Reading from John's Gospel, Jesus had several personal one-on-one conversations that are recorded only by John in his Gospel. This is one of them. Jesus talking to Nicodemus, chapter 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, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how could a man be born when he is old? Can't 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 of 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, his Spirit. Do not marvel that I say 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 is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered, 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 the one 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 whosoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God's soul of 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 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 has 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 light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God. The word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. The text tells us two things about Nicodemus. He tells us that he was a ruler in Israel, a Pharisee. Most have come to believe that this meant that he probably was a member of the ruling authority in Israel, the Sanhedrin, the Seventy, the court that included both Pharisees and Sadducees, that really was the spiritual, religious and civil and certainly cultural rulers of the people. Jesus was in Jerusalem on this occasion. He had been there for a while. In fact, it was near around about the Passover season. And so it was probably easy for Nicodemus to come and see Jesus, but he came by night. He came by night. Later on, we find out about Nicodemus that he was one of the people that took up for Christ at the time of his trial. And then beyond that, we find it was Nicodemus who upon the burial of Christ with Joseph of Arimathea, one of his fellow rulers, took the body of Christ from Pilate to bury Christ. It was Nicodemus that brought murder and alloys to anoint and prepare Christ's body for burial. The other thing the text says about Nicodemus, it says he was a teacher in Israel. Teachers better be people who ask questions. A good teacher is always wanting to know. A good teacher will find something that gets the curiosity up and then heads for the bookshelf or the laboratory, or someplace to find some answers to questions. And Nicodemus had a serious question. His question had to do with entering into the kingdom of God. Nicodemus was very aware of the rule of Caesar overall of life. He was very aware of that which Herod established as a throne. He was very aware of that which Caiaphas the High Priest had established as a rule over God's people. And he knew his place as a member of the Sanhedrin in ruling over God's people and being a teacher of God's people. But he was troubled and he was questioning what is the nature of the kingdom of God? How do you really enter into something beyond earthly kingdom, something that moves beyond the pale of human existence and human government and human thralldom? How do you move to understand and to participate in and be a part of the kingdom of God? And Nicodemus comes and he seeks out Christ because he perceived that Christ was a rabbi, a teacher. Jesus had not been to any of the formal rabbinic schools as far as we know in the ancient world. He had not attended any of the schools there in Jerusalem. There were several seminaries we would think of them or schools for rabbinic training. The Pharisees were available on every corner to teach but Christ seemed to have some kind of something that Nicodemus saw by the wonder-working and the power of Christ. He saw the authority with which Christ spoke. He saw the miracles that Christ performed and he knew there was some, you must be from God. Nicodemus said, there's something there's the divine mark upon your life and upon your ministry and I have to know. It's interesting that Jesus begins very objectively teaching him right off the bat. He says to him right off the bat three times truly, truly are literally amen, amen. Certainly I say to you that except you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Then he says unless you're born of water and of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. I don't know what was contained in the question that Nicodemus was asking or exactly what Nicodemus was seeking but I know what Christ was telling him. Christ was telling him that entry into the kingdom of God, being part of God's kingdom, God's people, God's rule and God's reign comes through a birth, a birth that is engendered by the sovereign spirit of God. Being a Pharisee, Nicodemus was very familiar with law-keeping. The Pharisees had really mastered Moses in many ways. In fact, they had attained a level of righteousness or a standard of moral living that Jesus sets up as a standard himself in his teaching. He told his own disciples that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you'll have no place in my kingdom. So Nicodemus understood morality. He understood religion. He understood the codification of the values of what God expected as it had been revealed by the law and by the prophets. He was a long way down the trail in understanding the things of God. One thing he needed to know and that is you must be born again. You must be born again. God's spirit, sovereignly, lovingly, preveniently, moves upon you to bring about in you spiritual life. There are three pictures of this particular experience in the New Testament. It is spoken of here and we'll spend our time talking about here as a birth, a birth. But it's also pictured as a creation. Then you may be in Christy as a new creature, a new creation. And it's also spoken of as being a resurrection. You, hath he quickened, hath he made alive who were dead in trespasses and in sins. These three things in Scripture are the work of the divine sovereign spirit of God, the third person of the triune God that proceeds from the Father and the Son, the spirit of God that goes forth and makes actual it ends up in activity and accomplishes that which the Father determines and the the the the Son has wrought, applies it to the heart and to the soul. The Father in heaven planning salvation and electing and determining and setting forth the decrees in the councils of all eternity. The Son coming to earth to actually effect and to bring about and accomplish that redemption by his perfectly obedient life and his passively obedient death, laying down his life. Our objective, outside of us, councils of eternity, he'll call Galgotha, objective outside of us. But in order to experience the things of God in any reality, to see the kingdom of God, to know the things of God, to be included in God's family and be one of God's very own. There is a personal application of that which must take place. And that's what the spirit does. Just as the spirit of God brooded over the primeval waters of creation and the spirit, the Word, the breath of God spoke forth all the things that came into existence. The spirit of God must effect a new creation, a new you, just as the spirit of God breathed life into the nostrils of Adam. So the spirit of God must breathe life into you. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Just as the spirit of God hovered over the virgin and she conceived. So must the spirit of God work upon you in order for you to have spiritual life. Jesus said in John 6, it is the spirit that gives life. Nicodemus, you've just got to know that. This is the work of the sovereign spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God comes to us and breathes life into us, brings us from death to life and makes us a new creation in Christ. It's the spirit of God that does it. In that same chapter, chapter 6 of John, where Jesus was dialoguing with the religious leaders of his day and he said several times over that no man can come to Christ except to be drawn of the Father. But then he makes a profound promise. All that the Father gives me shall come to me. There is a number, a vast number, a host that nobody can number. An innumerable host, thousands upon thousands, thousands of thousands that are known to the heart of God that he has placed his affection upon, that he has chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And all of those have been given to the Son. All that the Father gives me, Jesus said, shall come to me. How could Christ be so certain that the chosen would actually come to him? That's because he knew it was not going to be up to them. It wasn't going to be up to the powers of a persuasive preacher. It was not going to depend upon the mood and the aura of the service. It was not going to depend upon the skill of the gospel presentation. It was not going to depend upon the song that was sung or the aisle that was walked or the card that was signed or the hand that was raised. It was not going to depend upon the decision that was made. All that the Father giveeth me shall come to me. Jesus knew that they would come to him because they would be brought by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God would come into a heart. It's interesting that Jesus in giving the illustration, the earthly things, as he calls them, speaks of the wind. 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 is born of the Spirit. You should know the word that translated wind in that text is the word Numa. It's the same word as Spirit. In fact, if we were not interpreting it and just staying with a consistent word, our word translation, we would say the Spirit blows where it wishes. It is God's sovereign spirit that breathes, that blows, that moves as life giving. Salvation is of the Lord. This is the Lord's work. Here's the sad thing. It's hard to get this point across. I've been trying to get this point across in 42 years of preaching and I just don't ever get it across too much from the pulpit and almost never in conversation. If it were up to each one of us, if it was entirely up to us, none of us would be saved. I guarantee you that. The heart is so desperately wicked. You are so entrenched in your habits. You are so enslaved by the devil. You are so disenfranchised and alienated from God and all the things of God in your natural state that you would not seek God. You would not call upon God. Every fiber of your being is away from God. You are lost. You are helpless and hopeless. The sad truth is each one of us in our natural condition. Our sinners dead in need of a resurrection. We are non-entities in need of a birth and we are nil nothing in need of a creation. We were left to our own devices. Bible says there is none that seeketh after God. There is none righteous. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
If it were not for the sovereign, electing, saving, regenerating, atoning work of the triune God, not one of us would be saved. We are so desperate. We are so helpless. We are so lost. We are so alienated. We are so disabled that God has to do it all. He has to do it. All. He not only has to determine to save us in spite of everything and remain faithful to that covenant determination of love, to persevere. He not only has to send his son to do what we cannot do for ourselves and that is to live a perfectly obedient human life. And then to satisfy the justice of God, he must receive the just penalty of our sin which is laid upon Christ. And God reckons he accounts Christ to be sinned for us. Who knew no sin became sinned for us, dying in our place, bearing away that penalty, receiving the just desserts of our sinful life in himself. God has to do it all. And then that is not enough. There are some who teach that, okay, Christ died and the Scripture says, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men into me. The Son of God must be lifted up, signifying what kind of death he would die as Moses lifted up the serpent of the wilderness. And then all that we have got to do is then men and women, boys and girls all through the years will look to the wonderful and glorious saving work of Christ and will be drawn and impelled to believe of their own free will and their own imagination and their own decision and their own desires. They will be attracted and will come to that if it is only clearly and persuasively presented. If it is sit to the ends of the earth, if it is sadly not, salvation is of the Lord. God's got to do it all. He's got to come and find us where we are and bring us from death to life. He's got to do it all. It's not enough that he conceived and planned salvation that he sent Christ to provide and be a provision of salvation in every way. The death Christ died. It's not a sermon about the atonement, but there are a dozen ways in which the death of Christ is efficacious. It is an atonement. It is a redemption. It is a reconciliation. It is an appeasement of the wrath of God. But now there's one more step. There's one more person, as Bill said earlier, the triune God is involved in our salvation. There's one more person that must step in and pick up the burden and carry it forth in order to save us from our doom and sinners. And that's the third person of the Trinity. The Father, the Son, have accomplished that the Spirit must come. And he must affectionately, and you read about it in your confession earlier, I was going to reread it, but we're out of time that you need to read those first two paragraphs of the 10th chapter of our confession of faith. In fact, you ought to get the confession of faith and read the whole 10th chapter. The next three chapters are pretty informative as well, but it is the Spirit of God that applies that salvation to our souls. When you feel that first quickening of the sense of you need God, that's the Spirit at work right there. When you have that first little sensation in your soul that you need Christ, that's the Spirit of God pointing it to Christ, lifting Christ up, calling it to Christ. When you have that little tug in your soul that says, I'm not, I'm not right with God. I need to repent. I need to tell God I'm sorry. I need to just confess up. That's the Spirit of God at work in your soul because he's already there and he's regenerated, he's bringing life, and that's the first zekers of the breath of God stirring upon your dead corrupt heart. And when you feel that tugging like the old prodigal son said, I will rise and go to my father, that's the Spirit of God bringing you from death to life. And when you see Christ clearly for the first time and you realize that he died in your place for your sins, in your dead, that what happened to him is what should have happened to you. That exactly what he bore as a penalty was your sentence that was hanging over your head. And you begin to see Christ in a new light. He's not just a curse word. He's not just a byword. He's not just a man of history. He's not just a great teacher and a great rabbi. You begin to realize that he is your personal savior, that if you had been the only person that ever lived, the only son of a child of Adam, he would have died for you. The promise was given, there was only one man and one woman on the face of the earth. And if that had never had any children, Christ would have come to save Adam and Eve. And he came to save you when it begins to dawn upon your soul, that he is your personal savior. And you begin to believe it
and embrace it and rush to it and grasp it and cling to it and know it's Christ that is your personal savior. That's the Spirit of God in generating you in repentance and faith in bringing you from death to life. And when the Spirit of God has brought you forth, you just won't ever get over it.