43: Preaching/Teaching-John 3

To Believe or not to Believe

EOT-Nicodemus initiated a conversation with Jesus.

EOS-We must engage in gospel conversations

so we can disarm these misconceptions:

DDS-That we would go through the bridge with someone this week.

Introduction:

I am so thankful for the many people who have stepped out of their comfort zones to have gospel conversations with me.

A couple weeks ago I shared about a friend who had a gospel conversation with me at practice.

There was another man who had a gospel conversation with me: Enter Sean Carter-Went to his house.

A gospel conversation is simply a beggar showing another bigger where the food supply is!

You can call it witnessing, evangelism, but God wants his people to share his story with those around them.

can you remember someone who had a gospel conversation with you?

When is the last time you had a gospel conversation with someone?

What keeps you from gospel conversations.

We are way past the days where the majority of people are just going to walk in to church because they have spare time on their hands.

People are not coming to church like they used to. One of the reasons that we wanted to plant RCC is so we could reach people far from God. But the reality is that people do not just come to church that much anymore compared to how it used to be. Now if someone comes to RCC we want to love them, but if we are going to reach people far from God wants his people bringing his message to them.

Growing up I would have considered myself a Christian.

Here is why we need to take this seriously.

Currently, Just One in Four Americans Is a Practicing Christian To get a broad view of the role of Christianity in the American Church, as well as those outside of it, let’s start by looking at the manner in which Americans relate to Christianity, using three segments: practicing Christians, non-practicing Christians and those who are not Christians.

Practicing Christians identify as Christian, agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and have attended church within the past month.Non-practicing Christians are self-identified Christians who do not qualify as practicing.Non-Christians are U.S. adults who do not identify as Christian.

The first and perhaps most significant change we’ll explore is that practicing Christians are now a much smaller segment of the entire population. In 2000, 45 percent of all those sampled qualified as practicing Christians. That share has consistently declined over the last 19 years. Now, just one in four Americans (25%) is a practicing Christian. In essence, the share of practicing Christians has nearly dropped in half since 2000.

I want you for a second to picture an America where less than 10% of the population is a practicing Christian.

People are not coming to Church anymore just to go to Church.

We need to go to them as Jesus says at the very end of the book

John 20:21 NASB95

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

he is sending us into the harvest.

Today we are going to see Jesus engage a man with a gospel conversation. That is kind of weird to say because Jesus actually is the gospel.

But I want to challenge you out of your comfort zone today and engage in gospel conversations because it disarms these misconceptions that are so prevalent in our world.

1. The first reason we need to engage in gospel conversations is because it disarms the misconception that:

Religion is > Jesus (1-3).

John 3:1–2 NASB95

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 have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

People are interested in Jesus

Remember many Pharisees in John, don’t just hate Jesus they want him killed. They Pharisees were the biggest leadership group. Not only was he a religious leader he was a leader period.

It says WE

This tells us that there were many with the Pharisees that at least acknowledged that we are at least warm to Jesus, not all wanted to kill him. Notice they did not believe he WAS God, they are simply saying from God. Why are they saying these things, because of the signs he is able to do.

Did you know every religion accounts for Jesus, including Islam. Their are just too many historical sources that even if you think Jesus is totally off his rocker, you still cannot deny the fact that he walked this earth.

Following Jesus is risky

This elite man knew that it was not the cool thing to come up to Jesus. Following is risky because Jesus likes to ask us to get out of our comfort zone, it is risky because we can become the weird person. They came at night.

Little did Nicodemus know that his night was way darker than he knew.

Relationship > Religion

John 3:3 NASB95

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

What is he saying: NICODEMUS YOU ARE OFF. Not only Are you off you are not born again.

Now I want you to think of the implications of this, if one of the best of the best is off what is that saying about the rest of the people.

Nicodemus was openly curious about Jesus, but still fell a long way short of confession that he was uniquely the promised Coming One. CARSON

Even for a Nicodemus, there must be a radical transformation, the generation of new life, comparable with physical birth. Barrett (p. 206) finely cites Calvin: ‘by the term born again He means not the amendment of a part but the renewal of the whole nature. Hence it follows that there is nothing in us that is not defective’ (Calvin, 1. 63).CARSON

GUIDING BELIEFS OF MORALISTIC

THERAPEUTIC DEISM 1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth. 2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. 4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

this sounds nice but this is not the gospel

A couple of years ago I was having a gospel conversation with a football player. I was at DTS at the time and back then Chuck Swindoll was the head honcho. This football player grew up in his church and went on mission trips at this church. In the back of my head I am thinking, this is going to be a world changer.

I ask him on a scale of 0-100%, how sure are you that you are going to heaven?

He gave me a works based answer.

If the church does not have the right message how are we going to bring it to the world. B

But as I sit here I am so excited because we do have the right answer and God wants us to take this message and have gospel conversations.

How does someone go through church their whole life and miss the main point: JESUS!

Application:

Here is the reality we are in a beginning stage, but I know most of you guys know the gospel. But I also know that this week when I asked our men’s group What was your weakest area in the wheel it was almost entirely witnessing or as we are saying today gospel conversations. We have the greatest message of all time. There are people that you know who are not going to go to heaven but think they are and we have the solution. And God can use you and I to have gospel conversations with them.

Jesus question to Nicodemus reveals that the best of the best teachers were missing Jesus, or maybe a better way of saying it is his response shows how off their teachers were.

But here is what I think the same religion that can literally keep someone from heaven can also keep us from having gospel conversations. I go to church, I am in a small group, we do some outreaches. Let’s not let religion keep us from engaging our family, friends and neighbors in gospel conversations.

The next reason we need to engage in gospel conversations is because it disarms the misconception that:

2. We don’t need redemption (4-10).

John 3:4 NASB95

Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

Why is redemption necessary?

We have an impossible problem

He is right about something Salvation is impossible: You can’t do this and being saved is impossible without God, the standard to get to get is perfection. This is impossible, and yes:

Nicodemus thought a lot like Paul in Philippians 3:

This is how most people still think today: How do I get to heaven, how do I please God, I do enough good works.

ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD.

Picture of shooting 100 arrows at a bullseye. If you just miss one that is a picture of sin.

John 3:5–6 NASB95

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

We must deal with the personal.

Nicodemus was making the problem National and not Personal

I am going to be in the Kingdom future because I am a religious teacher.

Jesus was like no you are not unless something changes.

THIS IS HOW THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU THINK WHETHER THEY ARE IN CHURCH OR ARE NOT IN CHURCH AND THEY NEED US TO HAVE GOSPEL CONVERSTATIONS

ANTHONY THIS WEEKEND-

As I was preparing this talk I was like I have not had a gospel conversation lately. Each day I was praying for a gospel conversation.

Anthony thinks just like Nicodemus does.

I asked him 0-100-

He was 45

I asked him if someone could be 100

yes his friends because they followed the Bible. Notice it is all works based.

We need a complete overhaul

The fact that we need to be born again reveals how broken we are. It points to our need for redemption.

Something is wrong with us and we need new birth-Illustration (Birth of one of our kids) of how powerful physical birth.

Physical birth is powerful.

I know for sure that it happened, I could literally list to you all of my kids birthdays

Nathaniel-11/4/2004

Spiritual birth is even more powerful. We are in such bad shape that we need something more powerful than physical birth we need a spiritual rebirth, we need something powerful.

John 3:7–10 NASB95

“Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

Application:

During the COVID pandemic I think a lot of people put their hope in politics, who was going to win the election. This is what Nicodemus was focused on. But Jesus made this personal. The people in our neighborhoods greatest need right now is they need a relationship with God. The Gospel, the good news is the hope of the world.

During the pandamic Renovations started a Disc Golf team, no we did play a lot of disc golf and I remember Michael would always say that the gospel is our only hope.

The people of Pearland, Houston, the World’s biggest need is redemption.

The last reason we need to engage in gospel conversations is because it disarms the misconception that:

3. Heaven can be earned (11-18).

John 3:11–13 NASB95

“Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.

The gospel is the entry point

I love deep preaching, one of my favorite preachers when I became a believer was Tommy Nelson. One of the things Tommy Nelson was known for was preaching through entire books of the Bible.

My neighbor who does not know Jesus does not need a year long sermon series on the gospel of John he needs the simplicity of the Gospel.

Last night while we were at Andy and Christiana’s house and we were talking about the call of God to be a disciple and to make disciples. But here is the reality someone has to believe the gospel before they can grow, but once they believe they can go as far as they want to.

John 3:14–15 NASB95

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

The Gospel according to John 5. Jesus and Nicodemus (3:1–15)

3:14. The connections between this verse and the preceding verses are two. First, Jesus moves from an explanation of the new birth in terms of the categories ‘water’ and ‘spirit’ used by Ezekiel (cf. notes on 3:5) to a narrative passage, the well-known account of the bronze snake in the desert (Nu. 21:4–9). That bronze snake on a pole was the means God used to give new (physical) life to the children of Israel if they were bitten in the plague of snakes that had been sent in as a punishment for the persistent murmuring. By God’s provision, new life was graciously granted. Why then should it be thought so strange that by the gracious provision of this same God there should be new spiritual life, indeed ‘eternal life’ (v. 15)?

Second, the deepest point of connection between the bronze snake and Jesus was in the act of being ‘lifted up’. Moses lifted up the snake on a pole so that all who were afflicted in the camp might look and live. In the same way, the Son of Man must be lifted up. The Greek verb for ‘lifted up’ (hypsoō) in its four occurrences in this Gospel (cf. 8:28; 12:32, 34) always combines the notions of being physically lifted up on the cross, with the notion of exaltation.

To Believe or not to Believe

John 3:16–18 NASB95

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Conclusion:

This gospel conversation was the start of something. We don’t see Nicodemus getting it right away. And I share that to say this is Jesus sharing with him. Picture if I was sharing with him. But this would be the start where he would eventually become a believer in Jesus.

What are some things that keep us from belief?

Nicodemus-his religious background

He did not think he was in need of a savior (Moralistic Deism)

Misunderstandings of the Kingdom of God-What it takes to get in

Barriers to Belief

Notes

v.5-We are in need of a new creation-are problem = so great the solution has to be even greater.

Misconception to belief

v.5-It is not personal = it is national-this is a lot like politics in America, that is were most thing change comes from.

This is not just Nicodemus’s struggle this was Pauls Struggle:

The Gospel according to John 5. Jesus and Nicodemus (3:1–15)

No matter how good their Jewish credentials, they too must be born again if they are to see or enter the kingdom of God.

Philippians 3-