and i want you to turn with me to the
second chapter of john’s gospel the
second chapter of john’s gospel
in the rd verse jesus said
oh the scripture says
now when he was in jerusalem at the
passover in the feast days
many believed in his name
when they saw the miracles which he did
but jesus did not commit himself unto
them because he knew all men
and needed not that any should testify
of man
for he knew what was in man
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
you do except god be with him
and jesus answered and said unto him
verily verily
i say unto thee except a man be born
again he cannot see
the kingdom of god
i remember the first day
that i ever went to school
i was scared to death
we had to walk to school in those days
about two or three miles
and walk back in the afternoon after the
school was finished and my mother had
fixed me
a little lunch to take and eat at
lunchtime or the recess time no one told
me that there were two recesses so they
had one recess about or
for us to go out and stretch ourselves a
little bit
and so i ate my lunch very quickly at
that time
well when the real lunch time came at
i had nothing to eat
and i’ll never forget that day as long
as i live i got on the bus the wrong way
of some or i this was four years later i
got on the bus the wrong way
and the principal came out and he
grabbed my ear
and i think part of it is still gone
but some time ago
bill hybels
said in one of his sermons that there
are so many changes happening rapidly
that we don’t even realize how many of
them are affecting us
he said that this is an era
of information overload
you and i
have access to more information data
facts and news and knowledge than
anybody in history
and the information in the world is
doubling every five years
and then we get information through
magazines and newspapers
we’re told
that we forget up to percent of it in
hours
and virtually all of us
will be forgotten by the time we reach
eternity
nicodemus the man that we were just
reading about in the bible
was a great religious leader
and he came by night
he probably was afraid of criticism
or he had a desire for a private
conversation with jesus and maybe that
was the only time jesus could give him
or maybe he thought about committing
himself in a new way
many of you have thought a long time
about religion and christianity
we’re living in a revolutionary and
changing world
man’s ability is
man’s moral abilities lagging behind
his technological ability
and it could mean disaster
and catastrophe for the whole human race
and many people have a feeling that
something is about to happen
i’m asked more questions wherever i go
today about the end of the world than i
ever have and all of my ministry put
together people look at our world with
all the crime
and all the headlines screaming at us
about the killings
and we see the moral depravity on so
much about entertainment
and we ask ourselves are we nearing the
end
are we living in the days of noah as
jesus predicted would come someday
i heard about a drunk in london
he was under a street light
and he was looking for his wallet that
he had lost
and somebody came by and said did you
lose it here
he said no about a half block back
well why don’t you look there
there’s no street lights back there he
said
searching is important
searching for purpose and meaning is
very important
do you have purpose and meaning in your
life
i told many times about the ten-year-old
boy
who went to his mother and said mother
how was i born and she said the stork
brought you
then he went to his grandmother and said
grandmother how were you born
said the stork brought me
said how was my mother born mr stark
brought her
and he was to write a little paper in
his class on birth
and he wrote in his paper and said there
hasn’t been a natural birth in our
family in three generations
[Applause]
now nicodemus was surprised
and stunned when jesus turned to him and
said nicodemus you must be born again
if christ had said that to zacchaeus
who was
cheating the people out of money
you could understand that
or the woman at the well who had five
husbands
you could understand it
or the thief on the cross who was guilty
of
robbery and mugging and all kinds of
things
who begged je who said to jesus lord
remember me when you come into your
kingdom
or the woman taken in adultery
but to say it to a religious leader like
nicodemus surprised everybody
you see nicodemus was a ruler he was
rich he was religious
and yet he was searching for reality and
that’s why he was there
he wanted fulfillment in his life which
he hadn’t found in all of his religion