How do you think of Jesus and his message?

Text John 3:2b, 3 Time 09/09/12 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We began to look last week at this famous chapter John 3. Last week we just noted six things about Nicodemus that were not going to give him or anyone else eternal life – his humanity, his race, his religion, his personality, his successes or the mere fact he had met with Jesus. No, the problem with Nicodemus was that he had a dark and benighted heart. When John says that he came to Jesus at night, he is not giving us an interesting snippet of information, he is subtly intimating that here was a man whose heart was in the darkness of ignorance and sin and that needed to be enlightened by Jesus the Light of the world.

Now what I want us to do this week is to go on to consider the first words Nicodemus speaks and the response he receives from Jesus. In these two short sentences are encapsulated two totally diverse understandings of Jesus and his mission. The first, Nicodemus's understanding, typifies the world's approach to Jesus and his message and the second, what Jesus himself says, sums up his message, the message that is so seldom heard or understood. The phrase “The universe next door” is sometimes used to describe the way two people can radically differ in the way they think. We certainly have an example of two universes side by side here in John 3:2b,3. In the one house is Nicodemus with his “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Right next door is Jesus who In reply ... declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

It is very important for us all to examine our thinking. Am I thinking like Nicodemus? Am I following what the world says? Or have I understood what Jesus says in verse 3 and am I seeing things as he has laid down? It is very important that we get this right.

So two questions

1. Do you think about Jesus and his message in the typical way that the world does?

Left to ourselves we tend to think in pretty much the same way. There is variation, of course, but again and again you will find human philosophers treading the same paths that those before them have. Certainly when it comes to Jesus there are certain things that are written and said that become almost common place when you look into it. Nicodemus is simply saying what he himself thought here. It is typical of the way that people think when they try and make an assessment of Jesus and his message on their own. Nicodemus's seeming sense here should be a warning to us of how fa wrong we we can go if we rely on our won opinions rather than listening to what Jesus himself has to say. And so we say

1. Do not make the mistake of relying only on what you yourself know

Perhaps the phrase that sticks out most obviously in what Nicodemus says – like a sore thumb, indeed – is that phrase we know. Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. This is why one of our points last week was that simply being in the presence of Jesus will not automatically lead to eternal life. Here is Nicodemus before the Saviour of the World, before one who even on his own reckoning was the greatest rabbi he had ever met. If ever there was a time to shut up and listen, this was it. But, no, Nicodemus is so full of himself and his own insights that he fails to stop and listen first to what Jesus has to say.

It reminds me a little bit of that story of how one cold January morning a man sat in a metro station in Washington DC playing the violin. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, it was rush hour and it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most on their way to work. In the 45 minute period only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

No one knew but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth over £2 million. Two days before he had sold out a Boston theatre, where seats average $100. The social experiment was organised by the Washington Post.

Here is Nicodemus with someone far greater than any musician but does he listen? No, he wants to talk about what he knows. Too often we are the same.

Or you know that story from India of how several men were taken in the dark to an elephant and were asked to describe what the beast is like. Of course, one has the tail and one has the trunk, one has a tusk and one has a foot and so their ideas come out far from the truth. It is a parable with many lessons and one of them is that ignorant people like us should be careful about saying “I know”. Paul says (1 Corinthians 8:2) The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

We put far too much weight on what we think we know and not enough on what we need to hear from Jesus. Many others are the same “we know ... we know” they say and will not listen.

2. Understand that Jesus is a teacher but he is much more

Well, what did Nicodemus know and what do people know today? Nicodemus begins Rabbi, my teacher. He also says we know you are a teacher. This is a common thing for the world to say. In 1958 a book came out called Six great teachers of morality: Gautama Buddha and Jesus, Moses and Mohammed, Confucius and Socrates; a classified arrangement in twenty parts for the study and comparison of their teachings. I'm sure the writer thought he was paying Jesus a great compliment by ranking him alongside Moses, Mohammed and the Buddha. And, of course, Jesus is a teacher, the greatest teacher there ever was or will be. But he is much more than a mere teacher.

You know the phrase to damn with faint praise. An example would be where you say to someone “Your presentation went great - I could hardly tell you had a stutter at all”. Abraham Lincoln reportedly once asked about the honesty of a man being considered for a cabinet position. The reply came, “I do not believe he would steal a red hot stove.”

Saying that Jesus is a great teacher may be meant as praise but it subtly does the very opposite. It is a denial of who he really is and a failure to see his true greatness.

Expect to come across people who make the same sort of mistake. He was a great teacher, a great leader, a great man of the people. Yes, but he was and is so much more.

3. Realise that it is true that he came from God and that God is with him but there is more

Nicodemus's full statement is Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. (Nicodemus may be in a little doubt about the last fact). We'll come on to the matter of the miracles in a moment but let us first see again how what seems like a great compliment really fails to say what needs to be said.

Yes, Jesus did come from God as the miracles testified. He himself says (5:36) the works that the Father has given me to finish - the very works that I am doing - testify that the Father has sent me. Again and again in John's Gospel he refers to the Father as the one who sent him.

Similarly, early on in John's Gospel Jesus is spoken of as God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side. Even when he came to this earth he continued to be with God and God with him just as he was with him in the beginning.

Simply to say, however, that Jesus was from God and that God was with him as is said of many others such as the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets is again to damn with faint praise or to fail to say anywhere near enough about Christ.

It is a little like saying of a woman “yes, she often does work for him and I often see them together” when all the time she is actually the man's wife. Merely saying she often does work for him and they are seen together is to give entirely the wrong impression.

We need to be very careful then what we say about Jesus. He is a great teacher, a man sent from God and one who had God with him. But that is only a small part of the story. There is much more to be said. It's like saying Shakespeare's Hamlet is a play about a man from Denmark. It is that, but it is a lot more. And so with Jesus.

4. Admit that he did great miracles but see that is not why he came

The other thing here is the miracles, which is what Nicodemus had particularly noticed and that had prompted his observation that Jesus had come from God and God was with him. In 2:23 John ha already said that while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.

Now, of course, some people don't believe that Jesus did miracles. They say, I never saw them so how do I know they happened? That is a rather self-centred view. Or they simply say miracles can't happen (which is no argument at all) or they try to explain them away as natural phenomena or say there is a lack of evidence for them. But here is a man from outside Jesus's circles and, yes, there are a lot of things he doesn't understand but he knows this much. Jesus does miracles.

If you have problems with the idea that Jesus did miracles I suggest you begin with the biggest miracle of them all, his own resurrection from the dead. If you examine the facts carefully you will see that it is what Thomas Arnold called “the best attested fact in human history”.

The miracles are important. As we have noted, Jesus himself says (5:36) the works that the Father has given me to finish - the very works that I am doing - testify that the Father has sent me. He also says to his disciples (14:11) Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. (15:24) and to the crowds If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. In Acts, Peter is able to argue (2:22, 10:38) Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know and God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, … he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. But these miracles were signs that pointed to the significance of Jesus. John in fact always uses the word sign rather than miracle when referring to miracles because they were meant to be signposts.

We see then that the worldly approach will get you so far – to say that Jesus is a teacher, a miracle worker, one sent by God and who had God with him. But such half truths are likely to lead you far astray rather than doing you any good.

Half truths are common in many areas. Take politics as an example. Say during the term of a certain prime minister a million jobs are lost but 3 million are gained. He then seeks re-election. An opponent says “During the last Parliament, over a million jobs were lost!” Well, that is true but it is a half truth. To be honest one should says “During the last Parliament there was a net gain of 2 million jobs.”

Or think of advertising. “Nine out of ten dentists recommend whitey-white toothpaste.” Yes, but which 9 dentists? If they all work for whitey-white toothpaste then it is not much of a claim.

To sound very appreciative of Jesus but to say only that he was a teacher who has come from God, a man who performed miraculous signs you are doing and who had God with him is true but is only a half truth. As someone once put it “Beware of a half truth – you may have gotten hold of the wrong half”. Or as the Yiddish proverb puts it “A half truth is a whole lie”.

2. Do you think about Jesus and his message in the way that Jesus himself speaks here?

So here is Rabbi Nicodemus beginning on what he intended no doubt to be a long and careful speech. He had worked it out beforehand. Perhaps he had taken a while to work out how to begin. Perhaps he had talked to others (he does say we know). Perhaps he had practised the speech a few times. If so, he had wasted his time because in the event Jesus cuts straight across him with a brief and blunt statement that cuts to the heart of the matter. Nicodemus no doubt thought he was paying Jesus compliments and that he was pretty much there as far as knowing what Jesus was all about. He needed to be shaken from his complacency and that is partly what Jesus is about.

We too need an abrupt shaking sometimes. We get so full of ourselves. We really feel we are university material and we are hardly ready for kindergarten. So I say

1. Here is something you really need to hear

Jesus begins I tell you the truth. Literally it is Amen, amen – it is, it is! No-one else spoke like that but when Jesus had something important to say he often began like that. The old town criers used to say “Hear ye! Hear ye!” when they had news and everyone would listen. Jesus has something very important to say here – of fundamental importance.

Here is something very important then. Listen up.

2. See that you and everyone else needs to be born again

So what do we need to know? Eternal life is not a matter of sitting there weighing Jesus up and making your decision. Sadly sometimes this is how the gospel is presented. But the truth is that the boot is on the other foot. It is not you weighing up Jesus but him weighing you up. And do you know what his verdict is? Every time – it is not good enough. $ It is like a bad examination paper. Fail, fail, fail is written all down every page. As we are, none of us is good enough or can be. No we need to be born again or as it is born from above. There needs to be a top down wholesale change in us. Without it we cannot begin to understand anything about Jesus properly.

New birth or regeneration is one of the great teachings of the New Testament and it is vital that we all understand it. If you have been born again then it is good for you to understand what has happened to you and if you have not been then you need to know what needs to happen.

The picture Jesus uses is of being born. We were all born into this world. There was a time when we had no existence and then we were conceived and nine months later we were born. It wasn't something we did but something that happened to us. Similarly, we need this to happen to us – we need to born again, regenerated. As with natural birth it is something that only God can bring about. We cannot work it up ourselves. In John 1:11-13 John says of Jesus He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. It is as we accept Jesus for who he is that our own ideas begin to recede and we are born anew to live lives of service to him.

New birth can be summed up as

A supernatural work of God's Spirit, renewing and transforming the heart into divine likeness (Watson)

A secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us (Grudem)

There are several things we need to remember about new birth. Clearly there is something mysterious and unfathomable about it but it is a real and inward change that although it cannot be seen as such, it nevertheless manifests itself eventually as the person who is born again will live a life of service to Christ. A person who is born again has his nature changed so that he abandons his own ideas and starts to live for Christ and in him. It is a sudden but lasting change that affects every part of a person in the end.

If you are born again give thanks. If you are not pray that God will change you – open your eyes, change your understanding, renew you. If you are not sure, then God can show you the truth. Ask him to.

3. Realise that without that you cannot see the kingdom of God

Finally, when Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God he is speaking about God's rule. Jesus says very plainly no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. You know that many people in the world would like to live in America. To do so you have to have what is usually referred to as the green card. Without that you cannot legally be a citizen of the the USA. Every year people are given green cards - it is done by lottery – and people become US citizens. Every year thousands of people enter God's kingdom. It is not done by lottery. God himself chooses who he will save. Without being born again, however, there is no way in. You can call yourself a Christian, of course, and you can say and do all sorts of things in an effort to be thought a Christian but what needs to happen is that you need to be born again and God alone can do it. Cry out to him an ask him to do it for you.

The 18^th century evangelist George Whitefield often preached on the need to be born again. He was once asked why he preached so often on it. His answer? Because you need to be born again. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

So let's forget about mere human philosophy that goes on about Jesus as a great teacher or a great miracle worker. See the need to be born again. That's what he calls for.