Who Am I? Pt 3 - Your Spiritual Vitality Matters
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of a series on Biblical Identity. For more resources on faith, identity, and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
God is really good to us. We are finishing out a short series this week—one we've been working through since Easter Sunday. We've been exploring the idea of our identity: how we understand who we are according to Scripture.
We've spent a couple weeks digging into various aspects of this fundamental question: Who are you? And how do you know your place in this world?
We've looked at what the overarching biblical narrative tells us. We spent a week talking about your physicality—that God made you as an embodied being, that in many ways, you are your body. That led us into a discussion last week about the concept of mind, examining the extra weight our culture places on the mind as the seat of the self, and how we can do that at the exclusion of other things.
I'll be honest—it's been a little philosophical. A little more abstract, maybe more mentally intensive than a lot of what we typically do on Sunday mornings. But I think this is a really important topic. This is something desperately needed in the larger discussion in our culture right now.
The Pressure to Define Ourselves
How do you know who you are?
It feels like we live with a lot more cultural pressure to find a fulfilling, clear, and unique definition of ourselves than maybe our parents and grandparents did before us. Even though these sermons have been somewhat heady, we've had some of the best discussions in our groups the last couple of weeks—digging into how we understand our relationship to our body and how we understand the way our mind works and our mental health.
It's been really challenging for me. Really good for our community. I hope it's been that way for you as well.
You Are a Spirit
Today we're landing it out, and we're going to talk about one of the unique facets of the biblical worldview regarding identity: We're going to talk about you as a spirit. We're going to talk about the spiritual aspect of your person.
At the end of the day, you are a spirit. That's a strange-to-say truth, but it's reality. God made you this way. You are an embodied spirit.
It's incredibly vital to understand that God made you unique—you are physical and spiritual in nature. It is how God designed you. The overwhelming biblical narrative of human identity speaks to this unity: you are not merely an animal, you are not merely a spirit. You are a human made in God's image, body and soul, physical and spiritual.
As we dig into your spiritual self today, we're going to talk about some of what is probably the most obvious part of this series. We're a church, we're looking at Scripture—so yes, we're going to talk about spiritual things. But I actually think this is still an important discussion for us.
The Residue of Materialism
We live at a moment where there's still a lot of residue from the modern era's naturalistic materialism. A lot of that idea is shifting generationally. Generational studies show that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are significantly more open to the reality of the spiritual realm and our spiritual selves than generations that came before them. But we still live in a society built on the foundation of the modern era.
A big facet of the modern era is this naturalistic materialism—the idea that what exists physically is all there is.
I think even for us as Christians, that naturalism just creeps into our thought processes as a default. When we're not actively thinking about it, many of us tend to assume a naturalistic worldview. But as we'll see as we dig into our text, you are a dual nature. You have this spiritual facet of who you are, and you can't get away from it.
To ignore that is not just to ignore yourself. It's to ignore how God designed this universe.
A Story of Spiritual Wounding
I remember a few years ago, there was a young man loosely connected to the church I was pastoring. He reached out to me specifically asking for discipleship. He wanted to meet up with me and dig into some Bible study and discipleship. He was new in his marriage, working through a lot of stuff. So we started meeting up regularly—once every week or two—digging through Scripture, talking about faith, talking about marriage, talking about life.
He was young, newly married, and over the course of these meetings, even though he was fully engaged in what we were doing, I just had this sense that something was missing, something was off. I was meeting with him, we were praying together, digging into the Word. He knew the right language. He was attentive and engaged in what we were doing, but something just didn't feel all there.
Over the course of about a year of meeting with this guy, it became increasingly evident that he was just wasting away in his spirit. He was there—young, successful, married, doing all this stuff—but spiritually, he was dying bit by bit.
What we began to dig into is this: he had actually grown up in a cult that used Christian language. He was so deeply spiritually wounded by that experience that as an adult, he had blown up his spiritual life. He eventually let me know that while meeting with me for biblical discipleship, he had also hired and was paying a spiritual director from a new age group to meet with him as often. Then he began seeing and working with a spiritual healer who was doing chakra realignment through crystal massages.
He began to encourage his wife to engage with the spiritual healer, and eventually they ended up in an adulterous throuple.
I don't say that to make light of this guy or to make fun of the situation he ended up in. What happened is that increasingly, as I challenged him to actually engage the biblical teaching and the faith that he was saying out loud with me that he affirmed, he got hurt, he got offended, and he cut off our meetings.
I'm not trying to tear this guy down. I'm speaking this story anonymously. But the reality is, as much as I believe he is fully responsible for his own actions, his own decisions, the leadership he gave his wife and family—he's also a victim who was spiritually abused, who had his spiritual life completely wrecked.
The way he acted out of that hurt is sorrowful, but it's also not really that shocking.
Never Less Than, Always More Than
I share this because this guy—young, fit, successful, seemingly thriving in the world—his physical self, his physical life was fine. But his spiritual self was wounded, hurt, and fading. He was doing horrifically.
Here's my point: We are never less than our bodies, but we are always more than our bodies.
There was a wounding in this guy's spiritual life that became evident increasingly as we spent time together. That leads me to my main point today.
We're going to look at what is easily the most famous passage in all of the Bible—John 3. Even though we're going to have to do a little work to see past the pure familiarity of this passage, what we're going to see really clearly is this:
You are a spiritual creature. You have a spiritual self. It is part of how you exist in this world.
And hear this: Your spiritual vitality matters. It matters to God, and it matters to you.
To ignore your spiritual health is to ignore yourself, because this is you. It's not separate from you.
Meeting Nicodemus (John 3:1-3)
Let's dive into our text. John chapter 3, starting in verse 1:
Now there was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him." Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
If you don't know, John 3 contains the most famous verse in the Bible. We'll get there and talk about that, and I think it will be good. But I want to help us by setting up a narrative that for some of us is going to be new, but for a lot of us is going to be really familiar.
A couple things you have to remember:
John tells the story of Jesus differently than the rest of the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—the four Gospels—all tell the story of the life and ministry of Jesus. John is the last one that was written. By the time it was written, much of the early church increasingly had access to the other gospels. So John wrote his differently.
He wrote it much more theologically. He organized his book around the theological progression of thought he was building. He had no real concern for telling it in chronological order. Instead, he organized the narratives and texts by theological theme.
The chunk of John we're in right now is talking really specifically about Jesus's authority as Messiah and how that sits next to the other earthly and spiritual authorities of his day.
We're justjust after the story—the famous story of Jesus going into the temple. He's in Jerusalem on a feast day, goes into the temple, and flips over the tables. We've just finished that story, and now it's right after that in the narrative.
The text tells us that at night, this guy named Nicodemus comes to see Jesus.
Who Was Nicodemus?
We have to talk about Nicodemus for a couple minutes. This guy was a member of the Sanhedrin. This is what that phrase in the text, "ruler of the Jews," means. This was a legal and theological group made up of a mixture of the top spiritual leaders in all Judea.
Even though Judea and the Israelites were under Roman control, they were actually given a lot of authority by the Romans. The Sanhedrin got to run a lot of the day-to-day, especially the religious and spiritual life of the Jews of this day. They sat as this weird mixture of pastors and judges—the Sanhedrin would teach in the temple, teach in the synagogues, travel and bear spiritual authority. But they also sat as judges and heard cases and spoke with authority for the Jewish people.
The fact that Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin tells us a lot about him. This is a top-tier dude. This is someone who would have been extremely highly educated, well-known, well-respected, and—to say it as plainly as possible—incredibly successful. He has reached rock star and politician status all wrapped up in one.
He represents in the story the best that human effort and religious practice could produce in first-century Judaism. He is living the dream of so many young Jewish men of his day.
And yet Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night.
A Nighttime Meeting
There's something about the life Nicodemus was leading that led him to seek out Christ. The text doesn't tell us what it was. It could have been that he had obtained the best this world had to offer and found it lacking and wanted to hear something else. It could have been that he was frustrated or fearful at the potential of Jesus becoming a rival who challenged his own authority. It could have simply been a spiritual openness—he geeked out on theology, and this untrained theologian from Galilee showed up with a huge following, and he wants to hear about it.
We don't really know. But what's important here to understand is that most likely Nicodemus is approaching Jesus with a genuine desire to learn from him.
Him coming at night was almost certainly purely for the sake of having a private conversation rather than anything else. This is the middle of Jerusalem during feast time, and Jesus is a well-known and famous rabbi who from the moment the sun comes up till it goes down is surrounded by great crowds of people and hard to approach.
Nicodemus wants to have not a public debate, not a back and forth—he wants to have a rabbi-to-rabbi theological discussion. So he comes to him at night.
Rabbinical Wordplay
Look how the conversation begins. Nicodemus, as best as we can tell, is genuinely honoring Jesus. He calls him "Rabbi" and "teacher." This was an honorific that most of the Galilean rabbis wouldn't have been given by Judean rabbis.
This is a little bit in the weeds of the culture, but you have to remember: at this point in the Palestine area, most of the Jewish people were concentrated in the south in Judea where Jerusalem was, and in the north in Galilee. Galilee was considered the backwoods—where the rural, uneducated people were. That's where Jesus's ministry sprouted up, where it came from.
A lot of renewal ministries came out of Galilee in this time in Jewish history. The more educated rabbis in Judea often simply didn't acknowledge the authority of the Galilean rabbis. They wouldn't give them the honorific of rabbi or teacher.
And Nicodemus does this. He seems to be honoring Jesus.
What he basically says is: "Look, no one is disputing your miracles. We know they've come from God."
Now it's important to note—this is something we can really easily miss as modern Western readers reading in English—the way Jewish rabbis interacted is incredibly interesting. It's actually worth looking up and reading some of the famous dialogues between rabbis.
The closest analog I can give you in modern Western culture is a rap battle.
The Jewish culture placed an immense value on intelligence and quick wit and coming up with nuanced, multi-layered meanings and doing it on the fly. When rabbis would have public discussion, public debate, even written discourse back and forth, they were putting every ounce of wit and thought and creativity they had into creating layer upon layer of meaning and subtlety.
The whole idea was: if you're smart enough, you'll know what I'm saying, you'll get it, and you'll be able to respond in kind.
That is what we're about to experience.
You can read Jesus and Nicodemus's interaction on the surface, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there are layers to the onion of this conversation.
When Nicodemus says, "Everyone knows your miracles, your signs are obviously from God," inherent in that is he's saying: "Look, no one's debating that your miracles are from God. Your teaching, on the other hand—the stuff you do in public, your spectacles, flipping tables in the temple—there's some debate about that."
He comes in with this dual meaning. But even if people are debating Jesus's teaching, Nicodemus obviously seems to believe that Jesus is coming from the authority of God behind his ministry.
Born Again (John 3:3-8)
And Jesus—he almost interrupts Nicodemus as he claps back. He tells him that seeing the kingdom is about having a new nature. You must be born again.
This phrase "born again," depending on your translation in English, may say "born again" or may say "born from above." That's because the word here is the same word—it can mean either "above" or it can mean "again," depending on the context.
And this is exactly the sort of wordplay that rabbis loved. Grabbing words with multiple meanings and using the various meanings as metaphors to play off one another is exactly the kind of thing Nicodemus would have expected from a sharp and well-known rabbi.
Many of the teachers in the first century who came out of Galilee—these more uneducated and rural teachers—were increasingly calling for spiritual renewal. "Israel needs to be renewed in spirit. They need to return to God in faithfulness. We need to throw away and push away Greek and Roman culture and return to purity."
Think of leaders like John the Baptist, who immersed his followers in water as a symbol of their spiritual cleansing, of their new life of commitment to God.
Jesus—it's important to remember this—Jesus is Jesus, but he was also raised up in that theological context. That's where he came from: the Galilean Renewal Ministries. Nicodemus would have known that.
So when Jesus uses this phrase—"you must be born again, born from above or born again"—Nicodemus would have most likely immediately seen the spiritual implication of what Jesus is saying: If you want to understand my ministry, my teaching, you need to experience spiritual renewal.
And Nicodemus seems to understand this. Look at his response in verse 4:
"How can anyone be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked him. "Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born?"
Come on, Nicodemus, you could have said that without that level of detail!
Can We Really Change?
But here's the thing: It's easy for us to read this and just assume Nicodemus is being overly literal, like he's just missing what Jesus is saying. That's unlikely. You're talking about someone who is one of the most intelligent and accomplished theologians of his day.
He's not asking this question literally. He knows Jesus is pointing to spiritual renewal because that's what Galilean teachers were known for.
I think his question is actually what many of our questions are when we're approached by Christ, which is simply this: How can I actually change?
If you're telling me I can't do it, I don't have it in me right now, I need renewal to be able to engage God's kingdom—who can actually do that? Once you're set in your ways, once you're old, once you're in the world, how can you start over? How can you be refreshed? How can you actually change?
Jesus has said that one needs new birth, a spiritual renewal, to see the kingdom. Nicodemus asks: Who actually can do that? Who can be born again?
This is his rabbi way of saying: Can we actually change our beliefs? Can we really change our hearts enough to be renewed spiritually?
By the way, Paul—the trained rabbi—hits on this same idea in his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter 2, verse 14. There's a famous verse where he basically says we need help, God's help, to engage the truths of the kingdom of God. But our sin nature means that our spiritual selves naturally view God's kingdom as foolish, that we're bent toward seeing the kingdom of God as foolish, that we're not naturally bent towards seeing truth or life in the gospel.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that's true for most of us as well. Even the Nicodemuses among us—even those of us who have the career, the house, the friend group, the intelligence, all of it—we are naturally, by nature, separate from the kingdom and the truths of the Gospel.
Oftentimes the truths of the gospel feel foreign to us. Our sin nature? That doesn't feel foreign. That feels as natural as your left foot.
We don't need to be taught how to lie, how to be selfish, how to seek our own good, our own pleasure above others. We understand our sins, our vices, our escapes. But the kingdom of God, as Paul said, often feels foolish.
And as much as we may shudder at admitting that in church, I think we know that's true.
The Gospel Feels Foolish
The Gospel tells us things like how our own effort can't save us. The Gospel tells us that God has grace for his creation and it is the grace of God that is actually the bedrock of life and meaning.
But we live in a world with due dates and bills and anxieties and relationships and wars. The spiritual truths of the gospel often just get lost in the noise of our day-to-day life.
How easy is it to get so caught up in living your life day to day and moment by moment that you just slowly become blind to the spiritual reality you were actually made for?
And even in those moments where you push through and you show up to church or you show up to your group or you get out with your discipleship group and we're reminded of truth—and you hear how kingdom people are the people who serve others above themselves, and kingdom people are the people who live with self-control, and kingdom people are the people who forgive and love their enemies, who sacrificially give of their time, who turn their anxieties over to God and walk in freedom—how many of us, even when we're reminded of those truths, they just feel kind of fake?
They feel kind of idealized. And you go, "That's beautiful. But I don't actually do that."
Or maybe at least it's just out of reach.
I actually think many of us can stand up with good old Nico and say: Who can really change? Who can actually be born again? How is that possible?
Born of Water and Spirit (John 3:5-8)
Read on with me. In verse 5, Jesus answered:
"Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
Now Jesus and Nicodemus jump into the deep end. They're in it with their back and forth. Nicodemus has given Jesus an open invitation: "I need spiritual renewal. Okay. Is that even possible for people like me stuck in our ways?"
And look what Jesus says to him here: "You must be born of water and spirit."
This is another example of how time and translation can deflate our reading a little bit. Jesus is doing the same verbal kung fu here, and it's easy to miss.
On the surface, his phrase "you must be born of water and spirit" is very literal. It's playing off of what Nicodemus has just said about climbing back up into mom to be born a second time. You must be born of water—that's physically born. You must be born of spirit—that's spiritually born. You need a new kind of birth, a spiritual one.
That's brilliant. But Jesus is also here making a subtle scriptural reference.
One of the most famous passages associated with the more radical renewal teachers that came out of Galilee was Ezekiel 36—a famous passage about the new covenant. This is a text where God is calling his people who are faithless to turn back to him. And it opens with God saying through the prophet Ezekiel: "I will also sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean."
A lot of theologians and biblical historians think that this passage and the focus on this passage in the time of Jesus is where the Jewish idea of ritual baptism got its start—the idea that you can look at your spiritual renewal and signify it with a physical baptism.
But this is also the famous New Covenant passage where God promises to take out our heart of stone and give us a new heart. It says this:
"I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances."
This text directly answers Nicodemus's challenge to Jesus because Ezekiel reminds us that while he's right—we can't change what is broken in us—God can. He does the work of fixing what is broken in our hearts.
It's a text that would have been known in this day and readily associated with a Galilean teacher like Jesus. And it's a perfect example of how these rabbinical theological conversations went back and forth with this really loaded language.
The Mystery of the Spirit
One of the reasons it seems likely that Jesus is making this connection is how the whole thing continues. He basically says: "Look, of course you need to be born twice because flesh gives birth to flesh, so you need spirit to give birth to spirit."
This connects back to our overarching idea that Jesus is affirming you are both a physical and a spiritual creature.
But look how he continues. It seems to take this kind of strange left turn: "The wind blows around and nobody sees it. So why are you surprised that I say you should be born of spirit?"
That's a weird left turn, until you realize that the word "spirit" and the word "wind" are the same word. This is that same pattern we see in how Jesus is having this conversation. Same word, but you have to use the context to understand: Are we talking about spirit? Are we talking about wind?
And so Jesus grabs hold of that and turns it into a metaphor in his conversation. You shouldn't be surprised about spiritual life being unseen and mysterious, because the wind is unseen and mysterious. And they're kind of the same thing.
Jesus is weaving the double meaning all together on the fly. Your spirit is like the wind. It's invisible, it's mysterious. You won't fully know what it's doing, but it does it.
This is the connection point back to Ezekiel. Jesus is telling Nicodemus here that his own spirit is mysterious even to himself. He needs God to intervene and cleanse and renew his spirit.
This is part of why birth is such an appropriate metaphor here. You didn't choose to be born. For the most part, it basically happened to you. In the same way, your spiritual birth is like the wind. God does it. You can't fully understand it, but it's necessary for your life.
Just like the wind, your spiritual life, though invisible, has undeniable effects on the world and on you.
How Can This Be? (John 3:9-13)
I think Nicodemus is following this. I think he's following the general flow of what Jesus is saying and he's ready to hear more.
Verse 9: "How can these things be?" asked Nicodemus.
Less a literal question and more an invitation. How does that work? How can this happen? How can this be how it is?
And Jesus kind of simultaneously rebukes him and encourages him here. He calls Nicodemus out and then gives him a pass:
"Are you a teacher of Israel and don't know these things?" Jesus replied. "Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man."
He seems to imply that Jesus's standing as a teacher and theologian means---
Continuing from where we left off...
He seems to imply that Nicodemus's standing as a teacher and theologian means he should already get this. Like inherent in that, it's like: "You know the Old Testament, you're a teacher, and you don't already know these truths?"
He kind of pushes him there, but then immediately gives him a pass and goes: "But I mean, no one understands the spirit unless they've experienced it. No one's been up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven—me. So kind of makes sense that you wouldn't know what I'm talking about."
Identity as Gift, Not Project
Which is interesting. Jesus is getting at a truth here that is powerful and needed when we think about identity, how we understand ourselves, how we understand our place in the world.
Many of us are living with the internal expectation, the assumption, that we must build identity for ourselves. We have to define our own person. We have to find something that is fulfilling and life-giving and unique in the world and stand on it in the middle of a world that is loud and full of every option, of everything.
It's a lot.
But I think what's so beautiful in our text here is it reminds us: Your identity isn't some project that you have to complete. It's a gift you receive from God. It's something he has already accomplished because, in fact, you can't do it yourself.
You have this spiritual self that is beyond the boundaries of this physical world, and you need help to even engage and interact fully with that part of yourself. You need God to intervene, to renew, to define your spiritual self for you.
We need him.
And here's the beautiful thing: God does this. He does it freely as a gift to us, which is really, I think, where this text is headed.
The Snake on the Pole (John 3:14-21)
So finish this out with me and let's get to the famous part. Jesus continues in verse 14:
"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. This is the judgment: Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God."
This is the word of the Lord for us today.
Remember with me how this text has progressed. Nicodemus came to Jesus. He wants to hear what Jesus has to say. He's genuinely curious about Jesus's "Kingdom of God" teaching. They've had this back and forth:
You need spiritual renewal to understand my teaching.
Okay, but how can I do that if I'm set in my ways?
You're right. You can't really do it on your own. You need a spiritual renewal only God can give.
Okay, how do I do it?
There's this back and forth, and then we get to the good stuff.
Numbers 21: The Bronze Serpent
Jesus references this story in Numbers 21. You don't have to turn there, but it's a little bit of a lesser-known story. It basically goes like this:
When Israel was in the wilderness, they were in rebellion against God. They broke covenant. And as a result, God allowed the camp to be plagued by poisonous snakes. People were dying right and left, and the people immediately repented. They wanted to restore covenant. They wanted to return to God. They wanted the snakes gone.
And rather than just fix it, God does this really strange thing.
He has Moses make a bronze statue of a snake and mount it on top of a pole and set the pole in the middle of the camp. You can imagine it—all I can think of is rolling out a Play-Doh snake, but with bronze. Big, long snake, stick it on a pole and set it up. It would probably be relatively T-shaped, or some might say cross-shaped, but he set it up in the middle of the camp.
And God's people are commanded simply to look at the snake on the pole when they get bit. And God will heal them from the venom.
And here's what's wild about it: It works. It absolutely works. The people return to God. They find relief from the plague.
But the solution is so strange that I think it's why Jesus references it here. Because in that story, the snakes don't actually go away. People are still getting bit right and left, but when they get bit, they turn and they look at the big old snake statue in the middle of camp. And they just have to trust in faith that God will heal them.
And the text says he does. And they actually walk in freedom and it connects them to the Lord.
But man, that is a pretty intense act of faith. You just got bit by the snake that killed your third cousin, and your only solution is to go and look to your left. That's it. There's no anything else.
And yet in that faith, God saves and restores Israel.
Because this is exactly why Jesus references this. He says: "Just like that, I'll be lifted up and people will turn to me. They'll look to me and they'll believe God for salvation."
John 3:16
And this is where we get the most famous verse in the Bible. Most of us can quote some version of it. Let's do it together—John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
We all learned it in some translation or another. I learned it in the 1984 NIV, and no matter how many times I read the CSB, it's gonna come out NIV. That's just what it is.
John 3:16. Most of us know this is the gospel.
God loved the world. He loved the world so much that he sent his son into this broken physical world so that sinful humanity could have redemption in him.
Spiritual Death in the Garden
You see, if you go way back to the beginning, when sin entered the world, it killed us spiritually.
Have you ever thought about the story in the garden? God says: "Don't eat of this tree. If you eat of it, you'll die." And they go and they eat of it. Typical child behavior.
And yet you ever thought about this part? They don't die. You ever catch that? I mean, they die later, but like 900 years later. It's way later.
God says, "Don't eat that tree. The day you eat of it, you'll die." Nothing happens.
Well, sort of. Sort of.
The physical world changes. Sin enters into the world. The physical world is cursed. Their body begins shutting down. It begins the process of dying.
But here's the thing I think is more important: Something in their souls died in that moment.
They experienced a very real, a very immediate spiritual death. And you see it in the way humanity changes from that moment on.
There's something in us that is actually dead. Actually dead. There's death in our souls today, beloved, and we don't even know it.
Like Jesus said, we are blind to our spiritual realities. We need rebirth, we need renewal. We need new life in our souls to even see our spiritual selves, much less allow our spirits to walk in health and vitality.
The Love of God
But beloved, here's the amazing thing: God loves you so much that he does that.
Do you hear that?
I fear that with a verse like John 3:16, it is so familiar that we don't stop to consider what we're actually saying.
God loves you so much that he resurrects your dead soul, that he draws you from death to life, that he takes your sin upon himself.
It's not out of some sense of "look how awesome I am." It's not out of some sense of cosmic justice. The bedrock of the gospel movement in reality is the love of God for his creation. For you, beloved, as his creation.
God's love for you moved him to the cross.
Come on, church. That is so familiar to us as church people that we can miss the immensity of what we're saying.
This creation right here—God loves it so much that he sent his very son into this broken and cursed world. And Jesus lived in this broken and sinful This creation right here—God loves it so much that he sent his very son into this broken and cursed world. And Jesus lived in this broken and sinful world so that he could be the snake on the pole. So that when he was lifted up on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, we could look to him in trust and faith and find our healing.
Nicodemus wants to know how someone who's set in their ways, stuck in their sins, spiritually blind, can be born again and enter into God's kingdom.
Beloved, the answer is to believe in Jesus. That is the answer.
It is to trust in his accomplished work on your behalf.
Jesus didn't come here in his perfection to look down his nose at us and our sin and our spiritual blindness. He came here from a stance of generosity, from a stance of love, from a stance of pity and compassion, seeing us helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And he gave himself for us.
It is the love of God that advances the gospel, man.
When You Feel Far From God
How easy is it when you are spiritually lacking, when your spiritual life is dried up, to just assume that God is mad at you?
Does that resonate with anyone in the room? Where you have those weeks where you get busy and you get stressed and you fall back into your sin patterns and you let go of your discipleship or your spiritual disciplines and you're just living in your flesh. And then you have that moment of going, "Man, I don't want to be this person. I don't want to live like this."
And you think about what it looks like to turn back to God and the first core reaction of your gut is: "Man, he's got to be really mad at me right now."
Or maybe it's like, "I'm not mad at you, I'm just disappointed."
Anyone's dad say that to them? Anyone? Just me?
How easy is it to operate from that place of going, "Man, if I'm going to re-engage the Lord in my faith, then I'm going to have to fix some stuff first. I'm going to have to figure out how to pray again. I'm going to have to figure out how to juggle these areas. I'm going to have to find some breakthrough in stopping this sin pattern. I'm going to show God that I take this thing seriously so that when I come back to him, we can be good again."
Anyone?
Guys, I want you to hear this: That's not how it works.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You cannot fix yourself. You can't.
You cannot create your own spiritual renewal. You cannot birth yourself. Only Christ does that. Only Christ ever does that.
You turn to him, beloved. You turn to him in faith, whether it is the first time or the 50,000th time.
The only solution—the only solution—to your rebellion, the only solution to your same old tried-and-true decades-long sin patterns, the only solution to your stress and anxiety and breaking off from your spiritual health and ignoring that—the only solution to all of it is to turn to Christ in faith.
He is the one who renews our dead spirits. He is the one.
Why?
Because you are his beloved.
Because that wasn't just a cool, kitschy thing for him to say 2,000 years ago. Because he actually loves you. He actually cares about you. Like he really, really loves you.
He doesn't love the idea of you. He doesn't love some idealized you that has figured out how to fix all your stuff so that you can show God how awesome you are.
He loves you. You, with all your brokenness, with all your foibles, with all the wrongs done to you and all the wrongs you've committed, with everything about you that you hate.
Christ loves you.
He gave himself that you might be renewed and redeemed.
Turn to Christ
You want to find renewal in spirit? Beloved, you turn to Christ. You turn to Christ. That's how you do it.
He gave himself freely for you. He stepped into the world to grab your dead spirit and renew it and breathe life into it again.
And you need to hear this: That is available to you today, right now, in this moment.
If you're here in this room and you've never trusted Christ before, I would urge you to consider that that is available to you right now. Right now. Like in this room, while I'm preaching.
All you need to do is come to him in confession with faith. You can pray:
"Lord, I am a sinner. I am stuck. I can't fix life on my own. I need you to forgive my sins. I need you to renew my dead heart. Be the Lord of my life. I trust you for this."
You can pray that, you can believe that and confess that, beloved—you are saved. You can do that while we're sitting here in this room.
And if you're here and you've been following Jesus for years, hear this, beloved: You still need to come to the cross in faith. That never changes.
You need him daily. Daily. We need his love, his grace to renew our souls, to guide our lives, to be more like him. Because we can't change our own hearts. But as we pursue him, his Spirit does work in us.
And so if you're in this room today and you're feeling spiritually dry, if you're feeling far from the Lord, beloved, turn to him.
You don't need to fix anything. You don't need to prepare the way. You don't need to make yourself look good. You just need to turn to the cross.
Say: "Lord, in my faithlessness, I blew it again. Lord, I need you. I need you to forgive my sin. I need you to make me like you. I need you to draw me back to you and give me a heart of flesh."
Beloved, look to the cross and find your life.
Because at the end of the day, at the end of this series, your identity is defined fully by whose you are.
You Belong to Christ
You belong to Christ. You're the beloved of Jesus.
And that is not a fleeting feeling. That is not a buzzword. That isn't dependent on your ability or what others think. It is a fact that Jesus proved with the cross.
Yes, you are a body. Yes, you are a soul. But both of them belong to God and are being renewed by him day by day.
Nicodemus was the rock star of his day. If anyone had reason to be secure in who they were in the world, it was him. But the fact is, we cannot find our true self. We can't find our life's meaning in success, in career, in kids, in comfort, in wealth, in whatever you're amazing at.
You can't do it.
You're more than those. Those good things are not enough to bear the weight of giving you a meaningful life.
Just like Nicodemus, we all need more. We need Christ.
And by the way, that's exactly what Scripture and church history tell us happened with Nicodemus. He continued to explore the teachings of Christ in the background. And actually, when Jesus was betrayed, Nicodemus was the one who spoke up for him in the Sanhedrin. When Jesus was killed, Nicodemus was the one who secured his body to make sure he had a burial. And church history tells us that he was active and spoke boldly in the early church.
You Are a Spiritual Creature
We are spiritual creatures, beloved.
Our identity, our sense of self, our fulfillment in this world—it can never be divorced from our spiritual reality, because you are a whole self. You are a whole self. And your whole self needs to be grounded in the gospel of Jesus.
We need our spirits to thrive as much as we need our bodies and minds.
And so here's the thing that can happen: Your soul may be mysterious to you and death. It may be the wind blowing around. But here's what's beautiful: When you're in Christ, he actually resurrects you, and you actually have the ability to begin to engage that part of yourself.
You can actually pursue vitality in your soul.
And because you're an intermingled unity of a creature—body and spirit—when you physically engage in the things of faith, when you commit yourself to a local church, when you connect to community, when you engage in prayer, when you engage in the Scripture, when you engage in discipleship, God uses those things to bring about vitality in your soul because you're a unity, because you're all wound up together.
A Call to Action
And so, beloved, as we land out this series, I want to encourage you to take just a moment in prayer. You can do that in your seats. Just find some space for you to be alone---
Continuing from where we left off...
And so, beloved, as we land out this series, I want to encourage you to take just a moment in prayer. You can do that in your seats. Just find some space for you to be alone with Christ.
And before we step fully into our response time, my encouragement for you is simply this:
I want you to consider yourself—your body, your spirit, the you that was made by God, the you that was brought into this world.
And I want you to imagine what it is God might be calling you to. What is the next thing?
Because here's what I know: If you're spiritually dry, if you're spiritually lacking, if you're spiritually wounded, there is something practical that God is calling you to step into that will bring about vitality in your spirit.
Maybe it's:
Committing to a local church
Getting connected in community
Starting to meet with someone for discipleship
Opening your Bible and reading it daily
Carving out time for prayer
Maybe it's confessing sin that you've been holding onto. Maybe it's forgiving someone who's wounded you. Maybe it's stepping into service.
I don't know what it is for you, but God does.
And so I want to encourage you: Take a moment right now and ask him. Ask him: "Lord, what is the next step for me to pursue vitality in my spirit? What am I being called to?"
And then, beloved, do it. Step into it.
Because your spiritual vitality matters. It matters to God, and it matters to you.
Conclusion: Your Identity Is Secure
Church, we've spent these weeks walking through identity—looking at how God has made us as embodied beings, as thinking beings, and now as spiritual beings. And what we've seen throughout is this beautiful truth:
Your identity is not something you manufacture. It's something you receive.
You are God's beloved creation. You are made in his image—body, mind, and spirit. And he loves you so much that he sent his Son to die for you, to resurrect your dead spirit, to give you new life.
You don't have to perform for that love. You don't have to earn it. You can't.
All you can do is receive it. Turn to Christ. Look to the cross. Believe in him.
And as you do, you will find your true self—not in what you accomplish, not in what others think of you, not in your success or failure—but in whose you are.
You are Christ's beloved. And that changes everything.
Reflection Questions
As you consider this message, take time to reflect on these questions:
Re-read John 3:1-21. What thoughts and questions come to mind as you read?When you hear the word "Spiritual," what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it something peaceful, something mysterious, maybe something that feels other or unrealistic?
In V1-4 we’re reminded that Nicodemus was the rock star of his day (educated, powerful, and respected). Why do you think he still felt the need to seek out Jesus in the middle of the night? Can you think of an example of successes"in your own life have promised fulfillment but left you feeling spiritually hungry?
Pastor Sam mentioned that we often try to fix ourselves before coming to God. Have you ever felt like you had to prove your seriousness to God before you could pray or show up to church or engage your faith? How does John 3:16-17 challenge this idea?
Body, Mind, and Spirit: Now that we’ve looked at all three, which area do you find it easiest to trust God with? Which area (Physical, Mental, or Spiritual) feels the most broken or in need of renewal right now?
How does the phrase "Your identity is defined by whose you are, not what you do" challenge your perspective on your day tomorrow?
What was God telling you in this sermon? What are you going to do about it?
A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Thank you that you love us enough to give yourself for us. Thank you that our identity is not something we have to create or prove, but something we receive as a gift from you.
We confess that we are spiritually needy. We are blind to our own spiritual reality. We are dead in our sins. And we need you.
Would you renew our spirits? Would you resurrect the dead places in our souls? Would you draw us to yourself and give us hearts of flesh?
Help us to turn to you in faith—not trusting in our own effort or goodness, but trusting in your finished work on the cross.
We want to be spiritually alive. We want to thrive as the whole people you created us to be—body, mind, and spirit.
Lead us. Guide us. Renew us.
We pray this in your name,
Amen.
Final Thought
Your spiritual vitality matters. Not because you need to perform for God, but because you were made for more than just physical existence. You were made for communion with your Creator. You were made to be alive—truly alive—in body and in spirit.
And that life is found in Christ alone.
So turn to him today. Look to the cross. Believe in his love for you.
And find your life.
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of a series on Biblical Identity. For more resources on faith, identity, and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
