Let's pray, Father God, we thank you that you love us and shine the light of your goodness into our lives into this dark world. And as we are so oftentimes moved to pessimism, even cynicism about ourselves in the world in which we live, you restore our hope. And so Father, we give you thanks that every week you set aside a day for your people to gather and to rest, and not only rest physically, but to rest spiritually in your son, Jesus Christ, to know that the great work of our redemption is accomplished and it is now being applied. And so even though we see darkness in the world, we do not lose heart. We fix our eyes on what is not seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal. So Father, meet us in our deepest needs this morning. Restore our hope. Remind us that we are loved. Remind us that we are yours and we are moving toward you every day, even though with the ebbs and flows of life it might feel otherwise moment to moment. We pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I want to tell you, I'm not a big fan of daylight savings time. I think it's moronic personally. And I think it's kind of like a tax return. I said this last night on Facebook. It's like the government takes away something from you all year and then gives it back to you and acts like they've done you a huge favor and we all rejoice, but it's really just a shell game, right? No added hour, but it feels like it. And I got to tell you, this is the best attendance at an early service. I've seen it with a creek in a long, long time. And as I was driving here, I'm not immune to that either. I was like, man, this is the most awake I felt for an early service in a long, long time. That's a little secret of the pastor's plate. The early service is a rough thing. Those of you who come week to week to the early service, there is a special crown waiting for you in heaven. You've endured some groggy preaching. But this morning, hopefully you won't. We're going to be going into God's word. We're going to be looking at the passage you see in your bullet in this morning. That's John chapter two versus 23 through 25. But we are going to transition also into chapter three this morning and talk about that famous man, Nicodemus, and we'll do so again next week as well. So let's hear this morning's passage and then we'll also go into chapter three in a bit. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man. For he himself knew what was in a man. Now if you remember the flow of the gospel of John, Jesus has now performed two great signs, one converting water into wine. And we were careful to note that it wasn't just any water. It was the water set aside for ritual purification. The Jews have been taught over many centuries that they were unclean before the Lord. That if they would be in the Lord's presence and know his blessing, they'd have to be purified. They'd have to be cleansed. The question was, how would they be cleansed? In the Old Testament, they were giving various purification rights and one of them involved that use of water contained in stone pots very, very large. And these were the pots that were at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where Jesus performed his first miracle. He turned the water in those pots, not just any water into wine. And what was Jesus prefiguring? He wasn't only ensuring a great party, which in fact he did. He was also showing us his work. He was foreshadowing what he had come to accomplish, that through his shed blood symbolized by wine in the Lord's Supperus, we'll observe today. Jesus would purify us from sins and turn the water of purification really into the wine of celebration. That we can rejoice because of what Christ, his done and his doing and would do during that first century. His second sign was in the temple, where he went into the temple and saw money changers and others ripping off God's people. He saw the house of the Lord defiled the temple of God defiled and he purified it. He grabbed a whip of cords and with holy zeal, he drove out of the temple, those who would take advantage of God's people, impede the progress of God's people toward the very grace that God came to reveal in his son. And so here in the end of chapter two, there's a transitionary phrase and editorial comment into the mind of Jesus Christ, where the apostle John inspired by God's spirit says that many believed in Jesus when they saw these kinds of signs. They knew he was somebody teaching and preaching with great authority. Many believed others did not as we'll see, but Jesus on his part, John notes, did not entrust himself to anyone. Why? Because he knew what was in a man. He knew that we're not trustworthy. And here by this, John is signaling that there's something wrong in human nature, that Jesus was very much aware of as the second person of the Trinity of God and something he came to change and something that he knew he could not entrust himself to. There was a darkness in the human heart and in chapter three with Nicodemus, we're going to see just how dark that condition is, just how lost we are apart from God's grace. Many of you here at Willow Creek, you know Bud Lang. He actually was a member here for many, many years. I think way back to the storefront, but he recently relocated back to his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to be near family in his later years. But if you know Bud, if you ever crossed his path, you know, that was hilarious. It was just always a cut up, always sharing jokes and so on. And so every once in a while, it's a privilege of the staff here, along with the elders and others, to teach at our midweek meeting of salt. That's a ministry we have here, seniors approaching life together. It's one of the best ministries at the church. I'm totally convinced of that. These people are wonderful. They love one another, they love the church. And they get together weekly to share time fellowship, snacks, other things, encouragement, prayer, and spend time in God's word. Well, I went to teach at one of these things one morning and quite frankly, I was feeling a little nervous because it was early on in the ministry here and I didn't know everybody in the room very well and Bud came up to me and said he wanted to tell a joke to me. And I want to share the joke with you because it illustrates what Jesus is saying here and what John is saying of Jesus here. He said that one morning, a man woke up and he found that his dog was dead and he was really sad about it and in disbelief. He didn't want to believe that the dog was actually dead. He refused to believe the dog was dead. So he packed the dog up, took it to the veterinarian and wanted a medical professional to look at the dog, confirm his worst fear, or hopefully, resuscitate the dog if he was just simply terribly sick. So he took him to the vet but he didn't have much money. So he asked the veterinarian, you know, before we get this underway, how much is this gonna cost and the veterinarian said, well, if it's just looking at your dog, I'll just charge a 50 bucks. Well, that $50 was a lot of money to the guy and he said that's really all I have but I love this dog, please go ahead. Please look at this dog and give me your diagnosis. So the vet takes one look at the dog for 50 bucks, two seconds later, yeah, he's dead. He's totally dead and the guy's just heartbroken. He can't believe it. He refuses to believe it. So he says, I'm sorry, I want a second opinion. I can't even bear that news. And so the guy says, well, I can do that. And so he whistles and a Labrador retriever comes into the office and a Labrador retriever rounds the dead dog, hooks him over, sniffs at him, then comes over, the veterinarian sits down and then he nods his head to the veterinarian. And the veterinarian said, yep, dog says your dog's dead and the guy's just taking a back. He's emotionally traumatized. He can't believe what's happening. He's like, that's not gonna cut it. I'm gonna need another opinion. The veterinarian said, hold on, no problem. So he whistles again, a cat comes in and rounds the dog and the cat comes over the vet, sits on the floor, nods his head. And he says, yep, there, you got three opinions, dog's dead. And so the guy's like, I can't believe this dog's dead. I got in team somewhere else. He says the veterinarian, so how much did you say that I owed you? And he said, well, that'll be $100. So $100, I thought you said $50. He said that was $50, but then you had lab work and a cat scan done. Yeah, I had the savory action. But if you know fun, that's hilarious. The guy's just awesome. And that just, you're really in a goofy way. Acknowledge is something in human nature, which is we don't want to admit how bad things actually are when our hearts are wrapped up in them. We want to believe the best about a situation, not the worst, and we'll go to great lengths to try and prove that things aren't as bad as they are. Deep down, we want to believe that we're fundamentally better off than we actually are. Now, how does this translate itself into the church and the ministry? Well, quite frankly, in our day and age, in our country, it translates into forms of ministry very, very tangible and easily recognizable. Many people don't want to believe the worst about themselves. They want to believe the best. And so they look for churches with preachers who are kind of motivational speakers, who are teaching them that deep within their hearts is goodness, and all they need is kind of like a secret knowledge, some techniques, some checklists, some things that they can do to bring that out, to accentuate the positive. They want a therapeutic form of religion. They don't want to admit that things are really as bad as they are. They want to believe that they can make things better, and they just need life coaches, mentors, motivational speakers, Tony Robbins with the seminary degree. They want people like that to come alongside them and tell them what's getting in the way of them being all that they really are, if all the clutter of the world and of themselves will be cast out of the way. Today, many, many people pursue churches and preaching that tickles the ears with those high and lofty visions of human development and potential. But Jesus, the apostles, the Old Testament prophets are not so optimistic about human nature. And therefore, a ministry that's built upon God's word really can't be that optimistic about human nature either. Our situation is much more dire than we want to admit. And even though we want a second and third and fourth opinion, the diagnosis keeps coming back from the throne of God. You're not merely wounded. You're not merely hurting. You're not merely missing out. Your condition is dire. You're dead, apart from God's grace. You've lost the desire and the ability to please God. You don't have eyes to see God. You don't have ears to hear God. You are in a very, very bad way. Now, many people kick and strive against this. Me, one of them, daily, I don't want to believe that I as a messed up, as hurt, as broken, as I actually am, even now in Christ, let alone before coming to Christ. But that's the difficulty. It's an offensive message. It strikes against our deepest hopes and longings about ourselves, even in subtle and insidious ways. If we're dead people who need to come back to life, then our problem isn't that we're good people who need to become better. It's that we're dead. We need to come back to life. And that's something that we cannot do. Salvation cannot be of our own doing. It must come from the outside, not just in part, but totally. And that's offensive to human pride. We don't want to hear it. Jesus didn't entrust himself to those around him because he knew what was in their hearts. That they didn't really want him. That they didn't really want a solution from the outside. They wanted something that they could control and manufacture. And that's what brings us to a guy named Nicodemus.
When we go into John chapter three, we read these words versus one through three. Now, 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 him, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Let me just give you a couple of things from these first few verses that lay the foundation for the dialogue that Jesus is going to engage in with this Pharisee Nicodemus. The first one is, if you didn't grow up in the church and you've not really read your scriptures very often through your life, you're not alone. There are many, many people today that have not grown up in the church, haven't read the scriptures. Don't even know what a Pharisee is. And let me just explain to you that a Pharisee was a religious leader in the time of Christ. There were many different kinds of religious leaders. There were Sadducees, there were scribes. There were others that served in different functions in and around Jerusalem where Jesus was ministering, Judea, Samaria, those towns. But the Pharisees were the most popular among the common people. And you know what? The Bible presents the Pharisees in a very negative light. But you know, if you were to live back then, you probably would have fought very highly of them. Unlike so many others, they really had a high view of God's word. They believed that the scriptures of the Old Testament were God's word. They believed that God was going to send a Messiah. They believed in an afterlife. They believed in the supernatural when many people living at that time didn't. They thought that only this life was what mattered. And after it, well, we don't know. But the Pharisees held to central core truths that we as Christians today would affirm. In many ways, they were the heroes of the people at that time. But they made a critical error developed over centuries of their teaching. And that was a desire to obey the law of God as a means to present themselves in their own efforts and religious striving as acceptable to God. And so zealous were they to obey the law of God that they built human laws and traditions around the law of God and added to the law of God and said, we want to so protect obedience to the law of God, we're going to build a hedge of protection around it so that even if we break those human traditions, we still won't have come near breaking the law of God. Well, what were the Pharisees doing? They were really underestimating human nature and sin. They did not view themselves as dead spiritually toward God. They viewed themselves as wounded, perhaps needing a savior. But as those who could cooperate with God, God had graciously revealed his law. And if they, in their own power and function, could come in line with the word of God and teaching the word of God and even exceed it, then they would make themselves acceptable to God. It was a works based kind of system of salvation. What you do determines whether you're acceptable to God. And so this led to a lot of religious resolve. They were very, very religious in a negative sense. They were trusting in their religiosity. They were trusting in their moral muscle. We're going to exceed those around us. And so you see Pharisees in the Gospels praying and then pointing to sinners around them saying, thank you God that I wasn't born like him or her a sinner, but I am righteous. Praise God, I'm good because that person over there is awful. Well, when you minimize your own sin, what happens? You start to feel very good about yourself, right? You start to feel very, very good about yourself and you become contemptuous of those around you. You become arrogant and prideful. You also not only do you not take your sin and it's depth seriously enough. You raise the bar of your sin out from the depths up to here where it's more manageable, you lower the holiness of God. You see, you simultaneously lift yourself up, but you bring God down because his standards and his laws aren't merely external things, right? They're internal things. So when the Pharisees could say, I've never committed adultery or I've never stolen anything. When they could say those things, they're externalizing all that. That's why Jesus in the sermon on the mountain says, so many times you've heard it was said, don't do this, but I tell you, if you've even looked at another person lustfully, you've committed adultery in your heart. Jesus says about murder. Most of us could say we've never committed murder. Jesus says, if you've ever had anger in rage in your heart toward your brother, you've committed murder. It's not merely externals. God's holiness is not merely a matter of appearances. It's the internals. It goes deep down. The Pharisees were actually lessening the commands and demands of God's law while exalting themselves. And so that's what a Pharisee was. And out of their number comes this guy in the middle of the night, Nicodemus. Now he's obviously heard of what Jesus has done in the temple. That was a very public thing. He's maybe heard of other signs and wonders that Jesus performed. We know from the gospels that the gospel writers didn't record all of the miracles that Jesus performed. And he's intrigued and he comes under the darkness of night. He wants to talk to Jesus. The man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God. He acknowledges that Jesus is a rabbi. He honors him. He calls him a rabbi. So there's at least an openness in Nicodemus that this guy, Jesus, might be something he needs to pay attention to. He's not immediately casting him aside but he doesn't see Jesus in his fullness. He says he's a teacher come from God. Well, there are many teachers that have come from God down throughout the ages. Is that all Jesus is? Is Nicodemus questions? And he said, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. He doesn't know that Jesus himself is God. But listen to what Jesus says. Jesus answered him truly, truly, verily, verily. I say to you, unless one is born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. And this is just awesome vintage Jesus. Jesus, so often time the master teacher, wants to take those who need to drink the living water and he wants to make them thirsty first, right? He wants to create a dilemma in their mind, a perplexity that they can't solve so that they hunger in thirst for the resolution, the answer. And he says, unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Well, where is the Pharisee spirituality? It's all in the externals. It's very superficial, right? And so when he hears, I must be born again. He's automatically thinking, oh, I can't do that. How could I possibly be born again? So that brings us to verse four. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time and do his mother's womb and be born? You remember, sometimes you talk to a little children about Jesus and you say to a little child that Jesus is in their heart and they look at their chest like, what? Like how could Jesus be in my heart? They think very concretely when they're young. Well, this is Nicodemus. This is where he is. He's not thinking spiritually as much as he's thinking physically regarding the flesh. 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. So what Jesus is saying is, is this new birth is not a physical reality, Nicodemus. It's a spiritual change. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Don't be shocked that I said that. 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's born of the spirit. Now let's break these verses down just for a second. The first thing I want you to see is that when Jesus says that those who will enter into the kingdom must be born of water in the spirit. He's not referring in context to the water of baptism as though being baptized saves you. Sometimes we as a Presbyterian church often times our question, when we baptize folks, do you believe that the waters of baptism save them? And the reason we're asked that is we baptize the children of believers, not only professing Christian believers in young adulthood or adulthood. And that subjects much too deep and complex to get into right now. We could do that later, but the answer to that is no. We don't believe that the external waters of baptism regenerate, bring to new life, anybody we don't. And Jesus is not referring to the water of baptism here. What he's referring to is the motif that John has already introduced earlier at the wedding of Cana Galilee where the waters of purification were transformed to wine. You need to be cleansed. If you're gonna see the kingdom of God, you need to be cleansed, cleansed of your sin. Now, how does that cleansing come by the spirit? The spirit of God who with the refiner's fire refines us, removes sin. As we grow in our faith in Christ, gradually we grow in holiness. One day we'll die. Our flesh will go down to the grave. Our spirit will raise to new life. What is so perishable can decay will be raised imperishable. We'll dwell in the fullness of the kingdom of God in a glorified state, sinless. We will be forever purified. How does that purification come? Jesus says it comes through being born again. Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 27. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there. Ezekiel 36, verses 24 through 27. The Old Testament prophet prefigured this, this cleansing of the spirit, and likened it to water. And this is to what Jesus is referring in this passage. Ezekiel 36, I will take you from the nations, my people, and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, the water of purification, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Notice the change there. This is just brilliant. This is not something a human being could have ever made up. This is revealed from God. Ezekiel says that the order is God will gather his people. He will make them one people again. He will take away their heart of stone. He will give them a heart of flesh. He will cleanse them from all their unrighteousness with the water of his spirit's purification. And then what will they do in response? They will be careful to obey my rules. It's not the other way around. It's not obey my rules, get it right, and then I'll clean you up. It's not obey my rules, make yourself clean, and then I'll let you in. It's I will seek you out. I will rescue you. I will resuscitate you. Then I'll, in that cleansing and purifying, then I'll receive you and then with a new heart that's standing in awe. That once I was dead, but now I'm alive. Once I was blind, now I see. Once I was deaf, now I hear, oh, now, what can I do? But obey God. I'm not obeying God just to be religious to flex my moral muscles. I'm obeying God now because I can't do otherwise. I am filled with the love for God that flows from knowing I was loved when I was unlovable. This message strikes at the root of what Nicodemus in the Pharisees believe. Nicodemus in verse nine 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've seen, but you do not receive our testimony. There's something very interesting in there going on in the Greek, and that is the first thing he says, truly, truly, I say to you, that's a singular pronoun. Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we've seen, but you plural, all of you Pharisees, not just you Nicodemus, all of you Pharisees, you don't receive our testimony. Why? Cause you're thinking according to the flesh. According to what you can do, if I've told you earthly things and you don't believe, how can you believe it if I tell you heavenly things? You know, Paul echoes that in 1 Corinthians chapter two, verse 14. He said, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, the natural person, the person who lives according to the flesh and worldly wisdom, can't accept the things of God for their folly to him. If you ever had a conversation with somebody who doesn't share your faith and you outline what you believe, and even as you're outlining it, you're starting to, you sympathize with them, you don't hold them in contempt. You feel great compassion, you're like, I get it. I remember what it was like to not believe these things, these things do sound a little nuts, but I have the spirit of God and I know they're true. I know they're true, God is testified to them, I trust them. And Paul goes on to say, he's not able to understand because they're spiritually discerned until you have the spirit. You can't understand these things. What Jesus is highlighting to Nicodemus is, you think you know all these things because you've looked at them according to worldly wisdom, according to your flesh, but no one can see God according to the flesh. What they do, it's only by the spirit and that spirit's not a man, but of God. It's God's sovereign power. That's why it's like into the wind. It comes from here, it goes there, nobody can control it. John 3 verse 13, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man, and his Moses was lifted up, lifted up the servant, serpent in the wilderness so much the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. We'll get into that more next week, but Jesus is referring to his coming death. He's saying that it's only by his gracious offering of life on the cross that we can be reconciled to God. It's not through our religious striving, it's through Christ striving on our behalf, it's not our work, it's his work. It's him fulfilling the law of God for us, offering a perfect sacrifice to God the Father, to take away God's wrath and to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf. It's not only that Jesus took away God's wrath when he died on the cross, it's that his perfect life of righteousness is now that record given to you. You're cleansed of your impurities, but not only cleanse so that you stand neutrally before God, God imparts to you by his spirit, the record of Christ's holiness. So listen carefully, when God the Father looks at you, he sees the holy record of his son Jesus Christ. Wow, it's not only that God looks at you and says, yeah, no problem, let it go. It's that God looks at you, listen, the Father, the same gaze that the Father looks at the Son that same gaze is now his gaze into your eyes. The arms of the Father around the Son Jesus Christ are the same arms that are now around you. What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is a rebuke. You think you know, but you don't. You don't have a clue. And that's the point of this morning's message. Without being humble, you won't see God. Only those who've come to the end of themselves and listen to the degree that you've come to the end of yourself is the degree to which you'll see God. If we trust in ourselves to whatever degree, we shroud God's glory in our life. Now, one day, as though we look through a glass darkly, we'll see face to face, God will remove the human pride and stain of corruption, but don't be misled. We can grow in holiness now. And it should be our desire to grow, to see Christ more clearly, to see the line of our sin go down and the line of God's holiness go up so that the gap in between is so great, we are under no delusion that we could cross it. It's only him. And when it's only him, he gets the glory. And when it's only him, he captivates our hearts and our attention. When it's us in whole or in part, we're glory seekers. We're robbing God of his glory. What does that mean? Two things. One, and listen carefully. It means that religion, Christianity, can become as big an obstacle to knowing God, as it can become a pathway to enjoying him. If you're trust this morning is the fact that you're here, well, number one, you cheated because it's our later, it's the early service. You don't get extra credit this morning. But if you're trust is the fact that you're here, that you're a good person. And you know what, if you grew up in the church, you're probably not going to be that audacious. You're probably not going to say that. You know, very few people that grew up in the church are going to be so stupid as to say in a group surrounding Christians. Yeah, I'm a church, so I'm good. We all know we're going to get a rebuke on that. But here's the thing, here's the real test. When you're not good, do you think God despises you? Do you think that he doesn't want to hear your prayers after you've messed up? Do you put off your prayers of confession because you worry that God's not going to receive you? If you do, in whom are you trusting? Christ's righteousness or your own, yourself. We're all idolaters, we all drift. The second thing that I want you to see is this. And it's not implied in this text directly, but it's worked out in other texts on the same theme, is when hardship enters your life, difficulties and suffering enter your life. When you are at the very end of your rope, that's when God shows up in the biggest way. Because it's then that you surrender and know, it's all him, it's all his glory. So I know some of you are going through very, very difficult circumstances this morning. I know some of you have health issues, you have family issues, financial issues, whatever. I'm not making light of any of those, they're significant, they hurt, but what I want you to see is that you're not hopeless in those. In those periods of greatest darkness, that's when the light of Christ shines the brightest. You've come to the end of yourself. What seems like a curse is actually a blessing. To be a Pharisee seemed to be a blessing in the eyes of the people. What Jesus reveals here and over the course of his ministry, it was a curse. They were trusting in themselves. Come to the end of yourselves, there's pain, there's death, death to self, but ironically, you can be born again. Let's pray, Father, we thank You so much that You love us, that You never cast us aside, that Your desire is to redeem us, to move us out of darkness and delight. Father, it's painful because it means letting go of our idols, the things we cling to and trust beside You. It involves saying and believing the worst things about ourselves, that we are just as bad, as wicked, as lost as You say we are. But Father, as a great hymn testifies, even though we're unworthy, we are not worthless. In Your grace, You've drawn near. You love us, You restore us, You make us Your treasured possession, and You promise that even in the darkest night, You're there. Remind us of Your love. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.