Nicodemus--My sermon for the Revival Service in Haiti

Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

            Tonight we are going to study a man from the Bible. A man that we may not be able to identify with everything about him, but there are certain things about him that we all can identify with. This man’s name was Nicodemus. He was a very religious man. He was very wealthy. He had a very powerful job in Israel, as being one of seventy members who made up their ruling class. And he was considered by many to be a very good teacher.

I.                   People Want to Intimidate and Control You

            Nicodemus had heard a lot of talk about a man named Jesus. This Jesus had created a lot of controversy in all of Israel. Some said He was the Messiah that many had been waiting so long for. Some said He was the Son of God. Some said He was just another prophet. Some said He was a good teacher. And still others said He was just a crazy troublemaker. Many of Nicodemus’s closest friends, co-workers, and family members were afraid of Jesus because He was making them all feel very uncomfortable. He was saying things that caused a lot of people to question the religious leaders, whether they were actually right or not. Many of those people stopped following the religious leaders, and started following Jesus. If all of these people kept leaving them and following Jesus then they would no longer have as much influence over them, and they would not make as much money. In other words, they wouldn’t have as much power as they once did. And that scared them.

            These religious leaders, when given a choice to have power over their fellow man, or have a right relationship with God, they chose to keep the power. Many of them began making up their minds about Jesus, based simply on fear, without ever investigating matters for themselves. Right now, there are so called religious leaders here, who may have heard about this Jesus, but are afraid to lose their power they have over you. They have chosen to maintain power rather than having a right relationship with God, and they will do everything possible to keep you from having that right relationship, too, just to keep that power. But back to the story, many of these powerful men decided that they would try to keep their power, and they would try to silence this Jesus in any way possible. Nicodemus had more integrity than the other men did. He knew that in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs (18:13) that it says, “It is a fool who decides a matter before he hears it.” He decided that he was going to investigate the matter for himself before he decided anything.

            But he was afraid. Have you ever been around a lot of people, when everybody else has a different opinion on a subject than you do? It makes you feel different. You feel out of place, and if you say that you disagree with them, you would really feel out of place. Nicodemus knew that almost everyone else hated this Jesus without any real reason to hate him, but he had some questions that he wanted to ask Him. He knew that if anyone found out that he was talking to Jesus, he would lose his reputation, and their respect. So when do you do something when you don’t want anyone to see you doing it? At night time. The only problem is that the Bible says that Jesus was the light of man. He was coming at night to THE Light. He was leaving spiritual darkness and entering spiritual light.

            Who was he afraid of that might see him? His family. His co-workers. Other religious leaders. His students. His former teachers. Who are you afraid of that might see you?  

II.     Its God’s agenda Not Yours

            Maybe you are like Nicodemus. He is going to meet with a very important man, and he has some things he needs to ask of Him. Whenever I have to meet with someone, or have an important conversation with someone I rehearse over and over again in my head what I want to say, and how I am going to say it. But when Nicodemus shows up to where Jesus is staying, he is only able to get his opening line out, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with Him.” Then Jesus completely takes control, and changes the direction of the entire conversation and says, “Truly, truly I say unto you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

            Nicodemus probably had a lot of questions to ask Jesus. Questions like, “Are you really the Son of God?” “Are you the Messiah?” “How did you turn water into wine?” “What did you mean when you said you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days?” By changing the direction of the conversation Jesus said, “I am not interested in satisfying your intellectual curiosity. I am only interested in you having a right relationship with God, and that can only be done through Me, by being born again.”  

            Jesus went on to say “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 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. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

            I have two daughters and a son. I cannot imagine sacrificing them, or giving them up for anything, but praise God, that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that He was willing to sacrifice His own son. Though he was innocent, He took on the punishment that we deserved, and was brutally killed.

            In America, the one Bible verse that almost everyone knows—even if they have never read a Bible, is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is a very beautiful verse and it is very important, but there is another very important verse here. John 3:18 says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” That means that we are already going to hell. Everyone, from whatever age God decides to hold each of us accountable for our actions, are on the road to hell, unless we make the decision to be followers of Christ.

            You may say, “That is very harsh. Why would a loving God do that?” Let me give you an illustration. Let’s say that everyone here tonight is very sick and will die very shortly. A doctor comes up to me and says, “Adam, we have found a cure for this disease! Everyone can be cured!” That would be fantastic, right? Then the doctor says, “There is only one problem. Your son is the cure, and the only way we can get the cure out of him is to kill him.” If I decided to kill my only son, and give him up as a cure for all of you, and only half of you ever thanked me, or even acknowledged the sacrifice I made for you…words cannot describe how violently angry I would get. My son had to die and half of you don’t care?

            That is exactly what God did. There is a disease in this world that we all have. A deadly disease called “sin.” There is a cure, but the only cure is the blood of a perfect sacrifice. The Bible says that the sacrifice of bulls and sheep were never enough to take our sin away. There had to be something else. God had to sacrifice His only son to get the cure out of Him, and billions of people won’t even acknowledge Him or care that He made such a sacrifice. It is only because of His patient love for us that we have not felt the wrath of our sin already. But His patience will not last forever.

III.             If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

Maybe you are like Nicodemus and are afraid of what other people may think of you, or even do to you or your family if you become a follower of Jesus Christ. There is one God. One God who created all of the heavens and the earth, moon, sun, and stars. He gave us breath and lungs to breathe it with, a heart that beats. He causes the sun to rise and set, the tide to come in and go back out again. There is no other god. There is no other spiritual being that can contend with his power or His majesty. The apostle Paul wrote, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” We should not be afraid of those who can kill our bodies but cannot touch our souls. The God who raised Jesus from the dead, is capable of delivering us, and protecting us from the problems we face in this world, but we know for sure that He will deliver us from the enemy of our souls. So, I ask you again, if God is for us, who can be against us? Will you trust Him tonight?     

Leading a Rebellion: Daniel

Leading a Rebellion: Daniel

Rebel:

-A rebel is a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.

The Story So Far:

-Prophets had been prophesying for years that if Israel didn’t repent of their sins, God would punish them by having a neighboring country conquer them and take them captive for a period of 70 years. Unfortunately, the Israelites did not repent, and God raised the Babylonians up to punish the Israelites. The Babylonians, killed many in the attack. Of the ones that were still alive when they surrendered, most were taken to be used as slave labor, the best and the brightest were trained in all things Babylon, and the derelicts were left in Israel to fend for themselves. I obviously, would have been considered one of the best and the brightest.

The Rebellion #1: Refuse to Eat the King’s Meat:

-Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were very young men, probably in their early teens. They were singled out has having a high amount of potential.

            Scripture: Daniel 1:3-9

                        -Why did Daniel find favor with the Eunuch? Probably because he was very respectful and made the most of his unpleasant circumstance.

                        -Notice vs. 8 that Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself. He made a decision before the situation arrived that he would not defile himself. We all need to do that. You need to decide for yourself that you will not have sex or other inappropriate behavior before marriage before you are put in the situation. If you wait until you are making out with your boyfriend or girlfriend and there are no parents around, it is probably too late to make that decision. You put yourself in bad situations and it is hard to slam on the brakes and put it into reverse. Hard but not impossible.

-There were certain foods that a Jew was not to eat, and there were certain people a Jew was not supposed to eat with. Daniel asks the Eunuch to give him and his friends a diet test. The Eunuch is put in great risk for agreeing to do this.

            Scripture: Daniel 1:10-21

The Rebellion #2: The Plot Against Daniel:

-A few years down the road there is a new king over Babylon, King Darius. The king had established three governors to rule over the land, who were accountable to him. Daniel was so highly esteemed in the king’s eye, because God had blessed him, that he considered putting Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom rather than the three governors. According to Veggie Tales, the three governors got together and sang, “Oh no, what’re we going to do? The king likes Daniel more than me and you. Oh no, what’re we going to do? We got to get him out of here.” So they came up with a plot. They played into Darius’ pride and convinced him to establish a law that they knew Daniel would break. Once he broke that law, he would then have to be put to death.

            Scripture: Daniel 6:4-11

                        -Daniel knew about the law, knew when the law was signed, knew the consequences of breaking the law, and went home and broke it anyways. That is a rebel.

-How did the governors know when to catch Daniel? His faith was no secret. They knew exactly when and how to catch Daniel. How secretive is your faith?

            Scripture: Daniel 6:12-23

                        -The king was tore up about Daniel. It is quite unusual for a king to go without the pleasures of life, like food and entertainment, especially over someone else. Their world revolved around them.

                        -All of this would not have happened if the king wasn’t so prideful that he thought he needed to be worshipped.

God Avenges:

-Similar to Mordecai getting the praise Haman thought was coming to him, and then Haman getting the punishment he wanted to bestow on Mordecai, the governors found themselves in a precarious position. The king still likes Daniel more than them, and now he is really ticked off at the three of them.

            Scripture: Daniel 6:24

                        -Just in case you thought the Lions just weren’t hungry.        

Leading a Rebellion: Jeremiah

Leading a Rebellion: Jeremiah

Rebel: a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.

Background: Jeremiah was a prophet and a priest. He was chosen to be a prophet from before he was born (Jer. 1:5). He was the son of Hilkiah, who was also a priest. Prophesied from 627 BC to 580 BC. He was known as the weeping prophet because of how he wept for the coming judgment on the nation that he loved so much.

-Jer 9:1 “Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!

-Jer 13:17 “But if you will not listen,
    my soul will weep in secret for your pride;
my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears,
    because the Lord's flock has been taken captive.”

-Jer 14:17 “You shall say to them this word:
‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day,
    and let them not cease,
for the virgin daughter of my people is shattered with a great wound,
    with a very grievous blow.”

He also wrote the book of Lamentations. Lament means to feel sorrow or grieve over.

Jeremiah had an assistant named Baruch who kept all of his writings for him that would make up the book of Jeremiah and Lamentations.

            Jeremiah had to remain unmarried as an object lesson. It symbolized how Israel, who was unfaithful to God, was divorced from Him.

The Rebellion:

Jeremiah remained faithful to prophesy exactly what God had told him to even though everyone hated him for it, and he nearly lost his life because of it. Jeremiah had witnessed the ten northern tribes, collectively known as Israel, or the Northern Kingdom get taken over by the Babylonians. Soon afterwards, the Southern Kingdom, aka Judah’s last God fearing king Josiah died. The next king led Judah into idolatry. God warned them through the prophet Jeremiah to repent or face being taken over themselves.

Jeremiah warned his nation to repent, which didn’t make him very popular. He then told them that the invasion was imminent, and not to bother fighting back. Jeremiah prophesied that the nation of Babylon was going to invade Judah, and take them captive for 70 years, and then they would be free to come back home. Imagine you were the king, trying to rally your troops for battle, and one of the prophets kept telling everyone, “Surrender! If you fight, you will die! If you surrender you will live!” This did not make him popular with the king or the generals. This is why he spent most of his ministry being punished for his message. He was threatened, forced to flee from the king, put in stocks, thrown into a pit and left to starve to death, put on trial for his life, and was publicly humiliated by a false prophet.

Throughout all of his pain, suffering, punishment, and humiliation Jeremiah never doubted God’s goodness and providence. He knew that God would take care of His people. To prove his point that God would keep his word that those who were taken captive would be released in seventy years, he bought a piece of land before the invasion and gave the deed to his assistant to hold for him. He even visited the captives of the Northern Kingdom that Babylon had taken before capturing the Southern Kingdom in order to give them hope of returning home if they repented and turned to God.

Application: Jeremiah, The Weeping Prophet, never saw success in his 40 year prophetic ministry. He preached and people ignored him. He prophesied, and people mocked him. He spoke the truth for God, and was beaten, jailed, left for dead, and publicly humiliated for it. From the outside looking in, his ministry seemed like a failure, but as long as you’re doing what God has told you to do, whether you’re seeing the results or not, your ministry/life is a success.

            -God tells you to share the gospel with someone and they reject it, possibly mock you. Was it a failure or success?

            -God tells you to go on a foreign mission trip and no one gets saved. Was it a failure or a success?

            -God tells you to move to Las Vegas and plant a church. You go and within a year, your church has dissolved into nothing. Was it a failure or success?

            When you do what God tells you to do, it is always a success. What is God telling you to do? Read your Bible? Start a Bible club? Go to a Christian organization’s meeting? Witness to the most popular kid in your school? Witness to the smelliest kid in your school?  Just do it.     

A Review of The Fourth Fisherman

The Fourth Fisherman

By Joe Kissack

http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/bloggingforbooks/reviews/ranking/19374/

            The Fourth Fisherman is really three stories in one. There is the story of the three Mexican fishermen who were adrift in the Pacific Ocean for nearly nine months struggling day to day to survive. There is the story of the author’s rise to fame and power, and subsequent fall, as a Hollywood television executive. And finally there is the author’s attempt to write the story of the three fishermen, and make it into a movie. Spoiler alert: I knew the book eventually got written because I was holding it in my hands.

            This book was a page turner for me. As I read it I didn’t want to put it down, and that has been a first for me in a long time. I personally found two out of the three stories very endearing and heart wrenching. The third…not so much. It was good, but not as interesting as the other parts. I will attempt to break down the three for you.

            A fishing voyage was begun by five Mexican men with varying backgrounds, and experience. A day or two into a three day fishing trip, the men found themselves fighting a storm, and an unfortunate thing happened—they lost the fishing net…a really expensive fishing net…about a year’s worth of income for that net. Poor decision making turned that unfortunate loss into a tragedy sending the men adrift into the Pacific Ocean. Kissack describes in spectacular detail the horrors the men went through as they struggled day to day to survive.

            As Kissack writes the book he alternates a chapter of the fishermen’s story with a chapter of his story, and what happened to me was I was drawn into two completely different stories at the same time—like I was trying to decide which of two books to read. Kissack told of his childhood, being raised by a disapproving, never satisfied father; the courtship of his wife, Carmen; and his budding career in television. As Kissack’s career skyrocketed, so did the things he needed to do to sustain his lifestyle, and for the most part his very life. Carmen emerged as the hero of this chapter of his life.

            About midway through the book I began asking myself a question over and over again. Here’s another Spoiler Alert: Of the five fishermen, two die leaving three fishermen. My question was, Who’s the “fourth” fisherman? Jesus? Kissack? It is at this point that Kissack beautifully connects the story of his life with the story of the three fishermen’s lives. While he appeared to be doing well, he was lost. While the fishermen appeared to be in dire straits, they actually were not lost. God knew exactly where they were. Kissack then finishes the book describing, again in spectacular detail, what he had to do to get the book written.

            This is a guy’s book. I got excited about aspects of it and my wife would say, “I don’t want to hear anymore.” If you’re a guy’s guy, you need to read this book. If there’s a guy’s guy in your life, you need to buy him this book. It’s well worth it.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  

Leading a Rebellion Pt 3: Moses

Leading a Rebellion, Pt. 3:

Moses

            Rebel- a rebel is a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.

            Tonight we are continuing our “Leading a Rebellion” series by studying our next rebel—Moses. Moses is the first rebel that we have looked at that wasn’t really a counter-culturalist. Both of the other rebels—Noah, and Joseph, were rebels for God based on how they rejected what the rest of the culture considered normal. But this doesn’t mean that Moses was completely different from the previous two. Joseph was the most powerful man, second only to Pharaoh himself, in all of Egypt. Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter into the royal family. And there are a couple of interesting connecting points between Moses and Noah. Noah became a leader when he preserved the human race through the waters of the flood. Moses preserved the nation of Israel by leading them through the waters of the Red Sea. Noah’s ark was covered in pitch, and when Moses’ mom made his little boat and pushed him down the Nile, she covered it in pitch. Pharaoh’s daughter named the baby she found Moses, which means “drawn out of the water.” Noah and his family were drawn out of the water and were saved in the ark.

            Let’s look at Exodus 2:1-10 to recap the birth and adoption of Moses. “Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. ² The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. ³ When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes^[a] and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. ⁴ And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. ⁵ Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews' children.” ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child's mother. ⁹ And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

            Times changed, as they usually do. One Pharaoh died and a new one took over, one that did not remember what Joseph did for the country. At the same time, God was blessing the nation of Israel with incredible growth. Pharaoh and his advisors suggested that he start mistreating the Israelites lest a war break out and they join forces with their enemies. So they made all of the Israelites become their slaves and treated them ruthlessly. As if that was not enough, Pharaoh talked to the Hebrew midwives—these were the women who helped expectant mothers in delivery, and told them when a woman gave birth to a baby boy they were to kill it, but if it was a baby girl they were to let it live. The Midwives said, “Sure thing, boss,” but went away fully knowing they were not going to obey the Pharaoh’s commands. In fact, they led a rebellion of their own. They were the only two midwives mentioned, but they could not have been the only two serving the entire nation of Israel. They apparently recruited every other midwife to their cause. When Pharaoh realized that a lot of Israelites boys were still being born, he called the midwives in for a meeting. The Midwives said, “The Hebrew women are not like other women. They are strong, and by the time we get there, they’ve already given birth to their babies.”

            One of the babies that was supposed to be killed was Moses. When he was three months old, his mother sent it downstream, while his sister watched to see what would happen. His sister following him allowed him to be reunited with his mother, who nursed him for Pharaoh’s daughter. When Moses was weaned he began his life in the Egyptian royal family. We know that he received the best education available to any Egyptian, but that he still remained connected to his Israel brothers and sisters.

            A lot of this story reminds me of what is happening right now in China. The communist leaders treat their citizens as slaves. Due to over population families are held to a strict one child rule. If you are pregnant with a second illegal child you will be forced to abort it. If you somehow get around the abortion and give birth to the child, the government can and will kill the baby, and then put you in prison. On top of all of that, baby girls are basically discarded. People from all over the world are adopting Chinese baby girls because orphanages are literally finding them laying in the streets, in garbage cans, and wrapped in newspapers.

            Back to Moses: One day Moses was out walking and saw an Egyptian official harshly mistreating an Israelite, so he stepped in and killed the Egyptian, thinking of himself as a savior of his people, and then buried him in the desert. The next day he was walking around and saw two Israelites fighting. He didn’t understand why the two brothers should be fighting each other so he stepped in to stop them. One of them said, “Why? Are you going to kill us, too?” Moses said, “Oh snap! Word must have spread about what I did!” So he left everything he had and took off into the desert, got married, had a couple of kids, staying there 40 years. God then spoke to him through a burning bush, telling him that He wanted him to lead his people out of Egypt. Not only would he have to rebel against his family, but he would have to rebel against his nation’s government. What Moses was preparing to do was to walk into Pharaoh’s court and tell him to release all of his slave laborers—which is how he got all of his stuff done…for free. Now he would have to pay people to work for him. This would not be acceptable.

            So Moses and his brother, Aaron, went to see Pharaoh, and asked him to let God’s people go. Pharaoh did not let them go, and in fact increased the work load of the Israelites. This did not make Moses popular among the Israelites either. God responded with the first of the ten plagues, turning the water to blood. Moses and Aaron came back nine more times, with Pharaoh saying “no” nine more times, and the resulting plagues: 2) Frogs; 3) Gnats or Lice; 4) Flies; 5) Livestock killed off; 6) Boils; 7) Thunder and hail; 8) Locusts; 9) Darkness; 10) Death of all of the Firstborn people and beast. After the tenth plague, Moses was allowed to leave with God’s people.

            Moses was an unlikely leader. He spent almost no time with his own people. He was raised in Pharaoh’s court, spent forty years in the wilderness after murdering someone, came back claiming a mandate to lead them, and had such a bad stuttering problem that he recruited his brother to speak for him. When he stood up to Pharaoh and made his request, he failed. He failed again a second time, a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, a sixth time, a seventh time, an eighth time, a ninth time, and finally after the tenth time he succeeded. Moses didn’t get frustrated, angry, or upset with himself or God throughout this whole narrative. Why? Because he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that God spoke to him. Seriously, a burning bush talked to him about it. Secondly, it was confirmed through more than ten different miracles. And finally, Moses would not have even approached Pharaoh about the subject if he was trusting in his own abilities. But because he was trusting in God’s power, he would have had to trust God with the results, also.

            Moses did eventually lead God’s people out of Egypt, was chased down by Pharaoh who changed his mind once again, and led them safely through the Red Sea while the opposing armies drowned. Moses didn’t rebel just to rebel. He wasn’t doing it because he was bored. He was very confident that God had called him for a very specific purpose. God may not call you to lead an entire nation out of slavery and into their promised homeland, but he may ask you to stand up for the lives of the unborn, for traditional marriages, the ability to pray in school, or even the ability for churches to gather and worship. If you want to be a rebel like Moses, you have to learn to discern the voice of God, and then have the backbone to do what He asks you to do.