A former work colleague of mine used to say, “I’m fine with you being a Christian as long as you’re not a born again Christian.” Don’t worry, this work context was not me working on a church staff team.
What he meant, I think, was pretty clear, although I probed to find out. By “born again” he meant somebody who’s become a Christian relatively recently, certainly in their adult life, and who he thinks, as a result, is enthusiastic, joyful, mentions their faith at every opportunity, and it affects and colours the way they live. And we don’t want that type of Christian in the office.
Basically, if you call someone a born again Christian, it’s generally not considered a compliment. It’s generally a sign that someone is a little bit extreme and a bit wacky.
But as you read John chapter 3, you are forced to ask, “What other kind of Christian is there besides a born-again Christian?” John chapter 3:7: “You shall not be surprised at my saying, you must be born again.” Not “may”. It’s not the icing on the cake. If you’re going to follow Jesus, being born again is what must happen. You must be born again.
Which means this morning we need to forget what our secular culture thinks of that label “born again”, and instead we need to discover once again what Jesus means by it.
And we’re going to see, as we look at John chapter 3, we’re going to see two things. Two things that will only happen if you’re born again. So you need to be born again if you’re going to see Jesus, and you need to be born again if you’re going to be saved by Jesus. Or to put it differently, but the same idea, you need to be born again to see the kingdom and to enter the kingdom.
Now, it might be some of us in this room — and I would count myself in this position — were born again when you were too young to remember it happening. So just to reassure you, if that’s you, whatever the age, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s happened. So don’t dismiss the fact that it happened when you were young.
Over the next few months at church, we’re going to be having a series of sermons looking at different encounters Jesus had with different people in John’s account of his life. And today we meet Nicodemus, the confused teacher. He doesn’t get it.
“You need to be born again.” Verse 4: “How can someone be born when they’re old?” Geriatric childbirth. “Surely they can’t enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born.”
Now, he doesn’t actually think that’s what Jesus is saying. He’s not quite that obtuse. But he doesn’t get it. And so it goes on till he gets to verse 9: “How can this be?” He’s basically saying, “I give up. I don’t know what you’re talking about. It does not compute.”
So we’re going to look together then at the two things that will only happen if you’re born again.
We need to be born again to see the kingdom
Number one: we need to be born again to see the kingdom. Or to put it another way, don’t think your mind can figure Jesus out. He came down from heaven to tell you.
You see, Nicodemus thinks he’s got Jesus sorted. Verse 2: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” “I know who you are, Jesus. You’re a teacher. Granted, a teacher who’s come from God — a pretty amazing teacher — but nevertheless, that is what you are. You are a teacher.”
Many people in Britain today would say exactly the same thing. Fantastic teacher, maybe did a few miracles.
And this whole discussion is really to show Nicodemus that Jesus is much, much more than just a teacher. He’s not less, but he’s a lot more.
Now, why has Nicodemus missed who Jesus really is? Because he can’t see. Verse 3: “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he’s born again.”
He came to Jesus at night. Now, when we get to John chapter 8, Jesus will say, “I am the light of the world.” But Nicodemus chooses to stay in the dark as he comes to Jesus, and we will see later why that is. What he needs is to be born again.
Now, if you’ve got the NIV Bible, a paper one, you’ll see there’s a footnote in verse 3 that says, “Or it could mean from above.” Now, don’t stress about which is right. John is a lovely, rich writer. He’s just full of richness and cross references, and he gets your brain spinning. He deliberately uses an ambiguous word, as we’ll see.
You see, after Nicodemus says he just doesn’t get it — verse 9 — Jesus explains that he really should get it. Let’s pick up from verse 10:
“You are Israel’s teacher and you don’t understand? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know. We testify to what we’ve seen. But still, you people do not accept our testimony. I’ve spoken to you of earthly things and you don’t believe. How are you going to believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”
Jesus is the only one who’s ever come down from heaven. Nobody else has, which means Jesus is the only person who can speak about God, and 100% he knows what he’s talking about. And Jesus says, “You can’t see that unless you’re born again.”
Many people who are not Christians say something like this: “I have lots of questions. I need to understand Jesus. When my questions have been answered and I see who he is, then I’ll become a Christian.”
And this passage shows you why that doesn’t work. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he’s been born again.”
If you’ve got friends who are not Christians, this explains to you why they don’t get Jesus. They can’t see him.
In 1989, a film was released called Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And there’s a famous scene in that film in which Indy, played by Harrison Ford of Star Wars fame, finds himself on the edge of a huge canyon. You can’t see the bottom. It’s just black all the way down.
On the other side of the canyon, there is an entrance into a cave that he can see, that he needs to go into. And in between is a 100 ft gap.
He gets out the little guidebook that he’s been looking at to guide him on his journey, and he sees a sketch diagram of a person walking across thin air from one side to the other. And he sweats, because Harrison Ford looks good when he sweats. Nobody else does.
And he stews a bit, and he pictures his poor dad — but that’s other bits of the plot you don’t need to know about this morning — and he thinks, “I’m going to have to go for it.”
And so he takes a foot out. The camera follows and focuses on his foot, and then he leans forward — and he doesn’t crash, because he lands on this invisible bridge. Only when he’s standing on the bridge can he then see that there is a rock walkway from one side to the other. And so over he goes, and just before he leaves he throws a load of sand over the bridge, just to make sure that somebody else can see it again later.
Now, there’s lots of debate — there’s debate about everything these days. Did the bridge really exist? Was it really invisible? Was it just really well camouflaged? I don’t know.
The point was this: he couldn’t see it until he had stepped onto it.
People say, “I don’t want to become a Christian until I understand. I don’t want a leap of faith.” And that’s the kind of picture they have when they say that.
And usually my reply to that is: Christianity makes sense. It stands to reason if you think about it and probe it. It’s not illogical. In fact, believing in God is the one thing there is that is not full of holes. We could pick loads of holes, I’m sure, in what you currently think, but what God thinks is the only thing that makes complete, consistent sense.
So don’t throw your brain away. Ask the questions, dig deep, then become a Christian, then keep loving the Lord your God with all your mind.
That’s my normal answer.
But — and it’s a big but — this passage gives you the flip side. Jesus won’t make sense until you’re born again.
30 years ago, when I was at university, there was a big phase of Christians engaging in what’s called apologetics. So you might run events for people who are looking into the Christian faith to answer questions like: why does God allow suffering? Do the miracles of Jesus really happen? Can I trust that the Bible is a historically accurate book?
Now, don’t get me wrong, these are great questions, and running events like that is a really good thing to do, because these questions do still today matter to people — although I think people are asking different questions today.
But for all their worth, behind that exercise is the assumption: if I can persuade someone that Jesus is true, if I can answer their questions, then they will become Christian.
Jesus says, “I came from heaven to reveal God.” So be born again, and then you will see everything clearly.
There’s the first thing. We need to be born again to see the kingdom.
We need to be born again to enter the kingdom
Second: we need to be born again to enter the kingdom. Or to put it another way, don’t think your status can impress Jesus. He came down from heaven to save you.
So look now at verse 5: “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they’re born of water and the Spirit.”
Do you notice the language has changed? Verse 3: no one can see the kingdom of God. Verse 5: no one can enter the kingdom of God.
And Jesus says you need to be born of water and the Spirit.
Now, he’s referring to Ezekiel chapter 36 that was read to us. God makes promises to his people, who are in exile in the 6th century BC, that he will make a new covenant, a new agreement with his people. And as part of that, he promises them new birth, so they can be marked out by water and the Spirit — marked out by water because they’ll be washed and forgiven; marked out by the Spirit because God will send his Spirit to live in their hearts and change them from the inside out.
Verse 13 we’ve met before: “No one has gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”
Jesus came from heaven so we can know what God’s like, but he came to do more than that. He came to rescue us as well.
Many people think that if only the world was better educated, all of our problems would be solved. So as you look at aid and relief work, for example, in the developing world, the assumption is the most important thing you could do for a developing country is to improve their education system. Improve the education and they will become — it’s a bit patronising, isn’t it — more civilised, and suddenly their life will improve. They won’t be hungry any more.
What a simplistic mindset that is. But that is the kind of assumption people work with.
Or in this country: what will deal with antisocial behaviour on our streets? What will bring crime levels down? Well, we need to teach people, show them that this is not the way to live, help them to understand that, and it will all fall into place.
Well, Nicodemus — after all — thought Jesus was just a teacher. That was his mistake.
But it’s a bit like if someone’s on a boat at sea and they’re wearing a life jacket because it’s a smallish boat, so everyone wears a life jacket. But the boat goes down, and there they are bobbing around on the water in their life vest.
What do they need? They do not need educating that bobbing around on the water at sea for longer than a few hours is dangerous. No — they need rescuing. They need a lifeboat, not a teacher.
Take Moses in the Old Testament. Moses was the greatest teacher the Old Testament ever knew. Jesus wants to say he didn’t just teach people, you know — he did something else too.
Verse 14: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”
Now, if you don’t know the story, it’s in Numbers chapter 21. You can read it later. The people of God were rebelling against God in the desert, and so God sent snakes as a punishment. The snakes were biting people — venomous snakes — and people were dying.
And God said to Moses, “Make a snake out of bronze. Put it on a pole and hold it up, and if anyone is bitten by a venomous snake, if they look at the snake on the pole, the venom will be cured and they won’t die.”
Now, here’s the fun thing: that story became one of the Greek myths, and that Greek myth then became an international symbol for medicine and healing.
And in the same way, Jesus will be lifted on a pole so that everyone who looks at him will be cured. The venom of sin will be gone.
This is where verse 16 — probably the most famous verse in the Bible — comes in. “For in the same way…” I’m paraphrasing slightly: “For in the same way, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Our problem is that we are perishing. We’re under God’s judgement. But God loved us. God sent his Son into the world to be lifted up on a pole, to die on a cross, so that we might look to him in faith, in trust, and not perish, but instead have eternal life.
See, verse 18 says our problem is indeed that we are already perishing: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
If you don’t believe in, trust in, Jesus, that’s not why you’re in difficulty. That’s not why you have a problem. It’s not why you’re under God’s judgement. He says you’re already there. You’re already a condemned man or woman. You’ve just compounded that with a second problem: you’ve rejected the rescue.
But you were already condemned before you rejected the Lord Jesus.
Now, Nicodemus was a very impressive bloke. Let’s not downplay the guy. Verse 1: “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.”
Let’s just notice those details. He was religious. His life was in great order. The Pharisees had rules and systems and structures for everything. He was a respected leader — a member of the ruling council, no less. He would have been educated, highly educated, and he knew and loved the Scriptures.
But Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You need to be born again.”
His impressive status did not impress Jesus. Or at the very least, we can say this: it brought him no closer.
We all start at exactly the same place. Whatever you’ve achieved, whatever you’ve done, you need to be born again.
Jesus came from heaven to save him — even him.
There we go. We need to be born again to see the kingdom. We need to be born again to enter the kingdom, which means we need to be born again.
We need to be born again
And just before we close, I want to think a little bit more about this thing of being born again.
Now, we know how important it is. Don’t think your mind can figure Jesus out. Don’t think your status or your achievements will impress Jesus. Jesus came down from heaven to reveal God to you, to save you. But for both those things, you need to be born again.
This is something that the sovereign God does. This is a complete, radical new start — as big a start as beginning your life all over again.
Now, that might sound a bit scary or a bit hard to relate to, but actually I know a lot of people who say to me, “The one thing I would love to do, if I could, is just go back to the beginning and do it again.”
Well, that’s what Jesus offers you: the chance to start over. Isn’t that wonderful?
More exactly, it’s God that does it. God’s Spirit does it. What Jesus says: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
You see how all three persons of the Trinity are involved. God loved you, so he sent Jesus to die on the cross and save you, and then his Spirit applies that truth to your heart and transforms you into somebody who can see clearly, and is washed, forgiven, and changed.
Jesus did everything that needs to be done — everything that needs to be done for you to know God, to see him, to enter his kingdom, to know him, and to be saved. And then God’s Spirit needs to bring that new life and apply it to us. Otherwise, we cannot see, and we’re still outside.
Now, Jesus compares this to the wind. He says, “You can’t see the wind. You can’t control the wind.”
Imagine it’s a windy day. At one point on our summer holiday, we find ourselves on a little boat, not very far offshore. If you’re in the little cabin area, you look out the window — it’s quite pleasant. Step out onto the little deck area at the back of the ship and it’s really blowy, even 100 yards offshore.
So what you do — you hold on to your hat, otherwise it’s gone.
But if, on a windy day, a gust of wind blows your hat and it’s off — which did not happen to me, let me say, or to anyone in our family — but if that were to happen, you don’t know, says Jesus, where that gust of wind was before it got to your hat, and you don’t know where the gust of wind went after it left your hat.
But the one thing whose location you do know is your hat: it’s in the sea.
You can see what the wind did to your hat, but you can’t see what the wind itself is.
And he says, “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
You can’t see the Spirit of God. You can’t control the Spirit of God, but you can see the effect of the Spirit of God. Here is a person who previously did not get Jesus at all, and now they see clearly who he is. They are forgiven, and their life has begun to change.
It’s something God must do. But that doesn’t mean it’s out of your reach, because Jesus says this is open to everyone who believes in him, to everyone who receives him.
And his call, his invitation, is: come, believe, receive.
He’s not saying it’s impossible because God must do it. He’s saying, come. And if you do come, it’ll be because God’s done it.
But here’s the problem — and it’s Nicodemus’s problem, and it’s ours.
In verse 19: “Here’s the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and won’t come into the light for fear their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that whatever they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
People choose to stay in the dark. We like the life we have. We don’t want it challenged. We don’t want it changed. We don’t want it exposed.
Conclusion
So Jesus says to each and every one of us: you must be born again. There is no other kind of Christian than a born-again Christian.
As I’ve applied this to myself this week — and as I apply this to anyone else in this room who teaches children, life groups, Bible study tables, any teaching responsibility — one of the things I’ve realised is that without the Spirit of God at work, I could stand up here and talk for 25 minutes and nobody would understand a word I’ve said, and nobody would be changed at all.
Unless the Spirit of God does that, I am wasting my breath. It’s why we pray, and it’s why it’s precious that God has promised to use his word.
If you’re here this morning and you’re not yet a Christian — you’re still looking into Jesus — let me say to you: come to Jesus. Believe in him. Put your trust in him today. Receive him. Receive from him the gift of a radical new start, given to you, worked in you miraculously by God the Holy Spirit.
There may be much you still don’t understand. You may have many questions. You may think you’re not good enough. Perfect. You’re in exactly the right place.
Come to Jesus and let him work on fixing those things. Don’t try and fix them on your own.
But if you’re here this morning and you are a Christian — which I guess is most of us — hear what Jesus is saying: you are a miracle. You’re a miracle.
Every time someone becomes a Christian, a miracle has occurred. God has brought someone to new birth that they could never have done themselves.
If you’re a Christian, you’re a miracle. You may understand Jesus better than you did a few years ago. You might look a little bit more like Jesus than you did a few years ago. I hope so.
But don’t reduce yourself down to somebody who’s just made a bit of progress. God the Holy Spirit has given you radical new birth. He’s made it possible for you to see and to enter the kingdom of God, and he’s transformed you into a brand new person.