WWUTT 807 How Can You Understand Heavenly Things?

All of us have a responsibility to mature in the faith. We must not stay babes or infants in the faith, but we must grow up and help the entire body of Christ mature when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, written for us in John 3.

I'll begin reading in verse 9. Nicodemus said to Jesus, How can these things be?

Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen.

But you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

As we have been studying this conversation this week, I've mentioned a couple of times 1

Corinthians 2, where the Apostle Paul talks about how the naturally minded man is not able to discern spiritual things.

Let's go back a little bit further in that chapter, beginning in verse 9. But as it is written,

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what

God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the

Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What can we know about the mind of God? What can we know about his thoughts? Nothing, except that God has revealed these things to us through his prophets and apostles who have written these things down in the

Word of God, which we have in the Bible. So we are able to know the mind of God because of what we have written in the

Word of God. But even then, you cannot really know the things of God unless he gives you his spirit to be able to discern these things.

Isaiah chapter 55 verse 9 says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts, says the

Lord. So we can't possibly ascend to thinking with the mind of God unless he has given his spirit to us to be able to know his mind.

And so that's what Paul goes on to elaborate here. Verse 12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

It is by the mercy and grace of God that he has given this word to us that we might be able to know his ways, what he has revealed in his will through his word.

And Paul goes on to say, We impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

So anybody can pick up a Bible and read it, but only the person who has the spirit of God is able to understand the deep truths of God.

And this is where Paul gets to verse 14, where he says, The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

In Romans 11, verse 33, we read, Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.

For who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has known it? No one.

No one can ascend to that height to know the mind of God. He actually came down to our level that we might we might know his mind and his heart.

God condescended himself so that we could discern these things.

And again, he gave these things to us through men who wrote down the word of God in the of scripture.

And the greatest of these revelations was through his son, Jesus Christ, God, who became man.

As we read at the start of Hebrews chapter one long ago at many times and in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

We know that Jesus in Jesus, according to what Paul wrote in Colossians chapter one, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

So everything we could ever know about God, we see in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So this is what Paul says to the Corinthians. The only way that we can know these high and lofty thoughts of God is if we have the spirit of God within us.

Only the spiritual person can discern these spiritual things. The naturally minded man can't understand them, and they are folly to him, which is why when, you know, an atheist or a skeptic or a secular humanist would read the

Bible, they would come away thinking, what a ridiculous book. Well, it's because they're naturally minded. But the person who has the spirit of God comes away from reading the

Bible with awe and wonder, and they are so taken aback by what they have just consumed that they will come to it again and they will feed over and over again and they will feel full and yet still crave more.

That's what we get from the word of God. It is truly the most satisfying thing that has ever been given to us on this earth, that we might know the mind of God, the way of salvation, the way to fellowship to his heart through his son

Jesus. And that's all given to us through the word of God. But after the apostle

Paul says this to the Corinthians, after he says that you need the spirit to discern spiritual things, he goes on at the very start of chapter three to say the following.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food for you, for you were not ready for it.

And even now you are not yet ready for you are still of the flesh. And then

Paul goes on to mention some of these sins that they're guilty of. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

For when one says, I follow Paul and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

And they were divided over things like this, over which teacher was better. And there were egregious sins that were being practiced and tolerated there in that church.

And sin always divides. And so Paul said, I wanted to talk to you about deeper spiritual things, but I can't because you are still babes in the faith.

One of the addresses that we read to the Hebrews in Hebrews chapter five, verse 12, it says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child.

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Now, with that in mind, with what we read in first Corinthians chapter two in Hebrews chapter five, let's come back to this conversation again between Jesus and Nicodemus, where Jesus says in John 3, 12, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

What is the earthly thing that Jesus has said to Nicodemus that he must do in order to see the kingdom of God?

He must be born again. He is born of the flesh and he thinks with his flesh, but he has not yet been born again of the spirit to be able to discern spiritual things.

So Jesus is saying to him, you must be born again of the spirit in order for me to tell you of heavenly things.

You can't understand or discern those things which are spiritual as long as you are thinking like the natural man.

My friends, we shouldn't be surprised whenever we share spiritual things with people in this world and they mock us for it because, of course, it sounds absurd to them.

They're naturally minded. They cannot discern spiritual things. And so we should come to expect that.

We should also expect that sinners are going to behave like sinners. And so what this world needs is the gospel spoken to them.

They need to be born again first before we can try to help them understand and grasp the deeper spiritual truths of scripture.

Now, that doesn't mean that we can't share deep concepts, but it would be like trying to feed an infant a turkey dinner if we just left it at that.

Even if you get into a deep subject with somebody else, you still have to bring it back to the gospel because that's what they need first and foremost to be transformed, to have the heart regenerated from rebelling against God to desiring

God and that being a work of the Holy Spirit. They must be born again, born again in the spirit of God to be able to discern these spiritual things that are otherwise too mysterious for them and too absurd for their crude flesh to be able to grasp.

So that's why they make fun of it. And we must be patient in those circumstances.

We must not ridicule because we were just like them. There was a time when you did not have the spirit of God and the spiritual things that were shared with you, some of the deeper concepts that maybe you didn't hear until much later in your

Christian walk. Those things would have sounded ridiculous to you. And yet God was patient with you and is steadily growing you in knowledge and maturing in Christ.

All of us have a responsibility to mature. We're not supposed to stay babes in the faith, just like any trade or task or hobby that you would apply your hands to.

The more that you do it, the better you get at it. And it's the same with our relationship with God.

The more that we apply ourselves to this faith, the more that we desire to learn from it, that we fellowship with the body, that we exercise and practice love and feed on the word of God, the more mature we will get in these things.

And then that puts us in a position to be able to mentor those who are less mature.

And that's a responsibility that everyone has. Titus chapter two gives us that responsibility.

Romans chapter five, we who are mature have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves, but for the benefit of our neighbors so that we might be able to build them up.

And when we help those who are less mature grow more in the knowledge of God, we increase the overall maturity of the entire body of Christ.

Everyone benefits from this. So it's not just about how you can benefit from growing in the knowledge of God.

It is also how you can be a benefit to others in the body of Christ. It is upon you to mature in knowledge and wisdom so that you might teach others who are young and coming into the faith as well.

So Jesus says this to Nicodemus and is especially sharp with him because Nicodemus is a teacher in Israel.

So he should know these things. And yet he doesn't. And Jesus says, you you are the teacher of Israel.

And yet you don't understand these things. We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen.

But you don't receive our testimony. This is a rebuke on Jesus part to say this to Nicodemus.

If you were receiving our testimony, then you would be a credible teacher for the for the people of Israel.

But right now you are unqualified because you're not born again. You don't have the spirit of God to understand spiritual things.

So if I've told you earthly things and you don't believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

I want to be able to share with you the deeper truths of the mysteries and the knowledge of God, but I can't as long as you remain this naturally minded man who only dwells on natural things.

We who are in Christ Jesus don't just think about the natural. We also think of the supernatural.

But again, none of us should boast in this. None of us should boast that our knowledge is greater than yours because I not only have the natural,

I also have the supernatural. And when I was much younger and I was much less mature, I did used to brag about those things.

I would I would, you know, head thump my atheist friends and be like, I have more knowledge than you do.

You might have all this natural stuff. I can dwell on the natural just like you can't.

But I also have the supernatural, which you reject. And I would say those things as though to boast in myself or that by giving this offering of understanding supernatural things,

I might be able to entice them into the faith. See, I've got some extra knowledge that you don't have.

And if you just had this knowledge, well, then you would be even better than you are now. But that's the wrong message.

That's not the way that you entice somebody into the faith. It's not that they should want knowledge for themselves because then they're just going after the faith for their own benefit.

Rather, they should desire God. No one comes to heaven proclaiming their own glory.

We get to heaven proclaiming God's glory. And that's exactly what we want to do for all eternity is praise

God and be in his presence forever. And so this must be our desire.

Our desire must be for God, not knowledge. But as we dwell in him, or as Jesus put it several times over the course of John, as we abide in him.

He says it in John 6 and John 15 is the most popular reference where he says,

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing.

So if we abide in God, we will become more knowledgeable of him through what he has spoken to us in his word, through the revelation of his son,

Jesus Christ. And so once again, Jesus saying to Nicodemus that you must be a spiritually minded man, you must be born again in order for you to understand these heavenly things.

And when we are born again, this is not something for us to boast in. It's not some greater knowledge that we can brag about.

Let all of our boasting be done in the Lord. We just finished up 1

Corinthians or I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 10 in the sermon series that I'm going through in church on Sunday.

And that was the last sermon that I just preached. So it'll be the one that will come up on the podcast this coming

Sunday. But the sermon I just preached was was the apostle Paul saying, let he who boasts boast in the

Lord. And that's where our boasting should be not in ourselves, not in our own knowledge that we think we have attained for ourselves.

But all this boasting must be in Christ for the fact that we understand supernatural things as well as natural things is a gift of God.

It's by the grace of God, not because we're great, but because he is merciful and gracious.

So then Jesus goes on to say in verse 13 to Nicodemus, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

Now, as I'm coming up close to the end of our lesson today, I don't want to dwell a lot of time on this, but just simply to say this, let me keep it in context with everything else that Jesus has just said.

He said, you can't understand heavenly things unless you are born again. And then in verse 13, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven.

What Jesus is basically saying is this. No one has ascended into the presence of God and has been there in the heavenly throne room and has observed and heard the counsels of God being declared and proclaimed from his throne in heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

Oftentimes, whenever we read this verse, we'll think of it as just heaven. You know, the broader sense of heaven.

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven. And that's Jesus. But Jesus is not talking about the broad scope of heaven.

Again, it's the context of understanding the mind of God. And you can't understand the mind of God because you are still in the flesh.

You're the naturally minded man. You must be born again. And then you are able to discern those things that have been freely given to us by God, as Paul talked about in first Corinthians to this knowledge that God has given to us, especially through his son, who

Nicodemus is sitting right there with. And yet he does not even understand the very word of God that's coming out of his mouth because he is still in the flesh.

He is still thinking with the mind of man. So Jesus says, you must be born again, because if I try to tell you heavenly things, which

Jesus came to us to share, you won't understand them. And I've told you before how in this portion of the conversation,

Jesus has revealed aspects of his divinity to Nicodemus when he says, truly, truly,

I say to you, saying, I have firsthand knowledge of this wisdom that I share with you.

I am the originator of these words. I am the Lord, though he doesn't outright say that he is the

Lord. But now, in a sense, Jesus is saying he's the one that's descended from heaven. And I have things to share with you that only

I have knowledge of because I am God who has come down. No one who is no one has ascended into heaven to understand the mind of God.

Specifically, that's the context, except he who descended from heaven, from that very place that God has issued his decrees from.

And that is the son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Now, that's the passage I'm going to come back to tomorrow because it goes quite well with verse 16, perhaps the most well -known verse in the

Gospel of John, John 3, 16. Let's conclude with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for the word that you have given to us and the spirit that you have blessed us with, that we may know your will, those things that you have exposed to us through your word, that we might know the mind of God and that we likewise will have the mind of Christ, that we can grow closer to you in fellowship with you and know how to rightly worship you because you are worthy of all praise.

Keep us humble as we study these things. Let it not be the sort of a thing where this knowledge puffs us up, but it humbles us knowing that we are men of the dust.

And yet you, God, in your holy habitation in heaven, considered our need and sent your son to die for our sins and teach us more about the father so that we might call upon you and know you and be adopted into your family because of what

Jesus has done for us. Let us take this message to others so that they likewise would turn from sin and turn to you.