Tag: New Testament

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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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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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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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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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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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Glorifying God is Art, Not Science – 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1

Many Christians see the world in black and white, and spend their lives seeking to perfectly understand the specific “thou shalt nots” in every circumstance. The problem is that Christianity is not about rules, but about relationship – not just between God and man, but between the body of Christ and the people He came to save. We can’t apply scientific principles and come out perfectly with the right answer every time, because we must take into account things like mercy, compassion and forgiveness. Christianity is an art, not a science.

Paul’s system of ethics is on one hand Continue reading “Glorifying God is Art, Not Science – 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1”

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Evangelism: Train to Compete to Win – 1 Corinthians 9:23-27

The story of the apostle Paul is an inspirational comeback story along the lines of any tale of underdog sports champions. From his rescue from his previous life through suffering, shipwreck, temptation and more. He is described as “a man small in size, bald-headed, bow-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed.” From this unlikely source came some of the most powerful evangelism the world has ever seen: dozens of churches, thousands of converts, many scriptures, and the foundation of the body of Christ across Europe and Asia.

In this book thus far, Paul had told the Corinthians that, first, being loving is more important than being right. Second, he himself has adjusted his behavior to their weakness, as he is calling them to do. Here, he gives us the “why?” to all this. He uses an athletic metaphor, well understood by the Corinthians, hosts of the Isthmian Games.

The method of qualification for these games, held in off years when the Olympics were not, was to go through a certain exercise and training regimen for 10 months. If they shirked their training, they would be disqualified. There was only a single winner, as Paul observes here.

Paul’s point here is that he devotes himself to victory in the same way athletes do. Winners plan to win. Victory is the goal, not second place. This requires training, preparation and self-control, pushing through the boring redundancy of training. Winners make sacrifices to win.

Paul’s other point is that he trains specifically to compete. He doesn’t run for fun or shadow box for entertainment. Winners train to compete, not train to train. Paul’s rigid discipline is not for its own sake, but is aimed at winning the prize.

But what is that prize? What is the meaning of this metaphor of victory and disqualification?

Some see “winning” in this case as eternal life in heaven. Paul is working so hard to avoid losing his salvation. This is the position of both the Roman Catholic church and Wesleyans. John Wesley specifically cited this passage as evidence against eternal security and Calvinism as a whole.

Another version of this sees it also as being about salvation, but from the point of view of predestination. If we don’t keep up our training, then we had gone through a false conversion of some kind and were never truly followers of Christ. This view also draws upon the parable of the sower and other passages that urge us to persevere to the end. If we are a true believer, that is what we will do.

However, this passage is probably not about eternal life at all, but rather about eternal rewards. We see this concept of crowns throughout the New Testament, the notion that there are rewards for Christians who actively seek God’s favor. This ties back to Paul’s earlier discussion of judgement of believers, with some being rewarded and others barely escaping “through the flames.”

In more direct context, Paul specifically refers to the rewards of evangelism. Each convert, each church is reward that Paul shares in. Elsewhere, he calls the churches in Philippi and Thessalonica his “crowns”. This is what he trains for, suffers for and endures for.

Each of us has our own role in the process, but the call ultimately is the same, as are the rewards we seek. It’s not that everyone needs to be a single, letter-writing traveling missionary. As Paul wrote just earlier, we should work within the station we are given.

But we also can’t go too far in that direction – we are called to participate in gospel work somehow. We can’t just live out a secular life and call it missional. In all we do, we must be working to draw people closer to God, even if in a very small way.

One important key is intentionality, just like Paul described with the athletic metaphor. We must train and prepare ourselves, mentally, biblically and spiritually, to participate in evangelism. We need to have to the tools to take advantage of and create opportunities.

Winners train to compete and compete to win. Too often, Christians train just to train. We must train in order to act. If a church holds a class called “Better Ways to Share Your Faith,” it could be very popular. But if a church holds that same class with the promise that on week 4, everyone would be required to share the gospel with 3 people, that class would be nearly empty.

If churches were to devote themselves to training, preparation and action towards sharing the gospel, we would see amazing things happen.

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

1 Corinthians 9:23-27
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Freedom Bullies – 1 Corinthians 8

Paul here addresses the danger of elevating truth above love. The Corinthians would have been raised from childhood to be superstitious and fearful of gods and demons everywhere. You had to placate the good gods and fear, avoid the bad ones.

Even after hearing the truth of the gospel, the conditioning persists. Some might be positive associations. Others might be bad, bringing up feelings of guilt surrounding other things that were connected to idolatry or false gods. This would include the meat at the temple meat market.

Meat that was purified would have been offered to the gods, with the priests using a third and generally selling it to the market. Some might not have any issues with it, being aware that the temple rituals were entirely false and empty. Others had more guilt around it, whether from false beliefs about false gods, from guilt or to avoid temptation.

But this was not a live-and-let-live situation. Those without issues were shoving it in the face of those who avoided the meat. Paul writes to address this “freedom bullying”.

These freedom bullies rested on their knowledge. “We all possess knowledge,” they write. But Paul tells them that their knowledge is incomplete, and that their surety in their knowledge in fact reveals their ignorance compared to true knowledge.

He brings it back from truth and freedom to relationships, between us and God and within the body. God affirms those who love, not those who are always right.

In verses 4-6, Paul quotes an earlier letter from these freedom bullies, which itself quotes an early creed. To emphasize their knowledge, they quote directly the theological justification for their position. Paul does not argue with the accuracy of their position.

Elsewhere, in Romans, Paul addresses this question of the “weaker brother”. Weakness is not sin – in fact, sin would be acting against their weak conscience. Weakness is not necessarily an all-encompassing characteristic. It is in regards to this specific situation. Every Christian is both weak and strong in different situations.

The word “weak” here refers to overall human limitations, from illness, to lack of physical strength, to deficiency of knowledge. All of us grow and change our knowledge and beliefs. Some of us more innately feel guilt than others. We all have deficiencies due to conditioning, illogical reactions arising out of our experiences.

Paul tells us that God understands these differences, takes them into account and wants us to take them into account in our relationships with each other. The “strong” Corinthians wanted, to some degree legitimately, to move people along out of their deficiencies. But in pushing people to do what they felt was wrong, it was pushing people to sin, and in this specific case, pressuring people back into situations where they could slip back into the life of idolatry. And that pressure itself is a sin.

In the end, it is better to love than to be right. This is a relational directive, but it is not a systemic directive. When you create a system out of these instructions, it creates a “tyranny of the weak” in which everything is a sin and those with weak consciences have full power over those without.

Fortunately for us, Christ does not wait for us to have full knowledge or lack of weakness before he enters into relationship with us. Christ’s love comes to us before Christ’s truth. We should go and do likewise.

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

1 Corinthians 8
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God’s Ideal for Marriage – 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Christianity teaches that marriage was created by God, and the story of God’s ideal for marriage begins in the Garden of Eden Adam saw the need for a female counterpart, and God declared it “not good for a man to be alone”. So Eve was created as a “helper” – a term used for God Himself, which is elsewhere translated “savior”. She is was taken out of Adam and then reattached as one flesh through the spiritual and physical union.

This concept of one flesh, seamless unity, is also the picture of union we see in the trinity. The unity of marriage is itself a picture of the relational unity of the trinity. Marriage was monogamous. Polygamy was not in the original intent, and the polygamy we see in the bible never goes well. Marriage was heterosexual, a union of a male and female both for the unification of two contrasting bodies and the potential for reproduction.

Note that the “image of God” is applied to both male and female together, not one or the other. Note also that this has nothing to do with hobbies, preferences, talents, etc.

Marriage was pleasurable, and sex is pleasurable. God invented the orgasm.

Marriage was permanent, a life-long commitment. The concept of divorce came far later.

Marriage unites two people equal in value. Eve was not created as a maid.

Marriage at its core brings together two soul-mates as partners.

All this is a picture of Christ’s relationship to the church. Christ is in unity with the church, derives pleasure from the church and eternally faithful to us. But in the garden, we see things go wrong. Adam and Eve are apart, and the seraph Lucifer persuades Eve to disobey, and she does the same for Adam.

God then lays out the consequences for each gender. Women, generally speaking, have a hole in their heart that they try to fill with men, none of whom can fill out. This is the pattern we see where women seek love and men seek respect. And so we so frequently see marriages dissolving into frustration rather than being the beautiful union of soul mates and picture of Christ’s love they are meant to be. But the problem is not with the model or the nature of marriage – it is about the Fall and our sin.

That is what Paul is addressing here – a church in a culture with an even more messed up marriage situation than we have today. In Greco-Roman cultures, men had full legal power over wives, could divorce them for any reason, and could sleep with other women without any consequences.

In Judaism, things were also bad. Men could practice polygamy, which meant they could never be guilty of adultery, only women. Wives could be abandoned but still married and controlled by the husband, unable to remarry. Many would have to turn to prostitution.

The message from Paul, then, was radical, particularly in regards to the rights of women. Men and women were each given rights and responsibilities in the marriage and the marriage bed. But Paul was also more restrictive in some ways – specifically, restricting marriage and the marriage bed to only one husband and one wife.

How do we apply this? First, Radical Commitment. Divorce is relegated only to the most extreme circumstances. We are to approach marriage in a different way than anything else we do. We cannot come to marriage with a “commit and quit” mindset. This is not a job we can take until something better comes along. It’s not an instrument that we can take up and then drop when practice turns out to be mundane. We cannot come to a marriage with an eject button in our minds. We must come into marriage with without divorce as an option. But we also cannot just sit around with the notion that things will “just work themselves out.” Marriage must be fought for continually, and cannot be left to drift.

Second, Radical Reconciliation. Paul was writing to people who were feeling like they needed to separate for some reason, whether “spiritual” reasons or more usual ones. He calls them here to leave the door open for reconciliation.

Third, Radical Selflessness. Paul, not as a command but as an apostolic exhortation, calls Christians married to non-Christians to stay with them. The “sanctification” in this context is likely that which Peter talks about when he writes that we are to “sanctify Christ in our hearts” and suffer for him. We prioritize Christ over our suffering and discomfort. And a married person who finds Christ should likewise prioritize their non-Christian spouse – perhaps living that way will reveal Christ to the other.

Selfishness can happen when we try to fix our spouse so that we can be happy, rather than serve them and love them. Or, alternately, we may focus on ourselves and our problems at the expense of our spouse. For a marriage to be healthy, we both must serve and be served. When both of us are giving more than we are taking, that is where the wholeness and beauty of marriage can be seen.

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

1 Corinthians 7:10-16
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