You want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of John again, chapter 3. The text of scripture Brad
just read for us is extremely applicable, germane to what we're
going to read in John 3. And I've entitled the message,
Heavenly Things. In John chapter 3, one of the
most significant words or things that Jesus said is in verse 13,
which really is explained by what we just heard read from
Hebrews chapter 7, where Jesus said to Nicodemus, no man has
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the son of man, which is in heaven. Now, if you recall what was just
read to us, Now Kisadek was the man who appeared in Genesis 14
to Abraham after Abraham had rescued Lot and had destroyed
the four kings or five kings, I can't remember which now, who
had taken him captive, Lot, and the city of Gomorrah and Sodom
and those other cities. By God's grace, Abraham was able
to conquer those kings. And when he was returning from
that slaughter, he met Abraham, met Melchizedek. And Melchizedek
had no recorded genealogy in the Old Testament. That was by
the design of the Holy Spirit. It was to teach us that Melchizedek
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He had no beginning. He had no
father, no mother, no beginning of days, nor end of life, but
was made like to the Son of God. And therefore, as he says here
in Hebrews chapter seven, he said, this man, it was found in verse four, consider how great
this man was, but he was like the Son of God too. So he was
the one in scripture who is held up to us and unbelievably used
by God to teach us that Melchizedek shows us the Lord Jesus Christ
in his manhood, in his divine nature, and in his offices as
the high priest and as the king, and also as the prophet to his
people. In other words, he represented
the Lord Jesus Christ. And because none other could
be like the Son of God but the Son of God, and because he abides
a priest forever, and because Melchizedek had no beginning
of days or end of life, and therefore his priesthood was superior to
the Levitical priesthood, therefore we know that he was, in fact,
a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I
know that that's not always understood or accepted, but that is the
way to understand Hebrews chapter 7. One of the powerful things
in this chapter, in Hebrews 7, is that because Abraham gave
tithes to him, and because all of Abraham's children, including
all of the priests in the Levitical priesthood, because Abraham paid
tithes to Melchizedek, therefore they also were less than Melchizedek. They paid tithes in Abraham. We also did all that Christ did
in Christ. And these men therefore showed
their subjection with Abraham to Melchizedek just as every
believer shows their subjection to Christ. That being said, God
proves by that that the law made nothing perfect. But the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our heavenly Melchizedek, and who has no beginning
of days or end of life, and who was made a high priest forever,
therefore by his endless life, and by God's oath, brought in
a new law. And that new law was the new
covenant. And that new covenant required
of him for us. That new covenant was fulfilled
in his blood, not in our obedience. Our obedience is only in His
obedience. God requires from us, but we
can't pay one thing of all that God requires. We can't fulfill
it, and Christ did all. Now, it says also in this same
chapter of Hebrews 7 that Christ, our high priest, is made higher.
He's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens. He doesn't need to offer sacrifices
daily as those high priests did back then, who offered for their
own sins and then for the people's, but he did all of this once.
He offered himself once. Because He offered Himself and
because of who He is, nothing else needed to be offered or
could be offered because He offered all when He offered Himself.
He offered all that God could possibly give or require because
He is the Son of God. Now, men who are made high priests
in the Levitical priesthood have sins themselves, but the Lord
made Him, Christ, our high priest, by an oath. And of course, that
oath is recorded in Psalm 110, but it was actually recorded
in the eternal will and counsel of God. And He is consecrated
forevermore. Now when we read that and superimpose
it over verse 13 of John chapter three, we see that the Lord Jesus
Christ is describing an entirely new covenant, a new high priest,
a new king, a new law, if you will, to what Nicodemus was expecting. Nicodemus trusted his own personal
obedience to the law of Moses, and yet he didn't understand
Moses. Because in the next verse, verse 14, where Jesus describes
what Moses recorded in Numbers 21, we see that Moses lifted
up to sinners a serpent on a pole, and Jesus said, that's the Son
of Man lifted up on the cross. As he that is hung on a pole
is cursed, so the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law, himself being made a curse for us. As it is written,
whoever hangs on a tree is cursed by God. So the Lord Jesus Christ,
according to these words here, hung on the cross because he
was cursed by God for the sins of his people in order to deliver
us from the curse. We sinned. but he was cursed. We sinned and God transferred
our sins to him just as the high priest confessed over the head
of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16 and transferred the sins of
Israel to the head of that goat and sent that goat out. So the
Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, confessed our sins as his and
God transferred them to him and laid them on him and he was made
sin for us. We who knew no righteousness,
who had sinned only, our sins were transferred to Him who knew
no sin, in order that by God's doing we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He is the King of righteousness
and the King of peace. That's the One who ascended.
He ascended as the King of glory. Who has ascended into the hill
of the Lord? Only He who has clean hands.
Open the gates, for the King of glory shall come in." And
that was the ascension of Christ. He alone could fulfill God's
holy law. It was written for him. It was
given to us, but we utterly failed in every part. Not one of us
has kept one of God's commandments one time. Not one of us has ever
loved God in our heart, with our soul, and with our mind,
with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength one time.
And that's the greatest commandment. Therefore we've broken them all.
For if we've broken the least, we've broken the entire covenant.
But Christ fulfilled it all. And that's why he ascended, because
he was made from eternity our mediator to stand for us. and to fulfill that old covenant
in order that He, in fulfilling it by His shed blood in obedience
of humiliation, might bring in an everlasting righteousness,
and bring in an everlasting covenant, a covenant God made with Him
for us in order to bless us with all heavenly and spiritual blessings
in Him, and to make us holy by His shed blood. in love before
God without compromise, in the presence of His holiness and
in His glory. That's what this verse is talking
about. The exalted, infinitely exalted High Son of Man who is
the Son of God. Nicodemus was expecting Jesus
to give him something to do. But Jesus didn't give him anything
to do. He told him, look, Take your
place among the sinners and look up because the only contribution
we make is our sin and offense against God. And God does everything
to save his people from their sins and does it all by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter one and verse
three says, when he, Christ, by himself had purged our sins,
by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of
God. on the right hand of the majesty
on high, the majesty, the king, and all of his majesty dressed
in his royal, glorious majesty because he made purification
for our sins. That's the Son of Man, that is
the Son of God. None but He could do it. And
Enoch and Elijah, although they were taken up to heaven without
going through death, they entered heaven as every believer enters
heaven because of the ascension of Christ. They didn't ascend
as king or as high priest, victorious in the battle against our sins
and Satan and death and the grave and the curse of God's law and
everything else that was against us that we brought on ourselves
because of our sins, but He did. He put it all away. And so we
see that in Moses lifting up the serpent on the pole. And
every one of us are told here in this text of scripture. And
everyone in all of history since the cross are pointed just as
they were before the cross, although it was not so clear then. But
here we have the clarity of the New Testament scriptures. God
the Son coming from heaven as Son of Man, speaking these words
to Nicodemus and telling him heavenly things, eternal things. things appointed by God and done
by God in order, by the death of his son, to reconcile his
enemies to himself. That's what God did. He did it,
and it says here, that whosoever believeth in him, in Christ,
the son of man, lifted up, bearing the curse, made sin, and so bearing
the curse for his people, that they might be made the righteousness
of God, whoever believes in him, whoever in all the world, young
or old, weak or strong, noble or ignoble, everyone, wise or
unwise, barbarian or refined, it doesn't matter who you are,
a college professor or an ignoramus, you who believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, should not perish. God says they should not perish. Why? He looks on his son. He sees him there. He put him
there. He laid their sins on him and received from him full
payment. There's nothing on the scales
of God's infinite justice. But our sin on the one side and
Christ offering himself on the other side in obedience and in
fulfillment and in satisfaction to all that God in his infinite
holiness is. And God expects nothing from
us on that side because he put everything in his son there.
Now, to believe in him is to believe that. It's not to believe
in myself. That's what religion teaches
us. That's what Nicodemus thought. I got to do something. Moses
gave me things to do, and I searched the scriptures. I've memorized
them, Nicodemus would say. I know them, Nicodemus would
say. Others would attest to the fact that he was a master, yet
he didn't know tiddlywinks. He didn't know anything about
salvation. He didn't know anything about
Christ and His glory and His dissension and His accomplishment
for sinners. He didn't know anything about
the eternal counsels of God. In fact, the things the Lord
told him about God's operation in the hearts of sinners on earth
by His Spirit, those earthly things, he refused to believe.
He was offended by it. that he was not already seen
and already entering into the kingdom of God offended him.
And so the Lord had to bring him down, just like he has to
bring us down. We have these preconceived notions
that God is like ourselves, that we can somehow earn, make him
our debtor. by what we do, by what we think,
by some commitment we make or our sorrow or our resolve to
make things right or never do it again. Forget it. God looks
to his son and has provided his son. And what would he expect
from us if it required his son? If there was something we could
do to please God, he would never have sacrificed his son. But
he did. Why? What was the reason? What
reason did God find in us? Verse 16, not a reason, not any
reason in us, but the reason came from himself for God so
loved. That's why God found love in
himself for a people undeserving, ill-deserving of all that God
is and yet he loved them and in his wisdom, In his love and
in his wisdom, he found his son that he loved and made him the
propitiation for our sins. God loved, so loved the world,
not the world of every person, because then he would have saved
every person, but he loved the world of those to whom it would
be given to believe on his son. Those who in themselves were
the world of sinners. Those who were dead in trespasses
and sins and could do nothing to help themselves and to whom
God would make this known as he was now making it known to
Nicodemus. The world of sinners because
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's who he
saved, sinners. And that's the world that God
loved, the world of sinners. Never think that God loves every
man because God's love is a saving love, an eternal love. What God
does in the end is what he already did in the beginning. And there's
no limitation to his power to meet all that God in his nature
and will and character requires in order to save sinners. To
the praise and the glory of his grace. The love of God is stronger
than death. Stronger than sin, stronger than
anything because behind that love is the wisdom and the almighty
power of God in the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for us
that he might redeem us from all iniquity, from this present
evil world and from death. He did it. because nothing could
stop him from having those whom he loved. Hosea chapter 3, verse
1 and 2, God tells the prophet Hosea concerning the adulterous
woman, Gomer, he says to him, the prophet, whose name means
Savior, And he says to the Savior, go, love a woman. Go yet, love a woman. That's
what God said to his son. Go yet, love a woman. And then, in the words that follow,
and Hosea, the prophet, responded, so I bought her. I bought her. He bought her. That's why, that's
how he loved his people. He bought her. Love. gives everything for the one
it loves. Christ gave himself. He loved the church and gave
himself for it. He laid his life down for the
sheep. He was not ashamed. to confess
his people as his brethren before his father, the children whom
you have given me. And he sang praises in the midst
of the church in Hebrews chapter two. So God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son. And look over at verse 35
of the same chapter. The father loves the son and
has given all things into his hands. So the one God gave, He
also gave everything. Everything is in Christ. He himself
is worth far more than heaven and all of creation, and yet
everything is his. As King Ahasuerus in the book
of Esther gave to Mordecai and to Esther, you write whatever
pleases you in the king's name and sign it and seal it with
the king's signature and do whatever you want with the house of Haman.
On behalf of the Jews, do whatever you want. So God has told his
son, you have everything. You have my will. You have my
word. You have the work God has laid
on you to do. And you have all the glory of
God is yours and the people of God to save. You have everything. to give my spirit to those to
whom you will give eternal life. The spirit of God and of life
to birth them, to create them new, to raise them from life,
from death to life, and to bless them with all blessings that
they might know in themselves that Christ and Him crucified
is all of God's purpose and work and glory for sinners. Amazing
grace. So God loved that son, and he
gave that son for those he loved, because he loved them as one.
The love of God the Father for his son. is the same love he
has for his people he chose in his son. He chose them as one
so that his love for his son would be the same love as he
has for them, an eternal love, an immeasurable love, a love
of infinite dimensions and extent. And so he gave his son. He loved
him and gave him for us who were sinners in order that, he says
in verse 16, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have everlasting life. To believe in Christ is not working
to get salvation. It is not fulfilling a part of
a transaction where God sees we've done our part and met our
conditions so that God can now give us his blessing. It is not
that at all. Believing in Christ has nothing
to do with me as any part in the equation. There's no part
of me on that side of the scales. It's looking to Him only. And
notice it's believing in Him. When we think about the work
of God the Father, we think about His eternal will and His choice
of us in Christ. And although believing Christ
is believing the Father, we don't look to our election to gain
confidence or assurance. That would be to believe in the
Father. We do believe in Him, but not
in believing Him as the one who elected us but as Christ, the
one who is doing the will of the Father and who did it in
offering himself for our sins. So we don't take confidence or
find assurance in looking for evidence in ourselves to see
if we are God's elect. We trust Christ, who is God's
elect. and that we were chosen in Him
as sinners by God the Father. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
nor do we look for the experience in our own lifetime of the operations
of God the Holy Spirit, because the only work that He does that
we have any awareness of is we look to Christ. We see Him who
died for us, but we look to Christ alone. And that means that we
look to what He did, not in our own lifetime, but in His history. We look to that objective truth,
which is our salvation. And as it says in Hebrews 4,
he that believeth in him has ceased from his own works, has
rested, has stopped working in order to obtain the eternal salvation
that he obtained when he offered himself to God for us. Believing
him, not myself. Believing him and not another.
Certainly not a man. Certainly not this person. Not
something I can do, not my feelings, not my experience, not my sincerity,
not my commitment, not my surrender, my sorrow, my tears. Least of
all, my law-keeping. I don't trust what other people
think I am. I don't take your opinion about
my relationship with God. I trust Christ. I trust God to
look upon Him and receive me as He looked on the blood and
passed over Israel. You see, it's believing Him.
If any part of it includes me, then it's not believing Him.
And that's the reason we don't have full assurance, is because
we have a measure of unbelief in ourselves, don't we? We don't
look to the work of God in us, we look to the work of Christ
for us. We don't look to our own works, we look to Christ's
work. We don't look to our own strength, the Lord is my strength. We don't look to our own joy
and peace in believing, although we do have a measure of joy and
peace in believing, but we look to the joy of God and Christ
in saving His people. For the joy that was set before
Him, He endured the cross. That's the joy we look to. We
don't even look to our own sense of our sinfulness. What do we
look to? Christ crucified. Obviously we
were sinners, the worst kind of sinners, if God required His
Son to die, to bear our sins and cursed Him for it. It's all
about the Lord Jesus Christ, whoever believes in Him. God
says, no, they will not perish, but they have. Believing is the
evidence of everlasting life as our present possession. Look
at 1 John and chapter five. I want you to see this with great
comfort from God himself to us. The Lord Jesus Christ, our all. 1 John chapter five. He says in verse 9, if we receive
the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is
the witness of God, which he hath testified of his son. And
I won't go into it, but what he said before, that by him we
have life. He goes on in verse 10. He that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself, for He
that believeth not God hath made him a liar." If you believe on
the Son of God, the witness of God, you have in yourself. But if you don't, then you're
saying God is a liar because that person has not believed
on the record God gave of His Son. You see, it's all about
His Son. You see, it's all believing Him. Look at verse 11. And this
is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this
life is in His Son. He doesn't make a distinction
between life in His Son, truth in His Son, righteousness in
His Son. He calls His Son life. Because
He is. He is the truth. He is the way. He is the Lord, our righteousness. He's everything to us. He is
our holiness, our sanctification. God hath made Him unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And verse 12,
he, therefore, he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath
not the Son of God hath not life. And the evidence of that is he
doesn't believe Christ. Verse 13, now, this is the verse,
listen. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life. You who believe have everlasting
life, that you might know it, I'm writing these things to you,
and that you may believe in the name of the Son of God. Isn't
that amazing? That we who believe are told,
because you believe, that's evidence you have everlasting, eternal
life. And I'm telling you this so that
you would not only believe in the past or sometime later in
the future, but that today, right now, you would look to Christ.
and you would find in him and look away from all other, especially
yourself, to him, the one who brought in everlasting righteousness
and established peace in his own blood, the one who is our
high priest, who makes intercession for us and therefore is able
to save us to the uttermost, who by an oath was made high
priest and an endless life was made high priest, who was made
higher than the heavens because he did the will of God. A new
law has been entered and it's His covenant which He fulfilled
in His own blood. The old covenant is abolished
because Christ fulfilled it. Never think that we have something
more to do by keeping what God has said Christ did for us. Rest. Cease from your own labors
as God did from His and look only to Christ. I don't know
how else to say it. And yet this faith that we talk
about and try to explain from Scripture, and by our own understanding
of it, this is the gift of God. I can't give it to you. But how
does God give it? He points us to Christ. He lifts
him up in his word. He preaches him to us and he
says, I've said these things to you that believe on the Son
of God that you might know you have eternal life and that you
might believe on the Son of God. So He directs us to Him, in His
Word, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word
of God, and the Word God gives to us, according to that text
in Romans 10, 16 and 17, is the Isaiah 53 account, the report
of Christ and Him crucified, because it was quoted from there.
Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report, the report of Jesus
Christ, on whom God laid the sins of his people, and he was
stricken for them, for the transgression of my people. Isaiah 53, verse
8, was he stricken. Now, in verse 17, for God sent
not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through him might be saved. Because Christ came, these are
the words of Jesus Christ. I did not come to condemn the
world. They were worthy of it. They
should have been condemned strictly on the basis of the law of Moses.
But here we have a new revelation that God sent his son into the
world that the world through him might be saved. Obviously,
Those he sent him to save would be saved because he can't fail.
And he rose again and was enthroned in glory, in reward, and in exaltation
because he accomplished the work of God in his own offering of
himself for them. But here he says, the world might
be saved. They were by his work and shall
be saved. He will count his sheep. He will
pass them through and he will number them and he will make
sure every one of his sheep go into his fold. Verse 18, he that
believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is
condemned already. Not condemned. How can this be? Not condemned. Not condemned because there's
nothing to condemn them for. The best possible reason. God
only withholds condemnation when there's nothing for God to condemn. And that can only be if God himself
blotted out and took away from His face, out of His mind and
memory, all of our sins. Now, if God did that by Christ,
which He obviously did, there's nothing for one for whom Christ
died that can condemn them. And in Romans 8, 34, it says,
Who is He that condemneth? Who? And the answer God has given
is, Not, well, see what they've done, see what they believe.
No, he says, it is Christ that died. That's God's answer to
the who is he that condemneth question. It's raised and answered
before his throne, written in scripture, which cannot be broken.
Romans 8, 34. So God will not condemn any for
whom Christ died. cannot. There's no sin. He blotted it out in the blood
of his son. Christ carried it away and God
has put it out of his mind, out of his, before his face. You
know, everything in creation exists only because God actively
thinks about it. If the radio waves we're now
using to project our voice and to transmit this signal in order
to enable this zoom, if one of the wiggles of those waves, if
God didn't actively think about that EMF, electromagnetic force,
and all the science that goes behind that to uphold the laws
of physics that he does by his active will and good pleasure,
if he stopped, if he ceased thinking about it, There would be no record
of its existence ever. And if any of us were to ever
be somehow evaporated from the mind of God, we would have no
record or history of our existence. We would not be. And so our sins
by the Lord Jesus Christ were so blotted out, so taken away
that God says, I will remember their sins no more. No more. In Psalm 51, David asked the
Lord, hide my sins, my iniquities from your face. Blot them out. That was the prayer inspired
by the Holy Spirit. And God is, by His Spirit, praying
His will for His people in Christ. The one name given under heaven
whereby we must be saved. He blotted them out. Christ took
them away. There's nothing to condemn. And all they are brought to faith
in Christ. He says in verse 18, he that
believeth on him, on Christ, is not condemned. But he that
believeth not, is condemned already, because he has not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. He went about to
do his own righteousness. He refused to submit to the righteousness
of God, which Christ is. And he held tenaciously to his
own righteousness, and God is telling us, as Jesus told Nicodemus
here, that one is already condemned. Condemned by Moses, condemned
by God because he has not believed on God's son. He made God a liar. He refused the record God gave
of his son. Verse 19, and this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, that's Christ, and men love darkness
rather than light. Their own imaginations, their
own works, their own pride, their own religion, because their deeds
were evil. That's why it springs from an
evil heart. Verse 20, for everyone that does
evil hates the light. We don't want the light of God's
law. We don't want the light of conscience. We don't want
the light of God's judgment. We hate the light in ourselves. But, he says in verse 21, but
he that doeth truth comes to the light that his deeds may
be made manifest that they are wrought or worked out in God. God himself has worked in us
to look to Christ. We look, we come to the light
of God's Word openly. What? Taking God's Word in our
heart and in our minds, looking to Christ, setting to our record,
God is true. Amen, amen. What God has said
is the truth of the way things are. Christ is all. And by His
own self He established my righteousness and washed my sins in His own
blood. I have nothing to offer but what
He offered Himself. And I'm looking to Him because
He did this. He gave me this persuasion that
comes from God. I'm a sinner and nothing at all
and under the wrath of God and deservedly so, but God has given
me his son to look to. And he said, look unto me all
and be ye saved all the ends of the earth. I'm a sinner. He
came to die for sinners. I'm looking as a sinner. Lord,
cover my sins. Cover me as Ruth said to Boaz,
cover me, extend the border of your mantle over me. We come
to the light, don't we? Yes. Yes, I'm a sinner. And Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. God justified the ungodly. That's
me. When we were yet without strength,
I have none. I can't do one thing of all that
God requires. When we were enemies, God reconciled
us to himself by the death of his son. I'm the enemy in my
mind, hostility, it just pours out from me. And yet I have found
in myself the testimony that God has given of his son here,
by his son here, of his son, is all my hope, all my desire,
this is all my salvation. All right. We will stop there. All of the works God requires
of His people in the light of God's holiness and glory, we
come to the light of God's own holiness with one thing, the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And coming by His blood, God
sees only His blood. And it's all done in Him, and
there we rest. What a wonderful salvation. God Himself says, I have written
these things unto you, who believe on the name of the Son of God,
that you may know you have eternal life, and that you might believe
on the name of the Son of God. What grace, let's pray. Lord,
we ask you to give to us what we cannot produce. Help us not
to be offended by your words that say we must be born again. Help us rather to take great
delight in knowing that In the new birth, we're given to look
to Christ only. And so looking to him, we find
the operation of God working in us because the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ for us obtained our eternal redemption. And he
from his throne on high, as the king of righteousness and peace
has sent his spirit into our hearts crying, Abba, Father,
because He redeemed us by His blood. Thank and praise the King
of heaven, in whose name we pray, amen.