Tag: Matthew

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Little Tiny Murder Pins – Matthew 5:21-26

One of the key concepts we need to understand is that God, above all, wants a relationship with us. We follow God and His precepts not so we will have all the answers to having a good life, not to rack up heaven points, not so we can earn anything, but so that we can have an intimate, real time relationship with the God of the universe.

That is much of the point in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Previously, we discussed how Jesus explained how He sought to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. In fact, we must be holier than the holy people: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus is emphasizing a deeper kind of righteousness than what the Scribes and Pharisees focused on – a righteousness at the heart level, not merely checking boxes or avoiding specific, circumscribed actions. As the prophet Ezekiel wrote: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

Elsewhere, Jesus addresses this concept again with the rich young ruler. He was insecure and was seeking the next material task he could complete in order to seal the deal with God. That man followed all the earthly rules as well as anyone could but Jesus pushes him towards dependence and towards relationship with him.

Back to the Sermon, this is the beginning of a pattern of antitheses – “you have heard it said… but I tell you…” He addresses Anger, Adultery, Divorce, Oaths, Retaliation and Loving Enemies. We’ll start with anger this week.

He starts with the basics. Murder, Jesus notes, is wrong. So far, so good. But anger, expressed as evil words and actions, is of a kind with murder. Our frustration and fury may not lead us to kill, but it’s the same reaction, just spread out across many in our lives. Not a single event, but little tiny murder pins spread all across our lives.

Our anger, if not addressed, festers inside and acts as a barrier to relationships with others and with God. Unattended anger can effectively “kill” relationships.

Jesus is not only concerned with external acts but with our hearts – but He also gives us practical ways to head off these heart issues in our daily life. When we have conflict, we should prioritize addressing that conflict over any other form of worship. Our vertical relationship with God is intimately connected to our horizontal relationships with others, and if we have hardened ourselves to the one we cannot but be hardened to the other.

Second, Jesus instructs us to keep short accounts – to remove the barriers between us and others, to seek reconciliation when we are in conflict, rather than pressing our rights. He does this in the context of courts, debts and lawsuits but the principles are applicable across contexts and relationships.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, and the ultimate goal of the Law is to facilitate relationships with God and others. But that standard remains unattainable – which means we need to refer back to the Beatitudes, and Jesus’ words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But what about righteous anger? Does Jesus mean we shouldn’t come to church and worship when we are angry at injustice? Isn’t Jesus just talking about individual relationships? What about Jesus’ cleansing of the temple?

But ultimately, Jesus is talking broadly about matters of the heart. We can experience inappropriate anger in interpersonal relationships, but we can also experience that same anger even on behalf of good things, even when angry on behalf of the vulnerable. We cannot let ourselves behave sinfully even under the color of good things. We must again refer back to the Beatitudes to understand how to be compassionate even as we struggle for commission and righteousness in our society. How do we channel our righteous anger into righteous compassion rather than unrighteous resentment?

There are not simple answers for this, but if we seek that real time relationship with God and continue to refer back to the Beatitudes, we’ll at least be on the right track.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 16, 2025

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Salt & Light – Matthew 5:13-16

The Sermon on the Mount starts in an odd way for a Sermon. The hill Jesus is speaking from is crammed with people trying to hear. No opening joke or anecdote, no catchy hook, but a list of counterintuitive statements. Blessed are the poor? It’s the rich who are blessed, that’s why they are rich. Blessed are those who mourn? Those who celebrate do so because they are the ones who are blessed. But the crowd eats it up because they are an oppressed people – they are poor, they are mourning, they are hungry.

Then Jesus pivots to a statement directly to the crowd. “You are the salt of the earth.” The Greek here is second person plural (you all), emphatic and present tense. And what does it mean to be salt? Salt is a transformative agent, enhancing flavor and preserving food. In ancient times it was far more important than we think of it today, far more valuable and essential for what was then modern life.

So Jesus is telling the crowd, “You all, right here, right now, your identity, purpose, value is to be a transformative agent on this earth.” How do we do that? By living out those odd statements Jesus just gave – by living out the beatitudes.

But what good is salt of it loses its flavor? The word “good” here means “what use is it?” The term for “lose its flavor,” mōrainō, literally means “to become foolish” and is our source for the word “moron.” What does it mean to become foolish? By failing to live out the beatitudes.

Next Jesus tells the people that they are “the light of the world.” They are the thing that drives out darkness. Again, this is a small, oppressed group and Jesus is using the same term that Cicero used to describe Rome itself! This small group of seekers is somehow the city on a hill.

But it comes with the same kind of warning – don’t hide that light. Don’t cover it over with worldliness, don’t hide it in a church building – let it shine out

Instead, Jesus gives the first command of his Sermon: “Let your good and beautiful deeds shine! So that all people will experience and recognize God, the true Father’s redemptive love and power.” This is the first time we get the word “Father” in the gospel of Matthew, very possibly as a purposeful contrast with Caesar, who was seen as the father to all. But Caesar is the evil, authoritarian, oppressive Father – Jesus is speaking of the loving Father who brings out the beatitudes.

What good and beautiful deeds can you do to encourage others to see our father in them?

Now, there were other groups out there who also had to find a way to live under the empire. The Essenes headed out to the desert, didn’t want to be complicit in empire – they hid their Lamp, and many think that Jesus’ words here were an implicit rebuke. The Saducees bowed the knee to empire, being nationalistic, securing power and economic gain for themselves. The Pharisees kept to a strict holiness and piety code, believing that their personal holiness would bring change. Then the zealots – they sought active overthrow of the empire. They were prophetic voices calling for change, but were willing to useviolent means, which Jesus clearly rejects.

We can be tempted in all these directions – we can seek to hide or avoid society. We can throw in with the world and seek power and wealth. We can retreat to our own holiness with no regard for the hurt around us. We can adopt the violent means of the world and lose our very purpose.

What should we do instead? Again, looking back to the beatitudes, living out those counterintuitive words, seeking to be salt and light in the world.

— Sermon Notes, Tim Hsieh, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 2, 2025

Image by Midjourney.

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The Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5:1-2

The Sermon on the Mount is arguably the most important sermon ever given. In it, Jesus lays out his radical ethical and moral vision.

To understand what Jesus is doing in this sermon, it may help to look at how children are raised. When a baby first receives instruction, it tends to be about “no!” Don’t touch that, don’t put that in your mouth, don’t go there.” As time passes and children grow, the boundaries change and get more complicated – “Do your homework, no more screen time, be home by 10.” But at some point we want these things to change – we want our children to move out and have their own lives, their own identities, making their own decisions and setting their own boundaries.

Similarly, when the United States became a nation, the Constitution was put in place to create a framework for running the national, Federal government, enabling the creation of laws, the interpretation of laws and even the amending of the constitution itself. But it does not give instruction for every situation and is not meant to be.

When Jesus climbs up to the top of a hill to teach, it evokes Moses bringing the law down from Mount Sinai and the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus is bringing a new word, a new manifesto for the Kingdom of God. The emphasis becomes humanity internalizing the desires of God rather than acting from external instruction from the Law. The movement is from the law written in stone to the law written in our hearts. Jesus instructs us to take the principles set forth in the law and to understand those well enough to apply them in our lives to live as God’s people.

The Sermon on the Mount is a radical reinterpretation of the Mosaic law, and a radical restatement of it. Jesus’ focus is on the heart of the matter, where the law has focused on the external behavior. In many ways, it is even more extreme, but it is also designed to enable us to adapt to new questions and new situations.

As we grow from a baby to a teenager to an adult, our questions grow from what we’re going to touch or not touch, into hard questions of how we respond to sin in ourselves, to corruption in the world, to complex relationships.

Following the Sermon on the Mount means moving from scripted moral answers to moral improv. It means internalizing the will and desires of God to the extent that we respond to those difficult questions in a godly way. It’s a message from Jesus “you’re not babies anymore.”

Maturity is a challenge, and many of us long for the simpler, easier answers from when we were young. But Jesus calls us to something greater and over the next few weeks we will dig into how He does that in the Sermon on the Mount.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 5, 2025

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Faithful Stewardship – Matthew 25:14-30

We’ve been going through a series called “Resident Aliens,” examining how we are called to live as citizens of heaven but residents of earth. We are not called to hide our time until heavens, but we are called to enable flourishing in the world around us.

That is much of the story that Jesus is telling in this parable. This parable came in a series of stories that focused on eschatology, with the primary point of those being that no one knows when the end will come, so that is the context.

The story is of a man who loaned huge sums of money to his servants before he went away, with the expectation that they would put the money to work for him. We may not feel like that applies to us, but each of us has some amount of time, talent or treasure that we can put to work for the kingdom of God.

Each was given a different amount “according to their ability” – note that they didn’t squabble or compare amongst themselves, since the money was never theirs to begin with. Likewise, the same is true of the resources we have.

We must be careful not to be the servant who buried his treasure in a field. He did so because he was frightened, because he had a false understanding of his master – he was overwhelmed and did not know what to do, and so he did what he felt was the least harm. In reality, not acting was the worst things he could do

Do we do the same thing? Do we bury our time, our talent or our treasure because we are afraid of what to do with it? Because we feel like it’s ours, forgetting that in reality it all comes from God?

As Peter writes in his epistle, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

So however we have been blessed, let us turn that blessing back to those around us, serving God by serving others.

— Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, November 17, 2024

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Jesus is Willing – Matthew 8:1-17

This passage includes multiple stories of Jesus healing. It comes immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus focuses on the upside-down values of the Kingdom of God versus the glorification of strength in the world around. He addresses the spiritual source of sin versus only the outer actions – hatred and lust versus murder and adultery. And finally he takes apart the religious leaders and their hypocrisy. The Sermon blows the minds of those who heard it – “because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.”

Having established his authority with his words, this passage tells us how he then did so with his actions.

Scripture tells us “You have not because you ask not.” Many of us put ourselves and our needs aside, not wanting to be a bother, not wanting to be a disappointment, but this is not the attitude we are to have with God. We see that in this story – a man who has been suffering and outcast finds it in himself to bring himself to the feet of Jesus and asks. “If you want to, you can heal me.” And Jesus says, “Yes, I want to.”

This healing is more than a physical healing – it touches the man’s spiritual, emotional even social and economic situation. In the same way, Jesus seeks to heal us in those same ways.

Next up, a centurion comes to Jesus. This man is everything the leperous man was not – powerful, foreign, healthy. But he comes to Jesus across a cultural and ethnic boundary to seek healing for a servant. Jesus responds in kind – again, Jesus is willing.

The next healing is closer to home. Peter’s mother-in-law, who would have been known to Jesus and all his disciples. She is sick, but in this case we don’t even see her ask for healing. But Jesus is willing, even when we do not ask.

And Jesus is willing to take on the repercussions of the healing. The stories of him healing go viral (so to speak) and that evening he is swarmed by people begging for healing. And once again, He is willing.

Matthew connects that willingness to Jesus role as Messiah and as the one who gives humanity its ultimate healing. He quotes Isaiah briefly, but the full passage is:

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:4-6

Jesus is willing, even to the cross. We also have the opportunity to be willing – we can cross the boundaries of culture, of socioeconomics, of comfort. When we do so, Jesus is willing and will bring healing in. Jesus is willing. Are we?

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

Images created with Midjourney.

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The Wilderness – Matthew 4:1-11

This story comes right after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, a moment of recognition and glory. But rather than capitalizing on that momentum, the Holy Spirit immediately sends Him to the desert to fast.

Fasting is not the easiest is spiritual disciplines, and extending it to 40 days is beyond intense. The reason we fast is that we are taking something we both need and want and giving it up in order to make room to focus on the love, words she presence of God. You can also fast from other things that may distract us from completely focusing on Jesus.

Moses and Elijah also fasted for 40 days, while the Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the desert. Jesus himself ties these concepts together in the scriptures that He cites, all of which were from Deuteronomy.

The question of food and fasting is addressed directly in the first of Satan’s attacks. We see the direct connection here to the Israelites who grumbled and got “hangry” when food stores ran low, much like we do when things don’t go our way. But Jesus replied with the message that God’s provision goes far beyond our conception our abilities. The specific reference Jesus uses explicitly refers to manna, the tangible reminder and evidence of God’s provision – free food every morning! – and also His desire for us to trust in Him daily – if you try to store our hoard or, it spoils.

So Satan tries again, taking Jesus to the top of the temple and encouraging him to demonstrate His authority. But Jesus replies again with a reference to the Exodus: “Do not put the LORD your God to the test”- they next few words are “as you did at Massah.” This goes from food to water, because Massah is where the Israelites grumbled and quarreled when they couldn’t get water. Water is even more vital than food, and again in that story God provided what was needed. There are two stories where God uses Moses to do this. In the first, in Exodus 17, God tells Moses to strike the rock and water comes out of it. Then in Numbers 33 we see the same thing again, but this time God tells Moses to command the Rock verbally – and instead, Moses strikes the Rock again – twice! Among other things, this is a reminder that we are tempted to go back to old traditions, and even doubling down on them, rather than seeking what God is speaking to our community right now. Once again, it comes back to the Word of God and trusting Him for our provision rather than taking matters into our own hands.

Next, Satan goes all in, taking Jesus to a mountain – maybe not a real mountain – and showing off the kingdoms of the world and offering all the worldly glory and power that there is. Satan offers him empire and control of the sort the world understands. But Jesus remains on mission, which is based on the process, just as much as the outcome – emptying Himself of power and glory in order to take them up again. Losing in order to win, dying in order to live and bring life.

We ourselves are tempted to put other things ahead of our mission, to seek to achieve our ends by kissing the wrong rings, which always ends up warping what we may have wanted. When we substitute our own image for the image of God, when we are discontent with the place we are put and the gifts we are given – all these are ways we bow down to Not-God, seeking the power and glory of the world.

But Christ’s instruction to us is the same as His answer to the Devil – “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 26, 2023

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Nontraditional Family – Matthew 1:18-25

Today we look at the story of Joseph, and his response to God’s plan. Those of us who have had children that have gotten older often miss the times when our children would jump into our arms, triggering our parental instincts and desires to protect and provide. We promise to keep our children safe, but ultimately we know that we don’t have full control, we can’t be with them every second. For that matter, we ourselves are sinful people, and at times we ourselves will hurt the ones we love.

Consider these feelings and instincts in the person of Joseph, within his patriarchal cultural contact. All his plans and hopes and expectations, gone in a moment.

We hear this story all the time, and may associate the Holy Family with the cozy Western peppermint mocha-style of Christmas. But the reality is not particularly cozy.

Joseph’s world would have been completely upended, and he likely felt hurt and upset. A natural response would be a desire for revenge, but even though he has lost face and felt hurt, he did not want to cause more pain or expose Mary to public disgrace. He would let her go away quietly and live the rest of her life as best she could.

While we may not have gone through that, we have certainly gone through our own dark night of the soul. Loss, disruption, betrayal, our world upended and our future thrown into doubt.

But it is into this darkness and storm, that God speaks the words of the angel to Joseph – God is with us.

And so when he woke up, he did as instructed. Most of us would rather avoid these situations, and the pain and emotions that go along with stuck disruption. But Joseph engages with it, living with the fact that he is no longer in control, and that his life was not going to be what he expected. Joseph is faithful, listens to the voice of the Lord and obeys. We have the same opportunity in our lives.

And when we do this, we have new possibilities. Even amid the challenges that come in that difficult situations, God acts. He did things in the middle of a chaotic, oppressive tax accounting scheme. He did things with a family seeking refuge from political violence. When we ourselves are fearful, anxious, greedy, jealous, vindictive, hurt – God is with us.

The bonds within the Holy Family were not the traditional bonds – the child was not conceived in the traditional way, and the parents did not even come together physically. This is something adoptive families, blended families, broken families can all look to.

And all of us can find hope in the promise that God is with us.

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church Lynnwood, WA, December 18, 2022

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Are You the One? – Matthew 11:2-11

Waiting and longing are difficult parts of life. We all have longings and desires, and when those desires are put off, it is hard. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” The best example for many of us is our longing to be married when we were single. We have a hole that needs to be filled, but have to wait for that to happen, and the waiting is painful.

This was the state of the people of Israel, which we can see in the persons of Simeon and of Anna, waiting and longing for the redemption of Israel for decades.

John the Baptist is in a similar situation in this passage. His whole life, from before he was even born, was bent towards preparing the way for the messiah. He preaches about his coming, calls the people to repentance to prepare, even baptizes Jesus Himself. But now he finds himself in prison, hearing about Jesus’ ministry – and it doesn’t sound like what he expected.

John had been preaching a strict message of repentance, a firm and strong word. It jived with the expectations of the people for a strong military leader who would lead them against the Romans. But John hears about Jesus’ ministry – eating and drinking, sermons of love and joy, healings. John may have expected something very different, and so he sends disciples to demand of Jesus whether He really is who John has been hoping and longing for.

And Jesus answers by pointing to the prophecies of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

Isaiah 61:1

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

Isaiah 35:5-6

Jesus makes the point here that His ministry must look very different than John’s – John is a prophet, the greatest of prophets, but Jesus is the fulfillment of all that prophecy. He is here to turn everything upside down – when He came, everything changed.

Today, we live in that change, we live in that kingdom where the least are greatest abs the greatest are least.

But we can still feel like John at times, both in specific circumstances and in our broader faith journey. Like John, we wonder if this really is the place we are to be, we may even wonder if Jesus is who we think He is.

Like John, we should look around us for what work Christ is doing in the world – because he is always at work, healing and loving and bringing the good news of His Kingdom.

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, December 11, 2022

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Fire and Fruit – Matthew 3:1-12

We are introduced to John the Baptist in this passage, and he comes onto the scene with one very clear message – repent! This message is not quite the one we think of at the time of Christmas, but it’s hard to miss this clear, hard message from a hard man. John serves as a bridge from the prophets of the Old Testament to the gospel of the New Testament. Elsewhere, Matthew describes John as a second Elijah.

John lived apart from the culture and away from the population centers – he set the pattern later picked up by the Desert Fathers of the early church as well as the broader monastic orders. John serves as the model, establishing himself away from the rest of the world but serving as a magnet for people seeking the truth being shared – truth about sin and repentance.

How do we talk about sin and repentance? Some talk about it in the context of judgement, others in terms of broken relationship with God, others in a more postmodern way, addressing our behavior in relation to our own personal beliefs.

John’s role was to call for paths to be made straight, to point Jesus out to people in a way that was clear, insisting that his listeners reorient themselves around the coming Messiah. John’s whole identity was as a witness to the person of Christ. He spent a lot of time insisting he was not the Christ, but pointed the way to Him.

Carl Ellis describes a matrix of righteousness, addressing the personal and social working out of both piety and justice. As evangelicals, we tend to live in the personal piety quadrant nearly all the time, while other traditions may live more in the social quadrants. The challenge is to seek righteousness in a holistic way.

This was the challenge laid out by John the Baptist, looking ahead to Jesus who will make all things new. Some of that new-making, though, will be destructive, an axe at the root of the tree. These processes can be painful, but “joy comes in the morning.”

As a church we have felt like we have been in a time of wilderness. As a society, as well. And so our responsibility is to, as John instructs, produce fruit in keeping with repentance – to emulate John, speaking the truth that clears the way for the truth of Christ’s love to enter all situations.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, December 4, 2022

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Your Mission Profile – Matthew 28:16-20

Matthew’s account of the resurrection & Jesus’ ministry afterwards is very terse and brief, only a few verses. He zeroes directly into the question “what is our mission in the light of the resurrection?”

In the last few verses of his gospel, Matthew tells us a few things. The disciples meet Jesus and worship him – but some doubted. This was not a purely emotional reaction of a bunch of credulous rubes, but an interaction with a true thing that took time to process and understand – and God has patience with us as we do that.

Then the story moves immediately to the Great Commission – but we should carefully consider the premise that Jesus begins with before we come to the instructions themselves. “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” What is there in existence that Jesus does not rule? Nothing. As Americans, we have difficulty with the concept of authority, but Jesus is clear about the situation here. And this authority is the context of the Great Commission – it’s not merely an idea or a suggestion, it is a command. It is a job description for the job of “Christian.”

But there is context at the end of the command as well – “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He is with us in this process.

Something to note, though, is the nature of this command. The instruction here is not to be a disciple, but to make disciples – the instructions here are being given to those who are disciples. We are disciples, and our task is to make more disciples. Too often, we see our purpose as Christians to be about our internal spiritual life or Bible reading our personal morality or our systematic belief structure. All of these things are good and important. But Jesus is clear here that the purpose of all of it is to make disciples.

Within that, there are three subordinate commands – go, baptize, teach. We are to “go.” We are not to live in a “holy huddle” but to live outward focused. We are to baptize – to preach the gospel and usher others into the saving relationship with Christ. And we are to teach the instruction of Christ to those who have been saved.

We can study the Bible all we want – we can even train others to study the Bible. But unless that study is turning us into people who represent Christ well, we are not doing what Christ instructs.

Studies show that all of us have 8-15 people in our lives we are uniquely qualified to minister to, some Christians and some not, but we all have someone.

We live in the era of the Resurrection, and in this era we have a mission to fulfill. How is your life designed to make disciples?

– Sermon Notes, Jeff Sickles, Snohomish Evangelical Free Church, Snohomish, WA, April 24, 2022