Monday, March 13, 2017

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.

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