Nick at Night Part 2: The Wind

We're in the book of John, chapter three.

We're gonna get from verse four to verse fifteen today.

You don't get John 3:16 today.

John 3:16

We're getting there, but we have to set the entire stage before we even get there.

Um so let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your word that teaches us, Lord, the truth, so that we can um know you, your character, and know what promises that we can depend on, know what promises we can hope in, and know what the um what is from you and what may be from us, that we need to be able to discern that, Jesus.

And and we want to live from you and through you and for you, so that we don't fall into that age-old lie that the devil sells to all men, which is that your life is about you and what you produce.

Lord, we want our live, our life to be from you, Jesus.

We live through you, for you.

We are one with you, and we worship you because of you, your life.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

All right, today's sermon is called Nick at Night, part two, the wind.

It's part of this, part of the title.

All right.

Uh Spurgeon quote.

I love Spurgeon, 1800s preacher from England at the tabernacle out there in hey, this is called the Tabernacle too, in uh in uh England.

And uh he said this um if we were asked to read to a dying man who did not know the gospel, one chapter of the Bible, we should probably select this one as the most suitable for that occasion.

And what is good for a dying man is also good for us all.

For it is what we are we are dying men, because we don't know how soon we are gonna be at the gates of death, no one can tell when they're gonna die.

I love that quote.

Let's read uh some of our text here and we'll get right started, okay?

Verse 3 Jesus answered and said to him, He's talking to Nicodemus, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So 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?

Jesus answered, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

So last week we studied that that verse on what on the word the phrase born again.

And we we studied all about it.

We know what being born again is now.

And this week we're gonna look at Nicodemus and his quest for truth and salvation and trying to understand this reality that Jesus is bringing.

So we're gonna look at Nick's struggle today.

Nicodemus asked Jesus questions because he he recognized Jesus' authority.

He's like, hey, you're doing miracles.

So you obviously know about God.

You're you have power from God, you're teaching with real authority, but Nicodemus is stuck with a religious mindset that that has these categories.

And the category for God is he's he's up there and he's untouchable, and the category for me is what do I have to do to get up to God?

We call that religion.

What do I have to do to get up to God?

I have to figure out what to do.

Can you can anyone relate to that?

What do I have to do to reach God?

Have you ever been stuck with this question?

But what do I do?

Right?

Like you you're you're like, I I know, I can understand how this works, I can understand how that works, but I can't just sit here and do nothing.

There has to be something that depends on me.

What resources do you have to do stuff in this world?

I can think of three.

Me, myself, and I.

How far will those three things get you in the spiritual world?

They don't work.

That's what Jesus is trying to teach Nicodemus.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

That means there's there's two completely different worlds, the flesh and the spirit, and no matter what you do in the flesh, you can't make that transfer over.

There's no bank that gives you a currency exchange to transfer your fleshly pesos into heavenly yen.

You thought I was gonna say dollars, didn't you?

Okay.

Nicodemus, he he really believed that that Jesus was from God.

His statement starts with this, you know, I we we know that you have done these miracles.

Um his questions aren't so much, are you real?

More he's asking, like, how does this work?

How does this work?

So I'm not faulting Nicodemus.

I think Nicodemus ends up coming to a knowledge of the truth at the end of this.

Um, but he's really confused about this whole born-again talk because Jesus tells him you gotta be born again.

And he he asks a practical, literal sounding question.

How can a man be born again when he's old?

So, what is he asking about?

He's asking about timing, right?

And Jesus is saying, listen, being born again is nothing about logic.

Logic is real, but being born again doesn't work under the rules of your logic.

That's not the way it works, and and and so Nicodemus is like, you're not logical, Jesus.

And I'm trying to understand, but you don't make sense to me.

And uh, so he's like, How is this possible at all?

And then he says, How can a man enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born?

So now he's trying to figure out how to he wants to believe what Jesus is saying, but he's trying to engineer it.

Let's engineer this thing and and let's come up with a practical solution, no matter how crazy it may sound.

Mom, come here.

Right?

That's not gonna not gonna work out well for him, right?

So, Nicodemus, he's wrestling with to try to understand a spiritual truth using natural thinking from his mind and his logic.

And how's it going for him?

Well, he's really struggling.

So his questions come from this mind that's trying to understand the spiritual world and the spiritual life by religion.

Religion, religion does not help us understand spiritual reality or the spiritual world.

Because religion that's man-centered, like what do I have to do?

That's not real spirituality, it's an imitation of spirituality.

You know, you can go to church and still be a jerk.

It's possible.

In fact, there's whole churches that are filled.

You ever been to one?

Yeah, there's whole churches that filled with and it's it's an imitation of true spiritual life.

What is true spiritual life?

We die, Jesus, the living, loving Savior, inhabits us and lives through us by his love.

That's real spiritual life, but you can fake it all day long.

You can.

It's totally possible.

For a little while.

So Nicodemus is supposed to be this leader of spiritual life in Israel.

He had this whole framework, he was supposed to understand of how God's people entered God's kingdom.

And Jesus is smashing that framework and saying that the kingdom is entered by spiritual birth from above.

Jesus is changing the entire source of spiritual life.

Because Nicodemus, his source was me.

What do I have to do?

And I want you to pay attention to that.

That's the question that we ask when we're trying to be religious.

What do I have to do?

Versus spirituality, which is what did Jesus do?

And how can I put my trust and my faith and my confidence in what he did?

How does that change me?

What is this?

That's spirituality versus religion.

So Jesus says, most assuredly, do you see he said that twice?

So uh basically, in in uh in Greek, when Jesus is speaking this, he says, uh, I'm serious, I'm serious.

He repeats he repeats it twice to show just how serious he is.

He's like, I am so deathly serious, this is how it's must work.

He says, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one's born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit and spirit.

What does he mean?

Water and the spirit.

This has been much debate for the past 2,000 years.

What does this mean?

Well, water equals our fleshly birth.

Okay?

It's earthly life.

Do you know you are made of what percentage water?

70 70?

If you're healthy, most people are 65 because they're fat.

That's what I've heard.

So, and plus, when you're born, there's water mixed with all the birth juices or something.

I don't know.

Okay, so that's the fit that Jesus is talking about the flesh birth.

So you have to be born, right?

And then there's the spirit, which speaks of heavenly life.

So you have earthly life and heavenly life, water and spirit.

Our heavenly life died with Adam.

We were supposed to be born with earth life and heavenly life together.

Hooray! That's how Adam was made.

He was made with an earthly life, and then God breathed his breath, wind, into Adam, and Adam became a living being.

He had both a heavenly life and a physical life.

Both of them were that's how God created men.

But since Adam died, God said you would you would have to die the moment you sinned.

So Adam sinned.

So our spiritual life died that day, but we still had physical life.

So Adam had lots of babies, lots of babies, lots of babies, lots of babies, lots of babies, and here we are.

But we still inherit that dead spiritual spirit when we are born.

So we're born with a dead spirit, but the moment we believe in Christ, we get new birth.

So Jesus is saying it's identity and source that matters to Nicodemus.

He says that the flesh only produces flesh.

So no matter how hard you try, guess what you're going to get from trying?

Just more flesh.

That's it.

No matter how hard, no matter how many times you go to church, no matter how many prayers you pray, no matter how many this alms you give, no matter how many, you know, doesn't matter how many good works you do, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

You're not ever going to earn heavenly life by what we do because the flesh can only produce flesh, and the spirit produces spirit.

This is why Christianity, true gospel, isn't just a religious upgrade of my life.

You know what?

I need to make some changes in my life, so I'm gonna start going to church.

That's not how this works.

Real gospel is God sharing his life, his livingness with you, through you.

So humans can make unbelievably incredible things through our flesh.

Imagine what God can make through the spirit.

Okay, this is the number one cause of burnout and discouragement in our world among Christians.

Did you know that?

We attempt to manufacture our spiritual life.

How do we do that?

By trying harder, by doing more, and that's not the gospel.

The gospel says everything that needed to be done was done by Jesus, and he now wants to share his life.

Your job is to have faith and humility, trust in him, rest in what he did, and then go live your life with the power and energy of the Holy Spirit motivating you through love, not trying to impress God or other people, but truly loving God and loving other people by that spirit that He's given you.

See the difference?

Versus, oh, I need to white knuckle my Christian life, my marriage, my parenting, my job.

I need to give it everything.

He says, Rest is the way.

This is the number one cause of burnout, manufacturing my life.

And I want to share with you Galatians chapter 3, verses 2 and 3, my favorite verses in the Bible.

Galatians 3:2

It says, This only I want to learn from you.

Paul is talking to his church and he says, Did you receive the spirit?

Okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna use the word wind.

You'll see why here in a minute, by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

So by so his question is, when you were born again, you received the spirit, was it because you kept the rules and God's like, Oh, you're so amazing at keeping my Ten Commandments.

Let me give you the Holy Spirit.

It doesn't work that way.

Or by the hearing of faith, meaning, oh, I heard about what Jesus did, and I believed in what Jesus did, and voila, Jesus gives me his spirit.

That is the gospel, that's how the gospel works.

Then he says, verse 3, are you so foolish?

In Greek, that means are you so stupid?

That's what the Bible says.

Having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

So, what does that mean?

That means our sanctification, our process.

Once you get born again, what do you do?

Well, you're supposed to grow in your relationship with Christ.

Well, how do you do that?

Most Christians have no idea how to do that.

So, what do they do?

They slap up a picture of the Ten Commandments on their kitchen wall, put it in a nice frame with a picture of Jesus carrying a lamb over on this side, and they think, I just gotta try my best to keep these rules, which means go to church, pray a lot, do all the things, and and give all my money.

And they think that's spiritual life.

And Paul says, Are you stupid?

Not me, him.

He says it.

He says, It's stupid, it's dumb to think that if you couldn't give yourself life in the first place, are you able to keep generating life by trying hard to keep God's rules every day after that?

And guys, when we get this, it it's like wow, it blows your mind and it sets you free from all religiousness.

What do you mean I don't have to try harder?

What do you mean I'm actually free?

What is the God can't it can't be this simple, it can't be this good.

The the day I began, I just said Jesus help me and save me, and Jesus did.

It can't be so simple that every day I wake up and I'm supposed to say, Jesus, help me, and Jesus does.

That's it, it it can't be that good.

And I'm telling you right now, the voice that's telling you it can't be that good is the enemy.

Because Jesus is telling you, I am that good.

What our deal is that good.

That's why it's called the new covenant or the gospel, which literally in Greek means the good news.

It's so good, it's called the good news.

Our job is to rest in this gospel by faith.

And he says, having begun in the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

So the spirit is the whole deal.

That's the only path.

This spirit life is the only path to the abundant life Jesus promised.

Jesus said, I've come to give you an abundant life.

The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

So if that's the life you're experiencing as a Christian, just know the enemy is ripping you off, and that's not the enemy Jesus intends for you to have and has given you.

You can choose to walk in his life, which is an abundant life, which is the life of the Spirit, which is I have hope, I have joy, I have meaning and value, and I'm perfectly accepted and loved.

All of these things that were like chasing from the world, Jesus, like you have them all right now.

I give them to you.

They're here, yours, all of them.

You have it all.

But how do I know?

You just believe and you it's true.

It's true.

So he says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit, and guys, this is our only measurement in ministry of whether we're doing church right, whether we're doing ministry right.

That which is born of the flesh in flesh is flesh.

So in ministry or in your life, you can measure your life this way.

Are we, am I trying to do something?

Or am I living through the spirit?

Are we struggling and striving in our own fleshly efforts to do something good?

Like Nicodemus, he wanted to do something good.

He wanted to lead his people, he wanted to understand how to enter God's kingdom, he wanted to be a good pastor, but he didn't understand how.

And so he was doing it through his own flesh.

Or are we resting in God's grace, serving his truth and good news to this world through love?

That's the that's the way of the Spirit.

The Spirit does all the work of drawing people.

You cannot, or sorry, you can source ministry in the flesh.

It means we could organize the heck out of our church, we could plan the heck out of our church.

And organization planning is not bad, but if we trust in organization and planning, it is bad because we can only do ministry by trusting in the spirit.

So that's how the heart becomes the measurement of everything that we do.

Are we trusting?

I'm choking on my own spit.

Are we trusting in ourselves or are we trusting in the spirit?

You can serve God and see spiritual life in ministry when you're walking and living by humility and faith in Jesus, who sends the Spirit, right?

This Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit.

So let's go back to our text in John and see how this argument, discussion, not really an argument, this teaching goes on.

He says, verse 7, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

Jesus says, You must be born again.

There is no other path to heaven than being born again.

You know, in the world, there's like, oh, there's the born-again Christians, right?

They they want to somehow manipulate you into joining their cult.

I'm sorry, Jesus said, We must be born again.

There's no other type of Christian.

There isn't.

I mean, there's people who say they're Christians, but they really are religious, and they're not born again.

But how do we do how do we know if we're born again?

The spirit blows.

Verse 8.

The wind blows where it wishes.

We know this on the island, right?

The wind will knock you over if you're not careful.

You hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes.

So is everyone who's born of the Spirit.

So Jesus is answering Nicodemus's logical questions with a pretty good illustration to help him understand.

But he's not just using logic, he's wants to give Nicodemus revelation.

He's trying to unlock or set him free from these categories that his religiousness has got him stuck in.

So he shifts the conversation from what I need to do to what means must be done for you by God.

Did you see how he did that?

He said, The spirit, you're not in control.

You don't even know where it comes from, you don't know where it goes.

That's how this works.

So Nicodemus needed truth that would move him beyond this law of religion into Trusting in God who sends this mysterious spirit that's Jesus actually says, I'm in charge of.

I control this thing.

You can't control anything.

You're not in charge of anything.

And if you want to be in God's kingdom, you have to say, I'm not in control.

I'm not it, I'm not, I can't do this.

I cannot do it.

That's literally the door we have to go through.

And that's the one thing we hate.

To say, I'm not in control.

And we will scratch and claw our way as we're growing in the Lord to say to try to get control back.

But the truth remains, the spirit is not, you're not the boss.

He is the boss.

That's why he says it's like the wind.

Jesus compares it to the spiritual birth to wind.

You can hear it, you can sense its effects, but you cannot fully track it like a machine.

This that's that's the vibe of the new birth.

My my wife loves when I say the word vibe at church.

She hates it.

But it God creates this reality of the spirit life, and you can't engineer it.

You can't do it.

We can't.

We're not able to do that.

You can't control it, you can't manufacture it by religious performance.

That's what I just love sharing this because it sets everyone who hears it with ears that can hear it, it sets you free.

The effects of this spirit are real, Jesus says.

You can feel it.

Romans 8 14 says, For many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are some sons of God.

And that seems mysterious when you read it, but it's not.

Because you can either be led by the flesh or led by the spirit.

There's only two ways you can be led.

Well, what does it mean to be led by the flesh?

Being led by what I can sense with my senses.

I got five senses, right?

Or a sixth one if I can see ghosts.

I like throwing movie quotes in there.

You can laugh.

All right.

So what I produce with my mind and my efforts is all flesh.

My emotions, my will, that all comes from me.

That's the flesh life versus the spirit, which is received.

When the spirit is leading you, it's a gift.

It's received.

There's nothing you have to do.

You receive leading from him.

He is giving you life.

It's not about what I think, but it's about what God says.

That's why you can be led by the Spirit even if you're dumb.

And guess what who that's good news for?

Everyone who's dumb.

I am so happy that God leads us by his spirit, not by the flesh.

Because if he led us by the flesh, get super intelligent, you know, people who really have it all together, they would have a leg up when it comes to the kingdom of God.

But Jesus says, no, dumb people, that's my people.

Because the spirit is a gift, it's what Jesus does, it's what the Father wills, and the Spirit accomplishes in my life.

All three of them who are one are involved in me being led by God.

What is my job?

To be led?

I have one responsibility, and that is to trust Jesus.

To trust God.

You have to say, take me by the hand and lead me.

What do I have to have to have that?

I have to have something called humility, which says, I don't even know the way I'm supposed to go today.

Can you say that?

Or are you stuck in the cycle of saying, I'm really in control of my life?

And you're like, I really don't hear God's voice.

I wonder why.

Are we surrendering?

Are we saying it's simple?

Take me by the hand and lead me.

Well, who does that?

A little child does that.

And Jesus is like, guys, did you hear me?

To enter the kingdom, you must become like a little child.

Take me by the hand and lead me.

And the world says, You guys are so dumb.

I know.

You guys don't have anything to offer.

Your time on earth is spent, or you just don't, you're not making a difference in the world.

And we can say, Father, take me by the hand and lead me, and he will lead us by his spirit, and he will do far more through us than we could ever accomplish on our own.

We must trust.

So, in simple terms, Nicodemus is asking questions because he was searching, but he didn't have any new covenant truth to be able to see.

So Jesus answered him by teaching him about this new birth.

So look what he says now, verse 9.

Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be?

Nicodemus, like, I still don't understand it.

And I'm not, I don't know if I'm really buying it, dude.

Like, what are you saying?

I just can't understand.

Is that what you're telling me?

And Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel and you don't know these things?

Most assuredly, I say to you, there he says it again, we must we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness.

But if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

So Jesus gently confronts Nick's uh doubt by saying, You are not accepting my testimony.

The problem is you don't under the problem is not that you don't understand Nicodemus, the problem is you think you have to understand when you really have to trust and accept.

Oh, that's the rub.

We want to understand everything.

We want to get our question, why answered?

Why did this happen?

Why that?

Why the other?

And Jesus says, that's not where life is found.

And until you surrender that and say, Jesus, I will trust you, you're never gonna find life.

Jesus calls him out.

He says, Nichas, if you won't believe, even if I tell you earthly things, you're never gonna believe if I tell you heavenly things.

Let's translate that.

If you can't receive a simple truth about birth from above and the wind, then you're really gonna struggle with what I'm gonna tell you next.

Because he's gonna tell him something crazy.

Look at verse 13.

No one has ascended into heaven, but the but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.

Okay, so this sounds like a messed up geography lesson.

Who's in heaven?

Where's he at now?

He came down from heaven, but he's still in heaven.

What is going on here?

But what he's really talking about is not locations, he's talking about authority.

He's saying, Nicodemus, I know everything.

I'm God, I came down from heaven.

I'm telling you about heavenly life, spiritual truth, God source living, because I'm from there.

I'm the source of it all.

You can only lead people to where you've been.

So Jesus is the from heaven spokesman who sent who was sent to us to Nicodemus to tell him the heavenly way.

And so, for every man that reads this and hears this, here we go.

Each man has to choose whether they're gonna listen to Jesus or reject him.

It's never about if you can understand him because it's that's not where life is.

God will give you the understanding, that's the gift.

He will make you understand if you will listen to him with faith.

It's like a safety net.

It's like God, it's like a wall that keeps it separates people, it keeps religious people out.

So if you're like, I must understand, I must control, I must be in charge.

The wind, you're not gonna get that.

You're not gonna like it because you're gonna try to grasp the wind and you can't.

And so Jesus says, listen, to enter the kingdom of God, you must first believe in me, then I give you all that you need, including understanding and all the other promises that I'm gonna make you and I'm gonna fulfill in your life.

But it all is accessed by one thing.

Are you gonna trust me?

And it's exclusive.

You have to trust only Jesus.

It's exclusivity.

Jesus is from there, and so each man is gonna so I want you to picture, you know, we had a rocket launch off last week.

Imagine it had an astronaut, and they dropped him off in space, and he's up there in space, and he comes back, they catch him in the chopsticks, you know, and he comes back.

And when he returns from space, something interesting happens when an astronaut comes back.

People listen to him, he becomes an authority.

You know, before the flight, he was just one voice, some nerdy scientist.

But after he comes back from space, he's a witness.

When he describes the blackness of space and the stars and the thin blue line of our atmosphere, the way the whole earth hangs on nothing, nobody in the room is arguing with him.

Why?

Because he was there.

The philosophers in the audience they may have their theories about the cosmos.

The artists may have painted the stars.

But when a man has actually been there and he starts talking, everyone else's speculation goes silent.

When he's giving the report, where he comes from settles all arguments.

Now, hear what Jesus is telling Nicodemus.

This is the most credentialed man in Israel.

He's the top teacher in Israel.

And he came with all his theories and his efforts and his study and his lifetime of religion, being as perfect as he could possibly be.

And Jesus said to him, No one ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, and that is the Son of Man.

And Jesus is saying, Me.

And he Jesus uses the title, the Son of Man, which in the Old Testament, in the book of Daniel, was used for God.

The Son of Man what doesn't mean he's just a man, he's God who became a son of man.

So it's a messianic title.

It is very clear he's saying, I am God, Nicodemus.

Are you gonna trust me?

Are you gonna trust me?

Every religious founder on earth stood on earth and looked up and guessed.

Buddha guessed.

Muhammad guessed.

Every philosopher, every mystic tried to discover the truth, the image of what God must be like like.

But Jesus doesn't have to guess because he came down to heaven.

He's not humanity's best guess about heaven, he is heaven's own report to humanity.

He says, We speak about what we have known and testify what we have seen.

Jesus tells us that his truth is grounded in both physical reality and spiritual reality.

He's a native of glory, he's a native of real life, and he is a true native.

None of this is a new demand that he had to uh uh put out for the people.

This is good news.

He's bringing good news, not a new set of rules, but a new life, not a new law, but a new spirit a free gift of grace.

He does call it a new law, just a new way of ex of inter interrelation with God.

Uh, I'm gonna end with one more quote from Spurgeon.

So this is a Spurgeon book and sermon.

You get one at the beginning and one at the end.

You're like, he's finally done.

Spurgeon said, A man may cast away many vices, forsake many lusts in which he has indulged, and conquer evil habits, but no man in the world can make himself to be born of God.

Though he would struggle ever so much, he could never accomplish what is beyond his power.

And mark you, if he could make himself be born again, he could still not enter heaven because he would there is another point which he would violate, a condition which he would have violated.

Unless a man is born of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

We can't control that.

All you can do is say, Jesus, I'm gonna trust you completely.

And guess what?

The wind blows on you when you say, I will trust you, Jesus.

You don't have to understand how it happens, but the wind will blow on you.

And if you're already saved today, which is most of you, and you want to be led by him, the wind will blow on you when you say, Jesus, take me by the hand and lead me.

And the wind will blow on you then.

Got it?

You understand the wind?

So now every time it's so windy at the beach, I want you to remember that it's the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled.

But it's a gift to you.

It's a gift to every human being that Jesus offers.

How do we get it?

By simply trusting in him.

Next week we're gonna um see how Jesus lands this convention conversation with Nick at night by revealing his crucifixion to Nicodemus.

He does it through a really crazy image.

We have to go all the way back to the book of Exodus to understand and unpack what Jesus, how Jesus gives Nicodemus the an invitation to the gospel in John chapter 3, right at the beginning.

John 3 · chapter mention

Alright.

So would you guys all stand with me as we pray and we'll sing one more song.