Bethel Lutheran Church Sermons

Readings

Is. 6:1-7
Rom. 11:33-36
John 3:1-15 (16-17)

Sermon Overview (listen to the full sermon by clicking on Play above)

When a former head of GM was asked what the greatest mistake GM ever made he answered that it was in 1999 when they discontinued their electric car program.  Not foreseeing $4/gal. gas or green buying they didn’t know that their customers would end up wanting such a thing. Not knowing their customers cost them dearly.

Sometimes not knowing the translation of the message can hurt a business or organization. Years ago the American Dairy Association was promoting milk with their got milk campaign.  They thought it was going great here in America so they thought that they would promote it in Mexico.  However the translation of this slogan sort of lost it’s marketing impact as it was translated into Spanish that means are you lactating?

Words can trip one up too.  In our gospel lesson for today, a man named Nicodemus, a ruling pharisee comes to Jesus at night.  He begins by buttering him up by saying we know you are from God because of the great things you’ve done.  But his question to Jesus was, how do we get to heaven? Jesus’ answer to him was that in order to get to heaven, you must be born again. Nicodemus doesn’t have a clue what those words mean.  He tries to understand them literally.  That to be born again and go back into one’s mother’s womb is impossible.  But what Jesus means you must be born by the spirit.  Nicodemus had a hard time understanding that because he was Jewish.  He was taught that if you were Jewish it was your first birth that saved you.  But now he finds that he must be born again. To him, he knew no second birth, no birth from the spirit.

Today we do the same thing. There are people walking around thinking that they are destined for heaven because of the country they are from or because of the family they were born in, or because of their moral character, or the way they use their time and money.  But none of these things get us into heaven.  Nothing we do makes us a child of God.   nothing we do will get us the spiritual rebirth that Jesus says is necessary.  Jesus gives us that and he does it perfectly.

Another error we make is requiring God to think the way we think he should.  We go to God and think that our God shouldn’t send anyone to hell, except for people we consider to be bad.  And that this triune God stuff doesn’t make sense and God’s gotta make sense to us.

God reveals himself as the trinity, three people, one being.  And we don’t understand but who we are, as created beings telling God that he’s wrong because it doesn’t make sense to us.  And when Jesus tells Nicodemus that to get into heaven one must be born again.

When Jesus went to that cross, he did it for us.  And we have been reborn because Jesus promises to us.

Satan won’t leave us alone.  He is always telling us that it is our good deeds and it is the things we say that are important.  But God shows us his love in awesome ways and it is still hard for us to accept it.  God says don’t worry, I have everything in my hands.  God wsays trust me, I’ll tell you the truth and follow my directions.