thanks so much Miguel and Eden. For those of you guys that don't know Miguel and Eden, they're actually part of a leadership development program we have at Midtown here called our Midtown Apprenticeship Program. So we have some students over at Grand Canyon who together get to practice spiritual disciplines and emotional and spiritual health and get to lead and serve in a variety of ways. And so it's a gift to have them lead us this morning. Morning, friends. Glad you're here. Thanks for joining us. I truly mean that, by the way.

I hope that you experience that gladness, the joy that I have gathering with you all here, and that you experience the joy of this community gathering together each week. You guys, we as Americans are people who long to change ourselves. Maybe more than any other people in the world, we are bent on reinvention. And actually all it takes to see this is a quick Google search. Type in how to reinvent yourself and you'll get enough results to keep you occupied for years and years to come.

And if you're not, then you're not. Because I sacrificially love you, I've done this for you. So you don't have to waste your time later. There are books on reinvention. Books like Reinvent Me, Reinvent Yourself. Not to be confused with reinventing yourself. Not to be confused with reinventing you. Not to be confused with reinventing your life. Those are all separate books.

And just in case you're longing for change and reinvention, you need it to come quick, like you don't have time for a book, that's fine. There's plenty of articles on reinvention as well. That's your business rights for you. Fifteen steps to reinvent yourself after failure. A reinvention cheat sheet. Twenty -five simple steps for 2025. So really in case you don't have time for all this, you've got an easy checklist of reinvention.

Simple ways to reinvent yourself, for the minimalists out there. Ten ways to reinvent yourself after a breakup. Ten ways to reinvent yourself in your 30s. Ten ways to reinvent yourself in your 40s. Ten ways to reinvent yourself in your 50s. Ten ways to reinvent yourself in your ... 60s. Ten ways to reinvent yourself in retirement. Ten ways to reinvent yourself Spirit Coleman Rituals for 25 Americans. Ten ways to reinvent as a grandparent, and just in case you thought you missed your shot, it's not too late to reinvent yourself.

And all those books and articles, they give great suggestions. Create a vision board for your life. Say no to negative people. Make your hobby a side hustle. Explore new opportunities. Start a new career. Download a meditation app. Build a personal brand on social media. Start a podcast. Like, we need more of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a podcast, by the way. You can like it. No, I'm just kidding. Sermon podcast.

Isn't it fascinating that so many of us are constantly, desperately trying to change ourselves and our lives? And the people we elevate in our culture are the people who have reinvented themselves over and over again the best. Taylor Swift? She went from a young country star to an indie folk singer to a pop icon to a diabolical, diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan. She's a model of reinvention. Miley Cyrus? Disney Channel to a wrecking ball. Quite the reinvention.

Snoop Dogg? Rapper to Martha Stewart cooking shows to Skechers ads to changing his name to Snoop Lion. His whole life is about reinvention. Mark Wahlberg? Any Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch fans? And yeah, this is a great way to age yourself in the room. Arnold Schwarzenegger? An immigrant bodybuilder who became the freaking governor of California. Jeff Bezos? He went from being a dweeby dork selling books to the Amazon CEO who sells everything.

We've got diets to reinvent our bodies, surgery to reinvent how we look. We change partners or cars or careers or homes or names or whatever else. America is a strained and weary nation longing for reinvention, for newness, for something that can really and truly change us. And it's because we have this unshakable sense that there is a gap between who we are now and who were made to be. And for many of us the deepest ache of our souls is to close that gap. To become more and more the people we were made to be.

But here's the problem you guys. External reinventions can't resolve an ache of the soul. Deep underneath all our attempts at reinvention, behind all our repackaging, it's still us. Which means that so often our attempts to change ourselves just leave us worn out. Exhausted, cynical. Weary. We have a desperate need today but it isn't for another book, or another yoga practice, or bulletproof coffee, or kale asparagus -infused power water. desperate need is for true deep inner transformation. That's what our world and our souls are weary for.

We're continuing in an Advent series here in Midtown titled titled The Weary World Rejoices. Advent, as Eden and Miguel explained, is a season where Christians have looked on the story of Christ's arrival in the world for two purposes. One, it's helped us see with clarity the real darkness and pain of our world. And there's a reason that we celebrate it in the darkest time of the year. Christ likely wasn't born in December. We celebrate it here because it is the reminder that the world is full of darkness and we are in need of light.

But it's also a reminder, not only that that's true, but that the light has come and the light is coming. And so we remind ourselves in a weary world that there is light. And so today, in the midst of our weariness around reinvention, we get to explore Jesus's words, how Jesus's arrival really does bring the change our souls are longing for. So friends, if you have a Bible, open it with me to the book of John. John is the fourth book in your New Testament, if you're flipping there. We're gonna be in John chapter three, starting in verse one, we'll read through verse 17 if you're following along. If you don't have a Bible with you, that's okay. The words are gonna be behind me on the screen so you can follow along there. John three, starting in verse one.

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 apart from the presence of God. And Jesus answered him, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above or born again.

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? Jesus answered, very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, you must be born from above or born again. 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.

Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? And Jesus answered him, are you a 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 is 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 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

I'm a born again Christian. That is an introduction that is sure to get you a lot of eye rolls and judgment in our culture. Guaranteed. In fact, the Public Religion Research Institute recently did a study. They found that people who identify as born again have the highest unfavorability rating of all religious groups amongst millennials and Gen Zers. Nobody wants to live next to a born again Christian. Nobody wants to be their neighbor. People think they're weirdos.

And that's largely because that phrase, born again, or as Jesus says it here, born from above, it has a distinct meaning in our minds oftentimes. What it means to be born again. I think there's a couple different things that come to our mind's eye when we hear in our culture. And I think they're actually a little related. The first of them is that to be born again means to have some deep, cathartic, emotional experience. And it's really about those who desperately need it. The people whose lives are really, really off the rails.

For those convicts, or those addicts, or those people who have no other hope. Those are the people who find Jesus. And we love that for them. It's so great for them because their lives just needed it. They desperately, I mean, my life is pretty decent, but they really needed it. They needed to be born again. We're grateful for that. And oftentimes, we often associate being born again to adopting a hyper -strict, authoritarian moral structure. We think born -again Christians are the sort of people who have very rigid and black -and -white thinking, seeing the world in really no nuance or gray.

And they're the people who don't drink or don't smoke. They vote and think politically in a certain way. They only listen to positive, encouraging K -love. Or watch those cheesy Christian movies, Fireproof, War Room.

But what's interesting is that those cultural understandings of being born again are nothing like what Jesus actually means when he talks about it here. When Jesus uses that phrase in his conversation with Nicodemus, he's not saying, you need to have some crazy emotional experience. Or you need to stop drinking or cussing or whatever else. Or you need to change your favorite movie to God's Not Dead 3.

See, too often, we box Jesus into our own cultural understandings. And we actually, we actually completely miss what he's saying. And so what I want to do today is actually look at the thing that Jesus really means here. When he talks about being born again, he's talking about complete reinvention. Deep inner transformation. That thing we're all longing for. I think we see it in three ways in this passage. We see it, the necessity of reinvention, how necessary it is for us. We see the characteristics of reinvention, what it looks like. And we see the means to receive it, how we get reinvention in our lives.

First, the necessity of reinvention. It all starts with who he's talking to, here. Nicodemus is exactly the sort of person we would think today would have no need to be born again. He doesn't need to change at all. In his day, he was about as put together as someone could be. And the text goes out of its way to actually tell that to us. We hear, for instance, that he is a leader of the Jews. That likely meant that he was a part of the Sanhedrin. They were an especially elite judicial and legislative part of the Jewish community at the time. And they had jurisdiction over every other ordinary Jewish follower at the time.

It took Nicodemus years to get to the level he was at in his culture. It took tons of education, remarkable experience, and it often meant that he was wealthy and esteemed as well. So in our terms, he's got a PhD from an Ivy League school. He's got a public platform of influence. He's trusted on the most important moral and social matters. He's probably got a podcast.

He is the exact opposite of the broken and emotionally volatile people that we often think need to be born again. Looking at his life from the outside, nothing needs to change in him. He is dialed in. And in case we missed that, it's reiterated. We hear that he's a Pharisee and a teacher of the law. If you didn't know this about Pharisees, they were really, really rigid in their moral understanding of the law. They were so intent on being faithful to God that they structured every little part of their life down to how they ate their peas in order to be faithful to God.

See, it's easy for us to say that being born again is about holding traditional values or keeping a tight moral framework or cleaning up your life. But here's a man who is already as traditional as anyone could ever be. He already has the most secure moral framework that could exist in his time. And Jesus tells him, you need to be born again. You, the good person, the thinking person, the educated person, the accomplished person, the person who's doing just fine. You have to be completely transformed.

You guys see what this means? Jesus' call to be born again isn't a call to morality and religion. It's a challenge to morality and religion. Jesus is choosing the morally impeccable person in his culture, the person who doesn't smoke and doesn't drink and doesn't sleep around and says, you need to be born again. All your moral striving, all your put -togetherness, all your accomplishments accounts for nothing. You have to start over. And in case we think we might be an exception to this sort of thing, Jesus reiterates it again in the passage. He says, no one can enter the kingdom of God without this sort of complete transformation.

So your record and your culture, your activism, your temperament, your taste in music, your weekend activities, none of those things can really bring you the reinvention, the change that you desperately need. Everyone has to be born again. Because the message of Jesus has never been about behavior modification. It's about a deep inner change that needs to take place in everyone. And Jesus, when he says this, ultimately is taking away all of our defense mechanisms. He's taking away all our excuses that make us avoid, considering what Jesus really means for us.

See, it's easy in our lives to start to go down the road of believing that, generally, I'm a pretty good person. I'm a pretty moral person. I don't need a complete overhaul in my life. That's for the especially hurting people, but not for me, because I hold down a solid job, and I volunteer a couple times a year, and I round up my purchases at Petco to support dog charities, and I go to therapy, and I only purchase locally sourced organic vegetables. And sure, maybe I'm a little addicted to Instagram, but it's not like it's heroin or anything, right? I'm a pretty good person. I'm pretty all right.

And subtly, those notions build up over time. They eventually make us believe that we don't need comprehensive change. We don't need to be born again. We don't need to have our whole life upended. We just need a little adjustment here or there. I'm doing all right. I actually hear this assumption often when I tell people about what I do for work. It's a really weird thing, by the way, being a pastor in the world and telling people what you do for work. It's a lot of prefacing and describing and talking around the thing directly, because if they hear pastor, they're like, oh, cool, see ya.

So talk to my neighbors a lot, and when they ask what I do, I say, well, I lead a spiritually curious community who's trying to understand what it means to follow Jesus, and we work with families and women at Hope Women's Center who are in vulnerable situations, and we help give food away and care for the poor in our neighborhood, and we try to give the spiritually homeless a home. We try to welcome them in with the love of Jesus. And without fail, most people respond in the same way. They say some variation of, oh, that's so great. Those people need that sort of thing. I'm so glad you're doing that for them. That's such important work for people like that.

Do you see the subtle assumption? They're saying that the ones who really need the whole Jesus thing, the whole life change thing, they're the really down and out people, the really oppressed people, the really hurting people. And I don't have to think about that for me, but it's so great. I love that for you.

Have you ever come to Jesus with the assumption that your life is already pretty put together? Is your posture and the way you walk through your life immediately one of self -justification? It says, I just need a little improving on the edges. So I'll take some of Jesus' teachings that make sense to me or that I like, and I'll kind of fit it into my schedule where I can. Have you distanced yourself from the need for complete change?

If so, Jesus says clearly, you missed it. You missed the whole point of the story of God. This is the very core. And if you don't understand that, then you need to start over in the way you think about God and yourself and the world. And it's likely in this story that deep down Nicodemus knows this. In spite of all of his moral strife, he's still striving. In fact, that's probably why he comes to Jesus when he

does. Did you notice the time of day that he came? It's in the dark of night. That's an intentional detail John includes in the story. This is a man who in every way seems to be leading a fully enlightened, satisfying life, and yet he walks in darkness. Amidst all his striving to reinvent himself by his moral willpower to change his character, he still feels like he's missing something. He's still in the dark. All those outward attempts at change have only left him puzzled or dissatisfied. They haven't solved the deep ache in his soul for change, which is why he comes to Jesus. That's why he finds Jesus so compelling. He comes to have a conversation about how somehow in the darkness of night he might find light.

Friends, where in your life have you been trying to reinvent yourself in ways that aren't working? Where are you desperately trying to create change in your life to bring fullness and satisfaction, and where is it failing? Is it through work or career? Through a relationship? Through therapy? Through social activism? Where, despite all of your best efforts, does it feel like your soul is still in the dark?

Maybe that's why you're here this morning. Maybe, like Nicodemus, you have this gnawing sense that you need something deeper and fuller and better than your own attempts at change. Maybe you've come to Jesus because it feels like every other effort just ends in the dark.

You guys, I have good news for you. It is precisely in the dark that the light shines most clearly. It is only when we name that dissatisfaction, it is only when we name the failure of all our attempts to change ourselves, it's only when we name our need for something greater that Jesus can actually begin his work in us. It has always been that those who walk in darkness have seen a great light. It's always been that those who know they're sick long for the physician.

And so with eyes full of love and invitation, Jesus says to all of us, as he did to Nicodemus, like he would to his closest friends, you're in the dark. You need something more. More than your earning and your effort and your striving and your chasing. No matter who you are or where you come from, you need to be born again. That's the foundation of everything. It's necessary. But that still leaves Nicodemus and us with an important question. Okay, it's necessary, but what do you actually mean? If we all need it, what does it mean to be born again, to be completely reinvented? That's Nicodemus' question here. And so we actually see in this story not just the necessity of reinvention, but the characteristics of reinvention. There's three characteristics I want to point out here. First, this reinvention comes from beyond us. The Greek word that we translate here for born from above or born again is anothen. And most words, as you know, in many languages, have many different meanings, can mean different things. In this case, this word can mean a few different things. It can mean from the beginning. So to be born completely over again, have a complete and radical new start. It can also mean born again. That is a second time. And it can also mean, as in the translation we read today, born from above. That is something comes from above you, so radical and transformative that it couldn't have ever come from you. It had to come from somewhere else. There's a biblical scholar named William Barclay who describes it this way. He says to be born from above, born again, is to undergo such a radical change that it is like a new birth. It is to have something happen to the soul which can only be described as being born all over again. And the whole process is not a human achievement because it comes from the grace and power of God. And that's actually why the birth metaphor is so helpful here. He says you need to be born again, right? As an illustration, all the moms in the room, who's the one that does the work when a baby is born? Moms, come on. It's you. You're the one who's doing the work. And sometimes the baby doesn't seem like they want to be born, right? All of you who were born in the room, what did you do to be born? Nothing. Right? You didn't do the work. The only way to be born is to receive life from some source beyond yourself.

The new birth that Jesus is talking about is the same sort of thing. It's not self -determined reinvention. It is receiving an entirely new life from someone beyond you. And Nicodemus doesn't get it right away. He asks this question. How can anyone be born after having grown old? He's obviously being a little too literal in kind of a humorous way. He's like, what, you want me to go back into my mother's womb? No, man, you've missed it. You're being way too literal here. But the point is interesting. He's basically saying this is impossible. How could this ever actually happen? It's important to mention, it's not that Nicodemus doesn't think change or reinvention is necessary. He knows it is. That's why he's here. He just doesn't know how it could be possible. It's as if he's saying with deep, wistful longing, you talk about being born again. You talk about a radical, fundamental change. I know it's necessary, but in my experience, it's impossible. There is nothing I want more in my life, but you might as well tell me that a full -grown man just enters back into his mother's womb to be born all over again. It just can't happen.

Nicodemus is facing the same eternal question. It's not a problem we all face. It's the problem of the person who wants to be changed, but can't change themselves.

I've tried the self -help books. I've downloaded the Headspace app. I've made New Year's resolutions. I've signed up and canceled and signed up again for the gym. I've bought and sold and consumed and produced and tried and failed a million times. I know I need a change, but I can't seem to bring it. It seems impossible.

Friends, where are you weary of trying and failing to bring love and peace and satisfaction into your life by your striving? Where in your life does it feel like you're taking one step forward and two steps back? It's precisely there that Jesus wants to say to you, you need to let go. Let go of your striving, of your anxious grasping of your earning, the life and the reinvention you're longing for. It is available and it is utterly free to you. But like any gift, it's not something you can make happen by your own willpower. It's only something you can receive. It's only something that can happen when you let God work it out in you. So you need to do both the easiest and the hardest thing you'll ever do. You need to let go of that old life.

And again, I think the birth metaphor is helpful here. From what I've learned and heard, I don't know the science or data behind this, but in many cases when a child is being born, just before they're about to be born, they shift position in the womb. They move to kind of prepare for what's to come because it's, I don't know if you've heard, a pretty violent act and activity. But they are shifting their position in the womb. In order to be born, in order to receive this new life, they move. That's our responsibility, friends. We don't do the work of birth, but we do position ourselves. We do place ourselves in a certain relationship to God. Our job to receive new transformative life isn't the work of bringing it ourselves. It is positioning ourselves in such a place that God can do the work, that God can bring new life. So where in this Advent season are you positioning yourself to be transformed by God? In prayer? Or in scripture reading? Or in service? Or in love to your neighbor? What rhythms or habits do you have that allow for God to really start to reinvent you? That's the first characteristic of the new birth. It comes from beyond us. The second characteristic, it changes how we see. Did you notice that Jesus uses the language of seeing here? He says no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again. That language he's using, the kingdom, it was something that Nicodemus would have been familiar with. Every Jew was familiar with it in the first century. In Nicodemus' mind and in the theology of the Pharisees, the kingdom of God was that ultimate redemption and restoration and healing that was waiting in the future. And they believed that the way that that future redemption and restoration would come is if everyone just acted right. If we just did all the right things and were really faithful to God, then the kingdom will come. And so it's a future reality that we bring into the world through our own good behavior. But Jesus is saying that that future reality, that kingdom, has actually already broken into the world, into our lives here and now. It's not off in the distant future. And it's not something you get through your own moral earning. It has already come in Jesus, which means you can see and know and live in it right now. That was actually the thesis of Jesus' whole ministry. The beginning of Mark, he says, repent, that is turn away from the old way of living, turn away from your striving and turn towards God, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is here.

So in Jesus' mind, when we give up earning, and when we instead trust God, turn to God to bring this change and transformation in us, we start to see the kingdom. We start to see everything a little bit differently. We see the redemption and restoration of the future breaking into our lives now. God starts to change the way we think and the way we act and the way we approach other people. Our stories get caught up in his story and our priorities and our character really do change. Think about it this way. When a child is born, immediately, they are seeing the world in a whole new way. An entirely different world is upon them. They experience reality differently. That's what the born again experience is like. It's when those ideas that you've heard start to stir in your heart in such a way that they change you. Sure, I heard that God loved me, but now I experience it in my heart in a new way and I see it in my life in a new way. Sure, I heard that God was redeeming and restoring, but now I'm starting to see real change in my life. This is one of those experiences that all the great Christian spiritual teachers over the years have pointed out. That passing from death to life, being born again, means you become attuned to the reality of God's work in you and in the world in a way you never were before. You see things differently. C .S. Lewis captures it well in his essay, his theology poetry. He says, I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.

There's a great story that Billy Sunday, a famous evangelist around the turn of the century, told of a man who lived back in 18th century England. He worked a brutal job in the coal mines for decades. And so to cope with it, he would drink regularly for years and years and years, like many of his coworkers. But one day, for whatever reason, his heart got captured by the story of Jesus in church and he gave it all up. Gave up his drinking. Gave up going to the pub with his coworkers. And they started to kind of make fun of him for it. It's like, bruh, you've been doing this for years. You really think like that sort of change is really happening? You really think like you believe in miracles? That Jesus really changed you like this? And so they poke at him, they make fun of him. And one day in the coal mines, they asked him, hey, do you really believe that Jesus turned water into wine? You really believe in that sort of thing? And the man responded this way. He said, I don't know if Jesus turned water into wine, but I know that in my house, he has changed beer into furniture.

The new birth changes how we see everything. And the third characteristic of the new birth here, it gives us a new identity. When someone is born, they are given an identity. You have all been born into a family of some sort. You are born with parents. You are born into a name. And to some degree, that identity has shaped you. And from the moment you are born, you are being told where to find your identity. Depending on where you live in the world, you're being given a very specific way of seeking identity. So for instance, in traditional cultures, in Eastern and Middle Eastern countries especially, your identity is completely tied up in your family. You are where you have come from. And that, for better or for worse, determines who you are. Being a good son or daughter, being a good husband or wife, is your identity. But that creates an immense pressure. It can suffocate you. It can exploit you. It can make you feel captive. And we, in our enlightened and free Western world, like to say, well actually, you individually determine your identity. We say that you can shape it. It's not determined by your family. It's determined by you. You become whoever you want by your own effort. Which sounds like freedom at first, but it actually hasn't led us there in the West. It's actually made us more captive. Because when your choice of identity is only based on personal feeling and choice, then your identity is always fluctuating. One day, you feel like you're the most special person in the world. And the next day, you feel utterly worthless. What's your identity? One day, you're defined by your career. The next day, you're fired and you're completely lost. One day, you're defined by your partner's love of you. And the next day, they're gone. Your identity becomes just as insecure as you because there's no eternal standard upon which it can be built. And so, as it turns out, the freedom to forge our own identities, to do what we want, and to forge our identities ourselves, it's not the freedom we thought it was. It doesn't bring us peace. It actually brings us anxiety. Soren Kierkegaard, in a book on anxiety, summed it up really well. He said, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. That is what makes you free. That is what makes the new birth so radical. The new birth says your identity isn't dependent on how well you perform in your family or relationships. It isn't dependent on what you're feeling on a given day. It isn't dependent on your work placement. It's not something you have to anxiously strive for. It's already yours. You are a beloved child of God because of what God has done and said. And so no matter what happens in and through the rest of your life, no matter the comings and goings of the world, you can live in the freedom and rest and knowledge of your identity as eternally secure. Something that can never be taken away.

The disciple Peter wrote about this in one of his early letters in our Bibles. He said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance, read identity, that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Friends, your identity is received, not achieved. It is rooted in God's love for you. God is your unconditionally loving Father, which means you can give up the exhausting search for approval or accomplishment. You can relax into the love of God. There's a Catholic theologian named Ronald Raulheiser who talks about prayer being just that, relaxing into the love of God.

I have a friend whose story illustrates this well. He talks about how over the course of his life he's had three different identities. He's been three different people. His first identity was when he was younger. He grew up in a pretty conservative, legalistic church. And his identity was rooted in his morality. He was a good person and he felt good about himself because he was very moral. He was a good guy. But he said as he became an adult that he felt a lot of pressure because of that. And he felt hypocrisy because sometimes he wasn't always a good guy. And, well, when he saw other people that he felt he was better than, he became a little self -righteous. And so he said, man, this whole identity, it's not working. I need to cast off. So he left the church. He's like, I'm done with this whole religion thing. I'm out. And then he said, I got a second identity. It was a romantic identity. He cast off all the morality that he'd been handed and he just started pursuing relationships full bore. He dated. He slept around. And he felt good about himself at first. He was experiencing the love of someone. As long as he had the affection of a woman in his life, he felt good. But eventually that identity stopped working too. Either because he lost those relationships or because he got stuck in relationships that were not loving and unhealthy. And so he said, I started a third identity. I left that one behind and I started a career identity. In his later years, in his late 20s, he went to grad school. He started a new career. He climbed the ladder in his profession. He felt good about himself because of all the promotions he was getting. But he noticed that even with every advancement, his heart still felt like it was missing something. And right when he was at the brink of career burnout, he had a friend in his life who talked about the new identity they had in Jesus. How they felt remarkably at peace. How they could relax into the love of God. And he thought, I haven't relaxed in decades. I haven't felt peace in decades. And so he's like, I got nothing to lose. I'll show up to church. And the gospel moved in his heart. And he realized, my whole life, I've been trying to reinvent myself, to change myself. And the whole time, all I needed to do was give my life to Jesus and he could make me into who I really am. All I needed to do was give my life away and I could rest. And so my friend lost himself to Jesus. And because he did, he truly found himself for the first time.

Friends, this new birth is utterly freeing. It allows us to rest, live in true freedom, to find that reinvention we've been longing for. That's what Jesus is offering. Nothing short of something entirely new. Which leads us finally to the necessary question, the same one that Nicodemus asks. How can this be? How does this happen? How can I experience this reinvention in my life? And Jesus responds to that question with a really weird and confusing story, as he likes to do sometimes. He says, 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. He's referring to a really, really old story in the book of Numbers, in the Hebrew scriptures. It's a story where the people of Israel are wandering through a desert. And over and over again, they're failing to trust in their identity as God's people. They attach their identities to all other sorts of things. They worship other gods. They grasp and claw to try to create life on their own terms. And it kills them. It leads them to the desert. And eventually, it leads them to, well, what do you call a group of snakes? I was gonna say a pack. Definitely not a pack of snakes. A group of venomous snakes. A slither of venomous snakes. Slytherin. Slytherin. Harry Potter fans over there. And so these snakes start to bite everyone in Israel. Poison starts to course through their veins. And all around the camp, they're becoming paralyzed and dying. And in response, God tells Moses, their leader, to make a bronze snake, put it up on a pole, and hold it in front of everyone who's been bit. And if they just look at it, if they just trust God's power to work in and through that, they'll be healed. And it works. Simply by turning their gaze to the serpent, which is the very image of the deathly power that they are being consumed by, they get healed. And Jesus is saying that that story is about him, really. He says that he will be lifted up in the same way. Here's what Jesus is saying. I, the God of the universe, have seen the ways that your anxious striving for reinvention has left you in a desert of death and decay. I've seen the way that it is poisonously killing you. And I love you. So I won't let death continue to win. I will come into the world and I will show you what I am like. And then I will take on all of that death myself, all of the stuff that is coursing through your veins, I will let it take on me so you don't have to deal with it anymore. I will take on the venom that you have experienced and the venom you have inflicted upon others. I will let the serpent strike me once and for all and I will be raised up on a cross. And when I do that, when I absorb all of the death and all the brokenness into myself, I will make sure that it cannot win. I'll leave it in the grave and I'll rise again so that when you turn to me, when you look at me, when you believe in me, you can have new life. You can be transformed, you can be born again.

And so friends, when we feel lost in the dark of our own need for change, when we see that all of our anxious striving after worldly identities is leading us only to pain and sorrow, all we need to do is look. All we need to do is turn to the cross and believe. Believe that this is who God is, a God of unconditional love. Believe that Jesus' death and resurrection brings to death all of our old strivings. Believe that his labor is the work of a divine mother birthing something new in us and the world. Believe that because of what Jesus has done, we are entirely different sorts of people now. Attach yourself to Jesus. Give your life to Jesus and you will start to change. Turn your eyes to him. Reinvention will come. The poison will be healed in ways far beyond anything you could bring on your own.

And Jesus lands this conversation with Nicodemus where we all need to land in all of our lives, friends, with the only truth that really deeply matters. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. Look to the good news, look to the cross, friends. Reinvention is yours in Jesus. Let's pray.