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Love
Teaching Text: John 3: 1-21
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we knowthat you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus
Seekers - The Miracle of Rebirth in the Secret Conversation with Nicodemus
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
How do people respond to knowing you are a believer in God?
“If 20 years ago people were worried that belief in God would make them an idiot, today I run a across a mentality that belief in God will make me a bad person. If 20 years ago people thought I might wish I could believe in God, but I would have to check my brain at the door. Now its something like I might be curious about God, but I could never let myself become like. And so the conversation has shifted some. I find people leading with moral objections to Christianity as often or more than intellectual ones.”
Quite often the unwillingness of our hearts and minds to find life in God is not just an information problem. It’s intended to remain a control problem.
“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.”
This famous verse that gives us the Gospel in one sentence and tells us of the great love of God and how far God is willing to go to share His love is found in a conversation between Jesus an influential religious leader of His time.
it answers for us some crucial questions. Among them…
How one might come to God
How you can know God
How God shows us His Heart
How One Might Come to God
People come to Jesus in all manner of conditions and circumstances and timing in the Gospels and each of these is instructive for us because it shows us ways that we might come to God.
And Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night
By "at night” I mean…
Curious but unsure, intrigued but unconvinced, questioning but reluctant
I’ve seen something things but I don’t know how to explain them
In a posture of negotiation - keeping your dignity and offering terms
Jesus has been doing miracles - showing the power of God, but Nicodemus puts Him in a category he can understand….
“He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
He is ready for Jesus to be a teacher. Give us the instructions. We will take what we can use and it may make our lives better.
Do you feel shame or reticence to engage with Jesus because of how you come to him?
Jesus was ok with Nicodemus coming the way he did.
And later, he is willing to acknowledge his change in perspective publicly.
But Jesus answers in a totally different way. Nicodemus says we’ve seen some good things out of you. Jesus says you can’t see anything unless you find a new way to be alive…
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’”
Nicodemus comes to negotiate with Jesus and he starts by saying he we can admit you are a great teacher…
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
– C.S. Lewis
Nicodemus says we think you can lead some good devotionals. Jesus says you are going to need a whole new life.
How you can know God | Be Born Again
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are 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.”
– John 3: 4-8
The tragedy of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3 is that we all come equipped with starting place of false gods, either ourselves or some other substitute…
We are born physically but we need to made alive spiritually
“We are not begotten by God, we are only made by Him: in our natural state we are not sons of God, only (so to speak) statues. We have not got Zoe or spiritual life: only Bios or biological life which is presently going to run down and die. Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man to spread to other[s] the kind of life He has…Every Christian is to become a little Christ.
– C.S. Lewis
How God Shows Us His Heart | Rescuing Love
God loves giving life
God loves removing condemnation
God loves things being seen for what they really are (truth)
Very often, we believe that what will bring us closer to God is just a few small behavioral changes.
How often do you believe this?
How true is this thinking?
Parents:
Consider what language you use to describe a relationship with Jesus.
Does it lean towards a moral construct that leads to eternal life?
How can you help your kids know that it’s not about being good, but about accepting an invitation to friendship from Jesus?
