Look to Christ and Live

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Look to Christ and Live

John 3:1-15

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You Must Have Life Before You Can Live: Understanding What It Means to Be Born Again

Have you ever wondered what separates merely existing from truly living? During World War II, while bombs were falling on London, the great preacher Martyn Lloyd Jones continued gathering his church and preaching. He said something that cuts right to the heart of our spiritual condition: “the New Testament does not merely tell us to live a better life, it tells us that we must have life before we can live.”

This profound truth comes alive in one of the most famous conversations in all of Scripture – a late night meeting between Jesus and a religious leader that would forever change how we understand salvation.

A Midnight Meeting That Changed Everything

In John chapter 3, verses 1-15, we encounter “a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” Who’s this guy? “We’re told he was a man of the Pharisees, which were a group of very revered Jewish scholars who emphasized strict observance of the Mosaic Law.” Nicodemus wasn’t just any Pharisee – he was also “a ruler of the Jews, which means he was likely a member of a governing body known as the Sanhedrin.” Even more impressive, Jesus later refers to him as “the teacher of Israel” – not just a teacher, but THE teacher.

“This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him'” (John 3:2). Notice what Nicodemus believed about Jesus at this point: “He does not believe he is Lord. He doesn’t believe he is Savior. He is merely a teacher come from God.”

The Necessity of the New Birth

What happens next is remarkable. “Jesus answered him” – but “Nicodemus hadn’t asked a question yet.” Jesus knew “what was in man” and understood the question burning in Nicodemus’s heart: how does one enter the kingdom of God?

Jesus’s answer was revolutionary: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

“The Pharisees answer to how does one enter the kingdom of God? Is, well, one enters the kingdom of God by strict observance of the Law. But that’s not Jesus’s answer.” Instead, Jesus teaches us about “the necessity of the new birth. No one can enter or even see, Jesus says, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

Here’s the reality: “The day of my birth and the day of your birth was not the hour of your birth or entrance into God’s kingdom. You were not born into God’s family. You were not born into God’s kingdom. You must be, Scripture says, adopted into this family.”

The Nature of the New Birth

When Nicodemus asks how someone can be born again physically, Jesus clarifies in John 3:5-8: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

What exactly is this new birth? “Regeneration is a sovereign work of the Spirit of God whereby he raises someone from spiritual death to spiritual life.” Before being born again, “we were dead. Not physically dead, obviously, but we were spiritually dead. That means we were spiritually lifeless. We were blind to the glory of Christ. We were incapable of understanding. We were enslaved to sinful desire. Before you were born again, you were not sick in a hospital. You were dead in a graveyard.”

Jesus uses the wind as an illustration: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). “Does that sound like something you can control? That’s the point.”

The Helplessness of Man

Poor Nicodemus came to Jesus asking, “what else must I do to enter the kingdom of God? Like, what am I missing? What do you say? What else must I do to enter the kingdom of God? And Jesus’s reply is, there is nothing you can do. Something must happen to you.”

When Nicodemus responds with confusion in John 3:9, “How can these things be?”, Jesus drives the point home further in verses 10-12: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.”

“In other words, Nicodemus, you cannot grasp the deep things of God because you have an unregenerate heart. You still have a heart of stone, not a heart of flesh. You have not yet been born again.” This reveals “the helplessness of man. We cannot regenerate ourselves any more than you had control over your first birth.”

But here’s the crucial distinction: “Thanks be to God, there is a difference between helpless and hopeless. You can be utterly helpless and totally hopeful.”

The Provision of Christ

In John 3:14-15, Jesus points to an Old Testament story from Numbers 21. The Israelites had been complaining about God’s provision of manna, saying “we loathe this worthless food” (Numbers 21:5). “God sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6).

When the people repented, God provided healing in an unusual way: “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live” (Numbers 21:8). “God brought healing to those snake bitten Israelites as they gazed upon a bronze serpent on a pole. Let me just say that a little differently. God gave those good as dead Israelites life as they looked up and saw the cause of their misery put to death.”

Jesus applies this to himself: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). “Here is the provision of Christ. Whoever looks to Christ and believes in him will have eternal life. Just as the Israelites looked to the serpent on the pole and lived.”

Putting It Into Practice

“How ought we to apply this? It could not be easier. Look to Christ and live. Look to Christ and live. Let’s make that easier. That’s pretty easy. Let’s make it easier. Look.”

“Look up. See Jesus living perfectly in your place. See him mangled and suffering in your place. See him dead on the cross in your place. See him conquering death in your place. See him at the right hand of God the Father even now in your place, see him interceding for you.”

For those who haven’t been born again: “As you see him, I pray that God would send His Holy Spirit now cause you to be born again, that you may see and believe. My job is to tell you to look. And then we pray that God would work in your heart.”

For parents: “Pray that the Spirit of God would breathe life into your children.”

For believers: “We have been born again. We have past tense. We have looked to Christ and we live. But we so easily forget. And we so easily lose perspective and we get looking at everything other than Christ and we grow weary. Well, let us strive less, let us worry less, let us murmur less. Let us stop feeling guilty for not being good enough. Let us compare ourselves to others less. Let us look to Christ and live.”

The message is beautifully simple yet profoundly life-changing: you must have life before you can live. That life comes only through being born again by the Spirit of God. And the way to receive that life? Simply look to Christ and live.

We hope you enjoyed the sermon and would love to see you in person. Plan your visit to Community Baptist Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee today!

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