God, Savior, King
Tom Shrader wraps up the 'Who Is This?' series by walking through John 3:1–36, using Nicodemus's nighttime visit to Jesus as a framework for explaining the new birth, the nature of saving faith, and the exclusivity of salvation through Christ. He traces the love of God through Romans 5, Ephesians 2, Titus 3, and 1 John to show that the sending of Jesus is the definitive proof that God loves humanity. The teaching closes with a direct call to respond in faith, grounded in the assurance that eternal life, once given, cannot be taken away.
“It's not that we sin and that makes us a sinner — it's because we're a sinner by nature that we sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Who is this?
Recorded: 2012 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 58 min
Themes: salvation, new birth, eternal life, God's love, faith, Jesus, exclusivity of christ, responding to the gospel, seeking answers about faith, new believer, questioning christianity, spiritually curious, feeling unworthy of god's love, doubting salvation, young adult, skeptic exploring church
Scripture: John 3:1-36, John 1:1, John 1:6, John 1:11-12, John 3:19-20, John 14:6, Ephesians 2:1-4, Romans 5:6-10, Romans 8:30, Romans 10:9, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Titus 3:4-5, 1 John 3:16, 1 John 4:10, 1 John 4:19, 1 John 5:11-13, 1 Corinthians 15:1-3, 1 Corinthians 15:13, Numbers 21, Matthew 12, Isaiah 6, Philippians 3
Theological Themes: regeneration, new birth, soteriology, saving faith, exclusivity of salvation, atonement, eternal security, incarnation
Full Transcript
Introduction and Series Overview
Open your Bibles to the Gospel of John. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will get a Bible in your hands quickly. If you get a Bible from us, it is page 577. It's John chapter 3, and I'm going to start in verse 14 today.
Let me give you the teaching schedule to get you through summer, or at least into August. We end the series today — the series title is "Who Is This?" We'll come back and set that up and summarize it today. Next week is Mother's Day, so we're going to take that on, and then Father's Day. Both of those are kind of one-offs dealing with men's issues, women's issues, and parenting-type topics. Then starting the week after — so what is that, the 20th — we'll start a series that'll go ten weeks, looking at living in society and culture and integrating our faith. We'll look at the life of Joseph for four weeks and the life of Daniel for six weeks, which will take us into August. In August we'll look at the four G's as they relate to God — how good He is, how great He is. Then in September we'll start our study in the book of 1 Peter. That teaching schedule should take us through until Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas, so that'll carry us through the rest of the year.
The "Who Is This?" Series
Today is the last installment of the series entitled "Who Is This?" This series was born out of our reading through the Scriptures and seeing that in all of the Gospels, there is a moment where someone, or some group of people, comes into contact with Jesus — and either as a result of something He says, a teaching, an incident, or perhaps a miracle — their response is, "Who is this guy?" There are individuals who had that experience, there are the Jewish leaders, and there are the disciples themselves.
There is a wonderful incident where Jesus and the disciples are out on the sea, a storm comes, and Jesus is asleep while the storm is just beating the boat. These are seasoned fishermen, so you understand it's a serious storm that has them so rattled they wake Jesus up and say, "Don't you care about us? What's the deal?" He says, "Oh, you have little faith." And then He spoke to the storm: "Be still." Now the disciples were afraid — it says they were very much afraid — because they were asking, "Who is this who can control the very elements?" And so they said, "Who is this?"
We have asked that question beginning on Good Friday and culminating today. Jesus is the answer to every one of these questions. Who is this who died on the cross? Jesus. Who rose from the dead? Jesus. Then we began to build toward the point we are at today.
Jesus as the Light Who Exposes Darkness
Who is this that exposes the darkness? You are in John chapter 3 — look at verse 19. We spent that week on verses 19 and 20. "This is the judgment, that the light" — that is Jesus — "has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. Why? Their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed."
Jesus is described as the light of the world, and light has a variety of functions, but at least three we talk about all the time. It gives life — block out the sun with a nuclear winter and we die. It becomes a measurement — light years, the speed of light. And light reveals or exposes. Jesus comes into this world as the life giver, the one who provides us a standard of measurement as we talk about life and behavior. So it is no longer us just looking at each other and saying, "Well, I'm doing pretty well compared to you, and you're doing well compared to her." He says, "No, here is the standard — it is perfection." And what Jesus Himself is saying in this passage is that the light reveals.
So the question was: who exposes the darkness? Who allows men to begin to see themselves as they really are? Who is the one that, when you come into contact with Him, you suddenly see yourself clearly? I go back to the Isaiah 6 experience — I see God for who He really is, I see Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ, and my immediate response is, "Woe to me, for I am undone." I thought I had it all together, but not now. Jesus is the one who exposes darkness.
The Nature of Sin
Tim taught a couple of weeks ago that Jesus is the one who knew no sin. The Bible teaches that all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God. Friday night was our granddaughter Reagan's fourth birthday — an important event. There were seven grandkids there, ages six, five, four, three, two, one, and zero, along with Tim's sister Tiffany with a couple of her kids and another friend of theirs, so there were about twelve kids and the oldest was six.
In the midst of that, Lucy — I wish I had some pictures of Lucy to put up, because she is just really cute, and she started acting really cute. As I try to remind Haley, she is so cute that you could forget what a sinful little girl she really is. She is getting close to the age now where she can say no, and then we will know.
Here is what I want to focus on, and I am not just playing a word game. It is not that we sin and that makes us a sinner. It is because we are sinners by nature that we sin. That is why all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God — because that is our nature. That is how we come into the world. Jesus is the exception. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made Him — Jesus — who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf." It is not that Jesus sinned, but He was treated
Setting the Stage
Jesus was treated as though He is guilty of our sin. Jesus was born of a virgin and came as the perfect sacrifice. That was the setup for last week's lesson. John 1, verse 19: "Behold the Lamb of God." What does He do? He takes away the sin of the world.
Jesus died on the cross and He took away the sin of the world. That does not mean every person who ever lived. When we see the word "world," it is used in a variety of ways in the Greek, and therefore in the New Testament. It can speak of the planet, it can speak of the solar system in a sense, it can speak of every person in every place, or it can speak of representatives from all sorts of tongues and tribes. It might simply mean Jew and Gentile.
Jesus came and He is an equal opportunity Savior. He saved men and women — revolutionary in their economy, by the way — and rich and poor. Jesus did not just come to save one kind of person. He came to save all sorts of people, whosoever will believe.
The Stakes of Today's Message
Today is the culmination of this series. I want to tell you up front that I am going to try to drive you to a conclusion and a response. I am not going to try to manipulate you or use fear. I am going to tell you what the Bible teaches and what the facts are, and then you can decide what you want to do with them. The stakes are huge.
I watched the Kentucky Derby recently, and I enjoy that. A horse called I'll Have Another wins the race — way, way out in the odds. The race set up well, and it was trainer Doug O'Neill's first Kentucky Derby win. The jockey was a young guy riding in the Derby for the first time, so it was a big deal. A horse that was considered marginal is now worth millions. As big as those stakes are, they pale in comparison to the stakes of the decision I am going to ask you to make. This is way bigger than a Kentucky Derby.
John Chapter 3: The Word "Believe"
Let's look at John chapter 3, beginning at verse 14, where Jesus is speaking. If you have a red-letter Bible, almost all of this passage would be in red. "Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man be lifted up." Start looking back at verse 12 and watch the word "believe" as it appears throughout this passage.
"So that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life." Verse 16, probably the most familiar verse in all of Scripture: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." "God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." "He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son."
That theme carries on through the end of the chapter. Verse 36: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life and he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him." I want to take that passage and put it in context, letting the discussion of these first sixteen and seventeen verses of John chapter 3 serve as a summary of everything we have been talking about in this series.
Nicodemus: Who He Was
Look back at John chapter 3, verse 1: "There was a man of the Pharisees, his name is Nicodemus, he is a ruler of the Jews." Nicodemus was a fairly common name; in Greek it meant "victor over the people." This Nicodemus is both a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews — a member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy men who administered all religious affairs for the nation of Israel and held religious authority over Jews everywhere.
The council was made up almost entirely of Pharisees, and under Roman jurisdiction the Romans largely gave them authority over civil and criminal matters as well. They had the power to subpoena, the power to hold trials, and they were a very influential group. So when the text uses the term "the Jews," it often refers to this ruling group, of which Nicodemus was a member.
Who the Pharisees Were
Nicodemus was also a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a select group of men, always numbering around six thousand. Each one of them would have borne witness before at least three other witnesses and made a commitment to devote their life completely — every moment of it — to obeying the Ten Commandments. This was their way of pleasing God and earning His favor.
It is important to understand this clearly, because some of you are hearing this for the first time, while others have been around long enough that when you hear the word "Pharisee," you immediately think of it in a sinister way — the way a villain would appear in an old silent movie. That is not how people in that day and age reacted to a Pharisee. They were the religious zealots, the religious fanatics. They were the ones who took religion seriously and did not play at it. They devoted their lives to the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments and to bringing that commitment into every area of life.
There was also a subset of this group called the scribes, whose job was to study the law, spell out the Ten Commandments, and begin applying them to specific situations in life. When you get a group organized around rules, what I call organizational inertia sets in — you simply accumulate more and more rules. You see it in business: new offices open, and immediately people ask how to regulate and manage them. You see it in any structure or organization, and you start hearing words like checks and balances. Government is just riddled with it.
reign over your life now. To do that, you must be born again.
The Pharisees and the Law
When you pass a law that is a single paragraph, you can end up with 2,000 pages written just to explain it. That is exactly what the scribes did. Take the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath. Under their explanation of that law, the Mishnah contains 24 chapters devoted solely to the subject of work on the Sabbath. The commentary on the Mishnah, the Talmud, devotes 156 pages to the idea of the Sabbath alone. That is how you get carried away.
This is true of any organization, and it is true of rules in general. My own theory of parenting, managing, or any kind of leadership is this: do not make many rules, but the rules you do make, enforce them. The moment you begin defining the nuances of a rule, you inevitably slide into absurdity.
I was reading recently about a government building where the disabilities act allowed seeing-eye dogs on the premises. The question that arose involved a seeing-eye pony that had been trained for the same purpose. And just like that, you have a new rule, and the rule takes you straight into absurdity.
For the Jewish person, they could not travel more than a certain distance from home on the Sabbath. That immediately raises a question: what is home? It was eventually defined as wherever a person deposits their personal belongings, however modest. So if a Jewish person wanted to travel on the Sabbath, a servant would walk ahead of them and, at the prescribed distance, drop a personal item. The traveler could then walk from one item to the next, effectively extending their journey step by step. That is how silly rules can become.
We are always looking for loopholes. Someone once asked W.C. Fields if he read the Bible, and he said, "Only for loopholes." That is exactly how people approach rules — what are the exceptions, what are the edge cases, when does the rule not apply? It always ends up in the same place.
Nicodemus Among the Pharisees
That was the Pharisees, and my point is that they took this seriously — really, really seriously. Once you understand that, it is remarkable that Nicodemus would come to Jesus at all. By and large, the Pharisees were at best enemies of Jesus. Their entire mindset was built around working out their own salvation.
We tend to hear that and say "boo," but the people of that day did not react that way. At one point Jesus is teaching and says that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will not see the kingdom of God. The crowd's response, paraphrased, was essentially: then we have no hope. Because the Pharisees lived for righteousness. It was all they did. Ordinary people felt they could not even come close to where the Pharisees were.
That is who the Pharisees were, and Nicodemus was one of them.
Nicodemus Comes to Jesus
Verse 2 tells us this man came to Jesus by night. We are not entirely sure why. We can speculate that as a man of prominence he did not want to risk his reputation, or perhaps feared some form of persecution for approaching Jesus. It could also be as simple and pragmatic as both men being occupied during the day, making nighttime the natural setting for a long conversation. Whatever the reason, Nicodemus came by night.
When I taught a series on John 3 and titled the chapter "Nick at Night," I thought I was being very clever. Nobody laughed.
Nicodemus opens with an interesting word: "Rabbi." And then notice the pronoun — "we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them." That plural is worth pausing on. Whether he is speaking on behalf of others or using "we" to put some distance between himself and the statement, we cannot say for certain. But he comes representing at least an acknowledgment: we know there is something special here.
Born Again
Verse 3: "Jesus answered him and said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"
John's gospel exclusively records that phrase, "truly, truly." Some translations render it "verily, verily." It is a solemn affirmation, an expression that says: listen carefully, I am telling you the truth, I stake myself on this. It is serious business.
And then He says, "truly, truly" — and here is the statement — "unless." Whenever you see that word, you know a pre-existing condition is being established. Unless you have a ticket, you will not get into the game. In the same way, unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of God. So if I want to see the kingdom of God, I must be born again.
The Kingdom of God
When Jesus uses the term "the kingdom of God," it carries different applications depending on context. Here it is largely concerned with God's sovereign reign over all His creation — the idea of someone recognizing the sovereign rule of God, understanding who He is, and therefore submitting to His rule, His authority, and His lordship.
John MacArthur writes: "Jesus is not referring here to the universal kingdom. Instead, he's speaking specifically of the kingdom of salvation, the spiritual realm where those who have been born again by the divine power through faith now live under the rulership of God, mediated through His Son Jesus."
What Jesus is saying is this: if you want to see the kingdom of God, if you want to experience God's rule — and that includes heaven, but it is not exclusively about heaven — if you want to enter into that kingdom now, to live under His rule and reign over your life now, then you must be born again.
You Must Be Born Again
If you want to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. Right away, we get the idea that Nicodemus is missing the point. Verse 4: "How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Nicodemus is saying this doesn't make any sense at all. He's already old, and this is not good news for him.
These are two different planes. When I was flying back from Boston, I was looking out the window and daydreaming, and all of a sudden I saw a plane coming the other way. It looked really close. But what I know is that if everyone is flying at the altitude they're supposed to be, we're at 33,000 feet and they're at 31,000. No matter how much they fly, they cannot possibly hit each other — they're at two different altitudes. Jesus is speaking spiritually, and Nicodemus is flying physically. Jesus is saying, "You must be born again," and Nicodemus is saying, "How can that possibly be?" Jesus is speaking on a spiritual plane, and what becomes clear is that He means not a physical birth, but a spiritual one.
Dead in Trespasses and Sins
Keep your finger in John 3, because we're going to spend a good deal of time there. But turn to the right, to page 634, the book of Ephesians. Throughout this series we've been going back and forth to Ephesians quite a bit. Think with me now about the imagery of being born again — specifically, why do I need to be born again?
I had a man in Priority Living, the studies I do during the week, who said, "I don't like that term, 'born again.' Can we use a different term? It's got all sorts of baggage to it." I said I was fine with using another term, but he needed to understand it's Jesus' term. It's not something Jimmy Carter thought up. Jesus said, "You must be born again." And if I need to be born, it means I'm not yet alive — in this case, I'm dead.
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1: "You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." Verse 3 continues: "Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath." So here is who you are spiritually apart from Christ — you are dead, a son of disobedience, a child of wrath. Then verse 4: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ."
Receiving Him
Now go back to John's Gospel, where we find the same kind of imagery in chapter 1. John is telling us that Jesus is eternal. John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word." That's Jesus. "The Word was with God, and the Word was God." But He comes into this world. In verse 6 we're introduced to John the Baptist, who testifies that a light is coming. Jesus was in the world, the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. Verse 11: "He came to His own, and they did not receive Him." Verse 12: "But as many as received Him..."
We're going to see the words trust, believe, and receive used interchangeably throughout this study — they're all the same idea. It's not merely head knowledge; it's head knowledge and heart knowledge together. It's to trust Him not just in an intellectual way, but to know Him in a personal way. I know about President Obama, but that doesn't mean I know him. I know about Michael Jordan, but I don't know Michael Jordan. I know about Lady Gaga, but I don't know Lady Gaga. In the same way, I can know a great deal about Jesus without actually knowing Jesus. To receive Him, believe in Him, trust in Him — it means I am placed in Him, and I find my salvation and my life in Him.
Look at what John says: "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." They are born again — but not physically. It's not a result of the will of the flesh or the will of man. This is something that God does in them.
Children of God, Not All by Nature
So back to John 3: you must be born again, because you are a child of wrath, a child of disobedience — you are not yet a child of God. One of the great myths that floats around in this world is that we are all children of God. We are in the sense that He created us all, but we are not all His children in that special sense. And we shouldn't be ashamed of this distinction — He has a very special love, fondness, and care for His children.
Think of it this way: I was at a birthday party the other night with a whole bunch of people, but the two I seemed to care most for were my own kids. When my kids were small, I liked other kids too — but I liked those two the most. God has a general affection for all people, what we might call common grace, but He has a special affection for His people. You must be born again.
Here is a really simple and hopeful sentence: spiritual birth is something that happens to you, something you undergo — it is not something you produce.
The Failure of Self-Effort
What the religious leaders are trying to do, what the Jews are trying to do, is what all religion tries to do: somehow get into right relationship with God through their own efforts. At some point in time, and I think it is pretty early, we get a sense that something in the world is wrong. Then we try to figure out how to fix it. As we become a little more sophisticated, we begin to understand that this is a God thing and a sin thing.
So by and large we begin to put our efforts into resolving this. I will do this and I will not do that. I will spend time here but not there. And all of a sudden we begin to say, "I am going to somehow find a way to make myself acceptable to God." What Jesus is saying here, what John the Gospel writer says, is no — it is not something you do, it is something that is done to you.
Born of Water and Spirit
Let us look at verse 5. Nicodemus says in verse 4 that a man cannot do this again physically. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not be amazed that I say you must be born again."
Whatever Jesus is talking about when He speaks of being born of water, He is talking about something that is happening to us spiritually. It is not something we generate; it is something that happens to us. And in a sense it is inexplicable. Verse 8: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you may hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit of God."
God Saves Whom He Wills
Jesus is saying that the Spirit of God works in a very free manner. He is not in subjection to men or to our will. He is the potter; we are the clay. He does as He wishes, and especially in the area of salvation. It is stunning how often God moves in someone's life to save them, and they are oftentimes the people you least expect.
I know all sorts of men and women who were followers of Christ, who in disobedience married someone who was not a follower of Christ, under the idea that the person was close to being saved and that surely a lifetime together would accomplish it — and so far it has not worked out so well. We are very poor judges of this. I remember when I was at a colleague's office, I asked a guy whether he went to a Bible study and he said yes, that it was open to anyone. I went. That was on a Tuesday. God saved me the following Wednesday — actually, I think it was a Thursday when I went; God saved me the following Wednesday. I remember going back a week or two later and saying to him, "Why did you never invite me to that study?" His answer was, "It just never occurred to me that God would save somebody like you."
That is the same way many people felt about Chuck Colson, who recently died. We think God only saves people who are already pretty good, people who just need a little buff to smooth out a small dent and a little touch-up paint. No — He is in the business of saving people who are not considered salvageable. He does as He wishes. He is God, and you are not. Jesus is clearly saying here that spiritually, you need to understand that God is the one who determines, not you. You must be born again, but God is the one who does that.
Nicodemus Still Does Not Understand
Look at Nicodemus. He is not making much progress. He says, "How can these things be?" And then Jesus uses what I always find to be an endearing quality in a Savior: cynicism and sarcasm. I think these are great qualities, and this moment is awesome. Verse 10: "Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things?" You are recognized as an established teacher in the nation of Israel. You are the one people come to with difficult theological problems. You are the one who understands and explains them, the one called upon to resolve disputes. And here is something as basic as how to see the kingdom of God, and you do not get it? We can infer, by the way, that no wonder the nation of Israel at this point in their history is in such a state — these are the leaders.
Jesus continues: "Truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony." This is firsthand knowledge. "If I told you earthly things and you did not believe them, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" Then He says this: "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven — the Son of Man." He is saying, "I came down from heaven. I am speaking to you about spiritual truths. These are the truth. I am the way, the truth, the life. I am God."
The Truth That Cannot Lie
It is not merely that Jesus would not lie — He cannot lie. We talk about God being able to do anything, but there are things God cannot do. God cannot lie. God cannot act contrary to His nature. And Jesus is saying, "I am giving you the testimony. I am the Son of Man. I am the one." Nicodemus, you have been studying the Old Testament your entire life, and all of it points to Him.
The Bronze Serpent: A Picture of the Cross
In fact, Jesus says, "Let me give you an Old Testament story you will know, Nicodemus." It is from Numbers chapter 21. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man will be lifted up." In Numbers 21, hundreds of poisonous snakes overtake the nation and are literally biting the people of Israel. God says to Moses: take a pole, put a serpent on it, and hold it up — and as the people look to that serpent, they will be saved. Jesus takes that imagery and says, just as the lambs slaughtered at Passover were a picture pointing forward, so this too is a picture. "I will be lifted up." We know from other places in Scripture what that lifting up means.
The Love of God on Display
Jesus uses that phrase speaking of the kind of death He must die. He is saying, "If I be lifted up and you look to Me, you believe in Me, just like they were healed, you will be saved." So He says in verse 15, whoever believes in Him — in who? The Son of Man. Who is the Son of Man? He is. You are going to have eternal life.
John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." That is a great summary of not just what we have studied today, but what we have studied in this entire series. I want to break it down, and I will confess — I am obsessed with this idea right now.
I have the privilege of speaking at summer camp on the topic of God and love. When I noticed that the love idea fit right there, I talked to Justin and said, "Can I do that?" He said, "Perfect, it's great." I want you to see this.
When I was in high school — that would have been about 1967, 1968, I graduated in 1968 — there was a jewelry store promotion happening all over the country. These little buttons that said, "I am loved." Do you remember it? You want to talk about real love? Let me take you on a journey here.
God's Love Is Action, Not Just Feeling
John 3:16 says, "For God so loved." We see that love is feeling, to be sure, but it is also commitment and action. He loved, therefore He gave.
Picture a husband and wife sitting in a room for some sort of marriage counseling — a checkup, a repair, whatever it might be. I usually start with a question I think is a winner: "How did you meet?" There is usually a story, and one or both of them will smile. I remember one time asking that question, and the man said, "That's exactly what happened" — meaning they just woke up one morning and were married. I said, "Well, okay, we may need to come up with a new one."
So we talk. How did you meet? How did things take place? Do you love her still? "I love her." He loves you. You know what is coming, right? He says he loves her, but he does not show it. Because we understand that if there is love, we ought to be able to see it. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." That is how we know He loves us.
A Tour Through Scripture on God's Love
Let us take a little tour. Turn to Romans 5 — page 612. This is a section we come to often. Verse 6: "For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for us." Verse 10: "While we were enemies, God reconciled us to God through the death of His Son." Verse 8: "God demonstrated His love toward us" — how? He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He demonstrated His love toward us in that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Now turn to Ephesians 2, page 634. We have already been there once. "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive with Christ." We were dead. He loved us — and how did He love us? He made us alive.
Now keep turning to Titus 3:4, page 647. I realize I talk a lot about Romans 5 and Ephesians 2, but I rarely go to Titus 3:4, and it is a great section where Paul makes the same proclamation. "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared" — what is His love for mankind? Jesus. "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in unrighteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus our Savior." He loved us. How do we know? His love for mankind appeared.
Love Defined by the Cross
Keep turning to 1 John 3:16, page 661. "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us." Here is how we know love. We know that God is love, but here is the manifestation of it: Jesus lays down His life for us.
Staying in 1 John, move to chapter 4, verse 10: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and has sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And verse 19: "We love because He first loved us." The manifestation of God's love is that He sent Jesus.
So back to John 3: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." We see that message over and over and over in Scripture.
What Everyone Seems to Know
If you talk to people who know nothing about the Bible and have no interest in things of God, and you ask them to tell you something about God, they will almost always land on at least two things. Number one: God is love. Number two: "Do not judge, lest you be judged." Those seem to be the two things everybody knows.
So if God is love, what is the proof of that love? The proof is that He sent Jesus. "His only begotten Son" — that word is unique, one of a kind. It does not mean He has many children and this is one of them. It speaks of that relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — three persons, one God — what we identify as the Trinity, even though that word does not appear in Scripture.
God sent His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. Whoever puts his faith and trust in Him.
From Head to Heart
To trust in Him is to move from the head to the heart. There is that moment — not "I know a lot about Jesus," but "I know Jesus." There is a point in time where you simply get it.
I was never good in school. Mark Twain once said that he never let school interfere with his education, and that is roughly how I approached it. I just was not very good. There was a lot of work, and it did not interest me. I was bright enough — not brilliant, but bright enough — yet I did particularly poorly in classes that required sustained effort, and that built on itself.
Math is a classic example. In grade school I more or less got my multiplication tables, and then they introduced the new math around fifth or sixth grade, and I never did grasp the X and Y business. Just put the number in and tell me the answer — I did not want to work through all of that. So when algebra arrived, here is what happened: if you had not mastered chapters one through four and you jumped straight to chapter ten, you were finished. And if you did not get algebra, you had no shot at geometry. I was pretty well washed out of mathematics by my sophomore year of high school.
This never personally happened to me, but I had friends who experienced these breakthrough moments in geometry or algebra. Here is what they would say: "I get it." I tried to sit next to people who got it, but I never did.
What It Means to Believe
To believe in Him is to say, "I get it." It is an "aha" moment — seeing with more than just physical eyes, understanding it in your mind and your heart, and responding to it. Just as His love is action, my belief is action. I believe in Him and I am going to show it; I am going to put my faith and trust in Him.
And if I do, based on the promise of God, I will not experience eternal separation from God or judgment from God, but I will experience eternal life. Eternal life carries with it both quantity and quality. Everyone is going to live forever — that is not the question. The question is whether you will live forever in union with God or separated from God, in His presence for all eternity or separated from His presence. There is a quantity and a quality to eternal life.
Three Takeaways
Here are the three takeaways for this lesson and for the series.
**First, Jesus is emphasizing the exclusive nature of salvation.** You must be born again. There is no other way. It is not church attendance, it is not this or that — you must be born again. If you are not born again, you are not in the kingdom of God. He says it clearly in John 14: "I am the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father, but through Me." The Christian faith is a very narrow way. There are not many roads to God; there is one, and it is through Jesus.
I did not make it that way. Luther and Calvin did not make it that way. The church did not make it that way. God made it that way. The night before He dies, Jesus prays that if there is any other way, let us take it — and the answer is no. He has to die. Why? Because I have to believe in Him, and if I believe in Him I have eternal life. If you do not, you perish. This is narrow, it is hard, it is exclusive. There are not many ways to God.
Whoever Means Whoever
**Second, "whoever."** I like this. You should not even have to write it down — whoever means whoever. Black, white, rich, poor, smart, dumb, pretty, ugly, talented, a goofball, an intellectual, an artist — whoever. Whoever comes. Go back to John chapter 3, verse 3, and put your own name in there: "Unless you are born again..." Whoever. Regardless of your family background, regardless of your sinful past.
Perhaps the saddest conversation I have ever had was with a young man who came to a Priority Living event. I had given a gospel message very much like this one, and he came up afterward — weeping, sitting around after everyone else had gone. I had never seen him before. Someone had told him about it, apparently, but he had come alone, without a friend. He sat there and waited until I was done, and you could see he was all teared up.
He came over and just began to weep. He seemed to have a Catholic background, because it was as though I were his priest — he simply began to confess, throwing out all these things he had done. The list was worse and longer than probably anything most people in this room have experienced. And then he said: "Here is what I know. God could never forgive me."
And I said, "Pal, here is the deal — it does not take any more grace to save you than it did to save one of my daughters when she was five years old." "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever" — anybody, including you, right here, right now — it does not matter what your past was.
I also want to say this to the person in the middle — the one who thinks, "I want to come to Christ, I want to deal with this, but I have to clean my act up first." You cannot. The standard is perfection, and you have already missed it. It is not about getting clean; it is about Him making you clean. It is not about being clean — it is about being cleansed. He does the work. It is not something you do; it is something that is done to you. Whoever.
And it is never too late. "I have blown it so badly, it is too late." "I have heard this message over and over again and never responded." Well, for whatever reason, God is letting you hear it again. Come.
You Have to Respond
**Third, you have to respond — "whoever believes."** Now, we understand from Scripture that the response itself, the belief itself, the faith itself, is a gift of God. It is not a matter of anything you have done. So your belief is not even a matter of work — it is simply an acknowledgement that God is working in you. How would you know if God is working in your life? Do you want to?
Responding to the Gospel
Do you want to believe? Do you see your life for what it really is? Do you understand that apart from Him, you can't do anything? Have you reached the point where it is time to run up the white flag and say, "I give up, I surrender, I'm done"?
You will not get any cleaner in your life than Nicodemus — in terms of actions — if that is what you are trying to do. That is what Paul says in the book of Philippians: "You want to talk about religion? I am the super one of those guys — but that is filthy rags, that is dung compared to the passing value of knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."
The Resurrection Is the Cornerstone
Looking back over this series, here is what we understand: Jesus demonstrated His victory over sin through the resurrection. "The sting of death is in sin, the power of sin is in the law, but thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." It is what Jesus told the scribes and the Pharisees, recorded in Matthew 12, when they said they wanted a sign. He said, "I will give you a sign — it will be a sign like Jonah. As Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the earth."
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 — the resurrection chapter. When we get to the book of Romans, Paul writes this: "If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved." We talk a lot about doctrine and what is essential, but apparently belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is essential to being saved. What those verses say is this: if you do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, you are not a Christian. You might call yourself one, might act like one, but you are not one.
The Stakes of the Resurrection
Here are the stakes. 1 Corinthians 15:13 — "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Jesus has been raised, and if Jesus has not been raised," Paul says, "then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." The resurrection is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. If you are here today, antagonistic or even ambivalent, and you just want to mess up the whole Christian community, all you have to do is disprove the resurrection. If you want to destroy the Christian faith, all you have to do is show that Jesus is still in the tomb.
It happens every year in the spring — someone claims they found a tomb, they found Jesus' bones. They never do. Why? Because they are not there. He is alive. The resurrection is not only important to the Christian faith; look at the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, verse 1: "I made known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach, which you receive, which you stand, by which you are saved." Here is the gospel, in verse 3: "That Christ died for our sins, according to the Scripture, that He was buried and raised on the third day." Jesus died and rose again.
Believing and Trusting in Him
The response I am pressing you toward is to believe — to trust in Him. John 3:16: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life." We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe? Titus 3:4–5, the passage we looked at: "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done, but according to His mercy, through the washing and the regenerating." Whoever believes in Him has eternal life. If you do not believe in Him, you do not have eternal life.
Eternal Life Cannot Be Broken
Let me add one more thing before we close. Eternal life does not just begin today and go on forever — for us, it is also eternal in the most personal sense. So the question is: if you are in right relationship now with God, can that be broken? The answer is no.
1 John 5:11 — "This is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and that this life is in the Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life." And 1 John 5:13 — "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you will know that you have eternal life." We can say this based on the promises of God, and He will never change His mind. Nothing can separate you. This is an act that, once it is done, is irreversible.
Romans 8:38–39 — "I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth" — and then Paul adds — "nor any other created thing is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Who Is This?
The whole point of this series — and really of all the teaching we do each and every week — is to get you to answer the question: who is this? To bring you to the conclusion, not just intellectually but by a step of faith, that Jesus is the only way to salvation. There is salvation in no other name.
Many of you know that truth, but some of you do not. Some of you are sitting there right now thinking, "Hurry up, let's get out of here." Or you are thinking, "I have more questions now than answers." Or perhaps you are thinking, "I think I get it — I want to respond." If you are in that last group, if you have questions and you want to respond, if you want today to be the day you begin eternal life with Jesus, there will be a group of men and women at the front of the conference center and here in the chapel after the service, and they are there at that moment — when the service is over — to spend time with you.
In the conference center, Justin is going to come and close the service after your time of communion, worship, and the lesson. Here in the chapel, Jake is going to come lead you in communion, and then the team is going to lead you through a time of worship. But our prayer, as we conceived of this series, has been that you would come to know Him.
Opening Prayer
As we developed and presented this series, our prayer has been that God — especially for those of you who don't know Christ — would use this series to save you. I know this doesn't sound like a very loving prayer, but it is: that God would make you so miserable that you'd respond, that He'd do whatever it takes to get your attention, and that you'd believe. That's our prayer.
Father, will You do that awesome work in our lives? We know that we cannot, but Your Spirit can. We pray that many — and if we had our wish, all who are in this room today — would become children of Yours through faith in Christ. We know that's a matter of the Spirit, so we ask Your Spirit to invade hearts and change minds. We ask that of You in Jesus' name, amen.