HOW DID MEETING JESUS CHANGE A RELIGIOUS EXPERT S VIEW OF GOD? JOHN 3:1-21 DECEMBER 2, 2007

HOW DID MEETING JESUS CHANGE A RELIGIOUS EXPERT S VIEW OF GOD? JOHN 3:1-21 DECEMBER 2, 2007 When we worked in Chile as missionaries, we had a summer team of college students join us for 6 weeks. Several of the students were Spanish majors. Often, they had done well in Spanish and couldn t wait to meet a native Spanish speaker to practice what they had studied the last few years. It only took an hour with the Chilean students to show these Spanish majors that they couldn t communicate in Spanish like they thought they could. They thought they knew Spanish, and then they met a native Spanish speaker. However, over the summer, their understanding and communication of Spanish improved. In the same way, over the next 3 weeks, we are going to look at some people who thought they understood God, but upon meeting Jesus, they found out they didn t understand God that well. However their contact with Jesus increased their understanding of God. Today, we will witness Jesus interaction with a religious expert. If you have a Bible please open it to John 3:1-21. We will look at this passage and consider the question, How did meeting Jesus change a religious expert s view of God? Maybe you don t see yourself as a religious expert, but all of us have our preconceived notions about God. What happens when Jesus challenges your notions of God? We will see this Biblically knowledgeable, theologically trained man struggle as Jesus upsets His view of God. We read of the initial interaction between Jesus and the religious expert, named Nicodemus, in verses 1-2. 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. We aren t sure why Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. Our best guess is that he doesn t want the other religious leaders to see him talking to Jesus. As a group, the religious leaders are worried about Jesus. He is a threat. So Nicodemus doesn t want to be seen with the opposition. If it is such a risk, why would Nicodemus seek Jesus out? As we see in verse 2, Nicodemus has to admit there is something to Jesus. The signs He has done show that God is with Him. Now let s give Nicodemus some credit. Many of the other Pharisees believe that Jesus miracles are a result of His working with the devil. At least Nicodemus has the intellectual honesty to consider that Jesus comes from God. The implied question in Nicodemus visit to Jesus is: Who are you? I see the works you do, so tell me, who are you? In verse 3, Jesus gets right to the point. 3 Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is looking for Jesus to make the case for Himself. Instead, Jesus begins with a very solemn formula, Truly, truly, as if to say, this is super important. Listen up. You won t experience the kingdom which means you won t experience God at the end of the age, unless 1

you are born again. Nicodemus does not understand this statement. So he asks a clarifying question. Remember, Nicodemus is a religious expert. He is supposed to be in the know. So when he hears something that he has never heard. He has his doubts. In verse 4, his clarifying question has a degree of scorn. 4 Nicodemus said * to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother s womb and be born, can he? In verse 5, Jesus responds by restating the challenge. 5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is meant by water and spirit? Water refers to the fact that we need cleansing from our impurity and Spirit refers to the fact that we need a transformation of the heart. In verses 6-7, Jesus continues His explanation of the human condition. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, You must be born again. When Jesus says that flesh gives birth to flesh, He means that human nature gives birth to people who belong to this earth, to the human race. While those born of the Spirit give birth to something very different, something defined as spirit. What is Jesus talking about? God created us to have a relationship with Him. But we were all born with a sin nature, which means instead of living for God, we live for ourselves. This is flesh giving birth to flesh. Every person born physically lives for himself. If you don t believe it, see what a baby does what he doesn t get what he wants. He screams. That is the sin nature. Jesus implication is that the heart needs to change. A person needs to be born of the spirit. God has to do a work on their heart so that instead of living for self, the person lives for God. That is why in verse 7, Jesus says, Don t be surprised that I say you have to be born again. There is no way in your natural human condition that you can please God. Even your good acts are done with yourself in mind. The idea of being born again means we must be recreated on the inside. Our heart must be reconstructed. The need to be born again suggests that we are spiritually dead, unable to connect with God. Being born again brings us back to life with God. In verse 8, Jesus compares the born again person to the wind. 8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. We can see the effects of the wind, but we can t control it. We don t know where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with the person born again, born of the Spirit. We can see the change, but we can t explain it. We don t know where the change comes from and where the change is 2

going with the person. And just as we can t control the wind, so we can t control the person born of the Spirit. Nicodemus doesn t understand this, so in verse 9 he asks a question. 9 Nicodemus said to Him, How can these things be? Why is Nicodemus so confused? His is a religious expert. Why is he so confounded by Jesus words? As a Pharisee, Nicodemus is part of a group of men who have come up with a list of rules to please God. They have used the laws in the Old Testament and added some of their own interpretations of God s law to develop a system to reach God. They believe that if you are a good person, if you follow the rules and if your good outweighs your bad, then you can relate to God. And Nicodemus ideas represent every other religious system in the world. All the world s religions teach that in one way or another we must be good enough to merit God s favor. The problem is Jesus doesn t say a thing about following the rules. He says you must be born again. Lest we be too hard on Nicodemus, I can relate to his confusion. I grew up believing that I had to be a good person to merit eternal life. I was taught this message at church. And the message was reinforced at home. I believed that, one day, God would weigh my good works versus my bad works and which ever way the balance tipped would determine my eternal destiny. You can imagine my shock, when, upon joining a dorm Bible Study my freshman year at college I heard the message You must be born again. Like Nicodemus, I asked the question, How can these things be? It took me 6 months of weekly Bible Study to accept Jesus words that I must be born again. How could I be so dense? How could I be so slow to respond? The message was so different than anything I had ever heard. It just couldn t be right. Just as I struggled with this message years ago, maybe you are now struggling with the simplicity of the message. If that is the case, I invite you to continue considering the words of Jesus. Some of you have been considering Jesus for a while. And you need to make a decision. All of us were created to have a relationship with God. But we were born with a sin nature, which means instead of living for God, we live for ourselves. Without a change of heart, all of our good works stem from a desire to live for ourselves. When I was in 8 th grade, I remember attending a friend s birthday party. This friend s 5 year old brother gave him a Batman action figure for a birthday present. Initially, I thought, that s a strange present to give an 8 th grade boy. But the motivation soon became clear. As soon as my friend set the Batman action figure aside, his 5 year old brother started playing with it. This 5 year old gave his brother a gift that he himself wanted. In the same way, we do good works not to please God, but to please ourselves. We do good works to win favor with God or others. We do good works so we feel better about ourselves or so people will think more highly of us. But God created us to live for Him. In order to please God, we need a change of heart. We need to be recreated on the inside. That is what happens when we are born again. Jesus renews our heart to live for God instead of for ourselves. If you have never made the decision to be born again, I invite you to do it right now. As we return to our passage, Jesus is hard on Nicodemus. Look at verse 10. 3

10 Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Jesus response indicates that He thinks Nicodemus doesn t believe the message that he must be born again. As a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus should know that the Old Testament points to the need for a change of heart. Hundreds of years earlier, the prophet Ezekiel wrote about the day that God would give His people a new heart. Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy. Yet, in all his study, Nicodemus missed it. In verses 11-15, our dialogue becomes a monologue. Jesus speaks and Nicodemus listens. Let s read verse 11. 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. Nicodemus failure is not a failure of intellect; it is a failure of the will. Jesus has given Nicodemus evidence that He is divine with His miracles. In verse 2, in an indirect way, Nicodemus admits that. Jesus says the problem is that Nicodemus is unwilling to accept His testimony. When I worked campus ministry, I often asked students if I gave them irrefutable proof that Jesus was in fact God s Son whether or not they would believe in Him. In most cases the answer was no. That is a matter of the will. Those students would not believe. In verse 12, Jesus continues to challenge Nicodemus. 12 If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Jesus point to Nicodemus is, If you don t believe earthly things the need to be born again you won t believe heavenly things teaching on the kingdom of God. In high school and college course work there are often prerequisites. You can t take a junior level course until you have taken a sophomore level course. In the same way, Nicodemus won t understand what it is to experience God until he is born again. And so it is with us. Until we are born again, we cannot understand what it is to experience God. Part of our vision as a church includes Knowing God deeply. The process of knowing God begins with being born again. In verse 13, Jesus clarifies this idea. 13 No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. No one can go up to heaven to understand the things of God. So God came down to our level. He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. When we were first living in Costa Rica as language students, we could not understand Spanish spoken at a normal rate. So the Costa Ricans had to come down t our level. They had to slow their speech down. In the same way, Jesus has come to earth, our level, that we might understand God. In verses 14-15, Jesus uses an example from Old Testament history to communicate how He will gain salvation for the world. 14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 4

Many years before the people of Israel were grumbling against God. So God sent a plague of snakes against them. Once bitten by a snake, people got sick and died. After a time, God offered redemption from the plague. At God s direction, Moses put a bronze snake on a pole. If somebody was bitten, that person needed to look up to this bronze snake and God would heal them. Looking to that bronze snake was an act of faith. People had to believe that God would heal them in order for them to look to the snake. In the same way, Christ will be lifted up on a cross. In order to be born again, people must believe that Jesus Christ is God. They must also believe that he can forgive their sin and change their heart. If people will look to Jesus in faith, they will be born again. How did meeting Jesus change a religious expert s view of God? The religious expert found that a relationship with God comes through God s renewal of our heart. The religious expert found that a relationship with God comes through God s renewal of our heart. Relationship with God comes through a renewal of the heart, from being born again. It is easy to think that our relationship with God comes from our good works or our church attendance. Typically, I read 5 Psalms and 2 chapters from the New Testament each day. This is a good practice. The only problem is that I can subtly begin to think my relationship with God come from my daily Bible reading. No relationship with God comes through His renewal of my heart. If you ve been born again, this experience is so radical and life-changing, we need to look to share it with others. About 9 years ago, my mom s quality of life was radically improved by hip-replacement surgery. Now, whenever the opportunity is available, she encourages people in similar circumstances to get hip-replacement surgery. In the same way, we need to be passionate about encouraging people to be born again. In verses 16-21, John, the writer of this Gospel, adds some words Jesus spoke on another occasion as commentary. If we don t get a full understanding of the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus, John offers this summary. 16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. Relationship with God, the renewal of our heart, comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn t come to judge the world, but to offer an escape from God s judgment. But, sadly, people run from Jesus because they don t want their wrong attitude, actions and words exposed. Jesus interaction with Nicodemus is more than history. It reminds us that like Nicodemus we don t have God figured out. In particular, this interaction reminds us that our heart must be renewed if we are to connect with God. Jesus offers you that opportunity for a renewed heart. 5

He offers you the chance to be born again. Will you take Him up on His offer? Or will you run from Him? The way you answer these questions determine whether or not you will experience the judgment of God. When I worked for Campus Crusade, my boss played college football with a guy who, later, made it big-time with the Denver Broncos. Sadly, this retired football player was going through some deep personal struggles when I met him. I had never known a professional athlete, but I had formed some assumptions about them. I assumed they would be arrogant and self-absorbed. Over a period of a couple years, I would run into this guy once a month and have a chance to visit with him over lunch or while skiing together. This guy was anything but arrogant and selfabsorbed. He was humble, likeable and interested in me. Personal interaction changed my stereotype of professional athletes. In the same way, Nicodemus personal interactions with Jesus change his understanding of God. How did meeting Jesus change a religious expert s view of God? The religious expert found that a relationship with God comes through God s renewal of our heart. The religious expert found that a relationship with God comes through God s renewal of our heart. 6