Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
October 23, 2022
INTRO (SLIDE 1)
Good morning! If you were here last week, you got to hear from my dad! My dad serves as president of our network of churches, and it was very special for him to preach at our church! So thank you for giving such a warm welcome to my mom and dad last week!
I want to say thank you for two other things:
Sarah and I had a wonderful time last weekend at the Resilient Ministry retreat. It was a life-giving and restful time with about 20 other pastors and their wives.
And thank you so much for all the gifts and cards and fun things like the sheep in our front yard! Sarah said to me a few days ago, “I feel so spoiled by our church!” Me too! So thank you for loving my family!
Well, it almost felt like summer yesterday! But you’ve probably noticed that its getting darker everyday. We’re closing in on the end of daylight savings time in a couple weeks, and then it will be those depressing weeks of the year where it gets dark almost in the afternoon!
ILLUST — I really enjoy backpacking and wilderness hunting and camping. How many of you like getting out in the woods away from all things of modernity? Ok, how many of you like glamping? There’s something nice about that too!
Well, a couple years ago my brothers and I went on a hunting trip in Idaho. (SLIDE 2) We backpacked over 10 miles deep into the wilderness in a remote area of the Bitterroot Mountains. We were a 9 hour drive from the major city of Boise! So this was a long way from civilization!
Something I’ll never forget about that trip was how radically different the experience was between daytime and nighttime. (SLIDE 3)
In the daylight, we hiked along the Selway River and the sheer immensity of the mountains that surrounded the river valley took your breath away. The river sat at about 2800 feet in elevation, and the peaks all around could reach as high as 6000 feet! We would scale these mountain slopes throughout the day and look from vantage points that were spectacular!
But after the sun went down, we would sit in our camp in the river valley and be overcome by the darkness. It was surreal. There wasn’t a light anywhere. But what was so disorienting is that your perspective completely changed.
No longer could we perceive the immensity and grandeur of the mountains that surrounded us. It was like the world shrank, like the distances diminished, like our spacial awareness inverted so that we could only perceive things within arm’s reach.
Even with the campfire or flashlight, your world became so small…and yet there was this haunting feeling because you knew that something bigger was out there, something that dominated the landscape that was beyond your perceptions.
Friends, this haunting feeling, this sense that there’s something grander beyond your limited human perceptions, is exactly what it feels like to live in the dark apart from Christ.
The only cure to this haunting feeling, the only light powerful enough to illuminate the grandeur of the mountains again was the rising sun. I realized in that moment in the wilderness of Idaho that I had no control over it, I just had to receive the light of day as a gift, that I needed a power beyond me to be able to perceive the expansive glory of the slopes of the Bitterroots.
Friends, this is what needs to happen to us in the gospel. (SLIDE 4)
We are going to see this morning that at the heart of the gospel is the need for you to experience a new birth in your inner being in order to perceive the Kingdom of God.
And Jesus is going to tell us that this is exactly why he came: That by trusting in him, you can receive forgiveness and be welcomed into God’s eternal kingdom.
The Light of the World has dawned! And guess what…he loves you! It is through him alone that you are invited to come out of the darkness and into the light. You see, Jesus is the key to all history, and he opens the way to know the grandeur of God’s plan for the restoration of all things.
Open with me to John 3:1-21. The apostle John records a conversation here between Jesus and a prominent Jewish Pharisee named Nicodemus. It is through this conversation with the best-of-the-best of Israel’s teachers that Jesus reveals something radically profound about what he came to do…that he came to inaugurate the new creation within the hearts of his people.
As we read, I want you to see that John plays with the idea of darkness and light. Nicodemus literally is in darkness, coming to Jesus at night. And John ends this passage by describing the new reality that the Light of the World has come.
Let’s read. READ John 3:1-21.
ORG SENT — Remember, there is a contrast in this passage between darkness and light. That’s how we are going to tackle this text. In verses 1-15, there is a call to come out of the darkness. Then in verses 16-21, there is a call to come into the light.
MAIN 1 — Come Out Of Darkness (vv. 1-15). (SLIDE 5a)
Go to the beginning of this conversation in verse 1. We learn that a man named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. (SLIDE 5b)
The details are important — Nicodemus wasn’t just an ordinary guy. He was a Pharisee, the most strict and pious sect of religious leaders in Judaism. He was also a member of the ruling council, which means he was a prominent leader and a well-respected teacher.
He came at night, which literally shows that he was afraid of anyone finding out that he was going to meet with Jesus. But it reveals way more that merely fear.
You see, Nicodemus was a man who did everything by the book, he upheld the law, he had a sterling reputation, and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Old Testament. But what the apostle John wants us to see right away is that this man was actually in the dark spiritually, unable to perceive the Kingdom of God accurately, haunted by the sense that there is something bigger out there that cannot be reached by legalism or by keeping up his reputation or by knowing more than anyone else about the Scriptures.
We can see this in Nicodemus’ opening comment to Jesus. He doesn’t ask a question, he makes a statement. Look at what he says: READ v. 2.
Did you notice that he uses the plural “we”? He doesn’t open himself up personally to Jesus, he kind of hides behind his group of Pharisee friends who want to evaluate the merit of Jesus’ miraculous signs. ILLUST — Its kinda like Nicodemus says, “Who are you anyway? I’m asking for a friend.”
I just love Jesus’ response. Once again, Jesus doesn’t capitulate to people’s demands, expectations, or assumptions. He doesn’t let Nicodemus pretend that he can sit in judgment over Jesus to decide whether Jesus is right.
ILLUST — We have to realize something here. Jesus is the ultimate non-anxious and self-defined person. He never needs to impress people, he is not threatened by their assumptions, or anxious about anyone’s expectations of him!
He simple goes to the heart of the matter: (SLIDE 5c) READ v. 3.
Remember, Nicodemus is literally in the dark at this moment, but he’s also spiritually in the dark! He can’t perceive the Kingdom of God, he can’t see the reality of who Jesus is and what he came to do.
His world has shrunk down to be merely about the rules and regulations of the Law that he thinks he can perfectly follow in order to make God happy and impress others.
Nicodemus’ perception is like that experience when I was in the wilderness in Idaho: For him, the glory of the Kingdom of God is beyond his perceptions, and he is haunted by the sense that something grander is out there.
What Nicodemus needs, and what all of us need, is to be born again! (SLIDE 5d) We need a transformation of our inner being, a regeneration, a new birth!
Let me cut to the chase here when we talk about the new birth:
When you’re a baby, what control do you have over being born? None! It is something that happens to you, it is something that you experience, but you don’t control. You’re helpless and it's in God’s hands.
And if becoming a Christian is like the process of being born again, should you expect to be mature right away? No! Its ok that you don’t know everything right away, or that you still have lots of issues that you’re dealing with. In the family of God, some of us are newborns in the faith, others are teenagers, others middle-aged, and others wise senior saints! We need each other!
You can understand that a prominent religious leader like Nicodemus would have trouble understanding this reality. He has spent a lifetime building up his reputation, proving his worth, following the rules. Jesus’ insistence on the new birth as a prerequisite for entering the kingdom is shocking because he said this to a man of Nicodemus’ caliber!
ASK — If Nicodemus, with his knowledge, gifts, social position, and wealth cannot enter the kingdom by virtue of his social standing and good works, what hope is there for anyone?
I’m glad you asked…here’s the secret that Nicodemus, a great scholar and teacher of the Scripture missed…it is a gift of grace, it is a work of the Spirit of God within you.
Nicodemus forgot about Ezekiel 36:25-27 — (SLIDE 6) “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
This is why Jesus says to Nicodemus in verse 5, (SLIDE 7a) “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”
You need to be cleansed of sin. (SLIDE 7b)
You need a new heart and the Spirit of God to dwell within you. (SLIDE 7c)
That is the only way you can know the Kingdom of God! That’s the only way you can come out of the darkness!
Nicodemus’ response in verse 9 is the burning question for someone who suddenly realizes they are in the dark, but they long for the light: “How can this be?”
It must be a gift, and it must be by faith.
Look at how Jesus brings in a story from the Old Testament that Nicodemus would have been familiar with: READ vv. 14-15.
This is a quote from Numbers 21 where the Israelites had been struck with a plague of venomous snakes because of their hard-heartedness and rebellion.
(SLIDE 8a) Numbers 21:8-9 says, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”
Friends, this was a simple act of faith (SLIDE 8b)…to look at the bronze snake on the pole was simply an acknowledgment that God alone can save.
In the same way, Jesus was lifted up on a cross (SLIDE 8c)…that anyone who looks upon him will live, putting their faith in him alone, knowing that he can save you.
Why would Jesus do this? Why would he die for you? This is where we come to the second part of our passage, the invitation to come into the light.
MAIN 2 — Come Into The Light (vv. 16-21). (SLIDE 9a)
Let me simply read verse 16 again, and let you hear the incredible gift of the gospel. READ v. 16.
God loves you. (SLIDE 9b) His compassion and self-giving love are why Jesus came to die as a substitute in your place!
All you need to do is believe in him (SLIDE 9c), to look upon him with full trust and full surrender, to open your hands to receive the rebirth of a new life in Christ!
That haunting feeling of the darkness closing in around you, that sense of the condemnation of your sin, the fog and distortion of your perception of the world…you don’t have to live in the dark anymore! Light has come into the World! His name is Jesus!
Come into the light. Let Jesus Christ and his forgiveness, by his blood shed for you on the cross, bring you into the new birth by the Spirit’s regenerating work in your inner being!
And you know what will happen? Your perception of the Kingdom of God will suddenly burst into a clarity and brilliance that is like seeing the vast and glorious mountains rising out of the blackness when the sun rises! And when you trust in Jesus, you will live in the light day-by-day, you will know truth, you will know goodness, and you will know the glory and joy of the presence of God within you as the Spirit indwells your reborn heart.
APPLY
I remember when this happened to me.
Some of you know that my twin brother Brad had bone cancer when we were 12 years old.
He had a very rare and aggressive form of bone cancer that required the doctors to amputate his left leg.
He almost died a multiple points during his 18 months of treatment. He was treated at Stanford Children’s Hospital, and if I remember right he was the only child with this type of cancer that survived.
During this experience, I remember questioning God, I remember struggling with loneliness, I remember being confronted with a sense of guilt, I remember living in darkness and despair, I remember basically living like everyone else at school, rebelling and not really following God at all.
But through the influence of my parents and through a youth leader at my church, I remember a moment when God shined the light of Jesus Christ into my life.
I remember feeling a distinct sense of God’s forgiveness, his peace, and his joy! My limited and clouded perception of God and his Kingdom expanded into a vaster and more beautiful reality than I could have imagined.
It was a gift! It was something that happened to me, a movement of God’s Spirit in my heart that was like the wind, like Jesus said to Nicodemus. I didn’t control it or predict how God was going to change my heart, but he did.
I just had someone share with me the simple invitation of the gospel: Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The invitation is the same for you…believe in him, trust in him.
If you’ve never done that before, to surrender your life to him, today is the day.
If you’ve been following Jesus for a while now, let me encourage you: don’t take your eyes off of Jesus…look to him, trust in him, seek the light of life that only comes from him.