John: Starting Over | Guest Speaker: Davis Lee

Good morning.

It's good to be here this morning.

And um I've been I have known for quite some time that I was going to be standing before you this day and uh I've I've looked forward to it.

Um the passage that we just read is a very familiar one, and um I gotta be a nut for preaching on that, but um there's some things here that really speak to me, and hopefully they'll speak to you this morning.

And in particular, uh Brad shared in the opening, I think uh some of the challenges we face in life, just the rat race we're in, working so hard, um struggling, busy, trying to succeed in life.

Um this passage really speaks to that.

And and in particular, um I think with with Nick with Nicodemus, Jesus is telling him, He's telling us, um there's a need for you just to look at life, stop, take a breath, and sometimes sometimes we need to start over.

Um have you ever been at the place in your life when it would just be nice just to hit the reset button to give me a do-over?

Uh Lynn and I early, back early in our marriage, um year this has been years back, we've been married almost 39 years this month.

Gray hair, not enough hair, I might add.

But we were uh we were in a cycle with the job that I was in where we were moving every two to four years, not not including school, I might add.

We moved seven times like that, and initially it was it was difficult, it was kind of hard, but then I realized there was a there was a huge benefit in being able to move every two, three years, and that was the chance to start over.

So we would we would be established in a place and you know gotten involved in church and social activities and community activities, and my tendency is to get real busy and to take on too much.

Maybe maybe some of you have that same issue, and before you know it, we're just we're just buried.

It's like I've got to get a break.

So we get transferred, go to a completely new state.

It is so nice.

Just start over, all of all of the responsibilities go away, and immediately you you get relief.

And you know, I thought, well, you know, that's and and after a while, in fact, we would, you know, it's like two years, three years, well, it's about it's about time, isn't it?

And sure enough, here comes the transfer, and we'd sit down with the girls, family meeting, it's time to move, and we kind of go through the process.

Well, we don't do that anymore, thank goodness.

Um, but it was a not kind of a nice way of escape, and that's what it became if escape is is really what we needed, and I'm not sure it is.

Yeah, and sometimes sometimes there's a need to hit the reset button just simply because life has gotten difficult, and and maybe even there's a major change needed in in my life.

And I've had a few of those as well, and that's that's what we're gonna see with Nicodemus, and that Nicodemus, maybe you need to take a breath and re-examine your life, and maybe maybe you need to start over, and we'll we'll see that very clearly.

But but even more important is Jesus' message to Nicodemus and to us, and it's overwhelming in this passage.

Let me just love you, let me love you, and we'll see that.

Um there are other times in our lives, and not all of us experience this, but maybe most of us do, where we just we just hit bottom.

When we when we need Jesus' love the most, when sometimes you know we're by ourselves, lonely, hurting, and we're crying out to Jesus, Jesus, I I need you.

I I really, really need you.

And that those are times that if you have an experience, you probably will, where we need Jesus to say, just let me love you, and let me show you that I love you.

Um there's there's an author I've been reading a lot uh lately, and some of you some of you know, um Brennan Manning.

And uh he is a phenomenal writer, was.

He's passed away a couple of years ago.

Um, also a phenomenal speaker.

He's a former priest, priest that left the priesthood, got married.

Um he was also an alcoholic and um had struggled with that his entire life.

If if you ever want to know more about grace, and I'm assuming we all do because we're here, he's a great one to read because he's experienced it.

He's experienced the bottom of life, and he's he's seen God work miracles in his own life, and and he struggled through that.

He he wrote this, um, one of the times where he had hit bottom.

He said, For that matter, speak to me sitting on a kerbstone along General Meyer Avenue here in New Orleans.

I am intoxicated after a relapse with alcohol.

My clothes are in tatters, I reek with rancid body odor, I am unshaven, my face and belly are bloated, my eyes are bloodshot, I'm clutching a fifth of Smirnoff vodka, only a few ounces left.

My marriage is collapsing, my friends are in near despair, and my honor is broken.

My brain is scrambled, my mind a junkyard of broken promises, failed dreams, unkept resolutions.

That's Brennan Manning.

And he he writes about God's grace.

He hit bottom.

So Nicodemus is a completely different person.

Nicodemus, I think, is more like the rest of us.

We're gonna see four key words in this passage or four um phrases.

Uh success.

Nicodemus was a successful man.

Pride, he was a proud man.

Broken, he was a broken man, somewhat like what I just read, but in a different way.

And loved.

He was a loved man.

So let's let's just work through the passage.

We'll look at the first verse and take them take them one by one.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.

So we typically think of Nicodemus affectionately, but Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and you know, we think of Pharisees in a negative way.

Um, but just a little bit about the Pharisees.

Pharisees were people they they go all the way back to Ezra and Nehemiah, and even to modern day with uh the the rabbinic Jews.

Uh there's there's still that link all the way back, directly back to the Pharisees.

And the Pharisees were very concerned about the law.

They were very concerned about honoring God.

That's a good thing.

They looked up to God as infinite, um, holy, completely separate, and so they wanted to separate themselves in a holy, righteous, righteous way.

And the way that they thought best to do that was by following the law.

So you have you have the Ten Commandments that we've been going through in Exodus or have have gone through, and they understood the Ten Commandments, but then there was the rest of the Torah, the Torah being the first five books of the Bible, which which has another 615 rules in it.

I don't know if you've noticed that, but if you if you flip through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, you'll see rules after rule.

And and the uh the Jews have have written those down, not 615, there's 613 uh rules in addition to the Ten Commandments.

But for the Pharisees, that wasn't enough.

There was also the oral Torah, so that was the word that was received by Moses and was not written down, so that's that's word, the his word or God's word from Moses that's been transferred verbally from generation to generation.

A couple of things that Jewish literature says about the oral law.

It includes all that Moses learned from God by heart, which he did not write down but transmitted orally to his successors.

That tradition is passed on from generation to generation.

And then I think more telling and kind of explains a little bit of the Jewish mindset and the Phariseeal mindset.

The oral law is a legal commentary on the Torah explaining how its commandments are to be carried out.

Common sense suggests that some sort of oral tradition was always needed to accompany the written law because the Torah alone, even with its 613 commandments, is an insufficient guide to Jewish life.

For example, and this is very interesting, the fourth of the Ten Commandments says, remember the Sabbath day to make it holy.

Yet when one looks for specific biblical laws regulating how to observe the day, one finds only injunctions against lighting a fire, going away from one's dwelling, cutting down a tree, ploughing and harvesting.

Would merely refraining from these few activities fulfill the biblical command to make the Sabbath holy?

So that the Pharisees thought mind think or their way of thinking was, well, we we need to take those commandments that are in the Torah.

We need to take the oral law, and we need to make sure that we follow them and that we explain to other people how to follow them.

So their job was to be good.

They were professional do-gooders.

That's the Pharisees, and that was Nicodemus.

Their idea was we're going to become righteous by being good, and we know that's exhausting.

And certainly they must have experienced that, even though they may not have ever acknowledged it.

Although I think we'll see that Nicodemus does.

So a Pharisee had worked very hard to earn this position to become a Pharisee.

They were typically well established, they were confident.

Nicodemus was older, he was self-assured, he was concerned with how he appeared in public.

He was moral.

He was successful by any measure of that time.

And certainly our culture is similar in that we admire success.

So we don't look at goodness maybe the same way that the Pharisees looked at goodness, but we certainly admire, maybe even idolize success.

I think of Bill Gates.

Anybody know what Bill Gates is worth?

1.7 billion dollars.

That's 1,700 million dollars.

He's successful.

And here's the depressing thing about Bill Gates.

He was born the same year I was born.

So that's that's depressing.

So in fact, I I've worked my entire life to be successful.

And by many measures, I've been successful, but to my own measure, I've not been successful enough.

When I look at the jobs other people have or the things they've accomplished in their careers, I think, gosh, I've not been successful enough.

When I see someone else's home, I think, wow, that's nice and big, and it's nicer and bigger than what I live in, and I think I've not been successful enough.

When I hear about the vacations that people have gone on, and I think, gosh, I've never been to those places.

And I kind of feel regret.

It's like I've not been successful enough.

Or the one that really gets me is I'll pull up beside somebody and this they've got this nice new car, and I think, man, I would really like to be sitting in that right now.

Not necessarily with that person, but by myself.

And you know, I've I can I kind of feel a little bit of shame because I've not been able to accomplish that in my life.

It now, what I what I just described, so there's there's no mistake about this, that's covetousness.

And I realize that, but still I can't help feeling a twinge of shame because I've just not accomplished enough in my lifetime.

And and I bet there are others of us in this room that kind of feel the same way, and I'm betting Nicodemus did as well.

Um that that actually is the tyranny of success.

And it says something's just not quite right in my life.

I wish I had a chance to start over, but you know, maybe not.

But here is Nicodemus, this successful, godly man, and he's seeking out Jesus.

Let's look at verse 2 and try to figure out why.

He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, you know, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs that you are doing if God were not with him.

And so here's this Jesus.

He's already created a bit of a stir, he's worked a few miracles.

Um here's Jesus, he's he's like just he's just this carpenter guy, but yet he's out doing things that he shouldn't be able to do.

And he didn't follow the rules that the Pharisees had said you're supposed to follow.

Um but yet when he talked, it seems like he knew what he was talking about, but yet he hung out with with tax collectors and prostitutes.

He commanded attention and respect, but he didn't conform to the accepted traditions.

Jesus was a bit of an enigma.

And then Nicodemus, you notice, is showing up at night.

And we've all we all know this passage, or most of us, I think, that have been in church our entire lives know it.

Obviously, the reason he's showing up at night is because he didn't want people to see him.

Um he had an image to protect.

And he goes to Jesus in the first place for what reason?

Was it because maybe he needed some help?

I kind of doubt it because Pharisees, I mean, he was older, my age, concerned about his image.

And I'm not going to this carpenter guy and ask ask for help.

In fact, when Nicodemus starts to talk to Jesus, he doesn't ask for help.

So I think that would probably be unlikely.

Um maybe he needs to prove something to his colleagues.

It's like this Jesus guy, he's he's starting to cause a little bit of trouble, he's getting some attention.

I'll go check him out.

So Nicodemus goes over to Jesus' house, but or not Jesus' house, wherever it was he was staying, but I'm not going there the day, I'm going at night, so nobody will see me.

But anyway, regardless, Jesus is where Nicodemus is going.

Nicodemus has a purpose.

It's like the Pharisee, the good man, going to meet the God man.

And Nicodemus starts out by flattering him, building him up, giving him a sense of importance as if Jesus needed it.

In verse 3, in reply, Jesus declared, I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

And you read that statement in context and you realize there is no context because Nicodemus is flattered Jesus, but yet Jesus is talking about something entirely different.

So where does that come from?

It's like out of left field.

And I would think if Jesus were going to listen to Nicodemus and realize that Nicodemus is, well, kind of flattering him, it'd say, Yes, I'm from God.

And so, Nicodemus, what does that mean to you?

I think that would be a great segue, but that's not what Jesus does at all.

And I'm guessing Jesus probably did know what he was doing.

He, in fact, he in fact leaps on Jesus with a, I think, what maybe is incredibly presumptuous and provocative, because he's basically telling Nicodemus, you must be born again if you want to see the kingdom of God.

In fact, Nicodemus probably should have been offended as a Pharisee.

Because what he's saying is, Nicodemus, you're not good enough.

You need to start over.

So that's pretty offensive to somebody that's a professional do-gooder.

You're not good enough.

And that's basically what Jesus was telling him.

You're not good enough, you haven't accomplished enough.

That the premise of Nicodemus's life was to be good enough to see the kingdom of God is without doubt, because that's that's what the Pharisees were all about.

So Jesus assuming this is all about eternal life, I think that's a fair assumption.

But you look at Nicodemus, and by any measure, he was doing what he needed to be doing.

I mean, nobody was more righteous, no more good, more moral than Nicodemus.

And it was like what he taught was be good, be good enough, and that's not too dissimilar from what we teach in our culture, which is be successful, be successful enough.

Nicodemus had, um, what about us?

I mean, our careers, our children, our lifestyle.

If if we're successful, if we're successful enough, then then what?

We're gonna be admired or respected?

If if we're admired, respected, then we're gonna be what?

Happy, maybe?

I tell you, you get my age and you realize it's not looking that way.

It's not looking like success is gonna get me there.

In fact, it's it's I think it's kind of interesting because success has become kind of for our culture, that's that's an end, that's a goal.

It's important for us to be successful.

That's that's what we're here for, right?

But yet I think what Jesus is saying is is probably that maybe that's not quite the case.

If you if you think it think about it, Nicodemus was no doubt a proud man, maybe, maybe a little smug at times, maybe grumpy occasionally, and I think I can be that way, smug and grumpy and proud.

The truth is I'm I'm very proud.

Um I I want the attention because life is about me, and I want the whole world to know that I'm important and tell me about that.

And to me, that's success.

So if you'll tell me how important I am, I'll feel good about myself, and maybe that's success.

Um but one thing I know is that people don't like proud, smug, grumpy people.

And I figured out why.

The reason we don't like proud, smug, grumpy people is because they're thinking about themselves.

They're not thinking about me, and I want them to think about me.

And so I'm not getting the attention.

A couple of quotes.

We all suffer from terminal pride, and our response to pride and others proves it.

We tend to avoid those people because they're not about me.

And Voltaire said this, I love this one.

The infinitely little, that's us, have a pride that is infinitely great.

That's that's so true about me.

So in a last-ditch effort by Nicodemus to gain control, he he asks what seems like a logical question, but um maybe it was just him trying to think of something to say.

He says in verse 4, how can a man be born when he is old?

Surely he cannot enter into uh a second time into his mother's womb to be born.

And Nicodemus, he's thinking maybe, but yet he's on the wrong track.

And Jesus answers I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water in the spirit.

The flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.

You should not be surprised at my saying you must.

Must be born again.

And I'm sitting here thinking, Nicodemus must have said, huh?

Like, Jesus, what are you talking about?

And Jesus has repeated himself.

You get that?

A second time, you must be born again.

That must be important.

And in verse 9, Nicodemus, the last words Nicodemus ever speaks in the Bible are these.

He says, How can this be?

So he, 29 words, 24 words, and now he's down to four words.

And then after that is complete silence.

What's going on here?

Is this maybe Nicodemus coming to the point of realization?

Have you ever been there?

It's like, oh, the color drains, knees get weak, and I've just realized I'm wrong.

And this is a life crisis.

It's like, and we're, I'm this way, we're all this way.

We're like spoiled children trying our best to get what we want out of life by any means possible, and we're completely missing the great adventure.

And this great adventure is what Jesus is putting in front of Nicodemus, and Nicodemus is completely flummoxed.

These are moments of brokenness.

And I'm going to read Brennan Manning again.

This is such a good quote.

He says, the great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness.

We hide it, evade it, gloss over it.

We grab for the cosmetic kit and put on our virtuous face to make ourselves admirable to the public.

Thus we present to others a self that is spiritually together, superficially happy, and lacquered with a sense of self-deprecating humor that passes for humility.

The irony is that while I do not want anyone to know that I am judgmental, lazy, vulnerable, screwed up, and afraid for fear of losing face, the face I fear losing is the mask of the imposter, not my own.

It's that fake self that we put out in others.

The great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness.

But Jesus is loved, and he says to Nicodemus, and we've got to think about this for a minute, because Jesus, here he is.

He doesn't have to be there, by the way.

Jesus did not have to come visit us.

He could have chosen to stay home.

But that's not at all what he did.

He came and he spent time with us, and the very fact that he is speaking to Nicodemus and speaking to us is pure grace.

And he says this to Nicodemus, you are Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and you do not understand these things.

I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

So, and I won't read the rest of that passage, but he's saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, stop thinking.

Stop trying to figure it out.

Stop trying to control things, because Pharisees tended to be a bit of into control like we are.

We try to control our lives, and I don't know about you, but I don't feel like I've been particularly successful with that, controlling things around me, especially when it comes to other people.

Just stop thinking, Nicodemus, and just look at me and listen.

You are searching for something.

You are searching for a love that's bigger than you are, perhaps, Nicodemus.

You need to look beyond yourself for that.

And recognize that Jesus, standing there talking to Nicodemus, loves us beyond our wildest dreams.

We can't comprehend the depth and the magnitude, and it's what Brad said earlier.

He read it off the front of our building.

We can't comprehend the degree to which Jesus loves us because he is the author of love.

He invented it.

What we understand is love is just a drop in the bucket with what he shows us.

And so what he essentially is telling Nicodemus, Nicodemus, yes, you must start over, but when I when you start over, let me love you.

Just let me love you.

And so this story is not about Nicodemus, it's not about us, it's about Jesus who has come to his creation to tell them, us, that he loves us to make all things new, to make his creation like it was intended to be in the first place.

Something that for Nicodemus, and even for us, that that's mind-blowing.

That we get to participate in that cosmic drama, that also is pure grace.

So what if, what if our self-focus, our pride, our insatiable appetite to succeed, to have more, is the source of all our difficulties?

What if the entire world were created differently, or created to be different than what we actually see on TV?

Like the rest of creation, we were created to worship and glorify God, the one, the only one who is truly holy, the one who loved us first.

What if there is in each of us the desire to connect with the infinite?

To belong, to be loved by the one who created us, to be at home with the one who loves us more than we can comprehend.

So verse 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

So what Jesus is really saying to Nicodemus and to us is start over.

Abandon all of your previous misconceptions and just let me love you.

And I'm not going to read the rest, but if you go on to John 19, if you jot this down, you can look at it in verse 36 through 42.

We see Nicodemus again.

Do you know what he's doing?

He is with Joseph of Arimathea.

It's after Jesus' crucifixion.

They are taking his body to a tomb to bury him.

And Nicodemus and Joseph wrap Jesus' body in linen and cover him with spices, and that was typically what was done.

By the way, a lot of spices.

Here is a Pharisee that would never ever think about touching a dead body, much less a dead body of someone that is a troublemaker or a carpenter that really doesn't matter.

Here he is not only carrying Jesus' body, but covering it for burial.

And why would a Pharisee do that?

And there's only one possible reason, because he had discovered the truth that Jesus was who he said he is.

Same truth that we discover.

Nicodemus discovered.

I'm going to read this one more quote and we'll be finished up.

This is from C.S.

Lewis.

Now we cannot discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest and then failing.

Unless we really try, whatever we say, there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time, we shall succeed in being completely good.

Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder.

But in another sense, it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home.

All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, You must do this.

I can't.

And the beautiful thing is he has.

Jesus has rescued us from the tyranny of success.

All we have to do is recognize our need to start over, abandon all our previous misconceptions about what's important in life, and let Jesus love us.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for what you have done for us.

It's beyond our ability to fully understand, but we know that you love us.

We know that because of what you've done.

We know that because of what you've given to us in your word.

And we know that because you connect with our hearts.

And so, Lord, I ask that you would connect with us this morning.

Help us to understand how to deal with the practical aspects of life, the difficulties that we all face every day, our natural desire to want to be more than we really are.

But also speak deeply to our hearts about that deep, deep desire that we have to connect with you.

And Jesus, I pray that you teach us how to do that.

In Christ's name.

Amen.