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Giving and Receiving Hospitality – Sermon Notes, Acts 28:1-10

It can be difficult to accept help – it can be embarrassing, demoralizing and overly vulnerable. But we are also commanded to give help and assistance to those in need – this means that if we are not careful, we can fall into a pattern of paternalism, making a separation between those who Have and those who Need. But this dichotomy is not biblical – biblical hospitality is a two way street. You cannot truly give unless you can receive.

We see that in this story in the book of Acts. People serve each other throughout the story – even at the beginning, the people of Malta rescue Paul and his companions, while Paul works to build a fire.

When he is bit by a snake, Paul’s reputation swings wildly from being a murderer to being seen as a god. This miracle does not result in an immediate conversion of the people there – they do not turn to Jesus but interpret what happened within their own pagan framework.

But even so, Paul heals the father of Publius, the chief official, and then heals many others on the island – in turn, they are given hospitality by Publius for three months, and are greatly honored by the people there, “in many ways”, finally sent off with all the supplies they need

We don’t see Paul preaching the gospel here, but rather we see him “doing life together” with the pagans around him, accepting their help and providing his own.

We can learn a lot from this passage about receiving hospitality in God’s economy. First, God’s people aren’t immune from need. If we pretend we do not have any needs, we will miss opportunities to receive help. And we will be surprised by those who step in to help. Christians are not the only people who work the will of God, just like we see on Malta. As we also see on Malta, receiving hospitality creates community. Paul and his shipwrecked companions created a community for three months with the people of Malta, a combination of cosmopolitan Jews, superstitious islanders, maybe a few sailors in the mix. And in that community, like this motley crew in the Mediterranean, we can experience home and life.

As a people, our hospitality muscles have atrophied – between the pandemic and the general drift of culture, as Paul says later in Acts 28, our “heart has become calloused.” This is true on an individual level but also on a national level.

If we as individuals and as a nation could reflect more on how we have received help and wisdom and gifts of other people and peoples, perhaps there would be less calloused behavior, and more celebration.

We, as a church, are called to be openhearted, to both give and receive hospitality with joy and gratitude. We are to be expansive in both directions as we expand our family circle and God brings all of us to His banquet table.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, September 21, 2025

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The Bread of Life – John 6:28-35

We eat for many reasons – sustenance, comfort, taste, specific health purposes, business meetings, social connection, family connection and much more. In scripture, food is extremely important because in life it is important. Food is discussed throughout the Bible, and food as a component hospitality in particular. There are also many food-based spiritual metaphors, because the nourishment – and more – that food provides is also needed spiritually. We come together for the Lord’s Supper today, and look forward to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in the future, and in between coming together for meals and fellowship together.

What shape do you think the Table of the Kingdom of God is? Likely not a hierarchical rectangle, but a round table of equality – or perhaps even a shifting, amorphous shape that modifies itself based on the needs of those coming to eat.

The food metaphor here is one of the most important. It is the first of seven “I AM” statements in the Gospel of John, as Jesus connects himself to the YHWH of the Old Testament while also describing who He is in more detail. The Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Door of the Sheep, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way the Truth and the Life, the True Vine.

Jesus used these statements to point people to himself from the things they were familiar with. It does often confuse them, as it does here. In part this is because Jesus has just come from feeding the 5,000, with 12 baskets of food left over. That miracle of compassion and abundance is the backdrop of his discussion of Himself as the Bread of Life.

The crowd has followed him from one side of the lake to the other, asking what they should do, perhaps in order to keep the gravy train coming. They even reference the manna given by Moses in the wilderness, more physical sustenance provided miraculously.

But Jesus corrects them on multiple points. First, it wasn’t Moses who gave the manna, but God. And second, the physical sustenance, while important, is secondary to the Person of the God who gave that Manna – He Himself is the Bread of Life, who comes down and gives Himself for the world. The work of God, he explains, is simply to know and be in relationship with Him.

Jesus’ I Am statements are more than just theological statements of his identity, but they are invitations into relationship with Him as a natural and inescapable outgrowth of His divine identity.

Even so, we see the confusion of the crowds here, which may give us some comfort in our own confusion. Jesus, in the midst of our confusion, misunderstanding and tendency to go our own way, stands before us and says “I Am.” We can be still and know the He Is.

At the great feast of the Kingdom of God, it will be full of every kind of food, all the wide diversity of sustenance, connection and joy that food brings. We are called to serve and to invite others to this feast, tearing down every door and barrier that could keep people from this feast. The Great Feast of the King is abundant and generous – it is an open invitation to all – it is as diverse as humanity itself – and it is live giving in a supernatural way.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, September 9, 2025

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Activated – Matthew 8:14-17

Many of us are impacted by emotional inertia – objects in motion tend to stay in motion, abs objects at rest tend to stay at rest. We have difficulty moving ourselves from one mode to another – getting ourselves going when we have been passive, or giving ourselves needed rest when we keeping ourselves busy.

But those moments of activation, when we step into those activities and work that energize us and bring us to where we were meant to be, are special times. We see that in Jesus’ ministry here, another part of the epilogue to the Sermon on the Mount.

The story takes place at Jesus’ home base – he spent significant time in Capernaum throughout his ministry, and Peter’s family home in particular. (This home eventually appears to have become one of the first ever church buildings, in fact). It was a place of rest and hospitality – and hospitality was taken very seriously in that time and place. Peter’s mother in law would likely have been the driving force for that, prevented from that duty by illness.

So when Jesus heals her, he returns her not just to health but to her role and contribution of hospitality. This is a reminder that Jesus’ healing is more than physical, but a holistic restoration of people and their identities.

We see that Jesus physically touches a woman to bring healing, stepping across taboo and custom to demonstrate love in both a practical and emotional way.

We see that he treats women with dignity in a society that often did not. We see that he heals with authority and power, both purely physical ailments and those with dark spiritual roots. We also see him intimately involved with those sick and outcast. Matthew cites the passage in Isaiah in which the Suffering Servant pays a price for the healing he provides. Salvation, then, goes beyond forgiveness and info healing. The atoning work of Jesus goes beyond justification into sanctification, rebuilding and remaking our very selves into the person we are meant to be.

Finally, Jesus not only heals but activates – we are “renewed by God for the renewal of our neighborhoods.” We are loved by God to let us love our neighbors. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed to enable her to serve, living into her vocation of hospitality.

So when we come to church and are healed even in small ways from our hurts, we should seek to do the same. When we are activated by Christ, how do we step into that and take it forward? Can we see service as an act of power imparted by the the Holy Spirit?

Where do we see people today lying in metaphorical “fever”- isolated, suffering unseen? How can we, like Jesus, extend healing through presence, touch, and word? What does it mean for the Church to fulfill Isaiah’s vision of bearing others’ burdens?

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, August 24, 2025

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Epilogue to the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 8:5-13

Am important question to ask in order to get deeper in your study of scripture is “Where is this text located?” What is the location on the page – what comes before, what comes after, and why did the author put it there? What’s the geographic location of the event and the writing? What’s the social location? What are the relationships involved? What are the power dynamics and social expectations or assumptions?

On the page, this particular story takes place immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, and serves as an epilogue that reinforces many of the themes from Jesus’ teaching, in the form of action.

Geographically, this takes place in Capernaum, a fishing town on the northern coast of Israel, a crossroads where many ethnicities mingled, including Jews, Roman soldiers, and migrants and merchants from surrounding regions.

Socially, the centurion represents the power of Rome and the oppression of the Jewish people. Beyond that, there was a strong bias against mixing between Jews and gentiles. Many aspects of this story cure against the social norms of the time. The centurion lowers himself to asking for help from an itinerant native teacher – and does it on behalf of his social inferior and servant. For his part, Jesus, a rabbi of growing reputation, ignores the social taboos and immediately offers to go to the house of this gentile, this oppressor. And then the centurion goes beyond, demonstrating an even deeper faith in Jesus’ power and authority than his own people.

This entire interaction is a demonstration of what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. He has come to fulfill the law in a way that will look like overturning it. Things are being turned upside down, and the insiders are becoming outsiders and the outsiders are being brought inside the kingdom of God.

This interaction is part of a slow roll-out of what Paul calls a great mystery – the expansion of the promise of the kingdom of God to the gentiles. We see this also in the conversation with the Syrian woman later in the book, and even at the beginning of Matthew, in the genealogy. Matthew explicitly calls out the gentiles in the lineage of Jesus (and, incidentally, King David as well).

We have access to the same authority and power of Jesus that we see the centurion seek. The way to the kingdom is narrow but the gate is wide open, regardless of social status, ethnicity nationality, family. This is not a side aspect of of the gospel that can be segregated into a 2-3 week Bible study. This is central point, because it is about human relationships, and Good stepping into heal them and being reconciliation.

This also isn’t just a thing for “Bible times.” This is live and ongoing, happening right now all around us. This is something we are called to participate in, to step out in faith like the Centurion did, being a part of the work Jesus is doing. Like the Centurion, we can “interrupt” Jesus on behalf of others. We can intercede for those near us and those at a distance. May we be a people of prayer.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, August 17

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Wolves and Fruit – Matthew 7:15-23

Last week, we heard Jesus lay out the binary choice we have – the wide, easy, popular path or the narrow, challenging one that follows Him. This week, he warns against the voices and influencers that would draw us onto the wrong path – voices that may even look and sound like they have our best interests in mind.

Jesus uses two images here – first the pastoral image of sheep and wolves, then plants and their fruit. Jesus uses that sheep/wolf imagery multiple times in the gospels, warning in Matthew 10 that his followers will be sheep among wolves. This is a direct echo of Jesus’ warning about the narrow gate and the challenges that come with it, but also the reassurance earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, not to worry, and that those persecuted are in fact blessed. He promises that the Holy Spirit, the real time, relational Person of the Trinity, will be with us and give us the words and the way to navigate this narrow path crawling with wolves. There is pushback to love and justice and mercy in this world. There is pushback to the good news of the gospel.

We also get this sheep/wolf metaphor in John 10 – Jesus calls himself the gate for His sheep, as well as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep when the wolf comes. The “hired hand” is scared off because he has no stake in or real love for the sheep, but Jesus knows and is known by His sheep.

We get two flavors of false prophets here – both those who are actively antagonistic to the truth of Christ, even if they disguise themselves as His followers, as well as the “hired hands,” the leaders and influencers who are only there for the material gains – even if they aren’t actively malicious, their lack of real love and foundation means they abandon the flock when needed most. They lack the courage to stand up for the truth of Christ and continue down the narrow path.

The next metaphor Jesus uses is that of plants and fruit, along with the clear warning that not everyone who claims to follow Him is really doing so. Not everyone who claims to know Jesus really does. Jesus warns about this in multiple parables in Matthew 25 – the Ten Virgins, the Talents and the Sheep and Goats. In each of these, we have people who actively say “Lord, Lord” but who find that they never truly knew the person of Christ. The measure we give is the measure we receive. When we truly engage in relationship with Christ, His love spills out into action, concrete compassionate behavior that loves the broken, the poor and the oppressed.

There is an unbreakable connection between knowing Jesus and doing His will. Jesus paints us a picture of sheep, constantly vulnerable and under threat, with threats on either side. There are temptations everywhere – temptations to abandon that vulnerability, to reject the promises of the beatitudes, to seek a world that is right side up rather than the upside down world Jesus promises, where poverty is blessing and powerlessness is power. Our good shepherd is calling us to “stay on target,” to keep following Him and ignore the wolves around us.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, July 27, 2025

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Narrow Gates – Matthew 7:13-14

We often allow ourselves to live in an illusion and thus make decisions based on avoiding pain and hardship rather than what is best. M. Scott Peck writes:

Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

That comes from Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled, named for Robert Frost’s poem that echoes Jesus’ words here about the paths that we choose, the ways that we can go.

Early Christians were often called People of the Way, a reminder that life with Christ is a journey, along a path. We choose the path, we choose the gate, but then we must continue along that path making choices all along the way.

But the gate and the path Jesus calls us to is narrow – constricting because of the persecution that path brings with it. And perhaps because of that, it is unpopular. Jesus is clear here about who his followers are – they are not the dominant culture, they are not the popular, not the trending.

Justice is difficult. Loving our enemy is difficult. Humans are built to love, but our fallen nature makes that hard. Compassion is looked down upon and hatred becomes easier than the love we are built for.

But walking the narrow path means turning our lives over to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, seeking God’s will for our life over our own. This, Jesus promises, will lead to problems. If everyone in your life is happy with you, are you really on the path Jesus wants for you?

As we look at the choices and paths we have ahead of us, may the words of Christ guide us to the narrow path and the narrow gate. May he give us the wisdom to discern the party courage to choose the more difficult road,

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Ask, Seek, Knock in Pursuit of Christ – Matthew 7:7-12

This passage – along with many others like it across the gospels – is a challenge for many of us who have asked, sought, knocked and have not been given what we want. Think of how many things you have prayed for that have not gone the way you hoped or expected. But God does not always answer our prayers the way we expect.

Many of us have been taught false things about prayer. “If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.” “If you use specific words and language, you will receive.” “If you pray hard enough and REALLY believe God will answer your prayer as you desire.”

If you don’t ask, you won’t receive. But what about those who don’t ask and still receive? What about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field? Jesus tells us not to worry, and to trust, which certainly cuts against this false teaching.

“If you use specific words and language, you will receive.” God is not an ATM, and prayer is not a formula. God is a Person, who seeks relationship with us.

“If you pray hard enough and REALLY believe God will answer your prayer as you desire.” God does not want us to grovel. God is inherently good and desires to give things to His children. You don’t HAVE to ask. but God would like us to because that means we’re communicating with Him. God is not an ATM of riches.

Jesus addresses this question towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, in the context of his teaching on prayer, his teaching on worry, and his teaching on the love of God.

We should ask God questions – the answers may not all come in this life, but we can trust that He will ultimately answer. We should seek Him and His gifts. We can trust that He will give us good gifts, even when we do not understand them when we receive them, even when they are not the gifts that we wanted.

God plants seeds even in the midst of sorrow and challenge. Even if we don’t fully understand how or why He does some things, answers some prayers but does not answer others, we can trust that His gifts are good. We can trust that He wants to hear from us, wants us to ask, seek and knock, because He loves us and gives good gifts to his children.

— Sermon Notes, Amanda Moffat, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, July 6, 2025

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Judge Not – 7:1-5

We are all prone to play the comparison game – in our personal lives, in our professional lives, even in our churches. It’s particularly easy for churches like ours where we really are reacting, even recoiling from the way other churches have behaved and treated people. It’s very easy to judge ourselves as righteous and others as unrighteous, despite what Jesus says here.

It’s challenging, because how do we strive for righteousness if we cannot assess what is righteous and what is not, and compare ourselves to that standard? In fact, Jesus specifically goes on to tell us to assess trees by their fruit, to watch out for false teachers, to not throw our pearls before swine. How do we do those things without judging? If our righteousness is supposed to exceed that of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, how do we do that without judging?

The Greek word here is krinō, and it can mean simple discernment, but it can also mean condemnation. It is more the latter Jesus is speaking to – when we do make assessments as we must, we should not pair that with condemnation and an overall determination of the worth of the individual in question.

Jesus wants to open our hearts up to each other and to God, to enable us to live to the full. So when he says “by the standard you judge, you will also be judged,” this is a relational issue, not just a set of rules. If we are judgemental and hard hearted, that stance and behavior impacts all our interactions with others. When we are thinking like Ebenezer Scrooge in our hearts, others can sense that and will respond in kind.

The Symptoms of an Ebenezer Scrooge Aura:

  1. Consistently think the worst of people.
  2. Only address people’s mistakes and faults.
  3. We identify a person by their worst moments
  4. We assume the hidden motives of other people
  5. We are harsh with people around the things we ourselves struggle with.
  6. When we play “us” vs “them”

If we have received generous grace, should we not be generous in doling out grace ourselves? This includes having charitable assumptions about the behavior of others, rather than assuming the worst about why other people do the things we do.

One thing about this that is particularly challenging is finding ways to be discerning in how we spend our time and who we engage with and let influence us on one hand, without falling into “us vs them” games and judgemental condemnation of people for differing beliefs and values.

None of this is easy. Condemnation is easier than discernment, just like destruction is easier than creation. It requires letting the Holy Spirit work within us to break down our own internal strongholds, to build up internal edifice of compassionate discernment.

It is easy for us as Christians to weaponize our understanding of right and wrong, but Jesus here calls us to a more nuanced response. We cannot be blind to sin or hurt, but must respond to it with grace, patience and creativity.

May Jesus equip us in this challenging task and may we be a force for His love in all of our interactions.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, June 22, 2025

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The Lord’s Prayer – Matthew 6:5-15

Our engagement with scripture is highly dependent on our own context as well as the context of the scriptures themselves.

Jesus starts his discussion of prayer by addressing some of that context. He is not speaking into a blank slate, but rather into a context where assumptions have already been made and wrong understandings are already in place. First, he attacks public piety, prayer done in public to increase our own reputation and prestige. Today, we aren’t likely standing outside the church praying loudly, but we certainly do the equivalent on social media, bolstering our own “personal brand”. When we do that, Jesus says we’ve already gotten our own rewards. But we can trust God to hear us and take care of us.

The second lie Jesus takes on is the idea that we need to pray in a particular way to get through to God. The Hellenistic influence is clear here, as the pagan practice of long rambling prayers to distracted, fickle deities was apparently being copied by the Jewish community. But God is not distant, He is near and already knows what we need before we open our mouths.

Then Jesus walks us through step by step how to pray. He starts off simply – we pray to our Father in heaven. Not Caesar or Zeus, not the gods of the stock market or political power. Now, you may argue that we don’t do that – but what if every tab refresh is its own little prayer? Who are we really seeking?

Next, “hallowed be your name.” This is a weird thing to say in English – we never say things like this except in this prayer. The closest we come is Halloween or the “Deathly Hallows” – maybe it would be better known as “let your name be known as holy.”

Next, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Put another way, “God please show up!” We want to see God work His will in our lives, in our struggles, in our relationships.

From there “give us today our daily bread.” It’s a simple prayer, asking for just enough, calling back to the days in Exodus when God sent manna daily, but only for the day. It’s entirely counter-cultural and was in Jesus’ time as well. Why ask for so little from a God who is so rich? But by asking for only what we need, perhaps God works in us to give us more than we know.

Next, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This is a prayer about obligations and relationships. Relationships themselves are a network of obligations between people – and God’s covenants with his people are mutual obligations. We fail to meet these obligations all the time, and others fail to meet theirs to us. This prayer extends the grace of God to both ourselves and to others.

Finally, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We will be tempted to deviate from the Jesus Way, from the instructions Jesus has been giving during the Sermon on the Mount. And we will be assailed by the real spiritual forces of evil that seek to keep us from relationship with God.

And then instead of what we expect, the doxological “for yours is the kingdom, etc” Jesus ends in a way that is perhaps unexpected. He goes back to these questions of obligations and the inevitable hurt that comes with living in relationships the way Jesus is calling. If we forgive those hurts, then we too will be forgiven. If we refuse to forgive, though, we will find our own forgiveness hard to come by.

It comes back to relationships – with God and others. Prayer is not a mechanism for building our reputation or fire seeking material gain, but for entering into relationship with God and seeking to tools to engage in Holy relationships with others.

— Sermon Notes, Tim Hsieh, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, June 1, 2025

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Creative Resistance – Matthew 5:38-48

Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is set against the backdrops of hostile authority. On the one hand, the Jewish religious leaders are oppressive & hypocritical, coming in for direct attacks and opposition from Jesus, while on the other hand the entire nation is occupied by the Empire of Rome, extracting exorbitant taxes and brutally crushing and sign of dissention.

This is why the Jewish people, even Jesus’ disciples, were looking for a messiah who would take on these oppressors and lead the people of God in revolution. But Jesus here makes it very clear that He is doing things very differently.

In the NFL, it’s well known that the penalty flag tends to go to the retaliator rather than the instigator. The same is often true in life – but Jesus’ call here goes beyond that. Jesus is calling us to avoid being defined by our enemies. Our actions should spring from love of God and love of others rather than in kind, giving hatred for hatred and violence for violence.

Jesus is calling us to creative resistance – he reimagines the traditional “eye-for-an-eye” responses to evil as nonviolent, subversive resistance that follows the Kingdom Way.

The eye-for-an-eye concept is found in the Torah, but also in law codes across the ancient world, including the Code of Hammurabi. The original intent of the concept was to enforce proportional enforcement of the laws, putting a ceiling on punishment to prevent an accelerating cycle of violence. It’s a very transactional, systemic method of ensuring proportional retribution. Jesus, though, is calling us to something even greater.

When Jesus describes the strike on the cheek, he’s describing a specific circumstance, where someone in power, very likely a Roman soldier who had the right to strike a Jewish person, or a master with the right to strike a slave, would backhand someone and be immune to legal ramifications. Corey Farr writes:

Then, one day, like so many other days, your master backhands you. He expects you to cower and whimper and slink off back to your duties. Maybe he expects you to get on your knees and beg forgiveness. But instead, you look him in the eyes and turn your head to put your left cheek forward. You’ve already insulted him by failing to break down, so he has the right (in his mind) to slap you again.

But he can’t slap you with his left hand, because that is unclean for both of you. And he can’t backhand, because your right cheek is away from him. To strike again, his only option is to slap you with the palm of his hand. And this was not the way to slap a slave. This was reserved for equals. If he chooses to slap you again, he is forced to upgrade your status. He has to bump you up to a higher class citizen in order to get his revenge.

This “victory” may seem small, but it isn’t. You have asserted your humanity and reminded the master you are not an object to be owned and controlled.

Likewise, the “go an extra mile” and “give up your cloak” are subversive responses that undermine the power structure at play, that appeals to the humanity of your enemy, providing a path for them to turn from their own wickedness, the truest form of love.

Jesus ultimately turned the Empire upside down, but He did it through these regular ongoing acts of love. We must follow Christ and His Church as we fight oppression ourselves, singing songs of hope in the darkness, loving out those songs in our daily lives.

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, May 18, 2025