John # 8

“What Do You Believe?”
July 26, 2009
John 3:1 – 18
Pastor Ben Fleming

I remember growing up in the Presbyterian Church as a young boy, when a new preacher came to our church and I began to hear the words “born again”. Something began to happen to a group of people in our church. Unfortunately, the other half chased the preacher and that group away. I grew up being told that there were those Christians who were born again and those who were not – my family was the group that was not born again. I grew up with all sorts of imagines and pictures in my mind of what being born again was. I saw things like these (PHOTO) (PHOTO) and even now the phrase has been stolen by Islam (PHOTO). ( BLANK)

Turn to John chapter 3. Even when I came to receive Christ as an 18 year old at college I do not think I still had an understanding of what it meant to be born again. My brother Trent began going to a church that told him that unless you were baptized you were not fully born again. Many do not understand what it means to be born again. Is it baptism? Is it praying a prayer or going forward or even must I have tears running down my face? When I told my brother Pat when he was 16 – he said, “how come nobody every told me until you did?” If Jesus makes such a blunt statement in verse 3 “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” we ought to make an effort to fully understand what does it mean. Seeing the Kingdom of God means having eternal life. Has that happened to my own life? Do I have eternal life? People are either going to live eternally with God (which means they are in the Kingdom of God and going to see God) or they are going to live eternally separated from God. In verse 3 Jesus tells us “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” from that one has to conclude that not all people are going to be born again and the kingdom of God is not going to be inhabited by all people. Comment: universalism and our society…… Please stand as we read our text this morning.

John 3:1 - 8 1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.£” 4“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” 5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit£ gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You£ must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.£ 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.£ 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,£ that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Let us pray

Introduction: Last week we saw Jesus clear the Temple and demonstrate His passion and zeal for holiness. We found that if we are to pursue holiness as a believer we must have a zeal for what we seek – we must have a zeal for what we see and we must have a zeal for what we say and how we say it. Jesus created a stir in the Temple and today we find a stir in the mind of one of the religious leaders in the Jewish community. Nicodemus was not just any leader but he was a member of the ruling council and he comes to Jesus at night – he does so to not give the impression that the ruling council or Sanhedrin approved of Jesus and he most likely does so to ask the question that he does because perhaps there is something happing in him so he comes to Jesus.

But we must be careful in our thinking when someone comes to Jesus does not always mean that a person is saved – but it is a necessary start…… Nicodemus does not ask a question as much as he makes a statement. “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” This is not a statement of belief or salvation for Nicodemus – he is wants to know if Jesus is the Messiah who was to take God’s people out of darkness into eternal life. Jesus gives Nicodemus three facts about being born again – on your outline…………..

Fact #1 Being born again is eternal life. (Vs.3) “In reply Jesus declared, I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Every person on the face of this earth is either going to live eternally with God or eternally separated from God. Every person on the face of this earth is either in the kingdom of God or in the kingdom of Satan. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
I remember looking up into the sky when I was 14 years old at the youth camp by the river after singing the song – they will know we are Christians by our love --- I was being spiritual but there was no new birth in my life at that time – I was not born again – I was outside of the Kingdom of God. Four years later, I remember listening to the college kids sing about Christ down by the Ohio River and it brought tears to my eyes --- I was still not born again even though I emotionally responded to the music. I belonged to the kingdom of Satan. Jesus said, “truly truly I say to you” --- in the Greek language he said amen amen --- to a Greek person when they heard that it would tell them the veracity and significance of what would follow. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Eternal life requires a person to have a new birth. It does not come from baptism. It does not come from confirmation or the Lord’s Supper --- it comes from NEW BIRTH. When you are born again you have eternal life – you are part of the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus prayed in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” I grew up hearing about being born again…. but I was afraid of it – those people left our church family – one of them was my next door neighbor. But those people’s lives changed. My folks said bad things about them but I began to hear good things about them around our little town.

Some one who is born again is made new. They were once dead in their sins. They were in bondage to sin and they lived in darkness. They were spiritually dead – they are physically alive but spiritually dead – some of you are life that…………….. I was like that as a teenager even though I went to church almost every single Sunday. No one is born spiritually alive --- we are all born spiritually dead. The bible time and time again tells us this is the condition of man. New birth changes that. New birth brings spiritual life to a person. New birth gives them eternal life.

Ephesians 2:1 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” A person who is born again no longer follows the ways of the world – new birth changes that --- new birth gives them a new passion and desire to follow the ways of God. Last week I called it the pursuit of holiness. You cannot pursue holiness when you are spiritually dead.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.” I still remember in the spring of 1973 sitting at the lunch table with my mom and yelling at her and telling her that I hated her as I ran out the door and I remember one year later – 6 months after new birth had happened in my life – I was sitting at that same table and I told my mom I loved her. That summer - I asked my girlfriend if we could pray together and she laughed at me – that was the last girlfriend I had until I married my bride Cheryl. New birth changes you. The apostle James tells how this new birth happened………

James 1:18 “He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created.” God uses the Word of God to open our hearts and our minds so that we might become the first fruits of all He created. Those who are born again are the first fruits of God’s creation – not animals – not unbelievers – but those who have been born again and are children of God. John says………

John 1:12 -13 “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will , but born of God.” Before they were children of the devil but now the one who is born again is made a child of God and is part of the Kingdom of God. Being born again is eternal life…………..

Fact #2 Being born again is God’s work. (vs. 5 – 8 ) “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” You should not be surprised at my saying, you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Again Jesus says to Nicodemus --- I tell you the truth – amen amen – no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

Two humans can produce another human in the flesh but it is only God who can spiritually transform a person. Regeneration is entirely the work of God in a persons life. You can try and change someone all you want – you can do everything you can think of – but only God can transform a person spiritually. Nicodemus found this very difficult to understand. All of his life he was taught otherwise. He was taught that he could make himself pleasing to God through the works and efforts he did. He was the perfect example of religious perfection. He did everything exactly as the religious teachers and rules told him. His spiritual life was his choice. He was told that he did not need a power outside of himself – he was able to handle everything that came his way and by obeying all of the rules written by the Jewish leaders he would find and be part of the kingdom of God. Paul counters this belief that Nicodemus had very clearly in Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:8 -9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

New birth is a gift from God. Jesus said – the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”You do not know who is going to be born again. You do not who the wind of the Holy Spirit is going to blow upon and make a child of God. It is God’s choice. You cannot say one personality is more prone to receive Christ than another personality. You cannot say Americans are more receptive to God than the Chinese. God is the one who works in the persons heart – God is the one who changes them --- God is the one who opens their eyes and allows them to see and understand the gospel message. So – if being born again is all God’s work –

What is our part in being born again? What is our part with God in His plan? Three responses

* Call upon Him. Every believer in this room must at one time have called upon the Lord. You have to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. You have to respond to the truth of the Word of God in your life. You cannot be born again without responding. Romans 10:9 “if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Vs. 13) “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

* Tell them. Even though it is God who works in a persons heart – it is God who causes a person to be spiritually born anew – God has laid it out in His economy that we His children tell others to come to Him. It is we his children who are to speak to others the good news. Romans 10:14 “How, then can they call on they one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching or speaking to them?” Unbelievers have the responsibility to call and believers have the responsibility to tell. This is not an idea that God had in the NT it was His plan all throughout the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah recorded for us an interaction he had with God.
Isaiah 6:8 -10 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears,understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Questions: Who in here today is God telling you to call upon Him? You are not born again and you know it. You have never come to Christ --- you have seen no change in your life. Call upon him today. A third response would be to reject and ignore God. To the believer --- Who is God wanting you to tell? Can you say “Here am I. Send me.”

Fact #3 Being born again requires understanding. Vs10. “You are Israel’s teacher, and you do not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.” Jesus was astounded that here was a man who was a religious teacher of the nation. He knew the scrolls – He could read the words that Moses had written down in the first 5 books of the bible and yet he had no understanding of what Jesus was saying. I think we sadly see here in the life of Nicodemus the numbing effect that external – legalistic religion has on people’s perception. You can see this in how some Catholics, Mormon’s and Jehovah Witnesses talk about their beliefs. And I would include the Episcopal church as well who by the way this past week voted overwhelmingly to allow gays and lesbians to become bishops and serve in any ministry in the church and they are developing as well an official write to bless same sex unions. They are very very spiritual and knowleable but they have lost all spiritual perception. There is no spiritual understanding.

Understanding is an issue with people all of the time. Scripture time and time again points to how the absence of understanding keeps a person lost. This is why a person can hear the call to come to Jesus and can hear the call to confess with their mouth and believe in their heart and they remain confused and do not respond. There is no understanding. Some of you today have no spiritual understanding.

Romans 3:10 “As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands.” Jesus spoke the words of Isaiah in Matthew 13:14 -15 “You will be ever hearing but never understanding: you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears’ and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” These three facts really do us no good if we do not respond to them. Most of you are born again. Most of you know that Jesus Christ has changed your life and you continue to see Him work in your life. Some of you are not born again. Some of you question if you really are. I have two application points for the born again believer listening to me and the spiritually dead person.

Application:
* To the non believer. Ask God to give you understanding. If you have not come to Jesus. Just start today and say “Jesus I do not understand” – give me what I need. Give me understanding so that I might become born again.

* To the believer. Ask God to give an unbeliever understanding. All of you know someone who does not understand – they are just like Nicademous. It could be someone who is spiritual and even goes regularly to church – it could be a family member – a neighbor – it could be a friend. Would you ask God to give them understanding. 2 Corinthians 4:4 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The god of this age is Satan. God is fully sovereign and powerful over Satan. Satan does not have a hold on the mind of an unbeliever – we the believer can pray and ask God to give that unbeliever eyes to see so that they may understand. Would you be committed as a believer to do that?

Let us pray: