A Rabbi and Jesus Have a Talk Part 2

[0:00] Please be seated. If you have your Bibles, which you should have, please turn to John chapter 3. John chapter 3. While you're turning there, I just wanted to share with you a couple of the announcements.

[0:15] We're kind of, I know you guys might be disappointed, but we're revving up for the fall, right? That means summer's ending. Sorry, guys. I hate to break it to you. So, a couple of things that are happening.

[0:28] And just as Lynn was up here, as we are, one of the things that we're doing, we have in the brochure, we have these ministry opportunities. But I want to let you know that we're changing, actually, the children's program a bit.

[0:41] We're going to be using the Gospel Project, which is developed by a man named Trevor Wax, I believe. And so, there's a little bit of some helps, we thought, that might be able to help us as teachers.

[0:54] And the other thing that we're looking for, and I'd ask that you'd pray for Lynn and Janine. We're trying to figure out how to keep the kids in there to grade five. So, kind of expanding it a bit. So, just ask that you would pray for Lynn, Janine, and myself, just as we kind of work out rooms and everything else that's needed.

[1:13] Just bringing in some more of the kids. And also for the quick learning and familiarity with the new program. Is that good? Can I count on you for that? All right.

[1:23] I got a lot of nods, not a lot of amens. I guess we forgot we're Baptists. Okay. What else do I have for you? I have nothing else except God's Word.

[1:35] All right. So, what I'm going to do is we're going to read John 3, 1 to 10. It's a continuation of last week's sermon. If you weren't here, it doesn't matter. I'm going to do a quick recap.

[1:46] So, you don't feel too guilty for going out and having fun last weekend. All right. Please read along with me. Now, John chapter 3. Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

[1:59] 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.

[2:12] Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old?

[2:23] Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

[2:36] That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound.

[2:48] But you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?

[2:59] Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things. I don't know how many of you had an opportunity to attend university.

[3:13] I loved my time at university. In case you don't know, I went to the University of Western Ontario, which is London. Loved it there.

[3:23] Had the opportunity to serve with Campus Crusade. But one of my favorite jobs that I had there was living in residence. So not only did I live in residence, but in my second year, I was asked to come on to be like a resident advisor, right?

[3:41] Resident assistant. So I'd help the management with the acclimation of the first year students. And then after that, I got promoted to another position where I'd be over, oversee a house on a regular basis, which would mean anywhere from several hundred to twelve hundred students.

[3:59] Right. So a lot of opportunities kind of dealing with students coming into that time of life. They're out of the home for the first time, working through a myriad of problems like how to get along with a roommate.

[4:11] How do you study for school now that you're not in high school where you can't just memorize everything? But probably one of the most exciting times was that moment in early night, late evening.

[4:25] You'd hear a... Just knock at my door. One of the things that I did enjoy was the discussions with so many people from different nationalities, different races, different religions.

[4:38] And as a resident advisor, people would come in and ask me questions. One evening, a gentleman said, BK, I want to become a Christian.

[4:50] Can you help me? Now, throughout that time, I'd have a discovery Bible study in the study room once every two weeks. And anybody was allowed to come and ask questions.

[5:01] So this is the ultimate question, right? Don't you... Aren't you excited about that? Someone says, hey, I want to be a Christian. Please help me. Like, I don't need to do convincing.

[5:13] I don't need to tell them that you need to become a Christian. He's already coming to me. Hey, I want to become a Christian. Can you help me? He says, what must I do? What prayer can I pray?

[5:27] Does anybody ask you, what actions must I do? Is there an action I must stop doing? Now, this student in particular had come to several of my Bible studies, and he had come to church with me on Sunday.

[5:41] So it wasn't completely surprising that he was at my door. But this is what it's all about. Someone who comes to my door saying, hey, I want to be a Christian.

[5:54] I don't know if you've thought what you would do, but I'll tell you what I did. Being a faithful Campus Crusader, I took out my four spiritual laws. Let's sit down and go through the four spiritual laws.

[6:06] And if you're unfamiliar with Campus Crusade, there's a little booklet, and it helps share your faith. And I'll give you the four rules that they share. The first one is God loves you and created you for a relationship with him.

[6:18] The second rule is man is sinful and separated from God, so we can't know him or his love. The third rule is Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin, and through him alone can we experience God personally and his love personally.

[6:38] And the fourth rule is we must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Then we can know God personally and experience his love.

[6:50] So that day he was like, yep, yep, yep, yep. All four. I completely agree. So at the end, at the back of the brochure is a prayer.

[7:04] So I said, do you want to pray this prayer with me? And he goes, yes, I do. So we got on our knees at my couch. I remember vividly, and we just read the prayer. And the prayer is, Lord Jesus, I need you.

[7:16] Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life.

[7:27] Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be. Eyes are shut. I kind of look over. I don't know how he's going to respond.

[7:39] Different people, different situations act differently. But I've never got any response like this in my life. He goes, is that it? You know, I've been with guys that are really quiet.

[7:54] Some are crying. Some are excited. But I never had, is that it? I don't know what I was expecting. But I knew something wasn't right.

[8:10] Now, one of the things of being a Christian, so we become a Christian. We're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, right? That Holy Spirit brings about change in our life. I noticed no change in our life.

[8:21] In fact, he just kind of went back to living the hard partying ways that a lot of university students do. And it affects their GPA somewhat.

[8:32] But he kind of went back to that. And I never asked him why he wanted to become a Christian. I know there was two guys across the, on his floor had become Christians.

[8:46] And there was some very big radical changes in their life. But I never knew why he wanted to. I knew he was a very good guy. I really liked him.

[8:57] In fact, he's one of my favorite people that I remember from my time at university. And we still keep in touch through the miracle of Facebook. I love him, but by any indication of his life, he is not a believer.

[9:13] I think my friend was a lot like Nicodemus. He had a question. And I sadly was not like Jesus Christ, who could discern the yearning of his soul.

[9:29] So as we're taking a look in John 3 here, if you weren't with us last week, you need to understand that this is the second part of this series. And I'm preaching this series so we can know not only how to act, but how to pray for those who are trying to come to grips with the idea of being a Christian.

[9:52] By looking at how Jesus Christ interacts with this man named Nicodemus. Just to give you a bit of background, this is the first year of Jesus' ministry. He's been going around all the northern part of Israel, which is called Galilee.

[10:07] And he had been doing a lot of miracles. He'd been preaching. And now there's a festival, the Passover festival. So he's now in Jerusalem. And what does Jesus do?

[10:18] He's continuing to preach. And he's doing miracles. And great crowds gathered around Jesus. And then we read this man named Nicodemus.

[10:30] As we see in verse 1, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And he comes to Jesus by night. Now there's three things we need to understand about Nicodemus.

[10:42] One, he is a Pharisee. Pharisees, a group of 6,000 men in Israel who were kind of the religious elites. They were the arch conservatives of their day.

[10:55] So he's one of this great mass of 6,000 people. But then he's also a member of the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin was made up of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which was another religious group that existed in Israel.

[11:09] So it's kind of like the top from each one form this Sanhedrin. Now, Rome allowed the Sanhedrin to exist to rule Israel.

[11:20] If you know anything about the history of Rome and Israel, it was contentious. Because Rome hated ruling over Israel. Okay? They found the Jews to be an incredibly stubborn people and would not break away from their monotheism.

[11:35] So Rome, instead of dealing with these people, they'd say, All right, we're just going to give you this Sanhedrin. You can rule. Do your thing. And just keep the peace and make sure you pay the taxes.

[11:47] Right? So they were kind of like the Senate and the Supreme Court all wrapped in. But if you notice in verse 10, we know something very distinct about Nicodemus. Jesus calls him the teacher of Israel.

[12:01] He's not a teacher. This man is the teacher. This man is the most brilliant religious teacher that exists in Israel at that time.

[12:13] Church history also tells us that he was one of the three richest men in all of Jerusalem. Because of his standing, we know he was morally pure.

[12:25] He was free from corruption. He was looked up to. He was influential. He was incredibly powerful. And he knew his Bible better than any man that walked at that day.

[12:40] But Nicodemus sensed something. After hearing Jesus preached, he knew he was missing something. Something began to stress him.

[12:54] As he saw Jesus do the miracles that he did and he heard Jesus preach, he knew something was lacking. And he was unsure of his standing before God.

[13:08] In Christian terms, someone, like my friend who came to my door, we'd call a seeker, right? Someone who's seeking after Jesus.

[13:18] Wants to know about the Christian faith. My experience tells me there's two type of seekers. The one, seeker, is the one who comes looking for knowledge. They read all the Christian articles and stuff that they get.

[13:29] They want to get this knowledge in their head so they can understand Christianity. The other type of seeker is the person who understands that they are desperately far from God and they want to get close to God.

[13:48] And they are looking. They can be voracious seekers because something's telling them something's not right. Nicodemus fits into this second category.

[13:58] He knows he's missing something and he comes to Jesus with this important question. So as we read in verse 2, comes to Jesus by night.

[14:09] I think there's a couple of reasons why he does this at night. One, night gives us the time to have long conversations with people, right? We don't have a really good long conversation with our co-worker during the day at work.

[14:22] We say, hey, let's go meet for coffee after. Same kind of thing is going on here. So Nicodemus says, hey, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.

[14:34] Now we, it's not talking about him and his family. He's actually talking about the other Pharisees. They've come to a conclusion that you are a teacher come from God.

[14:45] That's really big, right? Because we see in different instances they're accusing of being in league with Satan. But they can't deny the things that Jesus is doing.

[14:58] So he says, we come from God. No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus doesn't say, hey, thank you for recognizing that.

[15:10] Hey, that's great. Instead, he says, truly, truly, and we understood last week that's code word for, I really need you to pay attention right here. I'm saying to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

[15:25] You see, Nicodemus is coming to Jesus because there's an uncertainty in his heart. He's done all that he can do in his mind to take, to make things right with God.

[15:36] But he's ultimately afraid that he might miss the kingdom. He feared that all his religion, all his rules, all his ceremonies, all his religious act, all his conformity, all his laws, he was now questioning, were they enough to get him to heaven?

[15:59] You ever ask that question yourself? Am I good enough? Have I done enough good to please God?

[16:12] Or maybe you said, maybe I have done a lot of less voided bad to please God. Do we proverbial hold our lives in those scales of justice?

[16:26] Well, I've kind of got more good here than bad. That was pretty much the preeminent understanding of my time in university.

[16:37] Most people would always say, hey, I've done more good than bad. I'm going to be okay with God. And I would just ask, are you sure? How do you know?

[16:51] What constitutes good? In fact, we live in a very, I would say, crazy postmodern culture where societal norms now dictate to us what is good versus what is bad.

[17:06] It was interesting, came across an article last year, and it said what people considered to be good. It wasn't morality or sexual purity or I don't steal because now we rationalize those.

[17:17] I stole because I had a need. I didn't wait till marriage to have sex with my wife because I love her.

[17:27] Right? There's all these rationalizations that go through our head. But now it was really interesting what makes people good. Some of the answers. I'm tolerant. I'm tolerant.

[17:37] I let everybody have their point of view. I don't judge. Right? And you know what else made the top five? I recycle.

[17:49] I recycle. These are the things that people think God cares about, but this is the culture. So the society is kind of changing these norms.

[18:00] Right? Anyway, Nicodemus, knowing he's not understanding something, he's missing something. And Jesus tells him quite simply, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

[18:15] Some people think Jesus reads his mind or something else here, but I don't think Jesus needs to do that. Jesus knows what these guys are all about. And because of it, he knows their greatest fear.

[18:29] And I know that fear can be great for many of us. I have a family member, very, very religious. Jesus will go to mass as many times as he can during the week.

[18:41] And I simply ask him the question, do you think you're going to heaven? And his response is, I really hope so. Now, what's interesting is Jesus didn't do anything like this or like I did.

[18:56] He didn't pull out the spiritual track for spiritual laws. He just simply tells him a point of fact. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

[19:08] Now, I want you to take note of that word, see the kingdom of God. What we read in English can have several different meanings. And the Greek helps us out, right? One way to see, glance, hey, did you see that bird?

[19:20] Right? It's just a quick glance. Did one ways to look with intent, right? To look for something. We use the word look for see, you know.

[19:32] Hey, honey, did you see my keys, right? You're kind of looking for something specifically at a specific time. And then there's one word means to see and perceive and understand.

[19:44] And we simply say to one another, I see what you mean, right? We've all used that term. It means I perceive what you're saying and I understand this. But Jesus drops a bomb on Nicodemus.

[19:57] He says, unless you are spiritually born from above, you can't even see the kingdom of God, let alone participate in the kingdom of God, right?

[20:08] So it's not that you're going. Nicodemus, you can't even see it. You're totally unaware of it. So how can one who does not understand lead one who does not understand?

[20:21] You can't, right? It's impossible. And Nicodemus understands this in verse 4. He's not being silly or stupid when he said, how can a man enter his mother's womb and be born again, right?

[20:33] He understands what Jesus is telling him. It's impossible. But right now, Nicodemus realizes more than anything else, in modern day vernacular, he's hooped.

[20:48] You can't do it. Unless you are born again or born from above, you cannot even see the kingdom alone get in.

[21:01] You can be all good you want. You can be as moral as you want. You can be the right kind of person that you think you need to be, and it actually doesn't matter. Nicodemus started his day in a bad way, and it now went to worse.

[21:18] What's interesting is there was nothing else for Nicodemus to measure up to. Nicodemus was the standard.

[21:30] He was the one everyone else wanted to measure up to. So the man who held the standard now recognizes he can't meet the standard.

[21:43] See, that's our greatest problem, right? We can't fix ourselves. In fact, we can't even discern what's the matter with us in order to fix ourselves.

[21:57] So if we understand God's truth is we cannot see the kingdom, and we cannot understand the kingdom. So the question is, why not? Why can't we see the kingdom?

[22:11] Paul answers this question in 2 Corinthians 4.4. Paul writes, Think about that.

[22:37] Paul will write in 1 Corinthians 2.14, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.

[22:47] That word folly means they are ridiculous thoughts. They make no sense at all. And he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

[22:58] There's a mental inability to understand the things of God. It's like us trying to describe a sunset to a blind man or an orchestra to one is deaf.

[23:11] You can't do it, right? There's just no way to comprehend that information. Paul will later write in Ephesians 4.17, It says, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, and he calls them in the futility of their minds.

[23:32] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart. For some of you, you know what it is to be dark-minded, or you can't see.

[23:49] You've studied, you've studied, you've done all the reading, but you just don't get this Christian thing. For some of you, you have shared the gospel over and over. I have my nephew.

[24:00] I love him. He's lived with me many times. I can explain that gospel to him a hundred times. He just does not get it. If you asked him to repeat it, he can't even repeat it in the right way. He just can't comprehend it.

[24:11] And he's smart at other things, right? We know people. They know everything about stock markets, history, philosophy, car engines. But when it comes to understanding God and his gospel, they can't do it.

[24:27] So when it comes to spiritual matters, they are lost as anything. So the question is, how are we as family members, friends, onlookers, supposed to respond?

[24:40] God, I submit it's with compassion, mercy, love, and prayer.

[24:51] They can't do it. You know, sometimes we get mad at other people's sin or how they're living their life, right? We really do. But the fact of the matter is, they can't even see it.

[25:08] So it calls us not to be judgmental, but to be loving and try to be understanding and kind and present the truth, but at the same time, Lord, I pray that their eyes be open.

[25:21] Just as I read in 2 Corinthians 4.4, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. Verse 6 of 2 Corinthians 4 says, For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

[25:39] What he's saying is, God has shone into our hearts, revealed himself to us. But not only is man incapable of understanding him, there's this whole world system working against him.

[25:52] You get that? So it's not like they're just blind. The whole world is actually working against them to keep them blind. Every time we screw in that light bulb, someone else is unscrewing the light bulb.

[26:09] And the reality is, as in physical birth, conception precedes delivery. And so it is with salvation. Without divine initiative, it is impossible to be born into the kingdom of God.

[26:26] We can try and we can try and we can try, but our efforts won't get us there. We cannot cause our own spiritual birth just like we cannot cause our own physical birth.

[26:37] Why? Because we can't even see it. So what is our hope? What hope do we have for our loved ones, our family members, our friends, our co-workers?

[26:55] See, Nicodemus has a problem. He has come face to face with Jesus. He knows there's something wrong with his life. And he then hears God's truth about his reality. Jesus then teaches the teacher about the new birth, which coincidentally, as we see from verse 10, as a teacher he should have known.

[27:15] Take a look at verse 5. It says, Jesus answered truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

[27:30] born of what? Born of water and of spirit. Now let me take you through an understanding of what that means.

[27:43] There's essentially three options throughout history commentators have debated on what Jesus Christ means here. The first one is that Jesus must have, he's saying people must have a spiritual birth like a physical birth, and the water being physical and the spiritual being spiritual, right?

[28:02] Kind of like the embryonic fluid that happens when we are born. Now if you know anything of that Jewish culture of their day, that isn't even an expression they'd ever use.

[28:13] All right? That's not even something that's talked about. Right? That's kind of the whole unclean thing, right? So that's not an expression that Jesus Christ is going to use that has any meaning. The other one is people, well maybe that water means water baptism, right?

[28:27] But the problem with thinking that it's water baptism is Christian baptism doesn't show up to Acts 2, which this precedes. So that frame of reference would have no meaning whatsoever.

[28:41] But Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, knows exactly what Jesus is talking about. And I want to explain what it is. Please turn back to Ezekiel 36 in your Bibles.

[28:55] This is key. This is an awesome passage. Ezekiel 36, as you know, Ezekiel was one of the prophets of Israel.

[29:09] We consider him a major prophet. He said a lot. He's not a great prophet because he says a lot, but you know what I'm talking about, right?

[29:20] I say a lot, but I'm no prophet. So I want you to look at Ezekiel 36, and we're going to start at verse 25. This is awesome.

[29:31] This is God telling him, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you.

[29:45] Verse 26, And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

[30:03] And I, verse 27, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

[30:17] Let me recap. It says, I will clean you from your uncleanliness. I will cleanse you from your idols. I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you.

[30:28] I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh. I will put my spirit within you. I will cause you to walk in my statutes. And people, that is how God saves.

[30:41] God doesn't demand anything of us. He does the work.

[30:53] Amen? That's Him doing everything. This is Him telling His people, I will do it all. Just submit to that. Theologians call this monergistic.

[31:08] And for you guys in small groups, pay attention. This is one of your questions for small groups. It's called monergistic, which means only God is involved in your salvation. The other view is synergistic of sanctification, which means both God and man.

[31:24] We have a part in that. I believe the Bible preaches monergism. God will erase all the moral pollution in our soul. In fact, God says, I'm going to do you one better.

[31:36] I'm not just going to clean you. I'm going to take that hard-hearted, broken, stony heart of yours, and I'm just going to give you a new heart. Right? Enough with trying to clean up the old one. I'm just going to give you a new one.

[31:47] You know that heart that is filthy, depraved, sticky, rotten, defiled, dysfunctional, diseased, and dead? That's gone. You get a brand new one.

[32:01] See, the reality is my role as a preacher is to deliver this message from my mouth to your ears. But it's God who takes the message from your ears to your heart.

[32:15] Have you ever wondered if you are indeed saved? If you're truly converted? How do you know if you have a heart of flesh?

[32:28] You see, the heart of flesh is a strong heart. It's a heart from heaven. It's a heart that responds to the things of the Lord. It is a heart that is moved by compassion for the things that moves God's heart.

[32:44] It is a heart that spurs on the soul to follow Jesus. It is a heart that is humble. It is a heart that is meek.

[32:56] It is a heart that responds, be merciful on me, a sinner. It is a heart that does not judge. It's a heart that builds up.

[33:07] It is a heart that encourages. It doesn't discourage. It is a heart that loves the things of Jesus Christ, not the things of man.

[33:21] A fleshly heart is a new attitude. It has a new disposition. And it is a heart that not only sees the kingdom of God, but wants to participate in the kingdom of God.

[33:33] Is there any way you can change your heart? Let's take a look at verse 6.

[33:45] That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. The fact of the matter is, flesh can only bring about flesh, and Spirit can only bring about Spirit.

[33:58] Just like a horse gives birth to horses, dogs to dogs, cats to cats. Right? We don't have a dog that's pregnant. All of a sudden a rhinoceros comes out of it, right?

[34:10] It has to be of its own type. John 3, 7, Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

[34:21] This is a spiritual rebirth. A spiritual rebirth. 1 Peter 1, 23 says, Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.

[34:38] Verse 8, John writes, The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound. But you do not know where it comes from, or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

[34:52] We've seen the power of the water. Now it's the power of the wind. Let me ask you some questions. Can you control the wind?

[35:04] Can you cause the wind to go where you want it? Can you stop it? Can you feel the wind? We can, right?

[35:15] It is uncontrollable, it's irresistible, and it's unpredictable. It's predictable. And the wind is powerful. I remember I was vacationing with one of my best buddies down in Florida, and of course there's a hurricane watch, so what do we two idiots go and do, right?

[35:30] We go out in the hurricane, right? We wanted to test those winds, right? It tells you everybody to lock up, board your windows, but we're two guys in our late 20s, early 30s, thinking we're kings of the world, right?

[35:42] And it was pretty cool. We could lean totally into the wind, and it would hold us up, right? It was awesome. But the fact of the matter is, we cannot see it, but we can feel it and see its effects.

[35:56] So it is with the Spirit. And you know when you come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, don't you? It's invisible, but it's powerful.

[36:09] The fact of the matter is, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, it will direct you in a whole new direction that you never imagined. It will break your heart for the things that breaks God's heart, and it will humble you in ways that you used to be proud of.

[36:31] And what Jesus is communicating here is, it's God's timing, it's God's agenda. So what do we do? You can ask.

[36:42] You can plead with God. Romans 10.9 says, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

[36:59] And only the Spirit can reveal that truth to you. John 5.21 says, For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills.

[37:13] Maybe today is the day you are right here at the right place to hear this right message. Instead of doing and trying to earn God's favor, maybe it's time to start praying for God's mercy.

[37:31] asking God to have mercy on you as a sinner who's desperately lost without God. Ask God to remove your heart of stone and ask Him to bring you a new heart that you may have faith and repent.

[37:51] What happened to Nicodemus when he heard that message? John 3 does not reveal that he says, I'm all in, I'm changed, I want this.

[38:05] We read in the Gospel of John that he continued to hang around Jesus. Scripture mentions him two more times. One is John 7.50-51.

[38:18] Basically, this is at the judgment of Jesus. It says, Does the law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? This is how he defended Jesus before the Sanhedrin.

[38:31] And they replied, Are you from Galilee too? That was a smudge. It's like saying you're from Brackendale, right? When you live in Squamish, right? No, sorry guys.

[38:43] You know, there's this, to look down upon people because they live on the far side of the tracks. That was what they were communicating to Nicodemus, right? Are you not from Galilee? You don't have a say here.

[38:56] John 19.39 says, After the death of Jesus, he's with Joseph of Arimathea, making sure that the body of Jesus Christ was buried properly. But church tradition actually tells us the rest of the story.

[39:12] Tradition tells us that as Jesus stood before Pilate, he was the only person who stood up to defend him. He simply stated that Jesus did miracles and did not deserve death.

[39:28] Tradition tells us that he was later baptized by Peter and John after being born again. Tradition tells us that because of his boldness of his faith and his witness, that he was put out of his office, he could no longer teach and his vast fortune was taken away from him.

[39:50] Along with all his property and possessions, he was eventually driven from Jerusalem. Jerusalem. He died around A.D. 50.

[40:00] churchly tells us that a mob gathered around him and beat him to death. All because of his devotion to Christ.

[40:13] When you pray for your loved ones, your family, your co-workers, pray that God the Father would have mercy on them, open their eyes, and bring understanding so that they may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

[40:31] Dear Heavenly Father,