REFLECT

Amped Teaching Series  2

Jesus Claimed We Must Be Born Again

John 3:1-15

Lets Build A City

As we begin tonight, to investigate Jesus’ radical claim that we, “must be born again”, I want to start with a group activity. So I need your help, lets build a city. Imagine with me if you will that Virginia gave us the ability to rebuild Richmond from the ground up. That  means we get to rethink government, rewrite laws, reevaluate education, rediscover what it mean to be a good neighbor. So here we go…

The Infrastructure of Our City

The Village- Several years ago M. Night made a movie called “The Village”  documenting a group of people that had lived in a city plagues with violence. They decided to build a Utopian society through founding as new community. They sought to found the community on love and mutual respect. They guarded the city from depravity of the outside world and kept the next generation in check with stories of monsters . Ultimately they did not anticipate violence would rise up from within.

Cities & The City God

Why Do Cities Fail?

So it is easy to see that cities, societies, and nations fail not supremely because systems fail but rather because people fail. We fail to keep the law that we institute. We fail to live by the virtues we say are valuable. We fail submit to the authorities that have been set in place to govern us. Humanity is broken. There is with the human heart a self seeking spirit that disregards the rule of God and the well being of others. It is interesting to see as you study the Gospel that recount the teaching and ministry of Jesus, that He acknowledge the reality of human failure and sin. Jesus like no other religious teacher points to the fact that it was this truth in particular was the root of our broken relationship with God and others:

Matthew 13:35

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

Matthew 15:8

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with [their] lips, But their heart is far from Me.

Matthew 15:18-19

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

John 2:23-25

So it is not surprising that when we com to John 2:23-25 we read that, “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, 25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”

Jesus knew the deepest problem with mankind was the not outside but “in men.” He knew that the heart of the problem with humanity was the heart. And in John 3:1-15 Jesus confronts a religious leader named Nicodemus the monumental significance and need to “be born again.”

Nicodemus & The 2nd Birth (3:1-4)

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “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.”Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

The scene begins with a dramatic night visit from “a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” He was probably a member  of the Sanhedrin, the highest national body in charge of all Jewish affairs. The Sanhedrin was headquartered in Jerusalem and the council was composed of both the Sadducees and Pharisees. Nicodemus come to Jesus by night and on the surface honors Jesus with an understanding His origin as being “from God” and highlights that fact that in light of the signs he did  “God was with him.” Jesus disregard the religious small talk and makes a radical claim: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This claim would have been strange on a couple levels for Nicodemus:

1. The most obvious is illustrated in his answer, “Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

2.  Additional the religious leader would have found this strange because most Jew would think because of there racial  background and religious heritage that they where automatic citizens in the Kingdom of God. The Jews expected a future kingdom ruled by the Messiah, the promised son of David. Although not everyone was going to be included into the kingdom, most Jews in Jesus’ day generally believed that all Israelite would be welcome unless they committed a horrible and habitual sin.

Interestingly if you talk to the average person today that has a basic belief in God, they would tell you that most everyone apart from Hitler, Stalin, murders, and other violent criminals will be welcome into the Kingdom of God and granted eternal life. The N.T. has different commentary on the issue on entry to the kingdom:

Galatians 5:19-21

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,[d] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:5

For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Not Outward Religion But Inward Transformation (John 3:5-9)

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.” Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”

The Certainty of Our Sin

I would submit to you that everyone who has has walked the earth apart from Jesus himself can find there name on this list.

Romans 3:9-19

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written: “ There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”  “ Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they have practiced deceit”;“ The poison of asps is under their lips”;“ Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “ Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “ There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

2 Responses The Reality of Sin

When people here this there are usually two responses

•   Religious Reform- People hear and believe that they are broken and sinful so they try to reform their life. Maybe they join a religious sect that gives them a great set rule to live by or maybe they try rehab or psychology that give 7 step to freedom for the varied sin.

•   Radical Rejection- People hear this and do not believe they are broken and sinful. The reject the notion as the ploy of religion to control people. They blame shift and justify there actions as a nature response to their environment.

Jesus on the other hand offers another solution…rebirth. Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The concept of being born again by water and the Spirit was not a new concept to the Jews. When God first gave the law to the children of Israel He anticipated the fact they would not be able to keep His standards. He promises their would be a day that He fix there broken sinful hearts:

Deuteronomy 30:6

And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

This promises was a constant hope to the people of God in the darkest day of there rebellion:

Ezekiel 36:26-28

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,[a] says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

We learn from these passages that this inward transformation of the heart  in no the product of moral reform or just trying hard but rather it is the work of God. Jesus illustration of wind further point to the fact that when a man is “born again” by the Spirit that it is the mysterious work of God. Jesus makes it clear that this transformation happens you can “see its effect.” The one who was transformed has a radically different outlook on life. He has new attitude and new affections.

Look To Jesus & Believe (John 3:11-15)

Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.[a] 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but[b] have eternal life.

Jesus sorta get on Nicodemus for not knowing that the OT taught such a principle. But Jesus then point the Jewish teacher to hope he needs in order to be received into the Kingdom of God and to partake of Eternal Life. Jesus points him to a well know story in the OT book of Numbers 21, where it is documented that when the children of Israel where in the wilderness and rebellion toward God not trusting His goodness and cursing His name. God judge the people by sending poisonous snake. The people who where bit died. But Moses prayed, and God told him to make a bronze snake a lift it up, everyone who look at it was saved. Jesus tell Nicodemus that in the same way that He would be lifted up on the cross and everyone who look to Him and believe would be saved.