John 3 • A Journey to the Ends of the Earth
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
We will be looking at John chapter 3 through a lot of the afternoon here. And if you just kind of want to camp there, that would be a good place to have your Bibles. John chapter 3. I want to thank Colin for the time of being with you. As he and I began emailing about this time, I think the focus initially was on people who were discipling other people. And that's some of the focus that I want to have for our time together here. That we might in particular be looking at how we lead others toward maturity or even toward salvation itself.
Now if you get to John chapter 3, you're going to see a very familiar passage, right? This is about Nicodemus and John 3 16 is here that we all know, you know. But the portion of John 3 that I want to introduce you to is that portion that has the two musts.
First, Jesus says, "You must be born again." Remember he says that's Nicodemus?
And it sounds pretty straightforward until Jesus says, "By the way, you must be born of the spirit
and the spirit blows wherever he will." You know, "Wait, wait, wait. You said I must be born again." And then you said the spirit's going to blow wherever he wants. I mean, that's kind of like saying to Barry Bonds, you know, "Go hit a home run." And then you take his bat away.
Or you say to James Galway, "Hey, play the Paco bell cannon." And then you take his flute away. I mean, you tell him to do something, you must be born again. And then you say, "But by the way, this depends on somebody else."
Well, how does all that fit? That doesn't seem quite right.
And if you feel that tension, you are ready for the very question that Nicodemus asks. Okay? That's in John 3 and verse 9. "Now if somebody said to you, you must be born again. By the way, this is of the spirit, and the spirit does what he wants." You would say, "How can this be?" And that would Nicodemus says in verse 9, "How can this be?"
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus.
"And do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth. 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.
Just as Moses lifted up the serpent or the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
I ask that you pray with me.
Father, thank you. Could you bring us here?
We would understand your word, but we know that in itself is a process enabled by your spirit.
Your spirit blows where he will.
And so we must humbly ask that you blow truth and understanding into our hearts. Help us to understand the words of the spirit and the ways of our Savior that we might disciple others well.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
You know, I am of that generation that can remember. Now some of you have a little gray hair like I do, so you're the silhouette too. I can remember when the first television came into our house.
Can you remember that?
Now, this doesn't mean, you know, that I got old enough to remember the TV. I mean, until that time, there was no TV in the house, right? Radios, yes, but no TVs. I can remember when the first television came into our house. And do you all remember what those TVs were like? Remember it came with the big wooden cabinets, right? You know, about, what, three and a half, four feet wide, you know, three and a half feet tall. And you remember the wide screen that was about this big?
You know, I can remember that. And even though it was, I don't know how old I was, maybe, you know, six or seven years old. But, you know, we very quickly got accustomed to TV every night.
And that TV, unfortunately, didn't last for too many years. I mean, after a while, it got where my father couldn't go to the hardware store anymore and test the tubes. Remember that? Remember how that worked? You went and tested the tubes and replaced. You know, at some point, the TV just wasn't going to be fixed.
And so my father kind of hauled the TV, you know, out of the living room and took the TV down into the front yard to the ditch where the trash man was supposed to pick it up.
Well, that night, you just imagine what, you know, I and my five siblings now began to do. "Dad, we need a TV."
And, you know, my dad kind of listened for a while and listened for a while. Finally, he had enough. He said, "All right, enough."
He said, "You kids come with me."
So we went out into the front yard.
We went out to the ditch.
My father went to the back of the TV and he pulled out the big picture tube. You know how it used to be on that chassis that you could slide it out? He pulled out the picture tube and then he said, "You go sit in front."
And we sat in front and my dad crawled up into the TV.
And then as we shined flashlights on him, you know, under the night sky, he told us Jules Verne's journey to the center of the earth.
Well, it was more than a journey to the center of the earth. It was also a journey to understanding the heart of my father.
I mean, he was willing to kind of humble himself and embarrass himself and embarrass us. No, and, you know, I mean, he was willing to give of himself for us.
It was a journey to the heart of my father. There's a similar journey going on in this passage for Nicodemus.
The journey for him is to the end of his own world and then to the heart of the Son.
If you want to understand that journey to the end of his world, maybe you just start out with what Jesus says after Nicodemus asked this question. How can this be that I'm supposed to have this journey? That I'm supposed to have this work of the Spirit in me, but the Spirit's in charge of it. Jesus answers in this way. He simply says, "You," verse 10, "You are Israel's teacher.
And do you not understand these things?"
I mean, if you start any journey, where do you start?
I mean, whether you're going to the mall and you're looking for the computer store, or you're, you know, you're in the airport in Paris looking for your connection to Berlin,
I mean, you go to the big map and what's the arrow that you first look for?
You are here, right? That's what you look for. You are here.
And that's pretty much what Jesus does with Nicodemus to start this journey. And if you're going to disciple others, if you're going to lead others down a spiritual path, this is kind of the beginning for anybody. You say, "Well, let's figure out where you are first. You are here."
And Jesus says these words that go by so fast. "You are Israel's teacher."
Now, the words are reflecting what we've already learned about Nicodemus earlier in the passage. If you just look at the first verse, do you remember what it says about Nicodemus?
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. Now, immediately when you hear the word Pharisees, you know these are the guys in the black hats. Now, these are the bad guys. You know, we've all got enough Sunday school background. I know Pharisee is not a nice name.
But that wasn't necessarily the perspective of the people of Jesus' time, nor Nicodemus' perspective of himself.
I mean, before you give, you know, the Pharisees the worst of reputation, remember that Jesus says in Matthew 23 and verse 3 to his own disciples,
"You be careful to observe everything the Pharisees teach."
I mean, there are some good things about the Pharisees.
And maybe we think of it a little bit when we read about Nicodemus and recognize that he was not only a Pharisee, but it says in verse 1, "He was a member of the Jewish ruling council." Anybody remember the technical name for the Jewish ruling council? What was that called?
Yeah, the Sanhedrin. Two major political parties. What? Pharisees and Sadducees. Who were the good guys?
The Pharisees.
Pharisees are the good guys. Why were the Pharisees the good guys?
Well, there are things that distinguish the Pharisee party from the Sadducee party.
The Sadducees no longer believed in angelic beings. The Pharisees did.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees did. Do you remember later on when Paul was arrested and he's hauled before the authorities and they say, "Why are you here?" And Paul says, "Well, I continue to believe in the resurrection." And for that reason, the Jews are thrown into a tumult. And the reason that they are thrown into this war with each other is that some of them, "Hey, he believes what we believe." They're like, "Oh, you know, he doesn't."
The mere mention of the resurrection separates the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees are the good guys. The Pharisees continue to believe in the truth of the entire Old Testament.
The Sadducees don't. They're kind of the critical liberals of their day, kind of saying, "Well, some true, some not true." But the Pharisees said the whole thing was true.
The Pharisees said you needed to continue to tithe of everything, not only for your own sake and the church's sake, but for the sake of the poor. Remember that? Jesus would later condemn them saying, "You tithe even mint and cumin. You even tithe of your spices, you Pharisees."
They were dedicated people.
Not only were they dedicated people, they were unwilling to compartmentalize their faith.
The Pharisees believed that what you believed in church, you ought to live in society.
So that by the time of Jesus' experience, the Pharisees are actually very few and far between. Only about 7,000 Pharisees left by Jesus' time. Because the name actually means "the pure ones." These are the "pure-seem." We call them Pharisees. That's the English. But these are the pure ones.
When the rest of the Jewish state, when the Babylonians and the Syrians came in, when the rest of the Jews kind of mingled pagan religion with Judaism, the Pharisees stayed pure.
So that, you remember this name? When the Maccabees came and threw off the Syrian conquerors,
the Pharisees became their spiritual leaders. Pharisees stood with the Maccabees in this kind of rebellion against the oppressors. And then when the Maccabees became decadent and turned away from God, the Pharisees stood firm. They actually turned away from the Maccabees, and it's one of the reasons they got wiped out. It was because they were willing to stay pure even when the Jewish leaders did not.
I kind of like these guys.
You know, they weren't militant.
They weren't like the zealots who said you need to overthrow Rome by military force.
And they weren't kind of extremists, you know, like the Essenes, who said, "You need to just go out in the desert, you know, and fold your hands and pray to God."
I mean, they were willing to be involved in society.
You probably ought to have one of these guys come and lecture one of these conferences. You know, think of it. Cared for the poor, willing to tithe, believe the Old Testament, believe in angels, that believe in the resurrection, they stand for their faith, they're unwilling to compartmentalize.
All these right things going for them. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, "You're actually a leader of the Pharisees." It doesn't say it, and I'm looking at the NIV and the translation I read to you, so it doesn't emphasize it so much. There's actually in the Greek a definite article. He doesn't say you're just a leader among Israel. He says you are the leader of Israel. It's kind of like you the man.
You're not just a Pharisee. You're not just a leader among the Pharisees. You are the leader of the Pharisees.
He's a pretty high position. He's got social status, religious status, power, reputation, prestige, religious rectitude.
He's got all this earthly status. That's where he is.
And he has this great spiritual limitation.
And you don't understand what I'm talking about.
Isn't that interesting?
You have all this religious background, all this religious prestige, all this churchiosity behind you, and you don't understand spiritual things.
Jesus just starts out by kind of making Nicodemus face the reality that all his churchmanship, all his church background, all his religious practice, all his rituals have not shown him the things of the Spirit. That's where you are, he says.
You have earthly status and spiritual limitation.
Now, that may seem like a strange place to start people on a spiritual journey, but don't you know that is the place where you have to start?
You know, there's a limitation to what you know. You've sought the things of the world.
Maybe you've got a lot of religious background, and it doesn't satisfy you yet, does it? You're still searching for spiritual things.
Do you remember that account of Francis Schaeffer one time when he was asked, "If you had an hour, if you only had an hour to share your faith with someone, what would you say for that hour?" Anybody remember the answer?
He said, "For 55 minutes, I would get to know the person,
and then for five minutes, I would share the faith according to that person's situation."
What's Jesus doing with Nicodemus?
I want you to face where you are.
Let's just face it. Here's where you are.
You have great earthly status. Now, it could be lots of status. It could be church status. It could be prestige in other people's eyes. Probably Nicodemus is wealthy by this time with his religious status. He's got all the things that are... This is where you are,
and you've still got spiritual questions. That's where you are.
Now, the next thing Jesus does after he says, "This is where you are," kind of the next thing he begins to say about this journey, he says, "For Nicodemus, whose wanting spiritual answers," he says,
"You can't get there from here."
Now, he'll say, "You're here. You can't get there from here."
I mean, look at it. He says in verse 11, "I tell you the truth. We speak of what we know, and we testify of what we have seen." Now, Jesus is speaking of himself and his disciples. "We testify of 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?"
What he has said to Nicodemus is, you are earthbound.
The reason that you can't get spiritual understanding from heaven, the reason you can't get there from here,
is you're earthbound, and you're seeking heavenly things.
In what way is he earthbound?
Well, he says, "I've spoken to you of earthly things, and you do not believe."
Well, you're not believing heavenly things to start with.
And the reason he won't believe heavenly things is, Jesus says, verse 13, "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who has come from heaven, the Son of Man."
Now, this is just kind of an ancient statement of kind of a modern, existentialist argument.
You can't understand what you have not experienced.
Hear it? You can't understand what you have not experienced. You want to understand heaven, but you haven't been there. You're earthbound. You're trying to find heavenly answers by your religion, by your church, by your knowledge, by your prestige. But until you had experienced heaven, you can't understand it. So the only one who can really understand heaven is somebody who's already been there.
What's Jesus saying about himself?
I've already been there.
That's why I understand it. You won't accept it. You won't believe it, because you're earthbound, and you need heavenly understanding.
C.S. Lewis once said it this way. He said, "We are such half-hearted creatures,
fooling around with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us. But like an ignorant child who wants to keep on making mud pies in a slum, we stay put, because we cannot imagine what is meant by an offer for a holiday at the beach."
Hear it? We're being offered this holiday at the beach. But the child in the slum who's never been to the beach can't imagine what that's like. So what does he do? He keeps making mud pies in the slum.
And Jesus is saying, "When you're earthbound, that's what you're like." Because you have an experienced heaven, you keep trying to find satisfaction in the clay of the earth.
You keep fashioning mud pies. And so you go after, you know, satisfaction and ambition, or sex, or fulfillment and affluence, or drink, maybe escapism of some sort. You keep looking for all the answers in the world,
but you're actually seeking spiritual satisfaction, and that's not going to come but from heaven. So as long as you stay in the mud, as long as you keep making mud pies, you can't get there from here. And the reason we keep on making mud pies is we can't really imagine what "there" is like.
I have a friend, and maybe at some point if you think you can pray for him, his name is Jim.
I'm a jogger, and Jim is a jogger. And, oh, I would say maybe two mornings a week, we kind of end up crossing on the same path. And we've done this for years. So that over the course of years, we kind of built a relationship that lasts, you know, conversations of about 30 seconds to a minute, you know. But over the course of years, you know, you kind of build this reservoir of pieces of information.
And I've learned about Jim. He was a great athlete in college.
And after college, he kind of turned his athletic prowess into business. He went into the sports apparel business, and he made a ton of money.
Until he got bored.
So he went to med school. He became a doctor.
Did that for a while.
Then he got bored.
You know, most of the time now, what he does is he's an occasional consultant for medical practices. But he spends a lot of the day just jogging.
Walking his dogs and jogging. That's how he spends his life.
And worrying about his kids.
An oldest son who's been kind of in and out of drugs.
A daughter who's in and out of depression.
He doesn't understand them. He works with them. He tries all kinds of things. He's sent, you know, the clinical psychologist route. He's big into, you know, whole grains and, you know, everything. Health, food, nature. That'll straighten him and them out.
He's tried some pagan things, you know. Tried to cult here and there. Right now he's really into kind of formal religion. You know, occasionally with his wife goes to a very, very liberal church where they kind of teach you to love your fellow man and everybody else. And everybody's okay, whatever they believe. And he just keeps searching. He just keeps going here and there in the world for things that will make him happy. And just every now and then, you know, he'll say, "Well, Brian, what do you believe?" You know, about three months ago, I preached in a church on John 3 16. And in that little conversation, Jim said to me, "Well, you preached this Sunday. What did you preach on?"
John 3 16. You know what he said? "What's that about?"
"Boy, is this great evangelism." You know, just ask me what John 3 16 is about.
And on that particular day, he walked me all the way to my house. You know, instead of taking his route, we just stopped and we talked and he walked to the house.
He asked me to pray for his mom. He didn't ask me to pray for him.
He's still earthbound.
Now, he knows there's something else. He knows there's something not satisfying him yet, and there must be something more. But he hasn't come to the end of himself yet. He's still earthbound. And until he comes to the end of himself,
heaven's just going to stay where you can't get.
What would make him come to the end of himself? I asked that. Maybe you think, "Are you thinking of people in your life now as I described this? People who are trying this and then this and then this and then this, and you know they haven't come to the end of themselves yet?"
Nicodemus has to come to the end of himself. You know, this is just our first exposure to Nicodemus here in John 3. It's not the last we see of him. If you will, he's at this point kind of a, what, a cautious inquiry. He comes to Jesus at night under cloak of darkness.
Commentators debate whether he's doing that out of respect or out of fear, but nonetheless, he's hiding to some extent. But we pick up Nicodemus again in John the 7th chapter. Do you know that? Look at the 7th chapter of John. And look at this journey of the soul that Nicodemus is on.
John 7. Now, here's what's happened. Crowds are starting to gather around Jesus.
And the Jewish leaders are getting more and more intimidated.
So if you look at verse 32 of John 7, it says this, "The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things like, is this the Christ?
Heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priest and the Pharisees sent temple guards to go and arrest him." Now, imagine this. Jesus is talking to the crowds, and the temple guards have gone to arrest him. Now they're standing on the periphery of the crowd. And Jesus is saying this or things like this,
"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and I will satisfy him." The guards listen. They're not quite sure what to do. The crowd is getting kind of stirring. Some are accepting. Some are not accepting. They're getting more agitated. But the guard isn't quite sure what to do. So if you look at verse 45, look what happens.
"Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them,
"Why didn't you bring him in?"
"No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared.
"You mean he has deceived you also the Pharisees retorted? Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?" Now, listen to what they just said.
"Has anyone who has prestige or authority believed?"
Those who have prestige and authority don't believe in him. You got it?
Keep going. "No, but this mob that knows nothing of the law, there's a curse on them."
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked,
"Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he's doing?"
Now, what's Nicodemus... does he say, "This is the Messiah"? Is that what Nicodemus does? No, he doesn't do that. He just says, "Shouldn't we give him the benefit of a hearing? I mean, shouldn't we hear him out?" I mean, it's just this kind of cautious little almost defense.
It doesn't go very far. Look what happens. Verse 52, "His peers say, they replied, "Are you from Galilee to look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee?" Now, what have they just done?
The rulers and the Pharisees don't believe him.
If you believe him, you're like him.
You must be from Galilee too.
You don't fit with us anymore. You look into the prophets, you're the man.
You're supposed to know this. You'll find that nobody comes out of Galilee. What are they saying?
Nicodemus, if you give this man the benefit of a doubt, we doubt you.
You don't have prestige among us if you'll support him.
If Nicodemus supports Jesus, what does it mean for him?
It's the end.
It's the end.
He'll lose his place, lose his position, lose respect, lose his stature. It'll be the end of his world.
He knows that now.
It's still not the end of Nicodemus.
Late in John, look way back, John 19.
We'll see one more reference to Nicodemus. One more thing happens.
John 19, verse 38.
Now, Jesus has been crucified.
Verse 38, "Later, Joseph of Arimathea..." Now, you know that name, right? What does Joseph of Arimathea do? He comes and claims the body of Jesus. I mean, you know that. You may not know the rest. "Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus."
Now, Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews.
"With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away.
He was accompanied by Nicodemus."
The man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and allos. About 75 pounds.
"Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it with the spices and strips of linen. This was in accordance with the Jewish burial customs."
Well, it was kind of the custom.
Who normally dressed the body for burial?
The women.
What was a priest, a Jewish priest, a Pharisee, never to touch?
Dead bodies. Never to do it. Now, you'd be Nicodemus.
You are the man of the Pharisees. You have the highest position, the highest stature. Everyone looks up to you. You know if you even give this Jesus the benefit of a doubt, you're out.
That's the end.
And now here's Nicodemus, accompanying Joseph of Arimathea, who goes to Pilate, a pagan ruler, and begs. Can you imagine the humiliation for Nicodemus? A Roman pagan leader begging the governor who is oppressing the Roman people for the body of this Jewish itinerant preacher who is claimed to be the king of the Jews.
And Nicodemus goes and he accompanies Joseph of Arimathea as he takes Jesus off the cross. Can you imagine it?
There is Nicodemus with his white robes taking Jesus' bloody, gory mess off of the cross.
Does the blood stain his robes as he gets down? I don't know.
And then, this amazing statement, Nicodemus has purchased 75 pounds of myrrh and aloe. When did you hear about myrrh before in the Bible?
Oh, those kings who brought at Jesus nativity gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Here is this royal treasure, this invaluable perfume.
And Nicodemus gets 75 pounds of it and begins to dress the body of Jesus. In every touch, he is defiling himself. He not only has blood on him now, he is now profane before those of his own faith. And why does he get so much perfume? Is it because his own sin is such a stench in his nostrils that he has to cover it? He could have saved him. He could have helped. He could have done something. But now this Jesus is dead. He is this bloody mess and the blood is on Nicodemus.
It is the end of his world. He knows it. He must know it.
Now the position, the stature, the esteem, he doesn't have a place anymore. He is at the end of his world.
But the thing that you and I know is at the end of our world, that's where heaven actually begins.
Now people will debate and say, "Did Nicodemus become a Christian?" You know, I can't tell you absolutely, I know I must tell you there is every indication that he has come right to the end of his world for the sake of this Jesus.
It's a pretty good step.
There are people who come to the end of the world.
Maybe it's when they hit bottom.
Maybe it's not when they've hit bottom. Maybe it's when they've hit the top and found that it's not satisfying. You know, the people who claw all the way up the top of the corporate ladder and then somehow find out it's leaning against the wrong building. I thought there was happiness up there. I thought there was satisfaction. I thought my family would be okay.
What?
What else is there?
Jesus, you can't get there from here. Not with the things of the world. You've got to come to the end of this world. Ultimately, Nicodemus does.
But if he is going to take the journey into heaven, what will make him do that?
When he's come to the end of his world, what will make him take the journey to the heart of the Son?
We know by the way Jesus addresses him, go way on back to John 3 again.
In John 3, after Jesus has said so clearly, verse 13, "No one's ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven." That is Nicodemus, you're not going to understand heaven because you haven't been there.
But verse 14, then Jesus adds these words. If you say, "What would make anybody take this awful journey to the end of themselves?"
It's what's on the other side. Verse 14, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
Now that is a strange thing to say.
Do you remember what's being referred to?
Numbers 21. Numbers 21, exactly right. Now what happened?
People of Israel are complaining, right?
Oh no, more manna.
40 years of it, no.
And emblematic of the poison that is coming from their lips, what comes upon them?
Poisonous snakes.
And they're dying. They're dying from the bites.
And so God says to Moses, "You fashion a serpent of bronze and put it up on a pole and tell the people to look at it and they will live." Now there's all kinds of amazing things going on. This is the last miracle in the life of Moses.
Now think of that. The last miracle in the life of Moses has to do with deliverance from a snake by a snake.
What do you see early in the writings of Moses? In fact, in the very first chapters of what Moses has written, what do you see happening that relates to a snake?
You see condemnation. You see death coming by a snake.
So beginning of Moses' ministry, death by a snake. End of Moses' ministry, life by a snake. It's kind of the bookends.
But even that's kind of shocking to us. I mean, did you ever think how strange it is that what Moses was asked to fashion looked like the people's sin?
I mean, think of that. The serpent doesn't look like Moses. It doesn't look like their deliverer.
It doesn't even look like God in some way. I mean, the thing that's supposed to deliver them looks like the wrong. It looks like the venom out of them. It looks like the snake.
Moses lifts up their sin.
He says, "You must look at it."
You must believe that this represents your sin.
Now Jesus said, "Even as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." What does he say?
You must believe your sin is on me.
Now Nicodemus can't put it together yet. But you walk with Nicodemus about two and a half years later, and what do you know?
He will stand and he will see this gory, bloody mess with a shredded back and nails and hands and thorns on the brow and the tortured, twisted body of a bloodied savior. And Nicodemus has to say, "That is my sin.
I caused that."
But Jesus says, "If you will look to me, you will live." If you believe that your sin is on me, you will live.
Did you ever think of that in the Old Testament? Why it was so hard for the Israelites to look at the serpent to live? I mean, Moses, if you look at it, you'll live. You'll get well. You think, "Why wouldn't they do it? Just look. Just look."
Why wouldn't they do it?
Because they understood. To face the serpent was to face their own rebellion, was to look at the awfulness of their own sin.
It's part of what it means to be a believer, to look at Jesus and believe that my sin is on him.
And you can't do that until you've come to the end of yourself.
It's not my prestige. It's not my religion. It's not my accomplishment. I have to believe that I am saved by the work of another. And so much of what God is doing in our lives is leading us to the end of ourselves so that we will actually look to him away from our religion, away from our family, away from our job, away from our accomplishment, away from our prestige, and actually believe that it's not going to be in me that the satisfaction comes. It's got to be in somebody else satisfying what I couldn't satisfy.
Do you know the writer Anne Lamott?
She writes about this in her life and what the journey was like for her. She writes this, "I never felt like I had much of a choice with Jesus.
He was relentless.
I didn't experience him so much as the hound of heaven." You know that old poem, "The Hound of Heaven Coming After"? She said, "I didn't so much experience him as the hound of heaven," as the old description has it. "I more experienced him as the alley cat of heaven.
The one who just seemed to believe that if it keeps showing up and mewing outside your door, you'll eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk.
I resisted as long as I could, like Sam I am in green eggs and ham.
I would not, could not in a boat. I would not, could not with a goat. I do not want to follow Jesus. I just want expensive cheeses or something."
Anyway, he wore me out.
He won. I was tired and vulnerable, and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion.
"Okay, come in. I quit."
And then I came to believe.
What does the journey to the heart of the Son look like?
For those of you who are disciples, somehow it's helping people to say, "Okay, I quit.
I didn't find the satisfaction there. I didn't find it there. I didn't find it there. I tried that too.
I quit."
And then to say, "Take one more step."
Look, there is Jesus. And he says he'll take all your guilt and all your shame and all the striving that hasn't worked, and he'll take the penalty of that on himself.
And he's asking you to look to him to live. Now, I can't make you make that step, but I can say, "This is where you are.
You don't have what you want yet. You've tried and you don't have what you want yet because you're still trying to find satisfaction in spiritual things by earthly mud, by things of clay.
And that won't work. You can't get there from here."
So you've got to look somewhere else.
Look to him. Now, this is hard to do because if you look to him, you will ultimately see you.
Things you did wrong, your failings, messed up with your kids, messed up with your job, messed up with your friends, messed up your soul.
See?
There it is right there.
But if you believe it's on him, God takes it off of you.
And suddenly heaven opens.
You find life that's without the shame and without the guilt and without the hurt,
and suddenly the ability to live without all that stuff on you because you actually believe it's on him.
We sing a song these days, don't we, a lot, to actually believe that God looks on him and pardons me.
Think of that. It's not just that I look at him. God looks at him.
And by a gracious act of God, God says, "I believe that's your sin on him too."
The Bible says God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. He takes our sin off of us onto him. So that makes us pure. That makes us holy.
And when I know that, suddenly, suddenly, I experience part of heaven.
That's being in it to be pure, to be holy. That's being like in heaven.
And that's where the real good journey starts, when I'm not earthbound anymore,
but freed of earth because of my sin being on him.
Are you like me? I've got these different people in my life. I've got two brothers. I've got my friend Jim.
I've got a religious leader from actually a cult that I actually jog with part of the time too.
All these people who are kind of earthbound, fashioning their happiness out of things of clay.
And I must tell you, I don't think that I've got, you know, I'm a seminary president. Some of us have all the arguments. I don't have the arguments, you know, that's going to convince these people. I mean, I understand ultimately it's not the intellect that has to be changed. The fundamental thing that must happen is I've got to help them as God gives me grace and ability to help them come to the end of themselves.
Just look, you're the man in your cult.
You're the man in this business. You've done all, you happy yet? Satisfied yet?
Well, if not, take another step at the end of you.
When I graduated from seminary, there was a friend of mine, graduated with me. He went to be an associate pastor at a prestigious church in Washington, D.C. And because it was Washington, D.C. and it was a prestigious church, that means he became the second highest paid pastor in the denomination, just like that right out of seminary.
And because it was Washington, D.C., that meant he could afford this little bitty apartment.
But he met some pretty amazing people.
And one of them he told me about.
This man had been born in Spain and been raised by a godly mother.
But Franco had killed his father.
And because the Roman Catholic Church supported Franco, this young man at a very early age time, you have nothing to do with the church.
At some point in his youth, he got to the United States, didn't know a word of English, learned English, watching TV like a lot of immigrants do.
Very sharp man.
Ended up going to one of the most prestigious universities in the country, became head of psychiatry at one of the nation's leading hospitals.
And it was about as atheist as atheists can be. He knew all the answers. He knew why people just out of weakness sought religion. You know, he had all the answers for what God supposedly helped in people's lives.
He was kind of the quintessential self-made man. An athlete, swam miles every day, even into his mature years.
Wealthy, prestigious.
Got bone cancer.
He was in the hospital, and my friend, the pastor was asked to go witness to him.
Oh goodness, how do you speak to such a man? You know, he's got more answers than you can possibly deal with. But my friend tried, you know, kind of told him about the things of the Lord.
He got nowhere.
Some days later, while he was lying in bed, the cancer got so advanced that this man's leg broke spontaneously while he was lying in bed.
He was going to have to have surgery, and his friends, some of my friend, the associate pastor, talked to him again. My friend went and talked.
No obvious response at all.
Man went into the operating room and did not come out alive.
His effects were left for his family, but there was a letter left for my friend.
In this letter, there were these words first in Spanish.
"I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ is only Son, our Lord."
The words of the Apostles' Creed that he had learned in Spanish from his mother when he was a little boy.
And then following the Apostles' Creed, these words.
"Jesus, I hate all my sins.
I have not served or worshipped you.
Father, I know the only way to come into your kingdom is by Christ person,
by His blood.
I know you stand at the door and knock, and you will answer those who seek you.
I want to be your child.
I want to be with you."
My friend had said to this man in that failed conversation,
"Sir, you have had success in every area of life that is possible
because you have done it with all your intelligence and all your strength. But if you are going to have spiritual success,
you must come to God not as a self-made man.
You must come as a child."
"I want to be your child," he wrote.
How do you come to the end of yourself?
"I am dependent on you.
I will just depend on you. Not my strength, not my gain, not my ability, just you. I have come to the end of me."
And then that is the beginning of heaven.
How do you help other people? I know, I know, I know. We need to have all the answers. Everybody who has got all the answers, hold up their hand.
How about for a beginning?
Just tell people where they are.
They are still thirsty.
That is where they are.
Everything in heaven, I had not fixed it yet.
So come to the end of you and look to Him
and believe your sins on Him and His righteousness is yours
and heaven starts.
Father, I do pray for all we who are responsible to disciple others
that you would not over-complicate our mission.
Help us remember how we came to you.
We came to the end of us.
And you make us guides to other people, sometimes on no more of a journey than taking them to the end of themselves.
Help us to see how to give us wisdom, give us compassion to do just that.
That when they have come to the end of themselves, they might look to you
and see a Son who takes their sin.
Grandfather, this beginning of heaven, through us we pray.