God, Savior, King
Tom Shrader concludes his series 'Who Is This?' by examining Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. He explains that Jesus is God (revealed through His divine nature), Savior (demonstrated through His sacrificial love), and King (ruling over the kingdom of God). Shrader emphasizes that salvation requires being born again—a spiritual transformation that God performs in believers, not something earned through religious works.
“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
Duration: 59 min
Themes: salvation, identity, transformation, rebirth, grace, kingship, sacrifice, faith, seeking salvation, questioning faith, new believer, religious background, searching for truth, spiritual seeker, doubting salvation, pastor
Scripture: John 3:14-36, John 3:16, Numbers 21, Ephesians 2:1-5, John 1:6-13, Romans 5:6-10, Titus 3:4-7, 1 John 3:16, 1 John 4:10, 1 John 4:19, John 14:6, 1 Corinthians 15:13, Romans 8:30, 1 John 5:11-13
Theological Themes: soteriology, born again, regeneration, christology, divine nature, kingdom of god, spiritual transformation, sanctification
Full Transcript
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 three. I'm going to start in verse 14 today.
Let me give you the teaching schedule, and I'll get you through summer with this, or at least into August. We end the series today, the series titled "Who Is This?" Next week, Mother's Day, we're going to take Mother's Day and Father's Day as one-offs and deal with some man's issues, women's issues, parenting-type issues. Then starting the week after, the 20th, we'll start a series that will go 10 weeks. We'll look at living in the context of society and culture, integrating our faith. We'll look at the life of Joseph for four weeks, the life of Daniel for six weeks, so that'll take us into August.
In August, we'll look at the four Gs 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's the teaching schedule that'll get us through till Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas, so that'll take us through the rest of the year.
The Series: Who Is This?
Today is the last of the series entitled "Who Is This?" This series was born out of our reading through the scriptures and seeing in all of the gospels, there's a moment where someone or some group of people is coming into contact with Jesus. Either as a result of something He says, teaching, an incident, perhaps a miracle, their response is, "Who is this guy?"
There are individuals who had that experience. There's the group, there are the Jews, the Jewish leaders, there are the disciples themselves. There's a wonderful incident where Jesus and the disciples are out on the sea, a storm comes, Jesus is asleep, and the storm is just beating this boat. These are seasoned fishermen, so you understand it's a heck of a storm that has them so rattled that they wake up Jesus and said, "You don't care about us, or what's the deal here?" He says, "Oh you of little faith," and then He said to the storm, "Be still." Now, the disciples were afraid, they were very much afraid because they're going, "Who is this guy who can control the elements?" They're going, "Who is this?"
We've asked that question beginning on Good Friday, and again, culminating today. Who is this who died on the cross? Jesus, why? Well, that's what we're going to unpack these last three or four weeks. Who rose from the dead? Well, it was Jesus. Then we began to build toward this point we're at today.
The One Who Exposes Darkness
Who is this that exposes the darkness? You're in John chapter three, just look at verse 19. We looked that week pretty much at verse 19 and 20. "This is the judgment that the light"—that's Jesus—"has come into the world. And men love darkness rather than light. Why? Their deeds are evil. Everyone who does evil hates light and does not come into light for fear his deeds will be exposed."
Jesus is described as the light of the world. Light has probably a variety of functions, but at least three we talk about all the time. It gives life—nuclear winter, block out the sun, we die. It becomes a measurement—light years, speed of light. And light reveals or exposes.
Jesus comes into this world. He is the life giver. He is the one that now provides us a standard of measurement as we talk about life and behavior. So it's no longer us just looking at each other and saying, "Well, I'm doing pretty well as compared to you. You're doing well as compared to her." He goes, "No, here's the standard, it's perfection." And then what Jesus Himself is saying here is that the light reveals.
So that was our question, who exposes the darkness? Who allows men to begin to see themselves as they really are? Who is the one that when you come in contact with them, all of a sudden we see ourselves? Again, 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, woe to me, for I'm undone." I thought I had it all together, but not now. Jesus is the one who exposes darkness.
Our Sinful Nature
Tim taught a couple weeks ago, 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. It's a cute event, and there's now seven of those grandkids—six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. They're there, and then Tim's sister Tiffany is there with a couple of her kids, and then another friend of theirs is there. So there's like 12 kids, and the oldest is six. By and large, cute kids—couple, not that sure—but by and large, cute kids.
In the midst of that, Reagan's old enough so that this doesn't fit, but Lucy is still fit. Lucy is just really cute, and she started to act really cute. As I try to remind Haley, she's so cute that you could forget what a sinful little girl she really is. She's getting close now to be able to say no. So then we'll know.
Here's what I want you to understand, and I'm not just playing a word game here. If you get this, great. If you don't get this, think with me. It's not that we sin, and that makes us a sinner. It's because we're a sinner by nature that we sin. That's why all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, because that's our nature. That's how we come into the world.
Jesus now is the exception. 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf." It's not that Jesus
sinned, but He was treated as though He's guilty of our sin. Jesus was born of a virgin. Jesus came in as the perfect sacrifice. That's set up last week's lesson, right? 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 doesn't mean every person that ever lived. When we see that word "world," it's 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. Now, it might just mean Jew and Gentile.
Jesus came, and He's an equal opportunity savior. He saved men and women - revolutionary stuff, by the way, in their economy - and rich and poor. This'll get the emails going, okay? Jesus just didn't come to save rich, white Republicans, okay? And we've got to understand that. Jesus came to save all sorts of people, whosoever will believe.
The Stakes Are Huge
Today is the culmination of this series, and I'll just tell you up front, I'm going to try to drive you to a conclusion and a response. Not going to try to manipulate you. Not going to try to use fear. I'm going to tell you what the Bible teaches and what the facts are, and then you figure out what you want to do with it.
I'll tell you this, the stakes are huge. I watched the Kentucky Derby yesterday. I enjoyed that, and there's a horse, I'll Have Another, wins the race. It's in the 19th hole, so that's way, way, way out there, and the race set up well. It was Doug O'Neill's, the trainer. When we're in Del Mar, we see Doug O'Neill - love Doug O'Neill - first Kentucky Derby win. And the jockey, this young guy, young kid, first time he'd ever ridden in the Derby. So it was a big deal.
Stakes were huge. This horse that was a marginal horse is now worth millions, okay? As big as those stakes are, they pale in comparison to the stakes for the decision I'm going to ask you to make. This is way bigger than a Kentucky Derby, okay?
Jesus Speaks About Being Lifted Up
Let's look at this passage from John chapter three, verse 14. Jesus is speaking. If you have a red-lettered Bible, I would guess most of this, almost all of it's red-lettered. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man be lifted up." Now, start looking - you can actually see it back in verse 12 - the word believe. Look at the word believe now as it appears. "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." And that theme kind of carries on all the way through.
If you look at the very end of this 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." So what I want to do is to take that passage and kind of put it in context and let the discussion on these first 16, 17 verses of John chapter three serve as our summary to this series and hopefully everything we've been talking about.
Nicodemus: A Ruler of the Jews
Look back at John chapter three, verse one. "There was a man of the Pharisees, his name is Nicodemus. He's a ruler of the Jews." So Nicodemus was a pretty common name. In Greek, it meant "victor over the people." And Nicodemus, this Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews.
He was a member of the Sanhedrin. This was a council of 70 men who ran all of the religious affairs for the nation of Israel and had religious authority over Jews everywhere. The council was made up almost entirely of Pharisees and under Roman jurisdiction, the Romans by and large gave them authority over civil and criminal matters as well. So they had the power to subpoena, the power to hold trials, they were a very influential group. So Nicodemus is a member of the rulers of the Jews. When we see that term, "the Jews," often it speaks of this ruling group.
Understanding the Pharisees
He's also a Pharisee. Pharisee was a group, select group of men, never more or always kind of numbering around 6,000. Each one of them would have borne witness before at least three witnesses and made a commitment to devote their life completely, every moment of it to obeying the 10 commandments. And this was a way to please God and to earn His favor.
So I want to make sure we get this because now, again, some of you, this is brand new, perfect. Others, you've been around enough that when you hear the word Pharisee, you think in a sinister way. So it was like the old silent movies. If this guy came on and it said Pharisee, boo, that's kind of how you'd react to him. Well, that's not how they reacted in that day and age to him.
They were the religious zealots. They were the religious fanatics. They were the ones who took religion seriously. They didn't play around at it. They devoted their life to the fulfillment of the 10 commandments and to bring that into every area of their life. And there was a subset of this group called the scribes and their job was to study the law and spell out the 10 commandments and then begin to apply it in specific areas of their life.
Organizational Inertia and Rules
I wrote under this, and by the way, it's just true. When you get a group and you want to organize it and you're going to have rules, you're going to get organizational inertia is the phrase I use. You're just going to get a bunch of rules. So you see it in business. All of a sudden there's other offices. How are we going to regulate them? How are we going to manage them? You see it in any structure, any organization.
The Danger of Religious Bureaucracy
You start hearing words like checks and balances. The government's just riddled with it. So you pass a law that's a paragraph and you have 2,000 pages to explain it. That's what the scribes did. We go, okay, remember, keep holy the Sabbath. Well, what does it mean to keep holy the Sabbath?
So under their explanation of that, the Mishnah, there are 24 chapters devoted to just the subject of working under the Sabbath. And then the commentary on the Mishnah, the Talmud, there are 156 pages devoted to the idea of the Sabbath alone. So this is how you get carried away.
But it's true of any organization, it's true of rules. That's why, for me, this is just my theory of parenting or managing or anything. I would not make many rules. And the rules I made, I would enforce. But immediately you want to know what are the nuances of the rules? So inevitably, in defining it, it would lead you just into absurdity.
So I was reading something the other day. Somebody was, it was a government building, I'm not sure on that part. But it was part of the Disabilities Acts that obviously allowed seeing dogs, seeing-eye dogs, all that stuff. But this was a seeing-eye pony that had been trained. And so now the person is, and so now we need a rule. And it just always takes you to absurdity.
How Rules Lead to Absurd Loopholes
For example, for the Jew, they couldn't travel but a certain distance from home on the Sabbath. So that raises the question, what's the question? What is home? Because it's not just some place where I own. It could be some place where I rent or some place where I live. So it's defined at wherever I deposit my personal belongings, really of any sort.
So the way a Jew would travel or want to travel on the weekend, or the Sabbath, I should say, is they would just have a servant go ahead of them and at the prescribed distance, they would just drop a personal item. So I could walk from this personal item to this personal item, pick it up, and I just travel. This is how silly laws can be and rules can be. Because we're always looking for loopholes.
It's like somebody asked W.C. Fields once, do you read the Bible, Fields? And he said, only for loopholes. Well, that's kind of how we read these rules. What are the loopholes? What are the exceptions? Don't ever park there. Well, what if it's an emergency? Can I run that red light in an emergency? What's an emergency? Have to go to the bathroom really bad? Is that an emergency? I don't know. It depends on the officer. It just gets silly.
Understanding the Pharisees
That's the Pharisees. And my point is, they took this stuff really, really seriously. And once you understand that, it's amazing that Nicodemus would come to Jesus at all. They, by and large, this is a very strong word. Well, I won't even use the word hate. They were, at best, enemies of Jesus. And their whole mindset was, I'm working out my salvation.
And I started by saying, we go, boo. But the guys in that day didn't. It was at one point where Jesus is teaching, and He says, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you won't see the kingdom of God. And the people said, and I'm paraphrasing now, the people basically said, then we are screwed. Because that's what they do. They live for that. That's all they do is bring them. We can't even sniff where they are.
So that's the Pharisees. Nicodemus is one of them.
Nicodemus Comes by Night
Verse two, this man came to Jesus by night. Not exactly sure why night. We can speculate he's a man of prominence and perhaps didn't want to risk reputation. And not just reputation, but maybe even the idea that he would somehow be persecuted for approaching Jesus, don't know. It could be as pragmatic, by the way, as Nicodemus and Jesus are busy during the day. And night's just a good time to have a long conversation. But Nicodemus came by night.
I taught a series on John 3 and titled this chapter Nick at Night, I thought it was so clever. I thought it was really funny. Nobody laughed.
Rabbi, now this is interesting. Again, we can only speculate. Plural personal pronoun, we. We know. Now I don't know if he's speaking for other guys or it's kind of that we and he's kind of hiding behind it. 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. So I kind of want to say, we know there's something special here.
Jesus' Startling Response
Verse three, 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 of your translations may say barely, barely. It's a solemn affirmation. It's that says, listen to this, I'm telling you the truth. I swear on myself, He could say. But this is serious business.
And then He says, truly, truly, here's my statement, unless, so whenever you see that word, we know we're setting up a pre-existing condition for something else to happen. Unless you have a ticket, you're not going to get in the game. So for you to get in the game, you have to have a ticket. Unless you're born again, you won't see the kingdom of God. So if I want to see the kingdom of God, I'm going to have to be born again.
The Kingdom of God
Now when He uses the term the kingdom of God, it has different applications, but it's by and large here concerned with God's sovereign reign over all His creation. It's the idea of someone understanding the sovereign rule of God and who He is, and therefore submitting himself to His rule, 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.
So here's what He says. If you want to see the kingdom of God, if you want to experience God's rule, that includes, by the way, heaven, but not exclusively heaven, it includes
The Spiritual Plane vs. The Physical Plane
Moving into the kingdom of God now, His rule and authority. If in fact you want to see that, you must be born again. Born again. Right away, we get the idea that Nicodemus is missing the point in verse four: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can't enter his second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" So Nicodemus is saying, "This doesn't make any sense at all. I'm already old. This is not good news for me, and mom's not that happy about this either. Neither one of us are excited about this."
Well, these are two planes. Like when we were flying back from Boston, I'm just looking out the window and daydreaming. All of a sudden, I see this plane coming the other way, and it looks really close. What I know, if they're all flying in the areas they're supposed to be, is we're at 33,000 feet and they're at 31,000. No matter how close they look, they can't possibly hit—they're in two different altitudes.
Jesus is speaking spiritually. 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. What's clear is He's saying, "I need to be born, not physically, but spiritually."
Why We Need to Be Born Again
Keep your finger right there, because we're going to spend a bunch of time in John 3, but I want you to turn to the right. It's page 634, the book of Ephesians. Throughout this series, we've been going back and forth a lot in the book of Ephesians, but think with me now about the imagery of being born again.
Why do I need to be born again? I had a guy in Priority Living, the studies I do during the week, and he said, "I don't like that term, 'be born again.' Can we use a different term? I mean, I don't like that term. It's got all sorts of baggage to it." I said, "I'm fine, you can use another term, but you understand it's Jesus' term. It's not something Jimmy Carter thought up. You must be born again."
Well, if I need to be born, it means I'm not born. Or in this case, come to life—I'm dead. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1: "You were dead." Now, He's speaking to a group of believers, so I'll use the past tense here. "You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formally 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."
Our Natural Spiritual Condition
That's who you are by nature. In fact, He says in verse 3, "Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath."
So He says, here's who you are spiritually: You're dead, you're a son of disobedience, a child of wrath. Verse 4: "But God"—so God moves—"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."
Now, go back to John's gospel. We get the same kind of imagery in John 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. Chapter 1, verse 6, we're introduced to John the Baptist, and he says, "Here's a light coming, I'm to testify of Him." He's in the world, the world was made through Him, but the world didn't know Him. Verse 11: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."
Receiving Jesus: More Than Head Knowledge
Verse 12: "But as many as received Him"—so we're going to see the word "trust" in Him, "believe," "receive"—they're all the same idea. It's to trust, and we'll define it more later, but let's just get it out now. It's to trust in more than just head knowledge, but it's head knowledge and heart knowledge. It's to trust Him, not just in an intellectual way, but to know Him in a personal way.
So we might say, 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. I can know a bunch about Jesus, but not know Jesus.
So to know Him and believe in Him and receive Him, trust in Him—it's all the same idea. It's in Him, so I'm placed in Him. I find my salvation, my life, in Him. Look at what He 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."
Children of God vs. Children of Wrath
They're born again, but it's not of flesh. It's not a physical being born again. It's not even as a result of some will of their flesh, or of the will of man, but this is something that God does in them. We don't need to define that right now. I just want to get the issue on the table. We'll come back, hopefully, and tie all this together.
So back to John 3: You must be born again, because you're a child of wrath. You're a child of disobedience. You are not a child of God. That's one of the great myths that floats around in this world—that we're all children of God. We are in the sense that He created us all, but we're not all His kids.
He has a very special—and we shouldn't be ashamed of this, by the way—He has a very special love and fondness and care for His kids, just like you do humanly. So when I'm at that birthday party the other night, there's a whole bunch of people there, but the two that I seem to care most for aren't even the grandkids—they're my own kids. When my kids were small, and this is theoretical, I liked kids. All these kids, I like these kids, but I like those two right there the best.
So God has this general affection called common grace for all men, but He has a special affection for His people. You must be born again. Now, here's a really simple, hopeful sentence: Spiritual birth is something that happens to you.
Something you undergo, it's not something you produce. So what Nicodemus is trying to do, what the religious leaders are trying to do, what the Jews are trying to do, what all religion tries to do, is to somehow get into right relationship with God through their own efforts.
At some point in time, and I think it's pretty early, we get a sense that something in the world is wrong. And then we try to figure out, how do I fix it? And as we become a little more sophisticated, we begin to understand that this is a God thing, and a sin thing. And so we begin, by and large, we begin to put our efforts into resolving this. I'm going to do this, and I'm not going to do this. I'll spend time here, but I won't spend time there. And all of a sudden, I begin to say, I'm going to somehow try to find a way to make myself acceptable to God.
And what Jesus is saying here, what John the Gospel writer said, no, it's not something you do, it's something that's done to you.
Born of Water and Spirit
Let's expand it here in verse 5. Nicodemus says, verse 4, it can't do this again physically. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don't be amazed that I say you must be born again."
So whatever He's talking about here when He's talking about being born of water, what He's talking about is something that's happening to us spiritually. It's not something that we generate. It's something that happens to us. And in a sense it's inexplicable, verse 8, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you may hear the sound of it, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. So it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit of God."
He said the Spirit of God works in a very free manner. It's not in subjection to men and to our will. He's the potter or we're the clay. He does as He wishes, and especially in the area of salvation.
God's Surprising Choices
It is stunning to us how often God moves in somebody's life to save them, and they're oftentimes the people you least expect. So that I know, I'll bet you do too, I know all sorts of men and women who were followers of Christ, who in disobedience married a guy or gal who were not followers of Christ, under the idea that they're that close to being saved, and I'm sure spending a lifetime with me will save them, and so far it hasn't worked out so well. We're very poor judges of this.
I remember when I was at a coal banker office, I asked a guy, I know you go to a Bible study, can I go? He said yes, it's for anybody. I went. That was on a Tuesday, God saved me the following Wednesday. I remember a week or two going back later and saying to him, why did you never invite me to that study? And his answer was, it just never occurred to me that God would save somebody like you.
Now, that's the same way you felt about Charles Colson who just died. It's like we think God only saves people who are really pretty good and they just need a little buff out that little dent and a little touch-up paint. No, He's in the business of saving people that are not salvageable. And He does as He wishes. And He's God, and you're not. He's clearly saying here, spiritually, you need to get and understand that God is the one who determines, not you. Now, you must be born again, but God does that.
Jesus' Response to Nicodemus
Look at Nicodemus. He's not making much progress here. He says, "How can these things be?" And then Jesus uses, and I always find this to be an endearing quality in a Savior, cynicism and sarcasm. I think these are great qualities that He uses. This is awesome.
Verse 10, "Are you the teacher of Israel and you don't understand these things? You're recognized as an established teacher in the nation of Israel. You're the one that people come to with these difficult theological problems and you understand them and explain them. If there's a dispute, they come to you to resolve them. And here's something as basic as how do I see the kingdom of God and you don't get it?"
By the way, we can infer, no wonder the nation of Israel at this point in their history, no wonder they're screwed up. These are the leaders.
First-Hand Testimony from Heaven
He said, "Truly, I say to you, here's what we're doing. We're speaking of what we know and testify of what we've seen. And you do not accept our testimony." This is first-hand stuff. "If I told you earthly things and you didn't believe them, how is it that you won't believe if I tell you heavenly things? Now get this, no one's ascended into heaven, but He has descended from heaven, the Son of Man."
Here's what He's saying, He said, listen, I came down from heaven and I'm talking to you about spiritual truths and these are spiritual truths. This is the truth. I am the way, the truth, the life. I'm God. It's not that I wouldn't lie, I can't lie. I wouldn't think this way, but I'm stuck. So we talk, God can do anything. Well, God can't do anything. God can't lie. God can't act contrary to His nature.
And Jesus is saying, I'm giving you the testimony. I'm the Son of Man. I'm the one. You ought to get it, Nicodemus. My word, you've been studying and studying and studying and studying the Old Testament. They all point to Me.
The Bronze Serpent
In fact, He said, let me give you an Old Testament story. You're going to know it, Nicodemus. It's from Numbers chapter 21. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man will be lifted up."
There's this incident that's recorded in Numbers chapter 21, where hundreds of poisonous snakes are overtaking and literally biting the members of the nation of Israel. And God says, take this pole and put a serpent on it and hold it up. And if they, as they look to this serpent, they will be saved. And what Jesus is taking that imagery and saying, again, like the lambs that were slaughtered at Passover,
that's a picture. "I'll be lifted up." We know in other places when Jesus uses that phrase, He's speaking of the kind of death He must die. He's saying, "If I be lifted up and you look to me, you believe in me, just like they were healed, you will be saved." That's what He says in verse 15. "Whoever believes in Him" - in who? The Son of Man. Who's the Son of Man? He is. "You're going to have eternal life."
God's Love Demonstrated
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." It's a great summary of not just what we've studied so far today, but what we've studied in this series. But I want to break it down, and I will confess I'm obsessed with this idea right now. I'm thrilled. The first night at summer camp, I have the privilege of speaking of God and love. And I was given the topics, and then I noticed that that love idea fit right there.
When I was in high school - that would have been about 1967, 68, I graduated in 68 - the jewelry store in town, and they were all over the country. At the time, you're not connected like you are now. We're in Davenport, Iowa. We know what's going on in Rock Island, but that's about it. But at that time, all over the country, there were different stores who were using a little promotion button that said, "I am" - remember it? "I am loved."
Really? You want to talk about real love? Let me take you on a journey here.
Love Is Action
John chapter 3, verse 16 - "For God so loved." By the way, we see that love is feeling, to be sure, and commitment, but it's action. He loved, therefore He gave. So husband, wife, sitting in the room in there for some sort of marriage touch-up, repair, counseling, whatever it might be - you're talking, and you're trying to establish that there's an affinity here, a relationship. I usually ask them, "How did you meet?" I always like to try to start with a question I think's a winner, because usually there's a story, and one or both of them will smile.
And I remember one time asking the question, "How did you meet? You just didn't wake up one morning and you were married," and the guy said, "That's exactly what happened." I said, "Well, okay, we may not go that way. Maybe we'll come up with a new one." Well, how did you meet? How did these things take place? Do you love her still? "I love her." He loves you. You know what's coming, right? He says he loves me, but he doesn't show it. Because we know if there's love, I ought to be able to see it. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." That's how we know He loves us.
Biblical Examples of God's Love
Take a little tour with me. Turn to the right. We're going to see this idea. We'll be back to John 3, I think. I don't remember. Romans chapter 5. It's page 612. Like Ephesians 2, by the way, this is a section we come to often. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It talks about all this. Verse 6: "For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for us." Verse 10: "While we were the enemies, God reconciled us to God through the death of His Son." Verse 8: "God demonstrated His love toward us." How? God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He demonstrated His love toward us. And how? "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Chapter two - I don't have the page, but we've already been there once. So here you go. I can give it to you - page 634. We've read it: "By God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive with Christ." We were dead. He loved us how? He made us alive.
Titus - you're going to the right. Just keep turning to the right - page 647. It occurs to me, and this is for me, but I'm thinking out loud - we talk a lot about Romans 5, a lot about Ephesians 2. I rarely go to Titus 3:4, but that's a great section where Paul makes again the same proclamation here. Titus 3:4, page 647: "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared" - what's His love for mankind? Jesus - "He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we've done in righteousness, 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? Well, His love for mankind appeared.
First John's Testimony About Love
Keep turning to the right. It's First John 3:16, page 661. First John 3:16: "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us." He said, "Here's how we know love," because God is love. We know that. But here's the manifestation: we say Jesus lays down His life for us.
And then to stay in First John - it's First John 4:10. So it's the next chapter over: "In this is love, not that we love God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin." Verse 19: "We love because He first loved us." And what's the manifestation of His love? Manifestation of God's love is that He sent Jesus. For God so loved - or back to John 3 - "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," and we see that message over and over and over in Scripture.
What People Know About God
So if you talk to people who don't know anything about Bible, don't care about things of God, and you say to them, "Talk to me about God," they'll almost always come down with at least two things. Number one: God is love. Number two: Don't judge lest you be judged. Those seem to be the two things that everybody knows.
So God is love. Well, what's the proof of that love? The proof of that love that God has is that He sent Jesus - Jesus, His only begotten Son. It's unique. It's one of a kind. It's not that He has many kids and this is one. This speaks of that relationship: Father, Son, Holy Spirit - three persons, one God. Though the word doesn't appear in the Scripture, we identify it as the idea of the Trinity. God sent His only begotten Son so whoever believes - believes in Him - will have eternal life. Whoever puts his
The Moment of Getting It
Faith and trust in Him - head and heart. Who has that moment again? Not "I know a lot about Jesus," but "I know Jesus." There's that moment in time where I get it.
I was never good in school. Mark Twain once said that he never let school interfere with his education, and that's kind of the way I approached it. I just wasn't very good. There's a lot of work, and it didn't interest me. I was bright enough, though not bright, but bright enough. But I did particularly poorly in classes that required effort and that built on one another - like math.
Math would be a classic example of things I did poorly. In grade school, I kind of got my math tables. Then we got into this business - then we got the new math when I was in about fifth or sixth grade, and I never got like X and Y and "X over" - I just put the number in there and let me know what it is. I don't want to know all this. So then when we got to algebra, here's what would happen: if you didn't get chapters one, two, three, four and you just jumped into chapter ten, you're dead. And if you didn't get algebra, you had no shot at geometry. So I was pretty well washed out by my sophomore year of high school in this.
This never happened to me, but I had friends who had these moments where in geometry or math, here's what they would say: "I get it!" "Aha! Aha! I get it!" I tried to sit next to people who got it, but I never did.
Believing Is Getting It
To believe in Him is to say "I get it! Aha! I see with more than just my eye physically. I get it in my mind and my heart and I understand it, and I'm responding to it." And now that I believe - just like His love is actual - my belief is action. I believe in Him and I'm going to show it. I'm 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 has with it quantity and quality. So everyone - I want to say something to you: Do you have eternal life? Well, the answer is yes. It doesn't matter - everybody does, because all of us are now going to live forever. The question is: in union with God or separated from God? In God's presence for all eternity, or separated from His presence? There's a quantity and a quality to eternal life.
Three Key Takeaways
Now I wrote down here the three takeaways for this lesson and for the series.
Number One: The Exclusive Nature of Salvation
Jesus is emphasizing here the exclusive nature of salvation. You must be born again - there isn't any other way. It's not church attendance or this or that - you must be born again. You're not born again, you're 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."
So the Christian faith is very narrow, exclusive. And by that I mean it's the only one. It's a very narrow way. There are not many ways to God - there's one. It's through Jesus. I didn't make it that way. Luther and Calvin didn't make it that way. The church didn't make it that way. God made it that way.
Jesus, the night before He dies: "If there's any other way other than this, let's take it." "No, you have to die." Why? Because I have to believe in Him. If I believe in Him, I have eternal life. If you don't, you perish. This is very narrow, very hard, very exclusive. There are not many ways to Jesus and to God.
Number Two: Whoever Means Whoever
Here's the second thing: "Whoever." I like this - you shouldn't have to write this down. "Whoever" means whoever. "Whatever" means whoever. Black, white, rich, poor, smart, dumb, pretty, ugly, talented, goofball, intellectual, artiste - whoever.
In fact, we go back to John chapter 3 verse 3 and put your name in there: "Unless you are born again" - whoever, regardless now of all those things, family and all, but regardless of your sinful past.
Perhaps the saddest conversation I've ever had in my life was with a young man who came to Priority Living. I was - it was one of those kind of gospel messages, very much like this, and he came up afterwards. He just wept. He sat around - I'd never seen him before. He'd gotten there - somebody told him something, I don't know, but he was there by himself. He didn't come with a friend. He sat there, waited till I was done, and he's all teared up.
He comes and he just begins to weep, and it's like he must have had a Catholic background because it's like I was his priest. He just started to confess. He just started throwing up on me all these things that he'd done. I mean, it's more and worse than probably anybody in the room - but I don't know, some of you, maybe not. It's bad.
And then he said, "Here's what I know: God could never forgive me." And I said, "Hey pal, here's the deal: It doesn't take any more grace to save you than it did one of my daughters when they were age five." It says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever" - anybody, you, here, now - "but I have..." It doesn't matter what your past is.
"But I'm in the middle - it doesn't matter where you are now." We'll run into that: "Listen, I want to come to Christ, I want to deal with this, but I got to clean my act up first." Well, you can't. It's perfection - you've already blown it. It's not about getting clean, it's about Him making you clean. It's not about being clean, it's about being cleansed. He does it. He does the work. Again, it's not something you do, it's something that's done to you. Whoever.
I mean, he had not just sin, and it's never too late. "Well, I've blown it so bad, it's too late. I've heard this message over and over and over again. I've never come." Well, for whatever reason, God's letting you hear it again. Come.
Number Three: You Have to Respond
Here's the third thing: you have to respond. "Whoever believes." Now we understand from scripture that the response, the belief itself, the faith itself, is a gift of God. It's not a matter of anything that you've done. Your belief isn't even a matter of work - it's just an acknowledgment that God's working in you. How would I know if God's working in my life?
Do you want to respond? 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? That it's time for you to run up the white flag and say, "I give up, I surrender, I'm done"?
You get to a point like Nicodemus—you're not going to get any cleaner in your life than Nicodemus, in terms of actions, if that's what you're trying to do. That's what Paul says in the book of Philippians: you want to talk about religion? I'm like the super one of those guys, but that's filthy rags, that's King James, that's dung compared to the surpassing value of knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
The Victory of the Resurrection
If we look back over this series, here's 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's what Jesus told the scribes and the Pharisees, recorded in Matthew 12, when they said, "We want a sign." He said, "I'll give you a sign, it'll be a sign like Jonah, who was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the earth."
Let me do one last turn. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, it's page 624. It's the resurrection chapter. When we get to the book of Romans, Paul writes this: if we confess at our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.
The Essential Nature of the Resurrection
We talk a lot about doctrine and what's essential, but apparently, belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is essential to you being saved. What those verses say to me is, if you don't believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, you aren't a Christian. Might call yourself one, might act like one—I don't even know what that means—but you aren't one.
Here are the stakes. 1 Corinthians 15:13: "If there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Jesus has been raised, and if Jesus hasn't been raised," Paul says, "then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." See, the resurrection is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. If you're here today antagonistic or even ambivalent and you just want to have fun and mess up the whole Christian community, all you have to do is disprove the resurrection. You want to destroy the Christian faith? Boy, all you have to do is go, "No, Jesus is still there."
That's like when every—it happens every year in the spring, you know—they find a tomb. "We found Jesus' bones!" They never do. Why? They're not there. He's alive.
The Gospel of Salvation
It's not only important to the Christian faith. If you look at the very beginning here of 1 Corinthians 15, verse one, he said, "I made known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach, which you receive, which you stand, by which you're saved." So here's the gospel that saved me. Verse three: "That Christ died for our sin according to the scripture, that He was buried and raised on the third day." Jesus died and rose again.
And what we said today here—I said, when I said I'm going to push you to a response—it's to believe, it's to trust in Him. John chapter three, verse 16: he who believes in the Son has eternal life. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe? Titus three, four, and five, the passage we looked at: He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which were done, but according to His mercy, the washing and the regeneration. Whoever believes in Him has eternal life. If you don't believe in Him, you don't have eternal life.
The Security of Eternal Life
And let me add this, and then we'll let you go. Eternal life not just begins today and goes forever, but eternal life is something that for us is—and this sounds so selfish—eternal. So the question is, if you're in right relationship now with God, can that be broken? And the answer is no.
First 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 doesn't have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God," 1 John 5:13, "so that you will know that you have eternal life." We can say this based on the promises of God. And He'll never change His mind. Nothing can separate you. This is an act that's once it's done, it's irreversible.
Romans chapter eight, verse 30: "I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height or depth, any other created thing is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Your Response Today
The whole point of this series and really of all the teaching that we do each and every week is to get you to answer the question, "Who is this?" It is to get you to come to the conclusion—not just intellectually by the way, but to make that step of faith—that Jesus is the only way to salvation, that there's salvation in no other name. Do you know that truth? Many of you do, but some of you don't.
And some of you don't and you're sitting there right now and you're going, "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, let's get out of here." Or you're going, "I don't know, I didn't get it when I came in. I've got more questions now than I did answers." Or "I think I get it, I want to respond."
Here's how you respond. If you're in that last group, you got questions, you want to respond. You want to know today is the day that you begin eternal life with Jesus. There's going to be a group of men and women in the front of the conference center and here in the chapel after the service and they exist at that moment when the service is over to spend time with you. So over in the conference center, Justin's going to come. You've had your time of communion and worship and the lesson. Justin's going to close that service here in the chapel. Jake's going to come lead you in communion and then the guys are going to come and take you through a time of worship. But our prayer has been as we conceived this series,
As we have developed this series and then presented this series, our prayer has been that God, especially for those of you that 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, but 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 life? We know that we can't but Your Spirit can. We pray that many, God, 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, change minds. We ask that of You in Jesus' name, amen.