You Must Be Born Again (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: John 3:1-21
Context
Context
Jesus has just cleansed the temple. In this act of pure righteousness, many people started to notice something different about Him. The way He spoke with power and authority grabbed the attention of many.
23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.
The Bible says that many of these people, after witnessing the things He could do, believed in His name. But wait a minute, was this real belief?
It says they believed in His name because of the signs they saw Him do. They believed because He was able to do things other people couldn’t do. That was the extent of their belief. It went no further.
You might be asking, “Well, how do you know that?”
Because the next two verses tell us that.
24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,
25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
Jesus knew their heart. He was able to see straight through all the hype, right into their heart. He was able to see that their belief was based upon signs and miracles, not on the truth of Scripture and a hope of spiritual regeneration.
The chapter break we have in our Bibles is unfortunate in my own opinion. Verses 23-25 of Chapter 2 provide the context for what we know as Chapter 3. I believe the Chapter break should have been 3 verses earlier.
One of those people, who believed in Jesus based upon signs, was a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a rich, respected, religious man. He was also a ruler, which means he was a member of the Sanhedrin Council. But none of those things brought the peace and joy for which he longed. Maybe this new prophet had some answers.
Nicodemus came to Christ as a representative of the religious leaders. His hope for the restoration of Israel and the for speedy inauguration of the kingdom had been stirred by Christ’s authoritative action at the temple. That, he thought, was how a messiah should act. The miracles now being performed by this remarkable prophet from Nazareth were added confirmation in Nicodemus’s mind that perhaps Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
So Nicodemus, as fine a specimen of the natural man as we could wish to find, put his pride in his pocket and sought a private interview with the young preacher.
During this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, there are three questions asked. These three questions are going to be our outline for today.
Content
Content
The Unasked Question
The Unasked Question
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
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.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Notice that Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. We can only speculate as to why.
Maybe he comes at night because Jesus and himself are so busy during the day with other matters and night is the only time they could get together.
Maybe he comes at night because he is afraid of what might happen to his social standing if he is seen by others having a real, genuine conversation with Jesus.
Regardless of why he comes at night, we do know why he comes. He comes as a representative of a group of religious men, who are pondering the idea that He could possibly be the Messiah, or at least have some information regarding such things.
Unfortunately, his belief is no different than those mentioned in verses 23-25 of Chapter 2. Remember that their belief only went as far as His miracles could take them. No miracles, no belief. Jesus was able to see through that.
Nicodemus thinks that he has come as a representative of a select few religious leaders, but he has actually come as a representative of so many more. He is one of them. He is one of the superficial believers. He is one of those who only believe because of the miracles he has seen. He is representing the entire religiously lost community. He is representing so many that are alive today.
As we discussed last week, religion has a way of holding one back from true righteousness. Nicodemus is the epitome of that group of people. He is totally religious, in every aspect of the word. He would have a list of credentials close to that of Apostle Paul and leans on them regularly. In terms of religion, he would have been considered blameless, but in terms of righteousness, he was far from God.
That is exactly what we are talking about today. It is the world’s greatest tragedy: to think one is so close to God, only to find out that they are no where close at all. That is what we see in this conversation.
Nicodemus is so far from God, he doesn’t even realize who he is talking to. He comes to Jesus with flattery. Think about that. The Son of God, who can see into the heart of man is being approached by Nicodemus with flattery. Nicodemus really has no clue.
He calls Jesus “Rabbi”. This word is “didaskalos” in the Greek. It carries forth the idea of being a prominent teacher or a doctor. Nicodemus knew that Jesus was not trained through any of the rabbinical schools, but he also could not deny His power with God either. So he cautiously acknowledges Jesus as a teacher.
Jesus, being who He was, was able to see through the flattery, but He was also able to see deeper than that. He was able to see just how far removed Nicodemus was from a proper understanding of righteousness.
Nicodemus has sought out Jesus because he has questions, but much like us a lot of times in prayer, he is not even sure how to get around to what he really wants to ask, or how to even ask it.
That is why we are calling this first question, “The Unasked Question”.
Jesus, probably being tired from a long day of healing and miracles, skips all of the formalities and gets straight to the point.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jesus knows that Nicodemus has come to Him regarding thoughts about the Messiah. These thoughts revolve around the prophecies of the Messiah. These prophecies foretold of a time when God would create a new covenant with His people and the Messiah would usher in that new covenant. He knew what it said, but didn’t fully understand what it meant.
Therefore, Jesus goes right for the heart. He jumps right to the topic at hand, which is the kingdom of God.
Imagine for a moment how Nicodemus must have felt after hearing those words. He was the best kind of person that religion, education, and culture could possibly produce and his case was hopeless.
Jesus says that if one is going see, or be a part of the kingdom of God, he must be born again. As we will see in a moment, Nicodemus does not know what this means, but he did know one thing: whatever it was, he had never experienced it.
This means that all of his upbringing, all of his education, all of his effort to be the best, all of his religiousness, was simply not good enough. Those things were not the answer to eternity. Those things were not going to get him where he wanted to be. That is a very unsettling thing to perceive.
When I was in third grade, my teacher gave us an assignment in class one day. It was a piece of paper and on that paper, there was something like 20 different instructions as to what you were supposed to do. All of these instructions told you how to draw a picture on the other side of the paper. But before she allowed us to start the assignment, she was careful to tell us to read all of the instructions before we started drawing the picture. On the other hand, this assignment was timed, and the one to finish first and finish correctly got extra recess time.
When she started the timer, everyone began instantly going line by line and flipping the paper to draw as quickly as they could, but a select few of us caught on to what she had said about reading all of the instructions first, so while they were all drawing, we were reading. When you got to the last instruction, it said to put your name on your paper, skip all the rest of the instructions, place your pencil down and tell the teacher you were finished.
Most of the class worked frantically, flipping the paper and then flipping it again, only to realize when their picture was drawn, that they were never supposed to draw it to begin with.
I imagine this is what Nicodemus felt. All of his life had spent working towards something that could not produce what he was actually trying to achieve. He had mastered the outward expression of Godly living but had failed to actually live for God.
Jesus makes this clear with one simple sentence, “....unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
The Unforeseen Question
The Unforeseen Question
4 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?”
In all of his lifetime, I bet you Nicodemus would have never imagined himself asking this question. After all, a question like this goes against all logic. It is a question of impossibility. Any well thinking person knows such a question should never have to be asked.
It would be the same as asking, “How can a man sprout wings and fly?” or “How can a man, after he is grown, add another foot to his height?”
Everyone knows these things to be physically impossible. A man cannot fly without the aid of some device, some suit, or some mechanism. A man cannot cause himself to grow taller without wearing different shoes, or having some type of surgery. A grown man cannot be physically reborn.
There is this to be said for Nicodemus though: When Jesus confronted him with the need for the new birth, he did not ask why. He asked how.
Somewhere in the depths of his soul he understood the need for a change, a change that no religion or moral code could produce.
We were born the first time with a sinful nature. We were born separated from God; we were formed in iniquity; we were lost, undone, and had more in common with a devil’s hell than loving Father’s paradise. We were enemies of God, prone to evil desires, evil deeds, and filled with an evil disposition.
We need to be born again!!!
Nicodemus understood this truth. It wasn’t the why that confused him. It was the how. How is it possible for a grown man to be born again a second time?
Jesus’s answer was both simple and profound:
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Now there is much confusion about this verse. It is has been debated over the years as to what its true intended meaning is, and in search of doctrinal explanation, I believe it has been abused by many.
Let me say this. Jesus spoke in parables. Jesus spoke other times, as we saw last week, with statements of truth, but statements that His listeners simply could not comprehend at the time. But right here in this text, we have a man who is asking directly, “How can I be saved?”
Every time we see someone asking this question in sincerity throughout Scripture, we do not find cryptic language, we do not find puzzle pieces that have to be put together, we do not find confusing answers that one cannot understand.....we find very simple, very clear instructions as to how to accomplish that.
30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Whatever Jesus meant by this statement, it was not meant to be confusing. It was not meant to be cryptic. There were no hidden meanings. It was a statement that Nicodemus should have been able to understand.
Who else had been hammering at the conscience of Israel, seeking to prepare them for the coming of the king and the kingdom, using those same two words? It was John the Baptist.
11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
The main ingredient of John’s ministry was his baptism, more specifically, a baptism of repentance. The key ingredient was the repentance. That is why John refused to baptize some, because they did not see the need to repent of anything. They pridefully felt that their life was worthy of God’s presence and that there were no things in their life they needed to repent of.
5 Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him
6 and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,
John’s message was clear:
1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea,
2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
He called everyone to repent. Repentance unlocks the door into God’s throne room. It allows one to come into the presence of God. Repentance is an acknowledgement of our sin, as well as a brokenness over it. Repentance is a point in life to where we no longer desire to dwell in those things that separate us from God and choose to lay them down, walk away from them, leave them behind, and do life differently. Repentance is agreeing with God about our sin.
Jesus is telling Nicodemus, “No John, No Jesus.”
“Without repentance, there will be no regeneration. Without regeneration, there will be no rebirth. Without rebirth, the kingdom of God is closed to you.”
Jesus continues by establishing a clear difference between the natural and supernatural.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The flesh can only produce more flesh. There is nothing of man that can produce that which is of God. Sinful man can only produce more sinful men.
If you want to experience this new birth, it must come from the Spirit of God. Man can’t accomplish this. Only the Spirit, which is of God, can produce that which is of God.
He further demonstrates the nature of this new birth with the next two verses:
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus relates the Spirit of God to the wind. He explains its movements are very similar to that of the wind.
You cannot see the wind, but you can see its effect. You cannot see the Spirit of God, but you can see the effect of it. You can see how the wind moves the leaves on the trees, and you can see how the Spirit moves the heart of an individual.
The Unearthing Question
The Unearthing Question
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Even after all of this explanation, Nicodemus still does not understand. The truth of his relationship to God is truly uncovered. Though he is a master in Israel, it has come to light that he cannot even understand the basic tenets of salvation in God, or true righteousness.
The cat is out of the bag. The truth has been made clear.
Religion cannot save you. Ritualism cannot save you. Works cannot save you. Going to church cannot save you. Tithing cannot save you. Helping others cannot save you.
Only the Spirit of God can save you. You must be born again.
The world’s greatest tragedy is what we see here. The most intellectual minds sometimes fail to grasp the simplest of truths. You must be born again.
If you get nothing else. If you understand no other truth, understand this one.
You must be born again.
Without the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
You must be born again.
Commitment
Commitment
I don’t want you to have an encounter with Jesus at some point in your future and realize what Nicodemus did: that your entire life has been wasted in pursuit of the one thing it could never grant.
People want to know God. People are searching for God. They are just looking in all the wrong places to find Him.
This thing you are seeking can only be found in the name of Jesus Christ.
He is the answer. You must be born again.