We Want to See The Kingdom
Sermon Notes
A drive through the desert
Last weekend, my family and I were out of town on a little mini-vacation out in Palm Springs. Even though, we weren’t here with you, we were thinking about you. In fact, I was thinking about you all quite a bit on the drive out to Palm Springs, thinking about our church and the journey we’re on together, this journey to learn to live free.
We talked often over the past several months how this journey into freedom always leads through the wilderness.
This seems to be one of God’s favorite strategies:
He sets His people free from an oppressive regime.
Gives them a new identity
And then, immediately sends them into the wilderness where that identity can be worked into them (as others are worked out of them)
Examples:
He did this, as we’ve talked about often with the Israelites (out of Egypt straight into the wilderness)
He did this, after a fashion, with the Church in the book of Acts
And, He even did this with Jesus.
Baptism
Affirmation of identity – “You are My Son.”
Straight into the wilderness where that identity was tested and solidified.
And, I think He’s doing that in us right now.
As we all find ourselves in this global wilderness season, I think that’s the kind of work God wants to do in His people. Work stuff out. Work stuff in.
So, on our drive through the desert last weekend, I was paying close attention to the kind of stuff that you see in the desert.
To the severe and difficult stuff: heat, dryness, endless miles of nothing.
And, to the beautiful stuff: fresh air, endless visibility, quiet, and clarity
One of the things that stood out to me, that always stands out to me when I make that drive is the wind.
Wind in the desert:
The Coachella Valley is one of the windiest places in California, something called the venturi effect where the hot air of the desert pulls in the cooler air from the coast making a wind tunnel through the Coachella Valley that has 20 MPH winds an average of 7 hours per day.
And, as I think about the deserts I’ve been in my life, many of my memories feature hot, dry desert winds, hair blowing all over the place (there was a time when that happened to me, and I miss it every day), sand stinging the face.
Seems to me that one of the dominate features of any extended time in the desert is the wind.
And, that got me thinking about John 3.
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:1-8)
Jesus and Nicodemus
Context
A clandestine meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, who seems to be a genuine seeker but one who was afraid of being seen as one.
I think it’s interesting that he doesn’t really ask Jesus a question. Just comes to Jesus with a statement: “We know you’re from God.” The subtext is clear, “But, who are you?”
He calls Jesus, “Rabbi.”
He acknowledges His prophetic power
What he’s really getting at, Jesus picks up on right away: he wants to know if Jesus is the Messiah.
I used to think (and by used to, I mean until yesterday) that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night because he didn’t want the other Pharisees to know, but as I read through this story this time, I started to suspect that they sent him. The reason he went at night is because what he was asking was treasonous.
Jesus doesn’t beat around the bush but gets straight to the point. I love Him so much! When someone asks a direct question, He rarely answers but when is trying to tap dance around something, He goes right after it. Don’t ever let anyone try to convince you that Jesus was boring. Anyway, what Jesus essentially says is, “Oh, you’re wondering if I’m here to bring the Kingdom. Well, if you want to see the Kingdom of God, you must be born again.”
This throws poor Nicodemus for a loop because he thought he was positioned to see the Kingdom of God, that he had done everything he needed to do, and that they were just waiting on God to intervene.
He was religious.
He was moral
He was seemingly attentive to the possibility that Jesus might be the Messiah.
Like I said, a genuine seeker.
I think we would have really liked the guy.
But, Jesus’ answer indicates two things:
The Kingdom was not a future event but a present reality. Notice the verb tense that’s used here. Jesus says, “No one can see the Kingdom of God, unless they are born again.” He does not say, “No one will see…” Now, you might say that verb tenses are pretty flimsy evidence to base an argument on, but the truth is, that reading of the passage is far more consistent with the rest of the New Testament’s witness about the Kingdom of God than anything that points to a distant future event. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is at hand, meaning so close you can touch it.” So, first Jesus seems to indicate here that the future event Nicodemus was waiting for was already present.
Second, and perhaps more startling, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he doesn’t have the capacity to see it without to repositioning himself, without, in fact, being born again. Let me restate this to make it as clear as possible: Nicodemus one of the most pious, moral, influential, attentive, people ever, a genuine seeker, who longed to see the Kingdom of God come in power, that is to say, who longed to see the world set right, longed to see the curse of sin and death eradicated, long for resurrection and renewal, longed to see God’s will done on earth as in heaven, that guy, would not see anything he was longing to see unless he was transformed at a fundamental level, rebuilt from the ground up.
Nicodemus was understandably confused, but not by the implications of what Jesus was actually saying. He got hung up on the language.
“What do you mean, ‘born again?’ That’s anatomically challenging.”
We roll our eyes at Nicodemus, but we would have said the same thing if we were there. In fact, try using that language with someone who’s not a Christian right now, and see how they look at you.
Jesus goes on to explain, we’re not talking about entering back into the womb but a different process altogether, one defined by two elements: water and spirit.
The water part refers to baptism in water, signifying the movement from death to life.
When we go into the waters of baptism, are buried with Christ.
And, when we come out, we rise to new life in Him.
This is the moment of deliverance, when we go from slaves to free.
In fact, the Church throughout the millennia has equated baptism with the parting of the Red Sea and the people of Israel passing through on dry land.
In the New Testament, water baptism always means repentance. It is a public declaration that who I was is no longer, that I am now new.
But, Jesus says that this is not all, that there is another rebirth that has to take place alongside water baptism, that follows the moment of deliverance: rebirth by the Spirit.
And, there is a whole lot to say here that we don’t have time to address, so to keep things short, I’ll simply say that whenever the Bible talks about baptism of the Holy Spirit or rebirth by the Holy Spirit, it is always a matter of power.
I don’t just mean external manifestations of power in the world, the things that we call the charismatic gifts of the Spirit.
But, far more foundational in the New Testament and certainly here in John 3, the power of the Holy Spirit is power to change, power to be transformed from the inside out, power to become the new person that you declared yourself to be through water baptism.
To use, Jesus language here, it is power to see the Kingdom of God that is already present among us.
If you think of this in Exodus terms, water baptism is the freedom event, when they went from being slaves to being free, the Red Sea. But, then, God led them through the wilderness by His very presence, revealing Himself to them, teaching them, correcting them, making them into the free people that He had saved them to be.
Here at Canopy, this is our covered value. It’s not just that God saves us and claims us as His own (claimed), but also that He goes with us and empowers us as we grow into the identity He has already given us.
And, Jesus says this covering, this rebirth by the Spirit is essential to anyone who wants to see the Kingdom of God, who wants to see and live into the restoration of all things, the will of God on earth as in heaven. Jesus says, if that’s what you long for, you have to be fundamentally changed by the Spirit of God.
He goes on to explain: “Anything born of the flesh is flesh, but whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
In other words, systems born of the world (the flesh, as Jesus calls it) will produce worldly outcomes. You can’t expect anything else. The tree will produce fruit in keeping with the seed from which it grew.
So, when Nicodemus asked Jesus about the Kingdom that he would bring, presumably by conquest of the Romans (the way that every other leader in the history of the world brought about their kingdoms), Jesus responded, “Let me stop you right there. You’re barking up the wrong tree. The Kingdom that would be built through that strategy would not bear even the slightest resemblance to the Kingdom of God.”
However, if you want to see the Kingdom that the Spirit would bring, you must be born again of the Spirit.
Jesus uses a powerful play on words to illustrate the point. He says, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You can hear it, but you can’t see where it’s coming from or where it’s going. So, it is with everyone who’s born of the Spirit.”
In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for “Spirit,” is the same word for “wind”: ruach and pneuma.
And, what Jesus seems to be highlighting here is the wild, even destructive power of the wind.
The wind is wild and uncontrollable.
It will mess up all of the systems you have created and the categories you have established.
But for those who are willing to receive, it will be a source of tremendous power. Power to change. Power to be reborn.
So, what Jesus is saying here is that your rebirth by the Spirit will be like the wind.
We often talk about opening the door to Jesus, but we have to realize that when we do, His Spirit comes in like a mighty wind and begins blowing things about in a way that is more than a little bit uncomfortable and inconvenient.
We talk often about the power of the Spirit and being empowered by the Spirit, but we need to remember that, according to the Bible one of the primary ways in which the Spirit exercises His power is in the toppling of strongholds. He works not to affirm the status quo but to overthrow systems that are opposed to the Kingdom of God.
When the Spirit comes into our lives, He does so to overthrow us, to remake us.
The message of this short passage of Scripture is clear. For anyone who genuinely wants to see that Kingdom of God, who wants to see God’s will done on earth as in heaven, there are two things we need to know.
We will never get God’s outcomes in the world apart from the power of the Spirit. There is no worldly strategy that will achieve the Kingdom of God.
We will never get God’s outcomes in the world until we are transformed ourselves, born again of water and Spirit.
Application
We’re in this desert season, and the venturi effect is in full swing. The wind is whipping,
And for much of the world the response is to batten down the hatches and try to ride out the storm.
Now, I’m not saying that everything that knocks us around in this season is God at work.
But, I am saying in everything that’s knocking us around in this season, God is at work.
The wind of the Spirit is blowing and it is blowing towards rebirth, towards the Kingdom and the restoration.
What I’m suggesting is that the wind might just be the Holy Spirit and our best approach might not to try to survive the storm but to sail on the wind.
And, that brings me back to my drive through the desert.
The windmills as someone who saw the tremendous power in the wind.
It makes me think of what Jesus says here in John 3, that we must be born again. Such a strange thing that the Bible often does when talking about the work of the Spirit: it uses a passive imperative, meaning something that happens to you but which you must participate in.
How do we do that?
Regular repentance of our own kingdom building projects: rhythms of confession.
Scripture: we need to be more thoroughly steeped in Scripture than any other media
Prayer: lots of different kinds of prayer, but what I mean here is listening to the voice of the Spirit.
Habits