Deep Deep Dive: John Chapter 3 — What It Really Means to Be Born Again | Bible Study with Paulie
Paulie breaks down John 3's "born again" passage, explaining Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus about water, spirit, and being born from above. He connects it to John 3:16, emphasizing God's love and the need to recognize sin, repent, and rely on grace rather than people-pleasing.
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Hey, what's up everybody? Paul Woodley here, and today we're going to do another Bible Study with Paulie. I thought that's what I'm going to title these now, Bible Study with Paulie, a little, little take from my New York days. If you were with me yesterday, you'll know that I started kind of going Facebook Live with Bible, with Bible study. Partly just to share the Gospel, partly to, you know, work out how to do this online. As I said yesterday, it was many years since I've kind of gone Facebook Live with Bible, and it just got convicted in me lately to do this. So I don't really know where we'll go with the study or how we'll do it. I do know that I am trying to get to a place in my mind that I want to do coaching for Christian business leaders. And obviously in my opinion, if you're going to do that kind of coaching, you're going to need to be rooted in the gospel. So I posted in my last video a comment. I went back to it. I posted my, I guess, doctrinal statement of faith per se of what I believe in. It's pretty much the Nicene Creed, you know, or basically what it basically means is that You know, there was a Council of Nicaea back in the day where the early church fathers came together. What do we really believe with as a church? Anywho, they came up with the creed, and high level, it's, you know, we believe in the Trinity for the most part. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He's holy. He's born from a virgin mother. and he's our Savior, so that's it in a nutshell. So my theology is going to basically come from a Reformed theological perspective. Part of what I'm trying to do here also is I'm trying to encourage other believers that you don't have to be a scholar to understand the Word, you know, and you don't need to go to seminary. You don't need to have a doctor at the end of your name. In fact, we all have equal access to the throne of God through the Holy Scripture. What we all do need, though, is we need to learn how to have discernment, and we need to learn how to dissect this Bible here and understand its real truth. The Bible is straightforward, um, and, um, it's not a mystical book. It's not meant to be allegorized. It's not meant to be poetic. It is straight up fundamental truth. And so as we go through our study, you'll, you'll see that I'll, I'll hit on those points. All right, so it's 38 degrees here in Atlanta, so welcome to sunny Atlanta. I'm in my back porch here, and, uh, you know, I'm gonna make this fun as we go on and change different locations, but it is a little chilly. Um, I'm going to pick up where I left off, and that's where, um, that's what I did last time. So, um, last time we were in John chapter 1. We ended in John chapter 1 1, uh, verse 17, right? So we're going to pick it up today, uh, in verse 18— I'm sorry, John chapter 2, verse 17. So today we're going to pick it up from John chapter 2, verse 18. A little backstory here where we, where we came from. So, uh, John chapter 1, where we're seeing here that this is the beginning of the Gospel of John. We learn in John chapter 1:1 that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, right? One of the best beginnings, I think, of any book, right? We learned that in the beginning was this thing called the Word, uh, and, uh, this thing called the Word was with God, right? And the Word was God. So now we're understanding what was in the beginning. We learn in verse 2 that he was in the beginning. So we learned that there is a masculine tense here. There is an individual the Bible calls it He. He was in the beginning with God. All right, so now we're seeing there's two persons identified in verse 2. He was in the beginning with God. Speaking of this He, we see in verse 3 that all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. So now we're learning that this, uh, this other person, that, uh, all things was made through him. And it also goes on to say that without him was not anything made that was made. So all of creation, the created universe, was made by this person that was in the beginning. All right, we see that this person in verse 4 is identified like this: in him was life, and the life was the light of men, right? Uh, we'll go and skip a little bit over to verse 14 of John chapter 1. Speaking about this person, we see that, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So now we see that this person who so far hasn't been named, except all we know is that this person, the second person, is called the Word, right? And we're seeing here that in verse 14 that this Word— now, what is a word? A word is a— I wish I wouldn't do the clinical verse, but it is— it can only be formed by letters, right? So this Word— what are words? Well, I'm speaking to you in words, right? Words are not physical. Words are ideas, if you will. Words are information. And words are constructed by letters, right? So even the very word, W-O-R-D, it doesn't mean anything unless it's formed together and put together, W-O-R-D, which now makes— gives it meaning, right? So we know that the alphabet, the letters, create words. Words create sentences and so forth. So it's very interesting that this person, the second person so far described in here, is described as the word. So the word is invisible, but yet we'll learn here that this word has power, right? So I'm saying all that to say this, is that when we read things like this, we have to really, like, really think deeply, like, okay, that's an interesting play on words, it's an interesting word to choose to describe you know, at least this person. So we see in verse 14 now that the invisible word— remember, a word is created by letters. Why do I say that? Because we learned that in the Book of Revelation that Jesus is mentioned as the Alpha and the Omega, okay? And that's kind of interesting. That's important because why is he the Alpha and Omega? What is the Alpha and Omega? Well, first off, and then it goes on to say, 'He's the Alpha and Omega and the beginning and the last.' Well, Alpha and Omega, as you may or may not know, are the beginning of the Greek alphabet. Alpha, Omega, A to Z, right? So all in the English language, all words are formulated from A to Z. And so, um, he is the Alpha and Omega, which means that all things that are created were created by a person who is not— who is basically the alphabet. Right? He created that. So we see here that he is, um, that in verse 14, that this Word became flesh. And now we're seeing the humanity, we're seeing the incarnation of Christ. And he dwelt among us, according to verse 14. And then it goes on to say, um, verse 18, no one has ever seen God. Then it goes on to say, and then there's a semicolon No one has ever seen God. Then it goes, "The only God who is at the Father's side." So now that we see the second person, he is at the Father's side, right? And he's also addressed as the only God. So right there, you know, this is where a lot of people check out. This is where denominations get split. This is where atheists, you know, a lot of different viewpoints about the nature of God, Trinity and so forth. But we learn here very quickly in the first chapter of John that there are two persons identified here. There is two persons in the beginning. There's the Word, there's with God. We learned that in verse 17. We learned that Jesus Christ's name is mentioned here, right? "For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." And it goes, "No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." So then we've seen here that Jesus is addressed as God, and it's because of Jesus. Jesus is the one that has made God known, right? Elohim, Yahweh. So we will— so that's like kind of a rundown of the first part of chapter 1, right? And then we see that— we see the testimony of John the Baptist. He's going from verse 19 to verse 28. And then we go on to verse 29, where John the Baptist in verse 29 says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me. So we see that in verse 29 through verse 34, John testifying about Jesus. And John telling people that from 33 and 34, John the Baptist says, I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' Verse 34, 'And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.' So that is what John is bearing witness to, that this Jesus is the Son of God. Now I will, just before we go further, I want to bring attention to the very, very last verse, I think it is here. Is it here? I'm just looking here, just looking. John, John, let's see here. I thought I had— I thought it was a verse— communication 20. Let me see. Yeah, so in, um, John, the Book of John, in the back, the— like, this is chapter 20, um, verse 31. I'm going to read 30 and 31, which is, um, the purpose of the Book of John. So I think it's important that we understand what that is even. So the Book of John, the purpose, it says, now Jesus, verse 30, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Right? So that is the purpose of the Book of John. Okay, so let's, uh, let's, um, continue, uh, a recap of chapter 1, part of chapter 2, to bring us to verse 18 where we left off yesterday. So, um, we see that Jesus calls the first disciples, right? That's, that's verse 35 through 42. Jesus is calling his disciples. Verse 43, he finds Philip. He says, follow me. And he finds Andrew and Peter. So he's calling his disciples. Then we go to, um, then we go to chapter 2, which we, we went over yesterday. This is the wedding at Cana. So remember, this is the first miracle that Jesus did with the wine, where his mother says, hey, you know, they ran out of wine. He's like, woman, what's that got to do with me, right? And takes us to verse 13 through 17, where That is the section where Jesus cleanses the temple, right? And that's where in verse 17, his disciples remembered that it was written, quote, zeal for your house will consume me. Okay, and that was quoted from Psalm 69:9. Okay, so now let's pick it up in verse 18 and let's unpack it together. Remember I mentioned before The great thing about reading the Bible is that it's a historical book, and for me personally, it's enjoyable when I'm trying to put myself into the story. And so I'll ask some— I may ask some questions about it to you guys, and feel free to chime in or just to kind of cue up your thoughts, but about like who's in this scene and who's not, that kind of thing. So verse 18: So the Jews said to him, 'What sign do you show us for doing these things?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in 3 days I will raise it up.' The Jews then said, 'It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in 3 days?' But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. So we'll pause there. We'll do a timeout there and just think about this for a second. So Jesus is in the temple. He's turning over the money changer tables. He's raising a scene. He's making cords of whip and he's whipping people, you know, and he's upset that they've turned the temple into, you know, into a marketplace, right? And of course, the people that are in charge there, verse 18, the Jews, these are the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, whoever the temple, police, they're like, "What sign do you show us for doing these things?" Right? And so that is the very first thing that all of the religious folks back then were trying to figure out. It's like, "Who is this guy, and what gives him the authority to even preach the Gospel?" So Jesus, of course, sometimes He speaks in code, right? He sometimes speaks in parables, but He's speaking here, and He says, "Destroy this Temple, and in 3 days I will raise it up." Of course, we see here he's talking about his body, right? But they, of course, don't see that because they're blind to that. So they're thinking, "Oh, well, he must be talking about the actual temple," and that's why they say in verse 20, "It's taken us 46 years to build this temple. How are you going to raise it in 3 days?" So they totally missed the point. But why did Jesus say that? Remember, he's got disciples around him, and he's saying that because we see here that the application is in verse 22. We see here that verse 22, "When therefore he was raised from the dead," so the whole chapter goes through, Book of John, all the Gospels. Remember, the point is he's going to go on this missionary journey for himself for 3 years, right, before he gets crucified. And he's walking with these chosen few as well as other disciples, but for 3 years he's doing life with these people. And it's interesting to me that it takes them all the way up into not only him actually being crucified and being raised from the dead, that even then they still didn't believe in him, though they had said and admitted, "You are the Messiah. You are the Son of God." It really took them to see his physical body for them to actually even believe. If you remember the upper room, it's locked. He comes in there. We have Doubting Thomas, right? That whole scene. So we see here a foreshadow in verse 22 that it says that His disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. So Jesus is doing all of these things, and it's very interesting, just so— and, and this is just how human beings are. We got to do life, we got to go through life sometimes, and we don't know why we're going through things. But then one day we've— ah, I see, that's, that's why I went through that. That's, "Oh, now I know what He means." And so that is very interesting to me that the disciples remember then, like, "Oh, He did say that in the beginning." And then it says here, not only do they remember that, but that's when they believed, right? So we'll continue, verse 23. "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He was doing." But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. All right, another good application. And this is just in general, as a Christian, as a Christian brother, and I— this is how I am, and I know it bugs a lot of people, but It's important when we're talking about being a Christian, or specific, even, even a Christian man or a father or a husband. I'm going to tell you this straight from my heart. You don't need permission from nobody to do God's work. You don't need permission to be the father you need to be, the, the husband you need to be. You don't need permission. Why? Because you don't— basically, you don't have to be a people pleaser either. And this is the problem I see with most people, is everyone is people pleasing, and, and there's— and that's a problem. You should be your authentic self, and people should accept you for who you are. Now, we learned the nature of man. We know that there's issues we all have Obviously, Jesus himself says right here what those issues are. Remember, it says here— I'll read it again, now listen even deeper. Again, it says here that verse 24, "But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, and he needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man." Which means that the nature of man, which we learn in the Bible, is is deceitful, is wicked from birth, right? This is just our nature. Jesus already knew that. He doesn't need somebody to affirm him, never did. And to some degree, we don't either. And if we're going out there looking for affirmation from everybody, we'll always stay stuck. We have to know what God says about us, and we have to believe that. And hopefully that gives us confidence. But in this situation here, Many believed in his name. Remember, they wanted— in time, they wanted to make him king. He already knew what their intentions was. Their intention was never, uh, to be saved. Their intention was never to believe in him, which is the sole point. But yet, you know, people are trying to spin his life, trying to get the mostest out of him. But he never entrusted himself to them because he knew all people and he needed no one to bear witness about him. Let's go on. Chapter 3, and this is probably the best chapter, I think, in John. Why do I think it's the best chapter? Because this is the chapter which talks about you must be born again, and we'll unpack that even more. But first, let's take a commercial break because I'm about to drink my coffee. Today's sponsor is my son who says, uh, Dad, the man, the myth, the legend, Hold on a second. All right, I'm just kidding there. Okay, here we go. You ready for it? All right, give me a thumbs up if you're ready for it. See if you can handle the truth. John chapter 3. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? 'Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?' Verse 5, Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.' I'm going to pause here for a second because there's something that we need to note mentally so that as we read scripture in general, generally, especially when we're speaking about the New Testament, especially when we're reading our red-lined Bibles or reading text that actually is quotations from Jesus. There are times when Jesus is actually speaking, he says, "Truly, truly," and that's important. And, you know, I live in Georgia now, been here since 2012, trying to be a Southern guy and understand the Southern expressions. I really love the South. But here there is a saying, for real, for real, FRFR, which I really dig. It basically means when I'm saying for real, for real, like if someone says, hey Paul, this, this or that, and I say for real, they say yeah, for real. But if I say for real, for real, like you serious, like seriously, seriously, like are you dead on serious, you're not playing around, that's what truly, truly means here when Jesus is saying stuff. So when Jesus says words like behold or truly, truly, basically it means I am being dead serious about what I'm about to say next. So what are the two trulies that we've read so far in these last few sentences? Well, verse 3, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He's saying this to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, chief Pharisee, right? And, and you know the context of this. Here we have, we have Nicodemus, right? Verse 1, chapter 3, verse 1. There was a man of Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, right? So he's a ruler of the Pharisees, right? And He came to Jesus by day, by night? No, he came by night. Why? He, because in his heart he knew that this guy, this Jesus, he might be the Messiah. He wanted to know for himself. And Nicodemus will come back into the story, the biblical record, later down the road, but he wants to know for himself. He is a true seeker, and And he came to him, and he gives Jesus even respect when he says in verse 2, by addressing Jesus as Rabbi, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher from God." This is a chief ruler, a Pharisee, saying this to Jesus who just came on the scene, per se, came onto this public ministry. Very interesting, right? And he says— and why did he say that, Nicodemus? Because it goes on to say in verse 2, he says, "For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Of course, that's why— partly why Jesus did signs and wonders, so that it can catch people's attention and say, hey, okay, you see the signs, you see the wonders, now I've got something even better for you. I've got you— I've got a message. And that's to this day what we have to pay attention to. What is the message from Jesus. What did he say to them then, and what does he say to us today? It's still the same. So we go on to where I left off. Nicodemus is asking, you know, how can, can he be born again when he's old? Does— can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born? Verse 5, we said here, Jesus says that second truly, truly Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now, many people, some people think that when we're talking about the water and the Spirit, they're thinking, okay, well, maybe the water represents the flesh, you know, that you have to be a human, that represents blood. Some people think the water represents that you need to be baptized in water. And of course, spirit is pretty, pretty obvious. Some people, you know, think it's just being human. You come through the birth canal, breaking water, so forth, right? But many scholars believe that this here is not literal water, but just simply the need for cleansing. I reference Ezekiel 36:24-27, right? The Old Testament sometimes uses water as a metaphor for spiritual cleaning or renewal. For example, in Numbers 19:17-19, Psalms 51:9-10, Isaiah 32:15, right? Um, and so Jesus is trying to explain what this even means, is born again, right? Verse 6, Jesus goes on to say, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, okay? And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So we're talking about being born. First, the premise is you got to be born again. Jesus is now talking about, okay, what does born mean? Because we as human beings, we only know of one way of being born, right? The natural way. Here Jesus introducing a new construct of what born means, and now he's talking about spiritual birth. How does one have a new spiritual birth? So he explains it in verse 6: that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And now we're going to learn here that obviously, as we go through, we'll see this— you're not born, uh, of the Spirit at the same time that you're born as a baby in the flesh. The born-again spirit happens later. He's explained this to Nicodemus, okay? In verse 7, he goes on to say, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Do not marvel. Nicodemus is processing that. He's marveling, probably, and he's trying to take Jesus' word like— because he doesn't understand spiritual born again, rebirth. He doesn't understand this at this point in time. All he knows is the one way that we all get born. So Jesus says, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Verse 8, the wind blows where it wishes. It's funny, I don't know if you guys hear the wind, but I'm in the backyard here and there's It's kind of windy. I'm chilly. It's 38 degrees. But think about how wind works, right? I'll let Jesus speak first. I'll add my own two cents. Verse 8: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound. Like right now, I hear the sound of the wind. I have trees behind me. And the, the wind is blowing the leaves, and I hear the sound of the wind up, up above me in, in the trees behind me, right? I hear it. Like, you all know what I'm talking about. We all hear the wind, but we don't see it, right? So he says, the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes, which is true. He goes on to say, so it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Okay, now I will read you partly what my study notes, my uninspired study notes, say here. And I will elaborate in my own words as well. Jesus' point was that just as the wind cannot be controlled or understood by human beings, but its effects can be witnessed, so also it is with the Holy Spirit. He cannot be controlled or understood, but the proof of his work is apparent. Where the Spirit works, there is undeniable and unmistakable evidence. And I'd just like to add that a Spirit-filled person is like the wind. You ever have people that just show up in your life and you just can't put your finger on it, and you're like, this person is— they have some form of righteousness, at least in your brain. You're like, this is a good person, right? And I say that, I say that with an asterisk because Jesus says there's only one person good, and that's God. But for the most part, In our mind, we think certain people are good, but there are people that come into our lives that do good things, do good works, and so forth, and they help. They're helpful to us. They do something to us or with us. They might edify us. That's a good word. They, they come into our life for a season, and they edify us, and then they're gone. We never see them again. So it's kind of like that. It's like, the way I see it too, is like, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit." The message comes, it has its effect, it leaves. This live stream might be a case, a point where here I am, I jump on, I don't know if I'll ever do this ever again, but maybe something that we said here in the word, you know, hit you a certain kind of way, and now you have a better understanding of what Jesus was trying to say, and you're good for the rest of your life, right? The Bible says that his word goes forth He proclaims his word and it never returns back to him void. So no matter what I say, as long as I'm saying it from the Bible, it's God-given. It's not Paul Woodley talking, though. And I do reference, hey, this is what I think, this is what I always delineate, you know, differentiate. Oh, this is my opinion on whatever. But when we're talking about straight-up scripture, which is the word of God, you can bet your— you can bet that that word in your listening ears is going to have its effect. It was meant for you. The word never returns void back to God. It's going to have its effect. You may not know it at the moment, but just like those disciples, they'll remember, oh, that's what he said back when. That's when you're like, ah, I understand now. And that's life. Life is all about that. Let's continue. Um, Verse 9, Nicodemus said to him, 'How can these things be?' Verse 10, Jesus answered him, 'Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?' Verse 11, 'Know that truly, truly, truly I say to you, We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. Jesus talking generally, he's saying we, right, to include him, his disciples, the message, God himself, right? We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you, Nicodemus, you Pharisees, You unbelieving people out there, right? You do not receive our testimony. And isn't that the case in real life, right? Do you feel that way, Christian? You go out there, spread the gospel the best way you can. You tell people, believe in Jesus, be saved, right? We do it every day, all day, some of us. And people don't receive your testimony, right? Jesus is saying this to probably one of the more, if not most, religious guys back then. And he's saying, hey, truly, truly— remember, for real, for real, FR, FR— truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know. We're not talking from, you know, hypothetical here. Jesus is saying, I'm not telling you hypothetical things. I'm telling you We speak, and as you know, he's kind because he's saying we when he is the Word of God. But he's saying, we speak of what we know and bear to you witness of what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. Verse 12, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? It's true. If I— Jesus says, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Right? And he goes on to say in verse 13, and catch this because this goes to the nature of Jesus. Now we're reading from the book of John. And what is John's perspective on Jesus? Well, for the most part, John wants to— he wants to show us— excuse me— he wants to show us the divine nature of Jesus, that Jesus is not just some man, he's just not some spirit, but that he's divine, right? And if we understand what divinity even means, maybe we'll appreciate him a whole lot better. But this is very important. Verse 13, chapter 3. Jesus goes on to say, no one has ascended into heaven— which means goes into heaven— no one has come from here to there. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. So he's telling Nicodemus that— remember, just the verse before, verse 12— 'If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?' Now he's saying, 'Hey, I descended from heaven,' right? Heavenly things. 'I know heavenly things,' Jesus is saying. I'm from heaven. I descended. I'm here. I know everything. I'm, I'm going to share with you heavenly things because I'm from heaven. Get it? It's very obvious. You don't even believe earthly things. How can you believe what I'm about to say, what I'm about to teach? This is Jesus' challenge. This has been his problem, not of his own fault, but this is the problem of humanity, is that we keep on years and years and years and years hearing the same gospel of truth that, hey, there is a person, there is a person who came from heaven, born a man, born in the flesh. This person, this person, he came, he came to save you, he came to free you from your sins, he died on the cross for you so that you— and bore your— the penalty due to you, he took it upon himself in a supernatural sense. And all that's required is for you to take the gift of salvation and accept it. Don't ask questions, believe it, but accept that he is worth it. He's worthy, and only he is worthy. Only he could do it. But we want to— we want to shrink, and we want— we don't want to accept it because We feel dirty and we feel we don't deserve it, which is a lie straight out of hell. The devil wants you to believe you need to come to God all clean, nice and pretty, and perfect. No such thing. The Bible clearly says there's no such thing. Church, as we've heard this before, is a place of sinners. It is a hospital of the sick. None of us are perfect. None of us. The devil says, hey, you got to be perfect before you even come to God. He's holy. True, but you got to be perfect. But these are the heavenly things, and this is why Jesus had to come himself down to earth back when he did. Let's go on. Verse 14, chapter 3. Another historical event that happened that Jesus is proven not only in his message, but only in the veracity of the Bible and the historical nature of the Bible. So verse 14, Jesus speaking: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Okay, so there's so much there itself to unpack historically, religiously, spiritually. So let's kind of go into that. And let me just check my time because I have a hard stop in about 10 minutes or 12 minutes. Verse 14, he says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness— right there alone, remember, we're in John chapter 3. We see Jesus talking about another guy. His name is Moses, which leads— should lead us to confirm at the most basic level that Jesus agreed and believed that a person named Moses existed. And for us that are, you know, doing contextual criticism, or us theologians, or us trying to be smart or whatever, trying to disprove the Bible, This is where I'm going with that, because I, I tried to do that too when I became a Christian back in 2008. I took the Bible and I said, all right, God, if there is a God— I did believe in God though— show me that this, this book is, is true. And I did. I'll go over my testimony another time. But one of the things that I had to reconcile in my brain was, okay, I do believe that Jesus, um, you know, I do believe that Jesus existed. There's a lot of historical evidence. But just from Jesus' own words, and we'll see many, many of these kind of situations happening, Jesus is confirming that another human being exists. His name was Moses. And then we talk about this Moses, he lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, right? So if you don't know the story, back then that was a symbol of the fact that God put in snakes into the camp when they were in the wilderness for their disobedience. And so there were all these snakes biting and terrorizing the children of Israel in the wilderness. And God said to Moses, you know, I want you to make a staff and put a snake at the top. And whenever you lift up your staff, then the snakes will not bite— will bite the people. And every time snakes came in, he lifted the thing, and that was God did for them using Moses and the staff. And so, He says, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," right, the staff with the serpent on it, the image of the serpent on there, to stop the snakes from biting everybody, "so must the Son of Man be lifted up." So we also— Jesus addressed Himself before, we read it. He's addressing Himself now as the Son of Man. Right? We learned he's the Son of God, but now he is talking about he's the Son of Man. Very interesting title that he puts upon himself, which speaks to his nature. Jesus has a nature. God has a nature. Holy Spirit has a nature. We all have a nature. He's Son of God, Son of Man. It's important for us to understand that the there's a duality there, right? But he has come to be born virgin, from a virgin birth. He was the one that was in heaven in spirit form, Son of God spirit form, from eternity past, decided that in 4 BC he was going to be born through Mary and take on flesh. And by the way, he's not still in heaven, he's now here on Earth. The, the triune God that we learned through the Nicene Creed the, you know, the Reformed theology. This, this triune— I'm not talking about— he's not— this is not modalism where he's in one form and transfers to another form. That is heresy, right? We have a, a triune God, one God that exists in three persons, and we'll unpack that as we go on. But here, the second person of that Trinity, the Son of God, leaves heaven to be born a man. And now he's on earth in flesh, protected by angels at this point. And so God is still in heaven. God is everywhere. Holy Spirit is in heaven, and he's everywhere too. But the Son of God, he's removed himself from the Godhead per se, in the spirit form at least. He's still connected, right? But he is now in the flesh, and he's limited himself He took on flesh, which is a form of humility. He did that as a form of humility, um, because he is the Creator. How could the Creator God of the universe, who created the angels and humans, who created all of the heavenly bodies, all of this, all the glory goes to him as Creator, he upholds everything by the power of his word, Book of Hebrews says, this person decides to be subject himself to the constraints of time right? And time itself is, is, is constrained from, from the vast universe. And so here he entered time and space to be born a human for us. It's phenomenal. And so we go on. It says here that, verse 15, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. I'll read it all together so we get the context of what's going on here. It says here that no one has ascended into heaven— going up— except the one who has descended from heaven— coming down— the Son of Man. So he says only the Son of Man has did that, no one else. And then he goes on to say in verse 14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Verse 15, here it is, that whoever believes in him— who? Well, that's the Son of Man that we just talked about in verse 14, the verse before that. So that whoever believes in him may have eternal life, right? And then here comes the, the memory verse that we all know, 3:16. So after he says all that, it's framing up 3:16. 3:16, as you know, and I want you to really— I don't know if you've ever really thought about hard about 3:16, but I'm going to share with something right now about John 3:16 that many of y'all probably never realized when it comes to the Father. But before we go there, take another quick 10-second coffee break from my son who gave me this mug. Dad, the man, the myth, the legend. Love this mug. It's my Christmas present. All right. John 3:16. And, uh, let me just do a quick time check. You've got about 6 minutes left before I have to roll. Verse 16: For God— pay attention to the word specifically, follow along in your own Bible if you got one— for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Okay, so many of you know this verse, but let's— there's two people, and there's us in this message. Let's start from the beginning. For God— who's God? This is the Father. Okay, how do we know it's the Father? We're going to use contextual criticism to ascertain that there's a Father, right? So it's God who so loved the world. Let's start there. Who loved the world? God loved the world. The Father loved the world. For God so loved the world. So when we think about God in general, we must respect God. Now, we all believe in Jesus. He's the King. But I feel like when talking and doing other Bible studies, I feel like a lot of Christians don't know God. They don't know the Father. They don't— they're scared of the Father. Their viewpoint growing up is that God is this fiery judgment God that's unapproachable. But that's farthest from the truth. It is because of God the Father that we even have a chance, that we're even here. And we're going to understand his love for us human beings for this world? The Father, God. I'm not talking about Jesus right now. I'm just talking about Elohim. I'm talking about Yahweh, the I Am I Am, right? He so loved the world, and goes on to say that he gave his only son So if your belief system is that God is both masculine and feminine, Bible doesn't agree to that. Some religions say God is a mixture of masculine, feminine, he and her, or, you know, no, God is masculine. It's why the word is used as he, right? And it's important just to understand who God is, the nature of God, just so that we can operate in truth. Because my encouragement to you is that you have a biblical mind view, a biblical mindset of truth, that you know how to operate from truth. If you don't, if the premise is wrong, if the coordinates are messed up, you'll always get to a false conclusion on things. So we have to— whether your politics— that's— it's— this is not a political thing. It's, it's a, it's a spiritual understanding of scripture. So God the Father so loved us, so loved the world, that he, the Father, he gave his only Son. He gave us Jesus the Father. And it goes on to say that whoever, whoever— it's not some people, it's whoever, whoever Whoever believes in him, the Son, whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And in this verse we see a situation here. We see this word perish. What is perish? Well, it's to die, right? But then when we juxtapose it to the very next couple words, but have eternal life, then One could get out of that, that, well, okay, what's the opposite of eternal life? Well, eternal death. Some might say, well, is that a bad thing? Yeah, I think so, right? But the promise here is that you're not going to perish. You're going to have eternal life. And that's the main thing. We want to have eternal life. We should want to have the eternal life. Eternal life is forever. I mean, I do not know how old you are, but I bet you it is under 100 years old. That is a blip of time to eternal life. And not only you will have eternal life, but you will have all of the fruit and the blessings of what that even means. But coming new, if you are new in the Bible and new in Scripture and you were not taught this, you know, I encourage you just to read the Bible and see what what heaven looks like. It's a great place. The Bible teaches us actually as Christians that we are just pilgrims in the world. Bible says be in the world but not of the world. We're just pilgrims here, right? So we— so this is a pilgrimage. We're, we're pilgriming our way through life with our jobs and families, but really the destination is Zion. It's the city, the celestial city, according to the movie, uh, Pilgrim's Progress, right? So we're just on a journey. We're all here on a journey. We're trying to get home. This is not our home, the Bible says. Bible actually says we're aliens in this world, per se. And I say that in a biblical context, not like we're, you know, ET aliens like some people try to even say. But I always want to highlight the Father for a second here, because it's God who brings you to Jesus. Right, let's go on. So it says here in verse 17, the very next verse after John 3:16, verse 17, it says, 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. Why do people hate Jesus? I have no idea. He didn't come here to condemn us, he came here to save us. But you see how the lies of the Bible I mean, not the lies of the Bible, but the lies of the devil, um, and the world system is designed— everything is designed that, hey, you know, God and holy thou art and Bible thumpers or whatever the, the, the negative framing in one's mind— it's all designed. The whole system is designed to steer you away from the truth. And the truth is this, that number one, God loves you. He loved the world. Number 2, he paved the way for you in his Son by sending his Son. And that when the Son comes, that he didn't come to condemn us, he came to save us. What's wrong with that? What's so bad about that? And verse 18, whoever believes in him— Jesus— 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. So if you don't believe in Jesus right now, the Bible says you're condemned already. So there needs to be a transaction in your mind somehow, some way. There has to be something that you— that, that you— and we call that repentance, right? Repentance is not willpower to stop my addiction. Repentance is saying, this is truth, and I am committed to believing in the truth, especially if it's honoring God, and I'm willing to believe this as truth. But if we choose to believe something else that other than Jesus the only way? Well, the Bible has a name for it described here. It's called being condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Verse 19, and we'll end on 21. And 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. 20. 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. It's pretty obvious there. People know when they do wrong. People know what's right and wrong. We were born from that, from the garden, right? And people— that's why people are sneaky when they're doing something wrong, right? People going off sneaking, doing sinful things, whatever. I'll have an affair over here, I won't tell no one. And you know what, doesn't hurt you, doesn't harm you. But God knows, right? God knows your thoughts. The Beatitudes, when she's on the Sermon on the Mount, he already tells us, you know, if you, if you, if you hate your brother, you already murdered that person in your heart. If you look at a woman with lustful intent, you already committed adultery. I mean, Jesus just levels up that, that— he just amps it up to the point like, hey, you know, if we're going to talk about holiness, this is the holy standard, and God wants us to be holy. Bible says, be holy as I am holy. The problem is that everyone's trying to be holy, which is good, but when you realize you can't, they self-condemn themselves. So the point here is that you got to get to a point where you understand that you are a sinner saved by grace through faith, not by works. And that's a whole nother chapter, a whole nother lesson. But if you're a person that's trying to clean up your act before you come to God, First off, let me be the one to tell you, you don't have to. Let me be the one to tell you that come as you are. God already knows what you did. He already knows what you're thinking. He already knows what you're considering. He already knows what you've done because he knows the past from the future, future from the past. Come as you are. Submit to him and say, Lord— you see, the thing about working with God is what God wants out of us He wants confession, right? Not only does the Bible say confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, right, in Romans 9:10— what the confession is, is basically it is a self-awareness that you are not righteous and that you need help. That's the, the big idea here. The whole big idea here is that a person comes to the realization that they're not perfect, that their righteousness is filthy rags according to the Bible, their self-righteousness is nothing, right? And we need help, we need a savior. Jesus himself says, if you remember, he says, I did not come to heal, I did not I did not come to heal the people that are well, but the sick, right? This is when he's talking about the spiritual blindness, and the Pharisees, they're saying, oh, are we blind too? And he says, you know, because you said you're blind, you're going to remain in your sins, right? So if you feel like you are righteous, in God's eyes at least, you might be deceived. You might be spiritually blind. A person who knows, who knows standard and knows they are not at the standard is in a good place because they know they're not righteous, which is great. So what do we do? We admit that, Lord, I know I'm not righteous. I want to be righteous, but I know I'm not, and I don't have the capacity to be it. Help me in that. Help me, help me be righteous, Lord, right? You'll never become righteous on this planet, on this earth. You'll never be it. You can come pretty close, you could do good things, you know, but what is righteousness? That's the whole thing. We don't want to be, um, hypocrites, of course, to ourselves, to God. He knows. So for verse 20, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. 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. We'll end there. High level: those that, um, are born again, those that come to Jesus, those that want to be saved, are willing to put their ego aside and confess their sin to God and start proclaiming truth. And that's why you see people like myself in 2008, I kind of came out of the closet of sorts. I came out of the spiritual closet. Like, you asked my family and friends back then, it's like, what, what's wrong with you? What happened to you? You, are you like a nut job now? Are you a quack? Jesus, whatever. It's true, because when you start, when you, you get that zeal for God's house, you do change, no doubt. Um, and I think part of that is so that others can clearly see in verse 21, others can clearly see that what happened in you, this change in you, is coming from God, not coming from you. Because they knew who you were before you came to Christ, whatever, however you were, right? Some people it's more obvious than others. All right, we'll end there, guys. Um, we'll pick up again at another time. In John 3:22. I hope this message was helpful to some degree. And let me just pray for you, pray for us. Father, we thank You for this opportunity to be in Your Word, Your holy Word. We thank You, Lord, that You would remind us of this interaction that You had with Jesus, this interaction You had with Nicodemus. This lesson about, um, John 3:16, the reminder, God, that you so loved us that you gave us Jesus. And we're reminded, Lord, that coming to Jesus is not us. It's not because we raised our hand in church. It's not we filled out a card in church. It's not even being baptized. It's not that we made a decision for Jesus. No, we came to Jesus because the Father brought us to Jesus, helped us see Jesus for who he was. Like the parable of the hidden treasure, we stumbled across Jesus, we saw the true value of it, and we bought that field with the treasure so that we could have it. So, Lord, I thank You for this time. Bless the hearer of this word. Until we meet again, I pray blessings upon all those that hear Your word, not my word, Lord, but hear Your word. And should I ever, ever, Lord, say anything that is not true, I pray that You just strike it from the minds of the hearer. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen. Guys, have a great day, and we'll see you next time.
