The Message and the Messenger

John 3:1-13 Jesus tells Nicodemus that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, he must experience a brand new birth- one very different from natural human birth

Original Sin concludes that a person must be born again to be made right with God.

John 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Jesus compares this new birth to the blowing of the wind

John 3:8 “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 is born of the Spirit.”

Just as you don’t see the wind blow, you don’t physically see the New Birth happen. However, you see what the wind does! Claiming the New Birth without the fruit of a new life and a new heart is as dumbfounding as a claiming that a hurricane came through a town with no visible aftermath!

Jesus claims to be the Son of Man and says that He descended from heaven. (Verse 13).

He then says that he will be like the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness.

Jesus is really saying that it takes faith to be born again.

But instead of saying it like that, He brings Numbers chapter 21 to mind.

The Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, and God had caused bronze serpents to come forth and bite because of the Israelite’s sin. Many had become sick and some died.

The people came to Moses and confessed their sin asking Moses to pray to the Lord on their behalf.

A casual reading of the text suggests on the surface that what the Israelites had done was complain. Yet, the text called this “speaking against the Lord.”

When Moses prayed for the people, the Lord instructed him to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a stick, then all those who looked on it would be healed.

The Lord required that the people look on the very thing that represented their sin and their disease.

This is what it means to look upon the cross

The Christian message is not about looking at your best self, or at your enlightenment, it is about looking at your sin hung on the cross.

John 3:14-15 “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.”

John 3:16-21 ““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: the light has come into the world, and people loved 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.”

John 3:22-36 The disciples of John the Baptist had raised a dispute that people were coming to Jesus to be baptized rather than John.

“A messenger can only receive what is given from heaven.”

Both the crowds and the beheading were given to John from heaven

The messenger is a forerunner

the call to announce Jesus as the Coming One never stopped

The messenger is a friend of the bridegroom

The messenger is not the bridegroom, but is the bridegroom’s friend

What vindicated the years in the wilderness?

Total Restoration Church has a message to proclaim, and we ought to be anchored to a motive - that Jesus would have His bride!

God’s ultimate messenger is Jesus