Your Faith Isn’t Working. Here’s Why | The Book Of John | Week 3
What if your version of faith is built on the wrong thing?
Your Faith Isn’t Working. Here’s Why, Most of us are living with a faith that’s built on a contract—“God, if I do this, you’ll bless me”—but that house of cards always collapses when life gets hard. In this talk, we walk through the end of John 2 and into chapter 3 where Jesus flips tables in the temple, calling out a broken system that held people hostage. Then He has a late-night conversation with a religious leader who has all the answers, but still feels lost. Jesus offers something radically better: a whole new life, not a better version of the old one.
Jesus didn’t come to clean us up. He came to save us. Nicodemus, like many of us, had spent his whole life trying to earn his way to God. But Jesus tells him straight: unless you're born again, from above, you’ll never see the Kingdom. And He’s not talking about behavior—He’s talking about belief. In Jesus, we are not just forgiven…we are made new. Not by what we do, but by what He’s done. No more religion. No more shame. Just a new identity and a new life through Christ.
Hey everyone, welcome to Flatirons Church Online. My name's Jonathan, I'm your online host today, and I'm so glad that you've decided to join us today. If you're new, a great way to connect with Flatirons is to follow us on social, and also to subscribe to our YouTube channel. But the best way to connect with Flatirons is to text the word NEXT to 80857. You'll get a couple of encouraging text messages throughout the week, but what's really cool about it is that you can actually text us back. You can ask a question, request prayer, and we have real people on the other end waiting to connect with you. Well, today we're in a series called The Book of John. We've heard some really great feedback, and people are wanting to go deeper into their Bible, and so we're going through the entire Book of John together as a church. There's a digital version of our series book available at flatironschurch.com. Well, we've got a great service today, so let's get started. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
♪♪ Hey, good morning, Flatirons. We're so glad you're with us. Let's stand together. Hey, we worship a faithful, a good God. Let's remind ourselves of that this morning. Sing this out, come on. ♪♪ Come on, we sing. ♪♪ ♪♪ Hey. Hey. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ I praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ I can't help but lift up shouts of joy ♪ ♪ When I think of how could You bear ♪ ♪ Faithful now to the end ♪ ♪ I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ Lord, I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪
♪ I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ Sing, I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ I can't help but lift up child's joy ♪ ♪ When I think of how good You've been, faithful Lord ♪ ♪ I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ I can't help but praise You, praise You, Lord ♪ ♪ Time and time again, we've asked if You were evil ♪ ♪ Time and time again, You've proved ♪ ♪ You're the God of our salvation ♪ ♪ And You're worthy of our praise ♪ ♪ Time and time again, we worship You ♪ ♪ Oh, anyone with eyes would see a mountain ♪ ♪ But anyone with faith would see a moon ♪ ♪ Oh, when You're near, the God who goes before me ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, my heart has found a home ♪ ♪ You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ There's no end to who You are ♪ ♪ There's no limit to Your throne ♪ ♪ No limit to Your throne, oh ♪ ♪ Merciful and true, the God of every virtue ♪ ♪ The solid rock we're standing on, oh ♪ ♪ You're holy and You're kind, the epitome of life ♪ ♪ So we magnify the worthy one, oh ♪ ♪ We magnify the worthy one, yeah, so we sing ♪ ♪ Elohim, the God who goes before me ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, my heart has found a home ♪ ♪ You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ There's no end to who You are ♪ ♪ There's no limit to Your throne, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, there's no limit to Your throne, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ No one is higher, God our provider, Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, the Prince could be your measure ♪ ♪ Worthy forever and only ♪ ♪ No one is higher, God our provider, Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ The Prince could be your measure, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, boy, boy ♪ ♪ Worthy forever and all the years ♪ ♪ No one is higher, God our provider ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, worthy of measure ♪ ♪ Worthy forever and all the years ♪ ♪ No one is higher, God our provider ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, worthy of measure ♪ ♪ Worthy forever and all the years ♪ ♪ There goes the God who goes before me ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, my heart is found, oh oh ♪ ♪ You're the Father, Son, you're the Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Holy Ghost, there's no end to who you are ♪ ♪ There's no limit to your power ♪ ♪ There's no limit to your power ♪ ♪ No, there's no limit to your power ♪ ♪ Oh, there's no limit to your power ♪ ♪ Oh, with all the God who goes before you ♪ ♪ Prince of peace, my heart is found alone ♪ ♪ You're the Father, Son, you're the Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ There's no end to who you are ♪ ♪ There's no limit to your power ♪ Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. ♪ Who thought I'd find you at the lowest place? ♪
♪ Who thought you'd feel me in the crowd? ♪ ♪ Who knew you'd make good my mistakes? ♪ ♪ You're nothing like I thought you were, you're bitter ♪ ♪ What a God, oh, what a God ♪ ♪ What a God, oh, what a God, yeah ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God, that's who you are ♪ ♪ What a God, oh, what a God ♪ ♪ I thought you sought for perfection ♪ ♪ Cause what kind of God looks for the lost? ♪ ♪ And they say it's over for a sinner ♪ ♪ Oh, but you say, no it's not, no it's not ♪ ♪ Oh, but you say, no it's not, no it's not ♪ ♪ Oh, but you say, no it's not, no it's not ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God, what a God, what a God, oh ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God, what a God, what a God, yeah ♪ ♪ What a God you are, there's none like you ♪ ♪ There's none like you, oh merciful King, oh good, good Father ♪ Come on, we lift our hands, we lift our voices, we sing. ♪ If the highest place I reach is high, Your feet ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all, if the best thing that I've seen ♪ ♪ Is Your glory, then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ Your love has changed my life, forever satisfied ♪ ♪ God, You are my everything, yeah ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is high, Your feet ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all, if the best thing that I've seen ♪ ♪ Is Your glory, then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ Your love has changed my life ♪ ♪ Forever satisfied God You are my head ♪ ♪ If one word is the only thing You speak ♪ ♪ Then I'll let it all out ♪
♪ If I feel Your heart and never see Your head ♪ ♪ I still have it all ♪ ♪ No treasure of this life could ever satisfy God You are my head ♪ ♪ Everything oh God You are my everything ♪ ♪ Oh God You are my head what a God what a God what a God ♪ ♪ What a God what a God what a God what a God what a God ♪ ♪ Oh what a God what a God what a God what a God what a God ♪ ♪ In the highest in the highest place I'll reach is at Your feet ♪ ♪ And I've done it all and the best thing that I've seen is Your glory ♪ ♪ And I've seen it all Your love has changed my life ♪ ♪ Forever satisfied but You are my everything ♪ ♪ Each one word is the only thing You speak and I've had it all ♪ ♪ If I feel Your heart and never see Your hands I still have it all ♪ ♪ No treasure of this life could ever satisfy but You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything ♪ ♪ In the highest place I'll reach is at Your feet and I've done it all ♪ ♪ And the best thing that I've seen is Your glory and I've seen it all ♪ ♪ Your love has changed my life forever satisfied but You are my everything ♪ ♪ Each one word is the only thing You speak and I've had it all ♪ ♪ If I feel Your heart and never see Your hands I still have it all ♪ ♪ No treasure of this life could ever satisfy but You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are my everything You are all I need is You are my everything My everything You're all I need My everything You're all I need Yes Lord I just want Nothing else Nothing else Nothing else will do I just want You Nothing else Nothing else Nothing else will do Oh I just want You Come on
Nothing else Nothing else Nothing will satisfy Nothing will satisfy I just want You Nothing else Nothing else Nothing else will do Come on, the Father's in the room right now Feel His presence, feel the Spirit moving These words that we've sung are more than lyrics on a screen They're reminders of who our God is How capable, how able our God is That He goes before us for us, that no matter what situation, what circumstance you're facing today, our God has already gone before you with protection, with a plan, with healing, with provision, with hope, with love, with mercy and grace. He has made a way for us. What a God He is. There is none like our God. And He chooses to dwell among us. God, you are more than enough. More than enough. Your presence is more than enough. Your voice is more than enough. Your glory is more than enough. We lift you up this morning. We magnify your name this morning. You are worthy. Thank you. In Jesus' mighty name we say, amen. Come on, can we celebrate how good our God is?
Come on. So good to worship with you this morning. Pray you're encouraged this morning by these words and these songs. Hey, before you take a seat, why don't you turn to someone on your left, your right. Tell them your name, tell them good morning. Tell them go Broncos. You can have a seat. Well, hey, Flatirons. It is so good to see all of you all this morning. All right, Broncos fans, how are we thinking about the playoff win last night? Congratulations. We love you who? Oh, Bo, I thought you said you love me a lot. Okay. All right, love you guys too. Love y'all too. I don't know how to continue. I'm gonna go ahead and say it. Love y'all too. I don't know how to continue. I'm just messing with you. All right. We do need to be praying for Bo Nicks. Let's pray for him. Heard about the bad news yesterday. But hey, if you're new here, my name is Steven.
I'm the campus pastor here, and we're really so glad that you're here. The easiest way to get connected is by texting the word next to 80857, or you'll receive a few messages of scripture, hope, and encouragement this week, along with some simple next steps. And before you head out today, if you are new here, perhaps it's your first or second time here, I wanna encourage you to stop by our New Here area in the lobby. We have literally created that environment for you. We've got some amazing volunteers that would love to meet you, answer any questions that you have, and again, help you to get more plugged into our community. And myself and a number of our staff will also be out of the New Here area, and we would love to meet you and to say hello. You may have noticed when you came in today that we're in the middle of our community launch season. And around here, we love to say that learning happens in rows, but growing and connecting happens in circles. That's why community is such a big deal here at Flatirons, and groups are one of the very best ways for you to make a big church feel small.
And so if you're not in a group, our ministry now is the time to jump in. We have groups for men, women, couples, and people in every age and stage of life meeting all throughout the week, really all throughout the Front Range. If you're watching online, I wanna encourage you to scan the QR code on the screen. You can learn more about all of our ministries and our groups that are available. For those of y'all that are here in person, I wanna encourage you to linger a little bit today. We work really, really hard to have some of our ministry group leaders in the lobby. They would love to meet you, answer any questions that you have, and also, again, help you to take a next step. And so we're very, very grateful for them and them being out there so you can show our appreciation to them and just, again, spend a little bit of time asking some questions today. Today, we're gonna be continuing with part three of our series in the Book of John. Jim is not here in person today. He is wrapping up an elders' retreat, but he's prepared a message for us, so let's jump in together. Okay, so if you have your Bibles with you or if you have one of the John journals
that we've been handing out, and I know we're out of them right now. I've been told they should be here by the first weekend in February, all right? But go ahead and get your Bible and turn to John chapter two. That's where we're gonna pick up. So we are actually in week three of our journey through the Gospel of John that will take us right up to Easter. So let me just give you a quick review if you haven't been here. If you haven't been here, you gotta get back online and kinda catch up. But in week one, we spent most of our time looking at the author of the Gospel of John. His name is John, right? And his life and his journey from being an angry young man looking for power, following and attaching himself to Jesus, not so much because he initially understood the spiritual significance of who Jesus was as much as he was impressed by Jesus' ability on that first day to make fish. up in the net, which made him, in John's eyes, like unique, like powerful. And his ticket out of his current powerless life and situation. In the first half of the Gospel of John, John's most common question has nothing to do
with what Jesus offers spiritually. If you read through the Gospel of John, John's most common question is, and I lost count of some version of this, is, hey Jesus, when you start your kingdom, can I be in charge? Like, can I have power? Literally, he said this, can I call down fire on my enemies? But over time, right, John is changed by watching turn his, John's world upside down by loving John, who starts out with this title, right? He's one of the sons of thunder, right? He and his brother, right? Now he becomes known as, by the end of his life, as the apostle of love. And then 40 years after Jesus returns to heaven, John looks back as an old man, and he writes about his time with Jesus as what we now call the Gospel of John, the good news from John. Last week, week two, we looked at the reality that most of us begin our relationship with Jesus in a contractual or like a conditional basis, okay? We kinda all start there, like, hey Jesus, if you will do this for me, then I'll follow you. And usually, typically, we all start, we start well, right? Like, hey Jesus, if you will take away my sin, my guilt, my condemnation, get me out of hell, right? By letting what you did for me on that cross count for me,
if you'll do that for me, then I'll trust you, and I'll follow you. But many times, over time, that contract drifts into this, hey Jesus, as long as you, it's conditional, right? As long as you make sure that my nets are full of fish and my water is turned into wine. Let's bring it up to today. As long, Jesus, as you make sure there's plenty of money coming in, as long as you keep the bad stuff away from me and the people that I love, take care of us, as long as life makes sense and it's easy to put the circumstances of what's happening in my life and kinda lay them beside, here's a God who loves me, if they both, like, obviously connect, then I'll trust you and I'll follow you. But here's the problem, here's the problem with that, and we really unpacked this deep last week. Every time, eventually, inevitably, I'd say, something will happen in your life. It probably already has, but it's coming, all right? Something hard, painful, unfair, devastating, and it might be your fault or it might be somebody else's fault, it just fell on you, or just the brokenness of this world, and that will happen in your life, and you will find yourself in a place where you can't put bad life together with good God and have them both make sense, and your faith will take a hit.
And you'll be left in that space of, I don't know if or what I can even believe in anymore. And where we left off last week was this, if you try, if I try, any of us, if we try to lean our faith against, not our changing circumstances of our life or our ability to understand or interpret what's going on in that bad time, but if you will lean your faith against this one truth, this one rock, like this one foundation, and it goes like this, all right? What Christianity is built upon, it's what my life is built upon, it goes like this, on a day in history, God demonstrated his level of love and commitment for me and for you by giving his one and only son, Jesus, to perish, right? Why? So that I don't have to perish to die and pay for my sin, and the reason that I can actually lean my life and my faith and my confidence that what Jesus did and keeps on doing for me in every day of my life, the only reason I can really trust that, it goes back to this, after they executed Jesus on that cross and buried him in a tomb, three days later, he rose from the dead, gotta get an amen on that, right? And here it is, so that we may know that Jesus is who he says he is
and he'll keep every promise he's ever, ever made to us, even in the moments where life doesn't make sense. So that was the first half of chapter two, and then I said this last week, I just cut it off and said we'll pick up the second half next week because I don't wanna rush through these, I call them amazing, life-changing, change the way we see God, truths that we find that John, the author, has experienced for himself and then hands them down to us so that we may know the same Jesus that changed his life forever. So we're gonna pick up right after that wedding feast where Jesus turns water into wine, Jesus goes on up to Jerusalem for Passover, which is like the biggest, one of the biggest, holy days of the year of the Jewish faith. Every year, the Passover, the yearly day of remembrance about how God delivered the Israelites, the Jewish people, out of Egyptian slavery when the ancient. until death passed over them. So we're gonna pick up in John chapter two, verse 13. Here we go. It says this, the Passover of the Jews was at hand, it was happening, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen
and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. Okay, we're gonna take a time out before we get into Jesus like kicking butt here in a minute, right? We're gonna take a big time out and nerd out over Bible history, and here's why. So that we can understand what's going on and appreciate why Jesus walks in that room and he's obviously fired up. Later, we're gonna see a phrase describing his response. It says this, it says, zeal for your house. This is a prophecy about when the Messiah got here, all right, zeal for your house will consume me. And that word zeal, which interestingly in Hebrew is the same word for jealous, jealous for your house, which literally in this context means this, look at this. Fiercely protective of something that's being used for a purpose other than what it was intended to do. That's a great definition of jealous, right? Which is exactly why Jesus is so fired up. So we got a history lesson, all right, here we go, right? And this is gonna be like drinking from a fire hose, all right, I'm just gonna throw a whole bunch of stuff at you, and most of it's gonna go right over, like I didn't keep up with that. So take what you can, but overall, you kind of get the gist of things, okay? Ready for this? I love this part, right? In the opening, and we covered this about two years ago,
in the opening chapters of the Bible, when God created everything, remember? Created the heavens and the earth, right? He also created a garden where he, God, would live with his creation, Adam and Eve, all right? And the plan was living life together with God. This is kingdom life. I'm living my life together with God. I'm meeting with God, I'm partnering with God, and here's what God and I are gonna do together. We're gonna see the perfection of Eden expand and spread to the entire world. So I'm in Eden with God, and I want to see this expand to not Eden, does that make sense? Now, throughout Jewish history, the same belief system is actually mirrored in many of the civilizations from that time that have been discovered and studied throughout history. It goes like this. The place where God, or in some cultures, the gods, meets or lives with people is some version of Eden, right? And Eden, I love this stuff, right? And Eden is always pictured in the Bible, or in Mesopotamian literature, is always pictured as either a garden or a mountain. That's where people meet with gods. And all over the world, you're gonna kind of go, oh, yeah, right, all over the world, you will find things in different civilizations, you'll find like pyramids, not just in Egypt,
they're in South America, they're in China, they're just all over the place. The technical word is a ziggurat. It's a tower that a person, a man builds, hoping to meet with God on a mountain. Now, if you go back to the creation story in the garden, God told Adam and Eve that if they sinned, right, if they chose something other than him and what he said was right and true, if they rejected him, he said right up front, before you even make a decision, the wage of that, the outcome of that choice is death. And they looked back, they believed the serpent, whatever this, they didn't believe God. They said, we'll run our own life and they disobeyed him. And the wage of that, God told them that they are now under the sentence of death, that you have to leave the garden. But there's this one verse in here a lot of us have missed, but God also took the skin of an animal. So the first recorded death in the Bible is God took the life of an animal, took that skin and temporarily covered their shame and their nakedness so that they would not be totally cut off from God, they could still have some connection with God. Now, the technical term for that process that I just described that theologians have come up with is this, all right, decreation. We know about creation, decreation,
meaning we were created to be with God. That was the plan from day one. And when we sin, the cost of that sin is death. But in God's grace, like he's provided a way back into fellowship with him. But in order to do that, another life must be given because the wage of sin is death. Another life must be de-created for your life to come back into fellowship. And this is all symbolic of what's to come. So if you skip ahead several hundred years and the Jewish people are leaving like 420 years of slavery in Egypt, as they are out in that desert, God gives the command through Moses, here's what I want you to do. I want you to build like a portable temple, right? There's this chapter after chapter. I want you to build it like this and like this. And it's called the tabernacle, where God can meet with Moses and the other leaders as they're moving towards a promised land. And the tabernacle, if you read that part, is decorated like a garden, like Eden. And the tabernacle was like the center of gravity for the Jewish people. As long as you were connected to the tabernacle, you were connected to God. If you're connected to God, you were connected to the community.
But if you made a mistake, if you sinned, meaning you did something that made you like unclean or unfit to be in the presence of God, you were cut off from God and the community. It's the same thing, all right? They both went together. Unless there's a way to like decreate, or maybe the word that we would understand better than decreate would be this, decontaminate you from anything that would disqualify you from being in sacred space. God is holy. How much sin can he let in his presence? Zero. So if you read through Leviticus, it's a very fascinating book, right? You will find just chapter after chapter, long list of if you do this, you have to do this. If you do this, you have to sacrifice something. Why? To decontaminate whatever would disqualify you from being in sacred space and being a part of the community. They were one thing. Now, you're listening to this and you're like, listen, whatever you believe about that, or whether they should have or shouldn't have, or that should have or shouldn't happen, all right? This is what they believed. This is what they practiced.
For thousands of years. So all through the Bible, right? At least the parts before Jesus, all right? When you see the word sacrifice connected with the concept of forgiveness, in this case, before Jesus, forgiveness mostly means decontamination or made fit or clean, how is it? Purification to reenter sacred space. And again, if you read through the long list of, if this happens to you, you must give this sacrifice, you gotta do this. Don't necessarily just go right to moral sins, like moral sins, like 10 Commandments. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't take the Lord's name in vain, don't blaspheme against God. We'll come back to that one in a minute. But think, what are the unavoidable things of life that happen that are linked to death? And usually, just think about everyday life that somehow is usually linked to blood or to disease or to death. I'll give you an example, so you know where I'm going with this. For example, in the Old Testament, all the times before Jesus, when a woman had like her normal menstrual cycle or when she gave birth, not a sin, it's unavoidable. That's how God has created that woman.
But it still put her in a place of unclean, right? So after a certain amount of days where she was not allowed to participate in the temple or in the community, she wasn't allowed to go outdoors, right? She would go to the temple or she would go to the tabernacle and she'd offer a sacrifice and she would be declared clean. I'll give you the best example of it. Last month, we looked at this. Mary and the baby Jesus. Look at Luke chapter two, right? And when the time came for their who, what? Purification. What did they need to be purified from? From blood, right? According to the law of Moses, right? They brought him, Jesus, to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it's written in the law of the Lord, and this goes all the way back to the Levitican number, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And here's another reason they had to go. And to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of turtle doves. We just got this aha moment. Two turtle doves. That's where it comes from.
I thought that was fascinating, right? A pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. That's what a woman had to offer every month, every time she had a child. Mary hadn't sinned. She'd given birth to the Son of God, but the birthing process had to be accounted for, and Mary had to be purified. Here's another story we'll get to later. Later, Jesus heals a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. She comes and she touches the hem of his garment. Technically, legally, she shouldn't have been there. And here's why. Because anybody who touched her, even on accident, they became unclean, and they'd have to go through a whole purification ceremony too. I mean, the list is long. If you touched a dead body, and you gotta go bury your dad, right? If you have an open wound, if you had a disease of the skin, if you sat in a chair that somebody with a disease sat in, anything that happened in your body or to your body that involved blood or sickness or death, that had to be accounted for. It had to be purified, decontaminated, decreated. Why? So that you could enter back into fellowship.
with God and the community. Like the biggest holiday of the Jewish calendar wasn't the Passover, it was the Day of Atonement. When they took the blood of a sacrificed animal and they put it all over the Holy of Holies, they decontaminated the most holy spot in the temple, right? Where blood was sprinkled on the altar, on the Ark of the Covenant, you've heard of that? So that the sacred space was purified and fit for the presence and the worship of God. Now here's why I tell you all that, okay? And it's gonna tie back into what we're looking at today. Most of the sacrifices you read about in the Bible were for purification or decontamination to allow the person to reenter fellowship and participation with God and the community. They're always tied together. There were other sacrifices which were really like payments or restitution, like if you stole something, the payment or the sacrifice that you were required to make in order to kind of be whole again was you stole a goat, you gotta give two back. That's a different thing, right? Now here's the thing, right? And I mentioned that I wanna come back to that. For certain moral sins, and they're listed in the Bible, especially like murder, adultery, and blasphemy against God. And let me tell you, blasphemy is this. It's more than I disrespected God or I took God's name in vain.
It would be more like this, like claiming that or attributing the works of God to Satan or to evil forces. For these moral sins, like murder, adultery, blasphemy, there's no sacrifice in the Bible. If you do that, there's 20 cows. No, no, no, if you were found guilty of murder or adultery or blasphemy, they just killed you, right? They just instant death penalty. There was no way back in. Occasionally, the leaders might just send you away from the community and say, you're no longer a part of us, which meant you can no longer be with God. So it's the same, then I'm dead. It's the old, you're either in Eden or not in Eden. And not in Eden is the same thing as death to them. Because once they were excluded, they're out. We consider you dead. Now here's the other aha moment I had studying this, right? That the number one, think about this, the number one accusation by the religious leaders of Jesus was blasphemy. He's blasphemy, he's saying this, all right. Jesus has claimed to be from God and to actually be God. That's why the religious leaders, they wanted him dead. But here's their problem, right? When Rome came in and took over, conquered everything, they took away the Jewish religion's right to execute people, which is why Jesus was crucified, not because he claimed to be God,
Rome didn't care about that, but because he claimed to be a king. And Rome can't have any other king but Caesar. So Jesus was crucified as an insurrectionist with a sign above his head that said king of the Jews. Now let's tie all that up into what Jesus walked into that day. Jesus walked into the temple and there he found people selling sheep and oxen and pigeons, they're required. The animals required for purification sacrifices, all right. But because not everybody has a cow or nobody has a sheep or a pigeon. So they're there, right? But where it goes off the rails, the religious leaders had leveraged this transactional, you have to do this, you have to sacrifice this, to be with God anyway, in their favor. So if you showed up at the temple and you didn't have an animal to sacrifice, you had to buy one of theirs at a very inflated price. Or if you brought your own animal to sacrifice, like here's my lamb, they say, well, it has a flaw in it. No, it's unacceptable, you have to buy one of our lambs. The other thing mentioned is Jesus walked into a place where there were money changers. In order to purchase a sacrificial animal or to give a financial offering to God, the currency of the day back then, because Rome had conquered everything, was the Roman coin.
And on every Roman coin, there was an engraving of the image of Caesar. Well, the Ten Commandments made it clear that you can have no graven image of someone claiming to be God, so you couldn't have that, at least in the temple. So when you got to the temple, you had to go up, and if you ever traveled to another country, you had to go to the exchange booth, and you had to exchange your Roman money for temple money, and guess what? The exchange rate went right into the religious leaders' pockets. But the people had no choice. They had to pay it, because this is what contractual, transactional, this is where religion always goes. I'll give you another one. Later, the religious leaders come to Jesus and say, hey, do we have to pay taxes to Caesar? And Jesus says, hey, I will like look at the Roman coin and they pulled one out of their pocket. It says who's in graven, Caesars, give to Caesar by Caesar. But Jesus is actually going, you're busted, you're in the house of God and you have a graven image in your own pocket right now, I win, right? So when Jesus walks into the, he just knows the whole place is corrupted. But he walks into the house of God,
he's not upset because out in the lobby they're selling t-shirts or books or merch, no, no, no. They were selling and denying, they were holding hostage access to God. And Jesus sees this and he knows what's going on and responds, he responds, he doesn't react. He responds accordingly. I love this part, look back, verse 15, it goes like this. And making a, I love this, and making a whip of cords, Jesus drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. Look, leave that up there, all right, all right. I've missed this for years, all right. He made a whip of cords, meaning he didn't like, I got a whip with me right now. He didn't have one with him, so he made one. He saw what's happening in his father's house and he says, okay, what am I gonna do about this? And he left the temple, this had to happen, and he went to a local store and he go, I need to make a whip, and he bought, I need a handle and I need some cords. You have three, that'd be great. And then he went over to the corner and he made a whip, and then he goes back to the temple, right, and as he walked in, he goes, I'm back, all right, very, very, all right. And he drove them out. Listen, it doesn't say he whipped people. It says he drove them out, but it's very calculated.
He knew what he was doing. Keep reading, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and he overturned their tables and he told those who sold the pigeons, and in my mind, he goes back to his poor mom and dad having to go and be exploited even to pay for his birth. He said this, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade. We'll come back to that. His disciples remembered later that it was written, here we are, zeal for your house will consume me. This is not what my house was made for. Why was Jesus upset? Because Jesus, because people had turned a house of prayer and a place where you come to connect with God into a house of trade, of transaction, a house where people were being exploited by a religion that held access to God hostage by inflating prices for mandatory sacrifices. They had no choice in their minds. It's either this or we're lost. And so we looked at this week one. The religious leaders come after him, but I wanna look at how chapter two ends. Look down at verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem, when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, look at this, all right? Many people, many believed in his name. When? When they saw the signs that he was doing.
Again, it was just like the past two weeks. People started believing in Jesus on some level because they saw him do cool stuff. Signs, miracles, which were mind-blowing. I've never seen anything like this. But what we talked about last week, every miracle that he performed was temporary. Every healing, they got sick again. Every feeding, they got hungry again. Casting out demons, they had more problems. All of his healings, all of his miracles all pointed to the greatest reason that he was here as Messiah, to save each one of us by grace through faith in who he is and what he's able to do on an eternal level in their lives. But then look at this, verse 24. And this is a little confusing, but if you dig in, you'll get it, right? But Jesus, on his part, did not, this underlying story, entrust himself to them because he knew all people and he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man. And that word entrust means this. Jesus knew that their faith wasn't reliable at this point anyway, what they were putting their faith in. It was weak and it was shallow and it was based on how they thought Jesus could change their temporary circumstances and maybe make it better. In other words, Jesus didn't need anybody
to tell him what was going on in all these people's faith. He knew. He knew exactly what was going on in each man, in each woman's heart, and what they were thinking and what they were hoping to find or get out of Jesus. Now, I want you to hold on to that because then we come to chapter three. And a lot of times when we read the Bible, in our minds, a new chapter means that the author has like, shifts gears to a new subject. And sometimes that's true, but I think, John chapter three is a continuation of that last thought. Jesus knows exactly what's going on in a person's head and heart. And we find that in a secret nighttime meeting between a religious leader named Nicodemus and Jesus. So we're gonna pick it up in John chapter three verse one. Here we go. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, that's the religious ruling party, named Nicodemus. He's a ruler, so he's way up in the hierarchy. This man, Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, we know that you're a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs, these miracles, that you do unless God is with them. So I think that Nicodemus is confused by watching all this and has some real, I think he has some real sincere questions for Jesus. But he meets him, can we meet at night in an alley?
Because if his colleagues find out that Nicodemus, one of the leaders, right, had any interest or curiosity in Jesus, they'd turn on him. So Nicodemus meets with Jesus and he opens with this, okay, Jesus, right, it's obvious that you have some connection to God, because the stuff you're doing, the miracles, the signs, right, that you've been doing, it would be impossible unless God was with you. And I really don't think, other people have done this, I don't think Nicodemus is like buttering Jesus up, like kissing up to him. See, he knows his Bible, he knows the prophecies of the Messiah, and Jesus is checking all the boxes. But remember the last verse of chapter two, Jesus knows what's really going on inside of Nicodemus, the question behind the question. Jesus knows that Nicodemus is meeting him because, I'll phrase it this way, Nicodemus has a healthy dissatisfaction with his life. That's a good place to be sometimes. A healthy dissatisfaction with, in this case, the low, contractual, manipulative, coercive level that his religion, that he leads, has sunk to, that Jesus just cleaned house on. And he sees something in Jesus, I think, he goes, you're different, you're better, like Jesus, I think you're part of something else, like another kingdom, and Nicodemus is kind of like, I might wanna be a part of that. So keep reading, verse three says this.
Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, so out of the original language, you can go born again, but the better translation is, unless one is born from above, we'll come back to that, he, she cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to Jesus, how can a man be born when he's old, like a grown-up? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus goes, no, Nicodemus, that's gross, no. Get that picture out of your head, you're welcome, right? He didn't say that, he said, basically, Jesus is going like, no, no, no, no, it's a metaphor for spiritual rebirth, like a whole new life from above in the kingdom of God, given to you by God, right? Look at this, 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 the flesh, that's his flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and what Jesus is saying, you've gotta do a lot of deep studies here, Jesus is saying that the spiritual rebirth is not based on how Nicodemus was raised, that it's not based on whether you're a Jew or not. See, most Jewish people at that time, they just assumed they're saved and all good with God, simply because I'm Jewish, I'm the chosen people, I'm part of the community, which goes all the way back to, are you in or out mentality, that dated way back
to the escape from Egypt. We're in, we're good. Along with the keeping of all those laws of cleanliness and purification, and Nicodemus leaned his whole life against being a Jew and keeping all those laws, and Jesus is saying, hey buddy, listen, even if you have all of that, if you don't have the spiritual rebirth that is necessary, you will never see, let alone enter the kingdom of God, and Nicodemus can't get there. He can't see it, he can't understand, because his whole faith journey, as many of ours has been, is based on externals. Who you are, where you come from, how you're able to keep all the religious rules and laws to stay in good standing with God. If you break them, you're out. If you fake everybody out, you're in, which is where religion always goes. So read this later, Jesus points to everything that is, in the rest of this paragraph, everything, like everyday things in nature, and the wind blowing, and history, that have all pointed to this spiritual, born from above life, that Jesus is pointing to, and offering, and finally, Jesus points to something that Nicodemus knows all about. He's known this since he was a little kid, going to synagogue school, right? Look at verse 14, Jesus says.
He says this, as Moses, or just like Moses, this is so good, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man, me, be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, the Son of Man, may have eternal life. So Nicodemus knows exactly what he's talking about. You have to go all the way back to the book of Numbers, chapter 21, let me tell you this really, really fast. The people are traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land, and they get out there in the desert, and they start whining and complaining and grumbling and questioning Moses and questioning God, why'd you bring us out here to die? It was better back in Egypt. So God sends these, this is the word, fiery serpents into the camp, and these snakes just start biting people, and they're dying everywhere, right? So the people go, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we won't do it again. So God tells Moses, here's what I want you to do, I want you to create a bronze serpent, I want you to put it on a pole, and everyone who looks on the bronze serpent will be healed. What Jesus is telling Nicodemus is this, everything in all those laws, all those symbols you read about, all those prophecies in the past from Moses on, right, were pointing to me. I will be put on a pole, a cross,
and all who look to me, all who call on my name will be saved. Sidebar on this, okay, I think it's fascinating. A snake on a pole is a symbol of healing. Does that sound familiar? Like, yeah, that's where it comes from. Every ambulance, every hospital carried that sign, and most people, as you see, they don't even know. It's a symbol of Jesus, all right? And all of this, it's blowing Nicodemus' mind. So he's like, snake on a pole, blah, blah, blah. So Jesus cuts to the chase, and here he goes, he says this, okay, I'm not talking about a snake on a pole. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, me, that whoever believes, faith, trusts in him, the son, should not perish, like be punished for the sin, but have eternal life, connection with God. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through his son. Whoever believes in him, Jesus, 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. Jesus is telling Nicodemus, a day is coming, just a few months from this moment, when salvation and fellowship and connection with God will not be based on keeping all those laws and being temporarily purified by the blood of some dead animal that you have to repeat
over and over and over. See, a day is coming when, if a person believes in me, not the blood of a goat, all right, in me, and what I have done for them on that pole, on that cross, they'll put their faith in me, they will not perish, they'll experience eternal life with God. Because Nicodemus, if God wanted people to perish, he should have stayed home. He could have stood by, and we would have destroyed ourselves, but God, because he loves us, sent Jesus on a rescue mission to save us, not condemn us. I wanna skip over to the right in your Bible, almost 2 1⁄3 of the way through to the book of Hebrews. I want you to look at Hebrews chapter 10, and most of this will make sense, but this is looking back to all the stuff that Jesus replaced. Hebrews chapter 10 says this, for in these sacrifices, all those doves, and all those sheep, and all those, whatever, right, there's a reminder of sin every year. We had to do this all the time, as a reminder. For it is impossible, listen, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, right? Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings God has not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offering and sin offerings, all the things, all the people had to show up, every time they messed up at the temple,
you've taken no pleasure. And then I said, behold, this is Jesus talking, behold, I have come to do your will, oh God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book, all the prophecies. And when he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings, all that stuff in the temple, then he added this, behold, I, Jesus, have come to do your will. He does away with the first, all that sacrificialism, in order to establish the second. And by that, will we have been sanctified, purified, decontaminated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. How many times? Once, for all, not every year, not every time you screw up. See, when Jesus came into the world, he took on flesh, like a body, and that body was offered willingly as the perfect sacrifice that doesn't just temporarily decontaminate a person or temporarily purify a person. until the next time they make a mistake or commit a sin or have a baby or whatever that. No, no, listen, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice that takes away all sin. Not just the daily unavoidable things that separate us from God, but all sin. The biggest, most disqualifying sins
that you can think of because a lot of us have done them. Murder. Later, Jesus says if you really hate somebody, kind of like murder, adultery. Jesus says, you know, if you really love somebody, it's kind of the same. Blasphemy. The things we've said about God. There is no, let me just, all right. There's no sacrifice that you could give. No act of contrition, I'm so sorry. Anything you could do to pay back that a person could do, like we could do, to make things right. God, right? There's just nothing we can do to make things right with God and receive grace and forgiveness. There's no, only the body of Jesus sacrificed once for all can do that. I don't care how sorry you are. I don't care if you punished yourself for all of your life. Like, hey, I've gotta deny myself and live a horrible life because years ago, I did this and maybe that will make up. I've done 1,000 good things for that one thing. It doesn't matter. Nothing can do what only Jesus can do. So I'm gonna ask you this.
Big question. Are you saved? Have you been, really, all right. You know, I think so. I'd lean into this. Have you been forgiven for every sin, past, present, and future? Can you, let me ask you, can you say without reservation, you have a relationship with God, that your greatest accomplishments can't make it better with God and your biggest failures cannot touch or separate you from God? You and God are one. You're inseparable. Or as Paul writes later, he says, is your life hidden in Christ with God? And he goes on to say, and when Christ appears, you'll be with him. Can you say that? Do you have confidence in that? I'm a Christ. And if your answer is yes, awesome. What are you basing that on? Because this is what I hear. You know, I just try to be a good person. You know, my dad did his best. I wasn't perfect, but I was a good person. I was better than most people, right?
Not enough. It's not enough. I don't know how good you think you are or what you think you've done that's offset the past. It's not how it works. We are saved by grace, a gift, alone, through faith in Jesus and who he is and what he did. Billy Graham, probably the greatest evangelist of our lifetime, maybe in the last several hundred years, he preached John 3, 16 to over a billion people in his lifetime. He'd stand up there in a stadium and go, hey, you're a sinner. You know that. And God is holy. And faith in Jesus is the only way to be saved, no matter who you are or what you have done. Jesus loves you and offers you salvation today. I'm not talking making a contract or a deal. No, if you, I'm not talking about like if you behave. I'm not saying like Jesus will forgive your sins if you promise you'll try harder, if you promise to never do that again. No, no, no, no. And how about, again, a lot of us are really into this. I'm punishing myself. I'm trying to do 1,000 good things to offset my bad things. It won't work. No, it comes down to this. I put my faith in Christ alone
to do what only he can do for me, save me. And then from the inside out, he is changing me. Not in order to save me, but because I am now saved, I have a whole new life. Now, please don't ask God for a second chance. You need something better than that because you'll blow the second one, right? What you need is a whole new life from above. I need to be born again. I need to be born from above. We're gonna sing a worship song before we do that. I just wanna stand up and I'm gonna pray a prayer. And I can't, I can give you wording to it. I can't pray it for you. I'm not a priest that can intervene for you. I can't do this instead of you, but this is your chance. Again, all of our campuses, let's stand up together. But if you've never prayed this prayer before, or it's been a long time and you need to be reminded of this, I invite you to do that. And at the end of our service, I gotta unpack what just happened in my heart, something that's different in my heart. There'll be people in front of all of our campuses that'd love to unpack that with you. Let's have a conversation with God, all right? So here we go, ready? So Father,
I know who I am, what I am. And I've got a lot of people faked out and I keep on a good face or On the flip side of that, my screw ups and my sin are out there in the open and everybody knows who I am and what I have done, either way. I come to you right now, God, saying, I need you. I have fallen so far short. Sometimes I wanna make excuses and say I didn't mean to, but God, a lot of times I was like, I know what God wants me to do and I'm not gonna screw it, I'm not gonna do it, I'm gonna do this other thing. And that's the definition of sin. And it separates us from you. But whatever it is that we point to and go on, that's gotta separate me from God. Everything from murder or adultery or lying or stealing, anything that we say, I can't be with God because of that, whatever that is, that is exactly why you went to the cross, for that. He looked at you in the middle of that and says, while Jim is doing that, well, whoever's doing that, he's gonna need me someday. And at just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly before we became God. He was ready, everything is ready in this moment to say, come to me, put your faith in me and what I did on the cross and I'll pay for everything. And just walk with me from now on. So God, if there's any man or woman listening to my voice
right now that has that request of you, God, will you forgive my sin? Will you make me your son and daughter? Can I have connection with you? Can I have a fellowship with you? Can I have your spirit come and live in me? And the way that's possible is I put my faith and trust in Jesus is your son and what he did on the cross. Doesn't just pay for all the sin of the world, it pays for mine. And I need that in this moment right now. So in this moment, I also ask for it. I also receive it. This is the hardest part. I receive your grace. I receive your forgiveness. I receive your love. I receive your spirit in this moment right now. I don't just believe it, I receive it. I wanna step into that new life. I wanna step into that kingdom. And God, I pray for your spirit right now that you would just whisper to every heart that's asking you for that request, it is done, it is finished, you're forgiven. You're my child. And when we open our eyes, we just see the world different. Because everything is different because we're no longer under condemnation. Oh, we got some consequences we gotta deal with,
but ultimately, we don't have condemnation. We don't have to carry this guilt and shame anymore. All those things are just meant to get our attention. They were not meant to be carried. And so God, we come to you right now. We receive your grace, we receive your faith in your son, Jesus. We're your children, in Jesus' name, I pray, amen, amen. ♪ Maybe we've made this complicated ♪ ♪ More than it was ever meant to be ♪ ♪ Hasn't it always been about the things we do? ♪ ♪ The same thing ♪ ♪ Lord, bring us back to simple things ♪ ♪ You be the center of it all ♪ ♪ My heart belongs to you, my savior all in all ♪ ♪ You're the one I hold on to ♪ ♪ For the beauty of your name, my soul will live to say ♪ ♪ Jesus, I love you ♪ ♪ Teach us to discern the moment when to serve ♪ ♪ And when to sit here at your feet ♪ ♪ Keep us awake to what's important ♪ ♪ Just like Mary chose the better thing for you ♪ ♪ You are the center of it all ♪ ♪ My heart belongs to you, my savior all in all ♪ ♪ You're the one I hold on to ♪ ♪ For the beauty of your name, my soul will live to say ♪ ♪ Jesus, I love you, yes you are, oh you are the center of it all ♪ ♪ My heart belongs to you, my savior all in all ♪ ♪ My Savior all in all ♪ ♪ You're the one I hold on to ♪
♪ For the beauty of your name ♪ ♪ My soul will live to say ♪ ♪ Jesus I love you ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you Jesus I love you ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you yeah ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you Jesus ♪ ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪ ♪ For your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ And if my days tell a story let it be ♪ ♪ Of your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ Sing that out. ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪ ♪ For your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ And if my days tell a story let it be ♪ ♪ Of your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪ ♪ For your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ And if my days tell a story let it be ♪ ♪ Of your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪ ♪ For your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you Jesus I love you ♪ ♪ Yeah oh how I love you Jesus you're my whole life ♪ ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪ ♪ Everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ And if my days tell a story let it be ♪ ♪ Of your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ My whole life for your glory my whole life for your glory ♪
♪ Everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ And if my days tell a story let it be ♪ ♪ Of your only everything for the honor of your name ♪ ♪ Oh how I love you yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah oh how I love you Jesus you're my whole life for your glory ♪ Well, amen. Church, thank you so much for joining us this weekend. If you would love prayer, we have a great team down front that would love to pray with you. Have a great weekend and we'll see you next Sunday. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪
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