15 Mar

3/17/19     John 3:1-17        “Grace Unleashed!”

Sharon and I spend many Sundays during the year out and about preaching at different churches and on our website.  We enjoy doing this because we are trying to spread the Gospel message and reinforce people’s faith.  This is the season of Lent and I’m going to spend a little time looking at John during this season.  This is one of my favorite books of the Bible because John explains things so simply.  And at the same time what he says is very deep.  If you are a new Christian I would recommend the book of John as a beginning point to your reading.  Or maybe you are a little out of practice at reading the Bible and want to restart your faith life in the Book of John.  Today, we are going to look at one of the most quoted passages from this book and find out why it is so.

As we begin, I would like to tell the rather famous story, at least in religious circles, of John Newton.  He was born in England to a Godly mother and a father who didn’t know the Lord.  His mother died when he was young and it wasn’t too many years later that his father took him out to sea as he was a ship’s captain.  The lad followed his dad’s footsteps and became a wild midshipman at a young age.  He rejected his mother’s Godly ways and renounced all religion.

Eventually, he became the captain of his own ship and became a slave trader.  He crossed the ocean many times with a full cargo of slaves.  He was responsible for terrible and inhumane conditions of his cargo of captives.  He also was the recipient of grace many times on these voyages as he survived a horrific fever from Africa and a terrible storm that almost killed him.

Soon he found that his life wasn’t right as he remembered the times when he would be in his mother’s lap as she read Scripture to him.  He also started to read some of the religious writings of the day.  The Holy Spirit was working in him as I hope that He is in you.  It’s important that you listen to the Spirit when He talks to you.  You never know what will happen.  You might even become a traveling preacher.  Who knows?    Anyway, the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him rest until finally one day in the midst of a terrible storm he cried out to the Lord.  It was at this time that he accepted Jesus as his Savior and wrote these words that we will sing in a moment, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”  This was grace at work.  The Holy Spirit has worked like this since the beginning of time and He continues to work these daily miracles today and will do so into the future.

Let’s take a look at how grace came to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin or the ruling council.  Nicodemus was a big shot in the Jewish system.  He was a player in our terms.  Yet we find him coming to Jesus at night.

No one knows why he came at night.  Maybe he was ashamed to be drawn to Jesus because of his important position.  Maybe he didn’t want any of the common people to see him with Jesus whom the Sanhedrin hated.  Or maybe he came at night to show us that he had been living in the darkness of Satan’s world.  We don’t know.  The important thing here is that he came when he was drawn to Jesus.  Now I think that this is a natural thing.  I think all people have a natural internal drawing toward Jesus whether we admit it or not.

Also we have all had our periods of darkness in our lives including me.  After all it is pretty hard to live in this world that is controlled by Satan and not be influenced by it once in a while.  How many of us watch TV that we probably shouldn’t?  I think that many of the commercials we see now are borderline pornographic.  Yet, no one says anything about it.  I think that much of the apparel we wear, especially in the summer, is horrendous.  I’ve been to places that I think to myself ‘why do they even bother to wear anything.’  Yet, we let it go and we don’t say anything.  I could go on and on about this but I think that you get my point.  Even when we think we are doing ok, we are still really immersed in this dark, evil world.

Things don’t have to be like this.  Oh, I agree, that it will be a hard job to turn this country around.  When there is so much decadence in our world, we can get discouraged.  I know I do.  But then I remember who is in charge.  I remember who has won the war!  If we look at this passage, we see that Jesus met Nicodemus in the dark.  Jesus met him where he was at.  Jesus will meet you anywhere.  He will meet you in your darkness if need be.  This demonstrates what John Wesley called prevenient grace.  This is the grace that God extends to us that is everywhere in the world.  No matter where you are, God will meet you.

He loves you and He will help you to change the world even when you get discouraged.  He will help you to remember that you change the world for His sake by helping to change one person at a time.  It isn’t your job to try to convert everyone in this country to loving Jesus.  But it is your job to model Jesus and tell about Him to the person who is standing in front of you.

And this can start right in your own families.  Remember in our opening story of John Newton when he remembered sitting in his mother’s lap and hearing the Gospel.  Years later he recalled this.  The mother’s behavior bore fruit, many years after she had died.  Don’t give up on trying to be like Jesus.  I remember my dad reading the Upper Room when I was a kid.  This stuck so much in my mind that one of the first things I did on the road to becoming a Christian was to start to read the Upper Room.  I still do a daily devotion.  It could be the little things that you do now for your children or other people that will bear fruit years later.  Don’t give up trying to be like Jesus.  It could pay great dividends.

So we can see that we are in the dark and Jesus will come there and meet us.  What does He tell Nicodemus to do?  He tells him that he must be born again.  This is an extremely hard concept to describe.  Am I right?  Nicodemus doesn’t really know what Jesus is talking about here. But the seed is planted and he will get it at some time.  We know this because he vigorously defends Jesus during a Sanhedrin meeting and he helps Joseph of Arimathea after Jesus was crucified.

One of the problems that Nicodemus had and maybe many of us have is that he equated the Jewish church or synagogue with being religious.  In other words, they could be assured of a spot in heaven if they obeyed the Law and attended church.  They thought that they could be saved by works and not grace.  This is the reasoning of every religion in the world except for Christianity.  All other religions are works based and false.

This is a major problem in our world today.  So often we get to working and doing all kinds of good works, and this is good, but soon we forget that it is about Jesus and not what we are doing.  This is all about a personal relationship with Jesus and not a relationship with the church.  It is only after we spend time with our God that we can do His works in His name.

It is a fine line to walk.  I think that sometimes denominations get caught up in this.  There are some places where they do an altar call every week and they keep a tally as to how many were saved each Sunday.  This becomes the absolute most important thing they do.  In other places we have to make sure that we do all of the ceremony just right or God won’t love us.  In still others we have to have the music that is popular or God won’t be present.  Now all these things are important and good but I often wonder what it would be like if we actually invited people who are lost into our presence.  I wonder what it would be like if we concentrated on honoring God by helping our needy on Sunday morning.  And I wonder this because after we have a relationship with Him, we are supposed to be helping our neighbors and treating them as ourselves.  After all, Jesus Christ never had a church building.  He just ministered to all he saw.  He ministered to the people in front of him.

Then Jesus goes right to the crux of the matter.  Is not Nicodemus a teacher of religion?  Does he not know what he is talking about?  Jesus goes on to make references to the Old Testament prophecy so the he may know what Jesus is telling him.  He is telling him to think about all he has learned and apply it.  He tells him to remember all that he has read in the Torah or the Jewish Bible.  He finally offers him eternal life if he will accept the only begotten Son of God as his Savior.  Wow!  Think of the explosion of faith we would have today if we followed the example of Jesus!

John 3:16 is probably one of the most quoted verses in the Bible.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  There it is.  This is the reason God did all of this, in one sentence.  God would like to have us all back in the Garden of Eden.  God wants to be able to talk with us and have us talk back.  God wants our company with Him in here and in heaven.  He loves us so much that He sent his Son to walk, talk and live with us.  And in the end He had to die for us so that we could come to Him at the end of this life on earth.  God loves you because of who He is and not because of who you are.  And it doesn’t matter who you are, God loves you.  It is His nature to love and not to hate.

The next verse is also very important but often overlooked.  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  Listen to me now all you naysayers, all you so called free thinkers and all you atheists.  The world is already condemned.  God did not condemn it, we did by our unfaithfulness.  We do all these bad things in our sin.  I do not see anywhere in the Scripture where Jesus condemns the world.  Jesus is just the opposite.  He came to love the world and let the world be saved through his death.  This is a love that we can’t handle.  This is a love that is beyond our understanding so therefore many times we chose to ignore it.

But God continues to offer us His grace as a way out of our sin.  And even those who try to deny this grace, they too look for it in times of great need.  Ernest Hemingway told the story of a dad and son whose relationship was strained and finally broken.  The boy ran away and the father searched and searched for him.  Finally he put an ad in the Madrid paper asking Paco to meet him in front of the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday.  When the father got there, there were 800 boys named Paco looking for their dad.

There are Paco’s all over our country and our communities.  They are the ones who don’t know their father in heaven.  They are the ones that never come to church on Sunday but would rather play a ball game on Sunday morning or play golf or just plain sleep in a little.  God still loves these people so much that He will extend them grace.  It is never too late to come to Jesus.  There is no person who is too bad or too good to come to Jesus Christ.

I have said this many times before.  The best evidence of the presence of Jesus is in changed lives.  I am not the person that I used to be.  I am not the person that everyone knew in high school or college.  Jesus changed me.  And this change is always for the better.  I have not known anyone who has ever looked back and wished that they had never changed.  Jesus changes us for the better.  And He is looking to change someone listening today.

There is a story about St. Augustine who was the leader of the church some 400 years after Jesus.  He was not always a saint and before his conversion to Jesus he led a life of debauchery and lewdness.  He was not a nice man.  Not too long after he accepted Jesus as his Savior, he was walking the streets of Milan.  As he was walking there came a prostitute whom he had known rather well in his past life.  She called out to him but he kept on walking.  She was surprised by this and called out to him again.  Still he walked.  Finally she said, “Augustine, it is I.”  As St. Augustine kept on walking away he said, “Yes but it is no longer I.”  He had the assurance that he was a new man, born again into the arms of Jesus Christ.  The old self was gone.

Many of you have taken Jesus up on His offer of grace.  That is a great thing to do. But maybe someone here today hasn’t done this yet.  All you have to do is be sick and tired of your old life and be willing to start all over again.  Only this time you will have Jesus to guide you.  All you have to do is repent of your sins and ask Jesus to live in your heart.  This is a decision that you will never regret.  When someone does this the angels will celebrate in heaven over one lost person who is found.

This life in Jesus is a great life because it is filled with the love of God.  It is this love that makes us want to do more.  It is this love that makes us love each other in ways we have never known before.  It is this love that makes us Christians.  I praise the Lord that He saved a wretch like me.  Thank you, Jesus.  And also thank you for first loving us.   Let’s pray.

Heavenly Lord, I have sinned against You.  I want forgiveness for all my sins.  I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again.  Father, I give You my life to do with as You wish.  I want Jesus Christ to come into my life and into my heart.  This I ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.