John chapter 3.
At the end of chapter 2 there is
some dynamic that is happening between Jesus and
a group of people that, how shall we
say, it was not altogether satisfactory to Jesus.
There is a belief that's being placed in
him, but it's a belief that he can't
commit himself to.
I would contend in looking at it that
it was because their faith in him was
based upon signs.
And I would always contend that that is
the weakest faith that we have to offer
to God.
There was a place where Jesus said in
the course of his ministry where, but it
wasn't a favorable thing as it relates to
this, where he said, well at least believe
me for the signs sake.
But he resorts to it.
It wasn't a first choice.
So there's something about this faith that isn't
that appealing to him because he doesn't commit
to it.
But then in chapter 3 he moves on
to a faith that he will commit to
in the description of the account between he,
Jesus, and a man by the name of
Nicodemus.
There's a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews.
Nicodemus was first of all a Pharisee.
We tend to think of them in negative
terms.
They're to be thought of in negative terms
as a group.
But there were good Pharisees, Nicodemus being one
of them, honest, sincere men who had a
deep, deep love for God that were among
the sect of the Pharisees.
Jesus denounced them though as a group and
as a religious system for what they had
turned into as a group of hypocrites, which
we'll get to in a moment for the
reasons why.
The Pharisees, the sect of the Pharisees, had
their birth in what is known as that
period between the Old Testament and the New
Testament during the period of the Maccabees where
God's people in terms of obedience and holiness
had reached such a low, low place that
a group of men among the nation disgusted
with it.
They broke off from the people and they
committed themselves in a fresh way as had
been done in the history of the Jews
to absolute obedience to God's Word, to holiness,
to let's live this life by the power
of God and let's see what it turns
into.
Let's see if these promises are true.
Let's see if he'll do what he said
he'll do as a part of our obedience.
They gave themselves to this.
They're zealots.
Zealots are wonderful.
You never want to ever be among the
body of Christ if the zealots have been
wiped out.
Now you need level-headed people too, I
think in a lesser degree, but the zealots
are important.
We all need one another, don't we?
But the problem of the zealot is this,
and it became the problem of the Pharisee,
and that is in their zeal for God,
they weren't content to simply obey the obvious
meaning of God's commandments.
So they began to interpret those commandments more
strictly or more completely.
They began to speak into the silence or
the gray around those commandments until they began
to add commandments to the commandments and all
of these commandments and moving into the external
of how the person looked and all of
this kind of stuff.
Then they added out of their zeal so
many things to the commandments of God that
came out of their own reasoning or their
own zeal or their own tradition that ultimately
they developed a system of commandments that no
one could keep, not even them.
That's what zealots will always do.
And what that does to a person or
to a church that is made up wholly
of this kind of person is that they
realize that no one can keep that, not
in public and in private.
So all of the effort goes into keeping
it in public, but they know they don't
keep it in private because it's impossible for
any person to keep.
And so what do they resort to?
They resort to acting hypocrisy.
And that's why Jesus comes to the Pharisees
and he denounces them for their hypocrisy.
These burdens that they were laying on with
the scribes upon the people that they knew
in the privacy of their own life, they
weren't even trying to keep anymore, but they
kept putting them on the people.
And so this was what the Pharisees had
become by the time of Jesus' day comes
around.
But he's a religious man and he is
a man who is very, very serious about
religion.
All of that can be understood through his
involvement of the sect of the Pharisees.
He's also described as a ruler of the
Jews, which probably makes him a member of
the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin was a 70 man kind of
board or council that ruled over the Jews,
not politically because Rome had that position, but
spiritually, they were the 70 most powerful men
in all of Israel over the Jews, the
most influential in all of the world for
Jews.
He was one of that 70 and so
extraordinarily powerful man, extraordinary influential man.
And we know from later on in John's
gospel, in John chapter 19, that he must
have been a very rich man because when
Jesus was being buried, Nicodemus comes to help
in the burial and he brings a hundred
pounds worth of spices with which to bury
Jesus.
Those things were very, very expensive.
So he brings these things.
And you notice additionally in verse 10, that
when Jesus speaks to him, he calls him
the teacher in Israel.
He was evidently like the guy selling the
most tapes in those days.
He was the teacher.
He was the rabbi.
He was the prominent instructor of that time.
Something happens to him that brings him to
Jesus.
Something that Jesus does because he comes and
he's going to say, you know, rabbi, I
know, you know, your teacher comes from God.
Nobody can do these signs that you do
unless God is willing.
But something about how Jesus handled himself, it
would seem as the whole progression goes on
and the cleansing of the temple of those
men and women selling, of those men selling,
sorry ladies, of those men selling all of
those animals for profit and the money changes.
And it appears that when he sees Jesus
do this, it hits him like a ton
of bricks.
And he's willing to risk everything, his wealth,
his position, his influence, his reputation to come
to a carpenter.
You have to understand here is a man
of astonishing stature who is coming to a
rabbi who in the eyes of all of
his peers is just a carpenter.
Something's happened to this man that he comes
to Jesus.
And I think that when he saw Jesus
cleanse that temple, that he was confronted with
a holiness that was beyond what he had
ever known or had ever seen as a
Pharisee.
And when he either watched it with his
own eyes or the report was brought to
him of what Jesus had done, it rang
true in his heart that that is what
a holy man would have done in that
situation.
He's given his whole life to holiness.
He's given his whole life to religion.
He has excelled in it.
And when he sees Jesus, he realizes that
he has been playing in the shadows.
He's been in the kiddie pool as it
relates to religion, as it relates to God,
as it relates to holiness.
He's been majoring in the minors.
You ever had that happen where you and
your Christian walk, you're going along and you're
excelling in the little circle that you're involved
in or the little church or the little
town or whatever it might be.
And one day God brings across your path
a man or a woman who is so
spiritual and so holy and so like Christ
that you look at that and you realize,
I've been a big fish in a small
pond.
With all of a sudden, my definition of
what a holy life looks like, what a
godly life looks like, what godly zeal looks
like, all of a sudden is being redefined
in my mind and in my heart so
fast I can barely keep up with it.
And he sees that, and it's to his
credit that he sees that in the Lord
Jesus.
And a light goes on and he asks
himself and he thinks to himself, here I
am.
I think that I am holy.
I think that I am among the holiest
in all of Israel.
And how in the world could I have
ever put up with all these years and
even endorsed it, what they were doing on
that temple mount.
And he's ashamed of how low the standard
was for him.
And when he sees true holiness and the
reality in Jesus, he's attracted to it.
He's willing to risk everything to come and
to learn about the source of that kind
of life.
He doesn't view Jesus as the Son of
God or any of those things yet, but
he knows that whatever Jesus is tapped into,
it's infinitely superior to what he's ever been
tapped into as a Pharisee.
And so he comes.
This man came to Jesus by night.
I have a classic Nick at Night right
here in the Bible.
Now listen, there's nothing new under the sun.
I only get to do that every time
we hit John, so forgive me if you've
been here long enough and you've heard it
three times.
I still like it.
He comes at night.
We don't really know why he comes at
night.
I mean, it could be secretly he's concerned
about his position or something like that.
I'm inclined to believe that he came at
night because that's when he figured he could
get some alone time with Jesus.
I mean, the crowds are there, all of
the things that are happening and all, and
you look.
And if you've ever tried to talk with
a busy person, you're going to come and
you're going to try and talk about the
most important thing in your life.
And what you figure is how can I
get this person alone for five minutes so
I can have their undistracted attention so maybe
he comes at night because now it can
just be him and Jesus to talk about
the things that are the most important to
him.
And notice his confession concerning Jesus.
He said to him, Rabbi, we know.
Now notice that word we.
We know that you are a teacher come
from God.
So his first confession is that Jesus is
a teacher.
He confesses secondly, we know that you're come
from God.
For we know that no one can do
these signs that you do unless God is
with them.
So he confesses three things.
You're a teacher, you're come from God, and
God is with you.
Now Jesus says much more than those three
things, but this is what he understands Jesus
to be up to this point.
And he's not alone.
He says, we know these things about you.
What are his circles?
The religious leaders came to conclusions, doubtless accurate
conclusions concerning Jesus very early in his ministry.
And sometimes we see the strength of Jesus's
denunciation of them in the scriptures.
He knew more than Nicodemus knew what they
knew about him, but they were willing to
oppose him knowing these things about him.
I'm not just the only one Nicodemus is
saying that knows these things about you.
We know these things about you.
Until Jesus came, there had been a 400
year silence of God speaking to the nation
at all, much less these kinds of miracles
and signs and wonders and all of these
great things that were going on.
Things had been dead for a long time.
So they knew that God was in this.
Well, that's his confession that he makes concerning
him.
And Jesus answered this thing.
It wasn't a question that was asked, but
this was the confession.
Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus, most assuredly,
I say to you, unless one is born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
And you read that.
And, you know, as you read through the
thing, you just go, listen, are these two
people, have they got a bad connection or
what's happening here?
They engaged in the same conversation.
Here's Nicodemus.
He's talking about one thing here.
And Jesus seems to completely disregard what it
is that he's saying.
And he moves into the necessity of the
spiritual birth as the theme.
Now, Jesus apparently knows about Nicodemus, that what
Nicodemus is attracted to in Jesus is the
relationship that he has with the father, the
closeness that he has with the father.
And so Jesus isn't going to banter around
about his identity at this point and, and
clarify these kinds of things.
He's going to bring him to the place
where if this man becomes born again, these
other things are going to fall in place.
So he speaks to him about the necessity
of being born again.
Now in John chapter four, when he meets
the woman at the well, you know, one
of the great things to learn about Jesus
is his whole ministry of evangelism.
And he meets the woman at the well,
and he kind of, you know, breaks the
ice, so to speak, by asking for some
water.
And he talks about water and, you know,
and I'll give you a water that, you
know, is living water, springs up inside of
you, you don't have to come down, you
drink this water, you'll thirst again.
He finds some common ground, begins to work
with her on that.
Here, he cuts straight to the chase.
I don't know if you do the same
thing.
When a religious person comes to my doorstep,
or I meet them on the street, I
cut to the chase.
I am able to assume that they have
a body of knowledge, that we can track
with one another, we can jump all of
this, let's get down to what it's really
all about, and they can follow you.
Nicodemus is going to be able to follow
him a little bit, though he does go
through some mental contortions in just a moment.
And so Jesus, again, verse three, said, most
assuredly, verily, verily, in the old King James,
which means, listen, believe everything I say, but
really pay attention to this.
I say to you, unless one, anyone that
is Jew and Gentile, like everyone needs this
to happen, is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of heaven.
You notice that term born again, where it
came from?
It came from Jerry Falwell, didn't it?
Jerry's coming into town this week, God bless
him, it should be great.
I'm serious, I am.
There is nobody, when I am watching one
of those TV shows, they got somebody coming
on for the Christian perspective, I am thrilled
when I see Jerry Falwell on there.
He really stays with the word and he
knows how to hold his own on these
things.
Where was I?
But it's not the definition of some man,
somebody come up with born again.
Jesus is the one that used the term.
A lot of people today, and I think
certainly in liberal circles, and people have somehow,
within Christianity, and it's carried out into the
world, that somehow there is this perception that
the born again Christian is some extraordinarily dangerous
kind of Christian.
He is a fanatical kind of Christian.
So you have these polls that and Gallup
does, and how many Americans call themselves Christians,
and it's some astronomical number, and then how
many of them consider themselves to be born
again Christians, and the number is typically a
third of the former number.
Excuse me, there is no other Christian but
a born again Christian.
You cannot be a Christian except that you're
born again.
There is no other variety, and that's what
Jesus is saying here.
Unless you are born again, you cannot see
the kingdom of God, much less be a
part of it.
All Christians are born again Christians.
Now what in the world does that mean?
Well, I'm going to get ahead of myself
here a little bit on all this, but
none of this is new for you.
It means each of us has been born
physically.
I mean, here we are in this room
tonight.
There's evidence that a physical birth has occurred
in our lives, but the physical birth isn't
enough to enter into the kingdom of God.
I've got to be born again.
There is the necessity in Jesus's mind of
another birth.
We're going to see in a moment that
it is a reference to a spiritual birth.
One of the greatest things I've ever seen,
and I'm going to bore you that have
been here for a while a little bit,
is that three-finger illustration where you have
man created in the image of God.
How were we created in the image of
God?
God's about 6'3", 200 pounds.
Well, that's how we're created in the image
of God.
We're created in the image of God in
that God is a trinity or triunity of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We've been created in the image of God
and that in the original creation with Adam
and Eve, we were created in inferior trinity
of spirit, uppermost, soul, that is the intellect
and the emotion, and body.
God had chosen to have relationship with man
in the realm of the spirit.
In an original creation, in Adam and Eve,
the soul and the flesh, the body, were
in subjection to the spirit.
God said to Adam and Eve, listen, of
all of the trees in the garden you
may freely eat, but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil don't eat
that because in the day that you eat
of it, you'll surely die.
The very next scene in the Bible, we
don't know how much time has elapsed, but
if they're anything like you and I, it
wasn't very long.
Of course, we were born fallen.
But the very next scene in the Bible,
there they are, and they partake of the
forbidden fruit, and on that day they died.
They did not die physically.
Again, our presence in this room is a
testimony to that fact.
How did they die?
They died spiritually, and it's worse than that
because then their whole world was turned upside
down, and now man, as he's born into
the world, is born not only spiritually dead,
but he's born addicted, so to speak, to
the fleshly appetites.
His body appetites are what drives him, and
the intellect and the emotions are subservient to
the flesh, and there is only one solution
to the catastrophe of this condition, and that
is a spiritual birth because that's the only
thing that allows me to return to the
very thing that I've been created for, and
that is personal relationship with God, so the
necessity of a spiritual birth.
And so that's what he's talking about here.
Now, Nicodemus is a bit confused in verse
4, and he said to Jesus, how can
a man be born when he's old?
Can he enter a second time into his
mother's womb and be born?
Can you imagine the mental images?
In his mind, he thinks Jesus is talking
about, you've got to be born again, so
it requires a second spiritual birth, but he
just thinks, here he is, the teacher in
Israel, and he is, it's just, I'm just
not getting this, Jesus.
Is that how it happens?
And Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to
you, unless one is born of water and
of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom
of God.
So he gets a little more revelation concerning
this birth, that it's a spiritual birth, and
in order to enter into the kingdom of
God, to have a personal relationship with God,
one must follow the physical birth, the water
birth, with a spiritual birth.
Now there in verse 5, where it talks
about being born of water, some people say,
that's a reference to the word of God,
or it's a reference to this or that.
To me, it's clearly a reference to the
physical birth.
I must experience a physical birth and a
spiritual one, because then in verse 6, he
starts to talk about that which is born
of the flesh is flesh.
He's talking about these things.
And water is really, it's synonymous with physical
birth, isn't it?
What do you do when your wife is
pregnant?
The due date is close.
What are you waiting for?
You're waiting for a water to break.
So when the water breaks, the amniotic fluid
comes forth, that means now this baby is
on its way.
So it's a symbol of physical birth.
So he says, unless one is born of
physical birth and the spirit, a spiritual birth,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
So the spiritual birth is the Holy Spirit
coming into a human life, and him coming
into our life, he brings with him the
capacity for relationship with God.
That which, verse 6, is born of the
flesh is flesh, that which is born of
the spirit is spirit.
This birth, the spiritual birth, can't come out
of the flesh.
It doesn't come out of the flesh, it
can only come out of the Holy Spirit.
And then Jesus said, do not marvel that
I said to you, you must be born
again.
Now you notice that word must, you must
be born again.
This is not optional equipment for getting to
heaven.
He didn't say, now listen, I've got a
deal for you, you can be born again.
A lot of times it's presented that way.
That's fine.
I mean, maybe it appeals to the loftier
side of some people, but it's a little
more serious than just something that I can
do so I have fulfillment in life.
It's something that I must do.
In order to inherit the kingdom of God.
Do not marvel that I said to you,
you must be born again.
And so here is Jesus speaking up to
this point, and the whole theme is the
necessity of a spiritual birth.
I trust that no one in this room,
or in the overflow room, for the rest
of their Christian life will ever doubt the
necessity of a spiritual birth to be born
again.
And then Jesus moves in verse eight, and
he does something interesting, because then he addresses
the mystery of the spiritual birth.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you
hear the sound of it, but you can't
tell where it comes from and where it
goes, and so is everyone who is born
of the Spirit.
And so the wind blows, and when the
wind blows, you don't know, you know, where's
the wind factory.
And so it comes and it blows, and
where it comes from, and why it does
all of the things that it does, it's
a mysterious element associated with it.
So is the spiritual birth.
Now one of the interesting things about hearing
the wind, you hear the wind when the
wind is blowing through something.
And it's altogether likely that as Jesus is
talking with Nicodemus about the necessity of the
spiritual birth, that the wind blows through some
trees that they're standing near, and all of
a sudden Jesus, who can take anything out
of creation and use it to testify concerning
himself, speaks of the wind as an example
of the spiritual birth.
There's mystery about it.
When you're born again, where does the Spirit
come from?
You ever seen the Spirit enter into a
person when they're born again?
I haven't.
If you have, don't blurt out, I'll talk
to you later.
I have other questions for you, theological questions,
not UFO questions or things like that, whatever
else you might be into.
We're glad you're here though.
This is a safe place.
Better than late night talk radio, which really
isn't good for you.
All right.
But we don't see the Spirit of God
come into a person.
When I was born again, I didn't see
him come into me, but I know he
came into me.
In the same way that I know that
the wind is real because it's blowing through
a tree, the effect that it has upon
a tree.
How do I know that the wind is
real?
Because the effect upon a tree.
How do I know that the spiritual birth
is real?
Because the effect upon a person, the change
that occurs.
Isn't it amazing the people that God changes?
Just look around.
I'll give you a minute here.
You know the testimonies that are in this
room?
Third service, I embarrassed my friend from Calvary
Chapel, who's the pastor there.
You look at him and you just say,
look at the little grandpa.
Before he came to know the Lord, oh
boy, outlaw, biker, tough, I mean just one
mean guy.
The Lord saves him and now he's a
pastor of a thriving church in Nevada.
And so it is.
You can go up and down all the
aisles and it changes.
What has happened?
What we once were and what we've become
now.
The Lord isn't asking for anyone to believe.
Well, I'll get to that in just a
moment.
So the beautiful effect, it's a mysterious thing
that happens, but we see the effect of
it.
And Nicodemus answered and said then, how can
these things be?
And the whole key now to the rest
of Jesus' discussion with him is that single
word, how?
He knows what it is, what it is
to some degree.
And now as he's listening to Jesus speak
about it, the next big question that arises
in his mind is how can these things
be?
How can this happen in my life?
How can this happen in a person's life?
And Jesus answered and said to him, are
you the teacher in Israel and you don't
know these things?
Now you look at this and think that
Jesus is like, all right, Buster, are you
the big teacher?
There's a bit more to it than that.
Because in the book of Ezekiel, I believe
it's chapter 36, God spoke of the day
that when, of the day that he would
put a new heart by his Holy Spirit
in his people.
Speaking mystically in the Old Testament of what
Jesus is talking about clearly here, and that
is a spiritual birth.
So Jesus is saying in effect, listen, you're
the great student of the scriptures and did
you miss in the Old Testament what was
declared there concerning these things?
Most assuredly I say to you, we speak
what we know and we testify what we
have seen and you do not believe our
witness.
Jesus said, I have come and I represent
the Father and I have come and I
am not bringing you simply a report as
a mere prophet or as a mere teacher
that God speaks to from heaven, speaks it
to me and then I deliver it to
you.
I have come from heaven.
I speak of things I've seen.
I speak of things I've heard.
That's where I'm coming from in all of
this teaching and yet you don't receive our
witness.
Jesus has been speaking to these people for
some time now and they were rejecting his
witness.
He said, if I have told you earthly
things and you don't believe, how will you
believe if I tell you heavenly things?
If you aren't going to, if you can't
handle addition, how am I going to take
you into multiplication, Academus?
Well, you know, sometimes to become teachable as
a religious leader, you got to get knocked
off your high horse a little bit and
all, and that's what Jesus is doing.
He's humbling him.
Jesus said, no one has ascended to heaven,
but he who came down from heaven, that
is the son of man who is in
heaven.
So Jesus declared, I am uniquely qualified to
speak on these things.
And there's Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness.
Even so, must the son of man be
lifted up that whoever believes in him should
not perish, but have eternal or everlasting life.
Now, Jesus illustrates for Nicodemus a passage from
the old testament to illustrate the spiritual birth.
And it's from Numbers chapter 21, where the
children of Israel were wandering through their wilderness
experience and all, and they were a pretty
crabby group.
In fact, they're just whiners and complainers.
And they reached this particular point in their
journey.
And all of a sudden they hate God
again, and they hate Moses again.
And why have you brought us out here
to die?
And we hate this manna that we're having
to eat, and we can't believe that you
force us to eat it.
And we don't have any water out here.
And they head into the whole thing again.
And the Lord sends some snakes into the
midst of the camp, and the snakes begin
to bite the people and they begin to
die.
And then the people true to form, these
people are not foreign to us.
All of a sudden they cry, uncle, uncle.
Then they realize, all right, this is happening.
It's God's judgment on us because of our
whining and everything.
And so they come to Moses and they
say, we've complained against God and we've sinned
against you and everything.
And so, you know, pray to the Lord
that he'll stop these snakes from biting us.
And the Lord came to Moses and he
spoke to Moses and he said, what I
want you to do is take a fiery
serpent.
I want you to set it on a
pole and it shall be that everyone who
is bitten, when he looks at that fiery
serpent on the pole, he shall live.
And so Moses made a fiery serpent.
He made it out of bronze and bronze
is a symbol of judgment.
It's a medal of judgment and the Bible.
And he put it out there in the
middle of the camp on a pole.
And so it was, if a serpent had
bitten anyone, that when he looked at the
pole with a bronze serpent on it, he
lived.
The idea is that he looked in and
he looked in faith.
It's very, very simple, isn't it?
Now, the interesting thing about that whole thing
in Numbers chapter 21 is that that event
sat for 1,500 years in the Old
Testament scriptures.
And for 1,500 years, not one rabbi
had an explanation for it.
I mean, unless they were fanciful and making
up whatever they wanted.
That event occurred in the Old Testament so
that Jesus would have an example in this
conversation with Nicodemus to give insight to that
event and use that event to give insight
to the spiritual birth.
And all that a person had to do
when he was bitten by the snake was
to understand that this pole in the middle
of the camp with the bronze serpent that
was on the top, that this was the
salvation that pleased God.
It is the salvation that he has chosen,
the means by which he has chosen to
save man from that bite of the snake.
For us, it's the bite of sin.
And knowing that that was God's chosen way
of salvation, if they look to it in
faith, they wouldn't die.
Very simple.
Look and live.
The English language, both letters begin with L.
Look and live.
Now, when I was a brand new Christian,
there was a guy pastoring up in Sacramento
by the name of Lewis Neely.
He's still there.
And hard to believe this was about 20
some years ago, but they always had these
concerts up there in Sacramento.
And so I went up there and I
saw Leon Patello and their own band and
all these different things that they were doing
when I could head up there.
I remember Lewis Neely, and he's much older
now.
He's about my age when he did all
this.
So you'll tell stories about me someday, perhaps.
But Lewis Neely is an evangelist.
He's a wonderful evangelist.
And he talked about some place in some
building he was in where they had this
automated drinking fountain.
All you had to do was just stoop
down to the water and come on and
drink.
But it was a time when all that
stuff was brand new.
So it was like people didn't trust that.
A little new age, wouldn't you say?
You know, that kind of thing and everything.
The trilaterals were probably involved in the whole
thing and everything.
So they looked at the deal and I
mean, so finally they put a sign on
the drinking fountain and it said, stoop and
drink.
And so you could go up and you
look at the sign and everything and the
interesting thing about it is you didn't have
to understand why it worked.
You just had to obey the command.
You didn't have to track the water from
the ice melt all the way through, you
know, the reservoir systems and into the rivers
and all of that and how the water
got from there to here so that you
could stoop or drink.
You didn't need to understand everything about it
to get a drink of water.
All you had to do was just obey
the sign, walk up, stoop, and you hit
the little laser thing and there came the
water and you could drink.
And that's as simple as could be in
terms of salvation.
And that's what he did in the Old
Testament, just look and live.
One of the greatest hindrances as it relates
to, and he takes all of this and
he says, even as Moses lifted up verse
14, the serpent in the wilderness, and then
he takes it and he applies it as
a type to himself, even so must the
son of man be lifted up that whoever
believes, this is our look and live, believes
in Jesus, looks to the cross and believes
in him, trusts in him for salvation, should
not perish, but have everlasting life.
It's that simple.
And so often a person is stumbled because
they don't understand why it works or how
it works.
You don't have to understand it for it
to work.
Sufficient that this is the way that the
father has chosen for the forgiveness of our
sins and the salvation of mankind by simply
looking to Jesus in faith, believing upon his
death upon the cross for the forgiveness of
my sins, and then repenting and turning to
God, giving my life to the Lord for
him to use my life now as he
sees fit and all.
And as I believe in that, trust in
that for the forgiveness of my sins, Jesus
upon the cross, believing that he died and
he was buried and rose again on the
third day, then the spiritual birth occurs.
I have everlasting life.
As sure as those people that took, and
here they are crumbling down, you know, onto
the ground and everything, and they looked and
they were made well, as sure as that
happened, so too when we look to the
cross in faith that a spiritual birth occurs
within our lives.
You can just see one of the classic
things I've ever heard concerning that scene in
Numbers is in the picture that's painted is
so fabulous of all these people, they're dying,
they've been bitten by the snakes, and there
they are in this terrible condition that they're
in and everything.
And someone comes and says, listen, all you've
got to do is just look at the
bronze serpent and live.
And then these people are going to say,
well, what difference can that make?
I mean, you know, you go look at
the bronze serpent for me and see if
that does it.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense in
some respects to us because of the finiteness
of our mind that that could make any
difference.
But it was all the difference between life
and death.
Why?
Again, because it's the way that God has
chosen to save us.
And he doesn't have to fully explain himself,
sufficient to know that that's the salvation that
pleases him.
And it's the only salvation that pleases him.
And so Jesus speaks of this passage, ascribing
it to himself.
And again, in verse 15, there's that, and
whoever believes, there's that word of John all
the way through the gospel, believes, believes, and
trusts in him should not perish, but have
eternal life.
For God so loved, and here's perhaps the
most famous verse in all of the Bible,
the gospel all included it, for God, this
is the origin of man's salvation.
It has its origin in God.
For God so loved the world.
This is his motivation in saving us.
He not only loved us, but he so
loved us.
And what is the degree of his love?
What is the revelation of his love?
He so loved us that he gave his
only begotten son.
Paul would write to the Romans and he
would say, God demonstrated his love toward us
and that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for the ungodly.
That's the awesome thing.
That's the degree of his love.
How do I know that the Lord loves
me tonight?
He only loves people that have $1,500
or more in their bank account.
That's the supreme test for the love of
God.
No, we know by the cross of Calvary
and the sacrifice that he was willing to
make, not only to forgive us, but that
on the other side of that forgiveness, we
entered into a personal relationship with him.
And so God so loved the world, his
motivation that he gave salvation as a free
gift.
He gave his only begotten son, his only
unique son, that whoever Jew or Gentile, this
is how salvation is open to whoever, that
whoever believes in him, that is trusts in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life
that comes by trusting.
Now this trusting in Jesus for salvation is
more than just having an intellectual knowledge that
that's the way of salvation.
The demons believe the existence of God.
The demons believe that Jesus is the son
of God.
They spoke it continually, yet there won't be
a demon in heaven.
And so it's more than just an intellectual
ascent to the truth of this.
It's more than just an emotional thing.
A person can cry all the way through
a service like this and leave here unsaved.
What's happening here and all of this is
as the Lord is speaking and we round
it out with other parts of the scripture,
there is that necessity to understand and accept
to believe fully in who died on that
cross.
That Jesus was the son of God and
God the son and is.
That's who died on the cross for me.
This is one of the things that I
talk with the Jehovah Witnesses continually about.
It isn't enough for them to believe.
I must believe the right things about the
one on the cross.
Because Jesus is later going to say in
John's gospel when he speaks with the religious
leaders, he says, unless you believe that I
am, you'll die in your sins.
So there is not only believing in him,
but believing in him for who he truly
was that died on the cross for my
sins.
And then to accept what the Bible's assessment
is of me, and that is that I
am a sinner in need of salvation.
And then a willingness to repent, to turn
from my own sinful, rebellious ways in direction,
to turn from going in that direction, to
then turn and going in God's direction.
And then the yielding of my will to
God.
God, my life is no longer my own.
It's yours.
You use it however you want.
It's your property.
I've wasted it.
I've ruined it.
I would only further ruin it under my
lordship.
It's yours.
So these are the hard attitudes.
And it's believing in Jesus, trusting him for
salvation.
But you know, when a person comes to
that point, there's an eagerness for that to
happen.
Then Jesus said, for God did not send
his son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might
be saved.
And he who believes in Jesus is not
condemned, but he who does not believe, and
here's the believe, the believe over and over
again, but he who does not believe is
condemned already.
And that's the key word already.
I remember one time I was teaching in
the early years of this fellowship over at
Sherwood Bible Church.
And there was a guy that used to
come to the church and he was a
bad guy, but he came, you know, and
I mean, that's fine.
We're glad to have him there.
But I remember one time I was teaching
related to this passage and I spoke about
the fact that God did not come into
the world to condemn the world.
And he used to sit there like this,
you know, and everything.
And all of a sudden he just starts,
you know, affirming what I'm saying and the
whole deal.
That's right.
He didn't come into the world to condemn
the world.
You know, that's right.
That's right.
You didn't come into the world to condemn
the world.
And then I went on and I explained
in the very next verse, the reason that
Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn
the world is because the world didn't need
condemnation.
It's already condemned.
There are no more shaking going on there
at that particular point with his head.
So, you know, everybody likes this kind of,
you know, soft kind of Pillsbury boy, the
teeth out of it, anything that could, you
know, and all of that.
But the reason that Jesus didn't condemn is
the fact of the matter is every one
of us born into this world.
We're condemned.
We're already condemned.
The world is condemned.
People look at the Christians and say, you
Christians, all you do is condemn.
You condemn homosexuality.
You condemn abortion.
You know, you condemn this thing and you
condemn that thing and you condemn sin and
all of this kind of stuff.
All you do is condemn.
We don't condemn.
It's already condemned.
All we're doing is telling people that it's
already condemned.
It is set aside for judgment.
Get out while you can.
So Jesus speaks here of the fact that
the person that doesn't believe, in other words,
they stay in the condition that they've been
born into this world in, then they stay
in a condemned condition.
And the Lord doesn't want anyone to stay
in that condition.
He's not willing that any should perish, but
that all would come to repentance because he
has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
Now, the condemnation there in that second half
of verse 18 will only be another hour.
Just relax.
But the condemnation there that's spoken of in
that section, that last part, the condemned already,
the condemned already is, notice that word, because
he's lived a terribly sinful life.
No, no one will end up condemned over
that.
The condemnation is because he has not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son
of God.
If any person lives through this life, there's
only one sin for which there is no
forgiveness.
And that is a lifelong rejection of the
salvation that is found in Jesus Christ and
the ministry of the Holy Spirit to bring
me to him in the course of my
life.
And so when a person stands before the
great white throne judgment, as it's described there
in the revelation, there's no mention of videos
being shown like these dumb TV shows where
they're watching and they go, all right, we
need to have justification for condemning you to
hell or this kind of thing and roll
it.
You'd have to be out of the time
-space continuum to get through all of that
as it relates to mankind.
The condemnation on that scene is because they
cannot find that person's name in the book
of life.
That's the one sin, a lifelong rejection of
Jesus.
That is the condemnation because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light has
come into the world.
Who is the light?
Jesus from John chapter one.
When we saw that has come into the
world and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil and everyone practicing
evil hates the light and does not come
to the light lest his deeds should be
exposed.
Why do people reject the light?
Because they love darkness.
They want to do their own thing even
if their own thing is open rebellion against
God.
And the open rebellion doesn't necessarily have to
be sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
I can live over in the college district.
I can be on every board and council
doing good community things in the city of
Modesto.
And if I reject the person of Jesus
Christ, it is because of my own pride.
I want to maintain my life under my
own control.
I like the life that I've chosen for
myself and I don't want anything to do
with God.
And rebellion is darkness whether it's considered dark
by society's standard or not.
All rebellion is darkness.
So the condemnation, people reject Jesus not for
all of these reasons that are given.
They reject it because they do not want
a relationship with God and they do not
want God controlling their life and they don't
want God controlling their life because they like
the darkness and they know he'll bring them
into the light.
Now some people are in darkness yet because
they haven't heard the gospel.
That's what we're still here for.
How long I don't know given the news,
the recent weeks and what's happening in the
Middle East and all of these kinds of
things that are happening.
But there's some people that haven't received, they
haven't heard the message yet and that's what
we're here for.
But the person that's heard and rejected it,
they don't want to come to the light
because their dark deeds will be exposed.
That's how heaven sees it.
That's the way it's going to be one
time, one day, standing before the Lord.
All of these big things and all of
these excuses and all this kind of stuff
and everything and one day it's going to
be exposed.
No, you didn't come because you like darkness.
And people that like darkness, they don't like
to go into the light because light shines
on the darkness.
But not everyone is in that condition.
Notice in verse 21, but he who does
the truth comes to the light that his
deeds may be clearly seen that they have
been done in God.
So many reject, but many come.
Tired of their old life, tired of their
old ways, all of this kind of stuff
and they reach that point in their life
where they say, okay I'm done with this.
And like Nicodemus, they come to Jesus.
Attracted by his life or whatever it might
be, and they come.
But they come because they love the light.
Nicodemus loved the light he saw in Jesus.
And the light exposed the darkness in his
own life, but he wasn't going to protect
the darkness because he loved the light more
than the darkness now.
And the epilogue concerning his life as we
find him at the scene of Jesus's crucifixion
afterward, now a believer, handling Jesus's body in
preparation for burial.
So a beautiful ending to this story in
this account between Nicodemus and Jesus.