I would like you to turn in your Bibles this morning to John chapter 3.
! And as we get started, I remind you that actually this morning you're going to be praying for several people.
One is for Caleb as he is ministering somewhere in New York.
I'm not persuaded where it is. I just know he's out there somewhere.
And God knows, and you just pray, and we're trusting that the Holy Spirit helps Caleb to preach with clarity,
with simplicity, and with passion that lifts up the glory of Christ in a very troubling environment.
And I want you to know that you are going to be part of kind of setting a milepost in Caleb's ministry and his life.
He will without question remember this Sunday.
And I want him to also remember what it is to preach with the prayers of people that are absent from him
and lifting him up before the throne that he can know what it is to do it under the power of the Spirit of God.
Well, if I would ask you to do that for Caleb, guess who else I'm going to plead for?
That's me.
I trust you'll do that.
John chapter 3, verse 1.
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're 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's 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 of the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Our Father,
for us this morning,
our prayer is a confession, first of all, of our own frailty and inadequacy,
a recognition that by our own enabling and our flesh,
there is nothing we can do that is of eternal significance.
And our desire is that this morning,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
who enjoys the worship of angels in heaven,
and someday of all the redeemed,
would be the one that is lifted up this morning by your Spirit.
We understand from John, as we will see later in our studies,
Lord willing,
that the ministry of the Spirit includes bringing attention to the Lord Jesus,
and we pray that you would do that today.
I pray, Father, for Caleb,
that today his preaching would be anointed and strengthened by the Spirit of God,
and that in retrospect, as he looks back,
he would say,
Wow, that was something that God did.
That people would come to Christ there in New York.
That people would have hearts that are comforted and encouraged,
but also convicted and sobered.
I pray, Lord, also for our fellowship this morning,
as we sit under the teaching of the Word of God,
that those who are here that do not know Christ
would be drawn by grace to see the absolute despair of their soul
and the inability they have of saving themselves.
Give to them a holy terror of what eternity without Christ will be,
and draw them to find in Jesus Christ the only hope
in this life and the life to come.
Amen.
Well, as we take this passage,
we are in our process of moving through the book of John,
and remember that John chapter 20, verse 31,
gives us a thematic overview of what this book is all about,
and it helps to remember.
It always helps to kind of have the central goal in mind
because we do have a tendency of kind of getting lost in the weeds.
Would you agree with me?
Sometimes caught up in all the little details,
and we forget the overarching theme.
It's important to remember,
this book was written to make it clear
from the evidence that is provided
that Jesus is the Son of God,
so that knowing that fact,
you may come to faith believing on Him
and have everlasting life.
As we have worked so far through the book,
we've kind of come through that opening statement
in the prelude in which we are reminded
that Jesus indeed is the Son of God,
the Creator of the universe,
and the One who by all things were made,
and the One who is the light and the life of God.
We've also seen the reminder of the impact
that He had at the very start,
doing a very kind of small little miracle
in a wedding in which He turned the water into wine.
Later, we find that as you work your way through
cleansing the temple,
and subsequent to that,
there were a lot of people that they believed in Him,
they believed in the evidence that He was providing,
but their belief was not a belief
that drew them to genuine conversion and faith.
And so it makes sense that as we are working our way
through the book of John,
on the heels of the statement that we have in John chapter 2,
that there were a lot of people that believed,
but it really didn't do anything,
we now come to a very interesting little picture
about what saving faith really comes down to be.
And as we open our passage this morning,
we find Nicodemus,
and I would say that probably John chapter 3
is one of those famous chapters in the Bible.
Most everybody knows John 3, 16.
You've got that one.
And we know the story of Nicodemus,
kind of the background to what that little verse is all about.
As you look here,
you find Nicodemus coming to Jesus,
and in essence,
what you're coming to grips with
is a guy who had an empty heart.
He had an empty heart.
That's what we're looking at.
It tells us here that Nicodemus,
the ruler of the Jews,
he came to Jesus by night,
and he said,
hey, we know that you're a teacher come from God
because no one could do these signs that you do
unless God is with him.
As we kind of step back a little bit
to understand the context of this,
I want you to understand
that at the heart of all the religions of the world,
all the systems of faith in the world,
there are only two basic concepts.
You've heard me say this,
but I want to drive it home
because it has bearing on our lesson this morning.
One system of belief
is of the persuasion
that men by their effort
may work their way up the ladder into heaven.
And we bump into those people all the time, don't we?
We say, so what gives you confidence
that you're going to be in heaven?
Well, I'm a pretty good person.
Or on the other side,
we have those people who say,
well, I'm not really sure.
I'm hoping that my good outweighs my bad.
Or you have people say,
well, I hope God grades on the curve.
And whatever you're dealing with there,
you're listening to someone who has the idea
that salvation really must be something
that comes about because of human effort.
On the other hand,
the Bible teaches us clearly
that salvation is not something that happens
because of human effort.
It is clear in the Scripture
that salvation happens
because of God's grace in His ministry
in the lives of broken and ruined sinners.
How do people come to Christ?
By the way,
how many of you know that the name Jesus
actually tells you the fact
about how salvation happens?
Jesus means what?
Jehovah is salvation.
It doesn't say that Jehovah helps with salvation.
It says, hey, salvation is something God does.
And so as we deal with Nicodemus,
as we open up this passage,
we find here a man that,
driven by the emptiness of his heart,
he comes to Jesus.
And I want you to understand something
about Nicodemus that we know
from the very beginning.
This man was very serious about doing his best.
He wasn't one of those guys
that really wasn't all that interested
in how his performance was.
He was a guy who checked on his grades all the time.
How many of you remember people like that in school?
They bothered me marginally.
What I mean by that is that,
well, I figured they were just
in a different parallel universe
and I wasn't all that concerned about them,
but I did.
Well, I have a 98 in math.
What does that look like?
You know, it's like, forget that one.
Nicodemus was really all over how he was doing.
He was a very religious
and very conscientious person.
And we know that because he was a Pharisee.
That's what it tells us.
Now, we use the term Pharisee
kind of as a little dig at somebody.
Oh, you're a Pharisee.
I want you to understand
that the Pharisees were pretty serious people
about religion and behavior.
They were people who had
all different kinds of rules
about how to keep the Sabbath.
And one that I found most interesting was,
here's the deal.
If a chicken laid an egg on the Sabbath,
I'm serious,
you were allowed to eat that egg
so long as you planned
to execute the chicken the next day
for breaking the Sabbath.
Now, the logic is just irrefutable.
You follow that, don't you?
Let me say it again so you get it.
If a chicken laid an egg on the Sabbath,
you were allowed to execute that chicken
and eat that chicken.
Now, how did you eat chicken
if you didn't cook it?
I haven't figured that one out.
But they were, okay,
you could kill, you could eat the egg.
I don't know, forget it.
Anyway, here's the deal.
You were allowed to have that egg
so long as the chicken
was going to be slaughtered
the next day for breaking the Sabbath.
Do you understand?
If you were to go to the web today,
and I did this earlier in the last week,
I went to the web
and kind of checked on
what kind of rules would be affecting me
if I were a Jew today.
And here's the deal.
If you are an Orthodox,
a practicing Jew,
serious about keeping the Sabbath,
and you turn a light switch on,
on the Sabbath,
you're not allowed to turn it off.
Got that?
You may not cook.
You may not turn on electricity.
And so one of the things
that a lot of times
would happen in a Jewish home
is that come around
about Friday evening,
just at the right time,
they'd go through the house
and flick on the lights
that they wanted on
for their next 24 hours.
And they would leave them on.
So when you go to sleep at night,
guess what you do?
How many of you sleep
with those things over your eyes
so that you pretend that it's dark?
There are lots of little rules
that go with,
you cannot drive a car
to the synagogue.
And so how many of you
have been in Cleveland
and see the herd of them,
the large group of them
walking towards the synagogue?
The reason they're doing it
is that they're not allowed.
Driving burns gasoline
and anything that involves fire
is wrong.
The Pharisees were very,
very, very particular
about keeping all the rules.
And it tells us here
that Nicodemus,
a Pharisee,
was a ruler of the Jews.
What that means
is that he had kind of
worked to the top
of the food chain.
Furthermore,
we understand
that being a ruler
of the Jews
meant that he was
one of the Sanhedrin,
the 70,
that were involved
in making kind of legal
and cultural decisions
for the Jewish nation.
He was at the top of it.
His spiritual
or his religious discipline
was so well-regulated
that other people
paid attention to him
and said,
hey, Nicodemus is a model.
That's what you're supposed
to be like.
Now, when you look
in John chapter 7, verse 50,
where it tells us
that he was part
of the Sanhedrin,
we get the idea
that he was at least
willing to stand up
for what he understood
about the truth
and he appealed
that Jesus
should not be judged
prematurely,
but on the basis
of what he actually
had done.
So I want you
to understand
that Nicodemus,
as we think about this guy,
was a guy who had worked
very hard for a long time
and he was top in.
Despite being respected
by everybody
that he was around,
Nicodemus
was really not satisfied.
How do we know that?
We know that because
Nicodemus came to Jesus
and he came,
in essence,
asking a question
about spiritual issues.
And we know that
he asked that question
because Jesus,
as we saw in
the previous verses
in John chapter 2,
understanding the heart of man,
he knew what was really
going on inside.
And so I want you
to recognize that
even though Nicodemus
had all these benefits
and accolades
and he was accepted
by the culture
that he was in,
he sensed his loss
and he came to Jesus
looking for spiritual help.
That's why he was there.
Some have made
quite a bit
out of the fact
that Nicodemus
came to Jesus
at night.
And I do want to take
just a minute
and explain something.
If the Bible
doesn't tell us
something,
we are doing
no more than
mere speculation
if we try to figure out
why he came
to Jesus at night.
How many of you
understand what I just said?
If we don't have
the clear evidence,
speculation
is just that.
In fact,
speculation sometimes
when it is declared
to be fact
can become frustrating
and confusing
and misleading.
Truth of the matter
is we don't know
why Nicodemus
came to Jesus
at night.
He could have had
a long work day.
Or whatever the reason,
we just find that
there he was
in front of Jesus
and he was coming
to Jesus
because he recognized
that Jesus
was a source
of spiritual insight.
And how do we know that?
We know
that you are a teacher
come from God.
And how do we know
that you're a teacher
come from God?
Because no one
can do these signs
that you do
unless God
is with him.
He recognized
the evidence
that Jesus'
signs provided.
I've got to tell you
something about Nicodemus.
I respect him
because he
was willing
to recognize
the emptiness
of his soul
and he was willing
to do something
about it
at least
in asking questions.
Do you understand that?
It's one thing
to be convicted
about things
that are going on
in your life
and not do
anything about it.
That's wrong.
Here was Nicodemus.
He was convicted.
He sensed
the emptiness
of his heart.
He recognized
that even though
he was at the top
of other people's opinions,
he really wasn't
inside
what he needed
to be spiritually
and there was a vacuum
and there was an emptiness.
emptiness.
So I've got to tell you
if you're sitting here
this morning
and you have
an emptiness
in your soul,
if you have
a secret sense
of the darkness
of your heart,
if you have
no confidence
about where
your eternity
will be spent
and you are
struggling this morning
with the reality
of the burden
of sin in your life,
I would appeal
to you,
at least do
what Nicodemus did,
go find Jesus.
To sit there
in the sourness
and the bitterness
and the hopelessness
and the despair
of your heart
that is at this moment
under the convicting power
of the Spirit of God
is wrong.
Do something.
I appreciate the fact
that Nicodemus
was willing to confess
that he had
a spiritual problem
and it was one
he couldn't fix.
And so I would plead
with you this morning
as you sit here,
if you are here today
and there is a spiritual issue
going in your life
and you recognize
it's not something
you can solve,
at least be humble
and humble yourself
and come to him
and ask for help.
Jesus, I need help.
Let's look at a second thing
this morning
as we look at the passage
and recognize
the divine remedy.
Jesus,
having Nicodemus
come to him
and says,
hey, listen,
you're a teacher
come from God
and I know it
because of these signs.
Instead of Jesus saying,
well, you know what?
I'm glad you picked up
on those things.
Jesus doesn't respond
according to the input
or the comments
that Nicodemus brought.
In fact,
what we have him do
is go on a completely
different tack
and Nicodemus
didn't pose
their actual question
but we find that
Jesus addressed it
quite clearly.
You see,
Jesus cut to the heart
of Nicodemus' concern
because what he said
was this
and allow a little bit
of liberty here
as I kind of reverse
the order here
for you to think about.
Here's what Jesus said
in essence
as you look at verse 4
or 5.
You're not going to heaven
unless you start over
by being born again
and that's a fact.
You're not going to heaven
unless you start over again
by being born again
and that's a fact.
Look at the verse.
Truly, truly,
that's the fact part, right?
Anytime the teacher
in your class
would say
this is important,
even the average scholar
does what
with that information?
What did you do?
You do a circle around it
and you said
this will be on the,
on what?
The test.
You paid attention.
So when Jesus said
truly, truly,
that was like saying
this is, get this.
This is important.
This is very important.
And so as you stop
and look at this statement,
Jesus makes it clear
what I'm going to say next
is significant
and you'd better tune up
and pay attention.
Secondly,
he makes that very
interesting statement,
you must be born again.
The Greek word
that is used there
in verse 3
and I'm not going to
belabor the point here
but it could be taken
two different ways
neither of which
changed the meaning of it
and both actually help
drive a point home.
For one,
that word again
can mean to do again,
second time,
over again.
It could also mean
from above.
And in both cases,
the issue is that
something pretty dramatic
needs to take place
in the life of the person
who is concerned about
what's happening
in their life spiritually.
There are some of you
sitting here this morning
that the truth of the matter
is you've not believed
in Jesus Christ
as your Savior.
You've never come to faith
and you have sat
and listened
to the preaching
and the announcement
of the word of God
and the undeniable declaration
that this is indeed
the Son of God
who's come into the world
to save sinners
and in practical terms
as you sit there
and refuse that truth.
In essence,
what you're saying
is Jesus is a liar
because what he says
about himself
is not true.
It is a weighty moment
to realize
that Jesus puts us
on the spot
of saying yes or no
to who he is
and what he's here to do.
And it's appropriate
to understand that.
Jesus cuts right to it.
He says,
listen,
let me tell you something.
Unless you're born again,
you cannot see
the kingdom of God.
Furthermore,
apart from the new birth,
in essence,
what he is saying
is no one's going to heaven.
Apart from the new birth,
no one is going to heaven.
I am stunned today
by the number of people
that I bump into
that are professing
evangelical Christians
and what I mean
by that mouthful
is there are people
who say,
well,
Jesus is the pretty
important guy
and I kind of believe
what the Bible says
but I don't believe
in hell.
I really think
that at the end of the day,
how many of you
heard the phrase
love wins?
I have someone
who I periodically
read their posts
and they keep on commenting
about love wins
and love wins
and the implication
is that at the end of the day
when it's all said and done
that God is not going
to send anybody to hell.
Let me help you
understand something.
The reason Christ Jesus
came into the world
was to satisfy
the debt
and the judgment
that sin has created
and the truth
of the matter
is that sin,
any sin,
every sin
that I commit
is against
a holy God
and His
infinite glory
makes even
the smallest
thing that I do
infinitely offensive.
And the satisfaction
for that infinite offense
is an infinite penalty.
And God sent His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
to pay
that infinite price
by dying
in my place.
And so when
Jesus
said to Nicodemus,
you've got to be born again,
you have to understand
He was talking
to a person
who was at the top
of the food chain,
so to speak,
religiously
in Israel.
And in essence,
Jesus says to Nicodemus,
you,
who have your PhD
in religion,
have to start
all over again.
And Nicodemus says,
what?
Play out with
what He says here.
How can a man
be born when he's old?
Can he enter
a second time
into his mother's womb
and be born?
Some have
taken this
to mean
that Nicodemus
was kind of
being a little sarcastic
and taking
what Jesus said
and played it out
a little bit
with an edge.
I don't know
that at all.
I think Nicodemus
came with sincerity.
He took the information
that Jesus provided
and he was completely
blown away by it
because his mind
wasn't tracking
in that range.
It just wasn't there.
And so he asked
the obvious question,
how can that happen?
How can that happen?
Then in verse 5,
Jesus answered
and said to him,
truly, truly,
I say to you,
unless one is born again,
or I said,
sorry, verse 5,
unless one is born
of water and the spirit,
he cannot enter
the kingdom of God.
Now, so I want you
to understand
what's being said here.
Salvation cannot happen
apart from the
exclusive work of God.
It's very interesting
when you,
how many of you
understand what it is
to take a text
and preach what you
want to say?
Let me give you
an illustration.
Some have looked
at this passage
and thought
that it referred
to baptism.
I mean,
anytime you have water,
some people think
it means baptism.
I've heard the story
of a pastor
who was really
kind of big
on preaching
on baptism,
and one day,
he actually hit
a passage
where there was
no water
in any place
in the text,
and he says,
now some of you
may have noticed
this passage
does not refer
water.
He says,
that brings up
baptism.
Sometimes you want
to get wherever
you're going
to get where
you want to go.
And here is Jesus
making the statement,
you have to be born
of water and the spirit,
and I got to tell you,
it has nothing to do
with being born physically,
and it has nothing
to do with baptism.
How many of you
have study Bibles?
Raise your hand
and wave at me
so I can see
the study Bibles
out here.
Okay?
Study Bibles
are not bad tools.
One of the problems
with study Bibles
is that they don't
get everything right,
but it's a starting place.
The thing that is important
as we look at this passage
and we try to understand
what does Jesus mean
when he says water
and the spirit,
we have to remember
that the best thing
to help us understand
the Bible
is the Bible
and the enabling
of the spirit of God
and the context.
And by that I mean,
who was Jesus talking to?
He was talking to a guy
who had his PhD
in Old Testament theology
and knew the scriptures
backwards and forwards.
Later on,
he's going to say
to Nicodemus,
kind of a snort,
you know,
there's no snort
in the text
in case you're wondering,
but it's like,
don't you get it?
Are you a teacher
in Israel
and don't know
these things?
Jesus expected
Nicodemus
to understand
the Old Testament.
Clearly,
in Jewish thinking,
baptism at best
was not something
that saved.
Baptism was merely
an outward evidence
of something
happened,
that had happened
in the heart.
But,
if you will turn
in your Bible
over to Ezekiel
chapter 36,
by the way,
just notice,
some of you may have
cross-references
over in the margin
that says,
go to Ezekiel
chapter 36.
And in this case,
go there.
Ezekiel
chapter 36,
and we're going
to look at
verse 25-27.
What does the water
refer to?
I will sprinkle
clean water
on you,
and you shall be
clean from all
your uncleanliness
and from your
idols.
I will cleanse
you,
and I will give
you a new heart
and a new spirit
I will put within
you,
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.
I will put my
spirit within you
and cause you
to walk in my
statutes and be
careful to obey
my rules.
You see,
when Jesus made
this statement
to Nicodemus,
who'd come and
said,
hey, listen,
I've got a
spiritual problem
and we need to
do something about
this,
or I need to do
something about it,
Jesus said,
hey,
this is not
something you can
just decide.
It's got to be
something that
somebody else does
for you.
And when he says
the water and the
spirit,
he was referring
to the ministry
of the spirit of
God in the heart
of the man who
recognizes
his desperate
condition and
his absolute
inability to
save himself.
Water and
spirit refer
not to the
physical part,
but they're
referring to
that which is
of the spirit's
work in a man's
life.
And so when
Jesus went on
there in verse
six,
that which is
born of the
flesh is flesh,
that which is
born of the
spirit is spirit,
what he was
saying is this,
is that
the human body
produces human,
mental,
physical results.
Only the spirit
of God can
produce spiritual
results.
How many of you
ever tried to
persuade people
into the kingdom
with all the
logic that you
possessed?
You ever tried
that?
How many of you
ever tried to
argue somebody
into the kingdom?
I remember at
one point in
my ignorant
youthfulness
thinking that
much of
witnessing was
just kind of
being persuasive
with a couple
Bible facts.
And there was a
time when I
thought that maybe
I was going to
be a salesman,
and I thought,
well, I can
carry that
discipline over
into spiritual
realms.
And so do you
realize that there's
a way you can
manipulate people to
say yes about
enough times that
they'll buy a used
vacuum cleaner from
you?
Now, because of
that, there's a
three-day reversionary
rule.
How many of you
know that?
You sign it in
your home, you
have three days to
decide no.
Well, I talked
many people into
quote-unquote
conversion, and they
exercised the
three-day reversionary
clause as soon as
I left.
You can't persuade
people with
intellect to become
believers.
I understand that,
right?
It has to be the
work of the Spirit
of God.
And the point
that Jesus was
making here is the
physical part of
man cannot produce
genuine spiritual
life.
It's not going to
happen.
And so all the
self-help books in
the world, all the
name-it-claim-it
hucksters, all the
yoga and meditation
and vegan diets that
you decide to follow,
they're not going to
change who you are
inside.
Spiritual life and
salvation can only
come through the
work of the Spirit
of God.
Look at verse 7.
Do not marvel.
When I say to you,
when I said to you,
you must be born
again.
You see, here was
Nicodemus who came
with this emptiness in
his heart.
He sensed that
something was wrong,
and he saw that Jesus
was doing things that
were exceptional.
And he came and
said, man, I need
help.
And Jesus said, hey,
this is not a problem
you can solve by
yourself.
Spiritual life and
salvation can only
come through the work
of the Holy Spirit.
And so here you are in
verse 8.
It says, the wind blows
where it wishes, and
you hear its sound, but
you do not know where
it comes from or where
it goes.
Jesus is taking a very
simple little thing, and
he's making an application
to help make the point
to Nicodemus.
You at least understand
that the wind which you
cannot see, and probably
as smart as Nicodemus was,
he was not a
meteorologist and did
not understand all the
nuances of how the wind
works.
How many of you remember
the little poem, who
has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
Okay.
But when the wind is
rustling in the leaves, we
know the wind is going
by.
And Jesus says, hey,
listen, you don't get
the idea of what the
wind is necessarily, but
you see the evidence of
it.
And he was pointing
out that what Nicodemus
could see was the work
of the Holy Spirit in
people's lives that was
drawing attention to what
he needed inside.
So when you look at this
passage, what should you
do?
What should you do?
I want to remind you that
the purpose of preaching is
really to bring people to
the point of saying yes or
no to God.
And there are some of you
sitting here this morning
that the truth of the
matter is have never come
to the place of coming
to grips with the absolute
moral bankruptcy of your
heart and the emptiness
and the darkness of your
soul.
And as a result of that,
there is this void that you
cannot ultimately fill with
your own efforts.
So what do you do?
Number one, I want you to
understand that the work of
the Spirit of God is to
bring conviction.
And if you are sitting here
this morning and the Spirit
of God is convicting you of
the darkness of your soul and
the reality of your spiritual
bankruptcy, I want to tell you
that's good news.
That's not bad news.
That means the Spirit of God is
drawing and working and he's in
the process of persuading you
that you're absolutely hopeless
in your own condition.
You cannot save yourself.
What's the second thing that we
do?
One, we're convicted by the
Spirit of God.
Number two, we confess.
And confession means
essentially to say, God,
you're right about my heart.
You're right about my heart.
It is dark and it is hard.
It is an idol factory.
It is filled with bitterness
and dissatisfaction.
It is broken in its condition
and I can't do anything about it.
And third, we call out in faith.
And we believe in the promises
that Jesus has made.
And here's the promise that I
want you to hold on to.
Here's what the Bible says.
It says, whosoever calls upon
the name of the Lord, what?
Shall be saved.
Do you understand how simple
that is?
Do you understand that nobody
gets there without, first of all,
being convicted by the Spirit of God
and recognizing the bankruptcy
of their soul?
That's the work of Christ.
Tim Knoyer and no one else
in this church, no one else
that you will ever bump into
has the ability ultimately
of persuading you of the darkness
of your heart.
Only God can do that.
But when that persuasion comes
and that convicting power
of the Spirit of God
bears down on your heart,
the thing to do is to confess
and say, I am a bankrupt sinner
deserving the judgment of God.
And yet I understand that God
sent His Son to die for my sins
upon the cross.
And I will not in my arrogance
say, no thank you.
I will cry out.
And I will confess.
And I will believe that He
who sent His Son
to be my Savior
and to die in my place
will keep His promise.
You know what He promised?
He said this in the Scriptures,
whosoever calls upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved.
Do you know what?
At the end of the day,
you cannot receive the blessing
and the benefit of salvation
just by sitting there
and saying, well, it sounds good.
You have to reach out and say,
I need that desperately.
I receive it for myself.
I believe Jesus died for me
and I trust Him as my Savior.
Let's bow our heads
and come to the Lord in prayer.
I want to appeal to you this morning
as you sit here
to come to grips with where you are
in your spiritual journey.
There are some of you here today
that I think are not saved.
I don't know that for a fact,
but there are some of you here
that have never come to faith in Christ.
You're kind of going through
thinking you're a pretty good person,
but I want to tell you this.
Jesus didn't die
to waste His life on the cross.
He died because no one
can save themselves
by their own effort.
And this morning,
the Spirit of God
is working to bring conviction
and to help you
who sit here
under the teaching
of the Word of God
recognize the moral bankruptcy
of the empty heart of man.
Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners.
He died on the cross
to satisfy the judgment of God
for all of your sin.
How can you
turn away from that offer
that He graciously makes
to you this morning
and say,
not today,
I don't care.
I would plead with you
in Christ's stead.
Hear the convicting truth
of the gospel
and humble yourself
for the glory of Christ.
Father God,
You know our heart.
You know our need.
And I ask that Your Spirit
would work to draw us
to the cross
and to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ
in whom alone
is salvation.
And I ask this
because of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Let's stand together
as John leads us
in our singing.
And as we are singing,
we give a moment for you.
Some of you are here today
and the Spirit of God
is touching your heart
that there's something
you need to take care of publicly.
It may be that you need
to be obedient to the Lord
in a matter of baptism.
It may be that He's calling
to be part of this fellowship.
You know,
it's one thing to kind of
wave at the bus going by.
It's another thing to get on
and say,
I'm part of it.
Hmm?
And all God's people said what?
Okay.
And then there may be
some of you here today
that desperately need Jesus
as your Savior.
I would plead with you.
Don't walk out of here
without taking care of that.
Now we're going to sing.
We're going to sing our hearts out.
Aren't we going to do that?
And if God is working in your heart,
don't you mess with Him
this morning.
Be humble.