Scripture: John 3:1-15 (ESV)
“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He 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 him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 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?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 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. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
One of the TV shows I enjoyed watching is the IT crowd. This show is about the IT support crew of a big business, which is really just two geeky guys hiding out in the basement level of a big building. When the phone rings, the first thing they say is “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”. What turning a computer off and on again does is that it reinitialises all the bits of software that run on a computer. But what if a reboot doesn’t fix things? What if it isn’t the software that is broken? Sometimes you need new hardware. Sometimes you have to throw the old computer out, and get a whole new one. A quick fix like a reboot isn’t going to fix things.
In our passage today Nicodemus comes to look for a software fix for his hardware problem. He was a respected religious leader but already he must have known that his fellow Pharisees had doubts about Jesus. So he comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness to talk to him. Maybe he was looking for a new interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, or maybe it was something else that drove him, but he sought Jesus out as the one who had come from God. Nicodemus knew he had to find out more about Jesus and his teachings.
The problem was Jesus tells Nicodemus that nothing short of a complete hardware replacement was needed. For people to enter the kingdom of God, they had to be “born again”. Now this is a phrase we today associate all kinds of things with. But it would have been a new phrase to Nicodemus, and he was understandably puzzled. How could an old man like him start over? What did it really mean to be born again?
Jesus tells him: To be born again means to be born of water and of the Spirit. This is a phrase which means we need to be washed of our sins, and we need the Holy Spirit to come and live in us. Our natural “fleshy” state is so corrupted that it needs a miracle for us to be fixed. We need more than extra religious rules and regulations to keep us on the straight and narrow. We need a completely new heart. That is what it means to be born again.
Tim Keller once pointed out that Gospel isn’t there to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive. Nicodemus was probably a good and morally upright man. But he needed to be made spiritually alive. Only new birth in the Holy Spirit could do that.
So how do we get the new birth? Well Jesus ties the story back to Moses who lifted the serpent up in the wilderness. You can go and read about this for yourself in Numbers 21. But in essence what happened is that Israel was afflicted by venomous snakes and so God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent, and if someone was bitten by the snake, they could look up to the bronze serpent, and they would be healed.
That is how this new birth works too. Just like the Israelites were healed by looking at the bronze serpent, we find salvation by looking to Jesus lifted up on the cross. We can’t manufacture salvation, we can’t make it happen ourselves. We can only look to the way out God has graciously provided. We can only look to Jesus.
Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that I do not have to rely on myself for my salvation. Thank you that I can know that my efforts will never be enough. Lord, I need you to renew my heart through your Holy Spirit every day. Please keep working in me. Amen.
Spiritual Challenge
Today, take a moment to reflect on areas in your life where you've been relying on your own strength. Ask God to transform your heart in this area.
Upgrading the Human Heart