The Marks of False and True Belief: Part 5

We'll open your Bibles to John chapter 2, please. John chapter 2. Thank you for your singing. It's a blessing to be with the saints, singing praises to our God and King who's worthy. You know, Tim, one thing you might have gotten wrong is that we need a bigger pulpit. It's the only thing you might have done wrong in your past 5,000 years here.

Just a bigger pulpit. Let me read the text and then we'll go to our Lord in prayer. John chapter 2 and we'll start in verse 23. Now when Jesus 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 he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man.

Now 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 that you do unless God is with him. But Jesus answered him, truly, truly, 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, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we've seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lived up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 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 the 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. Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. We thank you, God, that you did not leave us without witness. You did not leave us to fall and to only know the falsehoods that come from Satan.

But instead, God, you have been faithful to deliver your truth to us in all ages. Your truth is like a light, and it exposes darkness, and it reveals the way and the truth and it reveals Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, Lord, we praise you for this truth, for this word that we have come to understand by the mercies and grace of the Spirit and we have come to see our need for Jesus Christ the Lord.

So, God, I pray that we would rely upon the Lord and rely upon the Spirit that he sent to help us in our need. For we know, God, that we are often a dull people and we're often so plagued by our leftover sin that we can hardly see straight or think straight. But by your mercies and grace found in the Holy Spirit, we know that there is victory over the grave, there's victory over sin, there's victory over the dominion of sin.

Lord, we know that through Christ Jesus our Lord, we can understand and respond well. So Lord, please open your word to us now, help us to understand and help us to respond well now by your mercies and grace. We praise you and thank you in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. So now we're at the end of this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.

We're at the end of this conversation and really, again, what we've seen is this is in the backdrop. The backdrop of this conversation is a teaching of true belief and false belief, if you remember. If you remember, Jesus is very popular at the beginning of his ministry. He has many people that are interested in him, that are believing upon him. But we saw at the end of chapter 2 that he could see their heart and see that these are people with false belief.

And then we see a particular example of that in Nicodemus himself. This is a man who represents all the false believers that are flocking to him. This is a man with false belief. And so we have a teaching with this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. What does it look like to have false belief? What does it look like to have true belief? that helps us today to see do I have true or do I have false belief And we saw with Jesus that he says the beginning of true belief going forth from false belief is to be born again And that is a powerful work of the Spirit working in the sinner to make him go from false or disbelief to true belief.

A powerful work from the Spirit needs to work in the sinner at the get-go in order to go from false belief to true belief. And then we saw that there's certain things that happen in the born-again Christian's life that reveals that that hidden thing has happened, right? And those things, those symptoms that come forth from being born again is that the Spirit reveals to us true testimony, truth, as opposed to being so drawn by falsehood like the world is.

The Spirit reveals truth to us, and that truth culminates or reveals Jesus Christ. And not just Jesus Christ, although I even don't even want to say that because it doesn't sound good, but the work of Jesus Christ, because it is the work of Jesus Christ that enables the whole thing. And so when we're born again, we are brought to true testimony to Jesus Christ and his work for sinners. and we are people because of the spirit and born again who understand the work of Christ if you remember we talked about understanding his work that God it is by God's love that he sent his son and it's by God's sacrifice that he sent his son to die for sinners and this work is received by faith in us and the outcome of that work of Jesus is that we would no longer be condemned but we would have salvation.

And so the outcome of the work of Jesus for those who are born again, those who are going to be born again, is that we would no longer be condemned but we would be freed without condemnation. Now to end this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus is going to zero in on that principle of the work of Jesus Christ, the accomplishment that you no longer are condemned in Jesus. And he's going to say, when that is a reality, it cannot be denied that you've been born again.

So if we're wondering, am I a false believer like all the people flocking to Jesus like Nicodemus? He had no idea. You can ask yourself, am I living a life of condemnation or not? And as we'll see from Jesus, we'll see the why of condemnation. Why are certain people condemned? Why are people not?

And then we're going to see the what of condemnation. What does that look like in the life of the person? And there is no denying when we look at that, we can see I'm either living a life of condemnation or not. And so this morning, as we finish out this conversation with Nicodemus, there will be nothing hidden. We will see what the false believer looks like of one who is condemned.

And we'll see how the true believer, what he looks like, of one who is not condemned. So we'll see the why of condemnation, and we'll see the what of condemnation. Why are people condemned, and what does it look like, in which we can grab hold of and have an understanding of our own life, how we are walking, if we're living like we're born again or not.

So let's look at that again. Let's look at the why of condemnation before we look at the what of condemnation, what it looks like. Look at the why people are condemned in verse 18. Jesus says to Nicodemus, he says, whoever believes in him is not condemned, right? So that's the why of condemnation on the why you are not condemned is because you believed upon Jesus Christ. and he's already spent a lot of time on this and we're going to finish with this uh at the end of these set of verses uh but the reason why people aren't condemned is because they believed upon jesus christ and as we just talked about it's because they have been born again and they've been they've been uh led by the spirit to the work of jesus right and we just went over that this is the why someone is not condemned they believed upon jesus they've been born again believe upon Jesus, and so they are not condemned.

We've went through that in much detail. And so the main bulk of our conversation, or the conversation here, the main bulk of what we're going to talk about here is why people are condemned, right? And there's going to be more information on why people are condemned. And so look at this, why are people condemned? Look at verse 18 again, he says whoever believes in him is not condemned, but look at what he says about people who are condemned.

But whoever does not believe is condemned. And notice what he says already, because he is not believed in the name of the only son of God. So people are condemned or judged or under condemnation from a holy God because they do not believe upon Jesus Christ. But notice he says the word already. Very interesting. He doesn't say that when people deny Jesus, they enter into a state of condemnation.

He doesn't say that. He says that they already are condemned when they deny Jesus Christ. And so the point that Jesus is getting at there is condemnation does not start, but is completed in the rejection of Jesus. That's very important, and we'll get to why. But one thing you need to note that with the already is that when you deny Jesus, it reveals that you're already condemned, and your condemnation is completed in your rejection of Jesus.

I hope I said that slow enough. That already is important because it reveals that you're already condemned and you reject Jesus because you are condemned already. You see, your condemnation starts with being a lawbreaker. Your condemnation begins if you're condemned before God because we are all natural law breakers. We're all naturally opposed or at enmity with God from our very birth.

Now we can cry and whine about that, say it's not fair. We can do all that kind of stuff that people like to do, but nevertheless, that is the truth. We see in Psalm 51 5 David says behold I was brought forth in iniquity in sin and in sin did my mother conceive me There David acknowledging that there something about our birth that we come into this world condemned before God.

And we see the full revelation of that in the New Testament with Paul in Romans when he says that when Adam, our first father, sinned, we all sinned in him and became condemned with him. And we see this in Romans 5.12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through the one man Adam, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned in the one man Adam.

Or Romans 5.18. Therefore, as one trespass, one sin led to condemnation for all men. The one sin of Adam. Condemnation for all men has happened. And so when Jesus says that people deny me or they're condemned because they have not believed upon Jesus, he says they are condemned already. Paul says that another place that we are children of wrath.

And our condemnation is completed in our rejection of Jesus. So we go from being lawbreakers by nature to spurners of God's grace. and that's our completed condemnation. We go from natural lawbreakers, we're condemned before God and it's completed and spurning the grace and the gift of help that he gives to us. And the reason and what we want to grab hold of this is the reason we disbelieve or have false belief is because we are condemned already.

Not because it's a rational or legitimate decision. Do you understand that? The reason why we disbelieve Jesus or have a false belief is not because it makes sense. It's because it comes from a heart that is condemned already, already judged before God. And the reason why it's so important to kind of hunker down on this why of we are condemned is because it flies right into the face of what the world tells us about what belief in Jesus looks like or what it entails.

You know, my wife and I like to watch a show usually at the end of the night, and we're watching some British show. It seems like the British are the only ones that can make good shows anymore. I don't know why. But when we're watching a show and they're talking about this baby being born in the family and they're going to christen it, which I like how they don't say baptize it because it's not baptism, but they're going to christen it into a religion.

And this man wants to christen the baby into Catholicism, to be a Catholic. And the family itself are Anglicans, and they're all, you know, the dad's all upset. Oh, my goodness, he needs to be an Anglican. And really the moral of the story of that dinner, as they discuss it, is why does it matter who you are, what you are? Why does it matter? In fact, why not be a Muslim?

Why not be an atheist? Why does it really matter? It's this idea that really we can just make natural decisions ourselves. It's just a decision that we've got to make that's good for what's within us, right? And they're all legitimate decisions. So whether it's Jesus, Muhammad, or nothing, right, it doesn't really matter.

Or another illustration is, like, imagine this is how the world would tell you that belief in Jesus looks like. It's like being at a great feast, okay? Like a great feast in which you have food just all, every item of food you can imagine, right? For your meat, you have turkey, chicken, fish, pork. You can't possibly eat all of that. And so you get to choose whatever kind of protein you want for that day.

And really, it doesn't matter which one you pick. It depends on what you want, right? That's what matters. Or you think of a side, right? Mashed potatoes, diced potatoes, mac and cheese, or vegetables, green beans, peas, carrots, broccoli. It really doesn't matter.

It's just whatever you feel like picking. And this is the way the world would tell us that is like whether or not you pick Jesus or not, or if you pick something else. It really doesn't matter. It's just kind of what you're feeling in your life, what really you want or like. But that's not true. The actual truth is it's not picking Jesus.

It's like basically saying, I don't want any of that good food at the feast. And instead, you go to the kitchen, find rat poison that's in the corner of the room of the kitchen, and you take that, and you marinate it in Lysol, and then you wash it down with some bleach. That's how insane it is. Imagine doing that, right? You have this feast. Everyone's like, wow, look at all this.

And you grab your plate, you go to the table, and then someone comes in with rat poison with it and Lysol with bleach and he's like all right he starts cutting it up and he's really enjoying himself everyone be like what are you doing what are you doing and that's how insane it is for you not to believe in Jesus truly that must mean that there's something already wrong with you you wouldn't think to that person eating that rat poison that well that's just what he's liking you know it's just what he likes you no one would think that. You say there's something wrong with you. Stop it.

To not choose Jesus or not believe upon Jesus is not a rational decision. It's because it comes from a heart that is condemned already. There is something already wrong with us which causes us not to believe. so we are condemned because of disbelief right that's what he says he goes on to say jesus goes on to say um in verse 18 um those who whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the only son of god we are condemned because of our dis or false belief and we don't believe because we are condemned that should sound very hopeless to you that you should hear dun dun dun right there.

That is awfully hopeless, right? Awfully hopeless. And we'll circle around back to that at the end of this to kind of see more coming out of that in this text here. But what you need to focus on now is that we are condemned because we do not believe and we have false belief and we don believe because we are condemned already This is why we are condemned or not condemned We either believe upon Jesus or we don't.

And if we don't, it's because we are condemned already. Now, what does this look like in your life? What does it look like to live a life of condemnation? And then we're going to get to what does it look like to live a life of not condemnation? And so let's look at the what of condemnation. What does it look like?

Look at verses 19 through 21 with what does condemnation look like. He goes on to say, and this is the judgment. You see in verse 19. And judgment and condemnation, very similar things. So really he's continuing the same thought here. He's not introducing a new thought.

This is the condemnation. He's saying this is the judgment that is from God. This is what it looks like to be under the angry and powerful condemning hand of God in your life as you walk this life. This is what it looks like is what Jesus is saying here. And then he goes on to say, the light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than the light because their works are evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. So in order for us to understand what does it look like to be condemned before God? And am I looking like that? Right? He uses an illustration of light and darkness. This is what it looks like to live condemned under God.

And he uses an illustration of light and darkness. And so John likes to use a lot of illustrations. Right? Light and darkness. Well, what does that mean? It doesn't mean physical light and darkness.

And so if you read that text and you don't think, okay, what does he mean by light and darkness? And we talked about this in John 1 already, because he uses light and darkness in John 1. But you really got to have it solidified in your mind if you're going to understand this text. What does light and darkness mean spiritually? But before we even get to the spiritual point, the physical thing, let's consider light and darkness and the physical reality of it.

Light and darkness, we all need light, don't we? For since the beginning of time, all of man's work or humanity's work has been done under light. When darkness comes, you go to sleep. When light comes and you need to go somewhere and you need to be productive, you have light. That's how it's always been. The only reason why now we work into darkness or into the nighttime is because we have artificial light.

That's why farmers keep me up past my bedtime at 8.30 because they got those lights on, those columbines, and they're going. But the point is, I'm not talking about you, Greg. You never kept me up, okay? The point is that we need light. Light is what enables us to go down a path and not stumble. light is what makes us be productive. If we have no light, we are not able to do that.

The first thing you do when you go in your car at night is you turn on the lights. In fact, so needed is it, is that lights typically automatically turn on now. That's how much we just automatically need light. If you're about to do a house project and under the sink or in the corner of the room, somewhere where it's small and contained, what do you need?

Well, one of the first things your kid learns to do is how to hold a light on the thing you're doing. And then whenever you are failing at doing that thing, you blame the guy who's holding the light. It's because of the light. If you would just give me more light, I could do this job. We need light. This is why it's a good illustration.

Light is necessary to get where we need to be and to be productive, okay? And the spiritual point being made by Jesus when he uses this light and darkness analogy is that humans are on the pathway to God. That's the whole point of your life is to be on the pathway to God. Now you're either going away from God and going away from him or the whole purpose of your life is to be on the pathway traveling to God.

And you are to be productive with your life for God. And so you need light in order to know what that looks like. If you don't have light, you cannot be on the pathway to God. If you don't have light, you cannot be productive for God. It's a spiritual point that's being said here. Think of Psalm 43, verse 3.

The psalmist says, send out your lights, God, and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling place. You see, light is being used. The physical thing of light that gives us the ability to see, to know where we're going, to be productive, is what's being used for a spiritual point to say, I need your understanding.

I need your word, which reveals the way I am to go, reveals how I am to be productive for God so I can be with him, his holy hill, right? Therefore, send out your light, your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. We need God's light in order to be with him. We need to know the path.

We need to know what it means to be productive for him, to be near to him. And so the light of God is how he reveals or illuminates the way to him, to be near to him. And part of that light is the very law of God, right? The very righteous standard of God. The very, this is what's right, this is what's wrong. If you want to not be with God and go the wrong way, then do darkness, which is sin.

If you want to go towards God and be productive for God, do the light thing or do the right thing, which is the law of God. And we see this in Proverbs 6, 20 through 24. We see Solomon writes, my son, keep your father's commandment and forsake not your mother's teaching. Bind them on your heart. Always tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you.

When you lie down, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. We see that the light of God lights up the path, reveals how we are to be productive, and so therefore inherent in the light is righteousness. or the very law of God.

But here's the problem, and we see this even what Jesus said in John 3. People love darkness. They love their evil works. And so part of that light from God in the word is not just law, law, law, law, law. Right? We're sinful creatures.

If that's all it was, then there'd be no light to us. But the light of God is also the righteousness of God, the law of God, but also the grace of God, which enables us to do the righteousness of God. So the light of God, the full capacity of the light of God, is not only the righteousness of God, of how to walk righteously, of the path, but it's also the grace of God or the goodness of God or the favor of God to enable that walk.

And we see that also in Scripture. Think of Numbers 6, 24 through 27. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And so we see that the light or the face shining upon these people is by his mercy and grace.

Or Psalm 67.1, may God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. Selah. Or Psalm 31.16, make your face shine on your servants. Save me. or Psalm 83, restore us, O God, let your face shine, that we may be saved. You see, the light of God takes on a certain gracious and I-need-to-be-saved flavor because we are people who are born in sin, who love darkness, who love our evil works.

So that's why when Jesus comes and begins his ministry, and even before, as it points to him, the light then is seen most specifically or in total in Christ Jesus. And so the perfect standard of God and righteousness is revealed in Jesus. And the perfect grace of God and ability by his death and resurrection is found in Jesus. And so everything comes together as the light of God in Christ.

He becomes that light. The perfect standard of God, the righteousness we need to be on the right path and not to be on the broken path. And then the grace and help that we need, the light there, comes together into focus as you focus in on Christ Jesus the Lord. And this is what the texts teach as well. You think of 2 Corinthians 4, 6. For God who said, let light shine out of the darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Or think of where we're at in our own gospel. We've already covered John 1, 9. the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. In chapter 8, verse 12, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not be in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way.

We talked about we need light to know the way, to see. Where am I to walk to be with God? Well, Jesus says, I am the way. I am the truth. No one comes to the Father, the holy hill of God, except through me. And so as we're looking at what does it mean, what does light and darkness mean?

Well, light is the very law of God revealed perfectly, mixed in or intermingled with or comes together in the very grace of God that enables us to do that very thing. the Old Testament is light before the sunrise. So if we're considering, again, the light and darkness analogy, consider you ever get up early like you should before the sunrise? If it's too far before the sunrise, it's dark, right?

But then all of a sudden you'll start to see light, won't you? And the Old Testament era, just having the Old Testament, the Old Testament before Jesus came, that was like the light before the sunrise when it just starts to peak you just start to see it on the horizon or you just start to see it and all of a sudden you see things illuminate a little bit more and more around you right and then when jesus comes in his ministry is like the sun coming up over the horizon you actually can see the sun poking up and that's like when jesus came and walked this earth that's the sun poking out it's still not quite all the way day by any measure but it's certainly getting more and more daytime. And in the church age, after he returns and he sends his spirit, it's the sun well over the tree line.

You know what I'm talking about? It's over the tree line there, or at least it's getting there to where it's a lot more light now, but there's still a little bit of a darkness. There's still a little bit of shady areas around you. And we wait the coming day when Jesus returns, and the sun is noonday. No more darkness at all. When Jesus returns, there is no more darkness.

It's just like the sun and noonday. Absolutely no more darkness. at all. And the condemnation of the condemned is that at every revelation of light, they scurry away from it like a nocturnal rodent. That every revelation of the light of God, that this is the way you follow me, this is the way to me, through the law of God and then through the grace of God centered in Jesus, at every revelation of that from the Old Testament to the new, they scurry away from it like a nocturnal rodent.

Have you noticed, right, that in-between period? I'll talk more about this in a second. But you notice that when the daytime is coming up in the morning and the nighttime is fading away, you get an interesting thing. You get both the nighttime creatures scurrying away and you have the daytime creatures coming out. And so at every revelation of the light of Christ they prove their condemnation by scurrying away from it They hate They don like any notion any teaching at all about being near to God in Christ They don't like the law of God.

They hate the talk of the grace of God. They hate it all. It's like a termite. When the rock is lifted up and the light comes down on it, it goes away. Or like a teenager being woken up at 11 a.m., they go under their blankets. Why?

Why does this happen? Again, think about it. The most natural thing for us is to like light, right? We all like it. Let's pour it in. We love it.

So why in the world is there a condition in which they like to scurry away like a nocturnal rodent? And what does Jesus say about that? Well, he says, this is a judgment, in verse 19, that light has come into the world, and the people love the darkness rather than the light. Why? Why is that? Because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things, their evil works, hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. The light, now again, you've got to get from physical to the spiritual meaning, the light exposes sin, law, righteousness, being on the pathway to God. and since they love their sin so much, they see that if I go to the light, then I'll be exposed for it, and I don't want that. And so I'm going to scurry away into the darkness instead where I can have fun with my sin and not be exposed.

They go to the darkness, even though they're meant to be in the light, to be near to God, because they love their sin so much. And this is the teaching we get through all of Scripture. We sin because we like it. Ephesians 2, we think of that. They lived in the passions of their flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath.

We sin because it's enjoyable. And so when a light comes to expose that sin, we say, how dare you take away what's enjoyable to me and you scurry away to the darkness. Or we think of Ephesians 4, verses 17 through 20, when Paul says, now I say this and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the unbeliever, the Gentiles do, in the uselessness of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding. Yes, that's my baby, everyone. There he is. There he is. They are, and my beautiful wife as well. They are darkened in their understanding.

This is what darkness does, the spiritual darkness. Their mind is darkened in their understanding, and they're in the futility of their minds. It is not driven by what honors God, but it's driven by what honors the passions of the flesh. So it's darkened. They are darkened in their understanding, Paul says, alienated or far away or separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

So they become callous and they give themselves up to sexuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. And he goes on to say, but that's not the way you learn Christ. So why would we scurry away into the darkness? It's because we love sin so much that it darkens our understanding, darkens our mind, and makes us ignorant, foolish people to the deception of Satan.

The greatest deception of Satan is that the sin you desire to do will make you happy when really it's just like a cockroach fleeing for the darkness when the light suddenly is turned on. so what is the condemnation of the condemned what does it look like when the light of jesus that shows us the way to god is shed and we run away to a safe and dark place where we can freely practice our sin instead i don't want freedom for my sin i want to practice my sin don't let me hear about this jesus who can bring me not only a revelation of my sin but of the freedom i can have from it. What does that look like in particular? That's the abstract, right?

That's what it means to be in darkness, to love darkness, to hate light. It's because you love your evil deeds. What does that actually look like in practice? Well, I think there's like three different categories we can kind of look at this to really understand this in particular. One is that you are offended at all in every respect to Jesus and the word of God, right?

And this is the light Jesus Christ revealed and he's revealed in his word. And so the first, I think, category is you are straight up non-believer in any kind of mention of the word of God at all. You're offended at it. You don't want anything to do with it. You can't even articulate why. If you ask, if someone asked you why, you would give no rationality.

You would just say, I hate it. This is the first person or the first category we can look at. This is the non-believer. Anytime light at all is revealed and truth in the word of God preached behind the pulpit or said in a believer at the workspace, you hate every ounce of it. Now, every one of you are in this room, so you're probably not in that category at all.

But there's another category, and this is a false believer. We're going from the non-believer to the false believer now. You will tolerate the word of God to a certain extent. the preaching is best though when he tells stories and makes a few political jabs at the party you don't like you have very little taste for the other things we do here the lord's table what's the point of it what are we actually doing the thing is this big it doesn't fill us up the drink is that much it doesn't quench our thirst prayers are too many and too long hymns are too many verses why can't we do that thing where we just sing like a couple verses right so but shortens it a little bit, and the reading is too boring.

And the idea of reading the Word of God at your home rarely ever crosses your mind, and when it does you can easily shake it off This is the person who has no taste for the Word of God no taste for how it displayed in the church and on the Lord Day worship and certainly no taste for it at all behind closed doors, because if they were to be honest, it would reveal some of the sins that they really like to practice behind closed doors. This is what it looks like to be someone who scurries away from the light and the dark, even as you're able to tolerate some of it. Or how about the third way?

It goes further, right? You're engaged in all the means of grace. You're engaged in it. You pay attention to the preaching. You partake at the table. And you didn't complain when we went to every week of Lord's table, right?

You didn't complain when that happened. You said, okay, let's do it every week. You sing the hymns. You listen to the prayers with readiness. And your Your voice can be heard saying the amen at the end of the prayers. And you even read the Bible at home, and you know a lot of it.

But the problem is you do it all without asking and pursuing the question, how does this truth expose my sin and my life that I need to give to Jesus? You can do all these means of grace. You can do all these things in which the word of God is being proclaimed. But yet you never do it with the desire of how can this, what sins in my life, is this, can this expose that I can give to Jesus so he can vanquish it and it is no longer in my life?

You never meditate on the sermon afterwards and think, oh God, what sin could that reveal? What sin? Where is there darkness in my soul that that can show the light of Jesus, his righteousness and his grace and mercy? You're reading the Bible at home is more of a textbook. It's just facts that you've accumulated and you know a lot of it. It's just exciting just to know facts.

But it never is, oh God, reveal my sin to me and reveal Christ to me, his righteousness and his grace to me. You see, this is the kind of darkness that's insidious. It's there. It's lurking behind the corner. And really, sometimes it can be just light enough, so to speak, that we don't realize it's there. you see jesus is the light to bring us to god to take care of your sin from the most public one to the most private and a true follower of jesus as we'll get to in a second will say oh reveal my sin to me reveal the light to me so that i can respond in faith to jesus and it be taken care of you see it jesus is not fooled when you prove to be a false believer like nicodemus you have flattery on your tongue, but falsehood in your heart.

You do enough to look kind of right, but really you don't do it for the purposes that your sin, your darkness would be exposed by the light of Christ. Now let's finish though, but what does it look like not being condemned? What does that look like? We just saw what it means, what it looks like to be condemned, to hate the darkness, or to hate the light, to love the darkness, to not grab hold of Jesus in faith so that darkness can be taken care of in your life, what does it look like for a life that's not condemned?

Well, look at what he says in chapter 3 of verse 21. 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 what does it look like to be a true believer, to not have condemnation raining down on you? It looks like someone who does what is true and does the opposite, comes to the light.

You have a desire for works that are good, lawful, not evil. You do true things. And so you do not cover up or avoid the light of Jesus, but embrace him and his word totally, asking, oh God, reveal my wickedness to me. In all the things we do as a church, you see as a revealing of him, his word, your sin and his grace and you take it with joy. Your time alone in the word is fruitful.

You seek him and ask him to show you your sin. And so your life is filled with fighting your sin to be near to Jesus by his very grace. Now, an important question here, though, is if I, now let's go back to more the beginning of the sermon where we saw what is condemnation? Well, it's not believing upon Jesus and being condemned. And why do we do that?

Because we're condemned already. So the question we ought to ask is, okay, what hope is there? What can I do then? If you're thinking right now, I truly, I don't have any desire for Jesus truly. I don't have any desire for my sins that I have to actually be done away with. I don't have any of that.

And then you ask yourself, okay, if I'm this way because I'm condemned already, what hope is there for me? And that's a very good question to ask. And that's why it's important for us to remind us of what true belief looks like. And it starts with what? Being born again. Having a new birth, a powerful birth from on high.

That it is a work not of yours, but a work of God in which he does, in sending his spirit to pulverize your sin. If I fail to truly believe because I'm already condemned, how can I overcome this with true belief, you must be born again from above. The most powerful work of the Spirit applying the work of Christ to your soul so that you'll come and you'll awaken, you'll do what is true, you'll say, oh, just give me Jesus and you'll go to him so your sins can be more and more finally done away with in practice.

But whoever does what is true because of his rebirth, comes to the light, and then notice, because it is a work of God, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God You go to the light and you don say I smarter than everyone else Look at those buffoons hiding in the dark. Look at those cockroaches, rodents. Look at how I'm coming to the light.

It doesn't work that way, does it? Because you understand the only reason why I want to be in this light, the only reason why I love the scriptures and I love to talk about my sin so that Jesus can take care of it, is because I've been born again by our powerful work of God. Look at these works I'm doing that God has carried out in me. So there is no hope outside of a powerful work of God being done in you.

And so your first thought needs to be, I am in a terrible situation. My only hope is to rely upon the powerful work of God above and to give myself to him. In conclusion, there's a period, and I already alluded to it earlier, there's a period in the morning, you know, as the sun is coming up, when light and darkness kind of meet together, hang out together.

It's kind of strange, right? You have the creatures of darkness starting to scurry away to their dens to hide out, so they're kind of out. and then you have the creatures of light coming out as well. The birds start chirping and flying around while the bats are still kind of doing their thing. In fact, I take advantage of this. I had like 20 raccoons just terrorizing my poor chickens.

And so what I would do is in my prayer time in the morning, I would just carry a .22 with me because it's at that time, it's at that time, we all got to do it, it's at that time that lightness and dark are coming together. There's enough light for me to see enough dark for them to still be out. Right? It's kind of right in that in-between time. I don't have time.

I don't need to tell a story. Alright, so that's that time. And beloved, listen, when I say that we are in that time right now. Right now, Jesus has come. And he's done his work. And he has his church declaring the light.

The light of forgiveness of sins, of righteousness, of our sin and how you can be forgiven. And there's still this time where darkness is still there. People are walking around in darkness. They're still like the nighttime creatures trying to scurry away into the shadows that are still there. And there's going to come a time where that darkness is no more.

Jesus will return and take care of it all. And no more darkness. It'll all be thrown into condemnation, into hell, into judgment, while the light only shines. But we're in a time period now where there's some darkness left, but there's a lot of light there. And I call on you for those who are in darkness, hear the word of light. Hear the word of truth coming forth from your Christian friend or your co-worker.

Hear the truth behind the pulpit. Hear the truth from the scriptures because there is a time coming where there'll be no more chance for you and there will only be light and that means you won't be there. So won't you believe upon Jesus? Won't you understand that there is no hope for me outside of his powerful work driven by his cross, given by his spirit, won't you fall down and receive that gift?

And won't you, those who are children of light, don't you see that your practice is to enjoy that light, is to enjoy confessing your sin, enjoy seeing the different darkness that still hangs around your soul, and to say, oh Jesus, there it is, get it. As you look to his word, you hear his preaching, won't you meditate on this powerful work of Jesus to end the darkness in you? Let us praise our God, for he truly does the powerful work of true belief in us so that we can walk in light.

Let us pray. Oh God, I thank you for Christ Jesus the Lord. Lord, we know that this dark, this world is filled with darkness, but we are so thankful that you've done the work in which the light has come. We see in the Old Testament that sun started to rise. We see Jesus come in the flesh and that sun has come over the horizon. And we see with the work of the church that sun grows higher and hotter and brighter.

But Lord, we know that that darkness is still around. There's still work to be done. May we be faithful to proclaim that light to our own souls that God hates sin but yet he loves the sinner enough to provide Jesus to forgive us of our sin and may we proclaim this light to a dying and dark world. We know that many people will scurry away and hate the message but Lord you do this powerful work of rebirth where you make a creature go from the midst of his running into darkness to all of a sudden being born again they are drawn to the light.

They are drawn to the truth. They are drawn to Christ Jesus the Lord. So we thank you for this powerful work of the new birth. May it, God, continue on to even some of the people that may be in this room that have false or no belief at all. May this new birth powerfully work in them a desire to look at your truth, to understand your word, and to respond with Jesus pulverizing our sin.

God in heaven, for those who are true believers, may they be encouraged by the work of Jesus. Lord, we know that we live in this already not yet, in which sometimes sin, the darkness, can overcome us. But may they be reminded that Jesus Christ has come for us to see light, to be guided by that light. And it's ready for them, available even now, with their repentance and their look to Christ and his powerful work and his truth.

May they be reminded to do that and enjoy the light, the life of light. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name for this great work. Amen.