Pastor Jerry Zepnick's sermon, titled 'God’s Sovereignty, Our Responsibility', focuses on John 3:1-15, a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. The sermon delves into the concept of being 'born again' as an essential requirement for entering the Kingdom of God. Zepnick emphasizes that salvation is not achieved through human merit, religious rituals, or moral actions, but solely through faith in Jesus Christ and being born of the Spirit. He highlights the insufficiency of human efforts and the necessity of divine intervention in achieving salvation. The sermon also touches on the balance between God's sovereignty and human responsibility, stressing that while salvation is a gift from God, individuals must respond in faith and belief. Using the analogy of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, Zepnick illustrates the importance of looking to Christ for redemption. He concludes by urging listeners to examine their own spiritual state and ensure they are truly 'born again'.

Let's pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Will be in the book of John, John 3.

And we're going to be here for a while. Not necessarily today. I don't plan on preaching until 3 o'clock. Maybe 2 o'clock, 1.45, something like that. But this is just so heavy and rich and sound fundamental Christian doctrine that we can't really afford to just kind of skip through this and move on to the next.

And so, it's so extremely important. I'm going to be parking in this chapter for sure for quite some time, if it's up to me anyhow. So, I would like to read chapter 1-15. I'm going to be preaching on primarily 1-15 today, but it's really hard to stay in that when This is a discourse between Jesus Christ and Nicodemus. It goes deeper and wider than any one few verses can really expose.

And so, we'll be kind of moving through this and then going back over and moving through it as we go. So I'm really excited for this. This text today is powerful. And it's leading up to the most popular Bible verse in the world. You see it at all the sporting events and whatnot, John 3.16.

And so we're leading up to that. Then we're going to engulf into that next week. But today, I really want to get a picture of what is God's plan for mankind in salvation, in redemption, through His Son Jesus Christ. And so let's read chapter 3 verses 1-15. 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 you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, 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 is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, most assuredly, 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 is flesh, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the 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 the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit, Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?

Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven, but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him shan't perish but have eternal life." Father, we thank You this morning, Lord God, that You've laid this text before us, that You have shown us, You have told us, You have given us pictures a child can understand, Lord God, that we must be born again, Lord God, and how it works. Father, we thank You for Your love and Your care over us.

I pray for our hearts today, Lord, wherever we are, that You can do a work in us, Lord, through the power of Your Word and through this text, Lord, laying in front of us these facts that You've given us, these commands that we must be, not we might be. Lord, I thank You for this day and I pray for Your Spirit to do work in all of our hearts today in Jesus' name, Amen. So the importance of this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is I think overlooked for the most part, but it's the most important chapter or text or conversation in redemptive dialogue, not just like in the book of John, and not like in the Bible, but in world history. This conversation that we're eavesdropping in on this morning and we've been for a few weeks now, there's nothing more important than this. And so, I want us to get a clear picture of the ramifications of this.

The fallout from what is the command of Jesus that says you must be born again. And I can't be born again because I go to church every day. I can't be born again because my parents are good people. I can't be born again because I pray and I have a knowledge of the Word of God. I can't be born again because I pray and I have a knowledge of the Word of God.

I can't be born again because all my doctrine is right. I can only be born again in Christ by dying to myself, by believing in Him and submitting my entire life to Jesus Christ. And so Nicodemus in this text today, He's called the teacher in Israel. That doesn't mean he is a teacher. It doesn't mean he is some teacher.

He is the teacher in Israel. He's the top dude. This guy knows a lot. And so the teacher in Israel, he's very influential and he's very elevated Jew. He is a very looked up to, important celebrity almost of the Jews in Israel.

And what we have here is a picture of Jesus sitting down with this guy. And Jesus as the evangelist speaking to Nicodemus, who is a lost man, who is the subject of the evangelism of Christ in this text today. And so, at the same time that Nicodemus is the subject of the evangelism of Nicodemus, so are we this morning. Okay? We all are, starting with me, we're all subject to the commands of Scripture, and we're all subject to submission to Scripture, and to observe and to test our own salvation, our own walk with Christ, not just when we feel it, or feel like it, but all the time.

And so this is speaking to all of us. And so it seems at this point in time that it is bouncing off of Nicodemus. And maybe it is off of you as well. I know it bounced off of me for a long time. My sister-in-law came back from college and she wanted to give the Gospel.

She got saved and I didn't want to hear it. I didn't like what she had to say and I really didn't like her much either. And God did a work. It's a work that Christ did. And so, what we see here...

Jesus is talking to a lost sinner in this text today. And Nicodemus wants to have the security of eternal life. He is seeking. If nothing else, he wants to know how he can be. And he's at a point in his life, he's reached the top.

And now there's this new guy, this new young rabbi that comes in and he is what everybody is looking to and listening to. And he is the hot item. And so Nicodemus observes him, he watches him, and he concludes that this man is sent from God. He comes up with that right conclusion at least, that this man is sent from God. He comes up with that right conclusion at least, that this man is sent from God.

And he hopes that Christ can give him an answer to this anxiety in his heart, this anxiety in his own life, that having been through how much, that he can still at least maybe learn more. Nicodemus is at a place where he knows that He's not the end. And He's seen enough in Christ to make Him wonder, what? What is this about? What am I missing in this?

And that has to happen to us as well. That as much as we might be good people, that there's got to be a point in our life where we come to Christ and we say, what? What am I missing? I've seen your miracles, and I've seen what you do. Now, He's not walking the earth with us today physically, but we see His miracles.

I see His miracles in people that He redeems. I've seen them in my own heart and life. And I've seen miracles of people living for themselves in sin, and they get redeemed. They get saved and they're walking the opposite way. We see these miracles.

And at one point, I had to ask, Okay, what? Well, Nicodemus has to ask, what? That Jesus can tell him what he needs to know. And so, he does come to Jesus at night, and his seriousness of his own situation shows. He carves out time.

He goes to speak to Jesus at night. He doesn't have malicious intentions or he'd have a group with him so he could record what was going on. And so he goes at night and he sits down with Jesus. And that's the first thing, seeking. Nicodemus is seeking.

We need to seek. If we want salvation, if we want someone to get saved, we need to tell them to seek. We need to assist them in seeking the truth. And so it's showing his seriousness, his desperation. And as we talked a couple weeks ago in verses 24 and 25 of chapter 2, it tells us that Jesus knows the heart of man.

Jesus knowing the heart of man. And so Jesus knows Nicodemus is his aching heart. He sees right through him. And he interrupts him. He tells him something because in the beginning of 3, he came to Jesus by night and said, 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.

And Jesus answered and said to him, well thank You, I know, I try hard and I'm a pretty important guy. I don't know if you know or not, but I'm big stuff, okay? So step back and listen to me from now on. Tell all your peers this. No, he doesn't do that.

He cuts him off and he says immediately, unless a man be born again, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That's the first thing he says. He cuts him off. He interrupts him. And he says truly, truly, he says most assuredly I say to you, Unless one is born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.

So everything you are Nicodemus, everything you have ever done, your Jewishness, your birthright, your Fancy robes and your elite hat, they've got nothing to do with salvation. You can do all this work and you can wear all these right clothes and you can be a good person from the beginning of your life to the end and go to hell. That's what he's telling him. And he's telling him, unless you are born again, and I have to emphasize that for everyone here and everyone listening, if you have never been born again, if you don't know that you've been born again, you can know, And you need to take care of this. Because what he's telling Nicodemus that this is grave consequences.

It's eternity in the balance. This is heaven or this is hell. You can't afford to get this wrong. This is a point that we can't walk past. We can't walk past it, oh, well, a rich man and a camel.

Okay, Well, whatever. Well, Noah built an ark. That might be a story or a fable or something. No, you cannot walk past this. You cannot put this behind you because you're a good person or because you know enough.

So The first thing Jesus tells him is that it's not something that you can do. It isn't something that you can do. And He told him in verse 3 and in verse 5, most assuredly I say to you unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He's trying to tell Nicodemus in terms that his mind can wrap around. He speaks to us in children's language because he loves us and he wants us to redeem.

And so, are we listening this morning? I struggled through this text for quite some time. So he's telling him that everything you've done, everything that you are, it does not make any contribution to you being in the Kingdom of God. It means absolutely nothing. He tells him you must be born again.

Nothing else matters. So, just as we make no contribution at all to our physical birth, I did nothing for mine. I don't remember it. And I was just, I remember it at like three or four years old maybe is what I remember life. I didn't do anything for that.

In the same way, he uses this analogy because there's nothing we do. It's the work of God. And so Today, I want to try to reconcile in our own lives and hearts God's sovereignty and our responsibility kind of where this comes together. Because there's no more important question than how can I be born again? It's important and there's eternal consequences.

And so, Jesus talks about the wind itself and the fact that God controls it. And contrary to everything that I've ever done in my life, all my righteousness is as filthy rags. So when I throw my righteousness at the feet of Jesus, I'm throwing filthy rags down there, and it doesn't look too good. Martin Luther is quoted as saying the most damnable and persineous heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God. And that's the bottom line fact.

There's nothing that any of us have ever done. So these words, they threw Nicodemus for a loop. He didn't understand it. He didn't get it, but he didn't want to get it either. He had grown up and he had put his entire life into his own merit, his own efforts.

And so this is no different than all false religions that are built on man's experience, built on a person and how many cults there are in the world today that are built on a man's experience, an apparition of Mary. And so we go and we build a shrine. So we can all go over there and we can pray to her for some special intervention to God. And it's apostasy is all it really is. Like all false religion, it's built on ritual, morality, tradition, human achievement.

And in this case, it's based on apostate Judaism. What was founded by God and given as a system for them to worship God, they turned it around and they made it about themselves over the course of time, of course. Not that it takes time, But when Jesus said, it's something that you can't do, Nicodemus. You can't do this. You must be born again.

See, the fact with this that we need to understand, the first point is that to be born again, we've got to be confronted with our own sin. He's telling them you must be born again. Well, you wouldn't need to. It's said that there's two ways to get to heaven. One is to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

The second one is to live a life without sin. We're born unto sin, so that's not going to work. And so, this seems like a situation that is over the top for Nicodemus. When Jesus says that it's something you can't do, You must be born again. And so what we see is the fact that we're all born spiritually dead.

That there's not one person on this planet. It says in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6, 23. For the wages of that sin is death. So what don't we get about this?

We're all born on the sin, and the wages of that sin are death. We don't stand a chance on our own. And so this idea of being good enough or you need to do something to be saved, this seems like a terrible, fearful way to go out and evangelize people. That you need to do this or that. Hey, you can do this or you can do that.

Hey, walk the aisle and then say a prayer or speak in tongues, because if you don't speak in tongues, you're not born again. You're not born again until you've been slain in the Spirit and you can flop around on the floor. We need to see that we need to be born again. There's nothing that we can do to earn that merit. And so this early idea of doing something to be born again or telling people they need to do something is a terrible way to evangelize.

We need to double check ourselves on that. And another thing is how we were evangelized. How were we evangelized? Because everything that we are and do and say has got to be held to the light of Scripture, not according to what we've been taught or what we think in our minds. It's got to be held to the light of Scripture.

Not according to what we've been taught or what we think in our minds. It's got to be held to the light and the truths of Scripture. So if you're evangelized or if I was evangelized by a different means than having to be just born again. That you need to do something. I would ask that you seek and search that and weed that out of your walk.

And so, this early text is to emphasize the reality that we cannot make a contribution to this, to our salvation, religion or morality. They do absolutely nothing. And I've seen some amazing structures that are built to worship God and to reflect what would really, honestly, be an Old Testament temple. But what it is is asking something that comes to us from God, from His sovereign power. And so, George Whitefield said, what?

Get to heaven on my own merit? I should soon climb to the moon on a rope made of sand. And I know I've used that one before, but there's a couple new faces in. And this concept of us not being able to earn our own salvation, it goes way back. The reality of it, it's historic.

It goes way back. And The problem is that in American and world Christianity, I'll call it, is that it has taken a slip. It has gone by the wayside because people want to be able to do things. And the truth and the commands of the Gospel and the command that you must be born again is going by the wayside because there's got to be more comfortable ways for this. So in modern evangelizing, You can't tell a person that you've got to be born again or you're going to spend an eternity in a literal hell.

Okay, that's not really quite polite enough. So, we have to be careful on how we compromise or that we don't compromise the Word of God. And so, this text is to emphasize that. This is Jesus Christ, our Savior, making a command. It's not an option.

And if you have not followed this command, then you are not born again and you will not see the Kingdom of God. You're in a bad place, I'll say. Romans 3.20 says, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." So you're asking something impossible. This is like a camel through the eye of a needle thing. And when you look at Luke 18.25, the camel through the eye of the needle.

The fact is that it says that it's easier for a rich man for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. And this is wider than what we see at first. And I've heard it say, well the needle, that was a needle gate where it's just a low gate and the camel could pass through but he had to get on his knees. No, that's not the point. The eye of a needle is a needle.

And a camel, not that you could put the camel in a blender and shoot it through that eye of the needle, but that the camel had to pass through, It had to walk through the eye of the needle. This is impossible. Okay, it is impossible. Now, when we look at what constitutes a rich man, it doesn't necessarily mean a person that has great wealth. Because it's different all over the planet.

It's a person that in their own heart and life, they believe that they have their own merit to get to the Kingdom of Heaven. That they believe that they have enough morality in them to walk through the gates. And this is not the case. And so, Jesus said this is a massive shift in the thinking of Nicodemus. And this is why Jesus said, truly, truly, certainly, without a doubt, and then He asked him, how can you be a spiritual leader?

He should have known this. And when we study the Word of God, we're given the full counsel of the Word. We have an unfair advantage, to be honest with you. But it's a camel through the needle. But this shift that Nicodemus has, he can't grasp it.

It's all over the Old Testament that this is going to happen. It's in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. It's all over. And Nicodemus knows that he's not redeemed in that way. He knows that he's done a lot of works.

And he knows that he's studied his entire life to learn Scripture and to know what the Kingdom of Heaven is, what the Kingdom of God is. And he has a lot of faith that his works are going to do it, but he's getting to that point and he's got to ask. That's why he met with Christ. And now he hears that he can't do anything about it. He can't do anything about it.

Jesus stops this sinner in his tracks the same way that he stopped this sinner in his tracks when he thought he was good enough. He stops Nicodemus in his tracks and he's stumped. He's born again? The text alludes to the new birth five times in verses 1-10. And 11 times it talks about belief in verses 11-20.

But this has been a long debated and largely been a dividing point in church history. They've labeled them all out. And there's people that stand on both sides. Churches take hard stands on this. And It's my work.

It's God's work. It's Calvinism. It's Arminianism. You know what it is? It's the Word of God-ism.

And we need to walk in that. And as we do that, we need to be faithful to this and the Word of God. And here, it's just so obvious that there's nothing that we can do. And so, this text alludes to the new birth and to the word belief, but it's been so long debated. And that's why I wanted to hit on this today.

God's sovereignty versus our responsibility. And so the first thing is that we have to be confronted of our own sin. And our walk in Christ and our salvation is based on and founded on the reality that the very repentance that we have is a gift from God in the first place. The repentance that He gives us is Him allowing us to see the sin in our own life that separates us from a holy God. And that's so important for us to get that understanding because evangelism today doesn't give us that reality.

It says, hey, do you want to go to heaven? Duh. Yeah. Well, then Let's repeat this prayer after me and you'll spend forever in Heaven. Okay?

Well, that's not the case. Hell is full of people that have professed Christ. But believing in Him is different than that. The human responsibility, it's in John 1-12, but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. Receiving Him is receiving the Holy Spirit inside of your body.

It is death to yourself, and it is receiving Him inside of you. You are not yours anymore. This is the point of receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior. And so, you are responsible. A great preacher once said, our response is our responsibility.

And this is the bottom line. We need to respond. We're required to respond. And so we're required to believe what God has done in Christ on our behalf for our salvation. Ephesians 2.10 says, "...For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

And so, this is us being required to believe what God has done in Christ for our own salvation. And so verse 11 is speaking to the ignorance of Nicodemus. He's saying we is plural, the Godhead. But verse 11 says, Most assuredly I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. We have a witness here.

Christ is telling him, I am the everlasting living God of the universe. You plan on going to the Kingdom of God someday? I am the King of that Kingdom is what He's telling Him. I am that. And so Jesus is telling Him that this is what I have experienced.

This is not secondhand. He's telling Him that I've done this first hand. That He has been. He has come down. Then he said, you plural, the Pharisees, the nation, the world, that reject this.

You do not believe. And what this tells us is that the important thing is we have to see our sin. But believe! The barrier between Nicodemus, his heart, and salvation, redemption, being born again, there's a barrier, there's a block wall there that it can't get through. That is belief.

He can't believe. And so, John in chapter 1, 10, 11, he said, he was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. It makes me want to cry because that was me at a time. And how much I owe Him, I'll never be able to repay.

This conversation was likely lasted quite some time. And we're just hearing what is the clearest voice ever to evangelize a human being ever. The clearest voice ever talking to Nicodemus. And he's telling him that it's not a matter of what you have done or what you can do, but of divine miracle. John 8.38 says, I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your Father.

This is an obvious display of His deity. But do you see that This is eternal truth that he's telling Nicodemus. And he doesn't accept it yet. He's not done. But again, I want to stress the point and the reality that Nicodemus is seeking.

He's not sitting back in the temple plotting to get rid of Jesus. He doesn't know. And he is in a house sitting with Jesus asking him questions at no small risk to himself. But Nicodemus, he doesn't accept this idea of natural sin, of sinfulness. And he's got the Old Testament accounts.

And when you look at the biblical history of sin in people, you look at Noah and the ark. God flooded the earth because the sin was so deep. And He saved Noah and his family. And in God's grace and mercy, He flooded the earth, but He kept this family, His children, His remnant, to go forward. And when that happened, the floodwaters receded.

He planted a vineyard. They squashed the grapes. They made wine. Noah got drunk and he defiled the living God. That didn't take long, did it?

And this is what I'm talking about. Israel being delivered from Egypt. God in His grace and mercy, through miracles, He took His people out of Egypt and He walked them through the desert and He rung them through the wringer for 40 years. And when they get on the other side, Moses goes up on the mountain to get the Ten Commandments and the people build a golden calf. And they start to worship that.

He sees, He knows the sinfulness of man. He should have seen His own and known that. And so if Nicodemus, the most learned man, truly seeking the truth, cannot believe, the greatest spiritual teacher at the time, don't be surprised when people don't listen to you. Sometimes the more education you've got, the harder it is to get through to a person. And so it turns his theology sideways.

And he cannot process it. And so, now Jesus points out His ignorance. His background didn't prep Him for this. He is the one that all the Pharisees come to, that all the people come to for answers to spiritual matters. They all lift Him up.

He's the guide to go to for all the answers related to their religion. And verse 12 seems like it's pointless to go any further with you is Jesus' point. He says, if I told you earthly things and you do not believe. How will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? I gave you a simple earthly analysis.

You don't see it. How can I go any further? How can I possibly go deeper? How can I talk about predestination? How can I talk about the glories of God and how they work in salvation if you can't get just this basic fundamental stuff?

So Nicodemus is an unbeliever and he's locked in ignorance. That's one thing that we have to remember in life, in our ministries that God places us in. That we cannot expect saved behavior from unsaved people. Okay? If a person is behaving unsaved, well, we have to make an assumption.

But we cannot expect saved behavior from unsaved people. I wasted a lot of time in that ballpark, I'll say. So Nicodemus is locked in his ignorance and unbelievers will misquote Scripture repeatedly. I have a brother that's a real learned Catholic. And He is said to have professed to read the Bible seven times over.

And he is still caught and trapped in his religiosity and the works of that. And You can know everything. You can have it all in your head. If it doesn't make that 18 inches to the heart, it really doesn't do a bit of good. And so 1 Corinthians 2.14, "...but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.

For they are foolishness to Him, nor can He know them, because they are spiritually discerned." See, this is salvation being of God and not from us, because we cannot discern spiritually without the Holy Spirit in our hearts. This is not our work. This is God's work. There is a guy by the name of and maybe people have heard of him, Charles Templeton. He was one of the co-founders of Youth for Christ along with Billy Graham.

Said to be a great mind, great preacher. He was an evangelist early on. And He did a lot of amazing works and he knew a lot. People loved to listen to him. And he was targeted for success.

He was targeted for success. But he slowly fell from Scripture. He started to stray from Scripture. And it got to a point where they had to discontinue association with Him. And the end of it was a book that he wrote and it's called Farewell to God.

He ended up in Canada being a journalist. And that was the end of him. See, the Holy Spirit didn't work in the man's heart. You don't have the work of God show you and to interpret. And all of these will sooner or later fall out.

And so, we can do nothing without the Holy Spirit in reading and interpreting the Bible. And that's my point when I talk about my brother. He can read it front to back seven times including the books that the Catholics wrongfully add in. But this guy, his book attacks the authority of Scripture, this Charles Templeton. And so this right here is the legacy of ignorance and unbelief.

This is the end of it. This is the legacy of the knowledge kind of a guy. And so, we need more than the law. We need more than knowledge. We need to be born again.

There is no other way. It's our only hope. It's the new birth. And so this is the same as anywhere. This is the universities that used to be schools of divinity, and now they're a mockery.

This is all the universities. This is even seminaries. This is churches today. And Jesus saying to Nicodemus, I'm not going to go any deeper than this. You don't get this.

I told you enough. Now you can mull on that maybe, But it's like he's talking to a brick. And in verse 13, it says, no one has ascended to heaven, but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man, who is in heaven. I just love this analogy because it goes on and it says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. But verse 13 is believe.

All he can do is believe. And for the time he's locked in unbelief, And what we're talking about is sole fide, which is faith alone, which is a biblical doctrine that was founded by Jesus Christ, not the Reformers. The reformers have taken it and put it in, which is rightfully so. But this is Latin for faith alone. And this comes from Jesus.

So Jesus is telling him to be born again. And he's saying nobody has ascended into heaven. Nobody has ascended into heaven and then come down. Don't fool yourself into believing that you can live in this fantasy world and these accounts that all these books are written and stuff of people that came back from heaven, that they died and they saw this great light and they saw this person talking to them and such. I just beg you to not listen to these things.

And don't place your theology or your doctrine on this nonsensical balderdash. That's a Josh terminology. And so, This is not what... People don't go to heaven and then come back. When I go to heaven, I don't want to come back.

I don't care what you offer. I ain't coming down. I am not coming back. The only one who came down from Heaven is Jesus. And so John 6.33 says, For the bread of God is He who comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.

See, the message I bring is that salvation is a gift from God and that God gives according to His will and all you can do is believe. You've got to repent and believe. You've got to receive that. Acts 16, 31. So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household.

And so salvation is received by the sinner believing. And you're not going to believe without repenting for the sin. You've got to see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a greater understanding of two points. The holiness of God. The perfect, pure holiness of God.

And the sinfulness of mankind. The fact that we don't stand a chance. That's the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that the only bridge is His Son Jesus Christ and His blood on the cross. And so, salvation is received by the sinner believing. John 6.51 says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." It's not talking about universalism that everybody's going to heaven that's in the world because Christ died. It's those who receive Him. You'll find more of this. And I'm just scratching the surface in John 6.38, 8.42, 13.3, 16.28, 17.5.

He is the only heavenly source of heavenly truth. There is none other. And so Nicodemus is speaking to an eternal being in Christ who is telling him, don't believe anything else. I am the Christ. Don't believe anything else.

You need to be born again. And he's saying I have come from heaven with the truth. No one else ever has. Galatians 1, 8. But even if we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." See, it's exclusive.

It's exclusive. You can't afford to be narrow-minded when it comes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There's not many ways. There's not many Gospels. There's one Gospel, and it's very specific.

There are not many. And so, this is salvation. This is in Christ alone. And it's either from Christ or it's from Satan. There is no in-between.

You can listen to people on the radio or a sermon online and They'll take the Word of God and it sounds good, but they'll mix some things in on it. And it's just not the truth. It's just not hitting the ball out of the park. So it's either from Christ or it's from the devil. It's one or the other.

And so, the Gospel in all its glory, in all of its richness, in all of its beauty is the only truth. There's one way. There's not many. The only message come down from Heaven. And our only hope of redemption is Jesus Christ come down from Heaven.

That is our only hope. And then in verse 14, it says, as Moses did, elevate him above others. And 14, I really like that text. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." This is a truth. This Son of Man must be lifted up.

Moses did this. Elevate Him above all others. The source of truth, the source of light. John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Acts 412, nor is there salvation at any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." This is the narrow mindedness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the narrow path that we're talking about. And so, he's lifted up. I should probably continue on here next week, but there's so many parallels, the reference to the serpent being lifted up in the desert. And this is Numbers 21, 8, and 9.

It says, Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a brown serpent and put it on a pole. And so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the brown serpent, he lived. He lived. I feel like I shouldn't have to really go through that, but I'm going to.

The reality of this is that the sin in people, We've all been bitten by the serpent. Am I wrong? We all have sinned, remember? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all have the venom of the serpent running through our veins.

There's not one of us that ever was born without it. There's one inoculation for it that is to be born again. And without it, we don't stand a chance. And so this is the source of it. And we don't stand a chance.

We were born under sin, and as sure as sparks fly upward, I can't do enough good works to get rid of my sin. And then there's also the analogy of they needed to look up to that serpent on a pole. This bronze serpent. They needed to look up at it. We need to look to Christ.

You know how easy it would be? You get bit by a snake, by a poisonous serpent, and the first thing you want to do is look down. You want to find that snake? You want to kill it? You want to run around and scream for help.

And the more you run around, the more that venom gets through your system, the worse off you are, the faster you're going to die. And you want to run around. You want to have somebody maybe cut that thing open and suck the venom out of there for you. And you... It's not in our nature to just calm down and look up.

And see and be saved. That's not in our nature, and that's what we're called to do. In our busy lives, and with everything that we have going on, we are called to look up. We don't stand a chance of salvation without looking to the risen Christ, the crucified Christ. It can be either.

But looking up to Him, the same way the children of Israel could look up and be healed. So, in the same way we need to look up to Christ, elevate Him. It is an individual thing. It's not a corporate thing. Salvation is right here.

And the last verse, I want to put in here something that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. And this was Isaiah 45-22, probably one of my favorite catch verses in the whole Word of God. And that is it says, look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other." We need to just look up. There he is. We don't look to ourselves.

We don't look to our good works. We don't look to what we can do. We look. A child can look. A poor man can look.

Anyone can look. And so in verse 15, it reads that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the end of it. This is the pinnacle of this text right here today that no different than what we had talked about, but the foundation of this whole text, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. You may have eternal life.

So this is the first of 17 references to eternal life in John's Gospel. This is all that we as sinners can do is look to Him. Look to Him. Look to Him and be saved. Aside from Him, there is no life at all.

We see this text right here. Aside from Him, we don't have life. And my question for you this morning is, not have you said a prayer, not are you a Christian. It's the same as what I said last week. Have you been born again?

Have you been born again? Is Christ your everything? Have you died to yourself? Is your heart of stone now a heart of flesh? Because we don't have the option of saying, you know what, I'll take care of that someday.

I think so right now, but I'll take care of that someday. I think so right now, but I'll take care of that someday. No, right here. Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, unless one is born again, are you born again? That is the question this morning.

Have you died to yourself? Lord, we thank you for your word this morning. I pray for our hearts, Father. As we walk through this text, and you have blessed us so greatly with this conversation that you had with this man. Lord, help us peel our blinders off to see our own selves, Lord God, in this conversation.

Help us, Father God, to see Your love and Your grace in all of this. Your love so deep for us that You sent Your Son down, Lord. Help us not to overlook this, Lord God. Help us not to put off Your greatest gift of all. I pray for boldness, Lord God, to walk according to Your will as we walk through our lives, Lord.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.