Yesterday we saw that only God can open our eyes and only God can change our hearts.  I read a great quote from Bono who is the lead singer of U2 and one of the most recognizable rock stars in our world today.  Someone asked him about religion and he broke all religions down to two things—grace and karma.  Karma he said is the idea that what comes around goes around and that we ultimately get what we deserve.  That is what every religion in the world teaches, but Christianity is not about karma—it is about grace.  Bono said, “I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge.  It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for grace.  I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross…It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.”  Do you know how the secular journalist responded to the Gospel?  He said, “The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world…it’s close to lunacy, in my view.” 

It’s foolishness to those who are lost, but to those of us who have been born again it is the power of God.  Nic couldn’t understand, but Jesus answers it for him. In verses 14-15 Jesus gives Nic the heart of the Gospel and the way we can be born again.  He tells us that spiritual birth is only possible through the sacrifice of the Son of Man.  Only through the cross is the new birth possible.  In Num 21 the people were grumbling and God sent fiery serpents into the camp.  The people finally saw that it was because of their sin so they cried out to Moses who cried out to God.  God told him to make a snake and to put it on a pole and anyone who would look up at the snake could be healed.  To look up at the snake meant—1) you confessed your sin, 2) you couldn’t heal yourself, and 3) only God could heal you.  You were throwing yourself upon the mercy and grace of God. 

Nic though he was the one holding up the stake for a world of sinners, but Jesus showed him that he was among the sinners and in need of outside help.  The snake on the stick foreshadowed Jesus on the cross.  “So must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”  The sacrifice of Jesus is the cause of our new birth. There are two musts in this passage—you must be born again and so must the Son of Man be lifted up…this is the cause, but lets go to one of the most famous passages of scripture and see the reason for our new birth.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  The cause of the new birth was the sacrifice, but reason for the sacrifice was the love of the Father.  The only reason we can be born again, the only reason we can have eternal life, the only reason our sins can be forgiven is that God so loved the world.  We aren’t a loveable bunch, but we are loved.   IN Genesis 6:5 we find God looking at mankind and the Bible says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  A lot of people talk about man evolving, but when you read the Bible you find we are devolving.  We continually grow more and more sinful and further and further from God and yet He loved us enough to send Jesus!

JI Packer said, “The measure of love is how much it gives and the measure of the love of God is the gift of His only Son to be made man, and to die for sins, and so to become the one mediator who can bring us to God.  No wonder Paul speaks of God’s love as ‘great’ and passing knowledge!”

What does this tells us?  It tells us that there is hope for anyone.  Why is there hope for a Bin Laden or a John Thweatt?  Because God loved.  Why can we have new life?  Because God loves and enables us to believe in Him. 

So we see the cause—the sacrifice.  We see the reason—the love.  But let’s close by seeing the means…the Holy Spirit shines the light though God’s Word.  Peter said, “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” (1 P 1:23) Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what I mine and declare it to you.”  (J 16:13-15)  What does the Spirit declare to us?  He declares the things of God and they are found in the Word of God.

Before we close I have to point you to two verses in chapter one, verse one, “IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  And verse 4, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  Phillips pointed out, “Nic had questions; Jesus not only has answers but is himself the Answer.”  To be born again is to see the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 C 4:6)  There is nothing you face today that cannot be met in Jesus!