Sermon: Faith in the Dark: Nicodemus

Would you take a copy of God's word this morning? We're going to turn open to the Gospel of John, in John, chapter three this morning. If you want to use a pew Bible, you can turn right there to page 887 in the pew Bible this morning, 887. And we're going to look at John chapter three in verses one through 15 this morning.

And let's pray before we hear God's word read.

Our Father, even as we just sung in prayer, so we say in prayer, would you show us Christ. We pray that as these words are read, that they would not fall on deaf ears. Where these words are given a sense of in the preached word, that they would not fall on hard hearts. But that you would, by the power of your Spirit, choose to do a mighty work in this room, in this place, in us as a people, that we might indeed have the eyes of our hearts opened,

might be lifted up into the heavens to gaze upon the glory of your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Show us Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen. John chapter three, verses one through 15. This is the holy, inerrant, sufficient word of God. "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.' 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 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.' Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever." Thanks be to God. Amen.

We have four weeks until the fall semester kind of begins and all of the students come back. When they come back, I've thought, Lord willing, what we will do is we will begin the Book of Second Corinthians, and we will walk our way through that book in the fall and the spring. But we have four weeks until then, so I thought maybe what we would do, what would be good for us and helpful is to take four little accounts in the Gospel of

John of a personal encounter with Jesus that is centered upon the idea of faith. And by doing so, we can look at a different facet of faith. Now, we could spend an entire year looking at the different facets of faith, but we're only going to do so during these four weeks. And so what I want to do is just take one of them each week, some little personal encounter with Jesus. This week, of course, it is Nicodemus. And this morning, we are looking at faith in the dark.

We're going to see three things from this passage: the diagnosis, an impressive but insufficient faith. Second, a demand that only God can meet. And then third, a deliverance offered to whoever believes. We'll look at those three things this morning. It's often been said that one's doctrine of man determines one's doctrine of salvation. That is, what do you believe is true about man? If you believe men are not wicked, then they have no need of

salvation. If you believe men are only slightly sick, then they have no need for a radical healing. If men are basically good, then they simply need to be pointed in the right direction. If men are simply ignorant, then all you need is a little bit of education.

But if men are depraved Truly fallen, wicked, fallen in every part of our being, our mind, our heart, our soul, our spirit, our affections, our will. If no one does good, as the psalmist says, if all mankind are dead in their sins and their trespasses, as the Apostle Paul says, if we are born into this world with Adam as our head, as Romans says, if a man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit, as 1 Corinthians 2 says, if the

devil is our father, as Jesus said,

then if that's your doctrine of man, the biblical doctrine of man, that he is depraved, then he needs something wholly other. He needs something outside of himself. He needs something otherworldly.

Man is in need of that. That's the teaching of the scriptures. Your doctrine of man determines your doctrine of salvation. And in this encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus shows us, tells us what it is exactly that man needs.

It's very clear that an inflated view of man results in an emaciated view of salvation. But when you understand depravity, the inability of man, then the regenerating work of God alone for our salvation, it magnifies the grace of God. All of a sudden, it's amazing grace, a great salvation. And I want to see that from the text this morning. Our first of three points this morning, the diagnosis, an impressive but insufficient faith, verses one and two.

Now, to understand this little account of John 3, you have to go back to John 2 and the very introduction to John 3. So if we go back to the end of John 2, we read there, verse 24, "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 man." I don't know what's in a man. Neither do you. Mere men can't know what's in mere men.

But he's the God man. And as Jeremiah 17:10 says of God, "I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mine." So it was true and is true of Jesus because he is not just man, he is the God man.

As you read through the Book of John, you'll encounter all of these different little encounters with Jesus, and over and over, he sees into their minds. He sees into their hearts. He knows what grips them. He knows what drives them. He knows what their passions are. He knows what passions they have killed. He knows them. Like every good physician, he knows what afflicts the patient before him. There's no hiding. So Nicodemus comes on the scene, and John gives us all the

titles of his position. We learn who he is outwardly at the very beginning. He is a Pharisee. He is a teacher. He is part of the Sanhedrin, part of the ruling people of the Jews. He's all of that outwardly. But he can't hide who he is inwardly. Nicodemus, he comes at night. Maybe that's an allusion to him trying to come in secret, but darkness cannot hide who he is before the one who sees the hearts of men. When I was a kid, we used to go on these epic

family road trips, and it was always my designation to sit in the back of the sedan with my little sister, and a big brother can only take so much of a little sister on road trips. And so after a while, I would pull down the wall between us. "I've had enough. Wall's down." Down. Wall. And yet she would continue. She would go, "Well, what are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you..." And I'd go, "I can't hear you.

Wall. Wall. Hear." But the problem was it was a fictitious wall. She could see everything I was doing.

Every attempt you and I have to hide ourselves from Christ is just a fictitious wall. There's no hiding. He knows your heart as you sit here this morning. He knows what occupies it. He knows what you've thought over the last 10 seconds. He knows what motivates you, what you desire, what you're passionate about, what you cling to.

There's no hiding with the God man. Nicodemus is known He's known not just outwardly by these different designations. He's known as well inwardly. You see that here as he approaches Jesus. He has some insight into who Jesus is. He comes to Jesus and he calls him Rabbi, teacher. "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." And at first glance, we hear what Nicodemus professes, and we think inwardly,

"He's got it. Ah, Nicodemus, well done." Notice what Nicodemus believes about Jesus. One, you're a teacher. Two, you're a teacher from God. Three, that not only are you a teacher from God, but God's with you now.

Now, I hear that, and I'd be ready to throw a party. He believes. He's got it. He's not like so many of the Pharisees throughout the Gospel who believe that Jesus is an imposter, he's a fraud, he's an agent of darkness. There are many that believes that in the Gospel of John. In John 9:16, as an example, John records, "Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God." But that's not Nicodemus' assessment. To him, Jesus is a teacher, a teacher from

God, a teacher not just from God, but a teacher with whom God is with. There's belief. In fact, look at how Nicodemus says with confidence, verse two, "Rabbi, we know." We know. I'm ready to throw a party.

But not Jesus. Look at Jesus's response. He knows what's in a man. He says, verse three, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus says, "We know." Jesus trumps him. Verily, verily, truly, truly. He's saying this is revelation from on high. What I'm about to tell you trumps anything that men say they know. This is from Heaven. "Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom

of God."

You say, well, Nicodemus does well to believe.

He has belief.

But it's not saving belief.

It's not saving faith.

There are many who will tie themselves up into knots with the question of, I wonder if I have believed enough.

Is my belief strong enough? Quantity.

But that's not the issue. An ounce of saving faith is saving faith. It's quality that matters. Does it have the saving quality about it?

And what determines whether it has saving quality? Jesus tells you. It's determined by one thing: new birth from above.

Which leads to our second point, the demand. You must be born from above, verses three through eight.

Let's explore this. This is the doctrine that we call the doctrine of regeneration. That word again that he employs here, it can mean reborn. It has the sense of being born from above. You often hear this in language. This is part of our modern-day colloquialisms. We will say, "That person is a born-again Christian." But that's redundant. That's like saying free gift or past history or repeat again. There are only born-again Christians.

There's no other kind of Christian.

That word, be born, born above, born again, it's in a tense that speaks of past, completed, passive activity. It's something that happens to the person. When you are born into the world, when a boy or a girl is born into the world, they are passive. They are born.

So it is here. It is true spiritually. Regeneration, being brought from spiritual death to spiritual life in union with Christ by grace through faith and the atoning work of Christ.

Nicodemus needs this.

He needs to be born again.

He's greatly confused. He's trying to wrap his mind around this. It's almost comical. He looks at himself. I'm a grown man. He's a teacher. He's a politician. He's a Pharisee, a religious elite. He's lived an entire life, and he's saying, "How can I, as a grown man with this kind of stature and physicality, how can I go back into my mother's womb?" How is that possible? How are you born again? Well, Jesus tells us how one is reborn.

He says, verse six, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." So to a teacher of Israel, this would come as quite a blow. Nicodemus would have heard this, and he would have understood what Jesus was referring to. Wait, I'm a son of Abraham. Doesn't matter. It's not your golden ticket to the kingdom. Wait, I'm a descendant of Jacob. Doesn't matter. It's not your golden ticket to the kingdom. Or we could say in this room, "My parents are Christians." Doesn't matter.

It's not your golden ticket to the kingdom. I was raised in church. Doesn't matter. I can trace back my genealogy as a Christian for generations upon generations upon generations, we've been faithful. It doesn't matter.

You must be born again. What is born of the flesh is flesh.

An elephant gives birth to an elephant, a gorilla to a gorilla, flesh to flesh. Well, if I can't do it, then what hope is there for me? Oh, the greatest of hope, Jesus is saying.

You see, it's wide open because it's a work of the Spirit. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. It's qualitatively different.

When a child is born to a young man and to a young woman, no one questions how that occurred. The science is known. They did this, it resulted in that.

But that's not how it works, being born of the Spirit. You don't do this and get that.

It doesn't begin with man. Flesh begets flesh. Spirit begets spirit.

John Owen pointed out, "The heart is naturally stony and can no more produce faith than a stone can move itself." So what's the answer? You must be born from above. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune Godhead, must be poured out upon a soul. And as it is poured out upon a soul, that soul is united with the person of Christ, the Savior of Christ, and adopted into the very family of God. And that person regenerated

is converted. Faith and repentance. Is born again. The Spirit must first act on the heart before faith can follow. It's like the wind, Jesus says. He's playing on words here in the Greek, for wind and spirit are the same Greek word, the Greek word pneuma. Like the wind, the spirit goes where it wills. It comes from this way or that. You can't nail it down. And it goes this way or that. You can't force it. It does as it pleases, and so it is with

the Spirit. You say, "Well, that concerns me then." No.

If it's his sovereign work, and if it is his work, then he can work upon anyone, anywhere, at any time.

As one theologian said, "The freedom of the Spirit to go where he pleases is not capriciousness, but power that nothing can hold back." The truth of regeneration asserts that God is sovereign. He's absolutely, completely sovereign in salvation, and that actually provides hope,

and it provides comfort.

As John Murray, the great Reformed theologian, memorably said, he said, "Without regeneration, it is morally and spiritually impossible for a person to believe in Christ. But when a person is regenerated, it is morally and spiritually impossible for that person not to believe in Christ." Why? Because in regeneration, we are given in part what we lost in the garden when Adam fell. We lost that spirit of a child. We're given the heart and

the spirit of a child so that we can simply trust in Christ for our salvation. It's a gift.

And when God renews us, he gives us that right disposition. He gives us a true spiritual change. He regenerates us, giving us the ability to choose Christ, to turn to Christ in faith, and then conversion follows logically. Faith and repentance, that actual turning to Christ. Regeneration is the cause, logically, with conversion being the effect logically And when God renews us, He gives us the ability to embrace Him in the person of His Son.

And here's the fact, we actually do.

Jesus says in verse five, "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of God." It takes the work of the Spirit.

Some will say, well, that water there, it's referring to baptism. No, Nicodemus is a teacher, a Pharisee. He would have no clue of what baptism meant later in the church. No, what he would understand is he's talking about purification here. The Spirit must come upon a man or a woman or a boy and a girl and purify them and renew them, give them new birth. And then Paul echoes the same thing as he talks about in Titus 3:5,

"He saved us by the washing and regeneration in the Holy Spirit." So how does this happen? Well, our third point, the deliverance. We believe in the Son of Man lifted up. Believing in the Son of Man lifted up. Nicodemus hears all this. He still doesn't understand, so he asks in verse nine, "How can these things be?" And Jesus answers, referring to Himself with his favorite self-designation. He speaks of the Son of Man. "The Son of Man," he says, "has

seen these things and heard these things, and he has come down from heaven, and he is now revealing these things to you." And then verse 14, "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." And he's referring back to Numbers 21 and that famous event in the Pentateuch where the nation of Israel is sick and dying, and they are being destroyed.

And here is Moses, he lifts up the staff, and on the staff is this bronze serpent, and it signifies to them that salvation can be theirs. And how do they have this salvation? They simply look at this bronze serpent lifted up. And Jesus is saying, so it is with the Son of Man being lifted up. He's going to be lifted up. It's fascinating. Throughout the Gospel of John, his cross is not his humiliation in John's mind. It's his glorification, his

exaltation. He is lifted up. And as the Son of Man, the Son of God, this God man is lifted up and crucified on the cross. He is glorified before all creation. This is the means of salvation for all who will look to Him.

Do you remember... This illustration is not the greatest of illustrations, but I still like it, so I'm going to use it. Someone came up to me after the first service going, "I don't understand that." Okay, let me see if I can try again. Do you remember in the 1980s, those bug zappers? This was like what we did on Friday night in central Illinois, is you watch your bug zapper. Bugs flying around in darkness. They're flying around in darkness. They're flying around in darkness.

They're choosing to fly around in darkness. That's their only option, but they freely choose it, flying around in darkness, flying around in darkness. And then you flip on that bug light, and oh, brilliance. And what happens? Their little bug eyes bug out of their head, and they go, "Oh." Never seen anything that beautiful. And what do they do? They freely choose to fly to the light.

There's been a change. Flying to the light, freely choosing. Now, this is where the illustration breaks down. They get zapped. I should've said that in the first service.

But they've seen the beauty. When the Spirit is poured out upon a soul,

and it's regenerated to where it can actually see spiritual things and actually has the eyes of the heart opened so that you get a sight of Christ.

You've never seen anything more beautiful.

Never.

You can't help but fly to Him.

But it takes that regeneration.

Nicodemus believes Jesus is a teacher. He's a teacher from God. He's a teacher God is with. But that's insufficient.

He has yet to see His beauty. Nicodemus has to be born again.

And when the Spirit of God descends upon the soul, the ghastly horror of a Savior upon a cross

becomes the most beautiful thing you can imagine.

Your little bug eyes come out of your bug head.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. Helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die.

For quick applications. The truth of regeneration demands four things of us this morning. First, let us look away from our own inability to God alone for our salvation. The doctrine of regeneration demands that you look to a sovereign God. You must look outside of yourself. You don't stop with teacher, a teacher from God, a teacher who God is with. Actually, you are to believe in, and you have to believe upon Jesus Christ

as your Lord and your Savior for your salvation. He died for you.

God's sovereignty and salvation doesn't mean the call to believe is less urgent, but it's even more essential because it's the very instrument, belief, by which we receive Him.

You say, "But I don't feel it. I don't feel it." But that's demanding experience before believing.

You believe first.

Let's say a lawyer shows up at your front door and knocks on the door and asks for you, and you come to the front door, and he has in his hand an envelope with all kinds of papers inside. And he says to you, "You know, you had a long-lost uncle that you never knew about, and he was incredibly wealthy, and he's left you hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here's the will that states it." You say, "Ah, I don't feel it. I don't have the clothes of a rich person. I don't have multiple vacation homes. I don't have a sports car. I'm not experiencing, I have not experienced feeling that I'm rich." No, you take the testimony.

You receive the testimony, and then you experience. You receive Christ, and then all the benefits and all the experiences of Christ flow from that belief. So maybe you've come here this morning like Nicodemus, and you say, "Well, I like this Jesus. He seems like a good teacher. He has a good moral ethic. I might even say that he was sent from God." Not enough to believe in Him, trust in Him as your Savior.

Later in the Gospel of John, Nicodemus will come, having been born again. This time not at night, he comes during the day, and he brings 75 pounds of spices to anoint Jesus's body at the tomb.

Second, let us look to God alone for the salvation of our loved ones. We look to God alone for the salvation of our loved ones. We present the gospel over and over, but the gospel in and of itself cannot change the heart. The gospel is so very plain. It is so very simple. It is easy to understand, but not for those who are blind, not for those who are deaf, not for those who are dumb to it. Regeneration requires the work of the Spirit

upon the hearts and souls. Now, he works by you and I sharing the gospel. We keep sharing the gospel, but then we attend to it by also calling out to him in prayer. And that truly gives us hope because we have a God who, by his Spirit, attends to the prayers of his people, attends to the word, and is active in this world, and he sovereignly works.

There's a group that meets here at URC with Pastor Dave once a month, The Parents of Prodigals. They've shared the faith with their children. They've shared the gospel with them over and over, are probably still sharing the gospel with them. Were they perfect parents? No, because none of us are. But they modeled before them what it looked like to chase after Christ. But their adult children still haven't believed. So what do you do?

Meet together to pray, calling out to God. The Spirit makes the blind to see, makes the deaf to hear, makes the dumb to understand. Even the worst of sinners is never too far gone for the sovereign work of God. That's the beauty.

Third, let us look to God alone for a great work of salvation in our day. A church serious about conversion, about loving our neighbors, about revival is a church serious about prayer

I'd encourage you to join in, whether that's prayer during our services, Linda Whiters-Caldwell and Brad Beals helps to lead, or our Tuesday morning prayer with Alan Knapp, one of our elders, or our monthly prayer meeting tonight, where we will call out to God for his sovereign necessary work among us. Finally, let me close with this.

You rest in your rebirth.

If you're in Christ, the sovereign God of salvation has poured out his spirit upon you, has regenerated you, has given you the gift of faith by grace, and you are not what you were. You're a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

You have new motivations. You have new passions. You have new desires. You have new duties.

You're new, and you rest in that. All that is a gift from a sovereign God of salvation.

For the very next verses following our passage, the most famous, "But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have, have eternal life."

Great God of salvation. Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful that you are such a great God of such a glorious salvation.

For when we have our doctrine of ourselves correct, we know that we have no hope apart from you and your work. Thank you for being a God of such magnanimous and glorious grace. We do pray that we would rest in that salvation and pray it would be true of every soul in this room would know that salvation. That you might receive all the more glory and praise. It's in Christ's strong name we pray. Amen.