All posts by mikethestrand

Overview of Revelation – Sermon Manuscript

Spoiler Alert: God Wins!

Revelation

-Glasses

-Why do that silly illustration? To show that we all view and interpret what takes place around us through specific filters. Ever been sharing a story with someone who remembers it completely different than you? We all wear specific glasses as we approach the text of Scripture, and our job is to work as hard as we can to take those glasses off so we can better understand the original author’s intent, as well as God’s intent through the human authors.

-And this is especially true when we come to a book like Revelation where there’s been so much debate and misunderstanding throughout history.

-Every generation since Christ ascended has become convinced Jesus would return in their lifetime. Every single one! And the 1 thing they all have in common is they’ve all been wrong! Anytime I hear someone predict the date I get a little upset because now God’s not returning on that day!

-GK Chesterton: “though St John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”

READ/PRAY (1-8)

  1. What Is Revelation?

-A letter, written by John to 7 churches. (vs. 4)

-Who was John? All sorts of debate! Some argue for a pseudonym, others argue that it was a well-known 1st century pastor, but most who uphold to a conservative evangelical belief think this was the Apostle John (“The Disciple whom Jesus loved”) who wrote the Gospel. He was well known to these churches, carried some sense of authority for them. Language used borrows heavily from Hebrew (written in Greek. Biggest reason we believe this comes from Iranaeus writing in 180 AD. Disciple of Polycarp (martyred in 156), was a friend of John. Would need some pretty conclusive contrary evidence to cast this into doubt (primarily comes from people who don’t believe the Bible to be true)

-What’s the significance of the 7 churches? From Patmos, followed a well-established mail route and roads where the letter most likely would have traveled. Each church would be responsible to read, copy, and then pass the letter along to the next church (just as Paul’s letters would have been distributed)

-Some of what makes Revelation difficult for us is it is a combination of 3 genres: apocalyptic, prophetic, epistle

-Epistle is one many of us are familiar with. It’s a letter. Paul wrote 13 of them, Peter wrote 3, John himself wrote 3 other letters reminding believers to persevere under persecution!

-Apocalyptic (The REVELATION of Jesus Christ) “entails the revelatory communication of heavenly secrets by an otherworldly being to a seer who presents the visions in a narrative framework; the visions guide the readers into a transcendent reality that takes precedence over the current situation and encourages readers to persevere in the midst of their trials. The visions reverse normal experience by making the heavenly mysteries the real world and depicting the present crisis as a temporary, illusory situation. This is achieved via God’s transforming the world for the faithful.” (Osborne, 222)

-Revealing (not trying to hide)

-Transcendent realities (what’s taking place spiritually)

-Describes those transcendent realities instead of the earthly

-Gets to God’s ultimate end.

-Prophecy: “It is impossible to distinguish ultimately between prophecy and apocalyptic, for the latter is an extension of the former.” (Osborne, 13) “Prophecy” appears 7 times in this book, but here’s a few examples that point to this explicitly being a prophecy. First note that prophecy isn’t just focused on the future. John says we’re to keep this prophecy, live it out, enact the truths revealed in it.

-Similarly to the beginning, toward the end John repeats the need to keep it, AND that this prophecy isn’t meant to be hidden away or only understood by a select few who have deciphered the “code,” but is a reminder to share these truths!

-“The prophecies predict literal events, though the descriptions do not portray the events literally.” (Blomberg, Klein, Hubbard, 443)

-Another piece that makes Revelation difficult to study is that it is stepped in OT imagery and references. But because we don’t know our Bibles they go right over our head! 

-404 verses, 518 references to earlier Scripture. “St. John has his favorite books of Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Isaiah, Exodus.”

-Because John is so steeped in his Bible, when his mind struggles to come up with the words to describe what’s being revealed to him, he relies on what he knows, and what he knows is the Bible! This is a great picture for us on how our minds should be so saturated with God’s Word that it just naturally flows out of us! It’s not a word for word reference like we’re used to in the rest of our Bibles. We need to use our “sanctified imagination” (Kevin VanHoozer) This isn’t making stuff up or claiming some new revelation from God (we’ll get to the danger in that!) this is having our minds so filled with God’s Word that it changes even the way we think. Or to refer back to the glasses, it is getting a better and better prescription until we’re able to see God’s Word and world correctly. 

-The last thing I want us to keep in mind about what Revelation is: the culmination of all of history (HIS story). My seminary professor summarized it: “God’s Plans for Cosmic History” 

-Revelation isn’t ultimately written to provide a timeline of the end times, but is written to inspire perseverance and faithfulness that even in the end times God is still sovereignly ruling on His throne!

  • Why Study Revelation?

-It’s in the Bible 

-As I’ve talked to many people in our body about studying this book there’s been a lot of nervousness and fear. Do we believe it’s God’s Word or not? We don’t get to pick and choose what’s God’s Word says! It’s our job to dig into it, to learn what it says, to get training in the correct way to interpret it and then apply it to our lives (we’ll get to that with the third point).

-“One of the great tragedies in the church in our day is how Revelation has been so narrowly and incorrectly interpreted with an obsessive focus on the future end time, with the result that we have missed the fact that it contains many profound truths and encouragements concerning Christian life and discipleship.” (Beale, 1)

-Think of what we just saw on the idea of it being a prophecy (not future oriented) there’s something we’re supposed to do with this book! It’s giving us an orientation to our lives that we’re supposed to obey.

-It stirs our hearts and imaginations in ways that prose cannot

-One of my favorite authors has become Eugene Peterson, who has an incredible way with words. He summarizes thoughts, ideas, and feelings in ways that move me. He says “I do not read Revelation to get additional information about the life of faith in Christ. I have read it all before in law and prophet, in gospel and epistle. Everything in Revelation can be found in the previous sixty-five books of the Bible. The revelation adds nothing of substance to what we already know. The truth of the gospel is already complete, revealed in Jesus Christ. There is nothing new to say on the subject. But there is a new way to say it.” “Revelation is a gift – a work of intense imagination that pulls its reader into a world of sky battles between angels and beasts, lurid punishments and glorious salvations, kaleidoscopic vision and cosmic song.” He goes on to describe John as a poet and pastor. He’s trying to train people to have their hearts stirred by the glories of the gospel. To help us keep our eyes and our gaze fixed heavenward.

-Which is another reason why we should study Revelation: it is completely Christocentric. 

-The first chapter recounts a description of the resurrected Savior that can barely be contained in words! The Son of Man, the alpha and omega, firstborn from the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. White hair, eyes fiery, feet fine bronze, voice like cascading waters (think a hurricane instead of rippling brook). Holding 7 stars in his hand, sword coming from his mouth. Instead of stars being deities they’re mere playthings for Jesus! One of my favorite verses in the Gen. 1 vs. 16 “And the stars” There a theatrical encore, a passing note! 

-And another reason why we should study this book: Do you want to be blessed? Don’t miss this: just reading them is a blessing. Hearing them and keeping these words is a blessing. If we don’t study it we miss out on a blessing from the Lord.

-And another reason we need to study Revelation: to correct many misunderstandings: rapture (Rev. 12:5), antichrist isn’t in Revelation

-“Since Satan is not omniscient, and since only God knows the timing of the end, the devil must have an “antichrist” ready in every era, lest that turn out to be the time God has appointed for the consummation of all things.” (542)

–Left Behind isn’t an accurate account of what’s going to happen.

-There are only 2 destinies for people: one of pure bliss and happiness, the other filled with unimaginable horror. Do NOT make light of hell.

  • How Do I Study Revelation?

-VERY CAREFULLY! With humility. 

– The one thing I can claim to have some true expertise in is biblical studies. I have 2 degrees (and counting!) in biblical studies, and this series I’m spending more time and energy in preparation than most other studies.

-Define a commentary: someone who comments on a book of the Bible. Not just random people, those who have devoted their lives to the study and correct interpretation of the Bible.

-Every sermon series I’m reading anywhere from 3-5 different commentaries in preparation for my message. For revelation it’ll be more like 10-12! Here’s the list of all the commentaries I’ve already been consulting as I’ve been preparing for this series! And even though 2 of them look exactly the same, they’re not. 

-Part of the reason I do that is to do my best to understand the different interpretive options of the text we’re studying. The Bible isn’t easy to understand correctly. It’s easy to read, but that doesn’t mean we always understand it right.

-I will probably teach and say things that contradict what you have learned before. I’m ok with that! DON’T approach this as a heresy hunt! Where there’s legitimate debate, I’ll share that, but I’ll also share what I think makes sense based on the entire Bible. We can’t just rip something out of its’ context and suit it to fit our own agenda. Remember the glasses we all have! That doesn’t mean you can’t get better at understanding, but it takes time and work. 

-If you were in my class last semester, you’ve seen this, but I wanted to mention it again because it’s especially true of Revelation. We NEED biblical and historical theology. 

“Exegesis” is the word often used for careful reading. Exegesis answers the questions, What does this text actually say? and, What did the author mean by what he said? We discover this by applying sound principles of interpretation to the Bible. BT answers the question, How has God revealed his word historically and organically? HT answers the questions, How have people in the past understood the Bible? What have Christians thought about exegesis and theology? and, more specifically, How has Christian doctrine developed over the centuries, especially in response to false teachings? HT is concerned primarily with opinions in periods earlier than our own. ST answers the question, What does the whole Bible teach about certain topics? or put another way, What is true about God and his universe? PT answers the question, How should humans respond to God’s revelation?

-To get the exegesis right, he says we must apply “sound principles of interpretation to the Bible.” What are those?

-Micah’s class: what one needs to correctly interpret Scripture: “Qualifications for the Interpreter of Scripture: A Reasoned Faith in the God Who Reveals, Willingness to Obey Its Message, Willingness to Employ Appropriate Methods, Illumination of the Holy Spirit, Membership in the Church.” (Intro to Bib. Interp.)

-“The text cannot mean something that would have been completely incomprehensible to its original audience.” (Klein, Blomberg, Hubbard, 442)

“The most fundamental hermeneutical principle to follow in interpreting Revelation is to look for meanings that could have been intelligible to first-century Christians in Asia Minor, not hidden meanings decipherable only be people centuries later who think they might be living in the days immediately prior to Christ’s return.” (Blomberg)

-Need to keep in mind the genre of the text we’re reading:

-Apocalyptic literature: “Frequent features include (a) the extensive use of symbolism, often with outlandish or grotesque creatures and cosmology, much like our modern political cartoons; (b) the depiction of past, present, and/or future events of world history leading up to a decisive intervention on the part of God to right the injustices of society and to reward God’s faithful people; and (c) the assurance to those people in a setting of crisis or perceived crisis that evil would not ultimately maintain the upper hand.” (Blomberg, 512)

-How much is symbolic in Revelation? A LOT more than we realize! 

“In this light, the dictum of the popular approach to Revelation — “interpret literally unless you are forced to interpret symbolically” — should be turned on its head. Instead, the programmatic statement about the book’s precise mode of communication in 1:1 is that the warp and woof of it is symbolic, so that the preceding dictum should be reversed to say “interpret symbolically unless you are forced to interpret literally.” Better put, the reader is to expect that the main means of divine revelation in this book is symbolic.” (GK Beale)

-You may then ask, what do the signs stand for? What are they symbolizing? How are we supposed to understand what God’s messenger is talking about?

“In the case of John’s apocalypse, this background includes the Old Testament, intertestamental literature, and current or recent events in the cities of Asia Minor of John’s day. Number, though, are almost always symbolic, especially sevens and their multiples (standing for completeness or universality-based on the seven days of creation) and twelves and their multiples (standing for the twelve tribes of Israel and/or the twelve apostles-to designate God’s people as a whole).” (Blomberg, 512-3)

-Pulling in some historical theology, how has the church throughout history interpreted this book? 

-First and foremost, pretty much every generation has believed they’re living in the last days (which they are because they started the moment Jesus ascended. But generally there are 4 interpretive options.

-futurism (all future), preterism (fulfilled in AD 70) historicism (progressively fulfilled throughout church history) idealism (symbolic of the timeless struggle between God and Satan throughout the church age) eclectic redemptive-historical idealist approach

-Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond “1-All are committed to the Scripture as the ultimate authority in this discussion. 2-There has been a sense of fellowship, even in the midst of the disagreement. 3-Each view represented here foresees the eventual victory of Christ to the glory of God.” 284-5

-This isn’t a debate about inerrancy, or authority of the Bible, about God or theology proper, it’s a debate about the proper way to interpret a primarily apocalyptic text that was written 2,000 years ago! We need theological triage (remember that) in this issue! Don’t condemn someone because they differ with you, where we all agree is: Jesus is coming back, hopefully soon!

Outline: -LOTR “Things that are…”

Rev. 1:19: “What you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this.” The only question is where does the “what will take place” begin? And does it include everything in that section?  But it provides a helpful overview!

-I listened to a sermon yesterday that stood out to me on the reason we study Revelation, and it’s summarized by a story in the OT (Biblical Theology!) After 430 years in slavery, the Israelites are freed. Moses leads them to the brink of the Promised Land, and commissions 12 spies to scout the land. They go and 10 are TERRIFIED of the giants there, but 2 are determined to take it. They’re too busy looking at the giants to look to the giant slayer. Revelation commands us 70x to see or look. If we can keep our eyes on God, the enemies we face here seem to shrink in comparison, which is the point of this book. Dear friends, are you tired of feeling like the church is losing, like Christianity is failing, like there’s no hope? Stop looking at the wrong things, and cast your gaze in the right direction!

1 Comment
by mikethestrand on February 4, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on February 4, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/02/04/overview-of-revelation-sermon-manuscript/

Simplicity – Sermon Manuscript

-If a fire came to your house, what would be the 1 thing you’d grab?

-It’s no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.

-I try to do incorporate 1 spiritual discipline as part of this series, last year was generosity, this year I want to take that a step further.

READ/PRAY (Matt. 6, pg. 473)

  1. EVERYTHING is Spiritual

-When I was growing up, I remember a distinct poster in our youth room of a list that had 2 columns on it. It said “If you like THIS secular band, check out THIS Christian alternative.” 

-An element to that is helpful because if you put garbage into your mind it will affect you, but another part isn’t. It was as if we could separate the secular from the sacred, and we got to stand in judgment over who was really “in.” 

-Because of that divide, there was also a tendency to separate “church stuff” from “normal stuff” There were “church clothes” and “play clothes”, “church words” and “non-church words”, certain topics you could talk about at church, and others that were taboo. We even had “sacred” callings and “secular” callings! And the most sacred/special call you could possibly have was to be a missionary to an unreached people group! I even have friends who had an argument early in their marriage about what counted as “ministry” Do you have to be paid for it, or can you have a ministry in a “secular” job?

-There’s an impulse to that I respect: honor the Lord your God, care for the people’s of the world, don’t be flippant with a call to ministry, but in looking to divide or segment our lives into “God’s” versus “mine” I worry that we’ve missed the way everything we have and everything we do is spiritual. 

–1 Cor. 10:31

-Everything we do has spiritual implications, even eating and drinking!

-Think of the Lord’s Supper – there are some that are very impactful, but most of the time it’s just a regular time. Same with eating! There are a handful of meals I could tell you about still to this day, but I can hardly tell you what I ate yesterday! And how often do we neglect to reflect on the spiritual implications of what we’re doing every day?

-Brother Lawrence, monk who lived in Paris, served as a cook: ‘We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. And it is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God.’

-Is it possible that the making of an omelette can be a spiritual practice that helps you take 1 step closer to Jesus? Yes! If we view it as a way to love and serve, if we remember that it’s God’s provision for us today, and especially as we eat it and nourish our bodies! 

-I think there’s been an unfortunate movement in the church for millennia at this point that say the only way to serve God is to abandon the world and everything it offers and withdraw. You see this with monasteries, when I was coming up it was with going into the inner city (Shane Claiborne, “social justice week”), or even with a book with a title like “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” (I really like the guy who wrote this book, but didn’t love the book)

-What if, because everything we do is spiritual, the call for Jesus in our lives is to live a simple life? Working hard at our jobs, raising kids to the best of our abilities (if God gives us children), finding ways to connect with neighbors and friends and encourage them to take 1 step closer to Jesus, and then trust that God will work in us despite not being radical? 

-There’s a quote that’s stuck with me over the past 5 or so years attributed to a Moravian missionary: “preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.”  Would we be ok to live an ordinary life? Think of a passage like 1 Thessalonians 4 “we urge you, brothers, to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

-Since everything is spiritual, that also means that everything we do has spiritual implications. The way we take care of our bodies, the way we spend our money, the way we spend our time, the houses we live in, the hobbies we pursue. All of it has spiritual implications. Let’s look at Matt. 6 again. We’re going to look at these verses backwards, and I think you’ll see why.

-Starting with vs. 24, which is a verse that had honestly confounded me until recently. Jesus says “You cannot serve God and money.” Where does Jesus get the idea that money and God would be on the same level?

-The word in Greek is the word “mammon” and it’s only used here and in Luke 16 where it’s translated as “unrighteous wealth” What is the difference (if there is one) between righteous and unrighteous wealth?

-If everything is spiritual, then so is money. And money has a profound effect on people, doesn’t it? It’s easy to look at someone like Scrooge, a nasty old miser who won’t even give his employees a livable wage, but what about the ways money, or “mammon” has impacted us today? There are many scholars who argue that Jesus is referring to a demon when he uses the word “mammon” Mammon is a far broader idea than just money, it includes possessions, or anything of value that someone has. What I think is fascinating about this is immediately after talking about mammon Jesus goes on to talk about anxiety.

-What if the more we have, the more anxious we become? What if there’s a connection between growth as a follower of Jesus, and a lack of desire for “stuff”?

-Let’s look back at the where Jesus begins this section:

-All of us have treasures, that’s our hearts orientation. We all have something we would make sure we grabbed if a fire broke out in our house (after we got our kids out!) But we need to remember that even the most precious things we have on earth will someday break, get sold, burn up, something will happen to them! If we’re putting all our hopes and desires on our stuff we’re going to be very disappointed! You can see this if you’ve ever bought something new that you’d been wanting for a long time (new phone, new car) you baby it for a bit, but then you revert back to the way you always use things. Or a new model is released and you end up with FOMO.

-There’s a great picture of this in Isaiah 44. What does it look like when we’re putting our treasures in the wrong place? It looks like taking a piece of wood, using half of it to cook dinner and the other half to bow down and worship and ask for it to provide the solution to all the longings of your heart.

-Jesus then goes on to talk about the desires that we have. There was a song I learned in church growing up “oh be careful little eyes what you see” I think Jesus is articulating that we need to be careful what we let into our eyes because it will affect us! 

-If we focus our eyes on the things of this world our hearts will be drawn to our “stuff” but if we focus our eyes on Jesus then we’ll be able to keep everything in proper perspective.

  • Jesus’ Call to STEWARDSHIP

-The story of the rich young man. This gives us a picture of what it looks like to place your hope in mammon. 

-A brief caveat: this is not a command for all people at all time. Jesus isn’t saying EVERYONE should sell all they have and give it to the poor, here Jesus is pointing out the specific idol of this man’s heart. Mammon, stuff, was his god! He’d placed all his hope and confidence in his things.

-People even viewed material possession as blessing from God! And they still do today! But over time it will be revealed where or what you’re putting your ultimate hope in. 

-So Jesus answers some of the questions the disciples have as they see this exchange. It is very difficult for a rich person to be saved. Not impossible, but very difficult. Why? Because you become complacent and content in yourself instead of recognizing your need for a Savior.

-This makes the disciples indignant, because they left literally everything to follow after Jesus! And Jesus goes even a step further than just material possessions, he even says they must leave family!

-This was a revolutionary concept in the 1st century. Everything was family centered. The only way anyone survived was because of and through family. Your whole identity was literally centered around the family you were in. But in God’s kingdom, even family has to be put in its’ proper place.

-As I’ve been processing through this concept over the past year, the word that has stood out to me as the way we should engage this issue is stewardship. What is a steward? Someone who cares for someone else’s stuff. It’s not ours (one of my children has become obsessed with this idea recently, so anytime someone else claims that’s theirs we are reminded “It’s the Lords!”) Yes, but….

-This connects all the way back to the garden of Eden (and politics). We’re commissioned by God to have dominion over the creation, to subdue it (extend the borders of the garden until the filled the whole earth). 

-God has given us all these good things as gifts to use as opportunities to glorify Him. God didn’t need to make food taste good! God didn’t need to make music such an enjoyable experience! God didn’t need to create color! But He did. There’s joy that comes from living, that’s the way God intended us to operate, but it only comes about by finding our ultimate joy only in Him. 

-This is what separates Christians from unbelievers. Unbelievers only have the “stuff,” that’s the best they can hope for! That’s where we need to share with them how much better those things can be when the rest of their life is in the proper order. Think of how great food is, but when food becomes the ultimate, it becomes unhealthy.

  • How do we glorify God with our “STUFF”?

-2 books that shaped my thinking this week.

-I think 1 Tim. 6 helps us to understand the goal for all of our lives. First and foremost is godliness.

-I read a book this week that summarized this idea well: “What would Jesus do if he were me? If he had my gender, my career, my income, my relationship status? If he was born the same year as me? Lived in the same city as me?” To take some of the language we use here: what is 1 step I can do today to move in that direction?

-Another way is read the fruit of the spirit “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” In our staff reviews each year, we’re asked “Are these things true of you in increasing measure?”

-The ordering of our lives matters. We first and foremost need to be pursuing godliness in everything, including our stewardship of possessions. 

-C.S. Lewis: “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” Our gaze must be heavenward if we want pursue godliness on earth. And notice why Paul says this: because our status at the end of our lives is the same as the beginning: nothing! When we get to heaven, the only thing that matters is whether you have the riches of Christ or not. 

-Second is contentment. Phil. 4 Paul tells us the way to contentment. This is one of the most abused verses in the world today! It’s not talking about scoring at touchdown or winning the national championship, he’s talking about how to be content, truly content, regardless of the circumstances of your life.

-Going back to Timothy, what is your marker of contentment? Paul seems to place the bar pretty low: food and clothing. (could add shelter to this) it almost sounds like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (if you studied that in psychology). What many people today have done is flip this on its’ head and make the foundation self-actualization instead of looking to more basic ideas. Is that the goal of everyone? No! The goal of everyone is to become like Christ! 

-Once again, this doesn’t mean that having nice “stuff” is a problem, bad, or wrong! It can become a problem if you start to look to your worth or solutions to problems in your life through your “stuff” 

-John Mark Comer “On the one hand, the world and everything in it are “very good” and meant to be enjoyed and shared with those in need. On the other hand, too much wealth is dangerous. It has the potential to turn our hearts away from God.”

-Story of John Stott, Will breaking his toy from Africa. How quickly are you able to remember it’s just “stuff”? You can’t take it with you into eternity, so how much does it matter here?

-Many of you are aware of the statistics of being wealthy – if you make more than $35K a year you’re in the top 1% of the global wealth, which means I’m guessing nearly everyone in here would be considered the 1%. Doesn’t feel that way! But it’s true. Since that is the case, we are the ones who need to heed Paul’s (and Jesus’) warnings in the Bible. So that’s where we’ll end, a couple verses later in 1 Tim. 6.

-Haughty: over-confident in yourself and your abilities. Not looking to God as the source of your wealth.

-Hopes: where are you putting your gaze? Riches come and go. I’ve lived through 2 major recessions (so far!) and I’m sure there will be plenty more to come! The almighty dollar may some day fail me, but I know who won’t! Instead, we’re commanded to:

-do good. Notice that Paul doesn’t say it’s wrong or bad or sinful to be reach, as long as it’s kept in it’s proper place, and we’re reminded that it’s a gift from God. But we can use our wealth to do good to others!

-We should also look to be rich in good works, that’s the marker of a Christian who is rich! Not hording, not continually buying, but looking to do as many good works as we can, which looks like:

-being generous and ready to share. Do you look for opportunities to bless others? Do you live like it’s better to give than to receive? Do you look for ways to pursue good works with your “stuff” or do you just view them as toys and look to get more or keep up with the people who live near you?

-Anything that we do without contemplation becomes exploitation. If we pursue simplicity as a way of life, we’ll find our hearts being changed, our lives being transformed, and our contentment in the simple gospel message growing.

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by mikethestrand on January 28, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on January 28, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/01/28/simplicity-sermon-manuscript/

Sanctity of Life – Sermon Manuscript

Sanctity of Life

-Sanctity of life Sunday

–Article from Themelios journal “Going Deeper” by pastor Daniel Strange

-“It’s been said that the main issue in the first millennium was, ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ In the second millennium the question became, ‘How are we saved?’ And now as we are into the third millennium, the question is and will continue be, ‘What is a human being?’ The seismic implications of this individually, culturally and politically—even while still recognising a Christian ‘afterglow’—cannot be underestimated. We are all feeling these implications in various ways, given the presenting issues surrounding sexuality, gender, transhumanism, embodiment, and the underlying worldviews and of the focus on the self; expressive individualism; social construction; or just what we call human identity.”

-This issue is even manifested in the abortion conversation, because if an embryo isn’t a human, then it doesn’t matter how it’s treated. But, if an embryo is a human than it matters GREATLY how they are treated! 

-I also want to mention that I realize this can be an emotionally heavy issue for some of you – so if you have had an abortion, trust in God’s steadfast love, grace, and mercy toward you. You cannot out-sin the grace of God!

READ/PRAY (Gen. 1:26-31) pg. 1

  1. What is a human?

-All sorts of different proposals to this question! Seems obvious, but it takes a lot thought to ensure we’re being accurate because it must include all humans. It also must entail the idea that humans are created in God’s very image. 

-Millard Erickson, Gregg Allison, Wayne Grudem 

-Created: which means we didn’t pop out of nowhere. It also means we’re a part of the creation. Doesn’t over-elevate, doesn’t under elevate. 

-Purpose: image God (represent) as well as a task: “fill the earth and subdue it”

-Relational: male and female he created them.

-What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

-Our culture is even debating this! Are we gendered beings? What about my attractions? What about my desires? Watch this video from 2015 where Bill Gates tries to get at a definition. (social -> passing of knowledge, essentially enlightened animals, assuming the passing of knowledge makes us better and better)

-And who gets to define these things? I’ve talked before about our hyper-individualistic culture today, where each person gets to define their own identity. You can trace these ideas back to the Enlightenment, which (I think) culminated in Frederick Nietzsche (philosopher) saying “God is dead, we have killed Him.” The enlightenment tried to make everything an intellectual pursuit, so the way the Western world has answered this question since then is summarized in another famous philosophical statement from Renes Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” Since the 16th Century, the predominant belief has been we are merely thinking beings. All issues require better thinking to tackle, leading to people starting to think they could out-think God. This leads to hyper-individualism because we just have to think. You can also see this in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” Is it?

-Leads to bodies being evil, leads to treating less intelligent as inferior, it cannot provide the whole answer to what a human is.

-The best way I’ve come to define this topic can be written as a math problem: human = image of God. If you are a human, you are created in the image of God because as soon as you start defining beyond that you start to leave people out. Ridiculous: 2 legs so if I get cancer and they cut off a leg I’m no longer a human. Thinking: what about someone who is intellectually handicapped, are they any less in the image of God?

-Structural is what we’ve just been looking at. We can’t help but be created in the image of God. It’s stamped on every single one of us from the moment of conception. 

-Functional. This is related to the representative nature. How do we represent God on earth?

-Prophet (authority), priest (presence), king (control) (John Frame – Systematic Theology)

-This description is often used to summarize Jesus’ ministry, and all 3 roles in the OT were vital to the flourishing of God’s people. Prophets spoke God’s Words to his people reminding them to obey Him, priests acted as mediators between God and humans to help address the relational divide, kings ruled in a way that allowed the people to more faithfully follow God on earth. We now, as Jesus’ body, have the same job/goal.

-Relational God created us to be in perfect relationship with Him and with others

-Summary: We are called into a relationship (relational) that entails a role (functional) that we are uniquely designed (structural) to do.

-Begins with God calling. All of this centers around God, we always need to be growing in understanding of who He is.

  • When is a human created?

–The Developing Human 11th ed. “Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, the zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell (capable of giving rise to any cell type) marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”

-This is the primary question at the root of abortion. If a fetus is a human (which I’ll argue that it is), then abortion is murder. If abortion is murder, then we should outlaw it.

-What does the Bible say? You won’t find a verse that says “life begins at conception” nor will you find a verse that says “abortion is wrong.” This is using theology to form morals and ethics to then determine how we engage this issue.

-A few key texts, besides Genesis:

–Psalm 51:5. Psalms are poetic in nature, so we don’t want to stretch them beyond their context, but they still contain truthful statements. If from the point of conception David can consider himself a sinner, that means he is a human at that moment. 

–Psalm 127:3 Children are a gift and a joy. Children is the very means God chose to bring salvation into the world! God’s promises center around children.

–Exodus 21:22–25 In the midst of the laws, God commands what should be done if a child is killed even by an accident. If she gives birth and the baby is healthy there’s a small fine, if the baby dies then life is demanded.

–Luke 1:39-45 One from the NT that I talked about last month, so I won’t go much further with it, but remember this is a (in medical terms today) fetus responding to a zygote. Mary is VERY early in her pregnancy.

–Gen. 9:6 The last verse connects back to Exodus, and we looked at it during my message on politics, but I thought it was worth bringing up today as well. God says the consequence for murder is loss of life. There is something unique about murder that elevates it to a different level of seriousness, and even our world today feels that. There are some crimes that bring this overwhelming sense that the only justified consequence if capital punishment. 

-One of the arguments sometimes used against this argument is that Jesus didn’t say anything about it (which it pitting Jesus’ words against God’s words which is a mistake), because it was a settled issue. There wasn’t any debate!

-Human life begins at conception, if you boil any other argument down to it’s essence it becomes purely arbitrary. 

-Trimester was invented as part of Roe vs. Wade to allow a discussion to be made about where and when the government can legislate abortion.

-Breathing? I remember when I was younger hearing Bill Clinton talk about life beginning the moment a baby takes a breath. Did you know that before a baby is born they breathe through their umbilical cord? Or that even after a baby is born it can take a couple minutes for them to take their first breath? Does that mean that they aren’t humans even though they’re being held and living outside the womb?

-Born vs. unborn? Does a journey of 8” really make a difference in whether we would consider them a child? Why do they have to be outside of the womb in order for us to care for them?

-Desire? Have you noticed that when someone talks about wanting a baby they refer to the child as a baby, but if they baby isn’t wanted they become a fetus or clump of cells? Why does someone else’s desire get to play a role in whether or not someone is a person? 

-When they feel pain? Did you know that infants weren’t sedated for surgeries until the 1980s? It was believed that even after birth they couldn’t feel pain. And many studies today have shown that as early as 15 weeks of gestation babies can start to feel pain. But again, why does that determine whether or not they’re a human? I’ve read about people whose bodies don’t produce the right neurological pathways for them to feel pain. Think of leprosy! Does that make them less of a human? 

-Viability? Another arbitrary marker! Think of someone with diabetes. They would die without insulin meaning they’re not fully viable. Does that mean they’re less human? And even the time of viability keeps getting moved earlier and earlier depending on technological advances. There was a baby born at 21 weeks 1 day who survived. Only halfway cooked!

-We have SO much more information now than we did in 1973! Ultrasounds have been game changers. We can see literal pictures of the babies developing.

-That has to become one of our primary arguments. Follow the science! These aren’t clumps of cells, they’re humans who are worth of all the same dignity as you or I.

  • How do we articulate our views?

-All sorts of arguments put forth! Do the toddler test. If the unborn are humans (they are), then we need to treat them the same as any other human (or just use a toddler)

-Always, always, always bring it back to whether or not they’re human! Anything else is just a distraction.

-A book I found helpful this week ‘The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture’ summarized our argument this way: 

-In high school I spent 2 weeks at a worldview training camp in CO that had a few sections on abortion that have stuck with me since then (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t remember them!) But I remember being told that you can condense the differences between a child in the womb to a child outside the womb by using the acronym SLED:

Size – if someone is taller/bigger than me are they more human?

Level of Development – are any of my children any less human than me?

Environment – does a journey of 8” make a human?

Degree of dependence – I had surgery this past year, I couldn’t even drive! Was I less human during that time? 

-These are all the differences between a child outside the womb and one inside the womb. The difference is that one can be killed without consequence.

-There are all sorts of popular arguments that claim to be pro-life killers. Let’s walk through a couple of them. 

-The violinist? Judith Jarvis Thomas 1971 essay “A Defense of Abortion”

“You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist, a famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own.

The director of the hospital now tells you, “Look, we’re sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you—we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then, he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.”

Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or still longer? What if the director of the hospital says, Tough luck, I agree, but you’ve now got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because, remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person’s right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him.”

I imagine that you would regard this as outrageous”

-Spontaneous pregnancies aren’t a thing. The child was created inside you by choices you made. You can’t just wake up without participating in an activity of which pregnancy is a possibility. All actions have consequences.

-It’s one thing to withhold support, it’s another to kill someone. Abortion isn’t an unintentional death, it’s purposely killing someone. Think of it like this: if you come home and find a stranger in your home who would die if you don’t take care of him, are you thus allowed to just throw him off a cliff? No! One person argued that calling abortion withholding of support is like suffocating someone with a pillow and calling it the withdrawal of oxygen.

-Why should anyone accept that a mother has no more obligation to a stranger than her child? What if it were your 2-year-old hooked up to you?

-Lastly, the child isn’t parasitic. They’re exactly where they’re supposed to be for their age and stage of life.

-Latest twitter argument from Patrick Tomlinson (sci-fi writer)

“You’re in a fertility clinic. Why isn’t important. The fire alarm goes off. You run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from behind a door. You throw open the door and find a 5-year-old child crying for help. They’re in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a frozen container labeled, ‘1,000 Viable Human Embryos.’ The smoke is rising. You start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other but not both before you succumb to smoke inhalation and die — saving no one. Do you A) save the child, or B) save the thousand embryos? There is no C. ‘C’ means you all die.” In a decade of arguing with anti-abortion people about the definition of human life, I have never gotten a single straight A or B answer to this question. And I never will. They will never answer honestly, because we all instinctively understand the right answer is “A.” A human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically. This question absolutely evicerates their arguments, and their refusal to answer confirms that they know it to be true. No one, anywhere, actually believes an embryo is equivalent to a child. That person does not exist. They are lying to you. They are lying to you to try and evoke an emotional response, a paternal response, using false-equivalency. No one believes life begins at conception. No one believes embryos are babies, or children. Those who cliam to are trying to manipulate you so they can control women.

-Abortion isn’t about who we can save, it’s about whether or not we can kill someone. This is even worse than the violinist argument for correlating to the issue of abortion.

-Just because you save 1 doesn’t mean the others aren’t human. There are other moral judgments you’ll bring into this conversation. What if I’m given the choice of saving a family of strangers or my child? Guess who I’ll have a stronger pull towards. My child! In this example, 1 of the children will experience a different level of pain than the others, but that doesn’t make them any less children! In fact, some studies have worked to figure out human moral instincts, and if asked to choose between a human or a dog the answer is obvious until it’s your pet! There’s increasing levels of commitment from family out to strangers. Galatians has a great example of this: do good to all, but especially the household of faith.

-It still doesn’t answer the primary question: is the fetus a human? If the embryo is a human than we should do our best to treat them with the same dignity, honor, and respect as any other human.

-Controlling women isn’t the goal, but caring about humans is. The child inside a woman should have the same level of right as any other human who exists outside the womb. That has been the consistent belief of the church for 2,000 years, and will remain the belief of the church until Jesus returns.

-This is just 1 aspect of the sanctity of life! I understand that! But I haven’t preached a sermon on abortion yet, and I can’t cover everything in any sermon. We should also care about the lives of the immigrant, the homeless, the orphan, the widow, and any human being that we come into contact with. We do have the responsibility to treat any human we encounter with dignity, including the unborn.

-Just because you may be stumped by some of the arguments, don’t put your head in the sand and refuse to study/learn or engage this issue. Read a book! The next one I’m going to read on the sanctity of life has to do with incarceration reform.

-Pray, look for opportunities to serve, go tour Amnion sometime, and trust that God will give you the strength to engage when the time comes. You don’t need to do everything! Some of you will feel a strong pull towards helping a local crisis pregnancy center – praise God! We need people who have that burden in their lives, but don’t look down on others who don’t have that same call. I think our EFCA SOF summarizes our call well: “God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed.”

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by mikethestrand on January 21, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on January 21, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/01/21/sanctity-of-life-sermon-manuscript/

Care for the Nations – Sermon Manuscript

-MLK Day tomorrow – read his ‘I have a dream speech’

-I preached on this issue last Spring, but thought it would be worth revisiting (ethnocentrism vs racism)

-You can go back and listen to that message if you want to hear more detail about it, but one of the biggest things I learned from my study then was the idea of “othering.” 

-Othering is at the core of relational strife and conflict, and all of us are guilty of it.

-Driving: anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac. We all condemn others while excusing ourselves. I heard someone say we view others through a judgment lens and view ourselves through a grace lens.

-Think back to Gen. 3 – the Fall. Instead of identifying himself with his wife, Adam removed himself from her and from God. “It wasn’t my fault! It was the woman you gave me!” And that sin has passed down to every child since then.

-Every person is trying to make sense of the world, and the differences between people are one of the easiest things to see! Tall vs. short, athletic vs. unathletic, smart vs. dumb, rich vs. poor. 

-Wherever you’re at, the human heart’s general drive is to look with suspicion on anyone who isn’t the same as you, and some of that is even taught in our culture! Think of sports where if you don’t adhere to a specific set of skills you’re out. Or school, which tends to reward those who can read and comprehend information, but penalizes those who are good at working with their hands.

-Every culture has a standard that it judges everyone by, and none of them align perfectly with God’s commands for how people are to live. But if we want to have God’s heart towards others, we need to recognize and confess of our own temptation to alienate others (“othering”)

READ/PRAY (pg. 511)

  1. The Problem of Othering (9-12)

-Notice who Jesus directs this parable to: “confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else” 

-What is righteousness? Someone who keeps the commands of God, or completely innocent, or someone who is truly accepted by God. It’s a loaded term! It means no one has anything against you. But it always comes about by a sliding scale, or grading on a curve, because if you really dig down into it all of us have areas where we’re not even living up to our own standards, but we don’t like to admit it.

-And this sense of righteousness tends to manifest itself in looking down on others. Why? Because you judge everyone based on your strengths while refusing to acknowledge any weakness or wrongdoing of your own. I think football gives a great picture of this because of the wide variety of body types required to play football. Think of last year, when “iced Kirk Cousins” went viral, I heard someone comment “He doesn’t have a football players body!” And they were right! If he were a running, receiver, or lineman! But he’s a quarterback, which requires a very different set of skills!

-How does this tie into “othering”? If Kirk decided he was tired of getting sacked and started lining up on the line how well do you think that would go? Not very! Cara and I just watched the documentary Kelce (really hoping she doesn’t become an Eagles fan) and Jason Kelce (center for the Eagles) has a VERY different body type than either his brother (TE) or Kirk. But if any of them got frustrated about it and tried playing the other’s position it would be a disaster! That’s the idea Jesus is getting at here. God has created us uniquely and differently, and we need to ensure we’re using the right standards when we engage with others. 

-Back to the text: prayers at the temple happened 2x a day, during atoning sacrifices. Believed that if you prayed during those times God would answer your prayers. So Jesus is providing the context for us to interpret this correctly. 2 men joined the crowd of people who were going up to have God answer their prayers.

-Describes the Pharisee as standing “by himself” 

-Removed from the scum, didn’t want to catch the sin from those nearby. Contrast that with Jesus! Bleeding woman, lepers, blind, deaf, even the dead! Instead of “othering” or standing far off by Himself, Jesus enters in.

-Think of the way the Pharisee prays vs. the way Jesus taught us to pray

-In the Greek, the personal pronoun “I” appears 5 times in these 2 verses. Some people even argue that this should be translated as Him praying to Himself. How many first person singular pronouns do you see in the Lord’s prayer? Zero. I see 8 first person plural pronouns! God’s design is for us to be in community! 

-This Pharisee thought he was righteous because of what he did. In the 1st century the Pharisees were the heroes! They gave generously, they followed the law perfectly. Jesus even acknowledged that: Matt. 5:20 “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” They were the gold standard by which everyone else would be judged! Yet Jesus is telling everyone that they’re using the wrong standard.

-Jesus goes on to say: Matt. 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” If all we’re looking for is horizontal (explain the difference between horizontal and vertical relationship) recognition and acclaim it’s really easy to self-justify.

-The way we do it today is “authenticity.” I’m just being true to myself! You can’t speak that way about me! What if you being true to yourself leaves a mess of relationships in your wake? Is that still ok?

-On top of that culturally today we’re all becoming increasingly tribal and partisan, when Jesus can’t be easily contained by any of our cultural or sociological boxes (listen to last week’s sermon for that)

-Notice who the Pharisee compares himself to: all those who were disobedient to God’s law, which this Pharisee obviously didn’t do! Not only did he not do those evil things, he didn’t associate with the wrong people (tax collector)

-And he went above and beyond God’s commands: fasting was required 1/year, he did it twice a week. Tithing was just monetary, he would tithe on his spices! Think about that! He believed He had everything in life figured out, and that there was nothing lacking in his life.

-He was comparing purely horizontally, neglecting (what Jesus described as) the weightier matters of the law. Matt. 23:23-24 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” How does Jesus summarize the weightier matters of the law? Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. 

-Jesus is saying if we truly want to obey the law, we need to practice justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Justice is a loaded term today! We’ll get there in a bit, but if Jesus is ok using it, so should we! 

-Now here’s where this gets difficult: if as we worked through this you started thinking of someone else who needed to hear this message, you’ve missed the point of what Jesus is saying.

-One of the commentaries I read shared a Sunday School lesson where the teacher worked through this passage and then asked Johnny to pray at the end, and he prayed “Lord I thank you that we are not like the Pharisee.” But then our tendency is to chuckle and say “Lord I thank you that I’m not like Johnny” and on and on the “othering” goes! 

-Instead, we need a (Copernican) complete revolution in where we looking and to whom we’re comparing.

  • The Solution to Othering (13-14)

-Tax collector oriented his life in a different direction. Where the Pharisee only looked at others, the tax collector couldn’t even bring himself to look up.

-He’s standing off too, but not because he’s worried about infection, but because he didn’t dare approach God in his current state. Not necessarily demeaning himself, but recognition that he is a sinner in need of grace.

-What’s your approach when you wake up in the mornings? Self-justifying or self-demeaning? See if we only look at others or inward we’re going to remain broken, either looking down on others or looking down on ourselves.

-It’s only when you orient your gaze in the right direction that you can start to have a proper understanding and ordering of everything in the world.

-Tax collector faced othering all the time. Scorn, ridicule, belittled by everyone in his community. The Pharisee faced claim and recognition, and both are dangerous.

-Pharisee pursues othering from being good, tax pursue othering from the way he collected taxes and using finances as his way of achieving some level of acceptance.

-How does he respond?

-Beating your breast was very uncommon for men. Signified profound sadness and mourning, typically reserved for women at funerals. Yet here in public he’s demonstrating how broken he is and in need of help.

-The word used for “mercy” was better translated “atoning sacrifice,” he’s asking for someone to take his place because he knows that apart from that his situation is hopeless. Unless someone become “othered” for him, he has no hope of coming near God.

-The story leaves us on a cliffhanger for the man! He doesn’t know if he’s placing his hope in the right place! But we do. And that’s where Jesus’ othering is completely different than the way we other.

-Jesus provides a model for how we’re to view “othering” that takes place today. It has no standing apart from His atoning sacrifice (mercy)

-How is this man justified? He asks. Similar to the man crucified next to Jesus. The solution to othering is to ask Jesus to change your heart, perspective, and orientation. And the reality we’ll never fully get it right! We know that to be justified means we need to stop “othering,” we recognize that’s only possible because Jesus became “othered” for us, but what do we do with that now? 

  • The Othering in Our Lives

-There are a lot of buzzwords that are thrown around today when we get to this idea of “othering” that tend to create even more divides in people than were in place before. 

-Additionally, the words themselves have almost become useless, and a way of merely stopping conversation than actually having a meaningful impact. Last year when I preached on this issue, I didn’t engage any of them, but this year we’re going to look at 3 of them: social justice, woke, and CRT (critical race theory).

-Please don’t immediately jump to conclusions or get nervous. Church, we NEED to be willing to talk about these issues here because otherwise we won’t have be able to be the faithful presence God has called us to be in the world He has created. Just as the Pharisee stood far off as if other’s sin would somehow taint him, we can have a tendency to not engage for fear of being tainted. We need Christians who are educated and equipped to bring the solution to everyone’s problems into the world, including ethnocentrism!

-I’ve shared this quote before, but I want to begin with it again: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He’s saying that in order to deal with the evil in the world, it must begin with us dealing with the evil in our heart, which means if we want to actually see justice taking place, we need the gospel.

-To deal with othering today, we need to admit and acknowledge that we’re no better than anyone else. Rom. 3:23 says ALL have sinned, they have fallen short of how God has created and commanded us to live. No one’s immune to sins effects! 

-In the midst of a lot of the noise that has been thrown around over the past few years, the EFCA this summer released a document titled “Where we stand in the EFCA: Denials and Affirmations” to provide an overview of what the EFCA believes and how we engage divisive cultural issues today. Hence why social justice, woke, and CRT is what I want to engage today! There’s more than I have time for today, so I will again be doing a Sunday School class walking through all of these issues in more detail starting in March.

-First up: social justice. Notice the quotes around that phrase (not scare quotes) and the capitalization. It’s referring to a specific ideology that runs contrary to the way Scripture tells us the world operates. By itself, that phrase is beautifully biblical! The gospel message is by definition social in that God restores a broken relationship with us, Jesus’ death allows us to be social again with God. 

-But that being said, biblical justice also has societal implications for us. Think of the story Jesus tells of his return in Matt. 25. Who does he invite into his glory? Those who gave him food when he was hungry, drink when he was thirsty, welcomed him when he was a stranger, etc. When asked when they did that, Jesus says it was whenever you did it to the least of these, the poor and the marginalized. We can’t do everything for everyone, but one thing we can do is pray for everyone, and start looking for opportunities in your life to care for those others aren’t (schools, neighborhoods, work)

-Justice video 

-Second, woke! Some big words here: critical theory, not CRT yet (humanities study that focuses on societal power dynamics looking for previously unnoticed power dynamics that marginalize people). It has become a whole way of studying humanities with all sorts of implications.

-The reality is we don’t need critical theory to tell us that people are sinners and will sin, even against each other! That’s page 2 of the Bible! This means that even the institutions and organizations that we build will be affected by sin in ways that we probably won’t even fully understand until glory. 

-We also see that part of what we’re called to as God’s people is pursuing reconciliation (2 Cor. 5) and restoration (1 Peter 5:10)

-I think it’s also important for us to remember that we don’t fight against flesh and blood. 2 Cor. 4:4 “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel.” We need to implore people to be awakened from their blindness! Think of Eph. 5:14“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” That’s the “wokeness” we want! Spiritually awake to the realities of what God is actually doing around us.

-Finally, for today, CRT. 

-Part of the difficulty with all of these ideologies is they’re great at pointing out problems, but terrible at providing legitimate solutions. For example, if everything becomes a struggle between oppressed and oppressor, what happens if the roles actually do become reversed, where those who were once oppressed now have all the power and privilege. Aren’t we now in the exact same spot we were before, we’ve just switched groups.

-Some of this is because we as the church haven’t been good at reading the whole Bible and bringing it to bear in our world and culture today. We pick and choose the issues we want to make primary and neglect the rest. 

-I think of someone like CH Spurgeon who faced death threats for speaking against the slavery of the US. We need at admit and acknowledge where we’ve gotten in wrong in the past, and be willing to admit where we’ve gotten it wrong today so that we can have a better understanding of what God has actually said to us in His Word.

-We’re all accidental heretics 

-We’re called to unity in the midst of diversity (John 17:20-23). Revelation talks about people from every tribe and tongue gathered around the throne. (7:9) We should celebrate where our culture starts to see sin manifesting itself, and then look to jump in with the gospel message, the only true hope we have!

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by mikethestrand on January 14, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on January 14, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/01/14/care-for-the-nations-sermon-manuscript/

Politics Sermon Manuscript

Christians and Politics

-Disclaimer: I am not and will not claim to be an expert in political theory. I didn’t really want to approach this topic, but I feel like I need to. I am a pastoral theologian who sees it as my job to read, study, and pray so that I can help us as this local people think through how to live in this world God has created.

-As I’ve processed and thought through this issue I have been heavily influenced by 2 books, and a Podcast. Politics After Christendom, How the Nations Rage, Every Square Inch

-We’ve all lost friends and some have lost family to this issue. There’s been a sense of betrayal and for some of us a lot of questions and doubt because of the ways politics has been engaged in our world today. 

-For today, don’t let me be one of those friends you lose! I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: don’t jump to conclusions based on something I’m not saying as we navigate this issue. There are some areas where I’ll speak very strongly, and others less emphatically, which I think we need to do. We all have a tendency to take 1 issue as our only view and neglect other areas that we need to give special attention to

-Remember theological triage! Just as we need to give more significant attention to theological issues, we also need to give more significant attention to political issues, we need to have political triage too.

-We’re entering another Presidential election year, I think it’s important for us to think about this now so we’re not completely reactionary (which is where I think we in the church tend to be!)

-Politics has become too important in our world.

-For many people, as church engagement has waned, political engagement has taken its’ place. For many people, politics has become their religion! They give their time, money, and talents to furthering the cause of their side. They look to their elected leaders as their priests who will help them usher them into their idea of a “promised land.” There’s a language that you must adopt to be affiliated, a way of living that accompanies it, and if the election doesn’t go their way they become despondent, questioning their entire existence. That’s too far.

-At the root, this is a worship issue, as you’ll see when as we walk through today’s message. When people don’t worship God, they’ll worship anything. That’s at the root of so many of the issues in our world today! (Topic for another time!) 

-Also doing a class starting the 21st looking at a number of these issues in much more detail (using How the Nations Rage as our textbook for it), so if you want to dialogue about this issue further, that’s the class for you!

-Lots of texts, view this as more of a lecture than a sermon because I think we need a biblical foundation to build on, then the last point will get to what this means for us today. But the phrase I want you to keep in the back of your mind throughout this whole message: FAITHFUL PRESENCE

READ/PRAY 

  1. Politics is TEMPORARY

–Gen. 8:20-9:7

-God is a covenant making God, but there’s something unique about this covenant. God previously made a covenant with Adam, He’ll go on to make covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and finally us in what’s often called the “New Covenant.” But there’s something different and unique about the Noahic covenant. It’s post-Fall, but it’s also universal in it’s scope. Every other covenant is geared toward a specific people group (holy, set apart, different from the world). Noah’s covenant doesn’t leave anyone or anything out. This is why we need to begin with this text to understand the role and purpose of government: it’s for all peoples of the earth. But there’s a couple other things that this text tells us. 

-Universal, preservative, and temporary.

-Preservative: first notice 8:21-22 – never will everything be wiped out, and the seasons will continue. Also in 9:1, 5-6 – families are commanded to multiply, and humans are to be treated honorably (death is opposed to God’s intent). God’s intent is for the preservation of His creation. Combine this with the Adamic covenant, we are commissioned by God to steward His creation, preserving it, working it, bringing food and flourishing from it.

-Finally, this is one that I hadn’t really noticed before, but this is temporary. Look at 8:22 “while the earth remains.” This world won’t remain forever. History is moving in a specific direction (which we’ll start studying next month in Revelation). This means that politics is only a temporary endeavor. It’s worth investing in, we’re actually commanded by other passages to remain engaged politically, but don’t treat politics as the ultimate solution to a broken world.

-The reason we need to remain engaged is because we are commanded to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth,” and if we’re going to pursue that, what do we need? Some kind of structures that will allow us to raise families. I found the language from Politics After Christendom helpful. I’m just going to mention them briefly, and then move on because if you want to engage further, come to the Equip Class! 

-familial: procreation and raising of children

-enterprise: as procreation takes place we need ways to feed and provide for the growing population (farming, building, technology)

-judicial: ensuring justice is just and reasonable. Provides a way to settle disputes among people

-3 things we see from Genesis: 1-God’s plan post-fall is for humans to expand, filling the earth. 2- To do that means we need some system or way of working together. 3- Governments role in that is preservative in nature, and these governmental structures are only as long as this earth endures. But then what that means for us today is:

  • The CHURCH is Political (and not in the way you think!)

-In order to have politics (structure for a society) you need: laws, regulations, leadership of some sort. And what’s crazy is the church has all that! Let’s start in the OT:

-Jer. 31:31-34

-Notice the covenantal language here. God is providing a framework for His people to exist in the world, which means this is the way God wants politics to work. But this covenant is different from the covenant with Noah. Who does this apply to? “The house of Israel” aka God’s people. 

-Unlike every other nation, this time the laws won’t be on stone tablets, or long legal documents, or a constitution, or a monarchy, or tradition. This time the laws will be on our hearts, which means people’s orientation, drive, desire will be correct. It’s not that everyone will be guided by their hearts to do whatever they feel is right, but that we will always only want to do what pleases Him.

-We also see that God will be our ultimate ruler, which means there’s no need for anyone else to tell us how to live. A true theocracy where Jesus it the King!

-Lastly there’s no need for judicial courts. Since everyone is being led by the Lord, and because it’s a theocracy, sin has already been dealt with. There’s justice, but only because God has dealt with it when he took the penalty for everyone’s sin on the cross.

-This is true today! In the church. The church is meant to be a counter-kingdom to the kingdoms of this world. And Jesus gives us some pictures of what that looks like:

-Matt. 5:2-12

-Do you see Jesus tells you how to enter the everlasting kingdom of heaven: being poor in spirit – that is understanding that we aren’t self-sufficient, that we can’t save ourselves and that we need the help of someone else.

-A contrary ethic to the world. I read a blog once that flipped these around to describe the world, and unfortunately some worldly churches. If you want to see what the kingdom of earth looks like, it’s like this. 

-But if you want to be a part of the kingdom of heaven, it looks different. How do stop someone who is meek, merciful, pure in heart, and a peacemaker? You could kill them, which is what Jesus says! But these means of living are meant to describe us in EVERY situation (including political discussions). Are you meek in those talks? Are you merciful (extending charity toward others), pure in heart (assuming the best of others even when they disagree), peacemaker (instead of constantly fighting and bickering).

-Expect persecution! THIS WORLD ISN’T OUR HOME! NO NATION IS MEANT TO BE OUR HOME! We are sojourners, strangers, aliens. We also see this in the way Jesus taught us to pray:

-Matt. 6:9-13

-“Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

-The goal is for earth to look like heaven. But it doesn’t and it won’t because earth doesn’t recognize who the true ruler is (yet!)

-The way Jesus literally commands us to pray is to begin with a recognition that this world and its’ rulers will pass away. Did you know (we’ll get to it in Revelation) the kings of the world will bring the glory they developed into heaven? Rev. 21:26 “They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations.” How cool is that? The technological advances will be purified such that they will no longer be used as objects to sin, but ways to better and further glorify God! 

-What I want you to take away from these 2 passages is the church is meant to be a counter-kingdom to the kingdoms of this world. There are different expectations, different hopes, different leaders, and there’s an eternal direction to them. That means that instead of operating as the world tries to get us to operate, we’re now citizens of heaven! But how do we engage as we’re also still citizens of earth?

-Rom. 13:1-7

-The Bible is explicit in a couple places about the role and function of government, and it’s one that people often run to before they’ve done any of this other work to get there! AND there was a whole HOST of debates about this very text when COVID was going on!

-Begins with a reminder that every earthly ruler is ultimately accountable to God (remember, we saw the basic instructions for earthly rulers back in Gen. 9), which means the default for Christians is to look for opportunities to obey the government. Yes, there are times and places where disobedience is required (think of our brothers and sisters in N Korea, China, Iraq), but the default should be obedience. Christians should be the best citizens! This was true in the early church. Letter to Diognetus, AD 130. 

-Would this be true of you today?

-Do good and not bad, be good citizens! 

-1 Peter 2:13-17

-“Punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.” I love that description! Now I don’t have time today to get into situations where the government is praising evil and punishing those who do good, come to my class if you want to talk more about that!

-Part of the reason we’re called to be good citizens is vs. 15. Think of that letter I just read – if we’re living as God has commanded us our very lives should be the primary explanation and example for what it means to follow Jesus. Remember, if He is our Lord and King (which He is) that has implications in how we should live here and now.

-Both recognition of the legitimacy of the emperor, but he is supposed to be treated differently than God. Peter uses the same word towards the emperor as everyone else, thus affirming the sole Lordship of God and the emperor’s place in our allegiance.

  • How CHRISTIANS Should Be Political

-Church has tended to experience either persecution or power. We’ve seen this swing throughout history, and the church has struggled with both of these extremes.

-The Christian church as a political party isn’t the ideal. America is unique in that: protects from persecution, but doesn’t give the church power. 

-That means that imperfections in our society are manifested in a partisan way: everyone plays partisan games, church is tempted to the same idea and ends up fighting the same “wars.” The trend is when the church is exempt from persecution and power to become partisan, that is identified solely with one political party. Politicians LOVE this! Because it means they can claim hold to an entire demographic of people. I onetime heard someone say: politicians are going to politic, we should expect no less. 

-“Jesus is political, but He is not partisan. The kingdom of God has political implications, but it is not a political kingdom.”  Cunningham, ESI

–Jer. 29:4-7

-Seek the welfare of the city “for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We must remain engaged as a faithful presence in the world. Jesus describes us a salt, that is a preservative. We’re looking to preserve the things of earth that are signposts of heaven. So if God calls you into politics, do so with a different approach than the world. It’s not for power, but for presence. If God calls you to just be a good citizen, be the best citizen you can be, not for power but to be a faithful presence. (the church as an embassy?)

–Matt. 22:15-22

-Christian political vision: 

-Government legislates morality. Christians aren’t the only one who push their morality, everyone does. Intersection of faith and politics is unavoidable. 

-Jews heavily tax. Rome had “head” tax (a quarter), a reminder of their oppression, on the coin “Caesar, the son of god, the great high priest.” Let Caesar have his silly little tax, politicians prey on this. Jesus has no problem operating in the political realm, but He also operates above them.

-What belongs to God? Everything! Every kingdom is subject to Him. “Give Caesar his little coin, give Rome to God.” We cannot be indifferent or apathetic. My presence belongs in the culture, because the culture belongs to God. Our ambition is a world made right. 

-What is our strategy? We have God’s image on us, so therefore we need to give ourselves to God. His people, as citizens of His kingdom, rendering their lives unto the purposes of His kingdom. Seemed completely indifferent to the politics of the day, because it wasn’t worth His time. Partisan politicians can’t solve the world’s problems!

-We build a rival kingdom! How do you stop the politics of Jesus? If it’s partisan, just vote against Him. We don’t play that game. We don’t pursue power, we don’t ask permission, we don’t care what people say, how do you stop beatitudes, sermon on the Mount, love? Jesus is impervious to worldly games of power.

–Eph. 1:19-23

-Jesus as head of the nations, but especially the church. The church is the only political institution that is going to last into eternity, and it’s the only institution that has a ruler who can’t be outvoted, who can’t be outlasted, and whose entire ethic is one of love.

-Which gets us to this last passage.

–Rev. 19:11-16

-We always have hope, not in the nation states of earth, but because of the nation state when heaven comes down to earth. When Jesus comes to right every wrong and user in His perfect rule and reign.

-We just came off a week where we reflected in Isa. 9 which prophecies that His government will never stop expanding! 

-I want my government to reflect my worldview, but the way our government is built leads to competition. How do we do politics without falling into political idolatry?

1-Though our faith is political, it is not partisan. You can hold strongly, but don’t act as if Jesus fits perfectly in either partisan camp. Both sides try to claim Him, but neither can perfectly represent Him. 

-Consistency (attack both sides equally) & Commonality (more in common with religious convictions or political convictions?)

2-Deemphasize federal politics, high concern for local politics. Life of our local community is has the most on our local lives. Treat federal more like a TV show: county before country political approach.

3-Be the change you long to see, see the limits of political sovereignty. Can’t run a church like a business, can’t run a family like a school. Can’t run the church like the state. We ask the politicians to be the change we long to see, politicians love that! We must make use of our liberties to enact positive changes in our world.

4-Be gracious in conversations with others that disagree with you who are a part of the kingdom of God. We can have disagreements (strongly!) and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. Keep things in perspective, don’t let earthly politics become your entire worldview, let everything you do be done in love (1 Cor. 16:14)

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by mikethestrand on January 7, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on January 7, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/01/07/politics-sermon-manuscript/

Simeon’s Song – Sermon Manuscript Luke 2:22-35

-LOTR “Something happened that the ring did not intend, it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.”

-Evil does not have absolute power, a normal, everyday, (we may even say) boring creature picked it up.

  1. Complete Obedience (22-24)

-Painstaking attention to detail

-“They” went together. 

-Joseph went with her even though he didn’t need to offer a sacrifice. Joseph is the often-forgotten person in the nativity. As a kid doing the plays, you never wanted to be Joseph! The guy just stood there! But he is the unsung hero. His fiancé gets pregnant (doesn’t take much math to figure out what happened) but he gets a special visit from an angel, which he obeys!

-Luke has demonstrated the righteousness of Zechariah & Elizabeth, and Mary & Joseph

Ex 13:2 “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”

Lev. 12:6-8 “And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering,and he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female.And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”

-Jesus was born in poverty

-Material wealth does not necessarily signify blessing from God, one of the biggest heresies of our modern day is the health & wealth prosperity “gospel”

-For a good critique, watch “American Gospel” documentary 

-God NEVER promises an easy, pain free life this side of eternity, in fact we’re guaranteed the opposite! We’ll also see this as a theme in Jesus’ life that will affect his mother in vs. 34. 

-Listened to an audiobook to Walking with God Through Pain & Suffering, Christianity alone offers an only conclusive worldview that makes sense out of suffering

-Christmas isn’t about presents, it’s about God being present with his people

-What’s fascinating about this story is that no offering is listed for Jesus. He was already purified, had nothing to be cleansed from, that’s why He can actually take the weight of sin upon Himself.

  • Christ the Consolation (25-35)
    • Paraclete (25-28)

-Chapter 1 was basically all these unbelievably legit people that we should be amazed by (OF COURSE, the PRIEST gets his answer to prayer!). Chapter 2 is where we all would find ourselves in the story! We now see all the boring, normal people leading their boring, normal, everyday lives. First part is the shepherds out in the fields, this part is those who had been waiting for this Messiah

-Luke begins “Some random dude in Jerusalem…” does say he was “righteous and devout” so even random dudes can be faithful to God’s commands! That should give us hope! (“There’s nothing my God cannot do FOR YOU!”)

-Waiting for the consolation of Israel: consolation-comfort after difficulty, light at the end of the tunnel (Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou Art – Come Thou Long Expected Jesus)

Isaiah 40:1 “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”

Isaiah 49:13 “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.”

-Also, Holy Spirit was upon him. Just like the eventual NT believers (i.e. us!) So we can be like Simeon! 

-Simeon had some top-secret info. He would see the Messiah, the Anointed One before he died (that’s the meaning of Christ). 

-Sidenote: “Keep the Xristos in X-Mas”

-The one that had been promised for centuries, first seen in Gen. 3 with the proto-eungelion is here!

-Imagine what this day would have been like. Minding his own business when he got an inkling to go to the temple. That inkling grew stronger and stronger until he finally gave in. Text doesn’t say how long ago he’d been promised to see the Messiah, but think of all the babies he’d seen come through those doors. “Hey, they look like a young family! Is that the one?” each time to be told Nope! Then finally, there he is!

-The hope of the entire nation was able to be held in his hands. So that’s exactly what he did, he lifted baby Jesus up in his arms. 

-Early church called him Theodoches the God receiver. He blessed God and said:

  • Peace (29-32)

-Everything in history was leading up to this point, just like everything in Simeon’s life was leading up to this moment. God’s perfect plan to reconcile the broken cosmos was coming to fruition.

-And now that this moment was here, Simeon was content to die, to “depart in peace” That theme has popped up in almost all the songs we’ve looked at this month. This Prince of Peace would bring true, lasting peace to a world gone mad! And Simeon recognized and realized that, which allowed him to face even death with perfect peace. This peace is the promised peace “according to your word” 

Isaiah 9:6 “To us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

30 “For my eyes have seen your salvation”

-Jesus’ arrival begins a new era in human history where salvation can now be given! Simeon is playing on the name of our Savior here. 

-Jesus’ name was Yeshua, where we get Joshua, meaning “Yahweh saves” 

Matt. 1:21 “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

-Every time we so much as mention Jesus’ name, we’re reminding each other of the truth that God saves, even normal, boring people like us!

-Think of what that would have meant as Jesus was growing up! Every time his parents spoke his name, they would be reminded of the truth of the gospel!

-And this salvation is not just for the nation of Israel, this salvation would be worked out “in the presence of all peoples”

-Isaiah 52:10 “The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

-This is for both Jew and Gentile (thankfully) because Gentile includes most of us!

  • Persecution (33-35)

-Mary and Joseph were (understandably) amazed, once again. This is not quite how they expected the day to go!

-After praising God, Simeon also blesses Mary and Joseph. 

-Jesus divides. Some will fall and some will accept him as the Lord and rise. 

-This is the antithesis of universalism, which has become a trendy idea in our culture once again. There isn’t multiple options to pursue human flourishing, there’s only 1 way, and it comes from believing in Jesus as the Christ!

-Opposition to Jesus is the norm in the human heart, we saw that all throughout Mark’s Gospel this past year, and we’ll see it next year as we walk through Revelation! 

-And those “out there” won’t be the only ones affected, Mary will too. She’ll see her firstborn son go through suffering, difficulty, persecution, and ultimately death. I don’t know of anyone who would wish that on any of their kids!

-“Hearts will be revealed.” There are only 2 ways to live, either For God or Against God. Jesus divides people against each other, against their own sinful flesh! But the amazing thing is, all we need to do to be saved is be like Simeon. Kent Hughes in his commentary said, “To receive salvation, all one has to do is to take Jesus in his or her arms as Lord.” (Hughes, 99)

-Have you received him? If you have received him, then we have the joy of having a peace-filled life. No longer afraid of what others think, because according to God we’re enough!

-And then we respond as Simeon does here, by blessing God and blessing others. You can summarize this by taking 1 step closer to God, and helping others take 1 step closer to God. Ask yourself each day: what can I do today to grow closer to God and help others grow closer to God? That’s how you can depart in peace too!

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by mikethestrand on December 24, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on December 24, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/12/24/simeons-song-sermon-manuscript-luke-222-35/

Zechariah’s Song – Sermon Manuscript

-Short term memory loss. My son tells me I have a bad memory regularly (but not him, according to him his memory is so good his brain will tell him where things are even when he doesn’t know it)

-I remember growing up and getting so frustrated when my parents would call me be the names of one of my sisters. I’d be looking straight at them and they’d call me Elyssa. I swore I’d never do that to my kids, and here we are. I literally did it yesterday! I’ve mixed all their names up (and I hardly even have Thomas and Charlie to keep track of right now!)

-At this point I just keep telling myself that I have too many things that I’m trying to keep track of (and I keep telling my parents that they only had 3 kids to keep track of, so there was no excuse for them)

-But I think that’s a picture of the way we view our spiritual lives too. We forget which family we’re a part of, and the implications that family has in our day to day lives. We’re called to live radically different lives, but so often our lives look exactly the same as everyone else around us.

READ/PRAY

  1. An Arrival (57-66)

-Talked about them briefly last week, but need a little more information about them.

-The best credentials (the right family, Ivy League school, straight As, honest in business, trusted by everyone)

-Unfortunately, the family lineage would stop with them, apart from God’s intervention because they were “advanced in years.”

-As we read through these Christmas texts, our ears are supposed to be hearing references back to God’s work in the past. Think of another couple who had a baby even after they were “advanced in years” The father of the Israelites: Abraham. God can communicate even by events that are taking place around us, and the people who witnessed these events would even make some of those connections for us, as you’ll see when we walk through this.

-But what is the significance of God pointing us back to Abraham?

-God was about to start something brand new. Well, mostly brand new. You may have heard “history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme,” that’s because there’s an order and a purpose to all of history. God was at the same time fulfilling all the promises that He’d made to his people before AND undermining the way people had falsely interpreted those promises for their day.

-Today’s story also comes on the end of 400 years of silence from God. After God had sent prophets to His people regularly to tell them what they needed to know, he had stopped. Think of that: 400 years. 400 years ago Blaise Pascal was born, Pope Gregory 15th died, the settlements that will become Gloucester, MA and Dover, NH are founded, a third vessel delivers pilgrims to Plymouth Colony, and in Nov. a fire will destroy 7 of their buildings. MN wasn’t a state, houses didn’t have running water, plumbing, or electricity. USA wasn’t a nation. Democracy wasn’t common, and capitalism wasn’t a part of economics yet. And that’s how long God’s people had been waiting to hear from Him. If my prayer app doesn’t load in 4 sec. I kill it and start over!

-And I think it’s important for us to reflect on that for a minute. I don’t know anyone who’s gifted at waiting, which just goes to show how affected we are by the world around us. 400 years feels like forever, but that’s a blip in eternity. God doesn’t treat time the same way you and I do. I think of the Ents in LOTR. Merry & Pippen are captured by Treebeard who takes them to the Entmoot “It takes a long time to say anything in old Entish and we never say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say.” 

-Today’s text moves a story God had been telling for thousands of years 1 step forward in His unfolding plan. And just as it previously began with the arrival of a baby, this one also begins with the arrival of a baby.

  1. Rejoicing! (57-59)

-Before John even begins his public ministry, people are rejoicing about him! Just like the angel had said earlier. 

-Look back to the promise in 1:14 “many will rejoice at his birth”

-One of the aspects we need to ensure we’re doing today is celebrating with those who have been blessed by God, even if we’re still in a season of waiting. God brings us together as a group so that we can rejoice with those who are rejoicing and mourn with those who are mourning. Shared sorrow is half, shared joy is doubled. 

-As we come into the Christmas season I think it’s intentional that God included this section in here. Church, this is your family! Even if you were abandoned at birth, never adopted into a family, and still single today, you have a perfect heavenly Father who has made a new and better family and welcomed you in. But we don’t act like that very often. We’re too quick to run to the nuclear family and too quick to dismiss the Christological family (define)

-Custom of this culture, along with circumcision came the naming of the child (again, we see they were being completely upright citizens, obeying every law that God had commanded) 

-Names ran in the family, if you’ve seen Marvel (they used to be great!), Thor is always “Son of Odin” (Odinson, Johnson, etc) To carry the family name one was a great honor, and the expectation of this family! But then:

  • Confusion (60-63)

-Elizabeth refuses! Remember, Zechariah hasn’t been able to speak this whole time, but he found out some way to communicate all that had happened to his wife. 

-This is also where we see Zechariah was deaf during this whole time, they had to make signs to him instead of just asking. And why would they wonder if he just heard his wife say his name? 

-Notice he doesn’t debate or question for a second! He doesn’t even say his name WILL BE, Zechariah writes his name IS John. One of the things I didn’t mention earlier is the Zechariah questioned the angel Gabriel when he was told to prepare for the arrival of a baby. That questioning led to him being unable to speak for 9 months. 9 months of complete silence. 9 months to contemplate what happened. Now, when you compare that to the 400 silent years, 9 months is nothing, but as someone who currently can’t hear out of my right ear let me tell you, 9 months would feel like FOREVER!

  • Fulfillment (64-66)

-As soon as Zechariah writes that his name is John, he can talk again! Zechariah had learned his lesson, and wasn’t going to go 0 for 2! Whereas the first time he doubted, this time he rejoiced, believed, and praised God.

-JC Ryle, an Anglican bishop in the UK (wrote some GREAT thoughts on the Gospels) “Let us take heed that affliction does us good, as it did to Zechariah.… “Sanctified afflictions” … are “spiritual promotions.” The sorrow that humbles us, and drives us nearer to God, is a blessing, and a downright gain. No case is more hopeless than that of a man who, in time of affliction, turns his back upon God.”

-Think about that. Ryle calls them “sanctified afflictions,” but in God’s plan every affliction is sanctified! What this mean is: obedience during suffering will lead to lasting fruit. When the Lord allows difficulty to enter your life, how do you respond? Think of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were “advanced in years” (they were old). How long had they been praying for a child and had the Lord continue to answer “not yet”? But do you think those decades were wasted, or was God continuing to teach them in the midst of their waiting? Same for you today! Even if the answer up until today has been “not yet” are you going to trust that God is still working in your life (spiritual promotions) or do you give up and start doubting God?

-One of the themes in this first chapter of Luke is fear. When Gabriel appears to Zechariah, he’s described as fearful. When Gabriel appears to Mary she’s described as troubled (or fearful). But now, because of God’s work in Zechariah and Elizabeth (and John), their neighbors are fearful.

-That should embolden us, friends! We don’t need to be afraid to share the gospel message with others! God’s work is what properly orders our fear. Why would we fear anyone (or anything) instead of God? We should trust that as God works in our lives, it will lead to all sorts of questions from people, which is exactly what happens here.

-They were the talk of the town! Talk about a high bar for John! Can you imagine what his life was like? “Oh yeah, little Johnnie over there, we know ALL about when you were born!”

  • The Song (67-80)

-This seems to be a flashback to vs. 64. It says there that Zechariah blessed God, most likely this is what he said to bless God.

-Often referred to as the Benedictus taken from the Latin translation, first word is Benedictus. A song! When God works among his people, they respond through singing!

  1. Salvation Has Come (68-75)

-God saves us so that we might worship. Think of Moses to Pharoah in Ex. 7:16 “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” The freedom that comes from God saving us allows us to now properly orient our lives.

-Before we are saved, our whole direction in life is toward ourselves. After we’re saved, our lives now have a different direction to them – aligned vertically first to God, and then outward as we look to bless everyone else we come into contact with.

-Zechariah’s prophesy is like a funnel – it begins broadly with all of God’s people, and then slowly narrows to 1- the child he’s holding in his arms.

-Look at where he begins: “He has visited.” The God who had been silent for 400 years hasn’t disappeared! He’s still guiding His people, and redeeming them.

-Horn is used throughout the Psalms to signify strength (think of a rhinoceros horn, should be terrifying to you!) It also means that because it’s God’s horn, it’s guaranteed to happen. We’ll come back to David in a minute.

-This has been part of God’s plan “from of old.” You think Zechariah and Elizabeth are old, that’s not even where this story begins! This story begins all the way back in Genesis 1! God’s plan that was in place before the earth was created was about to take a major step forward.

-The people who had been under persecution for centuries, mocked and belittled by the nations were about the saved. No one would be able stand against them. Just as He had been faithful to the previous generations, that mercy would continue down to His people today.

-Then Zechariah utters an important word: covenant. Now we need to talk about David! Because one of the things that’s vital for us to learn about God is that He’s a covenant making and covenant keeping God.

-God made a covenant with David, God made a covenant with Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah, God has even made a covenant with you and me. You can trace the entire storyline of the Bible through God’s covenants. But the significance is that Zechariah is saying that ALL of those covenants are coming to a head now.

-Notice as well that it’s both spiritual and physical. We’re commanded to live holy and righteous lives all our days (75), but so many of these promises are spiritual promises (salvation (69, 71), holy covenant (72))

-This new way of living means we no longer have anything to fear (74) Unlike almost everyone else in this story, now when we see God move we don’t have to be afraid because of God’s provision of the Messiah.

  • A Prophet and a Messiah (76-80)

-Then the prophecy turns to John. 

-John’s role is said to be preparation. His whole aim, goal, focus is to prepare people to meet the Lord. 

-This is meant to connect to a prophesy in Malachi 3:1. John’s job is to be the hype man! Getting every ready, smoothing out the path, so that when the main event finally comes the people are ready.

-So how is John supposed to do this? By giving people knowledge of salvation, how their sins can be forgiven.

-Where the people were expecting God’s arrival to be a great time of political upheaval, God’s actual arrival would be a spiritual upheaval. And I think we do the same thing today! We’re so focused on the physical world that we miss the deeper spiritual realities that are taking place around us every day.

-God’s mercies (new every morning) are like the sunrise. Pointing back to Malachi 4:2 “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” 

-This imagery is also seen in Isaiah 9:2. Do you see how this prophesy is just dripping with OT ideas? I think part of the reason we don’t know our OT well enough is because we don’t see how it applies to us. What we need to realize is we need to understand ALL of God’s story so we can know how we can find our place in that story.

-The light is finally coming! The light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. This light shines for eternity, and we have the responsibility to let our light shine before others so that others may see our good deeds and glorify our God who is in heaven.

-The “path of peace” is not simply the path that leads to peace but is itself a peaceful path: “Peace will characterize the walk along this road.” (ZECNT) Another way you could say this is: are you a peace-filled person? Do you bring peace into every situation you walk into? 

-A good description I’ve heard of this is the church should be filled with shock-absorbers. The world will try to rile people up, causing them to become tension filled and anxious, and as soon as they walk in the doors they’re welcomed by people of peace. Not because it comes naturally or easily, but because Christ has won our peace through His sacrifice on our behalf.

1-Think of how hard John’s call was. He wasn’t the focus, he wasn’t the main event. His job was simply to point to someone else who was coming, someone whose sandals he wasn’t even worthy to untie. Yet that’s the call for all of us, and we don’t often like to admit that! We’d rather be the hero of the story than be a background character (NPC for gamers) But we’re back at the paradox of the gospel, and John’s (and our) life goal: He must increase, but I must decrease.

2-Second thing we see: “When it is recognized that Luke identifies ‘the enemy’ as the cosmic power of evil resident and active behind all forms of opposition to God and God’s people, it is plain that Zechariah’s hope has not been dashed but clarified and, indeed, radicalized.”

-This radicalization is most visibly seen by God taking enemies and turning them into family. Before Christ saved us we were opposed to God, fighting against Him, and at that time while we were enemies with God, Jesus saved us and made us family. 

3 -Salvation isn’t for retreat, but to look for opportunities to bless others “Might serve him without fear” (74)

-God doesn’t save people and immediately call them up to heaven! He leaves us here so that we can serve Him and show the world what it looks like to live in the way of peace. 

-Think of Psalm 23 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” Even if we’re surrounded by enemies, even if death has overtaken us we still walk in the way of peace, bought by the sacrifice of the Prince of Peace.

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by mikethestrand on December 10, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on December 10, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/12/10/zechariahs-song-sermon-manuscript/

Mary’s Song – Sermon Manuscript

-I want you to think about your favorite story. My guess is it has something to do with the little guy totally winning against the big guy. 

-I think of all my favorite stories: growing up was the Hardy Boys, as Joe and Frank (as high schoolers) would solve mysteries none of the adults could figure out

-Harry Potter, the chosen child who is able to defeat Voldemort and his whole army

-Katniss Everdeen who stood up to the Capital in defiance and sparked a revolution

-And on and on the list could go! But what if all those stories were viewed as abnormal? What if that wasn’t the reality? What if every story or movie that you saw told you that whoever’s biggest always wins. So the Capital crushes Katniss, Harry is overwhelmed by Voldemort, and the Hardy Boys spend their days focusing on their studies because the adults are in fact smarter. 

-Until we got the Jesus story that was the norm. The gods ruled everything (think of the stories of Zeus or Hercules) If you wanted to be something special you had to rise to the top! The reason those other stories become so beloved is because they point us to the bigger truth of the greatest story of all time, where God came as a baby, took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood (MSG)

-There are 4 songs recorded in Luke’s Gospel that summarize Jesus’ birth. We begin this week looking at Mary’s.

READ/PRAY (pg. 499)

  1. Elizabeth Confirms (39-45)

-Some background needed:

-Luke begins this book with a dedication. He has sought to put together the story of what had happened with this Jesus guy

-The story begins with a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth who were “advanced in years” and childless. In the course of Zechariah’s priestly duties, an angel appears to him and promises that after all these years they’ll have a child! His wife (obviously) gets pregnant, and then remains in isolation for 5 months. 

-In the 6th month, another angel is sent to a young girl named Mary in Nazareth, aka the sticks! Just as a child was promised to Zechariah, a child is promised to her, but this child won’t be conceived through normal means. As a witness to this, the angel tells Mary that her relative Elizabeth is pregnant!

-Mary goes to visit her “with haste”

-Why haste? Scholars aren’t sure. Some say to hide from her community, some think it is a mistranslation, other say it’s in response to God leading. I think it’s a lot more basic than that.

-If an angel came to you and told you something was going to happen in the future, then gave you a nugget of something that had already happened, wouldn’t you want to go test out what he said?

-Mary wants confirmation about what’s going to happen, if Elizabeth is REALLY pregnant, than maybe she really is going to have an immaculate conception. Now, typically that doctrine is used to refer to Mary being immaculately conceived, but that’s not what I’m talking about here! There is 1 immaculate conception, and it only happened to Jesus.

-She gets to the house and…

41 -John LEAPS in Elizabeth’s womb.

         -Shortly after Mary conceives (80-100 miles away, 3-4 day journey)

-A fetus is responding to the arrival of a zygote. What does that tell you about when a person becomes a person? 

-One of the most fascinating aspects of the biblical storyline is how it’s full of barren wombs (or wombs that should have been barren in Mary’s case!)

-Think back to the father of the nation of Israel: Abraham. Everything that I just shared about Zechariah and Elizabeth is also true of them!

-Abraham to Isaac to Jacob who had 2 wives, one of those wives was childless. 

-In Egypt, after the Israelites are enslaved what does Pharoah command the midwives to do? Kill the babies, destroy the wombs.

-Think of the story of the birth of the prophet Samuel, when his mother Hannah begged God for a baby

-Ruth, whose frail husband died, and then moved to a foreign land with her MIL with no hope of survival or prospective husbands on the horizon.

-Now, with all that in mind, think about the curse in Gen. 3. Notice the fight that begins between the serpent and the woman, and then continues between their 2 offspring. Do you think that maybe Satan knows about this curse, and then views it as his mission to attack the womb of anyone in the line of Jesus? Or do you think it’s any wonder today that Satanic attacks are demeaning and belittling to people? 

-Think of how carelessly life is tossed aside today (abortion and physician assisted suicide). We live in a culture of death, but it’s sterilized and hidden from us. Just a few years ago, after the death of Ulrich Klopfer, 2,411 fetuses were found in boxes in his garage. And he’s not the only one! How a country treats it’s most vulnerable citizens is a good marker of the health of that country (both in the womb and end of life). 

-But I also think it’s a marker of the serpent’s work anytime the womb is attacked. The technological advances we’ve had over the past 50 years are astounding! Babies can feel pain at least by 15 weeks of gestation. Women are barely showing at that point! Think of the pictures we can see of children in utero today. Unfortunately this conversation has just become a political talking point instead of a legitimate moral conversation. We must be pro-life in every aspect and implication, from conception to natural death.

-This isn’t the only time a baby in the womb is described as jumping, is way back in Gen. 25:22 “The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.””

-All the way back in the founding of the Israelite people there was tension, division, brother against brother

-Now, here for the first time someone is leaping, struggling in the womb because he can’t contain his excitement that the Messiah has finally come!

-This arrival, instead of bringing about division will bring reconciliation, unity, peace, creating a new family of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to come together under 1 banner

-Elizabeth, just as her husband Zechariah did earlier, becomes a prophetess for the Lord.

-We often make a great deal out of Peter being the first person to recognize that Jesus is the Christ in Mark 8, but Elizabeth saw and acknowledged it even before Peter. Refers to Jesus as “my Lord” in 43

44 -John leaped for joy, unlike Jacob & Esau who leaped with contention. Yet just as with J&E, the older would serve the younger. Instead of undermining, cutting, biting, fighting, John embraces his role as one who came to prepare the way, realizing it even from the womb (where he’s filled with the HS)

-This is meant to demonstrate the way the gospel message (the Good News that Jesus’ arrival changes everything) undermines and then replaces everyone’s deepest longings and desires.

-Think of the way we’re taught from our world that bigger is always better. But is it? Let’s take a bigger house, that you then have to heat, and clean, and fill, and use. Is it really that much better? 

-Or think of any celebrity. When news leaks about their addictions or broken relationships do you really think they have life figured out? 

-I love the way Augustine talked about this in the 4th century (and people haven’t really changed at all since then). He argued that we’re far more led by our emotions than we realize (can’t claim to be purely a logical person, talk to Micah). And because of that, we all have an internal drive and desire that will never be fully met until we meet Jesus. Then once we have Jesus everything else makes sense. Our longings/desires will change, our motivations will change, and that will ultimately make a change in the way we live the rest of our lives.

-I say all that, because at Christmas time we’re celebrating what seems like a foolish thing. Have you ever compared the Christian story to the arrival of other gods? Rome was founded by Romulus, who was descended from the gods, nursed by a wolf, and then single-handedly creates the walls that form the city. If you go back further, ANE creation share all the fights the gods were having that led to the creation of the world. And in all these competitions for people’s allegiance, comes a little baby. Who in their right mind would come up with a story like this as THE solution for the problems in the world? It just doesn’t make sense! Unless it’s true.

-I share all that, because that’s exactly what Mary’s song focuses on.

  • Mary Rejoices (46-55)

-Comparison to Hannah’s praise in 1 Samuel 2

-Hannah had led a life of lack. Her husband had another wife who had multiple kids, but Hannah had none. She had begged God for years for a child, but had he hadn’t answered. Every year the family would go to the temple to sacrifice, and one year Hannah was observed by the priest who thought she was drunk (silently praying to herself) But God answered her prayers, and she had a child named Samuel.

-As we read it, pay attention to the way God works. Bows of the mighty broken, feeble are bound with strength, raises the poor so they sit with princes. Doesn’t it sound like God’s work is subverting the expectations of the world and then fulfilling them in ways no one would have expected?

  1. In God’s Blessings (46-49)

-Just as Hannah praised God for who He is, which leads to His blessings, Mary begins by recounting the ways God has blessed.

-Mary realizes she hasn’t done anything to achieve this nor is she worthy of this, no this is all because God “has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” (48) 

-How often do you take for granted all that God has done for you? Paul asks this very question in 1 Cor. 4:7 “What do you have that you did not receive?” It’s a rhetorical question: answer is NOTHING! Everything we have and are is a gift from our Father in heaven. 

-Mary realizes this is a gift from God, even though she may be socially ostracized, looked down upon by her friends and family, God is enough.

-I think it’s worth looking at vs. 48 as we think about the rest of this song. Notice that Mary says ALL generations will call her blessed.

-I listened to a podcast over the summer that talked about this fact: that we are supposed to bless Mary. Now, this isn’t supposed to be a veneration to her as RCC does, but she does give birth to the Son of God who came to earth to take away our sins. It was because Mary was willing to bear the scorn and shame of the world that we have salvation today. Do you thank God for Mary’s faithful obedience? I worded that very carefully: not thanking Mary for her obedience, thanking God for her obedience. 

-But this gift isn’t just a blessing to Mary, it’s a blessing to the whole world:

  • In God’s Mercy (50-53)

-God coming to earth is going to lead to a moral, political, and social revolution the likes of which won’t be seen again until he comes for a second time.

-First, moral 51. He has the full strength necessary, morality is defined in relation to him (holy is his name vs 49).

-This is what God has also said in 1 Peter “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Humility is seen as a virtue today, but it wasn’t in the 1st century. And even much “humility” today is a false façade that is still seeking the same goal as pride: recognition and affirmation of you. 

-What humility is going to look like is someone who doesn’t worry about themselves, but someone who loves God, life, and you without trying to build a brand, a following, or themselves up. 

-Second, political 52. God’s way is antithetical the world’s ways. Those who achieve power, greatness, fame and accolades on earth will be the last ones in God’s kingdom. Humiliation leads to exaltation, but can’t get exaltation without humiliation. The J curve

-Think of what a difference it would make if our political leaders followed God’s commands of serving others. 

-Third, social 53. The only way to receive from God is to come to him empty, if you come full you’ll leave with nothing. 

-Jesus tells a parable of a rich man who thought he’d made it. He built storehouses (enough to last for the rest of his life) and he said to himself that it’s time to eat, drink, and be merry! Guess what happened that night! He died. How much of his money did he take with him? Zippo! His bank account in eternity wasn’t any higher than anyone else.

-This is a large part of where the church should be such a counter-cultural community, which means at times it’s going to be very difficult. Sometimes the only thing we’ll have is the gospel message in common, but dear friends that’s enough! We may not vote the same, we may not have the same amount of money in our bank accounts, we may not have the same cultural backgrounds, but we do have something that’s better and more lasting than any of those differences: salvation in Jesus alone!

-But don’t miss that we’re not the first people Jesus has engaged in this way.

  • In God’s Promises (54-55)

-Friends, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We’re only here today because of thousands of faithful followers of Jesus who have gone before us to allow us to be here today. And sometimes it feels like we’ll never make it, but don’t forget that God NEVER forgets His promises. God’s memory is eternal, ours are tiny.

-Think of how much time had passed before Abraham’s promise was fulfilled here in Mary. Almost 2,000 years! And if the Lord should wait to return another 2,000, God still won’t forget His promises!

-What do we do with this song? I can think of 3 primary things:

-When the Lord speaks, listen and obey. Mark Twain “it’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that trouble me, it’s the things I do understand.” Be like Mary and just say “Yes Lord” 

-How often do you take time to praise God, giving thanks to Him for how he’s worked in your life? We, as humans, are forgetful people. We need to regularly remember/be reminded of how God has worked in all our lives.

-Lastly, don’t forget that God’s way is so often the opposite of the way we think things are/should be. No one would have ever expected God’s salvific plan to come about through these ordinary human means, which means that even you and I can be used by God to accomplish His purposes. 

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by mikethestrand on December 3, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on December 3, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/12/03/marys-song-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 16:1-8 – Sermon Manuscript

The Resurrection of the Son of God

Mark 16:1-8

-We’ve become so used to bad news (almost to the point that when you hear the word “news” you don’t even need to say it’s bad). But what about those times when there’s good news? How do you respond then? 

-Think of the response after WW2, people flooding the streets. Or how people respond after a baby’s born. Or that dreaded day when someone who recently turned 16 gets their driver’s license (sometimes I wonder if it’s even safe for me to be out there)

-Today we’re going to look at how we should respond to good news, and not just good news, but the best news ever because it changes everything about our lives.

READ/PRAY

  1. Anointing the Body (1-4)

-We ended last week hearing what happened to Jesus’ body. Joseph of Arimathea was given permission to take down the body and put it in a tomb, so he did as quickly as they could before Sabbath began. 

-Whole week was centered around the practice of the Sabbath, no one did anything that day, it was illegal! That’s why Joseph was so adamant about getting Jesus’ body down before Saturday.

-Anyone remember the names of the women I told you to keep in mind for this week? No peeking! 2 Marys. Today’s text begins with 2 Marys

-Anointing the body was a typical practice in the 1st cent. You’ve probably seen what Egyptians did with bodies before, that’s where mummies came from. Jews didn’t embalm the dead like that, they allowed nature to take its’ course. The spices were used to cover the smell, and once the flesh was taken care of the bones would be placed in a box (similar to what we do with cremation today). This was a way to continue honoring those who have died.

-The women had waited as long as they needed, Sabbath is done, so they’re now able to anoint Jesus’ body. I don’t always have the best memory, but do you think they’d have forgotten where one of their best friends was buried?

-One of the evidences given against the resurrection was the disciples forgot where Jesus was buried. Do you really think in 36 hours they would have forgotten where the tomb was? 

-Not only would that have been completely narrow minded, but it would have been incredibly easy to discredit the news the disciples were sharing. On top of all that, remember what Mark told us about Joseph just a few verses ago. “A respected member of the council.” If you’ve ever driven by a graveyard and seen those giant tomb stones that stand out above the rest, that would have been like Joseph’s tomb. Prime tomb in the prime location that everyone would know about. Hard to miss!

-Very early, but still bright enough to see, on the first day of the week.

-They didn’t have access to electricity like we do, no flashlights or light switches to go out whenever they wanted. They were thinking of most things, but not everything. They didn’t think through how they would get access to Jesus’ body.

-Makes sense! If you’d hung your whole hopes on 1 person who was just killed do you think you’d be all there mentally? Even if it wasn’t your whole hopes, it’s still a big loss that throws everything else in your life off. Emotions are all over the place. Why would we expect people to act any differently?

-I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but when people get stretched emotionally, there’s a tendency to revert back to your old self. Like this past week if you spent any time with family, you probably felt yourself reverting back to who you were in high school (whether that’s good or bad is up to you!) Similarly here, these Marys had been stretched to the breaking point, so instead of trusting in Jesus, even what He had explicitly told them, they reverted back to unbelief, almost as if they didn’t spend years with him learning from Him! 

-After all this questioning, they finally get to the tomb, and the stone in front of it had been rolled back. Then look at how Mark describes it “very large.” That would have made more sense a couple sentences ago! But anyway, they’re able to access Jesus’ body, but after they enter the tomb:

  • Alarm at the Lack of a Body (5-8)

-Remember, this is a big cave cut out of a rock, so maybe someone else had come to anoint the body as well. Joseph could have come, maybe another one of the disciples wanted to pay their respects. But instead they find: a young man dressed in a white robe. If you go to a graveyard, what do you expect to find? Hopefully no one who’s alive! 

-Throughout the Bible we see the way people react to seeing someone who’s sent from God: scared out of their minds! 

-Contrary to popular belief: angels aren’t cute little cherubs, none that we know of are named Clarence, a bell doesn’t ring when they get their wings, and trust me, you don’t want to be touched by any angels. 

-This is the time of year where we talk about angels a LOT! We don’t often pay much attention to them the rest of the year, though. Think of the way all the people during the Christmas story respond: Zechariah responds in disbelief, Mary worries something is wrong but still chooses to obey, shepherds are (in the words of Linus from Charlie Brown) “sore afraid” To see something as completely holy, unstained by sin as an angel is terrifying! And these Marys know it!  

-Thankfully, the angel tells them: Don’t worry, it’s ok! Let me tell you the gospel message: Jesus was crucified, but He rose! He’s not here! So you should go tell other people what happened.

-Think of how Mark started this book: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And here at the end we have the angel summarizing the whole thing: you’re looking for Jesus, let’s think about what happened to Him.

-But then they are also given a job to do: telling other disciples, specifically Peter. Why do you think Peter was called out specifically by name? What sets Peter apart from everyone else? 

-Think back a few weeks ago now when Herb Bloomquist was here and preached on the trial of Jesus. Do you remember what Peter did that last night? He denied Jesus three times, and after the third time, Luke tells us Jesus looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered what Jesus had told him just a few hours earlier. 

-This story is meant to give the rest of us hope. All of His disciples abandoned Jesus, but 2 in were worse than the others: Judas and Peter. Have you ever thought of how terrible the people Jesus chose were in following Him? Literally no one was left on the last night! They were too afraid, too worried about the worldly ways of living that they fled. This tells us that there’s hope for reconciliation and restoration even after betrayal. This tells us that anyone can be brought into God’s family.

-Why don’t they tell anyone else? The angel gave them 1 job, and Mark leaves us hanging with them refusing to obey that 1 command.

-Won’t be believed, waiting to see if they were misled, distrust of this stranger, maybe they themselves refused to believe what they saw! Before we get to the line and the note in your Bible, I think this the correct place to stop our study of Mark. Throughout this book, Mark has been trying to get us (the readers) to respond to the question: who is Jesus? This ending leaves the story unresolved, because we should ask ourselves: how should we respond to this story? What is the proper response to a man rising from the dead? We’ll get there in just a minute, but before we do I want us to think through the question:

-Why do we believe this happened?

1-No body was ever produced. This would have to be the worst hoax in history if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead. It wouldn’t have been hard to just pull out the body and belittle this upstart little group who claimed to worship someone who people had seen crucified during the busiest time of the year (New Years/Christmas on the interstate) But they couldn’t, and still can’t! 

2-Radical change in the disciples. They fled in fear on the last night, but just a couple months later, the same council that condemned Jesus to death holds no power over them. Why the change? Something must have confirmed what they’d been taught! Maybe seeing the resurrected Jesus?

3-Changing in day of worship. Did you notice the in vs. 2 is said “on the first day of the week.” That would be Sunday! But since Israel had been taken out of slavery they’d worshipped on Saturday. Why do you think suddenly this group of people started meeting for worship on Sunday instead of Saturday? Something significant must have happened that would make them throw out over a millennia of tradition, like maybe someone rising from the dead on that day!

4-Lastly, how would someone account for the transformation in Paul and James (Jesus’ brother). We’ve seen Jesus’ family appear a couple times in Mark, and every time they have they’ve tried to discredit Jesus. Yet in the book of Acts, the leader of the church in Jerusalem is James, Jesus half-brother. That’s the biggest reason for me! I have siblings! I don’t believe everything they tell me. James saw something in his brother that made him change his mind.

  • Excurses: Textual Variants (9-20)

-What do we do with the note in our Bibles? Is everything we just read a lie meant to trick us?

-As we continue uncovering new texts we find older and older evidence that solidify what we have in our Bibles. The Dead Sea Scrolls revolutionized biblical studies, and confirmed that the Bibles we have are correct.

-Nothing in this section is revolutionary or only found here. We have 3 other Gospels telling the same story that tell the exact same story that is contained here. But it’s most likely not written by Mark, and most likely not what God wanted us to have in Mark’s Gospel.

-The translations we have today (note: it is a translation. Jesus didn’t speak English), these translations are trying to communicate God’s words to us in a way we can understand, which is a beautiful gift. Let me tell you, Greek isn’t easy to read! Unfortunately, it’s no longer Greek to me, but it took literal years of my life in order to be able to read and understand the Bible in the original languages (I don’t know how many hours I spent trying to memorize vocab). 

-We have more translations than we know what to do with, and all of them will give us notes to help us know and understand God’s message to us today. The problem becomes when we build entire theologies out of these passages that most likely weren’t in the original book Mark wrote. Look at vs. 18. That happened to Paul, but isn’t something that should be practiced today, but some churches hold regular snake handlings to “prove” they’re Christians. Don’t build any theologies or practices from these texts! I’ll talk a little more about this in Sermon Scraps tomorrow,

-What does this mean for us today? Why does the death of a Jewish man 2,000 years ago have implications for us now? 

-As the leader goes, so goes the nation. 1 man’s sin led to death, 1 man’s death leads to life (Rom. 5:12) Think of the way we talk after a Viking’s game. WE lost last week. OUR quarterback is now mobile (sorry Cooper’s daddy). Somewhere we all view ourselves as part of a group. The question is which spiritual group are we a part of: Adam or the second Adam, Jesus? Whose family are you a part of, and which family do you demonstrate that you’re a part of in the way you live?

-I remember reading an article years ago where a dad would tell his kids every day they left for school “remember whose you are!” At one point, another parent heard them and tried to correct him “don’t you mean remember WHO you are?” Doesn’t matter who we, it matters GREATLY whose we are! If we’re a part of Jesus’ family, we’ll lack nothing.

-The way I’ve often shared this is all of life is who you know. Who you know can get you jobs, connections, vacations, money, even eternity is literally dependent on who you know. So when you see Jesus face to face, will He know you? The way we show whose family we’re in is by living a life that is true, beautiful, and good.

-How do we model lives that are true, beautiful, and good?

-Podcast this week talking about this very concept. We need to grow in hospitality. Heb. 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9, Rom. 12:13 all command us to show hospitality to others. How do we do that? 

-We need to commit to being table people (appropriate for Thanksgiving weekend!)

-Think of God’s first command to Adam & Eve (if you’ve been in Micah’s class, the Adamic covenant). They were to fill the earth and subdue it, and eat of any tree except one. The Fall comes about by eating.

-Abraham, when God comes to him in Gen. 18, prepares food to eat with God.

-Throughout the OT the way God’s people celebrate and remember God’s work in their lives is by feasting (eating)

-I went to a conference right before the twins were born walking through Exodus, fascinating story of God’s covenant with Israel in 24:22 “They [elders, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu] beheld God, and ate and drank.” God invites His people to eat with Him.

-The Last Supper is a meal, eating with His disciples, serving as a reminder of Jesus’ death on their behalf. That practice continues down to us today: we regularly eat and drink to celebrate and remember God’s work in our lives.

-And then what does Jesus say during that last meal? Mark 14:25 “Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

-We are commanded to be hospitable throughout the Bible, I would argue the way you demonstrate you’re hospitable is by inviting people to your table. By building a bigger table, you invite people in so that they can eat and drink of the Lord’s table at church (signifying that they’re now a part of the people of Jesus), which will find its final fulfillment after Jesus returns when we will have the biggest and greatest feast you could ever dream of!

-Are you hospitable? Are you regularly inviting people to your table because Jesus has invited you to His table? Jesus even tells us to invite those who can’t repay us to our tables! Do you long for the day when you will table with the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth?

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by mikethestrand on November 26, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 26, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/11/26/mark-161-8-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 15:21-47 – Sermon Manuscript

-The whole story Mark has been telling has been building to this passage. 

-Just like any good story, we’ve had the good guys, the bad guys, the conflict, there will be resolution. What’s crazy is this story just happens to be true!

-C.S. Lewis “I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage—though it may no doubt contain errors—pretty close up to the facts. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read…”

-There are only 2 responses to this event: defiance or discipleship.

READ/PRAY (pg. 497)

  1. Derision Against Jesus (21-32)

-The mockery of Jesus continues. Criminals were expected to carry their cross to their crucifixion site, another form of torture and derision.

-Why was Simon forced to carry the cross? Remember what Jesus had just endured: brutal beating that had killed men before.

-Coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. Not many people are listed by name in Mark’s Gospel, most likely Alexander and Rufus were known to the 1st Cent. Church. Rom. 16:13 lists Rufus among the members of the church in Rome. (another reason to think Mark wrote this to Roman Christians)

-The names in this Gospel are not accidental or incidental. They give historic accuracy to this story and they share the people who were involved.

-Simon serves as the first disciple. Remember what Jesus said back in Mark 8.

-We don’t often think about discipleship being a death. Death to self, death to sin, death to the world, death to our old way of living. We tend to view it as adding something on, but Jesus won’t let us add him to anything. Either we get Jesus alone, or we don’t get Him at all.

–Podcast on spiritual disciplines/practices as a way of finding yourself. How’s living by worldly standards working out for you? Anxiety on the rise, deaths of despair on the rise. Life expectancy had been rising for a hundred years, started declining the past few. Jesus tells us the only way to find your life (answer all the deepest longings of your heart) you need to lose your life. Let go of trying to control everything, let go of trying to work harder, work hard at trying to achieve your salvation: you can’t. There’s nothing you can add or take away from your salvation.

-Reflecting the past month on the reality that God loves me. We all say we know that, but I don’t think we actually live like that. Every night of the week I sing with my kids “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” but that truth hasn’t permeated through my thick skull or into my heart. I view myself as far too independent. Sure, Jesus needed to die to save me, but once I’m saved it’s up to me! What a joke! Unless the I’m “keeping in step with the Spirit” everything I’m doing is useless. 

-Finally, notice vs. 38. What have we seen of Jesus’ followers so far in the midst of Jesus’ trial? Where are they? They all ran away! Mark ran away naked! Peter followed at a distance, but then got scared by a little girl and he became a crybaby. Do you think Jesus was talking about the 12 here? 

-Brought him outside the city (Golgotha)

-Crucifixion served as a public spectacle. Right along the main road into Jerusalem (think of it taking place by the interstate). Again, the details Mark gives are to demonstrate the historical reality of these events. Lists the exact place where the Son of God was taken to die.

-Offered a sweet wine to dull the senses, potentially make the situation easier, and elongate the act.

-Accounts of people drinking enough to get a good buzz so the pain is more tolerable, similar to us using Tylenol when we get a headache, but He’s going to face something much more painful!

-4 words that speak volumes: “and they crucified him.”

-Isn’t it amazing that this act only gets 4 words. In typical Markan brevity, he just throws it out there and continues on. This doesn’t mean this event is unimportant, but there’s much more to it than just the crucifixion.

-After Jesus was hung on His cross, the soldiers split the spoils among themselves (just as after a war) Once again, this was a typical event for the Romans.

-Took place at the third hour (9 AM)

-Charges filed were meant to be a deterrent to those who witnessed it. Remember, this was a public event. People were supposed to see the punishment doled out to those who opposed Rome.

-Jesus wasn’t alone in receiving this capital punishment, this crucifixion was likely already scheduled. Not a stretch to think these 2 men were affiliated with Barabbas, who we learned about last week. 

-Intentional wording here “one on his right and one on his left.” Back in Mark 10:37 James and John had asked Jesus to join with Him in glory sitting in those exact places. Do you think they had flashbacks after they heard what had happened?

-Often we’re in a similar position to them, we want the part after the suffering, but we’re unwilling to walk through the suffering. The J-curve – only get exaltation with humiliation. 

-As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, because it was the main road during one of the busiest times of the year, people were walking by and getting their shots in.

-People are asking for the evidence in the wrong order, and they don’t know what they’re asking. The reason Jesus is on that cross is because sin MUST be dealt with. The only way any of those people can be saved is by Jesus staying on the cross, if he doesn’t stay there there’s nothing to believe in.

-And the chief priests join in! They think they’ve finally dealt with their Jesus problem.

-Do you think any of them were in Mark 12:1-11 the parable of the tenants?

  • Declaration of Jesus (33-39)

-3 hours after He was hung on the cross (noon), a change happens in the weather as darkness descends. At 3 PM Jesus, who was silent throughout His trial suddenly cries out in agony.

-Quotes from Psalm 22, but just the first verse. We studied this Psalm this past summer! One of the most quoted Psalms in the NT. 

-Listen to some of the language from this. SLIDE 

-Do you think David may have speaking far better than he knew 1400 years before the crucifixion took place? Before crucifixion had been thought up as capital punishment by the Romans.

-Remember from last week the “divine passive.” What appears like passivity to us is God’s eternal plan being fulfilled.

-People start to question what’s happening. Many people believed Elijah would come back as a marker of the end of the world. If injustice was being done, people would cry out to Elijah to save them. The people interpret Jesus’ cry as one of these.

-Why did Jesus take the sour wine, but not the wine offered before?

-A final act of humiliation. The rod that was used to beat Him earlier was now used to quench His tongue.

-Loud cry we know from other gospels was the phrase “It is finished.”

-What is the significance of the curtain being torn “from top to bottom.”?

-Bookends to signify the end of the story, we’ve seen heaven “torn in two” once before: after Jesus’ baptism. The temple was meant to serve as a picture of heaven. Where the first time the tearing open was meant to validate Jesus, this time it’s meant to validate everyone else.

-Theme of Mark has been discipleship. The only way we can be disciples (following after Jesus) is by heaven being torn in two so we can access the perfect Father. Instead of needing to go to a place to spend time with God, we can now spend time with God anywhere in the world! We don’t need a sacrificial system, we don’t need a mediator, we don’t need curtain separating us from God’s manifest presence, He’s always with us.

-We have a marked shift of the response to Jesus from those who speak before Jesus’ death and those who speak after His death. The first person in this Gospel to finally understand who Jesus is, is a Gentile, Roman centurion. 

-This is finally good news! If even a Roman (and not just a Roman, a Roman soldier) can become a disciple, there’s hope for everyone! But it begins by recognizing that Jesus is the Son of God. That’s the first step that brings you in to a brand-new world, a brand-new way of living. It replaces all your focuses, changes all your perspectives, and brings you into a new family, marked not by worldly assumptions, but by spiritual/eternal perspectives. 

-Jesus had been trying to help His followers understand all these realities, but they kept missing it, and now they were too scared to be seen in public with Him (remember, everyone abandoned Him). But that doesn’t stop Him from continuing to save people, even one of his executioners. 

  • Depositing Jesus’ Body (40-47)

-Not all of His followers had abandoned Jesus, but this is a weird situation, especially for the 1st cent. 

-Women’s testimonies were viewed as unreliable, wouldn’t stand in a court of law. But they weren’t as scared as the men (potentially because they were women!) 

-Once again, specific names listed. People who could give eyewitness testimony to everything that happened.

-Finally, a man isn’t too scared to be identified with Jesus! Joseph of Arimathea: part of the council (Sanhedrin, ruling Jews) steps forward to help take care of the body.

-Interesting description “looking for the kingdom of God.” I think that’s a good description of what many people want, but they keep looking in the wrong places (Micah’s class) 

-I would argue that everyone you interact with is looking for the kingdom of God. I love the way Augustine said it in the 4th cent: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.” No one will ever be completely satisfied until they find the kingdom of God, but the only way to find that (true life) is to lose it. That’s the irony of the gospel message: the kingdom of God is accessible to everyone, but only by becoming a disciple.

-Joseph is also a “respected” member. Jesus’ message wasn’t just for the poor/marginalized, even people who were a part of Herod’s house followed Jesus!

-Sabbath was meant to be a day of rest, body couldn’t be dealt with, Joseph asked Pilate for the body. Pilate was surprised (crucifixion could take days, and death sometimes only came after becoming food for wild animals) 

-Joseph is granted his request, so he prepares the body for a quick burial with a linen cloth.

-Tombs were often more communal in the 1st cent. Room for lots of bodies. Other Gospels tell us this one hadn’t yet been used. Just as today you can buy a burial plot before you die, most likely Joseph had a tomb created for him and his family to be buried together. Looking something like THIS.

-Stone used to prevent grave robbers or wild animals

-Who was there watching where Jesus’ body was laid? Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, that’s important for next week, so keep that in mind!

-What do we do with this embarrassment of a story? There’s a reason everyone abandoned Him – who wants to be seen losing? Jesus’ supposed insurrection was seen as a failure, little does everyone know this is just the beginning of the story.

-JRR Tolkien – Eucatastrophe: a good catastrophe. Sounds wrong, doesn’t it? How can there be a good catastrophe? That’s the way God designed the world to work. What seems wrong and broken is the only way to bring about redemption.

-This is a 2 part story, and most of us know how it ends (spoiler alert, Jesus doesn’t stay dead)

-But that’s next week (as a new song says “Friday’s Good because Sunday’s coming!) This week I want you to contemplate whether or not you’re willing to follow Jesus to death. We saw this passage earlier, but Luke and Matthew add a word to Jesus’ first command: daily.

-The only way to truly follow after Jesus is through death. But where Jesus’ death was a 1 time event, our call is a daily death. We need to wake up every single day and choose to die to our fleshly, sinful tendencies, and decide to walk in light of the empty tomb. And here’s where the “eu” (good) part comes in: we’ll suddenly find ourselves completely content! Jesus’ commands are true and life giving, the only way to truly find your life is to lose it! But by losing it you gain everything.

-Jesus says if you’re tired of trying, tired of searching, or if you’re just tired, come to Him and He will give you rest.

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by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, History, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/11/19/mark-1521-47-sermon-manuscript/

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