Seeing and Healing

Today we have a story of miraculous healing by Jesus. Today, I’ll tell you this story as if it is the words of the man who was healed. As I tell you the story, let your imagination roam. Imagine that it is 20 years later, and this man is speaking to you in your home or synagogue. 

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Ephesians 1:18-19:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Let me tell you a story that happened to me when I was a young man in Jerusalem back at the time of Jesus the Messiah. It was how I met Him, the Son of Man.

I was sitting on my corner, begging like I usually did. You see, I was born blind, I grew up blind, and by the time I was five years old, my parents asked me to help them out by sitting on a corner near the Temple and begging for money. Most days I was blessed to collect a couple of copper pieces, but during the big festivals, I could collect enough money to buy food for a couple of months.

My world at that time was dark. Everything was dark, every noise a potential danger. Although I could tell when the sun was out by its warmth, I had never seen any light at all. Everything near me was something to stumble against and take me down. For me the world was a dark and dangerous place.

Haven’t you met people that have great physical sight, but to whom everything is dark with potential danger all around. Although they can feel the light when someone does something nice for them, they never have seen spiritual light. Everything in the world seems to conspire against them to take them down. They are very sad, for they have good, functioning eyes. It is their hearts that don’t see.

As for my situation, try putting on a blindfold and wearing it for just an hour or two and you’ll find out what I mean. Try going through a normal day for you, even a Sabbath day with no sight and see how difficult it is to walk, to eat, to cook, to pour water, to walk around inside your house. Can you imagine what it’s like to walk outside like I had to do every day to beg enough money to live on? Can you imagine life as the spiritually blind, always in darkness?

My world was a lonely place, too. People ignore beggars. People don’t talk with us. And those of us that weren’t quite whole were ignored even more than the rest, because people don’t know how to talk to people who are hurting, damaged, not like them. They assume that if you can’t see, you can’t hear, also.

So one day during the fall festival of Tabernacles, I heard a group of men near me. A couple of them said words to this effect: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They were talking about me right in front of me!

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” the Rabbi said, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And then, the Rabbi said something odd.

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

And then, he called me over to him. He said, “I am going to help you see.” Well, if he thought he could make me see, I was willing! He apparently spit on some dirt and made mud from it and put it on my eyes. Then he told me to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash.

Well, I stumbled over there with my staff and I washed my face. And then, I could see! I could see the world the way it really was – there was a beautiful blue sky, green trees, yellow-brown ground, white buildings, brown people, a wonderful yellow sun! And there were flowers and fruits in all the different colors! The world wasn’t dark and dangerous after all, it was bright and beautiful and full of blessings!

I walked home and saw the place for the first time. For the first time I saw roses! 

People who had walked by me everyday and some neighbors came over…they noticed I wasn’t using my staff to walk and I was looking all around. Some of them thought I was a different man, but others recognized me as the same guy that had begged all those years. You see, they had not talked to me…I guess they had thought that since I was blind I couldn’t hear or talk…or they had thought I was so damaged I wasn’t really human. People get that way around people who are different, you know. They don’t treat us as human. Before, I was lonely. Now, everybody wanted to talk to me!

Well, I told them I was the same guy, and they asked me how I had managed to see. I told them. “This rabbi named Jesus spit into some dust and put the mud on my eyes and then had me wash in the Pool of Siloam and then I could see!”

“Where is this Rabbi Jesus?” they asked. And, of course, I had no idea since I’d never seen him and I couldn’t hear him talking anywhere close by.

Well, it was a Sabbath day, so they took me to the synagogue to see some Pharisees to show me off. They looked fine in their blue robes. I never knew they wore blue before – and it was a pretty shade of blue! They asked me what had happened and I told them.

“He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, “This Jesus is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath, healing people on a Sabbath!”

But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided. In fact, they got into a big argument. After a while, they turned to me...

“What do you think about him? It was you whose eyes he opened!”

Why ask me? I’m no theologian. But he had opened my eyes, so I said, “He is a prophet!”

Well, now in their argument they began to wonder if I’d ever been able to see before – and of course, I’d never ever seen anything before, but they didn’t believe me. They thought I might be trying to pull one over on them, so they sent for Mom and Dad and asked them if I’d been blind. Poor Mom, she was so worried at first, then she was excited because I could see, but they started to question my parents from all sides before we could really talk.

“Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”

“We know he is our son,” Mom and Dad answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”

My parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why my parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” They didn’t want to get in trouble. So the Pharisees called me back over.

“Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. And then they said to each other and the crowd: “We know this man Jesus is a sinner.”

I just answered them “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then they asked me, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

Now enough was enough. I’d already told them and everybody else three or four times. So I answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?

Then it struck me that they really wanted to know. “Do you want to become his disciples too?”

Well, I guess not. They hurled insults at me and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!” Then they turned again to the crowd and said, “We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow Jesus, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

Now just because I’d been blind didn’t make me stupid. It is amazing what you can learn when all you can do is listen.

I answered them, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw me out, which was just as well because I was about ready to deck them for insulting my parents!

So I began to walk home. They'd made me angry, but I could see! I could see, and the world would never be the same dreary place again!

Jesus heard that they had thrown me out and came searching for me. Of course, I didn’t recognize him since I’d never seen him before. When he found me, he said to me, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

The Son of Man? In Psalm 80, the Son of Man would sit at God’s right hand. Ezekiel had spoke of the Son of Man repeatedly, the great prophet and Messiah who would speak against the faults of the leaders of Jerusalem.

“Who is he, sir?” I asked the Rabbi in front of me. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

Jesus, the Rabbi, said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

Then I said, “Lord, I believe,” and I bent down clear to the ground and worshiped him.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

Those Pharisees thought that worshiping God was a matter of rigidly following rules of behavior – Do this, Do that, Don’t do this, Don’t do that. Jesus showed some of them that day that worshiping God means helping people become whole, putting back into their hearts that connection with God that we all lost through Adam and the Garden. That day, when I saw what Jesus could do, I worshiped Him because clearly He had been sent by God. And over the next year, I understood that not only was He the Son of Man, but he was also the Son of God.

I became a follower of Jesus that day. And I was there the next spring during the Passover festival the morning after they arrested him and I saw him crucified. And I was there the evening He came back from the dead and appeared to all of us. I was there when He went to Heaven and I helped with the baptisms on the Day of Pentecost during the Festival of First Fruits when the Holy Spirit came upon us all and Peter preached and taught us that we must believe and be baptized to be saved from God’s wrath.

That day, you see, I helped other people who had been blind in their hearts, walking in a dark, dangerous world. I helped them see that light and beauty had indeed come into the world. For I once was blind, but now I see.

If you are blind, you can see too. But seeing takes meeting with Jesus or His Holy Spirit. The eyes of your heart must be washed with the water of baptism, just as my eyes had to be washed at the Pool of Siloam. You must be made whole by the Son of Man who is also the Son of God.
…
In the original languages, the word “heal” means to “make whole”. While you may not be physically blind, you may be spiritually hurting, physically hurting, damaged by work, by other people, by the world around us. The Pharisees were right in one respect – indeed, this blind man was born in a condition of sin, the condition of rebellion that Adam led us into. But there was no particular sinful action by the blind man or his parents that caused his blindness. What the Pharisees did not understand is that all humans are born in a condition of sin and need to be healed, to be made whole. Our very rebellion to God leaves a gaping hole in our heart that blinds the eyes of our heart to the love of God and others.

In the 5th chapter of the Book of James, James tells us:

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Healing, making whole, doesn’t mean the removal of scars. Scars are badges of remembrance, a stronger spot which protects us from similar hurts. I pray that you will be healed and that the eyes of your heart will be fully opened. The scars will remain, but you will begin to heal.

Try this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gvt__r9EU0

Father,

Thank you for your healing grace. Thank you for your touch through godly men and women. Thank you that you established your church to make the world whole through your Son Jesus Christ. And thank you that your Son sacrificed Himself on the Cross, allowing our relationship to be healed, for that is the basis of all healing. Amen.

Hidden Snacks and Drinks

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

In Ancient Israel, after the time of King David and King Solomon, there was a civil war in Israel. The northern ten tribes rebelled against the House of David, who continued to rule the two southern tribes of Judea and Benjamin from Jerusalem. The Temple built by Solomon remained in Jerusalem. So to keep people from visiting Jerusalem, King Jeroboam, the leader of the northern kingdom of Israel, made two golden calves to be worshipped. One was placed in Bethel near the border of Israel and Benjamin, and the other in Dan in the far north, north of the Sea of Galilee. And so, for several centuries the people of the Northern Kingdom worshipped at Bethel and did not worship in Jerusalem.

Eventually, the northern kingdom fell to invaders and many of the people were carried away as slaves to Assyria and Ninevah. Many of the remaining people moved to the Jerusalem area, which in turn fell a hundred and fifty years later to the Babylonians. But where the northern tribes simply faded away, the Judeans that were taken prisoner to Babylon stuck together, united by their worship of God. And seventy years later, they came back, rebuilt Jerusalem and a new Temple, and even gained their independence for a couple of centuries before the Romans conquered them about 60 years before Jesus’ birth.

The land of the north became the land of a mixed group of people. There were people who had managed to avoid being taken prisoner by anyone, there were settlers who had returned from Ninevah and Babylon, there were Greeks, there were people from many of the towns and cities of the Persian and Babylonian empires who had settled. Their descendents had intermarried and they still worshipped on the mountain at Shechem, the former capital of the northern kingdom. These people became known as Samaritans, the people who lived in Samaria, which was the name used in the New Testament for this region north of Jerusalem and South of Galilee. Today, it is the northern part of the “West Bank” which was once part of Jordan.

The Samaritans continued to worship as they had in the old days when the Northern Kingdom ruled from Shechem. Their religion was almost Jewish – but not quite. For example, they believed that the mountain of Shechem was where God wanted the Temple, not Jerusalem. And so Samaritans continued to worship at this mountain. And so, in Jesus’ day, good Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans, not even using pitchers or plates that had been used by a Samaritan, because, to the Jews, the Samaritans were contaminated, evil, dirty, nasty. They weren’t pure – They were outsiders – not Jewish, not to be trusted, not cousins in the Jewish faith, but traitors to the faith. Good Jews preferred to walk down to Jericho in the Jordan Valley 3000 feet and up that valley when going to Galilee rather than walk the more direct route that went through Samaria. They were even ruled by a different man under the Romans than the Jews were. The Jews of the day looked at the Samaritans like you’d look at the other side of your family, the unsavory side of the family, the side of the family that was filled with nar-do-wells, criminals, and cheats. They avoided them and never invited them to family reunions.

But the Samaritans would not go away. In fact, about 750 Samaritans still exist near Shechem and worship on the mountain, even today. But the name of the village at the foot of the mountain of Shechem had changed its name over the centuries. It was known in the New Testament as Sychar.

Jesus and his disciples had to leave Judea and they were at tremendous risk if they took the Jericho-Jordan Valley road, so they took the road through Samaria and they came to Sychar, where the ancient well of Jacob was located. They had arrived at the very town which was the ancient center of Samaria, the land the Jews considered most traitorous to God. It was here that a woman would have an encounter that would change her eternal destiny and the eternal destiny of her entire village.

The time was just about noon, so the disciples went into the town to buy some food, while Jesus, the Rabbi, (or teacher) rested beside the well.

Now wells like this are not nicely surrounded with stone and concrete like modern hand-dug wells. They are deep holes in the ground, and usually you have to walk down a narrow set of muddy steps to go 10 or 15 feet down to put your bucket or clay jug or waterskin in the water. Gathering water from a well was considered woman’s work – and was definitely not something that a high-class Rabbi should do, with the chance of slipping and falling in the water, losing dignity and getting his nice clothes muddy. So Jesus, for the sake of his disciples, followed the social convention and asked the first woman he saw to get him a drink.

This was shocking to the woman. Strange Jewish men don’t ask Samaritan women for drinks – and especially not Jewish rabbi's of the day because the Samaritan might touch the water and get it all yucky.

(We laugh, but I remember a time when some people were kept out of swimming pools and certain drinking fountains because they were different from the ruling class of people. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask your grandparents.)

She was carrying a jar of water and planning on filling it from the well. We’ve found these jars – they weighed 40 pounds or so when empty. And the town near Jacob’s well is dry other than the well. She would have walked a half-mile or more to draw that water for her house, at a time when only a handful of the most luxurious Roman households had running water.

Jesus plays a polite word game and teases with the woman. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

In her answer, you can almost hear how tired and exasperated she is. “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

She’s pointing out that the well is good, that Jacob – who was the ancestor of all Israel and Judea – had dug the well originally and drank from it, and so did his sons and their livestock. So stop telling me how you’ve got some sort of water that is better!

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Have you ever been dry in your spirit? Have you ever felt like life was passing you by and you’re sitting beside a dusty road, with a cup full of dust and sand when you’d like cool water to drink? Have you ever had a time when your spirit feels like drying up and blowing away on the wind because there’s nothing left to love, nothing left to give you joy, nothing left to hope for? Jesus was promising to give the woman that sort of spiritual water that would give her eternal life, an abundant life, a life full of joy and purpose and passion and excitement that would never end. But, just like many people, she can’t see this and can only see the dry world around her, the dull drudgery of drawing water from the well, the dust flying in the world’s wind that has almost taken away her soul.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
She’s had enough of this game Jesus is playing. You try living in a place where you have to walk a half mile or more from your house, carrying a couple of five gallon pails for water, then walk down ten or fifteen feet on slick steps and climb back up to the top carrying those 80 pounds of water. Then, you need to carry the water back to your house another half mile, and there’s this suit-and tie fellow from New York that you KNOW thinks you’re a hick, a man who looks at you as you’re climbing up the steps in your dirty clothes and says, “Give me a drink of water", and then proceeds to tease you about some sort of magical water canteen that he’s carrying with him – yet he’s the one who asked you for water on this hot summer day! I’m surprised she didn’t slap him!

But Jesus realizes that she’s had enough, so he asks her to go get her husband.

More embarrassment and anger on her part. “I don’t have a husband.”

How can she tell him the story? She’s been married five times. The good one died. The others – two divorced her because she wasn’t pretty enough, one divorced her because he didn’t like her cooking – and she’d left the other one after he beat her when he was drunk. And now, the man she was living with and working for hadn’t even bothered to marry her, but at least he was a good farmer, even though he treated her as his slave.

But then, the magical thing happened.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

And she thought. "HUH? How did he know this? I’ve never met him before in my life, and the people in the village don’t even know about anyone except my last husband! He IS a rabbi – maybe he’s actually a prophet!"

And just like that, her attitude changes.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

And then, it sinks in that she can get a question answered that has bothered her from this man whom God speaks to.

“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” She’s asking which is right.

And Jesus tells her that it doesn’t matter where you worship God, but how you worship God is what is important.

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

It doesn’t matter where you worship. The real question is are you worshipping the Father in the Spirit and in truth. Are you really worshipping or are you going through the motions? Do you have a new Spirit from God, do you connect to God through your Spirit, has your worship gone beyond duty and facts and rule-following and become love?

Do you really believe, deep down in your heart, that God loves you and will do anything for you? Do you really believe, deep down in your heart, that God is worth following? Do you really believe, deep down in your heart, that God will never, ever let you down, but always has your best at heart? Do you worship God in the Spirit and in truth?

If so, why haven’t you ever walked up to the altar and kneeled at it? If so, why haven’t you ever broken down in a service and said, “Do with me what you want to do with me, for Father you know best!” If so, why haven’t you had the guts to tell your neighbor and your friend and your nephew about what God has done for you and just why going to church is so important to you?

It is hard to worship in the Spirit and in truth. It means deeply understanding that God doesn’t need you or me. It means deeply understanding that God doesn’t have to do anything for you or me. It means deeply, achingly deeply understanding that our very lives depend solely on the fact that God has decided that you and I are important and so He sent His own Son, Jesus the Christ, to die so you and me and God could be on good terms once again.

And He did this despite of everything we’ve done to disobey His rules. He did this despite the fact that we ignore Him most of the time. He did this despite the fact that we’ve gone away from Him time and again, every day, every hour, and we won’t do anything outside of our comfort zone if some random person who doesn’t even like us very much would look at us and make fun of us.

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Just then the disciples returned. The woman, though, she left her water jar and ran back to town and began telling everyone: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” She had found the man who knew God, she had found the one man who understood her, she had found the answer to her life, the cure for her depression, the stimulant for her tired, aching back, and the future of her life and that of all her friends in the village.

They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Meanwhile, Jesus is there and the disciples are handing him a sandwich, telling him, “Rabbi, eat something!”

But Jesus is sitting there grinning, looking at the woman going into the village, and he says, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

And so the disciples, ever confused, never the sharpest tools in the shed, ever wondering, never quite getting it, are saying to each other “Did someone else bring him some food? Did we miss a McDonald's around here somewhere? Did Domino’s deliver while we weren’t here?”

And Jesus just laughs at them and says, ““My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

And, of course, Jesus is talking about the harvest of souls and He's pointing His disciples to all those lost people around them. Jesus is bringing souls home to His Father in Heaven, keeping them from being burnt as worthless chaff in the fires of hell and He wants His disciples and us to join Him in that harvest. Jesus is filled with joy and he doesn’t care about his empty tummy because there is nothing like the joy of leading someone out of a terrible life into the wonderful world of eternal, abundant, God-filled life. How do I know this? Because most Sundays except when I’m sick, I don’t eat anything until after I get back home from my second church at Monroe Chapel at 1 o’clock, because God’s joy gives me that food I need to preach for you!

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

This woman – she changed her town. Because this one woman talked with Jesus – and realized what his words meant, her town was saved from Hell. A couple of years later, after Stephen's persecution in Acts Chapter 8, the disciples scattered, and some went to the heart of Samaria, coming back here and a mass revival broke out because the seeds had been sowed by this woman, this woman who had been married five times and was now living with a man who would not marry her. Because this one woman told what Jesus had said to her to other people, the town turned to Jesus.

I know that you’ve had a hard time the last week, the last month. I know that your family isn’t doing as well as you’d hoped several years ago. I know that you aren’t as happy as you tell everyone when you walk in here. I hear you lie: “How’re you doing?” “Fine, fine.”
If I know this, what do you think God knows about you? What does Jesus know about you and your life? What does the Holy Spirit say about you? How are you worshiping in the Spirit and in truth when you are lying to the people of God?

The greatest problem we have in the church is this idea that everything is all right. We are thirsty, we are hungry, we are hurting and we will not share it with God in front of other believers. And so we don’t worship in the Spirit and in truth. We worship a little bit, bottled up in our selves, afraid to let go and tell the truth.

If we are ever going to change the world around us – and we all agree that the world has many problems – there are a few things we need to do:

First of all, we need to stop playing the game. We need to lay it all out before Jesus at the altar rail, admitting we are on the edge, admitting we are ready to break in despair, admitting that this is not the world we want and asking Him to take over in our lives, our loves, and our world around us.

Second, we need to get real about what is important in this life and the answer is that everything in this life is going to disappear in a few short years. The only things that are important are eternal things – like will you and I walk and talk in Heaven one day? Will your grandson and granddaughter be there walking and talking with us? Will those folks you saw last week in the grocery store parking lot, will that tired waitress, will your friend from the auto store or the feed store or the man you met at Sandy’s hardware be there to sit around and talk with us?

Everything else will be gone in a few years – our jobs, our homes, our country. Will our friends, neighbors, and family also be gone - or will they be with us in Heaven? That is what is important in this life!

Third, we need to stop granting the devil and his allies so much power. I’ve heard enough of blaming Hollywood, of blaming young people, of blaming politicians for our problems. The simple truth is that the reason our world is dying is because we Christians have failed to step forward and bring people into God’s Kingdom. Can you imagine a country where 9 out of 10 people actually were mature Christian believers who loved God and loved other people like themselves – instead of pointing out what is wrong with the country every day, in every Facebook post, in every conversation? Change starts with us, with each of us understanding deeply what Christ taught and leading others to understand. Like the woman at the well, when we realize that God knows everything we’ve ever done, we should run into the village and tell everyone about this Jesus we’ve met!

But it begins with our prayers, coming to the Altar rail, getting down on our knees, begging and pleading with God to take over, and praying with passion. Come to the altar or bow down at your computer during this song and pray to the God who created you and me.

VIDEO SONG: https://youtu.be/S9q-08aTNh8

Change begins with ourselves. The most difficult prayer in the world is to pray for God to change yourself – but it is the most important prayer. It is where it all begins.

I will pray and I will pause after each line. If you agree for yourself, say “Yes, Lord” during the pauses.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father,

• Today we want to change for the better. ...Yes, Lord!
• We have been attending this church for a while. -- Now we want to become your people. ...Yes, Lord!
• We have been learning about your Son for a while. -- Now, we want to commit our lives to following Him. ...Yes, Lord!
• We have been moved by your Holy Spirit occasionally – Now we want to truly learn how to listen to that Spirit. ...Yes, Lord!
• We have occasionally asked you what to do – Now we want you to work through us, taking control of us. ...Yes, Lord!
• Before, we have loved some people. --Now, we want you to guide us to love all people. ...Yes, Lord!
• Before, we did works for you out of duty. -- Now, we want to do works because of gratitude. ...Yes, Lord!
• Before, we worked hard to be good enough for you. -- Now, we simply want to relax in your love, knowing that you always love us regardless of what we do or don’t do. ...Yes, Lord!
• Until today, we have told few people about your love. -- Now, we ask for your help that we may tell all people about your love. ...Yes, Lord!
• Until today, we looked at Your Son as an important part of our lives. -- Now, we ask for your help that He may become our lives. ...Yes, Lord!
• Until today, we were fumbling around, seeking you and struggling. -- Now, we ask for your help that we may worship you in the Spirit and in truth, knowing you as Our Father, ...Yes, Lord!

Amen

Birthing Time

Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

In a week and a half, the season will officially change to springtime. But thanks to God, we’ve never really had winter this past season - until this week! The flowers are already blooming and the buds are bursting on the trees - and now they are frozen.

This time of year is hard work for farmers, especially sheep and goat herders. This is the time of the year when the lambs are born. And it can be a dangerous time for those lambs, because the temperature can still drop well below freezing, and those newborn lambs don’t have the wool they need for protection. So sheep and goat herders often spend many nights this time of year checking on newborn lambs. It is birthing time, another way that we know that Spring has come to the world again.

It isn’t only lambs that are newly born this time of year. Many wild animals give birth now so their young will have plenty of time during the warm days of summer to grow and get strong before next winter. And it is important that they get a good start, because in the wild, the wolves and bobcats also are birthing their young, and those predators will be looking for food for their cubs and kittens. And just like those lambs, we need to protect our children and grandchildren from the wolf that roams the world, the devil and demons who would devour the spiritually weak. We need to give our children a spiritual summer to become spiritually strong.

And so in the world of people, we begin to look forward to the Passover and Easter, a time of celebration of new life. But Easter isn’t here yet, and the Passover celebration is still more than a month away.

Jesus had come into town, into Jerusalem, before Passover one year and spent a good deal of time healing people. One night – after dark, sneaking so he wouldn’t be seen, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Israel named Nicodemus went to see Jesus. All people come to Jesus the first time in darkness, that darkness of the soul that leads us to look for light. 

Nicodemus had been impressed by the miracles Jesus had done and said so: ““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.”

Jesus accepted that Nicodemus had passed the first test. You see, before someone can be saved, they must first recognize two critical things: First, Jesus is a teacher.

After all, if Jesus is just a random guy, there is no need to follow him. And to many people, Jesus is just a name, a man loosely associated with Christianity. If you ask your average teenager or even twenty-five year old in the street who Jesus is, they will stutter and “um” and not be able to tell you anything about who he is. So we who would bring others to Christ must first start with the idea that Jesus is a teacher.

But we also need to know - and tell - that that Jesus comes from God, that there is something supernatural about what Jesus did. There are many people who are more "sophisticated" who have decided that Jesus was a man, a teacher who led a bit of a political movement. Jesus, in their mind, is someone like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., or perhaps Socrates or Aristotle. In their mind, the thing that is most important to know about Jesus is that he taught a peaceful way of living. And so we have to help these people understand that Jesus was a teacher, yes, but also that Jesus was sent by God and had supernatural power, because this is part of what gives his message credibility.

Why should I pick Jesus over Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gloria Steinem or even Karl Marx? They were all teachers. The important thing that sets Jesus apart is the miracles that surrounded Him which gave him the credibility that mere humans don’t have.

Of course, there are a group of people who have the following mindset: Miracles can’t happen, you claim Jesus did miracles, so I don’t believe anything you say about Jesus. These people are rather closed minded. After all, we call miracles “miracles” just because they are so rare, so unlikely, so one-of-a-kind that they can’t be explained by ordinary science. We aren't stupid - we know that these things aren't ordinary. (You might want to go onto Amazon.com or to Books-a-Million and buy a copy of Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ if you are trying to win over one of these skeptics. Or get them to The Case for Christ movie that’s coming out next month.)

The people of Jesus’ day weren’t stupid either – they knew what was ordinary and what was extraordinary, and that’s why Nicodemus, the smart and wise leader of Israel, came to visit Jesus that night.

So after Nicodemus had told Jesus he understood that Jesus was sent by God, Jesus began to talk to him about deeper things – like how to belong to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Now let’s look at that word “again”, as in “born again.” The Greek word used is anothen, which is a bit complex in it’s meaning. Anothen means “again”, yes, but it also has shades of meaning of “from heaven” or “starting over at the beginning” or simply “from above”. So you have to be “born again from heaven above” to see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus is confused. He takes Jesus’ statement literally.

“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!”

But Jesus was patient with this man who clearly wanted to understand what Jesus was teaching.

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 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.’

You’ve probably noticed that the children of tall people tend to be tall and the children of short people tend to be short. Long-haired dogs usually have long-haired puppies. Therefore, the flesh gives birth to flesh, as Jesus said.

But it is also true that the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Have you noticed that some dogs are gentle and they have gentle puppies? Have you noticed that some dogs are vicious and mean and they have vicious and mean puppies? And have you noticed that the same thing seems to happen in human families? Some families pass down a spirit of kindness or generosity and other families pass down hatefulness, laziness, or anger.

Jesus is saying that to enter the kingdom of God, you will need to be born into that kingdom in two ways – You will need to be born of the flesh in the ordinary way but also you will so be born of the spirit, given a new Spirit through a spiritual rebirth.

He says “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. “ There is the water of baptism which removes the rot of sin from us, and there is the passing on of the Holy Spirit to the person, so that the Holy Spirit will guide that person to a new and better eternal life.

Then, Jesus continues to speak and our English translations can’t quite keep up with the Greek, for our English uses three different words at different times to translate a single Greek word, pneuma. The Greek word pneuma is translated into three different English words – “Spirit, breath, and wind”. Jesus goes on:

The wind (pneuma) 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 (pneuma).”

We might as well have translated Jesus' comment as, “The Spirit blows wherever it pleases”, but it makes more sense to say, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. “

Have you ever thought about how free the wind is? The wind blows wherever it pleases, you can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, for when you’ve been born of the Spirit, and you listen to that spirit, you are no longer slave to anyone or anything. You can go where you want, live as you choose, do anything that is good and wholesome because you now understand that God loves you, you are secure against death – anything that destroys your body is just a temporary thing – and you have the chance to change the world for the better, finding your purpose, your life, your God! You no longer need a permanent job, for you know that, just as with the sparrows, God will provide. That's real freedom!

All of this talk of wind and Spirit just blew Nicodemus away.

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
And Jesus was incredulous that Nicodemus didn’t understand, and so Jesus looked and talked to him the way we might look and talk to a college professor of history who said he didn’t believe Jesus had ever existed.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 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. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" 

No, it doesn’t look like Jesus is going to go into deep details of heaven with Nicodemus tonight. Poor old Nick is having enough trouble understanding that those who would go to Heaven have to start over with a cleansing baptism and a new Spirit. Jesus continues:

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 

"The Son of Man" is a phrase from Jeremiah which Jesus uses to refer to Himself.

How many people do you know who believe that when they die they’ll go to heaven, just because they haven’t murdered anyone? How many people think that they are better than the worst people they know, so they’re good enough for heaven? How many people that you love will die tomorrow and wake up outside of heaven to a nasty surprise? Jesus said no one had ever gone into heaven except Himself. But Jesus points out a new way is being developed:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

Jesus is referring to an episode in Numbers 21 when the Israelites were traveling in Sinai. They spoke against God and God sent a batch of [poisonous snakes to bite them. So they prayed to God to stop the plague of snakes and therefore God told Moses to make a bronze snake, put it up on a pole, and then anyone who took the time to come to the bronze snake on the pole and look at that snake and believe in the power of the snake would be healed from the snakebite – the damage caused by the snake.

In the same way, Jesus, the Son of Man mentioned by Jeremiah, must also be lifted up on a cross so that he may heal people from the damage caused by the original man Adam, from the sin that entered the world like rot into a basket of peaches. If you take the time to look at Jesus and believe in the divine nature and power of Jesus, He will heal you from your sin-rot damage that started with Adam, that sin-rot that has infected every person since Adam like rotting peaches in a basket infect each other.

But why? Why would Jesus do this?

Jesus tells us in perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible:

John 3:16 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. 

and don't forget the super-important follow-on verse:

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

You know, if we could explain this to our friends, neighbors, and family members, we would completely change the view the non-believers have of Christianity. For the average person who has not grown up in church – and many who did grow up in church - believes that Christianity is all about condemning people to Hell because of the way they act.

Sometimes I'll meet new people and just introduce myself as "Brian" instead of "Pastor Brian". They'll talk to me with their beer in hand, smoke their cigarettes and say a few interesting cuss words. When people find out I’m a pastor, the average person apologizes to me for drinking, for cussing, for smoking. They are very uncomfortable around me if they are living together unmarried, if they are gay, if they use drugs - and frankly, I'm ok with you making your own decisions. It's your life. But these people feel like I’m about to pronounce judgment upon them and curse them into hellfire at any point. It's almost like they expect me to call down lightning upon them! And I’m sure you have friends that also talk a certain way when they think you aren’t around, but as soon as they see you, they talk a different way. We Christians make other people uncomfortable, and to a certain extent this is good, because it shows that people understand we live a different way. But it does build a barrier between us and worldly people.

This happens because the average person has believed what movies and television and atheistic commentators have told them. They have changed John 3:16 from the original to “God so hated the world that he sent his one and only Son to rain fire and brimstone on those who don’t act according to God’s stringent Law.”

But that’s not what the Apostle John – Jesus’ best friend – wrote when he quoted Jesus. Instead, he wrote:

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

You see, there was no need of sending Christ and Christians to tell the ordinary person what they have done wrong. They know. The Law of Moses is something they almost all know, at least enough that they feel guilt about the parts they break. Ordinary people already know what they’ve done wrong.

You will notice, though, that Jesus spent an awful large amount of His time telling religious people what they were doing wrong. Pharisees kept telling people how they were breaking the Law of Moses – Jesus told the Pharisees to stop piling burdens on people. The Sadducees, the leaders of the Temple, kept telling people how their sacrifices weren’t good enough for the Temple. – Jesus told the Sadducees that their beautiful Temple could be destroyed quickly and rebuilt by Him anytime in just three days.

You see, we don’t need to tell people what they’re doing wrong – they already know that. What people need to know is how to get right with God, how to avoid the punishment they already realize is headed their way, how to live their lives with the problems they have and live with the hope that God still loves them. They don’t need us to crucify them - They are dead spiritually already and need a resurrection of the Spirit. The battlefield of life has killed their spirits and they need a transfusion of a new spirit.

Those people who lead people to a spiritual rebirth, those spiritual midwives, are what the world needs. And that is our calling. Each one of us has been given a complete kit of spiritual medicine by Jesus Christ. Shall we walk over the battlefield of life, finding people who are desperate, dirty, messy, bleeding out their spirits, and patch them up, leading them to Christ who can clean them in baptism and transfuse them with His Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands? Will you look for the wounded of this world – or will you only focus upon your healthy friends, leaving the wounded to one day be burned in the lake of fire?

It is time for each of us here to identify the wounded that we know. It is time to write down the names of a dozen or more who are closest to us and teach them the true meaning of John 3:16 and 17. It is time for us to help them be reborn by water and the spirit.

If you have not been baptized, it is time to get your own house in order so you can go out into the world and help others. You may not realize it, but people can tell when you are a part-time, uncommitted Christian. People can tell when you are talking the talk, but not walking the walk. People know a man or woman who is only partially on board, in the same way that you know that when the Honda salesman drives a Ford around town there is something not quite right. Get right with God and then help your friends, your neighbors, and your family survive the coming destruction of the world.

Temptations and Gifts

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We technically are not in Lent on Sundays, for Sundays are always to be joyous occasions, celebrating the Lord’s Resurrection.

Our scriptures for this Sunday remind us of the cycle of sin, death and resurrection. Adam and Eve sinned because they dis-obeyed God, establishing a pattern which every person except Christ has followed to this day.

When Adam and Eve were in that beautiful garden, Satan, in the form of a snake came into the garden and urged Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What could be wrong with knowing the difference between Good and Evil? This was wisdom, right? We want to know what is good and what is evil? We want our children to know the difference between good and evil. We want our grandchildren to know the difference between good and evil. So what’s wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil?

The problem, you see, was that before that particular day, Adam and Eve only knew goodness. God had always treated them well. God had loved them. God had given them everything they needed to live – and to live well. God had simply said, “Don’t eat the fruit from this one particular tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” And God even told them, “If you eat the fruit of this tree, you will surely die.”

Even today, these are wise and good words. There are many things children have the chance to do as they grow up. There are many things they can experience, particularly as teenagers. There are many things we all can experience as we grow older. But just because we can experience those things does not mean it is wise to experience those things. For since we lost our property and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden by God because we ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Evil has spread throughout the world.

There are many older people here who can tell you about things you should not experience. I’ll use one example:

If you haven’t done it already, should you touch a hot kettle on a cooking stove? Should you grab a hold of it, seizing it solidly and finding out whether or not you like grabbing hot objects? Of course not.

Yet, as we grow older, it seems that there are always people telling you, just as that snake told Eve: “If you will do this, you will be just like people older and wiser than you. You will have wisdom.”

My friends, the man or woman that is wise has suffered much in his or her life. For you can only gain wisdom in three ways:

First, you can listen to older, wiser people than you, as Adam and Eve should have listened to God when He told them, “If you eat from that fruit, you will surely die.” God and godly people will always be ready to tell you the wise thing to do. Unfortunately, the snake is always there, too, telling you the deadly thing to do. The trick of having a good life is learning to tell the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the snake. So the first way to gain wisdom is to listen for the voice of God, the Holy Spirit, who will speak to you through godly people. The voice of God is a great gift to us. So surround yourself with godly people, particularly as you are a teenager, a college student, or a young adult – which, unfortunately, is the time when most people spend the least time in church.

The second way to gain wisdom is to read the Word of God. There are over a thousand pages in the Bible, just waiting for you to find out what God says is good and what God says is wrong. Read the Bible, go to Sunday Schools and midweek studies. You see, God is not just the God of old people; our God is the God of children, also. Our God is also the God of teenagers. Read the Word of God and discuss it with godly people and you will gain wisdom.

Soon after Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness. For Forty days he fasted, and then he was hungry. And then Satan showed up, the old snake once again. He said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Satan tried to use the fact that Jesus was hungry against him. Satan always like to attack us when we are hungry, or thirsty, or haven’t slept, or are sick. But Jesus knew his Bible and threw Bible back at Satan. So Satan tried to have Jesus kill himself.

Then the devil took him to the Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Notice this time, Satan tried to twist the words of the Bible, using only a little piece of it to try to trick Jesus. He used the very fact that Jesus knew He was special to try to hurt him. But Jesus knew the Bible so well He continued to throw Bible verses back at Satan.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”This time Satan tried to bribe Jesus, telling Him that he would have everything, be popular, and control the world. But Jesus still threw Bible verses back at the devil.

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

You know, that is probably the most important verse in the Bible, for when you leave the other gods behind - money, popularity, power, politics - you can focus upon what is important.

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Just like Jesus, if you "worship the Lord your God and serve him only", the devil will also leave you.

Knowing your Bible well gives you great wisdom and allows you to fight Satan when he attacks you. Read and study your Bible. Memorize those passages that seem important to you. And you will miss much suffering in this life. The Bible is a great gift to us from God.

The third way to gain wisdom though, is the way most people gain wisdom. It is the way that Adam and Eve gained wisdom and the way people have gained wisdom ever since. That way is to listen to the snake and try things the world says will be fun, will make you happy, will make you rich and popular and loved by all the snakes and stupid people in the world. 

“I dare you” is a common phrase that has taught more people wisdom than almost anything else, because “I dare you” and its companion, “Just try it!” leads to bruises, to the loss of money, to broken relationships, to injury, to nights or even years spent in jail, to addictions, to death. The third way to gain wisdom is not the best way, but, unfortunately, it is the most popular way.

I lost a friend a few months ago. In high school, my friend was very popular, she was very pretty, she dated and eventually married the most popular boy in his high school. He was handsome, he was athletic, and even played some professional sports.By the world's standards, he was quite a catch! But it was very clear, even at an early age that he also had little self-control. From first grade, he was always getting in trouble, and that continued during high school. And many godly people told my friend that she should stay away from this guy, but she chose to date him and marry him.

He drank too much. And when he drank too much he was mean. He beat my friend. He ran around with other women. And so, eventually, my friend divorced this guy. But it was too late. For it turns out that certain types of cancer can be transmitted from one person to another, and he had kissed so many different girls that he had this particular cancer virus, and he gave it to my friend. After fighting the cancer for about five years after she learned she had it, she eventually died. She was still in her forties.

I’ve lost other friends, friends I knew in high school and in college. Most of them died recently from heart attacks, from cancers, from lung problems. And most of their problems were because when they were teenagers and when they were in their twenties, they tried many things, things wise, godly people told them not to try, and they had fun for a few years, but now they’re gone because their bodies were damaged in those few years they were having fun.

If we follow our own way or the ways of the world, we will have much suffering and an early death. Even if we manage to physically live, it will be as though we died early in our lives. Many of you know people who are already dead in their souls – and have been for years – and they’re just waiting for their body to catch up to their souls. As Paul said, this is what Adam gave us – death entered the world through the one man and spread to all of us like a disease, like rot in a basket of fruit. It was inevitable. We could not help it. And so God sent us help. He sent us His Son, Jesus Christ, to show us another way.

Because of Jesus’ obedience, because Jesus listened to God and followed God’s commands, because Jesus sacrifice Himself on the cross for us, we have life. Just as He came back to life, we can come back to life. Jesus broke through the wall that kept us from God – we can follow Him through that wall to God’s love.

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your family this story. And in particular, as this time of Lent speeds by on the way to Easter, talk to your friends, your neighbors, and your family of God’s love, what God has done for you.

Be Christ for your loved ones. Speak the Word of God to your loved ones. Bring them the wisdom of God that leads to an abundant, eternal life.