YOUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON THIS
Text: John 3:14 - 21
John 3:14-21 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (15) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (16) "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (17) "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. (20) For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. (21) But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." (NRSV).
“The Biggest bulldozer in the world is the D575a. It’s 16 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 41 feet high. It weighs 225,000 pounds. It’s a huge machine to bulldoze dirt. A few years ago it came to a country where there was an overload of garbage, and the bulldozer was brought in to
dig a hole that would collect the garbage and remove it from the lives of the the citizens.
On the cross, God dug a hole so big He could collect the sins of the whole world---past, present and future. On the cross, He gathered all the sin …. and made Him who had no sin to be sin for us [2 Corinthians 5:21]”. (Tony Evans. Tony Evans’s Book of Illustrations. Chicago: Moody Press, 2009, p. 186). In John 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (ESV). Why does Jesus all that He mentions in John 3:14-21? There seems to be two reasons. First, condemnation happens because of neglect. Secondly, this can be no doubt that Jesus mentions this fact because of the promise of John 3:16!
John 1:5 says The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (ESV). John 3:19 says 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 (ESV).
Someone (F. F Bruce) said, “In a well-ordered polity those who practice evil practice it secretly [in the dark; they do not wish to be found out and brought to book. …. If men ad women are judged by the light, they are judged by the light available to them”. (F. F. Bruce. The Gospel & Epistles of John. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1983, p. 92). Why do those things that we practice in the dark matter? Those things matter because if we believe in Jesus Christ, we will not be condemned---judged ( John 1:18 a). If, on the other hand we do not believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are judged by our own decisions (John 1:18b) because Jesus Christ did not come to judge the world but to save the world (John 3:17). Those things matter because our future depends on the decisions we make regarding those things!
Jesus Christ did not come to judge the world but to save the world (John 3:17). Our future depends on the decision we make about Jesus Christ! Today we want to focus on character, amnesia and the cross!
CHARACTER
Don’t light and darkness contradict each other? How much light have you been given?
1) The Inquiring Pharisee: Like Nicodemus, we will be judged by how we respond to how much light we have been given!
2) The character of Pharisees: By their character in scripture, we can observe that they were often arrogantly self-centered and self-righteous and powerful. They often loved those who were just like them while excluding others that Jesus would welcome.
3) A well ordered polity: Nicodemus was connected with a “well-ordered polity” that was shady because from what we know about Pharisees is that their motives were not always pure. Like Nicodemus we are confronted with a “well ordered polity” that demands us to choose in harmony or opposition with that order. Now that Nicodemus (a Pharisee) came into contact with Jesus who is the light and life of men, he had a choice to make.
4) Nicodemus’s choice: Nicodemus became a secret disciple. He might have been in the same camp as the Pharisees but he was secretly a dissenter of the Pharisee point of view.
“In a gallery where artistic masterpieces are on display, it is not the masterpieces but the visitors that are on trial. The works which they may view are not there to abide their question, but they reveal their own taste (or lack of it) by their reactions to what they see. The pop-star who was reported some years ago to have dismissed the Mona Lisa as a ‘load of rubbish’ (except that he used a less polite word than rubbish) did not tell us anything about the Mona Lisa; he told much about himself. What is true of the aesthetic realm is equally true in the spiritual realm. The man who depreciates Christ, or thinks Him unworthy of his allegiance, passes judgement on himself, not Christ. (F. F. Bruce. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing, Co. 1983, p. 91). John 3:1 (18) Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
Do we possess godliness or just a form of godliness? Is that the point that Jesus was making to Nicodemus? Is that even possible? The answer is yes!
1) False godliness: Isaiah 5:20 reminds us that all people call good evil and evil good. Consider 2 Timothy 3:2- 5: For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance [form KJV] of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people (ESV). That is why our behavior must be in harmony with our belief. That is why we must live the gospel message by being obedient to God or we can deceive ourselves that we are religious through our forms and yet deny God’s power in our lives and grieve His Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)!
“...people do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” — D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Crossway, 1999)
2) Babylonian Blue Prints: What can happen when we do things our own way? Remember the Tower of Babel? Remember Adam an Eve in the Garden of Eden prior to the fall? Remember what happened when Lucifer rebelled against God? In each case there were consequences. Adam and Eve got expelled from the Garden. The people of Babel were scattered all over the earth. Lucifer along with the angels who followed him in his rebellion were cast out of Heaven.
The point is that unless we build in harmony with God’s plans we build in vain: Psalm 127:1 says “Unless the Lord builds the house, we build in vain”.
AMNESIA
Do we get spiritual amnesia about how God has delivered us? Jesus mentions being lifted up four times in the Gospel of John (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32 and 12:34). When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about how Moses lifted up a bronze snake on a pole he was reminding Nicodemus about how the children of Israel angered the Lord because they complained even after they had been delivered (Numbers 24:1- 9). The had spiritual amnesia because they complained about lacking food and water and accused Moses, who was God’s chosen leader, of leading them to the desert to starve them to death!
There was a man in a mental institution that had the delusion that he was dead. His counselor got sick of the ongoing routine of this man's delusion. "Eureka," he thought to himself of the solution to cure this patient of his delusion after several failing attempts. He thought that he would prick the finger of this delusional patient and prove to him that he was alive. During his next session with this patient, he pricked his finger in much the same way they do in the field of medicine when they need a small sample of blood for the purpose of running tests. After he pricked the finger of this patient, he thought he might possibly be cured of his delusion as he exclaimed something like "Look at there, you are not dead because you can still bleed". To his surprise, the patient responded, "That only proves that dead people can bleed." Jesus shed His blood to wash away our sin! We are dead without Jesus! Apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5) but die!
Do you remember that the Gospel is a wrecking ball? As one person (Russell Moore) put it, “Jesus came to … wreck our lives, so that he could join us to his.” (Russell Moore. Onward. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2015, p. 5). Again, apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5) but die!
“Dr. Samuel Weinstein, chief of pediatric cardio-thoracic surgery for Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, went to El Salvador in 2006 with Heart Care International to provide life-saving operations for poor children.
It would take more than expertise and advanced equipment to save the life of Francisco Calderon Anthony Fernandez, eight, however. After twelve hours of surgery, the boy began to bleed out of control. The hospital lacked both the medicines to stop the bleeding and the blood to give the boy transfusions. Francisco’s blood type was B-negative, which — according to the American Red Cross — is present in only 2 percent of the population.
Dr. Weinstein had the same blood type. So he set aside his scalpel, took off his gloves, and began washing his hands and forearm. Then he sat down and had his blood drawn.
When he had given his pint, Dr. Weinstein drank some bottled water and ate a Pop-Tart. Then — twenty minutes after stepping away from the table — he rejoined his colleagues, who watched as Weinstein’s blood began flowing into the boy’s small veins. Weinstein then completed the operation that saved Francisco’s life. — Jim Fitzgerald, “Doc Stops Surgery to Give Own Blood to Patient,” LiveScience.com (May 26, 2006), {Source: Craig Brian Larson 1001 Illustrations that Connect.Grand Rapids: Zondervan press). Jesus allowed others to crucify Him and shed His blood as the lamb of God so that He could take away our sin (John 1:29) and give us His righteousness II Corinthians 5:21). Remember John 3:16?
THE CROSS
Do you remember the seven sayings of the cross?
1) Forgiveness: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 22:34). Jesus illustrates a depth o forgiveness that we wrestle with! Can we forgive others without His help?
2) Assurance: "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Here is a deathbed conversion. Acts 2:21 tells us, "Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (NRSV). Who else can give us the assurance of salvation?
3) Care of family: "Woman, behold, thy son! Behold, thy mother!" (John 19:26). Jesus is telling John to look after His mother Mary who was more than likely widowed by that time. We can also conclude that Jesus was making sure that His mother was going to be taken care of even as He was in great agony. How else can we carry on with peace except for the victory over death that only Christ alone can give to us?
4) Separation: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). God's eyes are to pure to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13). It was also a fulfillment of a prophesy from Psalm 22:1. Jesus felt the emotion of what it was like to be separated from God the Father as the lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Jesus took our place and paid the price for our redemption! He paid the price and took our penalty!
5) Humiliation: "I thirst" (John 19:28). "Some scholars believe this fulfilled Scripture is Psalm_69:21, “They offer me sour wine to satisfy my thirst.” Thus, Jesus said, “I thirst.” This emphasizes Jesus’ humiliation. Others point to Psalm_42:2, “I thirst for God, the living God.” This affirms Jesus’ submission to the Father. In either case, Scripture was fulfilled". (Life Application New Testament Commentary).
6) Once and for all: Hebrews 7:27: Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself" (NRSV). It is finished" (John 19:30). Jesus paid a debt that we would never be able to pay. He paid the ransom for us. We were bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:20, 7:23). When Jesus was 12 He told His mother that He had gone to the temple because He was about His Father's business (Luke 2:49). "It is finished" also means paid in full!
7) Finish line: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). John Wesley sums this verse up very well: "The Father receives the Spirit of Jesus: Jesus himself the spirits of the faithful" (John Wesley's Notes on the Bible). It is because of what Christ has done for us on the cross that we confidence that our salvation is secure! As it has been said, we will not always know what our future holds be we can have the assurance of Jesus Christ who holds our future if we know Him as our Lord and Savior!
Do we exalt the cross of Jesus Christ in our lives and witness? Scholars say that this “lifting up” points to a double meaning. The meaning is not just that the emblem was lifted up physically, but also an emblem of Jesus’s exaltation. It has been said that “Lent is spring training for Christians, and Easter is opening day!” If we are the Easter people, (and we are!) do we raise our voices, exalting Jesus as Lord of our lives in all of our choices? Do we lift high the cross of Jesus remembering its triumphant sign?” Do we remember that our witness in lifestyle, word and deed effect for better or worse those who are watching us? How well do we remember that our future depends on this?
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! Amen.
