After The Amen

After The Amen - Ep. 33: "John 3:16"

• Jordan • Season 1 • Episode 33

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 43:16

Welcome to “After The Amen” 🙏 
The goal of this podcast is to revisit the message from the previous Sunday in order to unpack the passage even further, ask key questions, and discover how faith can practically move from Sunday morning into every day of the week.

Linked Sunday: Jun 07, 2026

SPEAKER_02

Welcome back to After the Amen. This is the podcast segment here at Frank and Mouth Bible Church where we take our content from Sunday morning's message and we unpack it later in the week. And I'm joined by Pastor Mark Hazen. I'm back in the seat. What's up, man? How you doing? Good.

SPEAKER_00

Good to be back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We're away a few days. Where uh are you allowed to disclose what you did on your time away?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Last week we were away for a few days, and uh my wife and I, and um let me see three other bike riders, bicyclists. Uh we uh did a little short bike trip from Cumberland, Maryland to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And it was a yeah, it was a short three-day ride, 50 miles a day. Um fourth day we did a that's short for you. Yeah, fourth day we did an eight mile out and back, a beautiful bike trip.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

That section of the world from Cumberland, Maryland to Pittsburgh, you go through the Allegheny Mountains. Okay, and gorgeous, beautiful. There was a little country town about every 10 miles, so it provided a nice little spot to stop and refill water bottles and get a bite to eat. But between that was um rivers and mountains and valleys and trees. Gorgeous, beautiful time. That's really cool. That was uh our little brief trip last week away. Did you have any geese that no geese, no and no no wild animal uh adventures at all? So we had beautiful weather and good time, good friends, um, good food, no wild dogs, animals, nothing.

SPEAKER_02

By the way, geese is the plural form of goose. I don't know if you are aware of that. We mean Herrera talked about that.

SPEAKER_00

We we came across some geese on the path and we were more uh cognizant of their presence. Yeah, I'm sure you were. And we were more cautious. PTSD after that last one, I'm sure. But yeah, no problems. We had a really good time. We good time away. You have time away coming up at all on your schedule?

SPEAKER_02

I I will. Um, I don't know exactly how far. Sometime this summer, I have a little bit of baked-in time here and there. Nothing nothing too big, but just a couple weekends where I'm gonna be doing some family stuff, which will be good. So good for you. Camping, which is any true pastor is a novice at camping because we work weekends, right? So it's like I'm gonna attempt that again.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Tenting it?

SPEAKER_02

No. RV in it. No, RVing it. We're gonna uh probably borrow an RV, is probably the plan for that.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, which is good family time, good memories.

SPEAKER_02

It is really good, it's fun. Um yeah, we we did tent camping back in the day, and I don't know if we're gonna ever do that again.

SPEAKER_00

It created memories, you know, for all of them.

SPEAKER_02

Man, yeah, we did tent camping with like a newborn, which not only is that hard for the people in the tent, it's hard for everybody outside of the tent. Yeah, but the people around you love you. I'm sure. Yeah. So that was interesting. But yeah, no, we'll do some of that and just a few little excursions.

SPEAKER_00

So we uh we obviously do these multi-day bike trips and we have for a long time. Really enjoy them, uh thoroughly enjoy those, found find them to be relaxing and all that. But people think that we tent or we bike from campground to campground. And I'm like, nope. I bike to a bed and breakfast or a hotel or a motel because I want a uh a bed and a shower and good food. For sure. Not I'm not biking all day than setting up a tent. Not gonna do this.

SPEAKER_02

The biking part is amazing, though. I I don't I've biked probably 50 miles in the last five years, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, somehow we got into this and have enjoyed it. That's awesome. Done a lot of it. So cool. But yeah, good time, good time away. Good to be back. Well, good. Glad to have you back. We need to we need to dive into Sunday sermon because that's what this podcast is about. It is. You kicked off a brand new uh summer series looking at uh familiar or maybe famous verses, well-known verses in the Bible. So we've got 12, 13 of them that you've put on the schedule that we're gonna be going through over the course of the summer. Um, but at the very beginning of this, uh although the verse this week is John 3.16. Yes. So we'll get into that in a minute. But as you kicked off your uh sermon this past Sunday, you brought out your Iwana vest or your sparky vest. And because that's where you first remember memorizing John 3.16, which is the text for the Sunday. Uh, I'm curious about your Iwana experience. How many years were you in Iwana? Iwana is a big program, a lot of churches had it.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. And some churches still do. I even know there are people in our church who uh there are various other churches that are doing Iwana and then they're connected, which is great. Um, so I was not in Iwana as long as many other people. I was only there for like a few years, a couple years. I think Sparks was all my only Awana experience. Um so that you were little. I was little. Preschool age. Yep. I think was it kindergarten through second grade, something like that. So I would win like kindergarten first. Okay, maybe, maybe all the way through that program. Um, probably not because actually I my Iwana vest doesn't have every jewel, but um yeah, I it was a great, great program to be a part of um and uh great memories of it. Like genuinely though, John 316 is the most vivid of my verse memories because that was just I think one of the big ones. I think there are some Iwana programs where that's even like the verse you have to recite where you get your vest or something. I just so I don't I don't remember all the significance of it in our program.

SPEAKER_00

And as a little kid, it's not that short of a verse. There are shorter verses to memorize than John 316.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, but for whatever reason, that just that verse, you know, and when I say it in my own head, it's always the King James that I remember because that's just what I remembered. So yeah, it was a great experience and uh fond memories of that, maybe two, three years. You did I wana though, right?

SPEAKER_00

I did, yeah. It's you know I wana has like cubbies and then sparks. Right. And then there's the kids program that's gone different names. I think it's TNT now. And then they actually had back in the day a junior high and a senior high component to that. Not every church had that. The kids ministry was the big one. But uh yeah, Iwana came to or the church I was attending as a kid, they brought awana in. Uh, I would have been early elementary, first second grade. I can't remember the exact year, but um got involved in Iwana and uh unbeknownst to me at the time, I now know since I've been out a long time, but unbeknownst to me is my mom uh grabbed a hold of that Iwana program. I was the youngest of her children, and so I would have been the youngest in that Iwana program. And she just said, hey, whatever he's gonna have to do, I'm going to do it as well. And so that provided some background inspiration to my uh Iwana involvement. It was uh uh somewhat compulsive or compulsory that it had to do with that. Uh-huh. And uh so, anyways, I'm an Iwana graduate. I went through I went through the whole kids' program. I went through the junior high, senior high program. So I'm familiar with Iwana. So you are very familiar with Iwana's lots of history with Iwana.

SPEAKER_02

You still have all your vests and and outfits and I don't have a Sparky vest because I came in post Sparkies.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. But I have all the awards. I could have brought them in today.

SPEAKER_02

No way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Timothy Award, Meritorious Citation Award. Awesome. Yeah, fun. Good for you. You didn't know that. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. No, we went all the way through the Iwana program. Good program. It is a really good program. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Uh and uh we don't have Awana here. No. But we have a robust and outstanding kids' ministry.

SPEAKER_02

Correct.

SPEAKER_00

And uh led by uh Mary Prill, but a whole bunch of volunteers that are doing that. I'm you're you're raising five kids, yeah, and they have largely been raised here. This Franklin with Bible Church is their context of church ministry. I'm curious from your perspective as a parent, yeah, not just as a pastor, but as a parent, how does the kids' ministry here at Franklin Bible Church impact you, impact your family, the value you place on that? A little bit of feedback on that?

SPEAKER_02

Um well, what's interesting is so when I first started at the church, we our oldest was a newborn. You know, like like three weeks old or something when we started. Within like a maybe a month at the oldest. I think my interview for the position here that I applied for, which I got hired for, was I think I think I was setting up that interview while we were still in the hospital.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02

So my kids, my kids' church experience has exclusively been exclusively been frankly with Bible church, and now have a freshman, which is crazy. Yeah. But um, this is the church that my kids have been a part of their whole way through. And um even early on, like we actually there was a year there. We used to have a preschool, which is a longer conversation, but my daughter was a part of that preschool even early on. So the church has been a big part of their experience growing up, and for me, um it's been a wonderful resource to support the development of my kids spiritually in significant ways. So all the time my kids will share stories or things they learned and will ask them where it's from, and it was from FBC Kids, yeah, and which has been awesome. Great experience. Um, at the same time, you know, there's also this sense, and I think that the church has done a good job of even communicating this. We don't we don't outsource the discipleship of our kids exclusively to the kidsmen here. It's it's a resource that supports the development of discipling kids and for the sake of the family. So so it's like it's just been a great um a great support, a great um community. And I think for me, just you know, kids men, I think about that and just the ways that that's impacted my my family. It's it's awesome. So obviously I work here, but I benefit here as a member of our church in profound ways because of IPC kids.

SPEAKER_00

It it's always a blessing. I appreciate the philosophy of you know, discipleship largely happens in the context of the home. Sure. And it just does because that's the most time. And we have kids' men, and if we do, we have them for a certain few hours a week as a church organizationally. But there's things that kids' ministry can do at church that we're not going to do at home. 100%. Which is neat and unique and awesome. Uh, but it's also a real blessing uh as a parent to have kids that are being told the same things that you're telling them at home and reinforcing all of that. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02

And even through youth, you know, our youth ministry as well. They they have obviously develop and go to our youth program. Then it's like you have mentors and people who speak into their lives in formative years where maybe sometimes mom and dad, it's not always received the same way when you hear it from somebody else. Yes, it does. So it's just a cool thing to have that, you know, and it's biblically, you know, you look at the Old Testament and there are things that parents were instructed to teach their children, you know, and instruct them to raise them in a certain way. And so obviously, parents have a responsibility of discipling and and growing their kids, but at the same time, the church is an essential part of spiritual formation for little ones, you know. So to raise kids and like you know, what I want I don't want to say uh I don't want to we shouldn't outsource our discipleship just to the kids men at the church. At the same time, I don't want to diminish it to the extent to say that you can disciple your kids outside of the church either. Yeah. Um both are really important raising our kids and having a really great ministry for kids and having a church that that develops and fosters spiritual life in kids. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

I I appreciate uh coming here at Franklin Luth Bible Church. The kids' ministry is dynamic and excellent and well done, well led. Yep. And also uh inspirational to the point where the kids are enthusiastic about coming, which is a blessing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's really good. They're inviting their friends. You know, we've had plenty of stories of families who started coming because a kid invited another kid, which is amazing. And it's gospel centered. You know, that's the thing too. It's just we don't uh we don't offer childcare here on Sunday mornings. Right. Um, it's kids men, and there's a difference.

SPEAKER_00

It's a robust discipleship program. Exactly. Well done. Yeah, anyways, that's gonna we back back into this. We're back into the summer series. You kicked off a series this week um on John 3 16. Yep. Uh every week we're gonna grab another famous or very familiar verse um and dig into those in a in a deeper way. Um you put this on the schedule. Uh what invigorates you? What inspired you to put this on the schedule? Uh yeah. Your enthusiasm for the summer series? I mean, this is week one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we maybe have talked about this on the a little bit on the podcast. The summer, one of the things that's important to just think through with teaching in the summer is a lot of times we have to we want to try to bring some things that have a little bit of standalone value, or I try to, yeah, because sometimes people's schedule is disrupted in the summer. And so if you have something that's sequential that's building upon another, it's it's harder sometimes. Although now we have online presence and stuff that helps, aids that. But it's nice to kind of have a little bit of standalone value. So we wanted to do something like that. Um, the thought a little bit behind this series was that there are things that are just so familiar to us, and there are good reasons why they're familiar, they're really famous or important passages or verses, but to to take a little time to actually not just have it become commonplace that you know we we we know the verse, but do we actually think about it? Do we actually understand it rightly? And so John 3.16 was a great place to start just because probably the most famous verse ever, but there's so much from that text that we can mine from it, you know, and and even Sunday was just scratching the surface, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So John 3.16 was a good place to begin because as you said, it's probably them arguably the most familiar. Uh you sometimes see the guy behind the goalpost on NFL Sunday, you know, John 3.16 holding up the banner. Um, I'm curious why you think John 3.16 is so familiar and is so famous. Even when you consider the Gospel of John, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. John is arguably one of the more known gospels out of the four gospels. Uh, there's a lot of good stuff in John. A lot of really good stuff in John. You know, the the the branch and the vine and Jesus' prayer for unity. There's a lot of memorial stuff in the Gospel.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's true too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm curious why you think John 3.16 has such a familiarity to it, yeah, and why is it so famous out of all the good material out of John?

SPEAKER_02

I think maybe arguably there's no other place well, I shouldn't say that. There aren't many other places in the Bible where you have that succinct of a distillation of of the good news of what God has done for the world. And John just in a very short amount of space, on there's so much there. You know, you have you have God's God's love, the extent of his love, you know, that the people he loves. Uh the I mentioned on Sunday that how the door is wide open for the world. You know, Jesus is Israel's Messiah, but God's love is for all the people of the world, and he is the savior of the world. And so you have that just in that very first line, and you have the the giving of Jesus and his coming. And I mean, you have the whole gospel is so um distilled. I don't know if that's the best way I'd say it in one short, succinct statement, um, including our response to the gospel, you know, and so and the importance of faith. And so probably just because it's so accessible and easy to communicate in such a short amount of space that has become, you know, in today's world, just uh probably probably the most popular verse worldwide, I'm assuming. For certainly in America, but probably worldwide.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's arguably the most known within the context of the church. Correct. You learned it as a little kid in Iwana. Yep. Um so it's arguably the most known within the context of the church. It's also arguably the most known even outside the church. People who are unbelievers, if they know a verse, that's good likelihood that's the one they know. Correct. If it's so widely known, uh why is it not so widely embraced?

SPEAKER_02

Ooh, you by that do you mean embraced in terms of um believed or believed?

SPEAKER_00

Why why is there such a challenge of believing John 3 16? Because I we I think you and I would know of people who have no relationship with God through Jesus Christ, have no faith in Jesus Christ, but they would know this verse.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um boy, that's a loaded way. It's a loaded big question. Yeah, I think um, well, when we because the verse is concise, it's a concise statement of the gospel, as you just said, it's a coherent statement of the gospel. Yeah, it's not confusing. No, it's not. It it's concise and coherent and memorizable. Yeah, maybe have a succinct way, uh succinct is a good way to um people are blind.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, that's a reality. Okay. Um and hard-hearted. That's just who we are by nature. And even those who who, you know, Romans one begins to or the beginning of Romans begins to unpack this for us. There is a sense in which we can comprehend it, but there are people who even just they don't want to embrace it. They suppress the truth to embrace whatever they want to embrace. And I think um that's a big part of it. Um and I think the other piece too, just in a practical way, is it's like there's something interesting about the gospel. Like it's you look at the world around you, and it's all you know, they say there's no such thing as a free lunch kind of thing. It's that we look at the world around us, and it's like there's always a catch to something, there's nothing free, and I think just the idea of of God graciously giving Jesus, I think for a lot of people they just they just don't want to embrace it, it doesn't make sense to them, and so they reject it's foolishness. Yeah, you know, for people.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, maybe the cross is foolishness. Yeah, good. I also think along the lines of um we struggle or the population struggles with that whole matter of free grace just given out of love, yeah, unearned. There's just nothing we contribute. And so that self-righteousness or that desire to add to that creates a threshold that people have a hard time getting over.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And I just briefly pressed into the idea of what you know that Jesus was given and the idea of of a gift, you know, he is God's gift to the world. That's just hard to fathom for people, you know, that that got that that is the the nature of who God is. You know, I think the people's perspective of God is distorted because they fashion their own image of who he is and that for some reason he's some, you know, cosmic bad guy that you have to try to appease, appease through your self-effort. And it's just like that's you know, we have we uh what I would say is our default is probably to have a diminished view of God and an exalted view of self.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I think that's that's the upside down reality of the world we live in, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So yeah, good. At the end of your message, as you were talking about John 3 16, you memorized it as a little kid. Yep. You challenge the congregation that was here, yes, that if it's not memorized it, to memorize it, to meditate on it, uh, which is a good challenge. And um trust there may be people that are doing that. But how how can we uh engage in scripture memory, scripture meditation, and have that not become just a rote or mundane thing? How does that not happen? How do we battle against that?

SPEAKER_02

That's a that's a good question. Um Well, there are so many things I could say, maybe just to respond to that. Uh on a practical level, um I think there are things we can do to engage the mind and have it be fun or enjoyable. This is very practical, but like sometimes whether it's like a challenge or like in the family, it's like, hey, we're gonna learn this verse this week, and then you know, if if we get this verse, then we'll do $2 Tuesday at J meeting. Whatever it is, you can do practical things that make it fun and a challenge for people. So I think that that's part of it. Um you know, uh being creative is a good way to do that. Um the other piece too, maybe is just like understanding that what we're doing is not only it's it's good for us. God's design script, like mem scripture memory is just a wonderful practice, but uh also understanding the value of it, like at least in my life, and I'm sure you can say the same thing. I'm I do not put myself put myself in the category of somebody who is like really great at scripture memory or has done it nearly enough. I look back over the course of my life and wish I committed more time to that. But the things I have memorized, the gift, understanding the value of it helps us to put in the work. You know what I'm saying? Like for anything in life, if you're somebody who you're really trying to, you know, get that car when you're in college and you're like, oh, if I work really hard this summer, I can get you know, like you put in the work for things you value. If we understand the value of having scripture hidden in our hearts, um it's a gift because then scripture becomes portable. You know, I don't I don't have to open my Bible to reflect on the word of God. If I've hidden it in my heart, if I've memorized it, I can take it with me. You've got it, and I can employ it, you know, when I'm whatever. When my phone dies and I'm sitting on an airplane and I've got nothing to do, and I'm you know, you can you can begin to utilize that anytime you want. It's accessible to you. That's a gift. So part of it is just valuing it. I think there's practicals way you could practical ways you can do it. Um I also think the more you do it, the more it becomes enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00

Oh interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's just my two cents. Like it's um when you begin to to to acclimate yourself toward that, it I don't know. It's I think it can be really cool, really fun.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Scripture memory, I did a lot more of it years ago than I am now. Yeah. And as I'm thinking this and having this conversation with you, I'm I'm I'm with you kind of like, oh, I probably ought to do more of it now than I am doing. I'm not doing a lot of scripture memory at the moment. I did, I did through Iwana, coming through the Iwana program, you memorized a lot of scripture. And I did probably earlier in my life and earlier in my ministry, just was putting scripture to memory. And it's just a good practice. One of the easy ways of doing that, you know, if you wanted to memorize John 3 16, you could literally pull that down and read it five times before breakfast, five times at lunch, five times at dinner, not even. Giving a whole lot of thought to the verse.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

To the content of the verse. But you do that for five days and you're pretty much going to have that down. And you've not worked at it. Right. It's not been hard. No, exactly. You just could easily memorize the verse, but you're not incorporating much of the message of the verse to your life. But the fascinating thing about the word of God is it's living and active, and the spirit can use it either in the immediate or even later.

SPEAKER_02

So it's it's totally true.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's great.

SPEAKER_00

So even if you're memorizing scripture in a mundane, rote way, not giving much attention to the message, it still has incredible value because of its living and active. Absolutely. The spirit can use it.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm not I've not done as good of a job of that this year, but one of the things we as a practice, I drive the kids to school and we would often in years past, we'll just have verses that we memorize on the way to school. We'll say it five or six times. The cool thing about that is that like you mentioned, in a week or two, you can have down a verse, then you can revisit that verse and then talk about it. You know, and it's and then it's part of your vernacular. Yeah. It's in your brain, but also then you begin to unpack it. And so yeah, it is a it's a gift. It's a gift to be able to do it. And you're right about the the I've had instruction this way, but like any kind of memory, like rote memory, takes work, it takes effort, and reps and and frequency are how you do that. If you want to learn a language, you gotta put it in the work. Put in the work and put in the time and then you revisit and then let your brain rest and then revisit it, and then let your brain rest and have it in front of you, you know, write it in a mirror, whatever you gotta do. But um, yeah, it it takes work, but it pays off.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's awesome. This is bringing to mind um my wife Lynn, in more recent years, has done a lot more scripture memory than I have and has put in the work to do that. And um, I remember it was a few years ago on a bike trip, and it was at a time when we were riding a tandem bike, so she's right behind me, and she had memorized the entire book of First Peter. Wow, and so on the bike trip, you know, you're on the on the bike for four hours or five hours a day, she would she would say, I'm gonna quote First Peter, and she would quote through that in it and I would listen to it. It was absolutely fascinating, just incredible. Her big thing, why I bring that up, it was a lot of work for her to do that, but she would memorize the entire book of First Peter. It took her months to do it, you know, you don't do that in in a short time. Her big thing was like, Well, I memorized that book, but I'm I'm not gonna retain it. You know, three months from now, if I don't keep it up, I'm not gonna retain it. And she would almost get discouraged by that. And I'm like, no, that's that's incredible, because the Holy Spirit has a way of bringing them back to memory, even though today she may not be able to sit down and quote to you first Peter, right? When that is needed by by way of her own encouragement or even instructing or encouraging others, the Holy Spirit can use that stuff.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

It was really cool.

SPEAKER_02

That's really cool. It's also there's parts of that book that's like, wow, you memorized these passages, you know. Well, it's not second Corinthians. Yeah, it's not seconds, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But uh, we it's fine in in my first stint in Bible school, we had uh memorize and recite Philippians, and it's funny how that has just served me so well.

SPEAKER_00

But you couldn't quote that whole book now, not even close. But if you get into the study of that book, stuff comes back.

SPEAKER_02

But you would probably also experience this the more you even just read scripture, even if it's not necessarily memory. There are a lot of times where I'm reading familiar passages, and because I've read it a multitude of times, you kind of know what the next line is saying. It's just that's also a I mean, just even reading scripture regularly or often, it's just a great way to like even retain you know, it's just it's a great practice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's awesome. All right, get into John. John three, you've got uh Nicodemus who comes to Jesus. I appreciated the fact you said you know he came at night. I appreciate the fact that it's both possibly a time frame that he came at night, but also John referencing the fact that he's in the spiritual darkness and at night for him. But, anyways, uh Nicodemus, uh, what can we learn from Nicodemus as a religious leader but coming to Jesus with questions? And he doesn't have it all together, he even has things that are unanswered. What might we learn from Nicodemus in that? Oh man, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_02

Um Well, I think one of the things I would start with is there's always room to grow. I mean what what a example of somebody who he was the expert, you know, as a Pharisee, he was well acclimated. Like to be to be a Pharisee, like in that culture, everybody had a baseline, solid understanding of scripture. It was just part of the the Jewish culture. The culture, yeah. But then to be a Pharisee, you had to be selected, essentially hand selected for some next level kind of upper level theology and um and ability to understand and handle scriptures. So Nicodemus was and he and being a ruler of the Jews, this guy was no slouch. He was sharp. Yeah, he's he's top drawer religious. Top drawer, yeah. And yet he has the humility and awareness to know, oh, I've got some things to learn here. Even in the quest, I didn't even get into all of it because it was just a cursory thing, but like there are things about um the end of John 2, for example, where um, yeah, I'll just read this part. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name. When they saw the signs he was doing, so people are seeing the signs he's doing, and they're like, Oh, this there's something about this guy. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people, and he did no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew it was in man. So there's a a level to which people trusted Jesus. It's interesting there, but Jesus didn't entrust himself to them. It seems to me that that there's they see the signs, this is great, they're intrigued, but there's a there's a level of committing themselves, but not a level of full embracing who Jesus is. Yeah. They're seeing the signs. And then right after that, it says, now there's a ruler of the Pharisees in Nicodemus. And interesting, Nicodemus, it says, he says in the beginning, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God, so he recognizes something about him. For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them. So Nicodemus is somebody who he's intrigued, he sees the signs Jesus is doing, Jesus knows what's in man, he knows Nicodemus is hard. I don't think Nicodemus at this point is regenerate. I think that's pretty clear from the text. Yeah. So in his curiosity, he I think has enough humility to begin to explore that. And that's why I talked about the seek the seeking element to that. Like Nicodemus is somebody who he began to press into you, understanding, hey, I may be viewed as an expert, but I don't know everything, and there's something here. And the more he began to pursue that honestly and openly, I think by the end of John, you can make a pretty good case that he's a disciple. Or somebody who you know has embraced Jesus.

SPEAKER_00

I I think it's fascinating as I think about it. The humility stands out. Big time. Um, but also the the just the reality of okay, the Holy Spirit is working on his heart. Yes. So you got a Holy Spirit working on him, he's seeing Jesus Christ, he's observing the signs like everyone else is. That coupled with his humility. You know, because you've got the Holy Spirit working, he could suppress that. Right. To not embarrass himself, to butt put himself out there. I I think both of those are just incredible. The fact that the Holy Spirit is working and he humbly comes. Yeah. Even if it's at night, we're you know, unknown, unseen, but he has the humility to be like, there's something here.

SPEAKER_02

But you know, at the end of, is it John 19? I think I talked about when Nicodemus is there, like bringing the spices, you know, it reminds us that he formerly came at night, but now he's doing something very visible. Public. Public. Going, yeah. I think there's significance to that too. It's a reminder of, oh, this is where he was at, but now look what he's at that point. He's clearly identifying with Jesus. Clearly.

SPEAKER_00

Where before he's questioning and curious.

SPEAKER_02

And his contemporaries are the one who had Jesus crucified, and now he's the one who's caring for his body.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00

I think clearly a conversion on his part. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. So you have Nicodemus uh pursuing Jesus, uh, which is remarkable. Um, Jesus begins to interact with him, you know, that you must be born again. Right. Nicodemus does not get it, he's not drawing the lines, can't connect it. So as he circles into that with like does not understand what's happening, Jesus takes him back into Old Testament scripture and you reference the snake on the pole. Uh, anything we learn from Jesus' use of what would be very familiar with him to illustrate the truth of what he's teaching, yeah, Nicodemus. Um, you go ahead.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're not well, you you had when you said so many of these questions, I think you had a little note on there, so I'm I'm gonna be borrowing from your note a little bit, but I think you just referenced is it Acts 17? Paul is at the Areopagus Mars Hill, you have the philosophers there, the Athenians who are there. It's interesting because Paul is walking through, and Paul is so great at this, he's he's a wonderful uh missionary, but he's walking through the forum or whatever the the the city, yep, and he's noticing all these statues and things like that. He very icons and idols. Yep. And these are unregenerate, these are non-Christian people. He easily could have just been like, Shame on you, you bunch of idolatrous, you know, people who are worshipping multiple gods, like you're wrong and stupid. He could have said that. Yeah. He wisely begins to say, Hey, I see you're very religious. And then he begins to talk about this uh one altar the unknown to the unknown guy. Yeah, the statue or whatever it is. Let me tell you about this God. Yeah. He wisely builds a bridge, and so you made that note. And I think that the same thing is true.

SPEAKER_00

There's he also quoted their authors. He did, absolutely quoted. He quoted their poets and their authors.

SPEAKER_02

Jesus does the same thing uh as you referenced in the with Nicodemus, in that Nicodemus was a faithful Jew, and Jesus begins to cite something that is familiar to him, but then brings clarity to what that points forward to. Right. We know that the Old Testament um ultimately all everything in the Old Testament it finds its fulfillment and and points to Jesus. And so Jesus takes that which is familiar, which he already understands, and then unpacks for him the significance of it pointing to himself. And so it's it's just a really cool approach to taking something familiar, but then drawing from it in order to proclaim the gospel and show the truth to Nicodemus.

SPEAKER_00

So I don't know if that's what you're kind of thinking through, but that's certainly, and I just think through that, and I think through man, this is just a personal area where I could grow in. When you can take something out of the culture and context of the people that you're speaking to and and make connections, and and uh that's just a it's just a potent thing. It is really and uh just an area where I personally could grow in. Uh Jesus does it with Nicodemus, but we have very familiar material. He's gonna connect with it right away. Paul did it with the, as you said, the Athenians.

SPEAKER_02

There's uh I'm drawing from mystic memories from the past, but I went to school to do missions. I still studied for for for missiology to do church planting in a remote context. And they talked about these, well, they call them like redemptive analogies, but basically you draw you can there are times where when you're engaging with a culture of people who are maybe disconnected from the Christian faith. You know, we obviously have even in our culture, it's influenced by Christianity. You go to places in the world that aren't. There are times where you can take things that they have that's a feature of their culture or religion, whatever it is, and you can you can borrow from it at times to proclaim the gospel. You have to make a determination though, if if your borrowing compromises the gospel uh or clarifies it, or clarifies it. And so you have to be strategic, and it's a whole big thing about the C scale and how you how you approach that. But the point is you you have to be thoughtful. So, like I had to write a paper on a group of people in Asia who every year they would uh sacrifice chickens to this God they called like Yesu, which is actually the name Jesus. Yeah, and the question was like, okay, do we say, hey, this this god that you call Yesu, can we actually explain who he truly is? The true Jesus you don't need to sacrifice chickens to because he sacrificed himself for you. He was the sacrifice. He was the sacrifice, yeah. You could borrow from that, but you have to determine if it if it is syncretistic and blends and you know, confuses the gospel or clarifies as you said. So it's just this the the wise approach, and obviously Jesus is perfect, so you know and he's borrowing from something that the old testament is the foundation for the new testament, so that's helpful. Yeah, but uh yeah, it's a great approach. Paul Paul would be unique in that that the Athenians that was distant from you know, that was not at all part of the Christian framework, but he borrowed from it.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah. You and I are not in a secular workplace, no. Um, so we have to exercise a little more um attention to what's taking place in the context of the world. What what are the conversations that are happening around the coffee pot and secular workplace? What books are being read, what movies are being watched, what's being talked about, yeah, and then where can we use those helpfully in the proclamation of the gospel? Because God's at work in the world and uh and in every context and every place. And it just is uh it was a good reminder as a kind of adjacent to your message, but I was thinking they're like, oh, this is just well used, and this is an area where I need to get better at myself. Connecting current audiences to the scripture and ultimately pointing to Christ has done well. Yeah. Uh John 3.16 was the verse, and um the truth of God's love given to us in Jesus is often used in an evangelistic context or calling people to faith in Jesus. Um, but how should the message of that verse of God's love given to us in Jesus Christ, how should that fall on believers? Yeah, how should that land on us as people who know the gospel and know this truth? How should it influence us?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that was the primary trajectory of my message because the the bulk of our audience would be people who would say, Oh, we fully embrace the message of John through 16 and have placed our faith in Jesus for salvation. I think that's the bulk of the people who would be the majority certainly as the church?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

My point, I try to draw from that, just like I outgrew the vest, is that we, you know, I may have outgrown the vest, but that the message of John through 16 that I learned a long time ago is not something that we we outgrow or should graduate from. It is certainly a wonderful tool for evangelism, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Um frequently used in that context, frequently used that way.

SPEAKER_02

And I would even say, you know, is it I think it's f a false uh um attribution to Saint Francis of Assisi, who's who said, preach the gospel at all times and if if necessary, use words. I don't think he actually said that, but I think we've been attributed to that. Yeah, I think we need to use words ultimately when we proclaim the gospel. Gospel is a message, it is a message. So rightly we should go to places like John 3.16. It's a very great way to communicate that truth of the gospel. At the same time, there are numerous times, you know, you read the New Testament letters that are written to churches, the gospel is reiterated over and over and over again and applied in different areas of life because it's not just a message for unbelievers, it's a message for believers. And for us, as we grow in our knowledge of of who God is, and by reminding ourselves of those truths of the gospel, who we are, what God has done, that's part of our spiritual formation and growth is to reflect on, remember, um, and live out these truths of the gospel. So it's it's a message of salvation for all who believe that we should give to unbelievers, but for those who believe, we should grow in our awareness, understanding, the depth of the truth of the gospel, because it's part of our formation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So we don't we don't graduate from that and move on to other stuff. Like the gospel is always essential all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It that makes me think of um Paul writes to the Ephesian church. It's a group of believers. Yep. It's a group of believers that he pastored for a significant period of time, the city that he was in for the longest duration of time, out of all his missionary travels. So he writes to a group of believers that he knows uh he's very familiar with, he records for them in his letter his prayer for them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

A couple times in that letter, he records to them, he's praying for them, and then he records to them what his prayer is. The second one from Ephesians 3, he's talking about how he wants them to well, let me just quote it. He he prays that they might be strengthened with power through God's Spirit in their inner being, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. He goes on to pray that they be in rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So again, writing to believers, his prayer is that they might continue to grow in the knowledge of the unknowable love of God. Yeah, it's it's a vast expansiveness, it's remarkable. Yeah. So he's not writing to unbelievers to know the love of God given to them in Christ. He's writing to believers. So there's something, as you said, use the word inexhaustible.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it's cool too, because Ephesians, I think we in particular, we might have talked about this during one of the podcasts, but the way the book is structured, those first three chapters are filled with the gospel, the gospel, these, these uh, these indicatives, these truths about who God is and what he's done and who we are and what God's accomplished for us. The last three are all these imperatives, they're all these commands. So the way, the foundation we need in order to live out the life that God has given us is the understanding of who God is and what he's done, which is which produces the fruit in us to begin to carry out these things. You know, so my love of my family or my neighbor, it's directly related to my understanding of God's love for me and what he's accomplished for me. And in light of that, this is how I'm to live. It's it's just it's essential that we continue to grow in that and we'll never reach the bottom, is Paul very clearly references. And it's from that that God produces in us this character and life of Christ that we're called to live out.

SPEAKER_00

So it's it's often the reference and the knowledge of God's love for us given to us in Jesus Christ, that awakens in us our affections for God and our response to even respond to his love and receive Christ as Savior, place our faith in him. It's amazing how that is at the front end of the gospel and our receiving Christ. But when you get in and you're joined in a union with Jesus, to realize that that love which brought us in has no bottom to it, no, no height and depth. It just is so expansive. So it's remarkable as a believer. And I and I wonder if Paul also talks about in Ephesians the fact that for all eternity, God is going to continue to awe us with the magnitude of his grace. And I think this is part of it. I I don't think eternity is um expansive enough to exhaust the love of God. That's uh it's incredible. It's an incredible thought. So it's it's incomprehensible. We can say these things, we can say it, but we're like, how is that true?

SPEAKER_02

So I've heard people talk about how, man, I can't wait to be with Jesus so that way I finally know all of it. And you're you would probably you probably push back a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

You got an eternity to and you're not gonna plumb the depths. You're never gonna get there all the way. Which is inspiring. Yeah, inspiring for us. It should be inspiring for all of us, inspiring for us who are just incredibly curious and yeah. Awesome stuff. Fun. Well, this has been good. We've we've talked about John 3.16. We're in a series now where we're tackling uh familiar famous verses. Uh John 3.16 is a great place to start, probab arguably the most well-known verse in the Bible. Yeah, do you have a place where we're going this Sunday and uh and a verse that we should begin looking at reading?

SPEAKER_02

Per per usual lately, it is Wednesday when we're filming the podcast, and so I gotta land somewhere soon as I prep to preach. I think it's gonna be Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Oh, yeah. So that's uh one of those verses.

SPEAKER_00

New Testament verse. It is wisdom literature.

SPEAKER_02

It's also one of the verses it's funny because if you were to ask me for the a large portion of my life, I've never been somebody who's like, oh, I have a life verse, but maybe the closest I ever got was that verse. Oh, okay. As a young person, there was just enough of my life where it was like, I don't know what's coming, you know, I don't know what my you know my future holds, but like I want to make sure that I'm I'm placing my faith in the one who does and I can trust him or whatever it is. And so that was always very comforting for me.

SPEAKER_00

And so hopefully we ought to be cautious with this because we could get into next week's podcast. We could. I'll I'll not I'll not unpack too much. So Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, I think is where we hope to go. I think I think that's where we'll be on Sunday. Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Yeah, looking forward to it as well. It's been it, it was a good Sunday, good message, good kickoff to the series. Looking forward to that continuation of the summer series. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and thank you guys for tuning in. We appreciate all of you who've been listening in, and uh we hope that you join us next week as we do another after the Amen.