We’re in the book of John, chapter three, and today we’re going to work through verses four to fifteen. You don’t get John 3:16 today. We’re getting there, but we have to set the entire stage before we even arrive at it.
So let’s pray. Father, we thank you so much for your Word that teaches us the truth, Lord, so that we can know you and your character, and know what promises we can depend on, what promises we can hope in. Help us discern what is from you and what may be from us. We want to live from you and through you and for you, so that we don’t fall into that age-old lie the devil sells to all men — that our life is about us and what we produce. Lord, we want our life to be from you, Jesus. We live through you and for you. We are one with you, and we worship you because of you and your life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Today’s sermon is called “Nick at Night, Part Two: The Wind.” I love a good Spurgeon quote, so here’s one from that 1800s preacher out of England, at the Tabernacle. He said this:
If we were asked to read to a dying man who did not know the gospel one chapter of the Bible, we should probably select this one as the most suitable for that occasion. And what is good for a dying man is also good for us all.
And what is good for a dying man is good for us all, because we are dying men. We don’t know how soon we’re going to be at the gates of death — no one can tell when they’re going to die. I love that quote.
Let’s read some of our text and get started. Verse 3: Jesus answered and said to him — he’s talking to Nicodemus — “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” So 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, “Most assuredly, 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.”
Last week we studied that phrase “born again,” and we learned all about it. We know now what being born again is. This week we’re going to look at Nicodemus and his quest for truth and salvation, and his struggle to understand this reality that Jesus is bringing.
Nicodemus asked Jesus questions because he recognized Jesus’ authority. He’s basically saying, “Hey, you’re doing miracles, so you obviously know about God. You have power from God. You teach with real authority.” But Nicodemus is stuck with a religious mindset that has these fixed categories. The category for God is: he’s up there, and he’s untouchable. And the category for me is: what do I have to do to get up to God? We call that religion. What do I have to do to reach God? I have to figure out what to do.
Can anyone relate to that? Have you ever been stuck with this question — but what do I do? You understand how this works and how that works, but you can’t just sit there and do nothing. There has to be something that depends on me. So what resources do you have to do stuff in this world? I can think of three: me, myself, and I. How far will those three get you in the spiritual world? They don’t work.
That’s what Jesus is trying to teach Nicodemus. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. There are two completely different worlds — the flesh and the spirit — and no matter what you do in the flesh, you can’t make the transfer over. There’s no bank that gives you a currency exchange to transfer your fleshly pesos into heavenly yen. You thought I was going to say dollars, didn’t you?
Nicodemus really believed Jesus was from God. His statement starts with, “We know that you have done these miracles.” His questions aren’t so much “are you real?” as “how does this work?” So I’m not faulting Nicodemus. I actually think he comes to a knowledge of the truth by the end of all this. But he’s really confused about this whole born-again talk. Jesus tells him he has to be born again, and he asks a practical, literal-sounding question: how can a man be born again when he’s old?
What is he asking about? Timing. And Jesus is saying, listen, being born again is nothing about logic. Logic is real, but being born again doesn’t work under the rules of your logic. So Nicodemus is basically saying, “You’re not logical, Jesus. I’m trying to understand, but you don’t make sense to me. How is this even possible? How can a man enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
Now he’s trying to engineer it. He wants to believe what Jesus is saying, so he’s trying to come up with a practical solution, no matter how crazy it sounds. “Mom, come here.” That’s not going to work out well for him. Nicodemus is wrestling to understand a spiritual truth using natural thinking from his own mind and logic. And how’s that going for him? He’s really struggling.
His questions come from a mind trying to understand the spiritual world and the spiritual life through religion. And religion does not help us understand spiritual reality. Religion that’s man-centered — “what do I have to do?” — is not real spirituality; it’s an imitation of spirituality. You can go to church and still be a jerk. It’s possible. In fact, there are whole churches filled with it. Have you ever been to one? It’s an imitation of true spiritual life.
So what is true spiritual life? We die, and Jesus — the living, loving Savior — inhabits us and lives through us by his love. That’s real spiritual life. But you can fake it all day long. You can, at least for a little while.
Nicodemus was supposed to be a leader of spiritual life in Israel. He had this whole framework he was supposed to understand of how God’s people entered God’s kingdom. And Jesus is smashing that framework, saying the kingdom is entered by spiritual birth from above. Jesus is changing the entire source of spiritual life. Because Nicodemus’s source was me — what do I have to do?
I want you to pay attention to that, because that’s the question we ask when we’re trying to be religious: what do I have to do? Versus spirituality, which asks: what did Jesus do? And how can I put my trust, my faith, and my confidence in what he did? How does that change me? That’s the difference between spirituality and religion.
So Jesus says, “Most assuredly.” Did you notice he says it twice? In the Greek, Jesus is essentially saying, “I’m serious, I’m serious.” He repeats it to show how serious he is. “I am deathly serious. This is how it must work. 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.”
What does he mean by water and the Spirit? This has been debated for the last 2,000 years. Water equals our fleshly birth — earthly life. Do you know what percentage water you’re made of? Seventy percent, if you’re healthy. Most people are around sixty-five, because… well, that’s what I’ve heard. And when you’re born, there’s water mixed in with all the birth juices. So the water is the flesh birth. You have to be born.
Then there’s the Spirit, which speaks of heavenly life. So you have earthly life and heavenly life — water and Spirit. Our heavenly life died with Adam. We were supposed to be born with earthly life and heavenly life together. That’s how Adam was made: he had an earthly life, and then God breathed his breath — his wind — into Adam, and Adam became a living being. He had both a heavenly life and a physical life. That’s how God created man.
But God had said the moment you sin, you will die. So Adam sinned, and our spiritual life died that day — yet we still had physical life. Adam had lots of babies, and lots of babies had lots of babies, and here we are. We still inherit that dead spirit when we’re born. We’re born with a dead spirit. But the moment we believe in Christ, we get new birth.
So Jesus is telling Nicodemus that identity and source are what matter. The flesh only produces flesh. No matter how hard you try, guess what you get from trying? More flesh. That’s it. No matter how many times you go to church, no matter how many prayers you pray, no matter how much you give, no matter how many good works you do — that which is born of the flesh is flesh. You’re never going to earn heavenly life by what you do, because the flesh can only produce flesh, and the Spirit produces spirit.
This is why Christianity — the true gospel — isn’t just a religious upgrade to my life. It’s not, “You know what, I need to make some changes, so I’m going to start going to church.” That’s not how this works. The real gospel is God sharing his life, his livingness, with you and through you. Humans can make unbelievably incredible things through the flesh. Imagine what God can make through the Spirit.
This, by the way, is the number one cause of burnout and discouragement among Christians. Did you know that? We attempt to manufacture our own spiritual life. How? By trying harder and doing more. And that’s not the gospel. The gospel says everything that needed to be done was done by Jesus, and now he wants to share his life. Your job is to have faith and humility, to trust in him, to rest in what he did, and then to go live your life with the power and energy of the Holy Spirit motivating you through love — not trying to impress God or other people, but truly loving God and loving people by the Spirit he’s given you.
See the difference? Versus, “I need to white-knuckle my Christian life, my marriage, my parenting, my job. I need to give it everything.” Jesus says rest is the way. This is the number one cause of burnout: manufacturing my own life.
I want to share my favorite verses in the Bible — Galatians 3:2–3. Paul is talking to his church, and he says, “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit” — and I’m going to use the word “wind” in a minute, you’ll see why — “by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” His question is: when you were born again and received the Spirit, was it because you kept the rules and God said, “You’re so amazing at keeping my Ten Commandments, let me give you the Holy Spirit”? It doesn’t work that way. Or was it by the hearing of faith — you heard about what Jesus did, you believed in what Jesus did, and voila, Jesus gave you his Spirit? That is the gospel. That’s how it works.
Then he says in verse 3, “Are you so foolish?” In the Greek, that means, “Are you so stupid?” That’s what the Bible says — not me, him. “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” What does that mean? Our sanctification, our process. Once you get born again, what do you do? You’re supposed to grow in your relationship with Christ. But most Christians have no idea how to do that. So what do they do? They slap a picture of the Ten Commandments on the kitchen wall in a nice frame, with a picture of Jesus carrying a lamb next to it, and they think, “I just have to try my best to keep these rules” — go to church, pray a lot, do all the things, give all my money — and they think that’s spiritual life.
And Paul says, “Are you stupid?” It’s dumb to think that if you couldn’t give yourself life in the first place, you could somehow keep generating life by trying hard to keep God’s rules every day afterward. And when we finally get this, it blows your mind and sets you free from all religiousness. “What do you mean I don’t have to try harder? What do you mean I’m actually free? It can’t be this simple, it can’t be this good. The day I began, I just said, Jesus, help me and save me, and Jesus did. It can’t be so simple that every day I wake up and I just say, Jesus, help me — and Jesus does.”
I’m telling you right now: the voice that says “it can’t be that good” is the enemy. Because Jesus is telling you, “I am that good.” That’s why it’s called the new covenant, or the gospel — which in the Greek literally means good news. It’s so good it’s called the good news. Our job is to rest in this gospel by faith.
“Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” The Spirit is the whole deal. That’s the only path. The Spirit-life is the only path to the abundant life Jesus promised. Jesus said, “I have come to give you an abundant life,” while the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So if what you’re experiencing as a Christian is theft, know that the enemy is ripping you off — that’s not the life Jesus intends for you and has given you.
You can choose to walk in his life, which is an abundant life, the life of the Spirit. I have hope, I have joy, I have meaning and value, and I’m perfectly accepted and loved. All the things we were chasing from the world, Jesus says, “You already have them all. I give them to you. They’re here, they’re yours, all of them. You have it all.” But how do I know? You just believe, and it’s true.
This is our only measurement in ministry of whether we’re doing church right, whether we’re doing ministry right. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. So you can measure your life this way: Am I trying to do something in my own strength, or am I living through the Spirit? Are we struggling and striving in our own fleshly efforts to do something good — like Nicodemus, who wanted to do something good, wanted to lead his people, wanted to understand how to enter God’s kingdom, wanted to be a good pastor, but didn’t understand how, so he was doing it through his own flesh? Or are we resting in God’s grace, serving his truth and good news to this world through love? That’s the way of the Spirit.
The Spirit does all the work of drawing people. You can source ministry in the flesh — we can organize the heck out of our church, plan the heck out of our church. Organizing and planning aren’t bad, but if we trust in organization and planning, that is bad, because we can only do ministry by trusting in the Spirit. So the heart becomes the measurement of everything we do: Are we trusting in ourselves, or are we trusting in the Spirit? You can serve God and see spiritual life in ministry when you’re walking and living by humility and faith in Jesus, who sends the Spirit.
So let’s go back to the text and see how this teaching continues. Verse 7: “Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.” Jesus says you must be born again. There is no other path to heaven than being born again. In the world, people talk about “those born-again Christians” as if they’re trying to manipulate you into some cult. But Jesus said we must be born again. There’s no other type of Christian. There are people who say they’re Christians but are really just religious and not born again. So how do we know if we’re born again? The Spirit blows.
Verse 8: “The wind blows where it wishes.” We know this on the island — the wind will knock you over if you’re not careful. “You hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus answers Nicodemus’s logical questions with a pretty good illustration to help him understand. But he’s not just using logic; he wants to give Nicodemus revelation. He’s trying to unlock him — to set him free from the categories his religiousness has him stuck in. So he shifts the conversation from what I need to do to what must be done for you by God. Did you catch how he did that? He said the Spirit is not something you control. You don’t even know where it comes from or where it goes. That’s how this works.
Nicodemus needed truth that would move him beyond the law of religion into trusting the God who sends this mysterious Spirit — the Spirit that Jesus actually says he is in charge of. “I control this. You can’t control anything. You’re not in charge of anything. And if you want to be in God’s kingdom, you have to say, I’m not in control. I can’t do this. I cannot do it.” That’s literally the door we have to go through. And that’s the one thing we hate to say: I’m not in control. We’ll scratch and claw as we grow in the Lord, trying to get control back. But the truth remains — you’re not the boss. He is the boss. That’s why he says it’s like the wind.
Jesus compares spiritual birth to wind. You can hear it and sense its effects, but you cannot fully track it like a machine. That’s the vibe of the new birth. (My wife loves when I say the word “vibe” at church. She hates it.) God creates this reality of the Spirit-life, and you can’t engineer it. You can’t control it or manufacture it by religious performance. I just love sharing this, because for everyone who hears it with ears to hear, it sets you free.
The effects of this Spirit are real. You can feel it. Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” That seems mysterious when you read it, but it’s not. You can either be led by the flesh or led by the Spirit. There are only two ways you can be led. What does it mean to be led by the flesh? Being led by what I can sense with my five senses — or a sixth one, if I can see ghosts. (I like throwing movie quotes in there. You can laugh.)
What I produce with my mind and my efforts is all flesh. My emotions and my will all come from me — that’s the flesh-life. Versus the Spirit, which is received. When the Spirit is leading you, it’s a gift. There’s nothing you have to do; you receive leading from him. He is giving you life. It’s not about what I think; it’s about what God says. That’s why you can be led by the Spirit even if you’re dumb. And who is that good news for? Everyone who’s dumb.
I am so happy God leads us by his Spirit and not by the flesh. Because if he led us by the flesh, super-intelligent people who have it all together would have a leg up in the kingdom of God. But Jesus says, “No — dumb people, that’s my people.” Because the Spirit is a gift. It’s what Jesus does, what the Father wills, and what the Spirit accomplishes in my life. All three, who are one, are involved in me being led by God.
So what’s my job? To be led. I have one responsibility: to trust Jesus, to trust God. You have to say, “Take me by the hand and lead me.” And what do you need to do that? Something called humility — which says, “I don’t even know the way I’m supposed to go today.” Can you say that? Or are you stuck in the cycle of saying, “I’m really in control of my life” — and then wondering, “I really don’t hear God’s voice; I wonder why”?
Are we surrendering? Are we saying, “It’s simple — take me by the hand and lead me”? Who does that? A little child. And Jesus says, “Did you hear me? To enter the kingdom, you must become like a little child. Take me by the hand and lead me.” The world says, “You people are so dumb. You don’t have anything to offer. Your time on earth is spent; you’re not making a difference.” And we can simply say, “Father, take me by the hand and lead me.” And he will lead us by his Spirit, and he will do far more through us than we could ever accomplish on our own. We must trust.
So in simple terms, Nicodemus is asking questions because he’s searching, but he doesn’t have any new-covenant truth to help him see. So Jesus answers by teaching him about this new birth. Look at verse 9: “Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be?” In other words, “I still don’t understand it, and I don’t know if I’m buying it. What are you saying? I just can’t understand.”
“Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you” — there it is again — “we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
Jesus gently confronts Nick’s doubt: “You’re not accepting my testimony.” The problem is not that you don’t understand, Nicodemus — the problem is you think you have to understand, when really you have to trust and accept. That’s the rub. We want to understand everything. We want our “why” questions answered. Why did this happen? Why that? Why the other? And Jesus says that’s not where life is found. Until you surrender that and say, “Jesus, I will trust you,” you’re never going to find life.
Jesus calls him out: “Nicodemus, if you won’t believe when I tell you earthly things, you’ll never believe when I tell you heavenly things.” In other words, if you can’t receive a simple truth about birth from above and the wind, then you’re really going to struggle with what I’m about to tell you — because he’s about to tell him something crazy.
Look at verse 13: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.” This sounds like a messed-up geography lesson. Who’s in heaven? Where is he now? He came down from heaven, but he’s still in heaven? What’s going on? But Jesus isn’t talking about locations; he’s talking about authority. He’s saying, “Nicodemus, I know everything. I’m God. I came down from heaven. I’m telling you about heavenly life, spiritual truth, God-sourced living, because I’m from there. I’m the source of it all.” You can only lead people to where you’ve been. Jesus is the from-heaven spokesman, sent to tell Nicodemus the heavenly way.
So every person who reads this and hears this has to choose whether they’re going to listen to Jesus or reject him. It’s never about whether you can understand him, because that’s not where life is. God will give you the understanding — that’s the gift. He will make you understand if you’ll listen to him with faith. It’s like a safety net, a wall that keeps religious people out. So if you’re saying, “I must understand, I must control, I must be in charge,” you’re not going to get the wind. You’re going to try to grasp the wind, and you can’t.
Jesus says, listen, to enter the kingdom of God, you must first believe in me, and then I’ll give you everything you need — including understanding and all the other promises I’m going to make and fulfill in your life. But it’s all accessed by one thing: Are you going to trust me? And it’s exclusive. You have to trust only Jesus.
Picture this. We had a rocket launch last week. Imagine it carried an astronaut and dropped him off in space, and he comes back and they catch him in the chopsticks. When an astronaut returns from space, something interesting happens: people listen to him. He becomes an authority. Before the flight he was just one voice, some nerdy scientist. But after he comes back, he’s a witness. When he describes the blackness of space, the stars, the thin blue line of our atmosphere, the way the whole earth hangs on nothing — nobody in the room argues with him. Why? Because he was there.
The philosophers in the audience may have their theories about the cosmos. The artists may have painted the stars. But when a man has actually been there and starts talking, everyone else’s speculation goes silent. Where he comes from settles all the arguments.
Now hear what Jesus is telling Nicodemus — the most credentialed man in Israel, the top teacher, who came with all his theories, his efforts, his study, and a lifetime of religion, being as perfect as he could possibly be. Jesus says to him, “No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, and that is the Son of Man.” And Jesus means himself. He uses the title “Son of Man,” which in the Old Testament — in the book of Daniel — was used for God. It doesn’t mean he’s merely a man; it’s a messianic title. He’s God who became a Son of Man. He is very clearly saying, “I am God, Nicodemus. Are you going to trust me?”
Every religious founder on earth stood on earth, looked up, and guessed. Buddha guessed. Muhammad guessed. Every philosopher, every mystic tried to discover the truth, to imagine what God must be like. But Jesus doesn’t have to guess, because he came down from heaven. He’s not humanity’s best guess about heaven; he is heaven’s own report to humanity. He says, “We speak about what we have known and testify what we have seen.” His truth is grounded in both physical reality and spiritual reality. He’s a native of glory, a native of real life, a true native.
None of this is a new demand he had to put out for the people. This is good news. He’s bringing good news — not a new set of rules but a new life, not a new law but a new Spirit, a free gift of grace. It is, in a sense, a new way of relating to God.
I’ll end with one more Spurgeon quote. (You get one at the beginning and one at the end. You’re thinking, “He’s finally done.”) Spurgeon said:
A man may cast away many vices, forsake many lusts in which he has indulged, and conquer evil habits, but no man in the world can make himself to be born of God. Though he should struggle ever so much, he could never accomplish what is beyond his power.
And even if a man could somehow make himself born again, he still could not enter heaven, because he would have violated another condition: unless a man is born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God. We can’t control that. All you can do is say, “Jesus, I’m going to trust you completely.” And guess what? The wind blows on you when you say, “I will trust you, Jesus.” You don’t have to understand how it happens, but the wind will blow on you.
And if you’re already saved today — which is most of you — and you want to be led by him, the wind will blow on you when you say, “Jesus, take me by the hand and lead me.” So now, every time it’s windy at the beach, I want you to remember that the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled — but he is a gift. He’s a gift to every human being that Jesus offers. And how do we get it? By simply trusting in him.
Next week we’ll see how Jesus lands this conversation with Nick at night by revealing his crucifixion to Nicodemus. He does it through a really crazy image, and we’ll have to go all the way back to the book of Exodus to unpack how Jesus gives Nicodemus an invitation to the gospel right at the beginning of John chapter 3. So would you all stand with me as we pray, and we’ll sing one more song.