This is the very familiar account of Nicodemus coming one evening to speak to Jesus which results in that very famous discourse about the need to be ‘born again’ and culminating with John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall 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 Nicodemus was a very wealthy, highly respected Pharisee. More than likely a member of the Sanhedrin and a very prominent one at that, Jesus refers to him as ‘…the teacher of Israel’. And Nicodemus came to see Jesus to find out 1 thing. Ok, he starts his questioning with flattery ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ but Jesus, the Son of God, who knows the mind and heart of man, knew what was on Nicodemus’ mind, He knew why he came and gets right to the point ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God’.
And it’s the same question the rich young ruler came to ask Him in Luke 18:18 ‘What must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God?’ And the same question the jailer in Acts 16:30 asks Paul ‘What must I do to be saved?’
The words may be different but they are all seeking the same thing. To see or inherit the Kingdom of God we first must be saved, it’s what Jesus went on to say in v16-17 ‘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’. Which, then, naturally leads to the jailers question ‘What must I do to be saved?’ And what I want to do this morning is look into and hopefully answer that question.
But the 1st thing we must realize is that we need to be saved. Like these 3 men we must examine ourselves and our lives both past and present and realize that it falls far short of the standards God has set and as such, on our own merits we will not and cannot see, inherit or enter the Kingdom of God! That’s why Nicodemus came! He was a Pharisee, the teacher of Israel. There is no doubt he knew the Old Testament and what God required of His people. There is no doubt also that Nicodemus would have done all that he could possibly do to keep all the laws and commands of God plus the added extras passed down through traditions.
But still, unlike the other Pharisees who Jesus describes as ‘hypocrites’; a ‘brood of vipers’; ‘the blind leading the blind’ and as ‘white-washed tombs’, Nicodemus was truly seeking God! He could see that his life didn’t measure up to the holy standards of God and that he needed help! And so he comes to Jesus, a man he knows comes from a poor family, has no education, no training in the things of the law, but from His life, His actions and His teachings he knows that this Jesus has come from God.
Maybe not the Messiah but certainly a prophet from whom no one has heard for 400 years or so. And he comes with this question on his heart ‘What must I do to see the Kingdom of God? To see God? To spend my eternity there, in heaven, with the God of my fathers?’
And the rich young ruler was the same! He knew the law and by the confession of his own mouth he says he’s kept it from his youth, yet he too knew that his works weren’t enough for him to inherit the Kingdom of God, to enter heaven. And so he came to Jesus to ask the most important question a man can ask ‘What must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God? What must I do to be saved?’ And it’s here, with salvation we must always begin. Because salvation is just the start of things and not the end. People have spent years praying for the salvation of various family members and while it is a great time of rejoicing when a person is saved, it is not the end! The prayers shouldn’t stop! For it is now and only now can a person begin to know God. It is now and only now can a person begin to grow in Christ and mature.
1 Corinthians 2:14 ‘The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.’
When we are saved, something happens. The Bible says that the Christian is a ‘New Creation’. Salvation is a lot more than simply putting our hands up in a church service, because when we come to Christ, Christ comes to us! And a transformation takes place. The old is gone and the new has arrived! That heart of stone is replaced by a heart of flesh. At salvation we pass from darkness into light, from death into life. We are, as Jesus says, ‘Born Again’. We are no longer enemies of God but rather children of God! It is at salvation does the Holy Spirit come into our hearts and take His place. And it is then does the work of sanctification and growth and maturing take place!
That is why it took Paul that dramatic meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus to see that He was and is the promised Messiah and that salvation comes only through Him! And so it’s here that we’ll start, and let’s ask the question: Do I need to be saved? I mean look, I’m not in any trouble. I’m not in the middle of a war and there are no riots going on. So far there is no flooding or mud slides to worry about.
I’m not a bad person, alright I may have done some things when I was younger which were a bit mmmmmm but I was young you know, that’s what young people do! And anyway, from what I’ve heard about God, He’s supposed to be good, isn’t that what all these church people say ‘God is love’? If God is good, if He is love then surely He will forgive any and every wrong doing that I’ve done anyway? Do I really need to be saved? Yes! Why? Because we are not being saved from ourselves, we are not being forgiven for our own sake; Jesus didn’t come and lay down His life because we needed it, if God could just forgive us like that then why come to us, suffer and died on that cross? No Jesus came to die for us because the Law of God required it!
Let me try to make that a bit clearer and I’ve used this illustration before, imagine you were out driving in your car. And you drive through a stretch of road clearly marked as a school zone with a 20mph speed limit but you ignore the signs and drive through at 100mph. And, as it happens, the police are out with their cameras and ‘flash’ they take a picture of your car. So the next day you go to court and the judge is the Right Honourable Judge Good, a man famous for his goodness! You don’t have the money for the fine and you don’t want to go to jail for life, but you’re sitting there in the dock smiling.
The judge reads out the charges ‘Mr Evans, you have been caught doing 100mph in a school zone restricted to 20mph, and you were caught on camera doing so. The punishment for this crime is £5,000,000 fine or life in prison.’ and asks you to pay the fine. ‘I haven’t got the money your Honour’ you tell him. ‘Do you want to go to prison for the rest of your life?’ and you reply ‘No’. ‘Then why are you so happy?’ the judge asks. ‘Well judge, you have a reputation for being a good man. The whole world knows of your good deeds and how you give every penny you earn to help the poor and the sick and the orphans. Your name is even Good! And because you are such a good and loving man I’m sure you will overlook my transgression.’
And the judge looks at you and says ‘You’re right about 1 thing, I am a good man, and it’s because I’m a good man that I must see that justice is done! I must see that the punishment for the crime is carried out. If I didn’t that would make me a wicked and corrupt man!’ And God is the same. Yes He is Good, yes He is Love, but it is because He is Good that He MUST see justice done! And the penalty for breaking the Law of God is death! Both physical and spiritual!
And this is the thing, we have all broken the law of God, we have all missed His mark, we have all sinned and fallen short of His standards. If you don’t believe me, just examine your life for a second and ask yourselves these questions:
Have you ever lied? Have you ever said something that isn’t true? Even a white lie, a little lie is enough to break the whole Law of God. When your wife or girlfriend asks ‘Have I put on weight?’ and you answer ‘No love, in fact I think you lost a few pounds’ when you know she’s gone from a small to an extra-large. Or when your husbands or boyfriends bend over and ask ‘Is my hair falling out?’ and you answer ‘No, it’s as thick now as it was when we first met!’ but what she really means is ‘No love, YOU’RE as thick now as when we first met’ even those lies, as kind as they are, are enough to break the law of God!
Have you ever stolen anything? Regardless of price, have you ever stolen anything? Stealing is taking something that doesn’t belong to you. That makes you a thief. Have you ever murdered anyone? No? What about being angry with anyone? Have you ever been angry with anyone? Jesus says if you are angry with anyone then in your heart you have murdered them! Have you ever been angry with anyone?
Already we can say that we are liars, thieves and murderers! Are we still good people? No, we need salvation! If we didn’t think so before we came in I’m sure we do now! And if we’re still not convinced there are 7 other Commandments that will convince us!
That is what Jesus was pointing out to that rich young ruler who came and said ‘I’ve kept the law, I’ve done everything required of me, I’m a good guy, what must I do to inherit the kingdom of God?’ and Jesus said ‘Sell everything you have and give it to the poor’ Why? Does works save a man? No, it’s because his wealth was his god! His money was before God, it was his idol, his master! 1st commandment ‘You shall have NO other gods before Me!’ And Jesus wanted to show him that even he needed a Saviour!
So when we establish we need a Saviour the next question is How am I saved? What do I have to do? How much will it cost me? Who do I have to fight? What must I do? And that’s what Nicodemus was coming to find out, that’s what the rich young ruler came to find out and that’s what the jailer in Acts 16 came to ask Paul!
And the answer is… nothing! Simply believe! We are saved through faith as we are told in Ephesians 2:8-9.
‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’
So what is this faith for salvation? What is faith?
In its simplest form, Faith is Knowledge + Acceptance + Action. And anything less isn’t faith! Let’s go through them quickly.
You must know something to believe it, to accept it. If I said to you ………….. now go and do it you would be like ‘What?’ before you believe or act we must know something. So, now I know, but it is still possible for me to know something and still not believe it, and if I don’t believe it, if I don’t agree with what I know then there can’t be faith! Let me illustrate-
When I was a child I liked to jump on my bed. I would climb on top of my wardrobe and dive, wrestling style, across my room and onto my bed. Now the thought never occurred to me that the bed may actually break so I kept on doing it, and it was great fun! One day my father told me ‘Don’t do that or you’ll break the bed!’ not I may hurt myself or bounce off and break my arm or something but rather I’d break the bed. And I’m sure my mother would have told me the same thing a million times too. Now I have knowledge! Now I know that the bed will break if I keep jumping on it. But I didn’t believe them! I didn’t believe that my bed would break so I kept on doing it! Whenever I was in my room I’d climb up onto my wardrobe and dive across the room onto my bed. And one day the bed broke!! The frame snapped in one corner and there was nothing I could do! So I had to lift it up and balance it on the edge of where it snapped and pretend that everything was alright. And many nights I would be fast asleep and the bed would fall and I’d roll out, but anyway, if I had faith, if I believed, if I was truly 100% sure that what I was told was right I would have stopped jumping on the bed after the 1st time I was told.
Knowledge on its own isn’t faith, we need also to accept it or believe what we know to be true.
But knowledge and acceptance on their own is not faith, there is a 3rd element, the most important element, the proof of faith if you will and that is action. Once we know and believe we must act upon what we know and believe.
There is a story of a boy called little Jonny who was in his home one day and his building caught fire, and he lived on the 5th floor you know, and the fire was so bad he was trapped, he was in trouble. He came to his window but it was too high to jump. And all the locals were gathered around the house trying to put the fire out, but it wasn’t dying. Then came Big John, running down the street. (Big John was Little Jonny’s father) and Big john shouted up ‘Hey son, jump into my arms, I’ll catch you!’ now Big john was the village strong man. His business was actually going round different villages doing incredible acts of strength. And Little Jonny knew this! He knew his father was strong! Plus he believed that his father could catch him, because Big John used to juggle his children for fun around the house. It is part of faith to know that Big John is there, it's another part of faith to believe that he is strong enough to catch you; but the essence, the main part, the proof of faith if you will, is the act of actually dropping down into his arms. And if he doesn’t act, if he doesn’t jump, even with this knowledge and belief, then there is no faith! What does James say? ‘Faith without works is dead!’ and a dead faith saves no one!
So I need a Saviour, and salvation is through faith and faith alone, and faith is Knowledge + Acceptance + Action. The final question is this, what must I know and accept and act upon to be saved?
And the answer is quite simple, if we read Romans 4:23-25 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 we find there are just 4 basic facts to the Gospel:
‘But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.’ (Romans 4:23-25)
‘Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
1) Jesus was delivered by God the Father to the punishment of death because of OUR sins;
2) Jesus Christ was buried;
3) On the 3rd day God raised Him from the dead;
4) Righteousness or salvation is received from God through believing these facts.
That is it! That’s the Gospel! That’s what Paul calls ‘…the power of God unto salvation…’That’s what we need to know, that’s what we need to believe! But what is the action?
Throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus speaks of salvation there is always a condition attached. 'Come to me all you who weary and are heavy laden, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST' Here is the promise of salvation, of rest, the condition or the response is 'Come' we must 'come' to Him for rest or forgiveness.
'Call on the Name of the Lord and YOU WILL BE SAVED' Again a promise of salvation with the condition of us 'calling' on the name of the Lord.
'But whoever drinks the water that I will give him will NEVER THIRST’ And here we are told we are to 'drink'.
Other verses speak of us 'receiving' Christ or 'opening' the door for Him, either way, we are to make an active response to the facts of the Gospel! And the response we make has to be a personal response. No one else can do it for you!
Each of us must 'come' for ourselves. Each of us must 'call' for ourselves. We must 'drink', we must 'receive' we must 'open the door' ourselves, no one else can do it for us! Each of us will be either saved or lost solely by our own response!
And when we come to Him, when we call out to Him He has promised 'The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out' (Jn 6:37) When we respond to these simple facts of the Gospel we can rest in the knowledge that from that point on we are forgiven!
We are saved! Even if there is no light from heaven, even if there are no fireworks or even if time doesn't stand still. We are not saved by emotion or experience, we are saved by faith! Faith in the Gospel and it is as simple as that!
And to finish let me just state those basic facts again:
1) Jesus was delivered by God the Father to the punishment of death because of OUR sins;
2) Jesus Christ was buried;
3) On the 3rd day God raised Him from the dead;
4) Righteousness or salvation is received from God through believing these facts
And ask, have you believed these facts? Have you made a definite, personal response? If not I urge you to do it now and pray with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that You died for my sins; that You were buried; that You rose again on the 3rd day. I now repent of my sins and come to You, I call out to You for mercy and forgiveness. By faith in Your promise I receive You personally as my Saviour and confess You as my Lord. Come into my heart, give me eternal life and make me a child of God.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen!
