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Home , Born Again (comics), I am (biblical term)

YOU MUST BE – OF JOHN

If you have ever in your lifetime seen a baby being born in a delivery room, you know that your eyes have witnessed one of the most awesome, powerful moments ever in your life. In fact I had the privilege of watching both of my children, Dawson and Haley, being born as I was there in the delivery room. How many of you out here have ever witnessed the birth of a child? Pretty awesome stuff.

It goes from chaos to celebration in a small moment of time. I can remember the first time when I was a rookie with Haley. Heather had been through her whole Lamaze training and she was a bit stressed out to say the least in the delivery room. And I was trying to recall some of my words that I had learned like, ‘you’re doing great, keep up the good work, way to go, Babe, hold your breath.’ ‘Wait, no, breathe,’ as you are frantically stressing out in that moment and hearing your wife in agony.

And then I remember when the doctor came in and it was time to give her one of those epidurals. Now my wife doesn’t like needles, and her fear of needles is about as great as my fear of snakes. And so she chose to not look at the needle. And when I saw the needle, I passed out and – just kidding. But after looking at this needle I realized that this was seriously the largest needle I have ever seen in my life. It was about two feet long. And when they took this screwdriver of a needle and began to it in her back, I remember thinking to myself as I tried to call on that Lamaze training, it’s no big deal, babe, it’s no big deal. Lord, help her, help me. Because I was feeling for her in that frantic moment.

And then we went from chaos to celebration. We went from one sense of ‘ouch’ to another sense of ‘awe’ in a very small fraction of time. And as I held my baby girl, and as I held my baby boy two years later, I observed an awesome, life changing moment. What Heather and I experienced that day was not just a child that was born, but the beginning of a new relationship. And that is what takes place. When a child is born, a relationship is initiated between a mother and a father and their child. And that is what happened to me. And it was awesome.

And if you have ever observed it, you have seen it as an awesome thing too. But let me say this. There is something more awesome, more powerful, more all inspiring than watching a child being born. And that is when a child is born again. That is when it gets really awesome. And you sit out there and you go what do you mean, I’m confused? I have heard about this born again stuff, dude, and I don’t know what you are talking about. And perhaps you are kind of like Dennis Miller who said, “Man, I hate when the Christians tell me that I have to be born again or I’m going to go to hell.” He said, “Pardon me, but I think I got it right the first time.” Do you get it? He was born once and that was enough.

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Well, when we think about being born again, that can be confusing. When I became a Christian, my buddy Charlie and I were hanging out in San Diego, and I remember him saying, “so you’re a born again Christian, Bobby?” And just kind of making fun of me and laughing about it. “You a born again Christian, Bobby?” And he was just having fun with me, and I really didn’t know what he was talking about.

See I was a born again Christian, but I didn’t know I was a born again Christian. Because no one ever taught me what that language meant. And so some of you might be sitting out there going, well, am I born again or not? Am I okay or not? And you might be confused, because it is confusing language when you first start hearing about it. So instead of being creative in my title, I just want to be clear this morning. And I want to ask you, “Are you born again?”

And you say what do you mean by being born again? Well, we are born physically, but we must be born spiritually. Because according to Ephesians Chapter 2 and verse 1, “We are dead in the trespasses of our sins.” Did you know that your body is material, which is flesh, and immaterial. And you have a spirit, and when we are born our spirit is dead to God. We are born with a fallen nature. Why does everybody do things that they hate that they do sometimes? Why do we walk around with guilt? Why do we not have the power to live the kind of life that God wants us to apart from God? Because we have a fallen nature, and we need to be born again.

Are you sitting in this room this morning and wanting to know that when you die you could have the hope of going to Heaven? Do you want to be forgiven of the skeletons in your closets? Of the secret sins that have plagued your life for years? Do you want to know a sense of fulfilment in your life? A sense of purpose? Do you want to have a sense of meaning in your life where life is bigger than just dreaming about retirement and walking along a sandy beach? It is bigger than a self-centered vision that is all about you, but is about giving your life away. Because God created you to give your life away to Him and to others. Do you want meaning? Do you want purpose? Do you want hope that goes beyond the grave? That comes from being born again.

Now when it comes to what happens when we die, many different beliefs hold different things. If you were to talk to a Muslim they keep their fingers crossed and they hope that when they stand before Allah someday that their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, and that Allah will grant them entrance into Heaven.

If you are talking to a Jehovah’s Witness they would hope that they are one of one hundred and forty four thousand people that can experience the Heavenly kingdom. If you are a Mormon and you are thinking about the afterlife, what you are striving for and hoping for is that someday you will become a god and have your own planet. And that you will have a wife where you have spirit children that have their own planets. And

Page 2 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN basically you and your wife are having spirit children throughout eternity while you have your planet out there with your family that you create.

If you are an Atheist, you don’t really think much about beyond the grave because to you it is just that you die and you go into the ground and that’s it. You’re done. You’re annihilated.

But to a Christian they believe that if we are going to go beyond the grave and live forever and be with God, what the teaches is that we must be born again. So, if you will, turn in your Bible to the gospel of John. Remember there are four where we can learn about the life of , and they are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And we are so blessed because sometimes we sit around reading all these other books when we have an opportunity to learn about Jesus , about God, about how He loves us, about what we are here for. And I would encourage you to just buckle up this morning and learn about this idea of being born again.

Now what is going to take place is a gentleman by the name of is going to come to Jesus. And Jesus just finished cleansing the temple at the Passover. Every year people would come together for this Passover feast, and Jesus showed up and He was very, very infuriated because of what was taking place in the temple that was not honouring to God. In fact they were abusing the temple. They were religious, but they weren’t relational with God. And so Jesus ends up cleansing the temple and now what happens here is Nicodemus is going to come to Him.

And we pick up in Chapter 3 and verse 1, “Now there was a man of the named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” Now we only learn about Nicodemus in the gospel of John. There are sixty-six books in the Bible, thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, known as the Old Covenant, and twenty-seven books in the , known as the New Covenant. And we only learn about Nicodemus in this one book in the gospel of John. We also learn about him in Chapter 7 and verse 50 and here is what we see taking place there. “Nicodemus who had gone to Him before and who was one of them said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?”

So Nicodemus was sort of protecting Jesus in Chapter 7 because people wanted to falsely accuse Him without giving Him a trial. And he says, no, it is not going to happen. Well we also learn about Nicodemus in Chapter 19, but I am into suspense so we will wait until the end of this message to see what it says there.

But what do we learn about Nicodemus? It says that he was a ruler of the Jews. And Nicodemus sat on a court known as the Sanhedrin Court. We have our court systems here in the United States of America and the Jews had theirs. It was called the Sanhedrin Court. And the Sanhedrin Court was led by a high priest and there were

Page 3 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN seventy other leaders who were Jewish on this court. And most of them were and the rest were Pharisees. And so there were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And we see here that Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

What was a Pharisee? A Pharisee was a person who was very religious. They focused on all the external. It was all about going to church properly, and being dressed properly, and doing the right things, and saying the right things. And they had this list of what they should do and what they should not do, and then God would be really pleased with them because they did these things. And the Pharisees would add all these extra laws to the Bible. So they just had their own moral code.

But Jesus was harder on the Pharisees than He was on the adulterers and on thieves, because these were people who thought they were saved. These were people who thought they were going to Heaven, but they were deceived. And you have heard me say this many times, the problem with being deceived is you don’t know that you are deceived. And so the Pharisees were deceived. And they thought they were okay because they came up with their own way of perceiving God. Surely God, when I stand before Him someday, He will let me in. He will see what a good person I was. He will see the way that I lived. He will see my actions and He will say come on in. As if you getting to Heaven has anything to do with your own morality, as you will see from this passage.

So Nicodemus was a Pharisee, he was a ruler and he was also old. We see in verse 4 it says, “How can anyone enter back into the womb when he is old.” He was referring to himself. So here is this guy by the name of Nicodemus and he is going to go find Jesus. Look at verse 2, “This man came to Jesus by night.” Why did Nicodemus go to Jesus by night? People have wondered about it, and they have thought about it, and it is believed that it is possible that he went by night because he was fearful of being seen by the other Pharisees. You know I don’t want them to see me with Jesus, they might wonder what’s happening to me. Or others have wondered if Nicodemus just wanted some uninterrupted time with Jesus, so he went at night. Others have speculated that perhaps this was the time when leaders would get together and have spiritual conversations.

So we don’t really know because John doesn’t tell us here in his gospel. But we do see that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said this to Him in verse 3, “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.” So he recognizes that there is something different about Jesus. He sees something unique in Him. And what does he say? You know what, no one can do these signs – and remember signs, wonders and miracles are used synonymously. And so Nicodemus is basically saying hey, no one can do these miracles unless God is with Him. His problem is he is just struggling right now trying to figure Jesus out,

Page 4 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN because what Jesus is about and what he has been teaching aren’t lining up. And so he is coming to Jesus to get a little perspective shed.

So you have one Jewish Rabbi speaking to another Jewish Rabbi. And Nicodemus says no one can do these miracles. Well, what miracles is Nicodemus talking about? How many specific miracles have we learned about in the gospel of John so far that Jesus has done? One. When He turned the water into wine, which was His first miracle. So do we have a contradiction? Because Nicodemus is saying no one can do these signs, which is plural. Is the Bible contradicting itself because we have only learned one specific miracle? No.

Look with me in Chapter 2 and verse 23. It says, “Now when Jesus was in at the Passover feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs He was doing.” So they had seen Jesus performing other miracles. You know the Bible has this great verse in John Chapter 21 and verse 25. Listen to this. “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

So we are fortunate enough to be able to learn a little bit about Jesus’ life, and it blows us away. But here is one of these moments that this verse refers to. He did many other signs, many other miracles, and isn’t it going to be great someday when we get to Heaven and we learn about all the other things that didn’t make it into the Bible?

Now I’m frankly grateful that this is all we have of the Bible because I am having a hard enough time living and figuring this out right here, let alone giving me more reading assignments. Right? But we are grateful for this.

And so Nicodemus says that Jesus has done some signs that are breath-taking. And what I love about Nicodemus is he shows a mark of humility here. How? Well, here is an older teacher, and he is humble enough to go to Jesus, who is only about thirty years old at this time. So Nicodemus is humble. And he shows us the first sign of someone who is being drawn to God, someone who is going to be born again eventually. It all starts with curiosity, doesn’t it?

Remember that? You had no desire for God whatsoever, no desire really to go to church. And maybe you just went to church out of routine, but it certainly wasn’t to connect with God. But then all of a sudden, out of nowhere you find that you’re actually curious about God. You want to know about Him. You are interested. You are strangely intrigued about this ancient day Jesus, who claims to be more than a man. And you start to think about Him more.

Well, this is Nicodemus. Curiosity has kicked in here and his curiosity leads him out on this cool, dark night where He finds God in the flesh, Jesus. And he sparks up a

Page 5 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN little evening conversation with the God man. And they start conversing. And I love it because so often the older we get, the more stuck in our ways we get. We are not willing to learn. We are not teachable. And we have seen people, who sometimes pride themselves on all of their experiences, and they have been walking with God for thirty years, or they have done this for thirty years. But frankly, let’s be real, sometimes people don’t have thirty years of experience, they have one year of experience repeated thirty times. Right?

But Nicodemus shows humility. He goes out and he wants to learn more. And that is what we must be like, always learning, always realizing there is something new to learn. And I would say to you this morning, if Nicodemus, a famous Jewish teacher was willing to learn, knowing that it could cost him deeply, how must more should we be willing to be open to what Jesus has to say in this room today?

What does Jesus end up doing? Listen to His response in verse 3, “Jesus answered him.” Let me just stop here. You are going to have the privilege to hear the words of Jesus. Think about that. That is huge. I am about to read to you words that Jesus spoke. Isn’t that great? Right now you are thinking this pastor is a little bit off his rocker. We know that, Bobby, it is written in red. They keep Jesus’ words in red. Yes. But it is on fire in my heart when I think that Jesus is about to speak. “Jesus answered him, Truly, truly (which means amen amen), I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

And I love that about Jesus because Nicodemus didn’t ask him that. He didn’t ask him a question. But Jesus is that straight shooting kind of guy isn’t He? He just says, “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” And He just lays it right out there. Now what does it mean to be ‘born again.’ It can also simultaneously mean to be ‘born from above.’ In other words, Nicodemus, you were born by your mom and your dad. Your mother delivered you. She gave birth to you. You were born down here, but you need to be born again from above. You need a new birth, a spiritual birth. You were born physically, but now you need to be born again spiritually, where you need to wake up to who Jesus is. And Jesus says unless you do you will not see the kingdom of God.

Now the kingdom of God is only used here and in verse 5 in the gospel of John. But it is used periodically throughout the synoptic gospels which are Matthew, Mark and Luke. The kingdom of God is both now and later. The kingdom of God is both now - spiritually when you receive Jesus into your life you experience Him now spiritually. But the kingdom of God is also later physically – where we learn in the Bible how He is going to set up His kingdom. And we are going to be able to experience that kingdom with Jesus. And what He is basically saying to Nicodemus is he must be born again. You need more than your academic achievement, Nicodemus. You need more than your

Page 6 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN reputation, Nicodemus. You need more to happen, but it is not as much as you think because I am going to do it for you.

Listen to what D.A. Carson, the famous commentator said about the gospel of John. “If Nicodemus with his knowledge, gifts, understanding, position and integrity cannot enter the promised kingdom by virtue of his standing and works, what hope is there for anyone who seeks salvation along such lines?”

Listen, for those of you out there thinking I am going to earn Heaven, I am going to do good deeds, and surely God will be pleased with me. He is going to see that I never missed church. He is going to see that I always showed up in a suit and tie. He is going to see that I always gave this much money. If you are trusting in that kind of stuff, Jesus is saying it is not going to happen. You are going to be separated from Him forever.

Because Nicodemus was someone I guarantee who was living very, very self- righteous, very, very noble, very, very good. He went to church. He studied the Bible. He did all the right things. And Jesus told him he was lost, he was not saved. You think you are, and that’s the problem. You are deceived, and the problem with being deceived is you don’t know you are deceived. And Jesus says if you want to know you are going to Heaven, if you want to be forgiven, if you want to experience my kingdom, then your eyes are going to have to be opened. So He says you can’t see the kingdom unless you believe.

Saint Anselm was someone who was the arch bishop of Canterbury about a thousand years ago and he said, “I don’t understand in order to believe. I believe in order to understand.” That’s a good statement by Anselm. “I don’t understand in order to believe. I believe in order to understand.” And what Jesus is saying is you are not going to get it until you believe. And that is what happened.

And if you are a Christian, you get it. The Bible says that “the gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing.” It seems nuts. It seems ludicrous. It seems crazy. But every person who is born again, their eyes are opened and you think to yourself, that is exactly what I was thinking, Jesus. I get it now, because your eyes are opened, but you know that God had to move. And so we believe in order to understand.

So what does Nicodemus say? Let’s look at verse 4. “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?” Can’t you just see him scratching his head going, uh, Jesus, so you are telling me I need to call my mom and say hey, mom, I have some unfortunate news. I just found out that I need to be re-inserted in your womb and you need to re-delivery me. I mean that is what He says. If I need to be born again, I need to go back into my mom’s womb?

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But of course Nicodemus doesn’t necessarily believe this, but what he really needs, what he desires, and what he is longing for is greater perspective. That is what he means here. Jesus, give me more. I’m listening, but I am really, really, really confused. Can you shed a little bit more light on what you are talking about?

Verse 5, “Jesus answered, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Thanks, Jesus, that explained it all. Thank you for making that so clear for me. Right? No, Nicodemus is still confused. “Unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Now what in the world does it mean to be born of water and the spirit? What is Jesus talking about? Scholars have varied opinions. Some have said that what Jesus was talking about was ’s baptism. Remember John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry and he was baptizing people in the with water. And John the Baptist said of himself, “I baptize with water, but He will baptize with the spirit.”

So some would say that where Jesus says, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” means unless one experiences John’s baptism, and Jesus’ baptism of the spirit, he will not be able to experience the kingdom of God. I don’t believe that is what Jesus is teaching because there was a baton passed off. John prepared the way, he said “He must increase, I must decrease.” Or He must become more and I must become less, and so Jesus came on the scene with His ministry and we know that we are not bound by that baptism.

Some have said that it is referring to Christian baptism where when we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But that baptism has not been inaugurated at this point. That would happen after Jesus rose from the dead and said, “Go into all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” And so we can scratch our heads wondering what does Jesus mean with this language here. I like how D.A. Carson talks about it. I believe that it is probably a metaphor for the cleansing power that is going to take place under the New Covenant when the Holy Spirit comes. Listen to what Carson says here. “When water is used figuratively in the Old Testament, it habitually refers to renewal or cleansing, especially when it is found in conjunction with spirit. Most important of all is Ezekiel Chapter 36 and verse 25 to 27 where water and spirit come together so forcefully. The first to signify cleansing from impurity and the second to depict the transformation of the heart that will enable people to follow God wholly.”

This is talking about the New Covenant and basically the Bible is made up of two covenants. You have the Old Covenant which was the Law. You know about the Ten Commandments and all the Law. And people tried to live according to that Law, hoping that they would be saved. But what happened was they became frustrated because they realized they couldn’t keep it. Because the Law is God’s standard. And what happened

Page 8 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN is they realized they could not live according to God’s standard. They couldn’t live with God’s moral code. So the Law was put in place to show us that we can’t keep it. And when we fail the Law we realize that we have sinned, that we have fallen short, that we can’t live God’s Law. So we needed something better than the Old Covenant law to save us. We needed something called grace. Because in and of ourselves we have all blown it. I have blown it. I still blow it. We have all sinned. We can’t live perfectly like God so we can’t try to get to Heaven by our good works. We need something more. It is called the Covenant of Grace, or the New Covenant, which was prophesied about hundreds of years before Jesus even came, saying when Jesus comes He is going to bring an end to this sacrificial system that has been in place. He is going to fulfil it and then all you have to do is believe in Jesus for eternal life.

I want to read you those verses in Ezekiel Chapter 36 that D.A. Carson referred to. Notice how water and spirit are joined. “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” In other words, my spirit will come live in you when you are born again and then you will be able to live out my word.

So what is Jesus saying then in this moment? Nicodemus, you need to experience something more than the Old Covenant, the Law that you are trying to live under. That Law will condemn you. You need the New Covenant; you need me, only I can forgive you. Sins can only be forgiven through me.

Let’s go back now to John Chapter 3 and verse 6, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” Listen to John Chapter 6 and verse 63, “It is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is of no help.” The flesh is of no help. In other words, we can’t contribute to eternal life. It is God’s working, it is God’s doing. He says, “That which is born of flesh is flesh.” This word flesh is the Greek word sarx and it refers often to our sinful nature, but here it is just referring to our physical nature, that which is flesh. You were born of your mom and dad physically, but you need to be born again of God spiritually.

Continuing with verse 7, Jesus says, “Do not marvel that I said 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.” This is such intriguing stuff that you learn about right here. Jesus is saying the wind blows wherever it wishes. In the same way that you can’t see the wind, but you can see its effects, that is how the Holy Spirit is. In the same way that you can’t see the wind,

Page 9 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN but you can feel its presence that is how God, the Holy Spirit is. The wind blows, and we are born again.

And we learned something about being born again in John Chapter 1 and verse 13 where it says, “Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Our salvation is God’s doing. He gets all the glory for it. It is a sovereign work of His spirit. And that’s how it is. I mean how many of you can say you have ever seen the wind? You have never seen the wind. You have seen the effects of the wind. You have felt the wind. And that is the way it is with God. That is the way it is with the Holy Spirit. The wind blows, and what Jesus is saying is that is how the Spirit works in salvation. He blows where He wills. And sometimes it just blows and boom people’s eyes are opened and they get it.

I don’t know how to explain it growing up in my own life how God did not make any sense to me. I had no desire for God. I was not living for God. When I was walking around on my high school campus people did not say, behold the man of God. I guarantee you that was not their thoughts. Behold the man of the cloth; behold the one who is a lover of God. Why? The wind wasn’t blowing. But one day I just began to hear the gospel and a wind storm came blowing in the room. And the wind began to blow and I don’t know how to explain it, but I was going from one stage of my life where I had no interest in God, and then wind blew and all of a sudden my heart was deeply moved by God. I found myself at one time with no interest or desire to learn the Bible, I thought it was spooky. Then going to a place of wanting to read the Bible, memorize the Bible, learn all I could about the Bible, reading books of the Bible. I went from a place of wanting to live in promiscuous relationships and a party lifestyle, to one day where God got hold of my heart and I wanted to walk in righteousness. I wanted to live pure. I wanted to live for Jesus Christ. I can’t explain it. I went from showing up at church and thinking who are these weirdoes with their hands lifted in the air and then the wind blew and boom next thing you know I am celebrating Jesus with my hands in the air, saying I surrender. I don’t get it. I just know that the wind blew in my heart one day and I was born again. And I can tell you something, I have sensed its effects in my life. I have felt God’s presence in my life.

And if you are out there in this room and if you have been born again you know exactly what I am talking about. And if you are out there and you go I don’t know quite what you are saying. I’m just not quite sure. Then listen closely because the wind could be moving in this room. Some of you may be sitting in this room right now and the wind is blowing and you are completely unaffected. Like a person who has lived by the railroad tracks all his life and he doesn’t hear the train going by. You may be that way, but oh, how dangerous it is if you are numbed in this room right now. If you aren’t aware

Page 10 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN of your state before God. If you aren’t aware of whether or not you have been born again.

But then those of you that feel the wind moving right now, you may say I have never been born again, but I sense something going on right now. I feel something tugging away at my heart. It is not me, it is not my communication skills, and it is nothing that I have to say. It is God’s Holy Spirit moving like the wind. And the wind is funky. You never know, the storm comes every now and then. Right? Sometimes it is arid like the desert, there is no wind. Then other times the wind is blowing like crazy through the desert. Sometimes the wind is blowing in Arkansas, other times it is blowing in Texas and not blowing in Arkansas. Sometimes the wind is blowing in China and it is not blowing in Africa and other times it is blowing in Africa. And when we are crying out as a church saying God bring revival what we are saying is let your wind blow everywhere. Let your Holy Spirit work everywhere.

And so I would ask you right now. Do you sense the wind blowing in this room? Do you sense the wind moving? Let me tell you something. When you are a believer the wind never quits blowing. It comes and goes in your life. And you are born again. And the wind will come and then you will go through a season where you will say where are you, God? I don’t sense you, God. I don’t feel your presence at all. But refuse to settle. Cry out for the wind. As the wind to come and move. Ask God’s Spirit to fall on you fresh. Ask Him to stir your affections. Ask Him to give you a passion for Him.

Do you realize how much God loves you in this room this morning? Do you realize that God died on a cross to forgive you of your sins? Do you realize that all of your guilt, everything you have ever done wrong, can be forgiven by Jesus? Do you realize that He doesn’t want you to live under the guilt of the Old Testament? Do you realize that He doesn’t want you to try and earn your salvation? He knows you can’t. But He loves you so much that He was willing to pay the price for you.

The wind blows where it will, and Nicodemus can you feel it? Are you affected? Nicodemus said to Jesus in verse 9, “How can these things be?” Their conversation is going deeper. It is getting more intense. Verse 10, “Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” The definite article is used before the word teacher. Jesus asks him, “Are you THE teacher?” What He is saying is you are the famous one, you have a reputation, you are known for being a person who accurately interprets the Scriptures, and yet you are not born again.

And you know what? There are millions and millions of people that go to church week after week after week that aren’t born again. There are hundreds of pastors and preachers and teachers in pulpits around the world, sadly and unfortunately that have never been born again. It is possible that the wind doesn’t blow and people just do

Page 11 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN things because that’s all they know. They grew up going to church a certain way. They grew up knowing how to do things a certain way. And that’s all they are willing to look at. And they just stay stuck, but they have never been born again. And so Jesus tells Nicodemus he is the famous one, and if you don’t get this, then you are going to be deceiving all your followers with your teachings as well.

Verse 11, “Truly, truly I say to you.” And when Jesus says that let your ears just come to full attention because He is speaking truth. “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.” So what He is saying is, Nicodemus, I am speaking to you in simple language. And if you don’t get what I’m saying here, then you are certainly not going to understand the bigger picture. He says first understand this simple truth, you must be born again.

How many people have you known who have tried to figure the whole world out before they will give their life to Jesus? How many people have you known who said I need to have every answer to my questions before I will believe? But just like Saint Anselm said what we want to do is we want to believe in order to understand.

And so let me draw you to something that is important to see here. And that is the word ‘you’ in verse 11. It says, “But YOU do not receive our testimony.” Circle that word ‘you.’ And then in verse 12, circle the four ‘you’ words. “I have told YOU earthly things, and YOU do not believe, how can YOU believe if I tell YOU Heavenly things?” What is interesting is when you look at the Greek, what Jesus is using here is plural language. What He is really saying in verse 12 is ‘if I have told y’all earthly things, and y’all have not believed, how can y’all believe if I tell y’all Heavenly things? That is what Jesus is doing here. But you don’t see that because Jesus didn’t use words like y’all, which is southern talk.

But what is taking place here? Why is Jesus speaking in the plural? You have to interpret Scripture in light of Scripture. You have to interpret the text in light of the context. And in order to get the answer to this, you have to go back to verse 2 of Chapter 3 where it says that Nicodemus, “Came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.” Aha. So what is happening is Nicodemus goes to Jesus and says ‘we’ know that you are a teacher from God. And Nicodemus is speaking about his cohorts, how they have also recognized some things about Jesus. And what Jesus is saying is y’all need to be born again. That is what needs to happen.

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So that is what Jesus is doing. He is saying that not only are you off, Nicodemus, but because it is plural in the Greek, He is saying you are all off. All of you who think you are born again, all of you who think you are secure, you are lost. And you need to be born again.

Verse 14 Jesus says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.” In John Chapter 8 and verse 28 Jesus uses that same language talking about Him being lifted up. In John Chapter 12 and verse 32 and in verse 34, Jesus uses that language talking about how He is going to be lifted up. What He is doing is He is prophesying because He knew the future. As God in the flesh, He knew what was going to happen and He knew His purpose. He came to die. He was born to die so that when we die we can live. And that is why Jesus came. And what He was doing here is drawing on an Old Testament story. He says just “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.”

Now you will remember that the children of Israel were complaining against Moses and God, and what happened was these fiery serpents came and were biting the people. And what happened in that moment was God told Moses if they would just look to this bronze serpent that you will make, they will be healed. In fact listen to the verse right here. “The Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And everyone who is bitten, when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” So what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, as He was trying to foreshadow, someone else is going to be lifted up and He is standing right in front of you. It is me. I am the way of salvation. Nicodemus, you are trying to do all these right things to earn God’s approval, but I am going to die. I am going to be lifted up, and you just need to look to me, Nicodemus, the same way they did in the Old Testament when they looked at the bronze serpent on a pole, you just need to look to me.

In the same way that the children of Israel received a lethal blow of venomous bites, you and I were born with a lethal blow of venomous bite called sin. We have been bitten by sin, so to speak. And Jesus is the only one who can get rid of that death warrant on our life. He is the only one that can take care of that.

If you will turn to John Chapter 19 and remember I told you at the beginning that I liked suspense. I believe that Nicodemus ended up becoming born again. I believe that Nicodemus received this message. Right after Jesus’ death it says this in Chapter 19 and verse 39, “Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight.” Isn’t this awesome? Jesus said, Nicodemus, I am going to be lifted up and later Nicodemus would see Jesus die, shedding His blood for the sins of the world. And can’t you just see him at this time having that aha moment. And he remembers that night with Jesus when He said He was

Page 13 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN going to be lifted up. He told me that all I had to do was look. I’m looking, Jesus, I believe. And then after Jesus dies, Nicodemus goes and he prepares Jesus for His burial.

It’s as simple as taking a long hard look at Jesus and what He did. Being born again means looking to Jesus as a sufficient Saviour, realizing that He took your place. Charles Spurgeon, one of my heroes, was the greatest preacher of the nineteenth century in London. He was the Billy Graham of his time. And he became a Christian at the age of fifteen, and on January 6, 1850, he gave his life to Jesus. I want to read to you his conversion story in light of today’s passage. Listen closely.

“I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snow storm one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further I turned down a side street and came to a little primitive Methodist chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people.

The minister did not come that morning. He was snowed up I suppose. At last a very thin looking man, a shoemaker or tailor or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was ‘look unto me and be saved all ye ends of the earth.’ He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus, ‘my dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says ‘look.’ Now looking don’t take a deal of pain, it ain’t lifting your foot or your finger, it is just looking. Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look. Even a child can look. But then the text said, ‘look unto me.’ Many of you are looking to yourselves, but it is no use looking there. You will never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father, no, look to Him by and by. Jesus Christ says look to me. Some of you say we must wait for the Spirit’s working. You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ the text says, look to me.’

Then the good man followed up his text in this way. Look unto me, I am sweating in great drops of blood. Look unto me, I am hanging on the cross. Look unto me, I am dead and buried. Look unto me, I rise again. Look unto me, I ascend to Heaven. Look unto me, I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. Oh poor sinner, look unto me. Look unto me. When he had gone to about that length and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether.

Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart, he said, ‘young man, you look miserable.’ Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to having

Page 14 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, ‘and you always will be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death if you don’t obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’ Then lifting up his hands he shouted as only a primitive Methodist could do. ‘Young man, look to Jesus. Look, look, look. You have nothing to do but look and live.’

I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not else what he said. I did not take much notice of it. I was so possessed with that one thought, like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed. So it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word ‘look’ what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh, I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone. The darkness had rolled away and that moment I saw the sun. And I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. And now I can say, ever since by faith I saw the stream, thy flowing wound supply, redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die.”

All that happened to Mr. Spurgeon on that day is he showed up, and the wind blew. And the wind still blows today. My little son, Dawson, had two friends spend the night. You know Patrick and Beverly Green in our church and their boys, Christian and Nicholas. And Nicholas wasn’t a believer and my eight year old son told him, ‘look to Jesus’ and he laid out the gospel. And before that night was over he had Nicholas literally praying. And he led him in a prayer to admit his sin, to admit that Jesus died on a cross, rose from the grave and to call out to Him by faith. And he even told him in prayer to ‘pray it like you mean it.’ And that’s what Dawson does when he has led other children to Christ he will tell them to pray it like you mean it.

Spurgeon looked and he was saved. Is the wind blowing in this room right now? Do you feel it? I am telling you respond now because when you leave the wind stops. Every now and then God graciously and sovereignly moves and you have this opportunity, a sacred moment, to get right with God. And I would ask you, have you looked to the cross? Have you seen Jesus? Do you understand how much He loves you, how much He has in store for you? Do you understand the kind of life that He can give you, the kind of joy that He can give you, the kind of hope that when you die you can know you are Heaven bound? Better yet, you are God bound. Let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for your Scriptures. Thank you for allowing such an inadequate person such as myself, who can’t even change a tire on a car, to have the privilege to share your Word. I am so unworthy. And, God, I pray right now, right here, if there is someone in this room that does not know you, that they will take a real rich look at what

Page 15 of 16 pages 10/25/2009 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – GOSPEL OF JOHN the cross is all about. It is you clearing up our future and the past in one sacred moment. And we lose sight of it with all these rules.

Look to Jesus. If you are in this room right now and you go how can I be born again? What do I do? I want to encourage you to say this prayer in the quietness of your heart where you ask Christ to be your Saviour.

Just pray: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner. I want to know that when I die I will go to Heaven. I want to live for you right now. I believe I have sinned. I believe you died on a cross for me. I believe you rose from the grave. And by faith I am looking back in history and I see you on a cross looking at me. And now I am looking at you. Help me to live for you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases.

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