Jesus Alone!

[This message was shared yesterday, May 27, during the wedding of two members of Living Water Lutheran Church. It was a joy-filled occasion!]

John 3:1-21

Colleen and John made a specific request of me when it came to the message presented today. They didn’t want a wedding sermon. They wanted a message that pointed to Jesus, God the Son, the One Who describes Himself as “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) 

I like to think that all my sermons point to Jesus. But I understood what the two of them meant. They wanted a sermon that would unambiguously give you Jesus and His Gospel this afternoon.

That suits me just fine!

The passage from the Gospel of John which I just read recounts part of an incident that took place early in Jesus’ earthly ministry. A man named Nicodemus visits Jesus by night. The probable reason that Nicodemus, a major figure in the religious life of first-century Judea, chooses this time of day for his visit is that he doesn’t want to be seen with Jesus. Already, other religious leaders, people who would later call for Jesus’ execution, were alarmed by Jesus. It could be bad for Nicodemus’ reputation and authority if he publicly associated with Jesus.

Back when I was an atheist, I wasn’t always keen on being seen with my friends who were Christians. I thought that others I wanted to impress would think I was unintelligent, judgmental, or weak if I hung out with Christians.

Of course, we all prefer not to be seen when we know or suspect that what we’re doing is wrong. Maybe Nicodemus wonders whether seeing Jesus is actually wrong. Or, that Jesus will see his sin more clearly in the daylight.

In any case, Nicodemus preferrs darkness. In the course of their conversation which goes longer than the lesson I just read, Jesus tells Nicodemus why this teacher chose to visit Jesus by night. “Light has come into the world,” Jesus says, referring to Himself as God’s Light,  “but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

Now, as Colleen and John can tell you, there are two ways in which God speaks to us in His Word. 

He can speak to us through His Law, the moral code He commands us all to obey and which none of us is capable of obeying. 

God’s Law is summarized in the Ten Commandments. There, we’re told, for example, to worship no other God but the One now revealed to us in Jesus; but we give all sorts of things higher priority than we do to God. We’re to honor God’s Name and God’s Word; but we fail to do these things all the time. And we’re no more successful in doing God’s will in relation to other people, whether it’s in thought, word, or deed, when it comes to honoring parents or refraining from murder, theft, adultery, gossip, or enviously desiring what other people have. 

All of these violations of God’s Law of which we are, to one extent or another, guilty every day, stem from our inborn alienation from God, a condition called sin that leads to committing individual sins. 

I have a two year old granddaughter who is the most beautiful and perfect child in the world. But one of her favorite words, which she says when her parents or grandparents try to steer her from trouble is, “No!” Now, nobody taught her to sin. Like you and me, she was born knowing how to do it. 

The Law brings bad news: “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) In other words, we all deserve punishment and eternal separation from God and we cannot save ourselves. We can’t be nice enough, moral enough, or good enough to avoid the death sentence for sin we deserve.

Our situation would be hopeless if it weren’t for the fact that God speaks another word to us. 

This Word is the Gospel, the good news that brings forgiveness for sin and eternal life with God to all it woos to faith in Jesus. 

Jesus gives us the Gospel-in-a-nutshell in the words He speaks to Nicodemus in our lesson: “For God so loved the world [God so loved you] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Faith in Jesus isn’t something we have to work ourselves up to. To have faith, there’s no decision for us to make. The Bible says that faith in Christ is a gift that God gives us.

The Word of the Law convicts of our sin, leaving us aware of our need of God to save us from sin and death.

But the Word of the Gospel gives us Jesus, Who, though He had no sin, took the death punishment for sin we deserve, then rose from the dead to open eternity to all who believe.

There are three ways this Gospel Word comes to us from outside of ourselves, from God Himself.

First, through His Word, heard, read, taught, or preached.

Second, through Holy Baptism, by which God drowns our old selves with all our sins and raises us to new life to become His own children and by which He sends the Holy Spirit to be our teacher even when we walk away from God. In Baptism, Jesus says, we are born of water and the Holy Spirit.

And third, through Holy Communion, by which Jesus gives His body and blood to us, in other words, His crucified and risen life, and also gives us the forgiveness of sins.

It’s by these three means that Jesus comes to you and loves you into faith and eternal life with Him.

When we receive these gifts with the assurance that through them, Jesus and His Gospel come to us, God gives us saving faith and everlasting life with God.

I had been an atheist for about ten years when, to get my wife off of my back for sleeping in on Sunday mornings, I started attending worship with her. There, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, this Gospel Word, speaking God’s love and forgiveness for me despite my sins and disloyalty to God, came to me as it first had as a baby, when I was baptized, and as a little boy who had gone to church and Sunday School. No one was more shocked than I was to realize that, after a few years of receiving this Gospel Word at my wife’s church, I could say, “I believe that Jesus is my God and my Savior.” When I realized that I believed in Jesus, I knew that I belonged to God, that He stood beside me always, and that one day, Jesus would raise me from the grave to live with Him forever.

With a heart broken by our sin, yet filled with love for us, God says through the prophet Ezekiel six-hundred years before Jesus’ birth, “I do not enjoy seeing sinners die.” (Ezekiel 33:11, GNT) 

God wants us all to live eternally in a joy even greater than the joy we have for John and Colleen today, a joy that goes with living with God and with all who have trusted in Christ in a kingdom free of sin, death, darkness, and futility. 

Life without Jesus is darkness, death, and condemnation.

Life with Jesus is light, life, and eternal freedom. 

Jesus died on a cross and rose from a grave to make life with God possible for us all. 

He’s done everything necessary for the Gospel promise to belong to you. 

Your call is to daily turn from sin and to daily turn to Him for forgiveness and for life with God. 

For these gifts and so much more, you can trust Jesus. Amen

[This painting of Jesus with Nicodemus is from the collection of the Smithsonian and is in the public domain.]

Born Again

[Below are the live stream videos of today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, along with the message prepared for the day.]





John 3:1-17

​​”The law says, 'Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'Believe in this,' and everything is already done.” 

With these words, Martin Luther describes the two ways in which God speaks and interacts with us. 

First, God speaks His Law to condemn us in our sin. 

God’s Law shows us that we are sinners who merit eternal condemnation for our sinful natures and sinful actions. 

God’s Word says of us, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:29-32)

Of course, we all know God’s Law. We’re to love God and neighbor, worship God alone, love God’s Word, do and think only good things about our parents, presidents, and neighbors, and build others up, not tear them down. We do know God’s Law, His will for us. 

But people like us and everyone else who has ever walked on this planet–except for one–could be taught God’s Law continuously from dawn to dusk every single day of our lives and still not do God’s Law. In His Law, God says, “Do this” and because of who we are, it never gets done.

And that’s a problem because, as the apostle Paul reminds us in God’s Word, “...wrongdoers [literally, he says here, “unrighteous ones”] will not inherit the kingdom of God…” (1 Corinthians 6:9) 

To be righteous means to keep God’s Law perfectly. And righteousness is the baseline requirement for having life with God, now and in eternity. Yet, when God tells us to obey His righteous Law, it never gets done. 

What are we to do?

That was a question that occupied a man named Nicodemus a lot. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. The Pharisees lived under the misplaced confidence that they (and we) could behave righteously, do God’s Law, and so deserve life with God, life beyond the grave. 

Part of the Pharisees’ misplaced confidence resided in how they twisted God’s Law. Jesus once condemned them, for example, for teaching that people could get around God’s command to honor their parents by telling their parents that whatever money they would otherwise spend on their parents, they would instead spend on God. No wonder Jesus told the Pharisees, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8-13)

The Pharisees, including Nicodemus, grew up believing that righteousness was about what human beings do. But they also gave themselves little escape clauses, humanly-created fine print to God’s Law meant to cover and deny the stench of human sin with the perfume of fake obedience. 

When a Pharisee asked about God’s Law, “What are we to do?” they were really asking, “What is the bare minimum we can get away with doing and still be considered righteous?” When they hit the low threshold of their own preferred version of righteousness, they let all the world know how good they were!

Nicodemus, with his confidence in his own righteous capacity to obey God’s Law was, in some ways, no closer to God than the modern-day atheist who thinks he can be a good person. Anyone who thinks they can rise above their sinful nature or if they’re inclined to believe in God, make themselves acceptable to heaven, is deluding themselves.

I believe this was just beginning to dawn on Nicodemus when he visited Jesus that night. He’d been living in darkness. In Jesus, he began to see a sliver of the One the Bible calls, “The true light that gives light to everyone…” (John 1:9) Because of Jesus, Nicodemus was starting to see that the Law hadn’t and never could make him righteous. 

And so, this member of the Sanhedrin goes to see Jesus. But soon, the teacher of the Law becomes the student of the One he already calls rabbi. Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (John 3:3)

Now, Nicodemus should have heard these words of Jesus as the second of the two ways God speaks and interacts with us. Nicodemus should have heard that God saves us from sin, death, and darkness not by the things we do, but by what God does for us. Here, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, “There is a way to righteousness–to acceptability to God–that has nothing to do with rules or laws.” It’s about being born again–or born from above.

The image of birth itself which Jesus uses should tell Nicodemus that being ‘born again” has nothing to do with what we do or what we decide. 

Being right with God is nothing like what a high school classmate of mine described to decades ago when she told, “I decided to be born again.” Now, that's a silly statement on the face of it when you consider it!

When we are born is not a decision made by children when they are born. We are born when we are born. 

Just so, we are born again when God’s Word comes to claim us and it’s only by the power of that Word that we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. 

Nicodemus hears Jesus’ words and wonders what he can do, what he must do, to be born again, as though he could be both the baby and the obstetrician at his rebirth. 

Nicodemus wants Jesus to give him a guidebook so that he can get busy obeying a new law. “How can someone be born when they are old?” he asks. (John 3:4)

Jesus clarifies matters for Nicodemus. 

Referencing Baptism, the Christian sacrament that infants and children have undoubtedly undergone since the first Christian Pentecost ten days after the crucified and risen Jesus ascended into heaven, Jesus says, “...no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” (John 3:5) 

Baptism, the apostle Paul tells us elsewhere, is like circumcision, the rite every eight-day-old Jewish boy underwent to initiate his life with God. 

Our lives with Christ are meant to be initiated in Baptism. That’s what’s what will happen to Sofia and Leo today and will happen to Alina in less than two weeks. 

But even if, as sometimes happens, because our God is a big God out to free all of us from the condemnation of sin and death, God’s grace comes to us before we’re baptized, we’re still not saved by what we do or what we decide. Our salvation is still not our doing!

We apprehend Christ’s victory over sin and death for us by faith. And even our faith is His gift to us! It’s all God’s work. 

As Paul tells us in Ephesians: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8) 

Our call from day to day is to turn in trust away from our sin, including our sinful reliance on our own goodness or good deeds, and turn to Christ Who died and rose to shield us in His righteousness.

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus are His words to you again today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17) 

“The law says, 'Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'Believe in this,' and everything is already done.” 

God’s Law condemns us. 

But God’s Gospel saves us. 

Friends, you can trust in what Christ has already done for you to make you righteous, fit for life with God, now and forever. Amen

[Below are pictures from today's Baptisms at Living Water.]

Holy Spirit, Scream Into My Heart!

I’m a bit behind on the Bible readings for my daily quiet time with God. I haven’t been keeping up with the assigned readings of the ‘5 by 5 Bible Reading Plan’ produced by Navigators. So, since today and tomorrow are appointed as days for reflection, with no assigned readings, I’ve decided to read two chapters, rather than the usual one, for today. This was important to me because I didn’t want to miss out on reading 1 Peter, one of the important and often overlooked gems among the books of the Bible. That’s wonderful because God showed me something I hadn’t really noticed before in the first two chapters of this book!

Look: “...Now that by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves and have come to have a sincere love for other believers, love one another earnestly with all your heart. For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal.” (1 Peter 1:22-23, Good News Translation)

The apostle Peter wrote the letter we call 1 Peter to the largely Gentile churches in Asia Minor, an area we now call Turkey. The churches there were facing some kind of rejection, although recent scholarship tends to think it was more like what we face in the United States: marginalization, not overt persecution.

Peter’s basic message in the letter is, “Hang in there, Christians! By your faith in Jesus, you are reposing your trust in God the Father, and no matter what happens to you, you belong to God and can be God’s credible spokespeople for the good news of new life through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus as you remain faithful to Him.”

In the two verses of 1 Peter, chapter 1, cited here, Peter says, first of all: “Now that by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves…”

Peter isn’t here talking about some moral or ritual law that the first-century Christians obeyed to be purified. The “truth” to which he refers is mentioned in 1 Peter 1:21: “Through [Jesus] you believe in God, who raised him from death and gave him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God.”

The Christians of Asia Minor, Peter is saying, were purged of sin and its consequences--death, darkness, futility--by their faith in Jesus. To have faith in Jesus is to obey God. It’s also to know God and to have life with God. Jesus says, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29, New International Version)

The obedience of faith in Christ ushers into the eternal presence of God. Why? Because, “The Son is the image of the invisible God...in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him...He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17, New International Version) Jesus explains things more succinctly in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.” (New International Version)

(Peter, himself a Jew, points out elsewhere in chapter 1, that Jesus is precisely who the Old Testament prophets had been looking for.)

To have faith in Jesus will cause people to love the Church, Peter says in the next line of the verses above: “...have come to have a sincere love for other believers, love one another earnestly with all your heart.” Believers in Christ--the Church--are called to love one another because we are all sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus. We have experienced the same love of God and are called to live it out together.

When the world marginalizes us or deems the gospel (the good news) too good to be true, or impractical, or difficult to accept, we encourage one another.

When our own faith is flagging or we fall into sin, the Church is there to call us to repentance and new life through Jesus.

Besides all that and most importantly maybe, the Church is Christ’s body in the world. To be contemptuous of the Church is to be contemptuous of God Himself. Colossians 1:18: ‘[Christ] is the head of the body, the church…”

But, if we’re tempted to think that all this obedience and faith and love he commends in these verses are our achievements, Peter reminds us of the truth: “For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal.”

I am given new life--born again--not when I decide to be obedient, faithful, and loving. If I could decide to be obedient, faithful, or loving, Jesus would not have needed to die on the cross.

But Jesus did need to die on the cross because I’m a big fat clump of sinful and unredeemed and dead humanity without Him. The “eternal word of God,” the word about Jesus to be found in the Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament, the gospels in the New Testament, and all the rest of the Bible, is spoken to me, in words and in the sacraments (Holy Baptism and Holy Communion) and, by the power of the Holy Spirit Who composes the Word and makes it possible for others to speak it to us--whether in simple conversation, the reading of the Word, the preaching of the Word, the imposition on us of water enlivened by God’s Word, bread and wine made to also be the body and blood of Jesus by this same Word, or by other means--brings us to never-ending life with God. By this Word, I am made the child of an immortal parent, the God revealed to all people in Jesus!

Listen: Peter’s words tell me that the main business I need to attend to in my daily life, whatever I’m doing and whether what I’m doing is deemed by the world to be “holy” or “churchy” or not, is to keep coming back to God’s Word.

When I turn to God’s Word, to Jesus, God the Holy Spirit rolls up His sleeves and goes to work on me. He pries open my will and lets Jesus live in there to change me from the inside out--often little by little and with frequent setbacks and near evictions of the Savior because I’m a great sinner who, despite all of God’s love, still want my way when it comes to...everything.

But the Word is powerful. “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) God’s Word does what it sets out to do: “My word is like the snow and the rain that come down from the sky to water the earth. They make the crops grow and provide seed for planting and food to eat. So also will be the word that I speak—it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

And the truth is that Jesus, God the Son, is the Word that was spoken to primordial chaos to bring life into being (Genesis 1-2).

This is how the apostle John identifies Jesus:, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” (John 1:1-3, 14, 16-18)

The incessant, consistent, unwavering, tenacious, loving, powerful Word of God in Jesus comes to us as it once did to the chaos on the first day of creation and creates us anew.

That happens every time His Word comes to me. He creates within me faith, obedience, and love. When I, weak, finite, mortal, and sinful, hear this Word again, I am born again, just as I was at my Baptism, all over again.

It’s all Jesus, not me. Thank God!

Respond: Today Father, as I face challenges, doubts, decisions, joys, temptations, or marginalization, when I’m tempted to give my opinion rather than speaking Your Word, or live out of my purported wisdom rather than Your truth,  cause the Holy Spirit to scream into my heart, “Turn to Christ! Turn to Christ! Turn to the saving Word!” In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]