Let's Make a Deal
Let's Make a Deal?
So, made any good deals lately? We love it when we thing we are getting a good deal. But probably even more significant that our desire to get one, is how we go about deciding just what it is that makes a "good deal" really "good," particularly when our ideas about making good deals may have as much to do with ideas that have just sort of seeped into us from out culture as anything else.
For example, have you ever noticed how good deals are usually more about how we have made out in a business transaction than how well the other party made out? There is something about "making deals" that also seems to leave us much more in tune with the ideas of self-interest and consumerism than what some might think of as more laudable values.
The sermon this weeks explores the kind of deal that God offers us, through the lenses of the contrasting ideas of "covenants" and 'contracts." The themes developed in the Gospel of John about "knowing" and "not knowing" as they are developed in chapters 2 and 3 are the scriptural windows through which we look to see what it is that God is trying to share with us, and how that what He offers is better understood in the context of a covenant than a contract - and the kind of "knowing" that is necessary to be able to tell the difference.
Those are the themes that Pastor Ken invites us to explore in the sermon this week. If you would like to listen to the sermon again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library here, or you can watch the livestream version of the entire service here.
Additional Scripture Passage for Reflection
From Jeremiah 31 (NIV):
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to[a] them,[b]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
John 3
NIV
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.