Sermon Tone Analysis

*INTRODUCTION:*

1.      ((illus)) A cardiologist at the University of Tennessee by the name of Dr. Maurice Rawlings along with his colleagues interviewed more than *300 people* who were *revived* from *clinical –death experiences*.

What made Dr. Rawlings' study distinct is that the interviews were not conducted months or years later but immediately after the experiences had allegedly occurred—*while the patients were still too shaken up *in the immediacy of the moment to gloss over or to re-imagine what they had experienced.

*Nearly 50 percent* of them reported encountering images of fire, of tormented and tormenting creatures, and other sights from a place very different from heaven.

*In follow-up interviews* much later, many of these same people had *changed their stories*, apparently unwilling to admit to their families, maybe even to themselves, that they had caught a glimpse of something like what the Bible calls hell.

Dr.

Rawlings concluded*, "Just listening to these* patients has changed my life.

There is a life after death, and if I don't know where I'm going, it is not safe to die."

 

2.

Jesus talked about life and death issues.

3.

And one of those occasions is mentioned in our text for today.

a.

There is a heaven to be gained.

b.

And a real hell to be shunned – avoided.

John 3:1-21 - */After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, 2/**/ came to speak with Jesus.

“Teacher,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us.

Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you.”/*

*/ /*

*/3/**/ Jesus replied, “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.”/*

*/ /*

*/4/**/ “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus.

“How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”/*

*/ /*

*/5/**/ Jesus replied, “The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

6/**/ Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven.

7/**/ So don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again.

8/**/ 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.”/*

*/ /*

*/9/**/ “What do you mean?” Nicodemus asked./*

*/ /*

*/10/**/ Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?

11/**/ I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe us.

12/**/ But if you don’t even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven?

13/**/ For only I, the Son of Man, have come to earth and will return to heaven again.

14/**/ And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, 15/**/ so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life./*

*/ /*

*/16/**/ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

17/**/ God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it./*

*/ /*

*/18/**/ “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him.

But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.

19/**/ Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

20/**/ They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness.

They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.

21/**/ But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.”/*

4.

Here is this famous text that talks about being “born again” or “literally, born from above.”

5.      It occurs in the first year of Jesus’ public ministry and with a very religious person.

a.    What I call, “a church going sinner.”

b.

Why would I describe him that way?

6.      :1  tells us that this man Nicodemus was both a Pharisee and a religious leader or member of the Jewish ruling council.

a.    */After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee,/*

b.

What does this mean?

c.    Read one description = If ever there was a group, which could be called religious fanatics, it was the Pharisees.

They were a select group -- never more than 6,000 of them -- who had each one taken a solemn vow before three witnesses that he would devote every moment of his entire life to obeying the Ten Commandments, as a way of pleasing God and gaining entrance into heaven.

The Pharisees took this very seriously.

As you know, the Ten Commandments speak about worshipping the true God and not having idols in your heart, honoring your father and mother, refraining from lying, adultery, and various other sins.

The commandments are given in rather general terms.

In order to be specific it was felt necessary to define those terms and to spell out how they applied to certain situations, so there had grown up in Israel a group of people called the *scribes*, who were *members of the Pharisees*.

These men spent their lives studying the Ten Commandments and applying them to situations of life so that the Pharisees could carry out these commands and thus obey God.

d.

The scribes took their work very seriously.

In fact, to demonstrate how seriously they took it, they had compiled a very thick book, which the Jews still have today, called the *Mishnah*, made up of sections devoted to applying the Ten Commandments to life.

In the Mishnah, the section on obeying the rule of not working on the Sabbath occupies twenty-four chapters.

Besides that they have another book, the *Talmud*, which is made up of commentaries on the Mishnah.

In the Talmud 156 pages are devoted to the Sabbath as it applied to life!

We can see how serious the Pharisees were about keeping the Law.

e.

As a member of the Jewish ruling council meant that he was a member of the *Sanhedrin*, the *council of seventy men who ran the religious affairs of the nation and who had religious authority over any Jew anywhere in the world*.

7.

But in this conversation, *Jesus explained three things* to this church-going sinner.

a.

The need of being born again

b.

The nature of being born again.

c.     

8.

And this happened in the evening hours.

a.

Not so much because Nicodemus was a chicken.

b.

But because he did not want his reputation tarnished by this encounter being found out.

c.    From the pronouns use, he may have been representing other of the Pharisees as well.

d.

I think this man took some substantial risks to do what he did, but in so doing revealed a searching heart – one that God had obviously prompted.

*A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH*

*John 3:1-21*

 

*1.

**THE NEED OF THE NEW BIRTH*

a.    :3 - */“I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.”/*

b.

Not all Pharisees were hypocrites.

i)        Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night, not only because of personal protection of his reputation as a Pharisee.

ii)      But also because he could be along with Jesus and ask honest questions.

iii)    He was a *SEEKER *of truth – there’s nothing wrong with that.

iv)    And *Jesus provided an honest answer to an honest seeker*.

c.    *((illus))* For years the church has done itself a disservice by not listening to some of the honest questions individuals have been asking.

i)        Rather than being respectful of people’s searching, as Jesus demonstrates here, there has been an aggressiveness that has often turned people off to the Gospel.

ii)      Nicodemus had observed Jesus and felt *“SAFE”* in his presence.

d.   *HERE WAS A MAN WHO HAD IT ALL:*

i)        Respect

ii)      Position

iii)    Reputation

iv)    Discipline – he fasted two days a week as a Pharisee.

e.    *BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING MISSING*

i)        Jesus was saying to Nicodemus that all his activity would not cut it with God.

ii)      There was something that only God could do and that would be *the difference between life and death*.

f.     *NICODEMUS NEEDED TO BE BORN AGAIN*

i)         So close, but so far