#139 - Joby Martin // Knowledge vs. Relationship: Meeting Jesus in the Darkness

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Daily Blade.
The Word of God is described asthe sword of the Spirit, the
primary spiritual weapon in theChristian's armor against the
forces of evil.
Your hosts are Joby Martin andKyle Thompson, and they stand
ready to equip men for the fight.
Let's sharpen up.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Howdy, welcome to the Daily Blade.
This week we're going to do adeep dive on John, chapter 3.
John is obviously written bythe Apostle John.
He lives longer than any of theother apostles.
He, according to himself, isthe one that Jesus loves the
most.
He writes a whole bunch ofBible.
Honestly.
He's got the Gospel of John 1st, 2nd and 3rd John and the book
of Revelation and we get someinsights into who Jesus is, the

(00:43):
character and nature of God.
And we get some insights intowho Jesus is, the character and
nature of God in the gospel ofJohn that we don't get into in
the synoptic gospel.
So we're going to do a deepdive on John, chapter three,
beginning in verse one.
The Bible says this Now, therewas a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews,and this man came to Jesus by
night and said to him Rabbi, weknow that you are a teacher,

(01:04):
come from God, for no one can dothese signs that you do unless
God is with him.
All right, let's talk aboutNicodemus a little bit.
He comes at night and probablythe reason is because he doesn't
want anybody to know that he'stalking to Jesus.
Maybe he's got peer pressurefrom the other Pharisees.
Maybe he's got peer pressurefrom the other religious leaders
, yet he is curious enough toshow up at night under the guise

(01:27):
of darkness, and one of thebeautiful things is that Jesus
is going to meet him right wherehe is Now.
Here is a big fat warning thatI want to give you about
Nicodemus.
My fear is is that if you'relistening to the Daily Blade
then you are probably havequestions and curiosity and
about Christianity and the Bibleand Jesus, just like Nicodemus

(01:48):
does.
But the problem with thePharisees in the first century I
know they get a bad rap, butthe name Pharisee literally
means separated ones, and theidea was it was a group of
Yahweh followers, god followers,folks that were a part of the
old covenant, the Hebrew Biblereaders and believers, and they
believed that if they couldseparate themselves from the sin

(02:10):
and nastiness of this world, ifthey could obey God's law with
such perfection and maybe evencreate some guardrails which are
not bad things around God's lawto make sure that they were not
tainted by the sin of thisworld, then they would be so
separated, they would be so holy, they would be so set apart

(02:31):
that they would be the firstones to see the Messiah, the
coming Messiah, when he showedup on the scene.
The problem is, is what we seeover and over and over?
But we see it best here withNicodemus in this conversation,
that he was way caught up in theactivity of following the law
that he missed the law giver.

(02:52):
He was so caught up in therules that he misses out on a
relationship with Jesus, that hewas so caught up in the words
of the scripture in the OldTestament that he missed the
point of the scripture that he'sliterally memorized.
In order to be a Pharisee, hewould have memorized the entire
Old Testament, from Genesis toMalachi, forward and backward,

(03:14):
and backward and forward, and hehad memorized all of the words
of the scripture at that point.
And yet he doesn't recognize.
The author of scripture isstanding right in front of him.
He can literally smell thebreath of God, but because he
has yet to surrender his life toJesus, he is not filled with
the breath of God.
Now the good news is we findout by the end of the Gospel of

(03:35):
John that eventually, probablyat the cross itself, he comes
around to finally put his faithin Jesus.
But at this point he doesn'tknow who Jesus is.
And here's my big fat warningto you, especially if you go to
church all the time, if you grewup in church all the time, if
the moment that I said John,chapter three, you knew that

(03:56):
Jesus was gonna be talking toNicodemus.
Let me give you a warningPlease, please, please, don't
miss out on Jesus.
Please don't know about churchand please don't miss out on
Jesus.
Please don't know about churchand please don't know about
Bible stories and please don'tjust know about Bible verses and
please don't know about justgood Christian morality and
values and those kind of thingsand miss out on Jesus.
You see, he calls Jesus rabbiand that's the only way that he

(04:20):
knows him, which, funny enough.
When Judas is sitting around thetable and Jesus says one of you
will betray me, every singleone of the 11 disciples other
than Judas says is it I Lord?
Is it I Lord?
Is it I Lord?
Is it I Lord?
And then Judas says is it IRabbi?
It is not enough to know JesusChrist as a teacher or a good

(04:42):
moral example.
It is not enough to know JesusChrist as a teacher or a good
moral example.
It is not enough to simplyfollow the teachings of Jesus.
That's a very popular phrasethese days, but do you know
Jesus Christ as the Son of God,the Lamb that came to die in our
place for the sacrifice andsubstitutionary atonement of our
sins?

(05:03):
Have you surrendered your lifeto the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
Please don't listen to theDaily Blade every day and miss
Jesus.
I hope this deep dive into John, chapter 3, helps you know
Jesus.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Thank you for listening to today's episode
Before you go.
If you want to help equip othermen for the fight, share this
podcast around and leave us afive-star rating and review.
Stay sharp.