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Introduction
Open your Bibles if you would to John chapter 20.
We are jumping back into our “the True Light” series…I’m calling it a “reboot” since we paused on this intensive study of John’s Gospel as the Holy Spirit led us to deal with some in-house, family issues for the purpose of examination on what it means to be a Biblical church.
Now we are jumping back into to this Gospel account of Jesus and as we “reboot” ourselves to get back into that mode, I want to remind those of you who were here for those teachings, and inform those who were not, the purpose of John’s Gospel account.
Why did John write these things down and why does it matter for us a Christians 2000 years removed from its authorship?
John tells us in chapter 20...
Understanding John’s purpose, here is the truth I want to drive home to you today as we open God’s Word...
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
Signs and miracles make up a great deal of all four of the Gospels, put John deals with them emphatically…because John’s primary concern is that those who read this historical, Holy Spirit inspired truth…they would experience radical, supernatural transformation in there lives.
John writes this gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name.”
This is John’s thesis statement or purpose statement for this entire recording of Jesus’ life.
Signs and miracles make up a great deal of all four of the Gospels, put John deals with them emphatically…because John’s primary concern is that those who read this historical, Holy Spirit inspired truth…they would experience radical, supernatural transformation in there lives.
John writes this gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name.”
This is John’s thesis statement or purpose statement for this entire recording of Jesus’ life.
And as we will get to in a moment we will again see how signs attract, yet without faith they have no life-giving value.
Before we get to our main text I want to continue to remind you of John’s purpose as stated at the end of his Gospel, but I also want you remind you how he launches us into this great theme from the beginning.
Turn with me know to John chapter 1.
The real key to understanding John’s Gospel is found at the beginning and the end.
We started at the end so lets key in on the verse at the beginning in which all other teaching will flow from.
John
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says this about v.16:
[This] particular theme…is what is meant by being Christian.
This…is the greatest need of the hour, that we should all realize what a Christian really is and is meant to be, and there is no better definition than this [verse].
It involves believing certain things…But Christianity is primarily life receiving of his fullness, and if we forget that, we miss the greatness and the glory and the splendor of it all.
Our danger always, even as Christian people is to be reducing this life—eternal life—to something merely a point of view, a teaching, a philosophy, a theology, or whatever.
WE MUST NEVER DO THAT.
Its essence is that it is a life, and that means receiving of his fullness.
This is the greatest thing in the world, the greatest thing that any of us can ever realize.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
With our focus on this truth of the gospel let us know turn to John chapter two starting in verse 23 and see how this Gospel redefinition is fleshed out.
Exposition
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
There are three specific ways in which this text brings forth how Jesus redefines what we believe to be life-giving truth.
There are three specific ways in which this text brings forth how Jesus redefines what we believe to be life-giving truth.
1. Jesus Redefines Man’s Condition ():  While in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast, the Apostle John says that “many” of the Jews who encountered Jesus “believed" in Him because of the “signs” they witnessed.
Now we encounter a Pharisee (a ruler of Israel; a teacher of Israel) who comes believing too because of signs, and though his motivation is pure because he knows this new unknown teacher is “from God” , yet even still knowing this his belief and understanding is incorrect and flawed in a different way than those whom Jesus did not entrust Himself too.
Let’s get a closer look...
John
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
1. Jesus Redefines Man’s Condition: What do I mean by this...within this passage the word man (anthropos) is used 4 times.
What we see in this text are two types of man’s fallen condition.
In 2:23-25 we see many “believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.”
Yet in v.24 the Apostle John tells us that Jesus “did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people.”
Jesus knows the heart of man.
v.25 tells us that he didn’t need anyone to shed light on man’s attraction because of the signs they witnessed, because “he himself knew what was in man.”
Lloyd-Jones says:
…in all these ways John shows the particular error, the particular fault in [man’s approach]...
Man’s condition is defined by this text as an attraction to “special signs.”
Signs that intrigue.
In our culture today, we can relate to this in the way we get caught up in performers and actors and because of their giftedness we feel a connection to them and the characters they play or the songs that they sing as if they are speaking to us…but in all through their is no relationship.
These people (mankind in its desperate fallen state) is attracted to the star power of what Jesus can do…but there is no real depth of connection to the Person of Jesus.
Now Nicodemus on the other hand comes to Jesus a bit different.
Look at how the Apostle sets up this encounter...
John 3:1-
Let me remind you the emphasis on “man” and the wonder of “signs” is continued and interconnected from the end of chapter to into the opening introduction of Nicodemus in chapter 3. The interconnectedness of man’s need for something missing, something broken, that one cannot seem to figure out on there own.
Lloyd-Jones says in his commentary on these verses specifically in John’s Gospel:
The thing that came to me and gripped me was this great question of life, the life of God in the soul [of man], this supreme need, this supreme glory of the Christian life...
Then Lloyd-Jones warns us (the modern reader):
There is nothing so fatal as to approach the Bible as just a textbook that you get to know; that is not its business.
Its whole object is to bring you to him in whom is all this fullness of which we stand in need [of].
The story of Nicodemus has much to say to those of us who would call ourselves Christians and as we break this down I want you to see from the Biblical sense the similarities and the difficulties that become obstacles of people experiencing this fullness of Jesus and even receiving it more and more (v.16…grace
upon grace).
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
Nicodemus is a different man than those at the end of chapter 2.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee as we read in v.1, a “ruler of the Jews.”
Now Pharisees were the religious elite and in as we saw in Chapter 2 they were a group that were marked by great prejudices.
They treated John the Baptist and Jesus as second-class, wanna bes that were stirring up confusion; threatening their authority.
But Nicodemus is different.
He has no prejudice towards Jesus in fact, he addresses Jesus in v.2 as a fellow teacher.
He calls Him “Rabbi” and says then says something I don’t think any other Pharisee would have admitted… “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.”
Now he came by the cover of night to speak with Jesus, not wanting his fellow Pharisees to know what he was doing, but Nicodemus recognized something special about Jesus.
He knew that he was a teacher from God.
The difference between him and those who believed because of the signs, was that Nicodemus understood the significance of miracles.
“…no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
In other words Nicodemus knew there was something special…of God about this new and unknown teacher.
Nicodemus is not just interested in the spectacular, he see something deeper with Jesus.
In other words, he doesn’t just see Jesus as a phenomenon or a miracle worker; he says “You must be a teacher who has come from God.”
He sees something below the surface about Jesus’ character and His person, because Jesus was a simple carpenter, but Nicodemus calls Him “Rabbi”—teacher, master, and by using that term he is revealing that he has sensed that there is something quite unusual and exceptional about Jesus.
Here Lloyd-Jones makes a sticky comment that should cling to us.
He says:
People who do not recognize something of the uniqueness of our Lord are not Christians.
Those who just put him into the same category as other great religious teachers have not started and have no hope of ever receiving this fullness [That John speaks of in 1:16].
Understand this: Nicodemus a “ruler of the Jews” a master teacher of Israel, a Pharisee, is clearly aware that our Lord has something that he doesn’t have.
Nicodemus is convicted by the the fact that Jesus isn’t just working these miracles, but that he is able to do them because of some relationship to God that is special and unique.
Again Lloyd-Jones gives profound insight into the importance of understanding this.
Lloyd-Jones says:
…this is one of the great keys to the spiritual life.
It is one of the great keys to receiving this fullness and to growing in grace and in knowledge of [Jesus] and receiving his fullness, which puts us into the category of men and women who know something about heaven and earth and who have foretastes of the glory everlasting.
Nicodemus is not self-satisfied or complacent.
He desires something greater.
Now we find ourselves in that knot often, but a man of Nicodemus’ status…he was in a position of greatness among his people.
He was one of the authorities; he is one of the masters of Israel.
But he is sensitive to the Spirit, and when he sees what Jesus does through his miracles, he knows he is from God.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ redefines how you understand life-giving truth.
Look right at me…There is no hope in the Christan life unless we are aware of that.
There is nothing that is more important to any one of us than this.
Do we have a hunger and a thirst after righteousness like this?
But here is Nicodemus’ error…He comes to Jesus humble, understanding his need, understanding that he lacks something that Jesus obviously possesses, but he comes to him as an equal.
Let me frame it another way: Nicodemus comes to Jesus as a teacher; he says “Rabbi.”
But he does not come to him as the Savior.
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