John Chapter 3:16-20

Now, can you imagine a more noble, a higher calling? We get to do this.

You and I get to do this. This isn't just something that full-time pastors, they're the only ones that really can share the gospel. They're the only ones that are qualified. No, we all are qualified to share the gospel. We get to share the good news. We get to tell others that their sins can be forgiven.

What an awesome thing. And when they find God, they get hope, they find peace, they find love, and eternal life. We get to help people find Jesus, to ask for forgiveness and receive it. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. And we're glad to have one of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A.

Brown, here with us as Pastor David continues through the book of John. Bob, as Christians, we get to take part in something that's amazing. We get the joy of helping other people find God.

I know what you mean, D.A. That's one of the most exciting and fulfilling parts of being a believer in Jesus is to help others to find the light and point them to the light just as we've been pointed to the light. Bob, when you see someone you love or someone you've met give their life to Christ and receive the forgiveness of their sins and you know that they're going to live forever in heaven, man, nothing compares with that. So let's just jump in so our listeners can hear David McGee explain how to do that as he continues teaching in the Gospel of John chapter 3. Verse 17 says, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. You know, a lot of us read that verse and they go, well, you know, no, He didn't come into the world to condemn it. That's my job.

I'll do that for Him so He doesn't have to worry about that. We actually think that's a calling of a Christian to go around condemning everybody. Is that a calling?

Absolutely not. I question some of these well-intentioned but mistaken people that go around condemning everybody when the reality is the reason they act like that is they don't know Jesus. And if you can introduce somebody to Jesus, you can bet that that's going to change your life. Now, am I saying we're not to be watchmen among the towers? Oh, we certainly are. But I think there's many people who have mistakenly thought that they've got this ministry of condemnation. You won't see that in Scripture. Actually, what Scripture says is that we've been given the ministry of reconciliation.

I like that. Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18 says, Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. That's some good stuff there, isn't it?

So what happened? God reconciled us to Himself and then He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Now, if somebody gives you something, can you really take pride or credit for it? No, it's a gift. And that's what the ministry of reconciliation that we've been given is. It's a gift to us where we can share with other people. It's nothing to take pride or take credit for.

This is something we've been given. And how dare anybody take pride in doing that? And see, for me, it's easy not to take pride because when I was born, as some of you know, I was born at deaf-mute. I was born 95% deaf and my tongue was attached to my gums. And even after nine different operations, I wasn't able to speak. When I was five years old, I still couldn't speak.

So I went through four years of speech therapy, being taught how to speak. Now, as reasons or excuses go for not serving the Lord, being at deaf-mute, that was pretty good. But the Lord healed me and gifted me in ministry. And He's perhaps gifted you in ministry.

So it's nothing we take a bow for. It's an awesome honor and a privilege to serve the Lord, to help people find God. Now, can you imagine a more noble, a higher calling? We get to do this.

You and I get to do this. This isn't just something that full-time pastors, they're the only ones that really can share the gospel. They're the only ones that are qualified. No, we all are qualified to share the gospel. We get to share the good news. We get to tell others that their sins can be forgiven.

What an awesome thing. And when they find God, they get hope, they find peace, they find love and eternal life. So life lesson number one, we get the joy of helping people find God. We get the joy of helping people find God.

We get to help people find Jesus, to ask for forgiveness and receive it. Now, when people reject Jesus, they choose condemnation. He's not going to be held guilty for condemning people because He provides the way out.

He provides the answer. You see, and that's one of the unique things about our Lord. You look at other religions, and yes, Buddha and Muhammad and all, they would tell you how to live and how to reach this unattainable plateau. But only Jesus. Well, all these others are telling you how to reach up to heaven.

Only Jesus gives us the answer and reaches down from heaven to earth to provide the way. And that is the distinctive difference about Christianity. He pulls us out of the quicksand of sin. And notice, God didn't send His son just to give us some cute sayings or some mantras that if we say over and over enough, they become true. Or to make us feel better because of our spiritual inadequacy. The purpose of God sending His son was singular in nature. It was to save us. It was to save us.

I'm so glad He did. Verse 18, He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. See, and this is what we need to explain to people. People that reject Jesus, we need to explain to them the cost of rejecting Jesus is that at some point in your life, you stand before a holy God and you will be judged. And when you reject Jesus, you're saying, you know what? I want to stand in my own strength and my own power. I want to be responsible for my own righteousness. And people need to understand that when they reject Jesus Christ, what it is that they're rejecting.

And that's what they're rejecting. Not in a hateful way, not in a condemning way, but in a brokenhearted way. Because if you reject Jesus, it's going to cost you everything at some point. All that you have, all that you'll know, you will lose if you reject Jesus. And that should break our hearts. And now maybe you're sitting there going, yeah, but some people are just willfully sinful.

Oh, you mean like you used to be and I used to be. You know, if anybody deserved judgment, it was those who crucified the Son of God. But Jesus as our model, what did he do? He sat on a hill overlooking Jerusalem and wept for those who were about to crucify him. We should be brokenhearted over people who reject Jesus.

I don't want to see people pay such a high cost. He who believes in him is not condemned. Glory to God. He who makes an effort to reject and makes an application, who qualifies, who is qualified for membership and is a member long enough and does things right enough for long enough is not condemned. Is that what your says?

No. It says he who believes, he who trusts. Man, you got to love the simplicity of the gospel. You have got to love this. It's not if you do this, if you jump through this hoop and then you jump through that hoop and then if you do this and if you don't do that, then you can make it in.

That's the way some people paint the good news. Do you understand that? Well, you got to do this. You can't wear that, can't look like that. Take that earring out. You can't dress like that.

You're not going to get in. He who believes. Oh, you're taking that a little too far. Am I?

I don't think so. They asked Jesus in John 6 28, then said they unto him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? What a human question. What do we got to do? Give us something to do.

We got to have something to do. And Jesus answered and said unto him, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. Well, Jesus obviously was oversimplifying. No, Jesus was giving us the real deal, the real answer. This is the work of who? Of God. Oh, so your salvation is not your work, not according to this scripture, not according to Ephesians 2 8 and 9 says for our grace are you saved.

It's the work of God and believe on him who has sent. Now, believe does not, it doesn't mean that you know about Jesus. You'd have a hard time in this country finding somebody that didn't know about Jesus. It's not about knowing about Jesus.

It's not academically understanding or historically understanding. It means Jesus is the one that you're trusting in to gain entrance into heaven. That and nothing else. He gave his life for us and we should give our life to him. He went through all this stuff, all these things for us. So there's only two options according to this verse to believe or not to believe.

Those are the two choices. And again, when I say believe, I'm not just saying, yeah, I believe God exists. It takes more than that to be saved. When I ask people, you know, are you going to heaven? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, everybody in North Carolina is going to heaven. I don't know if you knew that or not. You know, then you go, well, you know, why do you believe that?

Then you get the wacky answers. Well, because I'm basically a good person. Oh, wow. Well, that's contrary to scripture, which says there's none righteous, no, not one. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. Well, I go to church. Well, we've dealt with that one, talked about that last week.

I think it was last week. You know, if going to church makes you a Christian, then I guess going to Krispy Kreme now makes you a doughnut. See, going to church doesn't make you a Christian.

Well, I, you know, and on and on the replies go. And the classic one, well, I believe in God. Well, it's good you believe in God, but do you understand a belief in God is not sufficient for salvation? It's according to the Word of God.

Don't take my word for it. James chapter 2, verse 19 says, you believe that there is one God, you do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. So, if theologically you think it's enough just to have a belief in God, according to that theology, demons are Christians. Are they?

No. I'm glad. We deal with them enough down here. I don't want to have to deal with them when we get to heaven. Amen. Oh, demons aren't real.

They're in the book. And you show me a verse in here that says at some point, demons will no longer bother us, and I'll believe your theology. Until then, I'll believe the book.

Amen. So, obviously, it's more than a belief. It's a trust that He is the Messiah, that He is the Savior, and you turn your life over to Him, and you repent. You change your mind is what that means in the Greek.

You change your mind about who Jesus is. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we want to take a minute to pray for our listening audience, those living in these cities in California—Oroville, Paso Robles, Pine Grove, Quartz Hill, Red Bluff, Redding, and Ridgecrest. God, we thank you for those listening in these cities and the surrounding areas. Lord, we pray that you would speak right to the Lord. We pray that you would speak right to them right where they're at today, that they would be excited about following you, that they wouldn't fear that they're going to fall short, because you're going to do the work in them.

God, we pray that they would get plugged into a Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church. And Father, did you give the pastors in those churches wisdom on how to encourage those whom God brings? In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 19, and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

Well, that's convicting. Let's move on to the next verse real quick. Verse 20.

No, I'm kidding. Verse 19. See, we want to run from Jesus.

Why? Because we want to hide in our sins. We do. Pastor.

Oh, yeah. Let's be honest. Every one of us in here, we make bad decisions, bad choices. Even after we get saved, we still mess up. We still make bad choices. We still choose the dark sometimes. But what makes us do that? Sin or unbelief?

Well, probably both. I'll let the theologians discuss that for the rest of their lives. And there are some people that won't believe in Jesus simply because they love their sin.

They would rather not have their life changed than to give their life to the Lord. I understand. When I'm talking about darkness, perhaps you're sitting in here, and you're thinking, oh, no, no, no, no. I don't sin that much anymore.

Really. You know what's happening in my life as a believer? The closer I get to Jesus, the more dust in my life I see, the more stuff. And you can see this in the New Testament because Jesus would do something really miraculous. And like Peter would go, you know what?

Depart from me. I am an unholy man. Or you take the life of Paul. After Paul does that, after Paul does all these things, he's living for the Lord. He's getting beat up for the Lord.

He's sharing the gospel. And towards the end of his life, he says, among the sinners I am chief. See, there's two types of sin. There's the sin of commission, and we're familiar with that.

That's what we really think about sin. We think those are things, sins that you commit. But equally, or maybe even more so, are the sins of omission, commission and omission.

Omission from the word omit are the things you don't do. And do you realize that there's probably more sins that we don't do than we do when we don't live for the Lord, when we don't love others, when we don't forgive others, when we don't share the good news? Those are all sins of omission.

And understand something. People will not be condemned to an eternity without Jesus because of what they did. They will be condemned because of what they didn't do. It's not the sins they committed, but what they omitted, in that they did not receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. And somehow, somehow guys, when we become, if you're sitting here this morning, if you receive Jesus as your Savior, somehow when we get to that point, we think we got it all figured out.

How amazing. The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know about the Lord. This word, this term judgment is the Greek word crisis. It means a judicial decision of condemning or declaring guilty. See, we've all been declared guilty. We've all been weighed in the scales of justice and righteousness, and we've come out wanting.

That's the bad news. The good news is Romans chapter 5 verse 6 says, And when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. I love that verse. It says, while we were yet without strength. We were yet without strength.

We were yet without strength. So when you're talking to somebody and you say, well, this is the good news, and they go, you know what? I don't think that I can do those things. So you know what? You're right.

You can't do those things. That's why He died for you. Because while you were yet without strength, without strength and ungodly, that described all of us before our commitment to the Lord. And sadly enough, sometimes in our weakness, we allow it to drive us away from the cross. We allow it to drive us away from Jesus.

Because when we sin, what do we do? We tend to run. We tend to hide.

That's not just you, friend. That's all of us. There's a part of us when things happen we don't want to be in prayer. We don't want to be in the Word of God. We don't want to be in the church because we're reminded of how inadequate we are. And that's okay. It's okay and it's understandable to feel like that.

But to act on those feelings is wrong. You see, our weaknesses shouldn't keep us from Jesus. Our weaknesses should drive us to Jesus. When you mess up of going, you know what, Lord, I need your help.

Here again, I'm looking at myself needing your help. Because if you ever think as a Christian you don't need the help of the Lord, you're about that far from fallen. To be reminded that you do need Him.

That's why we're told pride comes before a fall. Now some people have, I don't know, they have the impression that they in themselves have the strength to live for the Lord. Any strength that you have to live for the Lord has been given to you. And you can't, you know, sometimes we tell people who don't know the Lord who are weak and they're ungodly, we say, well, you know what, you just need to live for the Lord. You might as well speak Greek or Hebrew to them.

They can't understand what you're saying. You can't, you're not given the strength to live the Christian life before you come to Jesus. You come to Jesus and Jesus gives you the strength to live the Christian life. But then, now, you're in here and I know many of you have made a commitment to Jesus Christ, but what happens when you mess up? Now, of course, I'm assuming that you do occasionally mess up. I'm going out on a thin branch here, but what happens when you do?

What do you do? Do you run to Jesus or do you run from him? Does he end up having to search for you like Adam in the garden calling out your name asking where you are or do you run to him? I used to think as a young Christian that, you know, that I had to feel bad enough for long enough before I asked for forgiveness for something I did. And then I realized one day that that's the ploy of the enemy because the longer I waited and the worse I felt, the less likely I was to come back to the Lord as I suffered under this weight of condemnation.

Life lesson number two. We can either run to Jesus with our sins or run from him with our sins. We can either let Jesus represent us or we can defend ourselves at the end of this life. Those are the choices.

Those are the choices. I choose to run to Jesus with all my inadequacies, with all my weaknesses, with all my frailties. I choose to run to Jesus. And every time Jesus has his arms held open wide waiting on me. You ever seen a three-year-old run them to their daddy's arms?

It's a beautiful thing. They just run with abandon. They know daddy's going to catch them. They know daddy's going to grab them and hug them. They know daddy loves to hug them.

They know daddy loves them. Have you ever seen a three-year-old get ready to run to their father's arms and go, wait a minute, does my shirt look right? Oh, I got a loose thread there. Uh-oh.

Is my hair okay? All right. I think I'm ready. All right. Now I'm going to hug the daddy. Run to daddy and hug him. Does three-year-olds do that?

No. Then why do we do it? Why do we do that with the Lord? We make religious pretensions when he just wants us to run to him. He wants your heart. He wants your life. Some of us think he's interested in our righteousness. I understand what I'm saying here.

The Lord's interested in our sanctification. But if you think you have something to offer God through your righteousness, the Bible is real clear. You don't have any.

And any that you do have has been given to you. See, this is the kind of stuff, guys, and man, I know that I'm speaking to some people in here. Because again, I'm way off on the rabbit trail.

I'm completely out of my notes. But I guarantee you that there's some people sitting in here this morning that are bound up by religion. And you need to be set free. You need to realize that Jesus loves you so much that he died for you, and he just wants you to come to him. Oh, he'll clean you up.

He'll change your life. But that happens as you come to him, not before. Verse 20, for everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. Now, it's interesting to know how much the Pharisees and the scribes argued with Jesus. They argued with him.

Why? Because they thought they were righteous in and of themselves. That's why they argued with Jesus. Let me ask you a question. How many sinners do you see arguing with Jesus in the Gospels?

I don't see any. They fall at his feet, amazed that he's extending mercy to them. And the spiritual religious leaders, some of them followed Jesus, some of them followed Jesus, and then some of them argued with him until they crucified him. Guys, the light, the light that it speaks of, this is Jesus. He's the light of the world. You don't have the light within. Don't believe that. The light's within, grasshopper.

Don't believe that stuff, man. And then people that say, I'm looking for the truth within, what in the world is that? I'm looking for peace within. Why are you looking for peace? Because I'm not at peace.

Okay. And where is it you're going to find this peace? I'm looking within. Does anybody else in this room see a problem with that? You don't have any peace.

How can you look inside for it? Guys, Jesus is the light of the world. And he's the light that has shown the way to salvation for 2,000 years. And let me promise you, friend, that many people that had even darker things in their lives have come to him and been set free.

But what happens? Well, we get religious and we want to come to the light on our own terms. I'm just glad there is a light, that we don't have to suffer and stumble in darkness. So when Jesus says there is a way, I'm grateful. Man, praise God, there is a way. I'm not going to sit there and go, well, is there only one? No, I'm just grateful there is a way. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. And friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day, you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor DA, and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge, in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.