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Pastor David Mitchell
We've been talking about, for some weeks, the finished work of Jesus Christ, everything that he accomplished for us on the cross. We know that he also accomplished things for the Father, but we're looking at what he accomplished for us on the cross, the finished work.
And we've talked about many topics, because there are many things. In fact, one man listed 33 things that you received because of his finished work on the cross. There are probably far more than that, but we've listed quite a few.
Last Sunday morning, we talked about sonship, the fact that because of Jesus' death on the cross, you have the ability to be made a son by faith in him. So today, I'm going to continue that theme, and we're going to talk about the characteristics of a son.
The title of this is, The Characteristics of a Son. Now, it has a subtitle. The subtitle is, The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Reason of My Thousand Reasons Why You Can't Lose Your Salvation, all right?
Let's have a prayer this morning before we start. Father, we thank you for your word, and we ask you that you would keep us in your word, for then we do not need fear that we would stray from the truth.
Keep us in the proper context. Help us to use the proper methods of interpreting your word so that we might know truly your sense, your mind, your heart on these matters. May your Holy Spirit guide us completely throughout this message, and may you help us also to listen to you, to your Holy Spirit, as we study your word together.
Father, if there's anyone in the congregation this morning who may have thought that they were saved due to some religious act or some good work, may your spirit touch their hearts and help them to see that we can only be saved because of Jesus Christ.
And, Lord, if there is any lost sheep among us this morning, may he receive the Lord Jesus as his own. Father, for those of us who know you already, would you teach us and prepare us and cause us to be fit to do your service and to meet you someday soon, in Jesus' name, amen.
Well, we've made our way through John chapter 3, from verse 1 all the way through to verse 7, so we're going to pick it up there this morning, where we left off, so we'll start with verse 8. The interesting thing about verse 8 is it has an introduction, and it's introduced in verse 4.
We covered it last time, but I want to go back to it because it truly is the introduction to the first point this morning. The first point that we find in this passage about sonship is this point, and make sure you hear it clearly and mark it.
A son is brought into being by the pleasure of the father. The son plays no part in his own birth. Now, you remember last time we talked about this idea of being born again, we talked about the contrast.
Today, we're going to talk about a comparison in many ways, and we're comparing spiritual birth to physical birth, which is exactly what Jesus did here. Jesus used the figure of speech called allegory to teach us something spiritual.
He does that nearly every time because he knows we don't understand spiritual things, so he teaches very common things that are in our physical world that we're familiar with, and he says, now this spiritual thing is like that.
When the Lord himself taught on salvation, he said, well, I want you to look at the physical birth experience. It's like that. It's like physical birth, only it's spiritual, and just as surely as you must have a physical birth, you must have a spiritual birth in order to see the kingdom of heaven, and that's what he's teaching.
Nicodemus, who was one of the greatest religious men of his day, he had studied the word of God, and yet Jesus looked at him and said, you'll never see the kingdom of heaven unless, and so then he began to speak about being born again.
So look at verse four, it's the introduction to the first point. The fact that a son is brought into being by the pleasure of his father, the son does not play any part in his own birth. He certainly can't plan it, can he?
But look at verse four. Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Now I want to ask you a question this morning. This is a religious leader who studied the Old Testament every day of his life, probably, from the time he could read, the time he could understand, he had been studying the scriptures.
And why does he ask Jesus this question about the spiritual birth, and he speaks in physical terms? Jesus is teaching a spiritual birth, and this man goes back to the physical, and he says, how can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter, now look at this, can he, the man, enter a second time into his mother's womb in order to be born? Why is he asking that question? What point of view does this man have? What is the underlying supporting point of view that this man has as the philosophies of his life about salvation that would cause him to ask such a question, have you ever asked yourself that question?
Why is he asking this? It's not just because he's playing, trying to play a play on words with Jesus. It's because of his underlying belief about how salvation works, about how a man gets to heaven. What was Nicodemus' underlying belief?
Exactly. What do I, Nicodemus, have to do to be born again if you want to, Jesus said, Jesus, if you want to call being saved or getting to the kingdom of heaven, if you want to call that born again, then what do I, Nicodemus, have to do to be born again?
Why does he ask it? Bill answered it correctly, because he thought he had to do it. Nicodemus thought he had to save himself. Everyone thinks that, unless they've been taught of God. Every religious group thinks that.
So many people who call themselves brothers of ours in the Church of Christ, in the Pentecostal movement, in the Methodist group, and then you go into others that are cult groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and I didn't mean that the first three were cult groups, by the way, but Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, the Roman Catholics, and other cult groups.
All of them believe that I do something to get to heaven. So he says, what do I have to do, and if I have to do something, how can I go back in my mother's womb? And Jesus is going, listen, you can't.
You can't go back in your mother's womb. So the first seed of truth that Jesus is giving him is you can't save yourself. But Nicodemus didn't get it, at least not at this time, and most of your friends who have been brought up in churches that believe they can lose their salvation don't get it either the first time, so be patient with them.
Jesus was patient with this man, but he said, Nicodemus, I want to teach you about being saved because it's not anything like you think it is. You think it's of man, you think it's of religion, you think it's by being good, you think it's by keeping God's laws, if you could do that.
You think it's by you pleasing God, by the things that you do. Nothing like that. Nicodemus, you think you can earn your own salvation. Nicodemus, you think you can cause your own salvation. Nicodemus, you think you can move God into a position where he must save you.
Listen, I'm not talking to Nicodemus this morning. And Jesus wasn't only talking to Nicodemus, we're talking to 90 of people who call themselves Christians in this country today, think that they play a part in their own salvation.
So, Jesus begins to give this teaching to show Nicodemus, no, Nicodemus, it's like being born physically. Now, look at verse 8. He's already introduced this idea with verse 4, but it was very subtle, wasn't it?
He brought Nicodemus to ask this question that to us seems ridiculous, but really if you think about it, it's not because most of the people that you rub elbows with that call themselves Christians really believe they play some part in it.
And probably half of them would tell you, well, I'm not sure I'm saved, I guess I could lose it if I went back and lived like I used to. And they believe that. So it's not a crazy question that Nicodemus asked, it's the question nearly everyone would ask.
But now verse 8, Jesus gives the doctrinal teaching. This is what salvation is like, he says. It's like the wind. It blows where it wants to blow. The word listed is an old English word that means the wind blows where it wants to blow.
The wind blows where it listed, the wind blows where it desires, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell from which it's coming and whether it's going. So is everyone that is born of the spirit.
Who in here today can control the wind? Has there ever been a man that could control the wind? Trick question. Jesus. Do you remember the storm when his disciples were in the boat crossing the sea and they were in fear of death?
What did Jesus do? He simply spoke to the wind and what did the wind do? Did whatever he told it. Only the Lord can control where the wind blows and only the Lord controls who gets saved. Now this is a very strong teaching, but Jesus put it right in the middle of the most famous passage in the Bible about salvation.
When you get down to verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The most famous and most memorized verse in the whole Bible is in this passage, but we should never study one verse without studying the whole context.
We should study the whole chapter it's in. We should see what the whole book is about. See what the message is. And so John 3 .16 is given in the context of John 3 .8 where Jesus, the Savior himself says it's like the wind, you can't control it.
You can feel it. You can see it when it happens, but you don't know where it came from or where it's going and you don't know where it's going next. You really don't know how it got to you, but it did.
But it wasn't your will that caused it. It wasn't your will that brought the wind to you. You just felt it blow on your face. Such is salvation. Verse 9 says Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these things be?
First Jesus says it's like physical birth. Being saved is like being born. He said, well, how can that be? In verse 4, I crawl back in my mother's womb and be born again. And now Jesus says, no, no, no, well, let's try another allegory.
Birth doesn't work with Nicodemus. Let's try the wind. Okay, Nicodemus, salvation is like the wind. It blows where it wants to blow. You can feel it, you can observe it, but you can't control it. And he says, now wait a minute, Nicodemus come back and says, well, how can this be?
Nicodemus will not accept Jesus's definition of salvation. You know why? Nicodemus was an Arminian. Do you know what that is? It's a theological term. It describes any group, any person or group who believes that you play a role in your own salvation.
Now, listen to me, if you do, then you can lose it. Because if you do something to get saved, all you have to do to get lost is to stop doing it. Does that make sense? But I'll also say this. If you don't play a role in it, if it's like the wind that you can't control, if it's like your own birth that you had nothing to do with the planting of it, nothing to do with it, you just came out and then received it and said, mom, I'm glad I'm here, thank you.
Dad, thank you for the role you played. You had nothing to do with it. If it's like that, then you can't lose it because you didn't do anything to get it. And if God gave it to you as a gift, he'd be an Indian giver if he took it back.
So if you played a role, yes, you can lose it. If you played no role and God gave it to you just as a mother gives life to a child, then you can't lose it because God won't take that back. That's a very simple reason.
But we'll see many reasons as we study this one little simple passage. That's why I said the first, second, third, and fourth reasons for 1 ,000 reasons you can't lose your salvation, because we're just in one little bitty passage of the Bible.
And all through the Bible, there are reasons given why you can't lose your salvation once you truly have it. First reason is because a child, a son, is brought into being by the pleasure of his father.
The son plays no part in his own birth. Jesus taught that, Nicodemus couldn't believe it, he said, how can these things be? And Jesus answered this way. Jesus answered and said to him, are thou a master, in other words, a teacher of Israel, and you don't know these things?
We could ask that question to many of our brothers who claim to be teachers and preachers today. Many of them teaching and preaching that you can lose your salvation. And I would ask them, are you a teacher of the word of God and you don't understand this basic concept that salvation is a birth?
You can't control your own birth. It is wind blowing on your face and you can't control where it came from or where it's going. If it's there, you can recognize it, but you have no control over it. Do you not understand these simple things of salvation?
Go to Ephesians chapter one, verse three. Let's talk about this first point before we go to the next one, just a little bit more. Look at some supporting passages. If we're going to believe that the context of John chapter three.
Gives this teaching, then surely there are other places in the word of God that would. Validate this, that would also say amen to this passage, Ephesians one, three. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, that means us.
We Christians blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. Now, if you were chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that means certainly before you were born.
How could you have controlled that? How could you have played a role in that? If the choice was made before you were born. Now, let me ask you, does that hold up to Jesus's example of physical birth? Is the choice in the physical realm for you to be born made before you were born by someone other than yourself?
And we answer that this morning. All right, yes or no. All right, who makes the choice, the baby or someone who existed before the baby ever existed, that how it works physically. Jesus says spiritual birth is like physical birth.
I'm going to give you an example. Look at physical birth. You'll see a lot of truths about spiritual birth. So therefore, it still holds up because Ephesians chapter one, verse three says that God, the father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the one who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be.
That goes out into the future. So we see it says we should be holy. So therefore, apparently holiness and good works is a result of the birth, not the cause of it. Can we see that this morning? Because the cause of it occurred before you were born.
Only after let's go back to the physical, is it true? Let's see, Charlotte, you've had five babies. Well, six count me, but you didn't have me, but you have me now. But anyway, you've had five babies.
Can you remember one of them that ever you remember how we got this the little sonogram thing and put it on there and you could you could move it around and see him on TV and then you could hear their little hearts beating.
Did one ever whisper to you and say, Mommy, if you let me be born, I'll be a good boy. I'll never obey all my life. And then you said, OK, I'll let you be born on the basis of your good works. I'll let you be born.
Did that happen? No, it didn't, did it? Do you know that with physical birth that the child has no opportunity to obey until after the birth takes place? This is real rocket science. I hope you're with me.
The child has to be alive on the planet before he can obey or disobey, does he not? Now, let me say this. How old was Jenny before she disobeyed? Well, I remember the first time and she was more than for a few months, of course, I overlooked most of her disobedience, but she was sitting in her high chair one day right beside Daddy, right beside Mama.
And she loves it when I tell the story because I change it every time to make it preach better. You know, she was sitting there and she had her little cup with the lid on it. And something happened and I said, I think what she did was she went like that and she knocked it off on the floor probably four or five times.
I picked it up, put it back, you know, put it back. Dad's trained. So finally, I said, don't touch that cup. She looked at me and she went and she got her first bacon right there. And to this day, she won't reach for a drink at the table if I'm sitting there.
But do you realize that long before that happened, Jenny, you were already a child in our family. You were my child on the basis of nothing to do with whether you obeyed or not, because your mother and I wanted to have you and the rest of you, too.
And none of you were born on the basis of how good you would be. In fact, I dare say this, Mom might disagree, but we have some children that are more obedient than others, some that are more easily swayed and others that have their ideas, their own ideas.
And which ones do you love the most? We love them all the same. Now, are we better parents than God? I say, here's here's that's what we would do, but here's what God would do according to the Church of Christ, the Methodists and the Pentecostals.
Here's what God would do. First time Jenny knocked that thing off the plate, I'd pick her up out of that thing,.
Take her to the front door, walk out, walk down about a quarter of a mile to the counter. Steve Jackson's house across the street. From that door, I'd go, boom, you're a traitor, Steve, you found my child and why don't you disobey me?
That's what God would do if you lose your salvation. Now, somehow it doesn't fit, it does not fit John chapter three, because the child is already in the family once it hits the point of salvation. Therefore, salvation is not based upon obedience or lack of it.
And so if that's true, if it's true in Ephesians chapter one, that it says, according as he has chosen us in him before he made anything. So that later we should be holy and blameless before him in love, then obviously the holy life is a result of the birth, not the cause of it.
Who could say amen on that? Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, so who controls the wind? God, we weren't here yet, were we? We weren't born yet, God had already predestinated. What does predestinate mean?
Just if you just take the definition of the word itself to predetermine something. Now, let me ask you this, if God is not a man, that he should change his mind. Isn't that the scripture we read this morning in the book of Numbers, God is not a man that he should change his mind.
And if he's already chosen you, how could he change his mind and kick you across the cattle guard? It is the most ridiculous doctrine ever invented by man. It cannot bear up under scrutiny. It cannot bear up under scripture.
It cannot bear up under sound argument nor reason. Yet there are many of those who are Arminian around us who go about believing this way. Go to John one. In verse 12, now, this is the same book, obviously, as John chapter three, we're just going back.
A little bit, a few verses back to chapter one, verse 12, let's see if this supports our interpretation of John chapter three. John chapter one, verse 12 says, but as many as received him. To them, gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, that's very similar to John 316, isn't it?
But look what the next verse says, which are born. Not of the blood, you cannot inherit this, not of the will of the flesh, your mama won't you to get saved, can't make you get saved. You yourself can't make it happen.
It's not of the flesh. It is not of the will of men. You can't have a whole group of people in a church want you to get saved and cause you to get saved, apparently because God says it's not of that. So what is it of?
Well, in my Bible, it's underlined and in bold print, but of God, but of God. As many as receive him to them, gave me power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which are born, not of the blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
God is the one who's in control of the birth. So let me tell you this, if you've been born. He won't change his mind. You can't be unborn once you're born. Let's go to Acts 13, 48, see if there's another word on who might be in control of our spiritual birth.
Acts 13, 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. So who was it that believed in that group of people, some didn't believe some did, which ones believed the ones who were ordained, what is ordained to mean?
It's a similar word to predestinated, it means for ordained by God before time began. Those are the ones that believed. So who is in control of the wind there? The people are God. God, listen, God knows who his children are.
He knows who they are and he calls them to himself. Romans 9, 11, let's look at another one. This is the most hated verse in the whole Bible. Romans 9, verses 11 through 13, the most hated little passage, the most little taught passage today in the whole Bible is Romans chapter 9, verses 11 through 13, because it does not fit the modern Armenian philosophy.
It strikes against the fairness of the American. It really does. Romans 9, 11, for the children being not yet born now, would you agree that before they were born, they had no control over this. So what is here it again, it's using physical birth as an example of spiritual truth, the children being not yet born, neither having done good or evil.
Do you see that your birth and the state you will have at birth cannot be determined by good works because you haven't done any yet? It is not determined by that because you haven't done any yet. So it's before they either one had done any good or evil.
That the purpose of God, according to election, might stand not of works that these two individuals would do, but of him that call it. So who's in control of this? God, or these two little boys that are about to be born.
God is in control, they have not done either good or evil yet, they haven't even been born yet, and yet God has already determined something. Now, let's see what he determined. Look at verse 12. It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I, God, loved, but Esau have I, God, hated. Did you know there are people God hates? You've never been taught that Sunday school before, but it's in the scriptures and it's on the basis of predetermination, which happened before any stars were made, before any angels were created, before any men ever existed.
In God's mind, he already knew you. He knew his children in his mind before he made anything. He knew you by name. He knew everything about you. Not saying you existed, but I'm saying in his mind you existed.
Now, one other, 2 Timothy 1 9. Turn to that one. 2 Timothy 1 9 is very clear. It says, who hath saved us? Now, do you think that's a reference to us who has saved us? Did we, in other words, did we save ourselves?
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling? Is it us who saved ourselves and called ourselves or is it someone else? Who is it? It is God. God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose.
Go back to the physical example. When a little baby is born, was it because of his own purpose or because of the purpose of his parents? The parents were in control of that. But according to God's own purpose and grace, which was given, you see, it's a gift given us in Christ Jesus.
When was it given to us? At the time we decided to be good. Mommy, if you let me be born, I'll obey. No. Given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is not difficult language. God is very clear when he speaks on this particular topic.
So I'll say that the Arminian has a problem with Jesus's choice of allegory. Because if it's true of birth that you can't choose it, then it's true that you can't lose it. It is not earned. It is something that is simply received.
Now, we took a little extra time going through some extra verses on that. So I'm afraid you're going to have to come back next Sunday to catch the other three of my 1 ,000 reasons, the other of the first four.
I'll name them for you. The first one that we study today is that. A child cannot choose his own birth. That is determined by the parent. And if Jesus is using physical birth as an allegory, an example of how physical, how spiritual birth works, then we can't choose our spiritual birth.
God chooses that. If we can't choose it and earn it, then we can't lose it because we didn't do it to ourselves. God did it. And if we don't earn it, but we receive it, then once we receive it, it is a gift given and God will not take it back because he is not a man that he might repent or change his mind.
Why would he save you in the first place? Can he not see your future when he saves you? The day he saves you, does he not see every sin you'll ever do the rest of your life? If you could lose it, why did he give it to you then?
It's just a silly waste of time. I don't know anyone who doesn't believe God can see the future, that God knows the end from the beginning. On the moment of your salvation, did he not know everything you would do with your lifespan that he gave you and he saved you anyway?
I kind of look at it this way. There's there's a guy on late night talk show who is a conservative and I like him because he's he's funny, but he's also brilliant. But he always comes up with funny thing, but he says he says, I believe liberalism is a mental disorder.
Now, if you're a liberal, I didn't say that, he said that. But I believe this, if you're an Armenian, you have a mental disorder. You don't have the ability to reason clearly and to take plain teaching in the scripture.
And relate it to truth. And if that offends. I can't help it. You can't change the scriptures. You can't cheat when you interpret scriptures, you have to go by the context, you have to go by the plain grammar and the meaning of the words, you can't change the meaning, you have to go by other things said in the Bible about that passage.
And that's the way it is, Jesus chose physical birth as a wonderful example of how spiritual birth works. So we talked about the fact that you can't choose your own birth, you can't control it. Next time we'll talk about the fact that one aspect of the nature of a child is he has the genes of his father.
Now, if you had a problem this morning with this teaching, come back next Sunday because it just gets stronger. When you are born again, you have the genes of the heavenly father, we'll explain what that means next time.
A third thing that comes into place in this passage in John chapter three is that when you are born, you dwell in the house of your father. And then the fourth, and you're wondering how did he think he'd cover all this this morning is when you're born, you then do the works of your father.
You follow in his footsteps, you have his genes, you have his genetic code, you have many of his gifts, strengths and abilities and teaches you how to live, how to work, what to do with your hands. And so you do the works of your father.
So we'll get into those next time. Hope you'll be back for that. Let's stand and have prayer to this morning and will be dismissed. Dear father, we thank you that you are in control for if you were not, if we were, we could lose our salvation.
We surely would lose it. We would throw it away. We would throw it to the wind. We would disobey you, so we thank you that the gospel message, the good news message is, in fact, that we cannot earn our salvation.
It is a gift. It is purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and one drop of that blood is sufficient to save all of your children and to fully save them for all eternity, that they might dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
We thank you for that. We cannot grasp all of its meaning. We cannot fully grasp in this flesh the joy and the glory that we should have because we've been born again. But we thank you for the truth. Help us to meditate upon it.
Lord, we pray for anyone here who thought about these things, perhaps in a new way this morning for the first time. We pray you would continue to work in hearts over this message. Help us rejoice that you call us to yourself, that you do the saving and then you continue to work in our lives each day until we meet the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Father, we ask that you go with us into our time of fellowship this afternoon and bless the meal that we're about to have and bless our afternoon services.
And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.