{"id":30648,"date":"2024-04-09T22:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T05:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-3_1-8-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-04-09T22:10:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T05:10:58","slug":"john-3_9-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-3_9-21\/","title":{"rendered":"From Death to Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 3:9-21\u00a0 \u00a0(CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s passage is John 3:9-21.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

John 3:9-13 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man.<\/p>\n

On verses 9-13:\u00a0 Nicodemus was known as \u201cthe teacher of Israel\u201d (v10 ESV, NKJV).\u00a0 Yet here Israel\u2019s teacher is unable to understand what Jesus, the Son of Man, was saying.\u00a0 It shows that Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, had wisdom and experience that Israel\u2019s greatest teachers could not match.\u00a0 Teachers like Nicodemus were mere men reaching for heaven, whereas Jesus is the one who \u201ccame from heaven\u201d to reach people on earth.<\/p>\n

John 3:14-15 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.<\/p>\n

On verses 14-15:\u00a0 Here Jesus cites an event from Numbers 21 in the Old Testament when the Israelites, led by Moses, were wandering through the desert and bitten by snakes.\u00a0 God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole so that anyone who looked at the bronze snake would live (Numbers 21:8-9).\u00a0 Jesus compares himself to that bronze snake in that:
\n–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like the snake, Jesus would be lifted up on a pole;
\n–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Just as the snake\u2019s bronze colour symbolized judgment, so Jesus took on God\u2019s judgment for us;
\n–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Just as the dying could look at the bronze snake and live, so we who are dying spiritually can look to Jesus, believe in him and live.<\/p>\n

This is just one of so many examples where the Old Testament foreshadows and points to what Jesus would later on do for us.\u00a0 So as a follower of Jesus, train yourself to read the Old Testament with New Testament eyes.<\/p>\n

John 3:16-18 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.<\/p>\n

On verses 16-18:\u00a0 Verse 16 is the most famous verse in the New Testament and perhaps the entire Bible, and for good reason.\u00a0 You will be hard-pressed to find a verse that more succinctly and memorably expresses the gospel (literally, \u201cgood news\u201d) and the hope we have in Jesus.\u00a0 Verse 17 affirms Jesus\u2019 purpose in being sent to the world the first time: not to condemn the world but to save the world through himself.\u00a0 It therefore becomes really simple, just as verse 18 says: believe in Jesus God\u2019s Son and be saved and not condemned.\u00a0 Don\u2019t believe in Jesus and remain condemned.<\/p>\n

John 3:19-21 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”<\/p>\n

On verses 19-21:\u00a0 Jesus is the \u201clight\u201d that \u201chas come into the world\u201d (v19).\u00a0 But as is an ongoing theme in John (see for example, John 1:5, 10), people naturally loved darkness instead of light.\u00a0 Thus they would choose to stay away from Jesus.\u00a0 Whereas our natural sinful inclination is to run away from the light who is Jesus, when we come to the light that is Jesus, that shows that God is working in our lives and that \u201cwhat he has done has been done through God\u201d (v21).<\/p>\n

Jesus, light of the world, thank You that through faith in You we are saved and not condemned.\u00a0 Thank You for sacrificing Yourself on a pole, the cross, so that by looking to You I could go from death to life.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 3:9-21.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!
\n\u00a0
\nJohn 3:9-13 (NIV)
\n9\u00a0\u00a0“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
\n10\u00a0\u00a0“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
\n11\u00a0\u00a0I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
\n12\u00a0\u00a0I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
\n13\u00a0\u00a0No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 9-13:\u00a0 Nicodemus was known as \u201cthe teacher of Israel\u201d (v10 ESV, NKJV).\u00a0 Yet here Israel\u2019s teacher is unable to understand what Jesus, the Son of Man, was saying.\u00a0 It shows that Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, had wisdom and experience that Israel\u2019s greatest teachers could not match.\u00a0 Teachers like Nicodemus were mere men reaching for heaven, whereas Jesus is the one who \u201ccame from heaven\u201d to reach people on earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30648"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30651,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30648\/revisions\/30651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}