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Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holiday, and I want to welcome you to our study of John
in Daily Drive Time Devotions. We are in chapter three this week of our study of
the Gospel of John. This is day one.

We're going to look at verses one through three today. We're going to start to
look today at the story of a man by the name of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a guy
who was right on the brink of something, something new and something fresh and
something real in his life.

And I think we all know what that feels like, to be right on the brink of life.
One of those moments when you walk right up to an edge and you know that there's
an opportunity in that moment of your life to make a decision, a decision about
which way you're going to go, which way you're going to decide, what kind of
person you're going to be, and you realize that this moment, this on the brink
moment of life is a moment in which that decision is going to dramatically
affect who you are the rest of your life. Now, some people, they walk right up
to the brink, and it's a little scary there, and so they walk back.

And maybe they spend many years doing that, walk up to the brink and walk back,
up to the brink and walk back. The question at the brink in these moments is,
will I go forward or will I turn back? And while we're on the brink, sometimes
we sour and sometimes we soar.

Sometimes we get bitter because we don't change, or other times we soar because
we see how God can change us. When I'm talking about being on the brink, I'm
talking about those moments in life specifically when you long for a greater
feeling of success, a feeling of something more than you have, a feeling that
there's something missing in your life. That's where Nicodemus was.

He came and he had a conversation about Jesus, and later stories about his life
reveal that there was something going on in his heart here. This wasn't just a
intellectual exercise. This wasn't just an argument that he was having with
Jesus.

He was on the brink of something. And Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus teaches
us that at those moments, Jesus wants to tell us how to make a spiritual success
out of our lives. There may be different kinds of success that come into your
life.

There may not. Those are up and down depending on the circumstances of life and
where you live. But the truth of the matter is, every one of us, because of the
grace of God in Jesus Christ, can make a spiritual success of our lives, can
have deep satisfaction.

So if you're at one of those on the brink moments where it feels like everything
is not all that I want it to be, listen with me to this story of Jesus'
interaction with Nicodemus over the next couple of days. Today we're looking at
verses 1 through 3. John chapter 3 verse 1 says this, "Now there was a man of
the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.

" As you read about who Nicodemus was, it reminds me of one of the first things
you and I have to consider if we're going to make a spiritual success of our
lives. First thing you have to consider is you have to check your definition of
success. By many definitions of success, Nicodemus was an extremely successful
man.

Nicodemus, the Bible names names, real people who have real challenges in their
personal faith and the Bible gives us details. He was a Pharisee. The word
Pharisee means to be separated and many times when we talk about the Pharisees
in the Bible, they're put down as legalistic people.

But when I read the Pharisees and their story, I also realized they lived up to
some things that I could never live up to. This was a special group of never
more than about 6,000 men in Israel and each of them had taken a solemn vow
before three witnesses that they would devote their entire life, every moment to
obeying the Ten Commandments and they did, they did. You see, Nicodemus, he
started out right.

He wanted to keep the law. He wanted to have God's word at the center of his
life. He believed in these things, but he had no relationship with God.

And this whole idea of keeping the law became very convoluted. Their number one
rule book for keeping the law was called the Mishnah. Just one of the Ten
Commandments.

This Mishnah was to describe how to keep the Ten Commandments. They needed more
than just the Ten Commandments because they needed to know how to keep them. And
just one of the Ten Commandments, the one about keeping the Sabbath, there were
24 chapters in the Mishnah about how to keep the Sabbath.

Chapter after chapter after chapter, application after application after
application. And if that wasn't enough, they also had to interpret the Mishnah.
So they wrote something called the Talmud, which interpreted the Mishnah to tell
them how to keep the law.

And it covered every circumstance of life. They had to figure everything out.
For instance, you weren't supposed to work on the Sabbath, but how did you know
if you were working or not?

How do you know if you kept the law or not? What was work? What wasn't work?

So they'd go into little things, little things like tying knots. How would you
know if you were working or not when you tied a knot? They decided it was
absolutely necessary for human life, then you could tie a knot.

But if it wasn't, you couldn't tie a knot. For instance, if you wanted to get
some water, you couldn't tie a knot in the bucket to lower down into the well
because you could go a day without water. However, this is pretty humorous.

You could tie a knot in a lady's girdle because that was absolutely necessary
for human life. And they got very tricky about this. This is hilarious.

The law said you could tie a knot in a girdle. So they thought this through and
thought, "Oh, I got to get some water out of this well. I can't tie a knot in a
rope, but I can tie a knot in a girdle.

" So they would tie a girdle to the bucket and lower the bucket into the well,
and that's how they would get water. That's how ridiculous some of this got, but
I want you to hear this. That's how serious they were about keeping the law.

This was all tied up in being men of high moral character, and Nicodemus was
that kind of man. He had a deep religious hunger, but he also had a profound
spiritual blindness. There are still many, many people who think that if I could
just keep the Ten Commandments, then I would have reached all that God wants me
to be.

Well, the Pharisees did everything they could to keep those Ten Commandments,
and there was still an emptiness in Nicodemus' life. The Bible tells us he was a
member of the Pharisees. He was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

He was a member of the Sanhedrin. This takes us from the 6,000 to about 70.
These were 70 men who ran the religious affairs of the nation.

They had religious authority over every Jew in the world, and Nicodemus was one
of those rulers. We also learn later from what Jesus says, he says to Nicodemus,
"You are the teacher of Israel. " There's a definite article there.

The idea of the teacher is that he was the one who was looked to over all in the
Sanhedrin as the one who could teach the law. From 6,000 down to 70, now down to
one, the top spokesman, the authority. So Nicodemus was at the top, religiously,
morally, politically, socially, by all the world standards.

He was a success, but he also knew that something was wrong. He checked his
definition of success, and he knew something is wrong, and he did the right
thing. When you know that something's wrong, what do you do?

He sought out Jesus. That's what happens in verse two. In verse two, he came to
Jesus at night, and he said, "Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher who's come
from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs that you were doing if
God were not with him.

" Why did Nicodemus come at night? A lot of people have questions about that. By
the way, he was the first Nic at night, sorry, but he really was.

Why did he come at night? Some people think that it was so that he wouldn't be
noticed. He was trying to hide out, didn't want anybody to know that he was
meeting with Jesus.

Other people thought so that he could find time to be alone with Jesus. The
significant thing to me is that he did find time to talk with Jesus without
pressure of what other people might think. He somehow knew where the source of
truly successful life was, deeply successful, significant life in Jesus Christ.

So he went and he sought out Jesus. I need times like that in my life, and you
do too. We need to seek out times to be with him.

Even if you've been a believer 20, 30, 40 years, we all regularly need times
where we get away from the opinions and the judgment and the pressures of
others, and we just seek out Jesus and we say, "Jesus, what do you think? " And
then just take some time to listen to it. That's what Nicodemus did.

In fact, this week, as we walk through this story, that's what I invite you to
do. In verse three, in reply, Jesus declared, Nicodemus had asked, "What's going
on here? " Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth," famous verse, "No one can see
the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

" Now, before we get into what Jesus said, three quick things about how he said
it. I want you to notice these because it's how Jesus speaks in our lives. First
notice, Jesus gets right to the point.

He doesn't beat around the bush. He clearly, immediately says, "Here's what
you're to do. " That characterizes the communication of Jesus.

"Follow me," he says. "Give me a drink," he says. "Leave all you have," he says
to another person.

Immediately, he calls on people to act. Now, whenever I try to do this, get to
the point too quickly, I often end up doing it in a harsh way. I want to learn.

I want to learn from Jesus Christ how to do this in a clear way, to get to the
point, to say, "Here's the truth. " And one thing I know I can learn from him is
motivation. Sometimes the reason I want to get to the point quickly is because I
want to get onto the next conversation.

I'm in a hurry. The Jesus that I know, the reason he wanted to get to the point
quickly is because he had compassion for the person he was talking to. He didn't
have time to beat around the bush.

He wanted to get right to the point because he knew this person had a need and
he wanted him to be healed. Jesus gets right to the point. It's also
interesting, you notice how he talks to people.

He changes the pronouns. It's the second thing to notice. Nicodemus comes and
says, "Well, we think this and people think this.

" And immediately, Jesus says, "What about you? I tell you the truth. "
Immediately, he goes to the heart of Nicodemus.

And the third thing I notice here is that Jesus knew Nicodemus' question before
he even asked it. In reply, Jesus said, even before Jesus hears a question from
Nicodemus, he has a reply. He knew that Nicodemus was thinking all the time
about the kingdom of God.

He was a Pharisee. He was a ruler. That's what he thought about all the time.

So he tells them about the kingdom of God. And oftentimes, I found that Jesus
knows my question before I ask it and he gives the answer. And so he says, "I
tell you the truth," which is a phrase in the language in which Jesus spoke, the
Aramaic language, which is almost saying, "Put these words in bold.

Don't miss this. I tell you the truth. No one can see the kingdom of God unless
he is born again.

" Born again. Jesus is saying, "Make your strategy of success a spiritual
strategy of success. " Born again.

Now, that word is often used flippantly. We see it in football games and John 3,
16 kind of born again kind of feel. We talk about born again companies or
there's some new soda pop that's arisen and say, "Oh, it's a born again thing
for their company," which really minimizes this word.

Born again. This Greek word means to be born from above and to be born again. It
points to an entirely new birth.

And what Jesus is saying here, "To Nicodemus and to me and to you is this. Ask
yourself this question. When it comes to a successful life, am I trying to add
on to my life or am I willing to start fresh and then build on his new life?

" That is what makes the strategy of success spiritual. That's what makes for a
significant life and not just a physically successful life. A strategy of
success in your life that ignores the most important part of who you are, the
spiritual part, it's flawed from the beginning.

A strategy that's based on the things that you can surround yourself with, it
won't work because you're so much more than the things you surround yourself
with. A strategy based on what other people think of you, there's no way that's
going to work because you are so much more than what other people might think of
you. And so Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, he's saying to me, he's saying to you,
"Don't try to scale new heights until you've experienced new birth.

" And then once you've experienced new birth, that is what you build on.
Nicodemus came looking for the next pinnacle and Jesus told him, "You need to
start all over again and then build on that. " And when you're born again, you
have no past spiritually.

You only have a future. Your past is forgiven and your future is bright with
hope. I've always loved that story of a guy signing in at a university lecture.

Everyone else had high degrees and they were signing their name and their
degrees behind their name. He didn't have any college degrees. He barely made it
through high school.

But a friend saw him sign John Smith, B-A and M-A, and he asked him afterwards,
"Why did you sign that? " Oh, he said, "It means John Smith, born again and
marvelously altered. " That's the most important thing about you, that you were
born again, that you're marvelously altered by the goodness and the grace of
God.

Let's pray together. As we pray today, I invite you to pray and say, "Jesus
Christ, I don't want to live by my definition of success or the world's
definition of success because that definition isn't going to last. It's not even
going to last through this life, let alone into eternity.

It's not going to keep me satisfied through the years I'm on this planet, let
alone look forward to all that you want to do for all of eternity in heaven. And
so Jesus, help me to check my definition of success right now. And if I see
something lacking, help me to seek you out and help me to build my life on being
born again, on the fresh start that only you can give.

I need your strength to do this. I need your perspective, your wisdom to do
this. And I ask for it as we walk through this story of Nicodemus this week, I
ask that you would use this story to marvelously alter my life.

We ask this, Jesus, in your name, Amen. Well, tomorrow we're going to continue
this story of Nicodemus as we look at John, chapter 3, verses 4 to 15.