Christ the Savior

John 3:16–17 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Think about how profound this statement is:

God loves the whole world.

He loves us so much he gave his only son.

The gift of his Son saves us from perishing and gives us eternal life.

John 3:17 NIV

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God wants everyone to get the gift. So why don’t they?

John 3:18 NIV

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Because they don’t accept it. This was a challenge of John’s ministry.

The Jewish leaders didn’t accept the gift.

A lot of Christians didn’t really accept it.

Why is it so hard to accept?

To accept good news, we first have to accept bad news.

When we deny the bad news, we don’t appreciate the good news.

The Bad News

READ JOHN 3:1-15

Jesus made a big scene in the temple, and a bunch of people liked what they heard.

Evidently they wanted Jesus to join them in something, but he wouldn’t.

Nicodemus is coming to measure Jesus up.

V. 2: opening offer of alliance.

V. 3-4: Nicodemus seems unbelievably dense here.

“Above” is really “from the top.” It could mean “from top to bottom” or “from above.” It could also mean “again.”

In all of the New Testament, Nicodemus is the only person to interpret that word as “again”—because he doesn’t want to think about a different kind of birth.

For him, all that matters is the birth he already has, and that can’t be repeated.

V. 5-8: Jesus corrects him.

Not born again—born of the Spirit.

Your physical birth cannot give you the Spirit.

You’ve seen this yourself. There are people who follow the Spirit, and people who don’t, and it’s not by birth. It’s by the movement of the Spirit.

V. 9: Nicodemus doesn’t want to accept what he can’t understand.

V. 10-12: He won’t accept what he can’t understand until he realizes who Jesus is.

Accepting the gift means ADMITTING we need HELP. (3:2-12)

We don’t like admitting we need help because...

Accepting HELP exposes our WEAKNESS and SIN. (3:19-20)

If we need Jesus’ help, then he must be right. He becomes the standard, the light.

The light exposes two things about us:

v. 19: our deeds are useless—the things we invested in are not helpful. For Nicodemus, this is his birth and status.

v. 20: our behaviors are destructive. The things we like to do are not helpful.

We avoid the light because it hurts our pride. (Charity Christmas)

But we also love darkness. We prefer to do things the way we are doing. So we avoid the gift because we don’t want to accept the standard.

1 John 3:16 NIV

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

1 John 4:10–11 NIV

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Admitting our FLAWS means we need to CHANGE. (1 John 3:16, 4:10-11)

Nicodemus walks away unresolved. What hope is there?

Jesus points forward to a future moment when he has a chance to understand:

The Good News

Jesus is lifted up in order to show everything the truth, so that they can see that there is a way out.

Jesus will SUCCEED where you have FAILED. (3:13-17)

But if Jesus is so generous, that still exposes my failings. Why would I step into them?

John 3:21 NIV

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. — But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in God.

Done in God

Your value comes from God’s DEEDS, not YOURS. (3:21)

Vase

Here’s what it comes down to: we all want to be the hero of the story.

The bad news is, you aren’t the hero. You can’t be the hero.

The Good News is, there is a hero, and he loves you and gave himself for you.

1 John 3:1 NIV

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

You’re not the HERO, but you are his BELOVED. (1 John 3:1)

This is what we have to be willing to accept—to rejoice in!