Welcome to the Daily Blade . The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit , the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil . Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson , and they stand ready to equip men for the fight . Let's sharpen up .
All right , welcome back . Day two . We're gonna pick it up in verse three . Again , this is Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night with some questions . And again , one of the things that's really cool is that Nicodemus has lots of questions and Nicodemus doesn't understand the nature of God , he doesn't understand the nature of salvation , and you're going to see it very , very clearly in this dialogue that Jesus has with him . But what I love is that , even though Nicodemus is a teacher of the scriptures and even though he is in a place of authority , jesus is going to meet him right where he is and he's going to help him understand . He doesn't necessarily scold him or chastise him and say why don't you go off and learn some stuff and come back when you have a greater understanding ? That's not what he does . He meets us right where we are .
Speaker 2John , chapter three , beginning in verse three , says and Jesus answered Nicodemus , truly , truly , I say to you , unless one is born again , he cannot see the kingdom of God . And Nicodemus said to him how can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born ? And Jesus answers him dude , what in the world are you talking about . That's the nastiest thing I've ever heard of . That's not what he says at all , but that's what I'm thinking . You see , nicodemus is so caught up in a works-based righteousness . What must I do to inherit eternal life ? Is the vibe that is coming along with Nicodemus .
Jesus starts it out with bro , you got to be born again . And the first thing that Nicodemus begins to say is okay , well , what must I do to do that ? Do I have to enter my mother's womb a second time ? And Jesus is like that's gross man , stop . So Jesus answered .
Speaker 2Truly , truly , I say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit , he cannot enter the kingdom of God . That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit . Do not marvel that . I said to you . You must be born again . The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound , but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes . So it is with everyone born of the spirit . And Nicodemus said to him how can these things be ? And Jesus answered him are you the teacher of Israel ? And yet you do not understand these things . Truly , truly , I say to you we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen , but you do not receive our testimony . If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe , how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things ? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven , the son of man .
Speaker 2Fundamentally , what Nicodemus is missing here is Nicodemus thinks that we have to obey in order to be accepted . And Jesus is saying that is not how salvation works . He says no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended
from heaven . In other words , the one commonality every worldview has is that something has gone wrong . There's something wrong with the human condition . But every other world religion and every other worldview says so . It is up to us to make ourselves right in order to be accepted by God , whether that's align your chakra or visit Mecca or obey the five pillars or just take enough laps around reincarnation and one day you can go from grasshopper to nirvana .
Speaker 2But what is unique about the gospel is Jesus says I didn't wait up in heaven in order for you to get things right , for you to come to me , but I have descended from heaven to come and do for you what you cannot do for yourself , and so what you need to do is be born again . Well , let me ask you a question for any of you that are fathers . When your child was born I don't know if you were in the room I was in the room . It was pretty traumatic for me , but there was somebody working in that room , and it was not my kids . It was my wife doing the work to birth my child .
Speaker 2And what Jesus is saying essentially is this is that salvation must be received . It cannot be achieved Like being born . You did not decide to be born , but your mom and daddy , out of an overflow of love for each other , created you . And , in a similar way , god created you out of an overflow of love for himself , and that's why we're here , and the reason that we are saved is not because we first loved God , but God first loved us and sent his son as the propitiation for our sin , the payment that satisfies .
Speaker 2And so salvation is not something we achieve . Salvation is something that we receive , that Jesus came down from heaven to get us . We don't work our way up to him . This is salvation for all who believe that we receive the right to be called children of God , and this is very , very , very hard for religious people to understand because we don't believe that it's by grace that we're saved . I mean , I know that's what the Bible says and that's what is actually true , but deep down in our soul there's a lot of people you've been around church a long time and you think , like Nicodemus , I have to do something to be saved . That is not the gospel . That . This is the gospel , not that we first loved God , but God first loved us and he did for us what we could not do for ourselves . He died in our place and has invited us to receive that salvation by faith . Amen .
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