It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda.
Today I would like to bring Part 1 of a two-part sermon from John
Chapter 3. Let's read the first 15 verses.
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews. The same came to Jesus by night,
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him. Jesus answered and said to him,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith to him, How can
a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
You must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said to him,
Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and
testify that we have seen, and you receive not our witness.
If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall
you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of Man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life. John chapter 2 provides the setting
for these words. Many saw and believed in Jesus'
name when they saw the miracles that he did. But believing that
Jesus can do miracles will not save us. It seems that Nicodemus
was one of those that believed that God sent Jesus because he
did miracles. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. He began by calling Jesus Rabbi. It was a title the Jews used
to honor their teachers. But Jesus is the Son of God,
not merely a man, not merely a teacher. Therefore, by giving
Jesus the same title that men use to honor other men, Nicodemus
was giving faint praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. Nicodemus
continued, saying, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him. Nicodemus was intelligent and
well-educated. He was very religious. He belonged
to the strictest sect of the Jewish religion. He was well-respected
and he was rich, yet he was lost and spiritually blind outside
the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is set before us by
God to show us several things. If God saved this proud man,
He can save me, a proud, spiritually blind man. With God, nothing
shall be impossible. And He is also set before us
to show us that though men may highly honor us, yet in the eyes
of God we are great sinners and helpless to save ourselves. Moreover,
if this honorable religious man was a great sinner, how much
more sinful are we? If Nicodemus' religious works
left him spiritually blind and outside of the kingdom of God,
how much less will our works contribute one thing to our salvation? Nicodemus was careful to maintain
good works, but our best works are but filthy rags in God's
sight. There is enough sinful motive
in the best works of the best of men to sink them under the
wrath of God for eternity. The best of men and the best
that men can do not only leaves them blind, but increases man's
self-righteous pride. Nothing blinds like spiritual
pride. Spiritual pride is the most revolting
to God of all sins. Spiritual pride blinds a man
to his true condition by his own self-righteousness and his
high opinion of himself, and especially because of his low
opinion of Christ. I know, because by nature I know
that I have more spiritual self-righteous pride than even Nicodemus had. Nicodemus was so blind in self-conceit
that he did not know he was a sinner, and he did not know what he did
not know. Nicodemus was blind in two ways.
First, he had high thoughts of himself. He was a rabbi, a master
in Israel. He bore that title with distinction,
proving he considered it appropriate and deserved. High thoughts of
ourselves is self-conceit. Solomon put it this way, seest
thou a man wise in his own conceits? There is more hope of a fool
than of him, Proverbs 26, 12. Spiritual pride is like riches. A rich man needs nothing because
his wealth provides him with everything that he wants. He
trusts in his riches. A man who is self-righteous is
rich in his own eyes. Such a man needs no savior because
he is righteous before God in himself. Jesus said this, it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Jesus knows the
hearts of all men because he is God. He characterized a Pharisee
as one who trusted in himself that he was righteous and despised
others. Luke 18. Riches make entering
the kingdom of God impossible for men. Anything we trust that
is not Christ is our riches, and it is idolatry. If we are
rich, we don't need help. Our riches provide us all that
we need. Self-righteousness is the spiritual
equivalent to earthly riches. It is worse than wealth. If it
is impossible for a rich man to enter heaven, then the pride
of self-conceit makes it doubly impossible. There is more hope
for a fool to trust Christ than there is for a rich man in his
self-righteous pride, because there is no greater fool than
a man who is proud before God. But thank God, what is impossible
for men is possible with God. I say, thank God, because the
man talking to you now is proof that God saves the proudest of
sinners. But Nicodemus was blind in a
second way that was even worse than self-righteous pride. His
blindness not only left him with high opinions of himself, but
what is worse, it left him with a low opinion of Christ. He had
low thoughts of Christ, and we see this in his first words to
Jesus. Nicodemus honored Jesus with
the praise that one religious teacher gives to another religious
teacher. Nicodemus thought he was doing
a good thing because he acknowledged Jesus as his own peer, even giving
him more honor because he could do miracles. But the name Jesus
means Jehovah is salvation. Jesus did miracles because he
bore and took away the sins of his people before God. His blood
is the righteous ground by which God delivers men from the plague
that their sins have brought upon them. At Jesus's birth,
the angel said, he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1 verse 21. Yet Nicodemus
did not come to Jesus as a sinner. He came to Jesus, one greater
than Solomon, to Christ, the very wisdom of God. Yet Nicodemus
did not possess Solomon's wisdom because he did not say what Solomon
said. Solomon said, I am but a child. I know not how to go out or how
to come in. But Nicodemus came to the great
physician of men's souls. But unlike Solomon, he did not
know the plague of his own heart. He came to the light of the world,
but he came at night because he was in spiritual darkness.
Nicodemus was so blind that he could not see that Jesus was
the light of the world. He came to the Lord Jesus Christ,
the fountain of living waters, but he was not thirsty. He did
not ask Jesus for a drink of living water. He came to God's
only begotten Son, the gift of God, but he needed no gift from
God because he was rich in himself and trusted in himself that he
was righteous. He came to Christ, who is Jehovah,
our righteousness, but He came dressed in the filthy rags of
His own self-righteousness. He came to the Creator of heaven
and earth, but He did not come in His nothingness to be created
new in Christ. He came to the resurrection and
the life, But he did not come for life, because he did not
know he was full of dead men's bones, dead in sins. Do you see how high an opinion
Nicodemus had of himself, and how low an opinion he had of
Christ? Do you see what pitiful praise
Nicodemus gave to Jesus? The Lord of Glory stood before
him, but he could think of no praise higher than the compliment
one self-made teacher gives to another. Nicodemus rises no higher
than to call Jesus a man sent from God. But remember what Thomas
said when, by God-given faith, he saw where the sword pierced
Jesus' side and where the nails pierced his hands? Thomas said,
My Lord, and my God. He said, the Lord of me, the
God of me. What about me? And what about
you? We can see Nicodemus' pride,
can't we? But are we also proud? Can we
see our own pride and therefore our own desperate need of Christ
to save us from ourselves? Have you found that you are unable
to even form a prayer to describe your true need, apart from the
saving work of the Spirit of Christ? Oh, how needy and how
helpless we are in our sins! Yet in this place of Scripture,
great hope and great light are given to sinners by the salvation
of this rich, proud man. Now, in light of the fact of
Nicodemus' blindness, and in light of the fact that Jesus
did not commit himself to those many people who saw his miracles,
and only believed in him as a miracle worker, It is truly amazing that
God would draw to the Lord Jesus Christ this proud, rich, self-righteous
man. It is marvelous grace indeed.
Nicodemus did not realize he was drawn to Christ because he
could not yet see the kingdom of God. But he was drawn. He was drawn by God because the
Lord Jesus revealed Himself and His saving work to him. He revealed
the work of the Spirit of God in salvation. The Lord Jesus
revealed His own sin-atoning death, and He revealed the love
and grace of God His Father. All whom God the Father teaches,
He draws to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And His drawing
is an irresistible drawing. It makes no reliance on the sinner's
cooperation. Jesus said, every man that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. John 6
verse 45. Have you come to Christ? Do you
believe God only accepts sinners in him? Do I? Now, in answer
to Nicodemus's ignorant compliment, calling Jesus a rabbi and acknowledging
him as a miracle worker sent from God, Jesus immediately overturns
the table of his heart and scatters his riches on the floor by his
answer in these words. Jesus answered Nicodemus and
said, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. As a Jew, Nicodemus trusted
his genealogy. He trusted in himself that he
was a son of Abraham and therefore a son of God. He trusted that
he was in the kingdom of God because he was in the nation
of Israel. He thought that Messiah, the
Christ of God, would be David's son, Israel's king, and that
he would reign on earth. Nicodemus thought that if he
kept the law, and he believed that he did keep it, that God
would justify him. He trusted that what he did made
him acceptable to God. He trusted his circumcision proved
that he was in the kingdom of God. But Jesus laid the axe to
his heart. He exposed Nicodemus' ignorance. He exposed his condition. He
exposed his utter inability to do one thing that is necessary
to see or enter the kingdom of God. The Lord struck at the root
of his misplaced trust to cast down all hope but one. Christ
and him crucified, risen and reigning. Jesus made a hard right
turn when he said, except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. The first thing Nicodemus had
to learn was that he could not see the kingdom of God. A man
can never see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. This came as a great consternation
to Nicodemus. He answered Jesus, how can a
man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? He did not know what it
meant to be born again. He was taken by surprise. He
was exposed as spiritually blind, though he was a master in Israel.
He must have felt as if someone punched him in the stomach. And
so he asked, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter
the second time into his mother's womb and be born? But Jesus answered
Nicodemus this way. He said, verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born of water and spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. With these words, the Lord brings
Nicodemus down lower. He not only could not see, but
he had not yet entered the kingdom of God. And secondly, Jesus told
him that to see and enter the kingdom of God, he must be born
of water and spirit. In all that our Lord says to
Nicodemus, we see something very important. First, we see that
when God saves a sinner, he first humbles him to see his need.
We will never be thirsty for salvation until God makes us
thirsty to be found in Christ alone. We will never call. We will never come. We will never
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as all of our salvation until
we have no hope in ourselves and until we see that Christ
is our only hope. So Jesus first told Nicodemus
that he could not see the kingdom of God. Then he told him he had
not entered that kingdom. And then, in verse 8, he said
that being born again was the work of the Spirit of God. It
is His sovereign work. As the wind blows where it pleases,
the Spirit of God gives birth to whom He pleases. As no man
makes the wind blow, so no man makes the Spirit of God give
spiritual birth. And as no man can stop the wind
from blowing, so no man can keep the Spirit of God from working.
He is sovereign. He is almighty. He is irresistible. All that Jesus said exposed Nicodemus
for what he was, blind, outside the kingdom of God, spiritually
ignorant, and impotent. The Lord Jesus revealed his utter
impotence to do one thing to enable himself to see or enter
the kingdom of God. The lesson is clear. To be saved,
the Lord must save us of his own will and of his own work
alone. Nicodemus was confused because
he was so sure he knew the truth, that when the truth was told
to him, he could not reconcile the truth he heard to the lie
he firmly believed. He was confused because he thought
God would justify him by his works. This is a painful lesson
to learn. In verse 11, Jesus exposed Nicodemus
even further. He said that Nicodemus had rejected
the truth he had told him. Jesus said, we speak that we
do know, and testify that we have seen, and you receive not
our witness. Nicodemus was spiritually blind,
outside the kingdom of God, and powerless to do one thing to
help himself. He was in the hand and at the
mercy of a sovereign God. He was unable to do one thing
to get saved. But Christ went further still. He said, are you a master of
Israel and don't know these things? If I have told you earthly things
and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly
things? Nicodemus was guilty because
his ignorance was willful. Christ had spoken the truth to
him, but he did not believe it. Jesus used earthly things to
teach heavenly things, but Nicodemus had not understood the earthly
things. The gospel had been preached in the Old Testament through
earthly things, but he did not understand it. He did not believe
it. As the Israelites of old, he
had seen God's acts, but he did not know his ways. He did not
know how God saves sinners. He did not see Christ in Scripture. Jesus told the Pharisees, had
you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote
of me. John 5 verse 46. Moses used earthly
things to speak of Christ in his writings. But since Nicodemus
and the Pharisees would not come to the one of whom Moses wrote
to the Lord Jesus Christ, it proved that they did not believe
Moses. Thus, the Lord Jesus humbles
Nicodemus even further for his willful unbelief. And finally,
if this were not painful enough, when Jesus explained the heavenly
meaning of the serpent in the wilderness, he put Nicodemus
in that crowd that spoke against God and against Moses, who were
plagued by the poisonous serpent bite. Jesus told Nicodemus, as
those Israelites, bitten in the wilderness by the serpent, had
to look for life on that serpent Moses beat out of brass and hung
on a pole, so men must look in faith to Christ for eternal life. Therefore, Nicodemus had to stoop
down and take his place with God-plagued, serpent-bitten Israelites,
and he must look up to Christ and Him crucified. Everything
Jesus told Nicodemus, therefore, greatly humbled him. And this
is always the result of the gospel. The gospel humbles us so that
we are left exposed, sinful, helpless, and Christ is declared
to be all God has provided and accepted for sinners. The psalmist
said it this way, I was brought low. and he helped me." Psalm
116, verse 6. God brings us low, so low that
Christ is our only hope of salvation from our own sin, from our own
pride and spiritual blindness, from our own willful rejection
and unbelief, from our ignorance and our utter helplessness. We
are utterly dependent on God's sovereign work to save us in
Christ. And God always saves by setting
forth and lifting up Christ crucified. By the gospel of Christ crucified,
to make sinners holy and without blame before Him in love, the
Lord operates in us. to give us life and faith that
we might look away from ourselves and look to Christ as our everything
before God. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
does with Nicodemus. God exposes our guilt and condemnation. He puts salvation outside of
our control. He shows us that we are helpless
to overcome our sin and unbelief. helpless to take away our sin
and make ourselves acceptable, helpless to make ourselves believe. He shows us that we can't understand,
that we don't seek God, and that we can't believe. And then He
sets Christ crucified before us and gives us faith to look
to Him only. And when in our hearts we have
nothing by which we can come to God and be accepted by Him,
by what He has provided, and what Christ has done, and what
He finds in His Son, then we have heard His gospel word. I
say unto thee, live. When we hear and believe Christ
as He is declared in the Gospel, then God's Spirit has given birth
to us. We have been made the sons of
God by birth. He has sprinkled the water of
Christ's precious cleansing blood on our conscience, and we are
enabled to see that God saved us in Christ. and in Christ we
therefore rest. The Spirit of God by the Gospel
brings us low in ourselves and lifts Christ high as all of our
salvation, the only entrance, the only access to salvation
from our sin and condemnation and death and from the wrath
of God. Then we are brought to see what
God sees, Then we are made to agree with Him that we are great
sinners and that Jesus Christ is the great and only Savior
of sinners. He is my all in all. We agree with God that the Lord
Jesus alone must have all the glory in our salvation. We cannot
initiate our salvation. We cannot contribute one thing
to it. And when we are made to so trust
Christ, then we know God's Spirit has operated in us to bring us
to Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What does
it mean to be born of water and Spirit? It does not mean water
baptism. The thief on the cross saw and
entered the kingdom of God, but he was never baptized. Moreover,
baptism is restricted in scripture to believers only. No one can
legitimately be baptized unless they believe Christ. Scripture
nowhere allows unbelievers to be baptized, nor does Scripture
give any record of infant baptism. Therefore, since faith must precede
baptism, and since faith is the result, not the cause, of being
born again, therefore water, by which we are born again, cannot
mean baptism. Nicodemus could not see spiritual
things. Spiritual sight is faith. To see spiritually, that is,
to believe Christ, he had to be born again. It is clear, therefore,
that faith in Christ crucified is not the cause of our birth
by the Spirit of God. Faith in Christ results from
spiritual birth. Scripture explains water and
spirit in Ezekiel chapter 36. God promised, then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From all your
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. Ezekiel
36 verse 25. There is but one thing that cleanses
sinners from their sins before God. It is the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin, 1 John 1, verse 7. And Revelation 1, 5 says,
unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Before God, the blood of Christ
makes us perfectly clean. But we come to know our cleansing
when the Spirit of God, through the Gospel, declares to us how
Christ has washed us from our sins before God. When the Spirit
of God, by His sovereign, almighty, irresistible power, like the
wind, commands us to live by declaring the Gospel of Christ
to us and giving us faith to believe Christ, then we are born
of God. When Christ shed His blood and
offered Himself to God, He made us clean in the court of heaven.
And when we are born of God, the Spirit of God makes us clean
in the court of our conscience. God justified his people when
Christ shed his blood. We know our justification before
God when we are given faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the work of the Spirit of God. He takes the things of
Christ and with irresistible almighty power in grace shows
them to us. Ephesians chapter 2 says, By
grace you are saved, through faith, and that, that faith,
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. The work of the Spirit of God
is a work of pure, free, sovereign grace, uninfluenced by man and
unassisted by man. It is His will and His work alone. And He speaks the Gospel to us
by almighty power and convinces us that Christ is our only hope
and we then live. We have everlasting life and
we shall never perish. Now you may be asking, how do
I become born again? The answer is, it is by the cleansing
blood of Christ in the court of heaven and by the Spirit of
God in our hearts. It is not by your prayer. It
is not by your decision. It is not by your accepting Jesus
or asking Jesus to come into your heart. We are born again
of the work of God alone. But you might ask, how does the
Spirit of God give spiritual birth to a man? The answer is,
He does it by His power through the preaching of the Gospel of
Christ crucified. And so you may be wondering,
but how do I know if I have been born again? The answer is, is
your only hope before God what Christ has done? Do you come
to God by Him only, or do you look for a time in your life
and experience when you made a decision, said a prayer, shed
tears, talked to a preacher, or were baptized? Do you look
to what happened to you? or do you look to what Christ
has accomplished? If you believe your only acceptance
before God is Christ and Him crucified as declared in the
Gospel, then you have been born of God. If not, you have not
yet seen the Kingdom of God. May God give you life and faith
to see Christ only and Christ always. If you believe Him, you
have everlasting life and you shall not come into condemnation.
But if you trust your experience, if you look to something instead
of Jesus Christ or in addition to Jesus Christ, then you cannot
see and you have not entered the kingdom of God. May God be
pleased to reveal His Son to you and to me. Hmm.