Our scripture reading this morning is from John chapter 3.
! We're going to read verses 1 through 16.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
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.
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?
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.
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,
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?
And Jesus answered him,
Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
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.
If I told you earthly things and you do not believe,
how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven,
the Son of Man.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life.
This is God's Word.
Thank you very, very much indeed for the opportunity to be with you again today.
It's always a massive joy and privilege to come and be with you here at St. Sees
for two reasons.
One, because we get to see many, many old friends who we love so very, very much.
But it's also brilliant to come here because every time I come,
we see so many new faces,
and we see the church family here growing,
which is an absolute joy to see.
So thank you very much for this opportunity,
and I bring you the warmest greetings of the congregation in Carloway
and the church in Lewis.
So thank you very much for the chance to be here with you today.
And I'm also delighted to be able to participate in the series
that you're doing over the summer, Encounters with Jesus.
And today we're going to look at one of the most famous encounters
that somebody had with Jesus,
the passage we read in John chapter 3.
And I'll just read the first three verses again.
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
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.
Jesus answered him,
Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Now, this is a very famous and a very fascinating passage,
and there's loads that it teaches us,
loads that we could look at,
and I'm conscious that in so many ways
we're only going to be just barely scratching the surface
in what is really one of the most remarkable conversations
that Jesus ever had.
Why is it so remarkable?
Well, there's lots of reasons,
but one of the main reasons,
and what I want us to focus on,
is the fact that this was the night
when Jesus met a genius.
Jesus met a genius.
Now, you might say,
well, how do we know that Nicodemus was a genius?
Well, at one level, we don't know for certain.
All we know is what it says in verse 1 and verse 10.
It says that he was a Pharisee,
a ruler of the Jews,
a teacher of Israel.
And I'm sure many of you would maybe be tempted to say today,
well, if you look at current politics,
you think, well, you don't need to be a genius
to be a ruler.
And maybe some of you are in school,
and you might even think,
well, you don't need to be a genius to be a teacher.
And maybe that's true.
And I concede, you know,
we don't know exactly what Nicodemus' IQ was.
But it's definitely the case
that if you were just a normal, ordinary Jew
living at the time when this conversation happened,
if you had seen Nicodemus walk past,
you would have thought to yourself,
that's a guy who knows his stuff.
He's the expert.
He's the teacher of Israel.
And that phrase could actually mean
that he held a very, very high-profile position
in the nation.
And one commentator I read described him
as Reverend Professor Dr. Nicodemus.
And it's definitely the case that in terms of religious knowledge
and expertise,
Nicodemus was at the top.
This chapter's telling us about the night
when Jesus met a genius.
And their conversation raises three crucial things
that every one of us needs to think about.
We need to think about necessity,
mystery,
and certainty.
Now, I don't know if I've got them up on the screen.
Oh, there we are.
Now, we need to think about necessity,
mystery,
and genius.
Now, I'm going to just start by asking you the question,
do you want these things?
Do you want necessity?
Do you want mystery?
Do you want certainty?
And I want to ask those questions
because I think many people in our culture today
would actually say,
well, no.
We don't want necessity
because we don't want to be told
what absolutely does and does not have to happen.
And we don't want mystery.
We want clarity.
And we want explanations.
But at the same time,
we don't really want certainty
because we want to be flexible.
We want to keep our options open.
We do not want to be dogmatic.
We want each person maybe to have their own certainty,
but nothing overarching at all.
Do you want these things?
Well, we're going to look together at John 3,
and we'll come back to these questions at the end.
So I want to start by thinking about necessity.
Nicodemus had a lot of strong credentials.
As we saw, he was Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, teacher.
He also recognized that Jesus was someone special,
recognized that Jesus was a teacher from God,
and he had even seen,
or at least spoken to those who had seen Jesus perform miracles.
He said, no one can do these signs that you do
unless God is with him.
So at one level,
all of that sounds like the ideal qualifications
for someone to come to God.
And Nicodemus is interesting because,
unlike many of the other religious leaders at the time,
it doesn't seem to be the case
that he was as opposed and hostile towards Jesus
as many others were.
He seems to be, at this stage at least,
to have a more open disposition towards Jesus.
Maybe he thought that he'd come to Jesus,
and maybe Jesus would give Nicodemus
some kind of affirmation and recognition
like everybody else probably gave him.
But that's not what happens.
Because when Nicodemus met Jesus,
the genius is told that there's something
he desperately needs.
Look at what it says from verse 3 to 7.
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's old?
Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered,
Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one's born of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the 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.
Now, that other section there is a ticky one.
This whole passage is a bit of a ticky one
for two reasons.
One is because it's hard to understand
all the details that are being spoken about.
Especially in verse 5,
there's lots of different opinions
about what Jesus means.
When he talks about water and Spirit,
is he talking about two different things?
Or is it two ways of describing the same thing?
Or is it two aspects of the one thing?
So is it physical birth,
being born of water,
and then spiritual birth,
being born of the Spirit?
Is it referring to baptism in water,
and then spiritual new birth
that comes through faith in Christ?
Or are both referring to the same thing,
as being born of water,
being born of water and the Spirit,
the one thing that happens when we believe.
If you think about the phrase,
you need to eat a sandwich of cheese and of ham.
Is that a cheese sandwich and a ham sandwich,
or is it a cheese and ham sandwich?
Is it two separate things?
Is it the same thing together?
There's lots of different views on that.
Later in verses 13 to 15,
Jesus talks about ascending and descending from heaven,
and there's all this stuff about Moses and a serpent.
There's lots, that's really,
lots of details that can be hard to understand.
But the second reason why the passage is tricky
is because it's also very easy to misunderstand
the main point that's been made.
Because the main message,
the phrase that this passage is famous for
is the words of verse 7,
where Jesus says,
you must be born again.
That's a phrase that you hear again and again and again
in the Christian church.
And maybe it's the case that that phrase is so emphasized
that we get the impression
that being born again is something that we do.
So, it basically means to believe in Christ.
That's how it's used.
And sometimes preachers can give the impression
that, you know, it's something that you've got to do.
So, you've got to be born again.
You've got to believe in Christ.
So, you must do this.
It's something you've got to do.
It's very easy to give that impression.
But that's not actually correct.
Because the whole point that this passage is making
is that being born again is not something that we do.
It's something that gets done to us.
It's something that happens to us.
In fact, it's something that has got to happen to us.
Jesus confronts Nicodemus with a fundamental necessity.
He's got to be born again.
And so do we.
Now, what does all that mean?
What's Jesus talking about?
Well, this language of being born again
is referring to what the New Testament
will later describe in the language of regeneration.
And that's the big theological term
that often gets used to describe this.
And that word regeneration is describing
a change that takes place in our hearts
where we go from being spiritually dead
to being spiritually alive.
Sin has left us spiritually dead.
Now, one of the ways to think about that
is to recognize that everything that we think of
in terms of being dead physically
applies to us spiritually.
So, imagine a dead body.
A dead body is unresponsive.
That's how sin has left us spiritually.
We don't see our need for God.
We don't listen to Him.
We don't respond to His call.
A dead body can't perceive anything.
And spiritually, we're the same.
All around us, people are the same.
People going about their daily lives
with no sense, no perception
of the spiritual danger that they're in.
A dead body is incapacitated.
Can't do anything to revive itself.
Sin's left us in the same condition.
We're incapable of doing anything ourselves
that's going to restore our relationship with God.
A dead body is a human separated.
Body and soul separated.
Sin has had the same effect on us.
We are separated from God.
And the big point is this.
On its own, a dead body can do nothing
except stay dead.
And we've got to recognize that spiritually
that's the condition that sin has left us in.
And regeneration is describing
the fact that the gospel means
that that state of spiritual deadness
gets changed into spiritual life.
The state of spiritual deadness in our hearts
gets changed so that we become spiritually alive again.
And that life enables us to see our sin.
It enables us to hear God's call.
It enables us to turn from our sin and repentance
and to turn to Jesus in faith.
It enables us to be reunited to Him
in a life-giving relationship.
And the key point, the absolutely crucial point,
is that that transforming work of regeneration
is not something that we do.
The person who does it is God.
And that's why the language of being born again
is so clear and so helpful and so powerful.
Because birth implies two things.
One, it's passive.
Nobody births themselves.
It's something that happens to you.
You're born, and that is completely and entirely
because of what someone else has done.
And so birth is passive.
But secondly, birth brings life.
Birth, the new birth that Jesus is talking about
brings spiritual life.
Now, Nicodemus comes to Jesus on this night,
and he's a genius in a religion
that says that you need to do this, that,
and the next thing yourself in order to know God.
You need to do this.
You need to do that.
You need to keep this law.
You need to remember this.
And Jesus says to him,
you need to forget about what gets done by you.
The thing that matters is what gets done to you.
That's the necessity.
Nicodemus needs to be born again.
And this becomes even clearer
in the original language of the Old Testament.
Now, they say to never do this,
but I'm on holiday, so I'm breaking all my rules.
This is the Greek for the phrase,
you must be born again.
Dei humas genethenai anothen.
Now, that word dei at the start
literally translates, it is necessary.
And then the second word, humas,
means for you or to you, for you.
So at the very start of that sentence,
you've got the phrase,
it is necessary for you to be born
is the third word.
Again is the last word.
It is necessary for you to be born again.
And it becomes so much clearer when you see that.
Because when I say, you must be born again,
you think, oh, well, I must do that.
No, it is necessary for you to be born again.
Something has to happen to you.
It's an absolute necessity for Nicodemus and for us.
All of this comes as a huge surprise to Nicodemus.
But it shouldn't have.
Because the Old Testament that he's supposed to be the expert in
has already said that this is how it works.
And a key passage in that regard
comes in Ezekiel in the prophecy,
that great prophecy, chapter 36,
where through the prophet, God says,
I will take you from the nations
and gather you from all the countries
and bring you to your own land.
I'll sprinkle clean water on you
and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
I'll give you a new heart
and a new spirit I'll put within you.
I will remove the heart of stone in your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
And I'll put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes
and to be careful to obey my rules.
Now look at those verses.
What's the key point?
God's doing it all.
Look at how many times it says,
I will, I will, I will, I will.
It's all God's actions.
And I think that when we see these verses
alongside the verses in John 3
about being born of water
and being born of the spirit,
you can see the connections, can't you?
The connections are actually so strong
and you realize this is actually
what Jesus is talking about.
And that's where I think that maybe
if you're trying to understand
what does it mean to be born of water
and the spirit,
I think the explanation is coming from Ezekiel
that it's talking about the same thing,
the cleansing, life-giving renewal
that comes through Jesus,
through faith in him,
through the one who was to come
to restore God's people.
So in other words, in John 3,
Jesus is speaking about what Ezekiel
had prophesied all those years ago.
It's about the fact that if we're going to be saved,
we need God to change our hearts,
to cleanse us,
to take us from darkness into light,
to bring life where sin has left us dead.
And the rest of the New Testament
echoes this teaching.
Ephesians 2,
we were dead in our trespasses and sins,
we've been made alive together in Christ by God.
1 Peter 1,
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
He's caused us to be born again
to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead.
And in fact,
John's Gospel has already told us
that this is how it works.
At the very start,
he said,
to all who did receive Jesus,
to those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become
the children of God
who were born,
not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh,
not of the will of the man,
but of God.
For anyone to come to faith in Jesus,
it's only ever possible if God acts.
And so when Jesus says to you,
you must be born again,
He's not telling you to do something.
He's telling you that you desperately need something.
Now, the minute we recognize that,
there's two big traps that we can fall into.
One is to think that it's not a necessity.
And it's so easy to think like that.
It's so easy to think,
well, yeah, I get this is important,
but it's not that important.
It's not unnecessary for it to be all God.
Surely I can do a bit myself.
But when we think like that,
whenever we think like that,
we are massively underestimating
the effect that sin has had on our lives.
Spiritually, sin has completely jiggered us.
That's why the language of deadness
is used again and again and again in Scripture.
Because that's how serious it is.
That's how much damage has done.
We are utterly helpless.
Can you save yourself by doing stuff?
Can you save yourself by your own efforts?
Well, that's the equivalent of asking yourself,
can you born yourself?
The other danger is to think that,
yes, it is a necessity,
and yes, God does have to do it.
And that means it's probably not going to happen for me.
And lots of people think like that.
It's so easy to think like that,
to think, well, if I can't do anything,
and if it's all God, then I'm snookered.
If God has to do it,
what if he doesn't?
What if it doesn't happen?
Well,
if you're worrying that right now,
if you're thinking,
well, what if this hasn't happened to me?
What if this doesn't happen to me?
And what if God just
goes past me?
What should you do?
Well,
well, you need to ask,
what's the first sign
that God is doing this work
in somebody?
Is it that you recognize success?
So you can start looking at yourself
and think, yeah, I know,
I know I'm born again.
I know this has happened.
I know.
Is that,
is it,
is the first step that you recognize success?
No, I don't think that's the first step.
I think the first sign
is that you recognize necessity.
That you start off by saying,
I need to be born again.
One of the very first signs
of spiritual life in your heart
is being able to see
that being born again
is an absolute necessity.
So take heart
if that's what you're wondering.
There's more to learn
from this passage
when you think about mystery.
Nicodemus struggles
with all that Jesus is saying.
And there's a really interesting contrast
between Nicodemus and verse 2
when he says,
we know that you are a teacher
come from God.
And then in verse 9,
he's like,
how can these things be?
Nicodemus is struggling
to understand Jesus.
And that's because
there's an element of mystery
surrounding what Jesus is teaching.
And that sense of mystery
is reinforced by verse 8
where Jesus says,
the wind blows what it wishes.
You hear its sound,
but you don't know
where it's coming from
or where it goes.
So it is with everyone
who is born of the Spirit.
Now here,
Jesus presents us
with a reality
that's often very hard to accept.
but one which actually
makes perfect sense.
He's facing us
with the reality
that when it comes to God,
we will always have to embrace mystery.
We will always have to embrace mystery.
And that makes perfect sense
because the only way
of avoiding mystery with God
is to be God.
And Jesus uses the wind
as his illustration for this.
And his point is that,
you know,
when it comes to the wind,
you can't explain its source.
You can only observe its effect.
Now today,
we might say,
well, we understand wind.
We know how high pressure
and low pressure works.
And we can actually map
the direction of the wind.
In fact,
we can even predict
the direction of the wind.
But that's not the point
because the key thing
we have to recognize
is that Jesus is speaking
to the people of his time
who didn't recognize that
and didn't understand that
in the way that we do now.
It's an illustration
that's relative to his audience.
If Jesus was coming
and speaking today,
I think he would maybe use
the illustration of gravity
because there's still a lot
that we don't understand
about gravity.
We don't really know
how it works,
but we can definitely
see its effect.
When it comes to being born again,
when it comes to that
great work of God
where he changes us
from being spiritually dead
to being spiritually alive,
there is a lot
that's a mystery.
So precisely how it happens,
precisely when it happens,
I can't explain
every detail of that,
but we absolutely can
see its effect.
You can see it
in your own lives.
You can see it
in the lives of others.
You can see it
in the history of the church.
There's absolutely no doubt
that for millions
and millions of people,
an amazing change
has taken place.
And that's why
when it comes to being born again,
I don't think it's wise
to try and waste our time
explaining every aspect
of the source.
Instead,
you need to look
for the effect.
And that's so important
for anybody here
who struggles with doubts.
So some of you may be here
or maybe not sure
if you're a Christian yet or not,
and you're thinking,
well, I really don't know
where I stand before God.
Some of you may have said
for a long time,
I am a Christian,
but actually deep down,
and you're constantly plagued
with doubts,
thinking, well, am I really?
And you see things
in your life
that make you question it
and doubt it.
And many of us
struggle with that question
of assurance.
Am I really a Christian yet?
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
For some people,
becoming a Christian
is sudden and clear
and obvious.
Their conversion
from darkness to light
is like a switch.
But for most people,
for me,
and I'm sure
for the majority
of people here,
that movement
from darkness to light
is not a switch.
It's a dawn
that happens slowly
and gradually.
And for the gradual ones,
there's always the question,
how do I know
it's actually happened?
How do I know
I'm saved?
Well, one of the questions
you can ask yourself
is this.
If you think back
to a time in your life
when you know
that you weren't really
that interested in Jesus
at all
and none of this
was really on your radar
and then look at yourself
now,
ask the question,
are you different?
And I'm not asking,
are you perfect?
I'm not asking,
are you sorted?
And I'm not asking,
you know,
are you where you want to be?
I'm not asking that question
at all.
I'm just asking,
are you different?
So are you drawn
towards Jesus
in a way
that you never were before?
Do you realize now
that you never knew before
that you need Him?
Do you wish you could say,
I'm a Christian?
Do you look at other Christians
whom you know and love
and think,
what they have
is absolutely
what I want in my life?
And do you feel,
do you pray more now
than you used to?
Do you read God's Word
in a way now
where it's actually
starting to quench
your thirst
in a way that it never did before?
Do you understand
that you need Jesus
more than anything?
And if the answer
to any of those questions
is yes,
and even if it's a yes
that still has
a very long way to go,
if the answer is yes,
then it tells you
that God's wind
is blowing in your heart.
And if you're still doubting that,
then here's the proof.
Dead people don't even
think about those questions.
Now, all of this
is reminding us
that when it comes to God,
to creation,
to salvation,
to new birth,
to the interactions
of time and eternity,
to the disclosure
of God's revelation
in Scripture,
to the outworking
of God's purposes
across history
and in your own life,
in all of that stuff,
there is a lot
of mystery.
And I can't explain it all.
None of us
can explain it all.
There's unavoidable mystery
in all of these things.
And rightly so,
rightly so,
because God
is so much bigger than us.
He always will be.
He's always meant to be.
And if you don't like mystery,
you think,
well,
I don't want a God
that's mysterious.
I don't want a faith
that I can't explain everything.
Well,
you've got to think
of the alternatives,
because when it comes to God,
the alternatives
to mystery
are worse.
And I can only actually
think of three.
One is blasphemy,
where we basically,
we dictate to God
and say to God,
this is what you should be like,
and this is the box
that you need to fit in,
and you need to conform
to all the explanations
that I can handle.
That's actually blasphemy,
because that's to bring God down
from who He really is.
The other is idolatry,
where we think,
well,
I don't want that mysterious God.
I'll start worshipping this
that I can fully understand.
And we exchange the real God
for a false God.
Or the third alternative
to mystery
is just blindness,
where we just wander around
aimlessly thinking,
I don't know.
I'm not going to think about it.
But here's a crucial question.
We're recognizing
that we've got to embrace mystery,
but does embracing mystery
mean that everything
is ultimately a guess?
Well, that takes us
to our last point,
certainty.
And this brings us
to actually one of the biggest mistakes
that people can fall into,
and one that frequently
has led people
to dismiss Christianity
and say,
this is not for me.
And the mistake is this.
we think that mystery
and certainty
are incompatible.
And when people think like that,
they tend to say things like,
if you can prove to me
that God exists,
then I'll believe.
If you can prove the Bible
with evidence,
then I'll believe.
If you can eliminate
all mystery,
then I'll believe.
If you can explain
why this, that,
and the next thing
has happened to me
in my life,
then I will believe.
And all of that kind of thinking,
it's easy,
it's understandable,
but it all lies
on the assumption
that mystery
and certainty
are incompatible.
But that's not true.
Mystery
does not have to result
in doubt
and skepticism.
And that actually
makes perfect sense
because it's true
in every area of knowledge,
not just in terms of faith.
And one of the best examples
of that is science.
Because science
is constantly
trying to find certainty,
but it is
full of mystery.
And just,
if you want to confirm that,
if you want to confirm
that science
is full of mystery,
just go and ask a genius.
Go and ask someone
at the very top
of their game
in high energy physics
or whatever other area
of science
it might be.
I had a conversation
with somebody
from that world,
somebody who has a PhD
and lasting,
you know,
excellent career
in all of that world.
And we were chatting
all about this
and they said to me,
mathematically,
a positron
is an electron
traveling backwards
in time.
And just smiled at me.
And James Clark Maxwell,
amazing business
from the 19th century,
Scottish,
all the best guys
are Scottish.
He didn't know
everything that
Einstein discovered
and yet he was the guy
that Einstein had a picture
of on his wall
because Einstein said,
well, I would never
have discovered
what I would have
if it wasn't for
James Clark Maxwell.
And I am 100% sure
that neither of them
would stand up here today
and say,
there's no mystery
in physics.
There's still so much
to discover.
Does that mean,
though,
that we doubt
everything that
James Clark Maxwell
and Einstein discovered?
No.
We can have certainty
about so much
of what they discovered.
They've taught us
more and more and more
about the amazing world
that God has made.
Mystery is unavoidable
in every area of knowledge,
even in relationships.
Why does Una love me?
You might be saying,
well, that is a mystery.
But it is
because love is a mystery.
Physics is a mystery.
DNA is a mystery.
But in all those mysteries,
we can still have certainty.
And that is absolutely true
when it comes to faith.
There's always going to be
mysteries about God.
There has to be.
But that doesn't mean
that we cannot have certainty.
So how do we get it?
How do we get certainty?
Well,
the answer is that
we listen to what God reveals.
And that's exactly
what Jesus speaks about
in verses 11 to 13.
Truly, truly,
I say to you,
we speak of what we know,
we bear witness
to what we've seen,
but you do not receive
our testimony.
If I told you earthly things
and you do not believe,
how will you believe
if I tell you heavenly things?
No one has ascended
into heaven
except he who descended
from heaven,
the Son of Man.
Now, just as a wee note,
it's really interesting
when it says,
truly, I say to you,
that you is plural.
So he's speaking
to more than just Nicodemus.
Jesus is wanting
all of us to hear
and listen to this.
And what Jesus is saying
is this,
he's saying nobody
is qualified
to give answers about,
nobody can give answers
about God
unless he's qualified
to give those answers.
And again,
that's true in physics,
maths,
geology,
history,
everything else.
You can only give answers
if you're qualified
to do so.
But the person qualified
to give answers about God
is not a religious genius
like Nicodemus.
The person qualified
to reveal God
is God
and no one else.
So nobody can ascend
to heaven
and tell God,
this is what you're like
and then come back
and explain it to us.
No, it has to be
the other way around.
God has to descend
and reveal himself.
And that's exactly
what he's doing
in Jesus.
He is God the Son
descended
to reveal
who God is.
And the message
that he reveals
is a message
of salvation.
And that's why
he goes on
to talk about,
oh, I've gone too far there,
sorry.
Oh, I didn't put it
on the screen.
Anyway, you can look it up
if it's before you.
It's on the bulletin.
That's why he talks about
the snake
in the wilderness.
Because back in the Old Testament,
there was a shadow
of that salvation.
It's in Numbers 21.
There was a plague of snakes
among the Israelites
and God told Moses
to make a bronze snake,
put the snake
on a pole.
Everybody who had been bitten
could look at the snake
and they would be healed.
They would be saved.
And that,
like everything else
in the Old Testament,
was a shadow
pointing towards
God's great
and ultimate plan
of salvation
where Jesus,
God the Son,
would be lifted up
on the cross
so that all who look on him
might be saved.
Now, that work of salvation
contains mystery.
But that mystery
does not mean
that you cannot
have certainty.
Jesus' message
is actually crystal clear.
Whoever believes in me
will be saved.
But there's one thing
I want you to notice
and this is part
of what makes the gospel
so, so good.
We've been saying
that in regard
to regeneration,
going from life to death,
death to life,
death,
there's mystery
about how that happens.
And there's also mystery
about precisely
when it happens.
Not many people
can pinpoint
the exact moment
when they were regenerated
and they were born again.
There's mystery
about how
and there is mystery
about when.
But there is
no mystery
about why.
There is no mystery
about why it happens.
We know
exactly
why
this happens.
It happens
because of how much
God loves you.
And ultimately,
that
is the certainty
that the gospel
offers you.
Not certainty
about every detail
of all the massive questions
that we have
about God
and humanity
and time
and eternity
and life
and reality.
We're not big enough
to know everything
about everything
and we do not need
to know everything
about everything.
In other words,
we don't need
to be geniuses
because before God,
no one is a genius.
But what we do
need to know
is what God
wants us to know.
And the certainty
that the gospel
gives you
is the certainty
that God
loves you.
That he sent
his son
to save you
and whoever
believes in him
will not perish
!
But have eternal life.
So let's finish
with our questions.
Do you want necessity?
Do you want mystery?
Do you want certainty?
Maybe it's clearer
if we put those questions
the other way around.
Do you want
to build your life
on stuff
that isn't
really necessary?
Do you want
a worldview
or a universe
or a God
with no mystery?
And do you want
a life
with no certainty?
Or do you want
the gospel?
Because the gospel
will tell you
what the most
urgent necessity
in your life is.
The gospel
will point you
to the God
who is magnificent
but in whom
there is an eternity
of mystery
to discover
and the gospel
will give you
certainty.
Certainty about
the magnitude
of God's love
for you.
certainty about
the fact that
he sent his son
to die for you.
Certainty about
the fact that
all you have to do
is trust him.
And certainty
that if you do
you will have
eternal life
with him forever.
You do not
need to be a genius
to understand
all of that.
And you do not
need to be a genius
to have
all of that.
But if you
don't want that
and if you
think
this isn't
for me
I don't
think you're
clever
I think
you're crazy.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Lord Jesus
thank you so
so much
for coming
to reveal
the truth
of how much
we need you
the truth
of how small
we are
before you
and the truth
of how
amazing
your love
for us
has always
been
and always
will be.
Help us
to see
and understand
all of these
things more
and help us
to look to you
to trust you
and to follow you
today
this week
and for the rest
of our lives.
Amen.