The One Imperative Life

February 28, 1999

Last week we began Lent with Matthew's story of Jesus facing temptation in the wilderness. The lesson from that story: THERE IS NO SHORT CUT TO INTEGRITY.

Today we begin a four-week visit in John's Gospel, for four Lenten lessons. John was very selective in writing his story of Jesus. He chose seven discourses, seven miracles, and seven "I AM" statements Jesus made about himself. He had a SINGLE purpose in his selectivity (20:30-31): 'Jesus did many other things beside what is written here, but these were selected and written down "that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name."'

John is interested in one question: DO YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE?

THE ONE IMPERATIVE: LIFE!

John 3:3, 5, 7 "... You must be born again"

I. NICODEMUS VERY EVIDENTLY WAS INTERESTED IN THIS QUESTION.

The conversation between Jesus and this scholarly Pharisee is the first of the seven discourses recorded in the Gospel.

Nicodemus addressed Jesus as a teacher. He was looking for learned discourse, looking for a lesson. Jesus is a teacher. [We can learn the language of salvation; the so-called 'life-style.'] But salvation is not LEARNED.

(Later another intelligent, respectful (Rich Young Ruler) came to Jesus, and asked, "What must I DO to be saved?" Jesus said, "Empty your hands. There isn't anything you can DO! Come follow Me!" Salvation is not EARNED.)

Jesus told Nicodemus: "This is mysterious stuff! The wind blows where it will, and you see its effects. The Holy Spirit is like that! He is blowing right now if you will stop and look and listen! YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!" Nicodemus was mystified! This seemed like non-sense! What is this Rabbi talking about?

II. SALVATION IS A RESPONSE TO GRACE

1. A response TO GRACE : Jesus gave the Pharisee a quick challenge to faith: "Do you remember that story about how our ancestors in the wilderness were bitten by snakes?" Jesus said.

   "Of course," answered the scholar. "Every schoolboy knows that story."

   "You remember how they sinned, and as punishment they were being killed by poisonous snakes? Do you remember how they were kept from dying when they were bitten?"

   "Yes."

   "Well, just as Moses put a brass serpent on a pole and lifted it high so it could be seen by those who were dying, God the Father is lifting up his Son in love high above the earth, on a Cross, and whoever LOOKS in faith will live forever!"

   SALVATION IS NOT ABOUT 'DOING'; IT IS HAVING SOMETHING DONE. Jesus has paid the penalty for sin, your sins, and my sins, and the sins of the whole world on the cross. But we are still dead and dying in our sins unless and until we look to the cross.

   We can't simply hear a lesson and learn how to live. We are not called by God to be "better" men and women. We are cursed by sin, and God is calling us to be "different" with a different center; TO BE 'BORN AGAIN.'

2. SALVATION IS A RESPONSE TO GRACE. A RESPONSE :THE INITIATIVE IS GOD'S

   When we talk of eternal life the story of Abraham always comes up. Abraham responded to God's clear call. "Where You lead is where I am going." Until God called, Abraham wasn't going anywhere. When he responded, God made covenant with him, and he was justified by faith. Until God calls you and me, we are without hope and without life. Until we respond we are still lost.

3. GOD IS CALLING!

   But the wonder is GOD DOES CALL! God's Spirit still does come where we are and say: "Will you quit this way of living and come, follow Me?" Abraham said, "You lead, and I'll follow!" Do you dare pray a prayer like that? Have you been challenged in your inner spirit that God wants YOU?

   God wants to lead you into a covenant relationship with HIM! He wants to forgive your sins. He wants to give you a new kind of life, real LIFE, that you can share with HIM. He wants to adopt you into His family, for ever and ever. He wants to make you like Himself! All this simply because he loves you. The price is already paid. All you need to do is LOOK and LIVE!!

III. WHY IS SOMETHING SO SIMPLE SO VERY DIFFICULT TO SEE??

1. One reason is OUR HANDS ARE ALREADY FULL. We are talking when we need to be listening. We are too busy being "good" and working our own salvation: A story both Henri Nouwen and Barbara Brown Taylor have used goes like this:

   Once upon a time, there was a woman who set out to discover the meaning of life. She read everything she could get her hands on history, philosophy, psychology, religion. She became a very smart person, but nothing she read gave her the answer she was looking for. She sought out other smart people and asked them about the meaning of life. They had long and lively discussions, but she was never satisfied.

   At last she took a leave of absence, closed her house, and set off in search of the meaning of life. She went around the world. She went to India. She went to South America. She heard about a man who knew the meaning of life, and asked about him everywhere she went. Finally, someone told here where he lived on a mountain, in a tiny little hut just below the eternal snows.

   She climbed and climbed to reach his front door. When she finally got there, with knuckles so cold they hardly worked, she knocked.

   "Yes?" said the kind looking old man who opened it. She thought she would die of happiness.

   "I have come halfway around the world to ask you one question," she said, gasping for breath.

   "What is the meaning of life?"

   "Please come in and have some tea," the old man said.

   "No," she said. "I mean, no thank you. I didn't come all this way for tea. I came for an answer. Won't you tell me, please, what is the meaning of life?"

   "We shall have tea," the old man insisted, so she gave up and came inside. While he was brewing the tea she caught her breath and began telling him about all the books she had read, all the people she had met, all the places she had been. The old man listened (which was just as well, since he couldn't get a word in edgewise), and as she talked he placed a fragile tea cup in her hand. Then he began to pour the tea.

   She was so busy talking that she didn't notice when the tea cup was full. So the old man just kept pouring until the tea ran over the sides of the cup and spilled to the floor in a steaming waterfall.

   "What are you doing? !" she yelled when the tea burned her hand.

   "It's full, can't you see that? Stop! There's no more room!"

   "Just exactly so," the old man said to her. "You come here wanting something from me, but what am I to do? There is no more room in your cup. Come back when it is empty and then we will talk." (Barbara Brown Taylor, "Stay for Tea, Nicodemus" Christian Century, Feb 21, 1996)

   (WHY IS SOMETHING SO SIMPLE SO VERY DIFFICULT TO SEE??)

2. Another reason WE TAKE HOLY THINGS FOR GRANTED. It may be that we have heard so much about God's unconditional love that we have confused it with UNIVERSAL SALVATION. If there is nothing we can DO to be saved, then we take it that we will be saved without even genuinely responding to God's grace. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS NOT THE SAME AS UNIVERSAL SALVATION. Unconditional love is NOT the same as universal salvation!

   God loves you. He loves me. He loves us just as we are, warts and all. He loves the worst sinner. But the most effective lie from the pit of hell that is loose in the churches today is the old Antinomian heresy of a false confidence in a kind of love that is not holy, and does not come from a holy God.

IV. THE QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE?

DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE RIGHT WITH GOD?

NO QUESTION WE CAN ASK IS MORE PROFOUNDLY IMPORTANT

Do you know that you have passed from spiritual death into this life in Christ Jesus told Nicodemus about? Are you SAVED? This is not a question about which we can afford to be casual.

People who spend great pains preparing for their children's future, and who invest time and fortune getting ready for retirement can be very careless about what it means to be ready for an eternity with a holy God. As surely as there is a heaven of joy and reunions and eternal feasting awaiting those who simply look in faith to the Cross of Christ, there is a hell of eternal emptiness and isolation in the darkness away from God's face for those who refuse the free gift of God's grace.

[[Jude, the Lord's brother, wrote about pretenders at the church's love feasts, big as life, sitting there eating without the slightest qualm, but he says (in vs 12,13) "they are twice dead– wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame- wandering star, for whom blackest darkness is reserved forever." In Peter's epistle Peter echoes this reality, saying "blackest darkness is reserved for them."]]

THAT NIGHT LONG AGO NICODEMUS HEARD THE GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL When he had heard, the response was up to him. Would he look to the Son of God and be saved? Or would he go on in darkness?

Sooner or later that same question comes to every one of us.

HOW DO WE KNOW? When we are saved, there is new LIFE! (Regeneration) and our SINS are all FORGIVEN (Justification) and we are welcomed into God's FAMILY (Adoption) and begin to be made LIKE JESUS (Sanctification.)

But how do we know?

HAVE YOU SAID "YES!" TO GOD'S CALL? ARE YOU EVEN NOW SAYING "YES, LORD!" THAT'S how we know!

Prayer

461 Open My Eyes, That I May See