A man habitually read the obituaries the first thing every morning. If he didn’t see his name, he dressed and went to work. One morning he was shaken to his roots when he discovered his name there. He called a friend and asked, “Did you see my name in the obituaries this morning?” “Yes,” his friend replied, “where are you calling from?”
Great question! If you could make a call from the grave to a friend would your friend ask the same question; or would your friend ask, “What’s heaven like”?
Where will you spend eternity? It’s completely up to you. You may hope that God grades on a curve or balances the scales between your good and bad, but the fact is Jesus died for a reason—the forgiveness of your sins. Last week I mentioned a good man named Nicodemus who visited Jesus one night.
John 3:1 – 2, 1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He 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.”
We can learn a lot from these few verses. First there’s his name. It means “innocent of blood.” (He lived up to his name to the Pharisees in Jn. 7:45-52). Then we see that he was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin.
In verse 10 Jesus called him “Israel’s teacher.” So now we know he was an authority on the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
As a Pharisee he was very religious. He not only believed in God, and in the revelation of God in the Old Testament, but he also lived by the very strict Law of Moses. You couldn’t find anybody better. Nicodemus was a good and moral man.
He also knew about Jesus and believed something about Jesus? Look at verse 2 again: “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.”
You may know someone like this. They believe in God, they talk about God; they may even believe something about Jesus. They usually believe they will go to heaven when they die.
I had a friend in college who was a good guy and who believed in God and attributed all kinds of things, good and bad, to God. But when I would try to share Jesus with him, he would say to me, “Bob, God knows that I would believe in Jesus if I could, but I can’t. And I don’t believe he’ll hold that against me.”
Nicodemus was curious. He heard about what Jesus was doing. He wanted to see for himself this One everyone was talking about. He wanted to just have a religious discussion, one teacher with another.
But Jesus cut to the chase. There wasn’t time for idle chit-chat. Pay attention to what he says to this good, religious, moral man. John 3:3, 3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
This was the last thing Nicodemus expected to hear. Expecting a pleasant religious conversation, instead he’s told he must be born again. He sure wasn’t expecting that. He wasn’t expecting to be told, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“No one” is very emphatic. Jesus knew that Nicodemus sincerely believed he was doing all the right things. But Jesus tells him that no one, no matter how good they are, no matter if they are in church every time the doors are open, no matter they give lots of money to the church—no matter how good you are or how much good you do—not one person will see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.
People get hung up on what being “born again” means. Nicodemus, as religious as he was, and with all the knowledge he had of the Old Testament, was no exception. He had no idea what Jesus was talking about. So he asks,
John 3:4, 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!”
We know that Nicodemus was an intelligent man. He thought he knew all he needed to know about God and what he should do to please Him. Yet Jesus’ words threw him for a loop.
After all, he was the religious teacher, he was the Pharisee. He had come to Jesus as one teacher to another. He had an explanation for everything, yet the buzz on the streets about Jesus aroused his curiosity.
But Jesus knew that a simple religious discussion wasn’t going to solve Nicodemus’ need. So He expands his answer: John 3:5 – 7, 5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”
As verse 6 explains, “Born of water” is the physical birth; born of “the Spirit” is the spiritual birth. “Nicodemus, I’m talking about your very soul, about your eternity and where you choose to spend it.
If you want to spend it with God in heaven you must spiritually be born again. Why are you so surprised? As good and moral as you are, you are lost. If you are not spiritually born again you will perish, and it will be your choice.”
My friend in college was a good guy. He was a good college student, good husband and father, and an All-American in track and field. He didn’t smoke or drink. He was just a good guy, and he knew it. So he didn’t see any need for Jesus.
Because Nicodemus was struggling to understand and he marveled at the impossibility of being born again, Jesus told him in John 3:16, 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.
This is a favorite verse of Christians everywhere. It stands alone. It is the Gospel in one verse. But because we know it so well, we sometimes forget its context—Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus how to be born again.
Jesus was saying to Nicodemus that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah. He makes it clear that to be “born again” is to believe in Him.
Nicodemus, if you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah and trust Him to be your Savior, you will perish. But Jesus isn’t emphasizing the negative—“shall not perish…” but on God’s love.
God loves us, and because of that love we don’t have to perish, we don’t have to be lost. God gives us the choice of being saved. This is the key to choosing the right eternity.
I said earlier that the choice of eternity is up to you. God does not condemn anyone. Does that surprise you? God doesn’t send anyone to hell. The choice to be saved or to perish is entirely ours. You either accept or you reject God’s offer of eternal salvation.
God loves every one of us. In Matthew 18:14 Jesus said that God is not willing that anyone be lost. He said in Matthew 25:41 that hell was prepared for Satan and his demons, not for us. Why would anyone choose to spend eternity with the devil??? And yet people continue to resist Christ’s invitation.
Maybe you are like Nicodemus or my friend from college and are using your lack of understanding as an excuse. There are many excuses people make for not being “born again.”
Some excuses people make:
The word “hypocrite” comes from a Greek word used for stage actors or someone who plays a part; it’s someone who wears a mask. It means someone who is insincere or two-faced or false. Surely there are not people like that in the church!
You know what? There are! There are hypocrites in this church—in fact in every church. There are people in every church who claim to be believers but don’t act like it.
Their language, the places they frequent, the friends they hang out with, they way they treat their spouses and children, and on and on all seem to say that they are not a Christian.
I was told one time by an adult woman about her childhood. Her father was a deacon in the church. But at home he was an abuser, abusing his entire family.
This is where the hypocrisy comes in, with his church family he put on his church mask—the mask of piety and devotion and prayerfulness to God. Hypocrites may fool us, but they are not fooling God.
So, yes, there are hypocrites. But should you use them as an excuse?
There are dishonest lawyers. Does this mean they all are? Some doctors are quacks. Are you going to stop going to your doctor? Some preachers are charlatans. But most Christian preachers are true servants of God.
Of course there are hypocrites. But as one old preacher one time said, “I’d rather come to church and sit between two hypocrites than to die, go to hell, and live with all the hypocrites forever.”
This is like a man being told by his doctor, “You have cancer. I must cut it out if you are to live.” And the man replies, “I know that cancer is fatal, but I have grown attached to it. I hate to give it up.” Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense does it!
What Christ wants is for you to give yourself to Him; to trust Him with your life. Yes, there is sin in your life. It’s the reason Jesus died on the cross. Your sin is between you and God.
You’ve got to ask yourself, “Am I going to choose to live my self-centered life and lose out on eternity with Jesus? Or am I going to give Him my sins and be forgiven for all eternity? To be born again is to give your sin up to God for His forgiveness.
“I want to have feelings. I want to cry. I want to have goose bumps run up and down my spine.” Feelings are wonderful, but there isn’t a verse in the Bible that says God is obligated to give you any kind of feelings when you are saved.
If you know you are lost and that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, that’s all you need to be saved. Believe in Him!
That’s like saying, “I’m not going to get into the water until I learn to swim.” Listen—you come to Jesus because you can’t live it. But once Christ comes into your life you don’t live the Christian life in your own strength. He is there every second to help you live it.
“I’m to busy right now; I’ll be saved later when my life settles down and I can give some time to the church.” You know what? That will never happen. When does life ever settle down? If you are too busy for Jesus you are too busy.
I’ll bet you’re not too busy to go to work on time every morning. You’re not too busy to spend hours in front of the TV. You’re not too busy to spend time and money on entertainment and pleasures you enjoy.
And you’re not too busy to die. You will stand before God some day and all your busy-ness and all these other excuses will be shown for what they really are—just excuses. And you will discover that you’ve chosen the wrong eternity.
The Bible says in Romans 1:20, 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
There is no excuse for rejecting God’s gift of salvation. How horrible it will be to stand before God some day and discover that all your excuses are for naught.
Some of you are Nicodemuses. You can talk religion like an expert. You may know the Bible well. You admire Jesus and His teachings.
Like Nicodemus and my college friend, you may think you are in God’s kingdom because you believe in God and believe something about Jesus Christ. But you have never given your heart and life to Him.
Years later my friend gave his heart and life to Jesus. He finally understood that Jesus was the only way of salvation, and he accepted Him as his Savior.
Remember, you don’t become a Christian accidentally, you don’t wake up some morning and you are one. You are not a Christian because your parents are or your spouse is. You become a Christian when you choose to become one.
To become a Christian means you must personally choose for Jesus to be the King of your life. When you make that choice, you are choosing eternity with Him. You are choosing the right eternity.
John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
The choice of where you will spend eternity is all yours. Are you born again? You may not understand; you may feel inadequate. That’s okay. Just understand that God loves you and Jesus died for you, and you can be born again.