REFLECT

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Jesus Knows Our Misconceptions | Nicodemus Part 1
John 3:1-15

God’s Kingdom Rule & The Rebelliousness of The Heart (John 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?”

Setting The Scene
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 ruling body in Israel, in charge of all Jewish affairs. The Sanhedrin was headquartered in Jerusalem and the council was composed of both the Sadducees and Pharisees. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night and and politely affirms Jesus is a rabbi. Niacdemous also affirms that Jesus is from God due the signs that he displays, but there  was within Niacdemous a disposition of unbelief that was consistent with the group (the pharisees) represented.

Fatal Flaw of Unbelief
This is revealed clearly as Niacdemous’  main problem when you get down to vv. 11-12. Unbelief is the principle problem that resided in hearts of men. Unbelief is the root of all our sin failure and rebellion toward God. This is seen clearly in account of Israel. For example in Numbers 21 which Jesus will later reference to Niacdemous, we have the account Israel’s journey in the wilderness. Israel was the recipients of the mercy of God in the Passover (Ex. 12:1), the great deliverance from Egypt in the exodus (Ex.12:31) , they experience miraculous dividing of the Red Sea (Ex. 14), they were fed by God with bread and quail from heaven (Ex. 16; Num.11), they were given water from the rock (Ex. 17), they were given the words of God in the form of the 10 Commandments (Ex. 20), they where led by the very presence of God (Ex. 33). Yet we read in Numbers 21:5, that the:

“people spoke against God” saying, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” For     there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”

[Example: I remember a few years ago I was leaving to go to India. I was in Target grabbing the last few things I needed for the trip and I remember being in the electronic isle when I hear this 13 year old girl screaming at the top of her lungs at her mom. “Mom I have to have this iPod!,” her mom patiently answered, “Darling, we just got done buying you new clothes and shoes. Don’t you think that is enough.”  she answered, “No mom it is not enough!” At this point her mom was a bit more frustrated. Her mom answered, “Well it is going to have to be!” I remember standing in the isle pretending to be looking a something, when I was really just eavesdropping...and not believing what came out of the girls mouth next. “Mom you are trying to kill me! I am like the only person at school that doesn't have one of these. You are ruining my life.]

Disregard For The Goodness of God’s Kingdom Rule
The same is true with us. We are like ungrateful teenagers experience consistent provision of all our needs and constant unconditional love from God and we turn around curse Him to His face. This attitude is rooted in unbelief and it manifest in the spectrum of sin we commit day after day. We lie about ourselves because we don’t believe God created us valuable just as we are. We covet other people things because we don’t believe that God would give us exactly what we need. We trash other people because we don’t believe they are created in the image of God. We are joyless, hopeless, and helpless because we don’t believe that God is greater and more powerful than all our temporal circumstances. This is the disease of the human heart that plague everyone…apart from the transforming work of God. Unbelief is ultimately what makes us adversaries, enemies, and rebels to the the rule of God. Because the moment God exercises his sovereign rule in our lives by giving us something we don’t want (like the death of a loved one), or withhold from us something we think we need (like the affections of the opposite sex) , or commanding us to do something we are not comfortable with (like loving and serving people that are not like us): our rebellious unbelieving heart rage against God. We despise Him in our heart and we like the the Israelite and the young teenage girls cry out , “You are trying to kill me”

The Need To Be Born Again
Jesus knew that this was the great problem that resided in men, be it godless men, like the Romans that ran Jerusalem or religious men like Niacdemous a seemed to conform to moral standard of the law of God. So Jesus’ comment though on the surface seems out of place, but actually is very relevant. Because this was Niacdemous and our greatest need.

“Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.”

Jesus’ claim that we need to be “born again” as prerequisite for entering the “kingdom of God”  would have been strange on a couple levels for Nicodemus:

• 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?” Thats pretty reasonable. I mean lets say Audrey    goes into labor and the baby is delivered and Ricky does like the color of Eva’s eye, its is not like the doctors can put her back.:)

• Additionally, while the Jews expected a future kingdom ruled by the Messiah, the promised son of David, most Jews would think because of their racial  background and religious heritage that they where automatic citizens in the Kingdom of God.  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.

Just as the Jews of Jesus’ day we to underestimate the magnitude of the requirements in order for individuals to enter the Kingdom of God. 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. But the N.T. paints a totally different picture when it comes to the issue of entry to the kingdom:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,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.

I would submit to you that everyone of us has our name somewhere on this list and if you don’t think so think again! Everyone of us failure to submit to the rule of God in our lives. Everyone of us trades the kindness, goodness, glory and power of God for idols.

[Example: Most recently this happen to me on Wednesday at Aletheia VCU. During the Q&A portion, we had some individuals that professed atheism. They where asking extremely tough questions. Instead of presenting the hope that is found in the gospel, I tried to wow them with my intellect. I knew I had sinned  and traded God for the idol of wanting to by right when during the worship I was more disappoint over the fact I didn't convince of my argumentation rather than be broken that they did not know Jesus. It was utter selfishness. It was sin. It was unbelief in the power of the gospel to cause the dead in heart to live and to open the eye of the blind to see the beauty of Jesus.]

Devastating the Religious and Irreligious
So this statement Jesus make, “You must be born again” confront both the religious and irreligious and devastates our attempts to make ourselves acceptable in light of the kingdom standard of God. How does the claim that we must “be born again do this?”

• Religious: It informs the religious person who presents to God his or her moral reform through religious practices that all their righteousness is filthy rags at the least. It is simply a poor attempt to buy the favor of God through worthless moral act.. when they have supremely offended a holy God.

• Irreligious: It informs the irreligious that their humanism has fail. No amount of education, no amount of scientific achievement, and no amount of  politically motivated social justice can legislate the type of inward transformation we need to turn this world around. So what hope do we have of seeing the Kingdom of God? Jesus gives us a clue in verse 5-10…

The Promise & The Mystery of The New Birth (John 3:5-10)
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?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

Setting The Scene
Jesus tells us that the real hope of inward transformation…the real cause of a recreation of our unbelieving hearts is not just trying hard to be good or trying to fence people in with better laws…but rather it is the work of the Spirit of God in the hardened hearts of men. Jesus tell us that new birth is initiated in us by the Spirit of God.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit…”

He further elaborated that “flesh gives birth to flesh” In other word, when you where born the first time you where humans and you did human things. You ate, slept, and pooped. When you got a bit order you began crawling, walking, an then running. You where are also by nature rebellious before God. These things were natural to you be because you where human. In the same way the second birth or the new birth is not natural but supernatural, caused by the Spirit of God. It produces in you a new affections, new attitudes, and new actions in relation to the things of God and the rule of God.

[Example: An apple tree produces apples, orange tree, oranges. A cat gives birth to cats and dogs give birth to dogs. Humans gives birth to human and the Sprit of God gives birth to those who love and desire to please God]

Promise Foretold
This concept of Spirit transformation in the heart of rebellious mankind is not new to Jewish people. From the exception of Israel it was told to them by God that ultimately would fail to live up to the condition of the covenant He made with them. The sign of the covenant we circumcision. It was the physical mark of the covenant God made with Israel. But He promise in the wake of their sin failures… He would give them a new sign of the covenant.

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.

He further promises them that this circumcision of the heart would be the work of the Spirit in the books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah:

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. 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. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 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— 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, says the LORD. 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. 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.”

Analogy of Wind
Jesus further describes the work of the Spirit in the act of the new birth was wind:

“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.”

So what does Jesus mean to communicate by using the analogy of the wind?

• Just as the wind is not controlled or restrained, neither in the work of the Spirit of God. The new birth is a sovereign, meaning it is determined by God. It is a a gracious work, meaning  that it is not base on what you do or what you have accomplished. It is a merciful work, meaning that God granted new life to you when you deserve death.

• While you might not know where or when the Spirit of God first began to work, you can see the effect. The new birth accomplished by the work of the Spirit is alway seen in the transformed lives of the who have been graciously granted it. While the Spirits work in the lives of those who are “born again”… look different in each individual… the effects are obvious. There is a transformation of affections, attitude, and actions.

[Example: Think About the Spirits work in the life of our church...Jason Zinn, Susan Tran, Monica Costa, Tony Griffin, and Janet Welch]

Embrace Of The Gospel As The Effect of The New Birth (John 3:11-15)
Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And 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.

Setting The Scene
Jesus gives Niacdemous a hard time for being a teacher of the law and not understanding the need for new birth in light the constant failure of Israel to keep the law and also for missing the obvious teaching in the law, prophets, and writing. Jesus then asserts that His authority on this matter in not second hand but rather he “testifies of what He knows” because He “came down from heaven.” The scene then transitions to imagery from Numbers 21:4-9. There are two connections between preceding verse and the current text.

• Jesus moves from an explanation of the new birth in terms of the categories of “water and spirit” used by Ezekiel to a narrative passage, the well-known account of the bronze snake in the desert. The bronze snake on a pole was the means God us to give new (physical) life to the children of Israel if they where bitten by the snakes that had been sent in as a punishment for there rebellion, unbelief, and persistent murmuring. By God’s self initiated provision, new life was gracious granted. In the same way this same God, by the gracious working of the Spirit offer new spiritual life and eternal life( (v.15) to rebellious, unbelieving, and ungrateful people.

• Second, there is a deep connection between the bronze snake and Jesus, in that just as the bronze snake is lifted up by Moses, so Jesus will be lifted up on the cross. Moses lifted up the snake on a pole so that those who were bitten by the snake could look an live. In the same way Jesus, “the Son of Man must be lifted up” the that those who look to and believe in Him will live eternally. The Greek verb for “lifted up” (hypsoo) in its four occurrences in the book of John (8:28; 12:32, 34) always combine the notion of being physically lifted up on the cross with the exaltation of Jesus.

Saving Faith Is More The Intellectual
I think that ultimate connection we need to see between the mystery of God gracious self initiated work in the hearts of unbelieving and rebellious people in the new birth is that the effect of this work is that we see Jesus lifted up on the cross we believe and we see the glory in it. At this point I think I need to caution you. When I say believe and Jesus and you will be saved I do not belief in the way most mean it. I fear that most.. when they say believe in the name of the Lord Jesus and you will be save they are asserting- a simple affirmation about certain facts of the gospel, namely his death burial and resurrection brings salvation. No I do not meant that!

What I am talking about is something supernatural. What I am talking about is something impossible. What I am talking about is something that only sovereign grace of God can produce in a man. The work of Spirit in the new birth takes rebellious, unbelieving, hateful, hopeless, blasphemous, adulterous people, who could careless about the glory of God or the work of Christ and it so transforms there heart that see Jesus and the love, delight, treasure, hunger, thirst, long, groan, run, pursue, desire Him and Him alone. When you read the book of John it is easy to see that saving faith is more than knowing facts about the Gospel but longing for Jesus who is the center of the Gospel:

Tangible Images of Believing

• Drinking Living Water: John 4:10-14; 7:37-38
• Eating The Bread of Life: John 6:35, 47-48. 50-51, 53-58
• Eating Jesus Flesh & Drinking His Blood: John 6:53-56
• Walking In & Having The Light: 8:12, 12:35-36
• Abiding/Remaining In Jesus & His Word: 6:56; 8:31; 15:7