Sermon
You Must Be Born Again
June 10-11, 2000
Pastor Donald Sheley

I'd like for you to take your Bibles. If you're using the pew Bible it's page 715. If you have your own personal Bible, we're studying together the gospel of John, and we're in chapter 3 today. And I'm going to read the first three verses for our subject that we want to talk about. 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." Let's stop there.

In our notes, and in your notes, down at the left-hand corner of page 2 is about where we left off last week. We got acquainted with this man Nicodemus. We learned three things about him. First of all the Bible says that he was a Pharisee. And we learned that a Pharisee was a sect of religious people in Palestine who had made a commitment to follow as precisely as possible all of the rigid requirements of Judaism. We learned that there were two sources for these traditions as well as religious teachings. There was the writings of Moses which we have where God speaks to Moses on the Mount, and we have the writings of Moses. But also, in the process of time and over the centuries, man took the simplicity of God's proclamations and turned them into very profound and complex religious systems. That's man's nature. We want to make religion difficult. And what happened is over the centuries with the work of the scribes today took the simple statement by God to Moses; the 7th day is the Sabbath day and you are to keep in holy. That should be simple enough, but man said it's too simple. We're going to tell you how to keep it holy. So the scribes and the religious people down through time, they added all the things that supposedly made what you did made the Sabbath more holy. And in fact, it came to such a point where in the times of Christ when He healed on the Sabbath, He was highly criticized because healing on the Sabbath was considered an act of work. You remember they said to Him, you've got six other days of the week to heal, don't mess up the Sabbath with Your healing. That was religion, and the Bible tells us that old Nicodemus was a Pharisee. I mean he was religious to the core.

We noted another thing and that is that he was a ruler of the Jews, and that simply meant that he was a part of the Sanhedrin. Now the Sanhedrin was a group of men numbering 70 plus the high priest, and these men claimed their origin way back in the days of Moses when Moses was bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. And I mean to govern 2 million people was a big job for one man so Moses, under the direction of his father-in-law and God, selects 70 men. And so the Sanhedrin says our days of origin to clear back to the days of Moses. But we've noted that in the record of the Old Testament there were centuries of silence where we see nothing of the activity of the Sanhedrin. When we come near the time of Christ the Sanhedrin have reached a plateau of importance in the life of Palestine. And now the Romans are in control. It's the Roman Empire of which they are a part of, and the Romans recognize one thing, and that is the Jewish people were obstinate. They were so convinced that their religion was the only religion. They would die if anybody tried to violate their religious principles or their religious traditions. And so the Romans, as well as the Greeks prior to this, said, look at, you Sanhedrin, you 70 men, you govern the day-by-day affairs of the nation. If there's a major issue we'll take care of it in Rome. We'll make the ultimate decision, but as per all of the daily issues in the government and justice and working out the courts, you Sanhedrin are the rulers. And Nicodemus was of the Sanhedrin. He was a ruler of the Jews.

So he's a man also we noted that when Jesus died it was Nicodemus who brought to the burial site 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Now this was a purchase that only a wealthy man could make. So Nicodemus was deeply religious, most likely wealthy, and he was of the aristocracy of Jerusalem. He was one of the 70 rulers. Now to our notes at the left-hand corner at the bottom of page 2; Why though did Nicodemus come to Jesus and why did he select to do it under the cover of darkness? Maybe Nicodemus had come because of all that had been going on. He said, "That one can do these things or these signs that You do unless God is with him." The dramatic cleansing of the temple and the works that followed had created quite a stir in Jerusalem. You see, Nicodemus was a student of the Old Testament. He had to be to be religious. And he knew some of the prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah, and one old prophet said it very clearly, He will come with vengeance! And old Nicodemus knew that a few days prior to this occasion that rustic, itinerant preacher from Nazareth walked into the temple, took a whip, and beat out all the merchandisers. I'm not suggesting He beat them, but He took their tables and He took their merchandise, and I mean they went scampering. And as the result, old Nicodemus said, hmmm, maybe that might be the vengeance that the prophets talked about in the coming. This could be the Messiah.

On with our notes. He may have come to Jesus at night because he was a cautious man. If he had made his visit in the day, it may have cause a misunderstanding amongst his peers. I mean, when you're in the higher echelons of society you watch out who you keep company with. Maybe Nicodemus thought, well I don't want to be seen with this old rustic, itinerant preacher from Nazareth. I'll go at nighttime. Or, he may have come in the nighttime because that is when the rabbis had said that it was the best time for study. And maybe in the late hours Nicodemus was studying the old prophets and their writings, and began to wonder if this Christ could be the one which they all prophesied about. But marvel of marvels, he did come. And Nicodemus was a puzzled man, a man with all the honors and yet something lacking in his life. And he came to Jesus for a talk which would last through the night hours, that somehow in the darkness of the night, he might find light.

Now Nicodemus says, we know. Now I know here he seems to be speaking for more than himself. He may have come to voice some of the questions being raised by the group within the Sanhedrin. It could have been that the Sanhedrin had a board meeting, and they're talking about this preacher that messed up business in the temple the other day, and then they come to the conclusion; Nicodemus, we appoint you as a committee of one. Go find out about this man. There's a reason why in the record Nicodemus says, we know, and we're going to find out something very interesting. When you get to verse 11, he again speaks of the we and the our.

Anyway, back to our notes. By what authority was Jesus doing these things? What was His purpose? Now Jesus responds with a friendly statement directly to the heart of the matter. Christ ignored Nicodemus' address and with startling abruptness He said, "Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." That is a fantastic statement. Now if we picked up our Amplified Bible this is the way it would read: Jesus answered him, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experience) the kingdom of God. Nicodemus, we've got something very serious to talk about. I want to talk about being born, anew, from above. Now I use this explanation because we have new people with us constantly and as you know the New Testament was written in Greek. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and as you observe Hebrew is a very, very confined, it's a very limited language. The vocabulary of a Jewish person numbers about 10,000 words. It's a very restricted language. We as English-speaking people, our normal vocabulary would consist of approximately 30,000 words. But if we were educated Greek people, your Greek vocabulary would number 200,000 plus. Why? Because the Greek language is a very precise language, more precise most likely than any other language, and in its preciseness there are many more words.

One illustration: I say, I love my wife. I love my boys. I love my car. I love my church. You see, I can take the word love and apply it to almost any object I wish to. But if I'm speaking Greek, and I'm going to talk about the relationship that really I would pour out my life if it were necessary. I would give everything. I would speak of that relationship of love as agape, love. If I'm talking about my love for a friend, I would use the word phileo which becomes the word Philadelphia, or the city of brotherly love. It's a different word. If I'm talking about sexual love, I use another word entirely. What I'm saying is in the Greek language there is a precision that you don't find in other languages. That is something very precious because our New Testament is written in such a precision language. Now I asked my wonderful Greek teacher, mother, before I started the sermon today I said, now mother make sure that I'm pronouncing this right. You see if we were reading this in the original language, we would find that this word 'again' is very interesting. In the Greek language again is translated from two different words. One is palin, and palin is spelled p-a-l-i-n, and that is when we do something over and over again. It's a reoccurring situation which we do again and again. I get up every morning. I brush my teeth. I have breakfast. I get in my car, and I come to my office. Tomorrow I do it again. I get up in the morning. I brush my teeth. I come to work in my office. It's something I do with repetition. It's a repetitious act. But, that's not the word that Jesus used here. He used the word anothen, a-n-o it's a long 'o' t-h-e-n, which means it's something that originates that God does that has a supernatural origin. It comes from the heart of God. Now He does it over and over again because down through the ages of time look at the millions of people that God instituted as His divine directive, as He takes the heart of a human being and transforms that heart and makes it a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Says here's what Jesus is saying, Nicodemus, the thing we've got to talk about is very serious, and you may be a religious man, you may have all the power that's necessary in your city of Jerusalem, and you may be wealthy, but it doesn't amount to anything Nicodemus if you've not experienced and experience that comes from the heart of God that originates in His divine plan which changes you and makes you a new person. Now when you go through the Scriptures will find this truth over and over again. Old Ezekiel said in his writings, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh. What the old prophet is saying is that there is a transaction that can take place in a human heart that only God can do it, and what he is speaking of is life has a tendency to harden us. It fills us with bitterness and sometimes strife, and we talked about scars and wounds. Sometimes all of that piles up inside of us, and as hard as we try, we can't do anything about it. And every time life puts its pressure on us we find that which is on the inside comes out, and oft times it's hatred, and oft times it's anger, but it's there and we come to a point someplace in life; God, I can't handle this. You've got to help me. And only God can change a heart.

I listened the other night to a man give a lecture. He didn't claim to be a preacher. It was a secular program, and he was talking about what's on the inside always comes out. If you squeeze in orange you'll always get orange juice, you'll never get apple juice. He said what's on the inside of us when life puts its squeeze on us, it comes out. And this man said I remember as a little boy the day my daddy walked out and left my mother with me and my two brothers. He never called, he never sent us a dime, and I never heard from him in my lifetime, but I hated him. I watched my mother as she had to spend her life providing for us as children, and his mother was sitting there, an 82-year-old lady, said I watched mother pay the price of a man who walked out and left a family on her hands. And he said I grew with hatred. I said I'll tell you what happened, I'm a writer, and to be a writer you've got to be creative, but as I grew older and that hate became stronger, the creativity of my being froze. You know what hatred does. I mean it sets up a screen that you see everything through that changes everything. And he said I realized that this was growing, and he said I realized that I lost some beautiful friendships, he said, because that was inside me when friends would put the pressure on me, I'd lashed out and as the result I lost my friends. I was a lonely man and I was angry, and I was empty. I said I don't know what you may call it, but I call it God. You may call it a higher spiritual force; remember he's not a preacher. But he said one day I said, God, I can't handle this in a longer, so he said I bought a ticket to Biloxi Mississippi. And he said I got out of the plane and I went to the paupers' cemetery. My dad, he said, died an alcoholic and was buried in a pauper's grave. He said I walked around on that cemetery till I found a little marking, and there was where my dad was buried. I never saw him. I never talked to him. So I stood there and said, God, would You change my heart? Would You give me forgiveness? And he said I looked down at the grave, and he said dad, if you can hear me, I want you to know I love you. He said at that moment as I stood over the old grave something happened inside, everything broke loose. He said, that which was so restrained, he said, my writing skills came back to me. He said I was led to this beautiful lady and now she's been my wife for 20 odds some years, here are my children sitting here tonight. I totally changed, but it took God to change my heart.

It's an act of God. It's something beyond the human capability, and what Jesus is saying is Nicodemus, I want to talk to you about something that originates in the heart of God, and you're the focus if you'll let it be, because only God can do that eternal work in the heart of an individual. Now Peter says it in a different way, in 1 Peter 1:23, and I didn't put the page number, but it's in last part of your Bible there; 1 & 2 Peter, 1 & 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. So it's in that last part of your Bible. 1 Peter 1:23, you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. Now in this particular passage Peter is going to tell us how one is born into the family of God. He's going to pick up the same subject that Jesus is talking with Nicodemus, but he's going to take it from a different point of view, and it's a fascinating one. I got these thoughts out of the commentary written by Dr. James Montgomery Boice. Dr. Boice is a godly man who pastors 10th Avenue Presbyterian Church, I think it's in Philadelphia, and he has for 30-35 years. By the way, I was talking with Ron Walters Sunday night when he preached and we were just talking about writers that are writing today that we really enjoy, some of the fine scholars. And I said, you know, Ron I really like Dr. Boice's writings. He's a godly man, you sense that, brilliant, intelligent, well-trained. He said, you know Don, I agree with you, and he said Dr. Boice needs your prayer. He's dying of cancer, and so when you pray just remember him. So I picked up his book and here's what I found which he wrote about this 1 Peter 1:23. He says, in the first chapter of Peter, Peter has been talking about the means by which a person enters the family of God. That's exactly what Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about. He said, first he has discussed his theme objectively in terms of Christ's death, writing, it is not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you are redeemed, but with the precious blood of Christ as a Lamb without blemish and without defect. So objectively, salvation is through Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, but he goes on to say, the second he discusses the basis for the new birth subjectively pointing out that it occurs through faith. And he writes, through Him you believe in God who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and your hope are in God. Subjectively, it happens through faith in the person of Jesus Christ who is the Lamb of God without blemish. But thirdly, Dr. Boice says, finally having mentioned these truths, Peter goes on to discuss the new birth in terms of God's sovereign grace in the election.

This time, however, he emphasizes that God is the Father of His children and that we are born again spiritually by means of the Word of God, which Peter likens to the male life germ. If we were reading the Latin Vulgate it makes this image of Peter even more clearer than our English version. In the Latin Vulgate Peter uses the word semen. Now when we take these passages together and then add to them all that the Bible has to say about faith and about the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation, we find that we are able to grasp the essential nature of the new birth in terms of human conception. Now oft times spiritual truth is hard for us to grasp. Truth in the abstract is difficult sometimes for us to grasp. So Peter said, I'm going to use something in life that's very clear that has spiritual implications. I go on with Dr. Boice, what happens when a man or a woman is born again? The answer is that God first of all plants within the heart of a person what we might call the ovum of saving faith. For we are told that even faith is not of ourselves, this the gift of God. Secondly, God sends forth the seed of His word so that the seed of the word which contains the divine life within it pierces the ovum of faith that our God has already placed within our hearts, and the result is divine conception. Now, let me say it this way, let's Peter says is that God in His infinite grace prepares the heart with the gift of faith. That's the ovum ready to receive the word. Now I know that I speak with evangelical people and we've been taught that man has a freewill. I will agree, but the freewill has limitations, because the will of man is at enmity against God. The natural man understands not spiritual things therefore the only use he can use his will for this to make evil decisions. He does not have the capacity to making spiritual decision. It's not there. He does have a freewill, but his will is only exercised within the context of its very nature which is enmity against God. So a sinner can't say, well I'm going to become a Christian today. No, you don't take that initiative; God starts it by putting faith in the human heart. And then Peter says, what happens as that environment of faith, that attitude of faith, is there ready to believe, then the word is dropped into the ovum which is divine life and now you have a divine conception.

Let me illustrate. How does this whole matter of setting the situation for a heart to believe, this whole matter of faith, I believe that God uses many, many ways. The faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Sometimes people's hearts become aware of the Word and somebody talks to them about Jesus and shares with them their faith, and the work is begun. The matter of faith begins to rise. The heart becomes open, and then what happens is you put that faith in the setting where the Word of God is implanted (snaps fingers) and you have life. It's amazing. I watch it happen every Sunday. It happened just within the last service, but here on Easter Sunday, the service, the church was full. It was 10:00. The only see that was left was right here (points to front pew). There were 1400 people in this building and that was the only seat left, and a doctor from down in San Francisco comes, but God's already been at work because in his office for the last number of years have been two Christians who have just been feeding him the Word. And he has watched their lives and he'd often say, you know, I don't know what's happened to you. You're so different. They'd say what happened is we've given our life to Jesus Christ and He's our Savior. He'd say, religion again. So week after week, month after month, he sees a vibrant faith and a life that's already been transformed, and the evidence is so clear. So out of all of his rebellion he agrees to come to church, and on Good Friday he comes and he's moved by the service. He says I'm coming back on Sunday. Okay. Here he sits. Now I greeted him and said good morning doctor. Nice to see you. But I'm standing here, and I know the setting, I know that God has already been at work and that man is here because God has already started something. And I'm talking very simply about the meaning of communion, and I see him start crying, and by the time we get to the time we kneel on our knees he's convulsing in prayer. While he's here he pours out his heart to God. He stands, hugs me, greets me, I pray, he finds the person who invited him to church, they have a love match, and I mean he's transformed. A couple Sundays ago all these pews over here were full, and he was sitting here, I think it was last Sunday. He came to me after service and said I want you to meet all my friends. You know what he's doing? At lunch hour he's setting up appointments and he's taking all of his doctor friends to lunch and then telling them about what God's done in his life (congregation claps). It's amazing. So I think there are four or five doctors that have come here and I greet them, and he's so happy his life is transformed. You see what happened, he came, faith was at work in his heart because God had already started the process, the gift of faith, surrounded him with people who were convincing him that there was something different, then I have the joy of planting the seed. And to watch that take place as the seed of God's Word which is alive and dynamic, that transforms lives, that's why I'm against all of this preaching of Christ to appease the sinner and make everybody comfortable in church, the seeker-sensitive church.

I went to a church last year and I thought, that is 3500 people, it's called evangelical church, it's fundamental, I thought man I'm going to hear a great message today. They sang one hymn limpidly and somebody sang a song, and there was this table up on the platform that had a box of candy and some flowers, and you know what the preacher's sermon was? Six ways to please your wife. I thought dear God, what a waste of time. These people are here. They need to hear the Word of God. They need, it's not the teachings of man that will ever change anything, and I know that. That's why Sunday after Sunday we stay so close to the Word because I know that when you put the Word out and God has already created the ovum of faith and the Word is given (snaps fingers) life changes. There was a lovely lady in the last service. She's searching for God. She really wanted something from God. She wanted what Nicodemus was asking about, and at the close of the service she walked up just weeping, she said, Pastor, I want to be born again. Now I know that for the last number of weeks her friends have lived their Christian life in front of her. God has put the seed of faith, the Word this morning came and connected with the faith (snaps fingers) and new life. You see that's what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. Nicodemus I don't care how rich you are, I don't care how much religion you've got, I don't care how powerful you are, until this divine life that originates in the heart of God comes to you, you'll always be searching. It's true isn't it? It's a fantastic conversation. Let's continue with it next Sunday, shall we?

Bow your heads. If you're here today and you say Pastor, I'm just like Nicodemus, I came to church today looking. I know that there is something in life that I'm missing, just like old Nicodemus. I mean, you could say you know life has been good to me, but I'm still empty inside. Jesus understands that. That's why He said to Nicodemus, Nicodemus I don't care how great your resources and I don't care how religious you are, unless you let God do something eternal in your own heart, you'll always be empty. With every head bowed and every eye closed, are you here today and say Pastor, I'm just going to raise my hand to God and by doing that I'm telling God I'm a candidate for that new birth. Would you just raise your hand? You're just simply saying God (yes, yes, yes ...) you're just like Nicodemus. Jesus, I came to church today and I'm looking for reality. Now let's all pray together, and you who raised your hands, we're going to say a prayer with you. Dear Jesus, here I am. You know my heart. I'm searching, but my heart is open and I invite You by Your Holy Spirit to come and live within me. I repent of my sin. I turn to You dear Jesus. I ask You to be my Savior and to take me into Your eternal, to adopt me in Your grace. Here I am dear Jesus. Take my life and use it for Your glory. I meant this prayer with all my heart. Amen? Now listen, if you prayed that, heaven has listened. May God's Holy Spirit fill you now I pray in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.