You Must Be Born Again - John 2:23-3:21 - March 29, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning. My name is Matthew. I'm one of the pastors here. It is a joy to serve you with the word of Christ this morning. But let's pray for God's help to do what only he can do. So if you would bow with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good and gracious God. A God who delights to give life, who delights to give comfort and mercy and grace. We praise you God that you are a God that speaks, that does not leave us in the dark, but pursues us and comes to us even this morning and speaks to us a word that we need to hear. But God, we also ask that you would do the miracle and help our hearts to hear the word that you would speak. As you did to Lydia in Acts chapter 16, God, where it says, you opened up her heart to pay attention to the words of God, we ask that you would open up our hearts this morning to pay attention to the word that you would speak to us, that you would be glorified, that our joy would be full now and forever. And it's in your name that we pray, amen. What if your greatest desire required of you an impossibility? For instance, if you're not saying this is your greatest desire, but this is an example, what if your desire was to graduate high school and it was then required of you to memorize verbatim a thousand textbooks? or your desire was to get your license and it was required of you that you must put a blindfold on, get in your car and drive from here to LA successfully without bumping into anything. Or maybe you want to make swim team and what's required of you is to swim five laps around the earth. Or what about this one? What you desire is to see the kingdom of God. and you must be born again. It's an absolute impossibility on your own strength. In fact, it's nothing that you're even doing. It's something that happens to you. Even more impossible. And yet that is exactly how God's Word addresses us this morning in our text. If you wanna see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. And the question that I think that this raises is why God would you do that? Why would you say that? Why would you command something of us, hold out the greatest gift, eternal life, and then command something of us that we are powerless to achieve? That's impossible for us in our own strength to Why would you do that? believe this morning the text answers that. And I hope by the end of this message, as we look at God's word, we will see the answer and see that the answer is both surprising and pleasing. We began here, the first section of this text, first heading here is that the self-sufficient confront Jesus. The self-sufficient confront Jesus. Verse 23, now we're scooting back from what we read. Verse 23, now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the sign. on his part did not entrust himself to them. Why? Because he knew all people. And he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man. And what is in man is not good. What's happening here is a superficial faith. They are seeing the signs of Jesus. They are in some way believing in his name, but it's an intellectual assent only, merely. What they are not doing is seeing Jesus' signs and understanding who He actually is and what's required of them. And there's no entrusting of their hearts to Jesus. No, they're seeing the miracle worker. They're not entrusting, so therefore Jesus does not entrust Himself to them. He knows what's going on in their heart. And as we open up, as we move into chapter three, now we meet one of these people. A representative of the superficial faith here, verse one, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. He was a ruler of the Jews. And this man came to Jesus by night and he said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Now, Nicodemus, is coming as a representative person. He's representing a group of people. And he's no just, it's not a random person. He is probably the most socially connected, financially well off, knowledgeable person about God's word, the most religiously connected, the most credentialed individual possible. There's probably no one that actually shares all of this, like Nicodemus. It's not an accident then that he is the one that is now approaching Jesus. He's a representative of the best that the world has to But get this, he's also a representative of darkness. He comes at night. And that's not also an accident. We will see that more later as we go. But so as Nicodemus comes on here, this appears good, right? This appears pleasant, but it's insincere. It's insincere. He comes and he says, we know. We know. Those are fighting words to Jesus. He's representing the religious elite and the religious system and he comes and says, we know who you are, Jesus, and we've put you in a box. He's coming as the authority, telling Jesus who Jesus is. And that is why Jesus fires back with one of the most lethal verses in the Bible. He says, verse three, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He knows what's in the heart of Nicodemus, and he knows that Nicodemus doesn't see the kingdom of God. Verse four, Nicodemus says back, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with everyone who was born of the Spirit. He is saying to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. That birth happens because the Spirit of God blows upon your life. It's an activity that precedes your existence. And it's like the wind. You can't control it, you can't govern it, you can't manipulate it. All you can do is see the effects of it and experience it. And he's making an analogy to physical birth. Just like you and I this morning did not will ourselves into existence. you can't do that, we didn't do that physically and so we cannot do that spiritually. There's a prior activity that precedes us. As John 1 would say, we were born not of the will of man but of the will of God. making this comparison. And Nicodemus doesn't get it. If you notice, he's still focused on what? What can I do? You catch that? Can a man enter back into the womb and come out? What he's asking is, give me the steps, Jesus. If you just map it out for me, then I'll do it. He's fixated still on what he has to do to enter into the kingdom of God. He doesn't get it. What this shows us is that what God is showing us here is that our strength, our pedigree, our credentials, our popularity, our moral track record, our ethnicity, our nice behavior, anything that we can point to, our effort is rendered meaningless, useless to see the kingdom. The new birth, John Biper says, is the axe laid to human pride. It is the end of the moral program. It is the end of the I can and it is the beginning of the God must. That's why the new birth is here. To put an end to us thinking that we can because we can't. God must do this work. God must. That right there is the dagger into Nicodemus' the heart of his self-sufficiency. And he doesn't like it. He picks back up verse nine, Nicodemus says, how can these things be? I don't think he's happy here. He's not asking, please show me exactly how this is. I think he's saying, hey, this doesn't square up with my program of self-sufficiency. This doesn't square up with what I think about the word of God. Like, I want the kingdom of God, but it's about obedience. It's about being good and right and doing all the things. How can this be? How can this be, Jesus, that you're telling me the kingdom of God is gonna come apart from my moral effort? How can that be? Jesus responds, are you the teacher of Israel? And you do not know these things. See, as the teacher, he's again representative here, as the teacher, he should know. It's all through the scriptures. And he should know Ezekiel 36. And God promises that there is coming a day when he will cleanse us with clean water and he will send his spirit to give us a new heart. That day is prophesied. Nicodemus should also know that nobody's obeying the law in the Old Testament, himself included. He should know these things, but he does not. Right, the teacher here, as it's been said, is being taught. The assessor is being assessed. There's a true teacher here on the scene who knows the word of God, who is the word of God. And Jesus continues, verse 11, truly, truly I say to you, We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. So there again, Nicodemus not believing the testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. This is Jesus stamping his authority in this conversation. There's been a challenge for authority and who's the teacher? Nicodemus comes and he says, we know, it's not an accident that Jesus flips the script right here and he says, we know something too. He's speaking in the plural. What's he doing there? He's saying, you come from earth. You and your cronies, the best that y'all got, that's your testimony. Only the Son of Man who comes down from heaven gives the testimony of heaven. The we is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus saying, am testifying and witnessing on behalf of the Trinity here. And the only one to have come from heaven. to give you heavenly realities. That is the absolute mic drop here for Nicodemus. What Jesus is saying is that the kingdom of God is not something that you do. It is something that you receive. It's not something you do, it's something you receive. You don't achieve it, you don't earn it, you humbly receive it as a gift. And we might say, well, is that rude? Is Jesus being rude to Nicodemus? Here. Or is he saying the most loving, helpful thing that he possibly could say? And I think it's the latter. And so does John Piper. He says this. to tell a dead man he must live. That's an insult. to tell him that God makes men live is the gospel. And it is the most hopeful news in the world. Because it means our salvation does not depend on our own decaying will, but on God's sovereign mercy. It's the most loving thing you could tell someone. You must be born again. And maybe it's the most loving thing that Jesus could tell every one of us this morning. If you want to see the kingdom of God and enter into it, you must be born again. Born from above, born from his spirit. Until we see our moral bankruptcy, there's no need for Jesus. Christianity begins with moral bankruptcy. That's where it begins. And if we're holding onto even one penny, we're missing it. The most dangerous place you and I could be this morning is in our self-sufficiency. It's the most dangerous place we can be. Resting upon our effort or what we've done or where we come from or anything, it's the most dangerous place. We must see our need for Christ. And until we see bankruptcy, there is no need for Jesus. And so this morning, may we be reminded to drop all reliance on morality in our flesh. To drop whatever the behavior it is that we're checking the box saying, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I'm a nice person. Yeah, put my good deeds over there in that scale and that's gonna do something. our attendance to a service, our involvement in the church, our financial giving, our Bible reading and spiritual disciplines and our sacrifices out in the world, all of it, none of it moves the needle one bit on our acceptance before God. Do we hear that message? If we do not, we are not Christians. We're not Christians. Doesn't move the needle. And in fact, the things that we are resting in might be the very impediment that's blocking us from seeing and experiencing the kingdom. How freeing can that be this morning to say, you know what, you don't have to hold it all together. You don't have to do all the things. That's the very thing that's blocking you from experiencing the love of God. Be free in that, and so we recognize our bankruptcy, we recognize there's this need for Jesus, but what for? What for? What is this need for? So we've seen the self-sufficient confront Jesus, and now we see that Jesus dies for the self-sufficient. Verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal This is a story from Numbers chapter 21. The Israelites have been rescued out of slavery to Pharaoh and Egypt and they've come out into the wilderness and they start grumbling against Moses and against God. So God brings a punishment and he sends fiery serpents among them and these serpents bite many of them and they die. And the rest of them start crying out, have mercy on us. And verse eight, this is what the Lord then says to Moses. Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and he set it on a pole and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. in the same exact way Jesus says here, the Son of Man will be lifted up. Not on a pole, but on a cross. and all who look to him will will live in their. Praise God. John then gives an explanation of this. You might have in your Bibles still read letters to Jesus, but I think this is John speaking, adding commentary now. He's rephrasing some things he spoke in the prologue. This is John's explanation for what we just have read. He says this in verse 16. Why must the Son of Man be lifted up and everybody look on him and live? Why is that? Let me tell you, he says, for God so loved the world. that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. It's not why he came, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. Because he has not believed in the name. the only Son of God. Why is Jesus lifted up in the wilderness outside the city gate as a criminal blasphemer, tortured, and crucified? Why is he there? because the love of God set him there. Love has sent the Son. God, the Father, sends the unique Son, the eternal Son there as a gift. as a gift. What a strange gift, right? So we have to unpack, John's unpacking, what is this gift? The gift is eternal life, but the means is the lifting up of the Son in death. which means the gift is a type of substitutionary gift. It's a substitution. A serpent on a pole is what heals those who are bit by serpents. The imagery is graphic and perfect. We've been bit by sin and we are going to die. We're going to die. But Christ dies in our place and his death, listen, becomes our antivenom. It's one that, not that we drink, but one that he drinks. He drinks the venom of sin and the judgment of death, and he removes it from us that we might. This is how Paul puts it in some of his letters. says this in 2 Corinthians, He, Jesus, became sin who knew no sin. so that we might become the righteousness of God. Or Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming what? A curse for us. Cursed it's written anybody hanging from a tree like that. That's the love of God, sending the Son of God into that place to die a death He does not deserve, but one that you and I deserve. Why? Because He loves you. He loves us. He's full of love in doing that. And the scope is broad. It's no longer Israel. For the whole world, whoever should believe, as Spurgeon says, that's the biggest word in the Bible. The biggest invitation in the Bible. How broad is that? Whoever would believe? It means there's no barrier. There's no longer any barrier between people and their God other than them just believing, receiving the gift of the Son of God. The love of God gives the gift of the Son of God to die as a substitute in order that those who deserve death could enjoy life forever. Now who in their right mind would not receive that? Who in their right mind would not receive that priceless gift? John continues. And this is the judgment. The light has come into. and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. This is perhaps the biggest indictment on sinful flesh there is in the Bible. It's not that you're not coming to the light merely because you can't, it's because you don't want to. That's why people don't like Jesus or they don't come to Jesus. They don't want Jesus. They don't want the light. Sinners don't like the light. John continues, verse 20, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light. Why? Lest his works should be exposed. Exposure. That's why you don't come to the light. It turns out there's a lot more going on with Nicodemus than we first saw. Sure, you're speaking words of teacher, rabbi. It looks good on the surface, but Jesus knows what's going on in his heart. And what's going on in his heart is not good. It's this. This is why he came at night, because he's filled with darkness and evil, hating Jesus, not wanting the light. As a cockroach scatters when the light is flicked on, That's what sinners do when the light of Christ comes. We don't like exposure. Sinners don't like exposure. And this again is why we need a new birth. We need a miracle. Because cockroaches will not love the light. will not receive it. We'll run from it or as we will see throughout John's gospel. If you can't run away from the light, try to click off the switch. to remove the light. We know that's not gonna get rid of Christ. He's lifted up here, the cross. John is gonna use that word ambiguously to also mean his exaltation and his ascension, his resurrection and ascension. Jesus is coming back. You can't extinguish the light of the world. As hard as you might try, you can't extinguish him. The light of the world will live. We need the new birth. It is a spiritual impossibility otherwise. But listen, what's impossible with man is possible. He makes it possible. He makes it possible. Listen to verse 21. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that, and here's the key, it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. God wrought the miracle. God did it. Our responsibility, believe in the Son of God. Look at the Son of Man lifted on the cross for sin. for our sin, that's our responsibility, believe. And we don't pat ourselves on the back when we do that. We say thank you God. Thank you God for opening my eyes up to see, to treasure Christ until we do. He's the refuse of the world. Get him out of here. But God opens up our hearts just like he did with Lydia and every believer on this planet to see and behold, wow, a savior. The most beautiful thing our eyes could see. The glory of heaven. The testimony and the witness from heaven. Yes, what a miracle. That's what the Spirit of God does in us as, this is very important, as the gospel comes to us. Okay, we're not born again somewhere over here and they come over here and hear the gospel. They're instantaneous. As one Puritan, I guess, or some scholar, he said, I love this analogy. It's like a pool ball hitting another pool ball, and at that point of immediate contact, both are happening. Except one is the cause, God's sovereign grace. And at point of contact, we believe, as we believe, we're born again, or born again to believe. It's the only way it can work. God works a miracle in our hearts to say yes to Jesus and then enjoy life forever with him. What a miracle it is. As we zoom out, summarize all this, God the Father sends God the Son to give a new birth to us as we believe in the gift of the Son of God, dying a substitutionary death for us that we might live for. That's what John's saying here in this passage. So why, again, we return to this question, why would God command something of us that is impossible for us to achieve? I say the new birth, the necessity of the new birth is the most truthful, loving, and effective way to kill our pride so that we would actually look to Christ. The new birth is severing our hope in ourselves that we might. This is not the last time that we are going to see Nicodemus in the Gospel of John. We're gonna see him later, not as a witness to the dark, but as a witness to the light. He will be there at Jesus' tomb with gifts and honor and worship. God works in Nicodemus' heart. He's working in his heart even now. But Nicodemus' story is not what is most critical this morning. It's your story. What is your story with the gift of the Son of Man lifted up on a cross for you? There's only two camps in this room this morning. We are either looking to Christ and living, or we are looking to our self-sufficiency, and we are dying. The word of God this morning invites us to look to Christ, all of us, no matter where you are, we look back to Christ that we may live. He may get all the glory, all the praise, all the honor for sovereign grace that has come to us, sovereign mercy that has come to us. Believe in the Son of God in your place this morning. And as we believe and as we live, may that shape us as a people, as a church. May we be the most humble, the most humble. How can you not be humble? receiving this and the most grateful. How can you not be grateful receiving this gift? And the most faith-filled and hope-filled people on the planet. May this text shape us that way. We be a people that rejoice in our God and in what he's done. That our church will be a church that celebrates this gospel and takes this gospel to the ends of the world. Our Lord Jesus died for the world. May we go as messengers of light, having seen the light, beheld the light, and been transformed by it. May we go as the fragrance and the light of Christ itself. Father, thank you for your grace this morning that gives us a word of challenge and conviction, but also a word of unbelievable comfort and mercy. We ask God for the grace now to respond to this word. God, we pray that your spirit would just crush every idol, every bit of self-reliance that we have. any thought that we would weigh our morality in a scale and be found sufficient. God, would you destroy that from our hearts and minds right now and let us pick up the performance of Christ by faith. May we choose to believe in faith that Christ has died for every one of our sins and cast them as far as the east is from the west, removing our shame. And may we believe that three days later he came out of the grave to give new life, new life in the kingdom of God that's not based upon effort. trying. based upon respect. we lay everything down at your feet even now. You're a good God. Forgive us for our unbelief. Forgive us from our efforts. How do we just confess? We are exhausted trying to climb the ladder up to heaven. We are exhausted trying to make sense of our lives and hold life together. We can't do it. We're exhausted trying to hold up the image and keep our morality. We know we can't do it and it's exhausting us and we're anxious because of it, God. Just ask that you bring peace even now, Lord. Peace right now in our hearts to receive the gospel for the very first time, maybe for the thousandth. Lord Jesus, we look to you by faith as the Son of God who was given in love to die for sinners that we might enjoy eternal life. Thank you that what was impossible for us, you have done. That you might receive all the glory and the honor and the praise now and forever. It's in your name we pray, amen.

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