from John's gospel, starting in chapter 3 verse 1. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that your 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. 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 it sound, but you don't 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 is 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. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he is not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. This is the word of the Lord. Father in heaven, we ask that you truly through the power of the Holy Spirit would do a work in every life, that we would be made different because of these very well-known words from John 3. Bless this time of the preached word, truly bring us all to yourself, that we might understand the significance of what you have done for us in Jesus, and whose name we pray, amen. Because of the very words of this text, this church of the last several years has been deeply committed to the work of church planting. You will soon be hearing, if you haven't already, that a vision called the 2020 vision, which was the dream given to us by God to plant 100 churches by 2020, has already taken place. 103 churches, the works of God, have been put in place as a result of God's faithfulness, God's faithfulness in using this body to have a vision for His mission to change the world. That is an unbelievable thing that God has accomplished. It's not something that we could have done in our own strength, with our own resources, be they great, be they many, it's something that only God can do and did. And now we as a church have this great moment of stepping back, looking at that history saying, wow, look, look what he's done, the vision that he put on a few men's hearts, on a missions committee, on a group of elders and deacons to simply say yes, we believe God's calling us to do that. And I remember when I first heard of it, I thought that is a very, very big vision. That truly is something that only God could do to think of 100 churches being planted by 2020. It's truly in many ways unheard of. But now, in the early parts of 2011, to know that that task has been accomplished. It leaves us saying, now what? What might the Lord do next? What is He calling us to? Whatever it is, it will be back to this text. It will be back to the idea that there is a God who saves His people, who came to rescue them from a world that's perishing. And because of that we go. And the reason I start there today is because you may not know much about that 2020 vision. You may have heard of it a few times and announcements are in a sermon over the years, but brothers and sisters, you need to lean in. You need to look and see what the Lord truly is doing through this body because it's amazing. And it is not something that we credit any man or any woman. We credit our God and say God be praised, truly God be praised. There will be videos coming out over the next several weeks and months. There will be news and kingdom moments about this work where you'll be introduced to pastors and people in faces around the world who have been changed as a result of this. Because God is a missionary God. He's changing the world and He's using His body to do it. We have the privilege of being a small part. Sometimes when we get engaged in evangelistic activities, we aren't really sure what the result is going to be. And often times Christians make a statement that sounds very much full of faith, but in reality it's probably a bit of a disclaimer. And the statement goes like this, well if at least one person is saved, then it's all worth it. That's true because if you consider hell and one person is saved from hell, then indeed it is all worth it. But I think often we make that statement because we're not really sure that the effort is going to work. Or if it's really going to accomplish what we hope. So we simply make that statement. If one person is saved, then it's worth it. How many of you have ever made that statement? How many of you have ever heard that statement being made? One example perhaps is when you watch a football game. And there in between the goal post, later today you'll see it. Someone holding a sign that says John 3, 16. Think about this sign from behind the scenes for a moment. Someone obviously you at least think has to be a believer to think, I've got these seats, I've got these seats for purpose, I'm going to make the gospel known simply by continuing the tradition that was started by a man who was wearing a rainbow Afro wig. And I'm going to hold it up high. John 3, 16. And you look at it. And depending on your perspective, you may think it's a waste of ink and paper. Or you may pray at that moment. May someone see that and come to Christ. I'm not sure where you land. But my perspective on that whole sign and that whole scene was changed about eight and a half years ago. I was in Tampa. I was leading an organization called the Youth and Ministry Institute. An organization through Covenant Theological Seminary. And we were hosting a youth event at the Tampa Bay Aquarium. We asked the woman to share her testimony. She was a diver. She worked at the aquarium and worked in the huge aquarium tank. Where she simply put on her suit, went into the deep waters with sharks and all kinds of marine life around her. And began to speak of something we call general revelation. General revelation is the idea that in nature God has revealed Himself in such a way that men really are without excuse. When we look up at the stars or consider that things have been created that are at the depths of the sea, that no man's eye can ever even see, God's done that. And truly he's done great things. He's an amazing God. So she began to speak of general revelation showing us different incredible intricacies of this marine life. But then she moved to talk about something called special or specific revelation. And special and specific revelation is God's Word revealed through His Spirit, pointing us to the way of salvation. And there she took a sign clearly waterproof that said John 316. I thought she was simply showing us the sign because this would be her proof text, so to speak. But that wasn't the case, at least not alone. She went on to say that on a Sunday afternoon watching the football some years before she saw that sign between the go-post. She was at a party with a number of friends not growing up in the Bible belt. She had no idea what it meant. She had seen it before but she had never had the courage to ask the question. What's the question? The question is what does that sign mean? So finally with the comfort of a friend she felt she could trust kind of coming to him quietly, she said, what does that sign mean? He looked at her, dumbfounded. How do you not know what John 316 means? She said I've never seen it before. He said it's a Bible verse. This is what it says. He was a Christian considering that this probably was a providential moment given to him by God. He should be obedient to the prompting of the Spirit. He explained the gospel that she gave her life to Christ. One soul worth it. Behind the scenes today, someone probably is going to take a sign and maybe writing it even now. And you may look at it and think, does it really make a difference? I don't know if it will or not, but the focus this morning is what happens truly behind the scene for any of us. John 316 is the most well-known verse in all of the world. That's dangerous isn't it? It's so dangerous because we can become so comfortable with it that we don't truly allow the meaning of it to swell deeply into our heart of what God is saying. But this morning what I want to do is move behind the scenes of even John 316. We're in the middle of a series on the Holy Spirit. Let me remind you very quickly how I have framed this. We're going to be in this journey for several weeks. I've said that we're framing it like a puzzle and that there are four sides to this puzzle. The first side reveals the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing God's word to us. We've been spending some time there the last few weeks. Today we're turning the corner. We're going to the right hand side of the puzzle so to speak. And here we're talking about the way in which the Holy Spirit draws us to Christ. How does the Holy Spirit draw us to the person of Christ? The third side of the puzzle is that the Holy Spirit makes us light Christ and the fourth side is that He calls us and sustains us in ministry with the sake of Christ. So today we're talking about how the Holy Spirit draws us to Christ. How does He do it? Over the next three weeks I'm going to impact these things. First, He uses questions. Second, He uses pain. Third, He uses people. Questions, pain, people. Today we're just going to focus on questions. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit prompts in the minds of people who is drawing to Christ questions. Those questions can be born out of curiosity, out of emptiness, out of discouragement, out of just a true seeking. Or the questions can even be put in your mind and you have no idea why they're there. That's actually my testimony. I was at a young life camp. 1982, June 23rd. And something in my mind said there's something wrong with you. I'd never had that thought before. I didn't hear the speaker that week because I didn't go to the meetings. I didn't have time with my group because that was boring. But the Spirit of God put in my mind this question or this statement. Something's wrong with you. God's Spirit uses questions that take us to God to ask for answers. And when we go to God and ask for answers, we're amazed to see that He deconstructs the life that we have been building. That which we have been building and pursuit perhaps even of Him. That's what's happened here. I want to unpack John 316 by looking at the story of Nicodemus. This story is far greater and bigger than you understand. It's amazing to see the dialogue that takes place between Jesus and Nicodemus. So open your Bible or turn to it and you're bulletin. And let's begin at verse 1 of chapter 3. As John writes this gospel and this first verse of chapter 3 says, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. So that statement alone, this is what we understand. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Pharisees built their life around perfect obedience to the law. They wanted to be so perfect in their obedience that they added to the law so that they would not in any way break it. Pharisees were the group of people that Jesus had the hardest things to speak to. The hardest things to say. And as he said to them throughout the gospels, we see that they missed it. They've been so consumed with the wrong things that they missed the savior of the world. Nicodemus wasn't just a Pharisee. He was a ruler amongst the Pharisees which means that he taught people how to live this life, to build this paradigm, to build this construct that said this is what you must do to see the kingdom of God. That's what he was doing. But something happened to Nicodemus. Questions about Jesus began to enter his mind. I would say perhaps they kept him up at night. And so in verse two it says that this man came to Jesus by night. John does not waste words. What does he mean? It's possible that he was just seeing Jesus as a teacher and wanted to go have a teacher to teacher discussion. And that night time would allow a little more lengthy discussion to take place. That is possible. But most commentators and I agree with them would say that he had so much to lose. If Nicodemus was seen by others as moving to have this dialogue with Christ, it could cost him great things. And so by the cover of night, he went to have a discussion with Jesus. It's interesting. Jesus never rebukes him for this. That encourages me. I think some of you need to go have a conversation with Jesus. And it's okay if you need to go in the cover of the night. If you feel that you will be ridiculed by your family, by friends, by coworkers, that's okay. Begin now. Go have a conversation with Jesus by night. Nicodemus shows up to speak with Jesus. And it's interesting that we know that Jesus does not receive a question from Nicodemus. But in Nicodemus's first statement to Jesus, there is a great question that can easily be inferred. Verse 2, Nicodemus speaks to Jesus. He says, Rabbi, which was a very honorable way to approach Jesus. Is it me saying, I too am a teacher and you are a teacher. Let's have this discussion. 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. Now, what's the question behind that statement? I believe the question behind that statement is Nicodemus saying, who are you? Really? Who are you? I can't deny the things that I've seen you do, even though I've been teaching these things and believing these things, I can't deny what you're doing. Who are you? Jesus, in one sentence, does as much as Paul does, all of his works to deconstruct a man-centered, fairysaical view of how to get eternal life. In one sentence, Jesus deconstructs a lifetime of everything Nicodemus believed. Do you see that? Listen to what Jesus says. Jesus answered him in verse 3, truly, truly, which means I'm telling the truth. I am speaking the truth. Truly, truly, Jesus said, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Truly, truly, I say to you, that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And all the things that Nicodemus thought about, as he felt the courage finally swell to go speak with Jesus, he never thought this is the first thing Jesus would say to him. He had no idea what to do with it. He speaks back. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter into 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. Well, let me camp here for a minute. You are not a Christian. I am not a Christian. Your children, parents, neighbors, friends, co-workers are not Christians, unless they're born of the spirit. No one comes to Christ unless first they are born of the spirit. The spirit must do a work in the person that causes their dead heart to beat so that they can embrace this Jesus who's offered in the gospel. It's not true for some who believe in predestination and some who call themselves Presbyterians. It's Jesus' words. This is Jesus' proposition. He says it twice to Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What that means is that you had nothing to do with it. Nothing. Zero. You had no more to do with it than you did with your own natural birth. Nothing. Nicodemus has built a life around constructing a structure so that he can get to heaven. And in one sentence, Jesus crumbles it by saying Nicodemus, it's outside of you. It's only by the power of God. Only God can do this. So John 3.16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Whoever believes in him believes in him because he or she is born of the spirit. That's the gospel. That is Jesus' words. Nicodemus obviously had much to think about. Jesus in verse 7 says, Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who was born of the spirit. That's pretty amazing. You know what that means? It means that at the moment the woman was in the living room. Amongst friends watching a football game that a question was prompted in her mind by the Holy Spirit. Courage was given to her by the Holy Spirit that led her finally to say, what does that mean? Who is this person? Who are you? And the spirit working with the Word of God, specific revelation, opens a heart to believe. And if you're a Christian, that's what happened to you. If you're a Christian, that's what happened to you. And in all the churches that God calls us to plant, that's what has to happen there. It is not anything we do. Unless you are born of the spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus had his entire construct just busted, broken, shattered. When we go to Jesus with our questions, the answers he gives often do that very thing. I'm going to pause. I got about 10 more minutes worth. And I'm going to pause. This is a good stopping point, but I'm going to give you homework. The greatest enemy of the gospel is what we confessed earlier in our service, that trying to cover our guilty conscience, we use good works. Brothers and sisters, you were never going to be good enough to merit your way to have it. That is true. And you know it. God gives us birth through a spirit, and it's nothing we did. I'm going to close. It's hard to close in the middle of a sermon, but I'm going to close. In order to know whether you have been born of the spirit or not, your focus moves from birth to death. It moves from the nursery to the grave. It moves from the manger to a tomb. I want to read one thing. Don't turn there, just listen. It's John 19. Jesus is dead. After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly was a disciple for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Now listen to those next verse. Really listen. Nicodemus. Also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, John isn't wasting any words. Came bringing a mixture of murr and allos, about 75 pounds in weight. What he brought was not unusual, but the amount was very unusual. It was the amount that would be given to royalty. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in their cloths with the spices as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a gardener. And in the garden, a new tomb, and in which no one had been laid. So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. They, Joseph and Nicodemus. Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, is now there, touching the body of the Savior. And three days later, that body would be gone. I wonder what began to happen in Nicodemus' mind, as he recounted what Jesus said. Jesus in one sentence broke the paradigm of Nicodemus' life, telling him that it was only a work that God could do. If you're a Christian, it's because God has worked. If you're on your way to being a Christian, questions are being prompted in your mind. It's because God is at work. When God is at work, we can't stop it. When God is at work, there's an assurance that Fanny Crosby spoke of when she wrote this song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Let's sing that hymn together, knowing the reality and what he has started, he will complete.