Why John Chapter 3 Is the MOST Important Message for Christians Today (No Ads)

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the description. What if I told you that you can

know the Bible, go to church, and live a moral life,

yet still miss the Kingdom of God entirely. This is

the shocking reality that Jesus reveals in John chapter three,

and it is the specific warning that the modern church

desperately needs to hear. It starts with a man named Nicodemus,

a man who had power, money, and the highest religious credentials,

yet felt completely empty to Jesus in secret because he

realized that all his good works were not enough. And

I believe most people listening to this are exactly like him.

You have religion, but you do not have life. You

have knowledge, but you do not have peace. You are

trying to earn your way to heaven, but you are

terrified you might not make it. We are going to

walk through this incredible chapter. Verse by verse, I am

going to show you the truths that Jesus revealed that night.

These are truths that destroy religion and replace it with

a relationship. These are truths that take the weight of

salvation off your shoulders and place it on the shoulders

of God. If you are tired of trying to be

good enough, and if you are wondering if you are

truly saved, then you need to hear this message. We

need to stop and really understand the man sitting across

from Jesus. If you miss who Nicodemus is, you will

miss the shock of this entire chapter. The Bible introduces

him with very specific, heavy titles. There was a man

of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

In our modern world, we often think of Pharisees as

the bad guise of the Bible. We think of them

as hypocrites. But in the first century in the city

of Jerusalem, a pharisee was looked at like a spiritual superstar.

These were not men who were casual about God. They

were obsessed with God. To be a Pharisee meant you

were intensely devoted to God's law and to religious practice.

It meant you prayed multiple times a day, every single day,

without fail. It meant you fasted twice a week. It

meant you gave exactly ten percent of everything you own

to God. They were the strictest, most disciplined, most respected

men in the nation. But Nicodemus was more than that.

The text says he was a ruler of the Jews.

This means he was a member of the Sanhedrin. Imagine

the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the College of Cardinals

all rolled into the highest ruling council in Jewish life,

often understood as about seventy leaders. Nicodemus was near the

top of the social, political, and religious ladder. He was wealthy,

he was famous, and he was considered the standard of righteousness.

If you had asked anyone on the streets of Jerusalem,

who is going to Heaven, they would have pointed at

Nicodemus and said that man, if he doesn't make it,

nobody will. And yet look at what he does. He

comes to Jesus by night. Why because despite the robes,

despite the titles, despite the years of Bible study. To say,

despite the disciplined lifestyle. His soul was empty. He knew,

deep down, in the terrifying silence of his own heart,

that he was not right with God. He had religion,

but he did not have relationship. He had the law,

but he did not have life. He starts the conversation

with a compliment, trying to frame this as a meeting

between two colleagues. This man came to Jesus by night

and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are

a teacher. Come from God. For no one can do

these signs that you do unless God is with him.

Nicodemus is doing what religious people always do. He is

relying on his logic and his observation. He is saying,

I have examined the evidence. I have looked at your miracles.

I have deduced that you must be sent by God.

He thinks he can figure God out with his brain.

He thinks that because he is a teacher, he can

understand Jesus. But Jesus does not care about his compliments.

Jesus is not impressed by his resume. Jesus looks right

past the fancy clothes and the religious reputation and sees

a man who is spiritually dead, and Jesus interrupts him

with a truth that shatters everything Nicodemus has spent his

life building. Jesus does not talk about miracles, he does

not talk about politics, he does not discuss theology. He

drops a nuclear bomb on Nicodemus's worldview most assuredly, I

say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot

see the Kingdom of God. Jesus is talking to a

man who has done everything right his entire life, and

Jesus looks him in the eye and says, it is

not enough. You don't need to learn more, you don't

need to do more. You need to become a completely

different species of humor being. You need to be born again.

This phrase born again can also be translated born from above.

It is the most radical concept in the universe. Nicodemus

is baffled. His mind immediately goes to the physical. How

can a man be born when he is old? Can

he enter a second time into his mother's womb and

be born? Nicodemus isn't just being difficult. He is pointing

out the impossibility of what Jesus is asking. Think about it.

Can you reverse time? Can you undo your history? Can

you go back to the start and begin again. Physically, no,

but spiritually. This is exactly what must happen. And here

is the specific warning for the church today. Many of

you listening to this believe you are Christians because you

made a decision, or because you signed a card, or

because you were raised in a Christian home. But Jesus

is using the analogy of birth for a very specific reason.

Think about your physical birth. Did you decide to be born?

Did you work hard to come into the world. No,

you were completely passive. You didn't exist. And then because

of the action of two parents, you were given life.

You were birthed. It was something done to you, not

something done by you. This is what Jesus is teaching.

Salvation is not a cooperative effort where you do fifty

percent and God does fifty percent. It is not even

you doing one percent and God doing ninety nine percent.

Salvation is a resurrection from the dead. It is a

new birth. It is a sovereign, supernatural act of God

where he puts a new nature inside of you. Jesus

answered most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is

born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the

Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh

is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit

is spirit. Jesus draws a hard line in the sand.

Flesh represents everything human, your best efforts, your religious rituals,

your morality, your education, your heritage. Jesus says, flesh can

only produce flesh. You can take a dog, wash it,

put a ribbon on it, and train it to walk

on two legs, but it is still a dog. You

can take a sinner, wash him in baptism, put a

suit on him, and train him to sing hymns, but

he is still a sinner. You cannot educate your way

into the Kingdom. You cannot work your way into the kingdom.

You must be born into it. Only the Holy Spirit

can produce spiritual life. This destroys all human pride. It

means the most moral, law abiding citizen and the hardened

criminal in prison are in the exact same position. Both

are dead in sin, and both need the exact same miracle.

They need God to breathe life into their dead souls.

Nicodemus is confused. This goes against everything he has been taught.

He was taught that if you keep the rules, you

get the reward. Now, Jesus is saying he needs a

miracle he cannot control. Jesus uses an illustration from nature

to explain how God saves a person. Do not marvel

that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the

sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from

and where it goes. So is everyone who is born

of the spirit. Think about the wind. You cannot control

the wind. You cannot tell the wind when to blow

or how hard to blow. You cannot catch the wind

in a box. The wind is invisible and it is powerful.

You do not see the wind itself, but you see

the effects of the wind. You see the trees bending

and the leaves moving. Jesus says, the Holy Spirit is

just like the wind. You cannot control salvation. You cannot

manipulate God with a formula. Salvation is the sovereign work

of God. The Holy Spirit visits who he wants, when

he wants. When he comes into a life, you see

the effects. You see a person who loved sin suddenly

begin to hate sin. You see a person who was

selfish suddenly become loving. You see a person who had

no interest in the Bible suddenly become hungry for God's word.

This is the evidence of the new birth. It is

not about signing a card or raising a hand. It

is about the wind of God blowing through a dead

soul and bringing it to life. Nicodemus is struggling to

understand how this new birth happens. He asks, how can

these things be? He is asking for the mechanism. How

does a holy God just forgive sinners? How does he

give them new life without compromising his justice. Jesus takes

this Master of Israel back to a dusty, terrifying story

from the Book of Numbers, chapter twenty one. If you

don't know this story, you will miss the heart of

the Gospel. No one has ascended to heaven but he

who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. And

as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even

so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that

whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

The context is crucial. The Israelites were in the desert,

and they were grumbling. They hated God's provision. They despise

the manner they were in open rebellion, so God sent

judgment in the form of fiery serpents. These were venomous

snakes that slithered into the camp. Imagine the scene, panic, chaos, screaming.

Thousands of people are being bitten. The venom is fiery,

meaning it caused a burning fever, swelling, and an agonizing death.

The poison is coursing through their veins. They are dying

and there is no medicine, no antidote, no doctor who

can save them. They are hopeless. They cry out to Moses,

and Moses cries out to God. Now pay attention to

what God does. He does not take the snakes away immediately.

He does not give them a pill to take. He

tells Moses to make a serpent of bonds and put

it on a high pole in the middle of the camp.

And God gives a promise. Anyone who is bitten when

he looks at the bronze serpent, he shall live. This

makes absolutely no sense to the human mind. Imagine you

are lying in your tent, your leg is black and

blue from the bite, your heart is failing, and your

neighbor runs in and says, Moses, put a metal snake

on a pole. Go look at it, you would say,

are you crazy. I need medicine, I need surgery, I

need to do something. Looking at a pole seems foolish,

It seems too easy, It seems like it shouldn't work.

But Jesus says, that is me. You and I have

been bitten by the serpent of old, the devil. The

poison of sin is in our blood. It is killing us.

We are dying spiritually, and just like the Israelites, we

try everything to fix it. We try the medicine of morality,

we try the surgery of self discipline, we try to

suck the poison out with religious rituals. But we are

still dying. So God did the unthinkable. He took his

own son, Jesus Christ, and lifted him up on a cross.

In the Bible, a serpent is a symbol of a curse.

Why would Jesus compare himself to a serpent, Because on

the cross he became a curse for us. He took

the toxic poison of our sin, our shame, and our judgment,

and he absorbed it into his own body. And now

the command of the Gospel is the most simple, offensive

command in the world. Look, just look, this is where

you have to be careful. The devil wants you to

look at two things. He wants you to look at

your sin, or he wants you to look at your righteousness.

He wants you to be obsessed with yourself, either how

bad you are, which leads to despair, or how good

you are, which leads to pride. But salvation comes when

you look away from yourself entirely. The dying Israelite didn't

have to limp to the pole. He didn't have to

pay the pole, He didn't have to promise to be

better to the pole. He just had to turn his

eyes and trust God's word. Look to me and be saved,

all you ends of the earth. It is the look

of faith. It is saying I cannot save myself. The

poison is too deep, but I believe that the man

on the cross died for me. The moment you look

with faith, not working, not earning, just trusting, the poison

is neutralized, the death sentence is canceled. You live. This

is the foolishness of the cross that confounds the wise,

and it is the only way to be saved. This

leads us to the verse that everyone knows, but few

truly understand. It is the greatest sentence ever written in

any language. It explains the motive of God and the

method of salvation. For God so loved the world that

he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in

him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Let us

look at this closely. For God that is the greatest lover,

so loved. That is the greatest degree the world. That

is the greatest company. The world here does not mean

the planet. It means the people who are in rebellion

against him. God did not love us because we were lovely.

He loved us when we were his enemies. That he gave,

that is the great act. He did not just give

a blessing or a promise. He gave the best thing

he had, his only begotten son. That is the greatest gift.

If you have children, you know that you might sacrifice

your life for someone. But you would never sacrifice your

child for someone, especially not for someone who hated you.

But God gave Jesus to die for us. That whoever

that is the greatest invitation. It does not say the rich,

or the smart, or the good. It says whoever that

includes you believes in him. That is the greatest simplicity.

It is not whoever works for him or whoever cleans

themselves up for him. It is whoever trusts in him

should not perish. That is the greatest deliverance. To perish

means to be lost forever in hell. It means to

be ruined and separated from God. Jesus came to rescue

us from that terrible fate. But have everlasting life. That

is the greatest possession. It is a life that never ends,

and a life that is full of the glory of God.

Many people have a wrong view of God. They think

God is sitting in heaven with a big hammer, waiting

for them to make a mistake so he can smash them.

They think Jesus came to judge them and make them

feel guilty. But look at what the next verse says.

For God did not send his son into the world

to condemn the world, but that the world through him

might be saved. Jesus did not come to condemn you.

Do you know why, because you were already condemned. You

do not need Jesus to tell you that you are

a sinner. Your conscience tells you that, the law tells

you that. Imagine a man drowning in the middle of

the ocean. A helicopter flies over and drops a rope.

The pilot does not come to tell the man he

is wet. The pilot does not come to lecture the

man on why he should not have fallen out of

the boat. The pilot comes to save him. The man

is already drowning. The only question is will he grab

the rope. Jesus clarifies this perfectly. He who believes in

him is not condemned. But he who does not believe

is condemned already because he has not believed in the

name of the only begotten Son of God. This is

a terrifying reality. If you are not a believer in

Jesus Christ, you are condemned already. It is not something

that will happen in the future. It is your status.

Right now. You are sitting on death row, waiting for

the sentence to be carried out. The only thing keeping

you from it judgment, is the patience of God. But

the moment you believe that condemnation is gone, it vanishes.

It is washed away by the blood of Christ. Romans

At says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those

who are in Christ Jesus. You go from being a

prisoner on death row to being a beloved child in

the father's house. If the offer of salvation is this easy,

if it's just look and live, then why isn't everyone saved?

Why do people mock Christianity? Why do your friends and

family get angry when you talk about Jesus? Why does

the world hate the Bible? Jesus gives us the diagnosis,

and it is not what you think. We tend to

think the problem is intellectual. We think, oh, if I

just had more evidence, I would believe, Or if God

would just write his name in the sky, than ever

every one would follow him. Jesus says, no, that is

a lie. The problem is not the head. The problem

is the heart. The problem is not a lack of light.

The problem is a love for darkness. And this is

the condemnation that the light has come into the world,

and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds

were evil. Imagine a room that hasn't been cleaned in

twenty years. It is full of filth, cockroaches, and rot,

but the curtains are drawn tight and the lights are off.

As long as it is dark. The owner of the

room can pretend it's clean. He can walk around comfortably.

But the moment you turn on a high powered flashlight,

what happens. The cockroaches scatter, the filth is revealed, the

rot is exposed. The owner of that room has two choices.

He can start cleaning, which is painful and hard, or

he can scream at you to turn off the light.

Jesus is the light of the world. When he comes

near a human heart, he doesn't just bring comfort, he

brings exposure. He shines a light on our pride. He

shines a light on our secret lusts. He shines a

light on our greed, our anger, and our selfishness. And

Jesus says, men loved darkness. We love our sin. That

is the hard truth we don't want to admit. We

love the feeling of gossip, We love the sensation of

illicit pleasure. We love the feeling of being superior to others.

And because we love these things, we hate the light

that threatens to take them away. For everyone practicing evil

hates the light and does not come to the light

lest his deeds should be exposed. This explains the hostility

of the world. It is a moral allergic reaction. The

person practicing secret sin may be its financial dishonesty, may

be its hatred toward a family member. That person cannot

come to Jesus, not because they can't understand the Bible,

but because coming to Jesus means the game is up.

It means the mask comes off. It means the deeds

are exposed. But here is the beautiful contrast of the

true believer. But he who does the truth comes to

the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that

they have been done in God. This is the ultimate

test of whether you are truly saved. Do you run

from exposure or do you run toward it. The person

who has been born again has a new relationship with

the light. We still sin. We are not perfect, but

when we sin, we don't double down and hide. We

hate the darkness. Now we feel miserable in the dark.

We want to be clean, so we run to the light.

We run to confession. We run to God and say,

search me, Oh, God, see if there is any wicked

way in me. We are not afraid of exposure anymore

because we know that the light that exposes us is

also the light that heals us. We know that when

our deeds are seen, they are covered by the blood

of Christ. So ask yourself right now, are you hiding?

Is there a secret part of your life that you

have locked away from God? Are you avoiding prayer because

you don't want to face him? That is the instinct

of the darkness. Come to the light. Yes, it burns

at first, but it is the only way to be free.

The true child of God wants nothing to do with

the shadows anymore. We want to live in the open,

washed clean and unafraid. The scene shifts now in the chapter.

We leave the dark room with Nicodemus and we go

out to the countryside. John the Baptist is there baptizing people,

but a conflict arises. John's disciples come to him looking worried.

They see that Jesus is becoming more popular. Crowds are

leaving John and going to Jesus. They feel jealous for

their leader, but listen to John's response, This is the

mark of a true man of God. This is the

attitude that every Christian must have. A man can receive

nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven.

John is not insecure. He knows who he is. He

compares himself to the best man. At a wedding, he

who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend

of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly

because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine

is fulfilled. At a wedding, nobody is there to see

the best man. If the best man tries to steal

the attention from the groom, he is ruining the wedding.

John says that Jesus is the groom, the Church is

the bride. John is just the friend who made the introduction.

He is happy to fade into the background. Then he

says a sentence that should be the motto of your life.

It is only seven words in English, but it is profound.

He must increase, but I must decrease. This is the

secret to spiritual growth. It is not about you becoming

a bigger and better version of yourself. It is about

you becoming less so that Jesus can become more. It

means less of your will and more of his will,

less of your opinions and more of his truth, less

of your glory and more of his glory. The Christian

life is a constant process of dying to self. We

want to be the center of the story. We want

to be the hero. But in the true story of

the universe, Jesus is the hero. We are just the

servants who get the joy of watching him work. If

you want to be full of the spirit, you must

be empty of yourself. You cannot fill a cup that

is already full. If you are full of pride and ego,

there is no room for the life of Christ. John

the Baptist continues to explain why Jesus is so important.

He explains that Jesus is not just another prophet. He

is in a category all by himself. He who comes

from above is above all. He who is of the

earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who

comes from heaven is above all. Every other religious leader

came from the earth. Moses came from the earth, Buddha

came from the earth. Muhammad came from the earth. They

were men trying to figure out God from down here.

They spoke earthly things. But Jesus came from above. He

brought the mind of God down to us. He speaks

what he has seen and heard in Heaven. For he

whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for

God does not give the spirit by measure. In the

Old Testament, we often see the spirit empowering people for

particular callings and moments. But Jesus is in a category

by himself. He speaks the words of God, and he

has the spirit in fullness. When you hear Jesus, you

are hearing the absolute final word of God. And notice

the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Father

loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

Everything in the universe has been put under the authority

of Jesus. Your life and your death, and your eternal

destiny are in his hands. You cannot bypass Jesus to

get to God. Many people say they believe in God,

but they do not need Jesus. That is impossible. If

you reject the Son, you reject the Father who sent him.

Jesus is the only way, and the only truth and

the only life. The chapter ends with a stark choice.

It is the most urgent warning in the Bible. It

divides the entire human race into two groups. There are

only two kinds of people in the world, not the

rich and the poor, not the black and the white,

not the educated and the uneducated. The two groups are

those who have the Son and those who do not.

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life life,

and he who does not believe the sun shall not

see life. But the wrath of God abides on him.

Look at the promise. First, he who believes in the

Sun has ever lasting life. Notice the verb tense. It

says has it is present tense. Eternal life does not

begin when you die. It begins the moment you believe.

Right now, if you are in Christ, you have the

life of the ages inside of you. You have passed

from death to life. You are secure, you are safe,

You are alive. But look at the warning. He who

does not believe the sun shall not see life. This

means you will never experience what you were created for.

You will exist, but you will not live. You will

be cut off from the source of all joy and peace.

And then comes the most terrifying phrase, but the wrath

of God abides on him. We do not like to

talk about the wrath of God today. We prefer to

talk about his love. But you cannot understand his love

if you do not understand his wrath. God is holy,

He hates sin, He must punish evil. If he did

not punish evil, he would not be good. The wrath

of God is not like human anger. It is not

a temper tantrum. It is the settled and determined opposition

of a holy God against everything that is evil. And

the Bible says that if you are not in Christ,

this wrath is abiding on you. It is hanging over

your head like a dark cloud. It is a debt

that you have to pay, but you can never pay it.

This is why the Gospel is such good news. Jesus

stepped in and took that wrath for us on the cross.

The cloud of wrath emptied itself on him so that

the sunshine of favor could shine on us. But if

you reject the shelter of the cross, you are standing

out in the storm alone. So we come back to Nicodemus.

We see him three times in the Gospel of John.

The first time is here in the dark asking questions.

The second time he speaks up cautiously for Jesus in

front of the other Pharisees. And the third time is

after the crucifixion, when the disciples had fled and were

hiding in fear. Nicodemus came out into the open. He

brought spices to bury the body of Jesus. He publicly

identified himself with the dead Savior. He finally stepped out

of the night and into the light. He was born again.

What about you. You have heard the truth of John

chapter three. You know that your religion and your good

works are not enough. You know that you must be

born again. You know that God loves you so much

that he gave his only son. You know that Jesus

was lifted up so that you can look and live.

Do not let the wrath of God remain on you

for another second. The wind of the Spirit is blowing

right now. He is calling you, He is drawing you.

Do not harden your heart. You can pray right now

in your own words. You can say, God, I know

I am a sinner. I know I cannot save myself.

I believe that Jesus died for me and rose again.

I am looking to him right now. Please forgive me

and give me new life. I want to decrease so

you can increase. If you believe that truth, then you

have everlasting life. You are born of the spirit. You

are a child of the living God, and that is

the most important message you will ever hear. Once you

have made that decision, your life will never be the same.

You are no longer of the world. You are from above,

because your new nature is from above. You will start

to love what God loves and hate what God hates.

You will want to come to the light when you sin,

and you will still stumble because we are not perfect.

Yet you will not want to hide it. You will

run to the Father and confess it. You will find

that He is faithful and just to forgive you. You

will start to see the world differently. You will look

at people and realize they are perishing. You will feel

the urgency to tell them about the remedy. You will

realize that you are like a person who found water

in the desert, and you must tell the others where

to find it. This chapter reminds us that God is

the initiator of salvation. He loved, he gave, he sent,

He saves. Our part is simply to believe, to trust,

to receive. Do not be like the religious leaders who

loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Be like John the Baptist, who was happy to be

a nobody so that Jesus could be everything. Be like

the healed Israelites who looked away from their wounds and

looked at the remedy. This is the message of John

chapter three. It is a message of radical transformation. It

is a message of infinite love, and it is a

message of urgent warning. Most assuredly, I say to you,

unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom

of God. May God open your eyes to see the

Kingdom today. May the Spirit breathe life into your soul,

and may you walk in the light of His Son,

Jesus Christ forever. This is the truth. Do not miss it.

Your eternity depends. For God so loved the world that

he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in

Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Hold on

to that promise. Live in that promise, Die in that promise,

and you will see God. Thank you for watching until

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