Lighting Up Hell On Earth Series

Think with me about some of the most important conversations you have ever had for a moment, will you?

For the married men, what’s your reaction when your wife says, “We need to talk”? Yeah, that’s my reaction, too.

More seriously…

What are some of the most important conversations you’ve had in your life? Any discussion with HR is important, right? Or, when you are talking to the doctor about treatment options, you have to ask, “How much time do I have left?” When you are talking to someone that you want to spend your life with, and you are discussing your future together. One more, how about talking to her father for his daughter’s hand?

Some conversations are so important that they linger in your mind for a long time afterward.

Today’s Scripture

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 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. 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. 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 3:16-21).

The Gospel of John talks about some big weighty items here, including God’s mercy, heaven, and hell. Have you ever noticed how more people talk about hell outside the walls of the church than inside?

If you are doing your best, you are “Trying like hell." You go to your doctor, and she asks you how much you hurt, and you say, “It hurts like hell.” If you are really thrilled about something, they will say, "I’m as excited as hell.” We describe crazy drivers as “Hell on wheels.” When a violent protest takes place, we will say, “All hell broke loose.” A bad spouse is “Hell to live with.” There are people who drive like “A bat out of hell.” What are your odds of winning the lottery? “A snowball's chance in hell.” We like to say, troublemakers, “Raise hell.” We tell people that, “You will have hell to pay.” And we know that before SMU beats TCU, “Hell will freeze over.”

I hope with all the talk about hell outside the church, you will forgive Jesus for talking about hell inside the church this morning.

1. Why Should I Care About This?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

1.1 How Much Time Should You Devote to John 3

This is the 4th message (with one more coming) focused on a conversation and the aftermath between Nicodemus and Jesus. How much time should we devote to this one conversation? How much time should you read and study this one chapter?

The TV show Simpsons played on Fox from December 17, 1989, to the present. There was a total of 35 years for a total of 765 episodes. With each episode lasting around 22 minutes, you would spend 16,830 minutes, or a little less than 280.5 hours in total, watching every episode of The Simpsons. If you are not a fan of the cartoon but are more a fan of Grey’s Anatomy. The medical drama premiered on March 27, 2005, on ABC and is still running. If you were to watch every single one of the 380 episodes, you would have devoted 16,340 minutes or a little more than 272 hours of your life to the personal lives of fictional people at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. You will spend 6 months waiting for a red light to turn green at stoplights in an average life.1

If you wonder just how much time to devote to the conversation found in John 3, you can read the entire chapter in a matter of minutes. If you were here for all 5 sermons on John 3, each one lasting an average of around 30 minutes, and if you were actually listening to all of them, then you would have spent 2.5 hours listening, studying, and reading about Jesus’ famous conversation with Nicodemus. Is this conversation important enough to devote 2.5 hours of your life to? Is this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, where the Son of God says, “You must be born again,” important enough to give 2.5 hours of your time? Before you answer that, consider the following.