Sunday Morning August 11, 2002 Bel Aire Baptist Church
Series: “The Kingdom Is Near” [#2]
SLIDE 1
YOUR TICKET TO HEAVEN
John 3:1-18
Introduction:
1. There has been much discussion in our country about how to make it to Heaven. Many teach that we must be good. Others teach that you just need to believe in something. These people also teach that whether you call Allah god or whoever, that it is all the same.
2. One night, over 2000 years ago, a man asked Jesus what it took to get into Heaven. Look with me in John 3 this morning as we find out how a person can get a ticket to Heaven.
SLIDE 2
The Birth
SLIDE 3-5
John 3:1-7
1. Nicodemus came to Jesus to try figure out exactly who He was, but instead of focusing on that, Jesus focused on what was the most important. Jesus used something that is familiar to everyone, birth.
2. Now, we can see how sin blinds us to spiritual things because Nicodemus could not see past the physical. Just as we must be born physically in order to be given life, we must also be born spiritually to be given eternal life.
3. This just didn’t make since to Nicodemus. By the way, Nicodemus was very well educated in the Law.
4. Nicodemus was being told several things that still apply to lost people today. It doesn’t matter how religious you are. It doesn’t matter what family and race of people you are born into. It doesn’t even matter how much of the Bible you can recite.
5. What matters is: Without Jesus as your Savior, you are spiritually dead and you need to be born of the Spirit of God in order to be given spiritual life.
SLIDE 6
The Wind
SLIDE 7-8
John 3:8-13
1. I can imagine that as Jesus was talking to Nicodemus that the wind picked up.
2. Jesus used this wind as a great example to explain to Nicodemus what faith is.
3. See, the spiritual things of life cannot be detected with the human senses. The Holy Spirit is invisible, just like the wind, yet we believe that there is wind.
4. How do we know there is wind outside? Can you see the wind? Can you taste the wind? Can you smell the wind? No! Then how do we know there is wind? Because we can see the effects of wind.
5. Just as wind is invisible so is the Spirit of God. But also, just as the wind is very powerful so is the Spirit of God.
SLIDE 9
The Serpent On The Pole
SLIDE 10-11
John 3:14-18
SLIDE 12-14
Numbers 21:4-9
1. This story was very familiar to Nicodemus. The people had sinned by rebelling against God and so God had to punish them.
2. God sent poisonous snakes and many people died. The people confessed their sin and Moses went to God for help.
3. Notice what God did. He had Moses make a snake and put it on a pole. The only way the people would not die from the snake bite was to look up at the serpent on the pole.
4. Just as the serpent was lifted on the pole, so was the Son of God lifted up on a cross. Why? To save us from sin and death. In the camp of Israel, the solution to the “serpent problem” was not in killing the serpents, making medicine, pretending they were not there, or climbing the pole. The answer was in looking by faith at the uplifted serpent.
5. The whole world has been bitten by sin and the wages of sin is death. God had to send His Son to die for the “sin problem”. If you will look to Jesus you will find salvation.
Conclusion:
SLIDE 15
Romans 10:9-10, 13
SLIDE 16
1. Jesus is your only ticket to Heaven. Surrender your life to Him today.
2. Christians, please let me remind you that just because you have your ticket to Heaven does not give you the right to live like the devil and to not tell others how they can make it to Heaven.
