On Sunday, May 3, Pastor Rob Pacienza preached Part 1 in “The Gospel of John” sermon series. His text from the Bible was John 3:1-15. In his introduction Rob shares that in life there are two kinds of people. There are the type of people who fix things and the type of people who call other people to fix things. Rob happens to be in the second category. But sometimes he gets ambitious and goes to Home Depot because with them there is “more saving, more doing.” We all love to play this role. Spouses love to fix each other. Parents love to fix their kids. We love to fix ourselves and our circumstances.

In our text we meet the First Century "Mr. Fix-It"—Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a Ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night which revealed his desire to keep their meeting a secret, but it also shows us that Nicodemus was in spiritual darkness. He came to Jesus blind and Jesus is about to open his eyes. "Mr. Fix-It" came to Jesus to be affirmed in his self-improvement plan. But Jesus rocks his world by saying he does not need improvement, he needs a resurrection from the dead, a new birth, and an entirely new life. This is offensive to Nicodemus. And we are all like Nicodemus because this is all we do all the time. Our inner Nicodemus is constantly screaming from the moment we wake up: "Fix it! You can do it! You Have to do it!" (more saving, more doing).

Our identity rests in either our first birth or our second birth. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3 ESV). This is why He came. Not just to be a good teacher, or a good example; not to help us fix things—but to bring the dead to life. But whatever happened to Nicodemus? In John 19 we see him attending to the dead body of Jesus, a task that only women would do, but never respectable Jews like Nicodemus. What happened? How could this be? Only one answer—Nicodemus was a new man! The irony is that this (soon to be resurrected) dead body was the very thing that brought him life. Jesus became unrighteous so that Nicodemus could be truly righteous before God. “For our sake he made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

 

Other sermons in this series:

The Gospel of John | Series
The Gospel of John | Audio
The Gospel of John | Video