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Mar 29, 2020

Why Rebirth Matters in a Time of Virus

Why Rebirth Matters in a Time of Virus

Passage: John 3:1

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: House Calls

At a time when people are falling sick, or losing their job, or losing their business, or losing their life--when the future suddenly becomes wildly unpredictable for everyone--what good at all is it to give our attention to what it means to be spiritually reborn? Much in every way.

3.29.20 GMR Online Service from Graceworks Media on Vimeo.

 

Order of worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: Galatians 2:20 & 2 Corinthians 5:17
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Ezekiel 36:22-27
CENTRAL TEXT: John 3:1-17
MESSAGE: Why rebirth matters in a time of virus
BENEDICTION: 1 Peter 1:22-23

Outline for Kids! Kids Bible Lesson

Readings & Scriptures

CALL TO WORSHIP: Galatians 2:20 & 2 Corinthians 5:17

LEADER: 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

ALL: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

OLD TESTAMENT READING: Ezekiel 36:22-27
LEADER: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

CENTRAL TEXT: John 3:1-17
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? 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.

BENEDICTION: 1 Peter 1:22-23
LEADER: 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again,

ALL: not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Numbers 21:5-9
  • Ezekiel 36:22-27
  • John 1:1-12

MEDIA:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. What most has you preoccupied these desperate days? What are you losing sleep over? What’s your best and worst case scenario(s)?
  2. What’s motivating Nicodemus in this moment? What else do you know of his story after this moment?
  3. What assumptions do you think Jesus is out to correct in Nicodemus? Think for a minute on what basis Nicodemus became a Pharisee (not in the negative way we tend to use that word, but in terms of his role as an authority in the Law). What do you think he had to demonstrate in order to be appointed to that office? What might he assume, then, about how one obtains the esteem of God?
  4. For Jesus to use the metaphor of birth--a rebirth from above--to explain how a life in God begins, what all might the metaphor suggest?
  5. Why does Jesus appeal to that bizarre moment in Numbers 21:5-9 as an analogy for His own destiny and purpose?
  6. A rhetorical question you might choose to share aloud with another anyway: in this present hour, what difference does it make to you whether this rebirth and the life that follows from it are true for you? If it feels like a distant, irrelevant idea how would grasping its truth and depth affect what all you’re presently feeling, what all you’re preoccupied about (potentially) losing?

QUOTES:

  • I’m beginning to appreciate the wisdom that cancer patients share: We just can’t know. Don’t expect life to be predictable or fair. Don’t try to tame the situation with some feel-good lie or confident prediction. Embrace the uncertainty of this whole life-or-death deal. There’s a weird clarity that comes with that embrace. There is a humility that comes with realizing you’re not the glorious plans you made for your life. When the plans are upset, there’s a quieter and better you beneath them. - David Brooks
  • Watching those individuals' fates, what was going to be coming soon, the end of their life, I was trying to imagine what I would do in that circumstance. . . .This was in North Carolina and there were a lot of wonderful individuals, many of them having had relatively simple lives, but lives that were totally dedicated to helping other people. Many of these people were deeply committed to faith. I was puzzled and unsettled to see how they approached something that I personally was pretty terrified about, the end of their lives. They had peace and equanimity, and even a sort of sense of joyfulness that there was something beyond. I didn't know what to do with it. It made me realize that I had never really gone beyond the most superficial consideration of whether God exists, or a serious consideration about what happens after you die” Dr. Frances Collins (recently interviewed also here)
  • The question of worth has been taken out of our hands. - Paul Zahl
  • Our attempts to not feel off guard actually leads to greater self-absorption and the foolish conviction that we can control the world. True core strength is willing to feel helpless and disturbed, and it results in a self-disciplined and passionate life rather than in a controlling life that fears what may suddenly arise. Dan Allender, Leading with a Limp
  • Human beings need God because their precarious and contingent lives can find final significance only in His almighty and eternal purposes, and because their fragmentary selves must find their ultimate center only in His transcendent love. If the meaning of men’s lives is centered solely in their own achievements, these too are vulnerable to the twists and turns of history, and their lives will always teeter on the abyss of pointlessness and inertia. And if men’s ultimate loyalty is centered in themselves, then the effect of their lives on others around them will be destructive of that community on which we all depend. Only in God is there an ultimate loyalty that does not breed injustice and cruelty, and a meaning from which nothing on heaven and earth can separate us. - Landon Gilkey, Shantung Compound cited in Tim Keller’s Making Sense of God

Books

  • “Interview with Frances Collins,” really two articles in one: the first, the NIH Director’s take on the nature of the coronavirus and what response is required--the second, the story and spiritual pilgrimage of the scientist who at first found faith laughable and then desirable
  • “Screw this virus,” an op-ed piece by David Brooks