Sermon Tone Analysis

How Jesus Witnessed to Nicodemus

Introduction and background

The cleansing of the temple has occured

Some saw the miracles

How should we witness?

in this text we see how Jesus witnessed to a man that was searching

Use a analogy or something they can understand.....

Draw them in with the bible

Make a conclusion

Now you will remember that this section of John’s gospel, starting in verse 1 and running to verse 21, is the Lord teaching about salvation, teaching about salvation.

And it all happens in a conversation with a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night; he’s a very formidable man.

The fact that he was a Pharisee meant that he had achieved a very elevated status in his devotion to the Old Testament and to rabbinic law and tradition.

He was an expert.

Jesus even calls him the teacher in Israel.

There are some historical indications that he was one of the three wealthiest people in Jerusalem, which means that he has reached high levels of influence--a member of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court--a very, very elevated Jew.

He has been watching Jesus, if only for a brief period of time, as Jesus has been in Jerusalem around the Passover

Jesus tells him he must be born again....

New birth was mentioned five times in the opening verses;

Belief is mentioned seven times in verses 11 to 21.

So here we go from ---- it all God to believe ....

In verse 3 He says, “You have to be born again [anothen, “born from above”].”

Later in that section, verses 3 to 10, you have to be born by the Holy Spirit.

You have to be born of the Spirit and cleansed by power from above.

This is devastating.

This is turning his religious paradigm and all his theological thinking upside down and inside out because his religion like all false religions in the world are all about people achieving a relationship to God, human achievement, works, religion, ritual, ceremony, morality, whatever the categories of accumulation.

How Jesus Witnessed to Nicodemus

I.

He Used a Earthly Example

And He uses the analogy of birth.

Birth is an earthly analogy.

We all understand that you make no contribution to your birth, none.

And the same would be true in the spiritual realm.

You make no contribution to your spiritual birth.

That’s why the analogy of birth is so appropriate.

You need to be born from above.

You need God to give you spiritual life, the same way God gave you physical life--and you made no contribution to your physical life, and you can make none to your spiritual life.

He had just had a conversation with the perfect teacher, the most powerful, the most competent, the most convincing, the most brilliant, the most wise, the most clear, the most persuasive voice that ever uttered a human word had been talking to Nicodemus--the very Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

He used something he should have understood birth

Starting over

A new beginning

But Jesus doesn’t treat him that way.

Verse 12, He says, “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

It’s pointless for Me to go any further with you.

It’s pointless for Me to dig deeper into the profound realities of theology and the mind of God and the purposes of God in salvation, I can’t go there because I gave you a simply earthly analogy and you can’t even believe that.

Born from above

What’s He mean when He says, “If I told you earthly things?”

Earthly things simply refers to the concept of birth.

That’s an earthly thing; that’s an earthly thing.

Birth happens on earth; it doesn’t happen in heaven.

It happens here.

It’s a simple analogy, a simple earthly illustration and you don’t get it, and you don’t buy it, and you don’t believe it.

And it’s so simple.

And it’s so clear.

How in the world will you believe if I now drop the earthly analogy and start talking to you about the Trinity?

That is why if you go to a university and you listen to unbelievers talk about the Bible, they’ll get it wrong.

If you go to a seminary and you have unbelieving professors talk about the Bible, they’ll get it wrong.

And here was Nicodemus, he was one of those.

Unbelief produces ignorance.

And so we see the passage open with this really startling confrontation of the condition of the heart of Nicodemus and the universal condition of every unbelieving heart, that it is locked in and it is prisoner to spiritual darkness, spiritual ignorance.

But on the other side the earthly illustration pricked Nicodemus heart

He did not walk away

He was curious

Illustrations are great but what we need is the bible

We should explain the bible with clear understandable language

That’s why there is power in your personal testimony ....

It relevant, clear and understandable....

5 minutes

How Jesus Witnessed to Nicodemus

II.

He Gave a Biblical Application

vs 13- He explained, people don’t go to heaven and come back.

When you go to heaven, you stay there and you’ll be glad you did, really.

Can you think of any reason in the world you’d want to come back?

No, you can’t.

Well, there’s more to that than just that.

There’s some very important truth here that I want you to understand.

No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Listen to this, the only...the only person who ever came down from heaven with the truth about salvation is Jesus.

Every other religion comes either from this earth or below.

“I’m the only one whose come down from heaven.

And the message that I bring is that salvation is a work of God in which you do not participate.

Jesus refers to Himself a number of times in that same phrase, “He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”

Many times He says I came down from heaven.

He is the only heavenly source of heavenly truth.

And the message is salvation is by faith alone.

So Nicodemus is speaking with God in human flesh.

Nicodemus is talking to a heavenly being.

He is talking to the eternal Son of God and the eternal Son of God is saying, “Don’t believe anything other than this, because no one has ever gone up to heaven and brought down the truth.

I have come from heaven with the truth.”

so what follows this truth is a reference to the bible

First of all that means elevate Him above all others.

Elevate Him above all others.

He’s the only one that has come down.

He is the eternal Son of God.

He is the Lord of Lords.

He is the second member of the Trinity.

He is the source of truth.

He is the truth as well as the life, and the light.

Elevate Him; lift Him up.