GET READY FOR THE RESET
“Nicodemus & Born Again”
John 3:1-21
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcvg8k0lIuc
Introduction
This past week, as I was looking at the story of Nicodemus’s encounter with Jesus, the Lord kept laying on my heart the word, “quintessential.” And I wasn’t sure why.
The word, “quintessential,” means something that is pure and essential in essence or nature. It also relates to something being the most perfect embodiment of whatever it is that is being discussed.
Thinking about what that means, I thought about the perfect breakfast, which for me is eggs, bacon with hash browns. But for it to be the quintessential essence or example of a great breakfast, the eggs cooked over medium, with the bacon crisp and hash browns that are actually brown on the outside.
And so, thinking about this word and this series we’re on, the Lord opened up for me this word with each of the encounters Jesus had with others that we’ve looked at so far.
The Samaritan Woman at the Well was the quintessential example of what the action and response looks like after the reset God desires in our lives takes place. The Bible records, “The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’” (John 4:28-29 NKJV)
Nathanael was the quintessential example of how we are to deal with the doubts of others, and even our own doubts that arise about Jesus being our Savior and Lord. Philip, friend of Nathanael and fellow disciple of Jesus, told Nathanael to, “Come and see.” (John 1:46)
And then there is Simon Peter, and Jesus’s quintessential call to discipleship, and that is when Jesus said, “Follow Me.” (Matthew 4:19)
Well, today we’re going to be looking at Nicodemus and Jesus’s quintessential definition of what it means come into and have a right relationship with God, and that it isn’t by works, but rather it’s through having a new relationship through a new birth, that is, a spiritual birth, as Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 NKJV)
Open up your Bibles to John chapter 3 as we look at this encounter through probably the most well-known of all New Testament passages. Please follow as we look at this remarkable story and message.
And so, let’s start with Nicodemus. Who is Nicodemus?
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, which at the time of Jesus was the largest and most influential religious party.
The word itself means “separated ones.” That is, they separated themselves from the everyday life of society in order to study, teach, and live their lives based upon the Law of Moses, and their interpretation of it.
Their goal was to live a life of formal observance of the Jewish religion, which also included an entire list of laws and traditions not listed within the Torah. And so, to the Jewish people they were highly respected for their deep devotion and scholarship.
The only problem is that their life was not lived out as a relationship with God, that is, it was not a spiritual walk with God.
It says that Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews.” In other words, he was high up there, not only in the order, but was most probably part of the ruling counsel, or the Sanhedrin, which ruled over the religious affairs of the nation and of every Jew. The counsel consisted of 70 men, including the Priesthood, the Sadducees (another religious group), Scribes, and the Pharisees.
Therefore, Nicodemus was well educated and influential. If I could say it this way, if they gave out gold stars for doing religion right, Nicodemus would have the most out of everyone, hands down.
But now we come to the question, “Why did Nicodemus Come at Night?”
Some say that He was curious and needed some clarification, which I believe is true, and he may have been somewhat cautious not wanting his peers to know, which may also have been the case.
But for me, I believe that he was determined to have Jesus all to himself.
There is just something to be said about being alone with Jesus. To get away from the crowd and all the competing voices trying to get our attention, and to be with the Lord and to hear His voice.
Jesus said, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:6 NKJV)
I believe that there was an honest seeking after the truth on the part of Nicodemus, and not just to have some philosophical exchange of ideas, which goes to the heart of his opening question. This is where I believe the reset in Nicodemus’s life began to take shape.
However, the question becomes, did Nicodemus believe in Jesus?
Well, it would seem the signs that Nicodemus saw Jesus do, and what Jesus had said somewhat convinced him of that, or at least started him on his journey towards a reset.
The Reset Statement
“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.” (John 3:2 NKJV)
Now, what signs would Nicodemus had seen or heard. Well, they are listed out by John in chapter two.
• You have the miracle of the water being turned into wine at the wedding at Cana.
• After that Jesus went to Jerusalem, where He cleansed the temple by shutting down the religious market where they were selling, at inflated prices, the animals used for sacrifices along with the money changers, saying “Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise.” (John 2:16 NKJV)
• And when the religious leaders asked for a sign, which Nicodemus would have most probably been there to hear and witness, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19 NKJV)
• And it goes on to say that during his time there he did many more signs.
Born Again
Now, to Nicodemus’s statement Jesus gets right to the point. Now, we really don’t see in any of the gospels Jesus’s conversations, that is, with the exception of His teachings. And so there may have been a lot more that was said, but what we do see in the gospels is that Jesus doesn’t mess around.
Again, Nicodemus was a learned man, well educated in the Scriptures, and so, what I see from Jesus’s statement is that it takes something profound to get people to give serious thought to their eternity, and that there is something more, as Jesus told Nicodemus that keeping of the Law, that which Nicodemus spent his entire life following, wasn’t enough to get into the Kingdom of God.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 NKJV)
Jesus was saying that there is something more that Nicodemus and everyone else has missed, and that is a that new birth is required to see and to enter into the kingdom of God.
But what did Jesus mean when He said, “Born Again?” The word, “again,” in the Greek language is the word “anothen” which is where we get our English word, “another.” In the Greek language, however, it means “from above,” and “from the beginning.”
And so, Jesus said that there is another birth that is required, one that takes us back to the beginning, which seems to be Nicodemus’s understanding when he replied, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” (John 3:4 NKJV)
But his statement showed that he missed the significance of such a new birth, because Jesus was talking about it in a new way. You see, when we were born, we were all born into sin. And so, this new birth is a spiritual birth, one from above, which takes us back to the beginning in order to correct the sin problem that we were all born into.
As the Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” that is, we all fall short of God’s holy and righteous standards for life (Romans 3:23).
And so, what Jesus is talking about when He said, “unless one is born again,” is a radical and fundamental change that must take place in our life so that our sinful condition, that which we were born with and into, can be dealt a fatal blow so that eternal life in heaven in the presence of God can be achieved.
The unfortunate reality is that this term, born again, has been stolen and wrongly appropriated by our world, and as such has been emptied of its true meaning.
It reminds me of what has been done to the sign of the rainbow. The sign of the rainbow was to remember the covenant God gave to Noah that He would no longer destroy life and the earth through a flood. But now, the LGBTQ movement has appropriated it for their cause, and thus Satan is using it to cause people to forget God’s covenant of mercy that He has extended.
Today, the term, born again, has been misappropriated to mean any number of things. A person gets a new job, and they say they’ve been born again. Some athletes, who have ended their career in one sport, say they’ve been born again when they’ve picked up and started competing in a new sport. Or someone says they’ve been born again when they change their gender or identity.
And so, we have to circle back to Nicodemus’s question, “How can such a birth take place, what does it look like.” This is the heart-cry of all humanity. We want and desire above all else to change, to be different than who we are, because we know deep down, and our consciences convicts us of this very need to get our lives right with God. The only problem is that everyone is searching for the truth of our existence outside of God, which brings only more confusion.
So, what does this new birth look like?
Jesus begins by saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5 NKJV)
Some look at this through the idea or the act of baptism. Not in the physical nature of the baptisms, but rather what they signify. Both can be seen in John the Baptist’s statement concerning the coming Messiah.
He said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11 NKJV)
Water baptism signifies repentance. And the second baptism would then be spiritual, that is, of the Holy Spirit and fire which signifies regeneration, that is, making something that is old into something new.
Both repentance and regeneration are required to enter into God’s kingdom. First, repentance, that is our need to turn away from our sin and turn towards God, and then, regeneration, that is, being made into a new creation. We further see both of these in what the Apostle Paul tells us.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV)
This is an understanding that would have been familiar with Nicodemus, that is, if there is no repentance there is no getting right with God, and that along with repentance, there needs to be a work in the heart as brought out through the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:26), which Jesus reveals is nothing less than the work of regeneration through the Holy Spirit.
And so, being born again is a radical change that takes place in a person’s life through repentance and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
But then Jesus goes on to describe it saying, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6 NKJV)
Now, with this part of what Jesus said, it brings people to liken the first part of what Jesus said of being born of water and the Spirit as being the natural birth and spiritual birth. In other words, water is the embryonic fluid that breaks, notice we say that a woman’s water broke, and thus describes our being born into this world with flesh and blood.
Whereas being born of “the Spirit” is a new spiritual birth, or as Jesus said, born again, or born from above.
But, what I see in this passage is Jesus correcting Nicodemus’s faulty thinking that this is something humanity can do on their own, like keeping and living one’s life through the law, or converting one’s belief structure, thus taking God out of the equation.
And so to Jesus’s statement that one must be born again, Nicodemus asked, “How is such a thing possible, and then, how does it take place?”
I think this all has to do with natural man trying to understand the things of God, or the things of the Spirit, or as I have listed out, Natural Man vs. Spiritual Man
As we look at this encounter, we see Nicodemus trying to figure everything out in the natural with the wisdom of men, and not the wisdom of God. He was therefore unable to fully comprehend until Jesus makes it known to him.
The Apostle Paul addresses this when he said, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV)
In a way Jesus was speaking in an entirely different language, and one that Nicodemus was having a hard time deciphering.
And so, to Nicodemus who was coming at this with his much wisdom of religion and the Law, Jesus said, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?” (John 3:10 NKJV)
Jesus further reveals Nicodemus’s lack of understanding when He talked about the nature of the wind and thus the nature of the Spirit.
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8 NKJV)
While we may not understand the comings and goings of the wind, that is, one day it’s still, the next day we have gusts of wind that shake and rattle the landscape. And while science has determined that changes in temperatures are what causes the wind, no one can figure out when this will happen nor the force behind it, hence the somewhat bad reputation that is built up around those who do the weather forecasts.
Now, while we may not understand the wind, when we obey the law of the wind, we benefit from its power. Sailors know that by positioning their sails a certain way they can gain the full force of the wind and move forward.
And that is the way with the Spirit Jesus says. When we obey the moving and promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then we also benefit from His power in our lives. And such power is available only when we allow the blowing of the Holy Spirit to lead us to belief in Jesus and become born again.
Jesus said that it was to our advantage that He die, because then He said He would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And then how the Holy Spirit, whom He called “the Spirit of truth,” would guide us into all truth speaking to us the word of God (John 16:8-13)
And so we come back to Nicodemus’s question, “How can these things be?” (John 3:9 NKJV)
I see three things that Jesus brings forth from this conversation to answer this question.
Son of Man Lifted Up
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15 NKJV)
Jesus takes Nicodemus to a story in Israel’s history that he would have known well. It was when the people grumbled against God over their provision, and so God sent against the people fiery serpents, whose bite was fatal.
At this the people asked for forgiveness and acknowledged their sin, and so God told Moses to craft a bronze serpent and put it upon a pole saying that everyone who was bitten, when they look at this bronze serpent lifted on the pole would live. No matter how badly they were bitten, or how close to death they were, all they had to do was look and believe, and they would be saved.
Paul tells us that these things were written down for our learning and that the law is our tutor that leads us to Christ (Romans 15:4; Galatians 3:24).
And so, it begins with coming by faith to the cross believing in Jesus’s sacrificial death for our sins.
The analogy Jesus uses here is remarkable, and something that would have been understood by Nicodemus. You see, serpents are symbolic of sin, and goes all the way to Satan, the serpent in the Garden of Eden that tempted Adam and Eve that caused the fall of humanity by bringing sin into the world.
And here’s where the analogy comes to life. Jesus became what that serpent represents, that is, Jesus became sin for us. Listen to what the Bible says.
• “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:3 NKJV)
• “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV)
• “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” (Galatians 3:13 NKJV)
Though God’s Love
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 NKJV)
And we see the greatness of God’s love on Jesus’s part when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.” (John 15:13 NKJV) And what I love is that He went on to say that we are His friends. And so, because of His love, not because of anything that we might do, not in and by our works (Ephesians 3:8-9), we have been saved, and “Born Again.”
Therefore, Jesus’s second answer to Nicodemus’s question as to how one is born again, or how can this be, is through the overflowing, unrestrained, and unconditional love of God, in the giving of His Son, Jesus, that whoever believes will have everlasting life.
Through the Light of God
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17 NKJV)
And then He said that those who refuse to believe are already condemned, because light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
Now to understand this, Jesus said that He is the light that came into the world. This He brought out in the judgment of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12 NKJV)
And so, while Jesus did not come into the world to judge the world, judgment does come from Him being the light of God, and this happens through the light of Jesus revealing the darkness of humanity’s soul.
So, if I could sum up these three, Jesus said to Nicodemus, first, that real life, eternal life comes only through His death. Second, that God’s love comes directly from the heart of God through the gift of His Son. And third, that He is the light that shines in this sin darkened world showing humanity the way to the Father and heaven.
Conclusion
The problem as I see it, and what I see Jesus doing with Nicodemus and thus with all of humanity, is showing us that we are so wrapped up in what’s going on around us that we’re missing out on what God wants to do inside of us. He’s saying that we’re so consumed with the natural that the spiritual side of our existence, which can only come from God, is being ignored and neglected.
Further, understand that Nicodemus believed all the right things, and he also did all the right things, but Jesus was telling him that there was more to it than right thinking and right doing. A right standing with God does not come through correct beliefs or correct moral conduct. They help in the process, but the kind of belief that Jesus is referring to is not a belief that just accepts a fact, but the kind of belief that places complete trust in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
The problem with most is that they have made the cross of Christ without effect. That is why they are trying all these various philosophical points of view, various lifestyles, and religions trying to get their lives right, when all it takes is the simple belief in Jesus’s sacrifice upon the cross, and the reality that He did indeed, on the third day rise from the dead.
This then goes back to Jesus’s prophetic word given in the temple as a sign that He was indeed the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, that in three days He would restore the temple, which are the very words that started Nicodemus down this road and to his visit with Jesus in the first place.
