Tuesday 12 February 2008

Sunday 17 February 2007 John 3:1-17 Lent 2 Kim: Faith

Jesus: the Son of God (John 3:1-17)
Our Father: Forgive us…as we forgive: Faith

Nicodemus, a Pharisee, was a member of the Sanhedrin and he was an ‘undercover’ believer. He wanted to learn from Jesus, but not to be seen. He probably got more than he expected – a challenge to a new life. We too have that same challenge – a challenge to a new life. The question is do we want to take up the challenge?
For God’s kingdom is not a country that has borders. It is not in one particular place and I think the best description of God’s kingdom is in the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. In this prayer, we ask for God’s kingdom to come to the earth, so that everyone will obey God, for even the angels in heaven obey God and we ask that this will happen on earth too. A writer named William Barclay said that ‘God’s Kingdom is a society and in this society people do everything that pleases God and that God’s kingdom had already begun because when a person believes in Jesus, they join God’s kingdom’.
When Jesus told Nicodemus that there is only one way to enter God’s kingdom – a person has to be born again. Nicodemus did not understand that Jesus was not talking about the birth of our physical bodies. He was talking about the birth of our spirits. Now Nicodemus was a very clever man. He knew the Scriptures well and he taught people about them. But he did not understand and because he was clever, he realised this. He was wise enough to ask Jesus some questions. He really wanted to understand and Jesus explained things to him. You do not have to be clever to believe what Jesus said. You just have to have ‘faith’ in him. Sadly, there are many people today who do not understand and they struggle with the concept that they need to believe in Jesus. But when we understand, we are compelled to do something about it. It affects us. We must choose whether to obey Jesus or not.
For when we ‘believe in Jesus’ and begin to trust him, we are made aware of our sins and are sorry because of them. We know we should be punished for our sins but Jesus suffered that punishment on our behalf. He paid the price for our sins. So when we accept him as our ‘Lord’, God forgives our sins and he accepts us. Then the Holy Spirit enters us and God begins to change us. Our spirits are born again! Our spirits become alive and we know God is real. We love him and we want to please him and as the Spirit moves within us we become different people inside our hearts and because He has forgiven us, we too have the urge and the ability to forgive others no matter what.
Everyone who has been born again belongs to God’s kingdom. It does not matter where you live, or if you’re rich or poor, what colour skin you have, or whether you are young or old; God accepts everyone who believes in his Son and are given a ‘New Life’. It is a gift from God.
Sin is like a snake’s bite. A bite poisons our bodies and ruins our lives. But God has provided a way to cure us. He has provided a way to save us from sin and death. Jesus said that people would lift him up, like the snake. He was referring to the time when they would put him on the cross. They would lift him up on the cross for everyone to see and we must look up at him on the cross. To put it bluntly, we must trust him, because of the cross. The only way to free us from the results of our sin is to look at Jesus on the cross. When we look at the cross, God rescues us from the results of our sins. In other words, we must trust Jesus to save us from the punishment for our sins. He died so that God would forgive us. And we are expected to forgive others.
Verse 16 is probably the most famous verse in the Bible. It expresses in only a few words what Christians believe. It tells us the main reason why God sent his Son to die on our behalf. There are several reasons why God did this. He did it because he is fair. If people do wrong things, they deserve a punishment. So Jesus suffered our punishment in our place. He did it because he is holy. God cannot accept us, because we sin. But Jesus, who never sinned, took our place. He died instead of us and when we believe this, we receive Jesus’ righteousness as our own. So when God looks at us, he is so overwhelmed with love for us, he chooses to see Jesus’ righteousness instead of our sin. That’s amazing.
Love is more than just one of God’s qualities. His nature is love and God does everything because he loves. God’s love always reaches out to us, the people that he has made. God’s love is never selfish. He gave to us the most precious thing that he had: his only Son so that we might have Life – ‘eternal life’, God’s free gift to us. We cannot earn it. But we do have a duty to let other people know that the only one way to receive a ‘new life’ is to be born again and to believe in Jesus. To believe ‘in’ means more than just to know that Jesus is God. Even the devil knows that! It means that we should trust Jesus completely. We should allow him to rule every part of our lives completely for He has a plan for each one of us. We must believe that all his words in the Bible are true and we must obey him. We must believe that he gives us the power to change our characters to make us become more like him, if only we would let him. People have gone before us and have done just that – believed in Jesus and when we look at the Old Testament we can see that with our new birth in Jesus, God welcomes us into the family and we can share in the same trust that Abraham and Moses had. But we cannot will this, we can only respond to the Spirit’s will, and receive the Father’s love revealed to us in his Son.
Questions
1. What thoughts come to mind as you read this passage? What do you think God might be saying to you?
2. We pray ‘forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Are you the first to say sorry or do you find it difficult to forgive? Is there anything you would not forgive?
3. Jesus said “You must be born again and have faith in Jesus”. Have you? There are going to be three answers to that question. Yes – No – Not sure. If the answer is no or not sure, then please talk to Bruce, Robert, Melanie or Kim or someone you trust about how you can be sure.

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