The Church of Eleven22 - A Disciple Discovers Salvation in Christ - Follow Me - Wk 4

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

What does it mean to be "born again"? Nicodemus' story in John 3 teaches us how salvation is not about what you do, but about what Christ has done for you. - The Church of Eleven22® is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. To find out more about how God is moving at Eleven22, go to CoE22.com

All right, who's ready for Beach Baptist's the weekend? Anybody ready? Let's go, let's go, let's go. Well, we're not ready because we got two, three sermons to go before then. If you got your Bibles, I hope you do. John, Chapter 3 is where we're going to be. Very familiar passage. Even if you're new to Bible study, there's one verse in here that you already know.

We're in the fourth week of this series called Follow Me because I'm actually not in the crowd business. There's going to be a huge crowd out at the beach, okay? Actually, there's a huge crowd right now at Mary and Correctional watching. There's about 125 guys. and 39 of those guys are currently signed up to be baptized. Guys, I'm going to come there and baptize you. But the number needs to be about 75 by the end of my sermon here, okay?

That's what we're going to do. And we're talking about what a disciple is, okay? We had 44,000 people show up for Easter. That's neat. What's miraculous is when those people don't just show up to an event, begin to take steps to follow in the footsteps of Jesus because that's what a disciple is. And what we're going to talk about tonight is the first step in what it means to be a disciple,

to be a Christian, to be a believer, to be saved, whatever phraseiology we want to use, the phrase that Jesus used was to be born again. So tonight we're going to talk about what it means to find salvation in Jesus Christ, to surrender your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And then my goal, let me just put this right here on the bottom shelf, okay? I'm gonna preach the gospel, then we're going to feel the gospel, that'll make sense in about 45 minutes. And then I won't, if you're a believer, I want you to be reminded of how good God is to

us. I want you be reminded of what he saved us from and who he saved us to. And if you don't yet know in my goal, like God loves you and I have a plan for your life. And my plan for your life is tonight you would put your faith in Jesus Christ, and then on Sunday you put your skivvy zone and we go out in the Atlantic Ocean and you would join the 2,000 plus people that are going to proclaim Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior. Amen? So that's what we're about to do. And if you're like, not me, we'll see. All right. John chapter 3 is where we are. It's very, very famous passage, okay? Pick it up in verse 1.

It says, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. By the way, his name means victory over all the people. So either he's arrogant or his mom is arrogant. Somebody has got a, you know, they got a lot going on for this guy. So now, there was a lot. man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Now, by the way, when you see the word Pharisee in the Bible, the word Pharisee just means separated. And what these group of religious leaders did is they were on the lookout for the Messiah. And they thought if they could be holy, they could be so unstained by this world that when the Messiah showed up on the scene, they would be so godly, they would be so holy, they would be so unstained from this world,

that they would be the first people to recognize when the Messiah showed up on the scene. But the problem was, is that they looked at God, they looked in God's Word. God's word has 613 laws in the Old Testament. And they said, ha, ha, God, good try, but that's not enough. We're going to triple those laws. And even if that group of people started out with the right heart,

they began to drift into what we would call legalism. and their entire life and religious experience was based on this. If I do, then I will be accepted. By the way, a bunch of us grew up in churches like that. A bunch of us grew up in churches where we heard the message, God is good, you are bad, try harder, see you next week. Anybody been to one of those kind of things? Yeah, me too, all right?

That is not the gospel. And so what Nicodemus believes is if I do the right thing, then I will be accepted. And what Jesus is going to do in this entire conversation is he is going to take that ideology, that theology, and he is going to completely flip it upside down. And he is going to tell him the gospel. And the gospel is, if I believe, then I'm accepted, and because I'm accepted, then it will change what I do. That's the context of this entire conversation. So Nicodemus Pharisee comes to Jesus, verse two. This man came to Jesus by night. This is where we get Nick at night. I don't know if you know that.

And that's goofy, right? You're like getting so dumb, but you'll remember it. But there's a motif all through the book of John that Jesus is the light and this world is in the dark. And so John is not only telling us what time of day, but John is telling us that Nick is in the dark. And so he comes to him by night. Maybe he's afraid, maybe he's embarrassed. But the good news is that Jesus is going to meet him exactly where he is, which is really good news. news for me and you. No matter who you are or where you are, and even if you're super religious

and you grew up in church your whole life, or you're brand new. When I said, turn to John. Who's John? It doesn't matter, man. Jesus is going to meet you exactly where you are. This is what he does with Nicodemus. And Nicodemus says to Jesus, rabbi. So we know right here that Nicodemus is coming with good intentions. This is a title of respect. He says, Rabbi, we know that you were a teacher that comes from God. For no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. Notice the way Nicodemus says things. Nicodemus's line of questioning is about what Jesus can do.

And again, he thinks, since you can do these things, then doing precedes acceptance, therefore you must have a right relationship with God. And he's got it completely backwards. Now, one of the things that's going on here is that Nicodemus is interested in Jesus. Nicodemus is near Jesus. Nicodemus is three feet away from Jesus. But the problem is he doesn't know Jesus. I'm telling you, being the pastor of the Church of 1122, this is the thing that keeps me up at night.

I mean, there's going to be 10,000 people on the beach. There'll be 25,000 people in one of our campuses this weekend. There'll be tens of thousands more people that watch online. and you can be near Jesus, you can be singing the Jesus songs, you can be interested in all the facts and not know Jesus. What was crazy about the religious leaders in the first day is they knew all the facts of the Old Testament. They knew all the prophecies of the Messiah.

They knew it word for word, and they're standing in front of the living word of God. They can smell the breath of God, and they don't recognize him for who he is. Listen, church, please don't miss Jesus. please don't miss Jesus and so he says rabbi

we know that you were a teacher who comes from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him you see he is near Jesus but he only knows him as a teacher he doesn't know him as Lord I love this so much look at verse 3 and Jesus answered him but he didn't ask a question

but Jesus knows the answer that's really going on there you see Jesus is just going to get to the heart of what Nicodemus is actually looking for. And so he says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, in other words, what Jesus is doing here is like, Burba, boy, but you miss the whole point. It's not what you do, but it is what has been done on your behalf, like being born. You see, Jesus is going to jump straight to the conclusion here, and he's saying, I'm not merely a rabbi, I have come that you may have come that you

have new life. And again, by the end of this sermon, that is what I want for you. I want you to know Jesus, not just as like a place to go on the weekend or a person to believe that was a religious leader back in today. I want you to know him as Lord and Savior. C.S. Lewis very famously says in mere Christianity that you've only got three options when it comes to Jesus. And nobody's got time for this whole thing about Jesus was a good moral teacher or maybe just

a religious leader. The kind of man that said this sort of thing. that Jesus would say is not merely a good moral teacher. Either he's a lunatic or he's a liar or he's the Lord. And you have to make your mind up as to what you think he is. This is the exact conversation that Jesus is having with Nicodemus. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He's like, Nicodemus, this is like you. You don't need to just try harder, brother. You need a brand new start. And what becoming a Christian means, what being a follower of Jesus is, what it means to surrender your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ,

means that you are brought about because of the love of another, not by your work. Anybody had a baby in the house, not in the house, but anybody in the house had a baby. Raise your hand, high, high, good. Praise God, all right. When you were in that delivery room, who did all the work you or the baby right mama i've seen it twice there's a lot of work going on one time they look they the doctor says do you need to sit down great you said i am sitting down so baby they ain't talking to you all right i'm sweating over here this is terrifying my two kids didn't do nothing but show up when you get saved the only thing that you bring to your salvation is the sin that requires it that's it but because of god is rich and murder

not because you're awesome, but because he is awesome. He places his love on us. This is what Jesus is saying the Nicodemus. Bro, it's not about your work. It's about a work that will be done on your behalf because God places his love on you. And then you want to talk about just missing the point. I mean, this is, this is one of the grossest things ever in the whole Bible. Okay, don't think about it too much, but listen to these words. And Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus said, what in the name of me are you talking about, bro? Holy goodness. Now, here's the thing. I can't talk about that anymore. Okay, so Nicodemus's paradigm is what must I do to be born again? Jesus' answer is going to be,

you can't do, bro. That salvation is received salvation in. not achieved. The salvation is a gift of God because of grace that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. And there's no work that you can do that can make you right before God. So it completely goes right over Nicodemus's head. And so Jesus explains, truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit, by the way, this is a reference for Ezekiel 36, if you, you know, super nerd Christians, want to read about on that later. He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh.

That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. What Jesus is saying is, if you were only born once, you were going to die twice. If you were only born of water or of flesh, then you are going to have two deaths in your life. You're going to have a physical death and a spiritual death. And the crazy thing about the spiritual death, as described by the Bible, for eternity, you will be eternally dying, you'll never actually die. This is what we call hell.

But if you were born twice, we are all born physically, but if you are reborn in Christ, if you start over with him by putting your faith in him, then you will only experience a physical death and you will experience eternal life forever and ever and ever and ever. This is what he's talking about. Now, when I was in ninth grade English,

my teacher told me, whatever you do, don't mix metaphors. Well, Jesus would have been like, whatever. Because now he's going to go to a totally different metaphor, but it's the same point. Now he says, the wind blows wherever it wishes. And I think Nicodemus says, what are we talking about here? We're just talking about my mama? Now we're talking about the wind.

Jesus is the hand here. Okay, the wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear it sounds, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. By the way, the word spirit and wind are the same word. in Greek. It's Numa. That's what it is. Say Numa. Numa. Numa. That's right. We know this. Breath. Like if you got pneumonia, Numa means breath and on you means sick. I don't know what on you means. But you know what I mean? That's what it is. And so if you see the leaves blowing, it's not like the leaves started fluttering and that created

the wind. Everybody with the brain knows that's how that works, right? You can't see the wind. You can't even, you can feel the effects of the wind. You don't even know how to create the wind. This is it, that God is the initiator. Your good works are not the initiator. Your works are evidence like leaves blowing in the wind that the spirit is on the move. He goes on to say, Nicodemus, he's still got questions.

Because how can these things be? It totally just goes right over his head. He's like, Jesus, I don't know what you're talking about. Which, by the way, have you ever been at church or ever been reading your Bible? Or have been listened to a sermon? and not mine, because mine are perfectly clear every single time. But, you know, when somebody else is trying to preach,

have you ever been like, I just don't even know what they're talking about? Anybody have been there? Guess what? Guess what? I got really, really, really good news. You can make a great disciple. You could make a great disciple. Because you don't have to figure everything out in order to come to Christ.

You actually have to surrender everything to come to Christ. That it's as simple as this. If you believe that when Jesus died on the cross, somehow that counted for me, then you can be saved. And here's how we know this. At no point in this conversation from Jesus, by the way, who's the greatest teacher of all time, does Nicodemus ever go, you know what, I got it? But what we will find out by the time you get to John 19, this is a little bit of speculation on my part, but I'm right. So don't fact check me here, okay? I think Nicodemus puts his faith in Jesus Christ.

you're like, why would you say that, pastor? Because on the Passover, Jesus is crucified. He's dead on the cross. And the Bible says that two people, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus go and boldly ask for the body of Jesus. And they put their hands on him and they prepare his body for the tomb. By the way, only women and slaves would touch dead bodies and do this. And now this Pharisee, who was the keeper of the law, he understands that it is a person. it's not the external things that make you unclean. And this one who has just died on the cross

when he says it is finished, somehow it counted for him. And so it doesn't matter if he defiles himself on Passover because he has put his faith in this one that said, you must be born again. How many of you know how you start, but how you finish that matters? Amen. And Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel and you do not understand these things? And he's like, Now, again, Jesus is going to mix it up again. Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. To what I think?

Negadamus is like, who's we, man? Who are we talking about now? Is there somebody with you? Do you have voices in your head? Like, what are we doing? But we know as post-resurrection Christians that Jesus is a part of the eternal we. That Jesus is the second person of the church. Trinity. There's one God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus is saying, the Godhead knows these things, and you don't understand these things. Now, here's how you also know that Nicodemus is kind of leaning in, because this would be blasphemy for this Jewish carpenter to claim divinity unless it's true. And then Jesus continues to explain. If I have told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things. Verse 13, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

Now, when he said the son of man, that's a mic drop. Over 70 times in the Old Testament, the son of man phrase is used to describe the coming Messiah. The son of man is Jesus' favorite title about himself. What he is saying is, what the whole Old Testament was pointing to, I'm standing right here in front of you. But don't miss this.

Jesus says, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven. You see, every other religion teaches that it is your job to ascend to heaven. I mean, the one thing that everybody in the world has in common is this. We all agree something is wrong. And there is a gap between here and whatever there is.

There is a gap between here and heaven or nirvana or what? whatever your God is. And every other religion on the planet is, we have to do everything that we can do to get from here to there. And Jesus says, you're thinking about it wrong. That the essence of the gospel

is not clean yourself up so you can make yourself right before God. The essence of the gospel is that God became a man and descended and came on a rescue mission for you and for me. and he's standing face to face with a man who has given his life to look for the Messiah.

And basically what Jesus is saying is, you thought you would see the Messiah because you're a great rule keeper. But in reality, you see the Messiah because I'm a great promise keeper. You see, you thought it was all predicated on behavior, but it's not. It's rooted in belief.

You see, you thought that it was built on religious activity, but it's not. It's a rescue mission that leads to a relationship like a brand new baby with his mom. And I think he's looking at Nicodemus. And Nicodemus is looking back confused. Like you're looking at me right now. And so what Jesus, the master of teacher, is going to do now.

Again, he just tried to explain it straight up, okay? You got to be born again. It's like the wind blowing. I have descended from heaven and here I am. And so Nicodemus is just staring at him. So Nicodemus is an expert in the Old Testament. So what Jesus is going to do at this point is he's going to use two Old Testament examples that point to a coming Savior, a coming Messiah, to explain this.

The first one is verse 14 and following. He says this, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. And whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Okay, this was a rabbinical teaching method, all right? All he's got to do is mention a tiny little piece of this Old Testament reality. and then this person who is an expert in the Old Testament knows all of the rest of it. It's called a remez,

that Jesus gives him a part of a verse, and then he knows all of the rest of it. And this is like Numbers chapter 21. I'm sure you already knew that because you guys are the gifted class, but that's what he's talking about. And I could even do this today, okay? Like if I want to know who my Gen Z people are right now,

I could do it so, well, I can't actually do Gen Z because I don't know any of your stuff, all right? If I want to know who my Gen X, like the last of the feral children are, it's so easy. This is how easy I can identify us. You ready for this? Regulators. There we go.

Okay, everybody just mounted up. That's our people, all right? We drink out of the hose. That's who we are. Now, if you're looking around, going, where do you mean mount up? What are we mountain? Where are we going? Where's the mountain?

Okay. Well, that's because you're probably too young and just don't know. And the reason I don't use any of your music is because it's terrible, all right? It's terrible. It is categorically terrible. All right, so what Jesus is doing here is when he mentions this Moses thing. It's from Numbers chapter 21 versus four in following. And what happened is that Moses goes before the Pharaoh.

He says, I'm here on behalf of God, let my people go. Ten plagues come through. The last one is the plague of the unborn. The blood of the lamb is shed and put on the doorposts of the house. The angel of death passes over who's ever got the blood. All the firstborn of Egypt died. And then they head. They cross the Red Sea.

they get into the land of Canaan, they're on their way to the promised land, and then the people began to complain. Because church people used to be different, okay? And this is what's really crazy. If you read it in Numbers chapter 21, I don't have time to read it. And they begin to complain

about what they were praying for a few chapters before. Can you believe that? They were playing, Lord, please get us out of Egypt. And then when they get out of Egypt, they're like, Lord, why'd you take us out of Egypt? Can you believe people used to

complain about things that used to be prayer request that God answered. Anybody ever complained about their job this week? Right? Did you pray to get that job? Dear God, please say them, let them say yes. And then they're doing it like, God, why I got to have this job? You ever complain about your children? Oh, Lord, please let us have a baby. And then a couple years later, you're like, not this one. I mean, maybe a better one. All right, so. So then what happens is, the Lord let these poisonous snakes loose into camp. They're called fiery snakes. That's the Hebrew way to say poisonous. And people get all snake bit. And they're, they got poison running through their veins. And they come to Moses and they're like, we've been bitten by poisonous snakes. What are we going to do?

And so they cry out to God and Moses says, Lord, could you be gracious upon your complaining and grumbling people and save them from the snake bite? And God says, all right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a bronze serpent, the thing that is the thing that got them in trouble. I I want you to put it on a stick, and I want you to lift it up. And whoever would look to the bronze serpent, then you'll be healed. And Jesus says, that's what it's like with me. You see, this is a picture of the good news of the gospel. The reality is every single one of us are snake bit.

This is a problem on the inside, not the outside. And it won't do any good if you just clean up the outside if you've got poison running through your veins. It actually won't even do any good if you chop the head of the snake off if you've already got poison running through your veins. So then what happens is that Jesus becomes sin, this is 2nd Corinthians 521, that God made Him sin who was without sin for us that we could be made the righteousness of God. If we will just look to Jesus on the cross

who took on our curse and say, I believe that you on the cross is enough to cure me from the inside out. This is what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus. Galatians, Paul writes a letter. He says it this way, in Galatians 313. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on the tree. And so when Jesus goes to the cross, not only does he die for us, but he dies instead of us. In every single sin of all humanity, Jesus just does,

he doesn't simply take it upon himself. The Bible says he becomes that sin to pay the full price, to endure the full wrath because he is the just and the justifier. And he offers to us the greatest deal of all time that if we will put our faith in him, if we will surrender our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then our sin debt is transferred to Christ on the cross and his perfect righteous life, his perfect relationship with the Heavenly Father,

is credited or counted to us. And when God sees us, he sees us exactly as if we are his perfect son, Jesus. This is what he's talking about. And you're smarter than Nicodemus. Because he's like, I still don't get it. He's like, okay, let's try this one more time. So he's going to do another rabbinical trick, okay? And this is the most famous verse, probably, at least for Americans in the Bible.

John 316. And he's like, all right, all right, Nick, ready for this? For God so love the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. The word for, he's saying, listen, Nick, this is why God is going to save you. For God, our salvation is initiated by God, Nicodemus. He's not initiated by you.

So love the world. When you see that little word so, the Greek word is in, and it's an amplifier or a multiplier. It means he didn't just kind of love you. He doesn't just sort of love you. He doesn't just barely love you enough. but he amplifies his love upon you. The way John will write this in another book,

in First John, he will say this, oh, what manner of love the Father has lavished upon us that we would be called children of God. That God lavishes his love upon us. In fact, we'll see a picture of this on Sunday when we baptize 2,000 people. We don't put just a little bit of water on you, be like, no, no, no, no.

That word baptized means dip, dump, submerge. And it is a picture of the lavish love of God. You ever see you like, well, we see it all the time? You know, in the fall when the hurricanes hit? You know? And then the weather channel people are out there. You ever see them? And the wind's blowing about 100 miles an hour, and there's stuff going sideways.

And, you know, they're out there. They're like, we're out here, you know, and it's just hitting them in the face like this. It's not like a little sprinkle. It's like they can barely, they can hardly stand up there, you know, and like stop signs are flying by. And like, oh, okay. That's what the lavish love of God is like. It's like unstoppable.

It's uncontrollable. It's not just a little bit enough to top you off so that you can barely eke your way into heaven. He just lavishes his love and lavishes his love and lavishes his love. Like when we dunk you under that ocean and then you're resurrected to the newness of life. That's how God so loves his children.

That he gave, he did something. He made a way for us to be reconciled. And he gives his only begotten son. This is a tough word to translate. The King James, the King James says, it's only begotten. Some translation say he is one and only. The Greek word is monogenes. Even if you're not a Greek scholar, you can translate that one.

Mono means one genus like gene. It means of the same essence. That Jesus is of the same essence of the Heavenly Father. Now, what you gotta understand is that when he says, these words, for God, the Father, so loved the monogenous son that he gave, then all the the lights on Nicodemus' dashboard start going on. You see, the rabbinical tradition, it was called proto-logos in Greek. It means first words. And Nicodemus would have known that the very first time in the whole Bible, that the Bible describe a father's love,

for his son, and yet there was a sacrifice involved, would go all the way back to the book of Genesis. It would go all the way back to Abraham and Isaac. He would go back to Genesis chapter 22, verse 2, which says this, and he said, take your son, your only son, your only begotten son, whom you love, and go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering

on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. Okay, if you're new to Bible study, there's this guy, super famous, in the Old Testament, his name originally is Abram. It means father. And then God comes to him, not because Abrams awesome, but because God's awesome. And he goes, buddy, I got a plan for you. I'm going to make you a father of many nations. He says, I want you to go out and I want you to count the sand on the seashore. How many is there? And he's like, there's a lot. He goes, all right, I want you to go and look in the stars of the sky. How many? And he's like,

I think it's more than the sand. And he's like, right, I'm going to give you a promised child. And Moses, I mean, Abram actually, he's like, well, how can that be? Because I'm old and my wife is older than old. That's what he says. Husbands, I would never say that out loud if I were. And God's like, hey, anything is possible with me. You just got to believe. You just got to trust. And through this promised child, through this son of your love, the one that you will love, I will bless the entire world. Well, about 15 years go by, and no kid. How many of you have realized that God's timing and your timing

may not be the exact same thing. You know what I'm saying? And so Abraham and Sarah, they kind of take it in their own hands. They have Ishmael. That doesn't go good. Still not going good. It's terrible. Okay?

And then finally, an angel shows up and is like, all right, your wife's going to be pregnant. She's eavesdropping, because that's what wives do. She's eavesdropping, and she's like, ha, ha, ha, ha. Not laughing because it's funny because she don't believe it. So they name him laughter. They name him Isaac. And this is a miraculous kid given by God, the son of Abraham's love.

And then, just when God comes through on the promise, God comes to Abraham and says, I want you to take your son, your only begotten son, the one that you so love, and I want you to march him up a hill and sacrifice him for me. Now, who in the world would do that? but the Bible says that Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now it's always a good idea to let the Bible be commentary into itself. And the book of Hebrews lets us know that Abraham so believed in the promise of God that he didn't know exactly how God was going to pull it off, but if he would just do what God says, then God would always be faithful to his promise.

So Hebrews lets us know that Abraham believed even if he followed through on the sacrifice of the, of his son, then God must, he would resurrect him from the grave. Now, a lot of times if you grew up in Sunday school, you think of, I mean, you think of Isaac a sudden like we little kid, but he wasn't because he could carry wood, he could talk. So let's just say he's like 18 years old. And they're on their way up the mountain. And he says to his dad, dad, I got a question. What's that, buddy?

He goes, we have the wood, we had the fire, but where's the sacrifice? And his dad's like, you don't worry about that, okay? And then when they get to the top of the mountain, Abraham ties up his son, which, by the way, means that Isaac had to trust his dad so much that we'd allow himself to be tied up. Because Abraham would have been 118 years old. I don't know if anybody in here is 118. But you're not a good fighter, okay?

Even if Isaac was the wimpiest little 18-year-old of all time, I mean, it's 100 to 1 chance that the 18-year-old can whip the 118-year-old. and then Abraham by faith raises his knife and an angel of the Lord shows up and goes whoa whoa whoa whoa this was just a test don't sacrifice your son I'm going to give you a substitute and they look over and there's a ram a male adult lamb with his head caught in a bunch of thorns sound familiar and the angel says we will call this mountain mount mariah and essentially essentially what the angel is saying is, hey, don't use your son. God's going to use his. By the way, when Jesus dies on the cross, he goes back to that exact same mountain.

So when Jesus says to Nicodemus, for God, so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever would believe would not perish but have everlasting life, he wants his mind to go to Abraham and Isaac. and if you put your faith in God, then it will be credited to you as righteousness. Now, quite honestly, who in the world would give up their kid? I mean, listen, I'm just going to tell you, I got two, okay? I got two. One sitting right here.

And if it was a requirement for me to sacrifice my daughter for you to go to heaven, I got bad news for you. I mean, church, I love you. I love you so much. I pray for you, I do. I love to meet you in the lobby. I love to pray over you. I love when we meet all over town.

But if I've got to sacrifice to one of my, kids, you're going to hell, I hate to tell you. And yet, Jesus, look at Nicodemus, and said, God so loves you that he would be willing to send me, the son of his love, his promised son, the second person of the Trinity, to come on a rescue mission and be the substitutionary sacrificial lamb for the forgiveness of your sin. And whoever believes would not perish but have eternal life. John 173 defines eternal life, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. And then Jesus keeps going. He says, four, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. Like Jesus did not show up to the scene to just tell

everybody how terrible they are. In condemnation, I've told you this a million times, condemnation is a building term. Condemnation means you were unfit, you are unfit, for use. Condemnation is the primary language of the enemy. You see, the enemy constantly wants you to think that when Jesus died on the cross, that counted for somebody else, but it couldn't possibly count for you. Because the moment you start to lean in and want to believe it for you, the enemy wants to bring up your past. The enemy wants to bring up your sins, your struggles. And Jesus says, whoa, whoa, whoa, God did not send me. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And he says, whoever believes in him is not condemned. Please hear me. Your past does not define you. Your addiction does not define you. Your affair does not define you. Your divorce does not define you. Whatever that thing is that you are most ashamed of in your life, your past, your current struggle, that is not primarily who you are.

And you may say, well, that's the biggest thing that's ever, happened in my life, not if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, it's not. That when Jesus Christ died on the cross, he wiped away all of that past, and he stamped his name on you. When Jesus says, it is finished, that means that doesn't get to tell you who you are anymore. Only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. And he calls you the beloved son or daughter of the most high God. For God did not send his 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. That's good news, amen. But this is not just true for every human being on the planet. This is true for everybody who believes in Jesus, who trust in Jesus. He says, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. listen man there is no neutral Pontius Pilate asked this question

what shall I do with this man named Jesus it's the most important question that you will ever deal with in your entire life and your answer determines your eternal destiny forever and ever and ever and to ignore him is to reject him because there is no neutral every single one of us because of our own sinfulness that which we inherited from our parents

and the things that we gladly participate in means that every single one of us are drowning, and there is nothing that we can do to save ourselves. And Jesus is saying, I am the lifesaver. This is what he's saying. He says, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works are evil for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seeing that his works have been carried out in God. In other words, there is no neutral. C.S. Lewis in mere Christianity, he says it this way. He says, it may be hard for an egg to turn

into a bird. It would be a jolly sight harder. I love the English. Don't you love that? It would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while we're maintaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. You cannot go on indefinitely just being an ordinary decent egg. You must be hatched or go bad. This is every single one of us. There is no neutral. That apart from Jesus Christ, you stand condemned because every single one of us,

we're not snowflakes, we're not skittles, we're not puppy's breath, you don't have your own truth, all those things are just lies. Every single one of us by nature and nurture are crooked and depraved, selfish, wretched, black-hearted sinners. And if you were to say to me, who are you to tell me I'm a sinner? An expert sinner. I mean, think about this. Forget the law of God for a second.

We can't even keep our own promises, amen? You ever make a promise to yourself that you didn't keep? What if the only thing that God ever judged you own was your own promises, your own resolutions, the time that you say, I'll never do that again. You know what I ought to do. You see, we can't keep our own self pure. but God has made a way. Here's John 316 in my own words, ready?

God loved, so God gave. If you believe, then you receive eternal life. Again, John 112 says, but to all who did receive, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. And that's what salvation is. The gospel is simply this. We were created by God for God.

All the way back in the Garden of Eden, he created mankind perfectly. He breathes the rule of life into the very first man. Adam opens his eyes and he is face to face with his Heavenly Father. And that's what every single one of us were created for. God's intention is not that we would be born sinners, but we would be born in a right and perfect relationship with God. And yet Adam and Eve are great, great, great grandparents. They reject God.

And when they choose to sin and reject God, then when sin entered the world, it held the door open for all the pain, all the shame, all the strife. Everything that has ever gone wrong in your life is collateral damage from all the way back there. This is why today our heart still yearn for things that we know aren't right. We celebrate in things that deep down we know that we should be ashamed of. And that sin wrecked us and separated us from an almighty God. and yet there's no thing that we could do to clean ourselves up to make ourselves right before God. So God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

He sends Jesus to show up. He fulfills every promise and prophecy of the Old Testament. He lives a perfect life. The Bible says that he is tempted in every way that you and I are tempted. And yet every single time he chooses the will of God over the will of this world. and then he's arrested, he's tried. He's nailed to a Roman cross. And the first thing that he says on that cross is this,

Father, forgive them. Not Father get them, or not Father give them what they deserve, but he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Why? Because he did not come to condemn, but he came to save. And then he pushes up on his nail pierce feet, and he says, to tell us thy,

it is finished. And what is finished? The final payment for our sin is finished. And for anyone who would believe that when Jesus died on the cross, somehow that counted for me, for anyone who would believe, then we receive the right to become children of God.

The way Jesus would say this, you must be born again to enter into the king, kingdom of heaven. And if you were to say, well, what do I do? You just got to receive it. You got to receive it. You admit it. I'm a sinner. I need a savior. You believe, you trust when Jesus died on the cross somehow that counted for me. And then you confess him. Jesus, save me. And the Bible says he will 100% of the time. Now, that is all of the information that you know, you need to know, to go from dead to alive. That's all the information, but information. But

information will not save you. I don't want you to just know it in your mind. I want you to know it in your heart. So at all of our campuses right now, we're gonna bring out our worship team. And there is this song that they're gonna sing. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit there and you're not gonna move.

And if you gotta go to the bathroom, just have an accident, okay, it's gonna be worth it. And if you know a bunch of Bible, those whole songs gonna make a ton of sense. The song's called Blown Away. Blown away. it's written from the perspective of that word so for a god so love the world and you could put your name there and it's not enough it's not enough to just believe that jesus practically came to do for me what i

couldn't do but god the father is calling you to feel it deep down here in your guts to be born again so you position yourself in whatever position you need to to not just hear the gospel, but to feel it. Here's some words I don't want you to miss. He says, what you went through to love me, I'll never understand. What blows my mind away is, you love me as I am. Then he repeats it, what you went through to love me, I'll never understand. What blows my mind away is, you do it all again.

I want you to feel. the gospel. Check this out. Then whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. Be Christ, Coach Lee, quoted that verse, and then he quoted it one more time. And he said, for God so loved you, for God so loved you, that he sent his only begotten son. And if you would put your faith in Christ right now, if you would believe that when Jesus died on the cross, somehow that counted for you, then your eternity changes. You will not perish,

but you will receive him. You will receive eternal life. And that night, I surrendered my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And tonight, I want to give you the opportunity to do that right now. Would you bow your head? Would you close your eyes right where you are?

And if you were ready for the very first time to say, I believe, right now, for the very first time, no matter who you are, what you've done, what you believe, before you walked in here if you were in the whosoever category. And right now, you were ready for the very first time to put your faith in Jesus Christ and receive the salvation of Christ. I want you to lift your hand as high as you can.

And I want you deep in your heart to tell God Almighty Jesus save me. I want you to call on the name of the Lord. And the Bible says that every single person that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Our good and gracious heavenly, Father God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. God, please cure us from the curse of what Nicodemus believed, that it is in what we do that earns our acceptance before you. But God, would you give us the grace to understand that it is what Christ has done for us, that you so loved us that you gave Jesus to die a brutal death, to push up on those nail-pierced feet and say, it is finished. But thank you that he

wasn't finished. Because three days later, he came out of the tomb, and if he, he, can come out of that grave, then we can be brought from death to life. And for that, God, we love you back. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you please stand to your feet as we respond? For every single one of you that just raise your hand, welcome to the kingdom of God.

And your next step is to, after we get finished, finished, we used to sprint to the baptism class. And I will see you in that water on Sunday. Sunday. And I'm going to ask you who is Jesus to you and you are going to proclaim with everything you're made of. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. And one of us around here is going to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And if you have never been baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ, then that is your next step of discipleship. Then you can go to the baptism class right now and then we will see you in the water. But we're going to respond. We're

going to sing and we need to sing like Save People, amen, because we have a lot to celebrate. And we're going to bring our first and our best, our tides and our offerings so that we can continuously not only worship God with the things that He has given us, but we can continue to fuel this gospel message to the very ends of the earth. And we are going to pray. And if some of us just need to be reminded a little bit that God so loved you and he lavishes his love upon you, I would highly encourage you. Maybe grab somebody and just come down here and position yourself in prayer before an all my heart. mighty God and just let him minister to you a little bit. Or maybe there's a person that you know between now and Sunday, you need to get here so that they can go get in that water and proclaim Christ as their Lord and Savior.

And let me just remind you, don't be tricked like Nicodemus. Don't think that Atlantic Ocean is going to save you. No, no, no, it is the blood of the Lamb on the cross that saves you. What we're going to do in the ocean is just proclaim that it worked for me. Amen. So let's sing, let's bring, let's pray. Let's respond. The reality is everything already belongs to God.

And when we give financially, we're acknowledging that we trust him. If you just watch this and feel led to make a donation, text the word donate to 441122 or visit co.e22.com slash donate. Your generosity is not only an act of worship, but an investment so all people can discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ.