Ultimate question: What am I to do with Jesus?
John 3:16-36
Jesus has been revealed as the Creator God and the coming Messiah to establish His kingdom. Nicodemus has connected the dots and has come to inquire of him and discovered the way into the kingdom of God is thru a spiritual birth (born from above) by being regenerated by Holy Spirit and the channel for this is faith in Christ as illustrated by the events of Number 21.
This section is a discourse inviting the reader to make a choice concerning this one called Jesus and gives us two compelling why we need to do this.
First reason is because of judgment. God in his love sent His only Son into the world to save us. This love, a willingness to sacrifice for something of great value, was exhibited at Calvary. But mankind loves his sin and does not come to the light of Christ and therefore remains in his sin, condemned already and some day will experience the final judgment, the lake of fire.
The second reason we need to make a choice concerning Jesus is the fact that Jesus, the Son of God is sovereign. Verses 22-36, uses the testimony of John the Baptist, in which he humbly submits to the fact that Jesus is superior in nature, in rank and in authority.
Unregenerate man can view Jesus as a liar, deceiver, as a legend, a new age teacher, etc or he can come and accept him as who he is, “Lord of allâ€. At the end of the day, this one called Jesus cannot be ignored so that each one of us is faced with the question “what am I going to do with him?
Through out this passage we see the phrase “believe†(v15, 16, 36). Just what are we to believe. We are to believe that Jesus is God (v13), that he is our sin bearer (v14) and that he is the giver of life (v16) and it is our responsibility to make this choice (v16). How to believe is to make him part of your life, just like drinking water (John 4:14). It is not enough just to mentally accept the facts about him. We must repent, want to change the direction of our life and then receive him as our Savior (Rom 10:9-10).