Living Waters A/G
10/4/26
  • Stir Up A Hunger
  • My Lighthouse
  • Enough

      • Hebrews 6NKJV

  • Champion
  • That's The Power
  • What A Beautiful Name
  • There Is A Name

  • The Two-Part Epoxy

    Subject: According to what John reports that Jesus said, what is the one way a person can have eternal life?
    Compliment: It takes God’s love expressed and exhibited through Jesus and it takes a person’s belief expressed and exhibited toward Jesus.
    Exegetical Idea: The One Way a person can have eternal life requires God’s love expressed and exhibited through Jesus to make the Way, and it takes a person’s belief expressed and exhibited toward Jesus to take the Way.
    Homiletical idea: God’s love and your faith work together in Jesus to accomplish your salvation.

    Introduction - The Two Part Epoxy

    In the last 100 years, man has invented new ways of repairing broken things and protecting surfaces. The most versatile technology I can think of is the two-part epoxy. It consists of a resin and a hardener, two totally different chemical parts, that when they are properly mixed and cured and create a strong, stable bond. In the process, the two become one, making a new singular product out of the two and bonds two different materials together through their combined, now unified, substance.
    Two-part epoxies are used in construction, marine, space, aviation, electronics, hobby, automotive , railway, plumbing, manufacturing, and more. Body panels on your car are often attached now with two-part epoxies. I once had a head gasket go on my Chevy 3.4 liter engine (2001 Impala) and had to repair the head by filling the holes that had formed with JB Weld, a two part epoxy, and ground it nice and flat. 4 years and about 40,000 miles later, we had to redo the head gasket. I had the mechanic do it that time, although I prepped it for him. The epoxy and head were 100% fine, but the cheap gasket I had bought online didn’t hold up!
    Why am I talking about fancy glue?
    Because I want to tell you about a much stronger two-part epoxy fix that will restore your bond to God.
    That’s something that mankind cannot invent or produce on his own.
    I call it two-part because it requires a God part and a man part.
    I’m not saying half-god or half-man.
    It requires all God and all man.
    God has provided the resin by making the way for us to come to Him through Jesus.
    We provide the hardener, the activator, with our faith.
    Let’s dig into the Word!
    John 3:1–13 NET
    1 Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, 2 came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.
    This little nighttime visit happens on the heels of the Passover Feast at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, quite possibly during, or directly after, the weeklong the Feast of Unleavened Bread that directly followed the Passover. Note that Jesus’ public ministry involving Jerusalem begins and ends with the Passover.
    The Passover is the meal that celebrates and commemorates God freeing the Israelites from the oppression of the Egyptians and bringing them to their own land.
    I am bringing our attention back to those events, because it was that event, recorded at the beginning of Exodus, that launched the Israelites into the desert where they came to Mt. Sinai, where God spoke from the mountain and Moses went up the mountain and came back down and then back up and down and up… and down.
    He gave them the 10 Commandments and the Laws and the instructions for building a Tabernacle whereby God would dwell with His people, the people He bought and brought to Himself. In Exodus, it says God was with Moses.
    This was all part of God’s immediate plan to take the Israelites from being slaves of Egypt to servants of Him.
    The Hebrew word for slave and service is the same, but the context changes.
    It is the same when Paul speaks of serving the flesh verses serving the Spirit in Romans 6:16-17
    Romans 6:16–18 NET
    16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
    Ultimately, the Exodus is a small scale version of God’s plan to reconcile man to Himself.
    He established His covenant, a two-part agreement, with His people. It requires faithfulness on both parts. The Israelites who did not abide by the covenant did not enjoy the presence, protection, and prosperity assured by the covenant.
    Jesus is telling Nicodemus, “Ya can’t get theah from heah!”
    You have to come from there to get there.
    Nicodemus says, “No way!”
    Then Jesus says, “I told you you wouldn’t believe it if I told you!”
    Like Nicodemus pointed out, Jesus came from God - a teacher from God and God was with Him.
    Like Moses who had gone up on the mountain into the cloud that enshrouded the presence of YHWH and brought testimony of what he saw and heard, Jesus came down from heaven and testified to what He saw and heard.
    What kept Nicodemus from experiencing God was believing what Jesus was saying.
    If he would believe Jesus, he could believe in Jesus and be born from above - born of the Spirit.
    He would further submit to Jesus’ teaching, and submit to baptism to be born of water, just as the ancient Israelites had passed through death into new life as they passed through the Red Sea escaping Pharoah’s army and walking into freedom.
    Nicodemus needed a way there. Jesus was providing the way, but Nicodemus still needed to believe and follow in order to apply the truth into reality!
    Jesus goes on to pull a more direct Old Testament Moses-Daniel type reference:
    John 3:14–15 NET
    14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
    The ONLY way to life is by looking to the ONLY Son of Man
    Notice that there are two main parts to each of these “equations:”
    Snake lifted + dying one looking = dying one lives
    Jesus lifted + dying one one believing = dying one lives
    Jesus now explains more what He is saying here,
    John 3:16 NET
    16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave [his] one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
    Two parts the epoxy applied:
    Resin + Activator = Repair
    God’s Love + Faith = Repair (Hope)
    While there are two main parts of this verse - the God part and the man part,
    I want to point out 2 parts in each:
    I. God’s part:
    A. God Loved the World
    B. God Gave the One and Only Son
    II. Man’s part:
    A. Whoever Believes in the Son
    B. [Whoever] Receives eternal life
    (Jesus expounds on this more in the next two verses)
    Our best response here is to know God’s love, believe God’s Son and Receive God’s life:

    KNOW GOD’S LOVE

    Jesus is the ONLY Son of man given for our salvation!
    Jesus is the one and only way!
    We cannot get to God through our own thinking, our own efforts, our own philosophies, our own religions, our own works, our own feelings…
    We are under the curse of death and without God’s intervention - we are all fuel for the eternal fire.
    The Bible says there is no one who is good, no one who does good (all good all the time), for we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
    We can’t get theah from heah!
    We need somewhere from there to come here to take us there!
    The Bible doesn’t spend a lot time on how we got ourselves into this mess of sin, pain, evil, and separation from God.
    For whatever reasons, He does not simply remove evil, perhaps, to do so would mean removing us - executing proper judgment on us!
    Instead, He meets us where we are at to bring us to Him.
    The focus of God’s word is more about God’s responses and efforts to repair the relationship and how His people have or have not responded to His great love.
    You see, recognizing our sinful, lost, and suffering states, He has not left us alone.
    He has revealed Himself time and time again throughout human history.
    And here, we see the Son of God has also become the Son of Man. All God and all man - not 50/50, not 70/30, 100/100!
    God Himself became flesh to walk with us.
    Romans 5:8 NET
    8 But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
    Hebrews 5:8 NET
    8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered.

    BELIEVE GOD’S SON

    I want you to know God’s love!
    I want you to believe God’s Son!
    Because, I want you to have eternal life!
    Why do some get to live while others die?
    How is that fair?
    What isn’t “fair” is that any of us get to live! This is the scandal of grace!
    Jesus died for each and every one of us, that’s the “resin” part of the epoxy, but it doesn’t apply, the covenant is not activated, the resin will not set, without FAITH!
    John 3:17–18 NET
    17 For God did not send [his] Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
    Here Jesus identifies the “Son of Man” as the one and only “Son of God”
    Let’s look at the term “Son of Man”
    Daniel 7:13–14 NET
    13 I was watching in the night visions, “And with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. 14 To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.
    This title Son of Man was familiar to Nicodemus and the Jews as a name for the coming Messiah.
    The term speaks of Jesus’ heavenly origins, Godly mission on earth, and coming Kingdom
    Nicodemus was looking for a deliverer to rescue the Jews from the Roman oppression, who would in turn oppress and judge the Romans and every other people group… the WORLD.
    Instead, Jesus explains that God’s purpose in Christ is not to subject the Nations in judgment, fear, and control, but to liberate us through love, freedom, righteousness, and worship in His everlasting presence!
    Revelation 5:9 NET
    9 They were singing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were killed, and at the cost of your own blood you have purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
    THIS is God’s heart!
    THIS is God’s purpose!
    THIS is God’s plan!
    Not judgment, but glory.
    He has made the Way, He has sent the Way, but we must follow the Way!

    RECEIVE GOD’S LIFE

    Even with all that God has provided… we still make excuses because we love our sin, we love our self-righteousness, we know better, we do worse, but we don’t want to be held accountable!

    LIVE GOD’S WAY

    John 3:19–21 NET
    19 Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. 21 But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.
    These verses get to the heart of the matter,
    It’s not that God wants retribution, He wants restoration.
    Any restoration requires purification!
    A number of years ago now, I replaced rocker panels on my cars.
    I cut and shaped the new metal in my garage, but before I could apply the two part epoxy and clamp it in place, I had to grind and cut away every piece of “worthless” rusty metal. Any rust would continue to eat the metal and make the whole restoration pointless. I ground and sanded down to mare metal and then I cleaned the dust, the dirt, the grime so I had a good surface to bond to.
    As I applied the epoxy, the was a special tip, a mixing tip, that mixed that resin and the activator. Then I clamped them together [self tapping screws] until it cured.
    As God comes into your life, His Holy Spirit will shine His inspection light in every area that you allow Him to… sometimes in a few more.
    He is pointing out the corruption, the rust and dirt and grime, that you may submit everything to God, that you may be bonded to Him in greater strength and brought into restoration!
    Are you walking your own way?
    Or, are you walking in The Way, His Way?
    Do you believe unto life?
    2 Peter 3:9 NET
    9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
    The message today is simple:
    Know God’s love!
    Believe God’s Son!
    Receive God’s life!
    Live God’s Way!
Living Waters A/G
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