The Kingdom Of God Series: "New Birth Required”

The Kingdom of God

“A New Birth Required”

John 3:1-16

Watch on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVh1LIeFoNY

I’m sure you've all noticed that if you want to get into a fancy restaurant, you must make reservations, and you end up paying a fortune for something that looks more like an appetizer than a main course. Or, if you want to get into a sporting event, you must buy a ticket, and the closer you get to the action, the more that ticket is going to cost. We also like to look our best just to get others to like us, therefore, clothes and personal hygiene items, along with gym memberships it all ends up costing us quite a bit money, but why is it we never end up looking like those ads.

Let me just say how grateful I am that God’s Kingdom has a whole different set of values than this worldly kingdom.

But I think we can say, without controversy, that the greatest need of humanity is to get into the Kingdom of God; and to get back under the rule and reign of God, which humanity left back at the Garden of Eden with the sin of Adam and Eve.

It is with this understanding of life’s greatest need that finds people drawn to one of the best-known stories of the New Testament and the gospel accounts. It is Jesus’s encounter with the Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a teacher of Jewish law and religion, and he comes to meet with Jesus in the middle of the night to seek an interview.

In rabbinical thinking, Jesus was not an official teacher of the law, yet he was teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God, working miracles wherever he went, and the average Jew, along with religious leaders, gathered to witness this phenomenon.

Read John 3:1-16

And so on that evening Nicodemus came seeking humanity’s most basic and fundamental need. And Jesus’s stated more clearly than any other time about a persons entrance into the kingdom of God.

Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 NKJV)

What I find interesting about Jesus’s response is that He never allowed Nicodemus to finish his thought or ask what was near and dear to his heart. Nicodemus only got as far as stating what he thought about Jesus and His ministry, and how Jesus was not only a teacher of the law, but how God was with Him as well.

Jesus then interrupts Nicodemus and answers his question even before he asked it. Notice it says Jesus answered. Answered what? Nicodemus never asked.

Jesus interrupts because He’s teaching Nicodemus, and all of us, one of the most profound truths about the Kingdom of God, and that is how someone enters it. And the reason Jesus interrupted is that He didn’t have to hear the question; He already knew what was on Nicodemus’s heart.

There’s a perfect illustration of this found earlier in John's gospel.

“But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25 NKJV)

And it’s no different with us in our encounters with Jesus. When we come near to Jesus through reading His word and prayer, we need to come with our hearts wide open to meet with Him and ask Him to search and know our hearts, and then lead us in the good and right way that leads to everlasting life.

King David spells this out to us in Psalm 139.

He said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24 NKJV)

If this is our prayer, then Jesus will meet with us, search our hearts, and tell us all about ourselves, even those things don’t even know, and even those things we’re afraid to ask.

And what I have found is that Jesus will interrupt our well thought out speeches, thoughts, ideas, and rationalizations. He will read us like an open book because we can’t conceal anything from Him. He tears away our camouflage and makeup and shows us as we really are.

And this is what we need. We need our hearts interrupted, along with all its evil intents.

And so, in John’s Gospel, chapter 3, Jesus gives us what is required for entrance into the Kingdom of God. And from John 3:3 there are three basic propositions that I’d like for us to consider.

We Must Be Born Again

We can’t substitute anything for it. In the King James Version, Jesus said, “Verily, verily.” What this means is that this is something we dare not and should not miss. It’s that important.