| You Must Be Born Again |
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I. You Must be Born Again I begin with a question. Because everything depends upon how you answer this question. It’s probably not the question you expect. It is not “have you been born again?” Though I will get to that question. But first I want to ask this question: Who is this Nicodemus? Do you know? Verse one says that he was a man. A member of the human race. One of those people, according to verse 25 of chapter 2, That Jesus knew from the inside out. Jesus knew what was in man, every man, John says. So when Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of night, Jesus could see right into his heart. Just like Jesus can see into our hearts today. Then we also read in verse one that this Nicodemus was a Pharisee. To be a Pharisee in our minds is to be an enemy of Jesus. A hypocrite. Someone who wears a religious mask but is no better than a white washed Tomb—shining on the outside, smelling like rotting flesh on the inside. That’s what we think when we hear the word Pharisee. But if you think that way, you will miss what Jesus says. You’re will hear these words to Nicodemus as words to a self-righteous religious bigot—the worst of men—not as words addressed to you & me, which they are. The truth is: to be a Pharisee in Jesus’ day was to be a good man, the best of men. The Pharisees were the people in Israel most devoted to the Word of God. They were the teachers of Israel. And not just the teachers. They were the men who had committed themselves to doing what they read. They memorized God’s word and they meditated on God’s word and they obeyed God’s word—to the best of their ability. They were so successful that they earned the respect of the people around them. They were the ones the rest of the people pointed to as an example of righteousne Nicodemus—he was the best of the best. He was so respected by the people of Israel that he had been appointed to the 70 person ruling council of the nation, the supreme religious court in the land. May I also say? I think Nicodemus was probably sincere. He was an honest seeker after God, or so it seems to me. Because Nicodemus was willing to seek Jesus out and ask him honest questions. He was willing to see and to say that Jesus was a teacher who came from God So I suggest to you that Nicodemus was a good man, a respected man, and a sincerely religious man. He came to Jesus, albeit under the cover of darkness, and addressed him with respect. How did Jesus respond? Rather abruptly. No exchange of compliments; no words of mutual respect. Jesus just looks Nicodemus in the eye and says, No. No. No. That’s my paraphrase. Jesus actual words were Amen. Amen. Truly, truly I say to you— That’s Jesus way of saying, Listen to me, Nicodemus. Truly, truly—I say to you: No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. Genethe anothen, born from above. Then again, Jesus says in verse 5, Truly, truly I say to you, No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and spirit. Then one more time he says it. Verse 7. You should not be surprised at my saying ‘You must be born again.’ You, Nicodemus, must be born again. Get the point? Now, in our day and age, we have reduced this saying of Jesus to a slogan. We write it on bumper stickers. We use it as a label. Born Again Christians. Born again Believers. Sometimes we even reduce being born again to a formula. All you have to do is pray this prayer. Say these words. They are written right here in this little book. But this saying—you must be born again—is a serious word of warning to a seriously religious man. Anyone who heard those words in Jesus day would have thought, Well, if not Nicodemus, then who? If not by following the path that Nicodemus is on, then how? If Nicodemus cannot see the kingdom of God and if Nicodemus cannot even enter the kingdom of God, then who can—and how can they? II. We Must be Born Again Now, Nicodemus may still feel a bit too foreign and far away. So let me talk about someone else; someone by the name of John Wesley. Now John Wesley was born in the year 1703 and he born into a very religious family. There were generations of pastors on both sides—Father, grandfather, great g-father. And from the earliest days John Wesley was trained in the truth of Christianity. He celebrated his first Holy Communion in his father’s church at the age of eight. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood at the age of 25. At 26 he was appointed a fellow of Lincoln College Oxford & instructor in theology. While preparing for ordination he and his brother Charles started what became known as the Oxford Holy Club, a band of students dedicated to the serious and disciplined practice of the Christian faith. Their favorite books were Thomas AKempis’ Imitation of Christ, Jeremy Taylor’s Rules for Holy Living and Holy Dying, and William Law’s, Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. If you haven’t read them, let me tell you: they are books for serious followers… In 1735, at the age of 32, after 6 years as a teacher in theology, John accepted a call to become chaplain in a new colony in America, Georgia; and to minister not just to the English settler’s, but also to the Indians on the frontier. John Wesley sounds like a card carrying member of the kingdom of God to me. Son of a pastor; ordained to the church; instructor in theology; leader of the Oxford Holy Club and now a missionary to the Indians. Well, listen to these words from Wesley’s journal on his way back from America: I went to America to convert the Indians; but, oh, who shall convert me? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near. But let death look me in the face, and my spirit is deeply troubled. You see, on the boat over to America a fierce storm had arisen. So fierce that waves came crashing down on the deck and the winds split the mast. John Wesley watched in fear as a small group of Moravian Christian sang hymns of peace in the midst of the storm. His lack of faith, a sure and certain hope of eternal life shook him to the core of his being. When hen he failed miserably as a pastor to the Americans, he realized, I left my native country in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why, what I the least of all suspected, that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God.” That was written a year before John Wesley was born again from above. Before he felt his heart strangely warmed as he listened to gospel of Jesus Christ and truly believed. III. How? How can that be? How can an ordained minister of the gospel, a devoted leader of the Oxford Holy Club, a missionary to the Indians, not be born again from above? You see, the problem with Nicodemus is not that he was a Jewish Pharisee. I am sure Jesus would have said the same thing to John Wesley as he said to Nicodemus. It is quite possible to be a Christian minister, or a missionary, a Sunday School teacher, an elder or a baptized member of West Shore Evangelical Free Church without being a member of the Kingdom of God. You must be born again. You must be born again. You must be born again. So the most important question anyone could ever ask is the one Nicodemus asks, How? How does this happen? How can it happen? To make the answer very clear let me share with you two sides of the same event. First, what you must do (even though what you must do doesn’t come first). Second, what God must do in order for you to be born again. You must repent and believe in Jesus. When I say, “Repent,” I don’t mean, first and foremost, that you must confess all your sins. Yes, that is something we need to do. Confess our sins. But what I have in mind is what I think Jesus had in mind when he spoke to Nicodemus that day. You must repent, you must confess and turn completely away from any attempt to save yourself. That’s what Nicodemus was doing. That what was keeping him from the kingdom of God. He was trying to enter God’s eternal kingdom through his own human efforts; and because he was better than most, in fact, better than everyone he say, Nicodemus thought he just might be able to do it. He thought he was doing it. Just like John Wesley. So Jesus had to say, No! No! You’re not going to get there going that way. You’re not even knocking on the door. You must repent of the pride that thinks you can save yourself, you can climb the mountain to God. You must repent and believe. You must look to Jesus lifted on the cross. That’s what Jesus was saying when he reminded Nicodemus of the serpent in the wilderness. Do you know the story? The people of Israel had rebelled against God, months after he freed them from their slavery in Egypt. They wanted to go back. So God in judgment sent poisonous snakes into the camp to bite them. And they were dying. When they realized they were dying they cried out for mercy. God commanded Moses to walk through the camp with a brass snake on a rod, And hold it high. Everyone who looked upon that snake would be healed. Their sins would be forgiven and they would live. That, Jesus says, is a picture of the whole human race, yourself included Nicodemus. Everyone, everywhere is dying. Everyone, everywhere has turned from God. All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the Wilderness, Jesus declares, So the son of man must be lifted up. Even though Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus meant at that moment, He would someday. He would see Jesus lifted up on the cross, dying for the sins of the world. Nicodemus would repent and believe. . That’s what we must do. We must confess our sins and turn from any attempt to save ourselves. We must look to Jesus lifted on the cross and believe. Here’s what God must do: He must wash us clean and give us a new heart. He must send His Spirit into our lives and do what we could never do for ourselves. There is a prophecy recorded in the book of Ezekiel. In chapter 36. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse your from all your impurities and…I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit in you. I personally think Jesus is remembering this passage, and others like it, when he says to Nicodemus, Truly, truly I say to you: no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised—O teacher of Israel—at my saying “You must be born again.” It’s what Ezekiel said so long ago. What Ezekiel said and what Jesus is explaining is that we need to be cleansed from sin and given a new heart by the the Spirit of God coming into our lives. We need to be born of water and spirit, or we will not be able to see or experience the kingdom of God. Jesus is not just talking about seeing the kingdom of God in some future time and place. He is talking—also—about experiencing the kingdom of God in this time and place. He is talking about an experienced reality of being born from above and coming alive to God in a whole new way. There is a seriously defective gospel being taught and believed in our day. I’ll call it the gospel of salvation without transformation. Or maybe, the gospel of water and blood, without spirit. Bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace” and he condemned it as a false gospel. According to this gospel all you have to do to be saved is believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. He died in your place as the lamb of God. If you believe that, your sins are forgiven; your place in heaven is secure. Typically, the way you know you believe it, is to pray a prayer or to be baptized. That’s all there is to the gospel. You believe; you pray that prayer; you’re forgiven; and you go to heaven. But here is the problem. You must be born of water and Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Ezekiel didn’t just say, I will cleanse you from all your impurities. He also said (or more correctly, God said): I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. In other words, I will give you new life. You will be born from above. So have you been born from above? And—would you know it if you had? Well, let me ask you: what happens when a person is born the first time? He comes alive, right? His eyes begin to see; his ears begin to hear; His heart beats and his lungs fill with air. (We won’t go into all the other messy details) So what happens when a person is born again from above? To be born from above is to become alive in God and to God and because of God. It is to be given eyes to see what you couldn’t see before, To have ears to hear what you couldn’t hear. It is to feel the beating of your heart and the filling of your lungs. It is to run and jump and live and move and grow—by the Spirit. If a person is born of the Spirit they become, in the words of Paul in 2 Cor 5:17, a “new creation”. They hear the word of God as a word spoken to them--and they understand it. They find rising within themselves a love for God and for what God loves— Because the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts. They sing and make melody in their hearts to the Lord, because that is what people filled with the Spirit do. There is a new joy and peace that passes understanding. There is the desire and power to live for God. To do what pleases Him. But hear this: if there are no eyes to see and ears to hear or heart to obey; and if there is no ability to live for God; then there is no new birth from above. The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. But you hear its sound in the trees. You see its effects. So is everyone born of the Spirit. The essence of salvation is not to just be forgiven and be given a ticket to heaven. It is to be cleansed, yes; it is to be covered by the atoning sacrifice of the blood of the lamb, yes; it is to look to Jesus lifted up on the cross, yes! Yes! Yes! But it is also to be born again by the Spirit of God. It is to be given a new heart—a heart that is happy to be holy. It is not to be perfect—not yet. A baby has a long way to grow, a long way to go; and new birth by the Spirit is a beginning, not an end. But it is real. And it is characterized by the real experience of the love and joy and peace of God. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. IV. So, Have You Been Born Again? So have you been born of the Spirit? Have been cleansed from the stain of sin down deep in your soul— And has God given you a new heart? Has the Spirit of the living God made you alive to God? Do you love him? Do you hunger for and hear His word? Do you bear the fruit of His Spirit—His love and joy and peace, His patience, kindness, gentleness and self control? Does His Spirit testify to your spirit that you are a child of God? Because it is quite possible to be a very religious person, like Nicodemus or Wesley, and still not be born again. To still not taste and feel and see the life of God in the kingdom of God. This word to Nicodemus is a serious word of warning to a seriously religious man. Is Jesus speaking these words to you? You must be born again. You must be born again. You must be born again. |
