FACE TO FACE WITH GRACE
John 3: 1-3; 7 1:14; 16-17
Intro: ILL- During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What’s the rumpus about?" he asked, & heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among the world’s religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace." Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.
Do you remember the day you came face to face w/grace? It may have been in a camp-meeting; a foxhole; revival service; your home; in a kitchen by the old cook-stove, wherever & whenever it was, you cannot get away from the 1st time you came face to face w/grace. It didn’t come to while you were good; well behaved; or moral. It came to you when you were lost & undone, w/o God or His son; when you were dirty inside & out; when you were in the rags of your sin—Grace came to you & changed your life forever! I don’t EVER want forget that day when I came face to face w/Grace.
Nicodemas came face to face with grace one day…
I. Grace: The AWAKENING of his Need.
Looking at Nic no one would have imagined that he needed a change, including Nic himself. He’d had a heart for God ever since he could remember. For many years he had been a student of God’s Word. He had saturated his life w/the writings of Moses & the prophets. He had devoted his life to keeping God’s law & all the manmade laws that were attached to it. He was an outstanding religious scholar & well respected in His field. He seemed to have everything: position, wealth, influence; status, education, & respect---yet he was searching for something more. He was awakened to his need of something far greater that what he had attained. He was awakened to his own need of grace.
Are you searching for something? Maybe you’re religious in form, just like Nic was. You have a good reputation; you pay your bills & your taxes; drop some money now & then in the offering plate; read the Bible; maybe you dress like a Christian…but you know that there is something missing in your life. God is drawing you unto Himself…awakening you to your need of grace.
Nicodemus waited expectantly for a response from Jesus. Then the eyes of God looked at this intellectual, inquisitive, educated, wealthy, respected, religious, searching Pharisee, & He saw beyond the courtesy of his demeanor to the inward cry of heart. With compassionate gentleness, yet convicting truthfulness, Jesus pinned down his need when He declared in simplicity, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of unless a man is born again,” (John 3:3).
If you accept His offer of free grace your sins are forgiven; your guilt is atoned for; your past is removed; your future is secure; you have peace in your heart; a song on your lips; you are saved from hell; you are right w/God; you are going to Heaven…BUT…you must be born again.
ILL-John Newton was born in London to a godly mother & a father who did not serve the Lord. His mother died when he was six. Five years later he went to sea with his father who was a ship’s captain. He became a midshipman & led a wild life, rejecting the God of his mother. He renounced any need of religion & lived a sinful life. Eventually he became a slave trader, crossing the ocean several times as captain of slave ship, responsible for terrible human degradation among the captives he had crowded on board. But grace was always a factor in his life. He survived a deadly fever in Africa, & his ship survived a terrible storm which almost killed him.
Finally, dissatisfied with his life, he began reading the writings of Thomas a Kempis.
Somehow, the Holy Spirit began stirring inside his soul, awakening him to his need of grace & he gave his heart to Christ.
In an intense moment of inspiration, when he was thinking of the wonder of the grace of God which had him, he wrote the hymn, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound."
II. Grace: The ANSWER to his Need.
What did Jesus mean by the term born again? In essence, Jesus was saying, “Nicodemus unless you have a completely new beginning, totally separated from the past. Unless you are born again you will not see the kingdom of God. Spiritual rebirth is the only answer to the unspoken, unconscious need of your heart.”
His expression of studied politeness must have been wiped from face as Jesus response pierced through: all the layers of morality and religiosity,
all the years of thinking and training, all the accumulated pride and prejudice, all the complicated reasoning and rationalizing, Jesus’ words touched the very nerve in Nicodemus’s soul, and he asked w/unbelief, “How can a man be born when he is old? . . . Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born” (John 3:4).
With amazing clarity and simplicity Nicodemus seemed to have grasped that this was exactly what he was searching for, this was the need of his heart; this was the missing piece in his life. Yet at the same time, just as a starving man knows he will never eat again, or a thirsty man knows he will never drink again, or a lost man knows the rescuers have passed him in the night and he will never be found, Nicodemus knew the answer was impossibly unattainable. It was beyond his reach. To be born again as Jesus described was beyond human achievement. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Nicodemus was aware that he was totally helpless & truly hopeless.
Does that same hopeless despair gnaw at your soul? Perhaps, like Nicodemus’s, your life has not been so terrible—it just hasn’t been so good. It has not been what you thought; dreamed or sought. Something has been left out. Something is missing. It seems empty.
Or maybe your life has been terrible. You made choices when you were younger that blossomed into bitter fruit. Now you’re trapped in the consequences of those choices. You became caught up in a stream of experiences that you didn’t really want. And no one knows the bitterness, the anger, the frustration that imprisons your spirit daily. If only you could start over. If only it were possible to truly be different.
If only, at this stage of life, you could really change. What did Jesus mean? How could Nicodemus—how could anyone— be born again? How is it possible to start life over when you are forty or fifty or sixty or seventy or eighty years of age? It’s as impossible as climbing back into your mother’s womb and repeating the physical birth process! It just can’t be done! The Answer Is Spiritual Rebirth—Jesus makes the change possible! Grace is the answer to your need!
III. Grace: The APPEAL to our Need.
Grace teaches us that God loves us because of who God is, not because of who we are. Grace appeals to us; it beckons us…calls to us…pleas for us…
ILL- Ernest Hemingway tells a story about a Spanish father whose relationship with his son Paco had become strained & eventually shattered. When his rebellious son ran away, his father began a long and difficult search to find him. As a last resort the exhausted father placed an ad in the Madrid newspaper, hoping that his son would see it and respond. The ad read, "Dear Paco, Please meet me in front of the Hotel Montana Noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. Papa". Paco is a common name in Spain, and when the father goes to the square he finds eight hundred young men named Paco waiting for their fathers.
I believe that everyone is a “Paco”. They don’t know how but they long to experience the grace of God. We all have a longing, a need for a true home, where we can be accepted & cherished. We have this longing because God’s Spirit whispers to us to come home. Whatever you have done can be forgiven through Jesus’ death for you. No matter what you have become, you can be made new through the grace & power of God.
Conclusion:
ILL- Billy Graham was once attending a dinner in his honor & found himself seated by an archbishop of a dominant religion in another country. During the evening he asked this man how he had become a Christian. This is his story:
He had already been installed as the archbishop in his country when he was invited to Chicago to give a lecture in a prominent theological school. One afternoon while sightseeing, he boarded a city bus. No sooner had he taken his seat when a big black finger tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to look into the full, round, ebony face of an obviously poor woman seated behind him. In a wonderfully rich voice, she asked, “Mister, has you ever been born again?” He frowned, thinking for sure he had misunderstood her question since English was his second language. With polite reserve he asked, “Excuse me?”
The deep, rolling voice repeated, “I says, has you been born again?” The archbishop stiffened his back, straightened his shoulders, and replied with the greatest dignity, “My dear madam, I am the archbishop of the church in my country I am here to give a lecture at the theological seminary.”
As the bus rolled to a stop, the woman rose to get off. She looked at the proud, religious man dressed in his flowing robes bearing the insignia of his office & said bluntly, “Mister, that ain’t what I asked you. I asked you, ‘Has you been born again?” Then she turned and walked off the bus and out of his life.
But, the archbishop said, her words rang in his ears and burned in his soul. He went back to his hotel room, located a Gideon Bible in a dresser drawer opened it to the Gospel of John, and read the familiar story of Nicodemus. With increasing clarity & conviction, he knew that even w/ all of his religious training & devotion & service & recognition, he had never been born again. So he slipped down on his knees, & that night, in a Chicago hotel room thousands of miles from his home, God answered his heart’s cry, and he came face to face w/grace.
