Do You Understand? - [John 3:9-15]

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Well, I would invite you to open your Bibles tonight to John chapter 3. I've been preaching verse by verse through the book of John, patiently, month by month.
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Let me ask you a question. Is it possible to be saved and not know that you're saved?
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Is it possible to be in a possession, or in the possession of a ticket, admitting you into heaven and to not know about it?
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Went to the Red Sox game yesterday. We had to have a ticket to get in. I wonder if I, you know, just showed up there and I didn't know
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I had a ticket. Would they let me in? Probably, yeah. They're pretty desperate these days. Actually, on the 12th.
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And we left after the 10th. I had things to do, you know. But recently, one of my friends responded to, you know,
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Facebook is so good for one thing and mostly one thing. No, not
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Facebook time. For illustrations. One of my friends, one of my friends responded to a post
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I'd written. And I almost said, I didn't say very much. Somebody from Australia, whom
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I've met on a few occasions, was asking me a question if I used to be a Mormon. And, you know, where was
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I these days? And I said something, I don't even remember what I said. But something along the lines of, you know,
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I was in the Mormon church for 25 years and then God saved me. And so one of my Mormon friends, and I still do have a few
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Mormon friends, said something like this. He said, you were saved when you were in the
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Mormon church. You just didn't know it. And I thought,
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I thought about that. And I'm going, I want to write, you know, this long soliloquy.
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I really want to go after him. But I just thought, this is not the right forum. And so I just highlighted a few things and kind of let it go.
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And I'll probably talk to him more this week. But you were saved and you just didn't know it.
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And that got me to thinking. I mean, he had good intentions when he said that.
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He wanted to help me. But I think it's impossible to think that, you know, somehow we can be secretly saved or be saved and not know it.
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But he doesn't, my friend doesn't understand biblical salvation. And then this week, we saw, as I mentioned,
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Sunday School, and I think Pastor Mike even referred to it. We saw another attempt, it was in the media this week, saw another attempt to muddy the waters as to what
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Christianity is with this release of this little piece of, yeah, scrap paper.
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You know, must pick up eggs, a few other things. And by the way, Jesus was married right there on the shopping list.
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You know, and it grabbed all kinds of headlines. It was a sensational thing. And to unbelievers, this was intriguing.
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Now, to believers who thought about it for a minute and know the scriptures, they rejected it right away.
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And if they were to listen to more of the story, they would have had more reason to reject the story, because it's total baloney.
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But to, like I said, to unbelievers, it's kind of intriguing. It's interesting. But what do those two things have in common?
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Simply this point, that without the Holy Spirit, which neither my friend nor the people involved with this scrap of text have, one cannot understand the truths of scripture.
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It doesn't matter if you went on a Mormon mission or if you're on the faculty of the
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Harvard Divinity School. Either one. They're just as lost.
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They might be very religious. Actually, the person on the Harvard Divinity School faculty would probably prefer to be known as spiritual.
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You don't want to be religious. That has bad connotations, right? But I think you'll see even tonight in this text another illustration of this truth.
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Now, to just kind of catch you up, for some of you who haven't been here, John is a gospel.
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It's a proclamation of the good news that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, eternally the
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Son, came to earth, took on an additional form as a man, obeyed the
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Father perfectly, even dying in the place of sinners by the Father's will and design.
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And in this book, we've also seen John the
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Baptist's ministry and his proclamation of the good news. He talked about the coming of Jesus.
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He pointed him out. He talked to him about Jewish figures.
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Some of the Jewish leaders came to him and confronted him. They wanted to know who John the Baptist was, what he was about, whether he was the
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Messiah. And so they investigated him, and he pointed not to himself, but to Jesus.
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He consistently pointed to him as the one, as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
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Also in the Gospel of John, we've seen the gathering of the disciples, the cleansing of the temple, and have been told that there were many signs performed and some that we haven't had an accounting for.
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And some of these signs caused Jews to believe in Jesus, but we're told in the text, in chapter 2, that he wasn't entrusting himself to them.
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In fact, I remember saying that the verb there, entrust, is really the same verb for to believe.
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In other words, they believed in him, but he didn't believe in them. They believed in him, but he didn't believe in them.
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It's the same word, but it gives us the idea that he didn't trust them. And they weren't believing in him savingly.
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They just believed in some of the things they did, and they understood him not to be a charlatan, not to be a fraud.
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And one of these people was Nicodemus. And Nicodemus, in the beginning of chapter 3, comes to Jesus kind of surreptitiously at nighttime.
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And, in fact, in verse 2 of chapter 3, he says, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one else can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
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In other words, Nicodemus, even though, as we'll see, he was a leader of the
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Jews, he was kind of an erudite
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Jewish leader, he'd seen some of these signs, he knew of these signs, these miraculous things that Jesus had done, but he didn't believe that Jesus was the
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Messiah. He didn't know. He didn't know what to make of Jesus. He just knew that he was somebody that came from God.
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And there were a number of Jews in that category. They didn't necessarily believe in him, but they didn't disbelieve him.
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They didn't distrust him. Nicodemus was very respectful, and he had every reason to be.
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I mean, he had spent his life teaching in a certain way, and now he sees this new guy come on the scene who hasn't gone to any professional training, hasn't gone to seminary, certainly didn't go to Harvard Divinity School, but he's doing things that nobody's ever done.
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So he knows he's from God, but he's trying to sort it out, trying to figure out exactly who he is. And the last time that we looked at the
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Gospel of John, we looked at the first eight verses of chapter 3, this interaction between Nicodemus and Jesus.
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Nicodemus came looking for answers, but what our Lord said to Nicodemus completely confounded him, confused him, put him in a daze.
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And so we come to verse 9 of chapter 3.
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Nicodemus said to him, to Jesus, How can these things be? He'd been talking to him about being, you know, you must be born again, these famous verses here.
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Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
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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.
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If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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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
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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
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So tonight as we walk through this, I'm going to draw your attention to four observations, and I want you to see the necessity of faith not only to apprehend spiritual truth, but to attain eternal life.
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So in the second part of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus, we'll see a brilliant man, knowledgeable,
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I mean, he is like Karen King or Bart Ehrman or any of these other scoffers here these days, in the sense of being very educated, being among the elite scholars of his day.
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We're going to see a brilliant man struggling to understand the teaching of our Lord.
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So our first observation, religious degrees do not necessarily confer discernment.
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Again, we saw that this week, but look at verse 9, Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?
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Nicodemus cannot understand things that Jesus has been telling him. Back in verse 3, he said, truly, truly,
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I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And how did Nicodemus respond to that?
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He said, well, how am I supposed to be born again? What am I supposed to do? Go back to my mom and go through that process all over again?
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And then Jesus talked to him, made really this analogy of the Holy Spirit and about how his work is like the wind, and it goes where it wants, and that's right where we are.
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Nicodemus is confused. He doesn't get it.
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He is lost. He heard what Jesus said, and he couldn't even picture it.
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He was puzzled at the idea of being born again, and the picture of the Spirit's work did nothing to illuminate him.
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Essentially, Nicodemus was asking, how are these things even possible? I don't understand.
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How could he not understand it? It's clear from the text that his problem was not a lack of education.
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Look at verse 10. Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
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And I emphasize the on purpose, because it's clear that in the
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Greek, the word teacher has a definite article, and Israel has a definite article. They're wanting to underscore,
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John is wanting to underscore the fact that this man is known as a teacher. He is quite the teacher in Israel.
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He has quite a reputation. One commentator called him a teacher par excellence. He knows his way around the
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Old Testament. He knows his way around the law. If you want to know how far you can walk on the
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Sabbath, Nicodemus is the man to go ask. If you want to know what kind of foods you can mix together,
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Nicodemus is the guy to ask. If you want to know what sort of fabrics you can wear and what you can't wear, if you want to know how to make sure that you don't become ceremonially unclean,
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Nicodemus is the guy who has the answers. But there's one thing
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Nicodemus can't tell you. That's how to get to heaven. Now Jesus was not mocking
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Nicodemus, but he was expressing astonishment that a man of his letters, of his accomplishments, of his position, of his responsibility, the teacher of Israel, did not grasp the most fundamental aspect of any religion.
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How was one made right with God? How do you get back into a right relationship with God?
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The verb in verse 10, understand, how is it possible that you don't understand, can also be know or to learn.
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And it wasn't that Nicodemus was thick -headed or incapable of learning. He had learned many things.
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He knew a lot. He had taught others. But he did not understand that the initiative for salvation was with God.
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Well, why not? Because Judaism had become what? A religion of do, do, do, do.
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Do this, do that, be righteous. And if you slide, then offer some offerings.
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But make yourself right with God. And in that respect,
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I think it's much like what my friend, what my Mormon friend didn't understand is the
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Mormon religion and what drove me away from it. And maybe I'll explain this to him. There was a sense, even when
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I was in high school, of just knowing that I was guilty, that I had sinned and that here was the
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Mormon answer for that. Stop sinning. That's it.
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That's it. Stop sinning. Be good. That's the good news. Be good. As we've heard on many occasions, that's not good news.
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That's very bad news. I remember two Mormon missionaries coming around. They were females coming around our neighborhood one day in California.
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We were having a yard sale. And a mutual friend of Mike's and mine was there.
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And the Mormon missionaries were coming around, and he said to the ladies, he said, what are you guys doing today?
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They said, oh, we're just out here giving out the good news. And he goes, oh, what's your good news?
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And they started rattling off the things that, you know, you have to do to get to heaven. And he goes, that doesn't sound like good news.
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It sounds like very, very bad news. And Nicodemus was in this same position.
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He had no good news. No good news at all.
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But is it really so stunning when we think about the Old Testament, when we think about the times that Israel stumbled, even if we think about Adam and Eve, and about how
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God was gracious to them, always men sin, and God responds eventually with grace.
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As we'll see tonight, sometimes it's not immediate grace, but he's gracious. He's very gracious.
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So how is it possible, even if we think about Jonah, where we're told through the story of Jonah that what?
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Salvation is of the Lord. How could he not know these things? But he didn't.
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Our second observation, the truth can be incomprehensible. The truth can be incomprehensible.
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Look at verse 11. Truly, truly, or verily, verily, or amen, amen. 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.
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Now, Jesus would often use that phrase, truly, truly, and in the
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Greek, again, it's amen, amen. When he wants to say something that he wants the hearer to know, it's a reliable saying.
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You can take it to the bank. It's as good as gold, whatever kind of cliche you want to apply there.
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This is a trustworthy saying. Now, just as Nicodemus had told
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Jesus back in verse 2, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, so Nicodemus responds to him with, or Jesus responds to Nicodemus with we, the same kind of we.
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I mean, Nicodemus came to him alone at night, so who was the we that he was talking about? He says, Rabbi, we know that you are sent from God.
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Well, who did he mean? Who was Nicodemus kind of representing?
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Well, there were a bunch of Jews that knew Jesus was from God, but they didn't understand quite who he was.
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So in that same sense, Jesus is now turning the tables on him and say, look, he says, we, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen.
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Well, so who is Jesus talking about? It appears to me, and I think looking at the context, it makes sense that he was speaking most likely of John the
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Baptist, who had given witness, maybe of the disciples who had seen the signs, but these were people who had seen the miraculous things that Jesus had done and had given testimony to it, and yet people still were not grasping who
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Jesus was. The disciples had seen the first public sign that Jesus performed when he transformed the water into wine at the wedding at Cana.
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So they certainly would have been capable of talking about that, but there were other signs too, signs that, as I said before, they occurred around the time of the cleansing of the temple, and that's what got
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Nicodemus' attention and some others' attention, but it did not cause them to say, oh, that's the
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Messiah. We believe that he's the Christ. Now, Nicodemus knew of some of the signs.
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Maybe he'd even seen them. He certainly heard about them. He'd heard about John the Baptist. He probably had either been in the group that went to interrogate him or they had reported back to a group that would have included him.
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And John the Baptist's testimony about Jesus, he would have heard about that too, and yet Nicodemus and these other
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Jews had refused to receive, to accept what should have been plain to them, that Jesus was the Messiah, the fulfillment of the
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Old Testament prophecy and the long -promised Deliverer.
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Nicodemus may have thought that he and the others knew that Jesus was from God and that they were doing well, that they'd accomplished something.
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Maybe Nicodemus thought, we're on the road to somewhere, we're going to figure this out. But at this point, in this conversation here, he is stumped.
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He's over his head. So religious degrees do not necessarily confer discernment. Secondly, the truth can be incomprehensible.
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He didn't get it. A third observation, foundational truths must be absorbed before you go on to more advanced topics.
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You don't take somebody, well, you don't take a third grader who doesn't know how to add or subtract and say, well, let me introduce you to calculus.
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Let's get you a TI. What's the latest TI? TI 90 something. And start having you plot all kinds of crazy equations that would mean nothing to them.
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They couldn't do it. Look at verse 12. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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Now, that's a question that probably knocked Nicodemus back a little bit. Generally speaking,
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Jesus is saying this. If you don't understand the basics, then I'm not going to go any further with you.
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I'm not going to try to advance you past that. What are the earthly things that he's talking about here?
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Well, things that had to take place on earth. And what has he just told them? He said, Nicodemus, you must be born again.
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You must be born again. If you don't understand that, if that's sending your head spinning, then how can
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I talk to you about heavenly things? How can I talk to you about things that are really mind -blowing?
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If you can't get this basic thing... Now, why is this so obvious?
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Because anyone who's not self -deluded can figure out that he or she is not sinless.
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So the idea that God must do something to us shouldn't have totally shocked him.
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Someone with Nicodemus's pedigree should have been able to sort out that he could not be right in the sight of God on his own, that he couldn't stand before God and say, look at all that I've done, look at all the sacrifices
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I've made, look at all the Sabbaths I've kept. I keep going back to that one.
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I don't know, I've got Sabbath on the brain right now. But even Habakkuk 1 .13
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says this, you, talking about God, who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.
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If we know, if we have a right view of ourselves, and we think, like I did when
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I was 17 or 18, and I thought, I can't get through a day without sinning, then we think to ourselves,
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I know that something has to change in me, that I can't change myself, it's not enough to somehow modify my behavior.
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If I can just stop doing X, then God will like me. Then God will be satisfied with me.
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It wasn't like that at all. Nicodemus should have known that something had to be transformed on the inside, even as one of the prophets would write that the heart of stone had to be replaced with the heart of flesh in the
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New Covenant. But how many Sabbath laws did someone have to obey to achieve perfection?
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Can you earn your way to heaven? Can you please God by just doing the right things? And the answer is no.
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In fact, even as I was saying this, I just thought of Hebrews 10. You don't have to turn there, but I'm just going to read the first four verses.
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And this should have rung true. Obviously, he wouldn't have this text, but this principle from the
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Old Testament. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins.
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But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year.
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Listen, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
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There was nothing in the Old Testament law, nothing in obeying it and making the sacrifices and doing things that was ever going to make him right with God.
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And as an expert in the law, surely Nicodemus should have known that. He should have understood that no one was perfected by the law, but that something better, something permanent had to eventually come.
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He knew the prophecies about the Messiah, yet he could not grasp what was the most basic truth, that God had to do a transforming work in everyone, including him, in order for him to be right with God.
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For Nicodemus to be told, in effect, that Jesus knew things that would be wasted on Nicodemus, that should be pretty much a major wake -up call for him.
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Now look at Jesus' unassailable authority in verse 13. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the
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Son of Man. Now it would be one thing for Jesus to say that there were spiritual truths that Nicodemus was not prepared to learn, as he'd just done.
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It is another to give Nicodemus his credentials for making such a statement. And that's what he does.
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There was a bit of a flood, a flurry in those days of people saying that they'd been to heaven.
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And then they had these fantastic stories to tell about them. I'm like, well, that kind of sounds like today.
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You know, if they would have the Internet, maybe some printing presses back there, they would have had all kinds of books just like we have today, where they spend, you know, whether it's 60 minutes in heaven or 90 minutes in heaven or whatever it is, whatever the current fad is.
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But that was happening then too. And in one statement, Jesus sweeps aside any of those claims because he alone was qualified to speak of heavenly things.
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The one who had left the company of the father and had come to earth to do his father's will. And our fourth observation is really an illustration.
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It is from the lesser to the greater, from the lesser to the greater. Verse 14, and then we're going to go to numbers here in a minute, but first verse 14.
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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, let's turn to numbers. Fourth book of the
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Old Testament, Numbers chapter 21. You know, sometimes when you're teaching or even if you're preaching the gospel to somebody and you kind of hit a roadblock and they kind of give you that look like, what are you talking about?
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What do you do? Well, there are a few possible things you could do.
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You could just go, you know, do you understand what I'm saying? You could say something like that. Or sometimes they just give you this,
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I don't get it look. And so you go, well, let's try it another way, right? You take another approach.
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And that's what Jesus is going to do here. He says, okay, you don't understand that. Let me give you an example, an illustration.
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Maybe it'll help you. And it's straight out of the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 21, starting in verse 1.
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When the Canaanites, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, out in the desert, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.
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Now, if some of your men are taken captive, did you win or lose the battle? You lost.
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There's a clue for you. Verse 2, and Israel vowed a vow to the
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Lord and said, if you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.
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What does that sound like? I'm going to cut a deal with God. God, if you'll just get me out of this jam.
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God, if you'll just do this for me, then I will do this. And look what they say. If you'll give this people, the people that just whooped us, if you'll give this people into my hand, then
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I will devote their cities to destruction. I'll destroy them. Why? Because they were supposed to be destroyed. This is how they were going to possess the land.
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But isn't that typical? It's kind of that foxhole faith. Lord, if you'll just get me out of this, I'll serve you for the rest of my life.
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And that's kind of what they do. But the amazing thing is, God answers their prayer.
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Look at verse 3. And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction, just as they said.
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So the name of the place was called Horma. From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the
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Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.
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And the people spoke against God and against 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 worthless food. That's gratitude for you.
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It kind of sounds like Christmas, you know. Get the kids a bunch of toys. This stuff is all worthless.
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Same kind of thing. They actually, in fact, the word there, we loathe this worthless food, worthless.
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It really just means they had absolute contempt for the food. They hated it. They hated the manna.
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But Yahweh had delivered them out of Egypt. They'd forgotten about that, or they put it all out of their memory for the moment.
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He'd granted them victory over the Canaanites, and now they were grumbling.
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Grumbling against God and against his spokesman, Moses. Look at verse 6.
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Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
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And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the
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Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.
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So Moses prayed for the people. So God sends these fiery serpents, and by the way, that word fiery, basically it means the words that they used to describe snakes had to do with how the poison impacted you.
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And so this particular one, it really burned when it went in. And so that's where they came up with the, you know, it's not like they had flames on them or whatever.
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But it just really, it burned on the way in, and then the people died, which was also unpleasant.
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But anyway, so Moses prays for the people, even after they'd been complaining about him and everything else, and these snakes come up as basically his retribution for the complaints.
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And God could have said, Too bad for you. You complained, this is what you get. But that's not what he did.
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But he did afflict them with these snakes, and many died until they came to a point of what?
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Of repentance, and not just being sorry about what they did. They didn't, you know, it's not like, oh, yeah, sorry about that.
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I guess we're, you know, in the woodshed. They had a change of mind attended by godly sorrow for their sin.
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They went right to Moses and asked him to pray for them. Now, the serpents don't get taken away.
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Look at verse 8. That's not what God does in this situation. Verse 8, And the Lord says to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole.
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And everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it out on a pole.
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And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
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Now, just imagine that you were out there in the wilderness, and you'd been grumbling, and you grumbled against Moses and against God, and God sent these serpents in, and they started biting people, and, you know, your family starts dying, and you're pretty worried about it.
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And then Moses goes, I've got good news, guys. I made this bronze serpent, which
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I'm going to put up on this pole. And now if you get bit, just look at the pole, and you're going to be okay. And there was much rejoicing.
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It doesn't tell us there, but I'm guessing that there were probably some people who did what? Who didn't believe, who laughed, who said, well, thanks a lot,
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Moses. I mean, I doubt that most people are just like, oh, okay, cool.
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So all we have to do is just look up at the serpent, okay, fine, cool, no problem, sweet. I don't think that's what they were thinking.
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I mean, I'm sure there were some people who were just like, okay, this is what the Lord says, we're going to do that. But they'd asked to be delivered from the snakes altogether, but God had another plan, to save them by what?
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By an act of faith. Now, again, to a natural person, to an unsaved person, when they must have heard that,
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I would think, they would think that's pretty dumb. That's foolish. That's not going to work. How can looking at a bronze serpent save us from a real serpent?
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As I was reading that, I just thought, or even thinking about that, I just thought, this is 1 Corinthians 1.
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The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. I mean, this is almost a direct parallel.
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How can one be saved from all of his sins by virtue of the cross? How can one be saved from the poison of a snake?
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By looking at a snake. Was there anything magical in that image? No. It was a work of God.
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It was believing what God said and acting on it. So that's the lesser example.
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Now transform, let's go back to John chapter 3, to the greater, as he gave that illustration.
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Then he says in verse 14, the second half of it, he says, So, in the same way, must the
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Son of Man be lifted up, just like that snake, just like that serpent, that whoever believes in him and the
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Son of Man may have eternal life. Now again, if you've been following here, you know that Son of Man is
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Jesus' favorite title for himself. Now, where it says there must be lifted up, there's no other option.
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It's mandatory, had to be lifted up. And every single time that lifted up is used in the gospel of John, it refers to the crucifixion, to the cross.
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Interestingly, in the book of Acts, it refers to the ascension. And the point that many theologians made is, when
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Jesus said he was going to be lifted up, he was going to be lifted up on the cross, all right, but the cross was kind of the gateway for his ascension, for his returning to the glory that he had with the
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Father before he descended in the first place. He had to be lifted up.
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Now, let's compare and contrast a little bit between the numbers account and this account here in John. In both numbers and in John, the failure to obey, in other words, in numbers, if you didn't obey, you died.
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And in John, if you don't obey by looking at the cross, if you don't look on Christ, if you don't believe in him, both ended death.
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In numbers, it's physical death. And in John, it's spiritual death.
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If you don't look to the cross, if you don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, spiritual death, eternity in hell.
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In both cases, the only remedy is the result of the grace of God.
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In both cases, something was lifted up, an object that might ordinarily, what?
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You would look at a snake and go, oh, look, it's a beautiful snake up there on the pole. And how much less would you say, oh, look, there's somebody crucified.
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I've heard this stat before, but 10 ,000 Jews were crucified during that period of time, more or less, during the
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Romans crucified 10 ,000 Jews. And there's only one Jew, by looking at him on the cross, by believing in him, in his finished work, could you be saved.
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Now, the bronze serpent didn't automatically save lives just by being lifted up.
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You had to look and you had to believe God's promise. And the same is true of the cross. It doesn't automatically save people.
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You have to look and you have to believe. You have to trust God. You have to believe his promises. Now, it's time to get a little bit technical here in verse 15, because I think this is mind -blowing.
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I think this is great stuff. We talked a little bit about it in a different sense Thursday night in the class, but a little
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Greek, but it's going to be fun. Trust me. In verse 15, where you see that, it's actually, it should be so that.
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It's a hinnah. It's a single word in the Greek. It's a hinnah. And it shows purpose.
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Of all the English translations, in fact, let me just go to verse 15, where it says, so the son of man must be lifted up in verse 14, that whoever believes, and it really should be so that, but however you want to translate it, that's the word, the
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Greek word there is hinnah, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
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I like the one from the next phrase, whoever believes, because the word whoever is not there.
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There's a word for it in the Greek, but it's not there. The net translation really gets it best.
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It says, so that everyone who believes, because it literally would be, so that all the ones who are in a constant state of belief, because what we have in the
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Greek is the purpose, the purpose clause hinnah, and then we have pas, which is all, and then we have a participle, a verbal noun, which is plural, and it basically means all the ones who are in a permanent state of belief.
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It's not whoever. And by the way, as we look at that text there, it says that belief cannot be generic.
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It must be, you can't be a person of faith. It has to be in Christ. It's in him, it says. But notice the verb there at the end where it says may have.
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It says may have eternal life. You might think, well, that sounds kind of, or it says have eternal life here, or no, it doesn't.
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It says may have eternal life. Now, that sounds like maybe it's conditional. It's what's called the subjunctive.
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Again, I told you I was going to get technical, but bear with me. It's going to pay off. It sounds like it's possible, but that's not the reality.
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When you have a hinnah, a so that, with a subjunctive, it indicates
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God's definite purpose. One writer puts it this way. Listen, not only is hinnah used for a result in the
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New Testament, but also for purpose result. That is, it indicates both the intention, and in this case it would be
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God's intention, and listen, it's sure accomplishment. Another writer says it this way.
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The Semitic or Jewish mind was notoriously unwilling to draw a sharp dividing line between purpose and consequence.
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So in other words, the New Testament writers employ this language to reflect their theology. What God purposes is what happens.
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Consequently, hinnah is used to express both the divine purpose and the result. In other words, this is what
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God intended, so that, to just kind of embellish it a little bit, and this would be correct in theologically, so that whoever believes in him will have, by the power of God, eternal life.
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It's his purpose to do that. It doesn't make eternal life possible, but it actually obtains it.
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It guarantees it for everyone who is in a permanent state of faith. I just find that so encouraging, because it tells
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Nicodemus exactly what he needs to do. All he has to do is look on Christ with faith and believe, and he's sure to have eternal life.
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We'll see that theme over and over again in the Gospel of John. Jesus never loses anyone.
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God the Father never loses anyone, and those who actually believe are never lost. They never lose their faith.
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That's where Jesus wants Nicodemus to get. But now my friend, my
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Mormon friend, is obviously as confused as Nicodemus, but then, like I said before, there was a day
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I was. I didn't understand how I could ever be made right. I knew I couldn't stop sinning, but I didn't know what the remedy was.
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And if you're here tonight, you know the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a day that you were as confused as Nicodemus.
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In fact, there may be someone listening here tonight that is still confused. There is no other means of being saved from one's sins of having them transfer from your account to where I remember sitting on that Mustang and saying to my friend,
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I knew I was guilty. I knew I couldn't stop sinning, and I'm going, I know I...
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Mormon theology. I knew I had no chance of becoming a god because that's the
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Mormon gospel. Perfect yourself. I know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it?
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But there's no way that you can not be held accountable for your sins other than this.
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Jesus Christ on the cross, lifted up, suffering in your place for your sins, taking the full wrath of God for you, and you have to believe that.
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You have to believe it in your heart, and then you have to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. That's salvation, and that's what
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Nicodemus could not understand. Not yet, anyway. You have to look at him in faith just as those
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Israelites in the desert had to look at that bronze serpent. Let's pray. Father in heaven, what a great
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God you are. Long -suffering, merciful, filled with loving kindness, offering pardon for sins, just as some may have scoffed in the desert at the idea of looking on a serpent to have the poison dissipate or to have you take care of it.
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There are people today who scoff at the idea of a sin -bearing savior, one who would come, who would descend from his throne, take on a human body, live a perfect life, die in the place of sinners, and be raised on the third day.
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And those who believe in him will not be disappointed. Father, I pray for each one here that we would rejoice knowing that we do bear our sins no more, knowing that he paid for every single one of them, that our eyes would be fixed on the cross of Christ because through it our sins have been forgiven, our salvation has been purchased, and exaltation awaits.
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Father, we just praise you and cannot even begin to thank you enough.
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And for anyone here who doesn't know him tonight, I would just pray that you would open their eyes to this truth. In Jesus' name we pray.