Tim's Sermon Notes

Verse 17 is a familiar verse to many of us. “The old has gone, the new has come.” But there is so much more that Paul is trying to tell us here. What does it mean to be a new creation? It means we have a new Mindset, Ministry and Mission.

We used to have a fleshly mindset. We would judge people by appearances, by status, race, class, gender, demeanor and so on. We even viewed Christ this way. Ultimately, this is a self-serving and selfish mindset. We look at people in order to compare ourselves to them (usually favorably) or to determine what they can do for us.

The new creation mindset, on the other hand, springs from an understanding that Christ died for all people. We live for him and model our view of people on his sacrificial love for all people.

We have also been given a new ministry, one of reconciliation. This is ultimately the work of God, but we are called to participate in it. The term “reconciliation” here in the Greek means to exchange a hostile relationship for a friendly one. As Paul writes in Romans,  Christ died for us even though we were flat out his enemies. He then entrusts us with this message that Christ is reconciling the world to himself.

This is, then, our mission. We serve as ambassadors, in a foreign country, but with citizenship in another, sent to secure the interests of our home country. This interest is the reconciliation of the world with God.

When presented with this truth, many of us are torn between our sin nature and our new person, with the latter rejoicing and the former recoiling. But the situation is straightforward – we are ambassadors, whether that news excites us or not. We are representing Christ and the goals of the Kingdom regardless of whether we are doing it well or poorly.

How can we apply this directly? Support missions, become directly involved with ministries through a congregation, simply invite people to church on Easter. If you are reconciled, you are called in turn to take up the, Mindset, Ministry and Mission of reconciliation.

– Sermon Notes, Robert Reid, City Church International, Dallas, TX

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
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In this passage, Paul calls for the excommunication, the breaking of fellowship, with a man unapologetically sleeping with his father’s wife.
Christians and Jews had a generally higher sexual ethic than the pagans around them. In this case, Paul calls out an instance of a situation where this is not the case. Note, though, that this is not the aspect of the sin that prompts Paul to call for excommunication.

Instead, there are three things that bring it to this level – first, it is a sin that is damaging the church itself; second, it’s being done in an ongoing way without any repentance or remorse; third, it’s being done by a professing Christian. These things bring the sin to a different level, one that requires exclusion.
This reaction is still out of love, rather than as punishment or vengeance. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul addresses this, noting that it is about warning him as a brother, not attacking him as an enemy.

Why does it come to this level? Why expel rather than rebuke? We get a sense of this from Paul’s metaphor of yeast. This one sin, like yeast, infects the whole church and can work through the whole body. The nature of sin is to spread.

There’s another implication here – the moral standards within the church are clearly higher than those outside of it, and Christians themselves must be morally superior to the outside world. The nature of being a Christian will result in more moral behavior. This is why the “immoral brother” must be exiled. There is an evangelical aspect to this as well. The church is called to be a light, and sin clearly dims that light.

Typically, when we think of prideful Christians, we tend to think of overly moralistic and legalistic Puritans. The pride of the Corinthian Christians, on the other hand, was a very different kind. It’s a pride of acceptance and tolerance, a pride that sees God’s law as something they can edit and distort for their own purposes. While the pride of the Pharisee sees God as an equal with whom a bargain can be made, the pride of the Corinthians sees God as in fact a subordinate whose words and instruction are less important than their own desires.

This is certainly something we deal with in our Christian culture. We are terrified of seeming legalistic or works-focused. This leads us to diminish the value of our own efforts against sin. Paul does not have this issue. He does not tell the Corinthians to ask God to take the sin away, he tells them to knock it off.

Satan is flanking us – rather than pushing us to focus on working our way to God, in our culture here, he is clearly pushing us the other way, towards abandoning our standards in favor of cheap grace.

Much of this comes from an image, at minimum, of humility. But the self-deprecation that deprecates the work of Christ is not actually humility.
It is easier to lower our collective standards than it is to individually attack the sin within our own lives. This is why Paul calls this out as yeast that works through the dough. If we see other Christians relaxing their own standards, it becomes far easier to relax our own.

There are some important differences between this kind of excommunication then and now. With only the single church in a city and with Christians having given up so much to join the church, there were major material implications to the breaking of fellowship.

The spiritual consequences of this are the same, though. We are today much more likely to excommunicate ourselves, to end our fellowship with Christ’s church and to hand ourselves over to Satan. Don’t do that.

When this does have to happen, remember that this is actually evangelism. Ongoing unrepentant sin is a sign that the Holy Spirit is not present, and the breaking of fellowship is perhaps the only way to bring this truth to light. Whether it comes as a corporate act of a church body, or within our personal relationships, what seems like a harsher action than most are comfortable with is in fact an act of love that may well save someone’s soul.

– Sermon Notes, James Mallory, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 5
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In this passage, Paul closes off, eventually, the question of elevating human leaders. In this case, he brings in two new terms in relation to leaders – “servant”, literally the under-rower on a galley, and “steward”, essentially a housekeeper. Leaders don’t own anything – they just row God’s boat and keep God’s house.

Then Paul moves on to another topic. The Corinthians were mistaking the material blessings of their congregation and society for spiritual maturity. They saw their success as being a sign of God’s kingdom on earth, and so were rejecting the counsel, wisdom and rebuke from Paul. He then shifts into a severely sarcastic mode. “Boy, your kingdom sounds great. Rich, successful, honored, popular, respected. Sounds real nice – us apostles must be doing something wrong, because we’re pretty much dirt.”

Paul paints a very different picture of what the kingdom is supposed to look like. On one hand, you have the Corinthians, a single church plant that happens to be full of prosperous, intelligent, educated, healthy, satisfied, comfortable people – at home in the world and the surrounding culture. On the other have, you’ve got the apostles – handpicked by Christ, spreaders of the gospel, founders of the church. The latter are clearly more deserving of honor and respect, and yet they have given that all up. They are like the captives at the end of the procession of a conquering army, there only to be mocked. They are like the oily, slimy sludge you’ll find in a fetid pond. The world has rejected them, just as it honors and respects the Corinthians.

Paul here is not prescribing suffering and poverty, but rather the behavior that may lead to it. The Corinthians were missing a key piece of behavior, and Paul calls on them to imitate the apostles. There is something missing in the Corinthian outlook and perspective.

Paul begins to zero in on what is missing when he discusses what is going to happen when he comes to confront the “arrogant people”. The kingdom, he says, it’s not about talk, but power.

The term “power” can mean many things, but in the letter so far has not been about secular or even miraculous power, but rather the power of the gospel to forgive sins, sanctify lives and sustain us through persecution. The power of the gospel is also what sparks the persecution, oppression and slander that makes the apostles the “scum of the earth”.

On the flip side, the Corinthians live as if the gospel was untrue – avoiding persecution, keeping relationships intact and remaining comfortable. Like us, as long as they keep their mouths shut about Christ, they can live in peace.

We have typical pushback to this. We don’t know how – and yet, it is as simple as telling our story. We see other things as a priority, providing for physical needs, etc. – and yet, in our culture, particularly in Seattle, focus on those other good things are not at all what is lacking. What is lacking is the courage and boldness for us to share what we believe with the non-Christians in our lives.

It is the use of this power that turned the apostles into slandered, outcast, scum of the earth. And it is the avoidance of this power that leaves the Corinthians having all they want, feeling wise, comfortable and honored.

It is clearly easier to be an admirer of Christ than a follower of Christ. Kierkegaard writes:

The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so for the follower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength, with all his will to be what he admires.

We are all too often apathetic about the gospel. But Christ also offers forgiveness for our failures, as well as the power to share the gospel. He does not promise power to overcome financial or even health issues, but he does explicitly promise the power of the gospel.

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

1 Corinthians 4
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Why do we elevate one human over another? Skill, talents and accomplishments separate some humans from the rest of us. Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, whoever. This is entirely natural—and it can easily bleed into the church. Who can convert the most, preach the most, even suffer the most, separates some Christians from the others.

But Paul here reminds us that this natural way of thinking has no place in the Kingdom of God. We all have our roles as we are called by God, but there is no hierarchy of worth, because God Himself is who animates the actual good outcomes. If you’re planting rocks instead of seeds, nothing’s going to grow, no matter how good of a gardener you are.

Paul then goes on to discuss what sounds like a building metaphor, but the reference to gold and precious stones indicates that we are continuing the garden metaphor, referring all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and the gold and precious stones associated with the garden and the land of Havilah. The story of the Bible is the story of the restoration of the garden, not only the relationship of man with God, but of man’s place in the world and purpose of man’s work.

We see this displayed in the Old Testament with the creation of the Temple, structured to match the Garden of Eden, facing eastward, decorated with images of plants, and designed to be the meeting place of God with man. This temple was built upon a carefully constructed foundation of cut stones, overlayed with gold and silver. This brings us back to Paul’s metaphor, which he then extends from the garden to the temple to the judgement seat of Christ.

All leaders of God’s people will face this. Some will be rewarded—those who have built upon the fireproof foundation of Christ. Others, not so much. Some who have been praised on earth will only get to heaven by the skin of their teeth. Some won’t make it at all. Paul makes the temple metaphor explicit here. Those who destroy the temple—those who cause harm, destruction or division within the church, pastors who are not even Christians, will “be destroyed.”

The point here is not to set up our own seats of judgment, but rather that church leaders do not actually get the credit for their accomplishments, so divisions around which is superior is foolish. The message to the church as a whole is simply, don’t boast in human leaders.

For leaders in the church—whether pastors or elders or deacons or mentors or whatever—we must remember that why we serve and who we serve is more important than what we accomplish.

If, then, any truly good human accomplishment is worthless outside of Christ, what does that mean for us? If we are the kind of people who enjoy doing good, we must understand that if that enjoyment is our only motivation, those deeds are worthless. When our deeds, though, flow out from our faith relationship with Christ. “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

The positive side of this is that Christ can take our works, which may seem like straw or wood, and turn them into precious stones and precious metals. Whether raising children, running a business, going to school, working a menial job—when you live your life with Jesus at the center, all our deeds are worthy of reward. This is the power of the grace of Christ, turning even the mundane into the sacred.

The question then becomes one of motivation. Why do good? Why fight sin? Why discipline ourselves. The Heidelberg Catechism suggests this: “so that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and that he may be glorified through us.”

Elsewhere, Paul writes “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

Our entire lives, in the sacred and the secular, in the glorious and the mundane, should be a continual act of gratitude to Christ. And if that is our source, then He is faithful to turn it all into the gold and jewels of paradise.

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

1 Corinthians 3:6-23
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Paul had spent a year and a half in Corinth after founding the church there. Apollos had then taken the role of pastor there. A few years later, Paul receives a message that not all is well in Corinth. The intellectual, philosophical congregation there sought more complexity and the “next level” of Christianity.

Paul responds, though, that the simplicity is what they (and we) really need. The simplicity of the gospel is core to its purpose, power and truth. This clashed with the culture of the city and the congregation, which valued rhetorical skill and philosophical intricacies. Paul specifically brought a simple, unadorned message to counter this tendency.

Paul then in chapter 2 clarifies that there is no “next level” of Christianity. They are mature. They have the fullness of Christ. They have everything they need. There is no hierarchy or system of levels to scale.

But then in this section, Paul turns around and calls them babies. (Keep in mind, as Paul discusses milk vs. meat, that there were no bottles, so Paul is essentially saying that he is breastfeeding them.) So the question is, how can Paul call them mature in one verse and infants in another?

This is actually a theme throughout scripture. “Now but not yet.” We are “dead to sin” and yet we still must work to not sin. We are justified, but must still work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

We can also see this more generally in humanity. See the behavior of sums parents at their children’s sporting events. We have been given all the tools for maturity and salvation, but if we do not take up those tools, then we are behaving like infants. We “are not yet ready” as Paul says here. The term he uses here can be translated as “fleshy”.

That was Corinth. Instead of unifying around Christ, they splintered into divisive factions around human leaders. But why does Paul use terms around maturity here, instead of just calling out their behavior as sin?

In part, it is to specifically attack the philosophy of the culture around them, a culture they had imbibed and absorbed, and that was playing itself out in the church. Similarly, Christians today absorb the moral materialism or hedonism of our culture and live out their lives as if the material world was all that mattered. We live our lives to avoid or even alleviate suffering, rather than a relationship with God. We do religious things for the good feelings and experiences. If we are driven by intellectualism, we seek to learn more – a good thing, but not the best thing. Humanism, when we elevate humanity, or specific humans, possibly church leaders, to a level above Christ.
These behaviors can all appear wise and mature. They are all about advancement and performance, constantly seeking control. They get their power from earthly things.

The purpose of my Christian existence, though, is not experience, advancement or even maturity, but to live in relationship with Christ. We get our power from above, and that power expresses itself as loving actions towards other people.

If we do not get our power from Christ, then we get it from one or more of sin, Satan or the world. We will seek to control, rather than to love.

What is your purpose? Is it Christ, or is it ethics, morality, experience, pleasure?Where do you get the power to live out this purpose? Is it Christ, or is it sources below? What is the outflow of your life? Is it the love of Christ, or is it selfishness and a seeking to control?

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

First Corinthians 3:1-5
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