TOTAL LIFE WORSHIP, PART 7: BORN OF THE SPIRIT

John 3:1-8
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
8 December, 2002
All Rights Reserved

I. ENCOUNTER AT CHRISTMAS NICK’S

Christine stood in front of the row of beautiful cut fir trees, breathing the scent of this temporary forest on a vacant lot in the middle of town, and wondering how she was going to stop weeping. She felt the warmth of her son Justin’s little hand and tried to pull herself together, thinking: “Got to make Christmas for Justin!” Christine’s life was, at this moment, a salvage operation to pick up what remained after her marriage to rocker Mick Ragsdale had been sunk like the Titanic. Mick had scuttled the future of their family by piling up one selfish betrayal after the next until the Ragsdale family broke apart under the weight and sank like a stone beneath the waves.

“Can I help you find somethin’, ma’am?” Christmas Nick, the Christmas tree guy, stemmed the tide of Christine’s emotions for a moment. She swallowed her feelings, wiped a tear with the back of her gloved hand, and choked out, “We’ve got some shopping to do. Can’t rush a decision like this!” It was a joke, but this mission gave a welcome relief, just to get out of Grief House, Sorrow Manor, Mansion of the Miseries. Christine now understood why people sometimes abandoned otherwise beautiful homes.

Justin popped the candy cane out of his mouth and tugged on the branch of a crooked little tree with three trunks instead of one: “Mummy, what about this one?” His childlike wonder at Christmas was not concerned with adult thoughts like size, shape, and how the tree would fit the elegant decor of the house. He loved all the trees! “Maybe, pumpkin” Mom replied. “But let’s look around before we make a decision.” They walked slowly through the night air down aisle after aisle of perfectly acceptable trees, listening to the carols blaring from the tinny-sounding speakers, and soaking in as much of the holiday spirit as possible.

Christine became lost in thoughts of recent events--especially the day her drawing room door had swung open and in padded little Justin on a mission with his nanny. Christine had been drowning in the sea of her sorrow just before that moment, overwhelmed by the destruction of her family--almost without hope. It had seemed that her soul and spirit were deprived of air and would die within her breast leaving her a hollow shell of a woman, drowned to death on the inside but alive on the outside.

And then a very strange thing had happened. It was as if a waft of the breath of life had blown through her spirit, and her hope did not die. In fact, it came alive in a way Christine had never known. Her friend Susan had invited her to a breakfast talk about Jesus and the very thought of it had ignited a spark of hope within her. She felt herself drawn to go with a force which surprised her. Christine was amazed that she had not wanted to swallow a whole bottle of pills or drive the Jaguar into a bridge abutment. Then the door had swung open and in came June and Justin.

“Justin has something to tell you,” June had said with no fanfare. And out of his little mouth tumbled the whole story of how he had believed in Jesus one night with the help of his nanny and how they prayed every night for Christine and Mick to believe in Jesus, too. The employer part of Christine’s mind had wanted to be upset that June had done this without asking her, but it wasn’t. In fact, she found her heart drinking in the news thirstily and with gladness. “June...” Christine asked hesitantly, “Can you explain it to me, too?”

Suddenly Christine’s attention was wrenched back to the present at Christmas Nick’s as she spied a familiar shock of long hair in the next aisle. “Mick!” she cried right through the branches. “What are you doing here?!?” Mick spun around and looked as astonished as she felt: “I...umm...I...ahh...was looking for a Christmas tree. I...uh...didn’t know if...I thought...I might bring it over for Justin. Could I come for a visit?”

A silent scream of outrage built with Christine’s heart: “No way!” she shouted inside without moving her lips. “The audacity! Who does he think he is?!?” She looked at his forlorn face and when her lips finally did begin to move she was surprised to hear herself say, “Christmas Eve, seven o’clock. No booze.”

As Mick turned to flee he felt like a child who had received the best Christmas gift of his life. Christine called out again and he turned to look at her through the green needles. “I don’t hate you... I did, but now I don’t. I don’t know why.” In the glare of the string of bare light bulbs Justin smiled, and a host of invisible angels smiled with him.

II. BORN OF THE SPIRIT

What can explain the remarkable events occurring in the lives of Mick and Christine Ragsdale? The story of their changed lives began with Mick realizing his total spiritual emptiness right in the middle of playing a sold-out concert. At that moment God was giving Mick a choice opportunity to see his reality and turn to him. Most people in his shoes--famous and wealthy--would not come to that point because of all the earthly props to their human nature. It is most common for all of us to try to use earthly things as fuel for our soul, kind of like trying to burn water in our cars. It’s the wrong thing and cannot work but with a hefty dose of denial it makes us think we are OK. We get a full tank of earthly stuff in the gas tanks of our souls so we feel full but we can go nowhere in the Spirit.

Christine had been trying to burn the benefits of her relationship with Mick in the engine of her soul, and because of Mick’s infidelities all the fuel had been taken away. The experience almost asphyxiated her. Then the gentle breeze of Jesus wafted through her heart, and Christine reached out for it.

Mick left the concert that night with no desire for the usual partying. He attempted to drown this new and disturbing feeling of emptiness with alcohol in his usual way, but the attempt failed completely. Even as he fell asleep on a park bench in the cold he found himself grasping for hope in a single verse of Scripture which he had read: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

At Christmas Nick’s the two met by...chance? Not likely! We call such meetings providence. They are arranged by God himself as part of his big plan. And what do we discover? Monster Mick the Hard-Hearted was feeling soft toward his family and Furious Femme Fatale Christine found herself not only not screaming at Mick but actually inviting him for a visit on Christmas Eve.

What was happening here? Without any deep theological understanding of the Bible, and with little understanding of how it had come about, these two people had believed in Christ and been born of the Spirit. Inward heart change was overtaking them. Divine surgery had been performed on their souls and their dead hearts had been replaced by living hearts which sing in response to God. If anyone had approached them before God’s appointed moment with a gospel tract they would have laughed him off. But right at the moment of poverty of spirit God sent the John 3:16 sandwich board man to Mick’s concert and he sent a nanny and a little boy with bare feet to Christine’s drawing room where the life-giving good news of Christ had worked a revolution.

Jesus described this personal revolution to an esteemed Jewish leader in the third chapter of John’s gospel: “Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him’” (John 3:1-2). Nicodemus and some buddies, representing everything about the old way of religion, had a good opinion of Jesus but no idea of who he really was. Jesus cut to the chase: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). In other words, Jesus told him that everything Nicodemus represented about getting to heaven was false. He might as well have whacked him courteously with a long board, and Nicodemus immediately shifted into bureaucratic avoidance-speech: “Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?’” (John 3:4). Blah, blah, blah--just play dumb and put the ball back in Jesus’ court.

But Jesus bulldogged the issue because the eternal destiny of every person hangs on it: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6). Jesus explained that there is no working our way into God’s kingdom by human effort. There can be no gradual evolution of human religious attainment until we get to heaven. There must be a second birth--an earthly one “by water” and a second heavenly one by the Holy Spirit of God.

At this moment I picture Nicodemus looking taken aback and perhaps a little gust of wind blowing through the spot where they were talking: “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:7-8). In other words, God is out to give a new spiritual life principle to every person who is willing to receive it by faith. Like the wind, it is powerful but invisible. It is mysterious yet so real that you can taste it.

Mick and Christine found themselves wanting to live by their new life principle. Their desires began to be reordered from within. Grace and mercy began to break into their damaged lives and they were changing.

III. WORSHIP BY WALKING IN THE SPIRIT

The challenge for Mick and Christine is to learn to live that way. It’s God’s plan for all of us. A life of worship is in the Spirit or it’s not a life of worship! And a person with a profession of faith in Christ but no concrete expression of worship is not a Christian. God is not seeking mere agreers or espousers--those who say they believe in Jesus Christ. God is seeking worshipers (see John 4:23). So when you meet people who say they believe in Jesus but who don’t go to church you should ask them two questions: So when do you worship Christ? and, Are you sure that you are saved at all? Because God’s children reveal love that he gives them for one another. That’s one of the features of being born of the Spirit. You feel drawn to worship God and drawn to fellowship with other believers because the Holy Spirit puts those desires in your heart when you are born again. If you don’t have those desires you are not born again.

Christine was experiencing the reordering of her desires. She did not know how she had stopped hating Mick. She was still broken-hearted, appropriately angry, and wary of such an untrustworthy person. She had every reason to hate him because of the grief he had caused their family--but she did not, and she didn’t know why not! It’s because those who are born of the Spirit begin to reveal the desires of the Holy Spirit of God rather than their own. The challenge is to choose by an act of the will to conform to the new desires rather than retreating to your old self.

Mick was undergoing the same supernatural transformation. He didn’t know why he suddenly cared so much about his wife and child. He was so used to not caring that he did not know what to do about this new compassion toward those he had harmed. But he began trying! He thought, in a bumbling way, “Maybe if I buy a Christmas tree and show up at the house they will let me in for a few moments.” The old Mick without the rebirth of the Holy Spirit would have said: “Forget her! I’ve got dozens of babes who will take me just as I am!” The new

Spirit-born Mick wisely chose to try to follow his new desires, though he hardly knew what to do.

I want to tell you that as I write this new kind of story sermon I do not know how I am doing it. I am as much surprised as any one else that another comes each week. I don’t know how they will end when I begin them, and I don’t know how I am choosing the Bible texts which go with them. I study, I pray, but I am desperately asking God to lead me by his Spirit, and he is answering. I am praying that our whole church will learn to follow the Spirit in this way.

The hippies of Southern California are a great example of how people learn to follow the Holy Spirit. When they began to get saved in the late sixties and early seventies the wind of the Spirit began to blow through them in a remarkable way. When they were lost people they were already used to doing what they wanted with no care for what anyone thought of them. This led them to bizarre clothing, unruly hair, drug experimentation, and sexual immorality. They just did what they wanted. When they started getting saved the Holy Spirit put different wants in their hearts and they just began to do the new things without caring what anyone thought of them. They were prepared to respond to God in a radical way. Huge ministries and many churches were eventually born of this.

Total life worship is a pattern of life where we are available to follow the new desires the Holy Spirit puts in our hearts at all times. The bulk of these things are lifestyle issues: stop hating, stop lusting, stop lying, and learn mercy, love, and truth from Jesus. The whole Bible, but particularly the new Testament, tells us the nature of the new heart within us. So when we sense a new desire we check it with the word of God every time. That will tell us if it is from God.

But there comes a time to stop checking and start doing. I think our wing of the evangelical church has been guilty of doing mostly checking and less direct following. Ask yourself this question in prayer before God: What do I do by the Holy Spirit? When do I just respond to the new desires God has placed in my heart? And what do I avoid because the Holy Spirit has caused me to hate sins which I used to do with comfort?

CONCLUSION

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). Are you born of the Spirit? It is a mysterious work of God, but there is no mystery about how to enter into it: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). Those who place their trust for forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ alone become born of the Spirit and receive eternal life. If you have never done this before let today be the day.

And if you have been born again, I invite you to rediscover the newness of life granted you by the Holy Spirit. Follow the new desires God gives you! Listen to the guidance of the Spirit of God every day! Go where he leads you and do what he says no matter what anyone else thinks, because in the end, it is only what God thinks that matters.