1) I have some shocking news. You don’t have to be religious to be a Christian. Nicodemus was a very religious person, one of the Jewish Ruling Council. But Jesus said to him EEY-OR wrong. You need to start again.
2) I have some more news that is even more shocking than this. Jesus didn’t say to Nicodemus, “You must be born again”!!! That is what Nicodemus thought Jesus said. The Greek, an-o-then often translated “again” is better translated “from above” rather than "again". Ano, the first part of this means upwards, on top, above. In his conversation with Jesus, Nicodemus thought Jesus said “Born again” and he was thinking about the physical, so he didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about. Jesus was astonished that this religious leader didn’t understand. Jesus said to him and everyone you must be born from above, that is to say that you need new life from God given by His Holy Spirit. We need to realise that the first recipients of John’s gospel read it in the original "Koine", or "Common" Greek, and would have realised linguistically why Nicodemus misunderstood an-o-then.
3) We know this because Jesus said afterwards in verse 5 “I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit”
The water represents repentance, turning from what is wrong, and to do what is right. In Nicodemus’ case he was wrongly trusting in religion and needed to trust in Jesus, verse 16.
The Spirit is God the Holy Spirit who gives people the ability to see that they need to make a fresh start with God, to turn from what is not right and trust in Jesus. God the Holy Spirit is a gift to people and gives the gift of faith.
4) Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to the wind, the same Greek word, pneauma is used for both. He says that you can hear the wind but you can’t see it and you don’t know where it has come from or where it will go. You can feel and see what the wind does but it is unpredictable, different from Nicodemus’ religion. This was legalistic, safe, rigid, exclusive.
5) On 21 February 2022 storm Franklin hit the UK. We sheltered indoors. About noon we heard a noise, looked outside and saw the top of a 30 foot pine tree that had been ripped from the rest of the tree in the garden, with damage to The Rectory roof.
When it is windy we will probably shelter, but if we want life with God we have to be prepared to go out and face the wind of the Spirit. To ask God to blow into our lives by His Spirit.
Just as the wind farms off the coast of Whitstable provide energy for people so God the Holy Spirit will give people the energy to turn to Jesus and go on trusting, serving and worshipping him.
If you don’t know God yet, whether you are religious or not, God loves you and God wants you to trust in Jesus so you can have eternal life. Not just a life that goes on in eternity, but a life of quality, trusting in God for ourselves. John 3.16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
11/6/06 year B Trinity Sunday : John 3:1-17
3 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, "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." 3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." 4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." 9 "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked. 10 "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
"You should be ashamed," the father told his son, "When Abraham Lincoln was your age, he used to walk ten miles every day to get to school."
"Really?" the son retorted. "Well when he was your age, he was president."
Have you ever done anything in secret, perhaps something that you are ashamed of? Nicodemus was a Jewish religious leader and did not want to be seen with Jesus so he came secretly at night. The night also represents the darkness of his understanding about God. Jesus gave him a lesson in theology, the things of God.
Nicodemus has an inadequate view of Jesus. He refers to him as a rabbi or teacher. He looks to Jesus' miracles as a sign of God's approval. However, he does not acknowledge that Jesus is a prophet, a spokesman from God, or The Messiah.
Jesus redirects him from miraculous signs to the sign of the cross. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
The Israelites who had been bitten by snakes were saved from physical death by looking up to the bronze snake on a pole.
Jesus, the Son of Man, would soon be lifted up on the cross. All who look up to him, who understand what he was doing and trust in Him, will be saved from spiritual death, which is separation from God. They will be saved to eternal life, which is unity with God, now and into eternity.
Nicodemus would have been familiar with the idea that God loved Israel, but the idea that He loved the world would have been shocking to Him.
God thought that the world was good when he created it, but after Adam and Eve went against His will, the world is usually portrayed as being hostile to God and deserving wrath, not love. So the love is not about the object of the love, but about the loving nature of God. God showed His love by, in His Son, becoming a man and saving the world, verse 17. That salvation is only for those who trust, or believe, in Jesus, verse 16.
The belief or trust in Jesus is brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is compared to the wind, verse 8.
It is unpredictable. Remember the winds of 1987!
The wind cannot be seen. It can be heard and felt. It can be powerful and you can see its effects.
God's Spirit is unpredictable, powerful, unseen, although we can see the effect He has on people.
Jesus said to Nicodemus that he and everyone must be born again or, literally, born from above. This is about making a new start with God though the death and resurrection of Jesus inspired by a trust given by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit gives new life, or new birth.
It involves dying to our old life, of failing to love God and other people all of the time.
It involves realizing that Jesus died in our place on the cross to receive the punishment for our sins on the cross.
It involves realizing that he rose from the dead and He shares his life with his followers.
Followers of Jesus united in his death, resurrection and ascension. When someone trusts in Jesus they receive the Holy Spirit.
When the wind starts to blow you may go around your home, shutting doors and windows to prevent it from disturbing things.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit is like a wind. What are we to do? Shut Him out so He doesn't disturb things too much? Or throw open the windows and doors of our lives to welcome Him in?...
How many people here fully understand how a car works, the engine, gearbox, suspension, cooling system, air conditioning, ignition, fuel injection and the electrical system? Does this stop anyone from driving or being driven in a car?
Today is Trinity Sunday. This passage features God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As Christians we cannot know and understand everything about the Trinity. God is vast and beyond our understanding. What is important is that we know and relate to God the Father, through God the Son, by the work of God the Spirit.
What is important is that we grow in that love, knowledge and devotion of God.
15/6/03 Trinity Sunday : John 3:1-15
PRAY
3 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, "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." 3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." 4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." 9 "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked. 10 "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
PRAY
Many of you will know that my family comes from Norwich in the East of England. A young visitor came to church in the nearby East Coast resort of Great Yarmouth. After the service she was asked what she thought of the service. She said that she couldn't understand why there was no mention of the West Coast in the service. When she was asked what she meant she said, "Well, they kept saying 'In the name of the Father, the Son and the whole East Coast' "
Today's reading contains references to all 3 members of the Trinity, & today is Trinity Sunday. 1 week after Pentecost.
Probably the mention of the name 'Trinity' fills us with confusion and trepidation.
Christian Theology in Plain Language: "Within his own mysterious being God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The designations are just ways in which God is God. Within the Godhead there are three "persons" who are neither three Gods nor three parts of God, but coequally and coeternally God."
Firstly we will look at how the Trinity involves revelation and redemption.
Jesus talks to Nicodemas of the need to be born again of water and the Spirit. The water represents repentance, the desire to make a new start with God by turning away from sin and turning to a life lived according to God's wishes. Only the Spirit can give this new life starting with genuine repentance followed by the power to follow God's perfect will.
Jesus also talks of his own death, being lifted up, and the need for people to trust in him and, by implication, his death and resurrection . Someone suggested that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were the two arms reaching out from God the Father.
All this springs from the nature of God. God wants to reveal himself to humankind as a God of truth and love. He did this from the beginning of human history and was rejected by Adam. He revealed himself to Abraham, Moses and the Israelites. This is in the Old Testament. Although we do see glimpses of the Spirit and, perhaps the Son in the O.T. it is mainly concerned with the revelation of God the Father.
In the New Testament we read first of all of the revelation of God through God the Son, Jesus. Jesus showed us what God is like. Loving, reaching out to those in need, perfect, humble - not concerned with status, putting others interests before his own, ultimately on the cross.
Then God the Holy Spirit came upon the first disciples. He convicts people of sin, He reveals the significance of what Jesus has done, He enables people to respond, enables people to follow God's ways, to become more like Jesus, and He gives at least one gift to every Christian to build up the church.
We should not get bogged down in what each person of the Godhead does because they are all working together in each and every situation. It has been suggested that the revealer is God the Holy Spirit; the revelation is God the Son, Jesus; the one revealed is God the Father.
God chooses people to reveal himself to and to be reconciled with. He does this through Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit.
So the Trinity is about revelation and redemption.
It is also about relationship.
In Jesus day you were identified through your family relationships. James and John were known as the sons of Zebedee, Luke 5:10. In Hebrew 'ben' means 'son of'. So James was known as James ben Zebedee. So my son would be called Joshua ben Jim !
We have fellowship with God through trusting Jesus, which is itself the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
There are two sides to this.
Fellowship within believers. God lives in every believer by His Spirit. Therefore every believer is united. Not by race, colour, age, sex, religious ritual, or statement of belief. But by the sin-convicting, repentance-bringing, life-giving, fruit-bearing, gift-providing, obedience-producing Spirit.
It is He who unites us. When we fall out, when we sin against another Christian by gossiping about them, by judging them, and by not helping them we are grieving God the Holy Spirit.
His Spirit unites us. When we are disunited this wounds God,
Fellowship with God. God's Spirit also unites us with Him, through Jesus. Through the work of the Spirit we become children of God. Co-heirs with Christ. The N.T. describes Christians as being 'in Christ'. 2 Cor. 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come
Do you believe that you are 'in Christ' today ?
Christ has always been part of the Trinity. From before he became a man, when he became a man, and since His resurrection and ascension. He, and the Holy Spirit have always been and will always be part of the Godhead.
If we are 'in Christ' we are united with Him and, therefore, in a sense, we are also part of the Trinity !
Just as Jesus loved and obeyed God the Father so, by being united with God we can follow his ways in love.
You see once you move from the idea that the Trinity provides compartments into which we can neatly put different parts of God, to the understanding that it is about relationship then this frees us to understand God better.
It frees us from the difficulty of trying to understand God, which is impossible anyway because He is beyond our understanding.
Sometimes people will say that someone they know has been brought out of themselves through, say the love of a partner.
You could say that God's love for humankind has brought him out of himself .
If we look at salvation history we can see how through God's love for humankind that He reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There is a danger of concentrating on the relationships within the Trinity without seeing God's fellowship with humankind for which God emerges out of himself.
It is through that fellowship that we can have with God that we can know Him better and that we can be drawn into the Trinity through our unity with Jesus through the work of the Spirit that gives us a right relationship with God.
How many people here fully understand how a car works, the engine, gearbox, suspension, cooling system, air conditioning, ignition and the rest of the electrical system? Does this stop anyone from driving or being driven in a car? As Christians we don't know and don't have to understand everything about the Trinity. What is important is that we know and relate to God the Father through God the Son by the work of God the Spirit. What is important is that we grow in that love, knowledge and devotion of God.
PRAY