Doing truth and getting ushered into light. John 3:14-21

The renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles told this story in a graduate class at Harvard University many years ago: “A highly regarded psychiatrist recently told me in despair: I have been doing therapy with a man for 15 years. He is as angry, as self-centered, and as mean as he was the first day he walked into my office. The only difference is that now he knows why he is so angry and mean.'”

Dr. Coles pointed out that although the psychiatrist provided his client with insight as to how his childhood emotional wounding had affected his adult dysfunction, the man still hadn’t changed. Coles asked, “Could we conclude that what this man needed wasn’t just information but transformation? But is transformation possible for human beings?” Rebecca Manley Pippert, Stay Salt, (Good Book Company, 2020) pp. 137-138

We know, we have memorized, John 3:16. But this morning, let’s go beyond the memorization and information and let Jesus transform us.

21 But whoever lives by (or does) the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Doing truth – getting ushered into light.

  • Doing truth in this passage meant humbly seeking Truth
  • Vs. 14 – doing truth in this passage meant looking to Jesus on the cross and then in the ascension.
  • Vs. 16 – doing truth in these verses means believing (betting your life) on Him.

How do we do His truth today and come into the light?

  • Seek Him!
  • Works of piety…works of mercy. By faith.
  • Also…God is working in you to get you to do truth.

The key way God seems to move in the lives of unbelievers in the background for this passage is through the impatience talked about here in Numbers 21…or we could call it frustration, or desperation, or unhappiness. Why are they in this situation?

4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom, but the people became impatient because of the journey. 5 The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!” 6 Then the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.

7 The people then came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the LORD so that He will take the snakes away from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.

8 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.

Because of frustration over their own choices—remember Numbers 13/14? Their disenchantment with life leads them to mutter about God under their breath and to one another, but before things get better, they get much worse.

The serpent of a grumbling, dissatisfied spirit was in their hearts…now God allows that snake-spirit to be unleashed into their camps. Serpents, everywhere.

And relief will come through doing truth —

  • coming to the leader/prophet and asking for priestly help and
  • in faith looking up at a bronze serpent on a pole.

For God so loved the world that He gave his son, Jesus, to be lifted up on a cross. If you bet your life on Him – not just a sinner’s prayer or an altar call – but really bet your life on Him…the abundant life starts today for you, and lasts for all eternity.

Before Adoniram Judson became the pioneer of American foreign missions he was a rebel. He finished at the top of his college class and headed to New York City to seek fame and fortune as an actor and/or writer. He had renounced his father’s belief in a personal God; his education had taken him beyond such primitive notions. Prayer, of course, was meaningless to him.

But by the age of 20, Adoniram didn’t feel right about his life. Disillusioned, he headed back to his home in Plymouth, Massachusetts, stopping for a night at a wayside inn. Adoniram had trouble sleeping that night, because a man in the next room was critically ill and moaning and groaning in pain. Obviously, his neighbor in the next room was dying. In the darkness of his room, Adoniram thought about the possibility of his own death and whether he was prepared for it. At times during the long hours he thought about returning to the Christian beliefs of his father, but then he imagined what his college chum Jacob Eames would say about his father’s doctrines. He waited for morning to come so that the terrors of the night would be forgotten.

Early the next morning, Adoniram went to the innkeeper. “That poor old man in the next room.

How is he?” he asked.

“He passed away early this morning,” came the reply. “And he wasn’t old at all. He was a young man, about your age.”

For some reason, Adoniram asked, “What was his name?” It was a rather stupid question, because Adoniram certainly didn’t know anyone in that section of the country.

The innkeeper replied, “His name was Jacob Eames.”

There was no mistaking the name or the identity. It was the young college friend whose religious skepticism had turned Adoniram against the religion of his father.

Dazed, he returned to Massachusetts and to his father. Echoing through his mind was the word lost. But it took three more months of intellectual struggle before he “made a solemn dedication of himself to God.” William J. Petersen, 25 Surprising Marriages (Baker Books, 1997)

Two other men on the cross…