"For God So Loved the World" – John 3:1–21
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 is a crucial moment in this Gospel for several reasons. First, this is the very first time in the Gospel of John that we find Jesus engaged in extended teaching where he explains his own life and ministry. Up to this point, we have seen other people teach about Jesus, and we have seen Jesus performing signs, but Jesus himself has spoken very little to explain who he is or what he is trying to accomplish. This conversation kicks off extended discourses that will run through the rest of the Gospel of John.
Second, we find a different kind of interaction with Nicodemus than we have seen so far in either the disciples (who believed in Jesus almost immediately) or in the Jews who opposed him during the Passover Feast—or even in those who think they believe in Jesus, but do not. Here we have a man who honestly does not know what to make of Jesus, which is why he seeks out Jesus to talk further. This man is a true seeker, trying to learn what he can about Jesus after recognizing something significant that he cannot easily explain.
Third, this text in many ways provides us a key to understanding the purpose behind the entire Gospel of John. Jesus has come to give the new birth through the Holy Spirit (John 3:3–8). Jesus must eventually be lifted up to give life to those who look upon him in faith (John 3:14–15). Jesus has come because his Father loved the world so much that he sent his only Son to give the world eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus will either be embraced or rejected based on the condition of the hearts of each individual who comes in contact with his light (John 3:18–21). In order to understand how all of these themes will play out through the rest of the Gospel of John, we must first grapple with exactly what Jesus means when he teaches these things here in John 3:1–21.
Our sermon text this morning is from John 3:1-21.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.”
9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 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. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 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. 18 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. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 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.”John 3:1-21, ESV
This is the word of the Lord. When I was in seminary, I attended a small school, a pretty young school called Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. It was a new thing for me to live in Alabama so far away from Nebraska, which is my home, and I came across a lot of small areas where I kept experiencing culture shock. One of the odd culture shock things that I just wasn't expecting was when I got there, they have like no sidewalks in the south. It's a very odd, strange thing. I mean, I grew up a sidewalk everywhere. There's never a time when you need to trod on grass until you go to the south, where there are no sidewalks anywhere.
I also noticed one time as I was driving through a fairly wealthy area, which I later learned was fairly old money Birmingham area. I was driving around and I got more lost than usual, which for me isn't saying a whole lot because I get lost in my hometown of Hastings, with about twenty-four thousand people. To this day, I get lost. I was in Birmingham and I couldn't find my way around, and that was really before I had a smartphone that had GPS, which would have been so wonderful to have.
I was there trying to navigate around and couldn't find my way out of a paper bag. That was doubly more difficult to find my way around because the roads are windy and just like they don't have sidewalks, they don't have street signs in many places. I was talking to someone who grew up in the south, and he sort of chuckled for a moment and he said, Yeah, kind of. The idea there is if you don't know where you are or what you're doing, you're not supposed to be there and you really need to just find your way out of there as quickly as you can.
Now, I worry sometimes that in Christianity, the same thing sort of happens. That we come and we sing and sometimes we sing songs that talk about Ebenezer. A little bit earlier today, we sang the song with a line, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I'm come." What on earth does that mean? Well, we'll talk about that in another time and another place. Perhaps I'd be happy to answer that question after, what that song is a reference to. We sing all of these words with strange songs, and we use different language that sometimes to outsiders can seem a little daunting.
So, the question is, how would Jesus treat someone who is a seeker, who comes in from who knows where, maybe from a very low place or maybe from a very high place and comes and wants to know who is Jesus? What is Christianity all about? Why are so many people so interested in week after week about gathering and worshipping this man who was executed? Really him?
Jesus, here in our story today deals with a seeker, he deals with a man who is not really coming from a low place, but from a very high place. We know that this is a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus. That's what we read in John 3:1, he's a Pharisee, which means he was a part of a very devoted, very strict religious order. Not only that, but we read something about his position in the society. He was a ruler of the Jews. He was someone who got his way a lot. And later on, Jesus himself is going to call Nicodemus, in verse 10, the Teacher of Israel. When he speaks, people listen. Yet this is a man who recognizes something unique about Jesus. He comes to Jesus, not because he's wanting to expose Jesus as a fraud, or to attack Jesus or to pick a fight or an argument. He's genuinely curious.
He comes to Jesus, and this is what we have in verse two. He says, "Rabbi", which is a sign of or a title of respect for a teacher. He says, "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 we need to pay attention to what's happening there because that clues us into where we are in this story. Jesus apparently has been teaching, that's why Nicodemus calls him a teacher. Yet if you've been paying attention, Jesus has really not taught at all yet, at least in terms of what we have read in the gospel of John. John tells us that he doesn't give us a comprehensive, exhaustive account of the life of Jesus. He says, I've left a whole bunch out, the whole world couldn't contain all the books that could be written with everything that Jesus did and said if someone tried to. This account is very selective. Yet from what Nicodemus says, we know that Jesus has been teaching and we also know that Jesus has been performing signs in the plural, multiple signs.
So, Jesus is doing these things, we don't really know all that Nicodemus is referring to, much has been omitted by John in the writing of this gospel. We know that this is happening and we know that Nicodemus feels drawn to Jesus. He has to figure out, who is this? What's he come to do? What's he want? What's he really trying to tell us about himself? And so, in this discussion, as a seeker comes to Jesus, as Jesus honors him, respects him, but teaches him we really see three things happening here.
1. A Transformation.
2. A Treatment
3. A Test
So, Nicodemus comes to Jesus, and there's one other thing we should note that he comes to Jesus by night. This clues us into something important, John, is not just simply documenting the time of day that this happens, just so we sort of have the setting in mind. Whenever John tells us that something happens at night, it's usually a symbol of something that's either morally or spiritually darkened. Later on, in John 13:30, we read that it's night when Judas goes out to betray Jesus.
Now, is Nicodemus a Judas figure? Well, actually, we're going to see he sort of has the inverse approach to life from Judas. Judas starts out as a disciple of Jesus, following Jesus, traveling with Jesus, learning from Jesus, observing all that Jesus does, but then descends to an increasingly darkened state where he eventually betrays Jesus.
For Nicodemus, it's the opposite. We have a man who doesn't know who Jesus is. He's curious. Over the course of time, we're going to encounter Nicodemus again, in John chapter seven, where in the Sanhedrin, the body of rulers of the Jews, Nicodemus sort of offers a cautious endorsement of Jesus. Then later, in John chapter 19, we read that Nicodemus actually joins Joseph Arimathea to collect and bury the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. He's come to believe that this man must be who he says he is, even if he's been crucified in the process.
A Transformation
Well, let's start here, though. This seeker story, maybe this is where you are. Maybe you're in a place where you just don't know who Jesus is and you've come to learn this is the place to start. This is Jesus's place to start.
So, a transformation. Jesus answers Nicodemus and the Greek is sort of longer and fuller because John wants us to know this is a serious and weighty answer. In verse three, it's actually Jesus answered him and said, and then we have this long statement. "Truly, truly, I say to you", this is an important thing, don't miss this. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." You've got to be born again, Jesus says.
Now this is a strange thing to hear anyone tell you. I mean, sometimes again, for those of us who have been in the church for a long time, born again as a term, we throw around without thinking much of it. Think how shocking and how odd this is to have this rabbi who's been performing miraculous signs say you have to experience birth a second time. Well, that's interesting. What do you mean by that Jesus?
Nicodemus says, "How can a man be born when he is old?" The second question there, "Can he enter a second time and into his mother's womb", in verse four, there's a little tiny word in the original that's hard to bring out in English, but it assumes a negative answer to this question. So, he's not saying, come on, Jesus, you can't really be serious, can you? He's saying, I know a man can't enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born. I see that much. I get that much. You've got to be talking about something different than the path that I was originally born by. So, what are you talking about?
It's interesting this Nicodemus, he's this powerful man, this influential man, he's a ruler of the Jews. Yet he's humble enough to ask for clarification. Are we still humble enough to ask for clarification? Well, Jesus answers in an answer that doesn't really clarify things, he's going to give us two answers that really are both driving toward the same point. Jesus is going to say, here's how you get born again. You can't control it. So, he says this transformation comes, verse five, "Truly, truly. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God."
Now, when Jesus says that you have to be born of water in the spirit, it's important to understand that he's not saying that there is one kind of birth that is a water birth and there's another kind of birth that is a spirit birth.
You know, sometimes we talk about, when there's an actual physical birth, we talk about the water breaking and that's one of the early parts of labor for a baby to be born. Well, the grammar here doesn't really allow us to see water and spirit as two different kinds of birth. This is a single kind of birth, the birth that is by water and the spirit. One thing.
In context, Jesus is certainly talking about baptism. He's saying you've got to be born of water and the spirit, but what he's saying is obviously water isn't enough alone. John the Baptist, when he baptized with water, he said, that's all I can do. I baptize with water, period. I'm doing this ministry of baptism. Not because this is the thing. This water baptism is the thing that can save people, but because this water baptism points you to the baptism that you really need. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. Guess what, I'm not the one who can do this, John the Baptist said. I'm not the one who has the power to send the Holy Spirit to baptize you, which another way of talking about that is to be born again. The ministry of water baptism, John explains, symbolizes that.
That's what Jesus is saying here, and one of the reasons we also know that is because immediately after this passage in John 3:22-24, we're going to read that Jesus's disciples begin their own ministry of baptism. You've got to be born by water in the spirit. Water is not enough, you need what water points to, what it symbolizes, the baptism of the spirit, the new birth. You can't bring it about; Jesus is the one who baptized us with the spirit.
The second way that Jesus insists that this is not something you can do is in verse eight, when Jesus says first, it's like baptism second, it's like talking about the wind. We read the wind blows, and you may or may not know this, but the word for wind in both Greek and Hebrew is the same word in both languages for spirit. We have one word for wind and one word for spirit. These ancient languages did not. They typically talked about wind and spirit with the same word. So, this word here, there's some ambiguity. There's some, some dual interpretation to what's happening here. "The wind blows, the spirit blows where he wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes."
I mean, this is Nebraska, most of you have been outside on a day when the wind is rushing past your face. You feel it. You hear it very often when the wind is howling. Sometimes you're inside and you can hear the wind howling past the building you're in. Yet you can't really track it. Even with our modern meteorological science, you can sort of see pressure systems and they have those really colorful arrows that are going across the map that I don't know how to read those or what those mean, but apparently, they're telling us how the wind is going to blow.
Even still, none of you just like you can't track the grains of sand on the beach, you can't track the molecules of air that are rushing past your face. You have no idea how long that bit of air has been in Nebraska or whether it came from China or Togo or India, or where. You just feel the effect, without being able to control it. You can't control this transformation. You need it, Jesus says, you must be born again. Guess what do you want the three step process to bringing about this new birth? It doesn't exist. You don't take the spirit by the tail and tell him where to move. You need Jesus.
Before I worked at this job, I worked for a company in a business I was a vocational pastor, so I pastored for a church, but my full time job was at a startup marketing company, as some of you know.
We were as a startup, all of us wore many different hats. So, for a while, I volunteered to be the one who answered the phone. Now, very few people called our public phone number. You know, we were a startup, no one knew about us, so we were mainly calling people and asking them to buy what we were selling. Or if people were working with us, they had the direct line of the one who offered customer service to them. I offered, because I wanted to, to receive the inbound calls, which were almost 95 percent cold calls of someone selling us things.
For a time, I just thought that was fascinating. I just thought it was so interesting to hear all the different things that people were building and people were making and people were doing that they could sell to us. I was really excited about these things. I got us to buy some of these things that people tried to sell us over the phone. After a while, what happened to me, I started to not want to listen to it, because after you hear so many of those cold calls, so many of these people who are trying to sell you something. You start to become a little bit jaded. I know this is going to revolutionize everything. Nothing will ever be the same. I've heard it all. I'm not really interested. I don't care how world shaking this is going to be.
Now I understand this is a time in history where messiahs are coming and going. They're rising up. They're raising up a group of followers for a certain amount of time, and then something happens that typically they get crushed or they just sort of dwindle down because nothing ever really happens. Nicodemus has heard this song and dance before. He's seen it a dozen times in his life. This is one of the reasons that he, one of the Pharisees, sent a delegation to go talk to John the Baptist. Are you one of these messiahs who's coming on to the scene?
He comes to Jesus and he hears this song and dance and recognizes, this might be something a little bit different. So, with some wonder, he says in verse nine. "How can these things be?" You're talking about this new birth that I can't control, this total transformation that can only be described by the thorough renovation of being born a second time. How can these things be? Well, Jesus says, you need this transformation because in fact, what you need is a treatment, a cure.
A Treatment
What Jesus goes on from this point is to say, look, here's the problem, it's not just that your life is fine and dandy and hunky dory and you're just going along living life and whistling a happy tune. Hi ho. Hi ho. We're off to work we go. Things are good and you just need sort of a modest incremental bump and improvement in the course of your life. The reality is you have death in you. You are a walking dead man, Nicodemus. There is death in you, and unless you are treated, unless you receive a cure, you're not going to make it.
So, Jesus tells this story in verse 14 and 15, referencing something from the history of God's people, the Israelites. A story of when God's people were grumbling against God, saying the water isn't enough and the food that you keep miraculously providing from heaven, well, we'd like a change in menu. We're sick of this loathsome food. God, in judgment for their ingratitude, sends fiery serpents, venomous snakes, into their camp, start biting people. These people begin to die, and they realize this is serious. God has been gracious and we have just spit in his face. They cry out repenting, seeking salvation. God tells Moses to make a serpent, to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole and to hold it up in the midst of the camp that anyone who would look on that bronze serpent could be saved.
Now, what an odd thing for God to do. Why not an eagle or a mongoose? A mongoose is it looks like a little ferret or something, it's a terrifying little creature because they eat snakes. God actually made them so they can resist snake venom so they can eat and consume and destroy venomous snakes. Why not one of those, just lift up a mongoose on a pole? This will kill the death in your midst.
Instead, God says, no, you have to look upon the thing that brings you death. You have to look upon the thing that has brought death into your life. That just as the serpent in the garden brought death in the entire human race through the sin and fall of humankind. So, these serpents have entered your camp and started biting you, and you have to look upon your death, that's the way you will be saved. Anyone who believes that God will provide salvation in the way he has promised to do so will be saved. Anyone who says that's ridiculous, that's an old wives tale, that's a superstition. You can't be saved by looking on a bronze serpent. Jesus says in the same way, so much the Son of Man be lifted up.
Now, in a couple of passages ago, as we were talking about Jesus turning water into wine, you may remember Jesus talked about his coming hour. He's talking about his crucifixion. In the previous passage, where Jesus cleansed the temple, he talked about the destruction of the temple of his body, he's talking there about his crucifixion. Here when he talks about being lifted up, he's talking again about his crucifixion.
What he's saying is that it doesn't really make it explicit here. We have to read the rest of the story of the gospel of John to figure this out, but what Jesus is saying is saying, look, I'm going to be lifted up and killed. You have to look upon me, because in my death, you are seeing the death of your death. When I'm lifted up on the cross, you're seeing the father love you so much, that he's giving me to die for you. I haven't done anything wrong, but I'm dying for you in your place so that you can be saved. Look upon your death in my death on the cross.
If you believe that that's a superstition, an old wives’ tale, something you can discard because people can't receive life through that, you won't receive life. If, on the other hand, you recognize that when the son of man is lifted up in the crucifixion, the death of Jesus, that is the love of God, that is the glory of God, that is the place where God's purity and truth and holiness and righteousness and great love for his people is most fully revealed. If you look upon it in that way, you will find life. You're dying, Nicodemus, but you need life. You need a treatment, a cure.
You need this transformation that you can't bring about, the spirit has to do it for you. Which gives you eyes of faith to look upon Jesus and him crucified as the source of your salvation. This is where Jesus says this verse that we so often quote out of context. For Jesus talking about the death that he would die so that people could have life says, "For God, so loved the world. That he gave", he sent his son into the world, but not just to make a cameo appearance and walk around for a bit, shake a few hands, run for mayor, get elected, head back up into glory. But God gave his son in the sense of handing him over to crucifixion, death. "For God, so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Now, the what of what you need is this transformation. The way in which this transformation is going to be brought about is through sending Jesus to be crucified and looking upon him in faith. That's how that process works. That's how sinners are saved and given life. But the question then is, OK, so how do you know which camp am I in? How does this actually happen, how do I pass from death to life? Jesus says, well, here's what's going to happen. You are going to react in one of two ways to the crucifixion of Jesus, to my crucifixion.
He says, OK, first of all, you have to understand, verse 17, "God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." The purpose of God sending his son was not to come as a private investigator to dig up dirt on all of us, that God could then immediately call for a trial and condemn us to hell forever. The purpose of Jesus' coming into this world was to provide salvation, to provide life through his death.
So, Jesus then says, but here's the thing. There will be condemnation and it'll be on this basis. Verse 18, "whoever believes in him", in Jesus, "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." Now this should cause us to think. See, we think of this condemnation that Jesus is talking about as a sometime in the future event, right? That's when Jesus is going to come again as a judge, that's when Jesus is going to sit on his throne of judgment and divide the sheep from the goats, divide the righteous from the wicked, divide those who have loved him from those who have not.
How is someone who doesn't believe in Jesus condemned already? Jesus clarifies, he says in verse 19, "This is the judgment", and that judgment is a word that is very closely related to the word for condemnation. So, you could say this is the condemnation. "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 work should be exposed." The first way to respond to Jesus and him crucified, to the death of your death in the cross of Christ, is to run from him.
To see in Jesus, the light who has come into the world, the life of men, the light of the world and look upon him and say, boy, if I go over there, if I come to Jesus, that means being honest about who I am. That means being exposed in my sin. That means having to give up what I am trusting in, what I want. That means having to put away this activity. That means putting away that attitude. I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up.
On the other hand. The second response is to love the light verse 21, "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." You can either respond by running from the light or going to the light.
Two intriguing things about this. Jesus doesn't say so, like there's sort of the crime over here of running from Jesus, of running from the light and you commit the crime and then the judgment comes and it's over here and it's different. Jesus says the judgment, the condemnation, is by going and retreating deeper into your darkness. The condemnation is separation from Jesus. Jesus came into the world that people might come to him and be saved. So, if you refuse to do that, Jesus says, you are condemning yourself. Satan wants us to think of this world is filled with life and joy and peace and prosperity and happiness. Why don't I just go over there? Look at all the good things that I can enjoy right over there. Jesus says, that's hell, that's death. There's death in you, you've got to be cured from that.
The Test
The only way to recognize that Jesus is not a threat, but salvation, is this new birth. You see, when you come to Jesus, you don't come to Jesus so that he can rub your nose in all that you have done. Oh, look at these things you've done. How could you possibly do that? How could you do that again? When you come to the light, when you come to Jesus, you find out, what you see is that God is at work, is that you're willing to risk being exposed.
When you get there, when you come to the light, you find out that your works have been carried out in God. That God is at work in you both to will and to work, to give you the desire and the faith to look upon Jesus as light and life and joy. To say whatever it's going to risk, whatever it's going to cost me, Jesus is worth it. That's the test. Do you want to know whether you've been born of God, whether the Spirit has brought about a transformation, it's not total, it's not complete, it's not completely finished yet? But if you want to know whether this has happened, you have to ask the question, what do you love?
As believers, as we ask whether we still love the light or whether we love the darkness, there's kind of these two sides warring in us. Where we have to keep preaching to ourselves that as the darkness keeps drawing us away from Jesus, we have to keep coming back and saying that is not life, that is death over there and Jesus has opened my eyes to see it by the Holy Spirit. I don't want death. I want Jesus, as hard as it sounds, as difficult as it sounds, as painful as it sounds, as risky as it sounds, Jesus is worth it.
This is the core of Jesus's message. That he'll unfold through the rest of this gospel. It starts here as we ask this test. The test is what do we love? Do we love the treatment, the cure that God has provided? If so, then the transformation has begun. The invasion has begun. The life alteration has begun. If not, then we need the Holy Spirit.
Now you may be here today in Nicodemus shoes. You're not there, you don't necessarily believe yet. You can't quite see how a bleeding dying naked crucified man could possibly bring about your salvation. That's not your faith yet. But if you're here and you're wrestling with this? Understand the story of this conversation with Nicodemus ends in his eventual faith.
The spirit doesn't just all of a sudden turn a light bulb on, usually typically, although sometimes he does. Usually what you see is that the spirit has been drawing people, and maybe that's why you're here today. Jesus here is telling you who he is. He's telling you how to be saved. The spirit is whispering, look upon Jesus and be saved. The question is, will you love him? Or will you run back to your darkness?
Let me plead with you by the word of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, according to the power of the spirit, look upon Jesus and be saved. He is worth it. The darkness of your wicked works are not. Jesus is worth it. Run to him, flee to him. Risk the exposure and be saved.
Jesus not only sends his spirit to bring this about. He gives us the privilege of praying. Of coming before God and asking that God would indeed do exactly that. So, let's pray as we close.
Father, we pray that you would give us eyes to see the Kingdom of God, the king, Jesus Christ and him crucified. To see the cross not as your rejection of Jesus, but as your glorification of Jesus, the place where the throne of the unshakeable kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ was firmly established. Father for those who don't know, would you draw seekers? Would you draw people by your spirit to find Jesus? God, for those of us who have seen, who have tasted of the heavenly things, God do not allow us to see beauty in the works of darkness, in our own righteous rags, trying to do it on our own for our own glory. Rather who recognized and come again and again to Jesus Christ in faith, confessing our sins, being exposed for who and what we are as we look to you, to God, to rework us and refashion us and reshape us into the image of Jesus as we learn to follow him every step of the way. Oh, Lord, grant, that these things may be true in our lives and in the in this church. Not unto us, Lord, but to your name, be the glory. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.