As we fished, we drank in the beauty of nature that surrounded us and began comparing stories of growing up as young men and how easily influenced we had been by the ways of the world.  While our paths growing up had been very different, we found that many of the life experiences we had paralleled each other.  We both started out far from God, we both eventually met and married wonderful Christian women who prayed each day that God would get our attention, and we both had life changing events that could only have been orchestrated by a loving God.  Each of our stories had a common theme.  Gone were the old self-destructive ways each of us had chosen for ourselves and in was the new, life-giving way Jesus secured for us through His death on the cross.

As we reeled in yet another fish, we nervously laughed about how thick-headed we had been growing up and how much different our lives would have been had God not reeled us back in.   Our ways are not His ways and I know of two men who are eternally grateful because of this.

Blessings,

Gary Fenner

Biblical ‘Contradictions’: The Reason We Require Theologians, Pastors, Church Ministry Leadership.

I am thinking about this because of the readings for the week.  One section in particular stood out.  In Romans Chapter 6 verse 20, it reads ”For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.”  And that is really true.  When we give in to our sinful nature, it is usually easier, maybe even more fun.  If we don’t have to worry about righteousness, life is easier.  And the world will be right there helping and encouraging.  But if we read on, we find that all is not what it seems.  The Chapter continues, “21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.  22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Well that’s a bummer isn’t it?  The whole death thing and all.   But that just shows God’s love for us.  He is giving us the straight scoop, no sugar-coating.  The wages of sin is death!  Does that mean must always work, that we can never have fun, or relax, or go on vacation?  No way.  But it does mean we have to do the hard work of righteousness in those things.  And it is hard sometimes.  At least I find it so sometimes.

But if the hard work brings us closer to God, isn’t it worth it?

- Rich Hosch

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Also not the new feature “Ref Tag” that allows you to mouse over a scripture reference and see the actual verse as well as connect to the LOGOS Bible program on-line.

Often times, we think of what I will call “fandom” as primarily a matter of heritage and location.  So if you grew up in say Ashwaubenon, WI (next door to Lambeau field), I’d anticipate that you would be a Packer fan.  If you grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, I’d understand you being a Viking fan.  If you grew up in Ypsilante, Michigan, I’d both understand and sympathize in your being a Lion fan.  Now if you grew up in Ashwaubenon and you were rooting for Bret Favre last Sunday, then I’d consider you … despicable … (just kidding, sort of).

Most of us see spiritual “fandom” in a similar way, that’s it’s primarily a matter of family heritage and location.  If you were born in India into a Hindu family, we’d expect you to be a lover of Krishna.   If you were born in China into a Buddhist family, you would likely be pursuing a path of enlightenment.  If you were born in the United States into a Lutheran family, you would be thought of as a Christian.  This strong identification of faith and family and national heritage is one big reason why many think it so unreasonable to believe that Jesus is “the way” to God.  How could we expect, say, an Indian young person to deny their heritage and become a follower of Jesus?

This conventional human wisdom is what makes Jesus’ conversation with a man named Nicodemus rather astonishing, both to Nicodemus and to John’s readers for centuries.  It conveys that genuine spirituality is not a matter or human birth or heritage, but of divine rebirth and personal faith.  It would suggest while you can, say, inherit being a Lutheran from your parents, being a Christian is not a matter of mere family heritage or upbringing.  That’s earthly stuff and Jesus points to the necessity of new life from heaven.

Turn if you would to John chapter 3, one of the more well known passages in the New Testament.  It is evening and Nicodemus seeks out Jesus who is becoming a celebrity rabbi with a reputation for miracles.  We’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council.  Pharisees were among strictest observers of Old Testament laws and the fact that Nicodemus had attained membership into the Sanhedrin, the inner circle of Jewish leadership, meant that he had considerable ability and had earned the respect of many.  Thus Nicodemus could be considered the ultimate religious insider … if anyone had his act together as a Jewish believer, it would be Nicodemus.

He came to Jesus at night which suggest that he was trying to do on the sly … without damage to his reputation.  It’s also points to Nicodemus’ spiritual condition.    As one author puts, “(Nicodemus) own ‘night’ was blacker than he knew.”  ^[1] He was have been advanced in his knowledge of the Jewish religion, but he was still blind to  the full reality of God’s love and plan as revealed in Jesus.  Yet at the same time, the very fact that Nicodemus was seeking out Jesus meant that he was looking for something … perhaps a deeper experience of God than all his studies had provided him.  I suspect that he had the entire text of the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) memorized, but he saw in Jesus, the worker of miraculous signs, one who did not just “know” the right stuff but was a channel of God’s presence and power.  I think Nicodemus wanted more … to paraphrase the words of the U2 song, this spiritual insider still hadn’t found what he was looking for and he was hoping that Jesus just might be the source.  It could be that you have been doing the “church thing” or “the moral life thing” for a while, but you have a sense that there is more to genuine spirituality than mere human energy and religious effort.  There is …

Jesus responds to Nicodemus in verse 3:  “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” [John 3:3 (NIV)]  Jesus had this habit of saying unexpected, almost bizarre things, that would create what one author calls a “faith quake” in others, breaking apart old ways of thinking and creating a new landscape of spiritual understanding and faith.  It’s not surprising that Nicodemus doesn’t get it and thinks that Jesus is referencing physical birth.  Jesus, of course, is focusing on the spiritual and eternal.

The Apostle John in recording this conversation employs a play on words.  The Greek word translated as “again” also means “from above.”  It is likely that Jesus means both here.  Nicodemus needs to be born “again” and this birth is “from above” … meaning that is accomplished by the power of God and not from any human source.      This is birth is “from above,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, because it accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In verses 5-6:  “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”  [John 3:5-6 (NIV)]   Now there are all sorts of scholarly discussions as to what Jesus meant by “water and the Spirit.”  Likely, he was foreshadowing Christian baptism, but that was something for the future.  What Nicodemus would have understood was the baptism of Jewish converts … Gentiles who would receive a ceremonial washing when they became believers in the God of Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures.  If this is what Jesus is referencing by “water and the Spirit”, then what he is telling Nicodemus is that just like those Gentiles who were outsiders to the Jewish faith, Nicodemus the ultimate insider also needs to be converted … if he is really going to know God, he has to come to know Jesus as his Savior.  This conversion goes beyond any washing with water; it must be accomplished by the Holy Spirit who would open Nicodemus eyes’ to the truth of Jesus.  The upshot is the insider isn’t as “inside” as he thought!  Is it any wonder that Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?”  He knew he was missing something in his faith, but surely he didn’t need to become a convert.  But that is exactly the “faith quake” that Jesus wants to bring about in his life.

What about you?  The Reveal spiritual life study we’ve done here at Peace would indicate that by the way they answered the questions, one-fifth of the people who attend here on a weekend aren’t yet believers in Jesus.  Now my hunch is that a good percentage of you who fall into that group consider yourself to be a Christian because you grew up in a Christian family going to a Christian church.  You consider yourself to be an insider but when it gets down to it … Jesus is for you more of a moral example than a deliverer from sin, more a good teacher than one you would trust in as the giver of life with God, more a great historical figure than a living King you would follow.  You are not yet in a faith relationship with him and you need to be converted.  Right now Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit is inviting you to humble yourself, to recognize your need, and to put your trust in him.  You can be born again, from above.

The new birth is “from above” because it by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Secondly, it is “from above” because Jesus was sent from heaven to be crucified for us.   Jesus tells Nicodemus:  “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man. 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.” [John 3:13-15 (NIV)]  The “Son of Man,” a phrase borrowed from the Old Testament prophet Daniel, is Jesus’ favorite description of himself.  The “snake in the desert” comes from an Old Testament story in which God provided a means of deliverance from a plague of poisonous snakes.  Moses erected a bronze snake on a pole and everyone who had been bitten could look at the snake and live.  So now Jesus teaches that he is the one sent from heaven who will be lifted up on a pole.  He is anticipating his own death on the cross and stating that if we put our trust in him as the crucified Savior, we will live.

The Apostle John at this early place in his Gospel is already looking ahead to Jesus’ Passion.  On the cross, he will take the load of our sin and suffer its just judgment.  On the cross, he will break the power that sin and death have over so that we can have forgiveness and life in God.  Is it to Jesus and his cross that you’re looking for life with God now and forever?  If so, you have been born from above!

Birth from above … by the power of the Holy Spirit connecting us with crucified Jesus, who was sent out by the Father’s love for all people.  “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.” [John 3:16 (NIV)] … the so-called “Gospel in a nutshell.”   Now I know that in every Bible I’ve seen, that this verse is in red letters, meaning that Jesus spoke it.  But one of my favorite evangelical scholars (along with others I’ve read), notes that ancient Greek didn’t have quotation marks and it is quite likely that Jesus stops speaking in verse 15 and that verse 16 and following is John’s commentary on Jesus’ conversation.  At first I was put off by this perspective because John 3:16 is the kind of thing we’d expect Jesus to say.  But it might be even more powerful coming from the heart of John.   Because this means that his time with Jesus was an overwhelming experience of God’s love for him and for the world.  In Jesus, John saw up front and personal remarkable compassion for the poor and for the sick as well as for the educated and the privileged.  Whether Jew or Samaritan, man or woman, scholar or peasant, Jesus valued people and loved them so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself.  It’s cliché now, but when asked how much he loves us, God says this, “This much!”  And stretches his arms and he dies.

In light of such horrific tragedies like that of the recent earthquake in Haiti, I realize that there are many skeptics who would question God’s existence or his goodness.  150,000 + people dead … how can I say that God loves the world???  It’s not always easy to reconcile what can be called “natural evil” with the love of God (and this sermon isn’t the time for a lengthy discussion of this issue).  But could it be that God is using this tragedy to focus the attention of the world on the poorest country in the Western hemisphere?  Could it be that Haiti’s dysfunctional society had to be “leveled” in order for a more healthy society to be reborn?  Could it be that this is a big test for the American Christian community as to whether we are willing to reach with Christ-inspired generosity?  Someday we can ask why God allowed such things as earthquakes but don’t assume that such terrible events negate his love.  I believe that he loves the people of Haiti and in the aftermath of evil will bring his good to that impoverished nation.

I had a similar observation at a recent funeral.  The woman involved had suffered from abusive relationships and had battled depression for decades before finally taking her own life (with the possibility that a side-effect from a medication pushed her over the edge).  Given her mental illness, you might wonder whether God loved Jean.  But here was a person of great ability, a fine editor and writer, who benefited thousands of public school students through her work and brought joy to many friends and family members.  Even in the middle of the troubles of this life, God’s blessings and thus his love were evident in her life.

Are you convinced in reading that God loves the world that God loves you personally?  Living in this sin-broken world, I’m sure that you have your share of disappointments and even tragedies … and I don’t deny that certain people have more difficult paths to travel than others (perhaps you’ve wondered if God has somehow been picking on you).  But consider this … I don’t know your experience, but this week I had plenty of food to eat, I had a warm home to sleep in, good coffee to drink, had paid employment, and enjoyed the companionship of family and friends.  Those things in themselves are overflowing evidence of God’s love for me.  And even if you didn’t enjoy any of those particular blessings (and the fact that you’re not frozen means you at least had a warm bed to sleep in), you can know that Jesus gave his life for you … the ultimate evidence that God loves you and wants a love relationship with you.

Birth from above … born out of the Father’s love for us, out of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and out of the by the power of the Holy Spirit drawing us to faith in Jesus … so that we can “hear” and “see” the things of God.  Jesus speaks of it speaks in sensory terms of being able to “see the kingdom of God” and of hearing the sound of the Spirit.  John describes it in this way:  “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” [John 3:21 (NIV)]

To be born again, born from above, is to be changed.  It is to see God, self, and others in a different way and to live a different kind of life.  As one of our members wrote, “To realize the love that God has for me blows my mind.  It is difficult to understand how He could love a sinner like me.  I am so unworthy … yet if I believe the Bible then I take God at his Word and I know that no matter how messy my life becomes …. with loving arms and tender words He picks me up and dusts off my sins and tells me, “My child, I love you, now please follow me.”

How many of you have watched the movie Avatar?  I describe it as a “visual feast” as James Cameron has created in remarkable detail the world of Pandora.  But what makes the movie come alive is seeing it in 3D.  I took my 3D glasses off on one occasion during the movie and the scenes looked flat, far less life-like.  Seeing the movie in 3D, the scenes become vivid, spectacular experiences.

Faith in Jesus is like putting on 3D glasses.  You see the world lit up with the love and truth of God.  You experience his presence in the nitty-gritty of life.  What others would label as mere happy coincidences, you see as evidence of God’s goodness.  What others would view only as tragedy, you see as opportunity to bring divine help and healing.  What appears to others as ultimately purposeless existence, you see as life rich with divine purpose and opportunity.  You are moved to believe in and follow Jesus.

By the way, we’ll find the seeker Nicodemus at the end of John’s Gospel preparing Jesus’ body for burial.  Evidently, God had turned the light on in his life.  He had become a follower of Jesus.  He had become a real insider … not a matter of heritage or upbringing, but birth from above.

We have here a play on words … for the Greek word pneuma can mean in the New Testament context “Spirit,” “spirit,” or “wind.”  How it gets translated depends on the context and in this section Jesus compares the work of the Holy Pneuma with the physical pneuma.  For the ancients, winds were a matter of mystery.  Today, we may better understand the meteorology of wind blowing from high pressure to low pressure areas.  But there remains elements of mystery … for example, it isn’t completely clear to me why the area in front of Sacred Heart hospital is almost always windy (and cold!).

Jesus  is using a comparison to paint a picture of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.  The new birth of spiritual life in Christ is not of understandable, earthly origin.  It is not ultimately about family of origin or social factors or a particular church ministry … however influential such forces are.  It is about God doing a powerful (and I would call it, miraculous) work in the life of a person so that they can receive Christ, believe in him, confess him, and follow him.

Jesus may also be hinting at what Lutherans embrace as one of most important Biblical paradoxes:  that God doesn’t force himself on people (we can reject the work of the Holy Spirit) and yet we can’t believe in Jesus without the Spirit giving us the gift of faith (“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– ” [Ephes. 2:8 (NIV)]) All of which is to say that if we are believers all the credit goes to God but if we aren’t, all the blame falls on us.  There is mystery in all this as to why the Spirit breaks through resistance in one person and connects them to Jesus and why others continue to live apart from God.  As Jesus puts it, “… the wind blows wherever it pleases.”

The implications of this for our own walk with Jesus and our desire to influence others are  significant.  We won’t always know in what circumstances that the Spirit is going to blow a fresh wind into our lives.  But we continue to go to his Word, participate in worship, read Christian authors, get away for solitude and prayer, etc., trusting that the Spirit will work when and how he pleases to give us new and deeper experiences of life in Jesus.  Further, we don’t give up on our efforts to influence others for Jesus despite weeks or even years of resistance.  For we don’t have a full grasp on what God is up to or when a spiritual breakthrough will occur.  Finally, we let God know how much we’re relying on him as we pray regularly that the unpredictable, uncontrollable Spirit would blow powerfully in and through us.

Pastor Mark

When I was a kid, on occasion we would throw snowballs at cars.  It was never my idea of course!   But nevertheless we found it fun to nail the side  or the top of the car of an unsuspecting motorist as they would drive down the street.   We would all toss snowballs from a distance at the same time in a scatter gun approach and watch to see who would have the timing right.   And as you might have already guessed, we did this at night.  In fact the point was to launch our bombs from a very dark corner so as to go completely undetected other than the sudden bang and smashing of snow.   Then, if the car would stop just disappear deeper into the darkness.   No one would ever consider doing this during the day.   It would be foolish and suicidal.  It wouldn’t take long at all for everyone to know who it was.  

I think that is kind of what Jesus is getting at here.   When people do bad things, they want to hide it.   So often the worst crimes and despicable deeds are done under the cover of darkness.   To do them during the day would risk being exposed as evildoers.   I find it interesting that so many of us start out being afraid of the dark, but when we mature, we are more likely to be afraid of the light.   Of course, Jesus’ point is on a much more spiritual level.

Spiritually speaking our natural tendency is to run away from his light,  because we know our sin, we know the mess we’ve made of things and don’t want to be exposed.    Sometimes when we see his light of truth it’s like the time one of those motorists came back with a flashlight looking for the brats that were chucking snowballs at his car.   We saw the light and took off running!   We run from God deeper into the darkness because we are afraid of his light.

But here’s the good news.   Jesus brings us not only the light of his truth, but also the light of his grace.  He wants to expose our despicable deeds and character so that we can be honest with ourselves and with him– so that through his love and forgiveness he can separate us from all of it.   He wants to offer us a new and better life in the light.

Don’t be afraid of the light.   Run to it instead of away from it and find life.

The Apostle John in recording this conversation employs a play on words.  The Greek word translated as “again” also means “from above.”  It is likely that Jesus means both here.  Nicodemus needs to be born “again” and this birth is “from above” … meaning that is accomplished by the power of God and not from any human source.      This is birth is “from above,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, because it accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In verses 5-6:  “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”  [John 3:5-6 (NIV)]   Now there are all sorts of scholarly discussions as to what Jesus meant by “water and the Spirit.”  Likely, he was foreshadowing Christian baptism, but that was something for the future.  What Nicodemus would have understood was the baptism of Jewish converts … Gentiles who would receive a ceremonial washing when they became believers in the God of Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures.  If this is what Jesus is referencing by “water and the Spirit”, then what he is telling Nicodemus is that just like those Gentiles who were outsiders to the Jewish faith, Nicodemus the ultimate insider also needs to be converted … if he is really going to know God, he has to come to know Jesus as his Savior.  This conversion goes beyond any washing with water; it must be accomplished by the Holy Spirit who would open Nicodemus eyes’ to the truth of Jesus.  The upshot is the insider isn’t as “inside” as he thought!  Is it any wonder that Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?”  He knew he was missing something in his faith, but surely he didn’t need to become a convert.  But that is exactly the “faith quake” that Jesus wants to bring about in his life.

 What about you? 

Pastor Mark