11/12/06 Darkness and Light
We are going to spend the next 25 or 30 minutes
looking at a passage of Scripture that I thought I understood
until I began my preparation for our time together this morning.
It is a passage that contains words
that are as familiar to most of us
as any other words in the Bible.
You must be born again...
For God so loved the world...
But what I have seen in this passage recently
is in some respects
not at all what I expected to see.
We won’t finish it today,
in fact we won’t finish for several weeks,
but at least we’ll make a start.
The passage is found in verses 1-21 of John chapter 3.
The last time we were in this study of John
we spent our time in the final few verses of chapter two
because it is those verses that provide us with the first half of the contrast
that John wants us to see,
a contrast between the Jerusalem masses
and a man named Nicodemus.
If you were with us for that study
you may remember that in those verses
John tells us that there were many in Jerusalem during the Passover feast
who saw the miracles Jesus was performing
and followed after Him.
But they did it
not because they were submitted to His leadership,
but rather because they wanted what they could get from Him.
Some wanted the healing,
and many others just wanted the entertainment.
Jesus was fun to watch,
and great to listen to,
and as long as He continued to deliver the goods
the people followed.
But then John says,
JOH 2:24-25 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man.
He knew their motives,
He knew their hearts,
and He knew that as soon as He said or did something they didn’t like
or something they didn’t understand
they would walk away from Him.
And Jesus certainly didn’t turn them away,
but neither did He entrust Himself to them.
He didn’t give Himself to them
because they were not willing to give themselves to Him.
And before we move on to the contrast I want us to see
let me take a minute
to emphasize something we just saw in that last verse I read.
It’s something that I think some of you have forgotten,
and because you’ve forgotten it
you’ve been beating yourself up
because you’re looking at your actions,
all of which are less than perfect,
rather than looking at your heart intent.
The phrase I want to point out is the last one in that verse,
the one that tells us that He Himself knew what was in man.
Now I know that’s obvious,
that God knows what’s inside us,
but I want you to be prepared for a battle technique
that Satan will use in his determined efforts to defeat you.
When you reached out to your Creator
and chose to place your life into His hands,
trusting that He was telling you the truth
when He said that Christ’s death paid for all of your sins forever,
He responded to that simple act of faith on your part
by creating a new heart within you.
That is what Christ was talking about
when he told Nicodemus
that we must be born again.
He was talking about that creation within us of that new heart.
And the best way I can describe it
is to say that once that new heart exists within us
we will find within ourselves a longing to live a life that honors our Lord.
No religious system in the world can do that.
Religion can make us feel guilty,
it can create a sense of shame within us,
it can try to change our behavior through promising us rewards for good behavior,
it can try to keep us from evil by generating fear of the consequences.
But it cannot create within us
a heart longing for a life that honors our Lord.
Religion can’t recreate our hearts,
but do you know what it can do?
It can provide a person with a tremendous hiding place
for the unresolved evil within them.
There simply is no better place to hide moral corruption
than behind a thick coating of religion.
It’s so easy to learn the language,
and the forms,
and rituals,
and the doctrines,
and all of the external evidences of piety.
Our world is filled with intensely religious people
whose hearts have never been recreated by God,
people who hide their moral corruption
behind a thick religious facade.
But when we give our Creator access to our lives
He never makes us religious.
What He does do is to recreate us at the spirit level,
literally making us pure in heart.
Only God Himself can do that within us,
and that’s just exactly what He does do
in each of us who come to Him through faith in Christ.
Once God has created that heart within us,
He then begins what becomes a lifelong process
of reshaping our lives
in ways that make it possible for that new heart within us
to express itself through our words, our thoughts, our actions, our lives.
He uses all sorts of tools to help us in this process.
His written Word takes on the most remarkable power in our lives,
literally feeding our spirits with truth,
and hope,
and conviction,
and insight,
revealing to us the truth about life,
and about ourselves,
and about our God.
Through His Spirit
He literally strengthens us with His power in the inner person.
Some of the finest work He accomplishes for us
comes through the people He brings into our lives -
friendships that He uses to profoundly alter the direction of our lives forever.
He also skillfully uses things like human authority structures
to help protect and reshape us
so that the longing of that new heart within us
can find greater and greater freedom of expression.
But all of those tools,
and all of that skillful reconstructive work in our lives
is utterly dependant upon that new heart within us.
Without that new heart giving us a spirit-level hunger
for our God and a life that honors Him,
all the tools in the world would be powerless
to bring about any real change within us.
But here’s the battle I want to warn you about.
What Satan will seek to do
is to keep us forever focused on the externals,
and especially on those points in our lives
where our performance continues to fall short of what our heart longs for.
And every single day
there will be some things that happen,
things we do or fail to do
that will provide him with ammunition for his attack.
Every morning of my life
I begin with a heart longing to live a life that day
that honors and pleases my Lord Jesus Christ.
That isn’t because I’m a preacher.
That’s simply the imprint of the Spirit of God within me,
the expression of that new heart.
But every night I can look back over the day
and see places where I fell short of what my heart longed for.
Many years ago now
Chuck Crapauchettes handed me a piece of paper that he said reminded him of me.
I’ve carried it in my Bible ever since.
It says,
So far today, God, I’ve done all right.
I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t lost my temper,
Haven’t been grumpy, nasty, or selfish.
I’m really glad of that.
But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed,
and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot of help.
Thank you.
I like that thing so much
because there’s far more truth there
than we usually see at first glance.
It captures both the heart of the Christian,
with that longing for a life that truly honors our Lord,
and at the same time expresses the reality
of the battle we face every day of our lives
in our efforts to be, in performance,
what we have already become in heart.
But my point here is simply this.
I think some of you have been believing the lies.
Every time you’ve fallen short of the person you long to be
Satan has been right there jabbing at you,
accusing you,
telling you how far short you’ve fallen.
And you’ve given him the right and the power
to define who you are
on the basis of your actions.
Well, let me remind you of the truth.
And maybe I can do that best
by allowing you to listen in on a statement
that God made to Samuel.
1SA 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "...God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
He knows your heart.
He knows what you long for,
and it is that heart longing that defines who you really are.
That’s what John was trying to tell us in his first Epistle when he said,
1JO 3:21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God...
I’m certainly not saying that our performance doesn’t matter.
What I am saying is that it is our heart intent that defines our true identity in Christ,
and the beginning of all true change in our lives
comes from breaking the law-based cycle of self-condemnation
through seeing who we have become at the heart level
as a result of the recreative work of God in our lives.
But let me see if I can bring us back to our study of John.
He ends the 2nd chapter by showing us
a whole bunch of people
whose hearts were not turned to Christ.
But then in the next verse John shows us the contrast.
He shows us what Jesus is seeking with each of us,
and he does so through the example of a man named Nicodemus.
And in John 3:1-2 we read this:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."
And before we look at the interview that follows,
it will help us to know a little more about this man.
Nicodemus is a fascinating character in the gospel records.
John is the only one of the New Testament writers to mention Nicodemus,
but he makes sure we have enough information about him
so that we can see him with remarkable clarity.
John brings him on the scene three separate times in his Gospel.
The first is here, in this late night private interview with Jesus.
Then, two years later,
when Jesus once again visits Jerusalem,
this time for another feast, the Feast of Tabernacles,
John once again brings Nicodemus into his account
at a crucial point in Jesus’ ongoing battle with the power-structure in the nation.
This appearance of Nicodemus is recorded for us in John chapter 7.
For the two years prior to this second trip to Jerusalem
Jesus had kept Himself mostly up north in the regions around the Sea of Galilee.
But when He showed up at this second feast
the religious rulers became so threatened
and so angry that they sent men to seize Him and take Him into custody.
But those who went were so amazed at His teaching,
and very likely so intimidated by His following
that they came back without Him.
And in John 7:45-51 we read this:
The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, "Why did you not bring Him?" The officers answered, "Never did a man speak the way this man speaks." The Pharisees therefore answered them, "You have not also been led astray, have you? "No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? "But this multitude which does not know the Law is accursed." Nicodemus said to them (he who came to Him before, being one of them), "Our Law does not judge a man, unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?"
At a critical point in the political debate
that was raging at the highest level in the nation
Nicodemus shows tremendous courage
by publicly defending Jesus.
To do so was most certainly political suicide.
In fact we know through the writings of Josephus,
the most significant secular historian of the time,
that the Nicodemus referred to in the Bible
was most likely Nicodemus Ben Gorion,
a member of the Sanhedrin and one of the three richest men in Jerusalem.
It is known that he later lost all of his wealth,
and it was reported that his daughter was seen picking up barleycorns for food under the horses’ feet.
It is believed that the loss of his fortune
was a direct result of his unwavering loyalty to Christ.
And one thing we know for certain -
that loyalty remained unshaken
even when he could easily have lost even his life for doing so.
We know that because of the third passage in John
in which Nicodemus is mentioned.
It’s found in John chapter 19:38-40.
This passage describes the events that took place
immediately following the removal a Jesus’ body from the cross.
And we need to keep in mind here
that at this time,
from any logical human point of view,
the riskiest thing a person could do
would be to continue to maintain a public allegiance to Jesus.
This great teacher,
the great hope of the nation was dead.
All of His disciples had either run for their lives
or were cowering in the shadows,
hoping no one would find them and crucify them as well.
To remain publicly loyal to Jesus at this point
would obviously no longer help Jesus
and it could only result in setting oneself up as the next potential target on the high priest’s hit list,
and all the more if you happened to be a man of tremendous financial resources.
And yet we read,
JOH 19:38-40 And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. He came therefore, and took away His body. And Nicodemus came also, who had first come to Him by night; bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
This third appearance of Nicodemus in John’s Gospel
shows us the depth of his loyalty to Jesus,
a loyalty that began with the interview we have in John chapter three,
a loyalty that drove him to this public display of tremendous reverence for Him following Jesus’ death,
even in the face of potentially devastating consequences to himself.
And with that as background,
let’s see what happens between Jesus and Nicodemus at their first meeting.
We’ve seen already that he was a ruler of the Jews,
that he held power in the nation,
and that he came at night.
And the reason is obvious.
Jesus’ first public appearance in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast
so terrorized the existing power structure,
and so enraged them against Jesus
that from that time on
to identify oneself with Jesus
was to open oneself up to attack.
Nicodemus was on the inside.
He knew what was going on,
what was being said.
And he knew that logic and reason had nothing to do with it.
It was all about maintaining power.
And yet...and yet when Nicodemus listened to Jesus
and then when he saw the miraculous power this man had,
and the way He always used that power for good,
what he saw stirred something deep inside him.
And he simply couldn’t walk away,
he couldn’t ignore it.
Welcome to the working of the Spirit of God in the human spirit.
In fact, early in this conversation
Jesus tells Nicodemus what’s going on inside him.
He says,
JOH 3:8 "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
That was Jesus’ way of saying to Nicodemus,
“I know you don’t know what’s going on inside you right now.
There seems to be no logical reason why you feel yourself so compelled to reach out to Me.
But I want you to know that there is a very good reason indeed.
What’s happening inside you right now
is the direct result of the Spirit of God Himself reaching deep inside your spirit
and recreating you from the inside out.
Those around you will not understand what’s going on.
To them it’s like trying to see the wind.
They can’t do it,
but they’ll see the effects of it,
and they’ll be powerless to try to explain it
because it cannot be explained apart from the Spirit of God.”
I was talking with a young Christian some time ago,
trying to explain to him what I believe God is doing in his life.
And I told him that God is in the process of reshaping him into a man
who will live with tremendous moral strength and integrity,
and yet a man who at the same time lives a life of tremendous freedom,
a life without rules.
There is nothing more powerful,
nothing more attractive,
and yet nothing more incomprehensible to the world in which we live
than such a life.
It’s like trying to see the wind.
It can come from only one source -
possessing the ability to correctly hear and follow the voice of the Spirit of God within,
or as Paul puts it,
possessing the mind of Christ.
It is what Christ is seeking to accomplish within each of us,
and it simply drives the world around us crazy.
This world understands rules,
it understands religion.
It understands rigid adherence to a clearly defined list of things a person does and doesn’t do.
But a life lived in the presence of God,
a life being built upon a recreated spirit within,
a life in which Christ literally lives His life out through us each day,
these things the world can never understand until they experience them.
Early in my Christian life
I came across a poem that I want to share with you this morning.
I have tried without success to track down the author’s name,
but I believe I found it in a Billy Graham publication,
probably in the late 60's.
It drew me powerfully the first time I read it
because it captured what I saw the Spirit of God
seeking to accomplish in His people in our generation.
I want to read it for you this morning before I close
because it describes better than I ever could
the kind of work God seeks to accomplish all those who come to Him,
a work that has nothing whatsoever to do with religion,
but a work that has everything to do with communicating the reality of a living God
to a world immersed in darkness.
They have come, the long awaited,
Mark their bearing, mark their breed.
From conformity’s ice-prison are they thawed,
And in unity they function,
Like a band from worlds unknown
In their glory as anointed sons of God.
There’s a brightness in their countenance,
A power in their hands,
And a word of sure authority they speak;
With the scholar they’re conversant,
Understanding with a child,
Apt at warfare - or to turn the other cheek.
They have won through flood and tempest,
By the Word and by the cross;
And, ignited by the Pentecostal flame,
They have struck the crucial balance:
Heed the Law and live by grace
In the overcoming power of Jesus’ name.
They are mastered in their mastery;
Delivered, they deliver,
As with words of truth they shatter evil’s sway,
Tread on scorpions of wickedness,
Heal broken hearted men, praising Him
Whose glory marks the glad new day.
Nicodemus entered into that kind of union with his Creator
as a result of that late night visit with Jesus.
And when Jesus told him that, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit,
He did so because He wanted to prepare Nicodemus
for what he was entering into.
Well, we’ve only just begun our look at this interview between Nicodemus and Jesus,
but we’re out of time
so we’ll continue with this next time.