If you're not there, go ahead and turn to John chapter 3. And I don't know what I did to get this section, but I'm very grateful to be able to teach this section. One of my sections, it took, I was so excited about it in my home church as they were teaching, it probably took me four messages to get through 18 verses. So, we're going to try to condense it a little bit tonight. And if not, you know, just, you may have to go to bed a little bit later tonight, and that's just the way it's going to be. What's interesting about John 3, 1 through 18 is it contains one of the most popular, the most popular verse in all of the world, John 3, 16. Many people, though, don't understand that it's in the context of Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus. Many people are kind of shocked to see that. It's a verse that kind of stands alone. in many ways, but the context, the buildup is really incredible. So we all know John 3, 16, but sometimes the encounter, the buildup, there's some verses along the way that I think you're really going to enjoy, really exciting to see a little bit, get a little bit more insight into our Lord. So we're going to analyze this dialogue tonight, just verse by verse, phrase by phrase. And so before we do, let's just consider the context leading up to John chapter three. We'll try to move through this quickly. Here, Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. Okay, we picked that up earlier in John chapter 2. The one thing that we see is in the ministry of Jesus, there are certain times in his ministry that he really stays below the radar. He doesn't draw a lot of attention to himself. In fact, he stays out of areas that might cause more attention. And then there's other times where he just seems to take on everybody. It's incredible. It's like, what's going on here? And obviously he's walking by faith. He understands that the Father has an hour for him and he's just depending on the Lord in terms of timing. And so immediately following this temple cleansing is what he does, which by the way was not one of the times he was laying below the radar. When you're just ripping up the temple, throwing tables over, kind of drawing attention to yourself here. The Jewish religious leaders obviously didn't like that. And so what they do is they say, well, why are you doing this? Give us a sign. They ask for a singular sign to validate and verify his aggressive actions. And he points them, the sign that he points them to is his future resurrection. They don't understand that that's what he means. The disciples actually don't understand that's what he means in real time. John recalls later and says, oh, that's what he was talking about. He said, destroy this temple, verse 19, and in three days I will raise it up. By the way, this is one of the comments that's going to condemn Jesus later on at His trial. So this is the sign that He gives them when they ask for a sign. And then following this interaction, what's interesting, we get to verse 23 of chapter 2. And it says that Jesus does many signs in Jerusalem during the Feast of Passover. Many people are seeing what He's doing. And this is actually what's going to attract Nicodemus' attention. We'll see that when we get into chapter 3. One other additional connection that I think is very important to see in terms of the overall flow of the book of John is this transition that John sets up between chapter 2 and chapter 3. Let's just kind of look at it together. You've got John chapter 2 verse 24. It says, because He knew all men. Then look at verse 25, and He had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. So He knows all men. He knows what was, what is in man. And then look at chapter 3 verse 1, there was a man. And we're about to see that this, what John just said about Jesus in chapter 2, we're going to see it borne out, if you will, in the conversation with Nicodemus. He knows Nicodemus' greatest need. Nicodemus doesn't even know his greatest need. I think Nicodemus is going to come to Jesus probably wanting to talk about theology. And Jesus takes him to his greatest need that he didn't even realize he had. And so, we'll see how Jesus handles that. But before we do, let's get a couple of context clues here in verse 1. We're going to identify Nicodemus, find out a little bit more about him. John writes this, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. He was a ruler of the Jews. And so, who was Nicodemus? Well, John calls him a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. Now, that tells us a little bit about Nicodemus. Just those terms tell us that he was nationalistic, okay? He was all Israel, he was pro-Israel, right? That was a nationalistic party politically. But it also tells us that he observed and stressed Israel's laws meticulously. That's what a Pharisee did. This concept that he was a ruler of the Jews, really is born out elsewhere because we learned that he was a member of the prestigious Sanhedrin, which was the Supreme Judicial Council of the nation of Israel. So Nicodemus was a prominent man, not only in religious circles, but also in judicial circles, being a part of the Sanhedrin, really the Supreme Court of Israel. It was made up of 70 members. He was one of the 70. And then we know that the high priest was the tiebreaker vote at 71. And so you can see the cross-references. We won't look at those or go to those tonight. We won't turn to them. I'll pull them up here in a second. But John sheds additional light on his character later in John 7, which shows that Nicodemus was a fair-minded and rational man. The other leaders are trying to just start to build a case against Jesus when we get to John 7. And Nicodemus just says this, which is actually, according to Jewish jurisprudence and legality, he's very reasonable here. He suggests something that's very much in accordance with their law. Nicodemus, it says, he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing. So he's kind of standing up against this mob mentality in John 7 later. So it just tells us a little bit about his personality. He's a very reasonable man. He wants to handle things the right way. By the way, the other leaders said, great point, Nicodemus. Let's do that. No, they didn't. They just shut him down. They're like, what are you, from Nazareth, too, or are you from Galilee? Kind of an insult to just kind of shut him down. This is very important as we get further in John 3. We're going to kind of jump ahead a little and just keep referencing this. But one thing we're going to learn about Nicodemus in verse 10 is that he was the teacher of Israel. And what it means is he was a prominent and well-known teacher, if not the most prominent and well-known teacher of his day. He might have been right up there. We learn of another prominent Jewish teacher later in Paul's life, right? He studied at the feet of Gamaliel, which even his secular history or Jewish history records that Gamaliel was the teacher of teachers. And that might have become the case when Nicodemus trusted in Jesus Christ. He probably was knocked down a peg. But at this point in his life, he might have been the guy. He might have been the man in all of Judaism. We don't know, but we do see that Jesus articulates the fact that he's the teacher, not simply a teacher. And so the main point is this, if Nicodemus, if anyone in this And in first century Judaism was serious about spirituality, about religion, about godliness, about observance and careful observance of the law. It was Nicodemus. And this is why what Jesus says to him in verse 3 is so startling. It's going to get his attention. Jesus knows all men. He knows what's in man. He's going to bring that out in verse 3 because he's not going to, he's not going to take to the pleasantries. You know, he's just going to move on to the things that are important. Now Nicodemus comes and greets Jesus. It's a very impressive greeting. It's full of respect and this is what he says in verse 2. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. And this phrase that he came to Jesus by night is also significant. because Nicodemus is coming at a time where the crowds aren't around. So that could mean a couple of things. I don't think we can be too dogmatic on what it means, but it could mean that he's a little unsure of his evaluation of Jesus. It could mean that he's unsure about how his interests might be viewed by his colleagues. Or it could just mean he wants uninterrupted private time with Jesus. You know, he's doing these healing miracles, got large crowds around him. Maybe he just wants a private conversation with Jesus. Sometimes people, we have a tendency to read kind of nefarious motives like, oh, he came at night, he was kind of scared. And that might be true, but it might be just he wanted private time with him to ask him some questions. And the way he starts off was with a huge compliment of Jesus. He's the premier rabbi of Israel, and he's addressing Jesus as a rabbi. And even culturally, per Jewish tradition, Jesus was not even qualified to be called a rabbi because he didn't have the appropriate training. It'd be like calling someone doctor And you know, they're not even a nurse kind of thing. You know, it's like he really went overboard with the title to show respect. Jesus was simply a carpenter's son from Nazareth. And so a person like Nicodemus addressing Jesus with this high honor and title was pretty significant. Now, There's something else before we move on to this point. Did you notice what Nicodemus said? He didn't say, Rabbi, I know that you're a teacher come from God. He said, we know. It's kind of interesting that he uses that pronoun. The question is, who is he talking about? Who is he representing? Now, we don't know. It could be just a way of him saying himself. You know, we do that sometimes, don't we? We'll use we, and what we really mean is I or me, and sometimes it just comes out we. So it might have been that way, but he could have been representing other people that were part of the Sanhedrin who were a little curious about Jesus, too. They might have said, man, we need to figure out what this guy's about. Nicodemus said, I'll go talk to him, you know, and then he says we. know that you're a teacher come from God. We know later that Joseph of Arimathea seems to become a believer in Jesus Christ. So it might have been him and others. Or he could have just been referring to the buzz in town around Jesus. Hey, we want to know. We know. The group of people, we understand that there's something special about you. We don't really know. But notice that he does say we. It's interesting. Jesus, toward the end of the conversation, is going to move away from you singular to you plural. He's going to talk about whoever Nicodemus is representing. He's going to talk about them as well. And the reason Nicodemus gives for knowing that Jesus is a teacher come from God is found in the very next phrase. That word for tells us he further expands and explains why he believes this. And here it is. No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. And so Nicodemus is also convinced by the signs. There was a group in chapter 2 verse 23 that said when they saw the signs they believed in Jesus. Nicodemus is also convinced by the signs. He's very moved by the signs. They seem very genuine and legitimate. By the way, there's something going around in theology today, especially in the Lordship camp circles, where somehow if people are convinced by the signs of Jesus in the Gospels, then it's somehow a bad thing. That it somehow invalidates their faith. It's exactly what signs were supposed to do. This is what's so mind-blowing, because you look at the purpose statement of John, and what does John say? Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written. These signs are written. As Dr. Woods mentioned, there's seven of those. There's going to be an eighth one at the end of the book where Jesus actually is raised from the dead. But the seven that are recorded are written. That purpose clause, you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that believing, you may have life in his name. This is the exact reason He's doing these signs is to persuade and convince people that He is indeed the Messiah that they're waiting for. These signs that He's doing are Old Testament prophesied signs that He's fulfilling. And so this is exactly an okay thing for Nicodemus to say, hey, we're convinced by your signs. We know you're a teacher from God. I love this too. He says, God was with him. Nicodemus was insinuating here, I believe, that God the Holy Spirit was doing these miracles through Jesus. So there's a lot of good things going on with Nicodemus here. He's coming with a good heart. He's addressing Jesus with respect. He's recognizing that the miracles that he's doing are divine. And he's also recognizing that God is the source of the miracles. It's a far cry from what the Jewish religious leaders do later in Jesus's life, as recorded in Matthew 12. Because they don't say, you're doing divine miracles, we know God's with you. They say, you're doing divine miracles and we know Satan's doing them for you. Right? The unpardonable sin, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And so, Nicodemus is really doing a good job at this point grappling with who Jesus is. What's ironic about it is Nicodemus never gets to ask his question. Jesus just totally diverts the conversation to his greatest need. He interjects and he doesn't take it to his greatest curiosities. You know, a lot of people interested in theology. You know, they just want to sit around and talk about theology all the time. And there's nothing wrong with talking about theology. I enjoy that too. But sometimes there are unsaved people that like to just debate theology. They don't need theology. They need the Word of God. They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They need to understand what Nicodemus needed to understand is that is you must be born again. to spend eternity with God. And this is what Jesus is going to tell him. And so he ignores these peripheral issues. You know, Nicodemus might have wanted to talk about politics too, you know, very, very passionate politically getting out under the oppression of Rome. So we don't really know, but Jesus was not interested in those peripheral issues. He was interested in his soul. And we'll see that as we kind of roll forward here in the passage. So verse three, the necessity of the new birth. Jesus answered and said unto him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, if you like to write in your Bible, you're going to see that Jesus uses this phrase, most assuredly, many times in this passage. It's the Greek phrase, amen, amen. Guess what the Hebrew of that is too? Amen, amen. It's a word that just keeps getting transliterated into every language it seems. But it's amen, amen. It's an emphatic way of saying what I'm about to say is super duper trustworthy. What I'm about to say you can take to the bank. You can trust what I'm about to say. And so he continues to repeat this throughout the conversation with Nicodemus. And what he says is this. This is what he can trust. He says, unless one is born again, And instead of any physical birth privilege, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or literally the word used here is he must be born from above. Born from above. Born again means to be birthed from above. The verb born, the structure in the Greek indicates that it's an action done to you, not an action done by you, at a point in time, not something continuous. So just like your physical birth, you know, you got to be careful. If you're sitting next to your mom tonight, and you want to claim credit for your birth, you better watch out. She might smack you in the head because she was there and she remembers how that went down. Now, you can claim that you slipped and slide down the birth canal and you helped her out, but that ain't true. Her body did the work. She birthed you. It happened to you. It's not something you did. And so spiritual birth is the same exact way. You don't birth yourself. And all of your mothers today are thankful that it wasn't a continual birth, that she's not continuing to birth you, that it was a one-time event. We're going to see this borne out. Am I telling the truth, mothers in the crowd? Amen. Okay. I know my mother's grateful. I was a pretty big baby, so it got done soon. Well, soon is relative. But you know, this is actually the only place in the New Testament where this word is translated again. it typically is translated top, first, or from above. Now, Nicodemus is going to take it as again. We're going to see his response. He's going to say, oh, it's again. So that's a possible meaning of the word. But the real question I would venture to say is, what does Jesus mean by it? Anytime we're looking at Bible interpretation, what are we interested in? the original speaker's intended message to the original audience. What did Jesus mean when he used this phrase? Whatever he's talking about, and we'll look at it more closely, it's the only way that someone sees the kingdom of God. So it's very crucial to understand. It's very important. And he says that unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God, cannot, this word is comprised of two Greek words, ou, which expresses a direct and full negation, It's an independent negation. It's not based on conditions. It's absolute. It's objective in that sense. And then dunamai, which means to be able or to have power. And the combination of these two words is a very emphatic way to describe the inability of anyone to see the kingdom of God without this birth from above. In other words, it ain't gonna happen. It's kind of the idea. It's a very strong way to say that. And so what Jesus is communicating is that those who are not born from above will not experience the kingdom or see the kingdom with personal perception because they will not get into it. Now, Nicodemus may have been a teacher of others. Nicodemus may have devoted his life to the Scriptures. Nicodemus may have had a sincere heart. Nicodemus may have been truly devoted to what he believed, but Nicodemus was going to hell with an Old Testament under his arm, and he didn't understand that at this point. He thought if anyone was going to get into the kingdom, it was Him. He might have even thought, you know, Jesus, you're doing some pretty impressive miracles, but let me help you with some teaching on how to get in the kingdom. And Nicodemus didn't even know. This is what we're going to find out in this conversation. Because one of the things that was an ongoing theological belief during this time, and probably something that Nicodemus himself taught, was that Jews believed that every Jew would enter the kingdom just because of their bloodline. They were a son of Abraham, they were a child of Abraham, with the exception of a deliberate apostasy or extraordinary wickedness. That's recorded in the Mishnah. And so this is why I believe John the Baptist was so adamant in his preaching to repent, to change their mind. Change their mind about what? I believe change your mind about how you think you're going to enter the kingdom. And this is why I think he says what he does in Matthew 3, 7 through 9. He says, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, He said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. And notice what he says in verse nine. And do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. In other words, don't depend on your physical birth. You need to change your mind. That's not going to get you into the kingdom. And so even John's message there fits perfectly with Jesus's message here. in John chapter 3. And you know Jesus says this and immediately Nicodemus has a question. He's very confused and we see this in verse 4. Nicodemus said to him, how could a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? So you can see he's thinking in terms of again, being born again, another time. And he says this, well, he's confused by what Jesus was saying as evidenced by his response. He was thinking in terms of the natural realm. And he recognizes the impossibility of what Jesus is saying if he meant in the natural realm. You know, trying to climb back into your mother's body to be born again, that's a very impossible thing to happen. This is how Nicodemus is thinking. He's kind of on a horizontal plane here. Now, one other reason that Nicodemus might be confused, and I owe this to Dr. Fruchtenbaum and an article that he wrote and brought this out, but there's some additional confusion that Nicodemus may have had culturally because there were six different ways that a Jew could be born again in Jewish culture. It was the same exact wording that Jesus uses here. It might have been why Jesus chose this wording, but he might have just related it there to get his attention and draw him into what he wanted to tell him. But there were six different ways. We'll run through those quickly. You don't have to write anything here. These should be in your notes. But a Jewish boy at his bar mitzvah at age 13 was said to be born again. Once a Jew was married to a Jewess, which is a Jewish woman, he was born again. When a Jew was ordained a rabbi, he was said to be born again. When a rabbi became the head of a rabbinical school, meaning he had disciples, he was said to be born again. A Gentile who converted to Judaism was said to be born again. And then finally, to be crowned a Davidic king of Israel was to be born again. These are all ways that the Jewish religion would describe being born again. And by the way, Nicodemus had been born again four of these ways. The only four that he was capable of being described being born again. He wasn't a Gentile and he apparently was not of the tribe of Judah and obviously there wasn't a king at this time. And so Nicodemus literally had been born again and again and again And again, okay, by this time. And so I think there's some added reason to his confusion because Jesus says, you must be born again. And I think Nicodemus is like, there's no other way to do that. You want me to climb back in my mother's womb? I'm really confused what's going on. And I think he's thinking religiously here. And based upon who Jesus is speaking with, I think Jesus gives the perfect responses. Go figure that Jesus would give the perfect responses, right? So he gives these perfect responses. He gives a three-pronged answer, I believe. And there would be some debate here and discussion, but I'll tell you why I believe this. Before we go into Jesus' answers here in verses five through eight, I wanna fast forward in our conversation for just a second. I wanna go back to, or I wanna go up to John 3.10. And here's what Jesus says after he gives these three examples and Nicodemus still doesn't understand. This is what Jesus said. He answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? So whatever Jesus is about to say in verses five through eight, he expects a biblical teacher of Israel to understand what he's referencing there. He's shocked that he doesn't. Okay, so we take that as we go in. And Jesus, I believe, is going to use three indirect examples or allusions to the Old Testament. All of these references were designed to explain to Nicodemus what Jesus meant about being born from above. And I think there are examples that Jesus wanted to give Nicodemus to say, see, this was taught in the Old Testament. Nicodemus, you should know this. You're the teacher, Nicodemus, and you don't know this. It's in your Old Testament scriptures. You should have seen it. And so like any good teacher, where do you start with a student? You take them to something they know, and you build on top of what they know. So he's going to take him back, I believe, to the Word of God. And you're going to see Jesus do this throughout the discussion with Nicodemus. He is going to keep going back to the Old Testament to build his argument. He is pursuing Nicodemus with everything he has in terms of explanation. He's hitting it from here. He's hitting it from here. He's hitting it from here. He's just hoping something's going to stick with Nicodemus. And we'll see that as we develop these points. And so Jesus' three-pronged answer, we see the first one in verse 5. Here's that phrase again, amen, amen. indicates an emphatic way of saying what I'm about to say is super duper trustworthy. You can take it to the bank. Jesus is saying he's speaking with authority here. And I believe the reason he's speaking with authority is he wants Nicodemus to trust the connections he's going to make to the Old Testament. He wants them to see Nicodemus, you should know this. You probably have these passages memorized because they memorize large portions of the law in this day. And so this first thing he's going to talk about is spiritual birth, being water in the Spirit. Here's our first example or allusion to the Old Testament. Unless one is born of water in the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now at first this seems like we've got two separate examples. Born of water and born of the spirit. But the preposition of here governs both water and spirit, meaning that both terms are descriptions of the same thing, spiritual birth. Now, I will say this, that this grammatical structure doesn't always indicate this. There are times you can find in the New Testament where you've got a preposition governing two phrases, and it's clearly talking about two different things. But it's also a possibility that this is the case. And I think in this case, this is exactly what he's doing. And I'll tell you why when we pull up the Old Testament reference. Now, many people obviously get confused here. And they see these things as two different things. They begin to interpret it a couple of different ways. And one of the ways that people interpret this phrase is some kind of baptismal regeneration. In other words, you've got to be water baptized. and you have to be born by the Spirit, or born from the Spirit. You've got to have both, water baptism and the Spirit, in order to be saved. Whether that's immersion or sprinkling, many people teach that you have to be water baptized. Now, clearly, that would be contradictory to many other passages in the Word of God. So, don't believe that's what he's teaching here, but that's kind of an erroneous view that's been brought up. Another view is that being born of water refers to physical birth. By the way, this is the view that I have held for most of my life. I've just recently shifted off of this view because of what verse 10 says, this expectation that Nicodemus would understand what he's going to say. But I like this interpretation. In fact, if someone comes up and proves that what I'm about to say is wrong, I'll gladly go back to this one. This is OK, too, because this is describing a physical birth. versus a spiritual birth. That would be the argumentation here. But what do I think Jesus is referring to here? I think Jesus is referring to Ezekiel 36, 25 through 28. It speaks of the renewal of Israel via the new covenant when they enter the millennial kingdom. And what we're going to see, I'm going to pull the passage up, we're going to see a connection of being sprinkled clean with water and then being given the Spirit in the same passage, almost synonymously, prior to entrance into the kingdom. And so let's look at Ezekiel 36, 24 through 28. It says this, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Okay, so again, we're talking about entering the kingdom here. And then it says, then, at that point in time, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them." Then notice that first word in verse 28, then. After that's happened to you, Israel, believing Israel, after you've, I believe, been born from above by water and the Spirit, then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people and I will be your God. And so I think that's what Jesus is referring to here with the birth of water and the Spirit. And what He's saying is if you don't have that, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Just like in verse 3, cannot is comprised of two Greek words revealing the absolute inability of anyone to enter the kingdom of God without this birth from above. So seeing the kingdom, verse 3, entering the kingdom in verse 5 are synonymous. And anyone lacking this new birth will not enter the kingdom of God. Now that brings us to Jesus' second Old Testament reference here. Isn't that a cute baby? I love that picture. I'm sure if you've got one, they're cuter. I know how that works, so. Verse 6, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So again, he's contrasting now physical birth with spiritual birth. And both occurrences of the word born here are used in the perfect tense, meaning a past completed action with ongoing results. Simply put, once you're born physically, you always have that birth date and you can never be unborn. You remain born. Same is true spiritually. You have a birth date and you remain born. You cannot be unborn. Okay, that's the concept bringing through with the perfect tense. But with this statement, Jesus distinguishes between physical birth and spiritual birth or the birth from above that he's been discussing. Now, why would this be important for a Jewish mind, especially the mind of Nicodemus? This is what they were trusting in. They were trusting in their fleshly birth. They were trusting in the fact that they were sons of Abraham. And so he's contrasting. I'm not talking about that, Nicodemus. I don't care if you're related to Abraham. That's not going to get you into the kingdom. And this is what he's contrasting for him here. Again, as I've said, the Jews of Jesus' day held a couple of incorrect views regarding entrance into the kingdom of God. A genetic Jew who was circumcised and who did not apostatize would enter the kingdom. And again, This is why John the Baptist, I think largely his message was repent. You need to change your mind about what you think gets you into the kingdom. One of the things that we understand about heaven and eternity is to get there you have to have a righteousness that's equal to God's righteousness. There's no way you and I can do that because we're sinful people. We've already tainted the water, so to speak. And not only that, it gets worse. Because we've tainted the water in sin, there's now a penalty incurred. It's called death. So we've got a big problem. This is what Jesus is explaining here, and this is what the Jews didn't understand. Now, I was talking to someone earlier. A lot of people aren't sure whether or not they're good enough to go to heaven, but they are very sure that they're not bad enough to go to hell. And they're missing the point of the Bible. They're missing the whole focus. They're looking at it from the wrong direction. Everyone deserves hell. It's like, well, are you saying Hitler could do what he did and still go to heaven if he believed? And my question is, well, do you think Hitler deserves to go to heaven? And they're like, heck no. And I'm like, you're right. He doesn't deserve, but neither do you. That's the problem that we're not, we don't make the connection. And so they're depending on this physical birth as a Jewish person here. In the Old Testament account of Abraham, I believe, is what Jesus is referencing here. The birth of Ishmael was the son of the flesh. Isaac was the miracle son of promise. And I believe this should have taken Nicodemus' attention back to the book of Genesis. Again, I think this was an example of a fleshly, natural birth versus a fleshly, spirit-enabled, miraculous birth. Now, you're going to see here as we get to verse 7, before Jesus gives Nicodemus one more reference to the Old Testament, he must have seen Nicodemus' face. He must have seen body language. He must have seen his jaw drop. I don't know what happened, but he kind of takes a break here because he wants to address what he's seeing in Nicodemus. And what he says in basically in verse 7 is, why are you so shocked? Don't be shocked, right? This is something you should know. And he says, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born. Again, this word marvel means to wonder. It means to be struck with admiration or astonishment. Literally, don't be shocked by the necessity of the new birth for entrance into the kingdom. He says, you must be born again. He uses a Greek word, must. It's the Greek word, day. It means something that's needed or necessary. Again, it just emphasizes the intensity, right? The importance of what Jesus is communicating to Nicodemus here. The idea is it's not optional. This isn't something you can check out later. This isn't something you should be like, well, I'll do that and I'll do this. I got, you know, a little dab will do you. I might try a little bit of that born again thing and then I might try this and that. He's saying this is the only way. There's only one option. There's only one solution. This is the only requirement. Put your list of religious ritual away. This isn't what we're talking about at all. We're talking about being born from above. And it's got to be this way. And this is what Jesus is telling him. So how is one born from above? It's a great question, isn't it? It's probably the next question on Nicodemus' mind because if being born above is something that happens to you, something that's done to you, not something that you do, how can it be accomplished in my life? That should be a question if someone's here today and they don't know for sure they're going to have and that ought to be a question on your mind. How do I get this then? It's clear Jesus is saying you got to have it. It's not optional. This is your only chance in, and we're going to get to that as we continue on here in the passage. But Jesus is going to allude to one more Old Testament example for Nicodemus, and that is the wind. In verse 8, he says, the wind blows where it wishes. And you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. And so here we have this third example of the wind blowing. And you wonder, why does Jesus use this to illustrate spiritual birth? What is the connection here that he's making, maybe practically, and then maybe what Old Testament reference is he alluding to? Well, why does he do this? Let me give three similarities he may be drawing on here. First, both the Spirit and the wind operate sovereignly. Man does not and cannot control either one. You know, if I were to tell you, hey, go grab some wind and bring it in here in a bottle, you know, that's not going to work out very well. It's going to, it's doing its own thing, right? It's sovereign is kind of the idea. I think he's describing that with the Spirit as well. Second, since we cannot either see the wind or the Spirit, we perceive the presence of both by their effects. You don't generally see the wind coming, you feel it. You don't see the wind coming. You may see the wind affecting something. Wow, it's windy, right? Sometimes in Georgia, I'm driving down the hallway. We don't drive in the hallways there. I was driving on a highway, and a wind gust comes up, and it literally moves your car. You're kind of like, wow, I'm glad I had two hands on the wheel to catch that. So sometimes you don't see it, but you feel the effects. Third. We cannot explain their actions since they arise from unseen and partially unknowable factors. In that sense, they're mysterious. In other words, they're unpredictable in the way that they move. Now, what is Jesus referring to here? What Old Testament passage might he be alluding to here? Some of you might already have this in your mind, but I believe that Jesus is using this as an analogy to when to allude to an Old Testament passage describing the new birth. from Ezekiel 37, one through 14. You know the passage, or at least you know the story where the Spirit of God brings life to a valley of dry, dead bones, right? A valley full of bones. He brings life. But notice the mention of wind in this passage, Ezekiel 37. 9 through 14, and he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live. You see how the wind has a contribution to restored life, if you will, or being born again. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off. Therefore, prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. Again, that's a kingdom reference. That's entrance into the kingdom he's talking about. And then notice the connection now to the breath and the spirit. I will put my spirit in you and you shall live. Before he said he's going to breathe wind on them, and they will live. And now he coordinates that with the Spirit. It's the same thing. It's synonymous. And I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord. So Nicodemus clearly knew these passages, but he's not obviously making the connection that Jesus is hoping he would make. And then he says, so is everyone who's born of the Spirit. Again, this birth from above does not happen when somebody performs a necessary list of requirements. It's a spiritual operation from start to finish. Now we move to verses 9 through 10. And Jesus expects Nicodemus to know this. And this is what he says again. Verse 9, Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? Nicodemus uses a Greek word, dunamai, translated can. It means to be able, to have power. Nicodemus is saying, how is what Jesus is saying even possible? The implication of the question is, how did I miss this? How have I studied the scriptures for a lifetime and never seen or noticed this before? And I would say Jesus literally has taken a machete to his theology. Can you imagine studying a course, a field of information for your lifetime, and somebody comes in in one meeting, in one setting, and destroys everything you thought you believed? And that's exactly what's happening to Nicodemus there. How can this be? How is this even possible? How did I miss this? I don't even understand, like, what happened here. I didn't even get to ask my question. He just drove it to this born-again thing, and now I'm just totally confused. Jesus answered and said, are you the teacher? Again, are, indicative, it's a present indicative right now. Nicodemus was the premier teacher in all of Israel. The teacher of Israel should have known and understood these things. He should have known how somebody enters the kingdom of God. It's like a math teacher teaching calculus. They don't know how to add or subtract. You'd be like, what are you doing? You're the calculus teacher and you can't even teach algebra. It's kind of the idea. So one of the things that Nicodemus didn't understand is that physical birth was not enough. Behavior was not enough. Only the new birth could provide entrance into the kingdom. Now, by the way, this is the last recorded statement of Nicodemus in the entire encounter. He was probably shell-shocked. And I'm sure as Jesus spoke, he said, I better just close my mouth and listen, because I don't know what's going on, right? I need to understand this a little bit better. But now Jesus is going to expand on his explanation of the new birth. He's going to keep trying to persuade and convince Nicodemus that this is true, that this is not something that he's making up, that it's something that he can trust what's being said. And in doing so, in verse 11, he says this, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness." Again, he uses amen, amen, which communicates the trustworthiness of what he's saying. He's about to, again, say something that Nicodemus can trust and rely upon. And notice that he's speaking with authority here. Okay, this is very important. Again, he just continues to speak with authority because again, he keeps going back to an Old Testament line of argumentation, which would be authoritative in the mind of Nicodemus. And notice this. I don't know if you saw that or noticed that or not, but notice the almost emphatic and disruptive switch in pronouns. Did you notice that? He goes from I say to you, we speak, we know, we have seen, you don't receive our witness. He shifts. First person singular, and now he goes to first person plural. It's disruptive. It's like, well, hold on a second. Who are you talking about? Who are you speaking, who are you representing? Who is giving testimony? Who has seen and know, in all this sense, who are you talking about? Because he just went plural. Now, Nicodemus might have thought Jesus was talking about his disciples, but I doubt that's the case because appealing to the disciples wouldn't have been very authoritative to a man like Nicodemus. Maybe Nicodemus thought he was referring to another group of rabbis, or maybe he thought he was referring to John the Baptist or some other prophets. We don't know what Nicodemus thought, but however, as we look at it, it seems very consistent in the book of John who Jesus is referring to here. Why does he switch to we? I think he's speaking of the Godhead here. I think he's speaking of the triune God because he often does this in the book of John to invoke the witness of the Godhead when attempting to present a strong and valid argument to a Jewish mind. In fact, a Jewish mind needed how many witnesses to proceed in a case or to proceed with the verdict? Two or three. And what is Jesus offering him? Three. his witness along with the other two members of the Trinity. And this is why I think he switches to we. And the idea is, Nicodemus, you can trust our testimony. You can trust us. I don't know if Nicodemus picked all this up, but this is where Jesus is going. I believe he's invoking the witness of the Godhead here. And notice he says, we speak, the Trinity, the triune God, what we know. Know is a perfect indicative. It's something they know intuitively, not through a process of learning, and that they have known in the past and they continue to know in the present. And what it says is Jesus is speaking on the Godhead's behalf and they are in full agreement. That's the other thing you needed in Jewish court of law. You needed two to three witnesses, but they had to be in full agreement. And Jesus is saying, we're in full agreement. Not only that, we know what to provide for lost mankind in order to join us in eternity. This is something the triune God has been revealing through the pages of human history, throughout the Old Testament, all the way back in Genesis 315, when he's promised to send a deliverer. God knows how to save people. The triune God knows what sinful man needs. The triune God knows how to provide a solution for sinful man that sinful man cannot provide for themselves. And this is what I believe He's saying. We know this, Nicodemus. We've known this for a while. We continue to know it. You need to trust our testimony. It's kind of the idea here. And this is why it uses this word testify. Dr. Woods mentioned that earlier. There's a lot of legal terminology in the book of John. For this very reason, John is trying to do what? Persuade and convince people to trust in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. So he's providing a lot of testimony. And he's trying to get people to trust what is being testified about. And so again, this is a legitimate group of three, and they're giving witness to what they've seen. And you know what I love about our God? This isn't a brand new idea. Jesus Christ is not Plan B from the New Testament. He has always been Plan A. He will always be Plan A. God doesn't need to improve a plan that needs no improvement. Right? I don't, you know, there are lots of decisions we make in life and we're like, oh, I wish I would have made the other decision. I was telling someone the other day, when I go to a grocery store with my wife, she says, which line would you like to go in? And I calculate, man, I'm counting, I mean, I try my best, right? Okay, there's two people here, this lady's got 400 things in her cart, this girl looks slow, this girl's looking to call a manager, and I take all that in and I pick a line. And what I should do in the future is go through all that, pick my line, and then just go to an opposite one. Because I always pick the wrong one. That's like, I should always have a contingency plan. Or better yet, I should probably just listen to my wife. So that's probably a really good idea. But anyways, I pick a line. So there's all sorts of, we do that all the time. We've got these contingency plans because we make bad decisions or we don't consider all of the dynamics. God doesn't need to do that. He had it all figured out in Genesis. The moment the fall happened, he knew exactly what he was going to do. He knew how to marry his justice with his love. And as one commentator said, at the cross, love and justice kissed. I love that image because it's exactly how God figured it out. Because how else could it happen? You deserve justice. God is a just God. He must give you what you deserve. How are you going to get out of that? How am I going to get out of that? Religion says try a little bit harder. Good luck with that. You got poison in the water. Yeah, let's just pour some more water in there. Now would you drink it? There's a little bit of dirt in there. Oh, you know, let's just pour more water. It gets a lot clearer the more water you pour in it. No, once there's poison in the tap, man, you're done. It's poisonous. Someone needs to clean it out. God figured a way how to take your penalty off of your account ledger. He put it on your son. He put it on his son. He gave Jesus what you deserved. So now He's free to give you something you don't deserve. That's grace. That's a beautiful message that we're witnessing here. And guess what? God's always known how to do that. Go figure. Go figure He knows how to do that. It's amazing. But notice what Jesus says in Nicodemus. Very, very interesting. It is clear from Jesus' response to Nicodemus that at this moment, Nicodemus had not been persuaded by what Jesus had said. He says, you don't receive our witness. He was still unbelieving at this point. And quite frankly, poor guy was probably in shock, if we're being honest, if we're giving him a little bit of grace. Again, he's devoting his life to a certain course of study and just found out that it just got turned upside down on him, got turned upside down on his head. But what's additionally sad, as Jesus points out, is not only had Nicodemus not received the witness of the Godhead, but Jesus uses a second person plural here, and he uses it through verse 12. He's also describing the Jewish leaders that Nicodemus represents. All of them had not received the testimony of the Godhead at this point. In other words, all you guys are, like we say in Georgia, all y'all are not receiving the witness of the Godhead. Now, Jesus' next statement, It's interesting because you're looking at a conversation here, but he seems to understand that Nicodemus probably came to talk about other things. He wasn't expecting to talk about the ABCs. Nicodemus wanted to talk about calculus, and Jesus took him back to addition because he didn't understand addition. Nicodemus wanted to talk about these grand things, probably in theology or politics, and probably something in his mind that was deeper than what they're talking about right now. And so Jesus knows that, but he camps at where he needs. And so it's an interesting statement in verse 12 that he says, He basically says, you know, we all have heard that saying, if you can't run with the big dogs, you know, stay on the porch. That's kind of the saying. And so he's basically saying, if I've told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? You came to talk about deep things, Nicodemus, you don't even know how to add and subtract when it comes to spiritual life. And so what are these earthly things? Well, I think since Jesus has been talking about the new birth, which is something that takes place on earth, he's used earthly illustrations to explain. He's most likely calling the new birth earthly things, even though it's a birth from above. And he says, well, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? You're not going to believe in the earthly things I'm telling you. How are you going to believe when I start to answer all your questions about the deeper stuff you want to talk about? And so at this point in the narrative, we see that Nicodemus did not believe this. And Jesus couldn't reveal anything else to him. We know that at times, rejection of revelation also limits the amount of additional revelation that someone can receive. Now, what are the heavenly things Jesus is talking about? We don't really know. The text doesn't tell us. We could speculate. It could have been more details on the kingdom. It could have been a connection between his reign and suffering, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. We just don't know for sure. The text doesn't tell us. But Jesus is now going to say one more thing in verse 13, and then he's going to go back to the Old Testament again. He's going to say, no one is ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is in Heaven, so ascended, again, perfect tense, perfect tense meaning no one's ever ascended into heaven and remained there. In other words, no other witness had ever ascended to heaven, learned heavenly things or things in the new birth and then sent teaching back as to what they learned. But there is one who came down from heaven and that's what he's gonna say here. Again, came down from a higher place to a lower place and Jesus uses something that's significant here. This is your next blank, letter A. But Jesus uses a highly significant eschatological reference here. In other words, an end times reference to the kingdom. Because this one that he says has come down from heaven is identified as the son of man. Which is, I believe, a clear reference to Daniel 7, 13. This would have rang a bell again with Nicodemus, another Old Testament kind of illusion for him. And he's saying, basically, I'm the son of man who's come down from heaven. You can trust my testimony. Again, he's appealing to the Old Testament here. By the way, jump down to seven. I'm sorry, jump down to 14 as well and see that he uses son of man again. He stays in that concept of eschatology here. We're going to talk about why this may have confused Nicodemus more, but let's read Daniel 7, 13 through 14. We see it here. I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him and then to him. was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed." So can you trust the Son of Man, Nicodemus? That's who I am. It's kind of the idea. You can trust my testimony about this birth from above. Again, and I love this, you can just see Jesus' heartfelt desire to connect what he's saying to the Old Testament that Nicodemus should have been familiar with. And so clearly all of these passages Nicodemus would have been familiar with, but he was just still not making the connection, right? Here's the point Jesus is making, and Nicodemus is just exiting stage right before he makes that connection. He's just not getting it. And so it's from this frame of reference now that we move into verse 14 that Jesus is going to give another very specific reference to the Old Testament to show how. Now he's going to talk about how are you born from above. He's been saying you need to be born from above. You can't enter the kingdom of God without being born from above. How do you have the new birth enacted upon you? He's about to tell us. And this is just a beautiful question. What response is required of you to enjoy this new birth. And he's going to go to the Old Testament again to show us, verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, Jesus uses a story now from Numbers 21, 4 through 9. This time, he uses this Old Testament story to illustrate the required response for being born again. Now, if you recall the story, we'll zip through it quickly. We won't turn to numbers, but you can mark that down and look at it later. The Israelites had become discouraged in their wilderness wanderings. They began complaining against God and complaining against Moses. God sent fiery serpents. They were fatally poisonous snakes among the people. And many of them were being bitten and they were actually dying there. Immediately they recognized this judgment's coming from God because we were complaining against Him. And because of their complaining, they recognized this source of judgment. They recognized and realized that God alone could deliver them from this judgment. So they turned to Moses to communicate with God and hopefully receive reprieve. This is the story that Jesus is referencing as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. And so God gave Moses instruction. He told him make a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, lift it up within eyesight of everyone who had been bitten. If the bitten Israelite would simply look at the pole with the bronze serpent, they would immediately be healed from the poisonous bite and live. And so Jesus is now going to make a connection to this story. But let's really quickly look at what's going on here. The Israelites had a problem. Deadly poison through snake bites. They were dying. God had a solution. His solution was not medicine. His solution was not a mother's kiss. His solution was not a super sucker, a friend that was willing to jump on that wound and suck the poison out. That wasn't the solution. It wasn't a special plant to rub on the bite. It was a bronze serpent manufactured, put on a pole, and stuck in the air. I mean, from a human perspective, it seems like a pretty dumb solution. It just doesn't seem like something like that would work. This was God's solution though. This was his unique solution. And by the way, the Israelites must personally trust in God's solution to be saved from their problem. If an Israelite laid over there in the corner as Moses is lifting up the pole and they said, I'm not looking at that dumb bronze serpent. Moses is such an idiot. They would have died in the corner. That was God's solution. That was their only way out. It's the only way this fiery serpent would be able, that bite, would ever be able to be healed. Making the spiritual transition in like manner, all of mankind has a problem. It's unsolvable, just like the snake bite. Our problem is twofold. We don't just have a snake bite. We have a death penalty. Our sin requires a death penalty. We also lack righteousness equal to God's righteousness. Our problem is twofold. It's worse than the snake bite that the Israelites had. But you know what? God's provided a solution. And His solution, we're going to read in this passage, is that Jesus Christ died for your sins. He paid the penalty. You deserve. And when you put your faith in Him, He provides Jesus' righteousness for you. That's how you get into heaven. That's how you're born again. But in like manner, you've got to personally trust in God's solution to be saved from our problem. See, the problem with religion is your eyes never get off yourself. Religion loves us amass. I mean, it loves itself. It loves its own efforts. It's always looking here at my hands and my feet and what I'm doing. The Bible wants you to look away from yourself for the solution. God is not looking to you to provide a solution. Trust me, he knows who you are. He knows what you're capable of and what you're not capable of. He knows that you can't even get the trash out to the street on time every week, that you kind of fail in those chores, let alone saving yourself from an eternity in hell. So He sent a Savior to do for you what you could not do for yourself. He simply wants you to look to that Savior by faith and trust in what He did for you. By the way, saviors don't need your help to save. In fact, if you try to help the lifeguard save your life, you'll probably drown both of you, right? At some point, you've got to trust the lifeguard to save you. You've got to quit trying. And so this is kind of the message too. By the way, quick clarifying question. Did the dying Israelite have to continue to look at the serpent for the rest of their lives to stay saved from the snake bites? Or was it a moment in time once for all salvation? You'd be like, hey, Moses, I really got to go to the bathroom. Can you bring the bronze serpent with you? I mean, seriously. Is that what you got to do? Or you could only sleep for five minutes at a time because you had to wake up and look at the snake again? No, it's the dumbest thing in the world. And yet, people will come to John 3, 16 and say, see, you got to continue to believe to be saved. That's totally opposite of the illustration Jesus is using to try to teach us what it means to believe on the Son of Man who's also lifted up. This is what's incredible. And so this is really the New Testament connection that Jesus makes. Just as the serpent on the pole was lifted up, Jesus too must be lifted up. What's this speaking of? Well, it's clearly speaking of the death that he would die on the cross. This is what John 12, 32 through 33 says. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. This he said signifying by what death he would die. Now the fact that Jesus, and this is very important to see, it's interesting, but he uses the phrase Son of Man. This probably put Nicodemus in a tailspin. Because the Son of Man reference is to Daniel 7, 13 through 14. We just read that. The Son of Man is who? He's the one that the Ancient of Days gives the kingdom to, an eternal kingdom. dominion over the earth, etc., etc. But this speaks of a coming and reigning king, not a suffering servant. Jesus is saying that son of man that's coming to establish a kingdom, he's going to be lifted up and die on a cross. And Nicodemus' wire is probably just short-circuited like, What? What are you talking about? By the way, the Jews had a hard time understanding the combination of these two truths, a conquering king and a suffering servant. How could these two apparent contradictory things fit together? And so you see that Nicodemus was probably even more confused at this point. What's the main point? As the dying Israelites had to look by faith in God's solution to their problem, so we must look by faith at Jesus Christ, who is God's solution to our sin problem, and it's His solution to live eternally. This is what we're talking about here. Now, Jesus is going to explain now why and how God set it up this way. First, John 3, 15 and 16 says this, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. You'll notice that that, verse 15, starts with the word that. It's a hena clause. What it does is it provides us with the purpose or the reason why the Son of Man must be lifted up in death. This has to happen. This has to happen for God to provide a solution, and it also explains why people in Nicodemus' day must look at the Son of Man by faith in a similar way to the bronze serpent story. By the way, you'll notice this word, whoever, in these two verses is repeated twice. It's the Greek word, pas, it means all, where the idea is that the number is indefinite. It means each one without limit. This means that anyone and everyone who wants eternal life can have eternal life. That means anyone who wants the new birth can have the new birth. They can be born again. It's not limited to Jews. It's not limited to certain individuals who are elected beforehand. If it's available to all without limit, there can be no limitations as to who can respond. And it's just so amazing how people will pull this all the time. This is a picture of an orphanage that I get to visit twice a year in Liberia. And you can't see that. Well, maybe you can see the picture a little bit well. These are the little kids. As we're driving in, they typically greet us like this with big smiles and generally sing us a song. Melts your heart. In fact, I show pictures like this to my wife. She's like, just bring a couple of them home with you. I would totally take them in. But imagine if I went to the orphanage. And I said to the kids, any one of you that wants to come home with me, anyone, all of you, each one of you who wants to come home with me can come home with me. Most of those kids would be like, I'm in. Like, I'll jump in the car right now. But what if I then, after I said that to the kids, went behind the scenes to the director of the orphanage and I said, I'll take that one, that one, that one, and that one. Just put them in my car and I'm going to leave. I just lied to all of the kids. I just lied. Or better yet, what if I had lollipops for all of them? I said, whoever wants a lollipop, raise your hand, I'll give you a lollipop. And let's say I had enough lollipops to give every one of the kids, but I only gave out four or five of them. Again, that's not whosoever. That's not all. There's a limitation that I'm artificially inserting. That's not what John 3, 15, and 16 teaches. It says whoever wants to be born again can be born again if they'll put their faith in God's solution for their sin problem. Whoever wants eternal life can have eternal life. Whoever wants to be saved from the penalty they deserve to a heaven that they don't deserve can be. This is the offer that the God of the universe is offering. And this is what Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus. By the way, it's in keeping with the Old Testament example that Jesus just used. Numbers 21, 8 through 9 says this. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And so it was that if a certain serpent had bitten anyone when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. See, Moses didn't just go to his favorite people and said, hey, man, I got this pole. Here, look at it real quick. He didn't do that. He lifted it up for everyone. He didn't go to just his family. He didn't go to just his tribe. He literally, without limit, lifted it up so that anyone could see it. You know, he's not the, I won't say that, never mind. Biblical response, believe. It means to have faith in, to trust in. It meant to be firmly persuaded as to something and thus relying upon it as a result. We use the chair often. You know, you rest your weight on a chair. You rely on that chair because you know chairs hold you up. Well, the good news is that saviors save. That's what saviors do. You trust a savior to save you. That chair has not needed your help to hold you up the last hour and four minutes as I'm looking at my clock winding down here. That chair has not needed your help. The savior doesn't need your help to save you. You just need to trust in him to save you. And this is what we see in this passage. Now, some appeal to John 3, 15 and 16, the present tense participle used for the word believe. They'll say that your faith must be ongoing or continual. Are they right? There's two things we want to look at to help us with the interpretation. I'm going to move quick because I would like you guys to get home safely tonight and sleep too. But first, you want to look grammatically. Is there something grammatically that can help you? But the participle translated whosoever believes or whoever believes is what's called a substantival participle. It's a participle with a definite article on the front of it. This type of participle does not indicate in and of itself continuous linear belief. What it describes is simply this, a person who has believed. It doesn't tell you if they did it in the past. It doesn't tell you if they did it in the present. It doesn't tell you if they did it in the future. It doesn't tell you if it's a continuous point in time. It doesn't help us, in other words, understand what Jesus means here. So that's the first place we look, but it doesn't necessarily help us understand what he means. What does help us is the context. So you don't even need to know Greek. To defend this point, you could just look at the context. Because what was the object lesson Jesus used to communicate how somebody is born again? He used not an ongoing continual faith. It was the Israelites one look at the bronze serpent, they were healed. That's it. It's not continual. That's not it. And some people say, well, that's present tense. Yeah, it's a present tense, substantival, participle. that's articulated, which swings. When you look at a participle chart in Greek, it looks like spaghettios and spaghetti all mixed up in a way. It's crazy. This flow chart is crazy. You almost have to be an engineer to understand it. But I can understand the first part, and that is when it has an article, the word the, it shifts it over to the adjective side of the house. Now, it's not describing the action per se. It's just describing a person who has fulfilled that action. Now, is it continuous? Is it one time? This context helps us a lot. It's a one-time moment of faith. Now, notice that belief in Him is the only prerequisite. You know, you go to that verse with many people and you say, see, you know, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And they'll look at me and they'll say, see, you got to ask Jesus in your heart. See what? Like, you want me to see those words in that verse? Because they're not there. And some people say, see, you got to repent of your sins. See what? Like, is that there, the word repent? You're going to find one condition there that needs to be met. And it makes sense if the work's already been done for you. And guess what? The good news for each one of us as we sit here today is the very last words that Jesus yelled from the cross. Remember what those were? It is finished. I'm just going to trust the man who died for me and rose again. The fact that he rose again means I can trust that he said it's finished, which by the way, it's an accounting term in the Greek language. It means paid in full. Last time I checked, there's my alarm. Last time I checked, if someone's paid something for me in full, I'm not reaching for my wallet. I'm not reaching for my spiritual checkbook. He paid it in full. That means there's nothing left for me to pay. We got to finish John 3 16 and then I'm going to fly you through the rest of the notes so you don't feel cheated without those blanks filled in. First promise should not perish. The force here with this preposition is to destroy wholly. It describes the consequence of the wages of sin. The person who trusts in Jesus Christ will avoid sure judgment. Secondly, you have eternal life. So in contrast to perishing, the person who believes will have eternal life. Check that, and I want you to check that in your notes. I did this on purpose. It actually doesn't say will have, does it? It doesn't say you're going to get this in the future someday, does it? What's it say? It says you have it. That's very important because if the moment you believe you possess something now that lasts forever, you can never lose it by definition. You have it the moment you believe, not you will have it in the future. That's what religion teaches you because it wants to keep you on a string. It wants to keep you dancing for the purpose of giving money and helping build someone else's kingdom. They want you to do something. Religion is always looking to the future, what you must do or continue to do to be saved. The Bible wants you to look at something that was done for you in the past and trust solely in what Jesus did. And in that moment, you have eternal life. Not will have, you have it. And so, by the way, not perishing and having eternal life goes hand in hand together. And so I would like to be kind to you tonight and not keep you here forever. Let me just finish verse 16, and then we'll fly through the rest, if that sounds OK. So God so loved the world. This is the why. The Net Bible, I love it. Translate this phrase, for this is the way God loved the world, or this is how much God loved the world. The way that Jesus constructs this statement emphasizes the degree to which God loved you. And God doesn't just talk about his love for you. What's he do, according to Romans 5, 8? He demonstrates it. to us and that Christ died for us. And so it's his love that motivated him to provide an answer or a solution to the predicament we found ourself in. He gave his only begotten son, Dr. Woods mentioned, Mano Guinness, unique. Our hero's awesome, guys. He's unique. He's one of a kind. And this is what we see here. This is how he gave his son as a substitutionary gift to pay that penalty, to remove the sin penalty from anyone who would simply look to him And so he put that in action. God the Father's knowledge of and planning for this event was revealed all the way back in Genesis 3.15, obviously repeated often in the Old Testament. In fact, one of our beloved Christmas verses, Isaiah 9.6 says, what? Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And this is exactly what we see in John 3.16. And when he gave his son, he had one thing in mind. He did not want anyone to go to hell. Salvation was in view here. Every once in a while, when I go to Liberia, I'll take teachers with me, and I took a young man with me one time, and I told him, I said, look, you have this section, and I'm like the pot calling the kettle black. I just readily admit that. I said, you got this section, but you gotta stick to 50 minutes. You cannot go over 50 minutes, because we gotta stay on schedule. And I know, it's really a joke coming from me. And Dennis Roxer, if I might throw someone else under the bus. But I told him at the time, I said, you got 50 minutes. I need you to get through this section. He's like, OK. Well, he got excited. He was teaching the book of Romans. And I looked down at my watch, and he's supposed to be covering four pages in our notebook. He's only gotten to the first two points on the first page, and he's 40 minutes in. And I said it. I told his name. I just called him. I interrupted him, and I said, hey, You're going to have to move, my man. And I was like, click show, click show. He's like, what do you mean by that? I'm like, give them a click show. Start clicking and move through it. So I'm going to let you experience what everyone experienced that day in Liberia. This is called a click show. It's going to move you through. We're going to give you the blanks. And you've got the notes there. But number one is the word view. And this is just part of not getting through the notes here. Number two, the word is evident. Number three, the word is perishing. Verse 18, by the way, if I can just say this as I'm giving you the blanks. Verse 18, there's only one thing that can send somebody to hell. Religion still wants to make sin the issue. Sin's not the issue. That's why when people say you gotta turn from your sin to be saved, they still think sin's the issue. Last time I checked, I had a savior who died for my sins and paid that penalty in full. Sin's not the issue anymore. What are you going to do with Jesus Christ? What are you going to do with the serpent that's been lifted on the pole? What are you going to do with the Son of God who's been lifted on the cross? What are you going to do? How are you going to respond to that? Do you believe that's God's solution or do you not? Will you trust in God's solution? Will you not? I can guarantee you God the Father is completely satisfied with Jesus Christ. You know why? He raised Him from the dead. So the question just remains, are you satisfied with Him? That's the question. It's not sin. How much are you going to sin? Sin's been paid for. So it's not even the issue anymore. We see that in verse 18. We'd have time to develop that if we had time. But number one, this is the same Greek construction used. Number two is also Greek. So too bad you can't cut and paste that one on a computer. But both of those are Greek. Number three is continuing results. And closing comments. Well, thank you for being here tonight. That's a fun passage. And obviously, when you teach the Bible, you don't want to leave any meat on the bones, you know? And so that's why I was a little bit long, but I hope you can forgive me for that. Let's pray. Lord, thank you. for your word. Thank you for Jesus Christ and what he accomplished for us. Lord, we are so privileged to know about him, to understand this message. We are so privileged to have the opportunity for his death to count in our place if we'll simply trust in him. Lord, we are just so grateful for the way you devised this rescue plan and this incredible rescuer who is a one-of-a-kind Savior. And we're so grateful, Lord, that not only does He save us, but He keeps us saved. And we just rejoice to see that this evening in Your Word. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.