John 3:1-15 - You Must Be Born Again

Happy anniversary, Proclamation Church.

This is nice.

I mean, I wish you guys could have seen what we started with.

We had uh couches uh that nobody had any business sitting on.

They were the main source of seating in our original little design.

We thought nothing out.

Uh we had no music.

Jimmy led music.

It was it was it was not good.

Uh but while we slept, God did it all.

Uh, and this is probably the most impressive thing since I've like when you come back in, you're like, okay, everything looks nice, is the scripture reading that Molly just did, those names were a nightmare, and she just handled it.

Like, that was impressive.

Uh, but here we are.

I want to thank Proclamation Church uh for helping and providing to Grace Church.

You guys send money monthly.

Uh, you send musicians uh when we don't have any, except for today.

We didn't have any and we couldn't work it out.

Uh so Kevin's leading the singing, or no, Christina is, so pray for that.

Um thank you for praying for us.

All the things.

Thank you guys.

Uh, we really do appreciate it.

I'm not used to a pulpit that I can't move, so if I jerk this thing around and I'm just that's just how it is.

I'm fidgety and I move stuff.

So this is a little bit more heavy duty than I'm used to.

Um I'll admit that these these like one-off sermons are difficult for me, so you're gonna have to bear with me.

I'm used to picking a book of the Bible and just preaching through it.

So coming up here with a one, like one sermon is something that I'm not used to.

Uh, maybe it would have been best for me to just pick a book of the Bible that I could cover in one week, like Jude or something.

I don't know.

But like, where do you go in the Bible for a church that is like celebrating an anniversary?

Uh, where do you go in the Bible to preach one time and then leave?

I mean, I could really say anything I wanted.

Rick has no idea what I'm about to say.

I could say anything.

Uh what do you what do you do?

And I don't really know.

I don't know.

Uh I mean I have something prepared.

I don't want you to think I'm just now figuring it out on the spot, but I don't really know what's best for a one-off type of sermon.

But whenever I get the chance, I love to preach on Jesus.

I love to go to the gospels.

Uh I'm pretty pumped to meet Jesus one day face to face.

So I like to talk about him and read about him.

And if I can paint a picture like of what it was like when he was here on earth, that's what I like to do.

So that's what we're gonna try to do this morning.

We're gonna go to John chapter 3 and we're gonna cover the first 15 verses.

John 3 · chapter mention

And this is the story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus.

He's trying to figure out a little bit more about who Jesus is and what he's up to, and uh that's what we're gonna try to look at here in the text.

Sometimes you'll hear someone say uh that, like uh you'll hear someone that was a rough character, like they were like uh, you know, a kind of a rough guy, and they came to Jesus.

And then once they were like a rascal or a good old boy, and they like to party, and they they really, you know, they didn't have life together.

It was messy, it was worldly, and then they they come to Christ.

And then people will say, well, that's exactly the type of person that Jesus goes after.

He he goes after the people that don't have their life all together.

He goes after the not really religious people, the not so self-righteous people.

Or he goes after the people that are castaways to society.

Those are the people that Christ are looking for.

Something like that.

That's who Jesus is looking for.

And in some sense, that is correct.

He does pursue people that aren't interested in religion.

He does go after the lowly and the ones that are desolate.

He does seek the castaway, he does leave the 99 and go after the one loner.

But we can't limit Jesus to that.

You you can read in John that Jesus actually pursues a variety of people.

In fact, it really has nothing to do at all with the type of person that you are.

In John chapter 4, he goes after a woman with a reputation of sleeping around.

John 4 · chapter mention

In John chapter 5, he goes after a paralyzed man that's completely hopeless.

John 5 · chapter mention

In John chapter 6, he pursues an entire crowd of people.

John 6 · chapter mention

All the while he pushes into his own disciples, the ones that are following him the closest.

And then here we are in John chapter 3, and Jesus is going to press in on Nicodemus.

John 3 · chapter mention

Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

He was super religious.

Someone raised, knowing the Torah really well, probably having it memorized.

Someone with a really strong sense of right and wrong.

Someone that wasn't looking to be a rebel.

It's not like he was trying to buck up against the system.

Someone that would say they knew God.

And as I consider what to preach to a group of church-going folk on an anniversary Sunday, I can't help but think there are some people in here even that are like Nicodemus.

You've done the right thing your entire life.

You have a really strong sense of right and wrong.

You're honest.

You would say that you know God.

But deep down inside, maybe you struggle with self-righteousness.

And while you may know about God, you've never really been born again.

You can sit and you can amen about how Jesus reaches the lowly, and you've never really felt that you've needed to be reached, because you've done a pretty good job of this thing on your own.

You've done a pretty good job of this whole church and religion thing on your own, just like Nicodemus.

If you're not familiar with how I'm going to preach, I'm going to read a little bit, and then I'm going to read a little bit, and then I'll talk a little bit, then I'll read a little bit, and I'll talk a little bit.

So the closer I get to chapter 3, verse 15, the closer we are to the end of my sermon, and then we can eat lunch.

But right now we're just in verse 1, so you got a little ways to go.

So let's read chapter 3, verse 1.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

So a religious person is who we're starting with here.

Religious people are the worst, right?

I mean, honestly, there's no one that our society is more comfortable ripping on than someone that is a devoted religious person.

Even Christians will say, No, no, I'm like, I'm not religious.

It's not about religion, it's about a relationship.

It has this stigma of like self-righteousness.

Oh, you're a religious person.

And there's never really been more religious people than the Pharisees.

Pharisees, they're not trying to like back away from their religiosity.

They would be like, yes, we are very religious.

We adhere to all the scriptural laws.

And on top of the scriptural laws, they they've even added their own laws and their own traditions that they thought would improve God's law.

For instance, uh Exodus 20, verse 10 says, not to work on the Sabbath.

Exodus 20:10

That's pretty simple.

God had commanded the Israelites that the last day of the week was to be observed as a day of rest.

The point of this was to trust God that what he had for you could be accomplished in six days, and that it was good for your soul to take a day of rest.

The Pharisees added to this.

They created thirty-nine types of work that were prohibited, so no one would break God's law of not working on the Sabbath.

So things like this do not spit on the Sabbath because it would disturb the dirt, and that is technically ploughing, which is technically work.

Do not swat a fly on the Sabbath because you would be guilty of hunting, which you're not allowed to be hunting on the Sabbath because that's too much like work.

Then what they would do is they would create loopholes around the laws that they made up and that they put in place.

Kind of like our government a little bit.

They make loopholes around their own fake little laws.

For instance, if your house burnt down on the Sabbath, you weren't allowed to grab any clothes because that's working.

They made that up.

You're not allowed to grab clothes.

That's too much like working, let it burn down.

But to get around the law that they made up, they would wear several layers of clothes on the Sabbath, which sounds kind of tiresome, so that they wouldn't break the law that they had made up in the first place.

Apparently, house fires were a huge concern then, so they had to walk around with a bunch of clothes on.

They held on to these traditions, their traditions, as closely as they did to God's actual law.

In an effort to follow God's law as exact as possible, they made rules around his law, which then made them miss the point of God's law that he put in place in the first place.

The Sabbath no longer felt restful because you were consumed with not breaking a law about work.

That struggle can sound familiar to us uh lifers and the church, like Bible reading.

It's supposed to be about communing with God and learning more about Him and learning to love Him more because of what His Word says.

And we turn it in to this laborious task that we just got to get done every day because that's what we're supposed to do.

No affections, just rules.

These that's the picture of a Pharisee.

These Pharisees also had a big sway in the society.

They weren't a majority, but they were heavily influenced.

They heavily influenced the decisions of the society.

You we can relate to that in our society today.

It's not always the majority that hold the largest sway.

So you have Nicodemus, not just a Pharisee, not just a religious guy, but a really a high-up teacher within this group.

This is the man that comes to Jesus.

And then verse 2 This man came to Jesus by night and 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.

So at the end of chapter 2, if you went back to the end of chapter 2, it said that many believed when they saw the signs that Jesus did.

You may also remember that it was people like Nicodemus that were questioning Jesus, asking him for a sign of authority when he overturned the tables.

So he overturns the tables in the temple, and they're like, like, who do you think you are?

What sign do you give us that you are who you say you are?

And now Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and says, We know that you're a teacher that's come from God because of all of these things that you're doing.

He doesn't really ask a question here, but he's really asking something.

He's asking, like, who are you?

Like, what is happening here?

And maybe he came at night because he wanted to sneak and not get caught by the other Pharisees, because the Pharisees saw Jesus as blasphemous.

And if they knew that Nicodemus was going to him, that would impact his standing within their group and then impact his standing socially.

I don't know.

Maybe he taught all day, and Jesus kept coming up in their teaching sessions, like, what are we going to do about this guy?

And after a full day of teaching, he's like, I got to get to the bottom of this.

So he went to Jesus at night to ask him for a self.

I don't know why he went to him at night, but what we do know is this very religious, rule-following, strict, uptight Jewish person came to Jesus at night and said, We know you've come from God because no one can do this stuff that you're doing.

And apparently Jesus has done some signs and miracles that haven't been recorded in John.

In fact, we know that because John says at the end of the book that there's many other signs and wonders that Jesus had done.

But here, Nicodemus is wondering what's going on.

Like, you've done some stuff here.

What is going on?

And Jesus' response to him like blows the circuits of Nicodemus' mind.

This is what Jesus says.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now keep in mind that along with the rule following, Nicodemus is a teacher.

He probably has the first five books of what we would know as the Old Testament, what he knows as the Torah.

He would have these memorized inside and out.

He knows the prophecies and the history of the covenants that God has made with his people.

He knows all of that stuff.

And Jesus just told him that he needs to be born again if he wants to see the kingdom of God.

These Jewish people expected the Messiah to show up on the scene and make Israel this great nation.

They had been treated poorly, they'd been held in captivity over the years.

And even now, and in our text, even then, the Romans had rule over them.

But they were promised that one day God was going to make them into a great nation again.

So when they are looking for this Messiah, they are expecting deliverance from their enemies.

They're expecting triumphant victory.

And here this guy is claiming, he's claiming to be from God.

Some are saying that he's the Messiah that everyone is expecting to make Israel great again.

And he's telling Nicodemus that if he wants to see the kingdom, that he needs to be born again.

Again.

Like start over?

What is he even talking about?

So Jesus, or so this is what he asked Jesus in verse number four.

Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

So Nicodemus is like, How are these things even possible?

See, Nicodemus is trying to assess Jesus.

We see what you're doing, and now we're going to analyze everything that you're saying.

And I'm interviewing you, Jesus.

But Jesus doesn't really play like that.

He's not going to just go with everything on Nicodemus' term.

You don't get the kingdom of God on your terms.

You have to actually come as everyone else does, completely new.

You don't bring your baggage of anything with you to Jesus.

Which for some of you, if you have terrible baggage, that's great news.

You don't want the baggage.

You mean I can leave everything at the feet of Jesus and start completely over?

I'm all in.

I'll do it.

But when you're pretty sure that you're nailing it in life, and Jesus says, Yeah, it's the same for you.

You must be born again.

That's really offensive.

And Nicodemus is like, wait, what?

I've been crushing religion.

This God thing, like I'm nailing it.

Do I have to get back into my mom's womb and be born again?

Because that would make more sense to me than starting over and starting new.

Imagine Nicodemus' mom like being pregnant with him again, and someone's coming up to her and saying, like, how far along are you?

And she's like, 59 years, and that would be extremely awkward.

And Jesus, and Nicodemus is saying to you, Surely you're talking literally, which is impossible.

So we can just say you're crazy and we can move on from you.

Surely you're talking literally.

You mean I need to be born again, because this is crazy.

Jesus answers him in the following verses, verses five through eight.

Jesus answered, truly, truly, that you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the 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 its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Remember, Nicodemus knows the Old Testament really well.

He knows he knows these prophecies.

I'm going to go to Ezekiel 36.

This is the prophet Ezekiel talking to the people of Israel, to the Jewish people.

Listen, listen for the water references, and remember that uh Nicodemus knows these passages.

This is what it says in Ezekiel.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall come clean from all your uncleanness, and from your idols I will cleanse you.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules.

Nicodemus knows these passages when Jesus refers to water.

Now go over to Ezekiel chapter 37.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

This is a that Ezekiel had concerning the Jewish people.

Listen for the lack of water, and this.

This is a little chunk I'm going to read, so bear with me.

Listen for the lack of water.

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the spirit of the Lord, and he set me down in the middle of the valley.

It was full of bones.

And he led me around among them, and behold, there were me there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.

And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

And I answered him, O Lord God, you know.

Then he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live, and I will lay sinews upon you, and you will cause flesh to come upon and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and breathe put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

So I prophesied as I was commanded.

And as I prophesied there was a sound, and behold a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to to its bone, and I looked, and I beheld, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live.

So I prophesied as he commanded me.

And then the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet in an exceedingly great army.

I could read more on this, but here's what I'm trying to paint for you.

Nicodemus knows all of these scriptures about water and life, and how water is a sign of new life, and dryness is a picture of spiritual deadness.

So when he says in verse 5, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom.

He is saying that he must be made new, he must have new life.

If you've been born of the flesh, it doesn't matter if that's Jewish flesh or Gentile flesh.

What is flesh is flesh, and what is spirit is spirit.

And everyone needs to be born again if they want to see the kingdom of God.

The water references are pictures that Nicodemus would pick up on from all of his knowledge of Scripture.

Pictures of new life.

And he says the spirit goes out like the wind.

You don't really know where it came from, but you know when it's here.

You can't control it, you can't harness the wind, you don't tame the spirit.

With all the rules and all the boundaries that the Pharisees have put in place, they still can't control who is born of the Spirit.

You can put barriers around things, you can follow the law, but your heart is still dead and you must be born again.

And apparently this furthers the confusion for Nicodemus.

He at this point, confused and frustrated, he says in verse 9, How can these things be?

How can it be that someone like Nicodemus, who has done everything seemingly right, needs to start from scratch, needs to be reborn.

Why would he need to let go of all of the good that he has done and all the things that he's learned, especially when they've been related to God in the first place?

Nicodemus, like so many people in our culture, so many people here today, is counting on his life as this ticket to king the kingdom of God.

He's counting on the things that he has done and not done.

Me, the the rule-abiding religious guy, I need to be born again?

How can these things be?

And Jesus pushes back on Nicodemus a little bit more in verse 10.

He says in verse 10.

Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

So Nicodemus knew all of the scripture.

The things we just read in Ezekiel and so much more.

He knew these things.

He should know that all of this is pointing to more than just simply following a set of rules.

He should know that the scriptures have talked about new life with when the Messiah comes.

What has he been teaching if not these things?

And maybe he's been too concerned with the rules that he has just.

Added on to scripture that he's missed the point of what the scriptures have actually been getting to, which, by the way, is standing right in front of him at this point.

The point of all religiousness in his life is standing in front of him.

The point of the entire scriptures is standing right in front of Nicodemus and he's missing it.

And Jesus goes on in 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.

If you remember, back in verse 2 we just read, Nicodemus came to Jesus and said, We know, like we know these things.

And now in verse 11, Jesus' response is we speak of what we know, and not only that, but what we have seen.

So Jesus says, We know some stuff too.

It's like a little rebuke to Nicodemus.

You can't come to the God of the universe like Nicodemus and verse 2 and lead off with, look, I know.

I know some stuff here.

You know?

You got to come with humility.

Like we read in Ezekiel when God said, Can these bones live?

And Ezekiel's response was, You know God.

You don't go to Steph Curry, the greatest three-point shooter of all time, and say, Hey, I need some help with my jump shot.

Look, I know how to release the ball.

I just don't know how to set up.

No.

You just come and you just say, Teach me.

And this is what Jesus is getting at with Nicodemus.

Verses 12 and 13.

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.

Jesus says that Nicodemus is going to struggle to grasp things to come if he can't even get what is happening right in front of him.

He has said that he knows so much.

He's proud of, he's proud of that.

He's proud of what he knows.

And now Jesus is saying, maybe you don't actually know all that much.

He's the one that actually comes from beyond and has been beyond.

So he, so Jesus, is a pretty reliable source for knowing what's happening here.

And then Jesus harkens back to another Old Testament story.

This is what he finishes up this little conversation with.

He harkens back to another Old Testament story that Nicodemus for sure knows in verse 14.

Verse 14, he's referring back to Numbers chapter 21, verses 1 through 10.

Numbers 21:1–10

The Israelites had been held captive by the Canaanites, and they asked God to deliver them, and he did in Numbers chapter 21.

Numbers 21 · chapter mention

He delivered them from them.

And then after he delivered them again, and they were set free from their captives, they began to complain again.

And in Numbers chapter 21, verse 5, it says, And the people spoke against God and against Moses, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

Numbers 21:5

So in verse 6, God sends snakes to bite the people, and a lot of them die.

I'm telling you, if you haven't read the Old Testament, it's a wild west.

You really should read it.

Snakes are biting people, and it's they're dying, and then God comes up with these things for them to do.

And then in the following verses, uh the Israelites, they're like, Okay, the snakes are biting us.

We're sorry, God.

Please tell Moses, please tell God to stop this with the snakes.

So Moses prays, and God answers in verse 8, and he says, This, and the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a serpent, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.

So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

I would be pretty locked in on that bronze serpent, I think.

And if you you look at the serpent, you live.

And if you look away and you're bitten, you die.

Jesus takes Nicodemus to that story in verse 14.

Verses 14 and 15.

He says this.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Again, Nicodemus knows these stories.

The Israelites had to look with belief at the bronze serpent that Moses raised up in order to be saved from these venomous snakes.

And now he says, the Son of Man, that's the name for Jesus.

He will be lifted up on the cross, so that all that look on him with belief will be saved from the deadly venom of sin.

And not only saved, but saved to eternal life.

Jesus is always presented as the better version of whatever has been offered.

In this instance, the bronze snake is offered as an escape from death.

But death lingered still.

There was still death.

Sin was and is still present.

So the bronze snake, lifted up on a pole, only offered a temporary solution.

But Jesus is the better version.

He came as an infant to live a spotless life so that he could be the perfect spotless sacrifice for our sin.

He was lifted up on the cross to offer up a permanent solution to our sin and death, offering the kingdom of God.

Not with great bravado, slaying Israel's enemies, but laying down his life on the cross to defeat the ultimate enemy of sin.

And my plea to you would be stop trying to present God with a resume.

You don't go to the one that knows all things and is above all things and say, hey, I know this, God.

You know nothing.

You have nothing.

I don't care how long you've been coming to church.

I don't care if you go to a Christian university.

I don't care how much scripture you have memorized.

It doesn't matter how upright you've been, or how hard you've worked at your job and how well you provide for your family.

Your title doesn't matter.

Your connections do not matter.

Your baptism doesn't matter.

That little prayer that you repeat over and over again does not matter.

You have no credentials, you have no clout.

You have nothing.

You must be born again.

The first birth of everyone in here is a miraculous thing.

But we were born into sin.

Romans 5.12 tells us, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men were all sinned.

That means if you were born of the flesh, and you were, I promise you, you were born into sin.

And Jesus stands to offer a better version, a better birth, a second birth.

He didn't just come for the lowly down and out, although he certainly did.

He didn't just come to give new life to the ones that have wrecked their current lives, although he definitely did do that.

But he also came to give new life to the ones that have such a grip on their own lives that they're strangling the spiritual life right out of themselves.

He came for the ones so concerned with messing up their life that their life is full of anxiety and nervousness about making the right choices.

They don't want to screw anything up.

He came for the ones that if they were being honest, they think they're a little bit better than everybody else.

They're a little bit better than most people.

He came for the ones that lead an upright life, but are but inside are dry and thirsty.

He offers new life, but you must enter the kingdom just like the lowly with absolute with absolutely nothing.

You must be born again.

Let's pray.