The Heart of the Matter 2

The Heart of the Matter

  The great question that Nicodemus asks “How can these things be?”

How does someone enter into the kingdom of God? The simple yet confusing answer that is given in John Chapter 3 by Jesus is “one must be born again.”

John 3:8 ESV

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.”

The work in my life and in your life is one that isn’t done by us. GOd’s Spirit is a work and producing fruit.

Galatians 5:22–24 ESV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

How does one who is extremely depressed become a person of joy? The work of God’s Spirit creating in them a New Life. How does the addict become the Pastor? It is all by the Work of God’s Spirit. How does one go from death to life? It is by the power of God’s Spirit in their life.

Jesus says, “The wind blows and you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes so it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Jesus here shows that just as the wind cannot be controlled or understood by humans beings but its effects can be witnessed, so also it is with the Holy Spirit.

Where the Spirit works, there is undeniable and unmistakeable evidence. In our lives as the SPirit is at work there is undeniable and unmistakeable evidence- Others can and should be able to see the effects of the Holy Spirit in us because we are born again.

Jesus shows Nicodemus salvation is not earned by being religious. Religion had blinded Nicodemus.

The thought process of “if I just do this many good things, or say ten hail Mary’s” or any other kind of sacrifice made by our hands, can get us in good favor with God is a lie.

There is only one sacrifice that makes sinners in good standing with God and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Two words need to be used here and they substitution and imputation. Christ was our substitute- We deserved the punishment of sin. Yet Christ was the one that was raised up in our place.

It is because of this that we have been imputed or given Christ’s righteousness. Imputation means A transfer of benefit or harm from one individual to another.

Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling, C. F. (1999). In Pocket dictionary of theological terms (p. 65). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Sin, Imputation of

If one football player jumps offside, the whole team is penalized. So it is with sin. Because one man, Adam, sinned, the whole human race was penalized.

The Same is true of the work of Christ- the death He died He died for all so that all would not have to die and in return we have been made righteous by His sacrifice. He paid the penalty.

John 3:14–15 ESV

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.

Christ did this for you, for me , and for all who come to saving faith, who see Jesus as Lord and savior.

Yet it is key to see Christ for who He truly is and for us to truly understand the weight of sin.

John Piper “Let us not trifle with God or trivialize his love. We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say (1 John4:10) “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

To truly understand the love of the cross we need to understand the depth of sin- We deserved Divine punishment, not divine sacrifice!

Yet God so loved the world!

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God provide the divine sacrifice. God sent His only Son because the “wages of sin is death...” this is what we deserved for sinning, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

“I have heard it said, “God didn’t die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans.” This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.

There is only one explantation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is as Eph 1:7 says, “for the riches of his grace.” It’s all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is an overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall underserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely His infinite beauty.”

The Cross is a display of the great love that God has for this world.

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott “The Love of God Does Not Send Anyone to Hell”

“The Love of God Does Not Send Anyone to Hell”

Themes: God: Love; Hell; Jesus: Death

“The love of God does not send anyone to hell. The love of God, with arms extended on a cross, bars the way to hell. But if that love is ignored, rejected and finally refused there comes a time when love can only weep while man pushes past into the self-chosen alienation which Christ went to the cross to avert.”

SOURCE: Michael Green, The Empty Cross of Jesus (Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), 76.

John 3:17 ESV

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.

Jesus came to free us from the condemnation of our sins. He didn’t bring condemnation. All of us have morals which are given by God, yet we even breaks those. We don’t want others to lie to us, yet we lie, we don’t want others to slander us, yet when we are mad watch out.

Even one would agree with most of the the Ten Commandment

Don’t lie

don’t steal

Don’t murder

Don’t commit adultery

Yet those same people often times lie, steal, and sometimes do even worst.

The world stands condemned because of sin, and you can simply turn on the news and see the effects of sin in this world.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn but to save.

John 3:18–20 ESV

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.

“Light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than the light...” Coming to the light takes change. Those who live in darkness become accustom to the darkness. It is as if you are in a dark room or basement with no light, what happens after awhile? Your eyes adjust and you begin to be able to see, and when someone turns on a light your eyes burn. This is the same with Jesus being the light- He exposes areas of our lives that we have become comfortable with.

Plato’s allegory of the cave- Nicodemus’s cave was his religion.

“God I will give you everything, but not this.”

I have even seen people do this with things that are bad and not enjoyable, like depression. They say it’s my depression and they become identified by it, and it become who they are and they are comfortable with it almost like a security blanket. They Christ comes and exposes it and wants to remove it and make them a new creation, and they say “but this is who I am, it is all I’ve ever know.” It is hard but light shines in the darkness and exposes.

There are two types of ignorances that keep someone from coming to Christ and at the root they are similar. The first is the ignorance that Jesus could never do that for me. “He could never make me whole, or heal my broken heart, or forgive me, or even He could never love me.”

The second is the ignorance that Nicodemus had that Jesus exposes:

John 3:11–12 ESV

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

At the heart of the matter Nicodemus failed to understand Jesus’ words not because of a lack of intellect but because he failed to believe the message of that Jesus was bearing witness too. Jesus says “we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony1” Jesus is speaking to what He knows, to what He has seen because He came from Heaven (John 3:13) and He would return to heaven.

In our world today there are a lot of smart people who don’t accept the message of the cross, and they have the same problem understanding the Gospel Just as Nicodemus. There are also those who have been religious for a long time and they too have the same problem as Nicodemus.

Both of these ignorances come down to the fact that those who struggle with them struggle to see Jesus for who He truly is and His work of salvation for what it truly does.

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon The Love of God Burns in Our Hearts (1 John 4:7, 19; Jude 21)

The Love of God Burns in Our Hearts

1 John 4:7, 19; Jude 21

Preaching Themes: God: Love, Love

You have a magnifying glass and hold it up before the sun until you focus the rays on a piece of dry wood and set it on fire. Now, while you see the wood burning to ashes, will you tell me what it is that burns? Does the heat of the sun burn the wood or does the wood burn? The heat that you feel while the wood is burning, is it due to the sun or to the wood? Of course at first the fire is purely and simply the flame of the sun, but afterwards the wood itself begins to burn; the sun burns the wood and then the wood itself burns.

Even so the love of God comes into our heart, and then our heart loves too, and in both cases “love is from God” (1 John 4:7). No man is a Christian unless he himself loves God with his own heart, but yet our love to God is nothing more or less than the reflection of God’s love to us: so that it comes to the same thing.

God so loved He gave.

John Nicodemus Visits Jesus at Night / 3:1–21 / 24

God

the greatest Lover

So loved

the greatest degree

The world

the greatest number

That he gave

the greatest act

His only begotten Son

the greatest gift

That whoever

the greatest invitation

Believes

the greatest simplicity

In Him

the greatest person

Shall not perish

the greatest escape

But

the greatest difference

Have

the greatest certainty

Eternal life

the greatest destiny

—J. Edwin Hortell

John Nicodemus Visits Jesus at Night / 3:1–21 / 24

God’s love is not static or self-centered; it reaches out and draws others in. Here God’s actions defined the pattern of true love, the basis for all love relationships—when you love someone, you are willing to sacrifice dearly for that person. Sacrificial love expresses itself without assurance that the love will be returned in kind. The timing of that love was highlighted by Paul’s words, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 NIV).

Christ died to rescue a world that was condemned.

Jesus ends with that work of the Holy Spirit being evident once again through the lives of those who have been born again:

John 3:21 ESV

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 Nicodemus Visits Jesus at Night / 3:1–21 / 24

According to the context, to do what is true is to come to Christ, the light; the result of coming to the light and living in the light will be clearly seen in believers’ lives.

To believe in Christ is to put our trust and confidence in Him and believe that He alone can save us.

My Favorite Illustrations Redemption/ Atonement/Cross

REDEMPTION/ ATONEMENT/CROSS

The Father proposed redemption for sinners; the Son provided it in His atoning death on behalf of them.

Someone said, “The death of Christ did not terminate, but it did germinate His work.”

Those who ignore the cross empty the gospel of all meaning, leaving sinners to wander hopelessly in sin.

On Golgotha, one man died in sin; one man died to sin; and one Man died for sin.

In remaining on the cross Jesus was saying there was nothing in all God’s universe He would not do to provide redemption for all who would believe.

Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Redemption

Redemption

A pastor of a church in Boston met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. The pastor inquired, “Son, where did you get those birds?”

“I trapped them out in the field,” the boy replied.

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have at home.”

When the pastor offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, “Mister, you don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very well.”

The pastor replied, “I’ll give you two dollars for the cage and the birds.”

“Okay, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.”

The exchange was made, and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. The pastor walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire cage, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.

The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate Christ’s coming to seek and to save those who—like the birds—were destined for destruction. The difference was that Christ had to purchase our freedom with his own life.