Okay, now I'm going to be reading from John chapter 3, if you'd please be seated. So John chapter 3, verses 10 through 21, but I'm going to start our reading tonight in John chapter 2, verse 23. That's found on page 1055 in your pew Bibles, if you'd please turn there with me. John chapter 2 verse 23. John chapter 2 verse 23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he'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 the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? And now our passage for tonight. 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've 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. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and the people love darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Please bow your heads in prayer with me. Lord, God, our Father, we pray to you, our great covenant God, Father, Son, and Spirit. We pray to you, Father, through Jesus Christ, our mediator, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We ask, Lord, that this evening you would give us all the focus we need to be attentive to your word, that we might be encouraged and rebuked and challenged by your great and holy word. Would your powerful, living, and active word pierce our hearts, and would your spirit work through the words of your servant, and would I be faithful to the scriptures? Would you give us eyes to see the greatness of your love and mercy shown forth in Jesus Christ. And will we all have ears to hear? Lead us now to your throne of grace by your Spirit. Amen. So I want you to imagine with me that you're on a walk or a hike in the wilderness. You could think of the backcountry in Escondido, and as you're going on this hike or this walk, you see signs that say, beware of rattlesnakes. And ignoring those signs, you go on and press into the wilderness because you want to practice some sin, something that you don't want others to see. So you even go at night and you're in the dark so that no one can see you practicing this secret sin that you harbor in your heart, whatever it is. You go out, and you're loving this wicked sin, and you're bitten by a snake. And as you lie there dying, the venom is coursing through your veins. You can hardly move, and no one knows where you are, and you have no way to call for help. You're as good as dead as you lie there. But one person did know where you went, and he did know where you were going and what you were doing. And this is actually your enemy, someone you hate. But because he loves you, he sent a rescue mission to save you. At great cost to himself, he's chartered a helicopter to go out and seek you to save you. And he's even sent his own son as one of the rescuers with antidote in hand to save you from the venom. You're lying there in the dark dying, and you see the spotlight shining down from above. And your rescuer coming down on a rope from above, antidote in hand, comes to you. But as you see your rescuer coming down and the light shines upon you, you realize that the sin that you love so much will be exposed if your rescuer sees you in the light. And in that moment, you hate the light because it's going to expose your sin, the great wickedness you wanted to keep secret. And you even hate the rescuer that's come for you. And in that last moment, with your last dying breath, you roll away into the darkness so that the light wouldn't expose you, and you choose to die in the dark rather than being rescued by the man who is sent for you. I want you to think about this story this evening as we're looking at God's rescue plan for mankind. As we think about one of the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3.16, I think we're looking at God's rescue plan for mankind and for the world. This story is set in this context of Jesus and Nicodemus and the dialogue they have, and our passage is right at the tail end of that. That's why I read through it with you guys. Now, it starts with Jesus, our passage tonight starts with Jesus indicting Nicodemus. He's telling him what he's done wrong. And then Jesus explains God's plan of salvation, this heavenly plan, and he explains the purpose of God's plan of salvation, and he also explains the motivation. And then our passage tonight ends with two ways that we could respond to God's plan of salvation. Now, the beginning of John chapter 3 is Jesus and Nicodemus meeting at night. Nicodemus has come to him in the darkness. I think he's representing darkness, and he's a Pharisee, and he seems to be this picture of someone who might be opposed to Jesus. And Jesus, it says he knows man, and Jesus sees Nicodemus come to him and knows perhaps the question in his heart. Perhaps it's the question he should be asking. And before Nicodemus has even asked a question, he starts with, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now Nicodemus had just come to him and said, we believe that you're a teacher come from God. And Jesus says, you're not even seeing the kingdom of God because you don't have eyes to see. You haven't been born from above. Nicodemus isn't understanding the precondition for seeing and entering into the kingdom of God. Jesus is telling him about God's sovereign purposes in regeneration. And then when we get to verse 10, Jesus begins his indictment of Nicodemus. After Nicodemus has been saying, how can this be? How can these things be? Can a man be born when he's old? Then Jesus says, are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Nicodemus is a ruler of Israel. He's called the teacher of Israel. He's a Pharisee. He sits on the Sanhedrin. He should know the scriptures, and he should know about God's plan of salvation, and he should know all these things. But Jesus says, you don't even understand. You're the teacher of Israel, and you're not getting it. And then in verse 11, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we've seen, but you do not receive our testimony. So the second thing he's saying to Nicodemus, You're not understanding, and you're not receiving our testimony. We have been born again. Perhaps Jesus and the prophets saying, we know what we're talking about. We know what God's plan of salvation is because we've seen it. And we're testifying to you, telling you what it is, and you're not receiving our testimony. And then in verse 12, Jesus says, If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Nicodemus isn't understanding this first step what happens on earth is this regeneration being born from above and perhaps Nicodemus is asking what about God's plan of salvation how can that be how can this even work and Jesus is saying I can't even tell you about those heavenly things how could you believe if I did but Jesus goes on to explain it to him and Nicodemus here could be compared to perhaps a Reformed Christian, someone in a Reformed church that really cares about theology. Nicodemus is in the covenant community, as all of us are, and he really knew his theology well. He really cared to know the scriptures. As a Jew, he might have even had a lot of the scriptures memorized at that time. Now if we think of Nicodemus, if you asked any Jew who knows about the kingdom, they'd probably point to Nicodemus. He's probably living a pious life. They'd say, who can enter the kingdom? Probably Nicodemus. But Jesus is saying, you're not receiving me and you're not believing in me. You're not seeing or entering the kingdom. So as we think of what does it take to enter the kingdom, Jesus makes it clear that it's faith. It's believing and receiving Jesus. It's not what you do. It's not how pious you are. It's not how many scriptures you have memorized or how well you know theology. It's faith. So in verse 13, Jesus says, No one's ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Jesus is telling Nicodemus, no one can claw their way into heaven. No one can earn their way into heaven other than the only one who is perfect, Jesus Christ. And Jesus has this authority to speak about God's plan of salvation and how it all works because he's the one who came down from heaven in the first place. Heaven had to come down. Salvation had to be from above because no one could earn it. In verses 14 and 15, Jesus explains God's purpose in his plan of salvation. And he's saying that it's eternal life. That is the purpose of God's plan. Let's read it together. Verses 14 and 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, So we see this purpose set forth, and that's a main point that I want you to remember tonight. Eternal life is the purpose of God's plan. Jesus explains this purpose and this plan to Nicodemus in a way that he could understand. He says, Now, Nicodemus knew the Old Testament well, and he would know that the story comes from Numbers 21. He would know the story well, but I'll give you a refresher tonight. The Israelites are in the wilderness, and they're going on the way, and they're impatient, and they speak against God and against Moses. They're even complaining that they're taken out of Egypt and saved out of Egypt, and they're complaining about the manna that God's giving them. So God sends a just judgment upon their sin. He sends venomous serpents into the camp, and many Israelites die. After many died, they asked Moses to call out to God to save them. They repent of their sin, and God tells Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole. And then the scriptures say, whoever looks to it, when he sees it, shall live. So, Jesus is comparing this plan of salvation, where God saved the Israelites from the venomous serpents, to his ultimate plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. He's saying that this is a representation or a type of the ultimate plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. But as we compare the type and the ultimate reality, we see just how much greater the ultimate reality is. Firstly, we see how much more dire our situation is. The Israelites were facing physical death because they've been bitten by serpents. They're going to die because there's venom in their veins. But the reality is that we all are facing the eternal death that comes from the venom of sin. The serpent in the garden has bitten us, and we all face this eternal death, eternal torment, day and night. It's not just physical death, it's an eternal death. And we see how great our need is. Because with modern medicine today, if we got bitten by a rattlesnake and you got to the hospital in time, you probably wouldn't even lose your foot anymore. You'd probably be fine. Now, rattlesnakes are dangerous, but we've pretty much overcome it with antivenom. But in Christ and this problem of sin, the real problem can't be solved by any human innovations. Nothing we can do, no medicine, no remedy we could concoct could ever resolve this problem for us. So we see our great need for someone else to save us. We need a rescuer. We can't do it on our own. So God created a gracious remedy for us. It's gracious because we don't deserve it. His judgment against sin, the wrath that's upon us, is just. We've sinned against his holiness. But God didn't have to provide the bronze serpent for the Israelites, and He didn't have to provide His Son, Jesus Christ. But He did, and His purpose was to give us eternal life. We see the life offered to the Israelites is just an extended life on this earth. They're no longer dying from the venom, but they still will live out their days on this earth and die again. But in Jesus Christ, we're offered eternal life. We're offered life unending, life without sin in the new heavens and new earth, life united to Christ. This is the eternal life that God's offering to us in his rescue plan, in his plan of salvation. In the Israelite's case, it says everyone who is bitten when he sees the bronze serpent shall live. And in Christ, we see him lifted up on the cross. And whoever looks to him with eyes of faith will have this eternal life. God's purpose in his plan of salvation is to give us eternal life. I think of the hymn Amazing Grace, where we'll be singing God's praises for 10,000 years, yet we'll have no less time than when we first began. This eternal life, enjoying God forever, is what he's graciously offered to us in Jesus Christ. You may think, why would God be so merciful and so gracious to provide us sinners who justly deserve damnation? Why would he offer us his son? That's what John 3.16 tells us. For God so loved the world. He showed his love to us by sending his son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. There we see God's motivation for this plan. The motivation is love. Even though we are God's enemies. D.A. Carson said, what's so amazing about God's love is not that the world is so big or that there's so many people in it, but that the world is so bad. That's why it's amazing that God loves us. I think of Romans 5, verses 8 through 10. Therefore, we have now been justified by his blood. Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were his enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, so much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. God's great love is extended to his enemies. That's hard for us to understand. We always talk about loving our enemies, but how many of us actually do it? How many of us can actually love our enemies and realize what a difficult thing that is? And not only that, but God sent his son, his only son. Now, my wife's pregnant right now with our first son. I've never even met this child. I've only just felt him kick. I've never seen his face, but I already love him so much. And think about this, God and his son have known each other for eternity, and they know each other perfectly, and the love between them is perfect. And yet he would give that son that he's known eternally, that he knows perfectly, that he loves perfectly, he would still give that son and extend that great love even to his enemies. Those of us who've hated him and rejected him, He would still send his love to us. So for those of us who are Christians and know this great love of God, this is what we cherish and enjoy every day. This is why we sing praises together in church, because we know this great love of God. Jesus said, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. So God not only loved us by sending his son, but Jesus loved us by laying down his life willingly and counted us, his enemies, as his friends. This love is truly amazing and divine. The latter half of verse 16 clarifies our situation again. God sent his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It brings us to again think that we are perishing because the wrath of God abides on us unless we believe in Jesus Christ. If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we have eternal life. And verse 17 makes it clear that this is a rescue mission. It says, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus was sent on a rescue mission. And you may think, of course he was. Of course this is good news. Of course it's a rescue mission. But the rest of this passage tells us that there's two responses, two responses to this rescue mission, and not everyone sees it as good news. Recall that the purpose of God's love here has been restated twice. He wants to give us eternal life. His motivation is his great love. But in verse 18, it makes it clear that not everyone sees that. For whoever believes in him is not condemned. Those of us in Christ are not condemned. It reminds me of Romans 8, chapter 8, verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But the latter half of verse 18, whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Didn't we just say that Jesus wasn't sent on a mission to condemn? How do these verses go together? Think about it like this. If the Coast Guard went out to save some capsized sailors, and if they were to toss a life raft to these sailors, yet the sailors reject it and don't take the only way of salvation that's been offered to them. The Coast Guard wasn't sent on a drowning mission, but those sailors in the water are as good as drowned. That's what we're seeing here in this verse. If you aren't accepting Jesus Christ, you're as good as condemned because when the judgment comes, if you've rejected the only way of salvation, the only rescue mission that's offered to you, then you're as good as condemned. In chapter 3, verse 36, we see whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. So if you don't take the Son, if you don't believe in him, and look to him, then the wrath of God for your wicked sin still remains on you. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There is no other way. There's no second rescue mission. There's no back door in. Jesus is the only way to be forgiven of your sins and enjoy this eternal life. That's what we see here in verses 19 and 20, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. So again, think of that story I told in the beginning where the rescuers come and the light shining down, and he's coming and offering you this antidote. Here we see two responses. Do you hate the Son? Do you hate Jesus, your rescuer, and deny the only way of salvation and choose instead to die in the darkness? Or the other response is in verse 21 here, but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Will you reject the light and hate him, or will you come to the light and believe and receive him? These are the two responses. If you're seeing the gospel as good news tonight, and you're seeing Jesus as a Savior, then I encourage you to continue in that belief, to accept Jesus and to take comfort that if you do believe him, you will have this eternal life that God's held forth. But if tonight you're rejecting Jesus and it doesn't sound like good news and you're worried that your sin will be exposed, if you're rejecting the only way of salvation, then you will die in the darkness and you'll perish. All you have to do is accept Jesus and he has perished for you he died on the cross so that you could have eternal life but remember the key phrase in verses 15 and 16 is that whoever believes whoever it is even if it's someone who's first rejected jesus think about nicodemus he came in the darkness He represented the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin. Jesus tells them, you don't understand, you're not receiving what I say, and you don't believe. He's telling that to Nicodemus. All signs are showing us that Nicodemus rejected Jesus at first. But then later, Nicodemus is being identified with Jesus. And then at the cross, Nicodemus is one of the guys that buries Jesus. That gives us good reason to think that Nicodemus came around and that he did believe. So if you have first rejected Jesus Christ, today is still the day of salvation. You can still believe in Jesus Christ, even if you first rejected him. You can still be offered that eternal life. Don't die in the darkness. Come to the light. Believe in Jesus Christ. He who has eyes to see, let him see. Let's pray together. Lord, we who know Christ take great comfort in the love shown forth in Jesus Christ. We thank you that you've sent this rescue plan, Lord, that you've sent your own son, that we might have eternal life in him. Lord, would we press on to this eternal life and would we always have that hope before us? We thank you, Lord, that we are saved by faith in Jesus because we could never do this on our own. Lord, we ask for our friends here tonight who do not believe in Jesus. We ask, Lord, that they would. We ask that you would call them to yourself. Lord, that you would pierce their hearts with this word. that they would see the love and the greatness in Jesus Christ, that they'd see your mercy and tender care for your people, that they would see Jesus as good news. Lord, we pray that you would save people and bring them to yourself as you did with us, Lord, in your great mercy. As we sing our praises tonight, Lord, would we all be refreshed hearing about your great love in the eternal life that we have in Jesus Christ. Amen.