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Or was it a sign of desperation, that a few weeks ago the Victorian government appointed a parliamentary secretary for men’s behavioural change?
Where does change come from? A lot of domestic violence, drug abuse, knife crime, price gouging, escalating suicide rates. Where does change come from? How do the proud become humble? The selfish become caring? The miserly become generous? The indulgent become faithful? It’s a tantalising question for government, it’s a tantalising question for leaders in our society. But how does change happen?
Our sons went to a school in Sydney which every year they would win the basketball competition for their school. They had an excellent basketball coach. Basketball is a summer port, as you know, and Morrisey had been a basketball player and he had a way of winning basketball competitions and urging boys on. And in the winter season they had to give him something to do so they gave him a lower grade rugby side. He generally took the 14 D’s or the 14 E’s.
And on one occasion he said to his team, he said boys, rugby can be summed up by one word beginning with the letter F. Now what is that word? And the boys all stood around and they thought one word beginning with a letter F to sum up rugby and one boy, brother, tentatively put up his hand and he said “is it field position sir?” No, No, Morrisey said, it’s not field position. Come on, one word beginning with the letter F and the boys were stopped. They had no idea what this word was beginning with the letter F and he said it is Phases boys, Phases! Rugby is all about phases and one little boy put his hand up and the assistant coach said, don’t worry about it mate, forget all about it.
Now you know that phases are a good way to sum up conversations, he said, she said,one phase; she said, he said, one phase.
And here, we are introduced in this terrific reading John chapter 3. If you have your Bibles open there it will be a great help to me and to you.
You can see that the Lord Jesus is involved in a 3-phase conversation. And for those of you who have this excellent outline for our weekend you’ll see that what I’ve got is summarised there and the text is there as well. So you can follow it. And so here we are in John’s Gospel. And here are 3-phases in a conversation where they ware introduced to Jesus as a personal worker. And you know that in the Chapter before in John’s Gospel Jesus has turned water into wine, so much so, that a lot of people came to believe in Him. And we have this last verse of John Chapter 2, which says that Jesus needed no one to give Him advice about man for He knew what was in a man and He didn’t commit Himself to man.
Now there was a man, you see, Chapter 3 verse 1. If Jesus knew so much about people, then let’s see how Jesus goes with this test case, with this one man and we’re told a number of things about him. We’re told that he was a Pharisee, verse one, a man who is a Pharisee. We’re told that he has a name, Nicodemus. We’re told that he’s a ruler of the Jews. What’s his position like? He’s something like a combination of a senator, a judge, and a university professor. He’s a man of some influence and he’s all wrapped into one and he has a reputation to protect. He doesn’t want everybody to know that he’s come to Jesus. So he comes at night, to the Lord Jesus. And notice in verse two, that in this first phase of the conversation he gives Jesus the respectable title but he hides behind the royal We. We know teacher, rabbi, that you’re a teacher who’s come from God because no one can do the signs you do. And Jesus had been doing many signs. But we know that one, is that He took water and He turned it into wine. We know that God is with Him. We know that God is with you. And so the conversation begins phase one and Jesus, notice, is in a direct response, in verse three he gives solemn response? He says truly, truly, in the old translation, verily, verily… Truly, truly, he says, I say to you, verse 3, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. You’ll never see the Kingdom of God. You’ll never enter into God’s family. You’ll never enter into God’s realm unless you have been born again. You go, well I am very religious or I read my Bible everyday. Well that’s all very good but unless you’ve been born again, according to the Lord Jesus, you will never see the Kingdom of God. Now do you remember when you went to school and they parsed verbs? Tell me the tense of the verb, tell me the person of the verb, tell me whether it was plural or singular, and let’s parse this verb because it says unless one is born again, its third person, he, she or it.
It’s singular … que’hí … . or shee … and it’s past tense, unless you have been and it’s passive … that’s incredibleism. So this is not a command, you must be born again Nicodemus, it is a statement, unless one has been born again, that is passive you will not enter the kingdom of God. It is a statement and it is not a command and Jesus is making this statement to a very religious Jewish ruler. Unless one has been born again you will not enter or see the kingdom of God.
Now phase two comes in verse eight. Nicodemus again leads the conversation and he takes, rather ridiculously, but he takes Jesus literally when Jesus is speaking figuratively. And Nicodemus says what do you mean that a person has gotta climb back into their mother’s womb in order to be born again out of the womb?
That’s rather like in the next chapter where Jesus offers living water to the woman of Samaria and she says you don’t even have a bucket. How can you give me living water? Jesus is speaking figuratively and yet He’s being taken literally. And so Jesus verse 5 simply repeats what He said but He puts it in another way. Unless one has been born of water and water means cleansing and the Spirit, that is unless God cleanses you and you’ve been born of the Spirit, you’re passive God is active. Then that person according to verse 5 will not enter the kingdom of God. So you won’t see it and you won’t enter it unless you have been born… .. again, born literally from above. I am passive but God is active.
And Jesus goes on in verse 6 and He says, You see to be born physically, it’s important to be born physically, no one is here who hasn’t been born physically, you’ve been born physically, so you’re here. You’re not in a family, apart from being born physically of the flesh into that family. And so now you need a spiritual birth. To be born physically, earthly family, to be born spiritually, you must come and have a spiritual birth to enter God’s family. And he follows it up. Look at verse eight, he says that the Spirit is as sovereign as the wind. It blows wherever it will. So this birth is not humanly controlled, it is controlled of God. And God’s Spirit cannot be controlled. It’s as sovereign as the wind. So in this conversation I gather, and we’re sitting in on a conversation of Jesus, the personal worker, and this man Nicodemus, I need this born again, I am passive in being born again. It is something that God does. It is as essential as being physically born into a family, spiritual birth into God’s family. It is not a command, it is a statement. You must have been born again!
Now these days I think we talk about, oh, he’s a Christian, he’s one of those born again types, as though there is a type of Christian who has not been born again. It’s what’s called a tautology, saying the same thing twice. There is a bespectacled lady who wears glasses.
There is an employed man who has a job. There is a mother who has children, you’re saying the same thing twice. There is a born-again Christian. You cannot be a Christian according to the Lord Jesus if you have not been born again. And if you are a Christian, then you have been born again. Now notice that this man was very religious, but he still needed to have been born again and he wasn’t qualified by being very religious.
In the next chapter, we meet an unnamed woman, she doesn’t come to the well during the day. She comes at midday so that there is no one else there at the hottest time of day to draw water because she’s got a record too. And her record is, that she has been married 5 times and she’s now living together with her de facto, now isn’t that incredible. And Jesus approaches her, and offers her living water. So she is not disqualified by her marital record.
And Nicodemus the religious man is not qualified by his religious record, and so it just shows you that across the whole spectrum Jesus has interest. And He says you must have been born again, Jesus is for the up and outer, Jesus is for the down and outer, Jesus is for the middle and outer. Nicodemus not qualified by being religious and the woman is not disqualified by her marital record. So look again, Phase 1, we know that you’re a teacher, come from God, you’ve got to have been born again. Or how, by going back into my mother’s womb, Phase 2, no, it must be something the Spirit does, and He is as uncontrollable as the wind.
Phase 3, look at verse 9. Again Nicodemus initiates, he leads the way and he says, how can these things be? And Jesus is surprised. He says, what? You’re Israel’s teacher, you’re the professor of Scripture, you know the Old Testament frontwards and backwards and yet you’re surprised at this? Don’t you realise that this is what the prophets were talking about? They promise that God would come and give a new heart to His people that He would put a new spirit within them. I’m simply talking to you about what your scriptures tell you about, and you are surprised… … and I want you to know that I have been to heaven and I know what I am talking about. You must have been born again. So Lord Jesus how can I be in Heaven? Lord Jesus how can I see and be a part of your kingdom? Lord Jesus how can I enter into your family? You must have been born again.
Hey, it must have happened to you!
Now when you get home, you can Google the great evangelical awakenings and you will find a man who was very prominent in the United States by the name of George Whitfield. And whenever George Whitfield got out into the fields and preached, he always preached on these verses. You must have been born again. And on one occasion, someone said, why are you always pushing this, and telling us we must have been born again. And Whitfield simply responded, because you must have been born again.
It’s an absolute necessity. Birth, is passive. You know that probably if you can remember your own experience or you’ve observed it. You are passive in the process. It is something God does. It is something which I cannot earn. It gives me entry into God’s family and it brings about a whole new way in life. I remember when my father was 48 in 1962 coming into my bedroom and telling me that he had been born again, that he had become a Christian. And as I observed him over the next days I could see that though he had not become a perfect man, he had become a new man. He lived according to an obviously new pattern. He had become a follower of Jesus. It is as though he had been born all over again.
Now, Maxine and I in our past have been invited to a parliamentary reception for the Royal Family in our capital in Canberra. We were told what to wear, we were told what time to be there, we were told that if we got presented to the royal couple, this was how we were to address them. And I guess if you are in London and get invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, it’s not come as you are, wear what you like. No, you come at this time, you present yourself at this gate, you wear these clothes, you bring this invitation with you and you make sure that if you’re introduced to a member of the Royal Family, you use the appropriate forms of address. Now if royalty has the right to determine who comes to them and on the basis on which we come, then I take it that the Lord Jesus, who is the Universal Lord through whom and by whom all things have been made, has the right to say these are the standards. If you’re going to enter my family you must have been born again. And that’s what Jesus is saying to this man and that’s what he says to the woman in the next chapter when he offers her living water. And the key is this verse, look at it there, it’s the last verse on page 10 of our outline for the weekend. Verse 16. For God, so loved the world, that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Is it not a magnificent verse? Someone said there in that one verse is the Bible in miniature. In Billy Graham in all his meetings. The first meeting when he went to any city, he preached on that verse, at the first meeting every crusade he went to. For God so loved the world, that he gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
You pick up a Gideon’s bible in a hotel or in a hospital somewhere, and you look on the inside cover and it is that verse which is translated into 22 different languages.Because it is that verse which sums up everything that the Bible has to say to us.
And yet I put it to you that that verse is probably the most shocking verse in the whole of the Bible, and we have tamed it down so it no longer shocks us. And here are the three reasons why Verse 16 is a shocking verse. First, it tells us that God loved the world, and the world was not lovable. The world was not lovely. The world is the world which shook it’s fist at God, which rejected God, which mocked God, which spat in the face of God, and we are told that God loved the world back. And you say well that’s easily said.
Well look at the second shot, God so loved the world, that He came. He did not just love the world in word, He loved the world in deed. He gave His dearest and best, He gave what it says there His only Son.
Now, Maxine and I have five children, put any of those children in a life-threatening situation and put anybody here in a life-threatening situation and I can only save one. I’ll naturally save my child.
But this verse tells us that for the world which rejected Him, God turns His face away from His Son, His one and only Son. So that His love can go out to you and me who are part of the unlovely world. It’s a shock, He loved, He gave.
And look at what the rest of the verse says, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish. We don’t like that thought, do we. But it’s true, there is an eternal perishing and you will stop perishing and you will have the opposite life bu coming to believe in Him. And unless you believe in Him, you’ll keep perishing and you’ll go on perishing forever. But once you believe in Him, you have life, a new quality of life, living in relationship with God, being part of God’s family, and a life which goes on forever.
Three shocks. And you say all right Mr Preacher, well what do you want me to believe? What must I believe? Well look at the previous verses, verse 14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, we know in the Old Testament this was Mount Hor. The people of God were whingeing and complaining and so God in order to punish them for their whingeing and complaining, sent serpents through the people and serpents bite the people and some of them die and others of them are very ill. So the people come to God and say please intercede to God, please plead to God to get rid of these serpents. And God says here’s the deal. I want you to take brass, melt it down and shape it in the shape of a serpent and put it in the middle of the camp and tell the people that they must look to the serpent and when they look to the serpent they will be healed. Now if you’re an Israelite and you’ve been whingeing and God’s punishment for you is to send a serpent to bite you and you’re dying of serpent bite the very last thing you want to be told is to look to a serpent on the pole. But by looking into that serpent on the pole, I’m recognizing that that is the punishment I deserved and God was right to punish me in this way. And so I looked to the serpent recognizing that’s the punishment I deserve for my whingeing and I’m miraculously healed. And in the same way the Son of Man is lifted up on the Cross that whoever looks to Him and recognizes that’s what I deserved. He’s bearing the punishment which I deserved and He’s doing it for me, God’s judgement is right and if you look through the Son and recognize that He’s there in your place then you have eternal life, that’s what you believe! Look at that serpent, that’s what I deserve! Look at that Son, the only Son lifted up for me … cast yourself on Him … and you’ll have eternal life,
That’s the judgment I deserve.
He took it for me. And that’s what The New Testament affirms, doesn’t it? Christ died for our sin. He died in our place. The one who had no sin of His own bore our sin. It was debited to His account. And He goes and pays the price for it by being lifted up on the cross.
I don’t know if you have seen that movie, The Doctor, starring William Hurt. He’s a surgeon. He has no bedside manner. He has no friends. He’s got one acquaintance. And he receives a terrible diagnosis. That he himself needs major surgery. And it’s really possible that he will not survive the major operation. And as they’re wheeling him into the operating theatre, his one acquaintance comes out and says to him, Oh I wish I could go with you. And William Hurt says I don’t want you to go with me, I want you to go instead of me.
Take my place.
And the Lord Jesus comes and He bears the guilt that I deserve for all my pride and arrogance and my lack of humility. He bears it all. And He substitutes for me. Lifted up was He to die. It is finished, was His cry. Now in heaven exalted by what a Saviour, He takes my place.
And so that brings us to John 3:16. Do you see Jesus lifted up in your place? For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
And one great christian writer said there would be a lot of people in hell who can recite that verse.
A lot of people in hell who are eternally perishing because they can merely recite that verse.
Mr Preacher, you’ve said I’ve got to be born again. It’s something which God does by His Spirit. It’s something in which I’m passive. I want to be born again. Do you? Then take John 3:16. and do what I did many years ago. Can you place your name there? Because unless you’re born again, you can’t place your name there. And if you have been born again, through listening to Jesus then you’ll place your name there. Look at how it reads , for God, verse 16, so loved David that He gave His only son that when David believes in Him, David should not perish, but David would have everlasting life. You can’t place your name there unless you’ve been born again. Have I been born again? Can I put a date on it? Maybe you can’t put a date on it. Maybe you haven’t been born again. And yet ask God to help you and you put your name there. Yes, it was for me. God so loved me that He sent His Son so that when I believe in Him, I will no longer perish, but I’ll be drawn into the family of God, and I will have eternal life! Have you placed your name there? Oh, but I’m very religious, forget it. Oh but I’ve got a past that you wouldn’t want to know about, forget it. Come to Him and ask Him to help you place your name there and when you do, you know you’ve been born again from above.
A three phased conversation, you must have been born again. It’s something which God does. It means a huge internal revolution. It was for me. He came and sent His son for me. and verse 17 simply goes on and says this is why God sent His son into the world not to get them the world but to bring salvation to you and to bring salvation to me.
So I’m on my flight and I’m going to Perth and I’m sitting with a lady next to me whose name is Chrissy. We’ve just set out from Sydney to Perth about three and a half hours and she tells me that she’s lost 13 kilos. She’s been on this magnificent diet.Well, I’m all ears. I like to make hobbies of diets. I’m really interested in diets. And I say to her, well tell me, how did you lose your 13 kilos? I’m sorry, I asked. She says, resist all sugar. No sugar. And along comes the flight attendant and offers us all sorts of goodies. She says, no David, it’s full of sugar. It’s full of sugar. It’s full of sugar. And this went on for three and a half hours and finally as we neared Perth, having had no sugar, which I think is the equivalent of child abuse, I said to her Chrissy I want you to know, she knew now that I was a Christian, I said someone somewhere said, and I think it’s true, you don’t have a soul.
Listen. You don’t have a soul. You are a soul, you have a body. And one day that body, whether it’s overweight or thirteen kilograms has been lost, one day that body is going to drop off.
And your soul, your conscious part, eternal part is going to be left.
Think about the health of your soul.
Do you recognise that Jesus died in your place God’s one and only son. And have you placed your Name in John 3.16? We used to teach our Children a prayer. It’s simple, but it’s not simplistic.
It went like this Say to God, “I’m sorry that I’ve ignored you and gone my own way.”
Say to God,” thank you for sending Jesus to take my place and pay my penalty on the cross. Please forgive me and take over and rule my life as a newborn child of you”. Sorry, thank you, please. Sorry, thank you, please. And maybe tonight is a great night for you to pray if you haven’t prayed that before. That sort of prayer simple, not simplistic. I’m sorry, Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus. Please now forgive me and rule my life.
And place your name there. And you’ll have found that in order to place your name there, God’s Spirit, who is as sovereign as the wind has done something miraculous tonight. And He’s turned you to Christ. He’s turned you away from your religion. He’s turned you away from trying to be better. He’s turned you away from your self-centered thinking. He said, yes, that’s for me. For God so loved David, that He gave His only Son, that when David believes in Him, David should not perish but he should have eternal life. And if tonight you have done this let me commend to you your two terrific pastors Hamish and Sam. They would love to hear from you, two fine men in ministry here, come and talk to them, and that will make their year.
Morning Church: Sunday, 8:30am & 10:30am
Kids Church: 8:30am & 10:30am
Playgroup: Friday, 9:30am
Youth: Sunday, 3:30pm
Evening Church: 5:00pm
WATCH LIVE: from 8:30am
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