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What Does it Mean to be a Disciple? – John 4:1-10

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? This story tackles this question, with Samaritan woman as a model of discipleship.

At this time, Jesus is heading north out of Jerusalem after having knocked over tables and whipped people at the temple. It says that he “had to” go through Samaria. This could mean that he was specially directed to do this specific thing. More likely, though, this was a providential event – he has to go through because it was the quickest way and he was in a hurry. God used this mundane event to change an entire town.

So we find Jesus at a well asking for help. This is strange in a number of ways. He’s a single Jewish man at a Samaritan well, without any way to get water, asking a Samaritan woman to help out. Jesus quickly uses the water situation to create a metaphor.

Well water was stale, unmoving, while “living water” is water that moves, down from the mountains and hills. The idea that there is a secret source of pure, moving, living water was of great interest to her. Jesus uses her physical need in order to highlight her spiritual one.

Traditionally, this woman has been understood as a “loose woman” but given the penalties for adultery and her apparently positive reputation in the town, that may not be the case. More likely, she is stuck in an abusive system, divorced and discarded multiple times by men, and she is currently betrothed yet again.

Notably, when the discussion here moves from the physical to the spiritual, the woman does not lose interest. She recognizes her need in this area, and expresses her limited understanding of what God’s plan is, specifically bringing up a key point of contention between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus tells her that something new is coming that will deprecate both understandings. She also has some understanding of this, and knows from Old Testament prophecy that this is the sort of thing the Messiah will do – and then Jesus reveals that he himself is that messiah.

About this time, the disciples return, typically clueless and unclear on what Jesus is doing. The woman then runs off to tell about this remarkable man, even leaving her water jar, possibly her most valuable possession. Her paradigm has fully shifted from the physical to the spiritual. The disciples still don’t know what is happening and try to get him to eat.

Jesus, however, is still focused on the spiritual side. As he sees the people of the town streaming towards him, likely still dressed in their white work tunics, he shows the disciples what they should be focusing on: “look, the fields are white for harvest.” The goal is making disciples, bringing lost people to forgiveness and acceptance of Jesus.

Jesus invited the woman to meet the real God. He offered her freedom, showing her where in her life she was a slave. He helped her discover a greater purpose than carrying water. She then went on to make a difference, not through her own powers of persuasion, but rather as a conduit for what the Holy Spirit was already doing.

These are the same things we try to do as a church. We offer an opportunity to encounter the living God. We try to be a mechanism for bringing freedom from sin into people’s lives through sanctification. We help each other discover our purpose and develop meaning in our lives. Understanding this purpose is key to seeking freedom, providing a direction for our sanctification. Finally, we live out that purpose, and go out and make a direct impact on the lives of others.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

John 4:1-10

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The Trouble with Kings – 1 Samuel 8:1-2

The Israelites had moved into the Promised Land, but had not fully taken possession of it, rather punching a hole into the heart of it. This meant they were surrounded by enemies, which caused problems throughout the book of Judges.

The last judge was Samuel, a prophet who communicated directly with God. But Samuel was getting old, and could no longer travel as a “circuit judge” as he had in the past. He passed his responsibilities to his sons, but they turned out to be dishonest and oppressive.

It was a time of instability, with the Philistines taking tribute and the looming death of Samuel threatening to upend the current rickety peace.

Instead of turning to God in this time of instability, the Israelites demanded a king. This offended Samuel, but why? The concept of a king had been predicted as far back as Abraham, with the specific indication that a king would be set up when Israel came into the land.

But it wasn’t the “what” they asked for, but the “why.” They looked at Samuel as a secular leader rather than as the conduit for the will of God. Humans have a tendency to elevate people too highly when they succeed, and chop them off at the knees when things aren’t going well. We do this are the expense of following God. Israel could have asked Samuel what God’s plan was for leadership, but instead they came up with their own panicky plan.

They asked for a king “as the other nations have.” They wanted to fit in rather than stand out as God’s chosen people. It was not too different from the constant temptation of the idols of the surrounding peoples. They wanted the easy life of sight rather than the difficult life of faith.

So Samuel takes the request to the Lord, who tells him not to reject the request outright, but instead to outline the trouble with Kings. Humans are self serving by default, and combining that with the power of a king, then you get a nation focused on the whims of a narcissist.

Short term, they will be able to point to a monarch who represents the nation rather than an invisible deity. Long term, though, it will mean only trouble.

The king described by Samuel is very different than the one described in Deuteronomy 17, where it is made clear that the kingship is not about wealth and pleasure, but about serving God and the people.

But after all these predictions, the people still demanded a king. They wanted earthly stability over heavenly faith. And so God does the most terrifying thing we can imagine: He gave the people what they wanted.

The book of Samuel was compiled in its final form around the time of the exile. There was a clear view of the tragedy of kingship from that time. Saul was a failure, David a (very) qualified success, Solomon somewhere in between, and after that it was largely chaos and tragedy the rest of the way.

God gave the people what they wanted in part in order to contrast earthly kingship more starkly with the ultimate plan and ultimate kingship in the person of Christ. And yet, when He came, the people again chose stability over faith.

Jesus was popular when he was giving things to the people (bread, fish, healing), to the extent that at one point they tried to make him king by force. But when he explained that he himself was the bread of life, that he came to rule a spiritual kingdom rather than an earthly one, the people turned on him just as they did in 1 Samuel.

We are surrounded by leaders who fail us constantly. No human can fill that innate need that we have, no more than it could for the Israelites. Do we spend more time fretting about earthly leadership, or seeking the will of our heavenly king? Our desire for stability drives us to seek the answers in the world around us, but in the end, faith in Christ is the only stable rock upon which we can ground our life.

-Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 10, 2017

1 Samuel 8:1-22

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If God Wills It – James 4:13-17

James, the brother of Jesus, was the pastor of the Jerusalem church. He was a strong proponent of the rights of the poor and outspoken opponent of oppression by the rich. He wrote primarily to a Jewish audience, so understanding the rabbinical teachings of the time helps us understand the context.

Here he writes about making plans. At first look, his warning in verse 13 against plans seems to cut against biblical teachings elsewhere about being wise, counting the cost, etc.

However, verse 14 clarifies that this, like so much of Christianity, is about motivation, not necessarily action. God is concerned with the heart, and here we see James warning against​, not planning, but assuming control – of timing, of location, of outcome.

Switchfoot echoes James’ warning of our own mortality:

Gone
Like yesterday is gone
Like history is gone
Just try and prove me wrong
And pretend like you’re immortal

Understanding our mortality is core to shaping our behavior, as is our understanding our dependence on God. “If God wills it” is not simply a disclaimer we are supposed to tack on to our claims and plans, but it a core understanding that wends its way through all our thoughts and plans.

There are two kinds of arrogance we should avoid. One is to see ourselves as entirely separate from God and capable of succeeding in our plans on our own. We see in the rabbinical teaching many stories about those who have tried to live as if God has no impact or ultimate control, and the bad ends they came to.

The second arrogance is assuming that we are in the center of God’s will and that our desires are His desires.

So James warns us against building our plans on our own desires, on our pride, on our selfish ambition, or on materialism.

So what is the good we are supposed to do? Elsewhere, Paul tells us clearly: we are living sacrifices, to seek after whatever is good, perfect & pleasing to God. Our model of this is Christ, which has given us everything we need to act in the will of God.

You’ll note that this does not necessarily help us in certain questions like what house to buy or who to marry or what to be when we grow up. These questions are not, ultimately, what God cares about.

What He does care about is humility and dependence on Christ. He wants us to ask “where do I need to obey right now?” What do I need to do in order to follow the revealed will of God in this moment.

We can still make plans, but there is a massive difference between making plans and living in the present, and making plans and living in the future.

The idea that we should seek the will of God in the specifics of everything is, in fact, a pagan notion. Diviners would throw bones or spread bird guts around and in order to get mystic instructions from friendly deities. We are called to a more mature relationship with God than this. God is not a magic 8-ball.

It can be tempting to ignore the broadly revealed will of God, which is plenty to handle, in order to focus on a problem, disengaging until that problem is resolved. Confucius is said to have said “To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”

The flood in Houston is a reminder that we are one storm, one cancer cell, one car accident away from losing everything material we have worked for. We should be looking to put those material blessings to work now in order to live out the gospel in our present.

Christ is again our model. In His case, He did know the future – that He would have a scant three years of ministry that would end in torture, humiliation and death. And yet He focused on God’s will in each moment. Likewise, the early church, especially those James was writing up in Jerusalem, lived in stark knowledge that an end was coming, which was realized in AD 70 with the destruction of the temple and the sack of the city.

For our part, we can see that much of American Christianity has become worldly and apathetic, and while we cannot know what God’s plan is, we can know that God will not let His children go too long in this apathy without discipline.

Whenever and whatever form it comes in, our role will be the same: live as Christ did, and do the good we know we ought to do.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 3, 2017

James 4:13-17

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A Psalm of Disorientation – Psalm 143

The psalms can be divided into three types (first done by Walter Bruggemann). First, songs of orientation that in a basic way orient ourselves towards God, casting the world in a simplified form and ourselves as faithful followers. Then, songs of disorientation, when the simple worldview of the initial psalms are upended by confusion, pain and disconnection. Finally, songs of new orientation, the emergence from those times of struggle into a new, more mature relationship with God. Psalm 143 falls best into the disorientation category.

In the psalms, we see various descriptions of human nature: the soul, the real self and appetites; the spirit or breath, our emotions; and our heart, best understood as our mind, the part that is supposed to know right from wrong. Our hearts are broken, and so are ruled by our emotions and appetites, not by that understanding of right and wrong.

Psalm 143 opens and closes with reflection on the righteousness of God. It then moves directly into a request that God not judge the singer based on their deeds. This is directly reversed from psalms of orientation like psalm 7, when he specifically asks to be judged based on his righteous deeds.

He then moves into the meat of the prayer: his enemy is closing in and it is causing emotional turmoil within. It is on one hand a foxhole prayer, written while David is hiding from Saul or the Philistines. On the other hand, the specific enemies are not named, because this is a song written to be sung by many people, all of whom have enemies, whether physical or spiritual.

He comes to God, then (and us with him) thirsty like a parched land. We can easily have our need God dulled by the pleasures of the world, and it is only when that world has fallen apart on us that we truly feel the desperate that within us.

Attached to all this, he hopes that this feeling of abandonment does not mean God has turned His face from him, that this temporal darkness does not have eternal significance.

He then moves into five specific requests, paired with the reason for these requests – notably, not because of his own righteousness. Answer me quickly, do not hide your face, bring me word quickly, show me your will, rescue me from my enemies. The reasons given are not based on David’s abilities (or ours), but rather on the nature of God Himself and the trust that David places in Him.

So David brings faith rather than righteousness. He brings no currency to the transaction, only faith that God will rescue him based on three things: His name’s sake, His righteousness and his unfailing love.

The term “unfailing love” literally means “cut a covenant” with the implication of blood. God specifically made covenants with David, that he would be king, live a long life, that his son would build the temple, and the Messiah would come from his line. For God to keep these promises, God must rescue David from his troubles. From that perspective, it is fairly cold and impersonal. It gets to the unfailing part, but not the love.

The second component to the righteousness of God are the parts of His character that lead him to make these promises to begin with. God is the one who created the relationship with David (and us!) not the other way around. God has rigged the entire situation so that our faith is substituted for righteousness. His righteousness is unfailing in its commitment, and love in its motivation. When David appeals to God’s righteousness, he is appealing to the love and mercy of God, not to His perfection.

What do we learn ourselves from Psalm 143? Primarily, that we can call on God based not on our righteousness, but His. We do not have the individual covenant that David did, but instead we have Christ as our representative. Like David, we have no currency of righteousness. If we, through faith, are linked to Christ, then all the promises of God to Christ fall to us. Through faith, we become the anointed ones, and Christ’s story becomes our story, His unending currency righteousness becomes ours.

This means that the first step in calling on God is to connect ourselves to Christ. We need Him as our mediator. If we have done this but still pray from a place of self-righteousness, entitlement and pride. Are we angry at God for not responding in the way we desire or expect? Are we putting ourselves up as judges of God? Or are we on the other end of the spectrum, disheartened by our own sin, we pray (or fail to pray) out of our own sense of unrighteousness. We are called to boldness, not based on our abilities but on the imputed righteousness of Christ.

As Martin Luther is said to have written:

For feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God, Nought else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned, For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart, Whose Word cannot be broken.
I’ll trust in God’s unchanging Word, ‘till soul and body sever;
For though all things shall pass away, His Word shall stand forever.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, August 27, 2017

Psalm 143

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Anger, Hatred and the Gospel – Matthew 5:17-22

The news the last two weeks have been disheartening. It would be very easy to condemn the bad guys and move on, but that would be looking outward, and in the context of this church, we need to look inward. We need to see how it is impossible to reach the levels of goodness we are called to, and how we – and everyone involved – need Jesus.

So Jesus here is discussing his relationship to the Law. He himself will follow the Law down to the smallest portion, living out the Law to its fullest extent. Jesus was the embodiment of loving God and loving others, the building described by the blueprints of the Law.

The Law thus fulfilled in its smallest part, Jesus gives a new command. Rather than loving via the written law of Moses, we follow what James calls the “royal law.” The Mosaic law was for a specific culture and context, but the Law as embodied in Christ is universal. The standard of love embodied in Christ becomes our new goal. Did this raise or lower the bar? In Jesus’ audience, the majority of people followed the Law as best they could, but did not necessarily make special efforts.

But the the Pharisees, on the other hand, made following the Law a full time job. They went above and beyond, tithing more than necessary, hedging the Law and following rules even above and beyond the Law. And yet Jesus says that God’s standard is even beyond the example of this Pharisees.

Not even beyond, but simply of an entirely different kind – killing is not just about the end result, but about the moral starting point. Anger, hatred, prejudice, slander and pride all flow from the same spring. And that is difficult to deal with when our anger and hatred are pointed at that prejudice and slander.

So what does God say about anger? Anger should be slow to come. James tells us to be slow to anger because human anger does not accomplish God’s end. Anger should be short lived – do not let the sun go down on it.

Anger should not be a characteristic of our tongue. Again, James says that if we respond with speech in unrestrained anger, our “religion is worthless.”

Responding to anger with anger and hatred with hatred, we accomplish nothing. But the takeaway here is not “five ways to be less angry.”

The takeaway is that we are worse than we thought we were before, we are trapped in cycles of anger and resentment. We are no more righteous than anyone else we have seen.

But there is another path to righteousness. As with Abraham, faith is credited to us as righteousness. The gospel is not just what we go to for our initial salvation, but what we must go back to again and again for confession, repentance and a shift of our focus back to Christ as our model and source of the capability to love.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

Matthew 5:17-22

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Parents and Children – Ephesians 6:1-4

The family and how it operates is very important to God. It was created and ordained by God to spread Him image across the earth. This passage was written in the context of the church, to Christian parents seeking to follow God, and to their children. There are commands to both parents and children, and the two together will create a functional family unit where children can grow and develop until adulthood.

These are very general principles that will play out differently in the specifics across the vast diversity of individual and families.

“Children” here means essentially “young dependent,” whether a small child or an older teen or anything in between. There are two instructions: obey and honor.

Parents are the law, and children are to obey them like they would obey the law. Children should understand that their parents were once children, and they all resented the authority and planned to do things differently. In the end, though, parents discover that rules are necessary, and the response of children must be to obey those rules.

Children are also to honor their parents. Obedience is the behavior, honor is the attitude and emotional response that comes with it. Honoring parents means understanding that they are not peers, but representatives of God.

The instruction to honor parents comes directly from the Ten Commandments. The commandments themselves are a breakdown of the greatest commandments – “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” The first five commandments are about loving God, the second five are about loving others. Honoring your father and mother comes in the first set – honoring your parents is honoring God. It also serves as a transition from one set to the other.

The commandment comes with a promise of going well and long life. In the immediate context of the commandments, there is the actual potential of capital punishment for rebellious children, because dishonoring parents is dishonoring God. More broadly, children who obey and honor their parents do live longer, better, happier lives. They are less likely to get into drugs, crime, abusive relationships and much, much more.

This is ultimately a very practical promise, echoed across Proverbs as well. Listening to others, particularly those in authority, is wise. Doing otherwise is foolish and makes a bad end far more likely.

Paul then moves onto the parents, with instructions not to exasperate their children. Kids do not need reasons to rebel, so we are not to give them additional impetus to do so.

This can come in the form of excessive discipline or smothering. Treating all offenses equally, or failing to keep pace in discipline as children age. Constant criticism is also a temptation for all parents.

Another way to exasperate children, though, is by being overly permissive and failing to provide structure. Overindulgence will train children to expect the world to serve them. Other exasperating behavior includes neglect, withholding affection, additional manipulation, threats without discipline and more. “Unhappy families are all different.”

So how do we avoid all these pitfalls? Bringing them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Our presence itself is a key piece of this, spending quality time together.

The current generation of parents is better at this than previous. Where we tend to have trouble is the instruction side, teaching them the important, practical things that they will need in order to live, the boundaries they need to abide by in order to survive and succeed. The third component is discipline.

Presence, instruction and discipline all work together to create successful parenting. Instruction ensures that they know the rules and so are prepared for discipline when it comes, if it is consistent. Discipline is not always imposing punishment, but can also be letting natural consequences play out, letting children take risks.

When we teach children to ride bikes, we are with them (presence), we instruct them as to the process, send them off, then we let them ride, fall down, and get them back up (discipline). If we don’t have all three of these, the process will not work.

The relationship of patents and children is directly related to the children’s ultimate relationship with God. We should follow the instruction of God ourselves as we pass that instruction along, depending on the grace of Christ when we fail.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

Ephesians 6:1-4

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Incarnational Living: Inclusive Friendship – Matthew 13:24-30

In this parable, the key concept is not that there are righteous and there are unrighteous and us righteous people should stay away from those nasty weeds. But Jesus is clear about our place in this story: we are the plants, not the harvesters who distinguish between the weeds and the wheat.

We cannot identify purely by current behavior who is the righteous and who is not. Many who today reject Christ will call on him before the end, and many who outwardly follow Christ will reject him.

We are sent into this world to live alongside all people and shine the reflected light of God on everyone we come into contact with, just as God Himself causes the sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This means should seek to share the gospel with all people. Christians need the gospel just as much as non-Christians.

We should actively seek to engage those who do not yet know Christ. We should absolutely develop friendships with non-Christians. Ideally, we should do this in concert with other Christians. The community we build with other Christians should be designed to spill out into the world and create an environment where the gospel is demonstrated. This may involve a “third place” between work and home.

As a church, we should be careful not to focus only inward, but outward as well. It is easy to get stuck in “holy huddles” that do not share the love of God beyond our walls.

The concept of inclusive friendship is fundamentally incarnational. Christ coming to earth was the ultimate act of inclusive friendship, leaving the holiest of huddles to serve a people who hated him. He brought other alongside him in this task, creating a community to show his love to each other and the world.

– Sermon Notes, Jeff Krabach, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

 Matthew 13:24-30

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Inviting In – Incarnational Hospitality

Repeatedly in the scripture, we are called to love each other extravagantly and to express that love through extending hospitality. Incarnational hospitality emerges from love, but it is also a discipline, one that requires practice and pursuit.

There will be a time for most of us when we are not used to this practice and not good at it. We must spend time being “consciously incompetent” and, as Peter instructs, not grumbling about it. In Hebrews, we are pointed towards who we are to share hospitality with – the stranger. Everyone from people of different nationalities, backgrounds, beliefs, etc., all the way to just someone in your life who you do not know very well.

The concept of hospitality in the ancient Middle East was built around the semi-nomadic nature of the cultures in the address. It was considered that those with wealth owed those who were travelling significant hospitality. This was not just grudgingly offered, but was actively sought after, backed by the promise of divine blessings. This was a core moral tenet that extended to the Egyptians and Romans as well.

The story of Abraham under the trees of Mamre was the central passage on this topic for the Jews, and Abraham was the model for hospitality even in the New Testament. In 1 Kings, we see from the story of Elisha that the hospitality we are called to is not contingent on our resources. It is the act of inviting in that communicates the value we place on the other.

In Matthew, the level of that value is put on a much grander scale. The divine favor from pagan gods is replaced by the very person of Christ. In an echo of Abraham’s experience (and, conversely, that of Sodom and Gomorrah), we are told that everyone we show (or do not show) hospitality is, in a fundamental way, Christ himself. And seen another way, we ourselves were strangers to Christ and the Kingdom of God, and were shown hospitality in the most dramatic way possible.

Now, we are strangers to the world, and are called to do as Christ did. We show incarnational hospitality so that others will see Christ in us. We are representatives of Christ and his kingdom. Our hospitality shows others what that Kingdom is like. We have tensions with this, especially here in Seattle where we simply do not have a culture of hospitality. We have shifted hospitality to organizations and can divert the burden of today’s wanderers and nomads to society as a whole and off of us individually.

We are so often “too busy” to show hospitality. But that busyness is itself a reason to do so, and we should budget our time so that we can give (and receive) hospitality. There are fears associated with hospitality beyond these. We fear being exposed or embarrassed. We fear being taken advantage of or otherwise victimised. We fear awkwardness or disappointment.

We should be honest about these fears and clear about our boundaries. Authenticity goes a long way towards negating our fears. We can also start slow, and begin with small steps as we build our skills and comfort.

Family and children can be another barrier to hospitality. Not just for the usual fear of strangers, but the busyness they bring, their own discomfort with strangers or vice versa. Again, the answer here is to bring them in to the process of hospitality, to engage them in showing love to others.

Inviting in is the loving pursuit of bringing strangers into an environment where they encounter Christ’s kingdom. It is a way to live out the gospel and fulfill the Great Commission. We must place the the eternal value on the stranger that God does, and recognize that when we show hospitality, we are demonstrating the very love of God.

– Sermon Notes, Jeff Krabach, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

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Servant Leadership – John 13:1-16

Jesus was the greatest leader in history, and in this passage he demonstrates his divine method of servant leadership. He knew, John tells us, that his time on earth was coming to an end. We know from the Garden of Gethsemene that he had a real level of fear and anxiety around the crucifixion. He also knew that he loved his disciples, and would love them through all of what would come.

This included the one who he knew would shortly betray him to torture and death. He knew he was the second person of the Trinity, and was shortly to reclaim his place among the godhead – and yet his final acts were those of service to those far below him. And so he washed his disciples’ feet.

Keep in mind that this was a culture that wore sandals and walked along roads lined and caked with feces. A servant might be asked to wash your feet, just like a janitor might unclog a disgusting toilet, or a hospice nurse might clean bedsores.

And so when Jesus wraps the towel around his waist and goes to wash Peter’s feet, Peter rejects it. Someone so high doing something so low for someone so low offended Peter’s understanding of leadership. But Jesus explains that to reject his act of service is to reject his very self. This is a direct parallel with the cross – those who reject the service of Christ on the cross are rejecting Christ himself.

So Peter, who wouldn’t know a metaphor if it hit him in the face, begins to strip down to get washed from head to toe. (Ultimately, Peter will take the image of Jesus wrapping himself in a towel for this act of service and make it core to his image of the Christian life – “clothe yourself in humility.”)

Jesus forestalls him, and instead notes that all of them are clean because they have (or will have) accepted his act of service, with one exception. Judas will reject that offer of service and this remains unclean.

He then moves farther ahead in time, speaking to the church era when these men will found and lead congregations around the world. He calls on them, when they find themselves in positions of leadership, to lead as servants, to take the picture he has painted of servant leadership and replicate it down through the ages.

Within the Christian life, leadership is serving. The distinction between ruler and scavenger is non-existent in Christ. If we refuse to serve our wives, for example, by changing diapers or washing dishes because that is “her job” then we have already missed the point. If we serve from a selfish motivation, picking those services that are enjoyable or that let us claim special status, then we are not truly serving.

True Christ-like service draws no distinction between public and private service. Nor does it have a need to calculate results, whether external or internal. It is not driven by feelings or whims. It is action-oriented and Christ-focused. Once you have the right mindset, the challenge is actually doing it, without those external motivators.

It is difficult to give up the power and control that worldly leadership offers. Serving rarely pays off from a material point of view. Serving may well mean you perform worse, whether in a job or wherever else. Serving means making sacrifices to make those around you succeed, not you yourself.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

John 13:1-16
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