Sunday message · Jesus’ Most Confounding series
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Message Summary
In the fourth message of a series on Jesus’ most confounding statements, Pastor Phillip Santillan reads John 3:1–21, where Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to Jesus at night. This conversation holds some of Jesus’ most quoted words and, Phil says, arguably one of the clearest statements of the gospel: God loves you and sent his Son to die for you. It also holds two statements that confounded Nicodemus: unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3), and unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter it (John 3:5).
Phil first recalls how John’s gospel opens with the incarnation: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), so that we could see who God is. Nicodemus begins by pointing to Jesus’ reputation: no one could do these signs unless God were with him. Like every God-fearing Jew, he wanted to be sure he was part of God’s kingdom. Jesus’ reply seems an odd answer to a compliment, Phil jokes, but John has just said that Jesus knew what was in each person’s heart. He knew what Nicodemus was really asking.
Scholars differ on whether Nicodemus took Jesus literally or was asking whether someone set in his ways can truly change. Most agree that water and the Spirit point to a passage Nicodemus knew well, Ezekiel 36, where God promises to sprinkle clean water on his people and says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.” Being born again means a transformed way of living and a transformed heart, or in Phil’s words, “God’s people living God’s way with God’s heart.” That is the kingdom of God, not the new world order most Jews expected.
Jesus’ words about the flesh also told Nicodemus that descent from Abraham was not enough, just as growing up in church or infant baptism is not enough today. He would need to repent and begin a new life in the Spirit. The rest of the passage is plain: God gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. What we lack, Phil says, is not information but obedience.
So he asks: do I want to be part of the kingdom of God, not just a church with good preaching or a circle of people who vote like me? If so, have I been born again? Do our lives show simple morality or the fruit of the Spirit? Anyone unsure can be glad to be wrestling with the question Billy Graham put to stadiums. For those who are born again, Phil returns to last week’s question about understanding God’s mission, which is John 3:16. We ask plenty of questions about budgets and schools, but rarely how our lives can join the work God is already doing. He closes by asking whether we want to be born again to a new way of living, a new heart after God’s mission and a new purpose, before leading in prayer.
Questions about Nicodemus and being born again
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and “a leader of the Jews” who came to Jesus at night (John 3:1–2). He told Jesus that no one could perform the signs he did unless God were with him, and Jesus answered that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. Like every God-fearing Jew, this message says, Nicodemus wanted to be sure he was part of God’s kingdom.
It means God gives you a new heart and a new life by his Spirit, not just a better set of morals. When Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again, or “born from above” (John 3:3, BSB footnote), he was pointing to God’s promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). Pastor Phil calls it “God’s people living God’s way with God’s heart.”
It points to God’s promise in Ezekiel 36, a passage Nicodemus knew well, to wash his people clean and put his Spirit within them; most scholars read it that way, this message notes. “I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean… And I will put My Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:25, 27). Without that cleansing and new life, Jesus said, no one can enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5).
John never says outright, but he shows Nicodemus moving toward Jesus. Later he defended Jesus before the Pharisees: “Does our law convict a man without first hearing from him to determine what he has done?” (John 7:50–51). After the crucifixion he brought about seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes and helped Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple, prepare Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:38–40).