The Word of God is never without
power. The Word of God is never without
purpose. There's never a time when God's
Word will not do what God intended for it to do. As I mentioned at the beginning
of our service, there is a weird conflict in my life that I've
not seen in a long time, or ever actually in my life, where it
appears as that most of the dissension, most of the hatred against the
gospel of Jesus Christ comes from within churches, congregations,
professing Christians. We see it all the time. There's
a need for polemics. There's a need for apologists.
There's a need for those who have been called by God to rightly
divide the Word of Truth in a public way. I don't necessarily remember
who actually said this, but a famous apologist has been quoted by
saying, the reason that I do apologetics is not to win an
argument, but to shut the mouths of the unbelievers. As we've
studied through Romans during our midweek service, we've seen
that that is exactly what the Word of God does. It closes the
mouths of unbelievers. For we who the Word of God was
written to, we are subject to it. We are guilty because it
says we are guilty. We are condemned because the
righteousness of God has made a verdict. Condemned. And this hatred that we see,
It would be very easy for us to try to get away from the foundation
of what it is and what's caused it and to pinpoint certain things
in our culture that we should probably focus on more. For example,
it would be very easy for us to focus on what is now in the
community of faith called white evangelicalism. Now I do not stand here and say
there's no such thing as white evangelicalism. Just like there
is such a thing as a conservative, nationalistic evangelicalism. Just like there are people who
have the banner of Republican evangelicalism. And the list could go on and
on and on. We could say black evangelicalism. Chinese evangelicalism. We could go in all sorts of ways
and everybody could grab hold of whatever label they decided
to grasp and say, this is why we can't be united because what
you are is a white man's creation and what you are is a black man's
creation and what you are is a nationalistic creation. And
it's so easy because if we push enough buttons, it's like going
into an elevator in a large hotel. And they're very fast. And you're
going to floor 160. And you're on floor 1. And you
walk in, and you turn around, and the little kid that just
went left went, broop, and pushed them all, giggling as the door
dinged shut. And you're going, OK, I'm taking
the stairs next to the floor. So it's ding, ding. And after a while you just go,
I'll take the stairs. And I've done that. I've taken the stairs and going
up the stairs, 70 flights, was ridiculous. What's the point? The point was,
or is, just as the buttons on the elevator gives us a new floor,
And when you push them all, you stop on every floor. So do the
peripheral issues of humanity when we say that this is why
things are the way they are. This is the way things are. This is the reason we're not
in unity. And it has nothing to do with
what the Bible teaches. Christianity is not a white man's
religion. Christianity is not a black man's religion. Matter
of fact, let's just think about what Jesus said in John chapter
four. Salvation is of the Jews. Jesus
was a Jew. But Jesus is also the God of
the universe, who is not a Jew, nor Greek, nor barbarian, nor any of those
things. And Paul, as he would show us
and as John's Gospel reveals to us, there are only two peoples
in the world. Those who are redeemed by the
mighty hand of God. through His everlasting love
and grace by the finished work of Jesus Christ or everybody
else who is condemned. No matter what label they hold,
no matter what race they are, no matter what nationality they
are, no matter what doctrinal statement they stand upon, no
matter what denomination they are. I was confronted at the
first of the week by someone who made the comment to me, I
get the feeling that you think that anybody that's not a Reformed
Baptist is lost. I said, well, I'm sorry you feel
that way. And they said, do you think I'm going to hell because
I'm a Catholic? I said, no, you're going to hell because you're
a sinner. Just like a lot of Reformed Baptists are going to
hell because they're still in their sin. The identification
that we have in this world, in this life, if it's not Christ
and His gospel of grace, is condemnation. And that's what Jesus has taught
us as we looked at last week. Yes, I do believe that those
who reject the gospel of grace are lost. because the Bible teaches
that they're condemned already. I do believe that people who
hold to the faith of their faith are going to stand before God
in judgment, and they are condemned already. It could be ignorance,
but friends, when we show someone the truth, and we teach them
very clearly that the gospel is an act of grace and love on
God's behalf, and it's all of Him, and they say, well, I just
can't get behind that. They are lost, for they have rejected
the only Son of God. And we can call them Arminian,
we can call them Free Will, we can call them Pelagian, we can
call them Semi-Calvinist, we can call them whatever we want
to call them. We are not brothers and sisters in Christ if we reject
the truth of the Scripture. And some of the harshest things
that I've ever had to endure relationally with individuals
is when I would just question or ask someone to clarify their
position of how they know they have eternal life. And there's
often many of them, sometimes many of them also pastors, who
would actually curse at me with their mouths. Profanely. One in particular used God's
name in vain in that conversation. How dare you question my salvation? I said, I ask you to share it
with me. I'm not questioning you. And that may be odd to you,
and you may not have experienced anything like that, but brothers
and sisters, if you share the gospel of grace, If you share
the one and only true gospel of God and people are inside
so-called churches that teach everything but the gospel of
God, they will have animosity. They will have hatred. They will
be upset because you've called their baby ugly. You've called
the thing that has attachment to their soul and that grabs
hold of their heart with all affection, you've called that
error by the implication to say that this is the only true gospel.
And people love to argue, well that's your interpretation. Well
listen folks, I can read English. And if I read a sentence that
says, Jane went to the store and took her dog Fido and bought
some spaghetti. If you tell me she went to the
mall and took her cat and bought some noodles, you're wrong. Yes,
she did buy noodles. She didn't have that certain
animal and she didn't go to that certain place. Why do we try
to take the Bible in pieces and make it feel what we want it
to feel and say what we want it to say while ignoring the
truth? Why is that the problem? There's
a harsh hatred for the gospel of Jesus Christ. In all the years
of my life, some of the most egregious backlashes have been
when people have considered the reality that they are actually
guilty before God. They're actually guilty before
God. See, man is not in a neutral
position. No human being, from the day
they take their first breath to the day they take their last,
is neutral before the Lord. That is an error. It violates
the very things that Jesus has taught us in Scripture. It violates
all the Pauline epistles. It violates the entire teaching
of the Old Testament. Man is not innocent. Man is sinful. When I say man,
I'm talking about humans. Ladies, you're part of that.
Humanity is fallen. Humanity are sinners. Therefore,
we will eventually commit sin, but it is the nature that is
hostile to God way before we commit a willful sin. It is the
nature of humanity that is worthy of condemnation and wrath. There
is a lie that the devil says, you surely shall not die. And
he's telling it to all of us in our communities today, that
you don't have to believe the explicit gospel. You're a good
person. You're in church. You've experienced
the manifestation of the power of God. You've said some things.
You've done some things. You've seen some things. Some
things have been revealed to you. So what? The Scripture says,
Jesus himself, I am the way, and the truth, and the life,
and no one, no one, no one comes to me, no one comes to the Father
except through me. No one. That's like having all wisdom
and all the answers to every illness. And someone comes and
they say, I'm dying, and you say, well, here's the answer.
Well, I've got an answer, but you know that if you tell them
the answer that they're going to have to chop off their left
hand, or they're going to have to give up something wonderful,
or you're going to tell them that everything they've been
doing is wrong. This is what I've been doing. You know, I
was health fanatics. You know how that works. My wife
and I were reminiscing on the early days when I just went,
I said, you know, I just, you've never really been that crazy
with our food. And she goes, you have forgotten.
Remember when we went raw vegan? And I went, I don't because my
brain cells died during that time. That memory's over. I do
remember feeling tired for like three months and never being
able to get up and like crawl into the car and climbing in
like a zombie. She said, you just went along
with it. It was so sweet. I'm like, well, I just, you killed
me. I mean, I don't remember. I don't remember it. But imagine
when we came to the conclusion that's not necessarily the most
healthy way to eat for everybody, especially for me. I have to
have complex carbohydrates. I have to have protein and lots
of protein every day. I have to have it or I cannot
function. I don't know why, but I can't
function. Imagine telling someone, you
know, the way you've been eating and the way you've been living
and what you've been doing for your entire life is the reason
you're dying and you're just foolish. And they're like, well,
my grandma taught me how to eat. Well, my mother showed me the
way of nutrition. And your mother died at 40. And
your grandma died at 40. And everybody's dying. You're
going to die in three years if you do not change the way you
eat. But see, we don't want that confrontation. So we say, well,
you know what? That sounds pretty good. That's
pretty neat. That's pretty good. At least you're trying. At least
you're putting forth an effort. At least you're sincere. Here's
some rat poison. Sincerely eat it, thinking that
it will help you. It will not. Some arsenic. Why don't you jump
off that cliff at the same time? I hear if you fall fast enough
that the sickness will fly right out of your body. I mean, this
is what we do when we withhold the truth of the gospel. But
when we give it, people will be upset. Do you think Nicodemus
was jolly-go-lucky? Do you think he was so happy
he kicked up his heels like he just bought a Toyota and walked
on into Jerusalem and thought, woohoo! Man, I've just been rebuked
by Jesus. Man, that felt good. No, it didn't
feel good. And only out of respect, because he knew this man had
power, did Nicodemus not get in Jesus' face. For if it had
been another man, he probably would have been snatched up and
put in chains. But he rocked Nicodemus' world. If we use our current vernacular
of our millennial brothers and sisters, Nicodemus was wrecked. He's messed up. He had a bad day. Man is not
in a neutral position. Nicodemus was not in a neutral
position. You, beloved, before you were born again, were not
in a neutral position waiting to see what you would do with
your life. But men are condemned, and then
when we reject in the gospel of grace, they are utterly guilty
and condemned already, because they have not believed. They
are not condemned, listen to this, because of unbelief. The
unbelief doesn't condemn us. Unbelief does not condemn a man. Unbelief keeps him in condemnation. That's what Jesus has said here.
Look at John chapter 3. And I'm going to start in verse
16 and go down through verse 21 in our reading, and then we'll
pick up in verse 19 and preach that in the time we have left
today. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but in order that the world might be saved through
Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever
does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed
in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment,
Nicodemus. This is the judgment. The light
has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather
than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his
works be exposed. Listen to this wording. But whoever
does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly
seen that his works have been carried out in God. I pray that
the Lord would give you clarity and understanding in this text. In Romans 3, Paul refers to several
places in the Old Testament where he says, no one is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. No one. The psalmist says in Psalm 14,
the fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt.
They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see
if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have
all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt.
There is no one who does good, not even one. You see, Paul wasn't
creating a new theology. about who God was and whose righteousness
was. He was reiterating an old teaching that was absolutely
true then and it is absolutely true now. So there's a harsh
hatred against the gospel of grace. by unbelievers. Why? Because the natural mind
is hostile to God. And there's also a harsh haughtiness.
You know, I've never really seen a harsh hatred that turned into
brokenness, but more often I see a harsh haughtiness. Haughtiness
is this smugness, this attitude that, I don't need to hear this.
I know better. You can't tell me what I believe.
This is not something that bothers me and my spirit. You don't know
me. You don't judge me. Only God
can judge me. We've got the t-shirt to prove
it. Well, Jesus is going to talk
about the judgment in just a minute. He's going to show us what that
judicial judgment is. He's going to show us what the
condemnation of God really looks like, and He's going to tell
us why. He's going to tell us why. But many times, some will
adhere to the reality that they are indeed guilty before God,
but they hate God even more when they discover the teaching that
His grace is the only means through which they can be saved from
condemnation. They will agree, okay, you know what, I'm not
a good person all the time, so yeah, I'm guilty, but who does
God think He is to tell me how I ought to be? This maniacal,
atheistic argument about the maniacal God, this monster God,
He's just so evil, He's so huge, He's so powerful. He's like a
man with a magnifying glass and an anthill. And either you march
in line with the way He wants you or He'll burn you forever.
What a wicked, evil God. No, what a just and holy God.
And it's not about walking in line because if we could walk
in line, Christ died for nothing. If we could come to the throne
room of God and say, Hey, here I am, watch my stuff. and see
who I am and know that I deserve this presence, Christ would not
need to die. But God displayed His righteousness
in the kingdom of Jesus because He had forgiven sin and forbade
sin and looked over sin. the grace of God causes people
to be haughty. Even when they know they're not
pure, and they know they're not honest, and they know they're
not holy, they look at the idea that God has commanded them and
then provided for them the means of escape, and they hate Him
even more. Isn't that ridiculous? Isn't that stupid? But that's
the condition of man. That's who we were before God
in His mercy gave us the Holy Spirit and brought us to life
whereby we responded in faith. That's who we would still be
had we not believed on the name of Jesus by the mercy of God.
This is a good reminder for us, church. And I know all of us have different
testimonies of what our old men and old women looked like. All
of us have different places. Some of us were just, like, arrogant. Some of us were, like, religious.
And some of us were just, like, party animals. Some of us were
mean and bullies. Some of us were just, I don't
know, hated religion. So we've all got a past. Nicodemus'
past was a past of holiness and piety according to his own standards.
A following after the rules and the laws of Moses to such a perfection
that Paul would even confess to the Philippians that he was
blameless according to the measure of the written law. But yet then
Paul understood that he violated the Ten Commandments every breath
that he made. After God saved him and brought
him to life, not only did Paul have eternal life, not only did
Paul escape condemnation, but Paul learned just how dark his
light was. And he said, all manner of covetousness.
Do not covet. Do not steal. Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery. Do not lie. Do not disobey or
obey your parents. First, command with a promise.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with every fiber
of your being. Have no other gods before me.
Do not use the Lord's name in vain. In 2005, I said this from a pulpit
in front of several thousand people, and you could tell it bothered
somebody, a few people, because you could hear, you know, You
can hear that in a big auditorium when a hundred people go, and
they're looking around like, are the security people going
to take them out? Is there a sniper in the back? Actually, that's
not funny in these days. But I said, you know, one of
the greatest places that God's name is used in vain is in a
worship service. We all come together with our
holy hats, our holy skirts, and our holy shoes, our holy coats,
and our holy jeans, and our holy seats, and we sing our holy little
songs, and we hear our holy little teaching, and we learn to be
holy little people in a holy little world. And we've talked about God, and
we've spoken His name, and we've prayed to Him, and we've prayed
in the name of Jesus, and we've heard sermons supposedly in His
name, and everybody's like Jesus, and God, and Father, and not
one person has worshipped Him, or spoken to Him, or talked truth
about Him, because it wasn't by faith, but it was by self-righteousness. It was just a show. And that's how Jesus felt about
the Pharisees. And it's not just how Jesus felt
about the Pharisees, it's what Jesus knew about the Pharisees.
It's what Jesus knew about those who came to believe in Him, as
we see at the end of John chapter 2, which brought this discourse
to light. No one had to tell Him what was in man. No one had
to give testimony. He knew what was in man. And
I said this statement in this way. I said, you know, the greatest
abuse of that commandment, to use in the Lord's name in vain,
happens in worship services just like this. I said, we might as
well just stand up here and rip out GDs until the cows come home.
And that's when everybody goes, see, y'all are doing it now.
I said it just like that. And they're like, oh my gosh,
he's going to get fired. He just called our worship leader
a blasphemer. I didn't. But the point is that
we can say all the right words, and we can sing all the right
songs, and we can teach all the right language, and we can use
the right vernacular. We can say that Jesus is our
all, and we can say that the gospel is grace, and we can say
that we believe. But saying those things don't
make us alive. We can walk in a manner worthy
of the gospel. We can love our neighbor and
love our wives and we as men, we can die to ourselves and you
as wives can submit. And everything looks great in
the world and we look in the mirror and we sit down at night
and we say, wow, look at me! I'm glad I'm not like the heathen
of the world. I love people. I love my neighbor.
I'm in my church. I tithe. I give. I pray. I teach. And I walk in a manner
worthy and pleasing to you, God. Oh, look at me. Thank you, God.
I'm not like them." And Jesus used that exact example to say
what? That man is condemned. But the one who's not condemned
is the one who was hated by the people. The one whose practice
in his life was to take money from his own people and give
it to Rome, but in order for him to get paid, he had to steal
more, so he had to raise taxes. And it's necessary sometimes
for the public and for the tax collector to go to the door and
say, you owe a dollar. But the fee is going to be $1.15,
a 15% surcharge. These people were taking more
in their own pockets than they were giving to Roman taxes. They
were robbing their own people at the cost to the end of poverty. They were wicked and hateful
and greedy people. Zacchaeus, Matthew, these were
the men. Matthew, the apostle, was a tax
collector who robbed his own people for great gain. And Jesus
says when the publican would not even look to heaven and tore
his shirt and beat his chest and says, Oh God, have mercy
on me. Jesus says, that man was justified. You see the difference? When people hear that they are
condemned before God and then think about the grace of God,
in contrast to their really good lives, They love their lives. They love their holiness. They
love their self-righteousness. They love their works and they
love their religion and they love their ministry. And they
love that people love them for it. And so when you say it's by faith
through grace, it's by grace through faith rather, they go,
you've got to be kidding me. This is all for nothing? This
is all not going to get me any good standing? I don't even get
an extra crown?" No, you don't. Jesus is the crown, folks. Christ
is the crown. And your affection toward Him
is the reward. His affection toward you is the
blessing. People hurl insults at the fact
that their own doing will not save them because ultimately
they hate God. unless they're born again. Do
you see that? That's what we've learned thus far. Moving into
the close of this discourse, the ultimate facts around this
situation in our world is that most people will say that God
is real. When you go out talking around, you go, oh, I'm a believer.
Oh, you believe in God? Praise God. God is good? All
the time. And all the time? You know. And
that's like a annoying echo that sometimes doesn't stop. It's
like starting a wave, and it's like, I'm just sitting here.
This is never gonna quit, for those of you who've ever went
to a baseball game. Because baseball's so boring, we have to make up
participant games. God is real. I'm just teasing. See, y'all didn't get upset about
anything else. I say something about baseball, and it's like,
oh, I'm leaving. But the ultimate fact is that
people don't mind if you talk about God. Oh yeah, you're a
Christian too, God is good. Yeah, so bless me, man, he's
blessed me. Name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, we're all good.
They don't get upset at that. They don't get upset when you
say that God is love. Oh yeah, God is love, he loves everybody,
God loves everybody. All the children, you know that
racist song? Red and yellow, black and white.
Who are the red children? I mean, what have we got, jaundiced
kids walking around now, yellow? I mean, God loves it, Jesus loves
me, this I know for the Bible, oh, Jesus loves me. Yeah, we
know that God, that's your God, man, we're excited about that
God. We love, hey, come on in, let's fellowship around that
God. Oh, Jesus, man, we know Jesus too, I believe in Jesus.
See, Jesse's got the 10-second gospel presentation. Walk up
past somebody, hey, how you doing? Doing great, great, do you believe
in Jesus Christ? Can you say, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever,
you know, just 10 seconds. I've never been around him where
somebody goes, no, No. No. You believe on Jesus Christ,
pay for your sins, die on the cross, rose again on the third
day, you believe that's how you're justified before the Lord, you
have eternal life by trusting in Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, I believe
Jesus. Jesus is a good man. He's a good teacher. He taught
us how to love. He's a very loving man. See, people believe that. People will agree with that.
Unbelievers will agree with that. Religious people will agree.
Everybody will agree that that's true. And sometimes people will
say, and I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that God loves me
and I'm saved. You know, because if it weren't for God's love,
see, these are all half-truths. These are all partial soundbites. See, when you work for a political
organization, you create what's called talking points. And it's
like bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet. so these people
can get up there and they can talk. Or if you're doing a press
conference, you give talking points. You don't write out a
whole speech, you just give talking points and things that you can
disseminate very quickly, sometimes even in writing, so that people
can get the, it's a pet peeve of mine, and then we want to
talk about it, and then they want to ask you for money so that they
can keep talking about it. But when you say that Jesus is
God, and that Jesus has condemned you because you're a sinner,
But He has also died for sinners. Well, you trust in Jesus and
they go, I don't need Jesus dying for me. Who does He think He
is? You'll find this to be true. Get into the culture. Get into
the community. and start to experience this
by way of interaction. People love everything superficially
about the truth of Scripture when it comes to the characters
and more often the caricatures of Jesus and God. But when we
get to the explicit gospel, when we start to hear the words like,
this is the judgment, people hate it. People hate it. And this is a holy judgment. People will not allow Jesus to
be their replacement. They love their sin. And more,
they love the idea that they're in need of no help. Pride does come before the fall.
And because man is guilty, as we see in verse 19, here we are
finally, and this is the judgment. This is a holy judgment. This
is the judgment, the light is coming to the world, and people
love the darkness rather than the light, because their works
were evil. For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his
works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true
comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his
works have been carried out in God." See, Jesus tells Nicodemus
that the judgment is that the light, who is Jesus Himself,
the light is the life of men, has come into the world. Jesus
is the light. Jesus reiterates this. Of course,
John shows us this in John 1 as an outline. We see it here in
the conversation in John 3. We see it then again in John
chapter 8. Again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light
of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk
in darkness, but will have the light of life. Jesus is the light that came
into the world. So Jesus coming to the world
is the judgment against the world. What in the world? I don't get it. Well, people love
darkness. That is their sin. That is their
unbelief. Because Jesus, who is the light,
who exposes darkness, who shines in the darkness, and the darkness
will not overcome it, shows the world who they really are and
that they're really, really guilty before God. And so, who do we
want to not see when we're guilty? The police and the judge. We don't want to see these people.
We don't want to see the light. We don't want someone to pull
out the law books. We don't want to walk into a
courtroom and the judge pull out the law books and say, the
law says this and this man did this and so you're guilty. How
do you plead? Not guilty. The law says it's wrong. Here's
the evidence. You're guilty. Here's your sentence.
What's the sentence of God against humanity? Condemnation. Eternal
wrath. Eternal judgment. And it is good. Judgment. against sin is good,
it is righteous, it is holy, it is pure, it is acceptable,
it is truth. So when Jesus, who is the light,
comes into the world, He reveals as the light the perfection of
God in His humanity. He walks in a manner perfectly,
having fulfilled all the law of God, all the holiness of God
as a human being, and then He willfully, and perfectly satisfies
God's judgment against us by dying on the cross, and then
is vindicated through the resurrection from the dead. But people love
darkness. The works of people are evil.
See, people love evil things, and they do them because they
love them, and they do them because they hate Jesus, and they do
them because they cannot come to Jesus, except that God changed
who they are from the inside out, and that is a supernatural
act of God. That's why the imperative, not
the offer, The imperative that Jesus gives Nicodemus is you
must be born again. It is not you need to be born
again, it is not will you be born again, it is not can you
be born again, or do you want to be born again. He says you
must be born again, for you cannot see, nor can you enter, nor can
you have life, except that just as Moses lifted the serpent in
the wilderness, So must I, the Son of Man, be lifted up, that
all who look and believe will have eternal life. But those
who are not believing are condemned already, for they have not believed
in the only Son of God. Why will they not believe? Because
they love darkness." See, this will change our thoughts
on evangelism. We can't find a felt need to
lure someone into a gospel reality. What felt need does a dead man
have? Dead things. What felt need does an American
have? Americanized things. What felt need does a greedy
man have? Greedy things. Material things. What about a
power-hungry narcissist that wants to be seen and looked at
and admired? Well then give him something that he can be looked
at, where he can be looked at and admired. I tell you what,
he plays the guitar pretty good, set him up here, let him sing.
Put on tight t-shirts with his 12-inch biceps, pop out. That'll be cool. He'll stay in
the church forever. And he'll stand in judgment in
the end. people avoid the light of truth
in our humanity remember I talked about Romans 3 going back to
Psalm 14 no one is righteous no one seeks
after God no one seeks after God beloved if you seek after
God is because you've been born again And you may struggle in
your journey as a believer, and you may doubt and believe and
have faith and not have faith and juggle all this weird stuff
that we do in this schizophrenic life of ours. But if we're seeking
after God because God's Spirit has saved us, and whether we're
aware fully of all the implications thereof or not, and all the nuances
and all the terms and all the reality, God's people seek after
Him because they've been born again. And you might say, well, I know
a lot of people who've been seeking after God. They've been seeking after
another God. They've been seeking after another
Christ. I can dress this stool up and call it Jesus all I want. And I can say that it's sweet
and loving, it keeps me company when I'm down, and it listens
to my thoughts. Of course it is. It's not going
anywhere. I can put a Bible on it and say,
look, that's Jesus, and what He holds is the Word of God,
and it is true. And I can tell you all these things about Jesus,
and you say, let me see this Jesus, and I show you a bench
with a cloak on it, and you're going to think I'm crazy. It's the
same thing that the world does when they create their own Jesus.
It's the same thing the world does when they seek after a God
that's not the God of the Bible, who is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ
is the God of heaven. Jesus Christ is the God of the
Bible. Jesus Christ is God the Son and the Son of God. Two different
roles, by the way. And Jesus is the light of the
world. And those who are not born again avoid the light of
truth. Why? They steer away from it because they love their flesh
and they love to do what is wrong. They love to do what is self-fulfilling.
They love to do what is self-righteous. They love to do what gets them
accolades. You know why? We just sold the pews and bought
the chairs. And all the pews have plaques
on them. Did you notice that for the last
year? The pews have plaques on them. They're in memory and dedication,
all sorts of things. You know why? Because people in churches
a lot of times won't give a dime if they don't get credit. Well, I'll tell you, I'll buy
that microphone if you put my name on it. In memory of. How about my great aunt that
I love so much? Isn't that sweet? And you think that's funny, but
I mean, you can go to some churches around here and every window
pane has a plaque. Every chair rail has, I'm not
kidding, every chair rail has a plaque. Every plate has a plaque. Every part of the pew has a plaque. Every offering plate, God forbid
we ever have those again, has a plaque on the bottom of it.
I'm thinking, that's a waste, put it in the center. Well, look
at there. Thank God for old Aunt Myrtle.
If it weren't for her, we'd be broke. The buildings, the educational
wings, the endowments, the scholarships, the funds. You ever heard of
just General Theology Fund? No. You're not going to hear
that. You're not going to ever hear,
this is the General Sports Wing. No, you're going to hear, this
is the Bob Smith Jones Alexander Hodges Wing. Why? Because they
all got together and lost the bet. And the one that gave the dollar
more got his name first. This is what people want. People
want a God that will give them credit. People want to seek after
a religion where they are something. Versus being nothing. And I said,
well that's not wrong with all these men. Listen folks, I had
this conversation this week. Somebody said, well we need to
start a reformation. You know what, if you want to start a
reformation, you're never going to see reformation. If you want
to start a revival, this is where it really started, you're not
going to start a revival. God's not going to call you to
start a revival, that's silly. God didn't call Paul to start
a revival or revolution. He said, Saul, Saul, why are
you persecuting me? He blinded him and then he sent
him to the men without a sight that he wanted to kill so they
could take care of him. Ha, that's our God. And then Paul, who was
everything, became a nothing. His own name was a death sentence
in public. Being associated with him was
like being associated with Jesus Christ. And what Paul did to
Stephen is exactly what ultimately would end up to all the apostles. They all suffered and died. Except
John. He outlived them all. But he suffered. And he died. See, loving darkness, loving
evil things. They love to answer the call
of their inner desires and live for themselves. They love to avoid
spiritual commitment. They love to avoid church membership.
They love to avoid the intimacy that God creates for His people.
They love to find ways out of their own spiritual realities.
They love to shake their fingers at others who don't make the
standard of their own law. While themselves, they reject
the grace of God through Jesus Christ. They love to make light
of their own guilt by avoiding those who are spiritual and biblically
minded, who will call them out on their sin because they love
them. They'll avoid that. They love to find opportunities
to go after their own desires, even if they may look good in
light, like, light-like, bright, holy, just like Nicodemus' darkness. It looked good. They produce the fruit of their
own affections that contradicts the powerful and glorious perfection
of God, that contradicts the grace of God, that contradicts
the gospel of Jesus Christ. They avoid spiritual truth because
it would require them to confess that all their works are dark,
all their works are evil and devoid of truth. See, people
will not come to Jesus because they know He will shine on their
evil. And if I live following a God of my own construction,
to appease the flesh that I so desire to see fed, whether it
be esteem or self-glory or self-righteousness, I'm not going to hold fast to
a truth that would contradict that. I'm not going to come to
a place where I could be disciplined. I'd stay away from Jesus. I'd
stay away from grace. I'd stay away from the Scripture.
And it would not be done in ignorance, but willful rebellion. It would
not be done because I was just stupid. It would be done because
I was sinister. This is why church discipline
is necessary. This is why you see the things
that people talk about in the Scripture that Paul specifically
writes in Jesus, talking about sin that's unchanged and un-given
up. in the church as we've had to
exercise in our own congregation. It's like we give testimony about
the power of the gospel and we don't say, you need to stop doing
these things. We can say, you don't have to
do these things. My grandmother taught us that
every day as children, as little kids. I can remember numerous
times where she'd say that to my mother. Nora, you don't have
to do those things. You're born of God. You're a
child of God. You don't have to. You know what?
We don't have to do them. We are God's workmanship, not
our own. Church discipline is necessary.
It's why people avoid the assembly. It's why they abandon the local
assembly. And they refuse the Scripture. And that's why it's
cause for concern. As a matter of fact, Paul in
Hebrews says that avoiding the assembly is the pinnacle of apostasy. And it could very well be an
indicator of reprobation. Did you hear that? Avoiding the
assembly. is pinnacle of apostasy, and
it could very well be evidence of reprobation. That's why we,
what? Encourage each other. If your
spouse didn't come home for a couple of weeks, what would you think?
Well, they're either dead or joined the circus. Maybe they're
a clown now. Wish them well. No, you'd be
freaking out. What's going on? I'm concerned. A search party.
If your children didn't show up for a couple of days, Friends,
when we don't come to the fellowship, we are doing evil things. We are not trusting. We are not trusting that God
will work in us through the Word. You know what our hope is in
that? What is it? The Gospel of Christ. The Gospel
of Christ. As a pastor, I would love to
twist this and make your palms sweat. How often do you minister? We take attendance. Take a picture
every Sunday and we check it off on a roll. See, that would
be cool, wouldn't it? No, it wouldn't be cool. But
don't you care if somebody misses you? Don't you care that somebody's
praying for you? Don't you know that there is
great intimacy that happens when we get together? But see, those
who are not born again, they don't want that. That's why they
don't want to be under the teaching of the Word. They'd rather be
in a cultural church. They'd rather be in a program-driven
church. They'd rather be in some place
where they can be busy about what they think is the world's
work or the good works of God, and they live a good moral life,
and then all of a sudden they don't have to subject themselves
to the Scripture or to the grace of God. They don't have to be
subject to the idea that God had saved them by His mighty
power. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm living just fine. Look at
me. And I'm in church. I'm good. Jesus is pleased with
me. Is He? Jesus is no more pleased with
you if you're here or if you're at the golf course. That's not a license to go to
the golf course. We don't get more love from God
when we do good things versus not good things. But oh friends,
what is Jesus about to say to Nicodemus right here? What is
Jesus about to say to Nicodemus? The evil of men All these things,
this could be signs of unregenerate people living among the sheep
of Christ. Think of the evil of men, all
types of wickedness, murder, lies, all sorts of stuff, false
religions, power, greed, self-righteousness, adoration, egotism, idolatry. Think of the evil of our own
hearts. If God were to take away His grace, which is impossible,
and take away His Spirit, which is an impossible thing, what
would we look like? If we could think of the evil
of our own hearts for which we were or should be condemned, how horrible
would we shudder in our shoes. But friends, listen, we are not
condemned because of these things. The error is thinking that we're
not condemned because we cleaned up. And the other part of that
error is thinking that we are condemned because we just can't
get over this stuff. Guess what? We're not condemned
because we believe on the finished work of Jesus. That's how we're
not condemned. That's how we have eternal life.
We have something to sing about, we have forgiveness, and we have
life because Jesus Christ paid it all. This is just not about wicked
sins either, is it? But the sin that Nicodemus had
was the sin of self-righteousness, the sin of self-reliance, the
sin of self-wisdom, the sin of self-service, the sin of self. Verse 21, But whoever does what
is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that
his works have been carried out in God. This can be difficult
because depending on where we stand and where we bend, in certain
aspects of Scripture, we can really twist this to make ourselves
happy or freaked out. We can make it to where it's
all God's fault when we're not walking in a manner worthy of
the Gospel. We can actually say it's God's
fault because He's not doing the work. Or we can say it's
our fault because we're walking righteously. Which, what does
that mean? That's another sermon another
day. We can say that it's our fault because look what we've
been doing. We've been following after Christ. Look at all the good stuff that's
happening in our lives. Look at where we've come. Look
at where we are. Wow, wow, look at me. No. Jesus throws that
in the garbage very quickly. This discord ends most appropriately
with the implied invitation that Nicodemus should leave the realm
of darkness and should leave the realm of unbelief and should
embrace Christ. Nicodemus, the judgment is that
you are condemned because you love the darkness, and your darkness
is your self-righteousness. Your darkness is your religion.
Your darkness is the teaching of the Scripture. Your darkness
is everything you do is filthy, even though it's moral, and according
to the human ability to see, it looks pretty holy. But it's
not holy. Because it's not been done in
God. It's not been done by faith.
These things don't help you. These things don't do anything
but bring more condemnation upon you. You must abandon the darkness
of your religion and you must embrace Jesus Christ. That's what this text is saying.
And I say embrace, I mean believe by faith. Oftentimes we think,
oh, we've got to go and grab him. It's just metaphor. It's
just imagery. It's not doctrine. So we turn
then. What is repentance anyway? Some
people say, well, stopping sinning and starting living rightly.
No, it's not. Never meant that until the Roman
Catholic Church got a hold of the word and turned from repentance
to penance. Make penance. Do more good. Now repentance has everything
to do with having a new mind. What's the word that Jesus used
in that? Born again. Repent. You go to a dead man
and you say, repent dead man and get up and walk. Guess what
that man cannot do? Decide he's going to come alive
and get up and walk. The Spirit of God gives repentance,
which is a change of mind, whereby we were once dead, now we are
now made alive in Christ. So that our mind that could see
and know, but hated the light, and loved the darkness, and refused
the gospel because we hated God, all of a sudden was made new,
and we believe. We believe. That's repentance.
and all manner of things that come from the new life. We see
it throughout all of the epistles of the New Testament. We see
the commands of Paul and the commands of James and the commands
of John. We see all the things that Peter taught, and we're
able to embrace those things with joy and by faith and say,
OK, Lord, work these things in me that I might be a blessing
to those around me. That's the whole point of it.
that I might be a blessing to those around me as I walk, that
I might be a blessing to those around me as I give and minister
to them through the Word, that I might not be a hindrance to
my church, that I might not be a hindrance to my community,
that I might not be a hindrance to my testimony, that I might
not be a hindrance to the gospel of Christ through my life. turning to the lifted Son. This
teaching by Jesus does not carve out a deterministic picture for
the reader, but a strong and perfect picture of man's condition,
which is hopeless. His nature is hopeless, his mind
is dead, his heart is callous, and his soul is condemned. And
the reality that those who come to the Son of God by faith are
indeed no longer condemned forever, but they have eternal life. and
they do so in sovereign humility. That is that they are not self-aware
of their place, but they know it is through God. They do not
stand and say, look at me, Mr. Christian, look what I've done
and look how I believe. No, they come in humility. They're
not self-aware of their place in Christ, but they know that
it is the work of God. They are not self-righteous in
their person. but they know that it is God's
hand in their salvation that is absolute. They are not parading
around in a manner of human ability and free will for the love of
all things holy, but they see that God, who lifted up the Son
through that, has saved them and produced in them His workings
of faith and the new birth. Man cannot come to be a new person
and love the light, or even see it and understand it, except
that he is born of God. And that, my friend, is all of
God. Trusting in God, turning to the lifted Son, is believing
in the Gospel. We trust in God and doing what
is true is trusting in God. It's trusting in God. What reform might there be if
Nicodemus were to change his life's actions? What act, what word, what service,
what teaching, what prayer needed to be better for Nicodemus? What darkness would we follow
around and say, ha ha, I see it. When Jesus actually said,
unless your righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees,
you cannot enter heaven. Wow! You know what changed in
Nicodemus? He became a new creature. And
he saw the place of his works as futile. And he kept them. He didn't throw them away. He
didn't go into a life of lasciviousness and sin and wickedness, because
He was already living that. Because He was living in a self-righteousness.
But this work that had been carried out in God, this new birth that
had given Him life, this work that God had done, now all that
He was, He began to stop considering these things effectual on His
behalf and begin to trust in Christ alone for His eternity. for his salvation, for his redemption. So that then, as Nicodemus loved
his neighbor, and people said, wow, look at Nicodemus, isn't
he such a good, godly man? Nicodemus says, whoa, what a
sinner I am. It's not in me, but it's in Christ, and Christ
has set me free from the religion of my forefathers, and now I
live and give glory to His name, for He alone has saved me. How
weird that must have been for Nicodemus to go back and report,
I want that letter. I want the transcript of Nicodemus
going back to the Sanhedrin and sharing this stuff. Men must trust in the Lord Jesus. Men are deceived by the glory
of good works. That's why Jesus did not say,
those who do good works. He says, those who do what is
true. Men are deceived by the glory of good works and good
deeds to the point that they fail to inquire of their own
condition. They're too blind to see what
most would call good as actually filth. And they're able to cloud
their hypocrisy with what I call half-baked attempts to glorify
God. God is the author of salvation.
He is the one who causes the new birth. God is the one who
gives a new mind. He is the one who gifts the faith
of the believer. He is the one who points the
believer to Christ. And this new man has escaped
death and condemnation. He is wholly joyful to run to
Christ because he has the eyes and the mind to see and believe
because God has done the work in him. He walks by faith and
the saint gladly bestows his redemption for all to see the
Redeemer instead of his redemption. Let me say that again. The believer
stands and bestows and portrays and shows and reveals his redemption
so that the Redeemer may be seen, not his redemption. I pray that
you can understand that statement. It's outward working. cannot
be judged except by the light of Christ, so that everything
we do from this point today, everything we do and we say is
honoring to God, everything we do if we put, quote, obedience
to God, if we say that what we are doing is good and righteous
and holy, if it is not done in the manner in which the light
of Christ and the gospel is our hope, it is filthy. It's filthy. It is done and cannot
be judged except by the light of Christ. What have you done
today, James? Well, I've preached a sermon
about the gospel of grace. That's amazing. What an awesome
guy you are. No. Because if I preach this sermon
and it be true, and it even brings some to faith, but my heart is
not trusting in the light of the gospel, it is wicked. For
me. Not the sermon in itself, but
me. And no matter how many sermons
I might preach, it doesn't take me to a closer place of holiness,
of justification, of salvation. We judge our works by the light
of Christ, the gospel of grace, the Savior's mercy. This is what
Jesus meant when He said the sun will be lifted up, and we
believe. Do you believe? Do you believe
on Christ today? Let's pray. We love You, Father. We pray that Your Word would
be true. in our hearts, and effectual in our hearts. Secure us, Father,
in our failings, in our faithlessness, to trust in Your Gospel, in Your
Son. And help us not to be wordsmiths,
but Father, to speak plainly and truly. Lord, we love You
and we're glad that You loved us. We thank You for Your Son,
Jesus Christ, who not only gave Himself for us and effected justification
on our behalf and caused us to be born again to a living hope
and made us alive, but Father, we're thankful that You recorded
His words so that we might be encouraged and equipped and empowered
to recognize what the light of Your gospel does. Shine it upon
us. Shine it in the hearts of our
children. Shine it in the darkness that we walk in every day. This
world that is condemned. May you call your own out. May
you save your sheep. In Jesus' name, Amen.