To see the Kingdom of God, one must be born again, not through another physical birth, but through the Spirit. The message of salvation runs from the Old Covenant, where the Israelites looked to the bronze serpent for life, to the New Covenant, where all who look to Christ crucified find forgiveness and eternal life. It is not religion or knowledge that brings entry into God’s Kingdom, but trusting the Son whom the Father sent. Those who turn to Him move from death to life, from being out to being in, fully forgiven and made new by His Spirit.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Those who regularly come may have wondered about my preaching methodology where I take sometimes a bit of the Old Testament, I take sometimes a bit of the Old Testament and show how that’s picked up in the New Testament because one of the features of Christianity is that our book, the Bible, has got an Old Testament and a New Testament, all of which Can you hear me okay? Good. All of which is a part of the Word of God for us Christians. And although there is an Old Testament and there’s a New Testament, both fit together. You say, Jim, why did you pick such a method of bringing a bit of old and a bit of new? Well, I’m copying someone. Do you know who I’m copying? Look up on the screen. The middle of John chapter 3, one of the most famous chapters of the Bible.

[00:01:00] That verse 16 in the middle you see on the screen. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order to save it, yes, that the world might be saved through him. Take it back to where you were, that was real good. Now that is a quotation from the Old Testament about Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. This Old Testament is something that God himself introduced through Moses and the Ten Commandments was in the middle of it. But it is the Old Testament, but that word testament might puzzle you. I was explaining one other Sunday morning that I opened up one of my Bibles, I have a little carry one, and in the beginning of the New Testament

[00:01:57] it had written there New Testament and I went home and says I never really studied up what’s this business of New Testament and I thought I’ll look it up in the Greek because often the Greek language has been what they translated from to get our New Testament. And to my surprise, the word that was used is the word covenant. It’s just a different choice of translating word. The New Covenant is what is the New Testament. Well, I was familiar with the word testament from my own knowledge of how the law goes. Many people have had to, by their family, been invited to write out their last will and testament. I don’t know how many of you have got your last will and testament. I remember some of my kids were keen on my having one and did that mean I was going to drop dead any moment? I’m not sure what to think

[00:02:56] of having a last will and testament. But it is the final thing that’s said That if you were to pass away, then that’s what they take as the final statement that you’ve made. The New Testament is a final statement from God. We’re reading it this morning, where we read the most famous verse in all the Bible, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. In explaining that, Jesus, he’s my example, flashes back to something in the Old Testament and refers it to an incident to the children of Israel as they were going through the wilderness. It is when Moses was called on to do something to bring relief to his people who’d sinned against God,

[00:03:50] who’d been murmuring and saying silly things, who’d been dissatisfied with God’s leading them. And God had seen a plague of snakes, as they were poisonous snakes, and as people got bitten, they’d die, or they’d start dying. Sometimes in their last gasps, they’d crawl back into their tent. And Moses was told to go and make a picture of a snake, a brass, a model of a snake, and put it on a pole, have to cool down a bit so they can hold it, I’m sure. And then to go and pitch it where they could see it, and call on them and say, look and see, God’s taken what’s killing you, and put it on a pole, just trust him. It wasn’t visible how what Moses did with that snake on a pole that caused it, but it gave the people something to believe in, it called in God’s action.

[00:04:48] And every one of them may be crawling to a tent in last gasps, looking out through the flap and seeing the snake, the bronze one that is on the pole, just believe what God promised, and they were healed. They could get out of that tent and walk around. And this is quoted by Jesus from the Old Covenant, Old Testament, in an application of what’s at the heart of the New Covenant, the call that God has on people to come and find new life in Christ by being born again. And this idea of born-again Christians, people sometimes laugh at us and say he’s one of those born-again types. Well, along with Jesus, I say, yeah, we are. We sure are. Because that’s what this passage is saying. Now let’s go back to the beginning of chapter 3 of John. Remember John’s Gospel? Chapter 3, this famous chapter on the facts

[00:05:52] that Jesus called on people to find out what it means to be born again. I want to tell you that the last testament of Jesus is what the New Testament is. It’s telling you why he died and what is the consequence of his death that’s possible for you, that it’s possible for you to be born again because of how he died for your sins. That’s why the Gospel has at its centre that Christ died for our sins and that Christ arose, that he’s alive today and he’s able to change the lives of those who come to him. Well, there was a very famous man who knew the Old Testament and thought that he had it all down pat and he was actually one of the leaders of the Jews. His name was Nicodemus. Now when I meet parents and they’ve got a little baby and they’ve called him Nicodemus, I smile to myself.

[00:06:51] I’m going to have to show them John chapter 3 because Nicodemus, though a ruler of the Jews, verse 1 says, he came to Jesus by night. Now it’s interesting, I don’t know whether you ever snuck out at night to do something you didn’t want your parents to see. I don’t know whether you’re a person that’s, when you’re wanting to make friends with a group of people that you’re not sure you’ll get a welcome sometime. Well, back in those days they’d go and visit by night. You know, they weren’t street lamps back there in Jerusalem. You could get out and come back and no one knew you went for the visit. Well, he came to see Jesus by night and it’s not because he’s a person that’s scared of all the others. He represents them. He’s one of their rulers, but he’s not sure of Jesus.

[00:07:43] And he thinks he’ll make a visit at nighttime. It won’t come back politically against him if people didn’t know. So he comes to Jesus at night, but he’s also troubled in his heart because he’s been listening to Jesus and something’s been getting through. I want to tell you that when you talk about Jesus, something happens to people. I know this because it happened to me I know it because in my life though I was never anybody that I’d think others would listen to when I got to talk about Jesus somehow they did my high school years were ones where I became known to talk about Jesus and at lunchtime kids, young people came and asked me questions I soon realised it wasn’t me it was who I talked about I did it when there was a fella who kept on wanting to talk and he said, Jim, you’ve got something

[00:08:40] I don’t know what it is but I want it and I said it’s not a thing it’s a person and I told him of Jesus it wasn’t that long before he came to put his trust in Jesus and he became a born again person now that born again bit is in the middle of this section of the Bible In John chapter 3, he came to Jesus by night and he said to him, Rabbi, we know that you’re a teacher come from God. Wow, that’s a big rap. For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. He’d seen Jesus do things that had the touch of God. And Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, rebirthed, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now that tells us two things. Number one, that the kingdom of God that you can get to recognise, to see and participate in,

[00:09:42] it isn’t only just going to heaven when you die, that will be the finality of the final step of getting right into the body of the kingdom of God is when you die and go to glory. But we get to see the kingdom of God, See by word, see means experience and become a part of, become perceiving of the kingdom of God here on earth. And it happens when you’re born again, you see the world differently. You see your friends differently. You see the politics differently. Your point of viewpoint is given a different start when you are born again. It’s an experience you’ve either had or you haven’t. And if you have, you’re in the door. if you haven’t you’re not in the door you’ll either listen to me you’re either in or you’re out I’m still watching I’ve done it several times over that classic

[00:10:41] sort of historical movie called The Crown and poor old fellow who married Elizabeth the second and she became the queen and they get married I love watching it again and again because he has a problem because a part of the vows make her want to make her promise to obey him but their life is going to be one they will lived out as she was the queen very successful queen Queen Elizabeth the second she’s passed away now but the Duke Duke of Edinburgh who married her he had to obey her because she was the queen and even when they come back from an overseas trip he’s getting ready, he’s quite a manly man to march out first and lead the way and the attendants says no, the crown goes first and he has to hold back and she goes out and all the crowd cheers. That little word obey came in there but you know in that movie

[00:11:50] you can see what it is for there to be a total person who’s in charge and I’m going to tell you when you’re born again it is because you’ve realised who is the person who’s in charge of all the universe. He’s the one, this gospel if you take at home your bible and you read in this gospel, gospel of John that it tells of Jesus that he was from eternity it has a little statement there that he, this is he the son before he’s taken on humanity and is called Jesus he’s the eternal son and it says that he was there in the beginning with God and then it says he was with God and it uses a little word with and they have in their vocabulary in the Greek they have different words to use. You could have with when you’re walking along the street with Michelle and you’re holding hands and you want to go across the other side

[00:12:43] so you just drop her hand and scoot across and whatever it is you’re going to buy and come back. With is alongside. But they have another word and the other word they have for with is when you turn and you’re face to face and in the beginning of this gospel of John it says the word was with God it’s worded face to face with God he was God he was with God there’s a mystery in this there’s God the Father there’s God the Son there’s God the Holy Spirit they’re revealed through both Old Testament and New Testament they’re at the heart if there’s one thing that is the heart of Christianity. It is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I can’t explain it. It’s a mystery of three persons not human persons but three persons in one God. A unity of the Trinity and yet they’re ones who love each other. That’s why

[00:13:37] there’s love. They’re eternally loved and in that love the Father also loved you knowing you and he sent his most beloved Son to come into the world taking on humanity for a purpose that he might live out the Old Testament law successfully that he might qualify to be sinless. That he might go to the cross and there die bearing our sins as the final sacrifice for our sins that there could be a final statement. Your sins have been died for. You can be forgiven and you’re called now. Jesus calls to you to come and make peace with heaven, to make peace with God, to get right with God, to belong to him, to bow your knee to him by being born again. When you trust Jesus to forgive your sins, this one who bore your sin, you trust him to forgive you. It’s a total forgiveness. And instead of out, now you’re in.

[00:14:47] not just a little bit in but totally in and when you come to Christ you it’s like a second birth and what I notice about Nicodemus he was so ignorant he knew all the Old Testament and could argue about lots of things from it but he doesn’t understand Jesus and he doesn’t understand how you’ve got to come to Jesus to be in excuse me you couldn’t be doing these signs unless God was with you he recognises that the father that Nicodemus respects is with Jesus it’s probably all he understands just yet and Jesus answered him truly, truly I say to you unless one is born again he cannot even see he cannot see the kingdom of God that tells me the kingdom of God isn’t just heaven when you die it isn’t just a spiritual world at church the kingdom of God is a present reality and when you’re unconverted that is to say

[00:16:01] when you’re not yet born again it’s all around you and you don’t know it you’re ignorant of it you can’t understand the church you’ll never understand Christians You’ll never understand the world around. In fact, I believe the Bible teaches the only way you can truly understand the world is first coming to the one who made it. Because it’s Jesus in his pre-incarnate state before he came who was the one through whom the Father made the world. He’s your creator. He knows you ten times, a million, a thousand times better than you even understand his name. Jesus made you. He’s the one that created you. he’s the one who was present at your birth when life was given to you in the hospital and you became a little baby person Jesus is the one who knows you and has known you from then and he’s the one that loves you

[00:16:56] and wants you and came into the world to chase down your biggest need which was to be forgiven that you could stop being out and start being in with God as your eternal Father for whoever comes to Christ comes to the Father. Jesus taught this in this Gospel of John. He that knows me knows the Father. It’s the way you get to know God by just coming to Christ. You can be a little child and say, Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying for me that I should be forgiven. I want you to be my Lord and Saviour and I’m asking it now. And at that simple prayer, you get in with God through Jesus. Now, I love this passage and I love it because also it illustrates what you’ve been hearing me do. In my preaching, I take a verse from here and a verse from there and I link them together and there’s something about

[00:18:03] these Old Testament verses when you put them together with the New Testament ones, they speak to people I know the secret of preaching. It’s the preach. It’s not in the preacher. It’s in the Word of God that he brings and presents. It has its own power. It is the message from heaven and this message is called the Gospel. It is the power of God to salvation that this book itself says and what it tells you is that you’ve got to get born again. Now, the second thing I notice is that Nicodemus is quite at a loss to know how to talk on this. He doesn’t know whether he should make, I don’t know whether he’s making a joke or not. And he said, how can a man get back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time? Now, I think he’s not just being cheekily making a joke.

[00:18:59] I think he’s making visible that it’s a difficult concept to know what Jesus is getting at when Jesus says, you’ve got to be born again. By the way, in their language, the word again can also mean again as in a second time, another time. You’ve been born once. Jesus’ answer is, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water, that’s a reference to physical birth, because there’s a bursting of the water and out comes the baby with it, all the rest. That’s physical birth. There is that which is born of the flesh and it’s flesh, it’s human flesh. And that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You can be physically alive because you were born of the flesh when you came into this world, but if you’ve never come to that moment of being born the second time the time that is spirit

[00:19:51] then you’re not even anywhere near the kingdom of God you’re blind to the kingdom of God it could be all around you things are happening and what happened to that relative of yours is changed and you don’t know why but what you don’t know is that he got in with Jesus and everything’s different and when you’ve come to Christ and you walk with him through life he answers all sorts of mysteries you can not doesn’t mean that you become a genius about all things it means that you’ve got eyesight spiritual sight eyesight to perceive and understand the world you’re in if your world is a mystery to you come to jesus because when he comes into your life he gets you to see what everything is you understand the world differently you have an ability that grows all through your Christian life you know this book

[00:20:47] it unravels itself to you and the more you read it the more you love it and the more you listen to it it changes your perspectives on all things you know there’s nothing more important than we for us Christians and that we christianize our offspring that we teach them the word of God I thank God for my mum and dad what a couple I can boast about them because my dad was a teacher of scriptures a teacher of truth my mother was a praying person and prayed for her family that we would come to know the things of God what a heritage to have from your family and come to know so as a nine year old I responded to the call of the gospel to get in with Jesus and I was born again and I’ve been telling people things like I’m telling you right now ever since and like that friend of mine at high school

[00:22:03] who said Jim you’ve got something I don’t know what it is but I want it and I said to him it’s not a something it’s a someone and I told him of Jesus and I have seen again and again that Jesus is a person by his spirit he’s alive and he introduces himself with that sense of call that comes over people and when they admitted that they’re sinners with this friend of mine actually he told me a bit more because he resisted a little bit at first about the fact that I’m describing him as so needy to be forgiven and I kept inviting him to youth rallies and getting him to come to hear gospel messages like I’m using this morning to do and he wasn’t yet making a response and then I had him lined up to come to a youth rally this is in Adelaide the city where I lived then and I rang him up to arrange about because we used to swap turns

[00:23:11] by that time we both had our licenses in Adelaide at 16 it was really nice you get your license at 16 and practice on all the corners sliding around anyway I rang him up as to who would be driving him and his parents car or me and my dad’s and he said to me because he knew what I was doing we’re going to take him to another one of these rallies where they talk of Jesus and give a call for people to come and be born again and he says you don’t need to and I said what do you mean I thought he’s going to argue with me that he didn’t need to be born again but he says no it happened he’s under the shower he gave in to Christ and it happened he became a Christian I’m asking you this morning are you hearing the call of Jesus and he’s saying to you do not marvel that I said to you that you must be born again it’s a necessity

[00:24:11] there’s no way to become in unless you let Jesus become your saviour then he said the wind blows where it wants to and you hear its sound you don’t know where it’s coming from or where it’s going to so is everyone who’s born of the spirit it’s a spiritual happening getting to see the kingdom of God it’s not like joining a club and they’ve all got a chance and they’ve got uniforms it’s not just going to church and they’re singing songs as though that’s the kingdom of God yes the kingdom of God is here precisely because of the people who are here are largely people who have been born again I’m not going to get them all to put their hands up I don’t want to embarrass anybody if someone is not sure if they are I want to tell you then do it today not that you make it happen but you come to Jesus

[00:25:00] and you ask him to make it happen that’s how you get to be born again that’s what happened to me I heard the preaching of it and I responded and someone by the just responding Jesus came to me and he changed me and he made me what I now am. Someone that knows Christ, I’ve known, I’ve been in ever since. And you’re here today and I don’t know who you might be or how many there are like this, but you’ve always wondered whether you’re in and not out. Or is there some sin that you’ve done that you thought maybe it’s made you permanently out? I want to tell you that when Jesus died on the cross, he died between two criminals who had plenty of things to keep them out. But when one of them turned to Jesus and said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus replied, oh, that’s a long way off.

[00:25:58] No, he didn’t say that. He said, this day you’ll be with me. And he used a little word from a foreign language, paradise, and it meant the place of comfort. This day you’ll be with me in comfort, which they both died. Jesus from our sins and from the spear of the soldiers to kill him at the end. This other fellow likewise, from all that they did to him, they ended up in the place where God, the dead go. But this fellow went with Jesus and from that moment later he would have been transferred to heaven, as happens to all the people from that better part of paradise. that man was with Jesus from the moment that he put his faith in Jesus and I want to tell you that you’re in the presence of an eternal moment today because you could put your trust in Jesus

[00:26:47] and he will become your saviour and you’ll be in today because Jesus, he said of himself, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me And when you come to Jesus, you get in permanently. You’ll have your ups and downs and difficulties living up to it, but you’ll find out you can’t do it on your own and you’ll call out more to him to help. That’s the Christian life. And as you grow and as you have fellowship, your whole world around you, you perceive suddenly through the perspective that being born again gives you that spiritual understanding. Suddenly you see through friends. Suddenly you see through pressures at work. Suddenly you see things in society. You begin to have an opinion. And the more you read the Bible,

[00:27:43] that opinion of yours is colored by how the Scriptures speak to you, this passage being one. If you have not already this morning recognized that this passage is speaking to you, I want to tell you that this book is powerful. From the beginning to the end, the Old Testament is not left out of that power it’s a part of it as well and it is Jesus who gives us this morning the example that when you put the Old Testament together with the things that God did then you see what he’s saying that he can do now as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness that time when the people were dying of snake bite, it was a good illustration Jesus picked on God the Father told Moses to make the bronze snake stuck on a pole I hope you let it cool down before he held it but anyway he got it there and he

[00:28:34] pitched it in the camp and then gave the message whoever looks at that snake on the pole and trust God will be healed of the snake that’s an illustration he Jesus went to the cross he died for your sins on there God punished him Jesus one of his final cries was it is finished it’s done with it’s dealt with the actual Greek tetelestai. Those of us who study the Bible learn the Greek a lot and that’s Greek words, tetelestai. I discover one of the little things you learn along the way that it was used also when you’ve got a bill that you’ve got to keep paying and you pay up a bit every now and then but when you’ve given the final payment they’ve got a big stamp, tetelestai and it means paid in full. And I’m here this morning to tell you about your debt to God, about your sins.

[00:29:28] that Jesus on the cross has paid it in full. There’s no reason for you to hang back from coming and receiving that forgiveness this morning. Jesus calls you so to do. Unless a person is born of the flesh, that’s getting born, or born of water, he said, which is the physical flesh, birth, and the spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God becomes visible to you when you come and take Jesus as your personal saviour. Will you do it? This morning, when this time is through, I’m not going to say a way to do it, but I want to lay on you the call to find a way to come and ask Christ into your life. Now, you can do that on your own. I used to teach in school, and I taught in a primary school, and there was a little boy who kept on catching him out, telling lies, and I told him they were lies.

[00:30:36] And I had him stand outside the room for a bit, but then I let him in, and when he came in, he sat at his desk, and he put his head down, and he put his hands over his head. Then he put his hand up. Now, he had his eyes closed, and I didn’t know what he was doing, so I asked him at a convenient moment later, what were you doing with your head on your hands and your hand up? And he said, teacher, he says, I put my hand up to God. He got in the door. He got in with Christ. And in whatever way you want to express it, to put your hand up to God, and ask that Jesus forgive you of your sin and make you born again. Tell him, I don’t know whether I’m really born again. I need you, please. He’s certainly very alive, because if you’re listening to me, you’ve been born of the water, but you’ll become born of the Spirit

[00:31:39] with that prayer, whether it’s done politely, whether it’s done publicly in the church. Sometimes we get people who come down the front to say the prayer. That’s just all ways to get people to make a move. It’s no big deal how you do it. But I just want you to know that when you leave this building this morning, you have become in receipt of a call, a call to know that when Jesus died on the cross for you, your sin has been paid for. And you are invited to take Jesus as your saviour, and you’re invited to be born of the Spirit. Ask him, Lord, would you make me born again? I’ve had a lot of joy of leading different people to Christ. I want to tell you, the wording doesn’t matter at all. What counts is in the sincerity of your heart. You’re coming to Jesus and asking him to be your personal Lord and saviour.

[00:32:45] And however you express it, whatever language you use, with the intent of your heart to give over to Jesus as Lord and saviour, you become in with him. Will you do that? I want to leave you with a challenge so you can’t forget it. This is God’s final will and testament as to how you get to be in touch with the kingdom of God. And you’ve received it now. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the morning and I thank you for bringing the emphasis for today. I was going to talk on something altogether different, but Lord, bringing the emphasis for today on this simple call. I thank you for how Jesus used a bit of the Old Testament, that narrative about these children of Israel being bitten by snakes and dying and Moses being told to put a picture of a snake, well, not a picture, a mould,

[00:33:48] a bronze mould of a snake on a pole and ask them to believe that God has handled their snake-bittenness and trust him and they got healed. And I thank you for that illustration so clear in the Bible how the Old Testament is used by the New to bring clear the beautiful gospel message that Jesus is giving to Nicodemus there. Thank you. We know by reading through the gospels that by the end of Jesus’ ministry, Nicodemus did get in the door, became one of the ones that went and asked for the body of Jesus from Pilate after the Lord had actually died for his sins and he was a man who risked being killed himself by going and making that request, but he was a man that came out from hiding, didn’t have to go and ask Pilate in the middle of the night, wouldn’t have done any good anyway,

[00:34:49] but he just went bravely with another chap and they asked for the body of Jesus because he had trusted that he could be born again. Lord, I praise you for this story and I pray that there’ll be those who, because of today, come to know the Saviour, we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.