What does it mean to actually "believe" in God? Is it merely an affirmation of faith or something more? In this episode of Pursuing Faith, Dominic explores Jesus conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 through the lens of what true belief looks like.
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[00:00:03] Welcome to the Pursuing Faith podcast, where we explore questions of faith, doubt, and life. I am your host, Dominic Done. Last week, we were introduced to a guy named Nicodemus. And back then, when they named their kids, they would name their kids after names that really meant something.
[00:00:31] Nowadays, people typically will name their kids because they like the sound of it or whatever. But back then, you would name your kids based on what the name actually meant. And Nicodemus comes from two Greek words, Nike, which means victory, hence the shirt, and Deimos, which means people.
[00:00:51] So his name, Nicodemus, his name literally means victory over the people, which is kind of an elitist name. But when he actually studied history, it was a fitting name for him because of his background.
[00:01:05] First of all, we learned last week, if you're here, that Nicodemus was a Pharisee. That meant he had a ton of influence and a ton of power in that culture. He was also part of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish Supreme Court.
[00:01:20] So he had this incredible position and an opportunity to kind of craft the culture and the legal system. We know as well he was very wealthy. He had lots of connections with people in high places.
[00:01:31] But here's what's interesting about Nicodemus, is that he had all of that, but there was something in his heart that was yearning for more. I think it was the philosopher Blaise Pascal who said that there's a vacuum inside the heart of every human.
[00:01:47] And that vacuum can only be filled with God. And for Nicodemus, this was true. He had this longing, this thirst for God. Even though he had everything, he realized there was something more. So that's what drove Nicodemus to meet with Jesus late at night.
[00:02:06] First episode of Nick at Night, they meet under the stars, cup of coffee maybe. And Nicodemus starts to ask him all these questions and then Jesus responds and he says, You must be born again. Now notice what happens next. If you have your Bibles, look down.
[00:02:23] Beginning in verse 9, Nicodemus says, How can this be? Jesus said, You are Israel's teacher and you do not understand these things? Jesus is completely blown away that Nicodemus didn't understand what he was talking about.
[00:02:42] He's like, Seriously? You've been to school. You're a teacher. You have more degrees than a thermometer. You're this learned guy and you don't get what I'm saying? Do you even lift? Is basically what Jesus is telling Nicodemus.
[00:02:55] And so he begins to talk in language that Nicodemus could understand. As we're going to see, it says, Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know. We testify to what we have seen. But still, you people do not accept our testimony.
[00:03:09] We have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.
[00:03:22] So here's the issue with Nicodemus is that he knew a lot about God, but he didn't know God. And you guys know this to be true, that someone could have all the knowledge and they could understand the Bible. But there's a difference between knowing the Bible
[00:03:39] and knowing the God of the Bible. There's a difference between knowing about God and actually having a living, vibrant, authentic relationship with God. And so as Jesus is sharing, Nicodemus is like, I don't fully get what you're trying to communicate.
[00:03:54] Have you ever been in a situation like that? Maybe it's overseas or whatever and you're trying to pick up on their language and you're trying to share. But what you're saying just isn't really connecting with those people.
[00:04:06] It's like me every Sunday, basically. I was in New Zealand a couple months ago. And in New Zealand, you have New Zealanders who speak English, but then you have the indigenous Maoris and they speak the language Maori.
[00:04:21] And it's a beautiful, beautiful language. And Coke, just recently when I was there, they did this whole campaign in which they were trying to sell their product while using both English and Maori together. And I think they thought it would be like
[00:04:35] a good way to bridge the gap because there's some tensions between those two groups and also promote their product of Coke. And so all across the country, we have a picture of it. They had this thing that they had done above machines, etc.
[00:04:49] on big billboards, Kia Ora, mates. Now Kia Ora is Maori for hey or what's up. Mate is what you say in New Zealand or Sydney, whatever, like bro. So the two together, Maori and English is hey, what's up, bro? Here's some Coke.
[00:05:06] So this was their PR thing. The problem was, and they quickly realized this before, but it was too late at this point, is that Kia Ora, okay, that means hello. But mate, when it's translated into Maori, mate means death.
[00:05:24] So all across New Zealand, it's like the ultimate epic fail. All across New Zealand, hello death. And then it has a picture of Coke, which kind of is what happens when you drink too much soda. So it fits in some ways.
[00:05:45] So have you ever had those times? You're trying to communicate something and you're like, oh, that's not what I meant to say. Jesus, he's sharing, he's using this language that Nicodemus, even though he had all the degrees
[00:05:58] and all the wisdom and all the knowledge and all the understanding of the Old Testament and he memorized the Old Testament most likely, yet he had no clue what Jesus was actually trying to communicate. And so what Jesus does,
[00:06:10] and this is so ingenious, is he uses a phrase that he knew that Nicodemus would know because it was one of the most important phrases to the Pharisees. And it is a phrase, and jot this down by the way, you're gonna need a pen,
[00:06:22] a piece of paper, this is so key because it opens up a whole can of worms that you can check out later. But he uses this phrase, son of man. Let me hear you say son of man. There's a great Bible project video,
[00:06:34] by the way, I'm sure our House of Learning team will probably post it later this week. They just put out this video on the son of man the last month or so
[00:06:44] and it's brilliant. So I'd recommend go online, check it out if you wanna go deeper into this. But let me give you a little teaser. This phrase son of man was Jesus' favorite term for himself. People called Jesus a lot of things, Messiah and rabbi and teacher, Christ,
[00:07:00] but Jesus' favorite term for himself was son of man. Where does that come from? Well, write this down. Comes from Daniel chapter 7. And there you have a story of a guy, Daniel, a young guy who was taken as a prisoner of war to Babylon.
[00:07:17] So Jerusalem, which is in the south, he was captured, brought up to the north, Babylon, which is modern day Iraq by the way, and he was forced to work for this really crazy, egotistical king named Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, this guy was just insane.
[00:07:33] He built this huge statue that was made out of gold and he made everyone worship it. I mean, that was his boss. And so Daniel, he's trying to figure out how can I be a faithful follower of Yahweh
[00:07:43] in this kind of culture and climate, which is a good question for us to grapple with as well. And one night in Daniel chapter 7, God gives him a vision. He has this dream. And in the dream, he sees four beasts rising out of the ocean.
[00:07:57] Think Godzilla or something. These massive creatures, hybrid monsters that come out of the ocean. And each beast in order is more terrifying than the one before. And then you get the fourth beast, which is just overwhelmingly terrifying.
[00:08:13] And they come onto the land and they just leave a trail of death and destruction. And poor Daniel, he's like, what is this? What does this mean? And God speaks to him. He's like, Daniel, these beasts represent four different empires.
[00:08:27] But even deeper than that, they represent injustice and really the embodiment of evil and sin. Because that's what sin is. It's beastly, destroys, it wrecks our life. And this fourth beast had all this power and dominion and control.
[00:08:43] Now, it's fascinating to me that sin and evil and injustice is personified as a beast in Daniel chapter 7. Because when you go to Genesis, how the Bible begins, you see a beautiful garden, Eden, which means delight. But in that beautiful garden, there was a beast, right?
[00:09:02] The snake, the enemy, the personification, the embodiment of evil and sin and injustice. And this serpent tempts Adam and Eve. And they listen to the lies of the snake. And they eat of the forbidden fruit, their kickdown of the garden.
[00:09:18] So you see a beast in Genesis 3 that helps initiate the fall of humanity. And before Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, there is this beautiful promise that is given. You can jot this down if you want. Genesis 3 verse 15.
[00:09:32] It's an important verse. Scholars, theologians call this the proto-evangelium or the very first mention of the gospel. And it's so redemptive because what you see there is in the ashes of the fall of the human race.
[00:09:46] God, he brings hope and redemption. And he gives a promise and he says, someday a man will come. And this man will crush the head of the serpent. So the beast is going to be destroyed by this man.
[00:10:00] But in the process of destroying the beast, the snake will attack him and bite his heel. So his head will be crushed, but this man's heel will experience pain. Now, this is fascinating. So redemption then comes at a cost.
[00:10:18] Redemption wins, but not before the enemy is allowed to inflict pain and heartache. Genesis 3 verse 15 is the very first mention of the gospel. You see a beast, but you also see a promise that a man would come and vanquish the beast.
[00:10:34] Back to Daniel chapter 7. Daniel in his vision sees a beast wreaking havoc on the world. But then like dreams so often can do, it changes. And he looks up and in his dream he sees a throne.
[00:10:48] And they're seated on a throne, this beautiful being called the Son of Man. It's God. And the Son of Man rises up, vanquishes the beast, and then there's healing and there's renewal and there's redemption.
[00:11:08] So for thousands of years, the Jewish people, the way they understood that term, Son of Man, was this is Messiah. That someday Messiah is going to come and he's going to kill the beast. Messiah is going to crush the head of the snake.
[00:11:21] And we cannot wait for that day when empire and evil and injustice and racism and all the horrific things we see in the world will once and for all be destroyed. And they would pray for the Son of Man to come.
[00:11:35] They would pray for the renewal of all things. Can you see then by Jesus using this term, for Nicodemus this was a loaded term because Jesus is saying to this guy, look, I am the one that Daniel had the dream about.
[00:11:53] I am the Son of Man and I have come to conquer the beast. I have come to renew and restore all things. I have come to make this world what it was meant to be. And I'm going to crush the head of the serpent.
[00:12:08] Now speaking of serpents and snakes, because when you understand this passage, it makes the next text make a ton of sense. Look what Jesus says, verse 14, look down. It says, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,
[00:12:21] so too the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Now here's the verse you all know well, right? John 3, 16. In fact, why don't we just say together, right? Loud voice, let's fill this place with God's word.
[00:12:36] One, two, three. 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. Such a beautiful verse. And yet lost sometimes in the beauty and gravitas of John 3, 16 is John 3, 15,
[00:12:58] which is a reference to the gospel as well. Jesus says, even as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness. To warn you, this is a weird story. So this again worth jotting down if you're a note taker or iPhone app notes airplane mode. Numbers chapter 21.
[00:13:17] The children of Israel have been set free from slavery. And they're out in the wilderness wandering, waiting to go into the promised land and they're complaining. They're complaining about everything. We hate the wilderness. We hate the food you've given us. We hate our accommodations.
[00:13:34] Moses, we hate you too. You're a terrible, terrible leader. And so poor Moses, he's having to deal with this. And God is getting really upset because he hates a divisive spirit. He hates complaining. And so it says that snakes were sent into the camp.
[00:13:52] And these serpents, they began to bite the children of Israel so that many of them died. And they're panicking like what are we going to do? All these people are dying. We hate these snakes. And they go back to Moses, different attitude this time.
[00:14:05] They're like, please could you pray for us? Pray that God would take away the snakes. And so Moses prayed and God says, okay, here's the plan Mo. That's what he called him. He said, I want you to build, I want you to make a snake. Get a pole.
[00:14:20] And I want you to wrap a bronze snake around it. And I want you to lift it up there in the wilderness. And whoever looks at this snake will be healed. And sure enough, Moses made the thing.
[00:14:36] And anyone who looked at it, it doesn't say those who had to crawl to it. God doesn't say that. Those who had to pay homage to it or sacrifice it. No. God says all you have to do is look because anyone can do that. Anyone can look.
[00:14:50] And those who chose to look were healed. Fascinating. And I think it gives us a glimpse into what redemption actually is. The very thing that was destroying them and poisoning them became a source of life. Now, it's interesting because when you study Greek culture, years later,
[00:15:08] the Greeks actually picked up on this story and they used it in their own myth. Those of you who are in college right now, this may ring a bell. The myth of Asclepius.
[00:15:18] He was the god of medicine and he had a staff with a snake wrapped around it. So Asclepius, wherever he went with his staff, if he saw someone who was sick, he would heal them. He was known as the god of medicine.
[00:15:33] Well, one day, he crossed a boundary I guess that other gods didn't want him to and he tried to raise someone from the dead. And Zeus is like, we're not having this. You can't raise people from the dead, Asclepius, so I smite you.
[00:15:47] And that was the end of Asclepius. He died. But the Greeks, they remembered this symbol of the staff and the snake wrapped around it as really a symbol of healing and medicine, which is interesting
[00:15:58] because next time you go to the doctor, and it seems like we're all going to the doctor this season. It's pretty brutal. But you'll probably see that symbol with a pole and a snake or the World Health Organization. Yeah, here's a picture.
[00:16:12] That's their symbol too, the staff of Asclepius. And the reason that's the symbol is their goal is raise the dead. Their goal is make sick people well. But what's fascinating, and you do the research on this, it goes way beyond just Asclepius and what the Greeks thought.
[00:16:30] This goes all the way back to Moses and Numbers 21. And Jesus references this story, and he says, okay, even as Moses lifted up the snake, he said, I will be lifted up. Question, when was Jesus lifted up? Does anyone know? Yeah, someone said it, the cross.
[00:16:55] This is a reference to the cross. Why? Because in the ancient world, in the first century, they crucified a ton of people. And when they crucified people, they would take the wooden beams of the cross,
[00:17:04] they would lay the prisoner on the ground, they would nail the hands and the feet of that prisoner to the cross, and then they would lift the cross up. So to be lifted up, this was a term that people knew, oh, this is a reference to
[00:17:20] what happens at crucifixion. Three years after this conversation with Nick at night, that's what happened. Jesus was betrayed, he was beaten, he was mocked, they pressed a crown of thorns into his skull, his hands and his feet were pierced, his back was beaten,
[00:17:38] and he was lifted up on a cross. Jesus says, just like that snake, the very thing that was inflicting pain on them actually became a symbol of hope. So too, he says, at my death, you're going to receive forgiveness and grace
[00:17:56] and healing because it's true, the venom of sin is deep in our veins. Bitterness, anger, shame, gossip, laziness, lust, indifference, we've all been bitten by the snake of sin. And this is why Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, he says,
[00:18:19] he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's good news right there. That's basically what we sang right before I got up. Lord, you paid it all. You did it. You took my sin.
[00:18:35] You took my baggage. You took my mistakes. You took my past identity. You took those addictions. When you died on the cross, you took the venom of sin. You became sin so that I might become the righteousness of God in Jesus,
[00:18:52] which means all I need to do then to be saved is look to the cross. Look to Jesus. Be rescued. That's it. Just come to that place in your life where you're like, you know what?
[00:19:03] I'm sick of doing these things or going my own way or living a life apart from God. I need you. I need to be healed. I need to be forgiven from this venom that's just destroying me.
[00:19:14] I don't know if you've ever been bitten by a snake or a poisonous spider. My dad, when I was a kid, he actually got bit by a brown recluse. And he's always been in construction. I think it was moving two by fours or something.
[00:19:29] And he didn't know what it was. And he left it for a couple of days. And what happened was the bite, which is on his arm, these rings just kept growing, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And after a couple of days, I'll never forget this.
[00:19:42] He came home from work early and was completely delirious. And we took him to the hospital. And they thought at first they'd have to cut off his arm. And thank God they were able to rescue it. And he was OK.
[00:19:56] But it took a ton of medicine, took a ton of time to get healed. Like poison, if it gets in you, it's this slow kind of eroding thing. It kills you from the inside out. And that's exactly what sin does.
[00:20:10] It gets in you, and then it begins to control you, and then it begins to destroy you. But the good news is that at the cross, Jesus took all that to rescue us. We could put it this way.
[00:20:23] Jesus became what he was not so that we might become who we are called to be. Jesus became what he was not so that we might become who we are called to be. Why? Why would he do this? The answer is John 3, 16.
[00:20:42] Because God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. This is it right here. This is the heart of the gospel in 26 words.
[00:20:52] God so loved the world, the same world that rejected him and despised him, the same world that gave in to the poison of the serpent. He loved this world so much that God gave what was most precious to him. And what was that? His son.
[00:21:08] So that if we just believe in him, look to him, we shall be saved. You know, it's fascinating. This word believe that Jesus uses is a loaded term. It's worth writing down too so you can do more research on it. The word belief is the word pestio.
[00:21:25] Let me hear you say pestio. And it means trust, surrender. But this is the key part, to act on what is true. Belief then is not just mental assent, oh, I agree with that, right? Or I believe that something may be true. I believe it's raining outside. Okay.
[00:21:49] I believe the Rams will win this afternoon because they will, right? There's a difference though between agreeing with something and the kind of belief that actually changes your life. When Jesus says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him.
[00:22:08] He's not just saying, oh, you say a prayer at church and then, you know, you go to church a couple times a year and you're all good. No. He's saying, when you actually believe in me, you look to the cross.
[00:22:19] It's the kind of surrender and trust and relationship that is absolutely, radically going to transform your life. Everything. I've heard this story so many times about this tightrope walker. And I went online this last week to see did it actually happen because you hear
[00:22:37] these stories and sometimes you wonder, is this really true? And it was. Maybe you've heard it too. It's about a guy named Charles Blondin. He was a famous stuntman of the 1800s. That's why the picture is so grainy.
[00:22:50] And he was known for his tightrope walking, kind of the Victorian version of Man on Wire if you've seen that documentary. He was the first person ever to walk on a tightrope, check this out, across Niagara Falls. How insane is that?
[00:23:06] And like many guys who are like all about extreme sports, it wasn't enough for him. He did that and he's like, I got to take it to the next level. One point, I don't even know how this is possible, but it's true. He crossed on stilts.
[00:23:21] Yeah, I know, seriously. I'm like, how did it happen? We're like vibing here. This is great, man. Another time he crossed on a bike. Another time he was blindfolded, didn't even have a bird box. And then another time, this is great.
[00:23:43] There's a huge crowd there of people and he had a wheelbarrow and he's like, do you think I can go across with the wheelbarrow? And everyone's like cheering. Yeah, yeah, you can do it, of course. And then he said, he took it to the next level.
[00:23:54] He's like, do you think I can go across with a man sitting inside? And everyone's cheering. They're like, yeah, Charles Blondin, you can do it. And so he pointed to a guy in the front row and he's like, okay, you get in.
[00:24:07] And the guy's like, that shut him up real quick. And I love that story because I think it captures what it means to believe. Belief isn't just going along with the cheering crowd. Like anyone can do that. Belief is you actually get in the wheelbarrow.
[00:24:23] Belief is, all right, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm letting this shape and inform my life. There's this great philosopher. His name is Michael Novak and he's coming at this from a secular perspective, but I think he's onto something.
[00:24:37] Michael Novak talks about three different kinds of belief, three different kinds of what he calls convictions. And he talks about public belief. He said a public belief is where you say that you believe in something, but maybe deep down you don't,
[00:24:55] but you just say what you want them to hear, right? So your wife says, hey, does this look good on me, sweetie? And you may think something else, but because you want to live, you say it looks amazing. No, that's not true of me and my wife.
[00:25:10] We'll have a conversation later. Because everything looks good to my wife. Then there's, good save, huh? And then there's private beliefs. Michael Novak says, okay, the next level is private belief. And private belief is what you think you believe.
[00:25:25] And you think it because in the heat of the moment, you said, yeah, I'm all in. You think of the person who's like, yeah, I want to give my life to Jesus because they're like super emotional. They have this experience,
[00:25:34] but then the next day it doesn't really change their life. Or think of in sports, people jumping on a bandwagon, but then when the team loses, they're like jump off right away. Private belief. But then Michael Novak says, this is brilliant.
[00:25:45] He says, the deepest level of belief or conviction is a core belief. And he said a core belief is a belief that doesn't just agree with something, but acts on it. And he says, it's the deepest level because it actually translates into how you live your life.
[00:26:02] That's what Jesus is talking about. Because here's a guy, Nicodemus. Jesus is stripping away some of the layers. He said, okay, you have a lot of knowledge. You know the Torah. You're keeping these commandments. But I want to get deeper.
[00:26:18] And I'm asking you, Nicodemus, do you have a relationship with me? Do you really know me? Is it changing how you see reality? Is it changing how you do life? This is why he says, Nicodemus, you must be born again. But then Jesus takes it further.
[00:26:34] Oh, my gosh. I wish we had so much time on these verses. We don't. But verse 17, he said, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. And whoever believes in him is not condemned,
[00:26:50] but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
[00:27:08] Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that he may be seen plainly that what they have done
[00:27:21] has been done in the sight of God. Oh, my goodness. How on earth do I summarize this in 10 minutes? Okay. Jesus uses a ton of different metaphors as he's talking about being born again. Remember last week, water and spirit? He talks about the wind.
[00:27:36] He talks about the serpent on the pole. And now he closes this section with one more analogy, and you've got to get this. This is a game changer. He talks about light and darkness, light and darkness. And Jesus says the reason that people reject the light
[00:27:51] isn't because they don't see the light. It's because they prefer the darkness. They choose the darkness. Now, this is incredibly insightful because I think it really drills down and exposes the brokenness of the human condition. Jesus uses the word light, as John often does in his gospel,
[00:28:10] as a metaphor for God. Why? Because light is self-evident. By definition, light isn't hidden or hard to see. It's clear. It's obvious. You know if someone's turned the light on. So, too, God has revealed himself to the world. How? A number of ways.
[00:28:29] He has, number one, through his word. Hebrews 1, we have a slide for this. He's revealed himself in Jesus. John 1. Also, John 8-12, that's worth writing down because Jesus in John 8-12 says, I am the light of the world.
[00:28:43] He's revealed himself in the beauty and symmetry and complexity of creation. I mean, you just look at our universe and everywhere you look, the fingerprints of God are there, whether it's a telescope or the microscope. The more we study, the more we learn, the more we realize
[00:29:00] it can't all be here by accident. Fred Hoyle, he's a famous British astronomer, the guy who coined the phrase Big Bang. Even Fred Hoyle, he's like, I don't know how all of this world could have come together by accident. He's like, it just seems so improbable.
[00:29:16] In fact, at one point, Fred Hoyle said the chances of life existing by sheer coincidence, he said it'd be like a tornado going through a metal scrapyard. And when the tornado's done, there's a beautifully built 747.
[00:29:31] He said it's like really hard to understand how all this could come to be. Just the fact that we're here and we're alive and we have a heart beating in our chest and oxygen in our lungs and on this planet, it's a signpost to the reality of God.
[00:29:49] And Jesus says the existence of God is like light. It's self-evident. God's put eternity in our hearts. And what's so tragic is that some people choose to reject what is self-evident. In 2010, we moved to Oxford, and the place where I studied was a stone's throw away, literally,
[00:30:14] from the house of the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins. I didn't throw stones. And so there were times I'd bump into him and we had a couple interesting conversations. There's one time we had this little conversation
[00:30:29] and we walked together to this seminar that he was giving on atheism. So I sat in and listened to what he had to say. And then someone asked a question, and they're like, Professor Dawkins, is that the end Q&A?
[00:30:40] Professor Dawkins, is there anything that would change your mind about your view of God? Is there any kind of evidence that would sway you? And his response was fascinating because I thought he would say yes, right? He's a scientist. You're supposed to have views that are falsifiable.
[00:31:00] But what Richard Dawkins said was no. There is nothing that would change my mind. There's no evidence that would change my mind. In fact, he said even if I went out and looked at the starry sky and suddenly I saw the words Yahweh written out in the stars,
[00:31:17] he said even then I wouldn't believe. He said I'd write it off as some weird psychotic event or something going on, dementia or whatever. But he said there's absolutely nothing that would cause me to change my mind.
[00:31:30] And it hit me as I'm listening to him is that for him, his view on God wasn't based on evidence but choice. He'd swept aside the thing of evidence like, No, I actually prefer looking at the universe this way.
[00:31:46] Thomas Nagel had said something very similar in one of his books. And I know that some people would push back on this, and I get that. In fact, pretty passionately. Some people would say, No, Dom, you know, I actually have good philosophical reasons for not believing in God
[00:32:01] or good scientific reasons for not believing in God or in most cases personal reasons for not believing in God. Something happened, you were hurt or burned by the church or something happened in your past or when you were a kid,
[00:32:12] and that pain, that wound has scarred you, and so you've chosen then, I don't believe in God. How many people we know have that view like, I don't believe God exists, and I'm mad at him? And Jesus, what he's doing here, and I get that perspective.
[00:32:29] I understand where they're coming from. I really do. But I think what Jesus is saying is actually really insightful because he's saying if you peel back some of those layers, whether it's psychological or philosophical or scientific, the real reason is not because of evidence but preference.
[00:32:47] You're making a choice not to believe. A friend of mine told me a story of a little girl, nine years old, and her teacher was kind of known for being more of a hardcore atheist. It was a Friday afternoon.
[00:33:01] The kids were about to leave for the weekend, and she asked her class, she's like, what are you kids going to do this weekend? And this little girl, she's like, well, one of the things I'm going to do
[00:33:09] is I'm going to go to church, and I'm going to learn about Jesus and the miracles that he did and the Bible. And the teacher looks at this nine-year-old girl, and she's like, come on. Everyone knows it's a fairy tale. It actually didn't happen.
[00:33:24] And that little girl was taken back, and she folded her arms. She's like, I know it happened because it's in the gospel of John. And the teacher's like, well, that's not evidence. And the little girl says, well, when I get to heaven,
[00:33:37] I'm going to ask John what it was like. And the teacher then said, well, what if John isn't in heaven? What if he's in hell? And the little girl said, well, you ask him. Brilliant. I think Jesus is on to something here that, man, we could spend weeks
[00:34:10] unpacking and talking about why is it that we choose not to believe? God's put eternity in our heart. Light is self-evident. The existence of God is self-evident. There's something in us that yearns, that longs for worship. What is that?
[00:34:25] Jesus says, at the end of the day, it's because you're making the choice not to believe. But here's the twist, because I know we can take this passage of John 3, and the way I've often actually applied John 3 is I've applied it missionally.
[00:34:42] I've applied it as, okay, this is a great chapter, especially John 3.16, to share with your atheist neighbor or your unbelieving co-worker. And like, this is all about mission and evangelism. But this is the twist. This is what struck me. Jesus isn't talking to Richard Dawkins.
[00:35:01] Jesus isn't talking to an unbeliever or skeptic. Who's he talking to? Who does he say you must be born again to? It's a religious guy, a Pharisee, a successful leader, Nike, victory, right? And he says to this guy, who seemed to have it all together, you're blinded too.
[00:35:25] Only you're blinded not by atheism. You're blinded by your religion. Now, this is where it stings a little bit, just to warn you. The way I interpret this passage so many times is, okay, go share it to the unbeliever. True, they need to hear this message.
[00:35:41] But Jesus doesn't give this message to someone who is on the fringe. He gave it to someone who thought he was on the inside. A guy who went to church, who practiced the disciplines, who prayed, who tithed, who worshipped, who sang, who outwardly,
[00:35:56] there's no more successful moralistic person than Nicodemus. And he says, you have to be born again, which means that the gospel isn't just for those that we think are far away. It's for those of us who think we are close.
[00:36:13] The gospel is not just for the amoral, but it's for the moralistic. The gospel isn't just for the sinner, quote unquote. It's for the self-righteous. And before we try and preach the gospel to everyone else, we first have to preach it to ourselves.
[00:36:31] Because how many times in my life do I think, man, I'm doing okay, my relationship with God, because I'm going to church and teaching messages or praying or whatever. But deep down, I know that my relationship with God isn't doing well. You see this in relationships, right?
[00:36:46] Maybe you know a marriage or sadly, maybe you're in a marriage like this where a couple can be together for many, many years and they outwardly, everything seems to be okay. Got the ring on and go out to eat together occasionally for Christmas.
[00:37:00] You actually bought them a creative gift, not an Amazon gift card. Like outwardly, it just seems like everything's cool. But isn't it true that many couples we know, deep down, they're a million miles away. And so too in our relationship with God, outwardly,
[00:37:17] it seems like everything's okay because we're at church, we're Nicodemus, we're doing all the right things. But it can be very possible that inside our relationship with God is dead. And what this text does, and it's been wrecking me in a good way,
[00:37:31] and I hope it does you too in a good way. It really forces me to ask the question, am I really in sync with the Spirit? Am I really enjoying a relationship with God? Am I really walking in the light?
[00:37:48] Or am I just a moralistic person who outwardly seems to be okay but inwardly is dead? This verse is so convicting. 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5, it says, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Wasn't it Socrates who said, the unexamined life isn't worth living?
[00:38:08] Paul is saying, the unexamined faith isn't worth believing. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Pursuing Faith podcast. If this ministry has encouraged you in some way, would you consider leaving a review on iTunes or your favorite podcasting platform?
[00:38:28] That would help a ton in getting the word out. Also, if you want to partner with us or see what we're up to, check out our website, pursuingfaith.org.