PETRI(FIED)

Series: (FIED)
Sunday, October 5, 2008

Many of you have met and know my daughter Eden. Everyone who meets her knows she’s a very special girl. With our first pregnancy we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl. So I prayed that if we had a girl she’d be Godly, and smart, and beautiful like her mom, and that if we had a boy he’d be Godly, and smart and great looking and athletic and funny and charming and musical and artistic… like his mom. Thanks be to God and by His grace, all my kids take after their mom. But perhaps none more so than Eden. But Eden is really very special. Eden is a millennium baby. Eden was born January 1, 2000. We always tell her that the whole world celebrated her birth.

Now Eden was our first baby so we really had nothing else to compare her birth. We had some friends call us right at midnight while we were in labor and Robin says she remembers through the contractions and the agony she was enduring, hearing me say- “Oh yeah we’re having a blast!” Let me tell you it was a real blast. First off, Eden had been due nearly two weeks earlier, and I thought I was going to get a big fat tax write off for all of 1999. Instead I got a big fat bill. I’m still gonna make her pay for that someday. But not only did the pregnancy drag on, so did the delivery. Hour after hour after hour began to tick away. Soon a whole day went by, and we went well into the next day, 40 hours of labor. All our hopes and plans for a natural birth went out the window.

You see, Eden was posterior, and it halted the progression of the birth. In fact, when your posterior in the womb, birth really isn’t an option. You are stuck. You are facing the wrong way, and you aren’t going anywhere. You aren’t going anywhere until you turn 180 degrees. A complete turn-around. With the help of the doctors and a midwife, and lots and lots of prayer, Eden finally turned, and when she turned, she was born. It was that simple, and that complex. 180 degrees between being born, and being stuck.

Today I want to talk with you about being stuck, and about being born. About being stuck where you are at, and about making a 180 degree turn, and being reborn. The bible teaches us that the explanation of our condition is that we are stuck, dead in our sins, petrified, and that our only hope is to be regenerated, recreated, reborn.

When we capped off the Wiii church series we did so with our very first Baptism and communion service. I said that according to the bible, only two things are absolutely required for baptism- repentance, and water. You need some water to do the outward sign of baptism, that one is pretty obvious. But what is more important, and what that outward sign symbolizes, is what happens when we repent.

This is hugely important because Jesus preached one message over and over and over again, more than anything else and everywhere he went. We don’t understand Jesus and we don’t get who he was and what he was all about until we begin to grasp this. The heart and soul and center of Jesus’ preaching, and what he was doing, was this- repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. John the Baptizer preached this. Jesus preached and embodied this. The disciples, at the birth of the church, like we talked about, preached this. When people encountered Jesus, and when people encounter Jesus today, there is one fitting and appropriate response- Repent, for you are in the presence of God, you are standing in the presence of the King.

Repentance in its most strict definition a change in once mind. It comes from the Greek, Metanoia. Roughly translated, Meta, meaning big, and annoya, the root of annoying. And it’s really a huge annoyance. Repentance is terribly inconvenient and messes up our plans. Actually it's from nous" and means one mind, one;s who sense of being. And so it means to totally change one’s mind, one’s direction of thinking, of understanding, of belief.

Now we might think of repentance as this big churchy word or experience, but it’s really a part of every day life. But there are two really different kinds of repentance- basically attrition and contrition. We are confronted with forced repentance, attrition, all the time. Especially as parents. You walk in on your kids doing something wrong- getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. And what is the immediate response? I’m sorry. Now are your kids really sorry when they get caught stealing a cookie? Not at all, are you kidding me! They aren’t sorry in the least bit for stealing the cookie. They are sorry they got caught stealing the cookie. They are sorry they are going to get punished. We want them to be sorry for stealing, for disobeying, for sneaking around. They are just sorry they got busted. We kind of force repentance on them. And they learn a valuable lesson- be sneakier, be quieter, don’t get caught.

But there’s another kind of repentance that comes from a deeper place within us, A repentance that doens't say I'm sorry I got busted, it's a repentance that says I'm busted- busted, broken, attered brusied, and I'm tired of tryignto fix myself. It’s a kind of repentance that says I want to be free of this offense, or this behavior, or this habit, or this guilt, or this sin. I’m sorry, I’m turning around and turning it over to you God, and I don’t want to live like this anymore because it like a huge wedge between us, it a huge weight I can’t carry anymore. So I’m turning it over to you God.

The bible is very clear that this is the kind of repentance, this contrition, that God desires, and that is required for us to enter into a relationship with Him. And the bible is very very clear on how this kind of repentance comes about. This kind of repentance comes through God, moving upon our hearts, working in our lives, and bringing us into regeneration, or rebirth. God moves upon us, his Spirit comes into our life, we experience a new genesis, a new creation, a regeneration or rebirth, and the outworking of that is repentance, and faith. And genuine conversion, genuine repentance always follows this pattern- God moves first, and we respond. God turns us around, we are reborn, and we demonstrate repentance and begin to grow in faith.

There is a wonderful bible story that teaches us about this. John 3 tells us, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. I think it’s safe to say that Nicodemus got into the Pharisees and ruling council gig because he wanted to serve God and people. He wanted to do good. And I think this is a safe assumption because we see in Nicodemus a desire for the truth, and sensitivity towards Jesus. While the rest of his buddies had already formed their opinion about Jesus, basically that he was a threat to the system they had devoted themselves to upholding, he was still asking some questions. While they would have already formed their tight arguments on how Jesus was ultimately a treat to their system, their way of doing good, serving God, serving people, Nicodemus was still not so sure.

He saw something in Jesus, and he decided it was worth pursuing. Jesus had gotten under his skin and into his brain and onto his conscious. So he comes at night, when the crowds were gone, when he was safe from the eyes of judging family and friends. He comes to Jesus, and what does he say, "Jesus, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God for one could perform the miracles you perform if God were not with him."

And Jesus says, "Awe shucks Nic, you shouldn’t say such things, you’re too kind." Jesus blushes and gets all embarrassed and wonders what to say next. NO! Jesus knows this guy inside and out and you just have to love how Jesus can say in one sentence what we could never say. He cuts right to chase, right through all the flattery and buttering up, he says “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” And the thing that gets me is that Nicodemus, instead of asking about the kingdom of God, asks about being born again. I would have wanted Jesus to explain more about the kingdom of God.

But the truth is, Nicodemus is smarter than me. Nicodemus instantly put the pieces together. Nicodemus understood that it would be useless to hear more about the kingdom of God. Nicodemus understood that what was most important then was to be born again. He asks the obvious question, what do you mean be born again? You can possible mean to be born from you mother womb? And let me just read to you what Jesus said.

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8The 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."

Noe one can eneter the kingdomof God, no one can see the kingdom of God, unless they are first re-born. No one.
No one is good enough.
No one goes the church enough.
No one reds teh bible enough.
No one does enough good deeds.
No one gives enough money.
No one learns of works or tricks their way into the kingdom.
No one- you must be re-born.

According to this story if you are a Christian, you are born again. And if you are not born again, you are not a Christian. Because according to what Jesus tells us, and to be a Christian one should probably be pretty keen on what Jesus tells us, no one can see the kingdom of God, no one can enter into a relationship with Him, unless they are born again, born of the Spirit. This rebirth, or regeneration, is absolutely essential to being a Christ-follower. In fact, it is really regeneration and rebirth that begins our life of following Christ.

How many of you here, by a show of hands, were consulted on your birth? How many were asked, do you want to be a boy or a girl, curly or straight hair, brown eyes or blue eyes, tall or short, in a rich family or a poor family, a rich country or a poor country, do you want to be handsome or ugly, smart or more like George? We are not consulted on anything regarding our birth. WE may not think it’s fair, we may have come up with a whole other system if we were God, but in the end, kick and scream all you want, cry out that you never asked to be born in the first place, the fact of the matter is that you were born.

And the bible teaches us that likewise, we are not consulted on our spiritual birth. The bible uses numerous stories and teaching to describe our state of being. We are dead in our transgressions. We are captives of sin. We are under the weight of sin. We bear the consequences of sin. All sin and fall short of the glory of God. We are in fact spiritually dead. We are spiritually dead and ripped apart from a relationship with God. We have no say in our spiritual state. Because we have not spiritual state. But when the spirit moves upon us, we become spiritually regenerated persons, spiritual reborn persons, we become born again. We are not consulted on this, we can not make this happen, we can not make it not happen, it is the will of God to send his Spirit and when the Spirit enlivens us, we are awakened.

This weekend a movie titled “Religulous” opened up in this theatre and around North America. In it Bill Maher travels around the world interviewing people regarding their faith and why they think they are right. Maher’s approach is not one of sympathy. He says all religious people are crazy because believing in something that cannot be proved is the definition of insanity. He says it is impossible to have knowledge that there is a God. He says, and I quote,

“You know how I know you don’t know? Because I don’t know. And you do not possess mental powers that I do not.”

And he’s exactly right. He’s absolutely right that I do not possess any mental powers that he does not. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he does in fact possess mental powers and abilities that I don’t. He's probably better educate, better read and more thoughtful than I.

But he couldn’t be more wrong. Because faith and belief in God doesn’t start with the mind, it starts with repentance, and repentance, true repentance always starts with God. It starts with God first moving upon us, and sending his spirit on us, and moving us to turn away from sin, and turn to Jesus. It starts with the Spirit taking us, turning us 180, and giving us a new birth.

And many of you know exactly what I’m talking about already. You were going about your life. You were happily living your life of sin. You were all about a life completely ignorant or opposed to the things of God. You didn’t know God, you didn’t want to know God, you didn’t want to serve God or worship God and God talk probably got on your nerves and you probably thought a lot more about yourself over and above all those Jesus freaks because you couldn’t understand how they could have faith, and you could not, and so were the one who was in fact smarter than they.

Then somethign happen- a conversation with a freind, and invitation to church. A tragedy. A crisis. A transition. Somethignhappened, and something began to change in you. A year ago you would have never thought yourself in a million years going to a worship service. Given the choice between church, and poke in the eye with a sharp stick, you may have taken the stick. You never read a bible in your life, because it was just weird. Now, you read it, and it makes sense. The thought of willingly going to someone’s house for the express purpose of talking about the bible and faith was absolutely absurd, and now you can’t wait until your Connection Group meets again this week.

The bible tells us this promise,

”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.” Ezekiel 36:26

I have experienced being given a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart pointed towards God. And because of that, I know that God can give you that heart of flesh. And some of you over the past few months or weeks or days or even in this moment, you feel a heart of stone turning to flesh, You feel this cold hard heart starting to beat, starting to swell, starting to live. And maybe it’s flooding you with faith right now, it’s filling you with hope and joy. That’s repentance friends, and that’s re-birth. Maybe it’s flooding you with emotion, with tears, with grief, that repentance friends, and that’s rebirth.

And some of you, you’ve felt this, but like a baby that’s just been born, you know you have a lot of growing to do. You are just now starting to understand what happened to you, that God came into your life, that God gave you a new life, and now you need to live into that life.

And here’s the thing- the thing I believe down to the marrow of my bones- that if you’re here, if you’re wondering, is god calling me, does God want to come into my life, does God want breath into me new life- yes, yes he does. That’s why he sent his son, and that’s why Jesus sends us his spirit.

There’s a hook in this Nicodemus story that we can easily miss. The word for the Spirit of God, and for the wind, comes from the same word. IN the Hebrew it was the “Ruah”, the breath of God. The same breathe that breathed life into men and women at creation. It’s the same breath the breaths new life into us, it’s the same spirit that comes into our hearts, and makes us new again.

And it’s just the beginning folks. It’s just the beginning. God breathes new life into us for big plans, and big purposes and a great big awesome place for us. And it’s gonna take us the whole month to walk through it, and you don’t want to miss it!

Here's where we're going...

PETRI(FIED)
JUSTI(FIED)
SANCTI(FIED)
GLORI(FIED)