You Must Be Born Again
July 31, 2022
Preached by Ben Bechtel
Scripture Reading
John 3:1-15
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Our text for this morning is one of the more famous texts in John’s gospel. Likely, whether you are a Christian or not you have heard the phrase “born again.” It’s not quite as common now but for many years people commonly referred to themselves as born again Christians. Athletes, politicians, and other public figures took this title of born-again Christian to themselves. The phrase began to be used as a descriptor of a certain brand of Christianity, Christianity with a special sauce. To be born again was to be very serious about your faith.
However, as you begin to search the Scriptures for what they say about being born again, you realize that saying I’m a born-again Christian is like saying I just jumped into some super wet water. To be born-again is simply what it means to be a Christian. What I hope to show you from this text is that the new birth is the foundational reality of the Christian life. As Jesus himself puts it in verse 7, if you want to enter into the kingdom of God, to have a share in eternal life, you must be born again.
1. Why Do We Need the New Birth?
To understand why we need the new birth, we first need to understand a bit about Nicodemus. Before Jesus’ words about the new birth were spoken to readers of Scripture, they were spoken directly into this man’s experience. So, who was Nicodemus? Verse 1 tells us that he was a Pharisee and that he was a ruler of the Jews, which means that he was on the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. It's very common for us to hear Pharisee and think bad guys. But, the Pharisees were actually the well-respected, right up the middle religious teachers of their day. It’s hard to convey what Nicodemus was in our day. He was a morally reputable political and religious leader, in the heart of the elite of his day. The closest thing I could think of by comparison is a really well-respected academic, but even they’re only respected by so many people. Jewish moms wanted their sons to grow up to be just like Nicodemus. Not only that but we read in verse 2 that he was spiritually seeking. He had seen Jesus’ signs and come to him asking more questions. Why would Jesus seemingly change the subject as this man approaches him and say you must be born again?
In order to understand this, we have to back track to the passage Benjamin preached last week (2:23-3:3):
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. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Now, isn’t that interesting when you read that text altogether? Jesus knew what was in man; now there was a man named Nicodemus…John we see what you’re doing there. As we saw last week, Jesus knows the deceptive nature of humankind’s heart and Nicodemus is a human. As verse 6 says every person born of the flesh is flesh, meaning everyone born by natural human birth has the same heart as their parents. No one is excluded, not even Nicodemus.
You see, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus in verse 2, think more about how he comes to Jesus. He approaches Jesus as a colleague, a fellow faculty member. He addresses him with respect, “Rabbi,” and he acknowledges the legitimacy of his academic credentials. But do you see what’s really happening here? He’s approaching Jesus as his equal, as his fellow teacher. He sees Jesus as a man from whom to glean wisdom and advice about his areas of interest and expertise. He views Jesus simply as a fellow teacher. Jesus cuts through this and says, you must be born again. Essentially Jesus is saying your credentials, your status as a teacher and leader of Israel means nothing. You must go back to entry level courses. Jesus tells this man, who had likely taught men and women what was required to enter God’s kingdom, that he cannot even enter that kingdom unless he’s born again.
So too with us. Jesus says even the most religious among us, those here who have been church members for years and years, those who have the most status in the eyes of the world and religious communities, those with the best moral track records and intellect, we all must be born again. Jesus is saying to you this morning, even if you think your life is put together, unless you have been born again, you don’t know what true life is. Unless you are given this gift called the new birth, your heart cannot even sense (v. 3), let alone enter (v. 5) the kingdom of God.
2. What Is the New Birth?
a. It Is Resurrection
In verse 5 Jesus makes a very cryptic statement. He says unless you are born of water and Spirit you can’t enter the kingdom. What do water and Spirit refer to? Think about the passage David read earlier in the service, Ezekiel 36:25-27. There God promises his people that even though they are filthy God will cleanse them with water and he will give them a new heart by the power of the Spirit. Water is an image for the life of God’s Spirit which God pours out on his people to wash them clean.
In college, I was an RA over several quads with my good friend Brian. We had one quad which refused to clean its shower for an entire semester, a quad which consisted of five athletes. By the end of the semester that shower was black. Brian and I had a deal worked out with the guys at the end of the semester to where if they didn’t want to do their cleaning, they could pay us and we would do it for them. We charged extra for that shower. As we started, we thought about whether or not we should just light a match and replace the entire shower. We scrubbed tooth and nail with chemicals for hours. This was not dusting and mopping; this entailed getting rid of months of grime. Church, we need more than some hand sanitizer. Our hearts need more than a quick Swiffer. We can’t do this work. Our hearts are blacker than that shower. We need the divine cleansing agent of the Spirit to break in wash us clean.
Even though Jesus only explicitly references Ezekiel 36 in verse 5, he also alludes to Ezekiel 37 in verse 8. In Ezekiel 37 God shows Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of dry bones. Into this valley of lifeless bones, the breath of God’s Spirit blows in and brings new life to these skeletons. God is dramatizing in this vision for Ezekiel in chapter 37 what he promised to do in chapter 36. The new birth is not just a cosmetic cleaning, it is divine renovation. It is a resurrection.
The apostle Paul describes it precisely this way in Ephesians 2:1-5:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…
You see, the Christian life does not begin with a list of commands, God telling us to get work scrubbing the grit and grime off our hearts. The Christian life begins with a resurrection. It begins with a whole-self cleansing by the Spirit of God. When a person is born again, the living Jesus implants his own resurrection life, his own eternal life, into their heart. Resurrection breaks into your present reality. As Benjamin said last week, the new birth is not a moral improvement program. Nicodemus and many of us would have no problem adding something else like that. Moral improvement plans keep the status quo. The new birth brings a whole new life. This is the gift God gives.
Just as this new birth is humbling for a man like Nicodemus and any like him, it is also an encouragement to the person without social status or whose life is a complete train wreck. God wants to give you the gift of new resurrection life! Jesus says to the religious, put together Nicodemus “you must be born again.” But he says to the person whose life is a wreck “you can be born again.” Your regrets about what you’ve done in the past, your shame in the present, and your despair for what you’re convinced will happen in your future are no match for God’s resurrection power!
b. It Is Transformation
Let’s read what Jesus says in verse 8:
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John records in verse 2 that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and based on this verse I think it’s safe to assume it was a dark and stormy night. While Jesus is talking about the new birth and the Spirit of God, they hear the wind howling and trees rustling.
I can remember one particular dark and stormy night in my own life. In order to afford Whitley’s engagement ring, I worked in one of those fireworks tents that pop up around 4th of July. The job required that you sleep in your tent. Through the first night it stormed terribly. What I didn’t know was that a tornado touched down and blew through the golf course right across the road from my tent as I slept in my car completely unaware. However, the next morning I woke to what looked like a mini apocalypse. I didn’t see the wind but let me tell you I saw its effects.
So it is when the Spirit of God blows into the human heart. We cannot see him acting. His work is mysterious and unseen. However, we know when he has been at work because our lives bear the marks of his work. The new birth is an internal reality but its power has external, perceivable effects. The Spirit’s work of resurrection in our hearts leads to transformed living.
One of the foundational messages of Christianity is that you are not what you do but rather what you do flows out of who you are. This is precisely what Jesus says in verse 6:
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Ants act like ants because they are ants. They have certain instincts and abilities because of the kind of creatures that they are. They don’t eat bananas and swing from trees because they’re not monkeys, they’re ants. Picture a zoo-keeper trying to train an ant to swing from trees and live off bananas. We’d want to get that person some help! When we are born again, our actions do change, but they change because who we are most fundamentally has changed. We are no longer of the flesh but we are born again by the Spirit as Spirit-people to paraphrase that verse. This is why it’s called the new birth! It brings about such a radical transformation at the core of who we are it’s like starting life all over again as a different creature with different instincts and desires.
Now the question for us is does our life bear the mark of the Spirit’s power? Are the trees of your life blowing? Are you sprouting the fruit of the Spirit? Can you see the Spirit’s power at work? Now, this is hard to judge because just like all babies come out of the womb looking different, so are all of us born again with different dispositions. Some of us will have dramatic conversion experiences with explosive spiritual growth. Others will have small incremental growth over a long period of time and not be able to remember a day or even a year of conversion. And still others will have some of both. I ask this question about the Spirit’s effects not to rack genuine Christians with guilt. But to those of who have been close to church, who are good, moral, upright citizens like Nicodemus, yet looking on at Christ from the sidelines for a long time, Jesus wants you to a transformed life in the power of the Spirit. You can describe your life a miracle! But you must be born again.
3. How Do We Receive the New Birth?
There is one thing I have assumed for most of this sermon but have not explicitly stated: we cannot choose to be born. You did not attain to your own birth. You didn’t decide one day to start growing in your mother’s womb nine months from when you wanted to make your grand entrance into the world. Just as you can’t will your first birth, you can’t will your new birth. This was Nicodemus’s whole problem, and it is ours too. Instead, you must receive it. It is something that must be done to you. But, to quote Nicodemus from verse 9, how can these things be? How does the new birth come to us then? How can we receive it?
Jesus tells us how in verses 14-15 of our text by referencing a relatively obscure story from the history of Israel in Numbers 21:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
In this story from Numbers 21, the Israelites grumbled against the Lord, as they were prone to do, so as a punishment for their sin the Lord sent poisonous snakes into the camp. They bit the people and a number of them died. So they came to Moses and confessed their sin. In his mercy the Lord told Moses to make a snake out of bronze and put it up on a pole in the middle of the camp. And whoever lifted their eyes to look at the snake would be healed. All they had to do was take one glance.
What does this have to do with receiving new birth? Well, in John’s gospel when Jesus talks about being lifted up he is talking about being lifted up on the cross. You see Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that you and I could have new life, eternal life. Jesus is the serpent. Jesus took the poison of the serpent’s curse of sin on the cross, he submitted to the anguish of death, so that his people might be healed. In love Jesus suffered the anguish of a mother in labor on the cross so that he might give birth to a whole new family, a family born “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
So how do receive this new birth? We simply look to the Son of Man, the serpent lifted up, the one who labored out of love so that we could be born again into the family of God. The beautiful part about this is anyone can look. From the most put together professional like Nicodemus to the most worn-down suffering sinner, anyone can turn their eyes from their own efforts, accomplishments, and resumes and look to Christ. It is not about the strength of your effort. You’re the baby being born! It is about the sacrifice and strength of the Lord Jesus who has labored to bring about new birth. As Bible commentator JC Ryle says, “The feeblest look brought cure to an Israelite, and the weakest faith, if true and sincere, brings salvation to sinners.”
If you are unsure whether or not you have been born again, think of Jesus’s labor of love for you. Sit with your need for new life and your complete inability to bring it about for yourself. As you do that, I pray that the Spirit of God would bring new life to dry bones. And for those of us who do experience the wind of the Spirit blowing in our lives, I would encourage you to do the same thing. Ponder why today you need the resurrection life of Jesus inside of you and return to his love shown toward you to bring about this new life. Through that, may he resurrect and renew us all. You must be born again! And through the sacrificial love of Jesus lifted-up on the cross you can be born again today.
Sermon Discussion Questions
Do you see yourself in Nicodemus’s attitude toward life and toward Jesus? Do you find yourself treating Jesus like a teacher who you run to for nuggets and life advice? How so?
How did the teaching that the new birth is a resurrection affect you? Is that how you conceive of your life in Christ? How does that need to change based on that teaching?
Talk with your family about each of your own “conversion stories” or “testimonies”. If your children do not have one or if they have doubts about their relationship to Jesus, use this as a time to talk about the new birth and how Jesus labored on the cross to give them new life.
