Jesus Teaches Nicodemus

Michael Johnson
Series: John
Chapter 3

Starts at 0:41

John Chapter 3. The title of my sermon today is Jesus Teaches Nicodemus. 

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 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.”

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

Let’s stop here for just a moment. You know, let’s think. Why did Nicodemus come to Jesus? Was he attracted to his kindness? Possibly. The bible says in verse 2 he was attracted to the miracles. That Nicodemus saw miracles. Maybe he wanted some new wine. Maybe he was seeking God. You can come to Jesus at any time (Nicodemus came at nighttime), for any reason. Jesus says, “Come to me all of you who are weary or burdened.” If you’re burdened, come to Christ. If you are weary, or tired, come to Jesus. Whatever your situation or circumstances, at any time of day, at any part of your journey, come back, come to Christ.

Nicodemus was very significant. It says that he was a member of the Jewish ruling council. Nicodemus was a religious leader. He was a well-to-do man. He was probably pretty wealthy. He was intelligent. He was a professor of religion, mostly likely. Well, for sure he knew and he taught the law very well. He fasted regularly, probably. He most likely gave ten percent. 

But Jesus Christ says to Nicodemus, “That’s not enough.” He says, “You must be born again.”

It’s interesting that he says this. This is something that’s going to come through that I’ve found throughout this entire teaching and talk with Nicodemus. That God is trying to show Nicodemus that God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Nicodemus had his religion but he needed to be born again into a relationship. Religion is one thing. Relationship is another.

Nicodemus really missed the mark, didn’t he? He called Jesus Christ Rabbi—a teacher. But Jesus Christ is the Son of God. As David previously preached, Jesus Christ is God. And Nicodemus, was missing that .That was a big problem. That’s why Jesus says, “You cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus wasn’t seeing Christ for who he really was. 

Who do you say Christ is? Is he a teacher to you? Is he a person of historical fact? Or is he your God? Is he your “abba”? Is he the Son of God? Who is he to you? Think about that.

Jesus talks about this “born again.” I looked it up and it means “to be born from above.” We’re all born from below. But have you been born from above? Being born again is described in other ways and other places in the Bible.

Ezekiel says an old heart to a new heart. I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you.

The Apostle Paul says an old creation to a new creation. Those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. Old to new.

Peter talks about darkness to light. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation., God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who calls you out of darkness and into the wonderful light.

St. John, says from death to life. Okay.

Back to Nicodemus. He wasn’t seeing Christ for who he was. I’m going to give an illustration. I work in the seeing business. I help people to see better. One of the major reasons people don’t see well is because they have a cataract in their eye. A cataract is something that everyone gets. A cataract grows inside your eye. The Bible says everyone sins and sin is inside of our hearts. And Jesus knows your heart. 

I had a recent encounter with a man and he said to me, “I can’t drive legally.” 

I looked into his eyes and I said, “You’ve got a cataract in your eye. We’ve got to get that out.”

And he said to me, “I can see just fine. I don’t need to get it out. I can see cars. I can see street signs. I can see the road just fine.”

I had to remind him that, didn’t he just come from he Motor Vehicle Department? “Didn’t the DMV just tell you that you failed your test?”

He said, “Yeah. But…”

I said, “This is what the law says.” I put up the eye chart. I put up the law of the requirement for driving legally. I said, “Go ahead and read those letters.”

He said, “I can’t do it.”

I said, “Okay, that’s because you have a cataract inside your eye and you need to have it removed. Otherwise you’re not driving.”

The BIble says that the law of the Lord is perfect and it revives the soul. It converts the soul, the King James Version says. Sometimes people think that they’re good, that they’re okay. But they’re not until they look at God’s perfect way, which is to love God and to love one another. Until they look at God’s perfect law, they don’t have a realization that they have a sin problem. They don’t know.

How about you? Do you think that you’re a good person? I would say that you probably are pretty good. But are you absolutely perfect? Have you ever stolen or lied? Have you ever coveted your neighbor? The Bible says that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. That sin has infected all people. 

Let me tell you, this person, when they go get their cataract removed, they are happy. They say, “I can see the trees! I can see the leaves on the trees! I can see faces much better! I can see things completely different. There’s more light that comes in.” And they have a testimony, right? And they are singing and praising the surgeon.

The same is true when someone is born again. They are telling people. I was in a conversation at a lunch and we were just talking about our faith. And someone walked by, because he heard us talking, he said, “Guess what? I’ve been born again!” And he was all excited. This is what happens.

Jesus says back in John Chapter 2 that he didn’t need any testimony about mankind because he knew what was in each person. The lying, the stealing, the greed, the vulgarity, the prejudice, the pride, the anger, the fear. All of that is causing war with God and strife and war with each other.

It all started with Adam and Eve, right? Adam and Eve were in this garden and the sinned. Right? And then their sin was passed to the next generation. Cain and Abel, where Cain murdered his brother. And then the next generation received sin, the next generation, and so on and so forth—right to you and right to me. I’m a sinner. I admit it.

Do you admit it? That’s what God wants. He wants us to come into agreement with him. And then he wants us ultimately to thank him for what he’s done. Because, once again, God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. The Bible says that sin and death have entered the one man, Adam, but forgiveness for sin and life has come through the one person of Jesus Christ. Your body may be alive, but inside you’re dead. Your soul and your spirit are dead. And you’re searching in the wrong places. You may be searching in the wrong places, like sex, right? For fulfillment. Or money, or position, or power, or material things. All those things cannot fix you. You need Jesus Christ. You have to come to the cross. You must be born again.

Now, in verse 4, Nicodemus asks this question:

“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!”

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. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

“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 one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 

He told Nicodemus who he was. But Nicodemus still is not seeing Jesus Christ for who he really is. He’s asking these questions. “How can this be? How can someone be born?

You don’t have to know everything about God to come to God. No one is going to know everything or know God completely, ever. You have to trust God. You have to come like a little child. The Bible says unless you change and become like a little child you won’t enter into the kingdom of God.

I have a three-year-old son. He is learning how to swim. He will come to the edge of the pool and he will jump to me. And guess what? If I don’t catch my son, he’ll die. He trusts fully in me. He comes. By faith, I say, “Come on, son.” And he just jumps right into the pool.

That’s how we have to come to Christ. You don’t think about it. You don’t have to have everything explained. You don’t have to figure everything out. You just come to Jesus and Christ and you trust him for what he’s done for us. You trust him that he died for your sins. You trust him that he came back back to life. Just like a little child. Come to Jesus Christ.

We don’t have any trouble using these cell phones, do we? I don’t understand how this thing works. I don’t understand how this camera works that I’m looking at right now. You can see me and you’re looking at your phone, or you’re looking through that computer. But I’m trusting right now that you’re looking right at me. We just trust. You put your faith completely all in Jesus Christ. Trust Christ and Christ alone.

Why couldn’t Nicodemus understand Jesus Christ? Jesus is talking about the Spirit. He says you have to have the Spirit to be born again. The Spirit does the work. Once again, Jesus is saying that God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. He’s telling Nicodemus about the Holy Spirit. His Spirit. So I’m going to talk a little about the Spirit. 

The Spirit convicts people of their sin, the Bible says. When the Spirit comes he will prove to the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement. The Spirit empowers us to live the Christian life, to resist temptation we have to have the Spirit. The Spirit teaches us moment by moment. The Spirit lives inside every believer. If you’re not a believer, he wants to live inside of you. Do you not know that your bodies, you Christian believers, are a temple for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants to fill you up. Do not be drunk on wine, the Bible says, which leads to debauchery. But instead be filled by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit wants to flow through you.

This verse is our church verse, right? Look at John 7:38 for just a moment:

Jesus says, “Anyone who believes on me, just as the Scripture said, streams of living water will flow from within.”

What flows from within is the fruit of the Spirit: the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the goodness, the faithfulness, the gentleness, self control. And I would even say sharing your faith, sharing Christ with others, having a desire to read your Bible, your prayers. You know what? The world around us needs those things. 

Jesus is teaching Nicodemus that you have to have the Spirit, that the Spirit does this for you, makes you born again. The Holy Spirit is responsible for the conversion.

I found here the condition of the natural man. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians that the person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness. Jesus Christ, God, is having this conversation with Nicodemus, who does not have the Spirit. And Nicodemus is not getting it because Nicodemus does not have the Spirit. 

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and you put out there on the table something spiritual and they just don’t get it. Or they even tell you, “That’s crazy.” Or, “That’s foolishness.”

I’ve had all those interactions. The Bible says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved, it’s the power of God and that God delights in the preaching of the gospel. The preaching that is foolishness to the world, God delights in. So I’m here knowing that I’m a delight to the Lord preaching what the world would say is foolish. And you know what? I don’t care because Jesus Christ is my Lord. He’s the one that I live my life for. I don’t live my life to please man. I’ve been called many things. Foolish is one of them. Crazy. A crazy zealot for God. But I have had a powerful experience with the Lord many times and I know deep, deep down that Jesus Christ is alive, and that Jesus Christ is in me and he’s working through me, and the angels in heaven really do rejoice when people come to Christ. They will for you today when you come to Christ if you do.

We’re going to look at verse 14. Jesus continues to tell Nicodemus: 

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 saying a story that Nicodemus knows about and that he’s read many times. Remember he was a teacher of the Law. He was a professor of religion. He knows this story. Nicodemus is listening to the story about when Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery and they are in the desert. The Israelites at this time are complaining about the food, about the water, and then God allows them to go through a patch of venomous snakes, snakes that, if they were bitten by one, they would die. And then they started dying. So Moses prays to God and God instructs Moses, “Make a snake out of bronze. Put it up on a pole. And anyone who looks up at that pole and believes will not die but will live.”

That is a foreshadowing of what happens with Jesus Christ. He was buried but he came back to life and anyone who looks to Jesus Christ and puts their trust on Christ and Christ alone will live, will have eternal life. Once again God has done for us something that we cannot do for ourselves. Could those Israelites put some mud on their wounds and live? No. Could they go to Urgent Care? There was no Urgent Care back there. Could they go to the doctor for their wounds. No. God only had one provision. He said, “Look to that bronze snake and believe. And if you do, you’ll live.” There was not other way.

Jesus Christ says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.”

I think there’s only one way because he makes it simple for us. Simple, even a chid can understand. It’s simple but it’s so difficult. Christ is the stumbling block. He’s the cornerstone. 

Why would God do such a thing? Why would he make a provision for humanity? Because he loves you. It says it right here in John 3:16. This is pretty much the whole gospel in one verse. It says:

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. 

Nicodemus is getting an earful, isn’t he? Jesus says: 

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

You don’t have to be afraid to come to Jesus Christ. He’s not going to condemn you. He wasn’t sent to punish you.

Sometimes I ride the light rail. It’s interesting because, when I’m on the train going down Central and the authority comes on the train, you see people scatter. They just jump off the train because they’re afraid. They know they didn’t buy a ticket. Then the authority walks around and says, “Show me the ticket.” So people that don’t have a ticket are gone! The people that do say, “Here’s my ticket.”

The point is that you can come to Jesus Christ. He’s not like the authority on earth. He’s not going to put you in jail. He’s not going to condemn you. The Bible says God didn’t send his son into the world to condemn the world. He came to save the world. You can come to Christ how you are. You don’t go and clean yourself up and then come to Christ. You can’t. Christ cleans you up. 

If you’re an addict to pornography, if you’re a drug addict, if you’re self-righteous or prideful, you can’t go and try to get all clean and then come to Jesus Christ. No. It doesn’t work that way. You have to come to Jesus Christ first, put your trust in him, believe on him that he’s alive. He comes into your heart and he starts cleaning you up from the inside out. He’s the Great Physician, by the way. 

When he called Levi he said, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor. It’s the sick. I’ve not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.”

You come because you’re drawn by his kindness. And when you’re with him, you want to stay with him. You put your trust and believe on him, he cleans you up from the inside out. Let’s continue on in verse 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. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 

Remember Nicodemus came to Jesus at nighttime. He’s probably a little bit embarrassed of his homies, right? The other Pharisees in the Jewish ruling counsel. He probably didn’t want theme to see. But you know what? Jesus doesn’t condemn him for that. He doesn’t shame him. He sits with him. But in the same token, you can come to Christ. 

Whenever you come to Christ you come to the light because Jesus Christ is the light. He says, “I am the light of the world.” He says, “Anyone who walks after me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

You come to Christ, you’re in the light.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 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.

I just want to spend a couple of minutes in sharing the gospel. Nicodemus was a worker. He was a very hard worker. But we’re not saved by works. We’re saved by mercy and we’re saved by grace. Listen to this verse in Titus 3:5-6:

…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 

You Christians have heard this before. Ephesians 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

Listen, I say it this way. If a generous person came to you and he said, “I’m going to forgive all of your debt, past, present and future.” Wouldn’t you be grateful? I know I would. I still have mortgage. I still have student loan debt. I’ve got a wife and five kids. I would be grateful. But I would say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” I go down to the bank and I say, “Has my mortgage been paid?” And they'd say, “Yes, Mr. Johnson, your debt has been paid.” I wouldn’t go at that point and give the bank another thousand dollars. They would say, “What are you doing? Your mortgage has been paid!”

That’s what you’re doing if you’re not putting your trust in Christ alone. If you’re putting your trust in religion or being good, you need to repent from that. Or putting your trust in other gods, in addition to Christ, you need to repent from that as well. Trust in Christ—in Christ alone. He did it all. 

The Bible says it this way—Paul says, “I don’t set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” He did it all, folks. He paid it all. 

I’m going to end with an illustration. Bear with me. Here we have three types of people. We’ve got the natural man like Nicodemus. On the outside he looks like he has it all together. But on the inside, he has sin. He has pride. Just like all of us. The Bible says that we’re born into iniquity. We have sin in us. So here he is. And he’s in our world. 

Then suppose that he put his trust in Christ and he became born again. Here we have a person who has been born again and so instead of being filled with sin now, they can be filled with the Holy Spirit. 

Both of these guys are in the world together. This guy, the natural person, we see it all the time, in our world, is kind of spewing off what comes out of his heart. The sin, the greed, the strife, the vulgarity, the anger, resulting in domestic violence, not taking care of your kids, family breakdown, the denial of who Jesus is. The disbelief. 

Then you have the guy who is filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is flowing through him. Love, joy, peace, all around the world, patience and kindness and goodness, so on and so forth. God continues to pour into this guy. God’s grace is endless. His mercies never end, the Bible says. More love and more joy and more peace. He gets filled up again and he overflows. This guy is a living streams Christian right here, okay? God just keeps on pouring his grace right into him and into our world.

But I want to talk to you guys, because I believe a lot of us are like this guy right here. This guy, the born again Christian who is led by his flesh. The Bible describes him as the carnal Christian. He’s got the Spirit in him. He’s been born again. But he’s also got sin in him and look at him. Sometimes he’ll be in church. And maybe after church someone will cut him off and he’s got the finger. 

Sometimes he really wrestles with his identity. He may have depression. He may at one moment be praising God and the next moment he may be having an idol. He’s pouring out also. 

And this guy over here, the natural person is looking at the carnal Christian saying, “We’re no different. You’re a hypocrite.”

So how does the carnal Christian get to the Spirit-filled Christian? How do we get from here to here? The Bible says that we come to Jesus Christ. We come to the cross just like Nicodemus did and we confess our sins. And God is faithful and just. He forgives us of our sins and he purifies us from all unrighteousness. And here we are again and God is pouring through us faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and so on and so forth. 

I’m going to be quite honest with myself and with you, that I go back and forth. I have my moments. I say, “Wow, that was the Lord in me.” And then I have my other moments, “That’s all Michael right there. Lord. Michael.” But as time goes on, God wants us to be more of the Spirit-led, Spirit-controlled, born again Christian. Because we have to, guys.

Listen. I was a product of the Arizona Child Foster system. I grew up in very dysfunction. My dad was an alcoholic. Long story short, he beat my mom. He beat us. I was adopted. The adopted dad was committing adultery against my mother . They got a divorce. My younger brother, alcoholic, died. Me, myself, I have a lot of sin to talk about as well. It’s not that we’re all black men and this is the product of the systemic racism, or this is a product of the white man putting their thumb on the black man. No! It’s a product of sin. We all have sin. 

It took me until after I was born again to realize that. I always wondered, “Why am I this way? Why did all these things happen to us?” And God gave me the answer. When Jesus looked down at our world and looked at our world, it’s pretty messy. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” 

If you’re up to no good, if you’re led by your flesh, guess what? Expect bad things to happen to you. If you’re a Spirit-led Christian and you have yielded to Christ, fully surrendered to Christ 24/7, but you live in this world, guess what? Expect bad things to happen to you. If you’re a carnal Christian. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you live in this messy world, expect bad things to happen to you.

The gospel message is that Jesus Christ, once he comes inside of you, he never leaves you. He’s always with you. And you have eternal life that you won’t lose. If you could lose eternal life, it was never eternal in the first place. That’s very good news and that gives me peace today. If I die this afternoon, I know where I’m going. And I have peace inside. All around me it’s chaotic. But the peace of the Lord dwells richly inside of me and I’m able to overflow that peace into the hearts of others around me: my wife and my children, so on and so forth.

I’m going to end this message by asking you guys: which of these three best represent your life? Are you the natural person who’s never believed on Christ? Are you the Spirit-filled Christian soho is overflowing love and joy and peace, so on and so forth. Or right now are you this carnal Christian who’s got some sin in your life. You’ve got the Spirit, you’ve been born again, but you need to come to Jesus.

If you are the natural, come to Christ today. Believe on him. If this made sense to you, not like Nicodemus—not making sense—but if it does to you, guess what? You’ve been born again. You believe. Tell someone. Send an email to Pastor David. Tell someone in your house right now. “Hey, that makes sense. I believe on Jesus Christ.” Then begin to grow in your faith. Read your Bible and keep coming to church,

If this is you, the carnal Christian, again, come to Christ. Confess your sins and live, not bound by sin, but live in the victory of Jesus Christ.

That is the message for today. I just want to thank you and thank Pastor David. I’m going to end by just saying May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

---

---

©️2020 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Pledge of Allegiance

David Stockton
Series: John
Chapter 2

(Starting at 1:50)

John Chapter 2. Let’s read this and let the word of God just wash over us to quiet everything else in our minds and hearts and see what John the Apostle is saying about Jesus in this chapter:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

This is the word of the Lord. This is John writing as he’s thinking back, as he’s accounting the life of Jesus and the interactions he had with Jesus in the flesh, in the body, in Israel at that time. And John is at the end of his life. He’s been through a lot. He’s probably around 85-90 years old. He’s writing up close to the end of the first century. He’s recounting and writing to us, trying to give an account for why he believes in Jesus.

There is debate as to who he was writing to or who he had in mind. To me it seems that he might have had Hellenistic people in mind. Both the Greco Roman world that he was probably interacting with up in Ephesis and the way that he starts out calling Jesus the Logos, which is a Greek word. It’s more than a Greek word, it’s a Greek concept. It has a lot of depth and meaning in the Greco Roman world. So you can check last week’s message if you want to know more about that.

He introduces Jesus as the logos and he goes on to talk to us about this guy John the Baptist. John the Apostle, which we’ll call John A, then you’ve got John the Baptist, exhibit John B. John the Baptist  was this really neat individual who, in his day and age was able to exemplify walking in the world but not of the world. I mean, in some drastic ways. John was wearing camel skins. He was eating locusts and honey. He lived out in the wilderness as far as we know. He was baptizing people. He was calling people to come out of the religious system of the day. He was calling people to come out of the greed, out of their selfishness, out of all of the different things that are sinful. He was calling them out and saying, “Please come and return to God.” 

And amazingly, this wild haired, wild guy had a lot of people coming out to be baptized by him, to hear what he had to say. Jesus called him a prophet later on. His prophecy, the words that he spoke, were able to cut through the confusion of that day and really land in people’s hearts. It was drawing people out of the worldly systems, out of all of that into kind of a more fresh beginning with God. Even these people that were steeped in religious things in the Jewish world. 

I’ve been praying that we’re going to have a lot more John the Baptists rise up in our time, in our day, as we have so much noise, dissension and actual pain and confusion. We really need the prophetic voice to come on strong and cut through it all and speak to our hearts so we’ll know how to be in the world but not of the world—how to navigate this challenging dynamic that we’re in, with all of the political tensions, with all of the shouts and screams. Even with deciding how we’re going to navigate these racial issues and this racial pain. And other things as well.

I love the John Baptists. We talked about him last week as well. He was a fighter. He stood up in the face of injustice, oppression and immorality. His intense morality and simplicity gave his message intense credibility and clarity. I’m praying for some more of that in our day and age as well.So now we’re moving on to John Chapter 2. I want to spend a little time unpacking a few things here, but really focus on verse 11. 

I was a camp counselor one summer, actually a counselor in training. They gave us camp names. They called me Spelunk. Spelunk is obviously referring to cave exploration because I had done a little of that in my time. It’s always fun to go exploring in caves. You through maybe a little hole, crawling through and it’s not that good; but then it opens up into kind of a bigger cavern. And you can go and there are lots of different places to explore. There are lots of places that, as you go through it, it opens up into these broad things.

As you’re reading the book of John, he has so many phrases that you could spend the rest of your life just chewing on and diving into. So, as we read here in Chapter 2, it’s just like that. 

As we go on, I want to talk to the kids for a second, that are still awake, that haven’t left the room, that may be upside down on your couch by now—I totally understand that. No problem. But, kids, if you would draw me a picture of what it looks like to explore a cave, a spelunker. Someone who is going into a cave, exploring. That would be a fun drawing for me to see this week. Thanks for the ones that have been coming. Make sure you put your address with them so that I can make sure something shows up in your mailbox. There you go kids: Spelunking. That’s what you’re going for today.

So let’s dive in and do some exploration in John 2. Here are some phrases. He starts out chapter 2 with “On the third day.” Now, for those of us who know about the resurrection of Jesus, for John, who obviously did, that phrase “on the third day” is such a big deal. He uses this phrase and we don’t know if he’s talking about the third day that he had been with Jesus as one of his disciples. We don’t know if this is three days later from when he had that interaction with Nathaniel. Or we don’t know if he’s just kind of saying, “Hey, on the third day Jesus always does cool stuff.” We’re not sure. Again, loaded question. We don’t have time to unpack too much.

He talks about going to a wedding in Cana. A wedding in this day and age is a very big deal. A wedding for the Hebrew people is a very big deal. There’s a year-long lead to a wedding. There are all these traditions, all these things that happen, it’s a real communal thing, getting people together. When you are a people who are being oppressed, when you are a people who have no privileges, no rights as Roman citizens, it was a really big deal to have these moments where people could come together and have this special time of rejoicing and feeling human in the midst of all of this. So this was a wedding that Jesus was invited to and it was in Cana.

Now we don’t know where Cana was or anything like that. It’s a town that didn’t make the cut in a lot of ways for our maps. It was such a small village and very insignificant in a lot of ways. But here it is that John is mentioning Cana as a place where Jesus did something really cool. I just love that about Jesus. I love how different he is than our day and age. Anything we do cool we make sure and post it and make sure everyone knows how we cool we are and all these things. But when Jesus was doing the first miracle, the first time he was really revealing to humanity who he was, he was doing it in a way that very few people were going to know about it. In fact, really just his family, his village and his disciples.

That’s the emphasis we’re trying to make as we go through all of this. What are we going to do to heal the world, to bring real change into our world? I think the Jesus model is to just first take care of the ones that God has given you. I think that’s the most important thing. In addition to that, make sure you’re taking care of the ones he’s asking you to give yourself to. Not just the ones he’s given you, but the ones he’s asking you to give yourself to.

So that’s what Jesus was doing here. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him… so there’s this other phrase. Jesus had this interaction with his mom. She said, “They have no more wine.” We don’t have time to dive into it. But I wonder what made her think Jesus could do something about this. What in the thirty years of her living with Jesus made her think Jesus could do something about this, that we don’t know about? The only thing we know Jesus did between zero and thirty was he spent the night at church one time and was asking some questions when he was twelve. So I just think it’s so interesting to think about their relationship there and what is being implied in this.

His answer to her is, “Woman, why do you involve me?” He’s basically saying, “Hey, you’re not really in line with what I feel like my Father is telling me to do here.” And he says, “My hour has not yet come.” He knew there was a timing to his life. He knew there was moment where he was supposed to step out. But at this point he knew it wasn’t time to do that. And yet still he does in a small way show his glory to those that were there.

And then a bunch of things go on. But I want to focus in on verse 11. Verse 11 says, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believe in him.”

So again, John is writing, end of his life, probably trying to speak into the Greco Roman world that he was feeling like an evangelist towards, or feeling a mission to go and preach to. And he was sharing about what sign Jesus gave him in his process of believing, and the disciples as well. 

This is the first of seven signs. In the gospel of John there are seven signs. There are seven miraculous things that Jesus does that are sometimes included in the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Sometimes they are not. But here they are: 

• The changing of water into wine. 

• The healing of the royal official’s son.

• The healing of a disabled man.

• The feeding of the five thousand.

• The walking on the water.

• The healing of the man born blind.

• The raising of Lazarus.

• And, obviously, the resurrection would be another sign as well. 

These are the signs that John gives us in his gospel. And I feel like John’s probably letting us know these are the most significant moments in his journey of faith as he was interacting with Jesus and coming to a full understanding of who this man, this small town man really was. And that, ultimately, he was the Son of God, or as we talked about, he was the logos. He was God’s who plan, agenda, politic. He was everything. He was there in the beginning.

So John went from a place of just interacting with this person who was kind of John the Baptist for all he knew, to ultimately seeing Jesus as God in the beginning. Forever. And writing about that.

So this was the first sign. This was a significant sign for John. And I like what he says here. He says that Jesus revealed his glory in this way and his disciples believed in him. John’s trying to do something significant there. We know that the whole theme of the book of John , again, we talked about it last week, John chapter 20 says that “Jesus performed many other signs [than the seven or eight that I’ve given you], in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe in him. So that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Life in his name.

Basically John is writing this whole book so that you and I will believe in him, will believe in Jesus. So that’s our whole goal. As we read this, we will continue to believe in Jesus. Those who don’t believe in Jesus, or don’t have any kind of connection with Jesus, that after reading this, they’ll take start to take Jesus seriously and they’ll begin a relationship with him. For those of us that have a relationship with Jesus, that this will foster and build and nourish our faith so that we’ll continue to believe in Jesus, even against all of the other shouts that come our way and all of the other things that are trying to demand our affections, our attention, and our belief.

I want to start to unpack what it means to believe. All of my life I was raised in a Christian home. My parents believed in God and believed in Jesus and they had their own reasons and they would share some of those testimonies with me from time to time. I remember one time actually it was interesting, but it was really significant because I know who my dad is. My dad was this big, strong guy. My dad did not like to rely on other people, did not like to make other people have to help him. He was very strong. He was very stout and he helped a lot of people all over. It was a very tough thing for him to allow someone to help him.

He told me a story about when he and my mom were first dating. They actually went to this Christian conference of some sort. There was someone there speaking and he had spent time growing up in a home where his mom and dad were very Pentecostal, like, “Hey, Jesus is the best.” And telling people about Jesus and really believing in miracles. But my dad had grown up and became maybe a little jaded in that direction. He had spent a lot of time living in the world. Then when he met my mom and my mom started actually came into full faith in Jesus, he started to think more about it again.

He said they went to this conference. At the end of it, they were going to pray that people could receive the Spirit of God. He was watching people being slain in the Spirit. Please don’t get caught up in “slain in the Spirit,” this is not the point of this message. I don’t see it in the scriptures and all of those things, so I’m not trying to make it a proponent of when the Spirit shows up. I’m just telling you a story that my dad told me of an experience in his life that helped him believe.

So he and my mom went forward. He, again, was this big, strong football player guy and there was this little lady that was praying for people. It wasn’t that everybody was falling over when she prayed for them. But he was just standing there, and when she prayed for him, he fell over. Again, this is not the important thing. Please don’t get caught up on this. But for my dad, it was the Lord showing up to my dad in a significant way saying, “Hey. I am here. I am real. And I do have a plan for you.” It was something that helped my dad believe. It helped my dad go, ‘Okay.” And my dad never talked about being slain in the Spirit and didn’t start thinking this important. But he did really start thinking it was important to believe in Jesus.

I think it’s interesting, however we come to this concept or this phrase “believing in him.” We all come with baggage. Some of us come with stories in our life of Jesus’ faithfulness that have been passed down for generations and maybe even shown up in our own life. Awesome. Wonderful. Hallelujah. That’s great. Some of us come to this message and this moment right now—you’ve never seen Jesus do anything. In fact, the times you’ve prayed, or the times you’ve tried to lean in and say, “Okay, God, I need you,” nothing has happened and nothing’s shown up.

So we all come to this phrase differently. I understand that. What I’m trying to do is just to show you the way John is sharing this is what’s helped him believe. And yet I need to unpack this word believe a little bit for us Faith is a hard word to conceptualize and make practical and embody. Belief is the same thing.

So believing in him. I want to start out to tell you what I think John the Apostle is trying to communicate when he says that “I began to believe in him.” A picture of that, I think, comes where, in the book of John, John never uses his name but he refers to himself as “the disciple that Jesus loved.” And he refers to himself as “the one who leaned against Jesus’ breast,” particularly on that night of communion he was kind of leaning on Jesus.

When I would try to encapsulate what John the Apostle would define faith as, I think he would define it as complete trust—or trust over time is another phrase that I have heard. It’s the idea of just kind of leaning on Jesus because you know he’s got you. And John, for whatever reason, it’s interesting because he was originally called one the of the Sons of Thunder. There was something about him and his brother James that was just passionate and wild, and maybe abrasive ,and maybe explosive. They were fighters. They wanted to call down fire on people at some point. But as we see John who has spent time with Jesus and been formed into the image of Christ, later in life we see John as this one who just wants us to love one another. He writes so much about how important it is that we care for one another, that really the law of God is fulfilled when we love each other. 

So here one of the Sons of Thunder has been totally formed into this trusting, caring, compassionate person. I just love what Jesus can do in our lives. That’s what John is saying. We need to trust him. He leaned on his breast. Totally at ease because of Jesus’ sovereignty. What I want to do is to bring to us that concept today. Where are we? Are totally at ease in the knowledge of Jesus’ sovereignty when our world is getting shaken, or our own souls are getting shaken, when our community is getting shaken, when our nation is getting shaken, when our health is getting shaken?

What Jesus wants to prove to you and demonstrate to you is that he really is sovereign. You can completely trust in him. It’s not a blind trust, but a trust over time and time and time again. Jesus showing up. It’s the substance that shows up for the things you’re hoping for, as Hebrews would say. 

So that’s John’s definition. It’s a complete trust. When John is referring to this miracle that happened at Cana in a small town, small village way, he’s saying that that was the beginning of my complete trust in Jesus. I think that’s where we need to start walking with Jesus and seeing where our complete trust is these days.

Secondly we have Paul. Paul the Apostle wrote most the New Testament. He’s actually called the Apostle of Faith like John would be called the Apostle of Love. When Paul defines faith, it’s more of a pledge of allegiance in a lot of ways. It’s Independence Day weekend, where we celebrate the freedoms that we have as Americans, and those who have brought us to this point, and the fight to continually maintain these freedoms for all people. It’s good and right. We have this pledge where we make our kids do, where they put their hand over their heart and they pledge allegiance to this country and all that.

For Paul, faith is really a pledge of allegiance. He refers in Romans 10 that we need to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and we need to believe in our heart that he rose from the dead. In some ways, to sum that up, Paul is speaking about this confession of our mouths and this pledge, believing in our hearts that we confess that he is sovereign over creation. He is Lord. We believe in our hearts that he is the only one that can save us from death. Or the only one that can give us God-life. That is who we believe in for the resurrection.

So for Paul it really is this kind of allegiance. It’s not just a moral or intellectual ascent of like, “Oh, I say the right things, now I’ve got it.” But it’s this pledge of allegiance. “For the rest of my life, for the rest of my days, for the rest of my breaths, I’m going to do what is in the best interest of Jesus and his kingdom.” It’s basically coming out of one kingdom and pledging allegiance to another kingdom. 

It’s basically, “Denying the citizenships of all of my life, that I’ve always been, all the identities that I’ve ever had prior,” and now saying, “There’s one identity, one citizenship that I really am pledging allegiance to, and that is the kingdom of Jesus Christ, both now and forever.”

There is this author, Matthew Bates, that I’ve been reading a little bit about. I like what he says. He breaks it down into three different sections. He says faith, or believing, is a mental assent. There is a reality there. There is sworn fidelity. That’s this kind of allegiance concept of really kind of changing where we did have allegiance and making a new allegiance and being faithful to it consistently over time. And he also talks about embodied loyalty. I like that because now it’s the word becoming flesh. Now it’s faith and works. It kind of brings the whole thing together. Where our faith should cause our feet and hands to do different things. Our faith should cause us to go different places and be with different people that, maybe without faith in Jesus we wouldn’t have.

I like that. Mental assent, sworn fidelity, embodied loyalty. Mental assent. We need to take care of what we read and listen to and watch and fill our minds with. Absolutely. We live in the information age, not the truth age. Don’t forget that. Our saving faith comes by the hearing of the Word of God. That’s what Romans teaches. As we take in information, knowledge, understanding, it creates faith. It might create faith in Jesus, or it might create faith and allegiance to other things besides Jesus. Sometimes those allegiances can be a challenge where the Bible teaches we can’t really serve two masters. So we have to watch what comes in because it can produce faith and allegiance in a wrong direction.

Sworn fidelity. We need to take care what we pledge allegiance to. No one can serve two masters. There are powerful political forces clamoring for our attention and devotion. We need to make sure our allegiance to Jesus is not compromised or in competition with anything else. 

As I was praying this morning about this message, the image of Revelation 18 came to mind. In there, again, I don’t want to go real deep into it, but in there you have this call from the angels of God at the end of this kind of shaking that’s gone on in the world. And it says, “I want you to come out of her.” And it’s talking about the whore of Babylon. The world system. The world’s order or whatever it might be. It’s this call to the people of God at that time to come out of her. She is going to be ruined and exposed and destroyed. And you need to come out of her. Speaking to this challenge for Christians that we need to be in the world but not of the world. We need to serve this world and care for this world and try to bring healing to this world, but we’ve got to make sure we don’t get caught up in worldly ways in the process, or become worldly in the process.

Embodied loyalty. Your calendar, your phone usage app, your banks statements, your family—they are all proof to see where your loyalties lie. For most of us, it’s not that we are loyal to bad things, even though it’s tricky these days. You know, the devil shows up as an angel of light, we’re told. And marketers can make things look so good these days that we do have to watch out what we’re becoming loyal to.

The other thing I want to address is that, not only are we loyal to bad things, but sometimes we’re just so passive to God things. God’s callings on our life. God’s guidance. We need to make sure our faith actually is embodied in some way. It shows up on the ground. It shows up in practical life. It shows up in this world. It shows up in our relationships with those around us. It shows upon the way that we use the resources that we have. It shows up in those places.

So there you have mental assent, sworn fidelity and embodied loyalty. So just to wrap up how it’s working its way in my life right now. I was sitting in a direction team meeting. We’re obviously trying to figure out what to do as a Living Streams organization. I’m always trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do as just a follower of Jesus, as well. We just spent some time listening. I could picture Jesus there, like, in front of me, looking at me. And he was just kind of ready to say something. I was, like, “Jesus, just say it. Just say what you want me to do and—bam—we’re going to do it. We’re going to go all out. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. We’re just doing it.”

And I really had a sense—I wrote about it in my weekly email—this is what Jesus said, “I don’t want to tell you what to do. I want to see what you’re going to do. I’ve invested in your life. I’ve taught you my ways. I’ve given you my Spirit.” It was almost like he had this joyful anticipation. Like a father who in some ways knows his children are going to do something great, like he’s excited to see. He was just, “I just want to see what you’re going to do.”

I felt that message was helpful because it freed me up from feeling like I might make a mistake. It made me start wanting to do things that I know Jesus is going to think is beautiful. That’s really my challenge to each one of us. Twofold: 

1) we’ve got to figure out how to make sure we’re not getting caught up in the world, or secular humanism, or some sort of Marxist approach. We’re going to have to make sure and not get caught up in this world and the world systems. We’ve got to realize where we are already caught up in the world systems and we’ve got to figure out how to pull out, how to come out and be separate—being in the world but not of the world. 

2) At the same time, we’ve got to figure out then how we can serve this world, how we can walk in this world in a way that gives our Heavenly Father a lot of joy. I’ve shared some of those ideas. We’ll share some more of those ideas at the Congregational Meeting July 9 at 6:30. Don’t miss it.

That’s really what it’s all about. As we sit here as Americans. As we sit here as whatever ethnicity we might have, whatever political party we have. I think it’s really important to make sure that, above it all, first and foremost, every day our affection, our devotion and our allegiance is to the One who conquered death and showed us how to live. To really be there first and foremost. And then to go into this world and engage in society’s pain. Absolutely. Do the things that really do help bring changes in our world like John the Baptist did and like we need to today.

---

---

©️2020 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.