Speaker 1: to come.
Speaker 1: We're going to be in John, chapter 3, and we are starting a brand new series today entitled Conversations how to have conversations that change lives.
Speaker 1: Now, typically, when you think about people, you kind of have a couple different types of people.
Speaker 1: You have people that are more extroverted extroverts and then you have people that are a little bit more introverted.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm just curious how many of you would say I am an extrovert?
Speaker 1: Yes, double hands.
Speaker 1: How many of you would say I am an introvert?
Speaker 1: Some introverts were so introverted you wouldn't even raise your hand at that time.
Speaker 1: How many of you would say I'm an ambivert?
Speaker 1: I'm kind of extrovert, kind of introvert?
Speaker 1: Okay, oh, wow, okay, quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many of you are like I'm still trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I don't really know quite what's going on, whether you're an extrovert or introvert, or ambivert.
Speaker 1: This is what we're going to see over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: We're going to see how you can have conversations with people that change their lives, because what it takes to have conversations with people that change lives is well two things grace and truth, and conversations that change lives are conversations that are filled with grace and truth.
Speaker 1: Here's what we're going to do over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: We're going to be in John, chapter 3 today and John 4 next week, and we're going to look at two different conversations that Jesus had with two completely different people with two complete different backgrounds, and how he had these conversations that ended up changing people's lives because, well, they were filled with grace and truth.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm really excited about this little mini series that we're doing because it leads us up to Easter Sunday, which is our community Easter celebration, and over the next two weeks, we all have an opportunity.
Speaker 1: You have an opportunity.
Speaker 1: Here's what our opportunity is.
Speaker 1: Our opportunity is to have conversations with people over the next couple weeks to let people know about what Easter is all about.
Speaker 1: How many of you know that Easter is not about the bunny Right?
Speaker 1: Somebody tell me what is Easter about?
Speaker 1: Easter is about the that's right resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So we have opportunities to have conversations with people about the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So how do we do this?
Speaker 1: Well, this is what we do.
Speaker 1: We look at how Jesus talked to people, and this takes us to John, chapter number three, and we meet a man named Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: Everybody say Nicodemus, ready Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: Now we know some things about Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: In fact, thankfully for us, verse number one of chapter three doesn't cause us to wonder.
Speaker 1: It's very clear who he was.
Speaker 1: In John three, verse one, it says this it says there was a man from the.
Speaker 1: Oh, he was a Pharisee.
Speaker 1: Well, some of us know what Pharisees are.
Speaker 1: Some of us don't know what Pharisees are.
Speaker 1: Some of us have called people Pharisees.
Speaker 1: You know, the easiest way to spot a Pharisee is well, by people that call other people Pharisees.
Speaker 1: But that's another conversation.
Speaker 1: Oh, I heard it.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is a Pharisee story.
Speaker 1: They were a group of people that were super, super religious and what they did is they kept all 613 rules, laws of the Old Testament, or at least they thought they kept all 613.
Speaker 1: Old Testament, or at least they thought they kept all 613.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, what these Pharisees did is they made up additional rules to keep.
Speaker 1: So they kept all those.
Speaker 1: They made up additional ones and they thought that everybody else should keep the ones that they made up.
Speaker 1: And if you didn't keep the ones that they made up, then you were a problem.
Speaker 1: This is who Nicodemus was.
Speaker 1: He was a Pharisee.
Speaker 1: He was also.
Speaker 1: It says he was a ruler of the Jews.
Speaker 1: Everybody say ruler ready.
Speaker 1: This is what he was.
Speaker 1: He was a ruler, he was in charge.
Speaker 1: If you've ever watched the Chosen series, this story of Nicodemus, this conversation is depicted in this picture.
Speaker 1: You have Nicodemus on the right and Jesus on the left.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus was a Pharisee.
Speaker 1: He was a ruler.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: He was a ruler.
Speaker 1: He was a part of something called the Sanhedrin the Sanhedrin.
Speaker 1: Who has ever heard of the Sanhedrin before?
Speaker 1: If you have, raise your hand.
Speaker 1: Okay, some of you have.
Speaker 1: Most of you haven't.
Speaker 1: This is what the Sanhedrin was.
Speaker 1: They were the governing council of Israel.
Speaker 1: They were the ones that had authority and they were under the authority of the Romans.
Speaker 1: There was about 70 members and these were kind of like our Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus, pharisee, nicodemus, a part of the Sanhedrin.
Speaker 1: Do you have a picture of the type of person that Nicodemus was?
Speaker 1: This is who he is, of person that Nicodemus was?
Speaker 1: This is who he is.
Speaker 1: And in verse 2, this type of person, nicodemus, he came to him.
Speaker 1: He came to him at night.
Speaker 1: Verse number 2, he came to Jesus at night and he said Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs.
Speaker 1: Now, last week we saw the first miracle of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Can somebody in the balcony tell the rest of us?
Speaker 1: Last week we looked at the first miracle of Jesus, the first sign in John 2.
Speaker 1: What was the first miracle of Jesus?
Speaker 1: Let's go Turning water into wine.
Speaker 1: Let's give Chris a round of applause.
Speaker 1: He got it.
Speaker 1: I was a little nervous.
Speaker 1: I was a little nervous for a second, but I doubted you.
Speaker 1: This was the first sign.
Speaker 1: After Jesus did this sign in John 2, he ended up going to Jerusalem and did a bunch of other signs.
Speaker 1: So now this guy, nicodemus, sees all the signs that Jesus did and Nicodemus is like who are you Like?
Speaker 1: Nobody could perform the signs that you're doing, apart from like God's got to be with you.
Speaker 1: So you would think Jesus would respond by telling him maybe some more about the signs.
Speaker 1: Maybe Jesus shares some pleasantries with him about like, oh, nicodemus, tell me about more about your story.
Speaker 1: What was your upbringing?
Speaker 1: Nope, jesus does none of that.
Speaker 1: Jesus says this.
Speaker 1: He says in verse 3, truly, I tell you, unless someone is born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: Jesus, are you sure Nicodemus was ready for all that?
Speaker 1: How many of you guys played baseball growing up?
Speaker 1: Have you guys played baseball growing up?
Speaker 1: So you play baseball growing up.
Speaker 1: You know if somebody's hitting or you're hitting, what they'll do is they'll throw you some warm-up pitches, like you know, just so you can get used to it.
Speaker 1: Jesus, in this conversation he didn't do any warm-up pitches.
Speaker 1: He's like a 90-mile-an-hour fastball right at you you.
Speaker 1: He's like a 90 mile an hour fastball right at you.
Speaker 1: You must be born again.
Speaker 1: He went right, like right to the heart of this thing, and he says if you're not born again, you can't see the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: The kingdom of God, what's that even mean?
Speaker 1: Here's what the kingdom of God is.
Speaker 1: The kingdom of God is God's reign, god's rule and God's purposes.
Speaker 1: God's reign, god's rule and God's purposes.
Speaker 1: So you remember Jesus.
Speaker 1: He would teach and he would say things like in the kingdom.
Speaker 1: It's like this what is he saying?
Speaker 1: In the places where God is reigning, this is what it's gonna look like, whether that's on earth, or whether that's in a church, or whether that's in a family, or whether that's in a relationship.
Speaker 1: This is what it's gonna look like In the kingdom.
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 1: The place where God has rule and reign.
Speaker 1: In Matthew, chapter six, jesus went on, he was teaching and he was saying, hey.
Speaker 1: In Matthew chapter six, jesus went on, he was teaching and he was saying, hey, if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be added unto you.
Speaker 1: What is he saying?
Speaker 1: If you will seek God's purposes first, he's gonna take care of all that other stuff that we all worry about half the time.
Speaker 1: Right, that's what the kingdom is.
Speaker 1: And the kingdom will be fully experienced one day when we're in heaven with the Lord and he has complete reign and complete rule.
Speaker 1: And, guys, that's going to be a glorious day.
Speaker 1: And Jesus tells Nicodemus you will not see the kingdom of God unless you're born again.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus keeps all the rules.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus had books of the Bible memorized.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus was a Pharisee.
Speaker 1: This is what the Pharisees would do.
Speaker 1: Pharisees would say God, I'm so thankful that I'm not like those sinners over there, I'm holy.
Speaker 1: Jesus says none of that matters.
Speaker 1: You must be born again.
Speaker 1: And, like you, nicodemus has some questions like what does this mean?
Speaker 1: In verse 4, nicodemus asks a very fair question how can someone be born when he is old?
Speaker 1: I think that's fair.
Speaker 1: Can he enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born and be born Right.
Speaker 1: How is this possible?
Speaker 1: And what Jesus is about to do is he's about to explain in the rest of these verses what it means to be born again.
Speaker 1: He takes it from this term that we haven't heard of to really make it practical and say this is what it means to be born again, and he gives some analogies along the way to help Nicodemus understand what this means.
Speaker 1: And here's my heart and my prayer for us this morning is that one if you've never been born again, today you will understand what it actually means and how your life is changed when you're born again, when you trust Christ to be your Savior and for others of us.
Speaker 1: I want us to observe along the way how Jesus has this conversation and how the components of these conversations will allow you to have this type of conversation with somebody else.
Speaker 1: So Jesus is about to say okay, I'm going to explain what this means.
Speaker 1: Jesus answered in verse 5, and he tells him unless someone's born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: Whatever's born of the flesh is flesh.
Speaker 1: Whatever's born of the Spirit is Spirit.
Speaker 1: Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.
Speaker 1: Like don't be shocked about this, nicodemus.
Speaker 1: The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going.
Speaker 1: Like you hear the wind but you don't really know, like, where it came from, where it's going.
Speaker 1: So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, everyone that's born again, that this is a work of the Holy Spirit in somebody's life and you can't really understand everything about it, but you can see and hear the results of it, because the results are somebody's life being changed.
Speaker 1: The results are the fruit of the Spirit coming out in somebody's life.
Speaker 1: And somebody that is not born again is going to see somebody's life that's being changed and fruit of the Spirit coming out in their life and they're going to be like dude, like what happened to you, bro?
Speaker 1: Like how come you don't want to go get wasted and drunk with us, man?
Speaker 1: Like that's what we did.
Speaker 1: Like how come you want to like go to church on Sunday morning and hear that short, stubby guy talk real loud, like why do you want to?
Speaker 1: You're serving on a serve team.
Speaker 1: It's a volunteer role.
Speaker 1: They don't pay you for that they're not going to understand.
Speaker 1: This is what Paul says about this.
Speaker 1: Paul says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, he says but the person without the Spirit, without the Holy Spirit because when we are born again, when we trust Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit this person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God's Spirit because it's foolishness to him.
Speaker 1: He's not able to understand it, since it is evaluated spiritually.
Speaker 1: Since it is evaluated spiritually, some of us, we're kind of frustrated because we've trusted Christ to be our Savior.
Speaker 1: God's changing our life and it's like our friends and family don't understand and in some ways they're hostile to what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Can I just say that's normal and in your mind, if you're trying to reckon it, you're like I'm doing so much better, like I have this peace in my life.
Speaker 1: Why don't you support me?
Speaker 1: What this is?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because they don't have the Spirit.
Speaker 1: They're not able to understand it.
Speaker 1: It is foolishness to him.
Speaker 1: And what Nicodemus is told by Jesus is that being born again is a work of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus still doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: In verse number 9, he's very honest and I love it.
Speaker 1: He's like how can these things be?
Speaker 1: Are you a teacher of Israel and don't know these things.
Speaker 1: Jesus replied.
Speaker 1: I wonder when?
Speaker 1: Jesus, when he replied back to Nicodemus, I wonder if Jesus had like a little snarky tone, I know I would have I'd have been like, hey, man, like you say you're a teacher, you're a Pharisee Like what do you mean?
Speaker 1: You don't know these things.
Speaker 1: So Jesus says let me tell you Truly.
Speaker 1: I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you don't accept our testimony.
Speaker 1: Jesus says if I told you earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
Speaker 1: Fair question no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of man.
Speaker 1: And Jesus was the Son of man.
Speaker 1: Now Jesus gets to verse 14, and he starts talking about snakes.
Speaker 1: He says just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Now how many of you are like me and you don't like snakes?
Speaker 1: Nope, how many of you are like me and you think the only good snake is a dead snake?
Speaker 1: Okay, some of you.
Speaker 1: It's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: I haven't found that verse yet, but I think it's in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: Those of my reptile lovers in the room.
Speaker 1: I love you, I really do.
Speaker 1: I love you, I pray for you.
Speaker 1: I pray for you.
Speaker 1: Jesus starts talking about snakes and, like a casual reading, you might be like what does this even mean?
Speaker 1: Has Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness?
Speaker 1: What Jesus is doing is he's referring to an Old Testament story that Nicodemus would have been very, very, very familiar with.
Speaker 1: It happened in Numbers, chapter 21, where Nicodemus would have even no doubt taught about this.
Speaker 1: He had the passage memorized where the children of Israel, they were going into the promised land where God wanted them to go, but they forgot about the goodness of God.
Speaker 1: Like we sang about a few moments ago.
Speaker 1: A few minutes ago, they forgot about who God was.
Speaker 1: And this is what the children of Israel decided to do Rebel.
Speaker 1: They're like we're tired of following God, like life is kind of difficult right now.
Speaker 1: Can we be honest?
Speaker 1: Sometimes, when life is difficult, isn't it kind of easier to like not follow than follow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where they were.
Speaker 1: They were like we don't really want to follow.
Speaker 1: We're like we're kind of done with this.
Speaker 1: So God said okay, I'm going to put some snakes, some venomous snakes, in your camp.
Speaker 1: Does anybody have any guesses what the venomous snakes in the children of Israel's camp did to the children of Israel.
Speaker 1: Anybody did to the children of Israel.
Speaker 1: Anybody have any guesses what they did?
Speaker 1: They bit them.
Speaker 1: How many of you have ever been bit by a snake before?
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 1: Oh man, we got some people.
Speaker 1: It's all Duggans.
Speaker 1: All three of the Duggans raised their hands.
Speaker 1: This must have been a family thing, because Joey has a snake right.
Speaker 1: We're praying for Joey.
Speaker 1: Love you, bro.
Speaker 1: And these snakes, these venomous snakes, bit the children of Israel and this is what God did in his mercy and grace.
Speaker 1: God said Moses, who was the leader, if you will make a bronze snake and you will lift it up, if the people will look to the snake as a sign of repentance from their sin and belief in God and faith in God, then they'll be healed, and every single one of them that looked were healed.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus knows this story.
Speaker 1: So what does Jesus say?
Speaker 1: He uses this story to help Nicodemus understand what it means to be born again.
Speaker 1: So, just like the snake was lifted up, if the son of man, who is him, is lifted up verse 15, it says so everyone who believes in him, jesus will have eternal life, will have eternal life.
Speaker 1: Do you know who?
Speaker 1: Everyone is?
Speaker 1: Everyone.
Speaker 1: You walked in here and you're like Pastor Nate, you don't know my story, you don't know my background.
Speaker 1: God does not want me, bro.
Speaker 1: You are part of the everyone.
Speaker 1: God does want you, pastor Nate.
Speaker 1: If you know what I did last night or last week or two years ago, you would just know.
Speaker 1: This ain't for me no friend.
Speaker 1: Everyone who believes God will accept you just as you are if you will come to him just as you are.
Speaker 1: Anyone who believes will have eternal life.
Speaker 1: For God, verse 16, world's most famous verse, for God so loved the world in this way that he gave his one and only son so that everyone who what's that word?
Speaker 1: Everyone who In him that's Jesus will not perish.
Speaker 1: Will not perish those are the words of Jesus, but have eternal life, belief in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now, a lot of times when we think of belief, what we think of is like intellectual understanding, like.
Speaker 1: I believe this.
Speaker 1: I believe that Chipotle is the best fast, casual restaurant in the US of A, let's go, we got some God's people.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are staring bullets through me, okay, yeah, I believe that one of God's greatest gifts to humanity is ice cream.
Speaker 1: Can I get an amen in the room?
Speaker 1: Yes, let's go.
Speaker 1: Okay, I believe those things.
Speaker 1: I believe that one day the Sacramento Kings are going to win the NBA finals.
Speaker 1: Anyways, okay, I got to stop.
Speaker 1: Sorry, 1115 service, I'm kind of going off kilter a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's a difference between believing and trusting in our hearts.
Speaker 1: When he says belief, he's not talking about head knowledge, he's talking about hearts Trusting.
Speaker 1: Let me illustrate it this way and I'm going to try not to break any of this sound equipment back here, this musical stuff, because there's I don't even know what's back here, but I just know it sounds good on Sunday morning, amen.
Speaker 1: If this bench represents Jesus, I could say oh yeah, I believe, like that's good, like I believe that's strong, like I believe like that's good, like I believe that's strong, like I believe that could hold me up, like I'm going through a tough time.
Speaker 1: Let me lean on Jesus, let me turn on a worship song, let me have some spiritual experience Believing, believing in him, believing in Jesus is I'm transferring my trust from everything else and I'm putting it in Christ alone.
Speaker 1: This is what it means to be born again, that I'm not trusting anything else, I'm only trusting in Christ alone for my salvation.
Speaker 1: But, pastor Nate, I had an emotional experience back in the day and I was just crying and crying and crying.
Speaker 1: I was like in a church service and it was that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Being born again, trusting Christ, can be an emotional experience, but an emotional experience alone is not what it means to be born again.
Speaker 1: Pastor Nate, when I was a kid I got baptized.
Speaker 1: Pastor Nate, when I was a kid, I got baptized.
Speaker 1: I got baptized and because I got baptized I'm good.
Speaker 1: Baptism is an expression of being born again.
Speaker 1: It's an expression of my faith in Christ.
Speaker 1: But baptism alone doesn't mean that you're born again, just like I could put on a wedding ring and that doesn't mean that I'm married, but wearing a wedding ring would be an expression of a marriage.
Speaker 1: Being born again is a time when you realize that you need Christ and you trust in him as your Lord and Savior.
Speaker 1: And here's my question to every person in the room, no matter what your story is, no matter what your background is have you been born again?
Speaker 1: Have you been born again?
Speaker 1: Have you trusted in Christ alone for your salvation?
Speaker 1: Because Jesus says if you do this, you won't perish but have eternal life.
Speaker 1: In fact he went on in verse 17,.
Speaker 1: He says for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world?
Speaker 1: But to what's that word?
Speaker 1: But to Save the world through your good works.
Speaker 1: Is that what it says?
Speaker 1: Through your good works, save the world through your church attendance.
Speaker 1: Save the world because you're a better person than the person down the street, that you're a better person than your crazy family member that you have.
Speaker 1: No, you're saved through him.
Speaker 1: Verse 18,.
Speaker 1: Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the one and only son of God.
Speaker 1: You realize that the gospel being born again is good news because of the bad news.
Speaker 1: The bad news is that we're all sinners apart from Christ.
Speaker 1: Y'all realize that the reason why this world is so jacked up is because of sin.
Speaker 1: Like a good theology of suffering is looking around and going back to Genesis, chapter 3, and realizing that sin and the effects of sin are why we're living in the brokenness and despair of this world right now.
Speaker 1: That's where it starts and, by the way, you're going to really struggle through suffering if you don't have a good theological understanding of how to go through it.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, it's real, I get it, and because of sin.
Speaker 1: We experience suffering, we experience the difficulty, despair, all these things in life.
Speaker 1: But it's not just reserved for the world as a whole, but sin comes right here in our hearts, because Jesus says that sin comes from our hearts because Adam Romans, chapter five sin passed on us from our common ancestor, adam.
Speaker 1: So now we're separated from God for all eternity and we have the wrath of God on us unless we put our faith and trust in Jesus.
Speaker 1: This is why the gospel is good news, because without Jesus we're completely hopeless.
Speaker 1: We have the wrath of God on us, we are separated from God for all eternity in a place called hell.
Speaker 1: And I know that's not pop culture, that's not what the pastor of America, which is Oprah, is going to tell you, but the reality is is that Jesus is the only way.
Speaker 1: And the reason why the gospel really excites me and I can get all fired up and yell and shout about it, is because it's amazing news, because without this we are lost and you can try to live life on your own and you can try to work your way to heaven, but it does not work because Jesus says you have to believe in him.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And John 3, 36, the one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son does not see life.
Speaker 1: Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
Speaker 1: We look at this conversation I don't even need my notes.
Speaker 1: We look at this conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus and it brings up a couple of questions in my mind.
Speaker 1: One have we been born again?
Speaker 1: But second of all, as I observe it, I think there's things about the life of Nicodemus and about this conversation that Jesus had that, if we'll understand it, will allow us to have a better gospel conversations with people.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, what we think and I've had some of you have told me and your hearts are great, but you're wrong when you say this, you say, hey, I just need to bring my friends and family to church and let them hear you preach and it'll be great.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, honestly, nah, not that good.
Speaker 1: Honestly, nah, not that good.
Speaker 1: What you gotta understand is that if you're a follower of Jesus, that you're an ambassador for him and that you have been given the Holy Spirit, and that God wants to use you not just me and God wants to use you outside of the walls of the church.
Speaker 1: And when we do this, here's what we need to understand.
Speaker 1: Okay, just like we see in this text.
Speaker 1: When we have these conversations, we can't expect people to have an understanding of Christian terms.
Speaker 1: Number one in the text, jesus said you must be born again.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus is like what does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Sometimes we use terms with people like saved, like gospel, like born again different terms and people don't understand what those terms mean.
Speaker 1: So we have to understand that if we're going to have conversations with people, we need to explain the terms that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: What's the gospel?
Speaker 1: It's the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: That's what the gospel is.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be saved?
Speaker 1: Being saved means we are saved from the wrath of God.
Speaker 1: We are delivered from that.
Speaker 1: We are saved from our sins, and we can't expect people to have an understanding of Christian terms.
Speaker 1: Number two is we need to resource people with information to help answer their questions.
Speaker 1: Verses 5 through 19,.
Speaker 1: This is what Jesus did.
Speaker 1: He just explained exactly what it meant to be born again.
Speaker 1: But there's times where somebody might ask you a question and you don't have an answer for it.
Speaker 1: You know, there are times where people ask me a question about Scripture or something I don't have an answer for it.
Speaker 1: I'm like that's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let me look it up.
Speaker 1: And when we have conversations with people, we want to resource them.
Speaker 1: So how do we do this?
Speaker 1: I want to give you guys a couple tools.
Speaker 1: One is gotquestionsorg and two is the YouVersion Bible app.
Speaker 1: This is what I'll do.
Speaker 1: If somebody asks me a question, even if it's a question that I kind of talk through with somebody, I ask them hey, can I send you an article about this and it might better help you understand that.
Speaker 1: And then we can follow back up and talk about it.
Speaker 1: And then I'll send it to them and they'll check it out, and then we'll have a conversation about it.
Speaker 1: And and then we'll have a conversation about it.
Speaker 1: And, guys, here's the thing you can do this, like you can have conversations with people, but you have to resource people, you have to help explain truth to people, just like Jesus did to Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: And then, lastly and we're done when we observe this conversation, I wanna encourage you to not shy away from the truth.
Speaker 1: To encourage you to not shy away from the truth.
Speaker 1: Jesus said you must be born again.
Speaker 1: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: Now, we live in a world right now where a lot of us are like dang, I don't want to make people feel some type of way.
Speaker 1: So I really need to be careful of what I say and how I say it, because I don't want to make people feel some type of way.
Speaker 1: So I really need to be like careful of like what I say and how I say it, because you know, like I don't want to offend people.
Speaker 1: And while, yes, it's important that we want to be loving, because truth without love destroys, it's also important that we share the truth, because love without truth deceives.
Speaker 1: So truth without love destroys.
Speaker 1: You ever met somebody that's just like I'm going to tell you the truth because you don't need to hear it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that destroys, but love without truth deceives.
Speaker 1: And something that I've learned is this is often it's not what we say, but it's how we say it.
Speaker 1: It's how we communicate truth to people.
Speaker 1: And what we're going to see next week is Jesus had this ability it's in John, chapter 4, to look at somebody with love and compassion and care in his eyes, and he did it in such a way where people received the truth that he was saying.
Speaker 1: And friends.
Speaker 1: We can do that, friends.
Speaker 1: We can help people know Jesus and we can change lives by sharing the gospel with others.
Speaker 1: I want to end this way.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus we read about him in John chapter three.
Speaker 1: We read about him again I believe it's John chapter seven and then it's like he disappears Until something happened.
Speaker 1: It was a dark time.
Speaker 1: Everybody had kind of scattered.
Speaker 1: Jesus had these apostles, you know, peter, james and John, mighty men of the faith.
Speaker 1: They were all gone.
Speaker 1: What happened was Jesus had been executed and all of his apostles, all of them.
Speaker 1: They forsook him, they denied him, they betrayed him, they abandoned him.
Speaker 1: Jesus, the hero, the healer, he's dead, he's gone.
Speaker 1: The apostles okay, we're done, we're out.
Speaker 1: And Jesus lay hanging on a cross, his dead body to be seen not just by everybody, but for the animals to have their way with this dead body, because nobody wanted anything to do with him anymore.
Speaker 1: Because nobody wanted anything to do with him anymore.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, nicodemus comes back on the scene.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, nicodemus, who seems like disappeared from Scripture.
Speaker 1: We have no idea what happened to him.
Speaker 1: We had no idea where he went.
Speaker 1: He pops up on the scene and in John 19,.
Speaker 1: This is what Nicodemus did, if we can get the.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus who had previously come to him, at night also came bringing a mixture of about 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes.
Speaker 1: They took Jesus's body.
Speaker 1: It's Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.
Speaker 1: They took his body and they wrapped it in linen cloths with the fragrant spices, according to the burial custom of the Jews.
Speaker 1: When everybody else forsook Jesus, when Jesus was literally hanging on a cross and he was done and he was forgotten about, nicodemus says, okay, everybody else forsook him, but that was the man that showed me grace and truth.
Speaker 1: That was the man that told me what it meant to be born again.
Speaker 1: That was the man that changed his life, and I would never let animals have their way with his body.
Speaker 1: I would never let criminals have their way with his body.
Speaker 1: No, if Peter forsakes him and Nathaniel forsakes him and Judas forsakes him, I'm not going to, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to take his body off of that cruel cross after the Romans destroyed him.
Speaker 1: I can't even recognize him, but I'm going to carefully take him off of this cross, me and Joseph of Arimathea, and we're going to prepare his body for burial and we're going to give him a respectable and honorable way to bury him.
Speaker 1: If nobody else will, I will.
Speaker 1: And in the time when all forsook, nicodemus said nah, I've trusted, I've been born again, I'm not forsaken.
Speaker 1: And I wonder in the room this morning if there's some Nicodemuses in your life, some conversations that you can have with some people over the next couple weeks, that their life can be changed because you had a conversation filled with truth and grace, and some people that a year from now are in this room, that right now they're as far as can be from this room.
Speaker 1: But because you said I'm gonna have a conversation with them, god used you in their lives.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a time of prayer in just a moment, so I'm gonna invite you to do to pray to the Lord and say Lord, would you help me to have conversations with people filled with truth and grace?
Speaker 1: If you're in the room and you've never yet been born again, you've never trusted Christ to be your Lord and Savior.
Speaker 1: I had somebody after the 10 o'clock service.
Speaker 1: They came to me and they said Pastor Nate, I wanna be saved.
Speaker 1: Maybe today is the day of your salvation, where you trust Christ to be your Lord and your Savior.
Speaker 1: Let's all bow our heads and close our eyes.