Sermon Tone Analysis

Well, for those of you who attended this past Wednesday night, I introduced that we are starting a new study from John Bevere this coming Wednesday, called “Killing Kryptonite”.

There is a book that goes with the study (SHOW BOOK), it is not mandatory to have the book, in order to be able to go through the video study, but it will be a great adjunct for you as we go through this!

The book was written by John and set up to be short reads daily (like 10-15 minutes tops), or you can read through more and finish the book faster.

There are discussion questions in the back of the book that tie in with the DVDs that also help to engage you more.

You can buy the book, while we still have some, for $11 (which is a hardcover edition).

This is cheaper than you can go on Amazon and buy them for, they are $12 there!

And we have it better than free 2 Day shipping like Amazon does; WE HAVE THEM HERE IN HAND FOR YOU TODAY!

I encourage you to please consider being a part of this study, because it’s like anything else, you get out of what you put into it!

Just like the Men’s Quest that I am going to in November, they stress that you will get out of this event, what you have poured into preparation for the event!

Again, for those of you who were here on Wednesday, I started speaking about a very familiar passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 3, in which we find our Lord and Savior, Jesus, being approached by a Pharisee named Nicodemus.

Now, I am not going to recap what all I talked about Wednesday night, but rather, I am going to tell you that there is a word, there is a concept that Jesus makes mention of in this passage, and that is what my focus is upon.

Wednesday evening, I went into a little more background detail of what all leads into this discussion.

So, this morning, I am going to bring us right into the encounter of this recognized Jewish leader and that of Jesus Christ.

The encounter itself, takes place in .

However, before I read in these specific verses, let me go back a few verses and read what leads us into this account.

,

The reason that I mention this set of verses before reading in , is that it declares a couple of things about this unique meeting between these two noted and recognized public figures in that region.

These verses tell us that Jesus did not trust in man’s lip service of saying that they believed in Him, just because they had witnessed His miracles that He was working.

But also Jesus, just as the passage states, could read every man and woman and child that He encountered, like a book.

Before the eyes of Jesus and His Father, the author of Hebrews says this with regard to each of us in ,

No matter what flattering statements you and I bring to our Lord, no matter what type of lip service we offer unto Him, He sees straight through our external mask (our spiritual “game face”) and looks openly into our exposed and naked hearts to determine what and how we really feel about Him!

And that is exactly what this passage is saying about Jesus; that no man or woman could stand before Him and their hearts intent not be found out instantly by Him!

Enter stage right, the man named Nicodemus in the opening of John chapter 3, and we instantly have a situation of a man who truly has some fascination and curiosity of this Jesus, (because of the miracles of Jesus), but who is also still hiding behind his religiosity and beliefs!

As I mentioned Wednesday night, people have always been enamored with the miracles, but without a true and sincere heart to walk through that narrow gait and follow that difficult path, that is as far as their relationship ever really gets.

They both want and need more miracles to keep their faith in check and to hold their attention towards Jesus!

The reality though, is that many of these people, only knew Jesus through and by His miracles, but never through a truly transformed life.

They “knew” (Greek: oida [to know by knowledge or understanding]) Jesus, but they never really “knew” (Greek: ginōskō [to know secretly; i.e. sexual intimacy], Jesus!

READ ,

Now, in the opening of this account, we see Nicodemus, a Pharisee (as well as a member of the Jewish high council known as the Sanhedrin), coming to Jesus in the covering of the night.

I mentioned Wednesday evening that there are different mind sets as to why he came to Jesus in the dark and why John found it important to list this detail (or rather, why Holy Spirit brought it to John’s mind to include this detail!)

I tend to agree with the understanding that, as much as Nicodemus was being drawn to learn more of this amazing man known as Jesus, he was also very guarded and playing it safe, because he had much to lose (in the natural/physical sense) and he wan’t going to just throw all of his cards out onto the table early on.

So, for clarity's sake and for this lesson, we are going to be talking about this passage with the understanding that Nicodemus is coming to Jesus under the anonymity of the night for protection of his personal well-being!

OK?!

One thing about this that I love, is that John writes this account and with the detail of the darkness being mentioned, it is dramatically enhanced by the way that John opens his gospel to mirror the Genesis creation account.

Look at ,

Now look at ,

Do you see the parallel between the light and the darkness in both accounts.

And in both accounts, we are looking at new creation: the natural creation and birth of mankind in , and then the new spiritual rebirth of man in John 1!

In this story, you see the contrast of a man, Nicodemus, who is coming under the covering of the night and darkness, and yet he is brought into the presence of the LIGHT of the world.

When standing within the LIGHT of Jesus, all things that are hidden within the darkness shall be brought out into the open; they are brought out into the exposure of the light!

, “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible,”

And it is the LIGHT of the WORLD, that both exposes and brings judgement because of the truth of the LIGHT.

In fact, if you look several verses later in , right after the world’s most familiar passage (verse 16), you see Jesus clarifying this as He says to Nicodemus in ,

This is exactly what we see happening when Nicodemus comes to Jesus.

He comes with his own preconceived ideas and his own itinerary of what he wants from Jesus; very safe and calculated and secure in his plans.

Yet, just as tells us, Jesus knows all people and He knows what is in our hearts.

And it is because Jesus instantly saw what was in the heart of Nicodemus and He saw right through what Nicodemus was saying to Him, that Jesus bypassed Nicodemus’ opening greeting and answered him the way that He did!

Re-Read Nicodemus’ opening statement and then Jesus’ answer and elaborate on these!

You see, Jesus is saying, “Nicodemus, you say that you can SEE that I am from God, based upon the natural/physical signs and wonders that I do.

Yet, I am telling you, that you cannot truly see the Kingdom of God, unless you have been born again.”

Jesus is saying , that we can physically observe the byproduct of the work of the Kingdom, but without spiritual rebirth, we can never truly see where these sign come from or what they truly are given for!

Just like Nicodemus, too many people try to approach God, through Jesus, by way of lip service and shallow and empty faith.

But Paul said this in about the Kingdom and lip service, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”

In other words, you can say all day long what you believe and who you believe in, but without TRUE spiritual rebirth, you have no spiritual authority and power!

And as to the issue in Jesus ‘ day and time, of the people being so enamored by His miracles, as is mentioned in this passage, this has always been the case and it is still is today.

People who are shallow in their faith, or have no real faith in Christ at all, look for and demand signs and wonders to refill that spark inside of them; and this becomes all that their walk is made of.

They are spiritual thrill seekers!

You must understand that signs and wonders, in and of themselves, are not the true indicator of God’s presence.

The enemy has the ability to perform signs and wonders which are given to lead people astray and away from the TRUE LIGHT and into darkness!

It was the magicians of Pharao in Egypt, who could change their staff into a serpent, just Moses and Aaron could do with Moses’ staff.

It was the devil, who could create natural disasters in the life of Job as we read of in , such as, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them” or, that of a great wind that was produced and blew in the house and destroyed Job’s sons and daughters!

Or as Jesus, Himself, said in ,

The point is, if you do not truly know Jesus, through spiritual re-birth, then you will be deceived by these false signs and wonders, because they are physical only, and have not spiritual authority and power linked to them!

Nicodemus questions Jesus’ answer, by asking Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?

And Jesus answers him back, but this time, with a little more clarity about being born again.

Verse 5, “Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”

It is like Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, “Nicky, look here son.

I said that you must born again and you can’t comprehend that.

So, I am going to break it down a little better for you, about being born again, in such a way that you, of all people being a Pharisee and teacher of the law, should be able to at least get the gist of.

You must be born of water and the Spirit!”

And when Nicodemus replies, ““How are these things possible”, Jesus reminds him that he is the Jewish teacher of the law and the ancient writings of God and yet he can’t understand?

Basically, what Jesus is calling Nicodemus out on is something similar to what people are still doing today.

Nicodemus and all of the other religious keepers of the law, were scrupulous about keeping every law that was given (although, no man could perfectly do so), and they prided themselves on committing to memory the Torah and other writings.

Yet this was all head knowledge and which was used to strengthen their hopes for an eventual natural/physical kingdom and it had no real insightful wisdom about the spiritual kingdom of God that was to one day come and through Jesus, was in fact right before them.

This is just like many people today in the church body.

We have committed verse after verse to memory.

We have made sure that we observe every strict tenant and bylaw that our church may have.

We are at the church every time the doors are open, praying out loud, praising out loud and giving our money to the church.

AND YET, we may not have a clue about the true nature of the Spirit of God and of His power and authority!

It’s all head knowledge without any Godly wisdom so that you can use that knowledge for anything more than impressing others with your ability to memorize!

If you have not been TRULY BORN AGAIN of water and the Spirit, then you CANNOT see the truth of nor enter into the Kingdom of Almighty God!

Now as to that part about being “born of water and Spirit, there is much debate and even denominational grief as to its meaning and what Jesus was referring to when He said this to Nicodemus.

The fact that Jesus mentioned that Nicodemus should have some knowledge about this matter, by virtue of the fact that he was a teacher and a scholar of the writings of the law and the prophets, implies that it was something that the Old Testament writings contained, that dealt with this very subject.

In fact, it did and it still does.

One passage in particular would be , which says,

The mentioning of being clean by the water, tied in with a concept that the Jews had held to for centuries.

Any gentile man or woman who desired to convert to beliefs and practice of the Jews, had to be submersed into the water as a symbol of becoming clean from their sinful life and and being reborn into a new life as a Jew.

And also, any time that the priests were going into the Holy place they had to wash in the water to be clean, (symbolically) before going before God!

It is this same concept, that John the Baptist brings to the NT to introduce the coming of the Kingdom of God, when he declares that the those who would listen, should REPENT and be baptised.

Basically, the baptism was a symbol of being made clean through a heart that was willing to truly repent from their life of sin and confess before God their sins and that they wanted to be washed clean of this sin and come before Him anew!

So, the water is symbolic of “repentance” and being made clean.

As God said, “Your filth will be washed away”, which refers to the sins being taken away from the sinner!

Well, there is only thing that removes the sin from the sinner; and that one thing is the precious shed blood of Jesus the Christ upon the Cross of Calvary!

Water baptism was only symbolic of being washed clean, but the blood of Jesus, when applied to and combined with the heart of a person who is TRULY repentant of their sins before God, creates a NEW and REBORN person; one who is made into a clean and usable vessel for almighty God.

And when this vessel has been made clean and they have a new heart, then God places within them His Spirit and and thus they are entered into the Kingdom and have thus experienced the second birth!

Just as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in and again in to all who could hear Him during the Feast of Tabernacles, He would give to all who would come to Him repentant and believing, the living waters which would never run dry!

Of this, Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit of God, which would be given to all believers upon His ascension to heaven!

And then, Jesus says to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it wants.

Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

I mentioned Wednesday night, that throughout the OT and within the NT, there are a couple of words that are used to represent: breath, wind and spirit.