Mark 9:30-50
Sermon
Listening guide
Sermon
Mark 6:30-44
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages[a]! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”
When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
Listening guide
Discussion questions
Sermon
Mark 1:16-2:17
Listening guide
Sermon
What 2 or 3 things did you discover you’d like to set right in your life?
I bet we all have things. For me, one thing I said, I’d like to work on my boundaries and clear up my roles. People have told me, I have a number of roles in my life where I’m
And some people say, that’s not a big deal.
All of us have things we’d like to see made right.
I just want you to have the right person make the right things right.
What do I mean?
Let me give you an example. Take a dishwasher.
For most dishwasher problems in my house, my kids are more than capable.
When the countertop is full and we don’t have dishes for dinner, they can handle that. Run the dishwasher.
When it stops with 1:47 flashing on the clock, they can handle that. They push the start button. The toddler paused it.
If we load it and supposedly start it then come back later and all the dishes are dirty, someone forgot to push the start button twice.
But what if the dishes don’t come clean? What’s the problem? How do you make that right?
You might think, there isn’t enough soap. So you add more soap. The dishes still don’t come clean so that’s not actually the problem.
You might think, I need to scrape the dishes before I put them in.
You might think, I need to reorganize the dishes. So you move them around.
The thing is, none of that is actually the problem, and while what you do might help a little it doesn’t actually fix the problem.
When the dishwasher stops getting the dishes clean, the kids know to get me and tell me. Why? Because my kids know with our dishwasher the problem is much deeper. It means the food is blocking the arms. So they call me to take it all apart. Then I have the use the air compressor and blow out the arms.
Someone has to make the right stuff right.
That’s the thing. You have to have someone to make the right stuff right. If you’re dishwasher is plugged and you dump more soap in it, you aren’t going to fix the problem. You’re going to make mess.
Adventure
This is what we want to get today.
In talking to many of you, I get the sense that we’ve got big, hard problems.
What I really need is someone to get the right stuff right.
I’m talking about someone to fix not what I think is the problem, but what is actually the problem.
What is the right stuff to make right?
Development
That’s what we want to see today. Jesus is not just someone to make stuff right. He makes the right stuff right. This is what Jesus does in the beginning period of his ministry as Mark reports.
To help us see this, let me give us a quick overview of the first chapter and a half or so.
Mark 1:9-15 God presents his Son Jesus as the one with whom he is “well-pleased”. He says, here is how you respond: repent. Then Jesus gets busy.
Mark 1:16-20 calls disciples
Mark 1:21-28 he drives out an evil spirit from someone in the synagogue
Mark 1:29-34 he heals many sick people and drives out demons at his mother in law’s house
Mark 1:35-39 prayer but notice “driving out demons” at the end
Mark 1:40-45 heals a leper
Mark 2:1-12 forgives a man and heals his paralysis
Mark 2:13-17 eats with tax collectors and sinners
What do you notice? First, who. Who did Jesus work for.
The demon possessed man was in the synagogue. He was at least
Sick people
Leper
Paralytic man and his believing friends
Tax collectors
He did all this for both religious and irreligious. It wasn’t like one group of people got his help and another group of people didn’t. Or one group of people needed
Jesus works for both religious and irreligious people. Everybody needs his help. Everybody is worthy of his help.
Second, what. What is he doing.
Sick, leper, paralytic = external, physical
Evil spirit, tax collector = internal, spiritual
Jesus fixes both physical, external problems and internal or spiritual issues.
Here is what I notice. Except for 2 times, as Mark tells us the beginning of Jesus ministry or work, Jesus was busy making things right. He fixed problems.
There were clearly some things he wasn’t doing.
he wasn’t making money, he wasn’t raising an army, he wasn’t building his platform. Not all bad things at the right time. Just not his main things.
I’m not saying he wasn’t teaching. He was. That was mentioned a few times. We don’t know the content. I think it is fair to say he wasn’t advancing his own agenda. New politician, CEO, leader, they usually explain and advance their own agenda.
Jesus fixes problems, both external ones and deep interior ones.
Couple of commentators point out what Jesus does here. From the start of his work, Jesus deals with physical issues and the spiritual reality behind those issues. That’s what we call sin.
What is sin? Common understanding sin is disobedience. That’s right, but that is not enough.
Demon possessed guy
Paralyzed – did he disobey? No. But at the same time, his paralysis is not okay.
Leper
Sin is not conforming to God. What you do or who you are . Let me give us an illustration.
I’m sure some of you have smashed playdoh through a mold to form it into something.
The playdoh gets remade from a blob into something that is a specific shape and size.
This is what sin is. Not just I did something wrong or We see our sin when we realize that
Now, God’s mold definitely includes more variety, more beauty, and more differences than a playdoh mold. Every little thing that is pushed through a playdoh mold comes out the same shape and size. God doesn’t make us all be exactly the same. But whenever your life is formed be like someone or something other than God, that’s sin.
You know what this might feel like? Think about something like peer pressure.
If your life is formed to be like and shaped to be like anyone other than God, that’s sin.
All these events, and forgiveness in particular, show that our problems are not just that we disobey God. Certainly that. But even more, we’re being shaped and formed and molded by all kinds of things. The deeper problem is that we aren’t conforming to God.
This is the right thing to make right.
He closes this section and he says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (verse 17)
Do you know what that might look like?
CS Lewis tells this story of a little boy named Eustace. He is an awful boy. He is selfish, mean, and nobody can get along with him. He hates everybody and everybody hates him.
But he finds himself magically taking a trip on a boat. At one point, the ship lands on an island, and Eustace wanders off the boat to find a cave. The cave is full of diamonds and rubies and gold and Eustace shouts, I'm going to be rich. And he starts thinking delightfully evil thoughts. He thinks how now that he is rich he will be able to get back at everyone who hurt him. Like a lot of little boys, he thinks, “Well, she did it first!” Eustace eventually falls asleep on the pile of gold. And because he falls asleep on all that dragon gold with evil thoughts in his head, he turns into a dragon.
And it’s awful. He wakes up. He can’t get on the boat with the others. He can’t get off the island. He has to hunt and chase down his own food and he burns everything. Everyone is afraid of him. He can’t do anything with the gold. The only thing he can do is kill and scare people. No love, no friends, no happiness. Nothing. He’s depressed.
One day the lion Aslan shows up and says, do you want to get out of these dragon clothes? Okay, come undress and jump in this pool. Eustace realizes he has to take off the scales. So he tries. He tries to rip them off. He gnaws and he tears and he pulls. He finally gets a layer off, but sadly he realizes he still has another skin. He tries again. And another skin.
He is heartbroken. The lion says, you’re going to have to let me undress you.
Eustace says he was very afraid of his claws. … The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like bill oh, but it is such fun to see it coming away. … He peeled the beastly stuff right of just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt.... Then he caught hold of me and threw me into the water. … Then I saw all the pain had gone. And I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again." (C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Drawn Treader, 89-91)
This is what Jesus means when he says, I’ve come to call sinners. He says, I’ve come to take you as someone conformed to this world and its sin and I'm going to reform you, remake you to be like God.
You and I might think we can make the right things right if we get just a little bit of help or work a little harder.
But we had to let Jesus come in with his claws and go all the way to our hearts and minds and guts to remold us.
That’s what he did for us.
He was flogged
Jews were flogged 39 times – 40 times minus 1. Jesus was flogged by the Romans. He was flogged outside of God’s control.
He says there is nothing I would not go through so that you could be shaped into God’s image. No matter how bad it is in your life, no matter how much sin has to be pulled out, he says, I will go through it all
He was formed by sin at his very deepest, all so that sin would no longer form you and me. He lost his shape as a son of God so that you and I could be shaped like God.
Bottom line: Jesus makes the right stuff right. Jesus ruins the very form of sin in our lives.
Action
Friends, I know that sin has messed up a whole bunch of our lives.
I’m hurt as I listen to you and I hear what sin has done to you, to your families, to your workplaces. I know that we are so much more formed in our lives by sin than by God. You know what, I say it is time for that to end.
It is time for our lives to be formed by the one who lost his form to sin so that we can have the form of God.
I asked you in the beginning to have those 2 or three problems that you would like to have made right.
Just dream of this – what would it look like if just one of those problems was not formed by sin but reformed by God.
What is it going to look like
What you see, with eyes of faith, is what it looks like when God makes the right things right.
Mark 1:9-15
Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Peter Addresses the Crowd
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 “ ‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Listening guide
How do you do at gathering groups?
“were all together in one place” (verse 1) … “in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (verse 5)
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit”(verse 4)
You need a _____________________ _______________.
A ___________ group has a supernatural spirit.
“each one heard their own language being spoken.” ……. “bewildered and amazed!
God gathers a great group!
Discussion questions
Sermon
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost
Peace Lutheran Church
Nathaniel Timmermann
May 23, 2021
How do you do at gathering a group of people and getting them rallied to a cause, then getting it done?
I think the first time I was really responsible for a couple of other people was in high school. I was first chair of the baritones so I was responsible for leading our practices. Not a big job. Only 3 of us. Tough days. I was a sophomore. Other guy was a senior. He was not happy letting me direct us.
Teens for Life. That wasn’t too bad. We were all pretty motivated.
Another one that was a complete failure. I tried to get a group of pastors to work together and publish materials. One of the challenges in our group of churches, our denomination as we call the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, is that we just don’t publish many materials. What I mean is, we don’t produce many materials that you can buy and use. Some of you know this because I’ve commented how if we want to have a Bible study on a book of the Bible, we basically have 1 option. My solution for this a few years out of school was to try to get a few fellow pastors together to start publishing.
I wanted 4 of us to work together and on the basis of our credentials to try publish professional materials. They totally shot me down.
Even today, 131 Youth Crew – joint project for our churches to have meaningful discipleship for our high school students. Definitely hard. Lately another pastor has gotten excited and participated more but we can’t get any lay people to invest.
Getting people together, getting them to work together is hard, and getting them to stay together is hard. I know part of that is I’m not good at it. I'm constantly working on getting better. But the bigger part of it is its just hard.
What we’ve got today is an event where people come together. We call Pentecost. We got that name from the Jews who came from all over the world to participate in this event that happened 50 days after Passover. On this day, the apostle Peter preached a sermon and amazing things happened.
We’re told on that day 3,000 people believed. There were 120 people who were adherents of the Christian faith before that sermon, and afterwards there were 3,120. We’re not sure quite how soon, but as you read along, we’ll see in the book of Acts within just a couple of days another 2,000 joined.
There was explosive church growth, and it didn’t end there because we know Christian faith swept through the Roman Empire.
I’m not saying this text is a guidebook for getting people together. If you’re sitting there saying, I want to get my family that is just fighting and disconnected all the time, I want to get them together, I can’t give you a set of steps to fix it. Or if you’re saying, I’ve got my friends in high school and I want to get us together to fight illiteracy, this won’t give you all the steps. If you have some cause you want to advance - you shouldn’t use this text as a guide for making a group to advance your cause. What this text does, you get the basic element for a great group.
Development
The first thing is to be a great group, you need more than just the normal tools and skills.
Luke wrote “were all together in one place” (verse 1) It appears that they’re together. It looks like they’re together. They were all together in one place. They look like a group. It’s even more than that.
Let me show you three things about them. 1) their cause 2) their tactics and 3) their creed. Luke says these people “in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (verse 5) What do we have here?
The people are in Jerusalem. If we look at it more closely, they’re in the temple. And they are God fearing people. These are not people who have gathered just for any mission or any cause.
This isn’t a bunch of video gamers. Not that that’s bad. This isn’t a group of people doing yoga in the park. Again good. Unless you’re me. I just break. They’re gathered for religion.
Religion is the highest cause that anybody has in their life. Why are there? What are they trying to do? You think, this must be the most solid group possible. They’ve got this really high cause.
They’ve also got good tactics. It says they are “God-fearing.” What that means, the technical term is they are proselytes. They’ve passed through the system to join in. The cause isn’t just a high cause, they’ve also got a great structure to bring people on board and then advance the cause. They’ve got tactics.
And last, it says they’ve got people from every nation under heaven. What does that mean? It means they are incredibly, radically inclusive. Secular creed. This is the most inclusive cause. They’ve got people from everywhere.
Look at this. This group has a good cause. Good tactics. Good creed. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group that was more diverse, more unique and still together.
And yet. And yet. And here is the big but. God says, if you want to need a great group, you need something else. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit”(verse 4)
· Like a lot of you, I’ve been on sports team. Good group.
· Like a lot of you, I watch NCIS and I love watching the dynamic of the team as they work together. I think that must be a great team to be on.
· I’ve been part of exclusive musical groups
· I’ve been part of volunteer teams that have a great cause.
And still for all of that, none of that compares to the moment when we come together as a group of people here at Peace and we’re singing “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” ….
Or we’ve just heard that great gospel that I’m forgiven and loved and accepted in Jesus Christ despite the fact that I’m terrible and a mess. We’re looking at each other and the Spirit is in this group. Its almost silent in here and we look at each other and we just revel in the great news.
To be a really great group, you need something else. You need a supernatural spirit.
Look at this. You are absolutely missing out on an amazing thing in life if you don’t want to be with other people. If you are so private in life that you don’t let anyone in, you don’t have any idea of what life is all about.
But at the same time, even if you’re about religious activities with other people, you’re about worship together, you’re about prayer together, and you’re about Bible study together, but there is not spirit there, you don’t have a supernatural spirit, you still aren’t there.
You’ve got to have a supernatural spirit. Luke would say you have to have the Spirit.
A great group has a supernatural spirit.
Part 2
That supernatural spirit makes you into a truly great group. Luke said, “each one heard their own language being spoken.”
People from all over the world are hearing the gospel in their own language! What an amazing thing! And did you notice how the people were feeling? They were both bewildered and amazed! Did you catch that?
I’ve been in situations where I’ve been bewildered. I remember getting off the plane in Athens Greece at like 12 pm.
(any example of something that is both bewildering and amazing - maybe my One China Team meeting where we spoke a mixture of Chinese and English)
What Pentecost started is still happening. I used to read this story of Pentecost and think, wow, that’s a neat story. Too bad it doesn’t happen anymore. Then I realized, wait a second, this still happens today. Pentecost wasn’t the end. Pentecost was just the beginning.
Christianity is the most universal religion out there.
“The sociologist Rodney Stark has researched the historical data, and he surmised the following growth statistics: We know, and we’re pretty sure this is accurate, by ad 40 there were approximately 1,000 Christians in the Roman Empire (probably outside Jerusalem) By ad 100 that number has risen to about 7,500 Christians in the Roman Empire. By ad 150 there are about 40,000 Christians in the Roman Empire. By the time we get to ad 300 there were approximately 1.2 million Christians in the Roman Empire, representing roughly 2 percent of the entire population. By ad 350 there were as many as 34 million Christians in the Roman Empire—more than half of the entire population.”
That was just the beginning. Today Christianity is the most diverse group in the planet. It is the most even racially and culturally spread out. There are equal numbers of people who identify as Christians who live in Europe, North America, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Over 60 percent of Christians live in the Global South, and the center of gravity for Christianity in the coming decades will likely be increasingly non-Western.
God gathers a great group.
Action
Friends, I want you today to be part of this great group. Get this supernatural Spirit and be part of God’s great group.
It is absolutely true that God the Holy Spirit moves when and where he pleases. I’m fascinated to see the great growth of Christian churches that has taken place in the last 20 or so years. There are churches in certain places that have experienced just explosive growth.
· (1857 New York City the Fulton Street Revival – about 10% of Manhattan was converted in 2 years)
· Toronto Blessing – 1990s started maybe in Toronto
· New York City -
· There is a church in Vancouver Canada. Fairly irreligious city. They started the church in 2010. By 2016, they baptized more than 1,000 people. Now get this. When they started, the core group was 16. As they started, three of them lost a parent. You catch that. A group of 16. 3 of them lose a parent. And in 2016 they baptize a thousand people.
· In Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela places like that, do you know how many people come to Jesus every day? 3,000!
· Even a church in our own denomination just a few years ago almost doubled in one year.
The Holy Spirit goes when and where he pleases. He is poured out. People start talking. And they say, “Jesus save me. You’re my Savior and Lord.”
And you can be part of it too, when you say, Jesus is my Savior and Lord. If you’re not lying, if you honestly say what has been given you to say, then you are part of it too. You’re part of God’s great group.
John 17:11-19, Acts 7:54-60
11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of[b] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by[c] that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by[d] the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Listening guide
What risks did you take? ________________________________________
“I protected them and kept them safe”. (verse 12)
Quick, if you could take one great risk, what would it be? ______________________
“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.” (verses 11-12)
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” (verses 17)
You can have _______________ _____________.
Go take a risk
Discussion questions
Sermon
During the pandemic, plenty of people have said things like, “that doesn’t make me feel comfortable.” “is that safe?” “What can we do to make this safer?” Or even just the plain statement, “I don’t feel safe.”
Suddenly safety was on everybody’s mind.
I know people aren’t saying, I feel like I might fall down and hurt myself. Or I feel like I might get a scratch, get a booboo, get an owie. No, we’re talking something much deeper. We’re saying, my very existence doesn’t feel protected anymore. I don’t know if I can handle being alive.
I thought about this as I considered the request to be a pastor in Milwaukee. I didn’t just think, what would be a good opportunity for me, like career development. I didn’t just think, where does the kingdom need to get served. I thought, where does my family have safety and security? Where am I going to make a stable income so I can provide for their needs? Where are they going to be physically safe? Where is an emotionally and psychologically safe environment for them to develop?
I know that thousands of people think about this all the time. We make decisions all the time about where we’ll live, about who we’ll invite over into our houses, and about what activities we do based on the physical and emotional safety we feel.
Then I look at the story of the 1st Christians (and today is one of those lessons) and I realize they took all sorts of risks. For example, in Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested and put in jail. After they stood trial and were released, they were told to stop preaching. Acts 5, we find they are still meeting in the temple. They are told again to not preach and are flogged. But Stephen keeps preaching and he gets arrested. Then he is put to death. At that point, they leave the city of Jerusalem but they keep preaching wherever they go.
Or do you remember the line that says all the believers held everything in common and someone would sell everything when someone had a need? I wonder how many of us would risk our finances for someone else.
Put it this way: Do you remember all the risky things you did in high school and college and your younger years?
I remember driving way too fast. That was probably a bad choice.
I tried to pursue, date this gorgeous, popular girl in college. Yeah, that I didn’t have a shot at.
We drove to Lincoln NE and back in 24 for a friend’s father’s funeral.
I spent college spring breaks, when everyone else was in Florida, knocking on doors at churches around the country to share the gospel with people.
At 16 I took a job working in all kinds of cities in the Midwest, living in hotels, and doing steel work in college dorms
I moved my barely one year old daughter and wife to no man’s land China.
What risks did you take? ________________________________________
Did we take those risks just because we were “young and we didn’t know better”? I think there was more to it than that.
Promise/Discover
We knew, even if we couldn’t talk about it, what Jesus said today, “I protected them and kept them safe”. (verse 12)
Friends there is a safety out there that is so great, it will let you take the greatest risks you ever imagined.
Quick, if you could take one great risk, what would it be? ______________________ If you were willing to take a great risk, what would do? Would you quit your job so you could pursue your dream career? Would you stand up to your coworkers? Would you move to a new country? Would you sacrifice for a friend or spouse? What risk do you want to take? ___________________________________
There is a safety out there for you and I that is so great. That’s what we want to discover today. We want to see two things: the world is so much more fragile than we realize it is, we can be much more safe than we thought we could be
Development
The Bible shows that we live in a fragile, dangerous world.
We already heard today Jesus said, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.” (verses 11-12) If he wants to protect us, it’s because we need protection.
I think I really need to wrestle with this, because it is so easy to imagine I can keep myself safe. Something that’s made me think about it lately. I've been reading this book from Nassim Taleb about randomness and chance. He has this illustration. It goes something like this. Imagine you have $10,000 you want to invest. There are 10,000 traders standing ready to invest for you. You give each one $1. Do you know how many will have made money in 5 years? The odds are basically 50/50 for each trader each year. If they lose their money, they’re out of the game. That means that after 5 years there will only be 269 traders.
If you want to check the math all out, you can read his book. His exercise doesn’t quite match real life because no one starts at zero and we all get more than one chance to succeed. Still, I was so surprised. If I have money to invest and so I pick a trader, the odds are incredibly small that I’ll pick right. (basically 1 out of 50 people will make money)
Or take work. Do you know the median time a person works for one employer in America? Just over 4 years. That’s the median tenure with an employer. You think your job is stable? You have longevity? You think you’ll have a job in a decade? Try again.
One of the examples that has really hit me lately is to think about what some scientists call the fine tuning of the universe. Cosmological constant (which controls the expansion speed of the universe) refers to the balance of the attractive force of gravity with a hypothesized repulsive force of space observable only at very large size scales. It must be very close to zero, that is, these two forces must be nearly perfectly balanced. To get the right balance, the cosmological constant must be fine-tuned to something like 1 part in 10to the 120th. If it were just slightly more positive, the universe would fly apart; slightly negative, and the universe would collapse.
Some people are very convinced the fine tuning of the universe speaks to the existence of God. How else could there be such precision? But even if it doesn’t, the world is incredibly fragile. If the forgive of gravity was just a little bit stronger, everything would disappear.
This is something God has said for a very long time.
Peter “For, "All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,”
Jesus said, “you fool. This very night your life will demanded from you.” (Luke 12:20)
James “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (4:14)
There is a reason Jesus says, “I protect them.” It’s because the world is so much more fragile than we think about.
Now what do we do about this? How do we respond to this?
Jesus said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” (verses 17) What does sanctified mean? Sanctified means “set apart”. It means set aside.
What is Jesus doing? He is keeping us safe. He is setting us apart from whatever it is that hurts or damages us. That’s what he is doing. He is keeping us safe. That’s what happens when you set something aside. You put it in safe keeping.
At first it sounds like...Let’s say you have some money you want to keep safe. Let’s say you’re trying to save for a new car. What do you do? You set aside the money.
You put in the bank. If you’re old school, you put in your mattress. If you’re cool, you put it in Dogecoin. You set it aside.
And that’s great, until you want to buy your spouse a birthday present. Then you need to buy your kid a new bike. Then you’re paying for school. And on and on. Pretty soon, that money you set aside, it’s not set aside at all.
This is what so many of us do when we want to keep ourselves safe. We set ourselves aside. Now sometimes that might be a good thing to happen. It might be a good thing to do. If you and your kids are being abused, you should pull back. Cut off that dangerous relationship.
The things is, this impulse, isolate, separate. It’s pervasive. We build houses that isolate ourselves from one another. Have you noticed how garages are put on the front of peoples houses? We destroy the common meeting grounds of society. (basically speaking of protectionism). Tell me, where do you go to meet new people? That’s not me saying this. Someone like Robert Putnam writing in Bowling Alone said this long ago.
We’re trying to do what Jesus says. We want to set stuff aside for safe keeping. We want to keep ourselves safe.
Jesus teaches that we really get set apart not when we get taken away from everything, but when something really great comes into us. The way to be safe in it, is to not try to run away from it. It’s to actually put something else into you to become part of a different world.
What Jesus says to put into is the Word. You notice he doesn’t say, sanctify them by the truth. My family is truth. The Bible speaks really well of the family. I think it speaks of us more highly than anyone else in the world. But family won’t make you safe.
He doesn’t say sanctify them by the truth, your house is truth. The Bible loves homes and your home is a great place. But your home won’t keep you safe. The best Christian homes are wrecked by the ravages of sin.
Jesus says, I'm going to put something into you that will take you to a different world. My Word. Here is an illustration.
My wife and I generally get along well. We like each other. We enjoy our time together. We do have our challenges. Sometimes the kids get us going. We debate work. We get to the point where like a lot of people we find ourselves in a very heated discussion. We go at each other.
One way we’ve tried to solve that problem, you can probably guess, is we take a break. We separate ourselves. Then we try to set apart time for that conversation later.
We’re in the middle of a conversation and we stop. We say, we’ll come back to this later.
I’m really skeptical of that idea now. You can guess why. We almost never have that conversation. If we do, do you know when we end up having it? Usually the next day with another heated conversation.
Do you know what does work? We’ve gotten much better by including a mentor, a counselor, a pastor, or a good friend in the conversation. We’ve literally said, hey, we want you to be a referee. Make us fight fair. Your words will change our conversation. Put your words into the middle of us.
When we do that, we almost always fight fair. Just those words make us safe.
Now imagine what would happen if you would put the words of the one who came from another world into your world? Can you imagine how great that could be?
He set himself apart from sin and from death and from the devil himself. None of those things can touch him. He sits at the right hand of his Father. He does not belong to this world.
Can you imagine what might happen if his words would come and set you apart?
Do you know how unstoppable, how absolutely unbreakable you could be? We heard this great story today of a man named Stephen. He was arrested. He was falsely accused. He was eventually put to death. He was stoned by his own people. The last thing he said as he died was, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
There is one thing that can make you and I absolutely bulletproof in this fragile world. And that is to realize that the one who was crushed to death by this fragile, crazy world sits at the right hand of God. The whole world collapsed on him. He was not safe from it. That same man reigns in heaven for you.
Bottom line: You can have certain safety.
Action
I’m going to do something a little dangerous today. It’s a good thing we have insurance and my pastoral counsel is covered by insurance.
I was talking to my dad this week about our family history. My great great great grandpa moved to this country when he was 63. He had 6, maybe 7 year old son. I don’t know what brought them. I do know that in the end he came.
And you’ve got me as a pastor, we’re in this together, because 140 years ago one senior man took a huge risk. I can say senior because in those days, if you made it past 40, you almost certainly weren’t going to hit 70. That man took a risk.
What risk did you write down before? If you could take one risk what would it be?
I want you to get out there this week and take a risk. Your safety is certain.
John 15:9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Sermon
I’ve experienced my own successes and failures. One season I failed a lot more than normal. I was pretty messed up.
I met a pastor who said to me something like, “Especially at the beginning, what the congregation wants to know, “is will you love them and let them love you.”
It was amazing because then he began to love me. He wasn’t crazy, or weird. In my sorrow, my sadness, my anger, my frustration, all that he loved me. He would say things to me like, “I’m proud of you.” “I’m more proud of you than you are of yourself.” “I love the growth I’m seeing in you.”
When I called him with a question, he didn’t try to fix me. He wouldn’t even try to give me advice. He asked me things like, “do you want to tell me what you think you should do?”
He hugged me and prayed for me. Out loud. By name. When we were short on money, his church donated money for me.
I wrote in a card as we brought that phase of our relationship to an end, “you changed my life”.
What changed me?
One man’s love.
This is one of the effects of Easter – God really does love the world. The whole creation. Love is a real thing.
I think we all want it to be more, to be better, to be deeper than what we see in the books and movies. What’s your favorite love story?
There is no doubt that good love, great love can do amazing things.
Discover
That’s what I want to discover. We’re looking at John 15. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve been reading from this prayer for the last few weeks. This is Jesus’ prayer for what he wants the world to discover after he is gone.
And today, he promises me and you one thing: love.
Adventure/Promise
If you listen to what the apostle John writes in this section, I think you can hear him say that love isn’t just a great thing. It actually does great things for you! He says, “9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. … You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.” Did you catch it?
He says, “I have loved you. You can remain in that love. You stay in that love by what …. “keeping the commands”. At the end he puts it another way, “you will bear much fruit.” Do you hear that? Love lets you do.
I want to rediscover this ancient wisdom for life. We all know, at least we should, we love people by what we do. That's right. That’s in the Bible. Love is more than just a feeling. It’s an action.
Here is the thing. Love is more. Love is actually something that pushes us along in life. It drives us.
Here are a few things the Bible says:
John put this more simply “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Jesus to Peter, “Do you love me? … Feed my sheep.”
Love is what drives people along. If you don’t have love, what does that mean?
I know so many people don’t feel loved. I wonder how much they’re missing from their lives.
Alex Cotty – she was 11, she always felt empty and miserable — never content or connected to other children. For years, she suffered alone, filled with shame. She switched schools, but that didn't help.
"I didn't feel unloved. I just felt numb to the world.”
"I can't feel anything," Alex simply told her mother, Heather. "So she just gave me a hug, cradled me in her arms on the bed, and was like, 'Well can you feel me? Can you feel my love?'"
"A hug and kisses was the only thing that came to mind at the spur of the moment, but that was precisely what she needed to start the journey forward," Olson said. Generation at risk: America's youngest facing mental health crisis (nbcnews.com)
“We now know that love is, in actuality, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. As Mozart noted, “Love guards the heart from the abyss.” We are relational beings. God created us for relationship with Himself and with others. We are created for connection.” (Sue Johnson, Created for Connection, 22)
That’s the kind of amazing love we need to drive life.
I love you. Hope that’s not awkward. I said to someone the other day, hey love ya man. You take care. He got all serious and said, love you too. I said woah, careful there.
I do want to love you with pastor love.
If you don’t feel it, I’m sorry. Some days I’m way too compassionate, other days I’m kind of a tough love sort of guy. No matter the inconsistency, one of the reasons I stick with pastoring is because I see the difference love makes in your life.
I want to love you. Laugh and cry, hug and shake your hands. Say, “I’m proud of you.” “I’m worried about you.” All the things that really fill us up with love.
I love to see that love drive some of your life.
I’m not trying to compete with moms. I’m glad we get to remember the moms and their love today. A mother’s love is amazing.
The other day I was fixing up the flower beds in front of our house. They’re starting to look presentable if you want to come check them out. I asked my wife, what do you want in them? She said, well, what do you think? I said, Oh no, I have no interest in this. This is totally an act of love. I wouldn’t do this if it was just me. I know you like them. If it was me I would till it all under and put some grass seed down. This is an act of love. She said something like, oh, you mean how I keep everything else going around here? I said yes, an act of love something like that.
Moms, those of you who have been moms, grandmas, your love is amazing. You love powers so much of our lives. Thank you.
There is a far greater love. Jesus tells us about this love in John 15.
Look at that love
Extrinsic – someone else’s - From Father to Son to you. Intrinsic is good. Extrinsic is good. The only problem is if the source of that love goes away.
Directing -
Profound - Leads to joy
This kind of love is so amazing that it is a friendship kind of love.
“Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)
Jesus Christ says, “Can't you see that you’re my ultimate friend because I laid down my life for you!”
What is so big about that? You say, “I’ve heard of a lot of people who have died for their friends.” Not like this. Listen. If I give up my life for you, even as your pastor, if I literally work myself to death, I haven’t really give you my life. No, I have sacrificed a few of my years, and I’ve given you a few more. I have a few less, and you have a few more.
I can’t give you my life, because my life is already forfeit. I was going to die anyway. The Bible says death is an executioner. The Bible says none of us voluntarily die. All of us have death coming to our door someday.“… the wages of sin is death …” Not one of us die voluntarily. You can give up a few years, but you can’t give up your life because your life is already on its way out.
Jesus is the only friend who didn’t have to die at all. Jesus is the only one, because he had a perfect record, and death had no claim on him. There’s not a person in this room who can possibly do that for someone else. You can lay down a few years, but you can’t lay down your life because your life is already out of there. In other words, you’re just paying your debt a little early.
Jesus is the one who said, “Because death has no claim on me, because my record is perfect, if I die for you, that just doesn’t give you a few more years. That means I pay for every sin and every debt you’ve ever had. I can vanquish death and its hold over you. I’m your substitute. And I don't do this because there is some obligation. I’m not your blood relative. I want to do this. I am your friend.
“Greater love has no one than this …” not that he lays down a few years but that he actually lays down his life.
Now listen. This is the secret. This is the secret.
Remember, friends get into each others lives. He opens up his life. He tells you about himself. This is his deepest secret, and you can’t be his friend if you don’t get this secret.
Servants just do what their master tells them. But a friend says, I get your secret. I know you.
If a friend comes up to you and they tell you their secrets. If you’re sitting at home late at night on the porch drinking a beer and they tell you what they did, do you ignore that and say, hey lets go play some cards.
No! You say, thank you for trusting me with that. I’m glad to be your friend, no matter. And the next day you tell your spouse what happened. You call up your friend and say, it was good to hang with you. Why don’t you come on over Friday? All week long then you think about your friend and their secret.
That expression of love drives your life. It powers your life.
And how can the greatest secret from the only one who ever laid down his life not do the same thing for you?
His love can power your life.
Acts 16:11-15
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Listening Guide
Discussion questions
Sermon
Intro
What good could we do around here?
That’s the question we closed with last week. That was last week’s small step. I enjoyed this week seeing how just asking that small
Myself and the family - volunteering
MG – friend lost
DW visit to neighbor who lost her husband. She was just having a hard time with it and needed a visit.
This is what happens when God is straightening out our hearts. We do good. We just can’t help it.
That’s not doing good is good enough. We don’t think that doing good is good enough. We can do all the good in the world and that will never make people say “Jesus is my Savior and Lord.” We can do all the good and that will never take someone out of the control and the influence of the supernatural forces that are trying to destroy their lives.
Luther’s conversion a new way of seeing “the righteousness of God”. It was like “the gates of heaven sprang open for him”
Another example that has stuck with me is Francis Collins. Francis Collins is famous now because he was the director of the human genome project. A long time agao, during his clinical training, he cared for a woman who was dieing. One day she had a real crisis, but pulled out of it by some kind of a miracle. Afterwards she talked about her belief in God and asked him, “What do you believe, Doctor?”
Francis said, “I was stunned. I said I didn’t really know. Her question had made me realize that as an atheist, I had arrived at an answer to the most important issue that we humans ever deal with. Is there a God? And I had arrived there without ever really looking at the evidence.”
So he started looking at all the evidence. He looked at physics and biology and mathematics, the fine tuning of the universe and so much more. He came away with the conclusion, he said, "God must be an amazing physicist and mathematician," Collins thought. "But does he or she actually care about me?"
As he continued to search for answers, Collins said he met a person who "not only claimed to know those answers and to know God, but to be God". "That was Jesus Christ," he said.
Collins went through this amazing process that didn’t just let him be a person to do good, but fundamentally opened him up to a new way of looking at life. That the God of the universe actually cared about him.
Adventure
This is what God wants. He works to open people up.
That’s what we get to see today with the apostle Paul in a city called Phillippi. God uses him to have this great conversation with a woman who is on her way to becoming a Christian. He does more than just get her to do good.
Development
We’re in the book of Acts, which is the story of the early Christian church written by a man named Luke. We’re in chapter 16, which is on page ____ if you have one of these blue/white Bibles.
“On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.... [Lydia] was a worshiper of God.” (verse 13-14)
Lots of good religious people out there. People who pray. People who worship. They might know something vaguely about God. Maybe even some of us.
Paul came to her and he opened his mouth. Undoubtedly, he preached the gospel. Don’t get too confused about that. We’ve got so much other evidence that he couldn’t have said anything but the gospel.
“The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (verse 14)
The message of the event was unmistakable. This woman, Lydia, was a good woman and she was doing good things. God still wanted to open her heart.
We hold up this idea of having “an open mind”. That’s a cultural value that people in the 20th century and the 21st century really wanted, they pursued.
The thing of it is, in some respects, not every respect, but some, the ancient world was much more open-minded than parts of the modern world. The city of Philippi was home to at least three different people groups - people from Greece, people from Italy, and people from Turkey. They worshiped at least 10 different gods as far as we can tell.
And yet, God still wants to open up her heart. What do you imagine this is like? [“The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (verse 14)]
CS Lewis compared it to what it feels like to see a beautiful sight. When you hear a piece of music or you see a beautiful sight, what do you do? You feel like you have to grab somebody else and praise it with them. You grab your friend, and you say, “Look at this. Isn’t this great?” Why are you praising it? Because it’s beautiful. The more you praise it, the more you enjoy it. Isn’t that right? The more you praise it, the more you enjoy it.
You say, “Look at this. Isn’t this great? Look at the lines. Look at the colors. Look at this and that.” The more you praise it, the more you’re enjoying it, the more the other person is enjoying it. Right? Why are you praising it? Does it need it? It doesn’t. It’s beautiful. It’s an end in itself.
This is the thing. Lydia had a God who was useful, but that day, she received a God who was beautiful. Before that, she was probably a good person. I imagine that she wasn’t murdering people. She wasn’t committing adultery. She was helping her neighbors. She was probably doing good.
After salvation, what happened? After the gospel came in, what happened? Did she start lying? Did she start committing adultery? No! “Well, there’s no difference.” All the difference in the world! It’s not a burden. It’s not crushing. She is not doing it because God is useful. Now she is doing it because God is beautiful. She obeys to enjoy him. She obeys to delight him. She obeys to praise him.
This is the thing. Closed and open is not about religious or irreligious.
If you’re like me, you say, I don’t feel closed. I feel like I’m pretty open. I like new experiences. I like new ideas. I try new things. How can you say I’m closed?
That’s the thing. We live in a world where the default is to be closed, so we don’t even see that its closed. We’re not looking for the beauty, the wonder, the majesty, the awe to be pouring into the world. We aren’t ever caught up in a moment of pure adoration and wonder. Let me give you just on small example.
I was reading a political biography the other day. The president was talking with a politician trying to get him to agree to a bill. The president and the chair of the committee were talking with this guy and trying to negotiate changes that would get him to say yes to the bill. Finally the president asked, is there anything I could say that could change your mind? Or to put it another way, is there any evidence I could give you that would get you to change your mind? The guy said no. He said there was absolutely closed to that kind of a possibility.
I’m not saying open and closed has to do with your politics. That’s not the point of the example. The point of the example us this.
That you and I are closed by default. We are closed to that awe and wonder and pure praise when we aren’t going to get anything. Were aren’t going to work that way.
We are wired to get something out of life. We want things to be useful. We are not at all interested in that kind of free expression of adoration and love that pours out simply because something is wonderful.
The bible uses this picture opened and closed at a few key moments to describe us.
Is. 44:18 “They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand”
Mt 13:15 “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes”
There is only one person in the world, who, in the middle of the worst experience, did not close himself up. He opened himself up.
When Jesus is on the cross, he quotes Psalm 22 a number of times. One of the verses says,
“My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.” (Psalm 22:14)
What does that mean? It means that Jesus, on the cross, didn’t keep himself closed. He didn’t keep his heart shut up. Jesus went through on the cross...the heart, the center of his self-determination and he poured it out. He took his thinking, his feeling, and his wanting. He poured it out.
There was one thing in this entire world that was worth the heart of God. You and I hold our hearts back. We don’t want to be broken hearted so we keep them to ourselves. There was one thing worth God’s heart. It wasn’t a tragedy. It wasn’t a sorrow. There was nothing sad. There was just nothing else in this whole world that was worth the heart of God. That was you.
He opened himself up for you.
If you’ve ever had a friend who came to you, running and sobbing. They’d just experienced some huge tragedy in their life and they poured out their heart to you. What did you do? Did you just stand their stone cold impervious, you didn’t move, you didn’t smile, you didn’t cry, you didn’t do anything? No You wrapped your arms around them. You started to cry. Your heart opened up with them.
It doesn’t matter how much sadness you’ve endured, or how great your life is. … He has opened up his heart for you.
Open your heart to him.
Action
What we would love to see here at Peace is to do what Paul does here. To be people who bring people the gospel of Jesus. That’s our vision. That’s our heart.
That’s a huge thing. That’s a big goal. Much bigger than saying, I’m going to change the world. If you could figure out housing that is affordable, close to a city for jobs and transportation, opens up the door for upward mobility, you could really change things. That’s hard. I would say that’s nowhere near as hard as bring the kind of person in the lives of your friends and neighbors that will let them see the beauty and the wonder and the majesty of the gospel.
And every time I hear of a conversation one of you has with someone about the gospel I’m convinced that God is at work among us. He is opening your heart and through you opening the hearts of others. I’d love to see that with you.
What kind of conversations do you have with people who are on the way to becoming Christians?
Acts 8:9-25
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
24 Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
25 After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
Listening guide
“Simon said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”” (verse 19)
Do you want to ______ _________?
“Simon offered them money.” (verse 18) “you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.”
“You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God” (verse 21)
You’ve got a great __________ to play your _________.
What good can we do around here?
Sermon
I’ve never been happy, I think I will always have some regrets, that we left China. When we left for China in 2010, we knew it was only a guaranteed 2 years. Everything after that was up for grabs. But when we left, we went to stay. We sold our cars. We got our will and trust and life insurance taken care of. We – alright I – committed to learning Chinese. We went to stay. But after 2 years, there was no funding and I just accepted it was time to move on. We moved back.
I spent the next couple of years explaining to Chinese friends and other people why we left. Why did we stop doing a good thing that we were good at? Who cares how hard it was? Finally I realized, why did we come back? It would have taken some jumps and some risks. We gave up doing something good because of respect and even more, the danger, challenges and hard things that would have come if we had stayed on our own.
I got to leave that one with God. Thing is, I think that’s how most of us behave most of the time. We give up good for others, maybe because of respect, but even more because we avoid danger, the challenges, and the hard things that would really let us do something good.
During the pandemic, a couple of people have told me that they felt uncomfortable walking into a gathering at church and they just walked out. They either felt like people were sitting too close together or too many people didn’t wear masks.
We’ve all got opinions and we’re all sick of this stuff.
For the most part, what people haven’t done is talked to the other people and tried to work something out. They haven’t talked to me and asked me to put on something else for them.
Someone might say, they shouldn’t have to. We should go out of our way to accommodate them. I hear that. I want to accommodate people as I can.
Very few of us want to be police officers and firefighters
We don’t get involved in conflicts at work
I can’t help but compare these choices we make to the distinct times in history when people chose to face danger, hardship, and struggles to do good for other people. Not just for themselves but for others.
For example,
“In the early fourth century, the historian Eusebius wrote about a plague that was rolling over the eastern half of the Empire. Healthy people would flee the cities for the safety of the countryside. But one group largely stayed behind—Christians. “All day long, [Christians] tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them.”
It doesn’t even have to be such a big thing. I think of one time someone did good for me. They spoke up and defended me at a public meeting or gathering. They didn’t risk their physical life, but they certainly risked their reputation and good relationships with other people.
What about you? Has anyone ever faced danger, hardship, and struggles to do good for you?
And this week, we’ve got a great example from a man named Philip. He went into the city of Samaria, It's a city that was primarily composed of individuals hostile to Philip and the other early Christians. He didn’t just preach. He also did miracles and good things for the people.
Adventure/Promise
Easter doesn’t just promise a new creation breaking into the world.
Easter doesn’t just promise a new story for our lives. A story that makes us ask, what is Jesus saying to me in his Word?
Easter also says something about the part you play in this new creation and new story. The promise is that you get a great part. (verse 21)
Let’s get that.
Development
We’re learning this with the story of man named Simon from Samaria today. He is often called Simon Magus or Simon the magician.
I think this is a neat event. Why? Because it is a story of a guy. He isn’t really religious at all, but he is very spiritual. His life is entirely turned upside down because of the Easter message.
He’s a famous guy in Samaria. He can probably do supernatural tricks. So when he sees Philip, Peter, and John, not their preaching, but the things they can do by the gift of the Spirit, he is really excited.
“Simon said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”” (verse 19) Now, he is obviously clueless. But realize, Simon sees that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the greatest good we could give to someone else and he wants that.
Even as a guy who can do supernatural tricks, mini-miracles and signs, he recognizes that the gift of the Holy Spirit would do a lot more for people.
I’m sure he is a little selfish. He wants to gain popularity and attention. Still, it’s hard not to see that he wants to be part of a good thing for other people.
Simon kind of calls me out. He gets this basic principle, this basic truth. You and I are far more than what we accumulate. The real measure of us is what we do for others. Simon wants to do good for other people more than I often do.
I was talking with another guy this week and we were talking about how easy it is to get upset with the people when no one shows up at events and how easy it is to be ecstatic or super happy when all kinds of people do show up for gatherings and events. And we were saying, I don’t think that is because I’m happy for them or upset for them. No, we’re upset because we, we don’t feel loved and successful and important if nobody shows up. And if we feel super happy its because we feel loved and successful and important. You see what I’m saying?
How bad is it that me, a guy who has the Holy Spirit, wants what I can get from you. Simon, a guy who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit, wants it so he can do things for others.
I thought about it a couple of other times this week. I was talking with a young person about future jobs. This person said they wanted a different job because they wanted to help people. For other people. Do we realize how great that is? That someone doesn’t just want a job to become rich? That was the norm in America in the early 90s. Sit in a classroom and ask kids what they want to do when they grow up. Be a basketball star and make a lot of money. I just want to be rich. Maybe that’s changed. People didn’t say I want to do good for others.
(Do you want to do good?)
Here is what I’m saying. Simon from Samaria is not a particularly religious person. He is a spiritual person. But he wants something good for other people more than many religious people.
Do you want to do good for other people?
You can’t buy your way there. “Simon offered them money.” (verse 18) but Peter rebuked him saying, “you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.” Simon didn’t realize how much of a jerk he was. Peter said this was wicked and he was captive to sin.
You and I can’t buy the gift of God with money. Why?
Because someone else has already bought the gift of God for us. Not with money. There isn’t enough money in the world to pay for all the wickedness that you and I do. He could buy it with his holy and precious blood. Let me give you this illustration.
One time a young freshman student at college sat next to a 26-year-old single mother trying to get her degree. The two started to talk about the grace and mercy of Christ in the cross. He didn’t know it at the time, but she really needed. She wasn’t just a single mom but she was having an affair. The student and some other guys would go over and babysit her child and try to talk with her. A friend was in a band playing at a church in the area and they invited her to hear him. She agreed.
The minister got up and said we would talk about sexual activity. He had this red rose. That was his object lesson. He said you, pure, undefiled are this rose. He smelled it, he looked it at. He said it’s beautiful and smells wonderful. He threw it out in the crowd and told them to smell the rose. He then began one of these terrible, horrific handlings of what sexual activity is and isn’t. It was one of those were the pastor screams at the listeners saying, “Do you want get diseases?”
He was thinking there with this mom next to him. “What are you doing?” As the minister wrapped up, he asked, “Where’s my rose?” Some kid brought the rose back and it was broken, leaves shredded, and almost all the petals pulled off. His point was to hold up the rose and say, “Who would want this rose?”
The student, he was filled with anger. He couldn’t shout. But he said quietly, “Jesus wants the rose!”
The illustration makes us realize...we really are badly off. We might want to be beautiful. We might want to smell lovely. We might want to feel velvety smooth like the petals of a rose. We might want to bring a smile to people’s face, like a beautiful bouquet of roses on mother’s day. Speaking of which, mother’s day coming. Don’t forget.) But we don’t!
We’re ragged, we’re tattered. We’re broken. We’re ripped apart. We can blame it on others and say, they won’t let us help them. But it’s really because we are so much more of a mess than we’d like to admit.
Jesus wants the rose. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-shepherd-and-his-unregenerate-sheep, accessed 12/08/2018).
It is absolutely true that you cannot get the gift of the Holy Spirit apart without repenting. If you can’t say, Lord, for all my talk of doing good, I really don’t do. I’m sorry for this. … If you can’t say that, you won’t get the Holy Spirit. And it is even more true that there is absolutely nothing you can pay.
Jesus paid the price.
The great value of Jesus is that he gives his life “for us”. What does that little word “for” mean? Let me expand on this illustration of the rose a little bit.
If I was a gardener and I had a beautiful garden of roses, there are all kinds of ways I could work for those roses. I could simply devote my life to the care of the roses. I water them. I prune them. I fertilize them. Another way I could work for the roses, I could actually work to get the roses. I could sneak into the garden late one night and sneak one out. I’d be working for the rose. If a rose got smashed and trampled on, I could prune it or maybe even dig it out and cut it back. I could put it in a special pot and help it start over. If I wanted to go really far, if a storm was coming one night, I could go out there and put my body over the roses.
The one thing I would never do is take the place of the roses. If a storm swept through that garden and broke all those roses, I could never putting on little rose petals and standing in the middle of the garden.
In the greatest act of love known, Jesus doesn’t just prune and correct you and I. He doesn’t just give us a fresh start if we get trampled down. He doesn’t just cover us with his body and shelter us. He actually gets planted in the garden. In our place. He puts on the thorns. He gets ripped apart and shredded by the storm. He gets crushed. He dies. He comes back to life. And he grows to restart the garden. For us. In our place.
This is the way to get your right and do good. (“You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God” (verse 21)
That word “right” doesn’t mean “righteousness” or “rightness” or goodness” like it often does in the Bible. The word “right” here means “straight” or “direct”.
Jesus says the more you see that I was the guy who paid the price... the more you see that I’m guy who brings life. The more I will set your heart straight.
He wants a personal relationship with you. Every other founder of a major religion died and just left you his teaching. That’s all you can do. Follow the teaching and try to figure out how to straighten out your life.
Jesus has died and risen so you can follow him personally. If you pray, you’re not talking to some dead guy. Give him real prayers. Repent. Get beneath the surface. Let him straighten you out.
If you worship, you’re not worship a king from an old story. You are worshiping the living Lord of the universe. Pour out your heart before him. Hold nothing back!
When you love, you aren’t just following the rules. He is loving through you. Feel his power coursing through your veins. Let his heart make you alive.
That’s your great heart.
You’ve got a great heart to play your part
Action
So friends, if we’re getting great hearts, let’s get to some good around here. That’s the next small step we can take.
If we’ve asked, “What is God saying to me and what am I going to do about” and we’ve asked, “What is Jesus saying to me in his Word”, what you and I can be sure of is that we’re guided by more than just our little ideas and dreams.
We’ve been set straight by the risen Lord Jesus. I know a few weeks ago some of you were asking, hey, where did this ramp thing come from? Why are we installing these ramps? That happened because someone around here was asking that question, what good can we do around here? And others of you remember last year when we sent out cards to a lot of people and made the huge heart on the wall. Again, a couple of people said, “what good can we do around here?”
Unlike Simon, we aren’t buying a great heart. Our hearts been bought and paid for. We’ve got a great heart to play our part.
Luke 24:36-49
Listening guide
Easter is not just a letter from a law firm....
Easter is a better __________.
“Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” (verse 44)
Easter isn’t just a story that he can celebrate. It’s a story …...
“The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (verse 46-47)
Easter is a story we can all _____________.
Ask yourself: What is Jesus saying to me in his Word?
Discussion questions
Sermon
I gave you this illustration last week. I don’t know if you liked it, no one told me. Easter is like getting a letter from a legitimate law firm saying that you are the long lost relative of a very important family. You have just inherited millions.
That would be a great story.
It would be a little awkward for sure. I can’t imagine what you would tell your family when you got home.
The conversation with your friends, that would be pretty fun. Can you imagine saying, Hey everyone, you’ve been great. Thanks for being my friends. I’ll try not to forget you in my life. I’m off to Switzerland for a weekend of business deals and skiing! I’ll see you in Congress someday!
Can you imagine telling your boss, hey boss, thanks for all the opportunities and encouragement you gave me. I’m sorry I can’t teach the 4th graders anymore. I’ve got to go be the VP for business development for this big fortune 500 company.
What a great story! That would be a crazy story!
As far as I can tell, there is just one problem. Your story doesn’t do a thing for me.
If you get a letter saying you’re part of an important family and you’re suddenly rich, and I’m your friend, how does that help me?
If you’re suddenly famous and rich, and I’m your brother, what does that mean about me?
If I’m your mother and you’re walking out my door because you belong to another mother, where does that leave me?
Now maybe I can get some money from you. Maybe I get a business reference from you. But I lose you. I still lose out.
That’s where this illustration breaks down. Easter is a much better story.
Adventure
That’s what Jesus wants to give us this week. Jesus wants to give us a better story to celebrate.
Development
Today’s event, Jesus showed up in a room with his disciples. He showed them his hands and feet. He was not a ghost or a spirit. He was actually physically alive.
This is one of those crazy places where Luke is trying to tell us just how different the resurrection of Jesus is. Peter, James, John, and all the other Jewish people had no problem with a resurrection at the end of the world. They believed everyone would rise at the end.
They also thought there was a life after death. They thought people were spirits or ghosts or something like that.
What they didn’t believe, no one believed that people rise from the dead. They never thought Jesus would show up with a body. Suddenly they saw this once dead now living man.
Jesus changed the entire story. He said, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” (verse 44)
You’ve got to know how weird this is. If you read the Old Testament and you’ve got this verse in mind, you won’t read the name Jesus one time. I know the name Joshua is the same root as Jesus, but you won’t find the name Jesus.
If you read the Old Testament, you won’t hear about a cross.
If you read the Old Testament, you won’t read about a soldier and an empty tomb.
What you will find is an endless string of birds and sheep and cows sacrificed.
What you will find is a prophet who leads his people to the promised land.
What you will find a slave who sets people free.
What you will find is a servant who saves people.
What you will find is a king who reigns forever.
What you will find is the mighty made low, the humble raised up, and the dead coming to life.
What you will find is a story to celebrate. What Jesus has done, he has said, No matter how bad things are. No matter how sick people are. No matter how poor people are. No matter how confused people are. No matter how many people die … you should celebrate.
This is the thing... God has said, no matter how much hell demands from you, I’ve given more. No matter how much death asks of you, I’ve answered more. No matter how much sin steals from you, I’ve handed out more.
The real stories, the deep stories .... the “if we serve we can succeed”. The “if we sacrifice someone can prevail”. The “if we give generously, we will reap richly”. Easter says celebrate ... because they’re true.
They won’t be true for you if you don’t trust him. But Easter says they can be true because of him for all of you.
That’s what Easter. It’s a story we can celebrate. And unlike the story of ancient Israel, it’s a story for all of us, for you.
Because Easter is only kind of like the letter from the law firm. Easter is more like a story of Pheidippedes. In 490 BC a man named Pheidippides ran about 150 miles from the city of Marathon to the city of Sparta. He needed to ask the Spartans for help to fight the Persians. He then turned around and ran back. He ran 300 miles over a few days! But that isn’t the run that made him famous. Because a little while later the Greeks won the battle at Marathon, he ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens. He announced “Joy, we win!” Pheidippides - Wikipedia
What did he make for us? The marathon. Do you know how many people’s lives he changed with that run? Millions and millions have people run the race people will call “the best and most rewarding type of pain out there” What Does it Feel Like to Run a Marathon? The No BS Truth - Better Than Alive “Running has given me so much … I can’t wait to do this again.” What It Feels Like to Run Your First Marathon | Marathon Training Academy. Millions of people run races because of him.
I bet a lot of you would say, I would never run a marathon. I bet there are only one or two people in this whole room who have in the past or would in the future run a marathon.
But the point of the illustration is this:
“The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (verse 46-47)
Jesus both suffered and rose. He is the one person who both lost and won all by himself.
Ever since the first human beings, Adam and Eve, some people suffered and some people succeeded. Some people won and some people lost. Cain lived and Abel died. Abraham grew rich and Lot became corrupt. Jacob got the birthright and Esau lost out. The Hebrews were enslaved, the Egyptians walked free. Achan went down, Joshua rose up. Saul lost the crown, David gained the throne. The Israelites went into exile, the Assyria captured them.
And this continues even today. The Germans lost WW2, the Americans won. The Republicans lost the elections, the Democrats won. The Democrats lost the election, the Republicans won.
Pheidippedes is one of those rare stories where the same guy lost and won. Because he ran this great race that has changed human history, giving millions of people the inspiration to get healthy and do more. But even he died.
Jesus is the only one who first died then rose. He has completely shifted the story. His story is the only one where people are both losers and winners.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is the one event that tells each and every one of us we are both more sinful, broken, and corrupt than we imagine and we are more forgiven, loved, and accepted than we could possibly believe.
For any of us to come after him, we must practice both repentance and the forgiveness. All of us. All of the time.
I can’t help but think of the example of Corrie ten Boom. I think I’ve mentioned it before because it’s just so powerful. She and her sisters were prisoners at the German war camp Ravensbruck during WW2. Her sister Betsie died there.
After the war, she became an active evangelist and went to Germany to proclaim the gospel. A guard came up to her one day after a talk. He asked, “A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea! ... I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, will you forgive me?”
And her response is beautiful. If you have a chance, look it up sometime. In short, she said, “I stood there—I whose sins had again and again been forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place. .... Then she prayed “Jesus, help me!” .... And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. “I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!” . . . I had never known love so intensely, as I did then. But even then, I realized it was not my love . . . It was the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Scott Sauls, A Gentle Answer, Thomas Nelson, 2020, pp.19-20)
Easter is a story we can all celebrate because Easter says the only way we can get in is both repentance and forgiveness. There is not a neighbor … because we all win and lose. Easter is a story we can all celebrate
Action
I want you to take this as the greatest story. Here is the next step I want you to learn to ask yourself as we follow Jesus? what is Jesus saying to me in his Word?
Because the Word of God died to make this story come alive. You are reading the greatest story ever told. No one else has come up with such a marvelous, such a magnificent, such a simple, such a profound, such a humble, such an amazing story.
And certainly no one else has made it come alive.
It’s easy to think that pastors have a profound and complicated practice of reading this great story. I don’t. My regular practice of reading is pretty simple. I read 2 chapters. I write down one verse that I notice. I explain the verse. I apply verse. I respond to the verse.
I can’t tell you how many mornings I have heard this story speak to me. I know I ask many of you what is Jesus saying to you in his Word and maybe you don’t feel like you have a good answer. If I have something to say, it’s not because of a great seminary education.
I know how much some of you love a good story. Easter is a story we can all celebrate
John 20:19-31
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Jesus Appears to Thomas
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The Purpose of John’s Gospel
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Listening guide
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (verse 19)
What do you think “peace” is? _____________________________
“Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (verse 27)
God _________ up for us.
“What is God saying to me? And what am I going to do about it?”
Sermon
(picture of letter)
If you received a formal letter in the mail from a legitimate law firm saying that you were the long lost heir of an important family and had just inherited the family name and many millions of dollars....wow. You would be skeptical for sure. You would probably think it is too good to be true. I still think you would investigate that kind of a claim.
You would look at the letter and see that it had a return address and a real signature at the bottom of the page. You would get on the website and see that the firm looked legit and that the lawyer existed. You would check the better business bureau. You’d look the family up. You would think, this can’t be true! This has to be a scam...It looks so real.
Finally you would call and say, hey, I got this letter. It must be a joke. It says I’m part of this other family and I’ve inherited millions. It’s a joke, right? The lawyer might say, no joke, no scam. Come in, I’ll show you the will and the evidence.
So you would. You’d get the millions. You’d get the name. You would walk out of that office as someone else.
At that point, you’re just getting started. If you want, you can go back to your old life. Your old family, old ways, and old routines. The better way, I think most of us would say, is you go forward. You learn what it means to live with millions. You learn what it means to live with a new name and a new family.
I think a lot of us would find that really hard. We’d say, I don’t want to give up my old life, my old friends, and my old family. I like it. But we know we really should go forward. We should learn how to live with money. We should embrace our family.
We got to start by learning our new family facts. Who are our parents. Where they’re from. What do they value. Our siblings.
We need to learn the rules. We say, I always thought murder was wrong. Is it wrong for you? What about stealing? Do you lie?
I think most of us would find hardest part changing the behaviors that make us who we are. For example, I think all of us are used to financial scarcity. Our entire life is dictated in part by how much money we have. How do we live differently when you can do whatever you want?
Or I think all of us are used to having other people tell us the rules and how to behave. We don’t have much authority. How do we live differently when we’re important and we’re making decisions?
I think this is the tough part. Getting the inheritance and the family is just the first step. Becoming a new person is a whole different thing. That’s what we want to do for the next few weeks.
Adventure/Promise
I would say Easter is the best letter from a law firm you could ever get.
With Easter, Jesus says, I give you the greatest fortune you could ever imagine. You can be God’s long lost child. I want to give you a new family, a new identity, and a new fortune.
And especially if you’re just starting out, you’ve got to learn all the doctrines of this family. Who is the father, who is the mother, what do they value, and all that. Maybe you already know that.
You’ve got to learn the rules as well. They’re the 10 commandments. They tell us what’s right and wrong, what we can and cannot do.
(small steps picture)
I think the hardest part, you have to figure out how to behave like you belong in the family. We have to live like we’re worth more than we’ve ever imagined as long as we’re connected to Christ. We have to live like we’re part of an eternal family. And we have to learn to depend on Jesus’ goodness, his righteousness.
That kind of life doesn’t happen in a moment. You don’t change like that overnight. You take small steps. That’s what we’re going to do.
Let’s take smell steps.
Development
We’ve got a great lesson here today. The lesson leads us to a man named Thomas. He could very well be the person most overwhelmed by Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus invites him to take just a small step.
That is the only way anybody can process what happened. Small steps. Jesus rising was basically more than everyone could handle. Let me remind us of a few of the people.
The first people at the tomb were a few women. They did not leave the tomb with joy and laughter. They were trembling and fled from the tomb and did not talk to anyone right away. The first men did not know what to think about it and ran to see for themselves. Jesus met a woman named Mary who did not even recognize him after he rose! The first men who got to talk to Jesus were so overwhelmed by the experience that they left the village they had walked to and ran a few miles back to Jerusalem at night. Men in ancient times didn’t run. There aren’t many middle aged men who could run a few miles at night. The most overwhelmed people … Let me read you this verse.
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (verse 19)
Did you see this? Jesus has just risen from the dead and the disciples were locked in! They had no idea how to process what was going on. That could have been Jewish religious leaders arresting them for stealing the body of Jesus. That could have been the Jewish mob coming to kill them like Jesus. They could have been afraid that all the people were going to rise up in rebellion and insurrection. Whatever it was the resurrection of Jesus was more than they could process. And here is how much more.
Jesus showed up and he said to them, “peace be with you”. This is the common Jewish greeting. It really isn’t that surprising. What is surprising.... Jesus never announces peace to his disciples until he gets to his death and his resurrection.
Jesus has always said, I didn’t come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword and division. He brought it.
He brought conflict. He brought justice. He brought death. He stirred up the hatred and the violence of the people. He let them pour out all their anger at the injustice of life against him. He took it in his body on the cross.
He took their wrath. He took their rage. He took their sickness. So when he says, “peace is yours” you know he isn’t talking about a smooth lake on a Saturday morning where you can sip some coffee and catch fish.
What do you think “peace” is? _____________________________
I’m guessing because of American culture, we all imagine peace wrong. Here is how Walter Brueggeman describes peace in the Bible. “In the NT the word “peace” indicates more than the absence of war. .... šālôm included “everything necessary to healthful living: good health, a sense of well-being, good fortune, the cohesiveness of the community, relationship to relatives and their state of being, and anything else deemed necessary for everything to be in order” (Westermann, 24 [cf. Brueggemann, 13–23]).” (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, peace)
“everything in order”. Jesus has just risen from the dead and for the first time, he says to his disciples, peace. You cannot overestimate what Jesus did when he rose. He has finally started to make everything right.
Let me just give you one example. When the apostle Paul tells us what it means that Jesus has risen from the dead, he writes, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!” You look at what Paul says here.
He says if you are in Christ, a new creation has come. “in Christ” doesn’t mean inside of Jesus Christ. It means connected to Christ or in relationship to Christ. Paul says if you are connected or in relationship to Jesus, a new creation exists.
I’ve had people say to me, not a lot, say to me, I don’t feel much different after knowing Jesus than I did before. Some people say that. I would say by and large, far and away, the people who stay around say, I am not the same person I was. I’ve been transformed.
Some people say, I behave differently. I used to ___ and now I act this way. Other people say, I feel differently. I’m more compassionate, more thoughtful.
Friends, this is God’s peace breaking in. This is the new creation remaking you. This is everything, even you, in order.
I want you to imagine for a moment one of those movie scenes where a team of people rush in to take over an office that isn’t really theirs at the moment. So there is an office, let’s pretend it is financial counselors and belongs to Fred and Fred. Then a team of people rush in. They have a new sign that says, “Jane and Fred”. They cover over the old one. They change all the nameplates on the doors. They swap out the business cards. They throw away the old fake plants and put out fresh new flowers. They dump the silly magazines and put out a nice array of public interest publications, newspapers, and even a few books.
At first it all feels out of place. It feels weird. It doesn’t feel right. Over time you get used to it. And over time you change to feel like you belong.
Friends, this is why you and I have such a problem with Christianity. It’s not because there aren’t enough facts. I would be glad to talk with you about the facts and the evidence for the resurrection of the dead.
What is the problem? Someone has rushed into our world and changed all the signs, all the flowers, all the magazines, all the newspapers, and the couches and everything else. It’s all still the same size and shape. But it’s new. And we feel out of place.
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead isn’t something you can wish away. You can just learn to embrace it.
You can see the signs that he puts up. You can touch them and see. You can notice how the flowers look different. You can read the books and the magazines and the articles. You can notice every piece of new life in this world and say, this is where God is speaking to me of a new life that is so much greater.
What I mean is, Jesus comes to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (verse 27)
Jesus has put everything in order, everything right. You can simply begin to touch all the marks of the new life
One of the neat stories of Easter is a woman named Joni Eareckson Tada. She was in an accident at 17 and has been a quadriplegic ever since. While she was getting around in her wheelchair, she went to church. The problem was she couldn’t kneel at any worship events. Everyone did except Joni. She said, “With everyone kneeling, I certainly stood out. I couldn’t stop the tears.”
She wasn’t crying from pity. She said that the sight of hundreds of people on their knees before God was so beautiful – “a picture of heaven”. She went on to say, “the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus....Can you imagine the hope that the resurrection gives someone who is spinal cord-injured like me?”
Friends, Easter means God shows up for us. He is showing up for you and me with his new resurrected life. He is showing up as he puts everything in order. He is showing up with his peace.
Action
And like Thomas, like Tada, I want you to look at those signs and say “What is God saying to me? And what am I going to do about it?”
Easter is this great letter that says you and I have a new fortune and a new family. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?
This is where God has shown up.
1 Corinthians 15:19-20
John 13:1-17
Listening guide
“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (verse 2)
(picture of foot washing)
“Now that I … have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (verse 14)
“Teacher and Lord, that is what I am” (verse 13)
These are ____________ to ______________.
(communion hands)
Sermon
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. I agree with people that it was a magnificent way for him to serve them. I’ve never been particularly interested in washing your feet. Or the feet of anyone else, for that matter.
That’s why we don’t do it. Not because I don’t want to serve you and serving the people of Otsego Plainwell. I do. I just don’t see the value in it. We don’t wash our feet when we come home. The only time I wash my feet is in the shower.
I want to serve people in appropriate ways. I’m always trying to figure out what that looks like based on people’s needs, the Bible, and the way people respond to me. In my mind, as a pastor, serving people in appropriate ways looks like:
· Listening and encouraging as we candidly discuss the sorrow and joy when a loved one dies
· Providing guidance for following Jesus at home, at work, or as a citizen
· Being a listener, a sounding board, and a little bit of an advisor when someone needs to discover their identity
· Giving hungry people food
· Installing ramps for people who need help getting in and out of their house
· Assuring guilty people they are forgiven
And the list would go on a lot from there. You can imagine that I am frustrated a lot because not only do people skip this kind of relationship with me. Often they even reject me. They refuse to allow me to serve them.
What I mean is, there certainly are plenty of times when I tell someone,
· “Let me know if I can do anything” and they ignore me.
· I say, “let’s get together and talk about this” and they never accept my invitation.
· Or I tell them “I’d love to go through this with you” and they never ask for advice
And the frustration is not just that, but often
· I express concern and people say get out of my life.
· I send positive encouragements like “hey, I’m cheering for you today” or “God bless you” and things like that, and they say, “what do you want”
What I want is to serve people appropriately. And I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not alone in wanting to make a difference in people’s lives.
That’s a very common theme. Many people want to make a difference.
Adventure
And that’s what Jesus wants us to get today.
Maundy Thursday is a big day. Jesus says, let’s take on some of your biggest problems – sin, death, and the devil. Here is why we’re doing this. Not so you can “make a difference in the world” as good as that might be. But to actually help people.
Let’s get some hands that help.
Development
This is the thing that Jesus got more than anyone else, I think. This event we call the foot washing … We have some problems timing it. I think a good time is right before the Last Supper. Jesus was quite busy.
He didn’t concern himself with the supper preparations. He wasn’t distracted by all the conflicts with the Jewish leaders. And he didn’t lash out at the man who was going to betray him. He focused on the people right in front of them. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (verse 2) I know that this gets mentioned constantly. I find this so impressive.
There is this story from Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov that illustrates it well. A wealthy woman asks an elderly monk how she can know if God exists. He tells her no explanation or argument can achieve this, only the practice of “active love”. She confesses that sometimes she dreams of a life of loving service to others. At such times she thinks perhaps she will become a nun, live in poverty, and serve the poor as humbly as possible. But then she imagines how ungrateful some of the people she would serve are likely to be. She imagines they would complain that the soup wasn’t hot enough or that the bread wasn’t fresh enough or that the bed was too hard. She admits that she couldn’t bear that much ingratitude. Her dreams about serving others vanish and she finds herself wondering if there is a God. The wise monk responds, “Love in practice is a hard and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” (Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, pg 165)
He could have said, one of them is betraying me. He could have thought one of them will deny me. They’ll all run away. Jesus was not distracted from serving the real people right in front of him.
(picture of foot washing)
He loved them up to the end of his life. He accomplished his goal of loving them. And now he was loving them to the purpose of their lives.
He got down on his hands and knees. He went around the table. He washed their feet. I think a lot of us know this. Washing someone’s feet at that time was something only slaves did. It was illegal for Jews and even slaves to do it. Yet Jesus Christ took the position of a slave below slaves and he turned to his friends and he said, this is what I’m all about. This is even what life’s all about.
Jesus wraps it up; “Now that I … have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (verse 14)
I’m sure a lot of us are saying, is that what life is all about for all of us? Even for me? That’s a fair question.
Someone might say, I want to take care of my family. I don’t want to worry about serving. Someone else might say, I just want to do my job. I don’t want to worry about serving.
So to say, is all of life really about serving, that’s a good question. We don’t have time to answer it all.
Let me give you just one way to frame this. One way to think about this.
Let’s say you find a machine. It’s all full of lights and wheels and beeps, and they said, “Here, this is a present for you …” And it’s big. It’s very impressive. You’d say, “Well, it’s very busy, it’s very impressive, but what is it for?”
Let’s say a friend asked, “what’s it for?” And you said, “I don’t know. I wonder the same thing.” Then you would all say, “what good is it?”
What would you do? You'd have to ask the manufacturer. You’d have to ask the engineer. No matter what it does, how much it beeps and boops and everything else, you still have to ask the manufacturer. You have to do that, even if no one else wants the machine or knows what to do with it. That’s the only thing you can do.
What we've got here, we’ve got the manufacturer speaking. Jesus says, “you also should wash one another’s feet.” If you want to know what you’re supposed to do with life, this is it.
See friends, I can’t promise you that your friends, family, neighbors, and citizens will always know what you’re doing. They might look at you and say, that is the craziest machine I’ve ever seen. That guy beeps and boops and bleeps and doesn’t seem to do anything.
But they haven’t asked the manufacturer. You’ve been made by him!
What I think is so incredibly powerful about this entire event … Here we have Jesus. He is God so great that the highest heavens cannot contain him. He is the God to whom the entire universe is nothing more than a piece of belly button lint. He is the great “Teacher and Lord, that is what I am” (verse 13) He doesn’t belong on the floor.
No, as this story takes place, where he belongs is across town in the temple. Jesus should be in the temple that he cleared out a day or two ago. He should be washing his own hands in the great pool that sits next to the altar. Behind a thin curtain, he should be putting on, not a dirty towel, but the fine and ornate garments of the priest. He shouldn’t hear his disciples saying, don’t do that Jesus. He should hear all the Jewish people cheering him on and encouraging him. And he should be washing not feet, but the holy altar of God with the lamb that was sacrificed. That’s what he should be doing.
What’s going on here? The answer is that he is giving up that spot so that he can remake you.
He is the Lord who has become the slave to treat you as his lord. He is the king who has become the servant to treat you as his king. He is the priest who has become a pauper so you become a priest.
The maker of the universe has placed his hands on you in baptism, his Word, and in his Supper so that he make you into a marvelous machine for his purposes.
That way every time someone doesn’t want you and you wonder, what am I doing? Or someone ignores you and you say, what am I hear for. They reject you, someone ignores you, you can say, I’ve been made by his hands.
And you can go on and say, my hands to you are his hands. I’m offering his hands. These are hands to help.
Action
The Lord’s Supper can be the greatest place where we get hands to help. In 2015 there was a young lady who decided to attend a church service.
At the end of the sermon and prayers, the pastor announced they were going to have communion.
(picture of hands)
Instantly, the young lady panicked. She said, “my palms got sweaty and my brow furrowed as I thought to myself, what do I do?”
She had just come back to church after 14 years of pushing all religious beliefs behind her. She was filled with hurt.
Then the bread and wine came by. She had all kinds of questions, "why do I deserve this? Why should I be good enough to take part in this ceremony? I was a cast off, a sinner, and someone who abandoned religion long ago. …. I’m not good enough.” She said, I passed the bowl of bread and just looked at the seat in front of me. I knew I didn’t belong here in this moment. This was for people of faith, not for people who might want to look for faith and Jesus just because something is missing in his life, so he decides to go to Church once in a while and figure out what he wants to be and where he wants to go.
The girl was empty. She was a nobody and a nothing.
Then she felt something touch her hand. Her friend asked her for her hand and she did something I couldn’t believe, or would have ever expected. She split her bread in half, soaked it in wine… and then gently placed it in her hand. She said, “My mind tuned out everything around me, and I still, to this second as I write this, can’t recall what I thought."
That's the moment where God makes us. Hands that help remake us, empty, broken, destructive, sinful, hurting people and give us new hands.
We’re going to have communion in just a moment. Let’s prepare for that. May the hands that touch us in this sacred act be hands that help.
www.thisisvillagechurch.com/sermons-media/blog/communion-right-or-privilege/
Written February 11, 2015
Hebrews 5:7-10
7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Listening guide
Discussion questions
(no discussion questions for this time, please join our study group looking at vocation)
Sermon
Hebrews 5:7-10
Peace Lutheran Church
Nathaniel Timmermann
3/21/2021
Sermon Number
Lent 5
The perfect partner
About halfway through the pandemic, a young man I worked with on some projects switched jobs. I asked him why he switched. He mentioned a couple of ways he could use his skills at the new job. The main reason he said, he said that he wanted to work with people.
He was tired of working alone. He found it hard to stay motivated working alone. The organization he had been part of was changing rapidly. He worked alone a lot. The new job would be a very different situation. He would be part of a team again.
I’m not breaking any confidence saying that. This was public.
It was like a mirror though for me.
I never realized how alone I would feel. I assumed as an adult and a pastor, I would always be with people. I would always be connected with people. But I feel so alone!
Especially when things aren’t going well. Especially when stuff isn’t coming together. Especially when things are going badly. And I feel the most alone when I have conflict with people close to me. I feel alone as I experience the difficulties and the sadness and the pain of life.
So I was struck one time reading some words by Victor Frankl. Frankl was a Jewish man during WW2. He was captured by the Nazis. He lived in the concentration camps. He survived. He eventually became one of the fathers of a kind of mental therapy in the 20th century.
One of the insights he gained from the camp...
Most prisoners died on the inside from emptiness, desolation, and spiritual poverty. The worst part of the camp was not the physical part but the emptiness and desolation.
Some prisoners got through it by a more intense inner life. For example, this is what he had one time.
“We were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. …. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there. (Frankl, Viktor E.. Man's Search for Meaning (pp. 39-41). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.)”
Adventure
In Frankl’s words, what got him through the pain and the suffering? “She was there”.
Frankl points us to this truth. The writer to the Hebrews says that whatever your wife could do for you is only a start.
This is a great relevant question: What gets us through the sufferings of life?
For most people the single biggest challenge to belief in God is this. The problems, the sufferings, the evil in the world.
It’s not the amount of evidence for God. It’s not the fact that belief is unpopular.
This is part of the answer.
Development
God starts like this: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect”. I want you to notice this Jesus.
This isn’t Jesus who challenged Nicodemus.
This isn’t Jesus cleaning out the temple.
This is not a powerful Jesus. What kind of a Jesus is this? [“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect”]
· This Jesus cries out.
· This Jesus cries tears.
· This Jesus submits.
This Jesus suffers.
There are basically two reasons given for suffering in life. The most common reason given for suffering is the circumstances of our life. These words hint at the circumstances when they say, “save him from death”. They’re suggesting that Jesus suffered in connection to his death. We do the same thing. If I walk up on a group of people all wearing muted clothing and some are crying, what kind of an event do you think I’m at? A funeral. External circumstances can cause suffering. There is another.
The other reason for suffering is personality and character. There is this hint here as well. Jesus had “fervent” cries and tears. This is his personality and character coming through. He suffered because he was passionate. Well because he was fervent. We notice the same thing. We say little things like “don’t worry, be happy”. If someone’s pet dies, someone might “it’s just a dog”.
But if ever there was a person who didn’t suffer because of his personality and characteristics, and didn’t suffer because of circumstances, it was Jesus.
I don’t care whether you believe in Jesus or not, everyone agrees he was a good guy. He isn’t suffering because of his personality and character. He had no character problems. And he was completely innocent. There was no reason for his external circumstances to cause him soul pain. He should have been angry. He should have been furious. But he shouldn’t have cried!
What I’m trying to show you is this. Personality plays into suffering. Circumstances play into suffering. But even good people, the best person suffered. There is one little word here you need to see.
The word “save”. Jesus cried out to the one who could “save” him. Jesus had to be saved? The best human being who ever lived had to be saved? As if death held something over him? As if there was some power in his life that forced him and controlled him and caused him to suffer and to die?
Yes.
Suffering is not just circumstances. It’s not just personality. Suffering is the expression sin.
I know most of you are going to agree with me. But some of you are saying, I don’t know. You’re trying to tell me there is some supernatural force out there or maybe in here (point at chest) that is crushing me and destroying me and hurting my life. And I don’t know about that, because in my experience most people are pretty good and the systems aren’t perfect but they aren’t bad.
So I just don’t know if I can buy that suffering is the expression of some supernatural force called sin.
You certainly aren’t the first person to say that. For example, I’ve told you part of the story of Langdon Gilkey before.
Gilkey was this guy who ended up in a Japanese internment camp during WW2. He is so interesting because he believed that people were basically good until he was placed in this camp about as big as our soccer field for a couple of years with 2,000 other people (https://timfam-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/nathaniel_timfam_us/EfB1HeDdSqpEhrH7ynp4OfkB8PeNktzl2vtWzSd2tGthAA?e=WgURI1)
Gilkey said, “Nothing indicates so clearly the fixed belief in the innate goodness of humans as does this confidence that when the chips are down, and we are revealed for what we ‘really are,’ we will all be good to each other. Nothing could be so totally in error.”
I understand that we all want to be pretty good. I understand that we all want to think everyone else is pretty good. And that suffering isn’t fair or right.
But the goodest person of them all (and yes, I made up that word) suffered the very worst stuff.
All so that you could say, without a shadow of doubt, that as much as suffering is with you, the God of the universe is with you just as much and more.
It says Jesus was “made perfect” by what he suffered. That means many things. It doesn’t mean there was something wrong with Jesus. He means the perfect place for Jesus in life was representing you, in all of your weakness, to God. What does that look like?
Like many people, I have offended individuals along the way in life. I did or said the wrong thing. One time I offended a gentleman. We weren't friends, just acquaintances. I said something he didn't appreciate. To this day, I'm still not sure exactly what I did or said. I tried talking to him and even visiting him at his home. But it didn't work. So eventually I asked an older gentleman I know to help me out. I asked him to be my advocate. He wasn't really good friends with the man, but they were much better friends than this other man and I. I asked him to help me offer a sincere apology to this other man.
So that is what we did. We sat around a table. I apologized. We talked through the situation. This other man assured the man I had offended that my repentance was real. He accepted my apology and we went on in life.
He put his reputation and years of hard work on the line so that I could experience forgiveness and reconciliation.
I didn’t even really think about it at the time, but he endured the embarrassment of representing me. He experienced the shame of having to assure someone else that I was genuinely sorry. He endured the guilt connected with my name. He dealt with an expression of sin for me.
That is what Jesus did.
There is no expression of sin in our lives, no suffering, that Jesus is not willing to take on himself so that God would know that you are sorry for your sins and you want nothing more than to feel his love, his acceptance, and his pleasure.
This is the main reason that Christians insist God can be trusted. “the main reason that Christians insist that God can be trusted in the midst of suffering is that . . . God himself has firsthand experience of suffering.”233 (Keller, Timothy. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering (p. 147). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition)
Nothing can change your suffering more than the tears of the one who has cried for us. He is the perfect partner for our pain and problems.
Action
You’ve got a perfect partner for the pain and problems. “he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.”
Jesus is a priest. What does that mean?
A priest is someone with us who gets what we need from our god. He is more than an acquaintance, more than a friend. He is a partner.
You don’t wait for your best friend or your spouse to ask you questions about all the problems and the worries and the mistakes and the failures and the guilt of your life.
You don’t wait for your best friend to say, how did you mess up today? You don’t wait for your spouse to say, what made you ashamed today? You don’t wait for your best friend to say, what hurt you today?
No, you say, I’m feeling ashamed because I ___ . You say, I’m feeling guilty because I did ____________________. I was hurt today when this happened. I was ashamed because this happened. You don’t make your partner ask. You just tell him or her.
Jesus has got to be more than just an acquaintance or even a friend. He has to be your partner.
Is he your partner? Don’t make him wait. Tell him every problem. Tell him you love him before he asks. Praise him without prompting.
He is the perfect partner for the pain and problems.
Matthew 27:27-31
Sermon
Romans 8:1-13
Sermon
I think you know that in January we took a little vacation to visit our friends in Florida. And for a whole week, that family of 6 was invaded by a family of 7.
I bet you can imagine, we made a mess of their life!
Meal planning, there were lines for the bathrooms. And there is lots of good. Lots of friends, half as much cooking. Double dates.
That only begins to make a mess of your life. A week. Some of you have taken a loved one in for months. Years at a time. That really messes up your life. All of your time, your schedule. Even all the way down to your desires and preferences. Everything changes.
Now if that is true if someone moves into your house for a little bit, what does that mean if someone moved inside you - permanently? Because that is what Paul says in these verses this morning. He says, “if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you” (verse 9).
Adventure
For the last few weeks, God has put some big stuff before us.
First, he really forced the question, who or what is your God? He wants to be your God and provide you with your identity, belonging, purpose, forgiveness, and approval – all the things you need.
Second, he has said, I can be a pivot place in your life.
Today he wants to say, look you realize if God moves into your life that is going to make a mess of some things, that is going to mess stuff up, but that is also the only way you are really going to come alive!
It’s a little uncomfortable to accommodate somebody like this, but at the same time is more uncomfortable to not accommodate the company. You’re going to have to lay down some of the things you want and do. When you’re done you will be so much better, you will have more than you imagined.
Come alive
We’re going to be in Romans 8 today, starting with verse 5.
Content
One of the things I think is neat and is a sign of hope is that our younger people are much more willing to admit that we are spiritual beings and there is a spiritual side of life. In my experience, you’re much more willing to deal with what Paul addresses here.
Paul says, “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Paul is talking about body and soul. Then he says there is a third thing, a higher thing, called the Spirit. This is what I’m saying young people are good at doing.
Young people are known for being spiritual but not religious.
You’re the ones, more than anyone, who will say this event, this gathering is just so dull and lifeless.
Let me give you one funny example that shows, a little bit, how much things might have changed. 1977. Famous song from the BeeGees. Stayin Alive. Lyrics go
“Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
“Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
Fun song. I enjoy it. The song asks for help. “Life goin’ nowhere, somebody help me.” What strikes me is the spirit the song wants. What is it? “Stayin alive, stayin live”. The writer isn’t saying, I’m so down on my luck and I’ve been kicked around and beat up, and now I feel dead. He says, I’m down and I’ve been kicked around and the city is breaking and everyone is shaking but I’m staying alive!
Fastforward 40 years. One of the main songs of the hit movie “The Greatest Showman” is titled “Come Alive.” It starts with almost the exact same context. Life has been really hard. You’re down on your luck. You’ve been beat up. So what to do? “Come alive, come alive, go and light your light let it burn so bright.”
Do you hear the difference? One said, my circumstances stink but I’m fine. I’m going ahead. The other said, no my circumstances stink and you know what, so does my spirit. It’s dead. I need to come alive.
You will say something that 40, 50, maybe 100 years ago no one would have ever said. Paul says, “the mind governed by the flesh is death”. And there are plenty of people who would say, Amen, Paul. Right on.
Who here needs to say, I’m crushed. Who here needs to say I’m broken down. Who here needs to say, I’m lifeless. I’m spent. My spirit is empty! I need a new spirit.
Friends, your mind is dead inside. If you feel dead on the inside, I want you to just sit back for a moment and take a big breath and say, I feel dead inside.
And if you don’t, first good. I’m glad for you. I want you to notice something here. Be careful. Paul says, people who “live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.” He contrasts that with living according to the Spirit because you have your mind set on what the Spirit desires. Do you see what he does there?
He says, I can tell what you really love in life by what you life for. What you live for shows me what you love. Living a good and right life not even as easy as saying, I believe in Jesus as my Savior and Lord. New spiritual life is not some trite simplistic thing.
Maybe I can put it this way. At the end of the section, he adds this. He says, “people who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God”(verse 14). And he says, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (verse 9)
He doesn’t say, “children of God are led by the Spirit of God”. And he doesn’t say, “people who belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ.” He says the opposite.
This is NOT, this is not undoing faith in Jesus. People who believe in Jesus are saved. Boom. End of story.
He is saying, look. Faith is more than your words. You can’t just claim “Jesus is my Savior and Lord”. You got to have the Holy Spirit in your mind. In your self. In your gut.
Let me come back to that original picture. Imagine that you’ve got someone coming over to your house. They knock on the door. You got to let them in.
And you have to actually let them rearrange your house. But here is the problem.
You let them in because you know should and it’s the right thing to do, but you don’t really want them there. You’re ashamed of your house. It’s kind of messy, it needs updating, and lots of things need repair. You don’t like your couch because it is the same one that you had in college and you took it from your parent’s basement. You don’t really have any groceries or food in the house. No one is really comfortable in your house.
Whether you don’t believe in Jesus or you claim Jesus but you are really focused on the flesh, you are dead inside. This is worse than we might have thought or imagined.
This is far worse than we imagine because we’d love to hope that we don’t have to let anyone inside. We’d love to imagine there is no mess or at the worse we can clean it ourselves. Are you tracking with me? We’re talking about all the stuff that is going on in here. Your disappointments. Your anger. Your bitterness. Your hostility. All that stuff.
But God says is maybe the problem is worse than you realize because you think you’ve actually dealt with the stuff but if there is no one in there rearranging things, then woah.
And so what God promises to you here is if you let the Spirit inside, you will come alive. The first thing is that you have to know that when you receive God, you get the Spirit. No matter. They are a package deal.
If you look at verses 9 and 10, you see there it says, “you … are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you...” Isn’t that cool? It doesn’t matter if you get God, you get Christ, or you just get the Spirit, it’s all the same thing. The Spirit is God. He is the third person of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let’s start to unpack what this means.
In just a moment, Paul is going to use this famous line that says we cry out, “Abba, Father” because we are children of God. Not just any children but little children. He says that is the relationship we have with the Father. And in fact, you can’t have that kind of child – Father relationship with the God of heaven and earth if you don’t have the Spirit. If you want a father, you get the Spirit.
Similarly he says, we’re heirs. When Jesus died, everything that belonged to Jesus, was given to you. The Holy Spirit takes all of the riches of heaven and earth, all of the rewards, and he transfers them to you. If you want to be an heir, then you got to take the Spirit.
Come back to my imagine of God coming into the house. God says to you, I don’t care how ugly your house is. I don’t care how messy your house. I don’t care how little food your house has.
And I’m talking about your spirit now, so let me be more specific.
Some of you really want people to approve of you. I get that. I’ve been there. That can make an ugly mess of your life.
You’re afraid of people not accepting or approving of you
You’re angry when people don’t approve of you
You’re desperate for people to like you
If you feel like this, you know it can make a mess. One of the things I’ve seen make the biggest difference is to ask, what is God up to here?
It stops assuming that I’m right and need to be proven so and instead assumes that God is the one who is right and he will do what is good. More often than not that is exactly what he does. He works what is right and I, others get life.
The Spirit gives life because of righteousness. (verse 10)
When you can say God come on into my life. Whatever you work will be good. Yes, you’re going to get messed up. You’ll get changed. You’ll finally come alive.
Action
Breathing the musty dirty air of this life will never give you life. You need to bring some new air inside. Balloons.
My family has this running practice that we constantly tell each other that we can stay with one another for as long as we want, but we don’t really do it. None of us like it. When my parents come, you notice, they stay for one night.
We don’t want to move into someone else’s life and we don’t want someone else to move into our lives.
That won’t work. You need a new spirit inside to come alive.
Relish who you are as a child of the eternal Father. Relish who you are as an heir of an eternal inheritance. Relish who you are as the home of the Holy Spirit.
Let the Spirit inside and come alive!
Dear Jesus, The biggest problem in life is not that we don’t know enough or that the circumstances are insurmountable. The biggest problem is that we forget what you say. We fail to believe. We fail to have your life giving truths burned deep into us. Renew us. Make us come alive, to the glory of your name. Amen.
John 18:1-14
Genesis 28:10-17
Listening guide
Discussion questions
Sermon
In 2006, I was riding the train from Beijing XiZhan to Wuhan. I was reading Mark Paustian’s Prepared to Answer.
In 2009, I was standing in the northeast corner of Messiah Lutheran Church in Green Bay, WI. I wasn’t far from the baptismal font.
In 2012, I was riding in the car from Denver airport to Fort Collins, CO.
In 2017, I was getting installed here at Peace. I was sitting right in that chair.
I remember pretty clearly all the physical locations where I have had significant conversion experiences in my life. Each one of those has been a huge shift, a huge turn. And after each one of them, I’ve received some incredible blessings in my life.
I’ve marked each of those locations, at least in my mind.
Adventure
That’s what God wants for you and me today.
One of the words used all the time in 2020, and I’m so tired of it, was pivot. But there is truth to it. There are so many times when what we’re doing just doesn’t cut it. Where we are heading in the wrong direction – even if we think it is the right direction – and if someone doesn’t intervene, we won’t be okay.
Let’s give you a pivot
Development
In Genesis 28. We’re a couple hundred years after last week’s lesson. Isaac’s son, Abraham’s grandson. Jacob. The story starts like this...
11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.
Jacob is in polite exile. He has cheated his brother out of both the birthright and the blessing. He deceived his father. His dad has actually sent him away to work and get married.
I think that Jacob is quite relatable. He has a lot of the same hurts and frustrations that many of us feel. He felt a lack of fatherly affection. He had a significant sibling rivalry. At this point, he has no money. He basically has no home – he is not welcome back in his home. He has no meaningful claim to a family. What I mean is, he can claim to be Isaac’s son, but that doesn’t bring him a sense of belonging.
And honestly, I don’t think he was a very religious person. For example, when he talked with his mom about deceiving his father, he basically said, “Won’t my father figure it out and I’ll bring down a curse rather than a blessing?” People notice, he didn’t say, I’d lie to God and he didn’t say, God would curse him. He said, I’ll bring down a curse. Almost like a superstition. I think it is fair to say that Jacob didn’t want religion or church or God.
At this point he was lonely, frustrated, and in despair. And I bet all he wanted was a little bit of success, acceptance, and belonging.
Some people would expect me to say, what Jacob needs to do he needs to get religion. I don’t think that is the point because Jacob grew up in a religious home.
Jacob did not have this irreligious, godless upbringing. Jacob did not grow up in an alphabet soup house – a house full of acronyms to try to figure you out. His family did not only go to church on Christmas or Easter. There wasn’t a vague spirituality in the house.
His grandfather was one of the most famous converts from paganism in the whole world. His grandfather was the founder of the Hebrew nation, the Jewish peoples and the Islamic peoples as well.
He needs more than religion. Whatever has driven his life to this point, it’s not working. He is sleeping in the middle of nowhere on a rock. We often think the ancient people weren’t fancy. Sleeping on a rock is as low as it gets.
12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you
Look again at verse 13. So Genesis 28: 13, is what I'm looking at. Here's the catch that word above it in almost every modern English translation, so the nitv, the nasb, the ESV, the NLT and so on and so forth. almost invariably there will be a an asterisk by that word.
The reason for that is because what you have here in Hebrew is a preposition, all which is typically translated above or upon or beside, and then you have a third masculine singular suffix as an object which their masculine singular subject, I'm sorry, object is essentially him or it so you can translate this This tiny little word a bunch of different ways you could say above it. Or you could say, beside it, or you could say, above him or beside him. And I think it's that I think it's above or beside him, which changes the meaning of the lesson.
The meaning of the text is that Gods standing above the stairway. You could say they're above Jacob stood the Lord. Why would I go with that interpretation? Well, because look, here's what I think happened. I think Jacob saw stairway he saw angels going up and down on it. And then the Lord came down. In other words, I don't think God is yelling to Jacob from heaven. I think God came down the stairway, to be close to Jacob, to have an intimate relationship with Jacob to be near to Jacob.
And I believe that because I think that's the main message of the Bible. There is not primarily a stairway that goes from earth to heaven, which is the basic understanding of every man made religion. But it said the gospel really says there's a stairway from heaven to earth. And God the Savior comes down that stairway.
It's really interesting when you evaluate the religions of world history, including the worship structures of the ancient civilization. So for instance, in the ancient Near East, the primary worship structure was something called a ziggurat, and you have not exactly the same but similar structures amongst the ancients in South America, and Africa and Asia. And you have these pyramid like structures that are terrorists, like a staircase. You see them all around the world in ancient times. Many commentators will say this is what we see in Genesis chapter 11 with a tower of Babel. They were trying to create a staircase to God, that was certainly the spirit of the people at the Tower of Babel.
They were people who said we can make a way for ourselves to heaven. We do it through our own efforts through our own goodness, through our own ingenuity we can get to God we can get to heaven we can attain salvation, if we just offer the right sacrifices in the right prayers and do the right deeds and are comparatively better see it's it's step upon step upon step. And consequently every world religion throughout history has had a series of steps a staircase, a stairway, from Earth to heaven.
It doesn't matter which religion you're looking at, whether it's Buddhism and an Eightfold Path of enlightenment, or Judaism, and 10 commandments, or Hinduism and Four aims, or goals, or Islam and five pillars, these are stairways to heaven, not stairways from heaven, which is what Jacob sees.
Furthermore, notice who this staircase is coming down to, it's not coming down to a highly motivated, self empowered, comparatively righteous man. No, no, the stairway comes down to an utterly broken man. Jacob has deceived his father, he's stolen from his brother. He has disappointed really everybody in his life, that means anything to him. In other words, this is a non deserved stairway from heaven. This is a stairway of grace by which God comes down and he meets you, in your messed up lost broken, worst moment.
Now bring this home. The work of Jesus. Jesus has one of his early followers is named Philip. And Philip is excited that he's met the Messiah, he's met God's Son, and he's ready to tell everybody about that. And he goes to his friend, Nathaniel, and he says, You got to come meet Jesus. He is the Promised Messiah that we've been waiting for this. It's Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel was quite skeptical at that moment, his first gut reaction is Nazareth, what good can possibly come from Nazareth. And again, the basic idea is God shows up not where the world would expect him because he doesn't operate by the instincts in the values of the world. He shows up where we least expect them.
And Philip keeps encouraging Nathaniel and Nathaniel goes to meet Jesus. And as Nathaniel is approaching Jesus, Jesus starts telling him everything about himself. Everything about Nathaniel In fact, he starts talking about what Nathaniel was doing when he was sitting under the fig tree where Philip first approached him. Now, we don't know what Nathaniel was doing under that fig tree. But apparently, whatever he was doing whatever he was thinking, it was so private, that he's convinced the only person who could possibly know what he was doing at that point must be God. And so at that moment, the light goes on, Nathaniel realizes Jesus must be God. And Jesus says, You know what, if you think if you're impressed by that, you haven't seen anything yet.
And in john 1:51, Jesus says, Nathaniel, very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
Now, every Bible scholar will tell you that phrase, as an overt call back to Genesis 28. Jesus is saying, this story of Jacob in the staircase are pointing directly to him. And the gospel of this lesson, of course, that is what Jesus essentially is saying, you cannot build a stairway to money, health, blessing, and the good life, I came to be your stairway. I didn't come to give you steps to a better life, I came to take care of the steps for you.
On the cross, he says, I paid for each and everything you did wrong. I also paid for all the things you didn’t do. I also paid for all these things all the other people did and did not do. On top of that, in my resurrection I accomplished all the things that you should accomplish with your life. I also accomplished everything that everyone else should do. I did not leave anything undone that should be done.
He is the staircase. He is the path. He have brought you the good life, all the blessing that you could ever want. Now just walk in it.
And the remarkable thing, for Jacob, as for you and me, is that Jacob experiences such a good life after this point that it is hard to imagine. When Jacob gets to Laban’s house, he has nothing. 20 years later when he leaves he has at least 13 children and thousands of flocks and herds.
This point in his life is a true pivot place of grace.
The world's solution to the good life is that we fall down but we pick ourselves back up and we keep going. The Bible says no, no, you're not capable of doing that. And very often you will wreck more with your work than you actually fix.
What you need is a pivot. The Gospel says we fall down. So God comes down with his grace.
Action
I know a whole lot of you out there need this pivot place of grace. And I have to admit, honestly, that I can’t tell you how to get it into your life. Look at this story. What does Jacob do? Nothing. This is the thing.
God is absolutely drawn to your brokenness, not to your bravery. Did you notice in this account, Jacob was not asking for anything? He was not praying to God. He was not worshiping God. He is completely isolated because he has spent his whole life pretending that he is someone that he isn’t.
That probably describes more of us than we care to admit.
When you've done your absolute worst then you are at your absolute worst. And at the end, despite all of that, you still hear God standing over you, not scolding you, but speaking words of unconditional love, speaking unbreakable promises of blessing for your future, that you don't deserve it. With God saying, it doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter who hates you, it doesn't matter who approves of you, or who's rejected you, how much you have or how little you have. He says, I love you. And here's what I have in store for you.
You see what Jacob does with that moment. “Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.” (verse 18)
What stone marks your pivot place?
I’ve got a board out there full of memorial stones, marker stones. I want to invite you all to
And if you haven’t that pivot place, I want to invite you to consider your own brokenness, your own lostness. Maybe today is your pivot place. Because God wants nothing more than to say to you, here I am with you.
God gives pivot places.
John 13:21-30
21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”
22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”
25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”
26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” 28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29 Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. 30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.
Sermon
Genesis 22:1-18
Sermon