill side – it reached its center with Peter’s acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah, but also with Jesus’ rebuke of Peter as he drives towards the moral and spiritual goals of his mission, not the secular, material goals that are expected by Peter and others. Then in the part right before this, Jesus tells them that the cross is not just his destiny but the very nature of following Him.

This section puts more context around this, giving the disciples a glimpse of Christ’s glory, as a counterpoint or even result of that suffering.

All of scripture is coming to a point here – Moses representing the Law, Elijah the prophets, and Jesus as the culmination and fulfillment of them both.

In the midst of this incredible, supernatural, symbolic awe-inspiring event, Peter’s immediate, natural reaction is to get very material (even if not particularly practical). Let’s build some tents! The idea may have had its roots in the Tabernacle carried by the people of Israel through the desert – but ultimately, this is not the point. Jesus’ goal is not pointing back to the time of Moses, but rather Moses and Elijah point to and lead to the new thing that Jesus is doing.

Like us, Peter wants to do something active in order to capture this moment of awe, to stake it down in our reality and make something material out of it. But that is not what Jesus wants – the goal here is almost entirely just awe. Sometimes that is all we are called to.

So what was the purpose of the transfiguration? First, to help the disciples (and us) understand who Jesus is. This is the question he asked at the centerpoint of the gospel of Mark. He is the Son of God, the divine Christ, the second person of the Trinity, even if not all of that was clear yet.

Second, it helps us understand what Jesus is about. He is the culmination of the Law and Prophets. He is there like Moses to lead His people to the promised land, and like Elijah to proclaim the truth of God.

And third, helped along by the voice of God the Father, it helps us understand that we are called to listen and follow Jesus. Just as the Jewish people of the day looked to the words and instruction of Moses and Elijah, we now look to the instructions of Jesus, we now follow Him and His example.

But as Moses and Elijah return to heaven, Jesus remains with His disciples and walks alongside them, just as He walks alongside us. The glory of God as revealed on that mountaintop is right by our side every day.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 11, 2024

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The Center of it All – Mark 8:27-33

“Who do you say I am?” This question from Jesus is the exact center of the Gospel of Mark. It’s the question that the whole book pivots on – and, in fact, all of reality. Peter is the first person in history to explicity acknowledge this truth, though what comes next isn’t really what we would expect.

First, he charges them to keep it quiet, as he has done earlier in the book. Second, he begins to warn them about what was coming – the suffering and death that was on the horizon. Peter, even having made this confession of faith, takes hold of him and scolds him. After all, everyone knows the messiah is there to throw off the oppression of Rome, to lead the Jewish people to military victory and secular power.

Jesus’ response is as harsh as any we see from him in the gospels. Peter goes from being the start pupil and the first to name Jesus the Christ to being the embodiment of Satan. Why is this?

It’s not that Jesus feels disrespected, but it’s because the direction Peter wants Jesus to go is in direct opposition to the Gospel Jesus came to bring.

The word gospel, or euangelion, was historically used to refer to royal decrees or reports from battles (famously, the report from the battle of Marathon would fall into this category). We even see it used to describe the birth of Augustus in inscriptions. The Gospel of Caesar was a known and understood thing, a thing of the Empire and a thing of worldly power. The Gospel of Christ was a new thing, a subversion of the concept that wins by losing, that succeeds by failing, that rules by serving. But the temptation to reverse this paradigm back into what is natural and normal is strong. This is what Satan’s final temptation of Jesus was – all the kingdoms of the earth. This was the option open to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and its power made him sweat blood.

The American church has often fallen into Peter’s mistake, framing the gospel of Christ into no more than the gospel of Caesar, one where secular power is the mode and victory over our earthly enemies is the end goal, where the world is divided into us and them rather than the teeming mass of sinners all in desperate need of the true Gospel.

This would not be the last failure of a disciple. As the cross approached, even with many warnings, they would abandon him and Peter would deny him. We have the same calling down hard paths. How will we respond?

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 4, 2024

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On the Inside- Mark 7:14-23

The laws and precepts of God point His people to love, hospitality and peacemaking. We live in an era of divisiveness, where each election seems like an existential crisis and these things seem far off. In reality, though, our hope and faith are not in any political party, but rather in the Great Party, the wedding feast of the Lamb at the culmination of all things.

Even so, it is easy for us to find our identity in reaction to others. That’s how polarization happens, as we align ourselves with one team or another and then all our positions, beliefs and actions become about supporting Us and opposing Them.

Jesus here, though, is saying that the outside is unimportant, that what people consume is not their identity but rather what they produce. We are tempted to see the source of our sin as something external but in fact it comes from within our own hearts. Likewise, we try to solve our sin from the outside in, when in reality the only solution is within us, namely an inward surrender to the grace Christ offers.

Jesus makes it clear here that sin is real, and He lists a clear set of diverse sins that come from the heart. But they are all inward out, but outward in, which frees us up and even directs us to join in fellowship with those who are different from us externally.

That is what we are trying to do at Renew, in a diverse mosaic of peoples and backgrounds and opinions, to create an inward-out renewal of each other and our communities through this big glob of worship and fellowship that we do here.

Back to the passage, Mark talks a lot about Jesus going back and forth across Israel and the Sea of Galilee. In the west it’s mostly Jewish, while in the east there are more gentiles. In this passage he’s more westward and the Pharisees are going after Jesus for not following the ceremonial traditions like the ritualistic washing before meals. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pure and impure, have become more about cultural markers than they are about the universal Law of God. Just before this part, he chastises the Pharisees specifically for how they specifically use their traditions in order to enrich themselves even at the expense of their own parents. Then here he moves on to making it clear that it is that kind of thing that matters far more than the rituals or ceremonial rules. This gets extended in Acts when Peter has a vision that makes it clear that all foods are ultimately clean, and notably, by extension, so too are all peoples and cultures.

We can extend this further. The beauty and even sexuality of a woman isn’t what causes sin, but the lust and objectification from within men. Money and economic systems don’t cause greed, but it comes from within. Politicians and media do not cause hatred and division, rather it comes from within.

This then means we must continue to live lives that demonstrate the truths Jesus speak here. The outsides are not material, and we are to live in community and fellowship across cultures, ethnicities, parties and opinions. We are to remember that it is the inward parts that matter, and whatever happens externally, the Church of Christ endures within our hearts and within the hearts of all who earnestly seek Him.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 28, 2024

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Names of God: The Unknown God – Acts 17:18-28

Paul here is speaking to two very discrete groups of Athenian scholars. On the one hand, the Stoics, dutiful pantheists who literally give their name to being stoic. On the other, there are the Epicureans, essentially hedonistic deists, to simplify things. And all throughout, of course, you have the standard polytheists of paganism. They are all interested in what Paul has to say but accuse him of being a “spermologos, ” sperm meaning seed and logos meaning word or idea – the picture being of a bird picking and choosing between seeds.

And so Paul gets in front of the Aereopagus, both a governing body and a philosophical debate society. He dives into a “first principles” version of the gospel, one that touches on many names of God.

God “made the world and everything in it” – He is Creator. This is in direct opposition to the Stoics who saw God and nature as the same.

God “is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything” – a strike against paganism and polytheism that saw the need for service and sacrifice. He is the All-Sufficient One.

“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” – God is the King of Kings, and this cuts directly against the Epicurean idea of a distant, uninvolved God.

Then Paul starts quoting the Greeks’ own philosophers. “For in him we live and move and have our being,” – He is the sustainer. “We are his offspring,” He is Father.

When we meditate on the attributes and names of God, it draws us closer to Him. Let us go forward and think on this in our daily life.

— Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 21, 2024

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Rejection – Mark 6:1-13

This passage is a bit of a surprise because it seems to indicate that Jesus was incapable of doing something. In reality, of course, Jesus is capable to do anything, but the environment in Nazareth was not conducive to Jesus found miracles. The people were not open to the work of Jesus, they were not vulnerable to his truths. That’s something our society should consider. We both look for the work of God and remain hostile to it and cynical about it.

A lot of us have had the experience of going back to a hometown or a class reunion or just running into an old flame. It is in our nature to put labels on people and sort them into categories, and it’s also in our nature to kick against those especially when put back into an old environment or old relationships.

That’s the experience of Jesus here. He has coming off of wild success in other cities, as people have been amazed at his authority and wisdom. In Nazareth, though, the amazement was in reverse. They knew him, they had him in a box in their minds and what he was doing did not comport with that, so they rejected it.

We see this ourselves – people often do not let you change. If they knew you once, they will expect you still to be the same person that you were when they knew you. Sometimes it can be like crabs in a bucket. People resent self-improvement or success in others because of how it reflects on them, and seek to pull them back down. Sometimes we do the same thing.

So we get this apparent power outage, with only a few people healed (which is still amazing). And Jesus is in awe of their lack of faith, the polar opposite of other stories where we see him amazed by someone’s faith.

And Jesus is a gentleman – He does not force His love on us. If we are not open to God’s help, He will not help us. That’s one way to see Hell, the eternal rejection of God. It’s a way to see the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the rejection of the saving power that God offers.

We see that here where the people of Nazareth were so repulsed by Jesus in this new context that they feel into sin. When we lack trust in Jesus, we have the same thing happen.

A lack of trust or faith in Jesus can make us misunderstand and misappropriate Jesus. It makes us dishonor Jesus, even. And perhaps worst of all, it makes us miss out on real change, as we stay in the bucket of our own misery and fail to see or experience the miracles He is doing.

Then we come to the second part of this passage, where Jesus sends out His disciples, whose success stands in sharp contrast to Jesus’ failure in His hometown. He sends them out stripped down to the bare necessities and made to rely on the gifts of God.

This ties back to the story of rejection, because it is that fear of rejection that keeps us from doing new things,. It keeps us from sharing the truth of Jesus. The biggest obstacle for you daring to do great things or braving something new is the fear of rejection or failure.

But Jesus was the ultimate failure, and in that failure was the ultimate victory. And so the disciples too, are set up for this failure. They go out with just a staff and sandals, entirely dependent on God. That also means that the ultimate responsibility for what happens does not lie with them or us. It lies with God and those we speak to.

That is why Jesus tells his disciples not to sweat it when they are rejected as He was. Shake the dust from your feet and move on. It is not about us.

On the other hand, we also need to look at what we actually worship. We worship a hometown Jesus. An American Jesus, a prosperous Jesus. We worship a Jesus we create in our own image. We may not recognize the real Jesus if He does not come in the way we expect. But Jesus is a disruptor, and He will break up and disrupt our conceptions of Him if we let Him. He is so much bigger.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 7, 2024

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Something New Piercing Through – Luke 2:25-35

On New Year’s Eve we naturally want to take the time to consider both the past year and the year ahead, and how to improve ourselves. The concept of New Year’s Resolutions is a normal one. Many of them spring from internal desires for real change in our behavior. Usually we start strong and then it peters out after a while. We can get cynical, even, about our or others’ ability to change.

But real change is what Simeon speaks about in this passage, and real change is what Jesus offers us. Simeon’s song here in one of four songs in the first two chapters of Luke – we discussed Mary’s song, the Magnificat, a couple of weeks ago. Before that, we had Zechariah’s Song and afterwards the Angel’s song.

But in this moment we have this incredible juxtaposition of a newborn baby with the ancient prophet. We have the child who contains all the power of Creation and the old man who has been waiting for the “consolation of Israel”.

The Holy Spirit looms large in this story. The work of the third person of the Trinity is a consistent theme throughout both Luke’s gospel and his book of Acts. In chapter 1, there are four separate references to being filled with, strong in or overcome with the Holy Spirit. In this passage, we get three references in quick succession – the Holy Spirit was on him, truths were revealed by the Holy Spirit and he was moved by the Holy Spirit. These are all ways the Holy Spirit interacts with us today.

We all have the capacity to access the Holy Spirit, we all have the potential to be drawn into the work and story that the Holy Spirit is doing. Jesus was and is destined to bring change, as Simeon said. He will pierce through our souls and bring us new experiences, new opportunities, new parts to play in the work that He is doing. It may start as a pinprick or a mustard seed but that can grow into something mighty.

As we look at the year ahead, there are disciplines we can practice to foster this. First, we can listen – listen for what God is teaching, listen for the opportunity He sends your way. Second, gratitude – be actively thankful for what you have been given.

One way to do both of these The Prayer of Examen a spiritual practice of reviewing the day to retune ourselves to the sacred in ordinary life. This can also be done as a look at the past year. Others ask God for a theme word or verse for the year ahead, using that to center their relationship and growth.

Often we strive to change ourselves and the world. Often, we fail. But when we work empowered by and led by the Holy Spirit, we can live more fully and abundantly than we can on our own.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, December 31, 2023