So what do you do when you need someone to help? You know, there's sometimes we realize there's things that we have to do or that we get to do that We just don't know anything about, you know, right now, especially we've shared this like as the church Like we're pretty hot in the middle of like the final pieces of the building process to getting that going before ground is broken And always tell people listen, I'll teach you how to do this in seminary And so I mean you call people right like you find somebody who knows what's going on There's people in this room like yes, just call me way too much to ask me questions about this We call people we call people because we know that there are folks that know more about things than we know about things We call them to get help we call them to get information and sometimes we call them just kind of get to the bottom of things Right, I've heard this is this the truth because we know this person has has the answer of these sorts of things Like we call folks to try to get the most truthful information about it We're not gonna call a person who is as clueless as we are are we we're gonna call the person who has information and that's what we're gonna talk about today We're in the middle of a series called good talk bro So people when Jesus has tough conversations with folks and we ask ourselves this question every Sunday as we're doing this Like what happens when we let Jesus get to the bottom of our mess and answer that is that he asks us to truly live So last week we talked about Jesus and the woman at the well from John chapter 4 and it's like when you don't know him And what we learned is that truth only has one maker in this week We're talking about when you hope you know him and what we're gonna really learn is that our can'ts or his starts But it's the story of someone who wants to know the truth and they go to Jesus to try to get that from him With the hope that he's the best one to know what's going on And so all these stories are about Jesus challenging people with idea of what could be but this one is a special especially a challenge towards that So it's open our Bibles up. You can also read it on the screens behind me or if you want to read on your phone and take notes You can do that in my foundry. Life, but this is a what scripture tells us from John 3 1 through 13 There's a man named Nicodemus a Jewish religious leader who's a Pharisee and after dark one evening He came to speak with Jesus Rabbi.
He said we all know that God has sent you to teach us your miraculous signs or evidence that God is with you Jesus replied I tell you the truth unless you were born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God What do you mean explain Nicodemus? How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again? Jesus replied I assure you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water in the spirit Humans can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth the spiritual life So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again The wind blows wherever it wants and just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it's going So you can't explain how people are born in the spirit How are these things possible Nicodemus asked in Jesus replied you're a respected Jewish teacher and yet you don't understand these things I assure you we tell you what we know and what we have seen but you won't believe our testimony If you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things How can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things no one has gone to heaven and returned but the son of man Has come down from heaven one of the things that this passage teaches that I really love so much is that Jesus always meets us in our Context you know he knows where we come from and he meets us right where we are he doesn't meet us in a way that can confuse us He wants to come to us and the easiest way for us to understand And in this sort of we see him interact with Nicodemus for exactly who Nicodemus is says that first the first way he meets us In our context is he comes to our context This was with Nicodemus he met him at night now I've heard this story before a lot and what you kind of hear who here's heard the story before okay Well, he typically hears oh, you know he came to Jesus. He was trying to hide he didn't want anybody to know he was talking to Jesus So not can see that that's there, but if we read inside of this he every question he asked Jesus He's using the word we he's using a plural pronoun We know that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but he was also a member of the Sanhedrin This was a ruling group of 70 Jewish leaders who were pretty much in charge of all of Jewish law They had like a special status as lawmakers and like decision makers with the Roman government They were very very powerful people.
He's saying we he's in weeds. I'm like okay. You're a representative of this group of people So it's not like you're not doing this in secret. Not like you're trying to have people not know you're doing this It might have been a Sanhedrin me.
It's okay find out about this Jesus guy. He's in town right now Who wants to go talk to him Nicodemus raises his hand it might have been like that, but he's using this kind of plural pronoun here But also says he comes to him at night That's kind of weird but if we look at first-century Judaism and the way these these people work They believe it was more appropriate to study scripture and to talk about the things of scripture in the evening and laid into the night And so it's kind of a natural way He addresses Jesus as teachers so he puts Jesus on the same playing field as himself And he comes to him at night at the time it was appropriate to be having these discussions So Jesus is challenging him to things at the time where Nicodemus was typically used to being challenged and asked to grow She just also meets us in our context and the way that we respond to the world That says Nicodemus is a Pharisee 99% of the time when we read scripture and the interactions of Jesus with the Pharisee is not a very good reaction In many ways you can say the Pharisees are like the primary antagonists of the gospel story But the Pharisees this is something that Jewish men would decide to do they weren't priests They weren't born into this but to be a Pharisee meant they had to take a lifelong pledge and part of this was in saying You know I'm going to obey all of these laws completely and fully I'm willfully choosing to live in a world with just black and white No gray area Like I'm you don't get into this and ask questions and try to change things Like I am willingly stepping into a life that is stringent because I believe that is the best way for me And that's the way that I encountered God and so we're used to these guys being being bad But we see Jesus engaging him for who he is who's a Pharisee who chosen that life and he was a very black and white person I know there's folks in this room that are very black and white people I know there's people in this room that are very I like a lot of gray space in my life people We're all across the board Nicodemus was one of these guys that he just chosen to have a very black and white queen cut definition of things But Jesus also meets in our context and how the kingdom of God is different now all the year long We've been just doing gospel passages and we keep hearing this kingdom of God thing pop up and we're not gonna It's that's too long of a rabbit for us to chase today We're actually gonna take several Sundays this summer to just talk about that idea of the kingdom of God But Jesus he comes and he tells us how God's world is different. That's how he engages us This is what you're used to in the world But this is how God's world is different the last way that Jesus engages us in our context is that he helps us understand How we need to shift and respond to the kingdom how we need to change and where we need to change to respond to our awareness of God's world Being around us this Nicodemus story is just fantastic way to see how Jesus invites us in to new things This whole thing is a whole passage of conversation about possibilities now the kind of rub though the tension point that we find in the story Is this it's that Jesus asks us to stretch so what happens when Jesus asks us to stretch? Cratching is all about faithfulness, you know we in context Nicodemus was a Pharisee You know he Nicodemus is looking for a Messiah that is all about a law following now We can look at that and say well you got that wrong Nicodemus I know better than you we can kind of look at him like your typical Pharisee, but he's not being cast not alive here He's looking for a very straightforward Law abiding Messiah and the issue is that's a very flat.
That's a very one note idea of what a Messiah would look like And that's really this point that Jesus is challenging Nicodemus on he's like hey you're believing you've got something that you're used to But this is much much much bigger than that and let's look at how Jesus challenges him This is what we're gonna really talk about today. So we got a slide here with verse three and four that we read earlier This is from the new wedding translation. This is I typically use this on 95% of Sunday mornings This is the translation I read out of a lot But this is what it says and let's look at those words in a while and let's think about that We're used to that term born again like when you talk about church in Christianity We're used to that term born again, and this is where it comes from so Jesus replied I tell you the truth unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God And this is verse four what do you mean it's going Nicodemus? How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?
But this is this is from the new revised standard This is that I like using new living because it's really easy to read and it's accurate New revised standard is really accurate, but it's not so easy to read like they want to be as literal as they can be and still be easy to read And this is the exact same thing that new revised standard says same verses Jesus answer can very truly I tell of you No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above Nicodemus said to him How can anyone be born after having grown old can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born? This is really that what's going on with these two and we're used as born again language I mean majority of translations that we're reading have that born again. It's not say it's not right But Jesus inviting Nicodemus into something significantly deeper and if we look at the word that Jesus is using here This is the only time in the entire New Testament ever translated as again like this word means that this is something from above That this signifies a new beginning This is this signifies a transition in life And if we look into the Old Testament the way that this word is used into the Greek Old Testament, it's really really different The only here story about how I was got fired from a job one time about the Greek Old Testament. That's not interesting.
Okay, so I used to sell Bibles for a living I was really funny was I worked at liquor store before I sold Bibles for a living and I had some the same customers But that's another story But but so this is it this is the Septuagint right here. I've got one This so the Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Old Testament and it was made about a hundred years before Jesus was born So about about a hundred BC and so when I sold Bibles every now we have somebody come in and they would want a very specific Bible But they'd always have some cute or funny way to ask for it They come in and say I want the Bible the Apostle Paul read or I want the Bible that Jesus read and what that typically meant Was they wanted a black King James Bible with the words or Jesus in red and it had to say holy Bible on the front of it They're always nice people. They're always being cute. It was just kind of funny They had their joke and we had our jokes back Well, I had special word except to it for somebody one time and it was underneath the counter I called them I was expecting them to come in that day and another customer walked in and said Gave me that their typical funny line and I thought this person was joking like I typically was joking with them And I said, oh, yeah, here's one right here and I plopped that set to it down I said, well, the Bible Jesus read it right there and they didn't find it nearly as funny as I did They thought I was making fun of them and I was younger and more arrogant and whatnot But if we look in Jesus Jesus was too poor to have a book most likely he was a day laborer That was his job for 30 years Paul probably had one of these But if we look in the Bible that was right back then and every single instance This is why this whole rabbit trail matters and every single instance where this word again comes up is talking specifically about God in heaven Interacting with people on earth and the only time it deviates from that is when it's used to describe how God told Moses to build The tabernacle and specifically to build the ark of the covenant and he was speaking about the things that exist on the top of these structures Where they are to believe represents God's presence living among them So this is always in scripture every single place This is talking about God coming from heaven to interact with people in a life-changing way that signifies new things happening The word that Nicodemus use is the same version of the word that you will use later on today when you ask for seconds when you go to lunch I get literally means the next thing Nicodemus was living in a vision of God's world.
It was just horizontal It was one note that had one dimension to it what Jesus was inviting him to was a world to where our rebirth to the spirit has horizontal Implications that God wants to engage with us in the place where we are right now Right where Nicodemus was that very black and white type of life that one note Messiah But he also is inviting us to engage in a very vertical life-changing way of God coming to meet with us in leading us to this new place And Jesus is talking about God's world because he's not this is flat Messiah Nicodemus is one thing is real and one thing is impossible and Jesus is saying well This one thing is absolutely real and this one thing is absolutely possible as well It to be born of this earth is to be born Into a place where we can control things and we can observe things. So Nicodemus is saying like I want to control this I want to observe this. I hope I know who you are so just please let me know that you fit into this Idea that I have in my mind, but living in the spirit and Jesus talks about the wind and how we know it's there But we can't control it we can't see it We know how it's ever present and shaping and shifting things around us that living in the spirit is by us knowing who's in charge But it's also knowing that we don't have the ability to observe it necessarily and we absolutely don't have the ability to control it That we can only see and experience the kingdom of God and Experience that combines both of both this horizontal relationship with him, but also a vertical relationship When we know he's meeting with us right where we are but as he is meeting us right where we are He's also inviting us to a place that we cannot see or necessarily understand right now But he wants to bring us there stretching is all about faithfulness The last thing that we see in the story for us to talk about today is this is that Jesus invites us to more than we can handle Now, we're not used to that are we a lot of times. We'll say you know God's not gonna give you more than you can handle well It's not scripture What's in scripture is faithfulness being exercised out in God saying hey, let's let me let you take you to the next place Because that's what Nicodemus is having happen with Jesus right now So hey, let me take you to the next place.
I love I feel bad for him in verse 10 And he says you're a respected Jewish teacher and yet you don't understand these things Like he's knocking Nicodemus is under things pretty much saying like man like this should be easy to you Like you're one of the top guys in the land You should know why and how all these things are happening, but you don't if you don't understand this These are all earthly things you're seeing right now these these signs that I'm doing these are earthly things How can I expect you see heavenly things if you're struggling with this? That's what faithfulness is faithfulness is us trusting God when we realize we're being invited to something that we can't handle just yet And we're able to take that step forward because we realize how many times in the past he's done the exact same thing for us But he's always come through he's always equipped us to go into that next task He's always equipped us to go into that next place He's all what how we handle these things that we can't handle just yet is knowing that we have always come through the past and come out On top of us That's what Jesus is inviting Nicodemus into right now Nicodemus came to Jesus to ask this question Who are you I need you to confirm who we think you are we think you are the Messiah because nobody else could do all these things Who are you he's asking that what Jesus is saying is this is the truth of who I am I'm a lot bigger than you were expecting, but I'm a lot bigger because I need to be a lot bigger This tension is the stretching its belief its faithfulness to believe is to trust and to let go Because here's the thing we think about this if we are able to fulfill a vision that we think God has given us We're able to fulfill that without God's help that vision was probably not from God in the first place was it? But what he tells us can ask us to do things that we believe are absolutely impossible We were able to do that because we are with him because we have him with us because we have his help and everything I promise what Nicodemus wanted was a Messiah that was him with God and what Jesus is saying is no I'm Messiah that is God with you Do you see the difference there? God with us means we can understand and explain and observe and control God with us means we know we can't do anything and our only job is faithfulness and being alongside of him for this So many of us live in a Nicodemus stage for too long Sometimes we never get out of a Nicodemus stage that Nicodemus stage is we're gonna trust God as far as we can see him As far as we can observe and we can explain what's going on Jesus invites us to step out of that Nicodemus stage and to come into a world We know hey, I'm not gonna understand this but I'm gonna trust you This might not make sense to me right now, and I'm all right with that I realize that you're a Messiah that I cannot understand and I cannot explain but you're gonna Invite me to come alongside of you and to see those things Are we looking for Jesus to simply confirm what we already know or we already think?
Are we allowing Jesus to come and to transform into renew our minds Romans 12 to says this Do not be conformed to this world But be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect You know conform to our world doesn't necessarily mean bad things are happening. That just means hey I can understand this I feel safe right now Allowing our minds to be renewed and transformed by Jesus as I saying I'm all right with things. I don't understand just yet And so this sort of Nicodemus is kind of kind of flattens We don't find out what happened to Nicodemus in this chapter But what we do find out later on is in a later chapter the Sanhedrin is trying to make a decision of what to do with Jesus because they've realized He's dangerous. He's not there one note Absolute law abiding Messiah that they can observe and control and we find Nicodemus standing up for Jesus in that meeting and further along in the story of Jesus Since Nicodemus was in the Sanhedrin, we can imagine that Jesus was there the night that Jesus was judged Nicodemus was there the Sanhedrin was one of those bodies who made that decision Then we find out that after Jesus is death that Nicodemus alongside another man of Joseph's air methia took care of Jesus's body When he died and Joseph provided the tomb and Nicodemus provided a hundred pounds of embalming spices That was the amount of embalming spices that were typical to use for a king when a king was buried And so we see that Nicodemus allowed his mind to be stretched Nicodemus began to understand that where he used to say you can't do this He now says you can absolutely do this in many other things Nicodemus was stretched in the conversation the Jesus wants to have with us right now It's just simply asking us are you willing to be stretched?
Let's pray together Lord We thank you for stretching us God. We thank you for being patient with us when we want things to be one note and simple Lord for the ways that you say I've got this and I've got this beyond your wildest understanding And so God is we're praying right now is about to sing again Lord I pray for your Holy Spirit to come down upon us God and to stretch us God. We're all here in the same place at this room at the same time There's about about 9500 people in here God I know that we have about 9500 different contexts and that you're big enough to come and engage with each one of us as individuals The creator of the universe coming to us and able to do this So God we open ourselves up to you until you're stretching into all that you ask of us. Thank you so much.
It's your name. We pray