The Marks of False and True Belief: Part 4

John chapter 2 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 needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man. Chapter 3, verse 1, 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 things that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, born from above, 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 him, 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, 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. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? And Jesus answered him, 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 bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you of earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted 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 people love 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.

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, Father, we thank you for your word. And Lord, we are all too aware of our many weaknesses that plagues us, for we are indeed still in this flesh and we're in this worldly system in which there's much distraction. And we know that Satan would love to take our eyes off of Jesus, would love to keep the unbeliever from seeing the glory of Jesus.

And we know, Lord, that we are far too often oblige the desires of the flesh and we are distracted. And so I just ask, God, that you would help us to be focused now during these next several minutes as we look at the word of God. Help me, Lord, to speak clearly. Help me, Lord, to exegete your word well so that it's easily understood by the people before me, so that they can receive this word and respond in faith to Jesus Christ by the aid of the Holy Spirit.

So, Lord, we rely upon you for these things. Each day we rely upon you, and each Lord's Day we rely upon you, that these means of grace that you've given to us would result in salvation for our souls. That is initial justification and also the growth and sanctification that we can enjoy through Christ. And so, Lord, please be with us. Please be with me.

Be with your church, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So it happened several weeks back, back when we were getting meals from people after Charles was born. So a couple months back, this was because of a meal we got from someone else. Now it was no meal, no one cooked it here. But it was a meal that we received from someone in which it was smoked pork. and they had a bottle of barbecue sauce that they put on the side that you could use as you please, which turned out to be a very bad idea for me because I just found myself putting it on the pork.

I found myself putting it on the mac and cheese, on the potatoes. I don't know what got into me that day, but I just went crazy with it and I enjoyed every moment of it. But a few hours later, I did not enjoy what happened after that. I woke up and I swore I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought for sure. and I almost whispered or nudged my wife to call the squad.

I was that close, and what stopped me from doing it is I just had a conversation with someone. I forget who it was now. I think another pastor where he said that I had recently such bad heartburn that I thought I was having a heart attack. And so right before, I thought of that conversation, and it saved me the embarrassment from my wife, who would have told me, you're not having a heart attack.

You have heartburn from all that barbecue you just ate. So I didn't do that, thankfully, and I was like, okay, I got to take it easy here and see, is this a heart attack or is this heartburn? And it was a scary several minutes. And I realized that it had to have been heartburn because every time I would go up, it would settle. But when I went down, it would, I tell you, the worst pain of my life.

And so I just had to be up. And I realized this has to be heartburn. The symptoms pointed to heartburn And finally at the end of it all after two hours I felt like a dragon that just breathed out fire and then it was over It was the weirdest thing in the world Just literally I felt it come out of me and then it was over And what made me think about this for this text is that I had no idea what was going on in me.

It was hidden, right? It cannot be seen. The only way it could be really understood was through symptoms. And we all know that. Whenever we're sick with something and we go to the doctor, what do they ask us? What are your symptoms?

Because at that moment, they cannot look within our body and see what kind of virus or whatever we have. They're going to rely upon symptoms to get an idea. And so this is something that's just part of everyday life. We rely upon certain things, symptoms, in order to tell us something that is more or less invisible within our body. And that's a lot of what's going on here. if you remember, Jesus Christ has garnered, he's received a lot of believers at the beginning of his ministry here in John.

But if you remember, it's very fascinating that he has all these people coming to him and so-called believing upon him, but yet he does not believe upon them or he does not entrust themselves to their belief because he could see what was hidden. He could see false belief within their souls. And so we see that in a prime example or a specific example in Nicodemus.

He comes to him at night, if you remember, and he is a false believer. Jesus, what's hidden to man, is not hidden to Christ being truly God. He knows he's a false believer. And so if you remember, he points Nicodemus to the first step of becoming a true believer, and that is to be born again. One must be born again. One must be born from above.

One must no longer be from their previous birth in Adam, but be born again powerfully by the Spirit from above. Now here's the issue with that. That's the first step into true belief is to be born again, and that's true for all of us, not just Nicodemus, but every single one of us in this room. But can we see the new birth happening in real time? Or can I go up to you and have an x-ray machine and see, yep, there's a Holy Spirit within you.

Or nope, there is not. Yep, you have been born again. Nope, you have not. You are still an Adam. There's no way to see that. In fact, it is completely hidden, the new birth is.

And so we have this first step from Jesus to Nicodemus. If you want to see the kingdom of God, if you want to be saved, you must be born again. And here the issue is, we have no idea when that happens. It's a hidden thing, except for the fact that being born again always creates symptoms that we can see and know, I have been born again. And this is important, because the greatest question of your life is, have I been born again?

There's many questions you'll ask in your life as you go through your life, many concerning questions, many things that come up, but the most concerning one that you ought to have, each and every one of you, is am I born again? Have I crossed from false belief or no belief to true belief in which the first step is rebirth? And so Jesus, telling Nicodemus you must be born again, then leads him on into teaching to say that, and these are the symptoms of being born again.

And so this morning we're going to start covering those common symptoms of how do I know when the invisible work of rebirth has happened to me? Well, these symptoms will happen from you. And we'll see it in two major ways. And to be honest with you, I was wanting my best to get to the end of this conversation with Nicodemus this morning, in which we'll cover both major symptoms of the new birth.

But I think we'll just get to the first one this morning. But the two symptoms that we're going to see, at least today, if not next week too, is understanding the work of Jesus truly. In other words, if you're born again, you will understand the work of Jesus. You will understand it. You'll understand what it was all about, and you'll respond appropriately.

And the second major symptom of being born again, in which you can know I have the new birth, is living a certain way in light of the work of Jesus. So notice the symptoms of rebirth hinges on the work of Jesus Christ the Lord. And we talked about this last time, that the testimony of Scripture all points to Jesus as a person, and it all points to Jesus and what he did, his work, what he has done.

And so the symptom of new birth, it all hinges on the very work of Jesus Christ to forgive sinners. How we understand it and how we respond to it will show whether or not we have new birth or not. So let us look at this. Understanding the work of Jesus. Understanding the work of Jesus. Look at verse 16.

When Jesus tells Nicodemus after telling him, you must be born again, he points to the testimony of Jesus and his work. And now he's going to say, this is how you know if you are born again, because you display these symptoms. And he says in verse 16, with the work of Jesus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

If you are born again, you're going to understand what that means. Notice the word for at the beginning of verse 16. For God so loved the world. In other words, he's alluding to what he just talked about in verse 14, when he says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes upon him will be saved.

And now he's going to talk about that work of Jesus, that work of being lifted up. And he's going to say, this is what it means. This is what it looks like to understand that. And so if you are born again, you will see that work and you will believe and understand it. So he says, for, and the first thing that we need to see to understand the work of Jesus is that it's motivated by God's love.

And look at verse 16. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world. The work of Jesus on the cross, the work of Jesus that you must understand if you are born again, is that it is motivated by God's love. It is motivated by God's love. Love is one of the things that I find myself wanting to say often because we can just misunderstand what love is so that I think it bears repeating is that the world tells us that love is just feelings and then Christians have responded to that and said love is just action.

And both of those things are wrong. Love is affection, or feelings if you will, it's affection, a warm regard for something, that results in action. And so just as a side note, if you think that, well, I'm just called to just have certain actions towards people and that's enough for me to love them. No, you are called to have affection or warm regards for people, which then results in action.

And so if you don't have the warm regards, but yet you have action, you ought to pray to God. Oh, help me to have the completed thing of love for this person. But let me digress here for a moment that God or for the rest. But God, the work of Jesus, in which you must understand if you're born again, you must understand that the work of Christ is motivated by God's love.

For God so loved the world. God had an affection for the world, a love for the world. Now, whenever Jesus tells Nicodemus that God so loved the world, Nicodemus would have, again, being a Pharisee of the Jews, that wouldn't have sit well in his stomach too well because the Jews considered the world to be very unclean. The world's very unclean. They're wicked sinners.

We need the Messiah to come to completely vanquish the world and destroy the world. And yet here Jesus is saying to understand the work of Jesus properly, the Messiah properly, you must understand that it's motivated by God's love for the world, not for God's hatred of the world. And this would have been, again, another thing that would cause Nicodemus to say, how can these things be who does not have true belief in the work of Jesus?

No, the work of Christ is motivated by God's love for the world. Instead of God sending his son to judge the world, God sent his son to love the world. God has a love for the world, a certain affection for them. And I mean, I think a good question for us to ask is how can that be? Right. If you if you have any understanding of unrighteousness at all, if you have any understanding of the righteousness of God at all, it ought to just make just amaze you that how can God love the world?

How can God have a warm affection for the world? And the answer is found in the fact that God made the world or made humanity in his image. and that image has been severely defaced by sin but the image still is intact to some degree in which God still is driven by an affection for the world in which he's going to act for the world and so we must understand that the work of Jesus is motivated by God's love for God so love the world and that should amaze us because the world is our sinners we're defiled and we see that this affection leads to action and the next work understanding the work of Jesus see how this affection leads to action by God and in verse 16 that he gave his only son so notice how the affection of God right the love of God for God so love the world that then it leads into action that he gave his only son so the affection of God leads to the greatest the action of God that reveals his love the most. Nothing reveals the love of God more than Jesus Christ and what he's done for sinners.

In fact, if you want to know why does evil exist, why does sin exist, well, one of the major reasons is so that God can reveal the full capacity of his affectionate love for the world. That is a major reason there, is that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. That is the action that revealed his affection for the world. And notice, there's a couple things there that we really need to meditate on if we're going to understand rightly the work of Jesus.

He says that he gave his only son. Two major things are being said there. It's that God gave up or sacrificed his son. So whenever we read in verse 14, as Moses was lifted up in the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up. He's talking about being lifted up on the cross. He's talking about dying on the cross.

And we need to see in that God's love for the world that he sacrificed his son. And although him being lifted up on the cross was done by man, it was done with God ordaining it because it was him sacrificing or giving up his son. And what makes that so incredible is who the son is. If you see there again in verse 16 that he gave his only son, In the Greek, the definite article, or the, to mark emphasis, is before both son and only.

So in the Greek, it literally says, the only, the son of God. And why that's important is because John, or Jesus, is emphasizing that it cost God greatly, so to speak. it was at great cost for God to do this act of love for the world in which he gave the son, that is his true son, and the only son. And so what that's marking is that Jesus wasn't just some everyday guy that happened to be a little good or a little bit of righteous or, man, you know, we see people on this earth that seems to be good in our eyes and something bad happens to them and it makes our heart sad.

This is far beyond that. The emphasis that John is telling us here is he is the son that is the only son of God that is he's true God before time began the son and the father had perfect harmony and and fellowship and love for one another in a way that we cannot even come close to fathoming all we can do is just consider the love that we have had on this earth and try to think of giving up that for other people that's the closest we can get to it. But the love that the Father the Son had with one another in eternity past the union they had with one another it ought to just display a certain aweness that he would give up this son for the world This shows his affectionate love for the world to give up this one, this son, this unique one, the only son.

And so what we got to understand from this, the thing that we got to grab hold of this is not only was the work of Jesus motivated by God's love, but it was achieved at great cost to God. It's not like this was just something little to God. Okay, well, I'll do that for them in order for the world to be saved. No, this was at great cost to God that he gave his one and only son.

1 John chapter 4, 9 and 10. 1 John chapter 4, verse 9 and 10. The same writer, John, he writes, In this, the love of God was made manifest among us. So again, this is the way the love of God, the affection for the world, was manifested to us in action. That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love. not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins so if you want to know the full revealing of God's love you need to look to the cross you need to look at the great cost of God to give up his only son because of his affection or love for the world true belief that comes from the new birth or the birth from above understands that the work of Christ is motivated by God's love and it came at a great cost to him.

Now, remember, we're dealing with a false believer in Nicodemus. We're dealing with false believing in general. We have true belief set up for us. This is what we need to truly believe. If we're born again, this is what we will believe. But there's also false belief.

And false belief will say or believe to be right with God is motivated by the sinner's love, not God's love. That if God is going to be okay with me, if I'm going to be close to him, then I got to exhibit a certain kind of amount of love that he sees and he marvels at, right? That's what false belief will say. If God is going to be fine with me, then I need to display some kind of love.

I need to do enough for him to say, okay, it looks like you love me enough. I'm going to be close to you. And there are people in this room that believe that right now. I guarantee it. And there's even Christians in this room that fall in and out of this kind of way of living our Christian life, that I just need to show enough love to God for him to show love to me.

But we got to understand the true understanding of the work of Jesus is that it's motivated by God's love. It's not motivated by our love. And also false belief will say that it came, salvation came at a great cost or work of the sinner and not at the great cost or the work of God. This is another flip thing that Satan does to cause us to not believe truly or rightly that the work of God and salvation and Jesus Christ comes at a great cost for us, or we need to give up something in order to be right with God.

There's a great cost towards, for us in order to be right with him and so it's centered on man-made salvation and religion just like nicodemus is struggling with at the beginning in which he said how can it be that you got to be born again a powerful work of the holy spirit in order to see the kingdom of god so we must understand rightly about the work of jesus it's motivated by god's love not our love and it comes at a great cost to him, not at a great cost to us. When we believe this wrongly, what we'll end up falling into is self-sufficiency. Saying, well, I'm enough.

I have to be enough. Rather than simple, humble thanksgiving that I am not enough. And yet, enough was paid in Jesus. So we're at this point here where, again, all the work is found in God. Salvation is an endeavor, is a work of God and God alone. He does not share his glory with man.

So the question becomes, well, do we not do anything then? When we're talking about the work of Jesus in salvation, motivated by God's love, at great cost to God, the question then becomes is, well, what about man in the equation? What does it look like for man in conjunction with this work of Jesus? Do we then do nothing? Are we just completely passive in which we do nothing?

Well, he goes on, Jesus goes on in speaking about the work of Jesus and about how we'll believe rightly in this when he says, again, for God so loved the world in verse 16 that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so if you want, the new birth will produce in us a belief upon Jesus as we come to understand God's love revealed in Jesus and his great costs that he endured in Jesus. So as we understand those first two major things about the work of Christ, it will then draw us or cause us to put our faith in this same Jesus.

Our trust will be put in him. We will follow him. So in other words, a symptom of new birth is not that you sit on your hands and be passive and do nothing. A symptom of new birth is understanding the work of Jesus rightly and following him. Entrusting yourself to him and not entrusting yourself to you. It causes us to go outside of ourselves, for there's no help to be found within us.

And it causes us to flee or to cling or to go to Jesus. so as we're talking about salvation new birth, the power of God is salvation, motivated by his love, not our love, and all the rest, we must understand that does not then mean that we sit on our hands and be passive but Jesus says that it is packaged The work of Jesus is packaged in belief in Jesus or following Jesus. All the riches of Jesus' work for sinners is packaged in our faith in him. So in other words, it's not like rebirth happens, and it's not like the work of Jesus is applied and no one knows it. but there are symptoms, and a major one is understanding the work and responding in faith to the work of Jesus.

Flip to Romans 3 as we look at that. We look at the work of Jesus, rightly understood, and we look at the faith that's required of us in order for us to experience this work. Romans 3, look at verse 19. Paul is dealing with what does it mean to be right with God in Romans? What does it mean to be near to him? What does it mean to experience the kingdom of God?

And you'll notice in Romans it's contrasted. There is approaching God by the law, in which we rely upon ourselves, in which we think that we need to be lovable, in which we think that it is something that's at great cost to us, I need to follow the law, or we approach it a totally different way, and that is by faith. And we see that contrasted for us in verse 19, moving on.

Look at chapter 3, verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. You see, that is the whole point of the law, is to show that you are not sufficient on your own.

You do not have what it takes. You do not have the love required for God. You will never love God in a way that is enough for him to say, okay, since you love me enough, now I'm going to love you. It will never happen. The law will only show that you do not love God enough. It will only show that you cannot give up enough for God.

That's what the law will reveal. So to take it and to think in false belief that I can love God enough and give up enough for him is completely opposite from the testimony of Scripture. But there's something else available for us, though, right? In verse 21, he says, But now the righteousness of God, that is, being right before God, being near to him, the kingdom of God, has been manifested, but it's apart from the law.

It's not by the law. It's apart from the law. It's different, although the law and the prophets look to it. And that is the righteousness of God, what? through faith or belief in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and yet are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

And so when God does this magnificent work for man, in love he sends his son to die for the world, in order to receive that, it's packaged in, it's couched in faith and trust and following Jesus. So in other words, if someone does not have their eyes fixated on Christ, you can be sure that there is no rebirth in that person. Rebirth, new birth, although hidden of itself has symptoms.

And that is to understand the work of Christ rightly and to receive the work of Christ by your faith in him, your trust in him, following him. So if you're not following Jesus, if you don't have your hope and trust and confidence in him and him alone, there's no reason to think that you have experienced new birth or the first step that's needed for true belief. I think this is important to say because false belief has a couple different ditches to fall into one part we just looked at is trying to do do do trying to do as much as you can right I need to be lovable to God I need to to I need to to give up so much for him even though the truth is is that God is the one who loves and he's the one that has given up everything but another aspect of false belief is that, well, I don't have to do anything.

That God's grace is sufficient, and I don need to display any kind of response at all to what God has done But that ditch won do either The true belief in Jesus the true understanding of the work of Christ is that if I'm going to have that work, the benefits that are found in Christ, I must put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ and follow him. So true belief from the new birth, God has done it all in Jesus' work, trust and believe and follow him that is a symptom of new birth but what does jesus and we'll finish with this major point here what does jesus achieve by his work right if it's motivated by god's love if it came at a great cost to god and not to us and in order to receive it we must believe upon jesus what does he actually achieve with his work what does it look like what does he what does he achieved by his work in us. Well, look at the next point that Jesus makes to Nicodemus to understand the work of Christ.

In verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You know, it's a very good homework for us all to do because I've noticed that most of the time when we run into serious problems in our Christian walk, it's because we've forgotten the basic definitions to basic terminology, Christian terminology. And so a good homework for you to do, even now in your head, that I like to really push on people, is that how would you define, this is what Jesus has achieved, that we would not perish, but have eternal life.

How would you define to perish? What does that mean to you? What does that mean to perish? And what does it mean to have eternal life? Because Jesus, what he achieved on the cross, what he achieved because of the love of God and that great cost to God, is by belief upon him you will not perish, but you'll have eternal life. What does it mean to perish?

What does it mean to have eternal life? Because frankly, I think a lot of times we get into the weeds pretty quick. We can see that we're miserable creatures, there's something wrong, and we'll think that to be saved and have eternal life is that those wrong things, those miseries will go away. that those miseries will go away, and that's what it means to perish and to have life, is those miseries will no longer be there, and instead what I'll have is life indeed.

That's not the essence of what Jesus has done. Now certainly whenever we follow Jesus, a lot of those miserable things that come from our sin tend to kind of go away, but that's not the essence of what Jesus has done for you. That's not the essence of the work of Christ on the cross. In fact, false belief will often make that the essence that if I believe upon Jesus, I'll have a happier marriage.

If I believe upon Jesus, I'll be financially more set. If I believe upon Jesus, I'll finally stop drinking so much alcohol. If I believe upon Jesus, all these miserable things will go away. And that's not the essence of what Jesus Christ has done for you. The essence of what Jesus Christ has done for you is to take you away from perishing and to give you eternal life.

What does that mean? We'll look at the next verse when Jesus tells Nicodemus, for God, again, still explaining the work of Jesus, 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. So what did Jesus actually do with his work on the cross? Is that he causes you to not perish, which means underlying condemned there.

It means to not be condemned. This is what Jesus Christ, the essence of what he does for you. He causes you to not perish or not to be condemned and he enables you to have eternal life or uh to uh or to be uh in verse 17 again or to be saved so um i want to make sure i get these right uh so verse 16 so perish equals condemnation eternal life equals salvation so what does it mean to perish what is your greatest problem in life?

What is your greatest issue? It's not all those little miserable circumstances that you find yourself in, although that is a problem. But your greatest problem in life is that you stand condemned before a holy God, period. And if you're understanding that's not too important to you, if, well, that's not a big deal to me that I would stand condemned before a holy God, then that means that you do not have, or at least you're not showing signs of rebirth.

Because the person who has been reborn is so overwhelmed by the majesty of God, so overwhelmed by the holiness and righteousness of God, that the fact that they would stand condemned before such an awesome God frightens them terrifies them makes them want to melt into the earth and to be no longer existence for the rocks to fall on them and to just obliterate them The person who has been born again has such a love and joy for God that the idea to be condemned before them is an awful existence It's misery itself. And so this is the essence of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross. Is that he gives you eternal life.

He makes you saved. And what saved means is that you're no longer condemned before God the Father, before God. One of the, you know, you read the Narnia series, and it's a great series. One of the issues that people will point to, and I don't think we need to get too bent out of shape about this. Christians like to get bent out of shape sometimes. They just, they find a reason to do it.

But one of the things that Lewis, you know, kind of at least insinuates is that when Jesus paid the price, or the lion paid the price, he had to pay the price for the traitor to the person who, the witch, or the person who represented Satan, right? But that's not actually true. The problem is that we're condemned before God, and Jesus pays the price so that we are no longer condemned before God.

So salvation means that you're saved from God's condemnation, God's angry, wrathful gaze. You are saved from that existence. And by the way, the reason why you are miserable is because God is angry with you. And if you don't want to be miserable anymore, then you need to seek shelter in Jesus so that God is no longer angry with you. And so surely when you believe upon Jesus, those miserable things will tend to kind of go away because you no longer live in life under God's wrathful gaze.

And this is the essence of salvation. And this is what you need to celebrate the most as you consider salvation, is that because of the work of Jesus, I no longer stand condemned before God. And that is enough for you to sing praises unto your death no matter what may happen to you in life. even if you lose your wife, you lose your husband, you lose whatever it is in life, you do not lose that status that I am right before God because of Jesus.

But yet if you find that salvation is I no longer have to live a miserable life, well, what happens whenever your wife gets taken away? What happens when your husband's taken away? If that's the essence of your salvation of having a better marriage, well, there goes that. But the true work of Jesus, understanding the work of Jesus truly from a new birth perspective, is that Jesus' salvation, what he provides you, is that you are no longer condemned before an angry God because of the work of Christ on the cross.

He was motivated by love to give up his son as a sacrifice so that your sins would be covered and you would no longer be condemned as you believe and trust upon Jesus. This is understanding the work of Jesus properly from a new birth perspective. and what's interesting in this last verse 18 is going to really transition into the final phase of this conversation with nicodemus is this eternal life and condemnation reality is a reality that is right now so if you want to know am i born again what symptoms will will happen well you'll understand the work of christ rightly you'll believe upon jesus because of that work of Christ that you understand rightly, and your life right now, the reality of your life right now will shift. And that's what he says in verse 18.

He says, and this, he says, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only son of God. And so the point is, is that if you do not believe upon Jesus, you will stand condemned right now. Condemnation and the judgment of God is not just something that's going to happen when Jesus returns, although it will.

It is something that is happening each day of our lives today. You are either walking this life as one who is condemned before a holy God or one who is forgiven and walking in freedom with Christ, not condemned before a holy God. Those are your two realities that you have set before you. And so the symptom of a new birth is that you walk as a freed, forgiven person before God and you live like it versus the symptom of false belief a lack of new birth is that you walk this life condemned before God and guess what you will live like it you will live a miserable miserable life you will live a life that is the only hope you find is by committing lawlessness and gratifying the desires of the flesh but for those who have been born again the new birth from above your hope is found in Jesus Christ and living for him and following him and no longer being condemned but being forgiven and living a life that reflects that.

So to live a life free of condemnation is to live a life motivated by love to God. As God was motivated by love to give up his greatest treasure for you so that when you receive the new birth and you receive that true work of Christ, you live a life motivated by love to him. Not because you're trying to receive his love, but you've already received it.

And now you are compelled by that love to live for him. No longer condemned, but forgiven. To live a life free from condemnation is to live a life free of condemnation is to give up all to Christ because he has given up all for us, for you. This is what it means to not live a life condemned before God, is that you've given up all for Christ, because he's already given everything up for you in him.

To live in the freedom of forgiveness, or free from condemnation, is to live a life hidden in Christ for his work for us. So the question you need to ask yourself, right, it's not like Jesus says you need to be born again. There's no way I can know. How do I know if I'm born again? Well, there's symptoms that come with it, right? That you can know that that hidden reality has happened in your life.

Do you believe right things about the work of Jesus? Or have you interlaced false belief and corruption involved with it? Do you truly believe that it was a work from God as an act of love to the world in which he gave up everything for you if you believe upon him in Christ? Or are you believing that it is something that you must do in order to reveal your love for him in which you need to give up something of yourself and he's waiting for you to do that.

Well, I encourage you, true trust in Jesus' belief is to say he's done it all for me. He's done it all. It's completed in him. I will follow him because he has done it all. And then what happens is you go from an existence of condemnation before God and the misery that's equated with that to a life of freedom, of forgiveness, of the shackles being off of you in which you can truly and freely follow Jesus because of the new birth and his work on the cross.

These are the symptoms of true belief. And it's something that we ought to consider, especially if you've never truly believed upon Jesus, but even for those who already have, am I living a life that is in keeping with the new birth and true belief, or have I fallen prey to the deceptions of Satan? May we truly follow Christ in the way he describes here, because there's life and freedom to be had there.

Oh God, thank you for Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you for the new birth. Lord, we see this teaching of what it means to truly understand the work of Christ. And Lord, without the new birth, without the Spirit working powerfully within us, the work of Jesus Christ, we will never believe rightly. We will never trust rightly. We will always create false belief.

We will always go astray because Satan loves to deceive and we in our flesh love to follow deception. So I am so thankful for the new birth. I'm so thankful that you powerfully work a new reality in sinners to cause them to go from death to life, to cause them to go from false belief to true belief, to understand rightly the work that Jesus Christ has done for the world.

That's in love for the world, at great cost to him, He has given us everything in Him. So I pray, God, that we would understand rightly to receive those things, we must believe upon Christ and follow Him. Not because it's a work that we can do, but it's because this is a symptom of the new birth. So let us rely upon your strength. Let us rely on your power as we consider this truth about Christ.

And let us truly follow Him. Thank you for being so good to us. Thank you for your kindness and your love that you displayed in Christ. And may we, Lord, find our joy in serving him. We praise you and thank you in his name. Amen.