Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: In other words, in order to get spiritual life, something needs to take place in our personal experience that Jesus called being born again. Just being alive physically does not necessarily mean we're alive spiritually. In fact, the Bible says we're not alive spiritually.

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in Biblical Studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Read the Red. Let's listen in as JP gives us part two of John chapters two and three.

JP Jones: We're born again as we believe the gospel. Here's the conversation going on between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says, "Obviously God's with you because no one could do the kind of miracles that you're doing unless God was with them." And Jesus said, "Nicodemus, you know what it is? You need to be born again spiritually. That's the bottom line."

Nicodemus says, "I don't know what you're talking about. I can't get in my mother's womb again." Jesus answered, "No, I'm not talking about that. That which is born of flesh is flesh, that which is born of spirit is spirit. Don't marvel that I say you've got to be born again. You've got to be born of the spirit. The wind blows, you don't see the wind, but you see what the wind does, and the same way with the Holy Spirit. You may not fully understand and comprehend, but you see what the Holy Spirit does when he does his work inside of your life."

And then Jesus says, "If I tell you earthly things you can't understand that, how are you going to understand heavenly things when I try to explain that to you? Because no one can go back to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man. And you know what? Just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man is going to have to be lifted up." Time out. What is Jesus talking about?

Well, you go to Numbers chapter 21, which Nicodemus would have understood because he was an expert in the Old Testament law. He would have known exactly what Jesus was talking about. In Numbers chapter 21, it says the people of Israel, as they were wandering in the wilderness, they got frustrated. They stopped trusting God and they started to take matters into their own hands. And they rebelled against God. God said straighten up, and they didn't straighten up.

So God sent snakes into the camp and all the people who were rebelling and not trusting in God, the snakes came in, they were poisonous snakes, and they bit them. It sounds wacky, but that's what happened. And they were deadly poisonous, so if you got bit by the snake, you knew you were going to die. And then they started now they panic because they're going to die. "God, save us, help us."

So not only was it weird that he sent snakes, this is what God did. He said to Moses and Aaron, "Take some bronze and fashion it into a statue like a snake and put it on a big pole, a big stick, and then walk through the camp holding up this pole with this fashioned molding of a snake. And say to everybody, 'If you'll look up at the pole and you'll believe in me, I'll rescue you and deliver you and heal you and save you from the snake bite.'"

I know it sounds crazy, but in effect what Jesus is doing is he's telling us now what that was all about in terms of what that really meant. Because this is what happened in Numbers 21: people got bit by the snake, they knew they were going to die. Moses and Aaron fashioned the serpent, they put it on the pole, they walked through, they told the people, "If you'll look up and believe, God will heal you." Some of them looked up. They were desperate. They were dying and they knew they were dying, and so they called on the Lord and they looked to the serpent on the pole and they trusted in God's plan. And guess what? They were healed and delivered from the snake bite.

Other people thought, "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of. What do you mean look at some serpent on a pole? I'm not going to do it." Guess what? They died. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about being born again, and then he says just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and anyone who looked upon it, they were saved, the Son of Man is going to be lifted up. And if anyone will look upon him and call upon him, they will be saved.

And if it wasn't clear at that point what Jesus is talking about, the very next verse Jesus gives us one of the most familiar verses in all of Christianity. He says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." In other words, that whole story in the Old Testament was to help us understand the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus was going to be lifted up in his death and crucifixion.

And if anyone would believe in Jesus, God's plan of salvation because God loved them, if they would believe in him and his plan of salvation, they'd be saved and they wouldn't perish. And he was saying that to Nicodemus. In other words, "Nicodemus, as religious as you are, you've got to believe the gospel if you want to be saved. And when you do believe, that's when you're born again spiritually."

So what Jesus has done is taken this whole idea of what it means to be born again out of the realm of theology and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to something that's real practical. We've got a problem. We're not bit by snakes, but we've got a problem called sin, and we can't save ourselves. We can't be religious enough to save ourselves. Some of us here come from religious backgrounds, some of us come from irreligious backgrounds. It doesn't matter. We need to be born again spiritually. Well, how can I be born again? Believe in Jesus Christ.

Understand God loved us so much he provided a way of salvation. Christ died for our sins and rose again from the dead. Believe in him, trust in him, call upon him, and you won't perish, but instead, you'll receive eternal life. You'll be born again spiritually. Here's a fourth observation from this passage. This is Read the Red. This is Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. It's this: if we disbelieve the gospel, we choose judgment on ourselves.

If we disbelieve the gospel, we choose judgment on ourselves because Jesus says in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." Verse 17: "For God did not send the 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."

Here's what Jesus basically says: in this world, in America, in this church right now, there's two kinds of people, those who believe and those who disbelieve. That's it. Those who believe and those who disbelieve. Now, my experience from just having literally hundreds, thousands of conversations with people, is there's all kinds of disbelievers.

There's religious disbelievers like Nicodemus up to this point. There's irreligious disbelievers, there's pagan disbelievers, there's atheist disbelievers, there are agnostic disbelievers, there are really good people disbelievers and real wicked people disbelievers, but the one thing they all have in common is they don't believe in Jesus Christ as the only Savior.

And Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, "Nick, you need to understand the nature of the case. The Father sent me not to judge the world, to save the world because God loves people. But you've got to make your own choice. You either believe or you disbelieve. And if you choose not to believe, you're choosing judgment upon yourself. You condemn yourself."

An awesome truth. The Bible says there's a day of judgment. It's mentioned in Revelation chapter 20, mentioned a lot of places in the Bible, but it's described in Revelation 20 where God judges. It's the final judgment. And in Revelation 20 it's pretty clear the only people at that final judgment are people who are going to get do not pass go, go straight to the lake of fire, hell.

Because everybody who has believed, everyone who's called on the name of the Lord, they're with the Lord in heaven. So the only people who are at the judgment, based on John chapter three, are the people who chose to be there. They chose to be there in the first place. They're there because they chose to be there. How did they choose to be there? By choosing not to believe in God's one and only Son. That's what John chapter three says. That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus.

God didn't send the Son into the world to judge the world. You judge yourself if you don't believe in the Son. So there are consequences for our choices. Consequences right now and consequences for all eternity. What we believe matters. What we choose matters. See, everybody's on a spiritual journey. I've said that almost every Sunday, don't I? Everybody's on a spiritual journey. But just because you're on a spiritual journey doesn't mean you're on the right path.

I this past weekend was speaking at a retreat for a bunch of college kids out of UCLA. It was taking place at a big house up in Palos Verdes. So I drove up to Palos Verdes Friday night and I drove back up there on Saturday and my best friend lives up there and we had dinner together. So I left dinner going back to the place where I was speaking, only I came from the other rather than coming from the freeway side up the peninsula, I was at the beach and I drove up the opposite side. And I knew where I was going was off Palos Verdes Drive.

If you've ever driven in Palos Verdes, there's not one Palos Verdes Drive. There's Palos Verdes Drive North, there's Palos Verdes Drive East, there's Palos Verdes Drive West, there's all kinds of Palos Verdes Drives. I was on Palos Verdes Drive, but nothing looked familiar to me because I came up the wrong way. And I realized as I was driving and it was foggy, it was just at night, the sun had just gone down and the fog was coming in, so it was hard to see the signs.

And so I'm driving, I go none of this looks familiar because I'm coming at a different direction. I know I'm on Palos Verdes Drives, but I can't find the street that I'm looking for. I think it's around here, and I realize the further I go, I'm going further out of where I need to be. So I just pulled over, got my phone out, got the GPS out, typed in the address, punched that in, and then pushed the button and listened to that wonderful female voice that said, "Drive until you can make the first legal U-turn."

I was only 0.7 miles away from where I needed to go, but I was driving in the wrong direction and I needed to turn around to get back to where I needed to go. You're on a path, I'm on a path, everybody's on a path. Some of us need to turn around because we're on the wrong path. We're disbelieving. You see, there's only one way. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me."

Jesus said here in John chapter three, "God didn't send the Son into the world to judge the world, but the world might be saved through him." Each man is judged when he chooses not to believe in God's one and only Son. What are you choosing to believe? If you're not choosing to believe in Jesus Christ as your only Savior, you're on the wrong path and you need to do a U-turn. Because the only way to God, the only way to be born again spiritually, is to believe in Jesus Christ.

Here's a fifth and final observation based on the red. It's what Jesus taught, it's what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus here, and it's really what Jesus is saying to every one of us as we consider his words. We either walk in darkness or we walk in light. We either walk in darkness or we walk in light. Jesus says this, verse 19 of John chapter three: "And this is the judgment: light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Everyone who does wicked hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so it might be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

This passage, I think, actually reveals the number one reason why people don't come into a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's the number one reason. And it's not what a lot of people think. The number one reason why people don't believe in Jesus Christ is not because there's not enough evidence. The number one reason is not because they haven't received enough information.

The number one reason is not because they've got a question and if they could just get that question answered, it would satisfy them intellectually and they would eagerly step into a relationship with Christ. No, you know what Jesus says? "Here's the judgment: light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil." Because to come into the light, you have to have your deeds exposed by the light and men love darkness.

This is the bottom line. There's some people, maybe some people here this morning, who you're even here because you're desperate to find God and to discover whether he really loves you and accepts you and would forgive you and would give you a new life. And the great answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. There's other people, they don't want to change. They don't want to come out of the darkness.

And they understand becoming a Christian would mean I'm going to have to come out of the darkness and I don't want to come out of the dark. I love the darkness. And Jesus says you get to choose. You can walk in darkness or you can walk in light. If you come to the light, what the light does is expose you for who you really are. And there's some people who fear exposure and who love sin, and therefore they don't want to come into the light of Jesus Christ.

Now, here is the reality, though, and I would want you to consider this, especially if this is where you are living. And by the way, this is not only application to the whole idea of coming to salvation and being born again spiritually. This is for people who have been born again spiritually, who do know Jesus Christ, but there's darkness in their life because they're holding some parts of their life back from fully coming into Christ's light. We do that because we're either afraid or because we just love it. Light does several things. Light exposes, light heals.

About seven years ago, I went to the doctor. I had a mole on my leg and I said, "Would you just look at that, check it out?" He cut a little piece off, sent it off and got a biopsy. I got a call about a week later. "Got your biopsy back. You need to come back." "Really?" "Yeah, you've got a melanoma. You've got skin cancer." Now it's at the first stage, so we can cut it out and just monitor it and we think it's pretty good. So I did and everything worked out.

But ever since then, about every six months, I've got to go back to the dermatologist, and he takes this light, it's a weird kind of light, and I mean every nook and cranny of my body this guy's checking out. This guy knows my body better than my wife does. Because I've got to see if there's any skin cancer. Well, it's amazing what light does. Now, it wouldn't surprise me if they fully developed this. I know that they are in the process of researching it.

Let's suppose they developed a light, a laser, that it exposes everything on your body, the healthy skin and then also any kind of cancerous skin. But not only does it expose it, but by bringing it into the light, it actually removes the cancerous skin and heals the cancerous skin and eradicates it. And not only does it expose the healthy skin and the cancerous skin and not only does it heal and eradicate the cancerous skin by being exposed to the light, it actually makes the healthy skin healthier and rejuvenates it and renews it and revitalizes it.

That would be comparable to what the light of Jesus Christ does for someone. You come into the light and it exposes you for who you really are, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But as you're in the light, it cleanses the sin, the bad parts, the unhealthy parts. It heals, it rejuvenates, it renews you totally. Don't let your fear of the light exposing your bad parts stop you from coming into the light.

Yes, it will expose it, but you know what else it'll do? It'll heal it, it'll cleanse it, it'll transform it. You will become brand new as you are in the light of Jesus Christ. But you get to decide what you're going to do. You get to choose whether you're going to do that. You can choose to stay in the darkness or you can choose to come into the light. And Jesus said all of this to Nicodemus.

He said you've got to be born again spiritually. The Holy Spirit needs to give you a new nature and a new life. You've got to believe in the gospel to be born again spiritually. But if you don't, you're going to bring judgment on yourself and you're going to decide: do you walk in the darkness or do you walk in the light? And Jesus not only said that to Nicodemus, he's saying that to every one of us here right now, and we get to choose what we're going to do. Let's not make the wrong choice. If our GPS is telling us we need to make a U-turn, let's make it. And let's come out of the darkness and come into the light of Jesus Christ.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 a.m. at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. We're in this series called Read the Red, which is a look at the actual teachings of Jesus. And the teaching that we're looking at right now is from John chapter three, one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. This is the chapter where a religious leader named Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night and has a conversation with Jesus because he recognized that Jesus was a teacher of truth. And Jesus, in response to the man's questions, said this very affirming and yet very narrow statement. He said the only way to heaven is by being born again.

When we're born again spiritually, born again by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, gives us new life, and because we've been made new people, we enter into the kingdom of God. The only way to a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. And when we believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into our life and he gives us new nature and he gives us the assurance of eternal life. This is what Jesus teaches in John chapter three.

And he says that this belief in him is consistent with the teachings of the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, Jesus appeals to an Old Testament story where the children of Israel, when they'd been bitten by serpents, look up to the bronze pole and by looking up they were trusting in God's provision and as a result God healed them. Jesus says in the same way that he as the Son of Man, as the Son of God, was going to be put up on the cross and was going to be lifted up.

But when people look to him and believe in him, they would be born again spiritually and that's when Jesus gives us this great verse that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God loves us. God loves us. God loves you right now as you're listening to this message. God loves you and wants to give you eternal life. But the only way you can receive God's love gift of eternal life is through believing in his Son Jesus Christ.

And when you believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gives you a new nature and you become a new person. You come out of darkness into the light. What God wants to do is to fill our lives with his light, the light of his love, the light of his forgiveness, the light of Jesus Christ in us. And the means by which we experience that new life, that light, is by turning to Christ, believing in Christ, and being born again by the Holy Spirit.

If your desire right now is to turn your life over to God, to step out of the darkness and to experience his light, to experience his love, to experience his forgiveness, to have the hope of eternal life, you can experience that right now by believing in Jesus Christ and asking him to be your Lord and Savior. The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If that's what you'd like to do, I invite you to pray with me right now and to make my prayer yours.

Lord Jesus, I pray that you would forgive my sins and take me out of the darkness into the light. I pray Jesus that you would be my Lord and Savior. Come into my life and be the Lord of my life. Jesus save me and forgive me. Cause me to be born again by your Holy Spirit. I believe in you, Jesus. Thank you that you've given me new life. Thank you that I have eternal life. In Jesus' name, amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.