Lent: The Difference in Religion and Gospel

Well, good morning.

We're in our fourth Sunday in the season of Lent.

So we're three weeks from Good Friday and from Easter.

Our text this morning is John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

We're going to look at the entire chapters.

This is a conversation between Jesus and this man named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was a religious man.

He was probably well educated, probably well off.

And Nicodemus, he would have been praying his prayers.

He would have showed up at church.

He would have been at the 9:15 service and the 11 a.m.

service.

He would have ran five church committees.

This guy, this guy could get it done.

And yet, yet, his way of life was no longer working.

He was learning what so many of us have learned that a performance-oriented life will eventually bring you to the end of yourself.

We just need something more.

When I was 12 years old, I attended my first overnight church retreat.

There was about a hundred middle school and high school students from Burtmar United Methodist Church, and we went to the Cottages Christian Retreat Center in Panama City Beach.

Here's some pictures of the cottages.

This was everything I could have ever wanted as a 12-year-old.

There was a volleyball court, there's a full court basketball court, there's a concession stand, there was a pool.

It was a I think they talked about Jesus.

I honestly don't remember.

Have no idea about that part of things.

I loved it.

And I was so jacked up the entire week, I barely slept at all.

And at the end of the week, my parents came and picked me up, and we spent a couple nights in a condo just down the beach.

When we got to the condo, it was late afternoon, and I was so tired that I said, I'm gonna go take a nap.

And so I went into the bedroom and laid down to take my nap.

And I woke up the next morning.

I walked down to the beach where my family was, and about after 30 minutes, I was like, I'm tired, I'm gonna go back up.

And just so I went back up and I slept from that morning till dinner time, and I woke up and had dinner, and then after dinner, I went back to sleep and slept all night till the next morning.

And I was not sick.

Okay, like there was nothing wrong with me.

I wasn't sick, I was just exhausted.

I could I couldn't catch up with my exhaustion.

And life can feel like that pretty easily.

We can get exhausted in all sorts of ways.

Maybe you're here and you can't catch up with your exhaustion, a physical exhaustion, maybe emotional, maybe spiritual, maybe because of work or friends or family or romance or school, and a deep weariness can just exist inside of us like you just can't catch up.

Nicodemus had a spiritual exhaustion.

He was very plenty religious, and yet, and yet it's the middle of the night, and he's going and seeking out this Jesus because it's not working for him.

John 3, verse 2.

John 3:2

This man came to Jesus, so this Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher that comes from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

And Jesus answered him, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So Nicodemus has his act altogether on the outside, yet it's the middle of the night, and he's coming and he's confessing just in this showing up.

Like, hey, I need some help.

My way of life's not working.

And Jesus says, Well, you need to be born again, which if you've been around Christian faith for a while, you're going like, yeah, I know that phrase.

This would have been new to Nicodemus.

This idea that you're physically born, but then you need a rebirth.

The inside of you, your soul needs to be born, a new self.

And so Nicodemus has lots of questions to this new thought.

How can this be?

How can it happen?

What is this life that you're talking about?

Point number one is this we are born, and then by God's grace we are born again.

We are born physically, and then we are born spiritually.

Verse 6, Jesus explains this very poetically.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

So Jesus is saying God's spirit grants us life in our spirit.

That it's a gift.

Now, for years I had no idea of the implications of this sort of grace into my daily life.

I was too busy living, trying to be accepted by God rather than living out of the acceptance I already had in Jesus.

Which meant that I felt condemnation regularly, much more than love, right?

I knew I was in the dance by God's grace, but I better dance really hard and really well and run really fast as a Christian in order to stay in the dance.

So I was functionally Nicodemus.

And I was exhausted.

I had not learned that there was a world of difference, a world of difference between religion and being committed and walking in the grace of Jesus for my salvation and for my Christian walk.

Let's jump to John 3, verse 14.

John 3:14

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Point number two is this Christian faith is not working toward, but looking upon.

Jesus tells Nicodemus this weird story from Numbers chapter 21.

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

This is what's referenced in verse 14.

The Israelites are attacked by poisonous serpents, and this strange story plays out, and Moses makes a bronze image of this serpent, puts it up on a pole, and Moses says, Hey, if you want to be healed, just look upon that bronze serpent.

All you had to do was look.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Kroger to get three cans of pumpkin.

My dog likes pumpkin.

So I needed three cans.

The only thing I needed, just going in, not one single mission.

And so I walk in and I walk straight to the canned vegetable aisle, and I stand in front of that, and it's a lot.

There's a lot of canned vegetables.

It starts at one end and it goes all the way down and it's from the bottom to the top, and I don't know where it's at, so I figure, you know what, we'll just start at one end, we'll scan our way down, and eventually I hit it.

So that's what I do.

And I just slowly walk methodically and I scan all the way down.

Nothing.

I feel a little anger building, just a little bit.

And I think, I missed it, I'll start over.

So I go again and slower, more methodical, all the way down.

Nothing.

Now I'm angry.

I'm angry at Kroger because they have not placed it where I can see it.

It's certainly their fault, not my fault.

And I think to myself, perhaps this aisle is organized in some way that I'm not aware of.

And so maybe pumpkin is near something else that could be like it, and I find the yams.

And I think to myself, a yam feels like a pumpkin.

And so I stay in that area and really, really, really scan this area for the canned pumpkin.

Nothing.

And I am now furious that I can't find this.

I'm really upset.

And I'm about to leave.

I'm really gonna show it to Kroger.

I'm really, you know, really, I'm gonna leave and not buy these three cans.

Their stock is gonna plummet.

I'm really gonna, I'm really gonna give it to them.

I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna leave.

I'm gonna really give it to Kroger.

And just then a Kroger employee walks down the aisle, which is a miracle in Kroger.

It's a real, this is a real God story, guys.

And so I go up to her and I say, I'm so sorry, and I'm trying, all the anger, just like having to hold it back.

I'm so sorry.

Do you know where the canned pumpkin is?

Well, do you know where the canned pumpkin is?

It's the baking aisle.

Son of a gun.

One aisle over.

The canned pumpkin is on the baking aisle.

I'm such a moron, I would have stayed on that canned vegetable aisle.

Scanning, walking up and down.

I would have been there for days.

I do have a point.

Seems like a stretch at this point, but it's the point is about like looking in the wrong place and never finding.

You'll just never find it here.

Nicodemus was never going to find eternal life, salvation, secure identity in religion.

He could look all day.

And I had to get to the end of my rope before I discovered there is help for me.

Even in Kroger.

Here's the great quote: Priest and author John Zoll says this God's office is not at the top of the ladder.

God's office is at the end of your rope.

It's because there we're finally ready to receive, rather than try to merit or work.

John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Now that phrase, whoever believes, if you're wondering if that could be you, A.

W.

Pink, a theologian, says this about this verse, this phrase, whoever believes.

He, Jesus, does not define the method or the manner of coming.

And even if the poor sinner comes groping, stumbling, falling, yet if only he will come, there is a warm welcome for him.

So it is in our text.

It is whoever so believeth.

Nothing is said about the strength or the intelligence of the belief.

For it is not the character or degree of faith that saves, but Christ Himself.

Faith is simply the eye of the soul that looks off unto Lord Jesus.

Do not rest then on your faith, but on the Savior Himself.

This is a beautiful calling not to have faith in our own faith, but to have faith in Jesus.

And to look unto him, not just continue to look at our own religious self.

Verse 16, the word life is the Greek word Zoe, meaning life now and the afterlife, eternal life.

And it's not life that makes you up, like your work and your family and your friends, and that life makes you up.

This is like a life that makes, it makes you.

It's not components of your life.

It actually animates you.

I read it put this way it's your state as you become vital and whole and animated by God through God's Spirit because of God's Son.

Verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Point three is this Zoe, life is the gift of your beloved identity where there is never condemnation.

Condemnation comes from the word crisis, meaning judgment or damnation.

So this certainly speaks of eternal life, where we will spend it, in forever acceptance of heaven, or a judgment or damnation.

And then this word also comes from our word crisis.

It's where we get our word crisis.

Maybe you know a crisis of the heart.

When you hear messages like, of course you messed up again.

You are a mess up.

You will never really be anything.

If you're not enough, you'll never get it together.

And our passage sets the God of love against all the crisis of our heart.

So you may feel ashamed, you may feel condemned, but in Jesus, this is never from God.

He loves every person, even while that person may not love him.

And the person who does not love him and does not receive his love, their life actually creates judgment upon themselves.

This is where the text takes us.

Verse 19.

And this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Point number four is this not believing Christ is enough is the darkness.

Darkness is always unbelief that Jesus is enough for me.

The context here for Nicodemus is the darkness of human pride and works righteousness.

And then verse 20 broadens that subject out to all wicked things.

Then the text says, people who pleasure in the wicked, they hate the light, and they will be judged.

And Jesus is urging people, turn.

Turn, turn from that darkness.

That there is a warm welcome waiting for everyone in Jesus.

Verse 21, final verse for us.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

So we're saved by grace, and then there are implications of that grace in our lives.

God calls us to disciplines of grace and spiritual practices and to service.

We could say it this way: your service or spiritual practices are not for a new self.

Your service and spiritual practices is because of a new self.

One way leads to exhaustion, the other way comes from a fulfillment that comes from Jesus.

I mean, we wouldn't even have a church, right, without your service.

Service is needed, but where does it come from?

Now, what does all this mean?

Well, in the book Gospel and Life, Tim Keller has an amazing comparison between religion and gospel.

We've looked at this before.

There's nine differences between religion and gospel.

And this religion and gospel, we could also say it's the way of Nicodemus and it's the way of Jesus.

I'm going to read a few of these to close us.

And I don't want to just read them.

My prayer is that they would read us, that they would read you, that you'd have an open heart before these descriptions of religion and gospel.

Religion says, I obey, therefore I am accepted.

Gospel says, I am accepted, therefore I obey.

Religion says motivation is based on fear and insecurity.

Gospel says motivation is based on grateful joy.

Religion says, I obey God in order to get things from God.

Gospel says I obey God to get to God, to delight and resemble Him.

Religion says my prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in time of need.

My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment.

Gospel says, my prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration.

My main purpose is fellowship with Him.

Religion says, my self-view swings between two poles.

If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people.

If and when I'm not living up to standards, I feel humble, but not confident.

I feel like a failure.

Gospel says, my self-view is not based on my moral achievement.

In Christ, I am simultaneously sinful and lost, yet accepted in Christ.

I am so bad that he had to die for me.

And I am so loved that he was glad to die for me.

This leads me to deep humility and confidence at the same time.

Now think about this Nicodemus, this religious man, and also think about yourself as I read this last description.

Religion says my identity and self-worth are based mainly in how hard I work or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral.

And gospel says my identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for me.

I am saved by sheer grace.

So I can't look down on those who believe or practice something different than me.

Only by grace am I what I am.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus, that we have salvation, forgiveness of sin, a righteousness that is put upon us by your gift.

And that we are your children not by our work, but we are by your children because you love us and you've welcomed us.

Forgive us for all the ways we return to works righteousness, trying to prove our worth, to merit our worth.

And forgive us for all the ways that we've turned to wicked things, turned to darkness.

And would you call us home?

To be loved by you, to be your children, and to love you.

And what our lives honor you.

That you are fully sufficient for all we need in Christ.

We pray.

Amen.