12-10-06 Son Of God Pt. 4
Last week we finished our study of the first 21 verses of John chapter 3.
Well, we almost finished it,
but not quite.
What we have left of our study of that passage
concerns not so much what is in the passage
as what is not.
I concluded last week
by telling you that
from the very beginning of our study of these verses
there has been something about them
that has troubled me.
This section of John’s gospel
is among the best known passages in the Bible.
And that is because it contains verses
and statements
that are frequently used by Christians
in what we typically call evangelism -
presenting the message about Jesus Christ
to non-Christians
with the hope that they will hear,
and understand,
and accept the offer of salvation through faith in Christ.
By now you know that it is in this passage
that Christ tells us, “You must be born again...”.
And it is in this passage in which we find Him telling us that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
These statements,
and others like them in this passage all come from a personal interview
that Jesus had late one night
with a man named Nicodemus.
They are statements
that present with powerful clarity and simplicity
the heart of what our God wants us to know
about what He was saying to us
and doing for us through Jesus Christ.
This is the Good News of God.
But I ended last week
by telling you that the one thing that troubles me about this passage
is that Jesus doesn’t end it
the way I would have expected Him to.
He didn’t end it with an alter call.
He didn’t seem concerned
about moving Nicodemus to the point of decision or commitment.
He didn’t ask him if he wanted to be born again.
He simply presented Nicodemus with the information he needed
and then concluded the interview.
Why didn’t He say, “Now, Nicodemus, do you believe in Me?”
Or, “Will you receive the salvation I’m offering you?”
Why didn’t Jesus do it the way we do?
And even pointing this out
makes me terribly uncomfortable
because I know that none of us ever find our way back to our God
except by choice.
My own entrance into the Kingdom of God began with a choice.
I remember the night,
I remember knowing that my God was asking me to choose,
and I remember knowing it was a real, crucial, and necessary choice.
And there have been times since then
when I have said to another person,
“The real battle you’re fighting in your life right now
is a battle with your Creator.
He wants you.
He wants your life.
And He wants you to choose to place your life into His hands.”
And then I’ve asked them
if they want to make that choice.
And sometimes, if they’ve said yes,
and then allowed me to lead them through expressing that choice to God,
it has resulted in a dramatic change in the months that follow,
with their life heading in an entirely new direction,
and even their physical appearance changing...their countenance changing,
just as if ...well, just as if they’d been born again.
But to be honest,
sometimes that doesn’t happen that way.
Sometimes there are no observable changes that take place.
And when there are no observable changes
I’ll be honest in saying
that it does make me wonder whether that rebirth took place.
But because this is one of the key evangelistic passages in Scripture,
and because Jesus is clearly presenting to Nicodemus
the need for each of us to enter the Kingdom of God
through the rebirth of our spirits,
when Jesus didn’t end this interview
by requiring some sort of a choice or commitment from Nicodemus
it bothered me.
Why didn’t He?
Now, the most obvious answer to that question
is that Jesus knew Nicodemus’ heart
and He must have known that Nicodemus had already made
whatever internal choices needed to be made
so no external question was needed.
But I think there may be more to it than that.
You see, this is not an isolated incident.
The truth is, Jesus never had alter calls.
He never ended on of His many mass meetings
by asking all those who wanted to choose Him as their leader
to come forward.
In fact, frequently we saw Him doing exactly the opposite.
Luke tells us that, LUK 11:29...as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, "This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah.
When He saw more people coming
He made His teaching harder
because He knew they did not understand what He was saying.
And then following that incident in which He miraculously fed several thousand people
He didn’t have to ask anyone to come forward.
They simply stormed Him.
John says,
JOH 6:14-15 When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world."
Here it is again - the masses flocking to Him,
and this time they were coming to crown Him King.
But listen to what John says next.
Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
There were certainly times when He specifically chose certain individuals for Himself,
and confronted them with a choice, asking them to “follow me”,
but most of the time He simply presented people with the truth -
about Himself,
and about the Father,
and about the true nature of life,
and then He walked away,
leaving each person to churn through the information they’d received on their own.
And never did He take the approach to gaining followers
that we so often do.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I’m certainly not suggesting
that what we so often do in evangelism is wrong.
Confronting people
about what they will choose to do with Jesus Christ
can be of tremendous value.
But I will admit
that the more closely I look at some of the examples we have in Scripture
the more it has caused me to rethink some of the assumptions I’ve held all my life.
And one of the things it’s made me realize in a new way
is that true saving faith in Jesus Christ
is absolutely a matter of the heart,
not the result of any external action on our part.
When the heart submission and faith is there,
the external action of praying is of great value.
But when the heart submission and faith are not there,
the external prayer changes nothing at all.
We have a number of salvation prayers given to us in Scripture,
situations in which we are allowed to witness a person
at that point at which they enter into the Kingdom of God.
But almost none of them make it into our evangelistic tracts or sermons
because they don’t fit with the systems we’ve built up around the message of Christ.
Do you want to hear some of them?
How about that conversation between Jesus and the thief on the cross next to Him?
LUK 23:39-43 And one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!" But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."
“Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”
That was it.
Those were the words that accompanied his transition into the Kingdom of God.
And here’s another one.
LUK 19:1-10 And He entered and was passing through Jericho. And behold, there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; and he was a chief tax-gatherer, and he was rich. And he was trying to see who Jesus was, and he was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. And he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." And he hurried and came down, and received Him gladly. And when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." And Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
So why don’t we use that prayer as our standard prayer of salvation?
"Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."
Of course, if that was the prayer we offered new converts,
there would be far fewer new converts.
But those clearly were the words
that signaled Zaccheus’ entrance into the kingdom of God.
"Today salvation has come to this house...”
And sometimes the words God asks us to speak
are even worse than that.
I think my own salvation prayer was worse.
Though I didn’t really recognize it for what it was until a number of years later
because it didn’t fit the pattern I’d been handed by my church heritage,
do you want to hear the prayer God had me pray
at that point at which I entered the Kingdom of God?
I was 19 years old.
I had what I thought was a pretty good life mapped out for me in the years ahead.
I didn’t know where I was going,
but I had three more years of school ahead of me
and lots of time to find a career direction that fit me.
And then this terrifying thought came to mind.
Would I be a preacher.
For several weeks I fought the thought with everything I had.
It was a horrible idea,
an idea that, if I agreed to it, would ruin my life forever.
And yet I could find no peace until I finally said these 12 words to God.
“If you want me to be a preacher, I’ll be a preacher.”
And for me,
it was that prayer that marked my entrance into the Kingdom of God.
A number of years ago
I shared with you
a prayer with which I frequently begin my day.
It isn’t even a sentence really,
just six words that help me express
a longing that I so often feel.
“Lord, that I may know You...”
Several months after I gave the talk in which I mentioned that prayer
I ran into a person who use to attend our fellowship.
She’d been there that morning,
gotten a copy of the notes,
and then passed them onto a non-Christian friend of hers.
Her friend read them,
and when she got to that prayer in the notes
she told her friend later that she found herself thinking, “That’s it! That’s what I want!”
And she prayed those six words to God.
From what I was told,
the transformation that took place in her life from that point on
left no doubt whatsoever
that she’d become a Christian.
And if we wanted to take the time,
we could look at an incident that is recorded for us
in Acts chapter 8.
The last 15 verses of that chapter
tell us about an encounter between Philip
and a governmental official from Ethiopia.
The man was reading a passage from Isaiah
and asked Philip what it was talking about.
When Philip finished his explanation
the Ethiopian said to Philip,
ACT 8:36 ..."Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?"
That was all.
That was his profession of faith
that marked his transition into the Kingdom of God.
Now look at all of these prayers.
“Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”
"Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."
“If you want me to be a preacher, I’ll be a preacher.”
“Lord, that I may know You...”
"Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?"
Everyone of those sentences
marked some person’s transition
from the kingdom of darkness
into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
And then
when we come to this passage here in John chapter 3,
and we listen in on Jesus’ conference with Nicodemus
there’s no prayer at all,
no external expression of faith or trust in Christ.
And yet we know from comments that John makes about Nicodemus later in his Gospel
that this two minute conversation with Jesus
brought about in Nicodemus a commitment to Christ
that surpassed even what we saw in the Apostles.
I’m not an evangelist,
so I am rarely with a person at that point
when they enter the Kingdom of God through saving faith,
but there are times when I will ask a person
if they want to turn their life over to Jesus Christ.
But in truth I never know whether or not
they really have reached a point
at which they are willing to do at the heart level
what they say they want to do.
And so, for a number of years now,
after I pray with a person,
I simply wait and see.
I wait and watch for evidences of the Spirit of God within them.
And when I see them,
when I see a teachable spirit,
when I see moral changes taking place,
when I see an openness to the written Word,
when I see a desire to seek out and hang out with other Christians,
then I know it’s real.
And when I don’t see those things,
I don’t pretend that their spoken prayer changed anything.
I just keep praying for them
and for their heart discovery of the truth.
Early in my Christian life
I heard a man share what he believed would be
the two most frequently asked questions in heaven.
He said they would be,
“Where’s so-and-so?” and “What are you doing here?”.
I think maybe he was pretty close to the truth.
For the rest of my life,
when I am with a person who is obviously wrestling with God,
I will continue to offer them a clear, simple answer
to the most important question we will ever ask, “What must I do to be saved?”
If that question has been troubling you,
if you’re not at all sure where you really are in your relationship with your God,
and you long for peace with Him
and with yourself,
the answer you’re looking for is not complicated.
The very fact that you feel that hunger within you
is clear evidence
that the Spirit of God Himself is at work in your life.
It is what He does with each of us.
In the 12th chapter of John’s gospel
John records for us a statement made by Christ
in the few days just prior to His crucifixion.
Part of His purpose in making this statement
was to confirm once again
that He knew exactly how and when he would die,
and that it was no mistake,
but rather His choice to accomplish His purpose.
But there is something else He’s accomplishing in this statement as well.
He is making a public commitment to each of us.
He says,
JOH 12:32 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."
If you’ve found within yourself
a deep hunger that nothing seems to be able to satisfy,
or if you don’t like the way your life is going
but don’t know how to turn it around,
or if you’ve been working very, very hard at being good,
and doing good,
and even though all the people around you
keep telling you what a wonderful person you are,
still you’ve found no real peace with yourself or with your God,
let me tell you first of all
that what’s going on inside you
is the result of the direct intervention of God Himself in your life.
It is Jesus Christ doing what He promised He would do -
drawing you to Himself.
And then let me tell you what He wants from you.
He doesn’t want your promises that you’ll turn your life around.
He doesn’t want you to try to do anything for Him.
What He wants
is for you to reach out to Him in simple faith,
choosing to believe that He’ll take you just the way you are,
that His death paid the debt for your sins too,
and that He both can and will reshape your life from the inside out.
If that’s what’s going on inside you
it will help you to put it into words to your God.
“God, I want to place my life, just as it is, into your hands.
You can make anything you want of me. Amen.”
That’s what I was saying
when I said, “Lord, if you want me to be a preacher, I’ll be a preacher.”
That’s what Zaccheus was saying when he said,
"Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."
That’s what that thief was saying
when he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”
You see, it isn’t the words we speak that brings us into the family of God,
it’s the heart attitude that brings us to the point of praying that prayer.
Nicodemus never even said the words,
but his heart cried out for his Lord,
and he was born again.
And there are many who have said the words
but whose hearts were not open to their God
and who still remain separated from their Creator.
When we began our study of this section of John’s gospel
I mentioned to you that John intentionally set up a contrast for us,
a contrast between the masses in Jerusalem
and a man named Nicodemus.
Of the masses he said,
JOH 2:23-24 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men...
Their words were right,
even their actions seemed to be correct,
but their hearts were not,
and Jesus would not entrust Himself to them.
And then their was Nicodemus
who asked some very difficult questions
and received answers he clearly didn’t understand,
and yet...
and yet the one thing he knew with certainty
was that He trusted this man.
He didn’t understand Him,
he couldn’t defend Him or explain Him to His colleagues,
his identification with Him was most certainly going to disrupt his life the extreme,
and yet he could not walk away.
I love the way Peter said it
at that point in his relationship with Christ
when he, too, could not understand what Jesus was doing,
or what He was saying,
and every choice the Lord made seemed to make things worse,
and Jesus asked him if he wanted to walk away.
JOH 6:68-69 "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God."
Ever been there?
If so, then you’ve got the real thing.
“I don’t understand you, Lord.
I don’t understand what you’re doing
or why you’re doing it.
Half of what you say seems wrong
and the other half I can’t even understand.
But I know you’re there,
and I know you love me,
and I know you are my only hope,
both now and forever.”
Welcome to the Christian life.
If you want a god you can always understand,
one who makes sense to your tiny human mind,
one with whom you nearly always agree,
then create your own
and you’ll find he will “lead” you exactly where you think you want to go.
But if you long for an eternal relationship
with the real thing,
the God who really exists,
then you’ll have to deal with Him on His terms.
And I promise you there will be much He says
that you won’t understand,
and much
that you won’t like.
But I can also promise you
that when you get just a tiny glimpse
of the depth of His love for you
it will alter the course of your life forever,
and in the end you will say with Peter,
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God."