Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / John

John 3:1-21 05/08/05

  Message: ‘Nick at Night’                   Main Text: John 3:1-21
 

Introduction: We have all heard the jokes about people showing up standing at the pearly gates seeking entrance into heaven. While many of those jokes are quite funny, behind them is the false assumption that we must do something to get into heaven. People don’t want to believe that we can go to Heaven just by believing that Jesus died for your sins. They don’t want to believe it is that easy. Let me illustrate.

ILL: Box cake mixes are a staple in most kitchen cabinets today. But it wasn’t always so. I read that when these cake mixes were first introduced, the instructions on the box said all you had to do was add water and bake. The company couldn’t understand why it was not selling. That is until their research discovered that women felt uneasy about a cake mix that only required them to add water. People thought it was too easy and it didn’t sell. So the company changed the recipe by having the people add water, oil and eggs…the rest as they say, is history. (by the way, what is it with Angel food and devils food cake?)

This true illustration reminds me that people react to God’s plan of salvation as given to us in His Word, the Bible  the same way. It is too easy, too simple to be true.

Read: Eph. 2:8 ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not the result of works’

Background: Well, in our text this morning, we come across one of those people who had a difficult time understanding the truth about free grace. His name was Nicodemus.

Transition: Turn in your Bibles to John 3:1 (pg 811 in the church Bible) Where we will find Jesus and Nick at night.

Read: John 3:1-2    Nick at Night

Nicodemus represented the best of Israel. He was a teacher, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body in Jerusalem. He was a moral, conservative, religious man.

So, why did Nick go to see Jesus at night? There are many suggestions:
a.    He was afraid to be seen with Jesus.
b.    It was normal to visit people after the work day was over.
c.    He wanted an uninterrupted time with Jesus w/o the crowds.
d.    We don’t know.

Notice that Nick comes to meet Jesus alone, but he uses the word ‘We’. Who are the ‘we’? Have you ever thought that? Some believe the ‘we’   are sympathetic Pharisees on the Sanhedrin. I am not so sure, especially considering what John mentioned just before chapter 3. I believe Nicodemus was one of those who John spoke about in Chapter 2:23-24.

Read: John 2:23-24

Transition:  Nicodemus was impressed by what Jesus did. Nicodemus was open minded, interested and looking for a word from God. But that wasn’t enough and he wasn’t prepared for what Jesus would tell him.

Read: John 3:3    You Must Be Born Again.

Jesus cuts to the chase. He was abrupt even. He doesn’t give Nick a chance to ask a question or even state why he’s there.
Jesus simply and directly tells Nicodemus that no one can see the Kingdom of Heaven, unless they are born again.

Transition: Nick’ s at a loss for words, so he seems to drop back and punt. 

Read: John 3:4  What?

The Kingdom of Heaven, wasn’t really heavenly to the Jews, it was an earthly kingdom, in Jerusalem, without the Romans. They believed the Kingdom of Heaven would come when all the Jews ‘cleaned up their act’. The religious leaders, especially the Pharisees were looking for the people to reform so God would send the Messiah.

But, Jesus was telling Nicodemus, and us today, that the Kingdom of Heaven is experienced, not by reform or trying to be a better person, but by being re-born, by becoming a new person.

Good ole Nick just didn’t get it. Or did he? I think his ‘How can a man be born when he is old?  Is a cop out. He was a religious leader, trained in the best seminary in all Israel. He was a well respected teacher, he was a Jew, a son of Abraham and now Jesus was saying that all means nothing.
Nick was probably thinking ‘how can you teach an old dog new tricks? But Jesus was implying ‘you can’t, you have to get a new dog’.

But we are not much different. We think if we just try a little harder or ‘turn over a new leaf’ we’ll be OK with God. Sometimes this is what the world sees from Christians. What they should see is

•    a life lived for a sovereign and gracious God
•    who by his Spirit wonderfully intrudes into our hearts,
•    transforming us into a new creation
•    and giving us new life.

That’s the Christianity the world needs to see. A Christianity of God’s grace.

Transition: Nick had a dumbfounded look on his face and Jesus said let me make this simple.

Read: John 3:5-8    You Must Be Born Again.

ILL: Someone once asked John Wesley, why he kept preaching that you must be born again? His answer was ‘Because you must be Born Again.’

It’s that important, it’s essential in fact to seeing the Kingdom of heaven..to eternal life. That’s why Jesus mentions it again.
This time he’s a bit more specific.
•    Born of water
    -Again there are a  lot of ideas on what this means. For me the simplest is usually true. Natural birth means natural birth…from  mom.
      This natural birth and our resulting sinfulness, needs to be cleansed by the water  of repentance, that was John the Baptist’s message and work. 
•    Born of the Spirit
    -Spiritual birth is a second birth that leads to gives entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life. It is a spiritual birth because  it is provided, not by mom but     by the Spirit of God. That was Jesus’ message and work. Spiritual birth is always God initiated and God controlled. John uses the illustration of the wind to make     that point.

Nicodemus talked about what men and women needed to do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but Jesus talked about what had to be done in them and for them by God’s grace alone. Jesus is gently leading Nick and us to the great truth of the Gospel in John 3:16.

Transition: Again Nick is almost speechless.

Read: John 3:9    How Can That Be?

How can this spiritual transformation take place? I believe he is genuinely interested. He wants to know so he can experience it for himself.

Transition: Jesus has him just where he wants him…seeking to know not only the truth, but the truth giver.

Read: John 3:10-13    The Physical vs the  Spiritual

Jesus here tells Nick that even with all his religious education and good deeds, he won’t get it because he is focusing on the physical while Jesus is talking about the spiritual. 

Then Jesus says he knows something about spiritual things because he came from heaven. He is speaking of the Incarnation. He is telling Nick that he is the Son of Man, the Messiah. A bold statement, but necessary to give him credence to speak of spiritual things. And Nick misses it completely.

Transition: Then Jesus gives Nicodemus an illustration from Scripture.

Read: John 3:14-16    The Good News of the Gospel.

It is important to read verses 14-15 with verse 16.

Verse 16 in the Greek begins not with ‘For God so loved the world.’ But with ‘For in this way God loved the world.’

Why is this different? The emphasis in the text is not on how much God loved the world (so) but on the way God demonstrated his love…(remember Moses lifted up the snake, Son of Man must be lifted up)

Can you see it? Let me read it again. And look for the connection between vss 14-15 and vs 16.

Read: John 3:14-16

Lets look a little closer.
•    In Num 21 the Israelites while wandering in the Wilderness and sinned against God. So in judgment, God brought snakes to bite them, causing them to die.
•    God offered healing from the deadly bite of the snakes by telling Moses make a snake of brass and place it on a staff. Moses told the people to believe that God     would heal them if they looked at the snake as it was lifted up before them. When the people, by faith, looked at the snake lifted up on the staff they were healed.
    Can you see the connection? Can you see what John is trying to say?
•    The snake bites represent our sin and it’s resulting death. God sent Jesus to be lifted up on a staff (cross) and when people look to him in faith, they are healed         (forgiven of their sins)

Sidebar: The medical profession believes the snake was wrapped around the staff and that brought healing. I believe it was placed perpendicular to the staff…like a cross. For that’s what brings ultimate healing.

Transition: There is good news and there is bad news, Jesus tells Nick that night.

Read: John 3:17-21    The Bad News of the Darkness

God’s purpose is not to condemn us because of our sin. No. His purpose is to save us from our sin when we place our faith, our trust in Jesus’ death on the cross to bring us forgiveness.

We are already condemned because we are sinful people. Remember
•    God is a Holy and Just God and must condemn sin wherever it is found.
•    But, He is also a God who loves and desires that none shall perish.
•    The way in which God gave his Son, Jesus  showed how much he loved us….this much (outstretched hands)

Yet many still don’t believe. Jesus is the life that brings light to dark places…and he puts the spotlight on what people want to remain in the dark. Because people like the dark, people like to sin..am I right?

Sin is fun..for a season, then comes destruction, but we still sin because we don’t see it coming or we don’t believe it really will happen to us. But it does and it will.

The good news is that some will be drawn to the light of Jesus Chris, even though it reveals their sin. And they respond with faith and repentance.

Conclusion

There a word I didn’t mention in John 3:16 that is very important to the text. ‘Whoever’. Nick wouldn’t have liked this word because whoever meant Gentiles and barbarians…people not like him. Nicodemus would have thought ‘How could God offer the Kingdom of Heaven to people who don’t think and understand the Scriptures the way I do?’

But God sees the world in a very different light than we do.
•    What God sees, we often try to ignore.
•    When God sees the hurt in people’s lives, the shame that fills their hearts, the misery they are going through. We see people with problems who will be high                maintenance.
•    When God sees drug and alcohol wrecked lives, we see troublemakers.
•    When God sees those who suffer from depression, anxiety and fear, we see basket cases.

God sees all this as unsuccessful attempts to find fulfillment in ourselves. We get angry with these people while ‘God demonstrated his love in while they were yet sinners Christ died for them’…while ‘you were still a sinner, Christ died for you’…too.

Folks, you can’t expect to find forgiveness for your sin, experience eternal life and enter the Kingdom of Heaven by trying to reform your life, by working hard to be a better person.

You will only find forgiveness of your sin, experience eternal life and gain entry to the Kingdom of Heaven when you are re-born, born again, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. To receive that free gift all you have to do is accept by faith that Jesus dies on the cross for your sins.

•    When Jesus told Nick this he was from that point on, responsible before God for what he heard.
•    By the power of God’s Holy Spirit, I am telling you now and you will forever be responsible before God for what you hear.

You must be born again!