"The Cost of Discipleship"
Sermon Transcript for February 20, 2005
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
Well, Reverend Mike can tell you that I’ve been working non-stop, it seems, for months now trying to finish my college. And I know some of you are probably confused because I have people come to me from time to time and say, “Wait a minute. Didn’t we celebrate you graduating from something a couple of years ago?” Well, this is very confusing and I don’t want to spend a lot of precious time on it but let me just remind you that through the United Methodist Church I’ve been given a great blessing. I’ve been able to change careers and learn how to become a pastor in the United Methodist church even as I’ve earned the credentials that I needed. And so I went through a process called “Course of Study School”. It took me five years and five summers of time in Chicago at a school up there. And that is what we celebrated a couple of years ago. I did not have my college completed and so I couldn’t go for the Master’s Degree that is required for the highest level of credentialing in the United Methodist Church. And so for eight years now I’ve been piddling around working on this college degree, trying to finish my bachelor’s degree. And I can tell you that it is within site now. I can see that with the Lord’s help I probably will finish this summer and finally have that bachelor’s degree. And then very soon after start right on the Masters of Divinity degree that will give me that level of credentialing I seek.
But I read something in USA Today recently that really makes me wonder why I’m working so hard. Because I read of a place called Harrington University. Well, it’s also known as The University of San Moritz. It’s also known as the University of Palmer’s Green. It’s also known as the University of Devonshire in England. At Harrington, the campus is very small but the class schedule is so convenient because there aren’t any classes. And you can have a Ph.D. in under 27 days as long as you can write the check and the check doesn’t bounce. No transcript from your previous schooling is required. All you have to do is have “life experience” and you too can have a Ph.D. in anything! To think that I am working hard, 30 hours a week lately, I don’t know why I didn’t consider this!
Well, probably because Harrington University is out of business now. The Federal Trade Commission and British authorities cracked down on them and put them out of business because they are what is called the “diploma mill”. You know, thanks to the Internet and modern technology you can get a diploma pretty easily as long as you have a credit card and access to the Internet. You can arrange to have all sorts of credentials hanging on your wall. Harrington’s campus was actually an apartment in Romania occupied by an American who had all of his degrees and other printed material produced in Israel and all of his banking was done in Switzerland. Would you believe that they issued 70,000 certificates, diplomas, and degrees? And that before he was caught and put out of business, it’s founder had made over $100 million dollars on phony bogus degrees?
Now what’s scary is that these diploma mills have produced some people in some significant positions. Forbes Magazine says that there are as many as, I want to get this number right, there are as many as 100,000 people serving in professions around the country with bogus degrees. In May of 2004, the General Accounting Office of the United States Government found out that they had 28 of their senior executives with bogus degrees. They found out that 463 of their employees had some kind of bogus degree. Kind of makes you wonder how anybody could fall for such a thing? Kind of makes you wonder what kind of people would do such a thing?
Well, the interesting thing is that this kind of fakery goes uncaught for the most part because people don’t ask the right questions, because they take too much for granted, because we are so busy and maybe just a little lazy that if it looks good, it must be good. And so we accept this person. But tell that to the woman whose diabetic child was taken to a specialist with a bogus degree who told her she didn’t need to give the child insulin anymore and within a few weeks the child died.
So bogus degrees and faking it just don’t work. And if you happen to be going before the Lord of all creation looking for certification as a Christian, as a person prepared to enter heaven, then you might want to make sure your credentials are for real. And that’s where we begin to look at this Scripture reading that we just heard. Nicodemus came to Jesus asking the right questions. In this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus is worthy of our examination because it is so authentic. It must be because it came at great risk to both parties. Nicodemus came in the night, Scripture says, a Pharisee. Now the Pharisees were the religious leaders that Jesus and John the Baptist had been the hardest on. They’d taken a lot of abuse from Jesus and John. And it was justified. And Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin who’s a high authority over the Pharisees. And most of the Pharisees really had an intense hatred for Jesus mainly because He threatened them so. He undermined their authority by challenging the things that they said and did. And more than that, challenging what was behind what they said. But Nicodemus came out of that group in the night to check in with Jesus on a few things. This makes Nicodemus worthy of our respect because Nicodemus was a learned scholar himself. And many had sat at his feet and listened to his teaching. But he knew in order to learn he had to be willing to go to this younger relative newcomer—this Jesus.
And there is a lesson in that for all of us too. Because a lot of us claim big credentials, lots of wisdom and experience, a lot of us are very aware of who respects us and why. But the truth is, in order to get the credentials that get you into heaven, you have to go and sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to what Jesus says and believe some of the fantastic things that Jesus says. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about the Kingdom, Nicodemus had some pretty legitimate understanding of the Kingdom. For example, Nicodemus knew that the Bible taught that the Kingdom would be ruled by God and that He would restore the earth by putting the Kingdom in place and that He would use His people. But Jesus revealed to this devout Pharisee, Nicodemus, that the Kingdom would come to the whole world and not just to certain people like the Jews. He told Nicodemus that even he wouldn’t be part of it unless he was personally born again. Now that was a revolutionary concept and it was certainly hard for Nicodemus to understand. You could just hear his laughter, his chuckling under his breath, as he says to Jesus, “Now how’s an old fellow like me going to be reborn? Can I go back to my mother’s womb?” Well, you know that he already knew the answer to the question. I think he was responding with sarcasm because he simply didn’t know where to go next. Jesus had that quality, you know? He could take people who were very wise and knowledgeable and He could take their breath away. He could say something or do something that would so stun them that they had two choices—either shut up and walk away or respond with something stupid. Now that may not be the most Biblical term but you look it up and you will see, Jesus routinely stunned people into either walking away or saying something dumb.
Well, then, there is that third category—those who listen and believe! We don’t know for sure what Nicodemus did with what he heard but we do know this much—that when it came time for someone among the Pharisees, among the Sanhedrin, to stand up for Jesus, Nicodemus did. It didn’t do any good, but Nicodemus’ courage extended beyond this moment in the night when he inquired with Jesus.
So what did Jesus mean when he said to Nicodemus that you must be born again, that in order to enter heaven you must be born of water and the Spirit? Well, the answer is very clear in the whole statement. Because Jesus says two things back to back that tie together and you have to hear them together to understand. Jesus says in Chapter 3, Versus 5 and 6 that you “must be born of water and the Spirit because human flesh gives birth to human flesh but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit.” Now I believe Jesus was speaking very literally about the waters of birth. As a father of five, I’ve been through five pregnancies with my wife. And I don’t want to give you the gory details except to tell you this, I promise you when the waters come, the baby will come soon after. Guaranteed! And the truth is, these are the waters—waters of the womb where this baby has been nurtured and grown for those nine months. Jesus says, “First you have to be born of the water and then born of the Spirit because Spirit gives birth to Spirit.”
Now the water could also represent the symbolic cleansing of baptism. It could also represent the ritual nature of this cleansing that Nicodemus would have recognized from passages out of Ezekiel where God promised that He would sprinkle clean water on people and He would make them clean, that He would cleanse them of their impurities and their sins. And He would wash away their devotion to idols. Now surely there is a meaning in that as well. But when we try to figure out how to be born again, just as Nicodemus did, then we need to take this quite literally and realize that first you have to be born. You can’t be born again until you’ve been born. And so Jesus says, “Once you’ve been born of the flesh, then there comes a time where you need to be born of the Spirit.”
Now how do you do that? How does a person become born again? Well, here is the interesting thing—no degree required, no expensive learning required! I’m glad to tell you that it has taken me hours and hours and hours and years of work to finally accomplish what I’ve set out to accomplish. Because it makes me feel sure that what I will receive was earned. But when we talk about Jesus and new birth through Him by the power of the Spirit, we are talking about something that defies human logic, something that goes completely in the opposite direction. You don’t earn it; it’s a gift. It is a gift of grace. It is something God gives to you because God wants to not because you want it necessarily. Not because you’ve earned it—definitely not because you’ve earned it. For if we were to really weigh our credentials against those of Christ who is the only perfect sacrifice for all of our sin, we would be about as legitimate as those people with bogus degrees. In fact, we are completely unable to earn a degree in Salvation 101. Only Christ can do that because He was and is the Son of God who though He was tempted in the same way that we are, never sinned. And so He was the only perfect sacrifice who could die on the cross for us—a death that we rightly deserved. And it goes beyond that because He arose again from death and came back to tell us that there is life eternal, came back to tell us that the gates of heaven have been opened wide to all who would accept His sacrifice on their behalf.
That means, quite literally, that God isn’t interested in your credentials because you get to ride in on Jesus’ credentials. You get to graduate with Him—magna cum laude. You’ve heard the joke, I’m sure, because this is what they will say when I walk across the platform. They’ll say, “laude how cum?” So please put away your “I-Go-To-Church” diploma with your Perfect Attendance degree. Please put away your “I-Go-To=Church” major with a minor in Giving and Tithing. Put away your “I-Go-To-Church” and I even Take Sermon Notes degree. But I do have to admit; I like it when I see you doing that. Take away your “Sunday School Teacher” diploma, your “Volunteer” diploma, and your “Try to Be Kind To Everybody” degree. You can take all of those and put them away. You can put them in the attic up here and we’ll through them away next week because the Heavenly Father has already granted you salvation. You simply have to accept it to be born again. You simply have to say, “Thank you, Lord, for this gift. And in the name of Jesus who bought it for me, I ask you to forgive my sins and to let me in to this Kingdom.”
Jesus told Nicodemus that the Kingdom was close at hand. And I think that He really meant that quite literally. That Nicodemus, by virtue of his open mindedness and his willing heart, was so close to the Kingdom, he was the answer to the question away from the Kingdom of God. So when Jesus said, “You know you are not far.” It could be your entrance to the Kingdom of God is as simple as the right answer to the question, “Yes, Jesus, I will accept new birth through You.”
I haven’t heard Joel Sonnenberg speak, but I am certain that he’s going to tell you one thing next week. He’s going to say, “I was once a wretched wreck, but then I was born again. And while I may not look any different from the outside, something has changed on the inside and that has made all the difference in the world.” And why do I know he will say that? Because I can say that and I know many of you can say that. I was once this way, but now I’m born again. And it is this new born creation that celebrates all the change and promise and hope and joy. And this is what God wants for each of us gathered here today. You are the answer to a question away. All you have to do is say, “Yes, I’ll accept you Lord Jesus as my Savior.” And then as my Lord, as commander in chief of my life, I will listen for your word, I will watch your witnesses, I will do as they do until I am like you. I hope you pray that prayer today. You are welcome to do it right now from your pew; you can come forward if you want; you can go home and pray the prayer. It doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t miss this opportunity. And if you have accepted that gift, you can always come, like Nicodemus, and say, “Well, I have become a little proud of my credentials and my wisdom and my gray hair and I need to remember that I was born renewed and it is to be like Jesus that I should aspire.”
Let us pray, “Oh God, I thank you for your Spirit’s presence in this place and I ask now that that same Spirit would come upon those who ask. I thank you Lord that you have granted us wisdom and knowledge and that you have given us ways to affirm ourselves so that we can be more confident in doing your will. But more than that, Lord, I thank you for the one thing that is the most important and the most impossible to earn—your gift of grace. And so I pray, Lord, among all of these your grace today, especially those who seek it for the very first time. And I pray this with great confidence and joy in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen”
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