Posted by Chris on February 8, 2009 under Sermons
The Lord’s Genius
- God’s not finished with Israel
- If He can save Israel to save the Gentiles …
- Then He can save the Gentiles in order to save Israel!
Past, Present, Future
- Past: Romans 9:6-29 – God Shapes a People
- Present: Romans 9:30 – 11:6 – Remnant
- Future: Romans 11:7-36 – God’s Mysterious Plan
Did God Reject Israel?
- Saul/Paul the Benjamite
- Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. – 1 Samuel 8:7
God’s Saving Remnant
- 1 Kings 19 – Elijah and Remnant
- Three texts describing Israel’s inability to see God’s work
– Deuteronomy 29:4
– Isaiah 29:10
– Isaiah 6
The Future of Israel
- God has not rejected Israel forever
- Israel is not without hope
– Psalm 69:22-23
- Nothing separates us from God’s love (Romans 8)
- God will use it to His purposes
Warning to the Gentiles
- Romans 2:17 – Warning to Jews not to boast in their advantage with the law
- Romans 11:11-16 – Warning to Gentiles not to boast in their advantage in the present
Image #1: The Lump
- Lump of dough, lump of clay
- Numbers 15:19-20 – The first-fruit offering of the grain
- If the portion is consecrated, then so is the rest
Image #2: The Root
- Gentiles were wild branches grafted into the “chosen” nation
- Remember your place
- Don’t despise the root
- Historical reality – Jew first and also Gentile
Chiasm
- Kindness
– Sterness
– Sterness
- Kindness
|
X |
- Israel
– Gentile
– Gentile
- Israel
|
X |
Ingrafted Branches
- The Future
- The broken branches can be grafted back into their own root
- Sin and Grace
- Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
Posted by Chris on under Sermons
Read John 5:1-18.
So here’s this paralyzed man flat on his mat by the healing waters of the Pool of Bethesda. For 38 years he’s suffered with his paralysis and withered limbs. He lies on his mat waiting for the spirit to move and make it into the water. For 38 years he has waited there among many others who have come for healing.
Jesus approaches this man on his mat and asks a very strange question, “Do you want to get well?”
I’m a little disturbed that Jesus would ask such an obvious question. I could really excuse the poor man for being smart aleck in his response. What is the man supposed to say? “Let me think about that, Jesus! I’ve been pondering that very thought for 38 years and I just can’t make up my mind.”
I have to wonder what Jesus is doing. He supposed to know these things. He knows that the man has been ill for some time. He knows that people are gathering in this place for the specific purpose of being healed – and yet he asks this man who has suffered for longer than Jesus himself has been on earth, “Do you want to get well?”
But maybe Jesus knows more that we’ve supposed. Maybe when we read this carefully we begin to see the truth and honesty in Jesus’ question. Notice that the man doesn’t say, “Oh yes, I want to be healed.” Rather, his answer is something like an explanation as to why he isn’t healed. After all, even if he has to be the first in the pool when the water gets stirred up, I would think imagine that maybe he could get in first at some point in four decades. But he explains (or is it an excuse), “I have no one to help me into the pool. Someone else always gets there before me.”
Maybe Jesus really wants to know if this man is committed to being well, or has he become comfortable in his illness. It’s a fine line between struggling with a problem and holding on to it so that it defines us. For 38 years, the only life this man knew was lying on his mat by the pool of healing waters. Always on the edge waiting and hoping but never going in to the water. Giving up his life on the mat, even though it doesn’t sound very good, can be challenging. After all, what’s next for a someone like him?
Let’s really pay attention to this story. As is always the case with John, he doesn’t intend for us to take his gospel entirely literal. This is the author of Revelation and his gospel is almost as symbolic. So we have to develop the ears to hear.
This is not a proof text for a health and wealth gospel that says that our chronic conditions are due to a lack of faith. The fact that people struggle with a health problem or a some other malady is not an indication of their weak faith or God’s lack of concern or misfortune (Just wait till we get to John 9 and the blind man) But if this unnamed paralytic is representative, as is the unnamed Samaritan woman, then what does this mean.
Wellness and health is about more than physical healing. It involves the way we live. This has broad application to our individual lives and our lives together. Beware the qualified responses to the question: Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healthy and sound? Do you want to change your condition? It sounds like yes, but it’s not.
“Well, yes – but there’s no one who understands me.”
“Well, yes – but my situation is unique.”
“Well, yes – but other people don’t seem to care.”
“Well, yes – but other people may not appreciate it.”
The forms are endless, but the formula is the same. Sure we want to get well, we want to overcome addiction, we want to change our attitude, we want to get out of an unhealthy relationship, we want to give more, we want to get out of debt, we want to stop abusing ourselves, we want to stop taking advantage of others, we want to give our life to Christ – BUT!
Jesus isn’t just asking the question to be polite. He wants to know if we are committed to being healthy. He removes all the excuses through his direct words: “Pick up your mat and walk!” Jesus is the word made flesh. He is the Son of Man who has come on behalf of the Father. He has come to save, not to condemn, and he offers us life eternal – new birth from above. Do we want that? Do we want eternal life and thus want to be made well?
Even if we are committed to being made well, there are others who might not be ready for it. For this man it was the Pharisees. There they are confronting this man, who for as long as they could remember was a withered heap on his mat by the pool. “Hey you there!” they call out, “You’re not supposed to being carrying that mat. It’s the Sabbath and what you are doing looks an awfully lot like too much work for the Sabbath.”
And notice how the man responds, “Well yes, but … the man who made me well told me to do this.” They want to know who it was, and this man cannot or will not tell them. And so Jesus, who had disappeared into the crowd, presents himself again to this man. He says, “Stop sinning or something worse might happen.” That’s another strange thing to say, but it emphasizes that this is about more than just physical healing. If this man is going to be healthy, then he must live out his faith in Jesus and know who it is that made him well.
Another way we need to hear this story is to avoid the mindset of the Pharisees. These good people who knew their Scriptures and worked so hard to honor God, have tried to contain God within their customs and traditions. They have religious perfection refined to an art, but they have forgotten justice and mercy. They have taken the refreshment of the Sabbath and turned it into a burden. So, instead of rejoicing with this man who has had a life-changing encounter with the Son of God, they become religious referees and start blowing their whistles – Foul! Foul! Violation of the Sabbath! Loss of yardage, get back on the mat!
Beware the mindset of the Pharisees. They are withered up also – in their minds and hearts. They are well-intentioned dragons who are more interested in persecution than praise. “Who told you this error and untruth about the Sabbath?” They ask the man. When he finally names Jesus, they confront him and get more than they bargained for.
Jesus says, “God doesn’t take a day off and neither do I.” They were more upset about the violation of the Sabbath rather than the power of God to bring life.
As Jesus says in his own words, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”
Jesus is asking the Pharisees – “Do you want to be healthy?” Do you want to have life.
We don’t like to listen to Scriptures and sermons about the Pharisees and wonder if that’s us. They are always someone else. They are the villains. Being called a Pharisee is a great insult, and we don’t want that. But if we really want to be healthy and have life, then we have to open our minds and hearts — for if there’s one thing that described the good Pharisees, it is their closed minds and hearts. That would be tragic to be like them. To be paralyzed and become more comfortable with our weaknesses.
How sad it would be if we continue to come right up to the edge of the pool Sunday after Sunday, but we don’t ever jump in.
How sad it would be, if we studied the Scriptures week to week, and it never leads us to life.
How sad it would be, if we praise one another and commend each other but we make no effort to obtain the praise from the only God.
How sad it would be, if we fail to have the courage to tell the truth about ourselves and the one who made us well.
I want us to be healthy – and I think you do too.
I want us to believe in God’s work – and I think you do too.
I want us to be open to God’s work – and I think you do too.
I want us to welcome those who want to get well – and I think you do too.
I want us (I want you) to be brave enough to accept the praise of Christ and not worry about what other think – and I think you do too.
I want us to put away excuses and pick up our mat and walk – and I think you do too.
Do you want to get well?
Posted by David on February 5, 2009 under Bulletin Articles
I once lived in an area where, if you looked up, you were surrounded with beauty, but, if you looked down, you were equally surrounded with filth. A person was constantly challenged to make a choice-look up or look down.
If the person looked up, he saw endless green trees, blue skies that stretched forever, mountains that took his breath away, and sunrises and sunsets that were too magnificent to describe. If the person looked down, he saw rotten mud, waste beyond description, and the breeding ground of diseases he did not know.
Hanging between were people who had the choice of focusing life on the “up” or the “down,” but often had been taught to see only the “down.” It is difficult to escape the smells, the waste, or the diseases and look up. The “down” powerfully captures a person’s focus. It seems it is always easier for humans to look down instead of up.
Last week was a challenging week for many. It was so easy to complain! The ice and the weather robbed so many of convenience and of too many things we all take for granted-until those things are removed. A person had so many reasons to look down and see destruction, misery, inconvenience, and tragedy. However, the person could also look up and recognize countable blessings. What the person saw often had more to do with the person than the circumstances. It had to do with focus.
Physical life is not perfect and never will be. Certainly, the “down” is real, but so is the “up.” The physical reality of both is constant. Daily, one is challenged to look down and to look up. Daily, every person is reminded that he or she is suspended between a focus that looks down and a focus that looks up. Daily, a choice must be made.
What forms your physical reality? Do you constantly look down as you live in grief, fear, and misery? Do you force yourself to look up and count blessings? Do you only “see” what seems natural for the moment? Do you spend life feeling sorry for yourself?
Your focus is your choice! “Down” always will be there no matter how much you focus on it. “Up” always will be there no matter how much you ignore it. What you see is not dependent on your circumstances, but on your choice to look up or down. You can focus your gaze down and live in misery, or you can use life to teach people to look up and see blessings. One is perpetual misery, the other perpetual hope. It is not the challenge to ignore the real, but to see all that is real, and to see it in perspective!
Posted by Chris on February 1, 2009 under Sermons
The Elephant in the Room
- So what about Israel?
- Did God abandon them? Did he change the terms?
- Is God just and fair?
- Did he abandon Jews for Gentiles?
The Lord’s Genius
- God’s not finished with Israel
- If he can save Israel to save the Gentiles …
- Then he can save the Gentiles in order to save Israel!
Romans 9:30-33
- Righteousness and Faithfulness
Gentiles
Not Seeking God
Attained Righteousness
By Faith |
Israel
Seeking God
Did Not Attain Law
Because of Law |
The Irony
- Paul describes the reality of a people who made their own efforts and contribution to righteousness more of a God than God
- Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 28:16
- The stumbling block = Scandal
Misdirected Zeal
Romans 10:1-4
Romans 10:5-13
- God’s Way
– Trusting Christ
– Acknowledging Christ as Lord
– Believing God raised Him
– “All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” – Joel 2:32
WARNING: CHECKLIST MENTALITY
God’s way is confession and belief. Equals Trust.
But we can turn even this into a series of obligations that we can manage and trust flies out the window. Self-Reliance vs Reliance in God.
Calling On The Name
- Jew and Gentile are same in this respect
- No one is advantaged or disadvantaged
- No disappointment in trusting God
- Where does faith begin?
Little By Little
- You cannot call unless you believe in Him
- You cannot believe unless you’ve heard about Him
- You cannot hear about Him unless someone tells
- One cannot tell unless one is sent
Hearing About Christ
- Isaiah 53
- Acts 2 – Peter preaches Christ
- Acts 8:5, 35 – Phillip proclaims Christ to the Samaritans and the Eunuch
- 1 Corinthians 1:23 – “We preach Christ crucified …”
Christ at the Core
Obedience is to the gospel. A response to the good news. Not simply obedience to commands. Salvation comes through a response to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Response apart from Christ is meaningless.
Reliance on a formula or pattern is misplaced zeal or self-reliance. Salvation comes through trust and reliance on Jesus Christ.
Preaching Christ is what produces faith. See K.C. Moser – The Gist of Romans
Romans 10:16-21
- Can the Good News be Rejected? (Isaiah 53:1)
- Have the Jews heard? (Psalm 19:4)
- Did they understand? (Deuteronomy 32:21; Isaiah 65:1-2)
The Future of Israel
Posted by Chris on under Sermons
Read John 4
So here’s this woman at Jacob’s Well in Sychar. She’s there to draw water for the basic needs of her household: water to drink, water to clean with. Approaching the well she notices a worn out, thirsty, hungry man who’s not a local. She can tell by the way he dresses, the way he wears his hair and just his whole look that he’s a Jew. Jews and Samaritans don’t get along.
She’s must be thinking that it is unusual to see a Jew in Sychar. Jews don’t typical venture into Samaritan Land – and that’s just fine with her. She’s all too familiar with their arrogance and contempt.
- They call her and her people half-breeds.
- They call her and her people compromisers.
- They refuse to accept that her and her people are Children of Israel (Jacob is their father too after all)
- They regard her and her people as something less than Gentiles. (Why? They circumcise, they keep the Sabbath, they observe Passover, they honor Moses)
Jews and Samaritans don’t get along.
She attempts to ignore this stranger and go about her business. She doesn’t have much to say to her neighbors, why would she bother with this Jewish stranger? He’s likely to condemn her anyway.
She’s surprised when he asks her for a drink. Because Jews and Samaritans don’t get along.
The shock of it is enough to break through her outer shell. She loses her filters and what she is thinking is changed to words, “How is it that you – a Jew – ask me – a Samaritan and a woman for a drink?” Maybe she’s insulted by the audacity of this Jewish man to ask her for a drink. He’s like all the others – the prejudice, contempt, and exclusion are firmly in place until he needs something. Then it’s “give me drink!” No please or thank you! What gall to demand a drink of water when he and his people make certain that everyone knows why Jews and Samaritans do not get along! So here’s this Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well in Sychar.
Listen to Jesus’ reply: “If you knew God’s gift, his generosity, and who ask you for water, you would ask him for living water and he would give it to you.” Jesus perceives what she doesn’t know: 1) God must not be very generous in her experience. 2) She doesn’t understand who he is – she has filed him away under “Jewish Men” with all the rest of her assumptions and stereotypes. And even though that may not be excusable, Jesus understands it. After all, Jews and Samaritans don’t get along.
The conversation about sharing living water is enough to get her interest. Even though her rejoinder seems defensive and skeptical, there’s a single word that allows the conversation to change. “OUR.” She mentions “our” ancestor Jacob. She admits that Jacob, the founder of the well, is as common to Samaritans and Jews as the need for water.
Maybe the past is a source of hope for the reconciliation of Jews and Samaritans who don’t get along? Maybe, but the past is also a source of tension. When Jesus describes the better living water as never-thirsty water that creates a bubbling spring in someone, then woman asks him for the water. Then Jesus gets personal and asks her to bring her husband.
This woman has something to hide. She facing that moment that all of us know when the conversation, the interview, the relationship, the confession moves into the past and down hidden roads we try to avoid.
She knows that she has two obvious strikes against her when it comes to talking to Jesus. She’s a woman and she’s a Samaritan. If Jesus knows the third strike – that she’s in and out of relationships – then surely there’s no living water for her.
So she makes a clever dodge – “I don’t have a husband.”
And Jesus tells her everything she’s trying to hide. And he doesn’t condemn her, he commends her: “You’re right. You’ve had five husbands and the man you are living with know isn’t your husband.”
Now, instead of focusing on the well that they had in common, the woman is bold enough to bring up the big dispute. Jews and Samaritans are really so much alike. But the one huge difference between them is whether you should worship on a mountain or a temple.
Jews and Samaritans don’t get along because they are so much alike. An outsider looking in probably couldn’t tell the difference. They have basically the same Scriptures. They have the same rituals. They have the same ancestors. They have the same stories. But anytime you might think that these Children of Jacob would have a unity meeting, the Jews tend to bring up a nasty part of the Samaritans history (2 Kings 17). After the King of Assyria invaded the north of Israel, he moved in some foreigners: Babylonians, Cuthanians, Avvanites, Hamathites, and the Sepharvaim. Five tribes of Assyria who brought their pagan Gods with them. And then the King of Assyria sent kidnapped Israelite priests backs to the land to teach all these people how to worship the Lord. And worship of God took place on the hilltop, just as it does for the gods of these five tribes. Jews point that out. And they don’t listen when the Samaritans bring up the point that their common ancestors worshipped on Mount Gerazim and long before any of this. Instead, the Jews see their northern sister sleeping around with five foreigners and her latest relationship isn’t legitimate either.
Jesus and this woman have just named the ugly history that stand between her people and his. He knows everything she’s ever done and it sounds a lot like everything that her people have ever done. How does Jesus answer her question? What can he say? “So how about that drink?” How do you get past such a looming and painful history. How can Jews and Samaritans ever get along?
God is spirit. Mountains and Temples aren’t what matters. Being right on the arguments is not nearly as important as knowing the One who knows all. God isn’t making appointments to meet us on Mount Gerazim or in Jerusalem. His preference is for those who worship him in spirit and truth.
The Samaritans know one thing. This woman knows one thing. Something that her people have believed for generations. There’s a man coming that they call the Taheb. He will restore everything. He’s also known as the Messiah. Maybe she’s saying – It would really be great if he were here to settle all these divisions and restore us from our broken world.
Jesus says, “I am the Messiah.”
She runs off to tell her people about a man who knew everything she ever did. He knew everything that her people ever did, but he still invites her to living water.
Here come the disciples. They noticed Jesus talking to this Samaritan woman. They are surprised too. Because Jews and Samaritans don’t get along. And yet, they don’t have the nerve to bring it up.
Trying to ignore this breach of protocol, the disciples choose to fuss over things that really don’t matter. They want Jesus to eat lunch. But Jesus is focused on mission. For the disciples, mission ends outside the border of the Samaritans country. And it isn’t that they are clueless. Rather they are avoiding the mission. John says that no one had the nerve to ask Jesus about this discussion with the Samaritan woman. Why avoid it? Maybe because their afraid that the Samaritans are part of the mission too? After all Jews and Samaritans don’t get along.
Do we do that? Do we get fussy about things that aren’t part of the mission because we worry about the implications of the mission. Do we fuss about our own mountains and temples and where we’re going to get lunch because we are afraid of the deep waters of worshipping God and we might even be afraid of who else we find around the well of living water?
There’s a lot of fuss over shape notes and songbooks. There’s a lot of fuss over what we’re wearing and the Welch’s we’re drinking. There’s a lot of fuss over lifting hand and bending knees. There’s a lot of fuss over preaching and Power Point. There’s a lot of fuss over this and that.
Do you think we fuss over all that because we find it easier to deal with our symbols rather than our spirits? Do you think we like to make something pretty and precise out of worship to cover over the ugliness of our sins?
The Samaritan woman could argue all day about the proper location of worship, but it didn’t change her history. Jesus knew everything that she ever did.
The Samaritan people could make the case for Mt. Gerazim and their historical claim to being the one true people of God. But that didn’t change their history. Jesus knew everything that they ever did.
The Jewish people could make their case for Jerusalem and stand on their knowledge, but that couldn’t change their history and their sins. Jesus knew everything that they ever did.
And the church, the bride of Christ, can fuss and argue and dress itself up and make the case for being right. But it will not change our history and it will not excuse our arrogance, our errors, our abuses, our nastiness, and all the sins that we bury deep inside. Jesus knows everything we’ve ever done.
Jesus knows. He isn’t fooled. He isn’t tricked. Jesus isn’t a forgive and forget kind of a guy either. Nothing is forgotten – but here’s the good news – all is forgiven. He knows everything we’ve ever done. He knows everything you’ve ever done. But he still offers us living water.
Worship evangelism. Worship and evangelism won’t come together as long as we’re fussing about worship. When worship is a game of insider and outsider, then there will not be any evangelism. Worship in Spirit and Truth gets turned inside out.
As long as worship is focused on our mountains and temples, there’s no spirit and truth. And if there’s no spirit and truth, then who are we worshipping?
Worship in spirit and truth means that our worship is not play-acting. Worship in spirit and truth means we are through hiding our history and we are through making excuses. Instead we proclaim the praises and the words of the one who knows everything we’ve ever done. Thanks to him we have eternal life. And if we keep on doing this – worshipping spiritually and honestly with ourselves and with one another, we will draw many others to believe in the words of the Savior of the World.
