Lent: Our Faith of Gracious Relationship

Well, good morning.

So we're continuing our way in the season of Lent.

So if you remember, we talked about it last week.

We were taking a break from the book of Joshua.

We're gonna work our way through different passages to the season of Lent.

Lent is the season of 40 days leading up to Easter.

It mirrors the 40 days that Jesus was in the wilderness.

I was reminded this week, thank you, uh Lindsay Williams, she reminded me that Sundays are actually not counted in those 40 days leading up to Easter and Lent.

And this kind of escaped me because I grew up in a church that we didn't talk about different church seasons.

And so that escaped me.

Sundays during the season of Lent are called feast days.

And so these passages given to us during the season of Lent are designed for us to contemplate more and more, greater and greater, the gift of Jesus and to feast on him, to feast on the lavish, lavish love that God has for us and we know in Christ Jesus.

So that's the point of all these different Jesus stories building us up to Easter.

Last fall, Christy and I went out to eat with a mentor couple of ours.

The mentor couple, they sent us the name of the restaurant.

We didn't recognize the name of it, so it sent us the name of the restaurant, and she said it's nice, but it's casual.

So, okay, middle note on that.

And so we were gonna have a full day and we were gonna be out hiking that day.

Uh so we threw some clothes in the car.

We changed in a bank parking lot on the way to the restaurant because that's the kind of respectable people we are, and we show up at the restaurant uh in jeans and a top.

Well, I have on like men don't wear tops, I have on a like a button.

My wife has on a top, uh, but jeans and just like a shirt, and we show up and it's nice.

I mean, it's not jeans, like it's it is fancy, schmancy white tablecloth, preset courses.

There are no prices on the menu, and we are looking like chilies, and we're very nervous, we're very nervous on the sidewalk looking in.

And we're nervous because we're sort of wondering, we're Christy's mortified.

I'm nervous, she's mortified, because we're nervous because we don't look like we should belong here.

And we probably don't belong there, actually, is the truth.

Uh, but we're wondering, like, like, will they let us in?

I mean, I'm having a conversation with her, like, do you think they have a jacket requirement?

Because it looks like a place that could have a jacket requirement.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.

I'm home with a jacket, maybe they have a jacket for me.

I don't know how it's gonna work.

So I we muster up all the confidence that we can just put on to walk up to the hostess and say, you know, we're with this party, and and and the hostess is nothing but welcoming.

Doesn't say a word to us on the fact that we look like the dumpiest people in the place.

She walks us straight through the restaurant, she seats us at our table, and here's the thing nobody cared.

Not a single time, not not a not a server, not a you know, a hostess, not another person in the restaurant.

Nobody looked at us.

Nobody cared.

Not one single time were we treated with judgment.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if church was like that, number one, right?

That'd be great.

But here's the point we expected condemnation, but all we received was acceptance.

This is actually what we see in this passage, this John passage Brian read for us, and we're gonna read some and talk some and read some and talk some to work our way through it, because Nicodemus is coming here with these questions about what does he need to do?

You know, because surely he can't just be accepted, like by grace.

Surely he needs to do something.

So he's expecting condemnation, but all he's all he's gonna receive is love.

John 3, 1 through 8.

I'll reread what Brian read for us just for it to get ingrained into us.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God's with them.

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

Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he's old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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

Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again, the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

So point number one is this our faith, Christian faith, is one of relationship and new birth, not religion and new rules.

So, what does that mean?

Well, Nicodemus, this guy's a religious leader, he's a man of the law.

He's showing up, he has led a life of law, which means, you know, eat the right things, drink the right things, do the right things, and then you'll be accepted by God.

So that would be the way of religion, obey and then be accepted.

And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, it's not how it works.

Works the other way around.

By God's grace, the gospel is that you are accepted in Jesus, therefore you obey.

For the past year I've been watching the sitcom Parks and Rec.

Do you have any Parks and Rec people?

If you if you're a Parks and Rec person, you're a Parks and Rec.

It's a silly sitcom if you don't know it.

It's a silly sitcom.

I watch it every, you want to talk about religion.

I watch it every night.

I watch either one or two episodes.

It's just a good way to like, you know, life's hard, and I just need to end the day with just laughing a little bit.

And so every night I watch one or two of these and sort of laugh and then, you know, go get in bed.

And it's silly, and I've become very loyal to Ron Swanson.

I'm a huge Ron Swanson fan at this point in my life.

The show revolves around, in case you don't know, the show revolves around Leslie Nove, who's there in the middle.

So the show revolves around here.

She's she's the leader of this whole group.

Like she's the boss of most of them, but she's the leader of the entire group.

She guides them, she bosses them around at times.

So last Thursday, I'm watching my two episodes per day, my evening devotion of Parts and Reg.

And so I'm watching, and it's the episode, I think, I think I'm in season five, and I'm lapping it, by the way.

Like I'm like my third time through, so that's how bad this has become.

And so it's the episode in season five where Leslie gets married.

No plot spoils here, she gets married, you know, that's it.

I won't ruin it any more than that.

She gets married, her friends, these people, her employees who become devoted friends, throw her her wedding.

And it's really sweet, and they sing this cheesy song together, and right before the song, Andy, who's a total goofball, he says, you know, if it weren't for Leslie, none of us would be here.

And like I actually start to like tear, I actually start to tear up.

Has anybody else you just went let I've cried during Parks and Rec.

Has anybody else cried?

During Park, there's a couple episodes they play a Willie Nelson song, and I'm like, oh man, like I'm falling out.

Well, I start to tear up a little bit.

And so there's three episodes I tear up in a Parks and Rec every time they come through.

And Thursday night I started to tear up, and the reason why is because of this amount of devotion and loyalty and friendship.

And what's interesting is like she's the leader of this whole group, but that's not why they have this loyalty, is it?

Right?

No, no, no.

It's because she loves them lavishly, like throughout the show, if you watch the show.

I mean, it's almost like to the point they make it comical because she's just over the top, lavishing love about how smart they are, how beautiful they are, how you know incredible they are, their future they have.

Like every character, she has lavish love for them in a very particular way.

And what it does, it endears them to herself.

So Parson Reck this week was just another reminder of how lavish love going out endears someone back to you.

Right?

And that's the point here is the loving regard of the one relating to you will completely define how you do what you do or what you do in general.

And so this idea that lavish unconditional love creates new life.

I love this imagery here of new birth.

In verse 5, there's that passage.

We're born of water and spirit.

So we're born in the physical, but we have to be born in the spiritual.

And even the word water is the idea, it's the imagery of procreation and new life.

And Jesus is saying is like, yeah, we are born into the world physically, but we also need to have a birth, a new birth, a rebirth, born again, coming into an awareness of our need.

And that God has lavish love for us and all of our brokenness, all of our sin, all of our imperfection.

Nicodemus has a few questions about this, picking up in verse 9.

Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be?

Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Truly, truly I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who has descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent, this is kind of key in this passage, 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.

So point number two is this the temptation, your temptation, my temptation, all of us, is to provide your own justification rather than resting in Christ Jesus for it.

So justification meaning your worth, your absolution, forgiveness of sin, your righteousness before God, your belovedness, your justification.

The temptation is to justify yourself in this world, by yourself, by this world, but not to say, I can't do it.

I need grace, I need outside help.

I need to look to someone else.

And so that's why this passage, verse 14, Jesus tells a story about to Nicodemus about this.

It's a weird story, right?

It comes from the book of Numbers.

The Israelites are attacked by these serpents, and people have died.

The people come to Moses and say, Hey, Moses, figure this out.

Go to God, figure this out, let us know.

How are we gonna dying?

Help us, and God commands Moses and say, make a bronze serpent.

Put the bronze serpent on a pole, put the pole up in the community.

Anybody who gets bit of the serpent can go and can look at the pole, look at the serpent, and they'll be healed.

Strange, strange story.

Really weird story.

But the point is that God gives us picture after picture in the history of Israel of what the Messiah would come to do, what Jesus comes to do, and that is to rescue us from the toil of looking to ourselves.

But to look to Him, to look outside of yourself to an outside rescue for eternal life and wholeness, for salvation, to be born again.

It comes from a looking past justification by your own means and to justification by faith through grace.

By grace through faith.

John 3, 17.

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.

Last point the word of law eventually crushes, but the promise of God is forever acceptance and righteousness in Christ.

So that word condemned means to be put under, separated from joy, separated from life, separated from peace.

It's the playlist that uh just keeps rolling over and over and over again.

For almost all of humanity, the playlist is the same.

I'm not enough.

I can save you a lot of money on therapy.

That's it.

That's your question.

Am I enough?

Am I enough?

And that's a playlist of condemnation.

I'm not enough, or I am that mistake that was made, or I will never be.

It's all tied back.

Am I enough?

And then we go and we use all sorts of performance or escapism to get away from that question because we don't know the answer to it.

And so it's so easy to move into performance in the world or performance in religion, trying to do enough, form a law, meet a law, form a law, meet a law, and if I accumulate enough achievement, then I'm enough.

But eventually we realize that religion and rules in the world or in church, they can never deliver us.

500 years ago, the reformer Martin Luther, he said this when he preached on this chapter, this same passage.

This is what he said in his sermon.

500 years ago, listen how relevant this is.

This is how human nature is just always the same everywhere we go.

There are laws enough in the world, more than people can keep.

The state, fathers and mothers, schoolmasters and law enforcement persons all exist to rule according to laws.

But the Lord Christ says, I have not come to judge, to bite, to grumble, and to condemn people.

The world is too much condemned.

Therefore, I will not rule my people with laws.

I have come that through my ministry and my death I may give help to all who are lost and may release and set free those who are overburdened with laws, with judgments, and with condemnation.

The way of Jesus is simply a different way.

It is not obey and then be accepted, is you are accepted by grace.

Therefore, obey.

So that default tape that plays over and over again, that playlist of condemnation, can stop.

So let's play a game.

We're have a little bit of interaction here.

And so I'm gonna begin a jingle, and then you're gonna help me finish, okay?

So I'll begin it.

You'll help me finish.

Don't leave me hanging, or it's gonna get very awkward in here.

I might leave and you gotta figure out communion for yourself.

Uh I will say you can accomplish these as I tested them out on my daughters this week.

Okay, here we go.

You ready?

We are farmers.

Okay, very good.

One for one.

Great, very good.

You jumped right in.

That's what I loved.

You jumped right in.

Oh, oh, oh, Riley.

Very good.

Two for two.

We're doing great.

My daughter, several of my daughters, uh, favorite is this.

Avocados from Mexico.

Less, but it's fun.

That's a fun one.

You'll learn it.

So we get these jingles in our heads.

You'll have those in your head the rest of the day.

And you can't get them out once they're in.

They just play on a loop.

And this is actually how condemnation works in our lives.

It's a jingle, it's a default song.

It's a default playlist that just kicks in.

For our house this week, it was Dixie Chick's new song, Gaslighter.

14 years.

It's been 14 years since Dixie Chick's released a song.

I don't know if anybody else was excited.

We were.

We had it on all week.

It's been 14 years.

Talk about resurrection, right?

New life.

Gaslighter is out.

And it was just on replay over and over again.

Well, we do this replay with condemnation.

We have a default.

I'm not enough.

Oh, there I go again.

There I go again.

And usually it's about what you aren't or what you need to be, what else you need to do.

But God didn't come to condemn the world.

For God so loved the world.

For God so loves you.

My mentor Scotty Smith, he puts it this way: the gospel isn't merely the absence of all condemnation.

It's also the fullness of God's delight lavished on us in Christ.

See, the magic of this gospel, like legit magic, not a magic trick.

Legit magic of this gospel is that inside of this delighting, lavish love, it empowers us.

That the spirit is given to us, so there's a new song playing in our hearts.

That empowers us to walk in the spirit and to walk toward godliness, not perfectly, but ongoingly.

So by means of application, here are a few questions for our hearts, asking the Holy Spirit for insight.

These are always good.

This is how I process information.

Um, begin to embed it inside of my heart.

Abba Father, what's the dominant song in my heart today?

Condemnation from the world and religion?

Or acceptance and worth in you?

So that kind of starts us off, right?

Warms us up a little bit.

Second question, Abba Father, what narrative of condemnation am I presently walking in that by the grace of God is no longer true about me?

Abba Father, what would it mean for me to walk with the Spirit and the fullness of your delight in me?

And I don't know the story you tell yourself, but we all tell ourselves a story.

And I don't know that your version of condemnation that's on replay, but I know the story that's declared over you by the grace of God to you.

And it said the cross not only took your sin, past, present, and future, and gave you his righteousness, securing you in the belovedness of God forever.

Not only did it do that, it took away all condemnation and all shame.

And there's a greater song being sung over you.

And I close with Zephaniah 3, 17.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you by his love.

He will exalt over you with loud singing.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that in Jesus we know love that is incarnate for us to see, to never doubt how you regard us.

And while we have condemnation apart from you, there's no condemnation inside of you.

Thank you that you promise that you are in our midst, that you will save us, and that you rejoice over us in gladness.

God, would you help us today and this week to confess and repent quicker in the kindness that you show to us when we're walking by songs and narratives of condemnation?

And would you draw us back to your song of gladness and lavish love for us?

That our hearts would be healed in greater and greater ways, and that we would walk in your spirit in greater and greater ways, finding freedom and godliness that we didn't even know were possible for our lives.

God, would you help us to see how good you are?

Would you help us to feast on your goodness this morning?

Amen.