John MacArthur | What Must You Do to Be Saved?

and the will of god for the church in the world is to proclaim the gospel that is our calling churches have been distracted to put it mildly in this current climate get into all kinds of things that are not the gospel even though they want to label them as the gospel the gospel is the gospel and this is a time for us to understand it explicitly and clearly last week we looked at the conversion of matthew tax collector and we heard the words of jesus i have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance that is the remarkable reality of the gospel that god saves sinners that when we were enemies he set to save us that those people who are self-righteous and religious are by their own self-righteousness cut off from the hope of salvation we saw last week that it was the religious pharisees who thought they knew god and were the representatives of god who were most strongly denounced by jesus and who were sons of hell and making their disciples more sons of hell satan's strategy is in religion false religion is satanic strategy across the world any deviation from the true and pure gospel is a damning lie but it gives the illusion of knowing god you remember in the text that we looked at in luke chapter 5 it ended by recalling the fact that there was an illustration of those who are religious being content with the old wine and not wanting to change to anything new that was true of the pharisees it was so true of the pharisees so true there were six thousand pharisees or so at the time of our lord in the land of israel there is only one conversion of a pharisee in all four gospels one they loved the old wine they loved their religion jesus came to those who were irreligious who were confronted with only their sin the gospel always goes to those who are not holding on to any false religion only one pharisee in the four gospels comes to salvation i want to tell you his story open your bible to john 3 john 3 his name will be familiar to you his name is nicodemus that's a good name it means victory of the common people nicodemus and i want to read beginning in chapter 3 in verse 1. 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 have come from god as a teacher for no one can do these signs that you do unless god is with him jesus answered and said to him truly truly i say to you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of god now let's stop right there we have a responsibility as a church in doing the will of god to proclaim the gospel and the gospel is here articulated by jesus as sinners needing to be born again proclaiming the new birth proclaiming being born again is the priority the most critical responsibility the church has born again is a very familiar term books have been titled born again there are a lot of books on how to be born again i went through some of them just this week five steps to being born again comes to mind how to pray to be born again one book entitled how to be born again all of those are familiar to us because the notion of being born again is so commonly expressed it's part of evangelical pop culture but almost no one seems to understand what our lord is saying it's a simple idea being born again in fact down in verse 12 of chapter 3 jesus calls it an earthly thing in other words an earthly illustration here's the truth this is so simple that you should never be confused by what it means to be born again here is an earthly illustration and if you don't understand this earthly illustration verse 12 says how are you going to understand its heavenly meaning like any parable or any illustration our lord used he picked something very common and simple if you can't get the illustration that in order to enter the kingdom you must be born again you'll never understand the heavenly reality of the new birth and you must understand the heavenly reality of the new birth because it is the foundational truth of salvation you must be born again to be born again or born from above is a work in which you play no role your birth happened to you you had no part in it and the same is true of new birth the message of our lord here is that it's a work of god and it's totally a work of god which immediately obliterates all works righteousness all religion all ceremony all ritual all sacraments as having any contribution to make to new life it is what theologians call monarchistic it isn't something you and god do together it is god alone you're not going to enter the kingdom of god because you try harder to be a better person or more religious or more moral or more philanthropic or more virtuous that is exactly the point the lord is making and market he is making it to a man who was just introduced to us as a ruler of the jews and down in verse 10 a man who is called the teacher of israel this is a simple earthly analogy as to the foundation of salvation it is solely a work of god solely a work of god this stops a legalist dead in his tracks all his life the legalist in this case the pharisee and in specific nicodemus was achieving heaven or trying to by his self-righteousness here our lord says it is all for nothing meaningless your morality your supposed virtue useless this is a dramatic dramatic moment in the word of god jesus answer is stunning verse 3 truly truly that appears 25 times in the gospel of john truly truly it's emphatic it's strong it means this is new this is new listen this is new ancient jewish religion said that all jews would be in the kingdom unless guilty of apostasy or blasphemy that's recorded in the mishnah it's so by being jewish you were already in the kingdom that's what they taught but jesus says i have something other than that to say this is new truly truly i say to you unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of god the sea means to participate that is to say religion is totally ineffective judaism is ineffective even at its highest level and jesus words shatter once and for all every supposed hope in religion all of religion combined at its highest level is a zero before god all of it is useless to be in the kingdom you have to be born from above and with all that achievement jesus says in verse 15 whoever believes in the son of man we'll have eternal life this is literally the worst possible news for the ultimate legalist you have wasted your life all your righteousness is what filthy rags paul called an experiment he was the only other pharisee who gives his testimony in scripture this is just crushing to people trying to earn their way to heaven and worse not only are they not in the kingdom but god offers the kingdom to those who have done nothing to earn it and we're right back to where we were last week right he came not to call the righteous but sinners through repentance whoever believes why for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life most familiar verse in the bible you knew he'd get there right don't look to moses don't look to abraham don't look to the temple don't look to the law look to jesus look to jesus for god did not send his son verse 17 into the world to judge the world but that the world through him might be saved he who believes in him is not judge he who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of god go to the end of the chapter verse 36 he who believes in the son has eternal life he who does not obey the son will not see life but the wrath of god abides on him verse 12 believe believe verse 15 believe verse 16 believe verse 17 verse 17 yes indicates that salvation comes through him to the one verse 18 who believes who believes

Channel: Walking In Truth Ministry

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Keywords: Christ, Jesus, Bible, God, Doctrine, Theology, Bible Study, New Testament, Old Testament, John 3, Nicodemus, John MacArthur sermons 2020, john macarthur john 3, john macarthur nicodemus, born again, john 3:16, john 3:17, gospel of john, john macarthur salvation, monegestic salvation, passion of the christ, jesus christ, christian, grace community church, grace community churchrace community church jphn macarthur, john macarthur grace community church

Id: MnYosIWUQnM

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020