well coming out of a week of family ties i thought it would be beneficial to conclude this um this week and to look at this sunday beginning a fresh new week to also think about um the new birth and jesus's emphasis in john chapter 3 on his calling here in the statement that you must be born again and obviously i'm sure many of you who are sitting here have heard this passage preached many times throughout the course of your life. It's a very important passage. I've seen major abuses with this passage. I've seen two kinds of errors with John chapter 3. In the Reformed camp, I've seen the problem of avoiding this and saying this because everything is viewed from the covenant, the covenant, the covenant, as it is said. And what tends to happen is how could you ever tell somebody in the covenant who's been given baptism that they need to be born again? And that has been a problem that crept up and that has happened in some reform groups. There's the other problem that you state you need to be born again and that people aren't often satisfied with the results that follow. And so they beat people to a pulp and treat them like you need to have some kind of sign or some kind of outward validation from God that you truly have been born again. And that's the opposite error. And I've seen that. I've seen people completely distressed over the doctrine of the new birth because of that kind of emphasis. And this morning, hopefully, we can be very balanced in looking at John 3 and to consider what the Lord is saying to us here and how powerful he is to save. Let's consider John 3 this morning and I will read the first 10 verses. Now 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 him, truly, truly, 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's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, 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 you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things. We'll stop the reading of God's word there this morning. I want everyone to keep your Bibles open as we will be referring to a few passages in the context. This morning, we are considering the teaching and the doctrine of regeneration or the new birth. And to get there this morning and to look at how our Lord has shown this to us and how He speaks of the new birth and to understand its importance, I want everyone to look back this morning, to back up a little bit into chapter 2, and I want everyone to look at verse 23 of John chapter 2, and notice what's said there in verse 23. You have a section that even is bracketed kind of off with a title with three verses there, but notice how this sets it up for what is to follow. Look at verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing, but Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Jesus did not entrust himself to them. It's an interesting statement. In fact, if you notice carefully, entrust is the same word that is used, that is translated belief in verse 23. It's the same word in the Greek. So it goes like this. Here's how the statement could read. At the Passover, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did, but Jesus, on his part, did not believe in them. And you stop and you say, well, that adds a twist to that. That's pretty important, doesn't it? It's a pretty big problem if you believe, but Jesus doesn't believe in your belief, isn't it? I've often thought that That's a remarkable problem that is being outlined here. You believe in Jesus, James picked up on this. You do well, even the demons believe and shudder. They, you could say, have some kind of better faith than dead faith because they shudder. So you have this initial problem in John chapter 2 that it tells us that our problem is much greater and the solution much more radical than just a mere agreement and saying in the mind that Jesus is real, that Jesus has come, that Jesus is going to die on a cross and rise again. In other words, the text shows us that a lot of people believed in Jesus Christ, but it was artificial belief and this is a major problem in john's gospel they had deluded themselves to say that they believed in jesus but here we're going to find out in john chapter three jesus is exposing that something much more radical was needed for man and it strikes at the heart of the gospel of john because in verse 25 it says again he has no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man. And that's another important thing as we go into John chapter 3. There is an issue here. There's an issue that's being raised. And he's saying, I didn't have to come. Jesus did not have to come and inspect what was and learn about what was the problem with man. He knew exactly what was in man. And what is in man. Well, what has the world always told us is in man? How does the world view things about what is in man? The world always says, listen to what? Your heart. Follow your heart. Do what your heart tells you. He knew what was in man. Jesus, contrary to the human view of the heart, Jesus knew the reality about the heart. And that's what the Bible here is exposing for us. Remember, throughout the scriptures, you had statements like the heart. Jeremiah 17 is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. And Jesus himself would teach in Matthew 15 for out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and blasphemies. This is what defiles man. Now what's the problem that John is raising about these followers of Jesus? They're not seeing that. They're not seeing that. And I love John 3 because what we're shown is how wonderful the Lord is and how great His gospel is to come and remedy this problem and to show us what we need. And as we approach John 3 this morning, we open this up, and the first thing you say as you look at this is, I need a whole new life. I need whole new life implanted in the heart. And then I will have the kind of justifying, saving faith, trusting faith, leaning faith that the scriptures are describing. But John 3 is telling us, I am totally cast upon the mercies of the Lord. And that is the single point of this passage. Things are that bad for man. And the question is, as we open this up this morning, is do I see that? Do I see it as the Scriptures are showing this to us? Everything turns here on this necessity for the new birth. And so notice the connection by the end of chapter 2 as it breaks into chapter 3. And obviously, these are not inspired chapter breaks. These were put in to help us. But if you were just reading this without that, here's what you would come up with. At the end of chapter 2, one of the followers of Jesus was a man named Nicodemus. In verse 25 it says, Jesus knew what was in man, and now look at how chapter 3 begins. Let me introduce you to one of these men, these half-hearted followers of Jesus who believed in him, but whom he did not believe in their belief. Now there was a man. See the connection? Jesus knew what was in man. Let me show you one. there was a man. So this is what he's doing for us. He's showing us the truth illustrated now of the end of chapter 2. So notice how it begins. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Nicodemus, a very influential figure among the Jews, a well-known Pharisee, somebody greatly respected among the people. And I find it interesting, as we open up John's gospel that the first interaction Jesus has, the first teaching dialogue that he has, is with a Pharisee. We're pretty hard on these guys, aren't we? Everyone hates the Pharisee today. Everyone goes after the Pharisee today. We're all worried about Phariseeism today, aren't we? These guys, they are always hitting people over the head with the law, batting everyone over the head with their 613 commandments that they had memorized. They had externalized everything. A woman could not even look in the mirror on a Sabbath because if she had a gray hair, she might be tempted to pull it out. And that's work. And some of you would be doing a lot of work. I guess I can't speak. We're hard on these guys. We go after these guys. I fall in disgust over the Pharisees. We point to these Pharisee types in the church who are over-scrupulous about the law. It's all they want to argue about. And I pause for a minute. And I ask the question, why is Jesus showing us this in John 3? And the simple answer is, the Pharisee is not some kind of special class. It's the problem of religious people's hearts, deeply ingrained within people, deep set in their traditions, is a mindset of a little bit, and it may not even be the little bit, it may be the lot, a pride of confidence, a pride of accomplishment, a pride of status, a pride of ability. And it's always been fascinating to me that this is the first person highlighted. I'll come back to that. That Jesus began his ministry and he starts in the temple. And from there he goes out. And judgment, in a sense, first began in the house of God following the whole model of Jesus' ministry where he cleanses the temple of all places in Israel's history. the temple the temple the temple you don't speak ill about the temple you get put in stocks if you do that remembering jeremiah and jesus starts there and then he comes right to this character who represents the jewish leadership who would never dream that they were in need of anything and with this mindset with this kind of perspective we come to verse two that we read that this man nicodemus 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 and so the first thing that stands out is, and there's been so much made of this, that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. I find it fascinating that John felt the need to say this over and over in his gospel. Every time Nicodemus is mentioned, it's mentioned that he came by night. In John 7, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said to him. John 19, Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes and a hundred pounds. A lot is made of that by John. And you'll notice here that we have this mentioned right up front. And when we compare this with the end of chapter 2, that there were many followers of Jesus who were following, but he did not believe in them, in their belief, in other words. It's the same problem that we find dispersed throughout John's Gospel that Nicodemus and the rulers of the people, we have in chapter 12, many people believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees, listen to this, listen to this statement, many believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. All over the place do we see this. It was superficial. The followers were shallow. The followers would not count the costs. The followers made excuses. And here we have this night theme raised at the beginning with Nicodemus, which Jesus ethically raises in this very section in John, chapter 3. But remember how John himself applied this with Jesus' words. If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. Nicodemus is a child of the night. Nicodemus is dead. And so notice the question. Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God. For no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. Something wrong with that? You might compare it to the rich young ruler. Blinded in his self-righteousness, he comes with an attitude of, do I need to do to inherit eternal life? I find it striking that he says, I know that you are a great teacher. How does everyone view the Christ today? How does everyone who is outside of Christianity view Jesus just as that? No one can do these things. I see that something is remarkable about you. You're doing things that no one else can do. I think Nicodemus looked at Jesus and thought, this is one of these great prophets from God. And I've got to deal with that. I've got to reckon with that. I've got to think through that. I've got to deal with the fact that this man is doing things and you can't just explain it away. Whatever the case that was in his mind as a Pharisee, I know how the Pharisees thought. Moral compasses for the masses. Nicodemus has come to Jesus realizing this man is offering a lot by way of signs, and the Jews request a sign. They always have. Here comes the bong in chapter 3 that Jesus drops. And you should, against all that, whatever confusion we have with where Nicodemus is, I think you should see that as a confusing, He is a confused individual. He doesn't get it. He doesn't understand the Messiah. He doesn't even know if this is the Messiah. This Nicodemus is confused. And against all of that confusion, Jesus speaks in verse 3. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, I'm not even sure how strong to emphasize this. The words are duplicated here. A lot of translations have verily, verily. You've read this, especially in the old translations. You could translate it of a truth, of a truth. Truly, truly, whatever Jesus is saying here, He is saying this in the most emphatic, important way possible to give emphasis. It's a momentous statement in the Gospels. And John wants us to see that. It is a moment that we should stop and consider. Nicodemus, you're following me. You think I'm a good teacher of morals. You're impressed with the signs that I do. But for me to believe in your belief, here's what must happen. You must be born again before you'll ever enter God's kingdom. Now, I'm not sure we get the weight of that. It's fascinating to me that Jesus didn't begin with all of these things to clean up life, did he? He just didn't begin with anything that we think he should begin with. He didn't tell this religious Pharisee, this head of Israel, how better to live. He didn't start talking about fruits. He didn't talk about any of that. He didn't talk about moral reform. He didn't give him one single thing to do. Jesus is radical here in the message. and i highlight that because john records the first discourse he records here is someone following him superficially you don't need new fruits nicodemus you need a whole new route of life you don't need moral reformation you need a whole new renovation you don't need some prescriptions you don't you don't need all of that, you need a whole new kind of existence for you to enter, which is fascinating, perceive. You need to understand this. You need to be born again. Your great need of life is that I take and give life to your absolutely dead black heart for you to be able to perceive what is in you. Take this back to chapter 2. You have to be able to perceive what's going on with you because I see what's going on in your heart. I know what's in man. There needs to be a whole new creation. This is a sweeping indictment, isn't it? It's a completely sweeping indictment. Talk about a severe judgment on his heart. I think this is what we hear today, don't judge. Jesus just gave the most severe judgment upon this man. You have to put yourself in Nicodemus' shoes, I suppose, just for a moment. You can't live, Nicodemus, until you're born. But guess what? You're not born yet. I can't imagine how humbling, you know, this is a Pharisee. These guys had obtained the kingdom. They had taught that they already shared in the future world. He was of the chief counsel. He was zealous. He was the elect. All of the charitable acts, all of the prayers, all of the tithes, all of the prayers to be heard on the street corner, he just reduced it all in one swoop to animal dung. You know what this would be like today? Who's known as the vicar of Christ? The pope. Last week, the pope granted, I don't know if you read this, the Pope granted digital indulgences. Did you know that? Here was the offer. If you tweet Pope Francis on Catholic Youth Day in Rio, you would be granted plenary indulgences, which means people would be released from punishments to sins for their sins through a tweet. What do you think Jesus would say to the Pope? I think Jesus would walk right up to the Pope and there would be all the pomp and glory and the pope would have a big showing the pope's going to meet jesus today and jesus would look at the pope and he would say dear pope you need to be born again can you feel that you're a pope in christendom you're a pope in christianity and you don't know that? Nicodemus, you have to be born all over, which means you haven't been born at all. Christ just took it all away. What an ending to the Pharisee, isn't it? This doesn't really fit our understanding of things at all, especially as human beings and people who work i mean i convince myself that i'm doing well when my life is in outward conformity this is what i do and this is how we naturally think i mean take johnny take johnny in the church johnny in the church johnny has some problems johnny's been raised in the church johnny has been catechized but you know johnny loves to party and so johnny's out drinking it up And Johnny knows that fooling around before marriage is wrong. And we tell him, Johnny, you know, you need to stop living this way. You keep putting yourself in tempting situations and you're not behaving as you're, you claim to be a Christian, you're not behaving. And so what is our mentality with Johnny? What is our mentality? Well, Johnny just needs to start living what he believes and then we'll get some moral improvement from Johnny and we're happy. Johnny gets married. Johnny just basically goes through a maturity kind of process. And Johnny gets married, and Johnny lives a decent moral life. And Johnny gets married, and Johnny starts having children. And all of a sudden, you know, he's not leading that really bad life of the alcohol. And now he's really kind of cleaned it up. And he's living what we would call the typical Christian life. And what are we satisfied with? We're satisfied with that improvement, aren't we? Jesus has something to say about that. Our problem is much deeper. People morally improve all the time. People straighten up just with maturity over life. Children straighten up just with maturity. And we think so long as the bad behavior is replaced with good behavior, goal accomplished, we're happy, they're in church. I'm happy if they're in church. Nicodemus was in church. You need to be born again. At one, pastor said, I can be courteous, humane, beneficent, abstain from outward sin with hard struggling. Who can make me pure in heart? I have to wash you, says Christ. Nicodemus, in verse 4, says to him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Remember this problem in John's Gospel? All thinking physically, and how is Jesus speaking? He's not speaking that way. He's using figures. They even say this later in John's Gospel. and what's been really striking is this absence really striking to me is the absence when jesus says you must be born again and this is what confuses us as american christians particularly the complete absence of how to do it in other words how we go get that and so this dilemma is raised in the text you have to be born again but what do you see as the problem. Nicodemus can't perceive what Jesus perceives about his own heart. He doesn't have the ability to perceive it. That's why the end of chapter 2 is so important. And this is Ezekiel. This is Ezekiel when Ezekiel was told to go prophesy. And remember, he set him out in the midst of a valley, and he was told to look out into the valley and see from God's perspective of what men look like. And what do men look like? Then he caused me to pass by them all around. And behold, there were very many in an open valley, and indeed they were very dry. And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? Can they have life? Because right now they don't. They're dead men walking. So I answered, Oh Lord God, you know. And then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones. Say to these bones, oh dry bones, and I'll come back to this, hear the word of the Lord. You've got to be born again. And your greatest problem is you can't do it. And for those who are dead, they don't even care. Now, as we come back to the text tonight, today we can't regenerate our hearts. Nicodemus shows us the total inability. Jesus here teaches total depravity. So you've got the two doctrines right here. Total inability and total depravity set right side by side. It's important to see it play out in Scripture, isn't it? What's the answer? Who is the answer? And I think this is what is so glorious this morning about John 3. He came here knowing what was in man. Could you imagine if he didn't? Imagine if Jesus came here and he didn't know what was the problem and stumbled on this problem. Whoa, I didn't realize when I came here that all of these people wouldn't receive me. He knew it. he came here with the assignment and knew every bit how wretched that heart is. And I believe John 5, when Jesus comes, I love John 5. When Jesus comes in John 5 and he begins to teach his disciples, he says something that is so special in light of Nicodemus in verse 5. Listen to what he says. Most assuredly, I say to you, actually, I'll come back to that. I'm going to come back to that. Look what Jesus says first to Nicodemus. 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 flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit. How is one made alive? How is one given life through water and the Spirit? Any reader of the Old Testament knew that this was the great promise that the Lord had made throughout His prophets of the new covenant ministry, of the work of the Holy Spirit, who when He would be taken to the ends of the earth, the gospel, He would regenerate hearts and pour life out. This is Pentecost to the ends of the earth. And this was spoken of all over the Old Testament when Ezekiel said, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from your uncleanness and from all your idols I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statue and carefully obey my rules. You will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you will be my people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. I'll do it. I'm going to take your hearts and I'm going to implant life in there. And by the power of the Spirit, there's going to be a whole new man raised and I'm going to purify your consciences from dead works to worship and serve the living God. Now I'll come back to John 5. Listen to what he says. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death into life. In other words, here's what happens when life comes into the heart and soul of man. This is where it starts for someone. And this is what I've seen in the life of the church. You know, you have the parable of the wheat and the tares, and these two are growing up together, and the angels are confused, and they say, well, let's just come and uproot the tares. And the Lord says, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that, lest you uproot the wheat, because there's a time when you can't tell in the life of the kingdom. Why? Because life is being given in people's lives when the Lord chooses by the Spirit. And when life comes, all of a sudden, fruit. And I've seen this in the life of the church where people have been dormant and cold throughout the course of their lives. And all of a sudden, they start hearing, and what has happened? They come alive. Notice what Jesus says here in John 5. Whoever hears and believes, do you hear and believe God's word today? Present verbs, what that means is, this is what is the ongoing thing happening in the life of those who are believers in Christ, who've been born again. Here's what Christ's saying. Whoever has the ability to hear the word and believe in Jesus Christ, that is the evidence that life has already been implanted in the heart. He doesn't say, if you hear and believe, you will have life. That's not how the construction is. It goes like this. Those of you who hear right now the word and believe in Jesus Christ, you are in possession of life already. It's yours. When you don't have life, what does it look like? The woman at the well, who when she was told that she needed living water, Jesus says, go get me a drink. She says, you don't have a bucket. Go call your husband to me. I don't have a husband. No life. She can't perceive what Jesus perceives. The same is true with Nicodemus. You've got to be born again. How do I go and get in a womb that's big enough for that? Dead. Dead. No ability to see what Jesus sees. And Christ is telling us this morning that unless life is planted in the heart, nobody believes. No one will come. And how beautiful it is, you know, when after Jesus is done with the woman at the well, what has she left? Her water pot. And she's running back to a city, and she's telling others about him. After Jesus is done with Nicodemus, don't you find it remarkable that at the very end of this all, when Jesus has died, who's carrying the fragrances for his burial? Nicodemus. Life. And Christ is showing us through these people his power to do this. This is why Peter says we are born again not of corruptible seed, but by incorruptible, by what? Through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. See how important it is to sit under and hear the Word of God? Because the ability to hear as he takes that Word is evidence that he has implanted life. And so when the Spirit regenerates us, at some point we have this conscious awareness of who we are. We perceive things as Jesus has perceived it. We stop the fighting. We stop justifying the paths of darkness and we say, I am dead. I am in trouble. I feel how lost I am without Him. And this giving of life, giving of life by the Spirit, I then come. I come to him. And I hear him when he says, whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. I grow from that point on in understanding how overwhelming it has been that the Spirit blew life upon me when he didn't have to do it. And that's why I think verse 6 is so powerful. That which is born of flesh is flesh. that which is born of spirit is spirit. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it's going. So is everyone who's born of the spirit. When I've been given that kind of life by the sovereign love and grace of God, you know what your life becomes? You stand back marveling, praising Him for His grace and his mercy that he's shown to you. This must have been a moment for Nicodemus, brought up in the church, believed he could save himself by obedience to conformity to the law. Jesus just paralyzes him. And I'm so thankful that Jesus cares to paralyze us. I'm so thankful that he cares to come and to bring an end to us and to tell us that our hearts are deceitful above all things. Because you know what I would give him if he didn't come and do that? I would give him exactly the end of John chapter 2. And that's the best I would ever offer him. A half-hearted devotion that he doesn't believe in without a changed heart. Jesus took Nicodemus and he took everything from him that day, stripped him, so that he could say with John 9, I once was blind, now I see. And so I pray that we see ourselves through the life of Nicodemus and give glory to God today. That when these calls are coming, this is what John 3 said, whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. When that gospel call goes out and the pastor stands up and preaches the word with the ultimate aim of saying that, that when we see these young people, which I'm seeing, come and life is being given, we would marvel at the grace of God that He's continuing to do this and that we'd be thankful that the project that He starts, He doesn't let fall to the wayside. Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee He is of our inheritance until the purchased possession, until we're there. May we marvel today at what Christ has done for us and praise Him that He cares and that He's given us life. Let's pray together. Oh Lord, our God, we thank You that in Your sovereign power and grace, You pursue and that You come to seek and to save that which is lost and that You didn't come here figuring out what was the problem with man you came here fully knowing how rotten the heart is and you came to give life to die on the cross to rise again sending your powerful spirit that by your blood and righteousness oh christ we can be sure and confident that we belong and have already been given eternal life and so for any kind of belief and faith today we give all praise and glory to you because it's a gift of your grace and we're thankful that you are accomplishing your salvation to the ends of the earth and not one of your sheep will be lost in jesus name we pray amen