I want you to turn in your Bibles
to John chapter 3, if you have your Bible, and we're going to
have our second message from John chapter 3. John chapter
3 is about the Lord Jesus and a man named Nicodemus, and how
the Lord uses this man to show us about ourselves and how He
saves sinners. is a very important chapter in
the Bible. Like all of the Bible, it talks
about the main things the Bible teaches about our condition and
about God's salvation. So we want to look at John chapter
3 very carefully, and for that reason I've decided to have a
series of messages on John chapter 3, and this is really the second
one in that series. Before we get into this, I want
to ask the Lord to be with us. Let's pray. Dear Father, we pray
that you would show us your Son. We know this is your sovereign
work. We know this is all by your grace, and we know that
we cannot live We cannot know You, we cannot worship You and
glorify You unless You have mercy upon us. So we pray, dear Lord,
even today, across the medium of this technology, that You
would open our hearts to hear Your Word. and You would work
in us by Your Spirit. Thank You for the people gathered
here today. We pray that You would bless
them and that You would exalt Yourself in their salvation,
in the gathering of them to Yourself as a body, as a church, as Your
people, Your elect, redeemed people, brought out from sin
and destruction to see the light of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen. Now,
in John chapter 3, as I mentioned, this is about Nicodemus, it's
about how the Lord Jesus taught him the gospel, and about how
he saved him. And in this chapter of the Bible,
and especially the first 21 verses, we see what I'm going to describe
as the all-comprehensive nature of God's salvation. And I use
the word all-comprehensive, that's a big word, but what it means
is it includes everything. This chapter of the Bible includes
everything about God's salvation. But that's the way the Bible
is. It really repeats the same message over and over again.
So I want to give you, first of all, an overview of it, of
this chapter, as we read through it together. I just want to read
through it with you, and then I want to give you an overview.
But as we do this, I want you to see several things. First,
I want you to see how God describes our condition. what we are by
nature. Secondly, I want you to see how
God describes what is absolutely necessary for us to see or enter
the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, for us to go to Heaven
and have life. And then the third thing I want
you to see is how utterly impossible it is for us to do what is absolutely
necessary for us. What's necessary for us is impossible
for us. And then the next thing we're
going to see here is that what's impossible for us is what God
must do for us. God does do the impossible. It's
impossible for us, but it's not impossible with God. And then
we're going to see here God's saving purpose, His eternal purpose
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we're going to see all these
things in this one man, Nicodemus, and in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a discourse here, there's a conversation between this man,
Nicodemus, and Jesus. And in this conversation, we're
going to see how God saves sinners. We're going to see how we come
to the Lord Jesus Christ and we are in such tremendous need
that we don't even know our own need. We don't know what we don't
know. We don't know what we need. It has to be told to us. And
even then, when it's told to us, we still can't do anything
about it. We're absolutely in the hand and at the mercy of
God. So we're going to see all these things. We're going to
see that our salvation is in the hands of our triune God.
God the Father, who loved us. God the Son, who redeemed us
by His saving mercy and His shed blood. And the Spirit of God,
who gives us life in our spirit. With that overview, let's look
at these verses together as we read through it. In John chapter
3, verse 1, it says, There was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Last week I mentioned that the
word Pharisee means someone who separates themselves. The Pharisees
thought that sin and evil was not in them, that it was outside
of them. So they separated themselves
from others so that they themselves wouldn't be infected by sin.
Kind of like the coronavirus. People try to see the virus and
get rid of it, but we can't get rid of that virus. It's not something
that we can even see. God has to protect us from it.
We do what we can about the virus and we try to protect ourselves,
but ultimately God has got to protect us. He has to keep us
from getting sick. But sin is much worse than this
virus. Sin is a plague in our heart.
The Pharisees didn't realize that. They thought they could
see. They thought because God gave them the law, because they
knew the law, they were teachers of the law, that they were accepted
by God and that God was happy with them, that He had favor
upon them and was going to bless them. But this is not the case.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 20 that unless our righteousness
is better than the righteousness of the Pharisees. We cannot enter
heaven. But Nicodemus didn't know that.
He was blind, but he didn't know he was blind. Like the blind
man in John chapter 9, after Jesus healed him of his blindness. And the man asked Jesus, who
is the Lord Jesus Christ? And Jesus told him who he was.
And then the Pharisees asked if they were blind. And Jesus
said, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But because
you say, we see, therefore your sin remains. So Nicodemus was
a blind Pharisee. Someone who thought he wasn't
a sinner like others. Who despised others and trusted
in his own righteousness. And so that's what it means in
this first verse. He came to Jesus. He came to Jesus not knowing
what he truly was. The Lord Jesus had to show him
what he was. And that's what's going to happen
next. Nicodemus then says in verse 2, he came to Jesus by
night. Night describes darkness. And
darkness is what we are in our heart. That's our condition.
And he said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him. Nicodemus thought he needed to
tell Jesus what he knew about Jesus. Why do we need to tell
Jesus what He knows as if we're informing Him about ourselves,
telling Him what we know about Him? We can't teach Him. We can't
inform Him. He knows us. We need to come
to Him as sinners and ask Him to search our hearts. And we
need to ask Him in searching our hearts to make Himself known
to us. and to give us what He asks of us, to give us everything,
because it all comes from Him. We have to ask Him to show us
our condition and save us from our sins. And so in the next
verse, verse 3, Jesus answered Nicodemus, and He said something
very important, something Nicodemus wasn't expecting. In fact, Nicodemus
didn't know that he needed Jesus to say this. But the Lord Jesus
knew his heart, and so he speaks to his need. And his need was
given by the Lord Jesus here in an answer to him. He says,
Jesus answered and said to him, verily, verily. That means very
truly. And why would you think that
Jesus, who is the Word of God, who only speaks the truth, would
have to say, verily, verily? Well, it wasn't because his word
wasn't true and he needed to underline his words. It was because
Nicodemus didn't think his word was true and he had to raise
the emphasis on what he was about to say by using these words,
verily, verily. And so he says this, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Now this raises a big question
to us. What is the Kingdom of God? And if we can't see it,
don't we need to know something about what it is? Nicodemus thought
he could see the Kingdom of God. He thought he was in the Kingdom
of God. But here the Lord Jesus begins
to describe his need, the absolute necessity that Nicodemus be born
again. Nicodemus didn't know this. He
thought he could see and was in the Kingdom of God because
he thought a child of Abraham made him a child of God. He thought
God was his father because he was born to parents who were
descended from Abraham. So he thought because he was
a Jew, he was in the kingdom of God. But he didn't ask a question
about this. Jesus looked right into his heart.
He knew that he thought this and it was wrong. So he corrected
him. And he shows him his great need. He says, except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, think about
it. If Jesus told Nicodemus, unless
you're born again, you can't see the Kingdom of God, what
does that mean about Nicodemus when he was talking to him here?
It means he was blind. He could not see the Kingdom
of God. Whatever the kingdom of God is, Nicodemus had never
seen it. He didn't know about it. And
we're going to see in a minute why that's true. Look at verse
4. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is
old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? You see, Nicodemus could
only think about things from a physical perspective. He couldn't
see spiritual things and so his mind was constrained. It was
limited by what he could think of as physical things. And so
he thought, well I was born the first time from my mother. To
be born again means I have to be born from my mother again.
Is that what you're talking about? But of course, that was a foolish
thing to say. It was not only foolish because
it was impossible and he couldn't do that, but it was also foolish
because it had nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about.
And so Jesus answers the next verse. In verse 5, Jesus answered
and said, Verily, verily. Again, He underscores, He emphasizes
the truth of what He's about to say. So Nicodemus will take
it seriously. And we need to take it seriously. What God is saying to Nicodemus
here, through the Lord Jesus Christ, what Jesus is saying
to him, He's saying to us. He says, Verily, verily, I say
to thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Now, Jesus had already
told him he couldn't see the Kingdom of God unless he was
born again, and now Jesus says he can't enter the Kingdom of
God unless you're born again. So what does that mean about
Nicodemus? He was not only blind, but he was outside of the Kingdom
of God. He couldn't see it, and he had
never entered it. Do you see his condition? Spiritually,
this man is blind. Spiritually, he has never entered
the kingdom of God. And this comes as a great shock
to Nicodemus. It grabbed a hold of him at the
very core of who he was. And it rattled him. And it bothered
him tremendously. And so in the next verse, Jesus
goes on to explain more. He says, "...that which is born
of the flesh, is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. Now when we're born to our physical
parents, to our mom and dad, all we are is flesh. We can only
be spiritual if we're born by the Spirit of God. God himself
has to give us a spiritual being. By nature, what we are from our
parents is without a spiritual being. We have no living spirit
in us. We're dead spiritually. We have
not been created spiritually. And we haven't been made partakers
of the divine nature. So we have no part in the Kingdom
of God. Only those who have been born
spiritually can be in the Kingdom of God. And we're going to look
at that in more detail. if not in this message, in another
message. But notice in verse 7 what Jesus
said next to Nicodemus. It shows that Nicodemus was taken
by surprise by what Jesus said and by what he was about to say.
He says, Marvel not, Jesus said to Nicodemus, marvel not that
I said unto thee, you must be born again. In verse 3, Jesus
said, except a man be born again. And in verse 5, he said it again,
except a man be born again. But here, Jesus speaks to Nicodemus,
he says, as if pointing right at him, he says, except you be
born again. Don't marvel that I said to you
that you must be born again. Don't be shocked by that. Don't
be surprised. And not only that, don't be surprised
by the fact that this birth is something that's impossible for
you. Look at what he says in the next verse. The wind, he
gives him a comparison between the Spirit of God and the wind.
He says, the wind blows where it listeth. And that word listeth
just simply means where it pleases. The Spirit of God, or the wind,
blows where it pleases, and thou hearest the sound thereof. You
hear the sound of the wind, don't you? But you can't tell whence
it cometh. You don't know from which direction.
Well, maybe you know the direction, but you don't know where it started
from. You can't tell from whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
You don't know, really, where it's going next. That's the way
the wind works. And then Jesus says, so is everyone
that is born of the Spirit, the Spirit of God. No one can be
born spiritually unless the Spirit of God gives them this birth.
Do you see that? And this birth given to us by
the Spirit of God is something that He does. It's not in our
control. Can you control the wind? Can
you make the wind start blowing? Can you keep it from blowing?
Can you tell it which direction to blow? Of course not. You can
do none of those things. When you were born by your parents,
did you cause your parents to give birth to you? Did you conceive
yourself in the womb of your mother? Did you bring yourself
to birth? Of course not. And you can't
control the Spirit of God. God must do something for you.
It's impossible for you. But it's absolutely necessary. Unless we're born of God, we
can't see the Kingdom of God. We can't enter the Kingdom of
God. We can't know anything about spiritual things. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 says that a man cannot know the things of the Spirit
of God unless God makes them known to him by His Spirit. So
these things are spiritual, the things of heaven, the things
of God are spiritual and we can't understand them, we can't know
them, we can't see, we can't enter in heaven unless God gives
us this birth. So we're absolutely dependent
upon God. So we're going to go on to the
next verse here. Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these
things be? Do you see what Nicodemus is
saying here? He didn't understand Jesus. He
asked the question, how can these things be? Now, when he first
came to Jesus, he thought all he needed was a teacher. He said,
we know you're a teacher come from God. So he thought, maybe
I can be taught something by this teacher come from God. But
what Nicodemus needed was a lot more than a teacher. He needed
a savior. He needed someone who could give
him life. Someone who could create him
out of the empty, dark void of his nothingness spiritually and
bring him to life and make him a partaker of God's divine nature. That's something only God can
do. Nicodemus didn't understand that. He didn't know it and he
couldn't make it happen. He couldn't cause God, like a
man can't cause the wind to blow, he couldn't cause God to birth
him into his kingdom. He could not make himself a child
of God. This is God's work and it is
only by God's will that we're born of God. John chapter 1 verse
13 says so. He says we're not born of the
will of man. We're not born of the will of
the flesh. We're not born of blood because we have a parent
who is a Christian or because we were born to Abraham. We're
only born as children of God by God himself. We're born of
God or we're not born. And so it's entirely up to God.
And that makes us feel something about ourselves, how small we
are, how insignificant in this thing we are. We can't bring
it about. It's impossible for us. And God
has to do it. And so we're utterly dependent
upon God. Like a prisoner, we're shut in
the prison of our helplessness and our sin. And God has to save
us by His own power and by His own will. And so in verse 9,
when Jesus said, how can these things be? Nicodemus is admitting,
I don't know. How can these things be? And
this is the first step. The first step that God brings
a man to is to realize, I don't know, and I can't help myself. In 2nd Chronicles chapter 20,
Jehoshaphat and the people of Israel were facing an army that
was much greater and more powerful than they were. And in 2 Chronicles
20, verse 12, Jehoshaphat prays this way, he says, Wilt thou not judge them? For
we have no might, no strength, against this great company that
comes against us. Neither know we what to do."
You see, Jehoshaphat is saying, we don't have any strength and
we don't know what to do. But this is the way God prepares
us to hear salvation. Because Jehoshaphat said this,
the next thing. But our eyes are upon thee. You see? Nicodemus was brought
to that point. How can these things be? This
was the first step. This was the first sign of progress
in Nicodemus. He knew now that he was ignorant
and blind. He knew now that he was outside
the kingdom of God. And he asked Jesus, how can these
things be? I need something and I can't
do it. I'm dependent upon God. I have
no strength and I don't know what to do. And that's what God
has to do to bring us to salvation. He has to bring us to the point
where we don't know what we can do. And we know that we are entirely
dependent upon Him. And later on in 2 Chronicles
20, in verse 17, the prophet tells Jehoshaphat and all of
Israel, he says, stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord. And this is the way that Jesus
speaks to Nicodemus here. Look at this in John 3, the next
verse, in verse 10. Jesus has, at this point, humbled
Nicodemus. He has brought him down from
his pride. He has shown him, you can't see the kingdom of
God. You're outside the kingdom of God. And this is something
only God can do to bring you into the kingdom of God and open
your eyes. and give you life and make you
a spiritual child of God. And so Jesus humbles him even
further here in verse 11. He says, Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, we, meaning himself and all the prophets that God
has sent, like John the Baptist, we speak that we do know. Jesus was talking about what
he knew. And we testify that we have seen. Jesus told Nicodemus
and the Pharisees and all the people they preached to what
he had seen, and it was true. But what happened? It says, and
you, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and you receive not our witness. Now, we know he was blind, we
know he was outside, and now, in verse 9, he's confused, and
he admits his blindness, and Jesus says, it's even worse than
that, Nicodemus. I've told you the truth, but
you didn't receive it. I am sent from God, but you haven't
heard. You haven't received the witness
from God. And so he says here, we've spoken what we do know,
but you haven't heard it. You haven't received it. So not
only was Nicodemus blind and outside the kingdom of God and
ignorant, but he actually refused to hear the words of Christ.
He refused to hear the one he said God had sent. Now, in verse
12, it gets even worse. He says, Jesus said, If I have
told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe
if I tell you of heavenly things? Now we see something else about
Nicodemus. Not only did he refuse to hear
what Jesus had said, but he did not believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is our condition. Before
we're born of God, we do not believe Jesus Christ. Before
we're born of God, we do not receive the things of God. We
can't know them, we can't see them, and we can't enter heaven.
And this lowers Nicodemus in his own esteem. In his own mind,
now he's greatly humbled, but Jesus is going to take him down
another step lower. Because he says this, the Lord
Jesus is going to show Nicodemus the eternal purpose and work
of God in what he says next. Listen carefully in verse 13.
And no man, Jesus said, no man has ascended up to heaven, but
he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is
in heaven. This is all of the work, this
is the entire work of Christ's redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ
was in heaven. He alone descended from heaven. He alone accomplished the work
of our redemption, and then he ascended up to heaven, and there
he reigns forever, with universal dominion and everlasting rule
over all things, because he finished the work of our redemption."
We'll talk about that more in detail in future sermons on this
chapter. But let me get to verse 14, because
here we see something that's quite amazing that Jesus said
to Nicodemus. He says, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted
up. Now that's incredible. Remember
the story in the wilderness in Numbers chapter 21? The children
of Israel had been in the wilderness, and they didn't have anything
to drink. They didn't have any bread to
eat. And God sent them bread, and
He gave them water. And they were complaining and
grumbling to God. They were speaking against God,
and they were speaking against Moses. And they had received
the manna that God sent from heaven, but they didn't like
it. They despised it. They were tired of it. They didn't
understand that that manna pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so in Numbers chapter 21 and verse 4 it says, They journeyed
from the Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to encompass the
land of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged
because of the way, and the people spoke against God. Do you see
that? They spoke against God and against
Moses. Now Nicodemus thought that he
was a follower of Moses. And Jesus is saying, listen to
this Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Why did Moses lift
up the serpent in the wilderness? Well let's see why. In Numbers
chapter 21, It says in verse 5, And the people spake against
God and against Moses, and they said this, Wherefore, why have
you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? They
did not believe God, did they? He didn't bring them out of Egypt
to die in the wilderness, but they didn't believe Him. And
so it says, the people went on, they said, For there is no bread,
neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light
bread. They hated the bread God sent
from heaven, the manna. They spoke against God, they
spoke against Moses, and they hated the bread God gave from
heaven. And this describes Nicodemus. And it describes all of us, blind,
outside, would not receive the words of Christ, did not believe
Christ. And now he's just like the people
in the wilderness who were disobedient, who spoke against God, who spoke
against Moses, and who hated the bread God sent from heaven.
And now this is the point. where Jesus brings Nicodemus
in his mind. He's brought as low as a man
can be brought, because this has to be done in order for us
to see God's saving grace in the Lord Jesus. And then in verse
6, After the people spoke against God and Moses and against the
bread, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit
the people, and the people of Israel died. The people sinned
against God, and what did God do? He sent these serpents, and
the serpents bit the people. God brought the curse upon them
because of their sin. And the people died. Not all
the people, but many did. And the rest of the people who
hadn't died yet, and were bitten, had no way of getting well. They
couldn't get over the bite. The poison was something they
had no remedy for. There was no antidote for the
poison. And so it says in verse 7, And
Moses prayed for the people. And notice what God said to do
to Moses. And the Lord said to Moses, make thee a fiery serpent, and
set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that
is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. And Moses made
a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass
that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent
of brass, he lived. And Jesus said, just like that,
Nicodemus, just like Moses was told by God to lift up a serpent
on the pole, and everyone who looked at that serpent who had
been bitten because of their sin and was dying without remedy,
just like that, Nicodemus, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
Man, will be lifted up And what he's talking about is the cross.
Jesus Christ was put on the cross. He was nailed to the cross. He
was cursed by God. And notice, he says in John chapter
3, "...as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have eternal life." to believe
is the same thing as what the children of Israel were told
by Moses. Look! Moses is like God's law. God's law holds up to us the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified and tells sinners who have been
cursed by God and have no remedy that you are a sinner and God's
curse is against you and you have no strength or power to
remove your curse. God has to act and He tells you,
look to Christ. and look alone to Christ. And
everyone who looked in the wilderness lived. And everyone who believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ lives. Now this was told to Nicodemus
in order to answer the question that Nicodemus raised in verse
9. When Nicodemus asked, how can
these things be? He was talking about how he could
be born of God. And Jesus shows him just like
the Spirit of God does. He points Nicodemus to himself
and in his substitutionary work. Why was the serpent lifted up
in the wilderness? Because the serpent was hung
on a pole to represent the Lord Jesus Christ being cursed by
God for his people as a substitute. Their sins were placed on him
and God's curse came upon the Lord Jesus Christ instead of
that curse coming on his people who had sinned. And so Jesus
tells Nicodemus these things because He's speaking to Nicodemus
the gospel of His grace, how He saves sinners by Himself,
substituting Himself for them, and He points them to Himself. And He tells them, when you look
upon what Christ has done, and you come to God by Him, then
in that look, The Spirit of God gives you life. You see? God
gives you the look. He brought Nicodemus to Jesus.
He brings us to Christ and He holds Christ up. And He holds
Him up. And in hearing the Gospel, the
Spirit of God comes upon us and He gives us that life. He gives
us that birth. He creates us in Christ. In John
chapter 12, Jesus said this, If I be lifted up from the earth,
I will draw all unto me." And he said this signifying what
death he should die. And so in all this we see the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. And we see how the Spirit
of God takes what Jesus did and applies it to our hearts. And
then, in John 3, verse 16, it says, Now I want to talk about
that word, world, in much more detail in coming sermons. But
let me just say this, in summary. Nicodemus understood this about
the kingdom of God. He thought that the nation of
Israel, the Jews, the people born to Abraham, were the true
children of God. And they thought that the king
who ruled over that nation would rule on earth and would be a
king through which God would bless them. He would be their
king and he would be a king who would subdue the enemies who
were not Jews, who were Gentiles. And so Nicodemus had a view of
God's purpose that included only the nation of Israel. And he
saw that the people of the Jews, the physically born people to
Abraham, the people that were born to Jacob through Isaac and
Abraham, that those were the people of God. And he could only
think about the kingdom of God in this little narrow view of
the nation of Israel. But Jesus exploded that wrong
view of Nicodemus. He says here in John 3.16, no,
God so loved the world, not just the nation of the Jews. In fact,
not all people in the nation of the Jews. but His people throughout
the entire world, not just limited to that one place in Israel.
Now, this is the same error that people nowadays fall into. People today, especially in what's
called evangelical religion, they think of the nation of Israel
as having a purpose in God's saving plan. They think of the
people in that nation, in that physical land, born to Abraham. They think that somehow they
are going to be saved or that God is going to especially bless
them because they were born to Abraham. And I want to I'll show
you something in Matthew chapter 3 and say something that maybe
will shock you, and I expect to expand on this more next time. But look at this in Matthew chapter
3. John the Baptist was sent by
God before Jesus came. And John the Baptist preached
the gospel. In fact, it says this about what
he preached in Matthew 3. In verse 1, In those days came
John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness, and saying, Repent
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, Jesus had told
Nicodemus, you can't see, and you haven't entered the kingdom
of heaven, or kingdom of God. And this is exactly what John
the Baptist is preaching about here. But notice, in verse 9
of Matthew 3, John the Baptist said this to the people, he said,
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you, that God
is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. What
was John the Baptist saying? The people to whom John the Baptist
was preaching believed that somehow, because they were born to Abraham,
that they were God's people, that God would bless them, that
they would receive the promises God made to Abraham because they
were born to Abraham. And John the Baptist says, no,
that's wrong. Do not think to yourselves, we
have Abraham to our father. God is able to raise up children
to Abraham from rocks, from these stones. John the Baptist was
probably pointing at the stones when he said this. And so, what
Jesus told Nicodemus was a common misconception, a common error
in the days of Nicodemus, in the days of the Jews. And so
we have to understand that just as Jesus understood Nicodemus'
heart, and explain things to him that he misunderstood and
could not see. So Jesus is explaining these
things in John chapter 3, not only to him, but to us. He's
teaching us that God's salvation has nothing to do with our birth
to Abraham. Absolutely nothing. No one from
the beginning of time to the end of time has ever been saved
because they were born to Abraham. And that might shock some people,
but that is a common error, a mistake, a false doctrine that's preached
in this world today. It's not because of Abraham,
and it's not because of David, the king of Israel. In Acts chapter
2, the apostle Peter told them, David is buried, his sepulcher
is with us, and he's buried in it. He's not the king God was
talking about. He's talking about the Lord Jesus.
So it's not Abraham, it's not David, it's not Elijah. Because
in Matthew chapter 17, Jesus went up on a mountain and there
appeared to him Elijah and Moses. And the disciples thought, let's
build three tents, three tabernacles for these men. One for Elijah,
Moses, and one for Jesus. And God spoke from heaven and
says, this is my beloved son, hear ye him. And when he said
that, the disciples Peter, James and John looked and they could
only see Jesus. So God's kingdom is a kingdom
that has nothing to do with our physical birth. We're not in
the kingdom of God because of our parents. because they were
believers in Jesus or because they were born to Abraham. The
kingdom of God is not a place on earth. It's not a land in
Israel. It has nothing to do with an
earthly king. The kingdom of God is a heavenly
kingdom. The people in it are spiritual
people. And those people are born into
that Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is in them
because God has made Himself known to them in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the rule of that Kingdom,
the doctrine of that Kingdom, is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All who are in that kingdom,
and only they, are believers, are children of God, have been
born of God, and they have been born of God, and that's why they
believe. And so we're going to talk about these things in much
more detail in the coming weeks. But I want you to see these things,
and next week I want to look at something with you. Our own
condition, like Nicodemus' condition. What does it mean when God says
that he was just flesh? Flesh only. And what does it
mean to be a carnal? Because when we see that, we're
going to see our utter helplessness. One thing that people do nowadays,
is they read John chapter 3, and they think, we have to be
born again. And then they turn it into a
process, or they make it a recipe, and they try to tell men, this
is what you have to do to be born again. That is a false doctrine. Many people say that they made
a decision at some point in their life and they even have a card
to prove that they made a decision. They were born again because
they made a decision. This is an error that will leave
people outside of the Kingdom of God. The only way we can be
born again is if God does it. And He does it in this way. He
points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. He preaches the Gospel to us.
And under the preaching of His Gospel, He gives us His Spirit.
And only then are we given life and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
May God give you that grace today. And may we see in Nicodemus our
own selves that we're proud, blind, outside. We haven't believed. We're disobedient. We're just
like those children of Israel in the wilderness. We speak against
God. We speak against His law. We
despise Christ by nature. We're all these things and much
more. And God has to save us according to His mercy. And He
does it by sending His Son, making Him the substitute for our sins,
bearing our curse, and pointing us to Him, and by His Spirit
giving us faith in Him. Let's pray that God would give
us this grace as we're here gathered today. Join with me as we close
in prayer. Dear Lord, we pray that according
to your grace, according to your wisdom, and your holiness and
righteousness and great power, that you would find a way in
the Lord Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, that you would
look upon him for us that you, in looking to Him, would send
your spirit into our hearts, and you would give us this life,
create in us this spirit that we do not have, join this spirit
to yourselves in life-giving partaking of the divine nature,
and cause us to see the Lord Jesus Christ, and so enter the
Kingdom of God in trusting Him. And we pray this mercy on all
those who hear us today. Dear Lord, honor your word. Bless
those who hear it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.