“ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” That's Christmas in a sentence. That's John 3:16, that's perhaps the most quoted verse in all of the Bible, but sometimes the least understood. Like I remember one December, we were handing away gospel of John, just like this. Anybody go and read the Gospel of John? There was a man who made a life changing decision. He grabbed the Gospel of John, and he actually read it. And in the middle of the week, he came into my office, and he said, how come everybody knows John 3:16, but they don't know verse 21? How come they only tell us one of these verses? And it was a moment where I could see that God's Word was changing the way that someone was thinking right in front of my eyes. This man would have said that he had believed in Jesus all of his life, but when he read the rest of the passage, he realized he hadn't believed in Jesus at all.
And so, I want to invite you to open your Bible and turn with me to John, chapter 3, and we're going to start at the famous verse, and then we're going to go through to verse 21, and maybe you'll be able to see what this man saw when he actually read the Word of God, and it did a mighty work in his life. So, John 3:16-21. And it's so great to have you all here this morning. I want to read this Scripture to you, and I invite everybody to stand up for the public reading of Scripture. I want to encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention. Don't think you already know what it says. Let's really try to hear it and study it together right now. John, chapter 3, verses 16 to 21.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him 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. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and grab your seat. There is a handout there in your bulletin if you want to grab it and take some notes. And we're going to start with a question right there at the top. “What does it mean to believe in John 3;16?” What does it mean to believe in John 3:16, if that's kind of the hinge, if you believe you won't perish, but you'll have eternal life. Okay, well, so what is that then? Not just what we think it means today, but what did it mean when John wrote it here in the context of this gospel. I have talked to so many people about believing in Jesus, and it seems to me like the assessment that we do of ourselves today is this easy kind of test. Do you believe? Well, yeah, I believe. And the contrast is like, well, there are people who don't believe it's true, and I do believe it's true, therefore I believe in Jesus.
Okay, now go with me to the Gospel of John. Go back to chapter 2, to the very end of chapter 2, and look at verses 23 to 25, this little paragraph at the end of chapter two. This is what John wrote before this whole conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus in chapter 3, where he says the famous line, “whoever believes in him.” Look what it says here in John 2:23-25. “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” Today we act like, oh, I believe in Jesus. Of course I do, in the Gospel of John. It says a whole bunch of people believed in Jesus, and Jesus did not believe in them. That's basically what it just said. Yeah, they believed in him. Well, Jesus didn't think they did. Jesus knew what was in their hearts. In fact, he knows what's in everybody's heart. So, we've got to make sure that we understand what John is saying by believing Jesus, not what we think it means today. Today, it's like, easy, oh yeah, in the Gospel of John, it feels like barely anybody's believing in Jesus. Like, why are all these people who are seeing the miracles and hearing the teachings, why are so many of them walking away from Jesus? Why is Jesus asking his disciples if they're even going to walk away from him? Why does one of his twelve disciples betray him, even another one of his disciples is known forever as Doubting Thomas.
It seems really rare if anybody actually believes in Jesus in this book, even when people say we believe, Jesus knows you really don't. I mean, there's this idea throughout Scripture, in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 2, that you can believe in vain. In James, chapter 2, it says that even the who believe? And they tremble. Who is it talking about there? The demons. The demons know Jesus is truly the Son of God, and they tremble at his name. They're not repentant. They're not really putting their faith in him. So, this word for “believe,” let's show the Greek word here on the screen. It's this one word, pisteuo, but in English, it gets translated three different ways: to believe, to trust, to have faith. Okay? And I hope you can see up there that it says it's used ninety-eight times in the Gospel of John. And if you're reading John, if you've ever read it before, it's twenty-one chapters. And this verb, just in the verb form, it's used ninety-eight times in twenty-one chapters. So, if you want to really understand what it means to believe, read this book and see how John uses it in context. Now, one of the things that can be really confusing for us, one of the ways things can get lost in translation, is in Greek, we're using one word, and then we're doing three different English words, to believe, to have faith in, or to trust. Now we use these words a little bit differently. In English, to believe kind of brings up this idea, like, do you intellectually agree with the facts that it's true, but to have faith in, to trust, that feels a little different, that feels like not only do I know it's true, but I'm actually committing myself to it, I'm actually transferring my expectation from me doing it, and I'm now looking to what Jesus has already done, see.
So, that's what it means to believe. It's a transfer of trust from yourself, or any other thing you would want to put your faith in. And now you're doing that with Jesus himself. You're seeing Jesus coming from the Father as the light that came into the world. That's my hope of salvation. And so, go back to chapter 3 now, and you can see. Look at verse 16 with this idea. Actually, go back to chapter 2. We can't even go back to chapter 3, because I just need you to see, in verse 23 it says, “believed in his name,” the people believed in his name. But verse 24 says, Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them. Two different words in English. That's the same word there. It's literally saying, the people, they say they believed in Jesus, but Jesus did not believe in them. So, I need everybody to see them like, here's people saying, I believe in you, and Jesus is like, no, you don't. Jesus knows what is really going on in your life. I just need you to think through if you met Jesus, he wouldn't need to ask you what your name was. If you met Jesus, he could have told you where you were right before you were talking to him. He could have seen you sitting under a tree. Jesus already knows what you're passionate about. You're a true Israelite. Jesus, he knows everything there is to know about you. You can be over here telling yourself you believe in Jesus. Jesus actually knows if you really do or not. The one who gets to define the term of what it means to believe in him is not us. Jesus gets to define the terms. He gets to tell us what it means, and he's the one who knows if we've really done it or not. And what this passage is saying is, this is the ball game, because whoever believes in him will not, or should not perish. And see what people think that means when they hear John 3:16 is that I have the rest of my life like, kind of like what Jeff was saying earlier, like, I've got time later on to decide if I want to believe or not, so that when I die, I'll either go to hell, perish, or I'll go to heaven, eternal life. That's not what John 3:16 is saying. It's saying the people who believe in Jesus, they're right now having eternal life, and the people who don't believe in Jesus, they are already right now perishing apart from God. These are two things that are actively happening. You're either away from God, separated from God because you're still in your sin, or you actually start to know God through your faith in Jesus, and you can grow now in your relationship with him. Those are things that are either happening right now, not just in the future. So, this idea, do you really believe in Jesus, that determines not just your future destiny but your present reality? Are you trying to get through life apart from God? Or do you actually know God, and he's giving you now this confidence and this assurance that you could have never had before because you weren't trusting in him.
See, look how he goes on to say it here in verse 18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.” So, John 3:16 is a little bit more intense than most people realize, and that's why this guy was bursting into my office, and I can remember him pacing around like almost upset. How come we don't all know about this? How come this isn't being said like if you don't believe you're already perishing, you're already condemned. Look at verse 19. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Like the judgment is already here right now on those who don't believe. They're already presently in this current darkness. And that's what happened to this man that came to our church, and he was like the guy that would have been voted least likely to go ask a Bible question in the pastor's office. Alright? He was a guy who got invited to church in December. He picked up a gospel of John, and for some reason he read it. And when he read it, he really read it. And he started seeing things even though he thought he knew that he never really knew before. And he began to see that even though he thought he believed in Jesus, he was actually under judgment for still being in the darkness. And so, when it says here in verse 19, and I want to go through these three verses with you right now, 19,20, and 21. It says here, “the light has come into the world.”
And that's our theme, that Jesus is the light of the world. That's what we're studying this Christmas. So, we saw that last week in John 1:4-5, that God has this life that he shares with his son Jesus and with the Spirit for all of eternity, a life outside of space and time. And when he sent Jesus into the world, Jesus, now that's the light. He's revealing the life that God has, a life that we can now actually share with God, where we can really know who God is and have this personal interaction with him, the fact that God is life at Jesus revealing that to us, that is the light that has come into the world. And here's the thing that John writes right from the beginning. The thing that's supposed to make us realize how serious this is, when the light came into the world, the darkness, the darkness, it says it did not overtake him. It did not understand him. It says that Jesus came to his own people, the Jewish people, God's chosen people, and they did not receive him. The light came into the world, and it was rejected. That's what we often see here in John, Jesus doing amazing God things and people rejecting him. It's not like, oh, I heard about Jesus. Of course, I believe in Jesus. No, what usually happens is not people believing in Jesus. What usually happens is a rejection of Jesus, because people would rather stay in the dark. Why? Because they're doing things. And if they come to the light of the world, those things that they're doing in the dark, in the secret, the hidden things, those things will be exposed. Those things will be revealed for what they really are. And so, it's not just this neutral thing. Do you want to believe in Jesus or not? No, there are actually two complete sides to this. There's a darkness side and there's a light side. And everybody here in this room is in one of those two sides, and Jesus already knows right now which side you're on.
And so, there's a real contrast that John is trying to give us. And he doesn't just say it here in the Gospel of John. Go over to 1 John. I want to take you over to 1 John a couple of times today, if you can turn over there with me. And this is why I love studying the writings of John, one of the twelve disciples, one of the three closest disciples to Jesus, because he wrote the Gospel of John, so we could see the signs of Jesus and believe in him. But then he writes 1 John to all of those who do believe. So, you can have assurance, so you can know you really have the life of Jesus. So, if you're new and you don't know much about Jesus, you want to read the Gospel of John so you can see who Jesus is, so you can respond to him in faith and put your trust in him. If you're like, I've been around, I know the story of Jesus. Well, then you want to read 1 John, and you want to be like, okay, well, this is going to tell me how I can have confidence that the life of Jesus is now working out in my life. And so that's what 1 John's about. It's written to the person who already believes, so they can have confidence in their eternal life and their relationship with God.
Now, after the introduction here in the first four verses where John says, I was an eyewitness to this life, and I share in the life that God has, and I want you to share in the life with me. I want us all to have this joy from the life of Jesus. Look what he says in verse 5. 1 John 1:5. “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you.” This is the message I got from Jesus, and I want to give it to you that “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” Can I get an amen from anybody here this morning at nine o'clock service? Are you guys awake? Are you guys ready here? I mean, Is God a holy God? Is there no one like our God? Right? So, see, we are so used to a spectrum of compromise where pure white is over here and black is over here, and a lot of us just want to find some gray place where we can see a lot of people in this room. Right now, you're not going to like this sermon, because you don't want to admit you're in the darkness, but you don't want to own to be in the light either. And so, you're going to try to find some neutral territory that does not exist when the person of God, or in the writings of John, that's where we're at. We're living in the land of the lukewarm and everybody's some kind of Switzerland, some kind of neutral territory. We're not for it or against it. That's not what Jesus taught us. That's not what John is saying. In fact, let me just read what John says here in verses 6 and 7. Listen to this. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness,” what does it say there everybody? “We lie and do not practice the truth. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Okay, so I just want to make it very clear, when people leave here today and they're upset, I didn't call you a liar. John called you a liar. Can we all agree on that? Right now, he brought it up. I didn't say it till he said it okay, but he's saying that there are going to be people who say, I believe in Jesus. No, you don't. Jesus knows you don't. John's saying you don't. If you're still walking in the darkness, then you don't really believe in Jesus. Because if you really believe in Jesus, you will share his life and the blood of Jesus will cleanse you from your sin, and you'll be now walking in the light as he is in the light.
There is no such thing as believing in Jesus that doesn't lead into a contrast in your life. See, we're doing this thing today in our kind of Christianity. We don't say, well, there could be people who are deceived. There could be people who are hypocrites, and maybe they're intentionally lying. They know they're fake. Maybe they're just deceived, and they think they're in when they're really not. See, we don't want to talk about that. We want to grade on a curve. We're like college students who get the syllabus and they're like, okay, how many homework assignments can I not do and still get an A? Has anybody been a part of these kind of conversations? Like, here's what I'm expecting? Wow, I could drop two quizzes and it won't even matter who's had these conversations before. This is how ridiculous it gets. I can get a 33.6% on my final and still get the grade that I want to make in this class. Right? This is where we're at. We're at like, what do I got to do to get in? And the kind of test that Jesus is talking about here, it's like, you either pass or you fail. You're either all darkness or you're either all light. And guess who gets to decide which one you are not you. The student getting to decide what grade you would like on the test. The teacher gets to decide what grade you are. He gets to decide if you pass or if you fail. He gets to define the terms of what it means to be in the darkness and what it means to be in the light.
So, let's get this down for point number one here. Point number one: You’ve got to “consider the pass or fail contrast.” You’ve got to consider the pass or fail contrast. You are either. Only two options exist. There is no gray. There is no middle ground. So many people today are trying, well, I wouldn't want to say I'm all in the dark, because it's not as bad as it could be, but it's hard to say I've really been brought into the light. No, the Scripture is forcing you to one of those two conclusions, because those are the only two conclusions. I'm either still in my same sin, or I have actually been brought out of the darkness into the light, and I now really know God, and there's a profound change in my life. Those are the only two places people exist. And so, we’ve got to stop with all this. Exception that it's okay. I can drop all these quizzes, and I can fail all this homework stuff and still pass. That's not what the Scripture is saying.
Now go back to John, chapter 3, because after it establishes this very important contrast. And this is how John writes. If you're taking notes, you might want to write down that John uses antithesis. This is a way that he is intentionally teaching, the way that John wants to write things. And the reason he loves to use the light and darkness picture to make his point is he wants you to be in one or the other. John understands that people were trying to find some kind of middle ground. That's why he's writing so boldly to say you lie and do not practice the truth. And so, look at these. He's established the contrast here. Yeah, well, where do you want to go when you die Is kind of an easy question. I'd rather go to heaven than I would to a place of darkness and torment and pain. Okay, but how do you want to live right now? Do you want to do the sins of this world in the darkness right now? Or do you really want to live, to follow Jesus right now, that's what John's bringing us down to. Are you in the darkness or are you in the light? Because that's what Jesus did. Jesus exposed all the hypocrisy, all the middle ground, and you're either one or the other, and John wants us to see that John writes in such an intentional way to force you to a conclusion of darkness or light, and then he's going to give you now the two ways this could go, two parallel statements in verses 20 and 21 but they also have a very significant difference. But just read through these two verses with me. “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” So you can see here's why someone does not come to the light in verse 20 and here's how someone does come to the light in verse 21. So that's the issue. How do you go from the darkness to the light? Verse 20 is going to tell us why it doesn't happen. And then verse 21 is going to tell us how it does happen. And so, verse 20 says that when people are doing wicked things, they hate the light. See, there's a rejection of the light, a resistance to the light because they're doing these evil things, and they don't want to come to the light, because what's going to happen, their works, their sins that they're doing over here in the dark, they will be exposed. So, you can't keep doing your secret, hidden sins and come to the light of Jesus. If you do come to the light, well, it exposes, it reveals the sins that you've been in.
And so, the reason a lot of people know Jesus is true, and they would say they believe in him, but they don't really transfer their trust to him and walk in the light as he is in the light, is they're still hanging on to the works of darkness. They can't let go of their sins, and so it says they don't come to the light, because their works, their evil, wicked works, will be exposed. Now I want to put the Greek word for exposed up here on the screen. And look again, this gets translated three different ways. It gets translated, exposed or convicted or reproved. Okay, so there's something that needs to happen with our sins. We can't just say we believe in Jesus. What did Jesus come to save us from everybody? His name is Jesus, according to Matthew 1:21 because he came to save his people from their what? It makes absolutely no sense to claim I believe in Jesus, while you keep doing the same sins that Jesus came to save you from, makes no sense in Scripture. It's very common today in Southern California church, and so you’ve got to then come to the light and confess your sins. Your sins have to be exposed. You have to be convicted. You have to be reproved. It's kind of a scary thing to step out of the dark and say, here are my sins. This is really what I'm about. That's what it's saying will happen.
Let me show you some verses where this word is used that will help you get this idea of what's being exposed when you go from darkness to light. Here's Matthew 18:15, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” So here it just translates it tell because the idea is your brother's in sin, and you're going and you're trying to win your brother. It says you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. So somehow it comes to your information, that your friend, that you think is your fellow Christian, that they're doing something in the darkness. They're doing something that contradicts the life that Jesus is calling them to in the light. And you now somehow know about it. Are you just going to say, Oh, well, no big deal that they're in sin? Or no, you go to them and you what? You expose them, you convict them, you reprove them. It just says tell it, because the assumption of this passage is they're in sin, and you're going to go talk to them about sin. And anytime you have to talk to someone about sin, it has this revealing thing where something that was kind of secret or low key and wasn't being talked about is now being brought into the light, and the goal is that when you talk to that person, they would step into the light and out of the dark, and that they wouldn't reject you and want to stay in the darkness.
How about this verse right here? Ephesians 5:11, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” Have you ever been at a workplace or at a school where everybody else is using the name of Jesus in vain, and then you start talking about Jesus like he's a real person, like he's the God in heaven, like he saved your life. And you keep representing Jesus in your workplace. What happens over time, people use his name less and less. Has anybody ever apologized for cursing around you? Well then praise God for that, right? Because your light is exposing, it's convicting people. They see everybody else is talking bad about your teacher, everybody else is talking bad about your boss, and then you're over here just working hard with a good attitude. What a beautiful day. Praise the Lord. And people are looking at you like, what's your problem? And sometimes they don't like it, because your light is exposing the dark. How about this here what Jesus says to the lukewarm church in Revelation 3:19, “Those whom I love, I reprove.” This is what Jesus is saying. Real love is, if you're in the dark, I'm going to shine a light on you. I'm going to expose you. I'm going to call you out of that darkness. I'm going to convict you so that you can see you can't stay in your sin, and then you can come to the light by confessing your sins and revealing your sins.
Go with me to John, chapter 16. Let me show you how this Greek word “exposed” is used in another way in the Gospel of John. Here in John 16, Jesus is preparing his disciples, not just for his death and resurrection, but after that, he's going to go up into heaven to be with the Father, and then he's going to send his Spirit to come and indwell us. So, this is what you see in Acts 1, Jesus ascending in the clouds into heaven, and then in Acts 2, the Spirit coming and filling his disciples and speaking through them in powerful ways. And so, Jesus says in John 16:7, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” So here in these important chapters at the Last Supper, in John, as he's teaching his disciples, he doesn't just call him the Holy Spirit. He calls him the Helper. He calls him the Spirit of Truth. And he says he's going to come and he's going to strengthen you in a way where the disciples are much stronger in the book of Acts by the power of the Spirit than they are in the gospels when they're there with Jesus. That Jesus is like it's actually better to have the Holy Spirit inside you than me beside you. And that's like blowing the disciples’ minds when he says that. And look what he says the Helper is going to do. Verse 8, “And when he comes, he will convict the world.” He will expose the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin. What? Because they do not believe in me. You think you believe in Jesus? Well, here's another layer you’ve got to think about. Are you still in your sins? Are you still in the darkness? Because if you are still concerning your sin, if you're still doing the same old evil things that you did, supposedly before you believed in Jesus, but here they still are, well actually, the Holy Spirit's coming to convict you about that, to expose you about that, to help you see you can claim you believe in Jesus, but you're not really in the light as he is in the light. You're still in your works of darkness.
Go back to 1 John. Look at how he explains it here in 1 John 1:8-10, this picks up right where we left off last time in 1 John, when he gave us the contrast of the light and the dark. And then this is what John describes. It's like to come into the light. And this is counter intuitive. You really need to think this through. 1 John, chapter 1 and verses 8-10. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” So, John is saying there are two ways. There's darkness and light, and here's what the first thing you need to understand is the people who are in the light confess their sins. Being in the light doesn't mean you pretend you don't have any sin. Being in the light means you actually are able to be open and honest with God and other people about the reality of your sin, because you're not trying to hide it anymore, and you can now be a transparent human being. It's very rare to find these people, even at church, because a lot of people are giving a mask. Here's what I think you want to see, here's what you're supposed to see. They're giving the right answer and not the real answer. And when you actually step out of the darkness and you come to the light, you're okay with being exposed. You're acting out of your conviction, you're hearing the reproving words of God that are cutting to your heart. And you're saying, I don't want to stay in these sins anymore. I want to come to the light. And so, yes, I'll admit to God my sin. I'll admit to my wife my sin. I'll admit to my brother in Christ my sin, because I don't want to stay in my sin anymore.
Churches like this one are full of people who will claim they believe in Jesus, but will not go and tell their sin to anyone after the service that they were convicted about the entire time the service was going on, people who really believe in Jesus come to the light, and they're okay with their works being exposed. They're okay with other people knowing their sin, as long as they don't stay in it anymore, as long as they don't remain in it. See, that's the idea. Here is the person who says, look at this. Has he ever been in fellowship group before, or some kind of small group? And it's like, hey, what can we pray for one another? And then your bro over here in the corner, he's like, I'm good, brothers, I'm fine. Nothing. You need to pray for me. Bro. Are you living on the same planet? I'm living in the same. There's nothing causing you anxiety, nothing tempting you, nothing overwhelming in your life, no issues relating to your heart and soul. You're just fine. That sounds to me like somebody who's got something to hide. And then you hear this other brother over here, and he's like, Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. I shouldn't have been thinking about. I was angry at this person the other day, and I treated them in a terrible way. Guys, could you pray for me? Which one of those two people is in the dark and which one of them is in the light?
See, who's who after this service you want to know if you really believe in Jesus, who after this service, if you're if you know you're doing sin in your life. Who is ready to go and actively talk about that? Who is going to sit around here and spend some extra time in prayer confessing your sins? Who is going to walk up to somebody after this service and say, I actually need to talk about something because I’ve got something going on right now that nobody knows about in my life, and I don't want to have any secrets. I don't want to have anything hidden. I'm okay with being exposed, my conviction is causing me to confess this. Now, let's make it very clear, you don't need to confess your sins to somebody else to be forgiven. You know, look at verse 9, If we confess our sins, he the Lord, he's faithful and just to forgive us because of what Jesus did, forgiveness is available to all. So, we’ve got to confess our sins to God. God will forgive us. God will cleanse us. But then look what it says right there in verse 10, “If we say we have not sinned, we're making God a liar.” God's saying we have sinned. God's saying all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Jesus knows what our sin is. Jesus knows exactly what we're about. So, you see, you’ve got to confess your sins to God. But I found it to be so helpful when people are honest and willing to talk to one another. In James 5:16 it says, “Confess your sins to one another so that you can pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Because now, when it's exposed, you act on that conviction.
See, a lot of people, they feel bad about their sin, and they actually try to use that to say, I'm a Christian, because when I sin, I feel bad. Listen, there are plenty of people living in darkness who feel bad about it every single day. Feeling bad about your sin is not the criterion the Bible is giving you, it's actually exposing your sin. It's actually coming into the light, that conviction where you don't just feel bad. Judas felt very bad about betraying Jesus. He wasn't saved. No, it's not just feeling bad. It's actually a godly sorrow that leads to repentance, to a turn, to a coming to God and saying, Here it is. Owning all of it. Stop with the blame shifting, the pointing of fingers, the excuses, the circumstantial reasons. No, this is my darkness. The only way you're ever going to come to the light out of the darkness is your darkness has to be exposed. It has to be reproved. And then a lot of people, unfortunately, choose the darkness because they don't want to deal with the reality that there is sin in their life, and that's going to keep people from coming to the light. So, what are you going to do?
There are some people, you walked in here, you already knew you were in the dark. Are you ready to talk to somebody about it? There are some people who came in here, you know you're in the light, because look at who you used to be and look at who you are now, wow, Jesus has done an amazing thing. And then there are some people you want to be in the light. You think you're in the light, but as I'm talking during this sermon, you know there's darkness in your life, and you know you're not willing to talk to anyone about it, you're not willing to really get honest and open about it, even before God. Are you going to stay in that darkness after this service, or are you going to come to the light and be exposed? See, the first thing we can say about people who walk in the light, as he is in the light, is they're the people who are ready to confess their sins because they no longer have anything to hide, no secrets to keep.
Go back to John, chapter 3, because the second verse talks about the people who actually do come to the light. These two verses are parallel, but there's a contrast here. Verse 21 talks about the person who's doing what is true. Now I need you to see this here, because it talks about whoever does wicked things, or verse 20 “everyone who does wicked things.” Look at verse 21, “whoever does what is true.” I just need to make it very clear that when it's talking about your practice, this is talking about the course of your life, the way you conduct yourself. The Bible likes to use the word “walk,” like you think of something that you practice, you do it over and over again in a repeated way, repetitious drills, like if you're playing a sport or you're working out at the gym, doing some things over and over with just some increasing intensity, that would be your practicing those things. So, we're not talking about somebody who's falling into a sin. We're talking about this repeated way that your life is headed. We're talking about the direction that your life is going, where your life keeps spiraling in a continued pattern of behavior. And sure, you can stretch it out a little longer, but make no mistake, you're going to end up back in the same sin, back in the same place, or a life that is broken free from that downward spiral of sin and is actually learning how to take steps in a bold new direction, empowered not by yourself, but by the life of Jesus Christ. So, there are two different kinds of walks here. Look at verse 20, there's the people who are doing their way they go is the evil way, the wicked way, the sinful way. And then look at verse 21, no, the one who does what is true. See, ultimately you are known by your habits, by the way that you live, not just in one moment, but over your days, and your wife can see the direction that you're headed. Your kids will know the direction that you're headed. That's what I just love how John was saying he had this hidden sin of darkness, and then when he got married to a Christian woman, her light exposed his darkness. And John, I thought he was my brother in Christ. I didn't know all of this was going on, but see, it was revealed by the contrast between his pattern of life and his wife's pattern of life, and praise God for a brother like John, who has a radically different pattern of life over the last two years than all the years before. It's like his life got redirected from the darkness to the light. That's what it's talking about here.
Now, it's two similar patterns. One stays in the dark, one comes into the light but look what it says in verse 21. Here's the radical, surprising difference at the end of the verse, “When whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in” who, everybody? “God”. Okay. So, the person who stays in the dark, they do it because their works are evil, but the person who comes into the light, they do it because God has done his work in them. So, if you're doing your own works of sin, you'll get the blame for it. You'll get the judgment for it. But if you come into the light, as he is in the light, God will get the glory for it, because it's actually not something that you can do. The work is something God has to do in you to bring you into the light.
See, this is something that really frustrates a lot of people, and it's really frustrating for me, because no matter how hard I try to say, please don't leave here today and go home and try harder to do better. The point is not try to go be a good person. The point is you can't be a good person, but so many people keep trying, so many people, they just believe that this is the week I'll stop doing that thing I've been doing for twenty years of my life. No, you won't. Unless God stops you, you won't ever be able to stop yourself. And that's the whole context here of John 3. John 3 is a conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. Go back to chapter 1. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus.” And when does it say he came to Jesus, everybody, by what? “By night he came to Jesus.” Okay, so let's just get this very clear. The Pharisees are the religious leaders of the Jews. They're about a system of works. They have taken the law of Moses, and they have made it all about their own efforts to keep that law. They have even added and stretched the commandments in the law to give themselves even more things to do now, among this ruling group of religious leaders, among the Jews. When Jesus comes and Jesus is doing miracles that can't be denied, Jesus is healing the sick, Jesus is raising the dead, Jesus is teaching things that are breaking people's brains. They're blowing people's minds. People are like this guy, Jesus, he's teaching on another level. Some of these Pharisees just hate Jesus. They want to kill him. Other Pharisees, they realize that guy's the truth. That guy's amazing. That guy's doing things we can't do. That guy's on another level. Now, they would believe in Jesus, but guess what? They don't tell anybody about it. See, there are Pharisees who believe in Jesus, but they're so afraid of other people that they come to talk to Jesus by night because they believe in Jesus, but they're still in the darkness. They don't want everybody to know they believe in Jesus. They could lose their seat among the Council of the Pharisees. So, Nicodemus is coming, and he's like, hey, I see what you're doing, and you have to be from God. But he's not really ready to step into the light and really trust in Jesus. And so, look what Jesus hits him with. Jesus already knows who Nicodemus is. He already knows where he's been. He already knows what he's about. Jesus just cuts right to it with so many people. John 3:3, “Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And here's Nicodemus trying to fit the spiritual reality of salvation into his workspace brain. 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?” Like, how can I change my ways when I've been living this way for so long? And look what Jesus says in verse 5, “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 is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” And Nicodemus said to him one of my favorite lines. “How can these things be?” You're breaking my brain, Jesus, I can't even figure out what you're saying. Born again means born from above, born of water in the Spirit. Notice what Jesus even says to him in verse 10, “Are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things.” See, as one of the guys who should have known the Law and the Prophets and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus reveals there, well, you're supposed to be teaching this to other people, and you don't even know it yourself, Nicodemus, because when he says, “You have to be born of water and the Spirit,” oh, it doesn't make sense. When I say born again or born from above. Well, how about the born of water and the Spirit? He's referring there to Ezekiel 36 to, the New Covenant, where God says, I'm tired of people trying to always be good. I'm going to write my law in their heart. I'm going to take out their old heart, and I'm going to put a new heart within them. I'm going to cleanse them from all of their sinful ways, and I'm going to take my Spirit, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, and I'm going to put my Spirit within people, and my Spirit will cause them to walk in my ways, and my Spirit will make them careful to obey my commands. And so, God says I'm going to have to do it, and I'm going to make them have a whole new life, like they're born again. And Jesus is saying that to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus is like, it's about things I'm supposed to do, and he can't even comprehend that he can't do it, and God has to do it in his life.
So, let me give you some points here. Point number two, which I forgot to give you at a timely moment. So, let's just review here. Consider your conviction of sin. Alright, that's what we were talking about. We're talking about being in the light, though, the only way you can be in the light is your sin has to be exposed, convicted. But see, point number three is, if you do make it to the light, you want to consider now God's accomplishment. So, I'm sorry if I ruined your note page here on a Sunday morning, but see if I'm still in the dark, it's because of my sin, and if I make it into the light, it's because God has done an amazing work now to save me. In fact, there is a lot to think about. What did God do to save you? There are a lot of passages I could go to in John. Let me just take you to John 6:28 real quick. I mean this, what is the work of God? Because see, all these religious Jews, they're like, give us the works to do. And Jesus is like, no, you need the work of God. And look how they say it in John 6:28, this, to me, is like the epitome of religion right here. John, chapter 6, verse 28, “They said to him, ‘What must we do to be doing the works of God?’” Is that just an ironic statement right there? Well, tell us what I’ve got to do so I can do God's works. That's not how it works, right? God has to do a work, but they're always trying to make it about what they do.
So, let me give you three dashes there under point number three. First of all, we want to just take notice of God's “saving” work. That God is the one who does a work. You could call it regeneration. That's the idea of being born again when God puts his Spirit within you, when God calls you out of the darkness and into the light, when God takes those who are dead in sin and he makes them alive in Christ. Like there was a moment that you believed in Jesus, but guess what actually happened in that moment, if you're a Christian, and you really did believe in Jesus, and you went from the darkness to the light, God did a work in your heart. That's how you believed in Jesus. It wasn't that you believed in Jesus. No, God saved you. That's why you believed in Jesus. That's what John's saying. Well, here he gets to believe in Jesus later, after he talks about being born again. God's got to do his work in you. But here in John 6, look down at verse 44 where the people are trying to do the works of God. And Jesus is trying to say, you guys can't do the works of God. God has to do his work. And so, he says, in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
Let's get that down for our second dash, the “drawing” work of God, even before God does his work to save you, God, he's been so patient with some of us. I mean, so regularly, people are telling me I could have died here. I should have died there. I kept going back to that same sin, and it should have killed me, and God spared my life. And then God sent this person to tell me the gospel. And then this person invited me to church, and I kept getting to hear the Word of God and I started feeling convicted about my sin, and I started having my eyes open to see Jesus. And that's all the work that God is doing to draw you before he even does the work to give you a new heart. He has to open your eyes to see the gospel. He has to convict you of sin. He has to keep you alive all those days that you were living in the dark so that he could, one day, rescue you into his life. What an amazing work that God does to draw sinners and then to save them. But see, it's not even like that in John 6; there's this whole conversation going on where Jesus gave them a free meal, and now they're looking for more of his feeding of the five thousand, and he's like, you’ve got to stop looking for the food. I'm the bread of life. And then they're like, okay, you want us to eat you. And they just can't get it into their brains. They can't see the spiritual things that Jesus is talking about. They're so blinded in the dark that eventually Jesus says, no, no, no. And look at what he says in verse 51 as this conversation continues. He says, no, no, “I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” No, it's me. Jesus is saying, I'm the work of God, so, your salvation. It's not just about this moment you believed in Jesus. It's not even it's got to go further back to God.
Let's get this down for our third dash. God “sending” Jesus. Jesus has to come to do the work of God. Jesus, he has to put on flesh the glory of the Father dwelt among us, the glory of God, this unlimited power that runs the universe, that speaks things into existence, put on flesh, born of a virgin in an animal feeding trough in a cave in Bethlehem, outside the city, because they didn't even have a room for him. Here he is God in a little baby's body. Have you held a baby lately? The little fingers, the little toes, and here's the one who created all things now there in flesh. And what did Jesus say over and over throughout John? I came to do the work of the Father. I came to do my father's will. I had to put this flesh on. I had to live the perfectly righteous life that you failed to live. I have to die and take the punishment that you deserve to take. Here's Jesus doing the work of God so that we can be saved.
See, I want you to believe in Jesus here today, but I don't want you to believe in you believing in Jesus. I want you to actually see Jesus. I'm not saved because I did something in my life. I'm saved because Jesus did something for me in his life. See, it's like I got you a gift. It's like I wrapped it, I put it in a box, and I said, hey, the gift I really want to give you is I want you to know God. I want you to live forever with him. So, I wanted to give you the gift of believing in Jesus. Can you see that, man? I wish for some of you who don't yet believe, you just think you believe, but you really don't. I would love to give you this gift. Oh, but as we're talking about this gift, it turns out, well, there's a whole another box in here. And then it turns out that before you can even believe in Jesus, you need the gift of conviction of sin. You need to see what Jesus came to save you from. It turns out you can't just believe in him like you're some neutral person, and you think Jesus is love. No, you need to see that he came for your sins to deliver you. Oh, but wait a minute, it's like there's a whole another box inside of that box. Because, wait a minute, God had to save you. You can't even do it. You can't even stop that sin. Oh, but wait a minute, maybe you can see it. What's this? There's a whole another box inside of that box. What is the thing that I'm actually believing in? It's not that I'm doing something about my sin. It's not that I'm doing anything. What I'm actually believing in is our communion we took last week. What I'm actually believing is that the Son of God really put on a body, and he really obeyed his parents when I didn't obey my parents, and he never lied when I did lie. And he established a track record of perfect righteousness, holiness, purity, and then he went up on the tree, the real Christmas tree, the cross. And that flesh that is his body, that pure, righteous blood, he offers it there as a sacrifice. See, I don't want you to believe that you believe in Jesus. I want you to see Jesus. Oh, it's because of what he did. That's why I'm saved. Oh, it's because he's the light. That's why I get out of the darkness.
See, if somebody asks you, hey, how do you know you're a Christian? And you say, well, I believe in Jesus. I just want to encourage you that's not the right answer. The reason you're a Christian is because Jesus put on flesh. See, we’ve got to stop making it about me believing in Jesus, and we’ve got to start saying Jesus did something worth believing, and I'm not looking at what I'm doing for him, but can you see what he did for us, that the God who runs the entire universe became a baby? Talk about being Giga humbled, right? He became a baby. See, you and I were born. We didn't get to choose it. There we were. He willingly placed himself inside the womb of a virgin to be born in Bethlehem right when God said, to be laid in an animal feeding trough where there was no room to welcome him. And he did that for you, on a seek and save, rescue mission for your soul. That's why we celebrate Christmas. Let me pray for us.
Father in heaven, I just want to lift everybody here up to you and God, I just pray just like that man who came into my office. I'm sure many people here know John 3:16, but I pray that today they could see all the way down to verse 21. And I pray for those who can see that they are still in the dark, still doing their sin, that they would talk to somebody after the service, that they would talk to you right now. And I pray for those of us who have believed in Jesus, I pray that we would not see our own works. I pray that we could look at the baby lying in a manger and we could say, this is what I believe in, that God so loved me, that he gave his only Son, and that that son was willing to come and put on flesh for me because I didn't live the life that I should have lived, and he came to live it for me. So, God, let us worship Jesus. I pray this in his name. Amen.
And I just want to say something real quick. Okay, maybe when you came in here today, you noticed that white tent out there in the parking lot. Well, we got that tent; somebody donated it to us. And all year long, I'm like, let's set up the white tent. And people are like, we don't know how to set up the white tent. I've heard this, and I've got this on multiple witnesses. There's only one guy in the entire church who knows how to set up the white tent. You want to guess who the guy is. It's the guy who, many Christmases ago, burst into my office and said, why did they tell us verse 16, but not all the way to verse 21. And he came here yesterday and he set up that white tent. And if you need to talk to somebody, there'll be people waiting for you there. Come to the light. Look what Jesus did. Let's sing his glory right now.