He Must Be Lifted Up | Sermon 11/06/2022

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The gospel according to John chapter 3. We're going to be in verses 11 through 15 today of chapter 3.

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The title of this sermon today, church, is He Must Be Lifted Up. Two weeks ago it was

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You Must Be Born Again. This week is He Must Be Lifted Up.

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Starting in verse 11 of the gospel according to John chapter 3, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.

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If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

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No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

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As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray quickly. Lord, please would you speak through me today?

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Would you use me, Lord? God, please edify your people today.

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Illuminate the scriptures to them, dear Lord. God, do what only you can do by your

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Holy Spirit. God, I am merely a man, but Lord, you can make these living words from your

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Bible, from these holy scriptures, come to life for them, and so I pray that now. God, help us to know much more deeply what these mean, and let us,

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Lord, take these with us. Let us just not just leave them here, but let them be something that, as you said in your word, that are on our foreheads and our hands, and they're our way of life.

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So Lord, please help me to speak in a way that is clear and helpful, and let it always be true. In Jesus' name

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I pray, amen. So there is something significant about our eyes and what we put them on.

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Jesus said in the gospel according to Matthew, the eye is the lamp of the body, and so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

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But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Our eyes,

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Jesus is trying to communicate here, are like entrances or windows to our hearts, our minds, our souls.

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The eye being clear is not merely about good eyesight. It's about the ability to look upon what is good and perceive that it is good, while removing your eyes from that which is bad and perceiving the things that are bad as bad.

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Because what you look to matters. What you look to in this life matters.

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Eve kept her eyes fixated on the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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What's interesting is if you look at the Hebrew in Genesis chapter two and three, you'll see that the tree of life was in the center, but then for Eve, she saw in her own eyes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the center of the garden.

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And so people have argued which tree was actually in the center, the tree of life or the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but at least what we know for Eve, it was her center.

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It was her focus. It's where she put her eyes. She kept her eyes fixated on that fruit, and therefore she brought a curse upon all mankind and all the land.

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We are still witness to those effects even to this day. Cain. Cain stared at the offering that his brother

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Abel brought to the Lord and coveted his brother's offering over his own produce offering, if you remember.

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He was jealous of his brother's favor before God. He too, Cain, brought a curse upon himself, if you remember that.

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Cain was cursed to wander the earth as a vagabond, and he said that is worse than death.

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In fact, the Lord God said, I'm going to put a mark upon you so that no one will kill you.

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You were to wander the earth in exile. That was Cain. He had his curse.

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After the flood had subsided and Noah and his family survived during their time on the ark, it says after the water had dissipated that Noah started farming.

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That makes sense to me, right? All the water disappears, all the vegetation, everything is dead. You're like, I better start growing things so we can continue to live, and so Noah starts farming the land, and one thing that he plants is a vineyard.

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And after the vintage time, after the harvest, he fermented some of those grapes, and he made wine, and he drank it and got, it says, drunk.

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And so Noah went into his tent after drinking the wine, and he uncovered himself, and he had three sons.

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One of them was Ham. Ham, son of Noah, father of Canaan, went into his father

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Noah's tent and looked upon his father's nakedness. Now, it doesn't exactly say what happened, and I remember even in seminary we went over the three to four different options of what possibly happened there, and we can't go into that now, but essentially, at the very least,

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Ham did something sinful. He looked upon his father's nakedness.

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He did something that he shouldn't. He looked where he shouldn't, and he sinned. And for this reason,

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Ham, like the others I just mentioned, Eve and Cain, he also brought a curse upon himself.

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It says, cursed be Canaan, Noah said, a servant always to his brothers.

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He would always be below Shem and Japheth. And that curse continued even especially when the

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Israelites, who are descendants of Shem, took Canaan over, which would be the promised land.

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Do you see that? The curse went all the way to the point that where Canaan was,

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Shem's son, that was the promised land, and the Israelites were to go in and destroy all the

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Canaanites. So he had his curse. When the

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Lord God had determined to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with the Lord to spare his nephew

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Lot. Lord, if there is at least this many people that are righteous in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, would you save them?

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Lord said, I would. And it came down to his nephew Lot. Now, I'm sure most of us remember the account of the men of the city who tried to sexually assault the angelic messengers in Lot's home.

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That's where we get the word sodomy or sodomite. Homosexual acts were being done there.

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But when the morning dawned and God was about to punish the city, the angelic messengers yelled to Lot, escape for your life.

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Do not look behind you and do not stay anywhere in the valley. In fact, escape to the mountains or you will be swept away.

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However, Lot's wife loved the prosperity and luxury of Sodom.

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That's where her heart was. And so she disobeyed the command. And most of you probably know it.

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Lot's wife, as they were running away from Sodom, she looked back upon the city and thereby bringing a curse upon herself.

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It says that she instantly turned into a pillar of salt, dead, dead.

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Samson, this is the last one I'll mention. Samson was a judge during the time of the first years of Israelites' occupation of the promised land.

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And Samson couldn't keep his eyes off of women. And if you remember, he took the

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Nazarite vow, and he was to not cut his hair. And he had strength because of his long hair.

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But ultimately, we know his strength was from God. Nevertheless, his vice was his lust and his desire to look at women.

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And it says he looked upon a woman among the Philistines. The text says, literally, she looked good to him.

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And so he was supposed to marry among his own people. They weren't to intermarry with the

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Philistines or the Jebusites or any of the Canaanites or people surrounding them.

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But he wanted to marry this Philistine woman. But during a time of a feast, great trouble erupted after his new wife shared the secret of his riddle with the men at the party.

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And Samson killed every single one of them. And his wife was then given at that moment to one of his companions.

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So essentially, the next day, Samson goes to his wife's father's house to get his bride and to consummate the marriage with her.

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And her father says, I'm sorry, Samson, I gave your wife to your friend.

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And so at this moment, Samson is completely upset. He's totally angry.

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You can tell already he's a hothead. He had just killed a bunch of men previously before. And so what he does to get back at her father, his now ex -bride, he gets a hundred foxes and he ties torches to their tails and scurries the foxes through their fields.

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And the fire runs back behind their tails and they light all the crops on fire, destroying everything, bringing a famine upon their land.

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But Samson could not even then, after his ex -wife's father offered the younger sister, he could not stop looking at women even then.

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And it says that he put his gaze upon a woman named Delilah. And this woman seduced him, discovering the power of his strength.

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She deceived him to the point of him taking on a curse, being without his strength.

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And it resulted in his own demise. You see, all of these examples, all of these men and women were looking to things that they thought would be good for them, but were in fact sinful and brought curses upon their lives.

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Things that only bring a curse. But today our text, and this will make sense shortly as we go through the sermon, our text today will show us who and what we should be looking to.

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Who and what we should be looking to. And an account of Israel, of the Israelites, is brought up in this text.

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We read it, and it's not unlike the ones that we just read, except this time we are shown who we should look upon.

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All the other times were things that we shouldn't look upon. This time is something that we should, someone who we should look upon.

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And let's go through our text now. Go to verse 11. Verse 11 says, once again, truly, truly,

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I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.

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Now you will remember this section of John's gospel, starting in verse 1, has been

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Jesus teaching about regeneration and entering the kingdom of God.

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We saw that to enter two weeks ago. I preached on this, one must be born again, which is as Jesus expounded as being born of water and spirit.

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Those are the same thing. Being born of water and spirit, or being born again.

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And all of that dialogue from verse 1 in chapter 3 until now has been

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Jesus with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was sent by the council, and as I spoke, is either challenging

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Jesus or is seeking truth from the one whom he has seen do signs for the past week at the feast of unleavened bread.

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It could be a little bit of both, but that's the context that we have. This man was wealthy.

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He was a prominent Judean leader. He was a Sanhedrin council member, a Pharisee, a teacher of Israel.

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That's what we saw. Essentially, Nicodemus is the archetype, the archetype of who we would consider to be the most righteous of the land.

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Someone like Nicodemus has got to be the best of the best that Israel has to offer.

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He's the archetype in that way. And so what we see is he was an expert too.

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That's in the context. But we found Jesus in the position of an evangelist, and Nicodemus as an object of that evangelism.

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Roles were reversed, and the mighty teacher of Israel, Nicodemus, was humbled, and the humble

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Jesus became the exalted and mighty teacher from God, the true teacher from God.

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And so Nicodemus is a hypocrite, just like all of us before we were in Christ.

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He's a hypocrite. He is supposed to be the most righteous one in Israel, one of the most righteous, but he has no true righteousness.

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He is a sinner, and he must be born again. He must be reconciled to God.

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But how? We saw two weeks ago that we must be born again to enter the kingdom of God, but now

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Jesus will show us in this passage how. He says, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen.

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And people are often thrown off by that pluralization. You say that? This is

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Jesus saying, truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen.

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Now, contextually, this is a bit difficult because I preached on the previous verses two weeks ago, but I want you to think back to the the first verses with Nicodemus.

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Nicodemus came saying, we, we have seen you. We have seen that you are a teacher from God.

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He spoke in the plural as well. And so this is to say,

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Jesus is saying, we, the other side of things, speak of what we know too.

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We have knowledge of heavenly things, and the plural here is just a device, an argumentative device.

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It is used to intensify his comments. Okay? This is not that the disciples were at his understanding.

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Some people said, well, the we is him and his disciples. And I just don't see that.

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Because as we move on in the verses, we'll see that there's things that his disciples couldn't have known.

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But really, the we is to, it's a combative, contrastive thing.

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Nicodemus said, we, this is who we are. We've seen you do this. Now Jesus is saying, well, we know this.

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We know and testify of what we have seen. He's speaking in an authoritative way.

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That's the purpose. He's saying he's qualified to make his statements that he's made about being born again.

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I'm qualified, Jesus is saying. I can speak on this. And he'll really drive that home in verse 13.

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And as the prologue said in John 118, Jesus is the, you remember, the exegesis of God.

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Jesus is the full explanation of God. He testifies of what he knows and what he has seen.

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What has, what does Jesus know? And what has Jesus seen? Think about it.

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The prologue spoke about this. The first verse says, in the beginning was the word.

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And that word was what? With no point of reference all the way back. In the beginning, as far back, time immemorial, time innumerable,

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Jesus was there. In the beginning was the word, the logos, and the word was with God, and the word was

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God. Jesus has the authority to speak on heavenly things, because that's where he comes from.

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And he speaks in such a way, he testifies of what he knows. He speaks of what he knows, testifies of what he has seen.

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And what has he seen? He's been always, from all eternity, in the triune relationship.

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He stands in this moment as a representative of God, of the triune

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God, the persons of the Trinity. So he has the authority to speak on who can enter his kingdom.

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He can speak on the kingdom of God, because that's his kingdom. And he just came from there, he just descended from there, and he has the right to speak on it.

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And he's seen incredible things. He's seen the creation of the world. He participated in it.

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He's seen the creation of all creatures. He was a part of that. All things that were made, were made through him.

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And so Jesus has seen material come out of immaterial. Jesus has seen the throne room of the

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Father. Jesus, it's said in the prologue, has seen the Father. Other texts say that Jesus is the image of the invisible

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God. So Jesus knows all men, if you remember.

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He knows Nicodemus, he knows the Pharisees, and they don't accept his testimony of God.

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You right here, see that second to last line? And you do not accept our testimony.

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That you is also in the plural. You do not accept.

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And so the plural is showing him speaking, of course, to Nicodemus, but it's also trying to show us who he was sent from, and probably all of the antagonistic

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Jews who were questioning him. Nicodemus has recognized that Jesus is a teacher from God, but he has yet to recognize and know and accept who

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Jesus truly is. Yeah, he says, we see that you're a teacher from God, but Jesus says here, you do not accept our testimony.

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In the Greek, that means you do not receive me. That word accept is literally receive.

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You do not receive. I have told you things and you do not receive my witness,

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Jesus says. In essence, you do not believe who

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I really am. You do not believe who I really am. And we knew that was coming. We knew that was coming.

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This hearkens again back to the prologue, and I'm going to say that so many times in this series in John, because the prologue is really the bones, the intro that covers the whole rest of the gospel according to John.

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And so if you remember, it says, he was in the world and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

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He came to his own, and those who were his own, what? Did not receive him.

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Did not receive him. We knew that was coming. Look, for us, you're going to speak about what you know of the

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Bible. You're going to do that. You're going to testify of what you've seen

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God do, and you should. You should speak on what you know of the

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Bible, and you should testify of what you've seen God do. You should. But sometimes, oftentimes, the people you're speaking to will not accept it.

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That's just a reality. They can hear the gospel, and it doesn't appeal to them.

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Maybe they're even your family members, and they can even possibly see the change in your life.

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Oh daughter, oh cousin, oh brother, whoever it may be, nephew,

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I've seen the change in your life. I can't deny that. I've seen something has changed in you. You are not like the person we knew years ago, and yet that's not enough for them.

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That's not enough. It doesn't change them. How should this be a comfort to you?

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How should this be a comfort to you? Because Jesus is God, and he's testifying of what he's seen, and he's sharing what he knows, and they don't accept him.

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So if sometimes you share the gospel, and they don't accept what you say, just know that that happened to Jesus too.

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See, just be faithful. You just keep going. You keep sharing people in your life, your family, your relatives, your co -workers, your friends.

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They're not always going to accept your testimony, but we're not supposed to stop. Did Jesus stop after this?

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No, Jesus didn't stop after this, so we keep going. We keep going. The Lord of glory did miracles, signs, and wonders many didn't believe.

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In fact, he says that in his woes, woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. If I had done the signs and wonders, if I had done the things that I'd done to you in Tyre and Sidon, you know, they would have repented long ago, and so there's this aspect where many have seen his signs, but they don't believe.

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So we don't get discouraged. That's why correct theology shows only by the sovereign and gracious election of our

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God by the Spirit of God can a man or woman accept these things. What a relief.

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What a relief. It's when you go up to that person, you share that with them, that's got to be on God.

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That can't be on you because it's an act of God, and when they do, if they turn to God, they turn to Christ, it's not a notch on our belt, right?

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No way. It's a recognition that God did a work that we can't do. We boast in Him.

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We don't boast in ourselves. It's honestly shocked me the times that I've seen anyone turn to Christ.

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I'm telling you, I've seen a few people turn to Christ that I, you know, I've spoken to.

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This is by no means a boast in myself. Again, I was shocked, but that's what

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God does. He does it, and it was a shocking moment because I was like,

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I can't manufacture this. I can't make this up. It truly was a recognition.

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Wow, God, you did it. You did it because I can't do it. So it's amazing, but that last line, that's kind of scary.

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That's more than just an indictment, I think. The testimony and witness

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Christ is speaking of is Jesus Himself. Again, in the very presence of all the triune

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Godhead as one of them, God has told them how to come to Him and His kingdom, and they didn't receive it.

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Do you get that? They're going, how? People are wondering.

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People want to be taught. How can I enter the kingdom of God? And literally, God comes down and says, this is how you come into the kingdom of God.

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It's through Me, and people don't receive it. That's what's happening. That's what's happening.

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Many don't do it today, of course. Go to verses 12 and 13.

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Jesus says, if I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

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No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Now, this verse 12 has caused some confusion before for people, okay?

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Some have thought the earthly things are from the previous verses.

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If you remember, some people have said the water is natural birth. Some look at the wind analogies, and they think, if I told you earthly things, and they think that that's what

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Jesus is talking about, that the earthly things are the wind and a natural birth with water. But if you remember,

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I preached on the fact that verse 5, water and spirit doesn't mean a first and second birth.

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They're one of the same. Water and spirit is a spiritual birth. Water has always been seen throughout the

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Old Testament and even into the New as a cleansing thing. There's no biblical reference that would show water indicates a natural birth.

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So anyways, that's just a reminder. So the question would be, if that's true, if the earthly things are wind or maybe a natural birth, why in the world would

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Nicodemus believe Jesus based on those things? If I told you about wind and natural birth and you do not believe, why would he believe because of natural birth and wind anyways?

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That's not what it's trying to say. That's not what it's trying to say. What are the earthly things that Jesus has already said?

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In fact, the question would be, what are the things that Jesus has already said in verses 1 through 10?

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That's how we have to answer this. Here's what I think Jesus is saying in verse 12.

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Okay. All that I just told you were things that happened on the earth.

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Because the word is, the word for earthly is epigeos. Epi is on.

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Geos is the earth. So if I, all that I just told you were things that happened on the earth.

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All his statements about being born again and being born of water and spirit, those are things that happen on the earth.

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We are regenerated. We are given new life on earth.

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You're not waiting. You here now, if you have believed on Christ, you have been regenerated.

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You have been born again. That is something that happens on the earth. And that's what

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Jesus is saying here. And he goes, how Nicodemus, will you believe if I tell you epipuranias?

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Epi is on again. Uranias is heaven. Things that happen on or in heaven.

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Because the born again transformation that Christ spoke about happens to people here on earth.

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Regeneration is received here. And Jesus told him those things.

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Okay. If this is a little confusing, again, look back at the previous sermon.

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Look back at verses 1 through 10, and this will make a little more sense. If I told you earthly things, if I told you things that happen on the earth is the word, and you do not believe the things that I just told you about being born again, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

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That is to say, he has yet to say heavenly things. That's how that would read.

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Jesus has yet to say, if I tell you heavenly things. He hasn't said heavenly things yet.

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That's not to say, again, being born again isn't heavenly or anything like that. What he's saying, those words are on the earth or on or in heaven.

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So he has told us things that are going to happen on the earth, and the question would be then, what are the things that are on heaven or in heaven that he hasn't said yet?

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And this, I would assume, are these. The things that Jesus has not mentioned are the things of the glorious consummate kingdom, the eternal state.

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Okay? The things to come for the believer who was born again on earth by the

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Holy Spirit. Earthly things are then the spiritual born -again things because Jesus came to earth.

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Think about that. Spirit came to flesh. The gospel isn't gnostic, okay?

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It impacts the physical world and physical people. That's the reality of what he's saying.

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The gospel isn't just some spiritual thing that happens. It actually affects real people, and it affects the earth.

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And so that's what I would say is being said here right now.

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So what would be the application for us? The application for us is that describing the splendors of heaven to people won't convince them either, okay?

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We could tell them all that we know. We could tell them there's going to be no tears. There's going to be no death.

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There's going to be no disease. There's going to be no sin. You could tell someone that. You've got to hear this.

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Let me tell you the heavenly things. The heavenly things are one day God is coming again, and he's going to dwell with us, and there's going to be no death, and it's going to be defeated, and we're going to live with God, and we're going to be with him forever, and it's going to be amazing.

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God will dwell with us. We will get to sit at the feet of Jesus. We'll get to do all these things and experience all the goodness of God, and it's going to be more than we can imagine or fathom, and you could tell someone all that, and it wouldn't be enough.

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That's what's being said here. The point is you can tell people about heaven, and you can.

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I'm not saying you can't. You could tell them about the glories there, but what

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Jesus is saying is if you tell them about Jesus, a wonderful Savior, and his desire for people to be born again for them to be born again, and they don't want him or they don't want that, then telling them about heaven isn't going to convince them.

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Why? Because if they don't want heaven, then they don't really want

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Christ, because Christ is heaven. Christ is heaven. So that's what it's saying.

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Verse 13 is connected to the previous verse, obviously, but it's connected by way of a conjunction, chi, which is typically translated and, and I'll tell you most translations, including the

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NASB, the ESV, and many others, they absorb chi into the English text.

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It's not here, but it should literally say this, and no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven.

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It's a connection. How is Jesus able to speak about heavenly things or the earthly things that are touched by heaven?

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Because he has the authority to do so, because he is from heaven. He's from heaven.

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Deuteronomy 30 speaks of this. Moses proclaims to the people of God. Again, we're looking at verse 13 here.

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Keep verse 13 in mind. Deuteronomy 30 says, it is not in heaven that you should say this, who will go up to heaven for us to get us the word of God?

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That's what Moses is telling the Israelites. He says, who will go up to heaven, who will ascend, who will ascend into heaven for us to get us the word of God and make us hear it that we may observe it?

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Moses is saying to the people, you're not going to have to ask that. They said,

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Moses paraphrases again, nor is it beyond the sea that you should have to say, who will cross the sea for us to get it, to get the word of God for us and make us hear it that we may observe it?

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Why? Why are you not going to have to ascend into heaven to get the word of God?

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Because the word of God has come down to his people in the Old Testament.

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In the Logos, we saw in John 1, the word of God, the Logos, Jesus Christ comes down to his people in the

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New Testament. Now in the word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

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No one has gone up into heaven to ask these things of God and come down to share them. No one. No one has ascended into heaven, received knowledge from God, and then come back down to share them.

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No one. No one has. That's what Jesus says. He has the authority of heaven behind him.

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When God answered back to Job, he said, can you discover the depths of God? O Job, can you discover the limits of the

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Almighty? They are as high as the heavens. What can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know?

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Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Nicodemus, you and me, anything that we know of heaven is given by God.

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Anything that you know at all about God or about heaven is given to you by God.

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Through his word, through his revelation, through his appearance to mankind, we ought to humble ourselves.

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We have not ascended there. We have not ascended into heaven. Nicodemus has not ascended into heaven and brought back down the instructions on how to enter the kingdom of God.

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That's why he's even sought out Jesus. Nicodemus hasn't gone up and come down, and that makes him a subpar teacher of Israel.

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We need someone who really has come from heaven and can tell us how to get there.

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That's what we need. We ought to humble ourselves and speak like Agur, the son of Sheol.

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In Proverbs 30, this is one of my favorite passages.

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It starts out like this. Surely I am more stupid than any man. That's a humble statement.

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And I do not have the understanding of a man. Neither have I learned wisdom, nor do

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I have the knowledge of the Holy One. And he says this, Agur says this in Proverbs 30, who has ascended into heaven and descended?

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Who has gathered the wind in his fist? Who has wrapped the waters in his garment?

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Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name or his son's name?

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Tell me if you know. Surely you know. That's the glorious thing.

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Christ has come down from heaven, and he has the authority to speak on these things.

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Authority to the point that all his words ought to be observed. Not one single thing that Jesus said is something that we shouldn't observe.

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All things that Jesus said, we ought to observe. God has come down and spoken. And all analogies pale in comparison.

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And that's always the case. It's hard for a preacher. Give us grace. Any sort of earthly analogies

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I give you are just never gonna measure up. And in fact, I think some of them are probably blasphemous to say in some situations.

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But let me give you an example, okay? Think about a student learning from a high school teacher.

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And the high school teacher is giving a lesson on outer space, okay? You even have a textbook in front of you.

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It's going over astronomy and all these things. And you're learning from, as a student, a teenager learning from a high school teacher on things of outer space, okay?

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You're even looking at photos of space. You see some depictions of space. But how would it be if your teacher said today, students,

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I have a treat for you. I know we've been studying astronomy. We've been studying outer space.

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And today we have an astronaut with us. A real astronaut has come to our school. And he's from the space station or a moon expedition.

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I know some of you, I won't get into that. Moon people, okay?

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Nevertheless, from what we can tell, barring all conspiracies, this man's been in outer space, okay?

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This man has been in outer space and he comes and he teaches the students and he teaches you, okay?

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And he describes what he's seen, what he felt, what it was like. He saw the earth and it wasn't flat.

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It was a sphere and, you know, it was just incredible. And he's speaking of these things and it would be like, okay, this guy is an authority on this.

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I thought, you know, Mr. Smith or Mr. That's a, you don't use that word here.

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Mr. Anderson. Let's go with something from Matrix. Mr. Anderson was teaching on this.

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I thought that was cool. I thought he was an authority on this, but no, he's not, okay? This astronaut knows so much more because he's actually been there.

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And again, I told you the analogy would fall flat, but that's really what it is. How much more is

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Jesus an authority on heaven? Nicodemus is like, hi everyone,

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I'm a teacher of God. And Jesus is like, hi everyone, I'm God. What a difference.

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You would go, okay, I know who I'm going to listen to. There have been stories of people who have gone into heaven and received divine instruction.

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That's been said. There have been stories of people who have gone into heaven and received divine instruction, come back down.

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Even the Jews during this time had rumors of these things in their day. But Jesus makes it clear.

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No one has ascended into heaven, received authority and knowledge from God, and come back down, descended down, and gave it to humans.

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Jesus is the only one from heaven who has given revelatory wisdom as God with the authority that he has.

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Of course, I'm not trying to discount the prophets or anything like that, but they have a derivative authority, right?

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The prophets are given the word of God. They speak, but Jesus is God. This really flies in the face of all false religions.

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Why? Everyone thinks, you see it all over, everyone thinks your co -workers, people you know, people you see online, everyone thinks that they can attain guru status, right?

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People think in this world, I'm going to this year, my resolution is to obtain enlightenment.

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You know what I mean? They make a goal for it. They do these things. They want spiritual elevation.

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But a believer with a bible is more spiritually enlightened than those type of people. A believer with a bible is more spiritually enlightened than them, than even a meditating monk on the top of a mountain in Nepal.

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A believer who studies their bible will know more of the words of heaven, the words of God, than that man up there on that peak.

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And that's the application for us here. How do we gain knowledge and wisdom from God? If we currently can't ascend into heaven and descend back down, how do we get the words of God?

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Moses already said in Deuteronomy 30, God has to bring it down. God has to bring down his word, and that's what happened.

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He who descended from heaven, that's the solution. That's how we're going to get the word of God.

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The son of man came down. Jesus came down. We go to his word to read what came from heaven.

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And it's amazing that even as believers, we want to experience heavenly things, right?

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Even believers will get super kind of like these enlightenment spiritual people, and we'll be like, we just want,

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I just want a spiritual experience. They've never read their bible in their lives. I just want a spiritual experience.

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Your spiritual experience is one page away, my friends. The word has come down.

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God has come down. We need to stop searching for it in other places. Let's go to our final verses for this evening.

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Verses 14 through 15. And these are really at the heart of this sermon. This is the heart of the sermon, primarily.

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This is what I was working towards from my introduction about what we put our eyes on. I talked about curses, and I talked about what we put our eyes on.

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So keep that in mind as we finish out this sermon. It says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.

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Now, to properly understand the context of what Jesus is saying, let's read through this account. You're wondering, what is going on here?

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Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness, so must Jesus, the son of man, be lifted up.

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You're wondering, what is going on? Let's look at the context. If you have your Bible, if you'd like to, turn with me to Numbers 21.

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Numbers 21. That's in the first five books of the Bible. The Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, then

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Deuteronomy. Go to Numbers 21 if you'd like, but I'll read it to you. Numbers 21.

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We're going to be in verses four through nine real quick. Okay, at this point, the

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Israelites have been delivered from the bonds of slavery in Egypt, and they're now in the wilderness, awaiting to get into the promised land.

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Okay, that's the backdrop, so let's read it, starting in verse four of Numbers 21. Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the

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Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient because of the journey.

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The people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

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For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.

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Talking about the manna. The Lord sent then fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

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So the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned because we have spoken against the

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Lord, and you intercede with the Lord. They're talking to Moses.

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Intercede with the Lord that he may remove the serpents from us. It says,

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Moses then interceded for the people. The Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard that is a staff or a pole, and it shall come about that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at the serpent, he will live.

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And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a standard, and it came about that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

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You can go back to John if you'd like. So the people were grumbling.

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They spoke against God and Moses. God sent fiery serpents upon them.

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This word fiery, by the way, can mean in the Hebrew venomous. Venomous snakes, possibly snakes that cause great fever than death.

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Fiery. But it was a judgment from God. A judgment from God had come upon them.

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And it's interesting. You see a recognition of sin is made. We've sinned against the Lord. A confession is made before the

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Lord and Moses, and a request to Moses for intercession then.

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So God gives them the solution, and they are to look to the bronze serpent on the staff.

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Okay. Now what is the connection of the story of the bronze serpent on the pole to the previous passages in John that we're at now?

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What is the connection? Excuse me.

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The new birth that Jesus spoke about in verse 5 was, of course, seen from an Old Testament perspective, cleansing water and spirit.

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Ezekiel 36 was one among many that we saw showed the gracious act of regeneration of fallen man or a fallen woman.

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We already looked at that two weeks ago. Now the serpent on the pole example shows the

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Israelites had been cursed. They were cursed, and they were dying.

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But looking upon God's solution gave them new life. Gave them life.

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He shall live, the text says. The same

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God who gave new life to Israel in the wilderness will give spiritual new life to those in spiritual wilderness.

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That's the connection point. Spiritual new life will now come with eternal life.

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Rebellious Israel represents, of course, rebellious humanity. They represent us.

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We would have done what they've done. We would have grumbled too. We would have complained as well. We would have spoken against God and Moses as well.

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We are just like the Israelites in that sense. They are not saved,

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I will say, from evil snakes. Okay? You don't want to look at that and say, well, they were saved from snakes.

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They were saved from the judgment of God. They were saved from the judgment of God. And that is what will occur when

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Jesus is crucified. Those who look to him and believe will be saved from the judgment of God and receive new life.

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Remember the curses? Those who look to the wrong things? Eve, Cain, Ham, Samson, Lot's wife.

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Remember all those who look to the wrong things and they receive curses? Well, those venomous snakes in Numbers 21 were like a curse to the people.

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They were a curse to the people. And Genesis 3, this is where you really got to tune in.

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What does Genesis 3 show? That serpents are a curse. Serpents are a curse.

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That's what happened, right? God pronounces a curse upon the serpent, upon Lucifer in the

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Garden of Eden, and serpents are considered cursed things. So what does

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God have the Israelites do? Make a bronze serpent and lift it up on the staff.

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And now so many of us have read the gospel according to John, and we've got to this section, and we've read it, and we're like, but why is

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Jesus comparing himself to a serpent? I thought serpents are evil. I thought serpents are related to the curse.

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Why? Why would Jesus bring this up? Why is it a serpent? Why is it a snake?

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Okay. Why lift up what was tormenting them? Why gaze at the curse?

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Why gaze at the curse? And that's the thing. All that happened in Numbers 21, the bronze serpent on the staff was to point to this very moment in the moment of crucifixion.

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What did Jesus do? Jesus, it says in Galatians 3, that Christ became a curse for us.

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So the snakes were the curse, and the snake, the cursed thing, was put on a pole, and it saved them.

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Now Christ, although benevolent and all good, He too would have to become a curse on the cross.

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That's the point. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

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That's what Paul says. All the curses God promised

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Israel would come upon them if they disobeyed Him and disregarded His law were upon the people in the first century.

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Think about it. Think about it. The curses, if you remember, the curses and the blessings in Deuteronomy, some of you may remember, may not remember that, but it was the covenant, the giving again of the covenant law, and so you have the blessings and curses, and they were at their height in the first century.

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Think about it. Roman occupation, foreign invaders, you had demon possessions all over the place, you had famine.

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Eventually before AD 70, there was so much famine that even mothers ate their own babies.

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You had loss of land, you had infirmities, lameness, blindness, all these things.

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How many people does Jesus see that are blind? How many people does He see that have leprosy?

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How many do you see that are starving? How many do you see that are begging for alms in the first century?

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And so all the curses that were promised were at their height, demon possession everywhere.

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Curses go on trees. Curses are on staffs and rods like that snake, and so Christ becomes the ultimate curse.

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All those curses that were happening to them in the first century, Christ would put upon Himself on that cross, and this gets even to a into a little bit of eschatology, but I would argue that from that moment after Christ was crucified and resurrected,

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I don't think we've seen curses go up. Yeah, we're still under the curse of the fall, but I don't think we're seeing from the moment that Jesus was victorious and crucified and raised again and exalted to the right hand of the

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Father on high, I don't think curses are going like this. I think Jesus came and He's undoing the curses.

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I think from that moment of the first century they're at their height, and yes there's terrible things in this world, but I think little by little the curse is being undone because of what

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Christ did, because He became a curse. We've already mentioned it, but the other connection to Jesus is the being lifted up like the serpent on the staff.

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This is of course a foreshadow of the cross. This is the promise of the gospel.

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This is the gospel right here, verse 14 and 15. That's what Jesus is trying to articulate, and lifted up by the way in verse 15,

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I'm sorry in verse 14, lifted up has a dual meaning. It has a dual meaning.

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Lifted up can mean for exaltation, and lifted up could also mean humiliation, and that makes sense.

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Why? Because what humiliates Christ will bring His exaltation. Going to the cross will bring

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His greatest exaltation and greatest glory. Isaiah 52 shows the

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Lord saying His servant, and we know Isaiah 52 is about the Messiah. It says that His servant will be high and lifted up, and you're like, okay, exaltation, and you would be right, but consider the dual meaning.

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The very next line after it says, my servant will be high and lifted up, it says, and he will be marred beyond recognition.

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High and lifted up, marred beyond recognition. It's two things.

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He was more marred than any man. Isaiah 53 says, He Himself bore the sins of many.

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He bore the sins of many. He took them upon Himself, and it says He interceded for the transgressors, and is that not how the snake on the pole function?

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We must look to Christ on a wooden pole. You know, that's the whole point of Numbers 21.

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In God's perfect sovereignty and plan, Numbers 21, that scene of the bronze serpent wasn't ultimately for the

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Israelites then, it was for this moment now. It's being fulfilled now in this passage and in His crucifixion.

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Here's the thing too. If you remember in Numbers 21, it said at least two to three times,

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Moses interceded for us. Moses then interceded. We don't need that anymore now.

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We don't need that. We don't need Moses to lift Jesus up. No one, no man needs to lift

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Jesus up. That's the thing. Jesus will become the offering, the curse, and He will become the intercessor too.

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He will lift Himself up. It says that He was willing to go to the cross. He was willing.

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He doesn't need Moses to do that. Moses was simply an instrument of God's grace, but now the grace will come directly from Jesus as the divine

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Son of God. Moses, what, lifted up the serpent on the staff for a short time for an insignificant amount of people in a nation called

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Israel, but now through Christ, now through Christ, the staff is lifted up.

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Christ is put on that wooden cross, and for forever until Christ comes, people can believe on Him and be saved.

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Now from an insignificant number to a significant number will be saved. Not for a short time, but people, people can believe on Him today so that if you don't know

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Him today, you can believe on Christ today who is lifted up on the wooden cross. And it's not just people in Israel.

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It's not just if you possibly take Ancestry .com and find you have a little bit of Israelite blood or Hebrew blood.

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It's not that. It's that every tongue, tribe, people, and nation will get to be saved now.

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Salvation from judgment went from the few to the many. Now Nicodemus at this time may not have known that Jesus would have been lifted up like the serpent in Numbers 21.

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Remember that he's still talking to Nicodemus here. The last time Nicodemus spoke was in verse 9.

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Jesus is just letting him go, letting him have it. Speaking to Nicodemus, you want to know?

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I'll tell you. And so the point is

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Nicodemus wouldn't have understood exactly what Jesus meant here, but I'll tell you what, later in the gospel according to John, it's my belief as John 19 shows that Nicodemus came and brought very expensive oils and perfumes and aloes to prepare

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Jesus's body for burial. It shows and lumps him in with believers.

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So what does that tell us? That tells us that Nicodemus thought at least of Numbers 21.

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Nicodemus was a teacher of Israel, and he would have at least understood the reference. What?

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What has to be lifted up? Like the serpent? And if you look to it, it'll be saved?

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And no doubt when Christ was raised on a wooden cross, Nicodemus remembered this conversation, and he believed.

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And he believed. He remembered. He saw Christ raised up on the standard like the serpent.

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And he looked to him for life. And he believed. That's it seems clear from the text to me.

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He remembered this is the one through whom the curse will be removed, not just a curse of snakes, but the curse of all curses, all the curses will be removed through this one.

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That's who he looked to. And only after this lifting up will the one who descended ascend back into heaven.

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You get that? He descended, and he'll send back up. What a difference.

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That's God. It said that man has to ascend and then descend, but God descended and then ascended back to where he's from.

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Of course, this is his kingdom. You know what happened to the bronze serpent?

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Can I tell you what happened to the bronze serpent on the staff? The Bible actually tells us it's hundreds of years after Numbers 21, hundreds of years after them wandering in the wilderness.

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Here's what happened to the bronze serpent on the staff. It says in 2 Kings 18 .4,

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Hezekiah removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars, and he cut down the

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Asherah poles. And get this, Hezekiah also broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made.

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For until those days, the sons of Israel would burn incense to it, and it was then called

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Neshuttan. Wow.

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Hezekiah, as you might know, was one of the few obedient and God -fearing kings.

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He did what was right, but the point is this is so providential. This is so providential.

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There could no longer be a bronze serpent on a pole. This would now be

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Jesus. And here's the thing. It wasn't the looking that saved them.

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Oh, so they looked to a serpent? No. It wasn't the looking that saved them.

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It was the grace of God that saved the Israelites by means of the bronze serpent. And this time, it'll be the grace of God again, but by means of Jesus Christ.

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It's pure grace. It's grace. It's grace upon grace. Now, we cannot and should not worship the bronze serpent.

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We can't anymore. Hezekiah, who I think is a brother who we're going to see one day, destroyed it for us.

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I praise God for that. I praise God for that. Providentially, there could no longer be any bronze serpent because we had to look to him now.

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We have to look to Christ now, and Jesus can be one that we worship. That's the amazing thing.

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God saved us, and he gave us himself to worship him. That's been the problem of humanity for so long, is our sin and our ability to make idols.

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So what does Jesus do? He comes and he saves us, and now we can worship him. Problem solved.

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That's the humanity's problem. This is the ultimate answer to how one is born again.

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This is how you can be born again, Nicodemus. This is how you can be born again, brothers and sisters, through the cleansing water and regeneration of the spirit, by faith and belief, and looking to Jesus Christ on the cross, the one who was lifted up.

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The last verse is best said, in order that all who believe in him will have eternal life.

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That's verse 15. In order that all who believe in him will have eternal life. That's the way the

01:08:09

Greek has said. Once again, pointing back to the prologue, remember, in him was the life.

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In him was the zoe, the life. The spiritual new birth in Christ will bring life again now, life eternal.

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And you know what's significant about the word eternal? What comes with it?

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Eternal life isn't simply about quantity. Eternal life is about quality.

01:08:48

It's not just about a very long period of time or time innumerable. Eternal life would be hell if it was separated from God, away from the benevolence of God, of God away from his goodness.

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Eternal life is only good when you're in the presence of the one who makes it good. Eternal life is going to be terrible for those in hell.

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Eternal life is good, more than good, because the one who gives it will be there. And now

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I could tell you how glorious it will be to worship the one who gave you breath, who gives you food, who gave you your family, who provides for you, who gave you purpose and so on.

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But we worship him irrespective of those things. We worship

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Christ because of these things, because he gave us new life, because he took away our guilt and our punishment, because he gave us an inheritance.

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And he's worthy of our worship because he is good. He's all good. He's perfect, totally holy, totally righteous, and it's hard to fathom right?

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It's hard to fathom because one day you're going to see perfection face to face. Unbelievable.

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You're going to see perfection face to face. You're going to see your God, and he'll smile at you,

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I'm sure. Jesus' words to Nicodemus are for everyone.

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That's why John recorded them. At a time when Jesus has essentially humbled

01:10:26

Nicodemus and could exalt over him, Jesus announces his own shame is coming.

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So Nicodemus has been shut up, and he's quiet for some time now from verse 9.

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And Jesus, instead of exalting over Nicodemus, announces my shame's coming.

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My shame is coming. But my shame will be to your exaltation, and my death will be to your life.

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I have to die so that you will live. I have to be shamed so that you will be brought up. That's what

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Jesus is pointing to. So then church, as I conclude, there are two things that we all need to remember from this.

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First, for those who don't know Christ, you've seen who to look to. The Israelites looked to God's remedy for rescue, which was the bronze serpent lifted up.

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But now God calls all men and women everywhere to look to his son, not for a temporary rescue, but for an eternal one.

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And now it doesn't matter how many times you've looked to something else. I talked about people who look to other things and received a curse.

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It doesn't matter what else you've looked to, how many times you've looked to it. It doesn't matter what you've looked to before this moment.

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It doesn't matter how many curses you've acquired in this life. It doesn't matter how many times you've been bitten by fiery serpents.

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It doesn't matter. You have the opportunity right now to turn to Christ. It doesn't matter who you've looked to before.

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It matters who you look to now. If you look to the son of man who was lifted up and raised up, you will have eternal life.

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And the second thing to remember is for believers here. Here's the application.

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Even though we've already looked to Christ for salvation, we, church, often turn our gaze from him in this

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Christian walk of life. Maybe we're looking for solutions within ourselves.

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Maybe some of us are looking to our spouses to rectify our issues.

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We exalt our husband or our wife. Please solve my problems.

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Maybe we look to other things or make idols out of stuff to help our situations, but they don't work.

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This is an image that demonstrates you will only get through your current circumstance if you continue to look to Jesus.

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That's it. That's it. It's that simple. It's hard, but it's simple, right?

01:13:30

Are you looking to pornography? Look to Christ and his word instead. Are you looking to doctors and medicine to heal you and it's not working like you would like?

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We need to look to Christ on how to suffer righteously in this life as we await the eternal kingdom.

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Of course, we ask for his healing and his will, but we don't dwell on the disease.

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We dwell on the one who reverses the disease. Are you looking to your job, your career, to give you some feeling of worth?

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Then you've forgotten who purchased you. You've forgotten that you're worth more to God than your employer, than your vocation, than your career.

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You're worth more than that. You're not just who you are Monday through Friday. You're in Christ and he loves you.

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He loves you and that means something. That means something more than what you could get out of your job. Are you looking to money to solve your problems?

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Jesus says, of course, no one can serve two masters. You will either hate one and love the other or look to the one and deny the other.

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You can't serve God and money. Money won't solve your problems. And of course, we know where good things come from.

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We saw in James that every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of lights. We need to ask him for what we need.

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He'll care for us. And look, I know we know all these things. I know

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I'm preaching to the choir. I know we all know these things in our heads, but we got to keep remembering them in our hearts.

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Okay. I hear from people in this church, in other churches, people who

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I know as Christians around the world, and many of us are running on empty.

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We're not feasting on the word of God. We're never to fast, of course, from the word of God.

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We're often not asking for our God to help with these things. That's really when

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I, some of you already know it. I've counseled some of you. One of the things I do first with you all is

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I go, okay, just like a doctor would do, are you getting sleep? Are you eating right? Are you whatever?

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My thing that I do with all of you is I say, okay, are you actually eating? Are you feasting on the word of God?

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Are you praying? Are you actually seeking God's will? Those are the basics. And so often that's what we're neglecting is these basic things.

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And when we do ask, as James said, we don't ask believing. We don't ask with faith.

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We don't ask thinking we'll get it. So we need to be admonished in that way.

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So brothers and sisters, whether you've turned to Christ or you need to look to him for salvation, you're to keep your eyes on who was lifted up.

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Hebrews 12 says this, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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What? Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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That's the key. The word is fix. And I looked real quickly at it in the

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Greek and the word is aphoro, aphoreo. I'm sorry.

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An apho is meaning away from. Horeo is to see.

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So you are to look away from something. This means to fix your eyes on Jesus, you must look away from everything else and you must fix your gaze on him.

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That's what the Greek word means here. Intently gaze upon Christ, not on your circumstance.

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That's Jesus. So we keep looking to him, church. Keep looking to him, look to him, look to him, to the one who took all of the curse upon himself.

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And I couldn't help but think of the Christmas hymn from Isaac Watts from 1719,

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Joy of the World, writing about curses so much. I couldn't help but think of this song that we sing so often in Advent season.

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It says, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.

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He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.

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Amen. Amen. That's what he's done. Let's pray. Lord, please bless the message that went out.

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Use it for your glory and for the sake of your people. God, often the reminders that are given are so simple, and yet we struggle so much.

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Lord, we need you to help us. We need you to help us to remember the gospel of grace. We need you to help us to remember your goodness.

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We need you to help us remember, Lord, that we've looked to you and we ought not to look anywhere else.

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We should continue to look to you for all things, salvation and everything else.

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So, Lord, please encourage us in that way. We thank you for today. I pray this all in Christ's name.