Episode 1625: Guided by the Promise

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,625 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Kevin Herring: I'm Kevin Herring. I challenge you to invest in yourself and those around you to make the world better, using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Build the capacity of others to find meaning and purpose at work.

Create an environment that supports high engagement. One way to be inspired to do this is to listen to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: I am given life by the God who brings the dead to life and calls into existence, things that did not exist, like hope, and faith, and community and belonging, and forgiveness, and grace, and transformation, and life and love. That [00:01:00] is the good news.

Kevin Herring: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Scott Maderer: If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can

Kevin Herring: impact the world.

Scott Maderer: In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Romans chapter four, verses one through five and 13 through 17, and John chapter three verses one through 17. I share how we are called to reflect on Abraham and struggling with our relationship with God, and I also talk about how Nicodemus struggles just as we do.

Romans chapter four, verses one through five and 13 [00:02:00] through 17 says. What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor, according to the flesh, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now to one who works. Wages are not reckoned as a gift, but as something due. But to one who does not work but trust him who justifies the ungodly. Such faith is reckoned as righteousness. For the promise that he would inherit. The world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith for if it is the inheritance of the law, who are to be the heirs.

Faith is an all and the promises void for the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. For this reason, the promise depends on faith in order that it may rest on grace. So that it may be guaranteed to all his [00:03:00] descendants, not only to the adherence of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, who was the father of us all.

As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of God and whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. John chapter three, verses one through 17 says. Now, there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.

And Jesus answered him very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. And Nicodemus said to him, how can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answered Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being [00:04:00] born of water and spirit.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, but what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, you must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.

And Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? And Jesus answered him. Are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things. Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things, no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the son of man, and just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the [00:05:00] world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. A lot of pastors, when they see Romans and John in the lectionary the same week, they probably kind of skip over Abraham and go straight to the John passage.

This gospel text is probably very familiar, one that you've heard, one that you've heard preached many different times. It contains probably the single most famous verse in the whole New Testament. Probably the most famous in the whole Bible. So why say anything about Abraham? Why have the Romans passage at all?

Well, maybe because Nicodemus was asking about him. There's not a reference to that. Nothing in that conversation references Abraham, [00:06:00] and there's no real clear idea of why Nicodemus came to talk to Jesus in the middle of the night because Jesus kind of hijacks the conversation before Nicodemus has a chance to say more than a few words.

I'm not sure what Nicodemus came, what was on his agenda, what he wanted to talk about, what were his burning questions. But here is this leader of the Jewish people going out in the dark of night to come and talk to this surprisingly popular prophet from the middle of nowhere. And Jesus sets the agenda.

Nicodemus comes in, maybe schmoozing, a little bit of kissing up as one does. He is trying to butter Jesus up, catch him off guard, or at least it appears that way. But Jesus jumps in with answers to questions that Nicodemus hadn't [00:07:00] even asked, and Nicodemus seems to be on his heels from that moment on.

Does he not understand? Is he joking? Is he lost in the rhetoric? Is he confused by the approach? It's not clear, and it's probably not that fruitful to try to figure out what was going on in Nicodemus mind and thought in the dark of night. Instead, maybe we should, as usual, turn our eyes to Jesus. Because Jesus offers a gift.

It it sounds, and in fact, when I read the passage, you read part of it as if Jesus gets frustrated with Nicodemus. Are you a teacher? But you don't understand, and it sounds like a reprimand. And perhaps maybe that's how Jesus meant it. Maybe Jesus is saying, I expect more from the people that would be leaders of the people.

[00:08:00] Maybe Jesus wants a teacher to have some wisdom to share. But whether it's a reprimand, whether it's disappointment, Jesus still offers a gift. It's through the uncertainty of the questioner that we get the promise of hope and transformation that we get. That famous verse I was talking about, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

You've probably seen it on cardboard, held up during sporting events. God so loved. That is the good news of the gospel. But then we go back to Romans don't make believing a work, and that's the struggle. That's [00:09:00] what Jesus seems to be trying to get through. Nicodemus thick skull and our thick skull as well.

Nicodemus wants to physically climb back into the womb and be born a second time. He wanted to order the spirit. He wanted to formula. If I just do these things, say these things, then I've done it. I've done the work, and now I'm on the threshold of a new life like Abraham. But Romans, Paul, in Romans talks about what we can say about Abraham, and it's the same argument, law and gospel, faith in works.

We want to work our way into the kingdom. We want to earn space. We want to follow the rules, and again and again and again, we're going to be told that we're missing something significant. And Paul says, Abraham is the prime [00:10:00] example of what it means to believe. It's not work, it's not effort on Abraham's part.

It's not something that he earned and is rewarded by Pats on the head. No, it's an orientation. It's a way of seeing the world. God said, go Abraham hurt. God said, go to a land that I will show you. He didn't say, here's where you're going. He didn't say, here's how this path will play out. He didn't say, everything's gonna work out great.

He said, go to a land that I will show you. Go where I will show you as you go, but just go. And what did Abraham do? He went, that is faith. That is belief. In that going, Abraham became the ancestor of all of us. Not necessarily physically, but that spirit of faith and belief is the [00:11:00] beginning. That's the gospel message.

Before there was a gospel message, it's no longer about earning it. It's no longer about defining it. It's about the spirit. It's about being relatives, enjoined in the spirit. We're not defined by flesh or by law, says Paul, we're defined by and given life by the God who brings the dead to life and calls into existence, things that did not exist, like hope and faith and community and belonging and forgiveness, and grace and transformation and life and love.

That is the good news. Thanks for listening.