Nic @ Night 4: Talking about “New Birth”

This Sunday I have the honor of preaching a message on one of the most significant truths and experiences in all the universe: God’s supernatural work of New Birth in the human heart. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again/from above” (John 3:3).

How do you talk about something that is necessary to experience firsthand?  It’s like describing a Mozart piece instead of listening to it.  It’s like talking about a Rembrandt painting rather than looking at it. It’s like trying to describe love to someone who’s never been in love.

These sermons drive a preacher to his knees, and bring him to the end of himself. I can only invite people to follow Nicodemus into that face-t0-face, personal encounter with Jesus, and pray that the Holy Spirit will come among us and open people’s eyes and transform hearts.  Come Holy Spirit!

Here’s a good quote from Gary Burge’s commentary on The Gospel of John:

“Religion is not necessarily a matter of personal knowledge or ethical behavior. Nor is it fidelity to religious traditions, no matter how virtuously they evoke higher ethical, religious behavior among us. Jesus is claiming that true spirituality is not discovering some latent capacity within the human soul and fanning it to flame. It is not uncovering a moral consciousness that is hidden by sedimentary layers of civilization’s corruptions. It is not a “horizontal” experience that takes up the materials available around us in the world.

Rather, Jesus claims, true religion is “vertical.” It has to do not with the human spirit, but with God’s Spirit. It is a foreign invasion, sabotage of the first order. True religion unites humanity with God’s powerful Spirit, who overwhelms, transforms, and converts (in the full meaning of the word) its subject. Our role in this transformation is belief(3:16,18), and yet is is a belief that is aided by God’s work within us since we live in the darkness and have our spiritual capacities handicapped with sin” (Gary Burge, Gospel of John: New Application Commentary, 126).

Come Holy Spirit!  Invade our presence, and sabotage our hearts! Blow mightily among us at MainStreet this Sunday and every day!

Christ Encounter #5: Jesus and Family (Mark 3:20ff)

20 One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. 21 When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said. 22 But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said, “He’s possessed by Satan, the prince of demons. That’s where he gets the power to cast out demons.” 31 …Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them. 32 There was a crowd sitting around Jesus, and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” 33 Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers.” 34 Then he looked at those around him and said,“Look, these are my mother and brothers. 35 Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:20-21, 31-35)

I. INITIAL QUESTIONS & OBSERVATIONS

1. What does Jesus’ family think he is out of his mind?  Is this a compliment?  What about the religious leaders?  Why do they think he has a demon?  Is this a compliment?

2. Why do we learn about Jesus’ family in this text?  Why does it not mention Jesus’ father?

3. Why did they stand outside and send someone to tell him to come out?  Why didn’t they just go themselves?

4. What point is Jesus making by his question: “Who is my mother?  Who are my brothers?”

5. What do we know about Jewish family values in the time of Jesus?

6. Is Jesus being disrespectful to his mother and brothers here?  Is Jesus being anti-family here?

7. What is the main point Jesus is trying to make in this encounter?

II. EXEGESIS & INTERPRETATION

Many may be surprised when they come upon this often overlooked Christ Encounter that our Savior and Lord, Jesus himself, was labeled a loony, considered “out of his mind” by his own mother and brothers, and mistaken for a demon-possessed nutcase.  I have never heard this passage emphasized on an episode of Focus on the Family and youth pastors are probably wise to just avoid this teaching of Jesus — lest parents draw the wrong conclusion that we are somehow downplaying the significance of family.

We can be “good Christians”, read our Bibles, go to church on Sundays and say a prayer before our meals without letting our faith challenge our core allegiances in life.  But if we want to move beyond safe, comfortable, domesticated “churchianity” and become a true, sold-out, radical Jesus followers, then we need to wrestle with “allegiance-passages” like this.

You can profess to be a Jesus-follower with your lips but your true allegiances are revealed by the way you live and order your life. For example, if you claim God as your provider but lose faith when you lose your job, then Money or financial stability may be your true God.  If you claim Jesus is your Lord but trust your own insight in making all the big decisions of life without prayer or God, then you may be the true Lord of your life.  If you claim Jesus as your as your King and call yourself a citizen of the Kingdom of God but invest most of your time and energy debating the worldly politics of the American Right and Left then your primary allegiance may in fact be to the American flag rather than the Kingdom of Christ.  Religious people talk politely of private beliefs, while Kingdom-centered Jesus followers talk of new allegiances.

So, we at last come to Jesus’ encounter with his well-intentioned, but misguided mother and brothers.  

Christ Encounter #4: Who am I Really? (Mark 8:27-38)

This I am leading a Bible Study series with our high school students called Christ Encounters. Please join us for this series of studies in some of the most well-known encounters with Christ in the Gospels.  Each study will provide (1) initial observations/questions, (2) interpretation & exegesis, and (3) practical life application questions.

27Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am” 28They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”29″But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” 30Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:27-38)

I. Observations & Questions

1. Why do some people think Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets of old?  What would lead them to think this?

2. Why does Jesus warn them not to tell anyone that he is indeed the messiah?

3. Why does Jesus immediately begin talking about his future suffering and death after Peter’s confession of Jesus’ true identity as Messiah?

4. Why does Jesus rebuke Peter so harshly saying, “Get behind me, Satan”?

5. What does it mean to deny oneself and “take up their cross”?  How would that have sounded to Jesus’ disciples?

6. What does Jesus mean when he says those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life will save it?

7. What does Jesus mean by “gain the whole world”?  What does he mean by “lose one’s own soul”?

8. What does Jesus mean by being ashamed of him?  What does he mean by this sharp warning?

II. Exegesis & Interpretation

Everything in the New Testament hinges on the question of Jesus’ true identity.  The teachers, officials and ordinary folk of Jesus’ day faced the same question critical scholars, skeptics and church-goers do today: Who is this Jesus?  Is he merely a wise teacher?  Is he one miracle worker among many others?  Is he a religious zealot?  A religious blasphemer and heretic?  Is he a social menace and an enemy of the state?  Is he just another prophet in the long line of other OT figures?  Is he a fraud?  Or is he the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and divine Son of the living God?

So, as we join the disciples and Jesus on the road to Caesarea Philippi we too are confronted with the same bold question: Who do people say that I am?  Who do YOU say that I am?  

Christ Encounter #3: Kingdom Greatness Defined (Mark 10:35-45)

Please join us for this 7-part summer series of studies in some of the most well-known encounters with Christ in the Gospels. Each study will provide (1) initial Observations & Questions from the text, (2) followed by some Exegesis & Interpretation, (3) concluding with some personal Application questions and considerations.

SCRIPTURE: Mark 10:35-45

Christ Encounter #2: Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-22)

Please join us for this 7-part summer series of studies in some of the most well-known encounters with Christ in the Gospels. Each study will provide (1) initial Observations & Questions from the text, (2) followed by some Exegesis & Interpretation, (3) concluding with some personal Application questions and considerations.

SCRIPTURE: Matt 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-30

Christ Encounter #1: Nicodemus

This summer I am leading a Bible Study series with our high school students called Christ Encounters. Please join us for this series of studies in some of the most well-known encounters with Christ in the Gospels.  Each study will provide (1) initial Observations/Questions from the text, (2) followed by some exegetical Interpretation, (3) concluding with some personal Application questions and considerations. We begin with the late night tale of our old friend Nicodemus.