A sermon on John 3:1-8 by Rev Richard Keith on Sunday 21 June 2026
Over the last couple of months we’ve been looking at some of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Lately, we’ve seen that Christ died for our sins, that upon the cross he bore our guilt and took our punishment so that we might be forgiven. We’ve seen that this salvation comes to us through faith—not because we can save ourselves, but because we trust in Jesus, who gave himself for us. And last week we saw that Christ rose from the dead: that death has been defeated, that Jesus lives forever, and that all who belong to him will share in that victory.
But all of this raises an important question: what happens next? Because forgiveness is not the end. It is the beginning. God does not forgive us simply so that we can escape judgment. He forgives us so that we might know him. He saves us so that we might belong to him. He reconciles us to himself so that we might live in fellowship with him. Salvation is not merely about where we will spend eternity; it is about entering into a relationship with God that begins now and lasts forever. And that relationship changes us.
But that simply raises another question: can people really change? Most of us have seen enough of life to be a little skeptical. We see people repeat the same mistakes, and we quietly file them away as lazy, or unreliable, or impossible to trust. We put people in a box and we leave them there. And if we’re honest, we know the same is true of ourselves. We may change some habits. We may alter our behaviour in front of others. We may turn over a new leaf for a while. But changing who we really are deep inside us? That’s another matter entirely.
Yet the Bible makes an extraordinary claim. It tells us that what we cannot do for ourselves, God can do for us. He can make the spiritually dead alive. He can give us a new heart. He can make us new. And that’s what we’re going to think about this morning: the new life that God gives through his Holy Spirit.
In John chapter 3 we see Jesus receive a visitor. His visitor’s name was Nicodemus. He was an important man, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night—not during the day when Jesus would be surrounded by the crowds and watched by his enemies. Instead he came to Jesus when they could be alone and Nicodemus could come and go without being seen. And he came with glowing words of praise: “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.”
Nicodemus thought that he was building Jesus up. Although Jesus was self-taught and hadn’t been trained by the leading rabbis of his day, Nicodemus acknowledged him as sent by God to be a teacher for his people. In fact, Nicodemus couldn’t deny that the wonders that Jesus was able to perform were obvious signs that he had been sent and empowered by God.
But if Nicodemus thought that his praise would win favour with Jesus, he was in for a rude shock. In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” At first glance, Jesus’ reply seems strange. His words don’t naturally follow from what Nicodemus has just said, almost as if Jesus is answering a question that Nicodemus hadn’t asked out loud. Why, after Nicodemus’ polite compliments, does Jesus immediately start talking about being born again?
It’s pretty clear what Nicodemus thinks this conversation is about. He wants to talk about Jesus—about his teaching, about the miracles he has performed, about what those signs reveal concerning his identity. But Jesus has other ideas. Nicodemus thinks the issue is Jesus, but Jesus knows the issue is Nicodemus himself. Nicodemus doesn’t lack information; he lacks transformation. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a respected teacher, a member of the Jewish ruling council. If anyone appeared qualified for the kingdom of God, it was him. Yet Jesus tells him that he must be born again—not because he is worse than other people, but because all his learning, all his religion, and all his privileges cannot give him spiritual life. None of those things are enough. Not education or tradition or devotion. Nicodemus doesn’t need knowledge. He needs a new birth.
Entrance into God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of improving ourselves or trying harder or knowing more or becoming more religious. It requires something far more radical. We need to be made new.
Unfortunately, it’s not a concept that Nicodemus grasps straight away, as you can see from his reply: “How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” He has understood Jesus’ words, but he hasn’t understood what they mean. He has taken them literally and can only imagine that Jesus means a second physical birth which for a grown adult would be completely impossible.
In response, Jesus clarifies that the new birth isn’t a second physical birth but a spiritual birth. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said—his way of saying, “Let’s get one thing crystal clear”—“No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Notice what Jesus doesn’t say: he doesn’t say that being born again is helpful or desirable or something that would improve your chances. He says it is necessary. Without it, no one can see the kingdom of God, no one can enter it, no one can experience it. Not some people. Not most people. No one. In other words, the problem is universal. The need is universal. Every one of us needs this new birth.
Because we are all human—every one of us. No matter how good we seem, no matter how clever and resourceful and respectable, we are all human, and we are all broken. We’ve all been hurt and we’ve hurt other people. Our hearts need mending. They need healing. And that healing is not our own work. It is the work of God through his Holy Spirit, who does for us what we could never do for ourselves.
As Jesus said, we must be born of water and the Spirit. Or as the apostle Paul says in Titus chapter 3: God saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Yes, we are saved by the blood of Christ shed for us. And yes, we are saved by the victory of his resurrection. But just as surely we are also saved through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
We are washed clean of our sin and our guilt and our fear—forgiven and set free. But it isn’t a pardon leaving us free to return to our old life. Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door to a new kind of life. It’s not the renovation of an old way of life. Forgiveness clears the ground for something new to be built in its place. For we are washed clean and made new, given a new heart and a new beginning. Made new by the Holy Spirit, the gift of our Lord Jesus, who comes into our life to transform our values and attitudes to align them with those of our Saviour God. Not just painting over a few bad habits, but changing us from the inside out.
As Jesus explains, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” These words of Jesus explain why we struggle to improve ourselves. We are disappointed by our mistakes. We are embarrassed by our bad habits. We make resolutions to become better people. We change our routines and our diet. We read books and take classes. But nothing seems to work because flesh gives birth to flesh. We are only human and our best efforts will fall short of bringing about the change we really need.
But Jesus’ words also give us hope because “the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” What we can’t do, the Spirit does, and the change he brings about isn’t superficial. It isn’t temporary. It’s not a matter of appearances. The Spirit gives us new life. In fact, the apostle Paul describes it as nothing less than a resurrection. As he says in Ephesians chapter 2: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” It’s not just the promise of life after death. It is the promise of life before death, a new life made possible by the presence and power of the Spirit, the life we were made to live.
It’s a transformation that we see in Nicodemus’ own life. In John chapter 3 we see him come to Jesus at night and struggle to understand what Jesus was saying. In John chapter 7 we see Nicodemus finding the courage to support Jesus in the open. The chief priests had sent temple guards to arrest Jesus, but instead of bringing Jesus back with them the guards had been held spellbound by Jesus’ teaching. The Pharisees were furious. “You mean he deceived you also?” they said to the guards. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?” To which Nicodemus took issue: “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” But they rejected his complaint and made fun of him—“Are you from Galilee too?”—as if it was the worst kind of insult.
The change in Nicodemus may only be gradual, but it is real. And we see it most clearly at the very point where Nicodemus needed it most. The fear and caution that brought him to Jesus at night are slowly giving way to a willingness to stand with Jesus in the light among the men he feared the most. The third and last time we meet Nicodemus in John’s Gospel is in chapter 19. Jesus had just died on the cross and Joseph of Arimathea went to the Roman governor Pilate to ask for the body. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about thirty-five kilograms. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. Together they buried Jesus in the tomb.
It was a dangerous thing to do for a member of the ruling council to be publicly caring for the body of a man his own council had just had crucified—touching a corpse, making himself ceremonially unclean, on the eve of the Passover, in full view of anyone who cared to look. Judas had betrayed him. Peter had denied him. The other disciples had run away. But Nicodemus cared for Jesus’ body, when everyone who should have been there was nowhere to be found.
Nicodemus is the proof of Jesus’ words: flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Because that’s exactly what happened. The fearful man who came to Jesus at night became the man who stood for Jesus in public. The change was not instant. It was gradual. But it was real. And that is often how the Spirit works. He takes people who are spiritually dead and gives them life. He takes people who cannot change themselves and begins changing them from the inside out—not because they are strong, not because they are determined, but because they have been born of God.
The question for us, then, is not whether we’ve turned over a new leaf. The question is whether we’ve received the new life. It’s not whether we are trying harder, but whether the Spirit of God has made us alive in Christ. Because salvation is not merely forgiveness. It is new birth. It is new life. Not life after death but life before death. And where God gives new life, change will follow.