The Light of the Cross

Biblical Text: John 3:14-21

There are Sunday were you look at the text have trouble finding any hymns to go with them or any themes that are preachable…and then there is Lent 4 series B. You could preach a year on these three texts. And there are at least 3 services of great hymns usable, and another 3 that nobody would complain about.

Jesus explicitly connect the cross to the episode of Israel and snakes in the wilderness. The pastor’s corner this week (scroll down) wrote that up more fully. But this sermon brings some of that in. What is Jesus connecting to directly? There are a couple of things that the lifting up of the snake does. It is a picture of the toxic nature of our sin. It also makes completely clear the sin and the environment we live in rife with “fiery serpents.” This sermon makes the connections between that OT lesson (Numbers 21:4-9) and the cross. It then examines how the cross goes further. How this is one of the rare places God answers some “why?” questions. It finishes with the encouragement to live the Christian life and our hope stated so clearly by John – eternal life. The cross is the light by which we can see all this.

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What is Love?

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Biblical Text: John 3:1-17

The Gospel text is the full text in which “the gospel in a nutshell” is found. Which usually means a springboard into some gaseous ramble about love. Now I’m crazy. The less concrete a word is, the more I hate it. And you don’t get less concrete today than love. This sermon is about say “What is love.” Which is pointing at the cross. You want to know love, look at the cross. That is a concrete as it gets. God works in his way – “The Spirit blows where it wills” – and “the son lifted up is His way.”

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Believe and Live!

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Biblical Text: John 3:1-17

This is something of a statement about the purpose of preaching. We attempt to put so much on the sermon. We look for all kinds of things there. And I honestly think we look for the wrong things. What the sermon is about is proclaiming the gospel. What the sermon is about is evangelism, our evangelism. And that is what this sermon attempts to do. It isn’t 7 words of wisdom for your best life. It isn’t 5 ways to life hack your way to Jesus. It is “God so loved the world that he gave his son.” He gave him for you. He gave him that we might hear and believe and live. There is a lot else that the Bible teaches that we should do, but preaching – that is about love, what God has done for us.

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A Man of the Pharisees, A Ruler of the Jews

Biblical Text: John 3:1-17
Full Draft

This has been a strange 8 days with a Sunday in the middle. The church lost power for most of three days (Wed-Fri) due to a windstorm. Personally I was bedridden sick Friday night until I forced myself up Sunday morning. And then Tuesday and Wednesday we’ver have over 2 feet of snow and been snowed in. Wind, plague, snow and bitter cold, I asked our secretary this morning if Friday was scheduled for the earthquake.

So, buried literally under snow and figuratively under a week worth of work, including tracking and arranging a new date for the delivery of our new organ (did I tell you that was supposed to arrive last Wednesday), I am just getting to the sermon file. Of course the recording line gets real silent at the end of the gospel reading. So, no musical stuff. Also the sermon recording might be a little rough as occasionally not even amplifying brings the sound. (I’m thinking I moved a little far away from the mic at those moments and it got lower clipped.)

It is a shame, because it is one of the greatest texts of the bible. And being under the weather for final editing, I’m short. No hinting or sneaking up on the point. No padding or weak attempts at story telling or making relevant. Just expository. Christ for you. Fitting of John 3:16-17

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Uncontrollable Grace Leads to the Cross

Biblical Text: John 3:1-17
Full Sermon Draft

Preaching on John 3:16 tends to fall into two categories: 1) insipid, usually because it has a definition of love completely contrary to the passage or 2) counter-productive because it proclaims what is cheap grace. It proclaim the truth of Christ without asking that we receive him and live by the Spirit.

We have no problem with Jesus, so long as we have control over him. The problem with that is that the Father has chosen Jesus. Verse 17, we are saved through him. And in the context of Nicodemus’ midnight visit Jesus has chosen to act in a specific way – by water, Spirit and cross. Believing in Jesus is not just a simple matter of intellectual assent. Believing in Jesus is in part an admission that we are not “in control”. The Spirit which dwells within us from our Baptism is our guide. And that Spirit leads in the path of the cross following Jesus. Grace is a gift, we can only receive it or turn it down. We can accept Jesus, or stumble around in the dark with Nicodemus.

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