Tag: Advent

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Bringing Shalom to Our City – Jeremiah 29:1-7

 

The nation of Israel has become corrupt. They take the outward signs of pious life, but in fact were just as bad as the pagans around them. Or worse, because as representatives of God, this behavior represented God to the world around them.

And so God uses Nebuchadnezzar to bring judgement on Jerusalem, bringing thousands of Jews to Babylon in exile. The land is taken, the temple is destroyed and the Law itself is upended.

So what does God say to do? Settle down, raise families, seek the peace of wherever you are. Prior to this, the concept of peace had been wrapped up in the direct rule of God over his chosen people in the Promised Land. But now the Law, the Temple and the land are gone, just as was promised in Deuteronomy would happen if they turned away.

But God doesn’t tell them to live separately or to isolate themselves from the culture around them. He tells them to plant gardens – the same word as “paradise”. They are called to bring a little piece of paradise into their new home. Babylon is also known for its gardens, so using this term rather than “vines” or “grain” implies an integration with the culture around them.

God also calls on them to, essentially, “be fruitful and multiply” – another callback to the Garden of Eden and the instruction given there. And again, it also appears to be an instruction toward intermarriage and integration, since the vast majority of the exiles were men.

He then instructs them to pray for Babylon, the city that just wiped them out. Not only that, but to seek the peace and prosperity of the city. The goal had changed from Israel being a hermetically sealed, isolated kingdom of peace that would eventually spread shalom to the gentiles. Their sin meant they had to spread out and seek to bring shalom into their neighborhoods and the city of their exile.

Then we come to Christ. The mission itself does not change – Jesus does not being back the earthly kingdom of Israel. Instead, he founds a new, spiritual kingdom, not based on rule following, but on a relationship with the rule-giver. Christ becomes the new law, the new temple and the new Kingdom.

Like Israel, we are in a moment of now-but-not-yet. We are, like Israel, spread among the world and called to bring peace to a broken world. God will eventually force the peace, but that will come with judgement. So in His mercy, God waits and uses us as His hands and feet to bring people to repentance.

We are called to bring the peace of God into the world around us drop by drop. We are called to citizenship, not to live in bunkers. We are called to fight against poverty and oppression, and to stand against abuse, especially when it comes from people who claim Christ.

We can look at early Christianity to see how this played out. The early church essentially invented the concept of charity. St. Basil invented the hospital in the 3rd century. During plagues, pagans would evacuate, while Christians would remain in the city and nurse the sick as best they could. These examples drew thousands to Christ.

Let us do the same. Let us spread this peace today, in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, countries and world.

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

Jeremiah 29:1-7

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Surprised by Authentic Joy – Luke 2:8-20

Why is authentic joy something Christians need to be concerned about? Why does it matter that we are happy?

The short answer is that God commands us to be joyful, throughout both the Old and New Testament. It is an earth shattering concept that we are commanded to feel a particular emotion. We do not have immediate control over our emotions. We can fake it, and often do, but we can’t just snap our fingers and become authentically happy. Those who struggle with depression understand this particularly well.

We can understand God calling us to do certain things, but the idea that we need to feel a certain way is hard. We are called to possess something that we cannot possess in our own power. We cannot produce our own joy, but it must be produced within us.

There is a joy that God offers us that is beyond our most joyful moments, but there is a threat to our joy that is also beyond our understanding.

But where does our Joy come from? It comes from a person: Jesus Christ. CS Lewis titled the story of his conversion “Surprised by Joy” because he was startled by the notion that there is a connection between God and joy. We cannot get that kind of joy from any other person, or any material thing. As Lewis writes:

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things. We never get, say, even the sensual pleasure of food at its best when we are being greedy.

Back to the passage: the shepherds are in the fields watching the sheep. An angel appears and, as people always do when they see an angel, they basically wet themselves. But the angel says not to be afraid – that it brings good news, “evangelion” – often used to describe a king returning victorious from a battle. And this news brings “great joy” – because “to you”, the shepherds themselves, is born a savior. And not just any savior, but the promised Anointed One.

Joy at this news permeates these first few chapters of Luke. Elizabeth, Zechariah and even the unborn John are joyful at the heralding of Christ. Simeon and Anna likewise rejoiced at seeing the infant king.

Why do we need a savior? What blocks us from joy? Sin, the separation from our creator, is the deepest and darkest fate possible. We live under a curse, exposed to and deserving of the wrath of God. The only one qualified to lift that curse is the one who God sent in the flesh, who lived the life we could not life and died the death we could not die.

In John 15-17, Jesus prays that the joy that exists between him and the Father would extend to his disciples. Joy is the emotion of salvation.

How do we then define authentic joy? Joy is the good feeling that is produced by the Holy Spirit that causes us to rest fully in Jesus’ life and death and resurrection and reign for our salvation.

– Sermon Notes, Chris Gorman, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

Luke 2:8-20

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The Hope of Redemption – Psalm 107

This Psalm, from David, recounts the steadfast love of God for the people of Israel – the word is חסד or hesed. It is a story of redemption.

The initial redemption, the foundational rescue event that served as a sign for all the future redemption events, was the rescue of the people of Israel from Egypt and being brought into the Promised Land. This is a common theme throughout the Old Testament, of remembering God’s goodness in and through that moment.

But Psalm 107 looks at a continual redemption, an ongoing story in which God acts as redeemer. David does this through four characters: the wanderer, the prisoner, the fool and the ship captain.

The wanderer calls back to the time the Israelites spent wandering on the wilderness. They had been redeemed out of Egypt, but rejected God’s plan for them to enter the Promised Land and spent 40 years wandering in a circle in the desert. It is us, too, when we wander in our own spiritual circles,

The Psalm says that the Lord will make the way of the wanderer straight, and bring him into the city where he can have rest and safety. David calls these wanderers to be thankful, when we are brought out of whatever wilderness we have wandered in.

Next, we have the prisoner, imprisoned and oppressed because of their own wicked deeds. Again, it calls back to the history of Israel, when rebellion against God would result in discipline through foreign conquerors. The discipline is not there to harm them, but to reorient their perspective and bring them back to God.

Again, this is like us, whether situations of literal imprisonment, or spiritual imprisonment by sin, God is there to forgive and save us from our distress when we cry out to him. Has this happened to us? David instructs us to be thankful.

Then there is the fool, entirely devoted to his own pleasure and desires, even to the extent that they forego food and drink. The fool goes beyond the wanderer and the prisoner in their complete abandonment to sin. But when they hit bottom and cry out to God, once again He comforts, heals and forgives their sin. And again, we who have been the fool are called in to be thankful.

Next, we have the ship captain. Unlike the others, he seems to have things together, and his vice isn’t rebellion or depravity. Instead, it is overconfidence and pride, a belief that they are self-sufficient and is able to chart their own course. This is many of us in our Christianity, trying to live good lives in our own strength, with our own plans and towards our own goals.

But God wants dependent worshipers who live in love and relationship with him. And so he sends mighty waves and storms to remind us that we ultimately cannot survive under our own power. We call out to him and he again redeems us from the storm. Once again, we are to live in gratitude to the Lord who rescues is.

Then in verse 32, David goes into all the ways God works to bring his people back to him – turning rivers into deserts and deserts into pools of water, doing whatever is needed to bring us to redemption. God customizes our redemption to exactly what he wants for us in exactly the ways we need.

For us, we also look back to an original redemption, the salvation brought to us by the death and resurrection of Christ. And we also see ongoing redemption and rescue throughout our lives, whether as wanderer, prisoner, fool or captain. But the rescue is not from our situation, but primarily from our own self-dependence and rebellion.

The rescue will look different for different people. The wanderer is left to their own fumbling devices for a long period of time. The prisoner must have their rebellion crushed and their lives restricted to turn then around. The fool must hit rock bottom before they turn their eyes heavenward. The ship captain must fail on their own so they will depend on God.

This multifaceted, steadfast love has no limits. There is not a set number of redemptions on a cosmic punch card. God’s redemption is bottomless and never ending. We are a forgetful people, and so constantly need reminding of this.

Or maybe we are frustrated and confused that we don’t seem to be moving forward spiritually. We may be moving backwards, and the shame or frustration of that may be keeping us from actually moving forward again. But our spiritual life is not and was never promised to be a steady upward climb. It is a constant forward and back motion, confession and repentance and returning to God. But we cannot wait until we are better to turn to God. We must turn to him before we can get better at all.

Or maybe we have never sought the redemption of God. Maybe we are turned off from it by the public face of Evangelical Christianity on the news and in social media. If you reject the ugly, false pictures of God and Christ being portrayed, then good for you. Seek the God of the scriptures and understand the true Christ and the redemption he offers.

Wherever we are in this story, whatever the reason we need rescue today, we should turn to God and throw ourselves on his mercy. God loves us more than we love ourselves, which means we have a mighty hope.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, November 26, 2017

Psalm 107

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