Turn to John chapter 3 this morning, the infamous text of John 3,
which is where we have some live examples of some of
the things that we've learned already in the prologue. I don't ever really entitle my
sermons. It's sort of a long-running joke
of several decades. I don't know how to title sermons.
I mean, what do you call it? It's not like I'm producing a
movie. So throughout all the years prior to planting Grace
Truth Church, I always had someone else that when they put my message
up, they'd give it a neat title. And I found that the simplest
of titles have always gotten the most attention, like the
truth about whatever. the truth about this. But I feel
that from the direction of this text, there's several weeks we'll
be here in John 3. We still are on schedule. This
is week 20. We're still on schedule to do four and a half years in
this text. At this pace, we've just finished. This is week 20.
It's hard to believe that we've gone this long already in John.
It feels like we're just getting started. But I've entitled this
sermon, The Qualifications of the Believing Man. And when I say man, I mean human.
The qualifications of a believing man. And I want you to think
about that for a minute because as we approach this text and
we look at the new birth, which is the context of what is being
taught here by Jesus, we will see that there's a man he's speaking
to who is extremely qualified in many circles. He's extremely
qualified academically. Jesus calls him the teacher of
all Israel. so that he's academically qualified.
He's very qualified in his morality because Nicodemus as a Pharisee
was not living a debauched life. He was living a life of honor
and glory and a life of what we would call obedience, a life
adhering to the law as we see Paul as a Pharisee also would
follow after the law, even calling himself blameless in regard to
the law as man saw it. We also see Nicodemus is very
qualified in that he is representative of the spiritual condition, the
spiritual health of Israel, and that he is the teacher of all
Israel. That means he is one of the premier
teaching elders, if you will, of Israel as a Pharisee. He was
not just a ruler, but also a teacher in the context that Jesus calls
him the teacher of Israel. helps us understand that this
is not just a mere man coming to make some confession of who
Jesus was, but this is a man who had everything possible he
needed academically and spiritually and morally to understand and
see and believe that Jesus was Messiah. That everything that this man
was, by the world standard, we would call him a believer. And so from the context of where
we would evaluate each other, We would see Nicodemus and we
think, man, if we could just get that brother in our church,
oh, what he could do. He could help write, he could
help teach, he could help counsel, he could pray. Imagine the prayers
of Nicodemus. Imagine the prayers of Paul. Here, we look at this guy and
we think about the cultural Christianity in which the Lord has allowed
for some reason to brew and populate our culture. And that we can
assemble together and say, we've been to church, we've done church,
rather than we are the people of God who've assembled. So we
are church. We are the body of Christ. And
we think about this God and we say, well, we need some Nicodemuses
in our world. And if we saw him, he would probably
be more qualified than the elders of this church. Nothing personal
about that, brothers. Because he could take from memory
and spit the Septuagint out. What's that? The first five books
of the Bible. The Jewish Bible. From memory. And he had to have
that under his belt before he turned 13, which is when he became
a man and was given in marriage. Oh, what a... devastating thing
we've done to our children in our culture today by keeping
them children until they're really adults and then telling them
overnight, well now you're an adult because there's an eight
after the one. Grow up. But Nicodemus is a qualified
man by all respects. And I want us to think about
a comparison that the text doesn't push. The scripture's not taught
this way so that we could start making comparisons. Now who's
the Pharisee among us? Or who is the Nicodemus in our
culture? Beloved, we're all the Nicodemus. All of us are Nicodemus. Now I'm not saying that to say
that Nicodemus is not a historical character. He is, and there are
some higher critics that would say that Nicodemus is just representative
of the larger pulse of Judaism in the day of the first century,
Palestine. That's not the case. He's a real person who served
on the board of Sanhedrin. He was a Pharisee. He really
did go to Jesus and he really did talk to Him here. Just like
Adam is a real person who was created by God with a name and
a body and a life. Adam is not a generalized picture
of the first humanoids. Adam is a created being. Nicodemus
is a man, but in some sense, he is also represented here in
John's gospel. Because as we see the end of
chapter 2, which is where we left off last week, it says,
in verse 23, look there at chapter 2, verse 23, and I'm going to
read down through verse 13 of chapter 3. Excuse me, verse 23
of 2, 13 of 3. We're not going to cover all
this today. 2.23 says, Now when he was in
Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when
they saw the signs that he was doing. Remember that, church.
They believed because they saw the working of His power. So
their faith was in the signs. This is last week's sermon. But
Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself, that means He did not
believe them and therefore did not disclose Himself to them,
because He knew all people and needed no one to tell Him or
to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in a
man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus. a ruler of the Jews. 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. Jesus answered him, Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. 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, "'Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born of water and of 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. Do not
marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. The wind
blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not
know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone
who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can
these things be? And Jesus answered, Are you not
the teacher of all Israel, and yet you do not understand these
things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know
and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive
our testimony. If I have told you earthly things
and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly
things? No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended
from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Let's pray. Father, as this gospel was written
two millennia ago, Father, it was written by Your
man, John, the nothing of the world that You used to bring
to nothing the things that are. The dim, dark heart of a man
who You recreated and rebirthed to be Your Son, to be Your child,
to be Your adopted child through Jesus Christ, Your eternal Son. And He wrote these words that
we may believe on Christ, that we may believe in the name of
Jesus, and that by believing we have eternal life in His name. So Father, as we see these things
play out, let us first and foremost evaluate our own faith. And let
us rest in the sufficient person, the work, the power, in the plan
of Jesus Christ, who before the ages purposed to save His people
by becoming like us, replacing us in the command of holiness,
and replacing us under the wrath of justice. Father, I pray that as this Word
is taught this morning, that in the greatness of my weakness,
You would be mighty. And that we would see and behold
in such a way that now we who are born again would see, and
we would rejoice, and we would be thankful, and we would hold
fast to the gospel so that nothing could cause us to move, that
nothing could take away your love for us. For as Paul would
teach us in Romans, Nothing can separate us from Your love, for
it is in the finished work of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our
King, and our God. In His name we pray. Amen. So as you notice the tie of verse
23 to 3.1, of chapter 2, 23 to 3.1, this is the beginning of
a new thought. And we don't change verse and
chapter numbers because it would be a nightmare for Grace Truth
to have their own Bible with their own numbers to it, and
it would be ridiculous. But do not put yourself in a
position to where you believe that the thought process is segregated
based on the topics and the chapter headings. That's not for us to
understand what's being said. It's for us to find what's being
said out of a thousand tissue pages. tissue pages. There were many who believed
in the name of Jesus, but Jesus did not entrust Himself to them,
for He knew all men. No one had to bear witness to
Him about men, for He knew what was in the heart of man. Now
there was a man. You see the thought. Now there
was a man. So here's the general reality
of the people as a whole. Many saw the signs that Jesus
did and they believed that Jesus was from God. They believed that
Jesus probably could be Messiah. They believed. But Jesus knew
them. Their faith was not efficient. It was non-effectual. It was
insufficient. And so, now we get to see the
reality of what these people look like by Nicodemus. And not
just a man from the community, but the high echelon of spirituality. The creme de la creme of all
those who could believe. Here is Nicodemus coming to Jesus
at night to talk to Him, and to inquire of Him, and to proclaim
Him. And so now we don't have to sit
here and wonder. We'll wonder what the faith of
those people in verses 23 through 25 were about. What did it look
like? We're about to see it. We're
about to see what it is that John is speaking of. When he
says this man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews. Let's think about that for a moment. Here he is, Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews, of the Pharisees. As I've already said before I
prayed, this is a very high-to-do man. This is not a lackey. This is not the assistant. This is not the choir boy. This isn't the deacon. This isn't
the pastor of a church. This is somebody. and he comes
to Jesus, and the Pharisees had already gone to John the Baptist,
and they've already inquired, who do you say you are? Not because
of the message that he preached, but because he took it upon himself
to baptize, which was saved, if you will, only for the rabbis
during the position of their inauguration or ordination. Who are you to say you baptized? Why are you participating in
this practice and you are not a rabbi? Because what happens? It's just sort of like, and this
is, I don't agree with this, but it's sort of like when you,
you know, back in the youth camp days. Kids get saved and you're
at Daytona Beach. Let's have a baptism! Who wants
to be baptized? Every guy there. Why? Because they want to get in the
water. Everybody's baptized. So everybody gets baptized, they
go home. Guess what? I'm baptized. No church, no spiritual family,
no spiritual oversight, no nothing. What is that baptism for? It's
not a public profession of anything, into anything. It's just getting
wet in the middle of the... And so in some sense it upsets
pastors when their youth come home from summer camp having
been baptized without the oversight of their fellow church and their
parents. That's annoying, isn't it? I mean, to say at least,
it's annoying. Much less, I'm not going to say
it's blasphemous or if it's wicked, but it's annoying because now
you have to go and you have to start thinking, well, how do
we manage this? It's like if you just went to
the 7-Eleven and they offered you communion. I mean, you know, you're there,
you're buying your gas because you've got to fill up, a hurricane's
coming, it's $26 a gallon, and you're like, man, and there's
a guy in there with a suit on, he's got a Bible in his hand,
he says, hey, you want to take the Lord's Table? Sure! And they're just
passing it out, Mountain Dew and tater chips. I mean, you
know, well, I did the Lord's Table today. Well, you might
have in your heart, sure. But was that really the meaning,
the purpose of that? And so in the same way where
Nicodemus and the Pharisees would inquire John the Baptist, who
do you think you are taking what we do in the confines of the
temple and making it a public display? Who does Jesus think
He is to do signs in this way? And especially the fact that
He came into the temple. Keep in mind, this is after the
cleansing of the temple. Jesus is now being confronted
by Nicodemus. Now there's a lot of speculation
as to why Nicodemus went at night. Some people say, well, he was
It was the tradition of the rabbis to do what we used to do in my
house called kitchen talk. You sit on the kitchen counter
and the next thing you know it's four in the morning. And you've just
been talking about scripture, you've been talking about life, you've
been talking about all sorts of stuff. And you go, wow, we have really
stayed up late into the evening. And so there's some people that
say it's just about the tradition of the rabbis. Lost the word there. The rabbis
to just talk at night. So they found Jesus and they
just wanted to talk. Ah, probably not. And some people
would say, well, he was afraid to be seen with Jesus during
the day, so he found Jesus at night and hid with Him in the
back alley. And you know, hey Jesus, it's Nick. Can we meet
tonight? You know, that's where the Nick at night thing comes
from, for those of you who used to watch that. Forget that. But people would
argue, you know, Nicodemus came because he was scared, he was
worried. Yeah, maybe, but the text doesn't give us that, and
archaeologists can't tell us that, and anthropologists can't
tell us that, and, I mean, we don't have the annals of Nicodemus,
so we don't know. We just think that it was a good
time to meet with Jesus, because Jesus was busy, Nicodemus was
busy, and just like us, if we got to get together, sometimes
we just have to do it after work. So the better option is to think
that, well, there was a reason for it to be at night, just like
there was a reason for it to be at the heat of the day in
John chapter 4 when the woman of Sychar met with Jesus, because
it was an odd time for her to be at the well. It was an odd
time for Jesus to have a formal meeting greet with a Pharisee.
It's an odd time. but the more intriguing thing
is that we look contextually in this text. In John 3 is where
we start to see the exposition of what John has already said
to us in John chapter 1, that in him was life, and the life
was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness is not overcome it. So I believe by the Lord's
purpose, Nicodemus came to Jesus at dark so that Jesus could call
out darkness. And show Nicodemus that the darkness
of night is nothing compared to the darkness of his soul.
And the darkness of night is nothing compared to the darkness
of Judaism. And the darkness of night is nothing compared
to the darkness of self-righteousness. But it doesn't matter, does it?
See, sometimes we get hung up in these little things about,
well, wonder why, wonder what, wonder where, wonder when. That
we miss the point of what the text actually argues. We need
to stick to the Scripture, folks. Be careful what Google can do
for your spiritual life. It can ruin it. The devil is
already at work. We don't need to add tools to
our tool belt for the devil just to take out of our own belt and
use against us. Be careful. But this rabbi, he came tonight,
at night, and he honored Jesus. He honored Him. Now see, we see
the first two disciples that followed Jesus. What did they
do? They called Him, and they were following after Him, and
when He turned around, He says, What are you seeking? What do
you want? Remember that? And they honor Him by calling
Him Rabbi, teacher, which actually means master. Teacher is a master. The teacher
is the master over the students. They teach what they have mastered,
and the students learn. So they honored Jesus by calling
him teacher, master, rabbi, and now Nicodemus, who was the rabbi
of Israel, called Jesus rabbi. So this is not some odd just
figure of speech that people use, like we call everybody brother
or sister. We're so used to talking to each other in the church that
we meet a total stranger on the road and they offer us drugs
and say, no brother, I don't want no drugs. I mean, you know, like,
excuse me, no sir, I don't want any drugs. Not everybody's our
brother if they're not in Christ. Not everybody's our sister if
they're not in Christ. But we just get so... It's not like
that. They're not just saying, hey teacher, hey teacher, hey
rabbi. That was a title that was specifically used to address
with honor those people who were known to be teachers. And for
Nicodemus to actually say, teacher, rabbi, to Jesus, it carried a
lot of weight. Now what do you think Nicodemus
would do that for? It's sort of like when you have
your doctoral work or your terminal degree, and people call you doctor
all the time. Doctor, doctor, doctor. And in
certain circles, that title's necessary. In other circles,
it's not necessary. But what happens is sometimes
people call you doctor, sometimes people call you reverend, sometimes
people call you daddy, sometimes people call you pastor. And when you get to certain places
and you're walking around and you hear somebody talking and
introducing you to someone, what happens when you hear someone
introduce, hi, this is John so-and-so versus hi, this is Dr. John so-and-so,
you go, oh, I'm a doctor. I got a little rash over here
I want you to look at, if you don't mind. Oh, doctor of psychology, sorry
about that. I'm a little crazy, you mind talking to me? There's
a little clout that goes along with it. And let's say that you're not
really someone who feels the pride of what you've accomplished
or that you're a master of anything, but someone gives you the accolade
anyway. Let's just say someone calls
you a master. Doesn't it make your
head swell just a tad? I mean, be honest. He's a master
swordsman. See, that's better than just
a guy that plays with a sword that needs to grow up, right?
You know, that's the crazy guy that the kids can't play outside
when the neighbor's swinging the sword. But if he's a master
swordsman, okay, he's fine. He's a master. I think Nicodemus
in his heart probably thought, I'm gonna not offend Jesus, because
what if he's the real deal? What if He really is Messiah?
What if He's really a teacher? I want to honor Him. I want to
butter Him up, if you will. Now these are just hypotheticals.
These are just things for us to think about in our mind about what
might be going on here because it's really a weird circumstance
for me to think that this rabbi would call a man who was causing
so much trouble a rabbi. And so he goes in and he calls
Jesus Rabbi, and for any of us human beings who were not God,
we would think, you got that right. I am the teacher around
here. But what does Scripture say Jesus
did? That King James thought it not robbery. Remember that? Though he was
equal with God, he did not take equality with God as something
to be grasped, but he made himself nothing. See, you can't flatter
Christ. You can't flatter God. No matter
how eloquent our prayers are, no matter how King James-y our
oratory might sound, we cannot come to the throne and make God
swoon, or blush, or go, man, He really has my ticket. Atta
boy, you know who you are, and you know who I am. Good going. He honored Jesus by calling Him
Rabbi, and then He confessed Jesus.
What did He say about Him? He says, we know, now get this,
we know. Now he didn't say, I know. He
wasn't taking that on himself. Why? Because there's something
about this discourse that makes us believe that Nicodemus, he
really had his own opinion, but at the same time, he probably
was trying to cover all of his bases and to save face. Because
it's one thing for me to come up to you and say, you know what,
I know. And then I find out I didn't know. Then I look like a fool.
Or if I come up and I say, it's been said, I've heard, or we
know, it's always, if you notice I speak like that, when I say
something usually in the context of the church, I say we. Sometimes
when I talk about elders, I'm talking about we, the elders.
Because there's safety in that. I've learned to communicate that
way in my 20s when everybody, when I get off the stage sometimes,
say, who made you king of this church? Well, nobody. I'm just
used to saying I because I'm talking to the first person.
So I learned to say we. Nicodemus says we because there's
safety there. There's safety there. We know.
Because if Jesus said, what are you talking about? Are you crazy?
You go, well, no, that's what they said. So there's no personal
confession here by Nicodemus. There's a safety net. Brothers
and sisters, don't let your confession of Christ be a safety net that
we, me and my church, believe. Do you believe in Christ? Do
you believe the gospel personally, particularly, and explicitly?
It doesn't matter that you hold to the 1689. It doesn't matter
that you are in a Reformed church. It doesn't matter that you have
a Geneva Bible. For those of you who do, the
three of you. It doesn't matter if it's our
faith. Good, we do have our faith, but
is it your faith? Is it your belief? Do you trust
in Jesus Christ alone? Nothing different here. We know
this establishes what I like to call the border of critical
mass for this confession. boundary, this border of critical
mass. Well, if I'm wrong, I can step out of the wrong and be
right. If I'm right, I'll take credit for it. Isn't that how
it works? But what is it that he confessed
about Jesus? Now see, I argue this a little differently than
most commentators. I argue this when he says, we know that you
are a teacher come from God. All right, so plain as the notes
on the page, he says, we, the Pharisees, know. He doesn't say
we think. He doesn't say we suppose. We
discern that you could be. He says, we know that you are.
All right, think about that for a second. We know that you are
a teacher that has come from God. Why? How do they know that?
Because of the signs that you have done. So here we now know
that Nicodemus is counted in that number of those who believe
because of the signs they saw. So not only did the mass of the
population begin to believe in Jesus because of the signs they
saw, so did the spiritual leaders of Jerusalem begin to believe
in Jesus because of the signs they saw, inclusive of the sign
of the cleansing of the temple, because whether or not they called
for a sign to prove the authenticity and the authority of it, they
recognized it. You see, they recognized it. They recognized that Jesus fulfilled
the Old Testament. where it said he would have zeal
for his father's house. And the reason we know that is
because scripture says that later, even in the sense of where he
says, I will rebuild it in three days, that after his resurrection,
the Holy Spirit of God reminded the disciples that he'd said
that and they remembered and they believed even more. Their
faith was strengthened. So you're just a teacher come
from God. Now I want to ask you a question,
church. What teacher is it that the Jews
were looking for from God? Some could say Elijah. Some could
say the prophet. Some could say Messiah. How do
we know that? They've already asked John the
Baptist the trio of questions. Are you Messiah? Are you the
prophet? Are you Elijah? No, I am not.
No, I am not. No, I am not. Who are you? I am the voice of Him crying
out in the wilderness, make straight the path of the Lord. And then
John the Baptist after saying that points, there's the Lord. So the Pharisees heard the confession
of John the Baptist, that he was not either of the three,
and the only one that John pointed to, he says, was Messiah. I am
here to cry out, make straight the way of the Lord. Ta-da! There's
the Lord. Behold the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world. So Nicodemus and the crew get
together and they see that Jesus validates the confession and
the proclamation of John the Baptist, and they say, well,
there's no way we can refute it. We know that He's from God.
I say, we play it safe. Let's just say that He is from
God and He's come here to teach us. And this is the unbelieved confession
of faith that Nicodemus provides. knowing full well in all the
fullness of His knowledge, and all the fullness of His life,
and all the fullness of His religion, He knew good and well that Jesus
was Messiah. Let me tell you that. People
will argue this. Beloved, I cannot see any other
way. They knew He was Messiah, but they refused to confess He
was Messiah. Even in the context of a personal
conversation, they put the border of critical mass up in front.
We know that you're from God, which is flattering to begin
with. If someone comes up and says, oh, that's a man of God
right there, most pastors swoon in their hearts. Except for me,
I go, you don't know me. It's embarrassing. What makes
us a man of God? What makes you a woman of God?
Is that God has bought you through the blood of Christ. That's it. Doesn't matter what you preach
or don't preach. Teach or don't teach. Pray or don't pray. If
Christ is yours and you are Christ, you are a man, you are a woman,
you are a child of God. Here Nicodemus confessed a false
faith. A partial faith. An intimate
confession that Jesus was truly the one who had come from God. And what I believe is happening
here, because he says no one can do these signs unless God
is with him, this reveals the nature of Nicodemus' statement
in some sense. He's saying this with hopes that Jesus, he'll
say the minimum, because is Messiah from God? Yes. Is Messiah going
to teach? John 4. You see the contrast?
I don't want to get ahead of myself. I just love this text
and I cannot stay focused sometimes. Nicodemus says, you are a teacher
come from God. The woman at the sidecar, who's
an unclean woman, says, I guess Messiah will teach us all things.
So here's God in the flesh standing before Nicodemus, but because
of Nicodemus' darkness, he can't see, and then God gives light
to the unbelieving heretic. And she says, I guess Messiah
will have to teach me. So see, all throughout the rest
of this letter we see Jesus confronting the Jews and the Sadducees and
the Pharisees. We see Him telling them and teaching them the very
thing they already know and has been revealed to them already
by the Word of God intellectually. But because of the judicial blindness
that we see Jesus say is fulfilled in John 12 out of Isaiah 6 that
they cannot see and they cannot believe, this is the point. where we begin to see how someone
can escape unbelief. It's called regeneration. It's
called the new birth. The signs do not save. But if
Nicodemus could come to Jesus and say, we know that you're
because Messiah has come from God. But to say we know you are
Messiah, I mean you can't rewind that. You can't reel that back
in. This is the Messiah. If a Pharisee says, this is Messiah,
and then it's not Messiah, the Pharisees are over. How awful would that be? So in
some sense, Nicodemus is trying to give Jesus just enough, just
a small smidgen of truth, but not go too far into the confession
so that maybe Jesus then would disclose more. It sort of would,
in his mind, maybe go something like this, we know that you are
from God, we've seen all the signs you've done, we know that
God is with you, for no one can do what you are doing except
that he be from God and that God be with him. And Jesus says,
absolutely I'm from God, I've been sent down from heaven, I
am the eternal begotten, I am the Lamb, I am Messiah. But it's
the opposite, isn't it? Jesus commands His disciples
continually not to tell people He is Messiah. Not to tell people
He healed them. Not to tell people who He really
is. Why? We'll get there. We'll get there. But in a short sense, the reason
Jesus did that is He didn't want people's faith to be in what
other people told Him. He wanted faith to be because
God had granted it. You see, a lot of times we believe
in the Jesus of our mom, and we believe in the Jesus of our
dad, and our grandparents, and our pastor. We believe in the
Jesus of our social structure. We believe in the Jesus of our
denomination. And we don't believe in Christ
of Scripture. Because we've never looked in the Word of God and
believed. We've only followed after the
small little tiny precepts that someone has led us to and through.
That's why decisional regeneration, listen to what I'm about to say,
especially you teenagers. That's why decisional regeneration
is one of the most damning offenses to the gospel of Jesus Christ
that's ever been crafted by the devil. What do I mean by that?
When somebody tells you that you're saved because you chose
to be saved, or that you said the right prayer. I'm not saying
you're not deciding, you're not believing with your mind, you
do. But you know what I'm talking about. When somebody tells you
that your salvation hinges upon an action of your own, and a
decision of your own, and a work of your own, you have been led
down the wrong path. And if you want to put it to
the test, how do you know that you have eternal life? Most people in
that boat, because I prayed to receive Jesus as my Lord and
Savior. Or I accepted Him as my Savior. What does that mean
and what context in Scripture shows that? Why do people hate that so much?
Because the gospel of grace is about God's glory. Decisional
regeneration is about man's glory. The signs do not say, beloved.
You can believe if Jesus... What did He do? Turn water into
wine. He cleansed the temple. He did
many healings. He did all sorts of miraculous things. He proved
He was divine. Then He preached the Old Testament.
And He proclaimed the prophecies of His coming. And then He says,
here I am. And then He got on the cross and He died and He
rose again and for 40 days He did a ministry post-resurrection.
Then He left His disciples, who were then apostles, who wrote
the Scripture, who preached and brought the Gospel through the
Word of God. And for some strange reason, God has permitted, not only in
our day, but in John's day, in Paul's day, and in Adam's day,
God has permitted the devil to deceive people into not believing
the Word of God. It is because of not believing
the Word of God that man is in a fallen state. It is because
of not believing in the Word of God that Abraham suffered
the way he did and that Ishmael was born. It is because of not
believing in the Word of God that Judah and Israel are no
more. It is because of not believing in the Word of God that Moses
died in the wilderness. It is because of not believing
the Word of God that so-called churches are not churches, but
rather hopeless filled places with unregenerate people. Because they do not believe the
Word of God. See, God is the one who does the signs. But knowing
that God does signs does not save. I mean, how many signs
did God give Egypt? You want an apologetic against
sign salvation? Go to Egypt. We're going to turn
your water to blood. We're going to put bugs in your
mouth. We're going to put frogs in your house. We're going to
put locusts all over you. We're going to kill all your
livestock. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to send
fire down from heaven. Oh, natural phenomenon. Okay, fire from heaven.
Probably divine. Okay. and it's going to go dark, then
every firstborn of everything is going to die, except for the
ones who put a blood of a lamb on their doorposts. They're not
going to die. There must be something to this.
But what does Scripture say God did to the heart of Pharaoh through
those signs? Hardened his heart. And when we put our faith in
the sign, if we know that Christ is Christ because of the sign,
beloved, we're not believing. We're just acknowledging. We're
just agreeing. Nicodemus is agreeing. He's acknowledging. And Jesus doesn't go into a dialogue
with him. He doesn't go into a treatise
about a doctrinal of salvation or theology of how God works.
He just flat answers him in the negative. Nicodemus says, we
know that you've come from God because we see the signs. All
glory, hallelujah. We know you've come from God.
Give me more, give me more. Tell me who you are, tell me
who you are. That's what Nicodemus is wanting. Jesus knows the heart
of man and what Jesus says to Nicodemus is very, very important. He says, truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. So Nicodemus comes to Jesus and
claims to see Him. He claims to be able to see Jesus
and says, we can see you, we know who you are, yay! And Jesus goes, you can't see
a thing because you're not born of heaven. You don't belong to
God. You've not been made new. And
it baffles him. See, Nicodemus had no outward
reason to believe he needed salvation. This is one of the biggest problems
that Nicodemus had. See, it's easy when we can look
at ourself and go, man, look how wicked I am. Look how I talk. Look what I do. Look how I treat
people. Oh, wow. I'm wicked. I deserve
salvation. I mean, I deserve condemnation.
I need salvation. Nicodemus had no outward reason
to need salvation. He followed the law. He knew
the Scriptures. He taught Israel. He ruled the Jews. He was moral
and pious. He obeyed God and he believed
in God. He was looking for Jesus the
Christ and he recognized the authority of Jesus and then confessed
it. All the while thinking, man, I would love to set Christ into
the work of the temple. This man needs to be on our side,
see, because God has sent Him. He's not here to save me, He's
here to set us free. See, the problem is, When you're
not born again and you see the signs, you wonder. You're in
awe. You're like, wow, look at those signs. There is a God. Okay, Romans 1 tells us everybody
knows there's a God. But when God births you anew
and makes you His, you experience the signs. You
experience the miracle of new birth. You experience regeneration. So you're not just observing,
you're living. You're not just looking at the
miracles, you are the miracle, you see. Nicodemus was looking
at the miracles, looking at himself, going, man, what a great combination.
Wow! And Jesus says, unless you're
born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. Let's paraphrase
that in some sense. You cannot look at me and tell
me who I am because you cannot see me for who I am. You are
dead, Nicodemus, in all of your confession, in all of your faith,
in all of your religion, in all of your knowledge of Scripture.
You are self-condemned. Because Jesus knew what was in
man, He knew Nicodemus had darkness in him. So as others believed in vain,
so did the Jews and so did Nicodemus. And Nicodemus was corrupted in
his religion because he was depraved in his heart. His religion was worthless because
his heart was dead. His faith was pathetic because
he was not born again. His confession was futile, vain. Because it was not of faith,
it was not of a new heart. See, Jesus knew that ecademus
needed a new nature, not a changed one. Evangelism is not changing
people's minds. And apologetics is not talking
people into seeing what they can see. Evangelism is proclaiming
the truth that's stupid and simple and ridiculous to the natural
man, which is the gospel of Jesus. And then by the proclamation
of the gospel of Jesus and that stupid message of silliness,
God the Holy Spirit opens up the hearts and the minds and
the eyes of a dead man and makes him alive and makes him new.
And then the homeboy believes, you see. And Nicodemus needed a new nature,
not a changed one. And everything that he did was
corrupted. Beloved, no matter what we do,
if we're not born again, the very sermon I preach is corrupted
before God. But yet he can use it for you. Nicodemus was blinded to the
truth because he was guilty of sin. He was guilty of unbelief.
He was guilty of being depraved. And this guilt brings a just
wage, which is death. And as the dead are waiting for
spiritual death, there is a judicial blindness on them that the God
of this world has blinded their eyes to keep them from seeing
the light of the glory of God. But God, who said, let light
shine out of darkness, shines in our hearts when we hear the
truth. as He wishes, as we'll see. So Nicodemus had darkness
in him, but Jesus provides the remedy of Nicodemus' problem,
doesn't He? Look at verse 3. "'Truly, I say to you, unless
one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" You
understand about the new birth. And see, that's really what this
sermon and next week's going to be about. What is the new birth?
What does it mean to be born again? And Nicodemus in verse
4 asks that question. He proves the reality of his
nature. He asks the question, how can a man be born when he's
old? Can he enter a second into his time in his mother's womb
and be born? So we know that Jesus is referring to the interpretation
of the word above for again. You must be rebirthed, new. And Jesus says the remedy is
you must be born again. See, the new birth doesn't give
the man the ability to affirm the truth, the ability to affirm
the right religion or to express the right doctrine. It prepares
him. Listen, the new birth prepares
us to behold the doctrine at work, to behold its efficacy
in our souls, not just our brains. Nicodemus says, this is the most
ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You know I cannot go into my
mother's womb and be reborn as a grown man, but that's the only
answer he could come up with speaking to his newly found rabbi
friend. I must do what? This is absurd. This is ridiculous. Beloved,
the new birth is ridiculous to the natural man. The new birth
is ridiculous and somewhat, listen, offensive to the unbeliever. What do you mean I need to be
made new? Why is that offensive? Because we think we're pretty
good off. We think we're pretty well off in our morality, in
our goodness. We think we're pretty good. We know we're sinners. We know
we've done wrong. We know, but in all in all, you
know, we're not like those people. Nobody's over there, okay. We're
not like them. It's good having a small building.
I'm not pointing in anybody's direction. It's offensive. Why is it offensive?
Why is it ultimately offensive? Because we can't do it to ourselves.
You wanna hear that again? The reason the new birth out
of John 3, and all of John's gospel, and all of Paul's writing,
the reason it's offensive is because we can't do it. You tell
a man he can't do something, he shows you that he can. You
tell a man he can't do something that he actually can't do, he
hates you for it. And I speak as a man. Tell me
I can't do something. I'm going to think about how
I can prove you wrong. There is no way for a man to
be born again just like there is no way to shove a camel through
a sewing needle lie. But what is impossible for man
is possible with God. And here in John 3, this utterly
ridiculous idea of being born again is really the only precious
and glorious reality on which we can place our hope. The redeemed consider the idea
of regeneration very carefully. And it is precious to us. because
it is salvation. Do you hear me? Justification is possible because
God regenerates. Justification is effectual because
God regenerates. Now we're not talking about judicially
what Jesus did, what the decrees have done, what penalty has been
paid. I'm talking about effectual for
you to believe. If God does not birth us anew, you will not believe. Regeneration is a must. In verse
5, he proclaims this difficult necessity. He says, this is what
it's about, Nicodemus, truly, truly. I say to you again, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom
of God. Not only can you not see it, Nicodemus, you cannot
be a part of it. You are not a part of the kingdom
of God, Nicodemus. Unless you're born again, unless
you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, you cannot be a part
of the kingdom of God. Have you ever had a friend in
the faith who just cannot, for the life of them, believe? They
just cannot hope and rest in the gospel? You ever had one? I'm not talking about seasons.
I'm not, ever. You know, I believe, but I just... You ever? Begin to pray that
God would rebirth that person. Don't pray for the sins that
lead to death, as John would teach us. Pray for the sin that
doesn't lead to death. Pray that God would save people. Why would we do that? You know
why? Because we don't want to assume people are unbelievers. The problem is, in our culture,
we think, now, if you're talking with me and I express unbelief
in some way, we've been taught, oh my gosh, he's an unbeliever.
Guess what? We've got to lead him to Jesus. Would you pray
this and nail it down? Would you follow this and get
it right? Would you come on down and put it in stone? Would you
just stop and just share the gospel? Would you just walk and
let the man in unbelief, let the friend in unbelief hear the
gospel? and pray that as you share the
faith and as you share the gospel, God will do one of two things
or both. That the child that you're speaking to, if he or
she be in Christ, would be strengthened in their faith. And if they're
not in Christ, would be saved. by the Lord, and God will work
it out. It's both and the same. It doesn't matter. We don't have
to put a point in history for our salvation. We do not have
to have anything but a present reality of our hope in Christ,
which is salvation through Christ's work, through the Spirit who
has made us new. Because if we think that we're
going to walk as new creatures continually by faith, we are
crazy. We walk in faith and then we
wane a little bit. And then the Word of God strengthens
us and we believe. Why? Not in us, but Him. He holds us fast. Why? Because He's birthed us. If the
Spirit can birth us anew, can He not carry us along? See, man cannot affect the change
of mind in someone else. We cannot sit down and have somebody
comprehend The Gospel, God must do this. I mean, this effectual
calling that Paul talks about in Romans 8, those who he called,
he justified, is the work of God. This drawing, as we'll see
in John 6, the giving of the people to the Son, John 6, 37
and 44. No one comes to me and says,
the Father, give him to me. And although the Father give,
unless the Father who sent me draws him, no one can come unless
the Father draws him. God opens our hearts. In Acts
16, 14, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was
said by Paul. That's why we believe, and the Scripture teaches and
confirms, that it's better for children to be aggravating inside
a worship service and a little bit distracting Because by the
power of the Holy Spirit of God, they can hear the gospel and
grow, versus the alternative that we see in the context of
our culture, is that 85 to 90% of every child, when they graduate
high school, never, ever darken the door of a church service
again. We're headed on a trend to look
just like Europe, spiritually. If you think America's bad, man,
we're like the apostles in martyrdom compared to Europe. No offense
to my European brothers and sisters, but they'll confirm that. Confirm
that. God takes the stone and puts
in a real heart. God makes us alive, Ephesians
2.5. All of this work of God, this
new birth is God. Why must there be a new birth?
Look at verse 6. Why must there be a new birth?
Nicodemus said, why? Okay, I can't do it. So there's
no how. Jesus says, here's the how. He
must be born of the Spirit. Why must it happen? Because that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born
of the Spirit is Spirit. Okay. See, here's where our doctrine
of man comes in. Here's where our anthropology
comes in. what we know about humanity.
Humanity, by nature, is conceived in sin. Humanity, by nature,
is depraved. Humanity, by nature, is hostile
to God. Humanity, by nature, refuses
and rebels against God. Even in what we call belief,
like Nicodemus' belief, we rebel against God because we want to
believe on our terms and our conditions. That's why the creativity
of man fueled by the flesh, tempted by Satan, is so effectual in
bringing false conversions to Christ in mass numbers. That's why. When this reality, reading this
text, when this reality hit me, reading this text, shortly after
the millennium, I wanted to die, physically. and contemplated
it for years. It would be better for me to
be dead than to know I taught this trash. But God is gracious. And by His mercy, His Word brought
me out of that darkness. We are hostile to God. We've
sinned against God. I told someone this past week,
if we knew in our finite minds the gravity of the depths of
how much we've sinned against the holiness of God, we would
die in fear. That's why it's necessary that
we're born again, because there's nothing good in us to be made
better. The old adage that your great-grandparents
used to say, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken poop. Pardon
the crudeness. You can't make a believer out
of a dead man. Because if there's one roach
on the plate, it's contaminated, folks. The next question, of course,
is how? And Jesus says, John 3, 7, do not marvel. Don't be
amazed. Don't sit there with your mouth
dropped open. How? How? I mean, isn't that what
we do? How is this going to happen?
Oh no, woe is me. What am I going to do now? Who's
going to do something like this? Which one of us Pharisees can
bring the new birth around? I know, let's go to that revival
meeting we heard about. That man can call down the Holy
Spirit and rebirth us all. No, he can't. Jesus says, don't
marvel. I say to you, you must. It's
an imperative. You must be burned again. Here's
how it works. The wind blows where it wishes,
and you hear it sound, but you don't know where it from. It
comes or goes. Hey, so it is with everyone who's born in the
Spirit. You know what he just told Nicodemus? There's nothing you can do, Nicodemus. It is the work of the Spirit
of God, and He will blow in you and birth you anew when He, good
and well, feels like it. That's sort of what Jesus is
saying, except not so country. God the Holy Spirit will bring
to life those He feels like bringing to life when He has determined
to bring them to life. But how? Now this is something
a lot of us don't get. We know what Paul says in Romans
10. Faith comes through hearing, hearing through the words of
Christ. The original text says words of Christ. Word of God
is fine too, but the Greek says Christ. So does Jesus give the Word of
God to Nicodemus in this text? Yes. He says, number one, Nicodemus asks, how can these
things be? So Nicodemus in all of his theological
training says, I just don't understand it. And Jesus says, are you not
the teacher of Israel? Yeah, you don't understand these
things? That should tell us something,
beloved. We don't trust in our knowledge,
we trust in Christ who is our knowledge. What good does it do to know
academically what the gospel is if we don't know salvificly
who the gospel is? Jesus reveals this truth from
heaven. It doesn't matter how much studying Nicodemus did,
until Jesus reveals it to Nicodemus supernaturally, it doesn't matter. Verse 11, Truly, truly, I say
to you, we speak of what we know. See, you speak of what you know,
we speak of what we know. And we bear witness to what we
have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. In verse 12, man
cannot see except he's shown through the new birth. See, Nicodemus
could not see until he was born again. If I've told you earthly
things like wind and birth, and you can't see the relationship,
how in the world can you believe if I talk about heavenly things?
So if I describe to you what's going on with the work of God
to bring you to salvation, how in the world are you going to
understand it when you cannot even understand simple things
like the analogy of the wind? You see? Man cannot see unless he's born
again. But verse 13, the authority of Jesus is shown here that He
alone is the way to the knowledge of the truth, that He alone is
the way to the power of regeneration. No one has ascended into heaven
except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And He
does that to up to stand on the side of Nicodemus' theological
training, and he goes back to the writing of Moses in verse
14 and 15, and he says, remember this, Nicodemus? Don't you know
this text from childhood, Nicodemus? Haven't you been teaching this
story to the children of Israel your entire life? Remember when
the Israelites grumbled against the Lord, and the Bible says
that God sent serpents to bite the Israelites so that they would
die. There's some theology there you
might not like. God killed His people on purpose. Well that's not fair. You're
right, He should have never let them be born. should have never let us be born.
We should have been conceived and gone right to hell. That
was just. That was fair. That is right.
But God is gracious and God is loving and God is kind and God
effectually gives life to His people. And he's telling Nicodemus,
you know all the understanding you have of the Bible. Remember
the story when Moses prayed for the people? When Moses prayed
for the people and God says, make a servant of bronze and
hold it up. By the way, it's the symbol of
our healing today in our medical community. Go to the pharmacy. Look at your drugs. It's a pole
with a snake on it. They'll be taking that away soon.
If you look I think it's ironic though, those narcotics are killing
people. Anyway, but you know, you hold
the snake up if they believe and look upon the snake they
live. Did the snake save them? Did the pole save them? Did Moses
save them? Did their gaze save them? No,
God saved them. If they didn't believe that God
would save them through His means, then there is no faith and there
is no life and there is nothing but death. Jesus is the snake. Jesus would be lifted up. The
very curse that kills man's sin would be put on Him and He on
the cross. And when we look to Christ, we
live. Nicodemus couldn't see it, and you and I couldn't see
it, except we'd be born again. How do we be born again? The
Word of God. Jesus taught the Word of God
to Nicodemus, and through the hearing of the Word of God, as
the Spirit wishes, Nicodemus would believe. What's the point in it all? We
got a couple more weeks here. The point of it all is this,
is that Jesus is the gospel. We use that phrase a lot in our
circles. Jesus is the gospel, but beloved,
Jesus is the gospel. He's the gospel. And there is no other good news.
I'm not the Gospel. You're not the Gospel. What we
do is not the Gospel. How we respond is not the Gospel.
Jesus is the Gospel. We believe on Jesus Christ alone
and only, only Jesus alone in everything He's done. And we
must know particularly what He's done. That's why we teach the
Scripture. Jesus died to satisfy God's wrath
for your sin. That if you believe on Him, you
live forever. That's what Jesus says. The question is, are you believing
on Jesus? Or are you believing on you? Let's pray. Father, a rich, rich text. Pray Your mercy upon our hearing.
That Your Word would plant deep inside of us. and produce a thousand
and ten thousand fold of fruitfulness. Father, I pray that we would
be blessed in hearing the Scripture today, blessed in being together
as a family, blessed in worshiping and praying, that we would rejoice,
that we would begin praying today about being together again mid-week
and then again on the weekend as we have fellowship, as we
partake of the Lord's table. Father, all the times in between,
we thank You for Your Holy Spirit who guides us, who seals us,
and who carries us through as we would make a wreck of our
faith and a wreck of the lives around us. It is by Your grace
that we stand and are carried along by Your mercy. In Jesus' name, Amen.