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Andy Stanley - Ninety Part 6 : Nic at Night · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Speaker 1: You know, there's several professions that don't get enough credit,
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Speaker 1: but I think one of the unsung heroes in our
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Speaker 1: culture are people who are men and women who are
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Speaker 1: EMTs emergency medical technicians. And I don't know if you've
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Speaker 1: ever been in a situation where you had to call
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Speaker 1: nine to one one and you know, a couple of
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Speaker 1: folks show up, two or three folks show up, You've
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Speaker 1: never met them before, and they just they just go
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Speaker 1: to work. And the amazing thing to me about EMTs
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Speaker 1: is they don't know what they're walking into, but they
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Speaker 1: know it's an emergency, and they walk in and they're
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Speaker 1: asking people questions and they're getting different answers, and they're
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Speaker 1: getting information and misinformation, and then they just figure out
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Speaker 1: what they need to do and they just go to
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Speaker 1: work and they do it. And one of the things
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Speaker 1: they never do, one of the things they never do
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Speaker 1: is try to assess the guilt or the fault of
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Speaker 1: the person who's been injured. They just go to work
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Speaker 1: and they save the day. We're in the middle of
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Speaker 1: a series where we're following Jesus from the moment he
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Speaker 1: stepped on to the pages of history as an adult
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Speaker 1: on the banks of the Jordan River to the moment
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Speaker 1: in time that he served as the savior of all mankind.
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Speaker 1: And we said throughout this series, and this is the
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Speaker 1: thing that we hope you take to the very end
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Speaker 1: with us, is that Jesus did not come to continue
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Speaker 1: something that had begun a long time ago. Jesus didn't
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Speaker 1: come as Judaism two point zero. He didn't come to
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Speaker 1: complete the Bible. Jesus came to introduce something detached from
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Speaker 1: everything that came before, that was absolutely stand alone, brand
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Speaker 1: new that he came to establish a brand new relationship
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Speaker 1: between God and man, a brand new covenant. He came
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Speaker 1: to give us an overarching ethic for all of our
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Speaker 1: relational decisions, our financial decisions, that he refers to as
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Speaker 1: his new command. And he came to begin a brand
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Speaker 1: new movement that we call the Church. And when he
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Speaker 1: showed up, he immediately drawed a crowd. And when he
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Speaker 1: showed up, he immediately disturbed the status quo, because whereas
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Speaker 1: most of the people who followed Jesus thought he was
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Speaker 1: the continuation of something old, that perhaps he was just
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Speaker 1: a new rabbi with a new spin on Torah that
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Speaker 1: he'd come to maybe bring some reform to the temple
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Speaker 1: system and too, the religious system of his day. There
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Speaker 1: was a group that understood from day one that this
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Speaker 1: is a trouble maker. This is someone who's come to disrupt.
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Speaker 1: This is someone who's introducing, not an add on, not
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Speaker 1: a continuation of something that's absolutely brand new. And it
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Speaker 1: was the men who controlled the temple. It was the
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Speaker 1: men who controlled the religious system in the first century
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Speaker 1: Galilee and specifically Judea, the men who controlled what happened
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Speaker 1: for people who came to the temple and left the temple.
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Speaker 1: And what they understood in Jesus was something that was
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Speaker 1: absolutely true that most people missed, that this was something
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Speaker 1: that was a total departure from everything that came before.
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Speaker 1: In fact, when Jesus was eventually arrested and they tried
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Speaker 1: to bring witnesses in against him, one of the things
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Speaker 1: they accused him of was inciting rebellion with the people
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Speaker 1: because they saw something most people didn't see, and they
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Speaker 1: saw something that many church people don't see as well.
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Speaker 1: One day and Jesus and his guys were, in fact,
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Speaker 1: we left off here last time. Jesus and his guys
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Speaker 1: were walking through a wheatfield and is the disciples start
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Speaker 1: breaking off heads of grain to eat it because they're hungry.
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Speaker 1: But it's the Sabbath and the Pharisees and the posse
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Speaker 1: that always followed Jesus that try to catch him doing
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Speaker 1: something wrong. Is that Aha, you're doing it again. You're
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Speaker 1: violating the Sabbath. And they get into this argument, and
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Speaker 1: finally at the end, Jesus leans in and we talked
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Speaker 1: about this, and he said, look, you're so concerned about
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Speaker 1: the Law. Me too, I'm a Jewish man. You're so
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Speaker 1: concerned about the Temple, me too, I'm a Jewish man.
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Speaker 1: You're so concerned about all of these things. But don't
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Speaker 1: you recognize something new has come? Then he leans in
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Speaker 1: and he says something so offensive we read right by it.
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Speaker 1: He said, look at me, something greater, something greater than
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Speaker 1: the Temple, is here. But if something was greater than
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Speaker 1: the Temple, then the temple was no longer necessary, because
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Speaker 1: the temple was the epicenter of Jewish life. The temple
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Speaker 1: is where they housed the tour of the law. The
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Speaker 1: temple is where God in some way resided and represented
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Speaker 1: the people and protected the people. And Jesus makes a
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Speaker 1: statement that makes no sense something greater than the temple
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Speaker 1: is here, and he would predict in that moment something extraordinary.
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Speaker 1: That sacred, sacred, Sacred was always a space in the
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Speaker 1: first century. Sacred was a sacred was priests. Sacred was
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Speaker 1: a text, sacred with sacred men and sacred places doing
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Speaker 1: sacred things. And Jesus was announcing and it would begin
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Speaker 1: to unroll. He was letting the world know that soon
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Speaker 1: sacred would be commuted, that it would be commuted to
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Speaker 1: the hearts and the minds and the consciences of people,
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Speaker 1: that there would be no more sacred spaces and no
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Speaker 1: more sacred places, because there would be nothing more sacred
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Speaker 1: than the person you're seated next to, the person you
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Speaker 1: work with, the children that you're raising, the person you've
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Speaker 1: committed your life to. Because the spirit of God was
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Speaker 1: going to leave the temple, the mobile God was about
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Speaker 1: to inhabit the hearts and the lives of people, and
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Speaker 1: when that happened, everything would change. And as a foreshadow,
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Speaker 1: and he would spend time with untouchable people, and he
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Speaker 1: would touch untouchable people, and he would invite a tax
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Speaker 1: gatherer to be one of his followers, and then he
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Speaker 1: would go to that tax collector's homes, and even Jesus'
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Speaker 1: closest disciples weren't so sure they wanted to do that.
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Speaker 1: That was like a bridge too far. Tax gatherers are
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Speaker 1: traders to their nations. They're an embarrassment to their family.
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Speaker 1: And Jesus says to Matthew, I want you to follow me,
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Speaker 1: to which Peter said, if he follows Us, I might
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Speaker 1: unfollow because he's not my people. And Jesus said, that's
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Speaker 1: my point. Sacred is about to be commuted. Now. This
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Speaker 1: disturbing of this piece and this disruption of the status
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Speaker 1: quo was certainly threatening to some, but as we're going
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Speaker 1: to discover today, it was actually intriguing to some others.
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Speaker 1: Most assumed that jesus endgame was that he would march
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Speaker 1: into Jerusalem, probably around Passover, because there was always unrest
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Speaker 1: in Jerusalem around Passover. Everybody was on edge, the nerves
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Speaker 1: were high, and people were always hoping that this would
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Speaker 1: be the passover, that God would do something spectacular and
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Speaker 1: send Messiah. And everybody assumed that at some point, maybe
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Speaker 1: on a passover, Jesus enters Jerusalem and he takes off
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Speaker 1: his rabbinic robe, and they discovered he has a big
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Speaker 1: m on the shirt underneath Messiah, and he proclaims himself king,
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Speaker 1: and they re established the nation of Israel as a kingdom,
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Speaker 1: and Rome is thrown outside the borders, and things would
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Speaker 1: be restored to the time of Solomon or David. But
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Speaker 1: the more discerning, the more discerning who listened to Jesus,
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Speaker 1: they sensed that perhaps something else was up with him,
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Speaker 1: because he spoke, as we've seen, he spoke with extraordinary authority,
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Speaker 1: but he refused to take charge. He almost immediately he
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Speaker 1: won the crowd, but he refused the crown. He had
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Speaker 1: extraordinary power and influence, but over and over and over
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Speaker 1: he refused to leverage that power and that influence for
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Speaker 1: his own sake. He was intriguing for sure. Now there
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Speaker 1: was a pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a
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Speaker 1: member of the Jewish ruling Council, and the Jewish ruling
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Speaker 1: council was also called the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was like
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Speaker 1: the Parliament and the Supreme Court all rolled into one.
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Speaker 1: And Nicodemus, who was a pharisee. That meant he started
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Speaker 1: at the lowest rung of the latter in terms of
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Speaker 1: religious status and because he was politically astute, perhaps because
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Speaker 1: he was well connected. Perhaps we don't know, he had
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Speaker 1: made himself, he had worked his way into this very
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Speaker 1: elite group of men that served like again the supreme
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Speaker 1: court for the whole nation of Israel. They represented Israel
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Speaker 1: to Rome. There were about twenty two to seventy men
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Speaker 1: who sat on this council. And it's so interesting that
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Speaker 1: John actually gives us his name, because this is a
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Speaker 1: verifiable detail. This again is like the gospel writers saying
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Speaker 1: to their readers, fact check me. You can check this out.
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Speaker 1: You know there's a san Hedrin. I'm giving you a name.
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Speaker 1: His name was Nicodemus. And John tells us that he
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Speaker 1: came to Jesus at night. Now, did he come to
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Speaker 1: Jesus at night because he was busy during the day,
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Speaker 1: or did he come to Jesus at night because he
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Speaker 1: didn't want people to know that he was talking to Jesus. Now,
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Speaker 1: when you read the Gospels, you're left with the impression
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Speaker 1: that getting an appointment with Jesus would be a very
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Speaker 1: difficult thing to do. Everywhere he went there were crowds,
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Speaker 1: and everywhere he went there were people who were trying
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Speaker 1: to get to him and get at him. Some Nicodemus
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Speaker 1: knew somebody, or he put his name on a waiting list,
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Speaker 1: but eventually he had an appointment with Jesus, and Jesus
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Speaker 1: only open slot was at night, or perhaps Nicodemus communicated,
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Speaker 1: my only open slot is at night, because I'm not
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Speaker 1: sure I want anyone to see me an esteemed respected
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Speaker 1: person in this community speaking to the rabbi who stirs
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Speaker 1: up so much trouble, and Nicodemus showed up with a question.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I bet Nicodemus showed up with a list
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Speaker 1: of questions, but he never got to his questions. He
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Speaker 1: came to Jesus at night and he said, rabbi, and
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Speaker 1: again there was a title of respect. But there are
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Speaker 1: a lot of rabbis. Rabbi, he said, we know that
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Speaker 1: is we are certain, we know he represents a group
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Speaker 1: of people. We know that you are a teacher who
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Speaker 1: has come from God, and that this is an extraordinary
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Speaker 1: thing for Nicodemus to say. It's like, you know what,
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Speaker 1: you don't fit in a box, you don't fit in
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Speaker 1: a category. You're not acting very messiah like. But there's
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Speaker 1: one thing that we cannot deny clearly you have come
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Speaker 1: from God. And the reason we know that you've come
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Speaker 1: from God is not just what you say. For no
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Speaker 1: one and we've been around for a while, no one
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Speaker 1: could perform the signs. Now this is important as well.
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Speaker 1: We think of some of the things that Jesus did
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Speaker 1: as miracles, but the stude the people who were paying
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Speaker 1: attention understood that when Jesus healed people, he wasn't just
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Speaker 1: doing miracles, and when people fed people, he wasn't just
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Speaker 1: doing miracles. That every single one of jesus healings and
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Speaker 1: every single one of jesus supernatural acts was actually a
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Speaker 1: sign pointing in a direction. And Nicodemus was an educated
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Speaker 1: man and he understood these things that Jesus is doing,
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Speaker 1: they're not just willy nilly. He's not just meeting needs.
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Speaker 1: There's a method of this. This is going somewhere. And
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Speaker 1: it was clear to him these signs that are pointing
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Speaker 1: in a direction, clearly he must come from God. No
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Speaker 1: one could perform the signs you were doing if God
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Speaker 1: were not with him. And that was the preamble, that
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Speaker 1: was the setup, that was the introduction, and then Nicodemus
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Speaker 1: takes a big breath to ask his big question. And
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Speaker 1: then Jesus does that Jesus thing where he answers the
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Speaker 1: question before the question gets asked, just to throw the
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Speaker 1: question er off into control the conversation. So Nicodemus rars
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Speaker 1: back to ask his question. Jesus puts his hand on
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Speaker 1: his shoulder, I think, and the text says, and Jesus replied, verily, verily,
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Speaker 1: in some text, very truly, remember that one, verily, very
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Speaker 1: the king James, verly, verly, very truly. I tell you,
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Speaker 1: no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they're
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Speaker 1: born again, to which Nicodemus probably I see. There you
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Speaker 1: go again. I've been watching you. This is what you do.
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Speaker 1: You don't let people ask their questions, and when they
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Speaker 1: ask questions, you tell them stories. Very truly, I tell you, Nicodemus,
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Speaker 1: I know why you're here. I know what your question is.
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Speaker 1: I know what you're getting at. You know I've come
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Speaker 1: from God. But I'm not talking like other people that
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Speaker 1: you would consider to be very godly. I seem to
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Speaker 1: have a different angle, a different perspective. My category seem
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Speaker 1: to be much larger than the traditional Jewish category. So
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Speaker 1: let me just go to the heart of the matter.
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Speaker 1: Let me just go to the bottom line for you, Nicodemus,
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Speaker 1: we're both busy men, and you don't want to be
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Speaker 1: seen with me anyway. I tell you, no one can
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Speaker 1: see God. No one can see the Kingdom of God
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Speaker 1: unless they are born again. This is so confusing to Nicodemus.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean I can't see the Kingdom of God.
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Speaker 1: I'm Jewish, and for Jewish people in the first century,
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Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Israel were synonymous.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean I won't even see or really, technically,
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Speaker 1: you're telling me I won't even recognize the Kingdom of God.
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Speaker 1: Of course will I was born into it? And Jesus says, no,
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Speaker 1: you have to be born again, or literally to be
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Speaker 1: born from above. Nicodemus, welcome to the Kingdom of Israel.
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Speaker 1: But to get into the Kingdom of God, there's a
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Speaker 1: second requirement. You have to be born again. Now at
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Speaker 1: this point, I think Nicodemus chuckles. He knows Jesus is
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Speaker 1: kind of playing with him. He says, Rabbi, how can
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Speaker 1: someone be born when they are old? And he points
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Speaker 1: to himself. Surely they cannot enter a second time into
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Speaker 1: their mother's womb. To be born. He knows that this
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Speaker 1: isn't literal, but he doesn't know exactly what Jesus is saying.
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Speaker 1: And then what he really wanted to say is in Jesus,
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Speaker 1: why are we talking about this? This is not what
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Speaker 1: I came to talk about. And again, this is my
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Speaker 1: only opportunity to be one on one with you. I've
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Speaker 1: got questions, and I've got people at home waiting for
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Speaker 1: me to come back with answers to their questions. Jesus answered,
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Speaker 1: very truly, I tell you, no one can enter. First,
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Speaker 1: you can't see the Kingdom of God. No one can
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Speaker 1: enter the Kingdom of God. They won't recognize it and
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Speaker 1: they'll never get in unless they are born here it
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Speaker 1: is again, unless they are born both of water and
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Speaker 1: the spirit. Nicodemus is like, what where's this going? Jesus continues, flesh,
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Speaker 1: Flesh gives birth to flesh. You know, Jewish people have
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Speaker 1: Jewish people, right, Philistines have Philistines, Romans have Romans, Greeks
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Speaker 1: have Greeks. I mean, flesh gives birth to flesh. Your
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Speaker 1: flesh got you into the Kingdom of Israel. Congratulations. Flesh
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Speaker 1: gives birth to flesh. But Nicodemus, Spirit gives birth to spirit,
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Speaker 1: that there's there's something more, that it takes something else.
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Speaker 1: You can be born into the Kingdom of Israel, but
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Speaker 1: it takes something more to be given entrance to the
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Speaker 1: Kingdom of God. And then I think Jesus chuckles. Then
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Speaker 1: he says, you, come on, Nicodemus, you, you of all people,
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Speaker 1: you of all people, should not be surprised at my
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Speaker 1: saying you must be born again. Come on, the wind
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Speaker 1: blows wherever it pleases. Again, he goes off on another
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Speaker 1: you know, illustration, Nicodemus is going on. I don't think
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Speaker 1: I'm ever gonna get my question is answered the wind.
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Speaker 1: The wind blows where it pleases. You hear it sound.
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Speaker 1: You hear it sound, but you cannot tell where it
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Speaker 1: comes from or where it's going. So it is with
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Speaker 1: everyone who is born of the spirit. And does a
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Speaker 1: little word play here, because Jesus uses a word when
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Speaker 1: the text the word spirit, the word wind, or the
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Speaker 1: same word. He says, the spirit's like the wind. You
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Speaker 1: know there's win. You see the effects of win. You
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Speaker 1: hear the wind, you don't know where it came from,
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Speaker 1: you don't know where it's going. And so it is
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Speaker 1: with the spirit of God and what he's getting at
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Speaker 1: with with Nicodemus. In his very first century Jewish context,
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Speaker 1: which was the only Jewish the only context he had
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Speaker 1: to draw from, he said, Nicodemus, I understand, many many
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Speaker 1: years ago, are father Abraham. God made him a promise
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Speaker 1: that he would make him a family, make him a nation,
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Speaker 1: that he blessed the world to the nation. And sure enough,
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Speaker 1: you and I are living in the day and age
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Speaker 1: when the family became a nation and we're part of
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Speaker 1: the kingdom of Israel. The God then through Moses made
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Speaker 1: an exclusive and exclusive covenant with our people. We got
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Speaker 1: all those commandments, all the rules and restrictions. God made
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Speaker 1: an exclusive or covenant with our people. But Nicodemus, God
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Speaker 1: is not exclusive. He's like the wind, He's like the spirit.
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Speaker 1: He moves outside the confines of our people's covenant with him.
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Speaker 1: And yes, while we are locked into an arrangement with God,
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Speaker 1: God is not limited by this arrangement. God is the
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Speaker 1: mobile God. God does not live inside the temple. God
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Speaker 1: is Spirit, and our nation, Israel, is a means to
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Speaker 1: an end, and in the end, the entire world will
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Speaker 1: be given an invitation to be a part of the
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Speaker 1: Kingdom of God. There will be people from every tribe
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Speaker 1: and every nation and every tongue. His invitation will be
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Speaker 1: extended to everyone. An entrance into the Kingdom of God
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Speaker 1: requires a second birth, a spiritual birth. Nicodemus didn't have
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Speaker 1: a category for any of this. How how can this be?
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Speaker 1: He asked, In other words, how did I miss this?
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Speaker 1: And then again Jesus kind of leans in, Come on, Nicodemus,
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Speaker 1: you are Israel's teacher. You're one of the pre eminent teachers.
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Speaker 1: Everybody's looking to you for God, and you are Israel's teachers,
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Speaker 1: said Jesus, and you do not understand these things. Well.
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Speaker 1: The conversation goes on and on and on. You know,
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Speaker 1: sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's not. Nicodemus is so so bewildered,
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Speaker 1: but he's not resisting. He's like some of you. He
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Speaker 1: doesn't get it. There's so many questions. He's not resisting.
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Speaker 1: It's like I want to understand, but I'm just not
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Speaker 1: getting it. And then Jesus gets to something that's common
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Speaker 1: ground between he and Nicodemus. He gets to something that
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Speaker 1: Nicodemus can latch onto. He can finally get some traction,
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Speaker 1: Jesus says, just as Moses. Nicodemus is like, okay, now
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Speaker 1: you're talking about something I get Moses. Moses, we know, okay,
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Speaker 1: Moses is the covenant maker and the command giver, the
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Speaker 1: covenant maker, command giver. Moses came down from the mountain.
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Speaker 1: He said, God's injurn into a brand new kind of
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Speaker 1: exclusive relationship with Israel. Here are the commandments. You got
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Speaker 1: to keep, it said, I will if you will, kind
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Speaker 1: of thing I got youa Jesus says, just as Moses
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Speaker 1: lifted up the snake in the wilderness. Again, Nicodemus says, like,
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Speaker 1: I know this story. I've taught this story. I heard
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Speaker 1: this story as a child. We thought it was so cool.
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Speaker 1: The nation was moving through going from Egypt to the
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Speaker 1: Promised Land. They go through an area of the desert
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Speaker 1: where with all these snakes, people are getting snake bits.
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Speaker 1: Some of the snakes are poisonous, people are sick, some
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Speaker 1: of them are dying. And then this crazy thing where
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Speaker 1: Moses makes a bronze snake like they needed another snake,
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Speaker 1: and they put it on a pole and they go
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Speaker 1: through the area and the people are saved, and yeah,
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Speaker 1: I know that story, So why are we talking about that?
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Speaker 1: So the son of Man, Jesus says, So the son
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Speaker 1: of men must be lifted up like the bronze snake
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Speaker 1: on the pole. Now once again, nicod He was just like,
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Speaker 1: wait a minute, the son of Man, that's code for Messiah,
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Speaker 1: son of Man, that's code for the one we've been
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Speaker 1: waiting for for a long time. And if you put
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Speaker 1: a man on a pole, if you put a man
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Speaker 1: on a pole, clearly that man is cursed by God.
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Speaker 1: Because when a man hangs from a tree, or a
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Speaker 1: man is impaled on a pole, or a man is
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Speaker 1: hoisted up on I don't know, or say a Roman cross.
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Speaker 1: When a man is on a pole or on a cross,
17:23
Speaker 1: or that's a sign of a curse. Are you telling
17:26
Speaker 1: me the son of Man? Are you telling me that
17:28
Speaker 1: the Messiah is gonna suffer, that the Messiah is going
17:31
Speaker 1: to be cursed by God? Once again, I I Jesus again,
17:35
Speaker 1: I want to understand. I mean, I'm here asking questions
17:38
Speaker 1: or trying to ask my questions. I just don't understand.
17:42
Speaker 1: Jesus continues. He says that everyone there, it is again
17:47
Speaker 1: that everyone, that everyone who believes may have eternal life
17:52
Speaker 1: in him, And again Nicodemus is like, wait life, eternal life.
17:56
Speaker 1: I mean, we know how you get eternal life. You
17:57
Speaker 1: love the Lord, your God with all your heart and mind,
17:59
Speaker 1: soul and strength. That's how you get eternal life. You
18:01
Speaker 1: keep the commandments, That's how you get eternal life. You
18:03
Speaker 1: do what God asked us to do. Mount Sin, we
18:06
Speaker 1: know how you get eternal life. Are you telling me
18:09
Speaker 1: somehow eternal life is going to be available to let
18:11
Speaker 1: me see if I get astray, everybody will have access
18:14
Speaker 1: to the Kingdom of God. They're going to get eternal
18:15
Speaker 1: life because the Messiah is going to be put up
18:19
Speaker 1: on a poll signifying that he's cursed by God. Now
18:28
Speaker 1: one hit pause on Nicodemus and Jesus. We're going to
18:30
Speaker 1: come back to it in just a second. I got to
18:31
Speaker 1: tell you something else. It's interesting, Okay, when you're reading
18:36
Speaker 1: the Gospels, it's very very very important to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
18:40
Speaker 1: and John is very very important to remember that much
18:43
Speaker 1: of Jesus teaching, that much of Jesus teaching would not
18:45
Speaker 1: make sense until after his resurrection. So just think about it.
18:48
Speaker 1: These events actually happened in history, Matthew. You know wyewitness
18:52
Speaker 1: Mark who's spent time with Peter Luke, who's thoroughly investigated
18:54
Speaker 1: all these things. John and eyewitness. They are documenting what
18:57
Speaker 1: they saw and experience, or they're documenting what eyewitnesses saw
19:01
Speaker 1: and experience, and they're documenting this after the story is
19:04
Speaker 1: completely over with. So every once in a while in
19:07
Speaker 1: the Gospels, the writers will pause the story, will pause
19:12
Speaker 1: whatever conversation they've recorded or whatever's happening. They'll sort of
19:15
Speaker 1: pull out of the story and they'll make comments on
19:17
Speaker 1: what's happening in the narrative that they're writing about. We
19:20
Speaker 1: do this all the time when we tell stories. When
19:22
Speaker 1: you're telling a story, you're in the middle of a story,
19:24
Speaker 1: you're kind of walking through what happened. Then you kind
19:25
Speaker 1: of pull out and say she didn't know or he
19:27
Speaker 1: didn't know. Later they would discover then you get right
19:29
Speaker 1: back into the story. Well, the gospel writers do this
19:31
Speaker 1: all the time, that they paused the story to comment
19:34
Speaker 1: based on what they knew that the audience in the
19:38
Speaker 1: story didn't know because they hadn't gotten to the end
19:41
Speaker 1: of the story. So I'm gonna give you an example
19:43
Speaker 1: of this that we're gonna go back to Nicodemus. Everybody
19:45
Speaker 1: following me, everybody with me on this? Okay, good, I
19:47
Speaker 1: can just tell smart people. Okay. So so here's the
19:51
Speaker 1: here's an illustration from Luke Matthew Marn't Luke. Luke is
19:54
Speaker 1: quoting Jesus. I'm gonna show you the quote and then
19:57
Speaker 1: he's gonna pull out make a comment based on what
19:59
Speaker 1: he want wanted his readers to know that the people
20:02
Speaker 1: in the story at the time couldn't know. So here
20:04
Speaker 1: this is just an example. Then we'll get back to Nicodemus.
20:07
Speaker 1: Now this is Luke and he's quoting Jesus. Listen carefully.
20:11
Speaker 1: He writes, this is what Jesus said. Listen carefully to
20:12
Speaker 1: what I'm about to tell you, says Jesus, the son
20:15
Speaker 1: of Man is going to be delivered into the hands
20:17
Speaker 1: of men, so Jesus. Luke says, this is what Jesus said.
20:19
Speaker 1: Then Luke hits pause on telling his audience what Jesus said,
20:23
Speaker 1: and he adds this comment. But this is Luke's words,
20:26
Speaker 1: not Jesus. But they did not understand what this meant.
20:29
Speaker 1: Luke's writing here's what he said. But you know what,
20:32
Speaker 1: when it happened, his audience in the story, didn't know
20:34
Speaker 1: what was what he was talking about because they hadn't
20:37
Speaker 1: gotten to the end of the story. But I, Luke,
20:39
Speaker 1: I know how this thing's in, and so I just
20:41
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know what's gonna happen. Then he
20:42
Speaker 1: jumps right back into the story. We do this all
20:44
Speaker 1: the time in our storytelling, and this is important. Look
20:46
Speaker 1: up here. This is why you should take the Gospel seriously. Okay,
20:50
Speaker 1: this was not a nor, this was not a motif.
20:53
Speaker 1: This was not the way that stories were written when
20:56
Speaker 1: people were writing fiction. In other words, when you read
20:59
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty details in the in and outs of
21:01
Speaker 1: all these stories and all the names and all the details.
21:03
Speaker 1: This was not written decades in decades and decades after
21:06
Speaker 1: the fact. This was written exactly like somebody who was
21:10
Speaker 1: trying to get all the facts out but at the
21:11
Speaker 1: same time keep the readers engaged with the story. So
21:15
Speaker 1: in the conversation this is so important between John, between
21:18
Speaker 1: Jesus and Nicodemus, John who documents all this for us,
21:22
Speaker 1: he does that very same thing he's telling us about
21:25
Speaker 1: the conversation between Nick and Jesus, and then he pauses
21:28
Speaker 1: the story to pull out to make sure those of
21:31
Speaker 1: us who are reading this story understand what's going on,
21:33
Speaker 1: because not only did Nicodemus not know what Jesus was
21:37
Speaker 1: getting at John, who was there, he didn't know what
21:41
Speaker 1: Jesus was getting at either, because Jesus was pointing to
21:44
Speaker 1: something that hattn't happened yet. That nobody had a category
21:49
Speaker 1: for a suffering, dying stuck on a poll Messiah. Nobody
21:56
Speaker 1: was looking for that, nobody was waiting for that. In fact,
21:59
Speaker 1: that's a bad ending to the wrong story. So John
22:04
Speaker 1: pulls out temporarily to put two and two together for
22:08
Speaker 1: his readers. John put it this way. John tells us
22:12
Speaker 1: in his own words, these aren't Jesus. He tells us
22:14
Speaker 1: in his own words what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus,
22:18
Speaker 1: who couldn't possibly understand what Jesus was talking about because
22:22
Speaker 1: it hadn't happened yet. But for John, what he realized
22:27
Speaker 1: later when he looked back on this conversation. He realized
22:29
Speaker 1: how important this conversation was, and he doesn't want you
22:34
Speaker 1: to miss it. He doesn't want his reader to miss it,
22:38
Speaker 1: and the reader would eventually get to the end of
22:39
Speaker 1: the story. In fact, many of the readers of the
22:41
Speaker 1: Gospel of John had heard this story, they just never
22:43
Speaker 1: heard it read. But John didn't want to wait. And
22:45
Speaker 1: this is the coolest thing about it to me. Little
22:49
Speaker 1: did he know, I mean, he has no idea. Little
22:52
Speaker 1: did John know. Little did John know that he would
22:56
Speaker 1: dictate because I don't think he wrote this. I think
22:58
Speaker 1: he dictated this to ascribe. He know that he would
23:00
Speaker 1: dictate twenty six words that would reverberate around the world
23:05
Speaker 1: generation after generation after generation after generation, twenty six words
23:10
Speaker 1: that would survive the Empire and survive the Temple way
23:15
Speaker 1: beyond his generation twenty six worlds. It's in twenty six
23:19
Speaker 1: words that would change the world that his friend had
23:22
Speaker 1: come to say. So he pauses from the conversation between
23:27
Speaker 1: Jesus and Nicodemus, and it's like he's saying to you,
23:30
Speaker 1: and it's like he's saying to me, you see, you see,
23:33
Speaker 1: you see. I want you to understand this, you see,
23:37
Speaker 1: for God so loved the world. Nicodemus said he can't
23:43
Speaker 1: get outside of his Jewish framework. Of course he couldn't.
23:46
Speaker 1: And it's like John says, I don't want to wait
23:47
Speaker 1: till the end of the story. I want you to
23:48
Speaker 1: understand what he was trying to say to Nicodemus is
23:50
Speaker 1: so important. For God so loved the cosmos, the whole
23:54
Speaker 1: world that he gave, he hasn't given it yet. This
23:58
Speaker 1: is why Nicodemus can't figure it out. Then what he
24:00
Speaker 1: can figure out, how is a messiah gonna suffer and
24:02
Speaker 1: die that he gave his one and only son. And
24:07
Speaker 1: then he struggles and tries to figure out exactly how
24:10
Speaker 1: do I say this? And they use a little Greek
24:13
Speaker 1: word that's a conjunction, that's a connector word, a hennoclaus
24:16
Speaker 1: we call it in Greek. He says, in order that hennah,
24:19
Speaker 1: and order that, and then John does something extraordinary. In fact,
24:22
Speaker 1: in all of Greek literature, no one took the Greek
24:25
Speaker 1: word the Greek noun for believe or the Greek verb
24:27
Speaker 1: for believe, and connect it to this preposition. Is like
24:30
Speaker 1: John is saying, Okay, I gotta get this right. It's whoever,
24:34
Speaker 1: it's not whoever believes that. It's not whoever believes that.
24:37
Speaker 1: This isn't about believing facts, it's whoever whoever. And there's
24:40
Speaker 1: no Greek word for trust. There's no Greek word for trust.
24:42
Speaker 1: It's just believe so John even and perhaps he's dictating
24:46
Speaker 1: this to a scribe and describes like, Okay, you can't
24:48
Speaker 1: say it that way, and John's like, no, I want
24:50
Speaker 1: you to say it this way. It's not good grammar.
24:52
Speaker 1: We know it's not good grammar because this phrase doesn't
24:54
Speaker 1: show up anywhere until it shows up in John's Gospel.
24:58
Speaker 1: John says, do it this way anyway, that whoever believes
25:03
Speaker 1: in as in trust in, will not perish, will not
25:09
Speaker 1: be This word is used throughout the Gospel John will
25:11
Speaker 1: not be lost, will not be lost to God. And
25:14
Speaker 1: then the strongest contrast in Greek, but but will have
25:19
Speaker 1: eternal life. Write it that way. He had no idea.
25:27
Speaker 1: Now this is very important, especially if you've left church
25:30
Speaker 1: you're not a Christian or the Bibles full you know, mistakes,
25:32
Speaker 1: and just this a second, okay, look up here in
25:35
Speaker 1: this moment, John is not writing the Bible. The Bible tabiblia.
25:42
Speaker 1: That doesn't show up till the fourth century, when all
25:45
Speaker 1: of these documents got collected and then got put together
25:47
Speaker 1: with the Old Testament scriptures and got you know, put
25:49
Speaker 1: a big old gold you know, folder around it and
25:52
Speaker 1: the gold cover on it. The tabiblia John's not writing
25:55
Speaker 1: the Bible. In fact, this has nothing to do with
25:58
Speaker 1: the Bible. This is a man who saw things that
26:03
Speaker 1: would blow our little, itty bitty minds, and at the
26:07
Speaker 1: end of the story knows he's got to document it
26:09
Speaker 1: because he's one of the few people who was there
26:11
Speaker 1: for all of it. And he dictates it to a scribe,
26:15
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want it in Aramaic, and he doesn't
26:17
Speaker 1: want it in Hebrew. He wants it in Greek. And
26:19
Speaker 1: do you know why he wants it in Greek? Because
26:22
Speaker 1: Greek was the language of the Empire. It wasn't the
26:25
Speaker 1: language of Palestine. It was the language of the Empire.
26:27
Speaker 1: And John seemed to know more than anybody else. This
26:30
Speaker 1: is a message for the whole world. So let's get
26:33
Speaker 1: it in a language the whole world can understand and embrace.
26:40
Speaker 1: For God, so love the world he gave. And then
26:41
Speaker 1: John says, Okay, before I get back to the story,
26:43
Speaker 1: there's one more thing I gotta say, because they're gonna
26:47
Speaker 1: miss this. I don't want to wait till the end
26:50
Speaker 1: of the story. In fact, they may get to the
26:51
Speaker 1: end of the story miss this. I want to make
26:52
Speaker 1: sure they got this, because this is what Jesus was
26:55
Speaker 1: trying to communicate to Nicodemus. Nicodemus hold, whose whole worldview
27:01
Speaker 1: was when Messiah comes, we're gonna throw the invaders out.
27:08
Speaker 1: So John adds, these are his words for God, just
27:11
Speaker 1: so he didn't want us to miss it. For God
27:14
Speaker 1: did not send his son into the world to condemn
27:17
Speaker 1: the world. God didn't send Messiah into the world to
27:20
Speaker 1: judge the world. God didn't send his son into the
27:23
Speaker 1: world to line up all the sinners and tell him
27:25
Speaker 1: about all of their sin. He didn't come to the
27:30
Speaker 1: scene of an accident and lecture those who had been injured.
27:36
Speaker 1: I have the church has Jesus didn't. I've not come.
27:46
Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come, John says, to condemn the world, but
27:49
Speaker 1: that the world through him might be saved. He showed
27:55
Speaker 1: up like an emt and he just went to work.
28:03
Speaker 1: And when he realized that the world needed a blood transfusion,
28:08
Speaker 1: he used his own. And suddenly we're thrown back to
28:16
Speaker 1: day one, John the Baptist banks of the Jordan River,
28:18
Speaker 1: who everybody's waiting, waiting, waiting, because John says it's gonna happen.
28:21
Speaker 1: It's happen. It's about to happen. It's about to happen.
28:23
Speaker 1: And John says, everybody who's been looking at me, look,
28:25
Speaker 1: I want you to look there from now. I want
28:27
Speaker 1: to look the lamb of God who comes to take
28:32
Speaker 1: away the sin of the world. And John is right,
28:35
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, we should have seen that, we
28:37
Speaker 1: should have put two and two together. But I want
28:39
Speaker 1: to make sure my readers get it before they get
28:41
Speaker 1: to the end of the story. For God, not just Jesus.
28:49
Speaker 1: For God so loved the world that he gave. See,
28:52
Speaker 1: when you love, this is what you do, isn't it.
28:54
Speaker 1: When you love, you give. When you love, you give,
28:57
Speaker 1: That's what you do when you love. For God to
28:59
Speaker 1: love the world that he gave his wand and his
29:01
Speaker 1: only son, that whoever and here it is, whoever not
29:04
Speaker 1: just believes that. See, you don't become a Christian because
29:07
Speaker 1: of faith. You become a Christian because all of the
29:11
Speaker 1: evidence points to the fact that Jesus is who Jesus
29:14
Speaker 1: claims to be. That's why you become a Christian. You
29:16
Speaker 1: don't become a Christian because of faith. You come become
29:18
Speaker 1: a Christian by faith because placing your trust in Jesus,
29:22
Speaker 1: that transaction is how you get connected to the Kingdom
29:25
Speaker 1: of God, that whoever believes in him won't be lost
29:31
Speaker 1: to God, won't perish, won't fall away, won't get lost
29:35
Speaker 1: in the cheffle, but have a different kind of life,
29:40
Speaker 1: eternal life. You will be born, as Jesus was trying
29:46
Speaker 1: to explain to Nicotinus, you will be born again into
29:49
Speaker 1: a brand new family, a family where you have the
29:51
Speaker 1: privilege to call God your father. Years later, another pharisee,
29:59
Speaker 1: a pharisee who to be the best pharisee of all,
30:01
Speaker 1: who tried to put the church out of business, who
30:03
Speaker 1: then became a Jesus follower. He looks back after the
30:05
Speaker 1: resurrection at the whole story and he says, this is
30:07
Speaker 1: how I see it. It's as if God is inviting
30:10
Speaker 1: you to participate in an adoption process, but you're not
30:14
Speaker 1: the one doing the adoption. You're the one being adopted,
30:18
Speaker 1: and you get to choose whether or not you want
30:20
Speaker 1: to be adopted, and if you say yes, God is
30:22
Speaker 1: more than happy to adopt you into his family because
30:27
Speaker 1: of what Christ has done on the front end to
30:31
Speaker 1: make that possible. Now, when we explain John three sixteen
30:36
Speaker 1: to children, here's how we explain it to children at
30:39
Speaker 1: all of our churches, at all of our campus. It's
30:41
Speaker 1: everywhere that we have an opportunity. Here. Here's how we
30:43
Speaker 1: explain it to children. We put it this way. That
30:46
Speaker 1: God loved, so he gave. That's what you do in
30:48
Speaker 1: your love. God loved, God gave. And what are we
30:50
Speaker 1: supposed to do. We're supposed to believe, not believe that
30:52
Speaker 1: trust in. We believe, and then we receive eternal life.
30:56
Speaker 1: God love, God gave. We believe. We receive God love
30:59
Speaker 1: God gave. Starts with God. We believe, we received that.
31:04
Speaker 1: Getting into the Kingdom of God is not about d Oh,
31:07
Speaker 1: It's about Dne. He did all the heavy lifting, and
31:12
Speaker 1: he says, it's an invitation that I'm inviting you to accept.
31:17
Speaker 1: Now back to Nick and Jesus for just a minute.
31:20
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what Nick made of this conversation.
31:24
Speaker 1: He kind of wanders off and he gets home and
31:26
Speaker 1: his wife and you know, everybody, it's like, how'd it go?
31:29
Speaker 1: You know, did you get my question answered? Nick's like, no, no,
31:34
Speaker 1: something about the Messiah's going to die on a pole,
31:36
Speaker 1: and everybody gets in. I don't know. I don't have
31:39
Speaker 1: any idea what he's talking about. But eventually Nick got it.
31:44
Speaker 1: And here's how we know, because after Jesus was crucified,
31:48
Speaker 1: Nick's in the back of the crowd. No doubt, he's
31:50
Speaker 1: a san Hedrin, He's kind of responsible for this whole thing,
31:53
Speaker 1: you know, around Passover. He's in the back of the crowd.
31:56
Speaker 1: Can you imagine this moment. All he sees there are
31:58
Speaker 1: the tops of heads. He knows Jesus has been arrested.
32:02
Speaker 1: He's absolutely sure Jesus has come from God. This was
32:05
Speaker 1: not the ending he expected. And he's looking over a
32:07
Speaker 1: whole bunch of tops of heads, you know, and suddenly
32:09
Speaker 1: can you imagine this moment? And suddenly lifted up from
32:15
Speaker 1: in front of the crowd, he says the cross, and
32:20
Speaker 1: there hangs Jesus. And it's like it's as he said,
32:25
Speaker 1: cursed by God, abandoned by his own people, not the
32:32
Speaker 1: end of the story any of us anticipated, but exactly
32:36
Speaker 1: what he predicted. And when Jesus is dead, Nicodemus risk
32:45
Speaker 1: his reputation once again, and I think, risk his life,
32:48
Speaker 1: and he and a guy named Joseph, Joseph from Arimathea. Again,
32:51
Speaker 1: John gives us all these details. It's like Okay, you
32:53
Speaker 1: don't think this history the story is true. Fact check me.
32:55
Speaker 1: These are the names asked them find these people. They're
32:57
Speaker 1: still running around, Joseph of Aa and Nicodemus. They're absolutely
33:02
Speaker 1: sure this man came from God. This is not the
33:05
Speaker 1: end of the story the way we anticipated the end
33:07
Speaker 1: of the story. But this man deserves more than to
33:08
Speaker 1: have his body dumped on a pile of other bodies
33:11
Speaker 1: for the dogs to come and eat. So they go
33:14
Speaker 1: to Pilot and they probably have to slip Pilot a
33:16
Speaker 1: few coins to say, we would like to have that body,
33:20
Speaker 1: because it's against the law to bury the body of
33:23
Speaker 1: someone who's crucified. And Pilot gives them permission to take
33:26
Speaker 1: the body, and the son's going down and Sabbath is
33:28
Speaker 1: about to begin, and they take about one hundred plus pounds,
33:30
Speaker 1: which means they had two or three servants with them,
33:32
Speaker 1: and they get to this tomb that had never been
33:34
Speaker 1: used before, and Joseph of Airamethia's Wife's like, now, honey, wait, wait, wait, wait,
33:38
Speaker 1: you share you want to use our tomb? I mean,
33:39
Speaker 1: you know how much that thing costs, and it's all
33:40
Speaker 1: cleaned out for our family, and you know Joseph, you're
33:43
Speaker 1: going to be are you sure, And he's like, yes,
33:45
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly who this guy was, but he
33:48
Speaker 1: deserves better than this. And we're going to use our tomb.
33:53
Speaker 1: And they prepare the body the best they can because
33:55
Speaker 1: they're in a hurry, and they put him in close
33:58
Speaker 1: that stone over the front to seal it so animals
34:01
Speaker 1: won't get in, so that eventually that body will deteriorate
34:04
Speaker 1: to well, there's nothing left but bones, and they would
34:06
Speaker 1: go back in later, take the bones, put it in
34:07
Speaker 1: an ostuary, and give it to a family member, or
34:10
Speaker 1: bury it somewhere. And Nicodemus participated in that. He did
34:19
Speaker 1: not have answers to all of his questions, but he
34:22
Speaker 1: knew enough to know that this man had come from God.
34:29
Speaker 1: And maybe that's you. You'll always have questions and I'll
34:35
Speaker 1: never have all the answers for you. But if you
34:38
Speaker 1: know that, you know if there's something that when you
34:41
Speaker 1: hear this story, it stirs your heart. And maybe it's
34:45
Speaker 1: been stirring your heart for weeks or months or years,
34:47
Speaker 1: and you've heard it. You've heard it, and you come
34:48
Speaker 1: and you go and it's like, but today, maybe for
34:51
Speaker 1: the first time, the dots connected. It's like that, you know,
34:53
Speaker 1: you sort of got that last bit of information or
34:55
Speaker 1: that thing that kind of pushed you over, pushed you
34:57
Speaker 1: over the line. And if today that you're like Nick DMUs,
35:00
Speaker 1: I know enough to know that Jesus came from God,
35:04
Speaker 1: then I want to invite you to do what John,
35:07
Speaker 1: who was an eyewitness to the entire story, suggested that
35:10
Speaker 1: we all do everyone in the whole world do. This
35:13
Speaker 1: was the point of his gospel, This was the point
35:15
Speaker 1: of Jesus coming. I think he would say to you,
35:19
Speaker 1: would you do what I've suggested? Because eventually Nicodemus did,
35:21
Speaker 1: Joseph of Aarimathea did millions and millions and millions of
35:25
Speaker 1: people since then? Did would you be willing to believe
35:30
Speaker 1: and receive? The invitation is open because God already loved,
35:35
Speaker 1: and God already gave. What Nicodemus couldn't put together because
35:38
Speaker 1: it hadn't happened yet is so clear to us because
35:40
Speaker 1: we're on the other side. So I want to invite
35:44
Speaker 1: you to consider, would you would you would you today?
35:48
Speaker 1: Would you do what Nicodemus ultimately did? What John encourage
35:52
Speaker 1: us to do? What Jesus came so that we'd have
35:55
Speaker 1: the privilege to do. Would you believe, would you trust him,
35:59
Speaker 1: would receive Jesus as your savior,