Nick at Night
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus in John 3, exploring what it means to be born again. He shows how religious works and external compliance cannot produce the spiritual transformation that God requires for entering His kingdom. Shrader emphasizes that salvation comes through belief in Christ, not through religious performance.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 43 min
Themes: salvation, belief, transformation, grace, faith, rebirth, eternal life, works, new believer, questioning faith, religious background, seeking truth, doubting salvation, pastor, teacher, struggling with works
Scripture: John 3:1-18, John 20:30-31, John 2:13-22, James 1:19, Matthew 23
Theological Themes: regeneration, born again, soteriology, salvation, justification by faith, spiritual birth, eternal security, religious legalism
Full Transcript
Where today, in week 2, if you have Bibles with you, you can open them to John 3. We are studying the Gospel of John. We said last week it is an overview.
I don't know if you write in your Bible. My assumption is you do. If you write in this book, here's what I would suggest. At the beginning of the Gospel of John, there will be some sort of space. Like in my Bible, at the beginning, it says the Gospel according to John and it will say John. Somewhere near that, you should write 20:30 and 31. You should write that in there so that when you turn to that at the beginning of the Gospel of John, it will remind you that at the end of the book, John told you why he wrote this. Today, we really see this purpose fleshed out.
John's Purpose in Writing
Remember what we read last week? John 20:30. "Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of His disciples are not written in this book. But these have been written so that..." Here's His whole purpose in writing. "These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ." I said, here's why I'm writing this book. It's singular in its purpose. There may be some other ancillary things that are accomplished, but the focus of it is this. I'm writing this book so you would be convinced—and we understand that's the work of the Holy Spirit, so cut me slack on language here—that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ and as a result of that, that in believing, you would have life in His name.
Today, you're going to see those two words over and over again. The idea of believe and life or eternal life or everlasting life. In this Gospel, the Gospel of John, over 50 times, John uses the word or words that would be eternal life, life eternal, everlasting life. We'll see today—and my counting could be off a bit, but hopefully I'll be close—just from verses 12 through 18, you'll see the word believe five times.
That's what this book is about. That's why many of you, when you first meet somebody who's thinking about the faith or you want to talk to them about maybe some elementary, fundamental things, you'd say go to the Gospel of John. You might not even know why you said that. Well, you said it because that's the very construct and purpose that John has in writing. Unique among the four Gospels. No parables included here. I'm a little bit uncomfortable saying it, but it's probably defensible. It's the most theological of the four Gospels written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, John. There's an intimacy to it as well. But John says, I'm writing these things to you that you might believe.
What Does It Mean to Believe?
We probably need to spend a bit of time on this idea of believe. In James 2:19, James says, "You believe that God is one. You do well. Demons also believe and shudder." Larry used to always say that demons also believe and it scares them. Then he'd say, well, that's a really loose translation. But here's what we're seeing as we work through the Gospel of John. There will be times when Jesus will confront demons and their theology is rock solid. They'll say, "You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the One." They're absolutely right, and they believe it.
This belief is not just mental assent. I don't know how I would test this, but I'm not sure I know a person who doesn't believe that Jesus lived. My assumption is I could go to Wikipedia and there would be some kind of bio on Him. Everybody knows that He lived. I would think almost everybody would agree that He died on a cross. I mean, that's almost historical, it seems to me. I would say that's just about on par with the fact that Nero existed. It's a historical fact.
What the Bible tells us is not that that happened, though it does, but it tells us why it happened. He died on the cross so that we might find forgiveness for our sins. We might find eternal life. That becomes really the focus today of this discussion with a guy by the name of Nicodemus. Again, important to understand, the belief is not just mental assent. It's not just, yes, I accept the facts. It's a belief where encompassed in this are words like faith, trust, repentance that are all part of this belief.
John, when he writes this Gospel, has a deliberate purpose. It's that you would believe who Jesus is. The result of that, you have eternal life.
Context from John 2
Before we get to John 3, just a little bit of context. In John 2:13, Jesus at the Passover has gone up to Jerusalem. Verse 14, "He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers were seated at the temple." He makes this scourge of cords, and He drives them out, and He's turning over tables, and He says, "Take these things away, stop making My Father's house a place of business."
Probably one point would be just get a sense of what's going on there. There's a whole lot of activity that would be despicable to you all. First of all, the money changers. Here's what they're doing. You're bringing in your currency, and they're going, "That's not any good in here. We use temple money. So we're going to trade this out for you." Oh yeah, and there's a fee. They're pulling fees out of that.
You're bringing in your sacrifice, a dove, sheep, whatever it is you're going to sacrifice. They got, "Okay, that has to be approved by the temple guys. Uh-oh, there's a flaw." Now, we just happen to have a sheep right here. I know out there, the market value of a sheep is $5. But your sheep is a $5 sheep, it had a flaw. We got an approved sheep, it's a $20 sheep. That's what's going on. Jesus is in there, and He's going, "This isn't good. You're turning this thing all upside down."
Then they respond, and they said, "What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things?" Verse 19, Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I'll raise it up." And they said, "Wait a minute, it took us 46 years to
build it. You'll do it in three days?" But He's speaking of His body. Look at verse 22: "So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture and the Word which Jesus had spoken."
We look at life, all that goes in it, but the power is in the Word of God. The power is in the Scripture. I come back to it. We don't worship the Scripture. We don't worship the Word of God. We worship the God of the Word. It points us to Him. But God uses Scripture in your life. How many times, for at least many of you that have been around, you'll find yourself in a situation and all of a sudden you go, "There is a Bible verse. Oh yeah." And God uses those verses and provides comfort or direction, insight, whatever it might be.
Nicodemus Comes to Jesus
Well, that's the backdrop. That's a huge event. So everybody in town's talking about what went on there. And it's against that backdrop that this guy in chapter 3 comes to visit Jesus. "Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And he came to Jesus by night."
I'll just read you what a Pharisee is. Just one of the commentators writes: "Pharisee most likely comes from the word meaning to separate, and therefore probably means separated ones. They were not separatists in the sense of isolationists, but in the puritanical sense. They were zealous for ritual and religious piety according to the Mosaic law, as well as their own traditions that they added to it."
So you see what he's saying? These aren't monks. These aren't guys who are separatists in the sense they just pulled out of society. One of the alarming things that I'm afraid I see in the Christian community today is just leaving the public square. So I've got all these guys who whine and moan and groan about media, or about movies, or about music, and my point would be, sure it's that way, because all you really super-spiritual Christians have left it? That's not what Jesus called you to do. He says the night before He dies, He prays, "Father, don't take them out of the world. Put them in the world. You put me in the world." How did God deal with the world? He could have done it a whole bunch of ways, but He comes and He becomes flesh.
Understanding the Pharisees
You have to be really careful in this. The separatists was not a monk separatist. They were religious. So they had the Mosaic Law, then they added a bunch of stuff to it. Literally hundreds of rules, principles, regulations, guidelines, and they followed it meticulously. That was the whole point of this.
They were generally from the middle class, and mostly consisted of laity, business people, rather than priests. They represented the Orthodox core of Judaism, very strongly influenced by the very strongly influencing the common people of Israel, about 6,000 of them at this point in time, and Nicodemus is one of these. When we say Pharisee, we get this picture of somebody that's all messed up, hypocrite, all the stuff that goes with it. In that day and age, they were the ones they looked up to.
In our context, these are the guys that are doing their quiet times, reading the books, writing the books, teaching from the pulpit, running denominations, wearing collars and robes, teaching behind a music stand on Thursday morning. These are the guys. And these people didn't look down on them, they looked up to them. Did you get that? They influenced the common people. They didn't just play church, they were zealots.
When you have the time, look at Matthew 23, where Jesus really chastises these guys and goes, "You know what, you do this and you do this, you tithe on the mints and the cumin and the dill, you take your condiments and you're tithing, you're following every letter of the law, the problem is this. Like a whitewashed tomb. You look really good on the outside, but you're filled with dead man's bones." Oh my golly, you've dotted all the I's, you've crossed all the T's, you've done all the religion, but you are lost, lost, lost. That's the guy, Nicodemus.
Coming by Night
He comes at night and they make all sorts of guys make big things out of it. I'm going to give you a pragmatic reason he might have come at night. A pragmatic reason he would come at night is because Jesus is really busy during the day. I mean, Jesus has got a lot going on. When you read through that gospel, there's people all around, they're grabbing at Him, they're working at Him, so it could be that.
Most read into this that there's something in it where it's a risky business for him. This may cause people to wonder about him and his reputation, because now here's this group of guys that Jesus is pretty well taking a stand against. When you read through the Gospels, Jesus has incredible patience for the really messed up, screwed up people. So you put Him with a woman at the well. In fact, wasn't that the accusation against Him? "You know the problem with this guy? He's with the drunks, he's with the hookers, he's out there. That's the problem with this Jesus."
And He just does really well with them. The kids are attracted to Him, but the group that sets Him off are these guys. It's the religious people.
The Conversation Begins
So now Jesus comes to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus says, "We know that you come from the Father, you're a teacher, nobody can do these things unless God's with him." Verse 3, Jesus answers him. Now, I don't want to get all into this, but at least we can note, he didn't ask a question. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Verse 5, "Truly, truly"—so when you see that phrase, truly, truly, some of the translations will say "verily, verily," some of them will say "I tell you the truth." It's the scripture, or in this case Jesus' way of saying, this is huge, this is a fact, get a hold of this. So in verse 5, He says "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit..."
He can't enter the kingdom of God. So in verse 3, He's making essentially the same point, but in verse 3, He's saying you won't see the kingdom of God. Verse 5, you're not going to enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is going on there, this is a huge deal.
A Morning Encounter with Bud
One day, I used to teach down in Tucson, so I'd get up about 3:30, try to leave the house by about 4:10 or so, and try to be in Tucson by 6:10, 6:15. This day, I didn't normally mess around in the morning, but I needed gas, so I went to the gas station. It was an Exxon station, it was self-service, but standing next to the pump at about 4:15, there's a guy, kind of lean, a big guy, with a little shirt that said Exxon, Bud.
Now, Bud was there by the pump, nonetheless, it was still self-service. So I'm there, filling the car, and I'm not a morning person, which makes what I do pretty hard. Bud says, "Hey, how's it going?" I said, "Good, Bud. It's early." He said, "Yeah, it's early, man. What are you doing?" I said, "Well, right now, I'm putting gas in the car, Bud." I'm not looking for a lot of dialogue, Bud.
He said, "Oh, wow, where are you going?" I said, "Tucson. Are you a salesman?" I said, "Well, Bud, sort of. I don't know what to tell you." He said, "No, Bud, I'm not a salesman. What do you do?" I thought, you know, Bud, are you up for this? Because if you are, I'm not in a very good mood, Bud, so if you are, we're going to get after it. I said, "Well, I'm going down there to teach a Bible study."
Oh, Bud's demeanor changed. I said, "Oh, Bud, do you read the Bible?" "Not really." "How come?" He said, "It's really hard to understand." I said, "Wait a minute, hang on." Now, I knew the verses, but I wanted to get the Bible, because I think there's something really powerful about having a book and reading from it.
So I said, "Bud, here are the two verses we're going to look at today. 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.' Now, Bud, I understand it's really complicated, but that seems pretty basic. What do you think that means, Bud?"
Here's what he said: "I don't know, but I'll bet it's important." I said, "Well, Bud, you're right. It's really important."
The Importance of Getting This Right
It's a big deal, and you need to get it, because we do some wonderful stuff at Priority Living. If you go on the website, we've got tons of tapes that are really helpful about money. If you would have followed the money principles that we've been talking about for the last 20 years right now, you'd be fine. You wouldn't be upside down on anything. You'd be in a position to start buying stuff. There's things on marriage. There's eight weeks on sex. There's all sorts of different things. Leadership.
But none of those matter if you don't get this one right. So look at it. "Truly, truly," so He says it's really important. "Truly, truly," and then in both verses, you see the word "unless." Here's what we know. You don't need to know Greek. You don't need to be a biblical scholar. You need to think a little bit.
When He uses the word "unless," what He's telling you is there's something here that's going to happen. Unless something happens, this other thing isn't going to happen. There's a pre-existing condition here that needs to be met. "Unless one," in both cases, the same thing. "Unless one is born again." So we better figure out what that is, because unless I'm born again, I'm not going to enter the kingdom of God. I'm not going to see the kingdom of God. Essentially the same thing.
What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?
So what does it mean to be born again? Well, Nicodemus didn't get it. In verse four, he said, "Wow, how can a man be born when he's old? He can't enter a second time in his mother's womb, can he?" Nicodemus is saying, "You know, this is puzzling to me." And it isn't exactly good news to my mom, because I don't think I'm going to fit this time. That doesn't make sense to me.
Jesus said, "No, no, this has to happen." In verse six He said, "That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Here's what He's saying. You're thinking humanly, and this happens frequently as Jesus is using things like bread and water, common things. He uses an earthly picture to give us a spiritual truth.
So He said, you're thinking fleshly. That's what's born of the flesh. So mom and dad get together, or a guy and gal get together. It doesn't have to be mom and dad anymore. Guy and gal get together, have a time, and out of this comes a baby. Flesh gives flesh. But this is not, He said, you must be born again of the Spirit of God. This isn't an earthly thing. This is a spiritual thing.
"Don't be amazed when I say, 'You must be born again.' Where the wind blows, it blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it's going. So it is with everybody who's born of the Spirit." And Nicodemus says, "How can that be?" Jesus is saying, listen, this is a huge spiritual thing that's taking place here, and you're not fully going to understand it.
God Moments on Our Staff
Nine months ago, we changed the fundamental makeup of how we run our staff meetings on Tuesday morning. So we try to get all the business out of the way. You know, a lot of people go, "Oh, it's a church, and it's not a business." Well, we got a lot of business stuff to take care of. So like the other day, we're talking about dental plans, and health care plans, and 401ks, and all sorts of business stuff. We get it out of the way as fast as we can. We want to get to prayer. We try to save a half hour to 45 minutes for that.
But we've inserted this little thing that has transformed the staff. They're called God Moments. We want you to share God Moments. Not necessarily what God's doing in your life, because really quickly, you know what happens? People start making stuff up.
up or feeling guilty. So I don't care about it. I mean, it's best to not lie in a God moment. That's my general sense. But this is what God's doing. When you see Him doing it, you know what He's doing.
So this one guy goes, "I got a thing from Sunday." He said Sunday at Connect. Once a month, we invite people who are new—and it won't be everybody that comes, but I mean about 30 to 60 people a month—into this class to talk to them about the church. Part of it will be, how'd you get here? He said, "I'm at this one table Sunday." So I said, "You know, how'd you get here?"
First guy said, "I don't know. I'm at Tomahawk and Southern." Now, I don't know where Tomahawk is, so I had to ask, and I got two different answers. One said way, way, way out West at Maricopa. The other said way, way, way, way, way out East beyond Apache Junction. Either way, it works fine. This guy came a long way. And he said, "Why?" He said, "I don't really know. I don't really know why I'm here. I don't really know how I got here. All I know is when I got here, God did something, and my life has changed, and I know Christ." Wow.
Unexplainable Encounters with God
So the next guy said, "Hey, my wife is a closet Catholic, and I'm a closet Lutheran. We were talking and said we ought to go to church. And somebody said, 'You ought to go to that one. Try that one.' And we came, and halfway through the first message, God just did something. We could literally sense it and feel it, and it was totally different, and we are born again."
We heard about five of those things just going around the room that day. We as a staff, six months ago, started praying that God would save 400 people in our church this year. We don't keep score or anything, so it's kind of one of those weird things. It's like me saying I'm going to lose weight, but not put a number on it. I love it, it's perfect. I think my goal for the year is to lose 24 ounces. Because I wanted to measure off—because here's what I want. I want the guy to say, "You've lost 24 ounces," but it's all on my face. That's what I'm waiting for. But I digress.
My point is, that's the Spirit of God. So you've got these things that are totally unexplainable. It doesn't mean that you don't work or plan or all this stuff, because we do that. As you read through the scriptures, it really gets tough, because it's clear you can't do anything if God doesn't do it, but it's clear that He's calling you to do something.
The Mystery of God's Work
We bring to it—I'll bet you can get into this term—we bring to it, essentially, sweat equity. But He's doing all the work. He's the one who allows us to even have the ability to do sweat equity. It really becomes a hard thing to even begin to talk about. And that's what Jesus is saying. This is a spiritual thing. You aren't going to get this in a box. You're not going to figure it out, a lot of what's going on. God's going to do what God's going to do in a way that will blow you away.
Let me just stop for a second and say, if you haven't seen God work that way in a while, there may be something wrong with you. So I'm talking to a guy. I said, "How'd you see God work this year?" He said, "You know what? Incredible. I went to the mall, Christmas, jammed, and I got a parking spot right by the door."
Well, I'm okay with that. I'm on this streak. I got like two and a half years of unbelievable parking spots. I'll call Haley and I'll say, "I'm right by the front door." "You're going over there. You're never going to get a spot." I said, "Hey, I'll be by the front door." And I'm by the front door all the time. So that's neat. But you're telling me out of all last year, the big God thing was a parking spot? Whoa.
Nicodemus's Spiritual Confusion
I think that's what's going on in Nicodemus's world a little bit. He's going, "We're doing all this. We're doing all this. I don't get it. I don't have a file for this. This doesn't make sense. I need to be born again. What's going on?" There's all this confusion. And Nicodemus says, "I just don't get it."
Jesus said, "Don't be amazed." Verse 10, Jesus uses something that I find admirable. I think there's sarcasm here. He said, "Wait a minute. Are you the teacher of Israel and you don't get these things? You're the religious leader. You're the spiritual guy. You're the bishop, the father, the rabbi, the pastor, and you don't get this?"
Let me give you a side note here. We see that Nicodemus is screwed up. Let me ask you this question: How screwed up must the people be because he's the one they're relying on? If he's screwed up and gets it wrong, they're bound to get it wrong. That's why it is so important for us to make sure that we're putting ourselves in a position where the guy that's teaching us at least understands these fundamental basic truths of God and sticks to what God says. Because if he's off, that's the guy we're following. Where are we headed? This is a big thing.
The Problem with Religious Good Works
This is a big thing. Bud figured this out. Bud figured out this is a big thing. Nicodemus gets a big thing. And I'm telling you what's going on in Nicodemus's brain here is he's going, "I don't understand this because it sounds like I got a problem spiritually, but I'm telling you, I have kept all the rules." This is huge.
Now, Jesus came to save you, not just from all your sin, but as one of the older writers says, from your damnable good works. The things that you called religion. The things that you thought were going to please Him. And here's what's happening. I've mentioned it to you about five times and I keep getting this and it's huge. So here's what's happened. God damns these religious guys. Not because God doesn't want us to worship Him or to sing to Him or pray to Him, but His concern is our heart.
We had a kid show up at church with a hat on. One of the ushers said, "You're not going in there with that hat on." Let me tell you something. That's a problem. Not the hat and the kid, the usher.
Telling me God gives a rip about whether this kid has a hat on or not? Now, if you're older, you see it as disrespectful. These kids aren't disrespectful. That's not rebellion. They wear hats everywhere they go. They just wear them. It's like saying, don't bring that drink in there. They take them everywhere they go. Don't text message. They text message in the bathroom. They're doing it everywhere. And if you're tripped up over all this stuff, you have become that elder brother, that religious guy. You need to be redeemed from those damnable good works.
From Damnable Good Works to Religion All Over Again
So here's what can happen. I can all of a sudden realize I'm in real trouble. I come to Christ in repentance and faith. I move from those damnable good works to relationship with Christ. And you know what happens? I end up becoming that religious guy all over again.
So now I'm trying to figure out, now I'm the thought police. Now I'm the, do you have your quiet time police? And this is really difficult. Because the minute we try to figure out, because I'm saying, if you believe this, it has to change your life. How? When we start to lay that out, and it's totally understandable and I get it. That becomes the criteria then for how I'm doing, right? I mean, you need something measurable.
But what can happen so quickly is that even a Christian now, I'm gonna say you're in the kingdom. Even a Christian can move into this religion thing so quickly, so fast. I'm doing well. How do you know? Well, I've been going to Bible studies. And boy, when they tell us to sing, I sing. And I'm leading a Sunday school class. And they needed workers in children's ministry. And I did that. And I'm working with junior high. I gotta be okay. I must be okay. But why are you doing it? What's the motive there? Why are you serving?
The Motive Behind Service
We talk about it all the time. Why do you feed the hungry? Well, I really feel good about doing that. Really? Then that's a damnable good work. You feel good? You feel good about yourself when you help somebody. I understand that. But is that the motive? You see how this begins? This is really tough stuff. That's why this is revolutionary stuff.
If you go back to the Sermon on the Mount, and you go right to the guts of it, Jesus is saying, you have heard it said, but I say to you. So you've heard it said, if you commit adultery, blah, blah, blah. And they're going, yeah, we did that. Didn't have, I've never done that. Didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't do it. And He's saying, but I'm saying to you, if you've looked on a gal and lost it, you got an issue. Darn. Okay? Because I was all right. I've got this outward compliance. But my heart's not right.
This is so critical. This is, so when you try to break down what's going on in your own life or in our lives collectively or in the church today.
Churches Full of Nicodemus Types
So you got all these great churches, right? All these wonderful churches. They're filled with people who are Nicodemus. Who are doing all the things. They've done it all the time, all their life. So here you go, here's a stat. 90% of kids who go through high school programs in church. 90% of them, when they come out of college are not going to church.
Well, boy, when that stat comes out and somebody writes that down, my email box lights up and says, what are you guys doing? You need to be doing more. What are we doing? Why aren't these kids coming back to church? Okay? Because they were never saved to begin with. And the minute they could get out from under your authority, they just showed you that.
Compliance vs. Conversion
So I'll tell you how. I'm just trying to drive this point deep. This is how hard it is. You're trying to raise kids. Most people are comfortable with compliant kids and they never try to figure out if they're really converted yet.
So I'm walking around campus and they don't know what to call me. It's like when I said the girls were going to have kids, we're going to have grandkids. The number one question I got that just blew me away was, what are they going to call you? I never even thought about it. And everybody would say that. What are they going to call you? And I said, well, I'll tell you what would be nice. Pom, that's my name. I'd like it. I think it'd be cool. Well, that's not going to happen. So we get our way through it.
So the same thing happens at church. So some of these parents, and you can, again, and I don't mean to be judgmental, but if what they call me is a big issue, oftentimes you got a parent that's shooting toward compliance, not toward conversion. So when they start going, Mr. Schrader, Mr. Schrader, almost always I can call Sheriff Joe and say, hey, reserve a spot. I got, how old are you? Seven. 13 years, I got a kid. Get me a spot. It's amazing. It's like every time.
The kid that's all school, you may get a kid that's just from a background. You got all sorts of stuff, and he's just acting out, he's nuts. And he's got problems and he's got, well, we can deal with that. But it's these kids that do yes, sir, no, sir, pastor, sir, Mr. Sir. And the problem is their heart. They're doing all the things. They've just never been converted. And that's really hard business.
The Problem of Self-Righteousness
Well, forget them and focus on you. That's Nicodemus's thing. If you're really messed up, it's easy. If I sit down with some guy, I sit down with some guy and say, tell me your story. And he'll go, oh my gosh, I'm all messed up. My girlfriend is so mad at my wife, I don't know what to say. Okay. Okay, when we get to the punchline, and I say, you know, you're a sinner, he's gonna go, I know that. He's not a problem. Step one is not a problem for him.
Here's the guy that's the problem. How you doing? Really good. I'm good. Wife's good. Kids are good. Business is good. You know he's lying at that point. Business is good. I'm good. Well, the Bible says you're a sinner. Really? I think I'm the exception. The Bible says you need a savior. I don't think so. I don't need anything. I can get whatever I want. I can call right now and they'll have a
The Nicodemus Problem
I can do whatever I want to do. I can call right now. I can sit at the 50 yard line. Watch this game. I can do whatever. I don't need anything. That's a problem. The screwed up guy's easy. He's going, yeah, I got it. I know that.
Any chance, because most of you, at least externally, probably pretty much have it together, any chance you're a Nicodemus in this deal? And maybe you've heard that. I'll tell you what. Some people, I'm just telling you, they are absolutely sermon proof. You kind of get close to them. You can see God work. And then right when you get there, they'll give you a little juke. They'll just juke you and then go right by.
Is this a big deal? I think so. In the context of this, it puts us right in, perhaps the most familiar of all the verses in all the Bible, John 3:16.
For God So Loved
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
For God—and then the word is there—so it speaks of intensity. God has so much passion and love. God has so much love for lost people that He gave. You can't separate those two, by the way. You can't separate love from giving.
You've got all sorts of definitions. You know that. You can look at the music. When I was a young boy, every Sunday, we would have radio. And my dad would get up. My dad made pancakes a lot. He'd get up early. And WOC would be on. And it would be the Raycon of Singers, or Mills Brothers, or Doris Day, or the Singing Rage Miss Patti Page, or Ella Fitzgerald. Patti Page was on the radio. I thought Patti Page was long dead. She's still touring and doing shows. And they would be talking about love, love.
And then we'd get into my generation: "All you need is love." "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." "Looking for love in all the wrong places." All love, love, love, love, love.
True Love Gives
Here's love: If you love something, you are devoted to it, and you give to it. You look at marriage. So guys, here you go. You know she needs a hug. You know she likes a card. You know she likes a flower. You know she likes whatever that is. And you don't do it. You've got to really ask yourself why. Because if you know she needs it, and you really love her, the only reason you wouldn't do it is because either A, you're a selfish pig, or B, because you don't love her at all.
So gals, you know—look, you know for most guys, not every guy, which always blows me away, but for most guys, the physical aspect of a relationship is huge. And yet you withhold that from him. I question whether you love him. Because if you love him, you give. And you give.
How much? Well, what if he—no, no, no, no, no, not what if he doesn't. Now you're going to figure out, you're the Holy Spirit, you're going to discipline him. I'm not going to give her any cards. I'm not going to act like that. She'll just take advantage. I'm not going to have sex with him and do the things he wants me to do. He'll just abuse me. He'll just take advantage of it. Whatever. If you don't love him, you love him sort of, not a whole bunch.
God's Radical Love
For God so loved the world. How about if God did this? Here's what I'll do. I'll love him enough that I'll send somebody if they don't screw up too much. I'll send them a savior like a small savior.
See, this is really big, isn't it? This gets into how you see yourself. If all you see yourself are these little dinky sins—you know, I'm not a big sinner. I didn't run off with 50 billion dollars. I only steal pens from work. Well, you're a thief with no imagination. That's the problem with you.
Here you go. If you only see small sins, this is huge now, then you only need a small savior. You don't need a big savior because you're not that big a deal. You're not that big a sinner. You just need a little dinky savior. You're going to clean up and buff it out. The Earl Scheib of savings. That's what you need. Knock out the dings. $2.99, that's all you are. A little paint job. Isn't that big?
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Why? That whoever believes in Him might have eternal life.
The Nature of Eternal Life
We talked about the belief part early. Let's spend just a second on eternal life. Eternal life means just that. It has two aspects to it. It has quantity and quality.
So you may say to somebody, and sometimes Christians will do this in conversation—you talk to a stranger, maybe somebody you know, but just initiate the conversation. Do you have eternal life? Well, if the guy or gal is honest, they should say yes. Every person who's alive has eternal life in the quantity sense. The question is, where am I going to spend that eternal life?
And when we get after this, you have to go—eternal life has a component that at least we know we're in it now. Jesus didn't just die to get you to heaven. Jesus died so that you could have the title of this series, "The Essence of Life Here," so that you could understand life here.
Living the Quality of Eternal Life
The ability to live a life where I'm still affected by circumstances—hey man, if you don't have a job, if they're coming to take your house and your car, if you've got a spouse that says, if your kids are going—all those things, those hurt. Those are big deals. And the last thing I want to do is minimize any of that. But that does not determine the level of my joy.
You know what I'll bet? And I don't know this, this is total speculation. I'll bet if you got with Nicodemus and these guys, I'll bet their yuck meter was at zero. I'll bet these guys had no fun. I'll bet they never laughed. I'll bet they didn't enjoy anything. In fact, if you even gave a hint that you were enjoying it, they were ready to disappoint you.
That's how I find—I'm just, I mean, to be honest. Like, I think I'm pretty conservative theologically. When I hang around with guys like me, oh my gosh. I'm thinking, I can't possibly be like that, am I? I mean, there is no fun. These guys have no fun. They're so serious. They're so afraid. They're living a—
Grace-Based Living
Tim Kimmel's work on grace-based parenting has been incredibly helpful, and I've been encouraging Tim that he needs to broaden it beyond grace-based parenting. It's a grace-based life. So how do I parent? Many, many, many Christians parent out of fear, not out of grace. That all comes back to how I see myself. Do you enjoy, do you know this eternal life?
Verse 18, we close: "The one who believes in Him is not judged." I love it. If you're a follower of Christ and you die, I remember along the way hearing all these things about what's going to happen when you die. All your life is going to flash before you. You'll see it all there. All those things you're embarrassed by—no. All that sin—no. We've already dealt with that. All your sin has been already paid for. Christ did that. There is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
The Prodigal God
I'm going to give you two things. Take this Prodigal God thing seriously. I'm telling you, find the book somewhere. I make no money so I couldn't care less. But as a service to you, if you want to call the bookstore at the church, East Valley Bible Church, 480-632-2220, I'll hand deliver it to you.
God's Unchanging Love
For the next week, think about this: There is no way that God could ever love you more than He does right now or less than He does right now. Think about that. Think about that right now.
For those of us who are Christians, there is no way, there is nothing you can do that can make God love you more than He loves you right now, and there's nothing you can do that can make Him love you less than He does right now. That is huge. How much freedom is there in that deal? Not freedom that allows me to run amok in sin, but freedom that gives me just the ability to have joy and live for Him and know that even when I screw up, He forgives me.
Let me give you the other side: Even when I do good, it's not like I'm gaining merit points with Him. We'll pick up right there next week.
Father, help us see these truths, transform our hearts and minds. We pray it in Christ's name, amen.