Water and Wind

Want to jump in today.

If you have your Bible, turn to John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

We're going to be in there.

We're going to still start in verse 1 in just a moment.

But I want to introduce our topic.

You know, I'll often teach in series of messages that will be on a theme so we can kind of take the concept and drive it deep in your heart and uh deep in our minds.

It actually started when I first started preaching, I would overpreach.

I would preach like seven-point messages.

And I was like, you know, maybe that should be seven weeks instead of one week of seven messages.

And so I started thinking, you know, this is probably a good idea.

And this particular series we're calling Water Works came out of just a personal study.

I was in the book of John.

I wasn't really studying for any sermon, but some theme just kind of jumped off the page.

I started noticing between John chapter 2 and John chapter 7, every single chapter dealt with water.

John 2 · chapter mention John 7 · chapter mention

There was water in there somewhere.

In fact, I'll give you the summary real quick.

John 2 is Jesus turns water into wine.

John 3, Jesus says, unless you're born of spirit and of water.

John 4 is the woman at the well.

John 5 is Jesus heals a man at the pool of Bethesda.

John 6, Jesus walks on water.

And John 7, he goes to the Feast of Tabernacles and he makes a big scene.

And he says, Anyone who's thirsty, come drink of me.

And if you do, rivers of living water will spring up from within you.

And so with this theme of water, I step back, I studied it, and put together some messages that I pray will be a blessing to you.

Today we're going to go to John 3, and we'll probably touch on John 2 as well.

So here we go.

John 3, starting in verse 1, says there was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee.

After one, uh sorry, after dark one evening, 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 are evidence that God is with you.

Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

What do you mean?

exclaimed Nicodemus.

How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?

And Jesus replied, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again.

I did this week what I do every week, which is I pray for you in this service and this uh weekend.

And uh what I'll do when I'm praying is I'll think about people in the church who I know and who I know what they're going through.

And I'll pray for them, and I'll think about how this message might sound through uh what they're walking through.

And then I'll think about people who I know, but I don't know what they're walking through.

Uh there's people here who are friends of mine, and you know, of course, our church is grown at this point.

I don't know many people, I don't know everybody, and that's okay.

Uh we're not here to meet me, you're here to meet Jesus.

Uh, and my job is to help to do that the best I can.

But um, but I think about those who I know who have maybe they're just keeping it to themselves.

Maybe they haven't shared it with me or they haven't shared it with anybody.

And then I started to think about people who I don't know, but of course I don't know, so I don't know exactly what you're going through.

But I started imagining different things people could be going through.

And then I thought about and prayed for people who are here who have never been here before, and and who this scene and this whole environment is foreign and it feels weird.

And you're in here, and frankly, you you don't want to be seen.

You don't want anyone to even know you're here.

Maybe you maybe you're watching online and you don't want anyone to know.

Uh you're maybe by yourself because you don't even want people to know you're interested in God or church or you're searching at all.

I started to think about someone who would be seeing me up here talking for the first time, and I thought how weird it would be to have this guy you don't even know to stand up, who who would have the audacity to stand up there and speak for God.

The arrogance.

I was thinking, yeah, I get why someone may not like me.

It's like, who do you think you are?

You gonna stand up here and speak for God?

You know, from time to time I'll have people who will get a bit critical of me or frustrated or maybe give me unsolicited advice around um that I should be more authoritative and direct and tell, you know, you need to tell the people exactly what God thinks.

Exactly what God said.

I'm like, you know, I uh I study hard and I pray even harder.

And I'm doing my very best to bring what I think is right, but I'm humble enough to know I could be wrong.

This is by the way, this is by the way, why I can't finish my book.

I've been working on this book for like 52 years.

And I've got 150 pages written, and I got people coaching me up, and they're like, Greg, it's called a book release.

You gotta release it.

I'm like, that's easy for you to say because I I'm looking at every word and every sentence, and I'm going, I want to make sure I still like this in 20 years.

Because there are some sermons I've preached that I've had them take off the internet.

That's a fact.

I have people come to me sometimes.

Hey, whatever happened to that sermon?

I'm like, you don't want that.

I had them take it off.

There's this guy, Nicodemus, who has been deputized as a Pharisee.

He's speaking for God.

He's a religious man, he's highly educated.

Um in that day, and what often happens among people that don't sober themselves up to the fact that even though I'm speaking God's word and I'm doing my best to speak on behalf of God, or the thing even I sense God directing and leading me to say, I'm being as obedient as I can be.

If you're not careful, it can start to go to your head.

That's right.

And you start thinking you're something that you're not.

And so you have this guy, Nicodemus, who is among people who have become very proud of how pious they are.

They are very confident in their education, they have tremendous social proof that they matter and that they're a big deal.

But they become a bit self-important.

And yet, among this group of people, you have Nicodemus, who I'm sure some of that is rubbed off on him, but he's maintained a level of humility that when he sees Jesus, even though Jesus, you know, he's begun to do miracles, he's flipped over the temple tables and cleansed the temple, and he's beginning to stir up a ruckus, and and and uh Nicodemus' friends don't like Jesus because he's a threat, and they they they don't like the way that he's operating.

There's something in Nicodemus that is humble enough to go, maybe there's something there.

So he goes, it says, in the dark of night.

Why?

Because I don't want anyone to know that that I'm trying to figure stuff out.

Because I'm highly educated, I'm supposed to be the one with the answers, I'm the one in a place of leadership, I've got responsibility, people are looking to me, looking up to me.

So now to go to a place in the but there's something in me that knows I'm not as good as they think I am.

You know, if you take Nicodemus, the Pharisee, highly educated, highly respected, Jewish male, and you put him next to who we talked about last week, the woman at the well, who was a Samaritan woman who had been married five times.

She shows up at noon to the well because most women went to the well before the heat of the day, but she chose the heat of the sun versus the heat of all the women in the morning because she was an outcast because of her behavior.

She was discombobulated, they knew she was discombobulated, she knew she was discombobulated, she was confused, her life was a mess.

So why do I want to go at nine and be confronted by them?

I'll go at noon when it's hot, I'll just take a little sweat.

Jesus shows up at that time and they have this conversation.

So you have this woman that knows her life is a mess, and you have a Pharisee who did everything they told him he was supposed to do to have a great life.

That's all right.

Come on now.

And yet he's just as thirsty as she is.

But he's embarrassed to admit it.

He doesn't want anyone to know he doesn't have it all together, so I'm gonna go at night.

Yes, sir.

There's something about getting down the road.

The Bible says he's an older man.

He even says to Jesus, how can an old man, I mean, even where he was in terms of his accomplishments, you didn't get there as a young man.

So he's an older man.

There's something about at that point in your life admitting like I've done all these things.

And you know, I got the job right and I got the career right, and I did the family thing, and I've made a bunch of decisions that have caused results, and now I've got this heap of results, and and and I sh I would have thought I would have felt this way, but I don't feel this way.

I still feel empty.

To be able to admit that and to look at that is embarrassing.

And so he goes, he goes to Jesus, and and Jesus, he and Jesus have this incredible conversation.

Let's look at it.

He goes in with all of the diplomacy of a Pharisee, with all the manners, right?

He goes in and says, Oh, Jesus, rabbi, he uses a deferential term.

Rabbi, we all know that God has sent you to teach us.

We know that God has sent you to teach us.

Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.

So he's giving them all this flowery, softening them up, right?

Have you ever had somebody doing that?

You're like, let's cut to the chain.

So Jesus, notice this.

Jesus answers a question Nicodemus never asks.

Maybe it was the one Nicodemus was going to ask, maybe it's the one that he wasn't going to ask but should have asked.

Either way, Jesus gives him the answer.

He says, I tell you the truth.

Unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

Unless you're born again.

What?

What is that?

Unless you're born again.

What does born again mean?

Unless you're born again, you cannot see.

What does born again mean?

What does see mean?

What do you mean you can't see the kingdom of God?

What is kingdom of God?

Now, as Jesus says this to him, and he's talking about birth, born again, and kingdom of God, right away what Nicodemus would have heard, what would the first thing that would have agitated him is that the Jewish people are God's chosen people.

So for him, the Jewish people, he was a part of the kingdom of God simply by being a Jewish man.

In his mind, his confidence in his culture, his confidence in being a Jew, and you know, put him in the kingdom of God.

And so that's what he believed, that's what he was confident in.

He knew that to be true.

And so Jesus comes and actually disrupts that thinking.

And so he says, Hey, unless you're born again.

Unless you're born again.

See, you're confident in your first birth and what you were born into as a Jewish man, and you think that's all you need to be in the kingdom of God.

But he said, unless you're born a second time, you can't even see the kingdom of God.

If you had asked Nicodemus before this, hey Nicodemus, what do you think about the kingdom of God?

And how do you think you rank?

He'd have been like, oh yeah, I'm a Jewish man, I'm in the kingdom of God, and I'm a Pharisee, I'm at the top of the food chain.

I'm a leader, I'm a general in God's army.

I'm up here at the top.

And Jesus says, unless you're born again.

Think about being born the first time.

Think of the state of an infant.

Helpless, completely dependent, you don't know anything, you're malleable, you're learning all the time, but you're being developed.

There's a true humility.

You're defenseless.

Okay?

And so when he's what he's saying, and oh by the way, so we do know this though, the process of development, for about the first 10 to 12 years, if you talk to psychologists, adolescent psychologists, you you know that your first 10 or so 12 years, usually girls develop a little faster than boys in this area, but you you think completely concrete.

You can't think abstract, you're not even able to.

You got like a decade of life, but things are happening, they're very concrete, right?

You your mom's holding you, or your dad, or whoever's up in the night, they're holding you, and you feel their warmth of their body, and you feel the comfort when you cry and you feel all this stuff, but you don't know what love is.

You don't know that she got up in the middle of the night for your stinking little you see what I'm saying?

You don't know what she sacrificed, you don't know she was at work all day, came home and did all this stuff.

She's home making money so she can come take care of you and then still get up in the night and then go show up for work.

You don't know anything about sacrifice, you just and even as they start to be able to talk a little bit, you know, and they're like, Mommy, I love you, and you're like, oh my god.

But they don't, they just want a lollipop.

They want a jolly rancher, they want a toy, they want you to do what they want, right?

And they they kind of know that you they know you're the one that comforts them when they're sad, they know you're the one that protects them, you're the one with all the money, you're the one with the resources, and you're the one who can put them in time out.

So they but they don't understand the abstract nature of love.

I mean, come on, now we're grown-ups, we're still trying to figure it out fully.

They don't get it, you're not even able to start thinking about that.

You even processing it until you're in your teens, you're usually early teens.

And so, so, so now, but here's the problem though.

You get to that point where you now begin to start thinking, I now have 10 years of life experience.

People have been doing stuff to me.

I I I've been living, I've been noticing patterns in the world.

I started to develop a worldview.

And we want kids to keep their innocence as long as they can because it's sweet and it's cute and it's fleeting, because eventually you start to realize the world's a scary place, man.

There's some bad things happening.

And so you understand evil and you start to understand these type of things.

And so now what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is talking about two births.

There's the one that you come into the world and you're completely helpless, then there's the one now you wake up in the world and you can start to try to codify and you're starting to try to figure out.

And he said, it's then that you have to be reborn.

Yes, sir.

You got to be born, you you're born again.

And so, what do you do?

Well, in some ways, I have to come back to that innocence, that helpless state.

I've got to come back to the place where I'm dependent and humble instead of getting locked into what I think or what I was taught or how I was trained or the conclusions that I've come to.

I've I've got to come back.

Uh this text kind of rhymes with another text where in Mark chapter 10 it says uh parents brought their children to Jesus in verse 13 so he could touch and bless them, and the disciples scolded the parents.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

You know, get those kids away.

You know, the kids are just they're a bother, you know, they're bothering him.

Verse 14.

Jesus saw what was happening and he gets upset with the disciples, and he said, Let these kids come to me, don't stop them.

And then he uses the kids as a living, breathing illustration for what he wants grown-ups to do.

He said, The kingdom of God belongs to those adults that are like these kids.

They've humbled themselves, they're receptive, they're learning.

He said, I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.

So he's saying to Nicodemus, if you don't, if you're not born again, and dude, you have a certain big obstacle, and your obstacle is that you're highly educated, you're validated, you're respected, you've got all the answers, everybody's coming to learn from you.

Everybody's telling you how great you are, you got the corner office, you succeeded, you're a grown-up.

And if you don't put all that aside and go back to a place of helplessness, he says you won't even see.

Jesus takes the children and he said, if you don't accept it like they do with trust and faith and belief, innocent, you'll never enter it.

He said, Those who well, you can't enter what you don't see.

So you gotta see it and then enter it and receive it.

He said, This is the posture.

I I was listening to a um, I was listening to a leadership talk, man, probably about five years after we started the church, and it was a woman who was talking about, um, she was talking about ultimately business and organizational development.

So she was saying, talking about the entrepreneurial phase of an organization.

So let's say you start a business.

Some of you in here have started uh businesses or organizations.

Uh I I started uh one church with a group of people, so I was watching, I really identified what she was talking about, but she used a rubber band as an example, and so she said, When you first start something, um you don't know what you are doing.

And so because of that, you do a lot of things right naturally, which is you start asking questions.

She's like, but you're stretched, like it feels like you're gonna snap.

Your resources are stretched, you have more stuff that needs done, then you have people to help do it.

You gotta get more things than you have money to get the stuff.

And so you gotta start choosing, and and and you can't say yes to everything.

I remember we started one church.

You know what's the first thing we bought?

Kids' check-in equipment.

I was like, we bought kids check-in equipment before we bought chairs.

So I was like, you know what, people forgive us for a bad chair, but they won't forgive us if we lose their kids.

So we bought kids' check-in equipment.

We didn't have paper clips, we didn't have a printer, we didn't have anything, but we bought kids' check-in equipment.

You you start something new, you're stretched, your money's stretched, your people resources are stretched, your knowledge is stretched.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I also don't know what I don't know.

Like I know what I don't know, but then I don't know what I don't know.

So I gotta talk to somebody and find somebody that can tell me what I don't know that I don't know so that I can try to know it.

Come on now.

No entrepreneurs in the house, you've not been here.

We got a few, thank you.

God bless you, God bless you.

I'm praying for you.

You get stretched like this.

And when you're like this, you are the greatest question asker.

Yes, sir.

I still every month meet with church planters, you know, people starting churches, and it shocks me when they don't show up with a notepad.

Because I went everywhere.

I'm like, Ooh, that's good, that's good.

It was like a morsel.

I'm like, hey, I'll press pause, go get you a notepad, we're gonna have a conversation.

And you're humble because you you it's fine.

It's like this you have a child, your first child, you have no problem asking for advice because you know, well, why would I know what I'm doing?

I've never done this before.

So you're asking questions.

So naturally, when you're in that startup phase, everything's stretched here, you ask questions, what happens over time?

You get some customers, you get some clients, okay, you get some resources that come in, and it's not quite as tight.

You're like, thank God, I can breathe.

I remember the first couple years of the church, I literally didn't take a nap one time.

Every time I go to take a nap, I would just start thinking, well, if I'm sleeping, nobody's working.

So I get up and start working.

You have that intensity, you know the risks that are in front of you, so you work hard and you're humble and you ask questions.

And as you get here, now this funny thing happens.

You start getting a little comfortable.

Everybody gets paid.

Yes, sir.

You can take a nap, a few naps, and then the craziest thing happens.

Everybody who's here starts coming to you with a pad and pen.

And they start now asking you questions.

How'd you do it?

How'd you get here?

Because I'm here and I feel like I'm gonna snap.

How do I get here?

So then now you go from the question asker to the answer man.

And you're the answer man.

Everybody comes and sits around to drink from your fountain of knowledge, and you're telling them what, okay, and so now you've got all the answers.

And so in this talk, this woman was talking about this, and she said, as an organization, if you don't at some point pull this back out here and start thinking again like you don't know anything.

What eventually will happen is your entity will die, or you'll be forced someday.

You'll look up and you're nobody's buying your stuff and nobody's into your thing because you become irrelevant.

You you quit asking questions, you just made nothing but statements.

And so you had a bunch of good statements, a bunch of good sound bites, but you know, the puck started moving, and you were over here taking naps.

And so they said at some point you got to pull this thing back.

Out, but that's hard to do because this is painful.

This doesn't feel good to be out here and not know what you're doing.

We're in territory I'm unfamiliar with.

And so if you think that being in the entrepreneurial thing is a phase to get us so that we're not that anymore, you don't understand the mindset.

It's actually that mindset of being helpless, of not knowing the answers, that actually puts you in a place where you start asking questions to help you take ground.

I can't think of a better illustration of a disciple of Jesus that's constantly growing.

Essentially it's what Jesus says to Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, when you started out in your Pharisee school, when you started out with the Torah, when you started out trying to get your theology, you were asking all the right questions and you were stretched and you were learning, and eventually you came here, and now you're the answer man, and you're so embarrassed that you're in territory that you don't understand.

Why do I have success and respect and things are going good, and yet I still feel as thirsty as the woman who's had five husbands?

And why am I I'm embarrassed I gotta come at night?

She went at noon with the sun up.

He went at night.

Because I'm embarrassed to admit it.

And Jesus says, You got to pull this thing back out.

Go back to being a novice.

Go back to being a novice.

And what Jesus is teaching here is that what he's talking about right here about being born again isn't just this one-time event.

I prayed that prayer that one time at that altar, and now I'm gonna go back and come back here.

No, for the rest of our lives, he's speaking with an old man who's highly educated, telling him, pull this thing back out.

And if you don't, you won't even see the kingdom of God.

You gotta go back to thinking like you don't know anything.

Go back to thinking like you don't have the answers.

Go back to the questions.

He's not inviting him to ask one question one time.

He's saying the rest of your life, this is your this is how your brain should work.

This should be your attitude.

Unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

Well, Nicodemus starts asking questions.

He's like, What are you even talking about?

What do you mean?

He says, You how can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?

And look now, Jesus says something interesting here.

He said, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water in the spirit.

Without being born of water in the spirit.

Humans can produce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

Okay.

If you have a hard Bible here, like a hard copy, most likely, most copies in verse 5 will have an asterisk or a footnote or something if you have one of those types of Bibles.

In verse 5, where it says born of water and the spirit.

And what the asterisk says, or if you go down and read the footnote, it says the Greek word for spirit can also be translated wind.

So Jesus is using a little wordplay here, unless you're born of water and of wind.

In fact, we know that he goes on, and if you keep reading, it says humans, okay.

Sorry, verse 7.

He said, uh check that.

Uh let's go to verse uh seven.

He said, Don't be surprised when I say you must be born again.

Verse 8.

The wind blows wherever it wants.

Just as you can hear the wind, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going.

Okay, now I'm gonna slow read this.

So digest this.

The wind blows wherever it wants.

Just as you can hear the wind, or you can perceive the wind, and you can see the effects of the wind.

He said, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going.

In other words, you can't fully harness it.

You can put water under a microscope, but you cannot put wind under a microscope.

But no one in the room denies wind.

You know it's there, you feel it on your skin, you you see the effects, you see the tree blowing, you see something's going on, you know it's real, but it's elusive.

It's powerful.

It can power if we can harness it, if we get this energy thing, whatever figured out, you can harness, you could power the whole world on the wind.

The wind is powerful.

But man, it's elusive, it goes right through your fingers.

I can manipulate water, I can freeze it, I can unfreeze it, I can make it evaporate, I can make it condensation, I can do that.

You can do that.

We can manipulate water.

Wind?

Wind is like going right through your fingers.

And so Jesus says, unless you're born of water and of wind.

And when we're talking about water, we're talking about things that are scientific.

We're talking about height H2O.

We're talking about things that we can explain, things that we can fully understand, that we can handle.

When you talk about wind, wind is like it's real, but it's elusive.

He said it comes and goes.

And you don't even know where it came from, you just know it's real.

So Jesus, as he's going to Nicodemus here, he's saying, My man, your default is to deconstruct and educate an academic and to know it and to engineer it and to reverse engineer it and to make it do what you want it to do so you can replicate it.

You're a smart man, Nicodemus.

You're highly educated.

That's really good.

Unless you are born again.

Unless you'll come to a place of humility, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

What are you talking about, Jesus?

It's being born of water and of wind.

There are some things that you can understand and learn and maneuver and manipulate and control, and then there are some things in your life that will be outside your control.

It'll slip through your fingers no matter how smart you are.

No matter how corner your office is, no matter how many people salute you, no matter how highly respected and validated you are.

It doesn't matter how far how old you are, how long you've been there and done that, how many things you've been there, done that with, how many answers you have, how many people think you're great.

It doesn't matter.

There's something that's gonna come your way, it's gonna go right through your fingers.

And there's things about God you just won't be able to explain.

Nicodemus, you have just enough humility to show up to me at night.

You got enough pride you came at night, but you got enough humility that you showed up anyway, and I'm trying to save you today.

I'm trying to help you understand.

You gotta be born of spirit and you got to be born of wind.

You're water and wind, the tangible and intangible, and you've got to sit in the tension of both.

I got five minutes, I'm gonna go fast, so lock in with me.

Alright, we hear?

Jesus in the previous chapter, John chapter 2, turns water into wine.

John 2 · chapter mention

Water into wine.

What happened?

Well, let's look at how you make wine.

You make wine, you harvest grapes, you press and crush, they go through a process of pressing and crushing, then fermentation takes a while, a long time.

A fine wine gets better with age.

It takes time.

The fermentation, uh, the clarification, the bottling, there's a whole process.

Jesus at the party takes water, turns it into wine that fast.

So so the what should have been a process of crushing happened in a split second.

A process of fermentation, what usually takes years and time in an instant.

Jesus spoke it, it did happen, boom, done.

It's a mystery.

But in in John 3, he talks about the children of Israel in the wilderness, lost for 40 years.

And he he alludes to the story, but again, Nicodemus would have known it.

He they're speaking shorthand.

What what what happened with the children of Israel in the wilderness?

Well, children of Israel were in captivity to the Egyptians and they hated life.

Get us out of here.

We don't want to be in Egypt anymore.

We're tired of being captive.

So God does a miracle, parts the Red Sea.

They walk into now the wilderness, which is on their way to the promised land.

But they're in the wilderness, and now they're in the wilderness.

Guess what?

They're free.

Yes, sir.

They're free as a bird.

Yes, sir.

But they're in the wilderness and they're lost.

And they have shelters that are temporary, but you got a roof over your head.

But then they're hungry.

We want food.

God gives them manna.

He gives them food from heaven.

And they start eating the manna, and they're like, I'm tired of eating this manna.

Tired of eating the manna.

I'm tired of being lost.

They even said, It was better when we were in Egypt.

At least we got we didn't have to eat the same thing every day.

And it took them 40 years to learn how to not complain.

At one point, Jesus got tired of them complaining and sent snakes.

And once the snakes hit, all of a sudden the manna didn't look so bad.

And they start crying, okay God, we get it.

40 years.

When my daughter was like an infant, I'd hold her, I'd be standing up, and she'd be good.

I'd sit down and she'd start crying.

Anybody else kid do this?

So I'd be standing back up and like my stinking back starts hurting, man.

I'm like, dang, I can't do this forever.

I sit back down.

I'd only do this like two or three times.

I'm sitting down, she's screaming.

I look down, this is a true story.

I look down, I see a hardwood floor.

I'm like, you think I'm uncomfortable?

So she went from crying to screaming.

And I was like, just feel it.

I want you to feel it.

She'd scream herself horse.

See if we don't thin out the 10 o'clock service next week.

I pick her up.

Sit down.

And she stopped crying.

My daughter learned in two minutes what took the children of Israel 40 years.

So we can speed up this pressing and this fermentation, or you can do 40 years to learn how to not complain.

The water, the wind, there's things God's gonna take you in some way.

Look, I know you're smart and you're accomplished, and everybody thinks you're somebody.

And that's all good.

You are at a place, and you will come to a place that the wind is going through your fingers.

Go find Jesus.

Even if it's in the middle of the night.

If you gotta hide behind the privacy of your cell phone, that's fine.

That's fine.

Find Jesus.

Find Jesus.

Unless you're born of water and of wind.

And here's what I'm gonna tell you: all the rest of your life, you've got to take on the attitude of a question asker.

You never graduate.

Don't be embarrassed about it.

Anybody can ask for advice on raising kids when they're brand new and this is a first-time parent and they're a baby because of well, how would I know?

I've never done it.

But what happens when your kids are 17 and 22?

And you're looking back and going, how much of this was my fault?

What did I do?

Are you willing to go?

I'm gonna reopen the question.

I'm gonna go get some help.

I'm gonna get some advice.

I'm gonna stretch this thing.

I'm gonna I'm gonna go into the territory.

I I feel stupid in this territory.

I I feel inadequate in this territory.

I feel helpless in this territory.

I I feel childish in this territory.

Not childlike in a good way.

I feel childish.

I feel like I should be beyond this.

I don't want anyone to know I still have this question.

I don't want anyone to know that I'm still wrestling with it.

I don't want anyone to know I'm this dumb.

That's good.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, that's good.

Born again.

Uh-huh.

You cannot see the kingdom of God.

All right, sir.

All right, all right.

So the action steps are clear.

Yes, sir.

Water and wind.

Water and wind.

What are the things for you?

The water represents the things that we can control.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

You see?

It's a relationship between the things you can control and the things only God can do.

You gotta do them both.

Come to peace with attention.

Yeah, we sing songs like we're blessed in the city, we're blessed in the fields, we're blessed when we come and when we go, amen to that.

We cast down every stronghold.

Sickness and poverty must cease.

Well, how do you cast down every stronghold and sickness and poverty cease?

Well, there's a little water and a little wind in there.

You do what you can do and then trust God with only what He can do.

But you got to do what you can do.

Because if you're casting down the stronghold and you want sickness to cease, God can heal your body.

But if you don't have good health habits, that sickness will show right back up.

Sickness will make a comeback on you.

God showed up and healed your diabetes, but if you keep drinking that milkshake at 10 p.m., that milkshake doesn't just bring the boys to the yard.

The milkshake could bring your blood pressure up.

So you gotta have good health habits.

You're going out in the sun with no sunscreen, you end up with some.

You see what I'm saying?

Proverbs 19, 21.

Many are the plans of a man's heart.

It's God's purpose that prevails.

Well, praise God for that, but that's not speaking against good plans.

Come up with a plan.

And then pray about it.

Pray, plan, pray, plan, pray.

There's no nothing wrong with a rough draft and a second draft and a third.

Keep working the plan and pray.

So you do the water and the wind.

I embrace the water and the wind.

I know I'm gonna do what I can do and trust only.

Cast down every strong sickness must cease.

Poverty must cease.

Yeah, poverty must cease.

God can bless you with a better job and you can end up with some more money.

But if you don't do your part, come on now.

Come on, Pastor.

Amen.

That's right.

One minus two is still negative one.

Yes, it is.

Yes, sir.

I heard somebody the other day talking about how many people, after they win the lottery, go broke.

So I was like, well, I want to see if that's real.

I looked it up.

The National Endowment for Financial Education said that 70% of lottery winners are bankrupt within a few years.

70%.

Why?

Well, God, you know, you cast down that stronghold, you get blessed.

Poverty ceased.

But if you still spend carelessly and you don't get the issues under control, poverty will make a comeback on you.

So it's water and wind.

I want you to pause for a moment and ask the Lord, Lord, what is the water part?

What's the part you want me to do?

What's my part?

The thing I can control, the thing I can put under the microscope, the thing I can take a drink of, the thing I can freeze if I need to.

What is your part?

What's the principle?

What's the thing maybe you know to do but you don't do?

What's the thing you don't know what you don't know, but you better go get an answer?

Come on up.

What's your part?

And then the second is within the wind.

What are maybe some of the things, some of the territory that God has you in right now that's elusive, man?

It's going through your fingers.

Let it drive you to your knees and let it drive you to better questions.

Bring it back out here, Lord.

What do I need to learn?

What do you want to show me?

Come back out here.

This is not anything to be embarrassed about.

You don't have to go in the middle of the night.

It's okay if other people know.

That's okay.

But but you come back and say, Lord, I'm out of my depth.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I need your help.

God, I need you to show me something.

I need you to bring me through.

So let's take a moment right now.

Let's go to the Lord.

God, we come to you in Jesus' name.

Lord, I thank you that this conversation you have with Nicodemus, you didn't wait on him to ask a bunch of questions.

You cut right to the chase.

That unless we're born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God.

We cannot see what you want us to see.

And Lord, it's somewhat ironic that often it's the things we've worked so hard to get and the places we've worked so hard to be that often become the obstacle.

The things we think we know.

So, Lord, may we humble ourselves.

We're not the answer people.

You are the answer.

And so, Jesus, we come to you with questions today.

God, I pray right now you would take this word that's gone out to a bunch of people and that you would make it very personal in terms of what water action steps we have, what thing that we can do do we need to do.

Help us to stop making excuses, help us to stop getting stuck in insecurities.

Help us, Lord, to follow through on the things that are ours to do.

And God, I pray for those areas of our lives that are wind, they're going through our fingers.

We can't harness it, we can't redirect it, we can't control it.

Lord, I thank you that it's in those things that it drives us to our knees, it takes us out of our arrogance and our pride to being aware of your greatness.

You're a mighty God, you're a good God.

And so today we embrace the thing that we cannot control and we trust you, the wind of your spirit in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.