Saving The World - [John 3:17-21]

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Well, you know what the best thing about having nephews and nieces is? You can pretty much treat them however you want.
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You can tease them in ways that you can't get away with other people, not even your own kids.
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I think one of the more fun titles I have, you know, certainly I love being a grandpa,
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I love being a father, but being an uncle is pretty special because I like being the crazy uncle.
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And that's really not much of a stretch. One of my nephews has worked as a lifeguard.
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And sometimes on Facebook, he'll post, you know, something along the lines of, I saved someone today.
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I can't resist. So I respond and I go, good job, Daniel.
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Did you get to put another notch in your Bible? And he goes, he'll respond, and he always takes me seriously,
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I don't know why. I just don't know why. He goes, no, Uncle Steve. He's a very polite, polite young man.
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He says, no, Uncle Steve, I saved someone from drowning. I mean, he literally did his job. He saved somebody from drowning.
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Now, when someone says something like that, I mean, obviously we read it, we understand that he's not saying that he sovereignly saved someone from their sins.
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But I think there's a lot of confusion about salvation, about the gospel, about redemption, about eternal life in the church today.
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And really, it's small wonder, because if you listen to some pastors, some of the big -name pastors, some of the major figures in evangelicalism, need
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I mention names, they don't understand the gospel. And if they don't understand the gospel, how are the people who attend their churches supposed to understand it?
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How are they supposed to know what the truth is? A few years ago,
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I watched on TV the beginning of one of these crusades. And one man got on the
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TV before the crusade started, and he was talking to the host of the television network. And he said,
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I know that thousands are going to get saved tonight.
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How do you know that? The answer is you don't know it, but it's how you define salvation.
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If you define salvation as coming forward, making a profession of faith, then sure.
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But why is there confusion about salvation? Why is there confusion about what the gospel is?
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And I'm going to tell you this morning, I frankly think it's because people, especially those in leadership and in preaching positions, don't understand or don't teach the
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Bible. Open your Bibles to John 3, if you would, and kind of put this all in context this morning.
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I've been working my way through the gospel of John, and I'm probably the only preacher in America that takes longer to go through a book than Mike, because I don't preach every week.
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So I'm projecting finishing the gospel of John probably in about 10 or 12 years.
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But to just catch us up where we are, John wrote this gospel to persuade his readers.
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He wrote it knowing that the people who read it needed to understand one thing, and that was that Jesus Christ is the
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Son of God, that He's the Christ, and that by believing in Him, you can have eternal life.
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As we started chapter 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, kind of in stealth mode.
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Don't really know if he was covered or what the whole circumstance was, but he came at night because he was the preeminent teacher in all of Israel.
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He was the instructor of Pharisees. He was the college professor. He was the main source of knowledge with regard to religion in all of Israel.
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But he's also someone who had seen the works of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus.
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Really, John calls them signs, but miraculous signs. And he understood that Jesus was from God.
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He told him that. He just didn't understand that He was the Messiah, and so he comes to Jesus trying to understand, trying to figure out who exactly this man was.
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And unlike the other Pharisees who would spend the next couple of years trying to entrap Jesus, trying to get him to sin or to say something wrong,
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Nicodemus isn't that way at all. He's genuinely confused and bewildered by some of the things that Jesus says.
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In fact, when Jesus tells him, you must be born again, he doesn't just go, well, then I want to be born again. He says,
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I don't get it. What am I supposed to do? Go back to my mom and be born all over again? And then Jesus says to him,
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He says, listen, being born again, He explains how the
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Holy Spirit works and how it's like the wind and how He moves in such a way that you can't really predict
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Him. You don't know where He's going to go. And his point was, you can't choose to be born again.
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It is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Last week, we were in John 3 .16,
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and we saw the amazing love of God for the world expressed in action.
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It would be one thing if God just said, you know what? I just love the world. I'm crazy in love with the world, as some writer would say.
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And then He did nothing, but He did something. He did the best thing He could possibly do. He sent His Son, the
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Lord Jesus, to the world in order to save believers. And I told you that last week, it's so common, the most common misunderstanding about John 3 .16
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is that it proclaims free will. After all, it says, whosoever will. So it's a matter of, humanly speaking, getting my mind right and deciding that I'm going to cinch up my belt and believe that I have to determine on my own to believe.
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But that's not in keeping with the whole context. Again, being born again, is that something you can do to yourself?
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Can you command the Holy Spirit to regenerate you? You are dead in sins and trespasses before God begins a work in you.
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Can you say, God, jumpstart this dead body right now? No, you can't.
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In that same way, John 3 .16 isn't about free will. We talked about how the word whoever or whosoever isn't even in that verse.
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It has nothing to do with the free will of human beings and everything to do with the sovereign will of God.
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It contains a very specific purpose statement. God gave
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His Son, Jesus, so that, this is the purpose, so that why?
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So that, well let me just read it. So that, or that, whoever believes in Him, the believing ones, should not perish, that is, not spend eternity in hell, but instead, but rather, to the contrary, have eternal life.
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That's why He sent Him here, not to give everybody the option, but to actually accomplish something.
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It sovereignly accomplishes the Father's purpose. Does the Lord Jesus coming to earth,
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He accomplishes all His good pleasure. So now we come to John 3, and we're going to read verses 17 and 21, and we're going to move through that this morning.
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God, and here's the overarching message, God is sovereign over salvation. God is sovereign over salvation.
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Listen, John 3, verse 17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.
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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
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But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Now this morning, I want to draw your attention to four salvific statements based on our text, so that you will be more fully cognizant, more aware of both the greatness of salvation, and the crippling effects of sin.
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You know, the Bible talks about, or always presents, two ways of living. Two roads, two gates.
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They're on and on, the number of twos. And here we have the same thing. It is always heaven or hell, saved or unsaved,
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Christian or pagan, right or wrong, light or dark. And in these four truths, this whole passage will remind us that it is the grace of God that saves, and the judgment of God for those who are not saved.
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Our first salvific statement. The world needs salvation. It needs to be saved. Jesus did not come to judge the world.
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We see that in verse 17. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn or to judge the world.
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That's what the Greek word means. It means to condemn or to judge. That's not why he's here. The purpose of the father was not to bring judgment.
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He's going to do that at the last, right? And his first advent, coming as a little baby, and then growing into a man.
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He came here to die a sacrificial death, to save the world, not to condemn the world. And we'll get to the saving part in a minute.
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But why? Why didn't he come to condemn the world in the first place? Well, if he wanted to condemn the world, he would have had some work to do if he wanted to judge it.
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Because the world, that is, everything that is created, had already been judged.
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How so? How would it have been judged? Or how was it judged? Well, because he didn't come into a pristine environment.
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He didn't come into a world without sin. He came into a world where Eve sinned,
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Adam followed her, and the entire universe, every created thing was tainted by sin, was plunged into sin.
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So Jesus did not come into a world that was neutral. In Romans 5, verse 12, it reads,
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Therefore, just as sin came into the world, all of it, through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
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Why do we have death, sin? Why do we have disease? Because of sin.
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Why do we have decay? All these things, why is everything getting worse and worse?
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Sin. So Jesus didn't come to condemn the world because it was already condemned.
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He came to redeem. In fact, that's what 17 goes on to say, verse 17.
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Jesus came to save the world, to redeem it, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
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This is, now he switched from the physical world, and he's not talking about the physical world because, how do we know he's not talking about the physical world in the second part?
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Because the physical world's not going to be saved. What's going to happen to this earth? What's going to happen to the heavens?
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What's going to happen to everything in the universe? 2 Peter 3 would tell us that it's going to be consumed by fire.
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Well, what else does the world not mean? Well, it doesn't mean every single person, because again, this construction in verse 17 is the same construction.
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It gives us a purpose statement, followed by, without getting too technical, but followed by a verb in the subjunctive mood, which means this, that it is the sure purpose of God that this is going to take place.
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Subjunctive often gives us possibility, but when it's combined with a purpose clause, a so that, in the
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Greek, the hynna, it means it absolutely will take place. So he's not going to save every single person in the world.
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How do we know that? Well, because as we read even through this context, we're going to see that some people are saved, and some people aren't.
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So if he was coming, if it was a sure purpose to save every single person, then guess what? Every single person would be saved.
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So again, he didn't come to save the physical world. He didn't come to save every single individual in the world, but he did come to save someone, and if you look back at the
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English, it says, but. Well, that word, in English, it's just very simple.
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It just shows a little contrast. Well, there are two words in the Greek. One shows some contrast, and the other word shows, or is meant to show a more stark contrast.
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So, you know, it's not like, I'd like to go to the store, but instead I'll stay home. It's like,
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I'd like to go to the store, but instead I'm going to go to Paris. I mean, it's like, it doesn't even do it, but it's to show the opposite.
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That's exactly what it is. So he didn't come into the world to condemn it, but quite the opposite.
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Nothing could be further from his purpose. And again, as I said, that next word is
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Greek. And it shows purpose. And then we have the subjunctive. And he did not come to condemn it.
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He came to save it. So who is it? If it's not the physical world, if it's not everyone, who is it?
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Why did Jesus enter the time and space continuum? Well, it's to save some people.
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And as we'll see this morning, he accomplishes his purpose. Some people, he's going to save the elect.
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He's not going to fail to save the world. He's going to save the world. The world just means those he came to save.
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We call those people the elect. And what is it that the elect are going to be saved from? What is it that Christians are going to be saved from?
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Well, they're going to be saved from condemnation, from judgments. If he didn't come to judge the world, but he came to save, what's he saving them from?
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He's saving them from this judgment, from this ultimate judgment. And I think sometimes we think too little about what this judgment means.
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When we think of judgment, when we think of going to court, we certainly understand justice in this sense.
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We understand that if someone commits a minor crime, I remember one time I got a ticket from LAPD for running across, literally running on foot across a red light.
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And I was trying to catch a bus that went by me in the bus zone. I was so mad. And I'm just about to get on the bus when an
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LAPD motor comes up to me and gives me a ticket for running across the red light. I'm like, but, you know what happened?
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I went into court, which is weird because I had to, it cost me more to fight the ticket than to just pay it.
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But I went to court and I said, Your Honor, and I told him everything that happened. And he said,
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I dismiss it. Because he understood that it wasn't just, that it wasn't fair that I got that ticket.
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He didn't think it was right either. So he dismissed it. We understand it in that sense, but we also understand justice in this sense.
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If somebody commits a heinous crime, what do we say? Nothing's bad enough for them. They can't punish him enough.
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I think of that case a few years ago in Connecticut where home invasion and the horrible things that happened there.
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And humanly speaking, what could happen to those criminals that would be just, that would happen to them that would be right?
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And our problem in terms of God is when we think of this condemnation, we don't think of the standards of God rightly.
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We think, you know, God wants us to be good. We think, you know, like, maybe like that judge that I saw, that somehow he's going to see what we do and go, oh, you know,
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I would have done the same thing. That's not God. That is not
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God. His law is perfect. His justice is perfect.
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One crime demands the same punishment as anything else.
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One sin, one violation of God's law. And how difficult is it to sin?
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Well, all you have to do is fail to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, or your neighbor as yourself one time.
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One sin like that is enough to send you to eternity in hell. When we think about condemnation that way, when we think about facing the wrath of God, and that's what salvation is from.
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It's from the justice and the wrath of God. You need to be saved. I'll never forget MacArthur one
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Sunday morning on Easter morning. He says, you know who your greatest enemy was? And he went through a whole list. You know, could it be man?
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Could it be Satan? He said, your greatest enemy is God, and that's right. Because apart from the
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Lord Jesus Christ interposing himself for you, you face the pure wrath of God, and you will be judged, you will be condemned.
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This world needs salvation. Every single person needs to be saved.
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We're all guilty. Second salvific statement, salvation requires faith.
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Look at verse 18. Believers will be judged righteous. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.
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Not condemned. As the hymn writer says, no condemnation, now I dread. Why does he say that?
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Because he's no longer afraid of dying. He's no longer afraid of facing the wrath of God.
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As I said before, everyone deserves the wrath of God. Every single person has sinned. Romans 3 .23
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says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6 .23 says the wages of sin is death.
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However, again, as was true in John 3 .16, the word whoever, when we see that whoever believes in him, you know, a lot of times we say, well, there it is.
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You know, we just need to appeal to people who believe, which is true. We do appeal to people who believe.
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But this is not a statement of free will. And here's why. Because, again, the Greek word for whoever is not there.
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This is a way of translating a participle, and I don't think it's a particularly effective way of translating a participle.
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Let me give you an example. Participle verbal noun. If you wanted to describe somebody who skied a lot, you would say what?
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He's a skier. If you wanted to say someone rode the bicycle a lot, you'd say, he's a cyclist, fooled you.
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If you wanted to say somebody bowled a lot, you'd say he's a bowler. We would just describe people that way.
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You know, to bowl becomes a bowler. And that's what we have in here.
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The first word of this phrase, it's not whoever, but it's the.
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It's a definite article, single definite article, the. Then the second word really should be translated the believer.
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So you could translate it as the believer or the believing one. But it really is a stress to say whoever believes.
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You wouldn't say, you know, whoever skis, whoever bowls, whoever rides a bike. You wouldn't say that.
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So I think it really does cloud the entire issue. The word or that idea would be the believer.
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And it really is descriptive of who they are. It's more than just what we would say as like a skier, because it would be like we to get a full, the full effect of it.
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We would have to see them as someone who constantly skis. And that's the idea here, not skiing, but believing.
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In other words, this is somebody that if we could follow them around, if we could somehow perch on their shoulder and watch them and listen to them, we'd go, you know what?
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This guy, this woman, this is a believer. This is somebody who trusts in Christ. But look back at the text, unbelievers have been judged guilty.
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Verse 18, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. That's stunning.
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It really is amazing. Again, that whoever is not there, we'll talk about that in a minute.
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But what is stunning to me is this idea of being condemned already. It puts really an end to all kinds of speculation.
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One can be described as, or one who cannot be described as a believer, in other words, have that label slapped on them, is already condemned.
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And it's a perfect tense verb, meaning it's something that's taken place once. They've been condemned sometime in the past and has ongoing results, sure results, they're condemned and they're never going to be uncondemned.
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What about free will? Can't you change your mind? Can't you become uncondemned? Well, not from this frame of reference.
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If we just look at it this way, that John is looking, let's just say, prophetically backwards, from judgment backwards, and he sees a time that you've been condemned from that point forward, it was never going to change.
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Now, it's also true that because there were people who,
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I mean, John, when he's writing this, it's universal, but there were people who hadn't even been born yet. You and I hadn't been born yet.
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Were we condemned without any hope? No. That's not the point. The point is some people were condemned without any hope.
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Well, so this raises the question, if God is that sovereign, if there were some people who were not going to be saved, is
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God somehow responsible? No. Look at the verse again, talking about the person who's not believed, because he has not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. As we said, God is sovereign over salvation.
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We just go back through this passage. You must be born again. Well, what does that mean? He didn't say, pray this prayer, walk this aisle, you know, just trust me, work with me,
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I'll grow you, Nicodemus. He said, you must be born again. You know, there's something that has to externally take place that you have no control over.
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People don't like that. It's not fair. But God is sovereign over salvation.
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The Holy Spirit must give new life. You're dead in your sins and trespasses before the
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Holy Spirit brings you to life. The Father must draw. No one can come to the Son unless the
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Father draws him. The Son, Jesus, must redeem.
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He must die for them and keep them. Of all that the Father gives him, he will lose none.
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But each person is responsible to believe. And you say, well, I don't get it. God's sovereign.
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How can I be responsible? Because you are. The Bible teaches both. It doesn't attempt to reconcile them.
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And failing to believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is what condemns you.
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Now, to be a Christian, you don't get to set the standard.
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You don't get to determine for yourself what that means. But again, getting back to my opening premise, there's a lot of confusion about what it means to be a
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Christian. So many Americans describe themselves as Christians, as saved.
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But it's interesting because if you read the surveys and you say, well, how many of you are Christians? You'll see a lot of hands go up. And then if you say, well, how many of you are born -again
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Christians? Not so many. Because they don't get it. You must be born again doesn't mean to them what it means in the
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Bible. But that's beside the point. We don't get to define it. We have to go back to what the Bible says. Believing in the name of Jesus.
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Well, what does that mean? We talk about this, to believe in the name of Jesus or the name period.
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In the Old Testament mindset, and this is what we're talking about here, the biblical mindset, to believe in someone's name or to just say the name of someone, it embodies all of who they are.
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Today's Christians want to take a lot of love. They want to take a lot of grace. But they don't want to so much talk about their need for salvation.
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They don't want to so much talk about what they've been saved from. They don't want to talk about the wrath of God. We can't pick and choose what parts of Jesus we will embrace.
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We must believe in him and embrace him wholly. So far we've seen the world needs salvation.
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Secondly, salvation requires faith. You must believe. There's no other way around it. Those who believe are the ones who will be saved.
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And thirdly, salvation is uniquely available in Christ alone. That's kind of redundant.
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But there's only one way to be saved, and that's in Jesus. And look, we said that he didn't come to judge the world.
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But there is judgment, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world. Well, how's that judgment? We'll discuss that.
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But basically it's a separation. Now it's worth mentioning something that I glossed over in verse 17.
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In verse 17 it says that the world might be saved through him. That is, through Jesus.
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He is the only means of salvation. And that's the constant theme of John's gospel.
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Jesus himself said, what? I am the way. I am the truth. I am the light. Not a way. And the light that comes into the world is, in fact, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. In John 1, verses 9 and 10, it says the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
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He was in the world, and the world was made through him. There's no one else who did that. Yet the world did not know him.
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They knew who he was, but they did not know him in a saving way. They did not believe in him. Now what happens when the light enters the fallen world?
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What happens when the true light, that is, the Lord Jesus, comes into a world that is infected and submerged in the effects of sin?
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Well, it separates the world into two camps. Look at verse 19, and we see the first camp, first group.
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People loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Now this week we saw we had an election.
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We saw the results, and I'm not after any political party, but some of the issues that were voted on and some of the responses were pretty amazing to watch on the news.
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We had a couple states pass legalization of marijuana. People say, well, what's the big deal there?
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Because there's only one purpose for that, and that's to bring about an altered state of consciousness, which is condemned in Scripture.
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Then there were two states that also voted to approve homosexual marriage, which, by the way, besides being a contradiction in terms, is sinful.
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I mean, there's nobody, there's no Christian who should be celebrating or voting for a gay marriage proposal.
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The state of Washington and the state of Colorado approved marijuana. But, you know, many were out there really in the streets.
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They walked up. I saw the news people walking up to people who were celebrating and said, what are you celebrating, the election of the president?
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They said, well, yeah, but mostly we're just happy that anybody can marry anybody they want. They say that homosexual marriage is about tolerance.
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They say it's about giving everyone the same rights. But the truth is, it's about two things.
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Number one, it's a rejection of the Creator. He established marriage, and they're shaking their fist at Him.
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They are protesting against Him. The second thing is, it is giving approval, as Romans 1 .32
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says, to those who openly defy God. And the word approval in Romans 1 .32
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really fails to give it proper emphasis. It's really like they applaud.
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They're excited. They're enthusiastic about it. Homosexuals, heterosexuals, metrosexuals, they're all out there cheering that this new law had passed.
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Why the big thing about legalizing marijuana? Well, the only purpose for passing a law like this is so that you can sin more and not worry about what?
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Punishment. And that pretty much sums up our society. How much can we sin, or how much sin can we decriminalize so that we can display our contempt for God more fully?
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We want to sin, and we don't want to be accountable. Why are there so many babies born out of wedlock, and it grows each year because marriage is archaic, it's outgrown its usefulness?
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No, it was established by God. Why are there lotteries? Why are they so popular?
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Because God commands work. Mankind doesn't want to work. Why do women, especially, vote and fight, and why are they pandered to to keep abortion legal?
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It's because they've lost their natural affection. The whole idea of having children, of protecting, of having that maternal instinct to protect the most vulnerable human beings is gone.
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It's been deadened by their desire to sin without consequence. If we look around us, what do we see?
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We see ample evidence that the unsaved world loves the darkness and shuns the light.
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We like to pretend that the unsaved are in some way neutral. That they can be good people apart from Christ.
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Well, that's not true. They might be externally good in that they're not robbing banks, they're not shooting people, they're not doing a lot of things, but inwardly they are in rebellion against God.
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It's just that some display it more outwardly than others. They love sin, they love the darkness, and they choose it over the light.
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Let me put it another way. 2 Corinthians 6 .14, a verse that we often use in application, really, of marriage.
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But listen to 2 Corinthians 6 .14. It's a rhetorical question, but the answer is none.
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What happens if you're in a dark room and you turn on the light? The darkness goes over to its side?
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No, the darkness leaves the room. If the darkness was somehow, if we could somehow create a living being that was darkness, we turn on that light, it would move to another room.
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It would leave, it would shun the light. And that's how it is with sinners.
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They hate the light and they long to be free from it. Expand the darkness. Expand the world of sin that they can enjoy themselves in.
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But here's the good news. The light, the perfect light, entered the world. He entered the world, lived a perfect, sinless life, died in the place of sinners, and was raised on the third day.
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The very idea that he would do that for those who hate the light and love the darkness, those who were his enemies, those who once hated him, it's amazing.
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As I think about my own life sometimes, and even this week, a few times, I find myself just looking around and going, I can't believe my life.
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Not only can I not believe all the blessings that the Lord has given me, but I think back to the very beginning of those blessings, and frankly, it all comes down to one thing.
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When God saved me, everything in my life and my view of life was transformed.
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If you've never thought about all the Lord has done for you and just wept, may
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I suggest that you've either got defective ear, tear ducts, or you need to sort out whether you're saved or not.
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There should be an overwhelming sense of gratitude in you. Why? Because Christ saved you, and he had no obligation to do it.
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You were in the dark, and yet he made you so that you could be in the light.
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So the world needs salvation. Salvation requires faith, second point. Third, salvation is uniquely available in Christ alone.
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And fourthly, the effects of salvation can be seen. They're apparent. Again, it separates people into two.
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Sinful people shun light. They hate salvation. They hate the gospel. They hate everything about it. Look at verse 20.
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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.
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You know, I was in the army, and I was stationed in Okinawa. It's where I met my wife. And Okinawa happens to be home of,
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I think, some of the biggest cockroaches the world has ever seen. They're so big, they have wings.
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And, well, they all have wings because they're from the beetle family. But the cockroaches in Okinawa can actually fly.
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If you've never seen a flying cockroach, you're blessed. But let me tell you something else about the roaches in Okinawa.
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When you went into a room and you turned on the light, they were so big, they turned it off. And that's how, if people could somehow shut off the light, that's why they fight so hard.
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That's why there's this spiritual warfare. They hate the light that much. And those who are in the habit of doing things that are of a low moral standard, that's what it means when it says, when a text says they're wicked things, they don't want their works judged.
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Why? Because they know they're wrong. They don't want them exposed, it says. They know they're wrong.
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Each one of them has a conscience. The law of God is inscribed on their heart. They know these things are wrong.
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It's because of that that they don't want to be scrutinized. That's what that word means. It would really give us the picture of having their works kind of held up to a magnifying glass and just really examined closely.
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So what do we hear from unsaved people? You know, things like, that's your opinion. Who are you to judge me?
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Things like that. That's the way the world thinks.
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You know, what happens when millions, maybe even tens of millions of people who don't want their deeds exposed, who don't want
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God to somehow take out a magnifying glass and look at their deeds? What happens when all those people get together?
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Things that were once unspeakable, shameful, become acceptable and even applauded.
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Who are the enemies of those who love the darkness? I mean, these people, they love the darkness.
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They hate the light. They hate God. They hate the God of the light. But who else do they hate?
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They hate Christians. In John 15, verses 20 and 23, our
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Lord says this, Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.
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If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also, or also keep yours.
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But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
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Listen, if you're a Christian, they're going to persecute you. Verse 23 says,
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Whoever hates me hates my father also, and they also hate you. This is a world filled with people in rebellion against their maker.
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Since they can't reach him, they will do their best to afflict you. I'm not the prophet, nor the son of a prophet.
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But as our country becomes more and more of a Romans 132 nation, those who give hearty applause, hearty approval to those who sin, we can expect persecution to intensify.
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It's the nature of sin to not be satisfied. Sinful people are not satisfied.
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They can't just go, Oh, well, we've pushed the boundaries this far, now we're done. They are in total rebellion, and they will keep pushing up against the light.
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They will keep trying to push it out of their lives. There will not be peace with those who love darkness.
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But look, Saved people love the light. Verse 21, But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Note that it does not say so that everybody can look and see what a great person I am. It's so that the works that we do can be seen as being by the power of God.
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They're in God. They're in Christ. The good things that we do, they're not of us.
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If there's anything good in me, it's not of me. It's because of Christ's work in me. But what a great contrast from those who love the darkness to those who love the light.
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Saved people don't do wicked things. They do what is true. Now, does that mean they live perfectly? Of course not.
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But they know that. They have shame. Rightly.
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They confess their sins. And they know that their lives are being transformed by the work of the
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Holy Spirit. Charles Spurgeon said this, If the Savior has not sanctified you, that is, if you're not being conformed into his image, renewed you, born again, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, he has nothing in you of a saving character.
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Meaning, if these things aren't happening in your life, you have reason to wonder if you're saved. Christians know that that which is good in them is brought about by being in God.
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They understand he's at work in them. Let me tell you something else about Christians. They don't fear judgment day.
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Why? It's not because they think they're going to show up and God's going to say, Hey, everything you did was perfect.
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They're going to show up and the Lord's going to say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
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Why? Because everything that we lack, Christ did. We're wrapped in the robe of Christ's righteousness if we are in him.
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And I just kind of conclude here. Nicodemus came to visit Jesus because he was trying to sort out who this man was who could perform these signs.
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He knew the source of his power was God, but what Jesus taught went much against or went against much of what
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Nicodemus knew or thought he knew. And he was, as I said before, the expert, the teacher of teachers. Again and again during their interaction, he was surprised.
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He didn't understand what Jesus taught him. He spoke of the need to be born. Jesus spoke of the need to be born again.
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He told Nicodemus that was a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus stressed the sovereignty of God and salvation several times during their conversation, even telling
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Nicodemus that the Father sent him into the world so that those who were brought to spiritual life might be saved from the fate of those who were not.
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So my questions for you this morning are have you been born again? Do you love the light?
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Are you afraid of the judgment of God? In fact, I would put it this way. Suppose right now I told you that you had five minutes left to live, and I'm not saying that.
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I don't want to empty the place out. If you had five minutes left to live, what would be your response? I mean, if you told me there were people you wanted to talk to,
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I would totally understand that. But suppose that you knew that death was not going to be painful, that it was going to be swift, and then immediately you were going to be in the presence of Christ forever.
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Would you fear that death? I hope not. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to save sinners like you.
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If you don't know him, if you're not saved, if you don't have the assurance of salvation, if you can't say for certain that you're ready to meet the
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Lord Jesus, may I urge you to change your mind this morning, to repent, to talk to someone, to hear the gospel that you might trust in the one who came to save, to redeem a people from the just condemnation that they all deserve, that we all deserve.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you that you would send your son to live a perfect life in our place, to die a sacrificial death in our place, to be raised on the third day, that we might have the hope of redemption, that we might have the hope of eternity with you, that we might even have a resurrected body for all of eternity.
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Father, we pray for our nation, even as we see it turning more and more to darkness, to rebellion against you.
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Father, we pray that you'd give our leaders wisdom, that you would save those who need to be saved.
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But Father, that you would make us an ever -present light in this darkened world, that we would not be ashamed of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, that we might understand that it certainly would seem that dark days are coming, and persecution might be soon coming, who knows?
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But Father, we know that you save people by the preaching, teaching of your word. Make us a people who have great compassion for the lost, have a desire to see people come to have a change of mind, not because of our words, but because of your work.
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Would you bless each one here, and challenge us to consider whether or not we are in Christ.