We have a few expectant mommies in our church family right now. They’re going through a lot of preparation and anticipation, so I wanted to share a little excerpt from a Dave Barry article to help us get started out this morning…
From “The Pain of Childbirth”:
The key to avoiding drugs, according to the natural-childbirth people, is for the woman to breathe deeply. Really. The theory is that if she breathes deeply, she’ll get all relaxed and won’t notice that she’s in a hospital delivery room wearing a truly perverted garment and having a baby. I’m not sure who came up with this theory. Whoever it was evidently believed that men have very small brains. So, in childbirth classes, we spent a lot of time sprawled out on little mats with our pillows while the women pretended to have contractions and the men squatted around with stopwatches and pretended to time them. The swank couples didn’t care for this part. They were not into squatting. After a couple of classes, they started bringing little backgammon sets and playing backgammon when they were supposed to be practicing breathing. I imagine they had a rough time In actual childbirth.
Anyway, my wife and I traipsed along for months, breathing and timing, respectively. We had no problems whatsoever. We were a terrific team. We had a swell time. Really.
The actual delivery was slightly more difficult. I don’t want to name names, but I held up my end. I had my stopwatch in good working order, and I told my wife to breathe.
“Don’t forget to breathe.” I’d say, or. ‘You should breathe, you know.” She, on the other hand, was unusually cranky. For example, she didn’t want me to use my stopwatch. Can you imagine? All that practice, all that squatting on the natural-childbirth classroom floor, and she suddenly gets in this big snit about stopwatches. Also, she almost completely lost her sense of humor. At one point, I made an especially amusing remark, and she tried to hit me. She usually has an excellent sense of humor.
Nonetheless, the baby came out all right, or at least all right for newborn babies, which is actually pretty awful unless you’re a big fan of slime. I thought I had held up well for the whole thing when the doctor, who up to then had behaved like a perfectly rational person, said, ‘Would you like to see the placenta?’ Now, let’s face it. That is like asking. ‘Would you like me to pour hot tar into your nostrils?’ Nobody would like to see a placenta. If anything, it would be a form of punishment.
Jury: We find the defendant guilty of stealing from the old and the crippled.
Judge: I sentence the defendant to look at three placentas.
But without waiting for an answer, the doctor held up the placenta, not unlike the way you might hold up a bowling trophy. I bet he wouldn’t have tried that with people who have matching pillowcases.
The placenta aside, everything worked out fine. We ended up with an extremely healthy, organic, natural baby, who immediately demanded to be put back in the uterus.
All in all, I’d say it’s not a bad way to reproduce, although I understand that some members of the flatworm family simply divide themselves into two.
Sure, becoming a Christian is easy. You just have to be born again. Really? There has never been anything really easy about being born. Why should the idea of re-birth be any more appealing? Wasn’t the first one bad enough?
Then there’s the plight of trying to sell the idea of someone who’s skeptical of what it means to follow Jesus. We sometimes back away from that phrase “born again.” After all, it gets associated with those, you know, radical, obnoxious, Christians. “Born again Christians.”
Here’s the deal: there isn’t some other kind!
Besides giving us this phrase “born again,” John 3 gives us some really important information about becoming a part of God’s Kingdom. It’s more than just an interesting look into the life of a changing Religious leader. It’s Jesus sharing what must happen for someone to enter the Kingdom - to be saved - to go to heaven! It’s a challenge to everyone about the necessity of a change and what must take place in our lives in order to be right with God. Beyond that, it gives us words that we really need to help us share this with other people too. Born again. Rebirth.
We need to reexamine the rebirth that makes us the children of God -- to not shy away from the phrase "born again.” It’s not just for obnoxious people. It turns out that it’s for everyone.
The Rebirth is:
I. Our Great Need
Nicodemus was a member of the sect called the Pharisees - their name means “separatists,” because they separated themselves from the common man by their personal righteousness. They were the conservative Jewish theologians of his day. They have the Law down pat. All you had to do was keep the list of rules, complete with loopholes, and you were in. Like most Jews, Nicodemus was interested in the Messianic kingdom. Only, he wasn’t coming to Jesus to try to trap Him in His words in front of a crowd. He came at night with some honest interest about Jesus and what He intends to do.
John 3:1-2
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
The response that Jesus makes to these words cuts right through the fluff and gets to the point. Apparently, Nicodemus is actually searching for answers in life. He really wants to understand Jesus and what He’s about. In so many words, he’s asking Jesus “What am I supposed to do about You?”
Leave it to Jesus to meet the man where he is and where he needs to be met.
I want to be like that. We need to be good listeners. We need to hear what’s behind the searching words of friends and other people who are interested in Jesus. When people come with their questions, their observations, and sometimes even their crass remarks, we need to listen. Without saying it, many people are asking, “What is it I need to do?!”
It’s like Nicodemus had the wrong Jeopardy question. You know, Jeopardy – Alex Trebec and all of that. That game show where they give the answer and the contestants respond by asking the right question. For many people, the answer is: "Friendship. Security. Acceptance. Financial strategy. A different job." and the wrong question that people have for those answers is, "What is our greatest need in life?" Those things aren’t it. We come seeking some lesser thing and God says, "Here’s what you really need. You need to be reborn"
That night, Nicodemus came with some interests - questions about a worldly kingdom he was trying to earn, questions about how someone like Jesus could fill the bill of the earthly Messiah he was anticipating. But Jesus dealt with Nicodemus’ great need: He needed to be born again.
I don’t know what perceived need brought you here this morning - maybe you feel a need that your children have a chance to learn Christian principles; maybe your marriage is shaky; maybe you’re having trouble dealing with stress; maybe you’re just looking for a place where you’re accepted for who you are. You may find help for those things here, but most important of all is your great need: You need to be reborn in Jesus Christ.
I Peter 1:23
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
There is no other kind of Christian. If you’re a Christ follower, you’ve been born again! If you haven’t, you’re not! The Rebirth is your great need. The rebirth is also…
II. Spiritual in Nature
John 3:3-9 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ’You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
“I tell you the truth…” “amen, amen.” 2X Jesus says it. Anytime He started a phrase by saying this, He was saying, “What I’m about to say is a reliable, dependable, solid, credible, trustworthy truth. Make sure you get this.”
There has to be a rebirth, and it’s spiritual in nature.
Nicodemus seems to have a hard time thinking in spiritual terms, so Jesus explains it further: This rebirth is a birth of water and Spirit.
“born of the Spirit” speaks of the change that God does inside of us:
Ezekiel 36:26-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Titus 3:5
…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,..
Being born of the Spirit is something that takes place in the spiritual realm. You can’t take a picture of it. It’s what God does to our insides.
Being “born of water” relates this rebirth to baptism. Look at it: whatever it is that Jesus is saying about being born of the Spirit He’s also saying about being baptized. They aren’t treated as 2 separate things.
We have 2 extremes, even in our congregation. There are those who would say you must be born of water - There. baptism -- and that clenches it. And they cling to verses like I Pt 3:21: “this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience…” To some, it becomes the ultimate criteria for a person’s status and sincerity, all by the act itself, and that’s all that matters. “Forget whether or not that person is living like a believer. Has he been baptized?”
Ill - Patricia Edwards was telling about how happy their church was when they finally built an addition that included a baptistry in it. Their daughter was pleased too, since she was among those where baptized there. Once, while they were riding down the road with one of the daughter’s friends, they drove by a pond. The friend said, real proudly, “I was baptized in that pond.” Patricia’s daughter, no less proud said, "Oh, I was baptized in a Jacuzzi at our church."
And then there are those who would say you must be born of the Spirit – that technical, physical things don’t matter. After all, what good is an outer act without an inner change? Otherwise we reduce baptism to some good work we do -- or it becomes some act that we can do to anyone, even a tiny child, living or dead, and that person’s inner convictions really don’t matter at all. So we don’t want to overemphasize the act as though it’s all that matters.
Let’s just look at what Jesus says here, “Unless he is born of water and the Spirit a person cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” As a result of studying this passage and others, people who long before believed in Jesus and desired to give their lives to Him come to a conviction that they need to be immersed in water to enter the Kingdom.
This same passage ought to convince people just as strongly that there has to be a rebirth inside.
There’s a spiritual dimension to that rebirth. If this passage especially applies to any one group of people, it’s to those people who think we’re saved by works - to Pharisees - to people who think that by jumping through all the right hoops we earn our way to heaven.
There needs to be a change of heart, not just a good work we do that puts us right with God. Besides, baptism isn’t a good work that we do. It’s God’s work. It’s the place where God invites us to receive His gift. It’s the prescription from the Great Physician that we’ll take if we truly believe it will cure our sickness.
God isn’t interested in giving us a makeover. We need more than a make over -- we need a start over! We need to put the old man of sin to death and be born again and that’s a spiritual process that God does in a person and everything that Bible indicates about it shows it beginning at the occasion of baptism.
Now, what should we do with this information? I think it leaves us with 2 actions that we must do:
1. We must be born again. We must accept the necessity of rebirth by water and Spirit as something we must do. Don’t put it off. Don’t explain it away. Be born again!
2. We must teach the necessity of it. We can’t leave out either water or Spirit as a part of what makes a person right with God. Based on our text, it’s especially wrong to leave out the inner change - Nicodemus had already understood that there needed to be external obedience, but Jesus said a person must have both.
You go ahead and figure out where you fit in all this. I’m in sales, not management! To quote from Glen Beck, “I’m just saying.” I’m just trying to accurately point out what Jesus said about this.
(III. Grounded in Faith)
Nicodemus still didn’t get it. v9 “How can this be?”
Here’s a man who was stuck in non-spiritual thinking.
John 3:10-15
"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. Just 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.
This rebirth is a spiritual phenomenon. You have to understand it’s like the wind. You can’t see it. You don’t know where it comes from. You don’t know where it goes. Still, you see the results of it. Nicodemus still asks, “How does this happen?” To answer, Jesus explains another facet of the rebirth - it’s grounded in faith. You can’t miss that...
v11 - accept our testimony
v12 - you do not believe; how will you believe
v15 - everyone who believes
Without belief, without faith, there is no rebirth.
Num. 21. Israel is in the desert. “The people became impatient because of the journey” and began to grumble. To punish them, God sent snakes among the people, to bite them, and many of the people died. They pleaded with God for help, and God told Moses to make a bronze snake and set it up on a pole. Whenever anyone was bitten, all they had to do was look at the bronze snake on the pole, and they would live.
Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?! If you were out hiking around, and suddenly found yourself bitten by a copperhead or something, wouldn’t you rush over to “Bronze Snakes R US” and get a bronze snake to set up on a pole so you could look at it? Probably not. It’s not conventional. It’s not rational. It’s simply what God said they had to do if they wanted to be cured of one of those nasty snake bites.
Now, what did people say after someone was bitten and looked at the snake on the pole and he lived? “Boy, he sure healed himself.” NO! “God sure had mercy on him, didn’t He?!”
What did a person say about himself after he was bitten and looked at that snake? “Boy, I sure got myself out of that mess!”? NO! “Thank you, God, for saving me from that mess!”
What did a person have to do before he would look at the snake on the pole? He had to believe that it would help him.
The same is true of our rebirth. It’s grounded in faith. “We are saved by grace through faith...the righteous will live by faith…a man is justified by faith...we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand....You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,”
Conclusion:
Can you imagine some stubborn Israelite, half-paralyzed from a snake bite? It will drain away his life within a few minutes if he doesn’t look to the help God prescribed. Can’t you just see him saying, “No. I won’t do it! It’s too simple! It’s insulting. God’s just trying to make me give in, and I’m not going to do it!” Pretty stubborn. Pretty costly. Pretty prideful. All he would have to do is look.
Listen, Jesus Christ was lifted up just like that snake in the desert.
And just like that bronze snake, there is in Jesus Christ a cure for our fatal wound.
Just like the snake in the desert, there’s no work that we do to receive that cure. It has already been all set up for us. We simply have to comply with the conditions to be healed.
And just like that cure in the desert could be received only if a person believed in it, the only way to receive the cure for sin is to first believe in Jesus and what He did for you on the cross...
You need to be born again, and you have the opportunity to do that today. (This Tuesday) July 24, 1972 is my other birthday. On that date, 35 years ago, I was reborn. On the outside, I was lowered into water which symbolized the death of my old person, and the resurrection of a new person. On the inside, God made me reborn – a new creature.
