Believe in Spiritual Reality

Our theme for 2022 is “Begin Again”

It time to begin again to do the things that we stopped doing.

I’m calling this series “Believe Again”

You may have already believed the gospel, but it is time to believe again.

John calls us back to a living and vital relationship to God first, and then through God to others.

Faith is something that we grow in, and it is time to believe again!

Last week was “Believe in Jesus”

We learned that Jesus is the Word - God’s revelation of Himself.

And that we recognize Him as we are being transformed by the Spirit.

Jesus came to be like us, so that we could become like Him.

Becoming like Jesus requires an entirely different perspective.

Remember Jesus communicating with humans is like trying to explain air to fish.

There is a whole spiritual reality that humanity is generally unaware of.

In our modern society, most people would say that angels and demons, God and the devil are just constructs of our imagination to try to explain feelings and experiences that we don’t understand.

It’s true that the way think about these things is mostly a construct of our imagination, but there is no denying that they are real!

There is a spiritual realm all around us that sometimes and in some ways intersects with our own lives.

Jesus came to restore our human capacity to relate to God.

That requires and ability to perceive, understand and function in spiritual reality.

We are spiritual beings who have largely forgotten who we really are.

Since we are essentially like “fish out of water” when it comes to spiritual reality, we rely on metaphors - things that we understand and can relate to which also help us understand spiritual things.

In this passage, we will learn about spiritual reality from Jesus going to the temple, from him talking about new birth and from discussions about heaven and earth.

The Temple

John 2:13–22 ESV

13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

One of the first things recorded in the Gospel of John that Jesus did is the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem.

All of the other gospels put this event at the end of Jesus’ ministry, during the last week before the crucifixion.

It is possible that Jesus cleansed the temple on more than one occasion - or even that it was his regular practice when attending the Passover feast.

Jesus claimed that they had no right to be there.

This is “God’s house” not an open market.

The temple is like an embassy for the spiritual realm.

Since I lived overseas for a time, I have also been to an American embassy. An embassy is literally a representation of America in a foreign country. You are not allowed in unless you can prove that you have a reason for being there. When you are there, it is like you are on American soil. They run the place according to American rules.

The whole purpose for an embassy is to transact business with the country that it represents. We were there to get a passport for our daughter who was born in that country. The embassy could validate her birth certificate and recognize her as an American citizen.

This was not a tourist destination. There was no museum or gift shop. If someone would have been in the lobby selling T-shirts, that would be very inappropriate. This is a place for official government business.

The temple is like an embassy for the spiritual realm.

That is also true of pagan temples - they represent other spiritual beings.

The temple in Jerusalem is the place that represents Yahweh - the One True God.

It’s like the embassy of heaven.

2 Chronicles 7:15–16 ESV

15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

God gave his people a portal to be able to communicate with Him.

This was a place that they were to come and spend time in His presence.

It was a place to worship God, to pray and to hear from Him.

But at the time of Jesus, it had become more of a commercial enterprise - taking advantage of peoples religious sentiments to make money.

Somebody stops Jesus and asks him for his credentials- what gives him the right to do this.

Well first of all, if this is an embassy; then he’s the ambassador - but they don’t know that yet.

They are asking for his insignia- literally a sign.

Jesus says, “you want a sign - I’ll give you a sign.”

Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.

The whole dialogue is a clever play on words - sign can mean insignia or it can mean a miracle demonstrating God’s power and authority.

“Temple” can mean a few different things too.

The temple that Jesus was speaking of is His body.

When Jesus said “destroy this temple, people assume that he meant the temple complex - the courts where all the people are.

But the word that John records Jesus as using is the word for the holy place - that part of the temple in which the deity dwells.

Remember we said last week that Jesus is God?

Well He is saying it Himself - right here!

Jesus is prophesying His own death and resurrection and nobody understood what He was saying - until after it happened.

John 1–11 3. The Cleansing of the Temple and the Stage Set for Conflict (2:13–22)

Unbelievers misunderstood Jesus because they perceived only the physical or surface level meaning of his statements and were unaware that these statements actually revealed something about Jesus and the transformation of life that he brought

Why did Jesus use double meanings?

Because he was describing things that people wouldn’t understand.

He was using words that we understand to tell us about things we can’t understand knowing that someday, many of us would understand.

When John tells the story, he is writing to believers who now make up the church which is also called “the Body of Christ.”

As the Body of Christ, we are His temple.

To understand this better we need to go to the writings of Paul.

1 Corinthians 12:27 ESV

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

When Jesus spoke of His body as the temple - the dwelling place of God - that was true as He was God made flesh.

But it is also true of His metaphorical body - the church - the new temple and His representation on earth.

1 Corinthians 3:16–17 ESV

16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

The “you” here is plural, referring to believers together as the church.

There is one other place where the “you” is singular - referring to the individual believer.

The point is that the temple is the representation of the spiritual reality on earth.

It’s God’s embassy.

Jesus is the ambassador.

And now we are appointed His ambassadors.

2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

If that’s true, then Jesus cleansing the temple is a way of demonstrating that we need to be about Kingdom business.

This body is not a marketplace and it’s not for sale.

This temple is a place to commune with God.

The New Birth

John 3:1–10 ESV

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

Does anyone remember being born?

Probably not.

But you might remember your kids being born - they open their little eyes and see for the first time the source of that mysterious voice that they have come to know and recognize.

Being born again is like being born the first time - you didn’t do anything to make it happen - you just opened your eyes to your new reality!

Open your eyes to spiritual reality.

Nicodemus protested to Jesus that it is impossible to be born again.

Jesus told Nicodemus that it’s only impossible because you are thinking about it in the physical way.

There is a whole world around you that you have not yet experienced because you have yet to open your eyes - spiritually speaking.

You have not begun to breath the air of heaven.

This world is a womb - your just here to be formed into the spiritual being that you were meant to be.

Jesus says that we need to born through water and the spirit.

Of course, most interpreter through church history have taken this as a reference to baptism - in water and in the Holy Spirit.

I believe that it is adding another layer of imagery to baptism by comparing it to childbirth.

A baby is formed in water and then when it is born, takes it first breath of air.

Breath and air are the same word as spirit in both the Hebrew and the Greek.

So baptism which symbolizes repentance and spiritual transformation are a kind of spiritual birth.

We are formed by that experience as we reflect on it and realize what it means.

We begin to be sustained by spiritual life, like the air that we breath.

Spiritual things become our new reality and the reality through which we interpret all of life, even the physical.

Understanding spiritual things comes by experience.

So Nicodemus is a pretty smart man, but he’s not getting it, at least at first.

Jesus compares it to the wind - another meaning of “spirit”.

You can’t see the wind, but you see what it does.

The wind is invisible to us, but it is made visible by its effect on us and everything around us.

Spiritual realities are also invisible until you learn to see their effect.

You learn to understand spiritual realities as you experience them and their effect on you.

Have you ever walked into a room an immediately recognized the atmosphere as being either good or evil?

Have you ever had a premonition to either do something or not do something, with no apparent explanation, but it turned out to be a wise choice.

Have you ever experienced joy or sadness without any correlating event to explain why you felt that way?

Then I would say you have experienced spiritual reality.

Divine presence.

Divine guidance.

Divine communion.

John 3:11–21 ESV

11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Believing means responding to what you have seen.

The natural realm and the spiritual realm only intersect where there is some point of connection.

Moses made a pole with a bronze serpent impaled on it because the people couldn’t comprehend the spiritual reality that there was something more powerful than the snakes who were biting them.

In doing so, he pointed to another spiritual reality, that one day, Jesus would be impaled to defeat the serpent and to atone for the healing of the people.

The spiritual reality is there, but something in the natural must communicate it - make it visible so we can see it.

And the connection is complete when we recognize it and respond to it.

The serpent on the pole can’t heal people - only if they look at it (and you could add - that they believe it!)

John 3:16 says that whoever believes has eternal life.

They say that seeing is believing.

I would say that seeing and accepting or responding to what you see is believing.

That’s how we have eternal life - that’s how we live in spiritual reality.

Jesus came to show us spiritual reality and to be that connection point through which spiritual reality becomes our reality.

If you have stopped believing - or more accurately, if you have stopped responding, then it time to believe again!

Heaven and Earth

John 3:22–31 ESV

22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized 24 (for John had not yet been put in prison). 25 Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. 26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.” 31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.

Spiritual reality is the greater reality.

So just as John was baptizing in the Jordan, Jesus and his disciples begin baptizing people and more people are getting in line for Jesus than for John.

Here is the challenge- even after you see and respond to spiritual reality, there can be the temptation to be carnal in our thinking.

In this world, people care about power and prestige.

It’s hard for us to imagine a reality where being better doesn’t matter.

Spiritual reality is greater - not that being greater really matters - but that’s just it.

It’s backwards from the way we tend to think.

Spiritual reality promotes love, sacrifice and serving.

The greatest in the Kingdom is the one who is innocent and who is most reliant on God.

Luke 9:46–48 ESV

46 An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. 47 But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side 48 and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”

People are being baptized as a sign of surrender of themselves and dedicating themselves for God’s purposes.

They are being cleansed of their sin and their selfishness.

They are becoming like children - born again.

Some people seem like they got it, only to realize that they didn’t get it.

John has said all along that he was to be a forerunner.

Jesus is the groom and John is like the best man.

The best man shouldn’t be flirting with the bride.

John’s disciples should know that in spiritual reality everything revolves around God and Jesus is God.

John 3:32–36 ESV

32 He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. 33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Jesus connects the physical world with the spiritual realm.

Jesus is the self- revelation of God - He is the one who connects the physical and the spiritual worlds.

He is the one who created us and gave us life.

It is in Christ that we are re-born into a new, redeemed creation.

Jesus’ death on the cross put an end to the penalty of sin that was against us.

His sacrifice ended our bondage to sin and to satan.

His resurrection enables regeneration - the supernatural transformation of our sinful nature into His nature.

Jesus is the center of God’s plan.

Everything that God did and said culminated in jesus coming to earth to die for our sin.

And now everything that God is doing in the earth today also emanates from what He has already done in Christ.

All of history pivots on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And that is also the point at which all of reality comes together.

Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Do you see what this means? We are in Christ!

His reality is now our reality!

So we are here on earth, but we are also seated with Jesus in heavenly places - what does that mean?

Those who are in Christ, live in both worlds.

We live in physical earthly reality, but we also see and experience spiritual reality.

As Christ body, we are part of the connection between heaven and earth.

That is why Jesus taught us to pray:

Matthew 6:10 ESV

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

It is one thing to recognize that we live in both worlds and it is another thing to learn to function in both worlds.

Pray that we can make this world more like that one.

We already mentioned that we are His temple, both personally and collectively.

We are also His ambassadors, reconciling the world to God.

Believing again means embracing the spiritual reality of who we are in Christ and living in that reality.

If we do this, I have no doubt that we will change the world around us.

Questions for reflection:

If you are a temple and Jesus regularly cleansed the temple, what would He be turning over in your life? What would He be throwing out? Are you going to resist or are you going to give Him a hand?

Where have you experienced spiritual reality? Divine presence? Divine guidance? Divine communion? How do you live and function in that reality?

If you and I are ambassadors for Christ and His Kingdom, how well do we represent? Do people see something of a spiritual reality when they look at us? Are we helping others to see and to experience spiritual reality?