Shenandoah Bible Baptist Church
Something Was Missing
And the Bible says this, "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews." The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Now those two verses tell us a little bit about Nicodemus. Most of all it says he's a Pharisee. A Pharisee was a group of Jews and they were pretty religious people. They stuck to the Old Testament law. They weren't going to be found breaking that law. They made sure they're outside and everything that they looked just right. You know when they came to church they were the best dressed and they made sure that they were doing everything just like Old Testament law had them to be. And they were, can I say it this way, religious people trying to be holy people, right? But it also says he was a ruler of the Jews. Now a ruler of the Jews, he was a man with some authority. He was a man that was over top some others. Usually a ruler of the Jews meant he ruled one of the synagogues or the church houses of the Jews. And the Jewish culture, that meant he was popular, he was well liked and well trusted. Now here it is. This man was a religious man and he was a leader in the Jewish culture. Yet something was missing. He came to Jesus. Verse 2 says he came to him by night. Came to him by night. What that means is he was a little bit worried about what everybody else was going to think. Came to Jesus at night time. This is back before electricity, back before they had hot rod chariots with lights and booming radios where they could cruise the town at night. That was before all that. At night time everybody would have been settled in their homes and he came to Jesus under that mask of darkness there to ask some questions. And Jesus said, verse 3, I want you to see this, look what he says, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, accept a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. Did you catch what he said? He said, Nicodemus, I know you're a good guy. I know on the outside you got it all together. You seem to be a righteous man. You're well respected in the community. And at this point, being a ruler of the Jews, he was likely a wealthy man also. Obviously that went hand-in-hand like that. And here he's got everything in the worldly eyes that he could have. And he had upstairs, he was a man of character, he had some wealth about him. But Jesus said, that's not good enough. He said, you're missing something. He said, you must be born again. Now notice the verse says, you must be born again. What's, if you're not, he cannot see the kingdom of God. In other words, Nicodemus, you're not going to make it to the Father. You're not going to make it to heaven. You're not going to make it where you want to go unless you get born again. Now that sounds a little different, doesn't it? I mean, look at Nicodemus here, his response, he says, verse 4, Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? He's asking these questions. I mean, real life questions. How do you get born again? That doesn't make any sense. And Jesus says, in verse 5, Jesus answered, "Verily I say unto thee, except the man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now he goes on to explain that now. Water and spirit. All right? I'm looking at a bunch of people here. You're looking at me. You know we've been born physically, born of water. Right? You can see my outer shell here. But what Jesus is saying here is, you must be born again. There's another part of you that must be born. Did you know that God is three parts, do you know that? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Did you know that Genesis chapter 1, I know a lot of the world likes to talk about little amoebas and one single cell organisms and crawling from frogs and monkeys and everything else. And that, because my Bible says I was created by a real God on purpose, for a purpose. Amen. And the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, that we were created in the image of God. It means we were made like in his image. Do you know just like God has three parts, we have three parts? Do you know I have a body here, you can see that. And you know I've got a soul because that's my thinking. That's my emotions. That's my, my inside, right? But there's another part called a spirit. The Bible says that's dead because we're sinners. And Jesus is trying to get Nicodemus to understand. You've got everything on the outside just right. You're standing in front of me. You've got a soul, you've got some, some character about you, but your spirit is dead. The spirit, he says you must be born again. Nicodemus, he's still confused. Look at, look at verse 9, it says Nicodemus answered and it said unto him, how can these things be? How can these things be? I don't understand. And that's when Jesus gets down to verse 16, right? For God so loved the world, he goes to explain it. You want to know how to get born again? That's what he's saying. He says, this is how you get born again. He says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That was Jesus. And whosoever what, believe it, believe it, in him, should not perish, that's a spiritual death there. That's not a physical death, that's a spiritual death. We're talking about it, it's being separated from God, we're talking about eternity in hell. Yes, that's real. Jesus preached on that. That's Bible. And he says, God loved you and I came to die for your sin so you didn't have to. And he says, he says he should not perish but have everlasting life. The key word in that verse is belief. He said, you want to get born again, you've got to believe. For by grace are ye saved through faith. That's what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2. Now being born again, Nicodemus, he's trying to understand it, Jesus is explaining this, he goes on with several verses to explain this. It was very simple here, he knew something was missing and Jesus said, you've got your act together on the outside but inside you're dead, you need to be born again. In order to be born again, John 3 16 says you must believe. You must believe. It's not about putting money in an offering plate or coming to a car show at a church. It's not about being a good person, it's not about Nicodemus, looking better than somebody else. It's not about Nicodemus doing more, it's not about being a pastor or being a missionary, it's not about any of that stuff, it's about believing. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. Being saved is another way of saying, being born again, saved from what we deserve, a death in hell and saved unto Christ in heaven, being born again. You must believe, now watch this now, what do I believe, do I believe that he died, do I believe that he rose again, yes, here let me keep it real simple for you, believe that Jesus is the Son of God and believe that he can save you. For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Further explanation, further explanation. What do we need to do, believe, call out to him, confess him with his mouth. Lord, I'm a sinner for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3 tells us, Romans 3 tells us that we're all sinners and you and I, we don't need the Bible to tell us we're sinners, we know, okay, I got enough whoopans as a kid, I know I'm a sinner, and some of y'all can testify, but let's simmer down there, okay, all right, you know what the Romans 6 says, the wages of sin is death. That's why Jesus came, why did Jesus die on the cross if you and I could get to heaven on our good works? No, we can't get to heaven on our good works. He died on the cross to take that place for us because we deserve death. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen? And I go back to the verses I've already quoted and I'll be done. This chapter, chapter 10 verse 9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It's about believing, having faith, it's not about good works, it's not about having the outside just right, you know, in the next chapter in John chapter 4, there is a woman at the well and she is a mess, Jesus says go call your husband and she says, I don't have a husband and she's had all kinds of different husbands and she was living with somebody and she was in sin and all of that she did not have her act together and Jesus he offered her salvation and she got saved. It's not about the outside, it's not about having the whole life together even though Nicodemus did, it's about being born again. That's exactly what he told him. And I asked you today and I'll be finished at this point here. Have you been born, have you been born again, have you been saved? Two words mean the same thing. Have you asked Jesus because your sinner in the Bible tells us as sinners we deserve death and hell, have you been saved? Have you asked the Lord to save your soul? I remember as a boy, I had learned about heaven and hell and Jesus, I had learned about these things in Sunday school but I didn't put it all together. I was like Nicodemus, I didn't get it all, I didn't put all the pieces together and it wasn't until an older man took the Bible and showed me these verses and said this is how you get saved. It's not just because your grandma brought you to church, it's not just because you've been a good kid and you've never done anything too bad, no it's by faith, it's by faith. I'm going to ask please if you would, let's power heads and close our eyes please. This is not something, this is not something that is for everybody, this is something for you. It's not for everybody else, nobody should be looking around, this is private time between you and God. I'm not going to ask you to come up here on the platform, I'm not going to ask you to do anything like that at all. I just want you to be right there in your seat quiet for a moment and I wonder to ask you a question, have you ever been born again? So I have that question, do you know that you're going to heaven when you die? Do you know that you're a child of God? All of these things meaning the same thing. What you need to do is you need to ask the Lord to save you, to the Lord I'm a sinner but I believe, I believe that you're the Son of God and you can save me, Lord would you save me? Maybe you, I'll say a prayer and I'll say some words but you've got to mean it in your heart if you want to be saved, you've got to mean it. Maybe you'd repeat after me but it's not about the words, it's not about chanting some specific word or doing something like that, it's about faith in your heart, what you believe. Maybe you'd pray a prayer like this, you'd say Lord, I know I'm a sinner and I know what sin deserves but Lord I believe that you are the Son of God and that you took my place. I believe because you rose from the dead that you can save my soul and Jesus I'm asking you today to save me. Thank you Lord for saving me, amen, amen. Now here's what I'm going to do, here's what I'm going to do, would you keep your heads bowed just for a moment and then I'll finish, was it real? It's easy to quote a prayer but was it real? Maybe some of you in here, many of you in here have done that earlier in life or maybe at different times you would pray to prayer like that and you believed on Jesus and you asked Christ to save you but I wonder today if it was real today and you prayed that prayer. I wonder before God, not before anybody else, everybody's heads are bowed and eyes are closed but you would just raise a hand and say I just prayed that prayer and I just got saved, I asked the Lord to save me just now. I wonder if you'd raise your hand and just say I asked Jesus to save me, I asked Jesus to save me, anybody else, raise a hand and just say I asked the Lord to save me just now, yes, see those hands, yes you may lower them. This is what it's all about is asking God to save your soul. Have you been born again? Nicodemus had his act together on the outside but on the inside he was empty. I wonder about you, are you empty on the inside, you got to ask Jesus to save you. Lord be glorified and I thank you for this time and Lord I pray if someone in here has some questions about what I've said and what I've read out of the Scripture that they'd seek me out after service and Lord that they'd come and say I need to get saved, I need to be born again, would you help me with that? Nicodemus needed some explanation, others have needed some explanation, Lord I didn't get saved the first time I ever heard it, many didn't get saved the first time they heard it but when I pray that you'd give people the courage to ask. Thank you for what you've done and we pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.