Sermon Tone Analysis

Deuteronomy 29:29 (NASB95) — 29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.

Proverbs 25:2 (NASB95) — 2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Romans 11:33 (NASB95) — 33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

Charlie Clough bible teacher who teachers at friendship Baptist church in Jerrettsville Maryland has said; “God hides diamonds where one can find them.”

What did Jesus mean by Water and of the spirit?

Does it mean this? or does it mean that?

I know what it means by the spirit, but with any confidence I might not be conclusive about the water.

This I was struggling with yesterday and working on throughout the day.

I thought that the lesson yesterday was a train wreck.

But yet the Lord taught me and beautiful lesson.

I get a text from Mom with mention of the spirit.

Rebecca and I spoke at length over breakfast, and she gave me her thoughts from Ezekiel and confident with her findings of the issue of water.

Tim probably made his own notes and study on the water and pondered his own answers.

He didn’t reply with nothing, but I’m sure Tim said to himself, “ah, he’ll figure it out.”

Steve Says all three or four possibilities of what the water and Spirit means are all right and all teacherable being edifying to the heart.

And I finished the day having learned a great lesson from the Lord.

The Lord hides diamonds where it takes some searching and turning over a leaf or two taking an extra effort to find them.

The lesson yesterday as bad as it may have been for me, resulted in at least five people maybe more to think about God’s word, to move around in their own thinking, scripture upon scripture, doctrine upon doctrine, to reach a conclusion.

and by time that they had come to a comfortable conclusion in each of their own thinking, regardless of what position they may have taken on spirit and water, each of us built a closer intimacy with God’s word.

After all what does Hebrews tell us?

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (Chapter 4)

Hebrews 4:12

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The word of God beckons us,

“Come search me, find my treasures.”

My ultimate goal as a trainer is not to get you to listen to me and learn something.

I hope you do.

My ultimate goal is for you to fall in Love with the Word of the Lord.

To fall in love with his Word, you will fall in Love with Him.

I do not want you to look at the teacher and say, “What a wonderful and smart teacher,” but I want you to see past the teacher and know and say, “What a wonderful Lord we worship and a wonderful gift that He has given us, His written Word!”

Nicodemus left the meeting that night with maybe more questions that answers.

first of all having recieved the Chastisement

John 3:10 (NASB95) — 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

Nicodemus was no dumb man, having acquired the position which he sat as a member of the Sanhedrin.

but just because you have a high degree of learning with diplomas on the wall and letters after your name and you have a title means that one is wise.

Wisdom being proper application of Knowledge.

We are to grow in knowledge.

Our growth comes through the scriptures.

But it is not all about academics.

Doctrine and theology can put you in a box where you come to think that you have all the clear answers in some organized file to the point being second nature, like 1, 2, 3, and yet be too stiff minded to think in broader terms.

is it not funny that The Samaritan woman at the well came to a quicker understanding of what Jesus was talking about than did Nicodemus.

I had not considered the Samaritan woman and about the water.

Being a part of John’s Gospel and not so far away from our passage brings something else into the conversation.

and this came from Brother Mike.

John 4:7–14 (NASB95) — 7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.

Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?

12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Nicodemus was full of Dogmatism and presuppositions and was stuck in a theological box.

The woman’s heart heart was not boxed in.

She was able to think and reason and came to a quicker understanding.

Nicodemus apparently witnessed the signs, but was confused about what Jesus was teaching.

The Lord told the woman about her husbands and learned about the water that Jesus offered.

Water and Spirit in this connection are essentially the same thing.

Jesus is the Living water.

While Jesus is the Living water He is the Logos, the word, which Saves and purifies.

It the spirit of God that is the power of regeneration which is taking that which was formerly dead and making it alive; Body, Soul, and spirit.

with that Said

If you stand on the fact that Water means Physical birth, I by no means will argue with you.

I see your point and I can build a case for it.

If you stand on the fact that Water is baptism and the doctrines that it supports, I by no means will argue with you.

I see your point.

and I can sit down and write a sermon for Sunday that will be well recieved.

And if you say that it is that the water is Judgment and it is that which my sins are forgiven which must take place before I am born again.

I am happy to oblige the thought.

I will give that an, “Amen,” and I will treasure it as truth.

What is so great is that those who love the Lord and God’s word have an interest enough to take a position and stand on it.

And that which ever position from above you stand upon is Preachable and edifying to the soul.

Nicodemus is a man that we can love and admire.

He will be willing to go outside of the box to find the truth, even facing ridicule from his contemporaries.

and in the end I believe that we are going to be able to put Nicodemus’s picture up on the wall of faith.

John 3:6 (NASB95) — 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Considering the first birth, we are brought into this world as a progeny of Adam.

We are connected to this world, and worldly we come to be, and worldly thinking we become.

Side point for parents.

The best time to win your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to the Lord is when they are young and not so polluted with world view.

it is never too early the little ones to learn about their God and of salvation.

What a blessing it is for those who grow up knowing the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:24 In Adam all Die

we enter into this world universally lost.

as this heavens and the earth will pass away so will all flesh, as did the judgement of the flood took it all away.

What will remain is the spirit that is connected with the Lord.

while it is that soul connects man to his environment and other souls,

1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (NASB95) — 14 But a natural man ψυχικός [psuchikos /psoo·khee·kos/] adj does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.

16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him?

But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:18 (NASB95) — 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

It is the spirit that connects man to a relationship with his God.

What is being born of the spirit?

The relationship is built upon

Justification; that our crimes have been dismissed.

Propitiation; that God is satisfied with the work of His Son on the cross on our behalf.

Reconciliation: that the two parties in dispute which are; perfect God as party of the first part, and sinful man as the party of the second part, have been brought together by the work of the mediator on the cross

Redemption; the price was paid in full by Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

Christ Died as a substitute for us.

Imputation; having the penalty of sin lifted, God is free without wavering his perfect Justice is to impute to us His very own righteousness.

Baptized in the spirit; For the Church age believer we are indwelt with the holy Spirit who seals the relationship.