Reporting live. Today, we’re going to talk about how lawyers answer hard questions. So in law school, one of the things you do is you learn the law and then as you get experienced, you know more about the law. But one of the most important things taught to us at Pepperdine was that you’re going to get to many times in your career and you don’t know the law. You don’t know what answer to give to your client. And so the key here is that you know the source. That you’re able to go to the authority, find the answer, and then be able to apply it to a set of facts. And that reminds me of a story that Jesus was involved in when there was this lawyer named Nicodemus. Nicodemus had studied the law, he knew the laws. Not only that. He had a pretty good heart and he could see though, that Jesus was doing these miracles, he could tell he was from God.
And so he was just like, “This is something I don’t know.” So he goes to see Jesus, now he goes at night. Because the other Pharisees, didn’t like Jesus, and he didn’t really want to get in trouble. So he sneaks on over there and he says, “Jesus, I see all these miracles you’re doing. You got to be from God.” And Jesus throws one on him. And you think about these lawyers and what they do when they don’t know the answer, he went to the authority, which was Jesus. And Jesus throws a curve ball. Jesus says, “You can’t get to heaven unless you’ve been born again.” And can you imagine this lawyer thinking, “Hmm, that’s impossible. You want me to crawl up in my mother’s womb and be born again?” He just doesn’t get it. And Jesus says, “No, you have to be born from heaven. You have to be born from above.”
He distinguishes being born here on earth from a Holy Spirit birth. A situation where heaven actually puts a new spirit life in you, begins a new life in you and it’s done by heaven. And Nikki’s going, “Well, how do I do that?” In verse four, he actually says, “How do I do that?” And then in verse nine, he goes, “How’s this possible?” He, like a lawyer is still thinking, “What do I do? What can I do? What else do I do?” And Jesus is trying to explain, “Look, you can’t do it. Only, God can do it. You have to be born from above. This is something only God can do. You can’t do it.”
And now you can imagine this lawyer now he’s really freaked out because that’s what he’s been trained to do. And Jesus said, “Let me explain it to you.” And he tells him a story that Nikki learned in law school. This story about Moses that had happened several thousand years before. He said, “When the people were out there in the desert dying. Snakes were biting them. The snakes were poisonous. These people are just dying. The people are saying, ‘What do we do? What can we do?'” He tells him the story that Nikki already knows. He says, “You’ll remember Moses took a Braun snake and put him up here. He puts that bronze snake up. And all the people had to do to be healed was simply look at the snake.” And then Jesus said, “I’m the son of man. I’m God and I too, am going to be lifted up.”
He’s talking about he’s about to die on the cross. “And all you got to do, like the people in Moses’ time, just like you learned in law school. You’re just going to have to look at me. You’re just going to have to believe in me. When I get lifted up, believe in me, believe who I was. I’m God, that’s what I’m telling you. Believe what I’m going to do, rise from the dead and pay for your sins. And then understand the value. Look to me for the value. The salvation value. And when you do that, you simply look. It is heaven that is going to act. Heaven is going to create a new birth, a born from above new birth. And it’s nothing you can do. It’s nothing you learned in law school.”
“It’s nothing you can do from your experience. You can’t be good enough. You’re going to need God to get to heaven.” And our job is simply to look at him, to believe in him and recognize what the value is. So we’re looking for a Spirit life that is born from above. We got to understand only God can do that. And then Jesus clarifies it at the very end. He quite quotes the most famous words known to man. He says, “Nikki.” Or, “Buddy.” Or whatever he said to him, “Nikki, God loved the world so much that he sent me his only Son to die, so that whoever believes in me, whoever looks at me when I’m lifted up, won’t perish. They won’t die, but they’ll have eternal life.” Yeah. So it comes from God folks. He puts the new, born again Spirit in our life and we inherit paradise. Have a good day today.