conversations with Jesus

“The Jesus You Never Knew”
John is a book of conversations between Jesus and people, which if we are listening, is a conversation He ultimately has with us the unexpected, the unpredictable, and often THE UNCOMFORTABLE
- We think we know who He is, we realize we don’t know Him very well at all
Philip Yancey, in his book The Jesus I Never Knew writes, “Two words would never apply to Jesus—boring and predictable. And yet, we do all we can to tame Him, pare the claws of the Lion of Judah, certify Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.”
Not John, - This holy wonder has gone on a holy terror (chapter 2)
- Jesus has just cleaned house at the temple, alienated religious establishment
- And while most were ready to kill Jesus, there was one who remained curious (read verses 1-2a)
John wants us to know Nicodemus was important

But Nicodemus is curious, things are not adding up (read verse 2)

A) Maybe Jesus was a prophet, maybe the messiah
B) Maybe Nicodemus saw in Jesus something he wasn’t and wanted to be
- Someone willing to buck the establishment, “I wish I had the guts to do that.”
C) Maybe he wanted to keep up with the trends- Attracting crowds “What’s His angle? His secret? HOW DOES HE DO IT?”
D) Maybe he thought he could help Jesus, work on the rough edges, make
Jesus like him
But Jesus was not interested in courteous exchanges that go nowhere
- Religious talk - Nor was He impressed with position nor pedigree
- Nor conforming, only one thing: Nicodemus’ relationship with God (verse 3)
- Jesus did to religious people what He did with religious buildings
- He drove out things, and overturned things that get in the way,
Nicodemus had been brought up to measure everything by performance
- 613 rules, with 1521 emendations - 39 activities

- it all revealed a blindness - Like the rest of the religious establishment,
- And until he could see, he would not understand Jesus, nor the miracles, nor
anything else that had to do with the kingdom of God
- “Nicodemus, you must start over.”
- You must be REMADE, be born from above
- We’re not talking modification or alteration to the soul, but a radical
renewal
- Unfortunately, “born again” has lost its shock value
- But for Nicodemus, disoriented (verse 4) struck by the absurdity of it all
- “You’re telling me that to be in God’s kingdom, I have to turn the clock
back? I have to enter my mother’s uterus, climb up the birth canal?”
- So Jesus clarified (verses 5-8)
- The birth was spiritual, rather than physical birth that Jews placed their faith upon, but not simply birth, but growing from there. God starting a new family open to all………………
- It all served to further confound, unsettle Nicodemus (verse 9)
- HE WAS NOT GETTING IT!
- What about rituals, cleansings, commitment to the Torah? all of this was being challenged, maybe even dismissed - How? (verse 10)
- You are the teacher of Israel. and you do not get it?
- Jesus expected this religious official to know what he was talking about the prophets of a day God would bring a radical transformation, a circumcision, not of the flesh, but of the heart?
- “The day will come the law will be placed in their hearts”
(Jeremiah 31:33-34)
- “A day will come when I will put a new spirit in them, and I will be their
God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
- “I will sprinkle water on you and cleanse you, and I will put My Spirit in you and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
- what matters are not these artificial boundary markers
- What matters is the CENTRE- The work of the Spirit, the interior, the heart
- not what restrains actions from the outside in, but on God’s intention to work from the inside out
- Verses 11-12 suggest the conversation came to a close (read)
Nicodemus didn’t get it, he did not buy it- Jesus couldn’t tell him anything more
- Truth goes nowhere when people want to stay in control, are unwilling to become as a child
So where is all of this going?
- What does this conversation have to do with most of us?
- After all, I know who Jesus is- I’ve been born again but God might be saying “LISTEN IN!”
- Those of us, anyway, who are religious,
A) Of all the people Jesus said “You must be born again” it was to Nicodemus?
- A church official, a LEADER, respected of community- Not to the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, the paralytic, the blind man, the crowd, or anyone else… only Nicodemus? - Why didn’t he use this language with them?
B) That of all the people He would talk about the unpredictable wind of the
Spirit, it was with Nicodemus, a religious leader
- Could it be that religious types are often in need of more radical change than harlots and traitors?
- Could it be that Jesus might be saying something like this?
- It is generally those who are most religious are those who most need the reminder that they are helpless
- We can become impressed with our holiness, with the things we do, and lose sight of our place- Lose sight of the wonder and fear of God and assume we know His ways, even become bored with what we assume!
- Even assume we can manipulate the movement of the Spirit
- That God is actually who we think He is, all figured out sitting on a shelf?
- When what we need to know more than anything else is that this daily work of God is not what we do, so much as it is what God does in us?
- If Nicodemus really got it, maybe the conversation would have turned and
he would have said something like this…
-“You mean there is nothing I can do?”
- “Then all I can do, MUST DO, is lay myself before God’s mercy
and hope His grace falls on me, the wind of His Spirit blows my
direction today?”
- “Exactly.”
how often do we, do I do that?
- How often do I wake up with the notion I have this terrifying wonder who could go any direction with my life
- The Spirit will blow where He wills
- Who might ask me to do things I never dreamed of?
- Such that I better get on my knees and plead for grace
- Or how often do I wake up with an assumed predictability of how life will go, what God will do?
- Use my prayers, even to keep Him from doing some wild thing he might want to
do with me?
BE OPEN TO THE SPIRIT AND WHERE HE LEADS, opportunity means, sailors wait for the time of the tide turning… will we seize the opportunities God sends us? Look to the cross, like the bronze snake, see the ultimate sign, believe and live, as God intends, him leading each one of us following!