Tag: New Testament

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The Persistent Philadelphians – Revelation 3:7-13

A serious earthquake like the one in Ridgecrest, California the other day is a stark reminder that we are not, ultimately, in control. The church of Philadelphia knew how this went – the city had been destroyed by an earthquake, about 80 years earlier. The congregation there lived in an unstable world in more ways than one.

Jesus opens again with a description of himself, though this time he does not refer explicitly back to the earlier description. Instead, it is a direct reference to Isaiah 22:22, when Isaiah condemns Shebna, the steward of king Hezekiah. It is a clear reference to the deity of Christ, but also an introduction to the concept of the door, which Jesus goes on to expand upon.

He has given them an open door “which no one can shut.” This picture of a door is used across the New Testament as both the door to the Kingdom of Heaven and as a door of opportunity for good works.

The Philadelphians were struggling with the local synagogues, who were expelling the Christians, shutting the doors on them. But Jesus opens a more important door, the door to God’s kingdom.

Like the church at Smyrna, this church receives no censure. Both of these churches were explicitly weak and powerless in the secular world. Like Paul, their weakness kept them from becoming conceited. Paul asked three times for his weakness to be taken away, but once he accepted it, he thanked God for his weakness, because it was a way for Christ to demonstrate His strength.

This is what the Church in Philadelphia was living. The large, strong, growing churches among the seven churches were those with the most spiritual failures.

But Christ promises that the persecutors would ultimately see the truth of His love, and that He would protect the church in the midst of the coming adversity.

Jesus then promises that He is “coming soon.” It has not felt soon, but as Peter noted, “a thousand years is like a day” to the Lord. Regardless of how or when or in what form that eventually takes, we are called to be ready: to endure and to hold fast.

And in this city of earthquakes and instability, Christ will make them a pillar, with the names of the Father, the Son and the City of God engraved on it. What names are carved on us now?

If you go to Philadelphia today, all that is left of the city, appropriately, are three pillars of the Basilica of St. John. The region around the city was a site of wars and conquest for centuries. Eventually, it was all conquered by Islamic forces, but the church of Philadelphia, with “but little power,” lasted longest, into the 12th century as a formal body.

The endurance and persistence of the Philadelphian church is something for us to aspire to, and something we have seen in our history.

Jesus wants faith, not strength.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, July 7, 2019

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Compromising Pergamum – Revelation 2:12-17″

All seven of the churches written to in Revelation were unaware of something that Jesus was aware of, and Pergamum was no exception. In this case, there were problems. Something we should consider in all these cases is, if we were at this church, would we be part of the problem or part of the solution?

Pergamum was a cultural center, home to a major library, and major temples to a number of gods including Asclepius, the god of healing. Pergamum was also the home of Galen, the preeminent medical expert of the Roman Era.

There was also a temple to Zeus high above the city on the acropolis, which may be what Jesus is referring to when he mentions “Satan’s throne”. It certainly would have been a reminder to the Christians of the city that they were a tiny minority at the mercy of the surrounding culture and government.

But Jesus tells them that he knows all about what they are undergoing, that he knows their faith and perseverance. He knows by name those who suffered and even died, such as Antipas. Today, while we in general are safe and comfortable, there are numbers that indicate that more Christians are being martyred globally today than in all history previous. Crises like this are certainly tests of where our relationship with Christ ranks in our lives, but the ranking itself happens long before a crisis. But the church at Pergamum is commended for doing this well.

But it’s not all positive. They are falling prey to a teaching that Jesus relates to the story of Balaam, who encouraged the Israelites to participate in pagan festivals and rituals. This is much the same as what the Nicolaitans were encouraging, in the context of loosening moral boundaries especially in regards to pagan rituals and their sexual components.

This is particularly relevant to us. We and the church at Pergamum both live in a culture that devalue the sanctity of marriage, and where sexual immorality is easy and available. Jesus warns them and us that if they do not stop this, he will “war against them” – and we should consider if some of the scandals and problems coming up in various churches today are not in fact Jesus going to war. We know that God’s love means discipline, just as the love of a parent means discipline.

So we should consider what in our lives Jesus may be unhappy with. How have we been compromising? What do we need to change and repent of?

But if we do repent and persevere, Christ here promises manna – the heavenly feast to replace the pagan festivals – and a white stone, privileged access to the throne of God, high above the throne of Satan.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, June 16, 2019

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Suffering Smyrna – Revelation 2:8-11

The letter to the church in Smyrna forces us to wrestle with something we may not want to wrestle with: the fact that following Jesus may itself bring suffering. We prefer the verses about Christ being our peace or his burden being light. That’s true, but so is suffering. Especially today, the problem of human suffering is something that often drives people – especially Western people who are themselves not intimate with suffering – away from the church. See Bart Ehrlman for one example.

Smyrna, today called Izmir, was a large port city about 50 miles north of Ephesus, very loyal to Rome. There was a patriotic ritual of loyalty to Rome involving putting incense into fire and declaring “Caesar is Lord”. This presented a challenge to the Christians at Smyrna, and this letter makes it clear that there would be suffering that would ensue.

Christ here introduces himself as “the first and the last,” a title given to God originally in Isaiah. He adds “who died and came to life” – both titles are there to give confidence to the church. Christ is greater than Caesar and greater than death.

Next comes the evaluation. Smyrna gets no criticism. Instead, he acknowledges their tribulation and their poverty. They may have been poor because the converts there originally came from the poorer classes, or as a result of persecution. Either way, the “health and wealth” gospel was not working for them. But to Jesus, their poverty was in fact wealth. Even in their material poverty, in the midst of the material wealth of Smyrna, it was the church that had the eternal advantage.

Next we hear about the “synagogue of Satan” – which can sound antisemitic to our ears. But recall that everyone involved in this conversation is, in fact, Jewish. It seems that there was a wealthy Jewish community that was making life difficult for the Christians in Smyrna, and here Christ is saying that their group is not, in fact, pointed to the living God, but rather Satan the accuser. This is the same way Christ rebuked Peter treats before – anyone who opposes the work of God is, in effect, on the side of Satan.

Next, Jesus gives counsel. He does not tell them that he will rescue them, but he does tell them not to fear what they are about to suffer. Specifically, they are about to suffer, with many of them thrown into prison. Prison was not the penalty, but rather the holding tank until the penalty, whether death or slavery. They are called to be faithful unto death. Smryna itself means “myrrh” – the incense that releases its aroma only when crushed.

This calls to mind Paul’s prayer that Christ remove the thorn in his flesh. Christ answered no: “my grace is sufficient for you.” We love grace, but do we love it when that is all there is?

The letter closes with a promise that they will, ultimately, be rescued from the final suffering.

We aren’t undergoing the same persecution as the Smyrnans, but remember that they were not persecuted because of what they believed, but because of how they lived it out. What would you do if your faith and duty to Christ brought you into conflict with your duty as a patriotic American?

What does it mean to be faithful unto death? First, to be confident in Christ’s sovereignty. You may not have all the answers, but if you have confidence that Christ was what he said he was and did what we are told he did, that is a firm foundation, even in the midst of the suffering that we are promised will come.

Second, being faithful to Christ means being convinced of Christ’s care. Even when it feels like He is silent, or even at against us. Eventually, Jesus will be all any of us have, as we walk through the dark river of death. Seek to make Christ alone enough, because at some point that will be ask we have.

Finally, we should be contented with Christ’s promises. Those promises are relatively simple: life everlasting and immunity from the second death.

One of John’s disciples was Polycarp, who eventually became the bishop of Smyrna. The persecution of the church in Smyrna continued, and Polycarp was eventually captured and given the opportunity to recant. Polycarp replied:

86 years have I have served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?

He was then martyred. He would have been a young man when this letter was originally read, and it is likely that these words of Christ in his ears. He knew early on that the plan of Christ includes suffering. We have the same message – are we prepared?

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, June 2, 2019

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Losing Love – Revelation 2:1-7

Jesus sees beyond the superficial and sees the “congenital heart defects” of both people and churches. Here, he specifically looks at the church at Ephesus.

Ephesus was a large city, a quarter million people strong, and a popular site for religious tourism because of the Temple of Diana or Artemis, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It was a site of refuge for criminals, vs and once been a port city before the harbor silted in.

The church had a large number of high profile leaders. Paul was there for three years, the longest anywhere, along with Timothy, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos, Tychicus, John – a “Who’s Who” of the early church. The books of 1 and 2 Timothy were written to Timothy while he was pastoring there.

Ephesus also features prominently in the book of Acts. The teaching of Paul began impacting the sale of silver idols, and so a silversmith named Demetrius stirred up the people to riot against the Apostles. All this to say, it was a prominent, important city and church.

The letter to the Ephesians here has the same format as those that follow. It starts with an introduction, describing Jesus in the context of the vision that John has just had. In this case, Jesus uses the vision of stars and lampstands to explicitly remind the church at Ephesus that, no matter how large, prominent and important it was, that they were a part of something even greater and broader.

Next comes evaluation. It starts with praise for the hard work and perseverance, as well as their discernment. Years before, as described in Acts 20, Paul explicitly warned the elders of the church to care for their flock and to protect them from the false teachers that would emerge, even from within their own body. The seem to have taken the warning seriously based on this praise. They have endured patiently and not grown weary. When considering that this church was essentially founded in the midst of a riot, this endurance is no small thing.

But Jesus goes on. They had abandoned, released, let go, even divorced themselves from the “love they had at first.” Mark Galli, editor of Christianity Today recently described how this sort of thing emerged in his own life:

It may have been as the result of hearing a sermon, or perhaps reading a book. But I distinctly remember thinking that my Christian life was sorely lacking in the love of God. I didn’t have any affection for or yearning to know and love God. I wasn’t angry with him. I didn’t doubt his existence. I wasn’t wrestling with the problem of evil. I was being a faithful Christian as best I knew how. But it occurred to me that I didn’t feel any love for God…

I was living as a practical atheist, meaning my personal relationship with God did not really affect much inside me. I was at the time managing editor of Christianity Today, so naturally I edited and wrote a lot of things that were Christian to the core. But I realized that if I never prayed again, that I could still be a very good editor at a Christian publication, and a very good church member at my local parish. I knew how to get along with others, to manage staff, to work with my superiors, to work with fellow church members, and to write on Christian spirituality. But prayer wasn’t necessary to do all that. These other matters were all learned skills that had more or less become good habits. My personal relationship with God really didn’t make any difference.

This lack of love itself may have been a result of their dogged opposition to heresy. Did they perhaps get so good at hating what was evil that they forgot to love?

Next, Christ offers counsel – repent, turn, change. There is a threat there, too: if they do not change, their lampstand will be removed.

Then an aside – after calling out their lack of love, they get praised for hating properly. The Nicolaitans were a heresy that said that personal behavior and morality were unimportant. To love well, we must know how and what to hate (note that they hate the works, rather than the people themselves). We must hate threats to our children if we are to love and protect them.

Then it closes with the promise that those who conquer, those who reclaim their first love, they will be restored and eat from the tree of life, a restoration of the cosmic story of Eden.

Some lessons we can take from this. First, love discerns. It seeks the best for others but does so thoughtfully and

Love fades. If it is not kept powered from some other source, like entropy in any system, it will decline. We must go back to the source of love.

Finally, love revives. When we do go back to that source, we can find ourselves revived. Going back to Mark Galli, his prayer was “Lord, help me to want to love you.”

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, May 26, 2019

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Road Map to the Seven Letters – Revelation 1:17-20

A reason to love these chapters, the letters to the churches, is that they are about the lordship of Christ over his churches. That is where we have to start if we are talking about church vitality or other issues of that sort.

One of the things Jesus is doing here is setting up a vision and understanding of himself that shows that he is greater than Caesar, greater than the Roman governors of military – and in our time greater than the media, the culture or a political power.

John had this vision while exiled to the island of Patmos. The first thing he sees are these seven stars and lampstands, representing seven churches sequentially. They were all along a 300 mile route, about equivalent to driving from Lynnwood to Yakima and then back across the mountains to Chehalis.

The lampstands are easy – these are the churches, as Jesus said. The stars are more confusing. Jesus calls them “the angels of the churches”, which the early church fathers interpreted as the Bishops or the pastors of the churches. Others take it more literally – it says angels and must mean angels, heavenly beings, like in the rest of the book, and be some kind of guardian angel. Whatever it means, it is a representation of the church as a whole, because that is who the letters are addressed to.

Each church gets a specific introduction to Jesus that references a piece of John’s vision of Him. Each church is told “I know you,” and each church gets a review of sorts.

There is a mix of commendation and criticism for the churches. Two get no commendation and two get no criticism, and there are some surprises in terms of which churches get which. What would a letter to Seed Church look like?

After the introduction and evaluation for each church comes advice. For five of the seven, the word is relatively straightforward: repent. You are doing what you should not, and must change. Each piece of advice is tailored to each church.

Also tailor-made is the next part, the promise made to each church.

While all of this is tailored to these churches, we must pay attention to all of it, because we don’t necessarily know what stage or situation we are in.

One lesson we can take from this is about handling conflict. Sometimes in a church or friendship or other relationship, one person, A, has a problem with another, B. Assuming it is not something small enough to move past, there are options. A could go directly to B. Usually, though, A will go to C, often under the guise of a “prayer concern”. Then C goes to D and F goes to E and F and so on and so forth. This is typical of any small community, and social media of course has exacerbated it.

This is called “triangulation” can lead to what Jim Van Up calls “Death by Triangulation”. We must be careful about how we “pray” for people.

What we are called to, instead, is healthy confrontation. We see this in these letters – Jesus does not drag other churches into the letters, but rather addresses each honestly ABC directly.

These letters are to seven specific churches, at a specific moment in history, but there is an eighth church. Ours. So as we go through these letters, consider what we can take away from it as that eighth church.

One thing we can take away from it is that Jesus cares about each Christian – individually and as a church. Jesus cares about congregations. “If you love me, you will love the church.” Where does John find Jesus? In the midst of the churches. The only direct, written communication we have from Jesus is to churches. Salvation is a group project. “Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.”

Second, we can know that Jesus cares about our busyness. He knows and cares about our service. But he also cares about our holiness. No matter how busy these churches were, Jesus looked at their hearts and called them out on their wrong motives or toleration of sin in their midst. If there is an area of your life where you are tolerating sin that you should not, today would be a good day to confess and repent.

Third, these letters tell us that Jesus cares about our trials, and about our triumph. The churches are constantly called to overcome. Jesus does not give up on us.

The same Jesus who walked among those seven lampstands walks among our churches now. Is he encouraged by what he sees?

– Sermon Notes, Revelation 1:17-20, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, May 19, 2019

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Glory in the Church

There is a saying: “two men looked out of prison bars; one saw the mud, the other the stars.” The scriptures are very honest about the mud and muck of life, but it also calls us to look beyond that. This passage in Ephesians is a clear call to raise our gaze and look to the hope of God.

The church in Ephesus was a small group surrounded by a wealthy civilization with well-articulated philosophies and religions. And yet this shall group went on to conquer the Roman empire – much as was promised in this passage. 

The book of Ephesians was a circular letter to Asia Minor that may not have even been meant for that church in particular, though it was certainly sent there. In the book he addresses the division between Jew and Gentile, and how that division was bridged by Christ, and how corporately we all together are the Temple of God, with Christ as the cornerstone.

The Ephesians certainly understood the concept of a temple, being the home of one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis, where Paul got himself into some trouble with some silversmiths.

In contrast, though, the Christian temple is not a breathtaking stone building, but rather a unity of Jew and gentile, man and woman, rich and poor, slave and free, weak and strong.

Because of this, Paul calls on us not to lose heart. We have the very power of God within acs behind us, according to the riches of the glory of the Father, strengthened by the power by the Spirit so that Christ may live in our hearts. The entire Trinity is at work here.

This is the only passage in the Bible that directly describes Jesus living in our hearts, but the concept is driven throughout – in Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.”

The Greek word for “dwell” here means to stay in the place that is your home – Christ is not a guest at your heart’s hotel, but rather it is to be His home. All the rooms and locked closets are his, all the TVs and computers and all. Christ’s lordship touches all aspects of life, which is all to be rooted and founded in love. 

That love is what brought their church together. It was not the personality of the pastor or the technology or the quality of the band. Rather, we come together as a church because salvation is a group project. We are saved individually, but we only learn to love when we are in relationship with one another. We need each other, and we need each other most acutely where we want it the least.

Many years later, Jesus himself wrote a letter to the Ephesians. Much of it was encouraging, but Christ called them out for having abandoned the love that first brought them together.

The purpose of all of this, per verse 19, is that we are filled with the fullness of God. The question then becomes, how big is your God? Many of us struggle with an image of God that is too small, and many then reject His because He didn’t behave like the small version of God we have in our minds.

Paul’s vision of God here, is able to do far more than we can ask, more than we can think or even imagine – again, according to the power within us. And to Him belongs the glory in the church.

The glory in the church looks like perseverance, especially for us as we work through transition.

What can we take from this prayer? It can guide our own prayers. We should pray for a Christ-centered life for ourselves dvd others. We should pray for a love-filled church, and pray for a God-sized faith. And as Paul has just reminded us, that size is pretty big.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, February 17, 2019

Ephesians 2:14-21

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Do Not Grow Weary of Doing Good – Galatians 6:7-10

This passage brings to mind Jonathan Edwards, considered the greatest theological mind America had ever produced. He famously set down 70 resolutions for himself that

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is an emotional defense of justification by faith alone and the work of the Holy Spirit. In this section, his primary concern is that we do not give up. He gives two guarantees to strengthen our resolve. First, that we will reap what sow, and second, we will reap in due season. If we plant wheat, we get barley. If we eat unhealthily, we reap unhealthy results. In parenting, if we sow a lack of discipline, we will reap undisciplined children. In relationships, if we sow kindness and time, we will reap friendship. Paul is applying this principle to our moral behavior overall.

In chapter 5, he outlines more directly what we will reap if we sow to the flesh & self: dissention, rivalries, etc. On the other hand, reaping to the spirit means we reap the fruit of the spirit: love, kindness, patience, etc.

The second promise is that we will reap in due season. This is a promise for those who are sowing to the spirit – promising us that the spirit of God will produce fruit in our lives. This fruit of the spirit then itself produces good works. 

Then Paul goes on to call on us not to grow weary of doing good. But how can we tell if we are growing weary? Six possible signs: first, if you are high in criticism but low in participation. Criticism is not itself bad, but without participation in the life of the Body, it is a sign that you have grown weary of doing good. 

If you are embittered by others’ failures, and letting other people’s behavior make you bitter or turn you away from service in the body, that is another time. It is a given that we are going to hurt each other – this is why the New Testament is full of calls to forgive each other.

If you resent those who serve less than you, that is another sign. If you evaluate church in terms of “Me”, behaving like a consumer seeking the “most for your money” then you certainly have grown weary.

If you neglect giving, whether time or money, that can be another sign.

Last, if you have abandoned your neighbors and the world around you because Jesus and truth are unpopular, then that is definite sign that you are growing weary of doing good.

So what can we do about it? In verse 10, we are given guidance: as we are given opportunities, we are to do good – and it starts here within the church.

There is a real danger that we grow weary but do not honestly grapple with it or get help.

Our righteousness and sanctification all come from our union with Christ and the grace of God, but we are still called to persevere and not to grow weary.

– Sermon Notes, Sean Harrelson, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, February 3, 2019

Galatians 6:7-10

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Jesus Wants You to Have Joy – John 2:1-12

Jesus here in his first miracle, the first of seven signs recorded by John, is making a first impression. He is beginning his ministry in a way that tells us something about how his ministry is going to go.

John begins this story with the words “on the third day”, calling back to the creation story and ahead to the resurrection. The third day was the traditional day for a wedding, and the wine involved has many roles and connotations, and it was very important to the wedding celebration.

In a shame/honor culture, running out of wine would not just have been an awkward event, but potentially a shameful event that could have stained their reputation for the rest of their lives.

So Mary asks her son to fix it, but he replies enigmatically “it is not my time.” He means that a public miracle would begin the countdown to his death and resurrection, but Mary is unmoved and tells the servants to do what he says. So Jesus does a miracle quietly, creating the best wine the emcee had ever drunk.

This is the beginning of the symphony of seven signs John writes about, which will crescendo with the raising of Lazarus. It is a miracle almost entirely devoted to joy. 

Jesus wants us to have joy. Salvation is not just about getting a ticket punched at the end of your life, but rather about the Kingdom of God, age all the joy that comes with it, coming into our lives here on earth.

We don’t one why the wine was gone. Maybe the groom was poor, or they were irresponsible, or maybe it was because the disciples crashed the wedding and drank it all. But it clearly doesn’t matter to the purposes of God, or to the joy that He wants to bring to us. 

Our religious selves might have responded differently. We might have had Jesus preach about how he is the water that satisfies, or that the wine of his blood brought salvation, or that he is the bridegroom and we are his bride.

But Jesus didn’t preach a sermon. Instead, he specifically took the jars set aside for the religious ritual of purification and turned it into wine for celebration. He could have done it any way he wanted, but instead he took something set aside for dry religiosity and turned it upside-down – setting the tone for the rest of his ministry through the end of his earthly life and even up through today. 

– Sermon Notes, Tim Schaaf, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, January 27, 2019

John 2:1-12

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Who is John the Baptist, and who are you? – John 1:19-34

John here shifts from the 50,000 foot view steeped in cosmic philosophy, into “story mode.” We zoom into a story that takes place over three days, the story of Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his ministry. This is a story also told in the synoptic gospels, but with notable differences.

John jumps right into the story, but we can learn more about John the Baptist in Matthew. He lived in the wilderness and ate locusts, which were considered clean under Mosaic law, but was still weird. He wrote camel-hair cloak, which sounds fancy but is in fact a poor person’s garb, in the style of Elijah and the other prophets. He was born miraculously, to an elderly priest and his wife. He is like a character out of the Old Testament.

Why is this person, John the Baptist, in the bible? Why is he covered across the gospels? In Matthew 11, Jesus makes it clear: John is the exclamation point at the end of the age of prophecy, coming after a long time of silence. He himself was prophesied about 700 years prior, as a “voice crying in the wilderness.” He himself was apparently a captivating speaker, making a significant impact with his message of repentance.

John was an important prophet whose words carried weight. He also made it clear to his own disciples that Jesus was the one who he was prophesying about.

The “Jewish leaders” broadly speaking are the key villains of the gospel of John, and this is our first glimpse of them. In true “know your enemy” fashion, they wanted to know what and who he was.

Even then, they saw parallels between John and Elijah, and even though John specifically denied being Elijah, Jesus later called him Elijah. While John was not the reincarnation or return of Elijah, he filled the role of Elijah in prophecy (in Malachi).

But he wouldn’t tell the Jewish leaders this, or answer their questions at all, instead pointing ahead to Christ. John does this both because this is his role and because it is his entire identity and purpose.

Here we also get a call back to the opening of the gospel, calling out Christ’s eternal nature, noting that he was “greater because he was before.” Additionally, we get foreshadowing of what is to come, calling Jesus the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The connection between a lamb and the removal of sin would have been very clear to the Jewish people there – John correctly identified Jesus immediately, not just as the son of God, but as the one who would die in order to mediate the sin of all humanity.

This would have been rather confusing, though, because the notion of Jesus being a great leader and being a sacrifice would not have lined up in the minds of the people.

Despite being Jesus’ relative, it appears that John did not actually know Jesus by sight. Instead, God gave him specific criteria by which to identify him – seeing the spirit descending on him like a dove.

This also gives us some application: we also must correctly identify Jesus. John was not viewing Jesus through the filter of what he needed in his life,but rather through the truth of who he actually was. Others saw him as a threat to their power or a chance for political liberation, looking at him through their own filters. We have the same temptations.

The answer may be to follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist who humbled himself and emptied himself of his own identity to the extent that the question “who are you?” returned the answer “someone greater is coming!”

  • Sermon Notes, Aaron James, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, January 13, 2019

John 1:19-34

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John’s Perspective on Christ – John 1:1-18

When you look up at a night sky away from cities and light pollution, and see all the billions of stars, it can give you perspective on our small size in the midst of the massive universe. It is an indication that there is much more in the universe than we run into in our day to day lives.

John’s gospel is very much about perspective. It provides a very different perspective than Matthew, Mark and Luke, the synoptic gospels. John is all about Jesus’ nature: who He is and how he relates to other people. John’s gospel is the most clear that Jesus is 100% God. It has a developed Christology that may be the result of being written later than others, once Christians had an opportunity to reflect on the implications of everything.

The gospel opens with the startling assertion that this man Jesus, son of a carpenter from a small town in Palestine, was present at the creation of the universe. He is the one who hung those stars in the sky, speaking of perspective. This is a key belief of Christianity, and also one opposed from early days, by Arians in the fourth century and by Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. But the gospel of John makes it very clear that Jesus was fully divine and fully man. We sometimes take for granted the wildness of this claim. Imagine working as a construction worker next to someone who claimed to be God.

The opening of John echos the opening of Genesis. “In the beginning…” In Genesis, God speaks a word and brings the world into existence. In John, Jesus himself is the Word. In Genesis, light is the first thing created. In John, Jesus himself is the light. In Genesis, Elohim is clearly set apart as the only God, the creator of the universe and far greater than the gods and goddesses of the surrounding cultures. In John, Jesus is the exclusive path to Elohim.

John also opens with a clearly universal message – that path, though exclusive, is open to all. Unlike the Law, which came through the same Torah where we find Genesis, Jesus is full of the grace and truth we need in order to follow that path. This is the perspective John provides.

How does looking at the world from this perspective impact us when times are good or when they are bad? We live in a time-oriented culture, which can mean that we run from activity to activity and lose this bigger perspective even when times are good, and certainly when times are bad. As we as a church go through a difficult season, we need to acknowledge and talk about the pain and grief we are going through. But we also should have perspective that the same Jesus who created the stars created Seed Church, and He is full of grace and truth.

As we open 2019, consider what you have always wanted a church to do and be? Do you have a dream or vision of a ministry at the church? Things will change in the world and in our church, and change is hard. But one thing that will not change is the perspective outlined here in the opening of John. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and He offers us the opportunity to become Children of God.

– Sermon Notes, Dave Lester, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, January 6, 2019

John 1:1-18

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