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If you have a Bible with you this morning, I invite you to turn with me to John chapter 3.
For those of you who might not know who I am, my name is Evan Wilson, and I have enjoyed the last three years serving as Worship Pastor here.
Being the worship pastor, I haven’t preached on any regular basis.
And I’m not half as talented as our lead pastor.
So I’ll warn you, I don’t have any sermon notes for you this morning.
I don’t even have three points.
But I do want to share a little bit of my background and my story and show you how meeting Jesus made the difference for me.
Most of you probably know that I grew up in Winona, MS, which if you’re not sure where that is, you have probably stopped there at some point to fill up on gas or grab a McDonald’s burger.
It’s smack dab in the middle of Mississippi, and for me as a young boy, it felt like the bejeweled belt buckle of the Bible Belt.
I am so grateful that my parents pointed me to Jesus from birth.
I attended preschool at Moore Memorial Methodist Church in Winona.
I grew up attending First Baptist, Winona every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.
I wore itchy, pastel clothes on Easter and sang in the children’s choir at Christmas.
I was a part of the Royal Ambassadors and Bible Drill, though not always the most eager participant.
My parents were Sunday School teachers.
They taught me to pray every night and before every meal.
Everything I did and everywhere I turned, my life was completely drenched with Bible and Jesus.
So it should come as no surprise that I decided to follow Jesus at a very young age.
I was baptized on my 7th Birthday, knowing that who I was and who God wanted me to be were not the same person, and that I needed his forgiveness.
From there, my walk with Christ has been precisely that — like a walk that I began with a stranger, but along the way, we’ve talked and I’ve listened more and more, and the more I learn about him, the more I love him.
I’m sure I wouldn’t be wrong to assume that many of you can relate to this sort of upbringing.
I’ve heard and read numerous stories almost identical to mine.
Stories of people who — while dutifully and with the best of intentions busying themselves with religion — met Jesus, and everything changed.
In fact, I want us to read about a man who had this exact experience, and see what we might take away from his encounter with Jesus.
Read with me John chapter 3, beginning in verse 1:
Pharisees (1-4)
Right off the bat, let’s remember what it means to be a Pharisee.
Pharisees were not, as we would say, church leaders.
Nicodemus was unique in that he was a “ruler of the Jews,” which likely meant he was a part of the Sanhedrin.
(If you think of the senate and the supreme court combined, you’ll have something like the Sanhedrin.)
However, just being a Pharisee did not mean you had any official office or any inherent religious authority.
(You remember, Paul was a Pharisee, yet he still had to request permission from the chief priests to carry out his attacks on the early Church.)
Pharisees were normal, everyday Jews who wanted to do everything they could to ensure Israel’s holy, set-apart status.
They pledged to abide by every command in Scripture, which they counted to be 613 commands — 248 dos, and 365 don’ts.
They were so serious about keeping these commands that they developed additional laws and traditions that would be a safe-guard for them so as never to even come close to breaking God’s law.
Many refer to this as a hedge around the law.
For instance, in order to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy, they painstakingly defined what it meant to work.
It was considered work for a man to tie a knot, but not for a woman to tie her clothing.
So on the Sabbath, a man could not tie a rope around a jar, but a woman was allowed to tie her clothing around a jar to fetch water.
They felt that since it was her clothing she was tying, she was still honoring the Sabbath.
Why did they do this?
Pharisees believed that Israel’s purity was what God demanded before he would send a liberator, or messiah, to restore Israel’s independence and superiority over surrounding nations.
For the Pharisees, the establishment of the Kingdom of God meant Israel had a King, like that of King David, who would lead the nation into peace and prosperity.
Pharisees were not terrorists.
They were not gangsters.
They were the most upstanding citizens, patriots even.
If your child became a Pharisee, you would have been so proud!
Out of all the Jews, they were the most zealous for God’s Word and Law.
The Pharisees had plenty of flaws, but above all, they just wanted to do the right thing.
When I think of the Pharisees, I think about my own life.
You want to know the biggest threat for a person like me?
The delicious poison for a child who grew up praying, and church-going, and singing about Noah and the Ark?
It’s not atheism — I can’t imagine a world without God.
It’s not agnosticism — I had heard about God spitting out lukewarm Christians, so I definitely didn’t want to do that.
It’s not other religions, or even false doctrines — remember I had been steeped in Christian tradition since birth.
So for me, the biggest threat to my faith wasn’t the temptation to leave my faith.
The biggest threat for those like me is cultural Christianity.
What is cultural Christianity?
Cultural Christianity is wanting to be a part of Christianity more than you want to be a part of Christ.
Cultural Christianity is allowing your life to be shaped by the words and actions of Christians and not the words of Christ.
Cultural Christianity is the lazy river of the Bible Belt.
It’s where the tide takes you if you simply want to fit in.
When people hear the term “cultural Christian,” here is often what they think.
Someone who thinks God’s main concern is the United States of America, and can’t separate Christianity from politics or patriotism.
Someone who walks out of Sunday morning worship and all but cusses out their waitress at Sunday lunch.
Someone who knows the lines not to cross, but skirts right up next to them.
Listen church, this is Pharisaical behavior that should be called out for what it is and avoided.
But for me, this wasn’t the cultural Christianity that crept into my life.
I’m a musician, and as a teenager, I always had a little bit of that emo, punk rock spirit that wanted to rebel and be different.
I also began to notice the cultural Christianity around me, and that made me desire something real and powerful.
This led me to fall in love with contemporary Christian music and eventually something that I call “worship culture.”
This type of culture isn’t necessarily bad, but can easily become an idol, as it did for me.
This is nothing new.
Since the birth of the Church, there’s always been some form of evolving Christian culture.
And for me, I saw popular worship leaders having the best time leading worship and having the most thoughtful and powerful things to say, and I thought to myself, “That’s real Christianity.”
So of course, I began to dress like my heroes and act and talk like them, which again isn’t inherently bad!
The problem was this: Without fully realizing it, I was okay with not actually following Jesus so long as I was perceived to be a part of the Christian culture.
I was okay if i wasn’t:
Spending meaningful time with God in worship and the Word
Accountable to other believers
Loving others through serving
Telling others about Jesus
I was okay with not being a disciple of Jesus
As long as I could be associated with popular Christian culture.
I looked the part.
I acted the part.
But there was a disconnect between the way I looked and behaved, and the true condition of my heart.
I was a Pharisee in that way.
Maybe you’ve been there.
Maybe you’re there today.
Maybe your desire to be a part of a certain culture or group has diminished your desire to know Jesus and walk with him, wherever that leads.
This is the fork in the road at which we find Nicodemus here in John chapter 3.
Nicodemus is trying to wrap his mind around this.
He knew there had to be something to Jesus’s words, but they weren’t exactly lining up with what he had always been taught and what he had always believed.
He and the rest of the Pharisees were looking for a political liberator.
Jesus wasn’t that.
He was something more, which is why he answers the way he does in verse 5.
Water/Spirit, Wind (5-8)
It’s easy for us to miss out on what Jesus is getting at here because we don’t dwell on the OT prophets like ancient Jews.
But when Jesus associates “water” and “spirit” here, Nicodemus would have instantly recognized the association.
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