The Source Of Eternal Life Series

Who Is This Jesus?

3. He is the source of eternal life

John 3:1-18

September 25/26, 2004

Don Jaques

MAIN IDEA: All people can experience eternal life through belief in Jesus.

1. Every person needs to be born of the Spirit. (John 3:1-8)

2. We experience spiritual birth through belief in Jesus. (John 3:9-18)

a. Jesus can deliver this because he is the Son of Man (John 3:9-13, Dan. 7:13-14, Rev. 1:10-18)

b. Jesus can deliver this because he was lifted up (Num. 21:1-9) and removed us from under the curse of God’s wrath. (John 3:14-18)

3. When we are born of the Spirit, we are set free from self-centered living. (John 3:19-30)

INTRO:

Who is this Jesus?

Over the past 2 weeks we’ve looked at the first two chapters of John. We’ve learned a few very important things about Him already. From chapter one we learned he is God in the flesh. Not only was he with God – but he IS God. Last week as Terry taught us, Jesus is the one who can bring real change to our lives if we allow him to – he can turn our common water into the finest of wines, and that he is jealous for our complete devotion to Him.

Today we have the privilege of looking at one of the most oft-quoted verses of the Bible – and one of the most important/foundational ideas for us to understand. Today as we look at chapter 3 of the gospel of John, we’re going to understand that Jesus is the source of eternal life – and that all of us can experience eternal life, if we’ll follow the instructions the word of God gives us.

Let’s pray.

Background: Jesus has just cleared the temple of those who made a mockery of worshiping God and had a small debate with the Jewish religious leaders over his authority to do this. We pick up the story now in John 3:1.

John 3:1 ¶ Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.

John 3:2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

John 3:3 ¶ In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

John 3:4 ¶ “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

Here I don’t think Nicodemus really thinks Jesus is advocating we somehow enter our mother’s womb – he’s asking the same question we ask ourselves sometimes. Can I really have a new start? Is it possible that with all my habits and experiences and failures and successes I can really be born AGAIN?

John 3:5 ¶ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

John 3:6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

John 3:7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’

John 3:8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

1. Every person needs to be born of the Spirit. (John 3:1-8)

We all know that every person needs to have a physical birth. But what Jesus is teaching here is there is another part of us that needs to experience a birth. Our Spirit.

That part of us which is eternal – it is that which truly makes us who we are, and is that which will continue existing even after this physical body rots.

Flesh gives birth to flesh. That’s obvious. What is not so obvious, and is overlooked by so many in this modern age, is that second part of verse 6: the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

Author Philip Yancey, in his book Seeing the Invisible God, wrote:

Every animal on earth has a set of correspondences with the environment around it, and some of those correspondences far exceed ours. Humans can perceive only thirty percent of the range of the sun’s light and 1/70th of the spectrum of electromagnetic energy. Many animals exceed our abilities. Bats detect insects by sonar; pigeons navigate by magnetic fields; bloodhounds perceive a world of smell unavailable to us.

Perhaps the spiritual or "unseen" world requires an inbuilt set of correspondences activated only through some sort of spiritual quickening. "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above," said Jesus. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned," said Paul. Both expressions point to a different level of correspondence available only to a person spiritually alive.