John 3:8 • A Journey Reborn in the Spirit
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
The last time I spoke with you, my message was, "You must be born again."
That weighs upon me because I know that at my family's table there will be people who are not born again.
And I would trust the same is true for many of you, maybe not in your families, but with those with whom you work or those that you come across, you begin to say, "Jesus just said you must be born again."
And then he said, "That has to be done by the Spirit of God." How can you require something and then say, "That's God's job."
It would seem there would be little reason to trust God in all that except the passage we will read today says, "The one who requires the impossible supplies it." And when I think of my task, it is to lead others to see that too.
Here is how Jesus instructs us by his own words.
Psalm 3 and verse 8, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it's going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
How can this be, Nicodemus asked?
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth. We speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe."
How then will you 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.
"As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
How would you hide a 20,000-ton ship in the open sea?
Before the days of radar, the way in which that was done is counter your instincts.
You would think that if you want to hide a great ship at sea, what you do is you'd paint it the color of the sea or the sky or some combination.
But in the early part of the 20th century when the submarines were starting to be effective against warships, you just couldn't find a paint that was good enough to hide a great ship against the silhouette of the sky or on the open sea.
And so an English artist came up with a plan which was ultimately adopted by the British Navy. It was what was called "dazzle camouflage."
Ships were painted in outlandish patterns, almost like a Picasso cubist art on the side of a ship. And the reason was it was so out of context for somebody on a submarine to lift a periscope and see a ship painted that way, that at times the eye just totally overlooked the ship. It was so out of context. Or if the eye noticed the ship, you could not tell from where it was going or to where it was going. It's a pretty neat trick to hide a ship in the open sea.
But when we see Christ talking about the work of the Holy Spirit so that even we do not know from where He goes or to where He goes so that the kingdom of God is hidden from those who do not have Him, we are more than intrigued. We're concerned.
But Lord, I have those that I want to see the kingdom of God.
And you are saying that that kingdom of God cannot be seen unless the Spirit comes, but I can't control it and people can't control it. How can you require them to see the kingdom of God and then take away or not promise the instrument of their accomplishment? It's like saying to Barry Bonds, "Hit a home run and take away his bat."
Or to James Galway, "Play the Pachelbel cannon and then take away his flute."
How can you require the impossible?
Jesus begins to explain to us here not only what is required of others, but of us as we are explaining the impossible to our loved ones and friends and fellow workers in a lost world. He clearly tells us that we cannot make them see the kingdom of God. That is His job. But we can guide them to where they can see should the Spirit open their eyes. And that becomes my task and yours to guide people to where they can see the kingdom of God should the Spirit open their eyes.
What does that guidance look like? What's the journey that's involved?
It is in essence a journey to the ends of the earth and to the heart of the sun.
The journey to the ends of the earth is apparent as even you see Jesus begin to address Nicodemus. And Nicodemus asked a very fair question in verse 9.
Jesus has just said, of course, "You must see the kingdom of God, but that is done by the Spirit and you can't control the Spirit." So Nicodemus just asked a plain question. Verse 9, "How can this be?" Jesus begins to respond in words that begin to tell Nicodemus what always must be done on the beginning of a journey.
You have to know where you are.
Verse 10, "You are Israel's teachers," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things?"
You know, whether you're just going to find the computer store in the mall or your gate at the airport or go from Paris to Berlin, you open a map, you look at a board and you look for that arrow or that dot that says, "You are here."
And all Jesus is doing for the moment with Nicodemus is he's saying, "You are here."
And he is giving him both his earthly status and his spiritual limits. The earthly status in the phrase, "You are Israel's teacher." There's actually an apex article that we don't get in our English translation. It's the definite article, "You are the teacher of Israel."
And you don't understand these things.
It's as though it's saying, "Listen, you are of the Sanhedrin. You are of the ruling council. You are a teacher in Israel. You are the man."
That's who you are. You have all this status.
You're at the top of your game. You're at the top of your career.
You have political power because you're on the ruling council. You have religious authority because you're a Pharisee of Pharisees on that ruling council. You have the regard of the world. You have the respect of those around you. You've got great status and yet you do not understand these things.
This is where you are. You have all kinds of earthly status but spiritual limitation. And as easy as it sounds, that's the beginning of the spiritual journey.
One of you have heard, I have many times, what Francis Schaeffer did when he was asked, if you had only one hour to spend with a non-believer, what would you do? Do you remember the response? I would spend 55 minutes getting to know who he was and then five minutes saying who Jesus was. Now, we want to debate the wisdom of that, don't we? Enough of us, you know, kind of say, "Well, wait, wait, wait. Is that Beth's use of your time?" But you know what he's doing. He's saying, "I want to understand where this person is because that's how I begin to know how to contextualize what Christ is for him. I need to be able to say, you are here."
And Jesus is doing as much in simple terms here because he isn't just going to say, "You are here." A second part of this journey to the ends of the earth is to say, not only are you here, but what you want, understanding of these things, you can't get there from here.
Verse 11, "I tell you the truth. We speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony." That's again just a statement of you are here. I perform miracles, you even give an attestation to the fact that I have performed them. But you don't accept our testimony of heavenly things. So you're here. But you're wanting to understand who I am. And you can't get there from here. Verse 12, "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe." How will then you believe if I speak of heavenly things? Already remember, earlier in the passage, Jesus has said, "Spirit gives birth to things of the Spirit." Not earth. It can't give birth to things of the Spirit.
And you, you are bound to the earth in where you are. You don't believe these heavenly things. You're not just bound to the earth in where you are. You're bound to the earth in who you are. Verse 13, "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man."
You've studied the New Testament up to now. This is one of those great statements of the self-attestation of Jesus.
I am the Son of Man, but it's more than that. It's almost a witness to 19th and 20th century philosophy. You can't know something if you haven't experienced it.
So you're wanting to know heaven, but you know what? The only person who really knows heaven is the one who's been there.
And that's me. You can't know what I know because you're here. And you can't get there if you are bound to here.
As I think of what that means to my friends and to my family, I confess that it's difficult always to know how to approach people, and so I need these kind of simple rubrics for my own heart and mind. I need to be able to say to people, "You're here and you're wanting spiritual answers or happiness or something in life that gives you fulfillment, but you know what? You can't get what you want from where you are."
I think of how C.S. Lewis said at one time trying to identify what it's like to be human and not yet know the Spirit.
He said, "We are like half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.
But we are like an ignorant child who wants to keep on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what it means to go to a holiday at the shore."
All we know is the mud pies in the slums. All we know is earth, and so we see people who keep pursuing the things of the earth to bring them satisfaction because they haven't experienced heaven. They can't even fathom it yet. And Jesus is saying it's the Son of Man who has experienced it, and until you experience Him, you can't get to heaven.
By the things of earth, you can't get there from here. In fact, you must leave your world behind.
We don't see it all in Nicodemus at this point. He is still learning.
After all, John 3 is just the introduction to the man Nicodemus, the one whose name means conqueror of peoples. People see him again in John 7 where Jesus is being brought forward, and some of the Jewish leaders are now wanting to take him to trial.
And Nicodemus is at that point almost courageous in which he says, "Shouldn't we have some proof before we try him?"
But you begin to see the further work of Nicodemus as he is actually leaving that world and discerning Christ when you get to John 19, our last glimpse of him. I'm going to ask that you turn there. John 19 in verse 38.
The last place that we see Nicodemus is after Jesus has been crucified.
In John 19 in verse 38, there is first the name that you will recognize, Joseph of Arimathea.
Later, that is after Jesus had been crucified, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus.
Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews.
With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night.
Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and allos, about 75 pounds, taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it with the spices in strips of linen.
This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.
Nicodemus first comes as this curious inquirer. Then he's almost a courageous defender of Jesus, and now he is a servant of the body of the dead Jesus. What does it mean? What does Nicodemus actually like at this moment? I want you to think about it. He with Joseph of Arimathea is willing to go through the degradation and the humiliation of going to a pagan Roman governor and asking for the body of a renegade preacher of the Jews.
To sacrifice of everything, of his reputation, of his pure approval, of his status in the world. And what will he do as he actually, as best we can turn, perhaps he is even one to help in taking the body down from the cross, and as the weight of that body comes upon him, does he feel the weight of his own sin? I did not defend him.
Not adequately. For my people, the very ones Jesus accused him of when he said, "You people do not accept our testimony." And it now weighs upon him, and the blood smearing upon the white robes of the Levites.
And then he prepares the body, washing the blood and the wounds, it's staining his own hands.
He's a Jewish rabbi. He is not supposed to touch the things of the dead. He ruins his own consecration, but it doesn't seem to matter anymore. And perhaps the reason is in the evidence of what he brings to the burial.
75 pounds of myrrh and allo. It's an extravagance. It's an extravagance of expense. You may remember it, the nativity, it was myrrh that the kings brought this fragrance. But it's 75 pounds.
It's expensive. It's overkill. Why? Because it must be somehow for Nicodemus the stench of his own sin, of his own failing, of his own unwillingness to receive that is now overcoming him. And he's covering it all up. And finally, when he covers it, we are told he takes the linen strips and wraps in the spices, not recognizing that it will be these linen strips left in the grave that mark the innocent savior.
What we recognize about Nicodemus at this point is he is leaving his world behind. It doesn't matter anymore what people think. It doesn't matter anymore what his reputation will be. It doesn't matter anymore what his wealth is. He doesn't seem to care anymore about the things of this earth. He has come to the end of them. What we know is heaven is about to break now at the end of his earth.
And what I have to recognize is that journey can be different for different people, but you won't know heaven. My loved ones won't know heaven until they see. And if God gives me opportunity, help them to see.
They've got to leave their world. Heaven will not be found there. They've got to come to the ends of their earth. It happens different ways for different people.
The novelist Anne Lamott wrote about her own conversion. She wrote it this way, "I never felt like I had much of a choice with Jesus because he was relentless.
I didn't experience him so much as the hound of heaven, as the old description has it, as the alley cat of heaven. He just seemed to believe that if he kept showing up and mewing outside my door, I'd eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk.
I resisted as long as I could like Sam I Am and green eggs and ham. I would not, could not in a boat. I could not, would not with a goat. I do not want to follow Jesus. I just want expensive cheeses.
Anyway, he wore me out. He won.
I was tired and vulnerable and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion. I said, "Okay, come in. I quit."
And that's when I came to believe.
Fame, fortune, wisdom, all hers.
I quit.
I'm at the end of this path. This has not brought me what I want.
It's not only the message that we have for our friends and loved ones. It's sometimes the message we must be reminded of. I find even though at times I believe I have escaped the world's orbit, that I'm not bound to the earth, that the reputation that I think I will have before others, the ambitions that I have, the money that I want, the pleasures that I seek will be found here again, that they will be satisfying. When I lose my peace, when I lose heaven, you know what it is? It's because I've circled back into earth.
I've begun to say these things matter more than they should again.
And we really cannot be the witnesses we need to be until we ourselves recognize. I've got to lead this world by recognizing what heaven is will not be found in the things of earth. What makes you push beyond the earth?
Recognition of the heart of the sun beyond it.
A few of you still in the room will know the name Mark Talbot.
In 1992, here at Covenant Seminary, Mark Talbot was a student.
In August of that year, Mark and his son and his aunt were killed as they were struck broadside by a drunk driver.
Mark's wife, Mary, concluded our memorial service that was right here in that year.
And in her last words, she said this, "For those of us who know them, it doesn't take much imagination to visualize a young father standing on the golden streets of heaven. His brow no longer furled with the concerns of this world. His hand outstretched to his son, saying, "Come on, buddy.
Let's go see Jesus."
We see a tow-headed toddler with red overalls and 101 Dalmatian sneakers that will never wear out, looking up to his dad and saying, "Go see Jesus."
Now, you understand that from Mark, that he had the joy of saying to a son still eternally with him, "Let's go see Jesus." And that was moving to the heart of Jesus. But I want you to recognize what it meant for Mary to come to the end of this world, of all that this world seemed to offer and still say, "I know heaven because I know the heart of the sun."
And when I've come to the end of what this world can offer, I can still know heaven because I know him, even though my son and my husband are with him.
That's something you're not going to find here on this earth, that kind of heaven.
And Jesus leads Nicodemus and us in our testimony to others of how we'll find that heart of the sun in words that are strange to us even yet.
He says in verse 14 of chapter 3 of John, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." What's all that about? You remember the account?
It's actually the last miracle of Moses in the Old Testament.
Isn't that strange?
Moses begins his writing with an account of the devastation of the work of a serpent,
and he ends the description of his miracles with deliverance from a serpent.
The people of God have been complaining about their misery in the desert and the manna again, and emblematic of the venom from their own lips, serpents are sent to attack them, and they plead to Moses for help. He appeals to God, and God says, "Fashion a serpent of bronze and raise it up, and those who look on it will live." You know the story. What does it mean? For Nicodemus, it must have been shocking to hear Jesus say, "Even as Moses lifted up that bronze serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." You hear it in terms of thinking of the goodness of Jesus, of the greatness and exaltation of what it meant for the Son of God to be our glorious Savior upon a cross, but what would it mean to Nicodemus? He knew more about the details. Think of it. That serpent that was lifted up on the pole by Moses did not represent the deliverer, did not represent Moses, did not even represent God. What did that bronze serpent represent? It represented the sin of the people. It was emblematic of all their wrong, all their undoing, which is now Jesus saying to Nicodemus, "The Son of Man must be lifted up."
And that means that when you see Him, He will be emblematic, representative, taking upon Himself the sin of the people. After all, it was one bronze serpent for all the serpents in representation, one for all.
He would stand before the people as their sin, as Jesus would hang before us, not ultimately, only as our Redeemer, but as the evidence, the emblem, the symbol of our own failings.
And Nicodemus must have to see it that way. "I will be saved only as I look at my sin upon another."
In the book, the Watsons go to Birmingham, a young 10-year-old boy named Kenny Watson is saved from the teasing of kids on the bus by a new kid. Here's how it happens. He says, "Every once in a while, Mama would make me go to Sunday school with Joey, even though it was just a bunch of singing and coloring and coloring books and listening to Mrs. Davidson, I learned one thing.
I learned about getting saved. I learned how someone could come up to you when you're feeling real, real bad and can take all your problems away and make you feel better. I learned that the person who saved you, your personal saver, was sent by God to protect you and could help you out.
When the bigger one of two boys was getting on the bus one day, he said to the driver in a real down south accent, "Thank you for stopping, sir."
I knew right away what had happened. I knew that God had finally gotten sick of me being teased and picked on all the time. And as I looked at this new boy with the great big smile and the jacket with holes in the sleeves and the raggedy tennis shoes and the torn up blue jeans and the sir word, I knew who he was.
Maybe he didn't live a million years ago. Maybe he didn't have a beard and long hair. Maybe he wasn't born under a star, but I knew who he was anyway.
God had finally sent me some help. He had finally sent me my personal saver.
Why? What did little Kenny recognize in the new kid?
He saw who he feared he was.
Somebody to be picked on. Somebody raggedy and out of place and taking abuse that had previously come upon him.
What do you see when you see Jesus?
Goodness and blessing you're supposed to.
But what Jesus is making Nicodemus see is the awfulness of his own sin upon another.
That's why the words mean so much in verse 15. You must look because everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. What does the belief mean? We have a place of understanding it now. It means to look at my sin on him. That's what that belief means now, to look at my sin on him, to believe that God so loved the world that he would send his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have ever laughed in life, that all that I deserve, all that's wrong about me is on him and I look to him. Did you ever think why was it so hard for the Israelites to look at the bronze serpent?
I mean, what's so hard about that? Just look.
It's because they understood the serpent represented their rebellion. The serpent represented their wrong. The serpent represented the confession that they needed another.
So when Nicodemus washed the blood from Jesus later and touched the dead body and tried to cover up the stink, it's because he understood.
Jesus represented his failing, his sin, all that he did not rightly do, though he had all the status of the world. What does God call you and me to do?
Listen, I can't make someone believe and you can't either.
But I can be a spiritual guide.
And part of that guiding means to say, you are here. You are bound to this world and you have never gotten what you think will give you satisfaction and happiness by everything you've tried.
So look up.
When you come to the end of this earth, look up. Do you see the heart of the sun?
Here is your sin. You may not want to look at it. Listen, we know that. Those of us even who are believers, when we have failed our Savior, we don't even at times want to look at the cross again. We are so appalled and disgusted by our own sin, we don't want to look. You know what our hope then is?
God looks.
God looks at our sin on him and pardons us.
And when you believe that, not only do you have a piece of heaven, you can become a guide to it. So that when the Spirit has so worked that the heart is set, I have come to the end of this earth, you are able to say, let me show you the heart of the sun.