John 3:1-16

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d]

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[e14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,[f15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[g]

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Sermon

Do you realize that the founder of one of the great movements of Christianity, one that we’re a part of, was a 37 year old adult convert?  

Did you remember that he was highly religious – a monk and a scholar – for about 15 years when he thought heaven was closed to him?  

Do you know it after that time that he risked his significant political position?  

I’m talking about Martin Luther. Martin wasn’t the only one.  

Do you know William Wilberforce? What great thing did William Wilberforce do? William Wilberforce was the most influential figure in the end of the slave trade in England.  

He was 27 when the slave trade became an abomination to him. 27 when the whole creation sang in praise on an Easter morning.  

Chuck Colson 

The “hatchet man” of President Nixon in the Watergate scandal.  

He was 40 years old when he professed faith in Jesus.  

He never read a Bible growing up. He only went to church for nominal visits. His mother said he should be a pastor for “social reasons”.  

If it holds, I think probably the most radical conversion of my lifetime will probably be Kanye West.  

Kanye is 5 years older than I am. He has experienced every level of fame, wealth, and significance. He is married to an American icon, Kim Kardashian.  

It’s at 42 he says he is a born again Christian and is saved by faith in Jesus Christ.  

In today’s lesson, we’ve got a guy just as famous, popular, and out there. And yet he is promised, and I’m pretty sure receives, an awesome, new life.  

Discover  

You know what is the greatest threat to your new life, a life that makes a difference? It’s not your age. It’s not that you grew up in an irreligious house. It’s not that you grew up in a religious. It’s not your education. It’s not your morality or your immorality.  

Jesus invites you today not only to identify the threat to your new life, and the new life.  

Part 1 – the threat to new life  

If anyone had found the foundation and secret to a great life, you might think it was Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council. Verse 1 tells us he was  

  • Male – important in a patriarchal society  

  • Older 

  • Pharisee  

  • Ruling council – one of the 70 most important men in Israel at the time – more elite than our Senate.  

  • He calls Jesus, “Rabbi”. Could have been some sarcasm here or insincerity, but also some incredible generosity. Uneducated teacher d 

Jesus tells him, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (verse 3)  

Even if you are person who doesn’t have a specific idea in mind when you think of the “new birth”, I think it’s really easy to have a specific idea in mind. It can be easy to think it’s like this:  

  • Really bad people – drug addicts, abusers; people like Chuck Colson, maybe Kanye West 

But what about Martin Luther? What about Nicodemus?  

The foundation and secret to a great life, a new life cannot be more traditional morality or religiosity. It’s not immorality, but it’s not for morality either. It can’t be. Nicodemus represents everything of traditional morality and religion.  

If traditional morality and religion was the secret to a great life, a new life, Jesus would tell Nicodemus, you must be born again.  

This is the number one threat to the Christian faith. It is not various kinds of sexuality. It is not stealing. It’s not lieing and all the rotten things people say about one another, although that is a close second. It’s pride. I’m just going to speak for myself here for a second.  

The times when I experienced the most conflict in my life, the most struggle, intense self-doubt, where the times when I thought I could do it. I had it covered.  

It’s a life about me. Lifting myself up.  

Everyone needs the new life. The greatest threat to the new life is thinking I don’t need it.  

 

 

Part 2 – the new life  

So what is the foundation and secret of a new life?  

Jesus says “they are born of water and the Spirit” (verse 5). Supernatural cleansing as well as a supernatural gifting of the Holy Spirit. I cannot do this on my own.  

He is flashing back to Genesis where he says darkness is over the surface of the deep and the spirit hovered. We’ve got to start creation over again. We need a new creation to happen to you.  

I realize that a lot of us perhaps, most of us, were baptized as children. For many of us then, it’s a far off, a distant experience.  

Basically every adult who stays around the Christian life has a time and probably multiple times when they can say, that baptism that happened long ago, it’s real. I have been born again. For me, 2 times 1) is God real; 2) do I need everyone else’s approval.  

I’m going to stop trying to call the shots in my life 

Jesus stops being a facet of your life and a component of your life and he starts being your life.  

That’s two things.  

First, Jesus says, “be born again”. No child births themselves. It’s mom’s anguish. It’s mom’s burden. She does it for you. 

You cannot make yourself  

Salvation is God’s labor. It’s God’s bleeding.  

You can’t cause it control it  

But you absolutely can benefit from it.  

You know it is there. There is evidence, very clearly. Jesus says, “the wind blows where it pleases”. Do you think really the new life of God could blow in your life without messing up your hair?  

You’ve got let the new life happen to you. The first thing is to just “endure” or “pass through”  

The process that brings new life doesn’t just say, “I’m sorry for the bad stuff I’ve done” it also says, “I’m sorry for the good things I've done that I thought count for something.” They don’t, they don’t count at all. To see that it’s his works that have saved us. 

Second, Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up”  

But what happened in the desert—you find it back in the book of Numbers 21:4-9—is that the children of God had sinned. Israel had sinned. And God sent a plague of snakes, venomous snakes, and they bit them and they were dying. And in a sense, the venom represented sin in their life. Basically, the venom represented in their bodies what was killing them in their soul. And what Moses was told to do was to take a bronze serpent—an image of the thing that was killing them—put it up on a pole (you know, “as Moses lifted up the serpent”), and all they had to do was look… because some of them were so sick, and so immobilized, they couldn’t possibly go over to it and rub it or touch it or any of that. All you have to do is look. I should even just say, all you can do is look.  

The second thing is to look.  

You can have a new life.  

  • Can you pass through the experience, whatever God in his Word might ask you go to through?  

  • Can you look at someone taking your sin?  

Conclusion 

I ask you sometimes, “What is God up to in your life and the lives of the people around you?” Some of you look really uncomfortable by that question. Jesus says “no one can see the kingdom of God”.  

You can see God’s kingdom. Not directly. You see the effects of the wind. How can the power of the almighty God blow in your life and you  

Is it reasonable that the power of the almighty God would blow around in your life and it wouldn’t blow around your hair a little bit? your money, your relationships, your time, your priorities.  

Bottom line: Get a (new) life.