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Good morning my “Waking with Jesus” friends,
Yesterday was a Sunday unlike any in recent history in most of the world. Churches were closed! Most people attended their church from their own homes, via the internet or watched a service on TV. Our world is rapidly changing isn’t it? Around the world city streets are empty of traffic, stores empty of customers, schools empty of children, and hospitals filled to overflowing!
May I offer you Psalm 143 today as another anchor of hope? You’ll see it’s a prayer of David, at a time where David is nearly desperate for God’s help:
“O LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in Your faithfulness and righteousness, come to my relief. . .” (Ps. 143:1) Do you hear David’s confidence that God is holy and reliable, dependable? Do you know and trust this Holy God?
“The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he make me dwell in darkness like those long dead. So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed.” Does that sound like many people in our world today and the enemy is Coronavirus COVID-19, causing worry, fear, panic, desperation that is sweeping across nations? What is the condition of YOUR heart today my friends?
“I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all Your works and consider what Your hands have done. I spread out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for YOU like a parched land. Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails.” (Ps. 143:5-7) David was able to look back on the heritage of his ancestors, the Hebrew people and all the stories he’d heard since his boyhood, of God’s great deliverance of the family of Jacob through Joseph’s miraculous rise to be Prime Minister of Egypt in a time of famine; then with Moses, the slaves’ deliverance from Egypt through the plagues of the Exodus; then God providing food and water for more than 1 million people in the desert for 40 years.
With Joshua the crossing of the Jordan on dry land and conquering the promised land. With Samuel, God’s defeat of the Philistines… oh so many stories. But David also had some wonderful stories of his own with God’s majestic miracles. Do you my friends? As you look back in your family heritage and over your own life, do you have miraculous stories of God’s great work in your life that you can celebrate today? Take a moment now and put down on paper some of those great God stories in the story of your life:
David continues in his prayer…“Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in YOU. Show me the way I should go, for to YOU I lift up my soul…Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground. For Your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life…” (Ps. 143:8,10) Oh what a great prayer, Psalm 143!
Is this your prayer today my friends, regardless of where you live and what the exact situation in your city is? Can you pray this prayer with confidence that you and Jesus have a strong relationship? Is your trust solidly rooted in God’s Word the Bible; God’s Son Jesus Christ; and the work of the Holy Spirit of God in your life?
I urge you to memorize these few lines, write them down on a card, keep it visible and handy today and this week. Say it often and watch God calm your heart and draw you to Himself, even as the news again today and this week will be earth shaking, mind blowing and for some people, especially those who have no relationship with God… just simply terrifying. I suggest we pray right now for a moment before rejoining our journey to Easter.
Now let’s rejoin Jesus and the five men who have been spending the last several days with Him first at a wedding in Cana, then down in Jerusalem for Passover. John chapter 3 is perhaps one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. Nicodemus, a religious leader, a Pharisee has a conversation with Jesus that includes the most famous thing Jesus ever said, and has been repeated in more different, global, languages than perhaps any statement ever uttered by any person.
Let’s begin reading in John 2:23 “Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs He was doing and believed in His name.” John gives us no specifics about what miraculous things, other than what we saw in vs. 14-23 as Jesus drove out the money changers from the Temple and said “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” Thereby claiming God was His Father! Undoubtedly there were other miracles Jesus must have done in those few days, but John does not give us any account of them.
However, in John 3 we meet Nicodemus, “a Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council.” Thus a well educated man and one of significant authority and respect. Notice please that Nicodemus came to find Jesus at night, we presume seeking a private conversation. Do you see how Nicodemus speaks to Jesus: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with Him.“ (John 3:2)
This is extremely significant my friends. Jesus, only a few weeks prior had been baptized by John in the Jordan and the voice of God from heaven announced Him as “My Son in whom I am well pleased”. But only a few people had witnessed that. Jesus had then spent 40 days alone in the desert with God and been tempted by the devil. Jesus had then met each of these five men who were with Him, and they attended the wedding in Cana, and then a few days later came to Jerusalem for Passover.
Jesus had not yet preached any famous sermons, not yet done any really big miracles, and did not yet have many followers, but already Nicodemus, a Jewish Pharisee, made this remarkable statement “We know you are a teacher who has come from God.” It was another defining moment in history. And Jesus’s response is one of the cornerstones of Christianity, and has changed the lives of billions of people in the years since: “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3)
Nicodemus asks a fair question, assuming there is only one way to be born…the normal, natural way. Jesus responds, however, explaining there are two ways to be born… one natural as a pregnant woman experiences the breaking of her water and very soon thereafter the passing of her baby from her womb, through her birth canal, to new life outside the womb. You and I exist because we were once conceived and developed in our mother’s womb, and then birthed.
But Jesus introduces here the concept of Spiritual new birth! A miraculous work of the Holy Spirit of God. “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘You must be born again.’ Jesus was explaining His mission, why He came to earth… so that the Holy Spirit could accomplish “born again” in the lives of ordinary sinful people like all of us, including Nicodemus.
As you continue to read this amazing chapter, you’ll see Jesus explains this new concept further by predicting, for the first time, that He would be lifted up on a cross to die a death that would bring life to any who would trust in Him as Savior. Nicodemus, as a Jewish teacher knew very well the stories of Moses, especially the one found in Numbers 21:4-9, which Jesus refers to here in vs. 14.
“Just as Moses lifted up a snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. (John 3:14,15)
Into Nicodemus’ mind flashed an ancient story. The rescued Hebrew slaves, wandering in the desert were grumbling against Moses and God again, so God sent snakes in the desert, and people started dying from snake-bite. They cried out to God in desperation and fear. So God instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole, so that anyone who saw this and repented of their rebellion against God, would be healed. By the way have you noticed the symbol for medical care in our day is a snake wrapped around a pole?
In this statement, Jesus was clearly predicting His crucifixion for the first time, and that ANYONE and everyone, who believes in Jesus and what He accomplished through His crucifixion, would have eternal life in the kingdom of God!! This was another defining moment in history. Nicodemus was stunned. If this was true, it would change everything… absolutely everything!
Then Jesus said what is perhaps the most famous statement ever uttered by any mouth, since time began: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.Whoever believes in Him (Jesus) is no longer condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18) It’s very clear isn’t it my friends?
Please note, the word “perish”, it does not mean die. It means eternal separation from God, in contrast with eternal life with God in His kingdom. Also, understand that we are all born naturally and naturally condemned to perish because we have a sin nature and we naturally sin against God regularly. That natural condemnation is ONLY broken and we are saved from ‘perish’ IF and WHEN we believe in and trust Jesus Christ for our Salvation from our sin condemnation.
Thus, the very natural progression for every person, anywhere in the world, is this: natural birth, is followed by living a natural, sinful life, which ends in natural death and eternal separation from God…PERISH.
However, the alternative Jesus here explained to Nicodemus is “born-again” by the Holy Spirit of God when a sinful person believes Jesus is who God declared Him to be, the Son of God, and they trust in Jesus’ atonement death on the cross to be payment in full for their sins, and God then saves that repentant person and God declares them free from sin condemnation. From that moment they live in a new relationship with God and at the moment of their death they do not “perish” but they go immediately into God’s presence in His kingdom of heaven!
This is the Gospel, the good news of Jesus! Is it your experience my friends, all around the world?
And right now, in the global panic of Coronavirus COVID-19, do you see this good news, this Gospel is what the world desperately needs to hear. . .every person you know?
In the next verses Jesus explained it even further to Nicodemus, who by virtue of his Pharisee and ruling council position, had a legal mind and was often in religious courtroom settings passing verdicts onto people, as he reviewed their situation.
So I ask you today...what is your verdict about John 3? Have you trusted in Jesus ALONE to be your Savior and has He saved you from your natural sin condemnation?
If you do catch Coronavirus COVID-19 and the medical people are unable to save you and you die, are you confident you will not “perish”, but you will immediately go to heaven to be with God forever and ever!?
I am, so is my wife, and my 92 year old dad living in lock down in a retirement community. And so is my daughter and her family living in Senegal, West Africa. We are all confident Jesus is with us right now, in this global crisis…and we are equally certain that if COVID-19 takes us all, we will all be together in God’s heaven forever! Will you be there my friends? And what about your family and your friends? John 3 and Psalm 143 are God’s HOPE for you and me today!
Click to read today’s chapter: John 3; Psalm 143. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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