THE GREATEST MIRACLE

 

 

John 3:1-3;   16-18

 

Prayer

 

I want to begin by getting acquainted with Nicodemus.

He was a religious man.

 

 

He knew the Old Testament Scriptures;

Kept the Law of Moses;

 

 

Observed all the feast days;

Was self-denying, self-righteous and zealous.

 

 

He was one of the best men in Israel;

A clean moral man;

 

 

A pillar in the synagogue;

A salt of the earth kind of man;

 

 

A man who would later stand up for Jesus;

A man who would help take the body of Jesus off the cross, help prepare it  

for burial,

 

 

And help lay it in a tomb.

Nicodemus had risen to prominence among the Jews.

 

 

He was a ruler of the Jews;

A member of the Sanhedrin;

 

A member of the strict sect called Pharisees.

This good and important man went to Jesus one night.

 

 

They had an important conversation.

Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we THINK that thou art a teacher come from God.”

 

 

No! He didn't!

I deliberately misquoted him.

 

 

“Rabbi, we KNOW [we know] that thou art a teacher come from God.”

How did they KNOW?

 

 

What made them so sure?

Nicodemus told us.

 

 

“No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. “

No man can heal the blind without God.

 

 

No man can make the dumb speak without God.

No man can raise the dead without God.

 

 

No man can take 5 loaves and 2 fishes and feed 5000 without God.

No man can curse a fig tree and make it die from the roots up without God.

 

 

The Pharisees knew this.

The miracles of Jesus caught their attention.

 

 

Most of the Pharisees set themselves against Jesus.

But they never doubted His miracles.

 

They knew Jesus was no ordinary man;

Knew He came from God.

 

 

Let's look at Jesus' response.

Did He brag about His miracles?

 

 

No! Jesus never bragged about anything.

Did He discuss walking on water;

 

 

Turning water into wine, calming the sea, healing lepers?

No! Jesus could have discussed these miracles.

 

 

But He wanted to discuss a. greater miracle;

A miracle Nicodemus knew nothing about;

 

 

A miracle we all need to happen to us.

What is this great miracle?

 

 

Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he     

cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This great miracle is the new birth.

 

 

The person who is born again is saved.

That person can see and understand the things of God.

 

 

But the person who is not born again is lost.

And that person cannot see and cannot understand the things of God.

 

 

 

 

It doesn't matter:

          How religious we are;

          How many churches we've joined;

 

          How many offices we've held;

          Or anything like that.

 

 

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus was religious from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.

 

 

And yet, the loving Jesus told this great religious man he could not see the    

kingdom of God unless he was born again.

That startled Nicodemus.

 

 

He had never heard about a miracle like this.

It's not an easy saying.

 

 

He wanted to know more;

Wanted to be sure he would see the kingdom of God.

 

 

He had a question about this miracle.

“How?”

 

 

“How can a man be born when he is old?”

“Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born again?”

 

 

Nicodemus was thinking about a miraculous second physical birth.

He was famous for his religious education, but he had never heard of a         

miracle called a spiritual birth.

 

 

 

Talk to a lost person about spiritual things and you may as well speak a        

foreign language.

The person who is not spiritual cannot understand spiritual things.

 

 

Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned.

So Nicodemus didn't understand this miracle that Jesus was talking about.

 

 

He asked, “How?”

“How can a. man be born when he is old?”

 

 

Here's the answer.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the       

Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

 

 

This miracle birth requires two things:

Water and the Holy Spirit.

 

 

We know about the Holy Spirit.

But what is this water?

 

 

There are at least three opinions.

One group says this water is the water of birth.

 

 

This is a natural assumption.

But there's no Scripture for it.

 

 

So I'm just going to pass over it.

A second group says this water is the water of baptism.

 

 

 

They remind us that Jesus said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be     

saved;”

“But he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

 

 

Don't get careless with this verse.

Jesus DID say, if we believe and are baptized, we will be saved.

 

 

But He DIDN"T say, if we aren't baptized we will be damned.

He said if we don't believe, we will be damned.

 

 

It's the failure to believe in Jesus that brings damnation not the failure to be    

baptized.

A third group says this water is the Word of God.

 

 

I'm in this group.

We are saved by faith.

 

 

But where does that faith come from?

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

 

 

It takes two things to save us: Faith that comes from the Word of God and the       

Holy Spirit.

Peter said, “We are born again (we are born again) not of corruptible seed,   

but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth       forever” (I Pet. 1:23).

 

 

So we are born again by the Word of God.

Paul told the Corinthians, “I have begotten you (that's the new birth ---- I      

have begotten you) through the gospel” (I Cor. 4:15).

 

So we are begotten (born of) the gospel.

But what is the gospel?

 

 

The gospel is that part of the Word of God that tells us about the death,        

burial, resurrection and second coming of Jesus.

Paul said, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase”

 (l Cor. 3:6-8).

 

 

Just about everyone will tell you that Paul went to Corinth and preached (or  

planted) the Word of God.

And Apollos followed him and preached (or watered with) the Word of God.

 

 

Paul said Christ, “loved the church and gave himself for it that he might        

sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Eph.   

5:25, 26).

The Word is water that washes.

 

 

Jesus said, “Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you”    

(Jn. 15:3).

I believe the Word of God is the Water and the Holy Spirit is the power that  

produces a miracle called the new birth.

 

 

Jesus continued explaining this miracle to Nicodemus by saying, “That which         

is born of the flesh is flesh;”

“And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

 

 

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

There are two ways to be born:

 

 

Born of the flesh which is the physical birth.

And born of the Spirit which is the spiritual birth.

 

The water of birth is necessary for a physical birth.

And the water of the Word is necessary for a spiritual birth.

 

 

When we stand before God, the question will not be “Are you a Pharisee, a  

liberal, a Methodist, or a Baptist?”

It will be “Are you born again?”

 

 

The question will not be “Did you serve in the Sanhedrin, on the Administrative

 Council, or in the choir?”

It will be “Are you born again?”

 

 

As far as the thief on the cross is concerned, the question was not “Did you

get baptized with water?”

It was “Did you get born again?”

 

 

He was born again without being baptized with water;

Born again by hearing the words that were spoken around the cross.

 

 

I want to talk about the Holy Spirit.

Jesus gave Nicodemus an example of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

“The wind bloweth where it willeth, and thou hearest the sound of it, but       

canst not tell from where it cometh, and where it goeth; so is every one         

that is born of the Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is like the wind.

 

 

We cannot tell where the wind comes from.

And we cannot tell where the wind is going (It swirls, goes up, goes down,   

zigzags, etc.).

 

 

 

But we can know when the wind is blowing.

We can hear the wind;

 

 

Feel it.

See it’s effect on the crops, shrubs, trees, etc.

 

 

We can see plants bending over in the wind;

Trees that have been uprooted by the wind.

 

 

In like manner, we cannot tell where the Holy Spirit comes from.

We cannot tell who the Holy Spirit will visit next.

 

 

But we can hear the Holy Spirit speak to our heart;

Know when the Holy Spirit is moving;

 

 

Feel the presence of the Holy Spirit;

See the effect of the Holy Spirit on people;

 

 

See people bending over like the grass in the wind when they pray;

See fruit that is produced by lives that have been uprooted and changed.

 

 

Nicodemus was still bewildered;

Still asking, “How?”

 

 

“How can these things be?”

Jesus asked, “Art thou a teacher of Israel and knowest not these things?”

 

 

We've already noted that Nicodemus was a member of the great Sanhedrin;

That was a select group of seventy-one men;

 

Men who were thought to be outstanding religious scholars;

Men who were the Jewish think tank;

 

 

The religious brain trust.

But Nicodemus still didn't understand the miracle birth.

 

 

So Jesus gave him another example of this miracle.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of   

Man be lifted up.”

 

 

“That whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Jesus was saying, “Moses recorded a miracle that’s an example of how        

people are saved.”

 

 

The children of Israel were bitten by snakes in the wilderness.

They were dying by the hundreds.

 

 

God told Moses to make a snake out of brass;

To lift it up on a pole.

 

 

He said everyone who looks at that brass snake will be healed.

They won't have to suck the poison from the snake bites.

 

 

They won't have to take an antidote for the poison.

All they will have to do is believe my words,

 

 

Look at that brass snake,

And be healed.

 

 

 

I can remember the first time I heard about this miracle.

I didn’t like it.

 

 

I was uncomfortable with the fact that a snake on a pole was used to   

symbolize Jesus.

It contradicted my entire view of Jesus as gentle, good, kind and loving.

 

 

I don't like snakes.

Every snake looks long and poisonous to me.

 

 

I kill every snake I can.

If you meet me driving down the road and a snake starts crawling across the

road, look out because I'm going to try to run over him.

 

 

I may throw on my brakes and try to slide across him.

I may back up and try to get him a second time.

 

 

But it's no accident that Jesus used this miracle as an illustration.

When God told Moses to put that brass snake on a pole, the Israelites were  

suffering from snake bites.

 

 

They were infected with poison from the snakes.

They were dying by the hundreds.

 

 

We're like those Israelites.

We've been bitten by a poisonous snake.

 

 

We're infected with poison from a snake.

Someone may say, “I haven't been bitten by a poisonous snake.”

 

 

Yes you have!

You've been bitten by that same poisonous snake that bit