Sunday Worship – 18th May 2025 – Easter 5

(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)

Call to worship   

Come, Holy Spirit. Come with the fire and burn; come with the rain and cleanse; come with the light and reveal. Convict us, convert us and consecrate us, until we do something. Amen.

Song – StF 107 – All hail the power of Jesu’s name    

Prayer   

We thank you, creator God, for the beautiful world which you have made. There is so much for us to enjoy in the world around us: colourful flowers, majestic trees, animals, birds and insects. Beautiful scenery and warm sunshine. We thank you for our food, which not only keeps us alive, but gives us so much variety to enjoy. We thank you for our families and friends, without whom life would not be worth living. You are truly a generous creator God and so, to you, we say “Thank you”.

We thank you Lord Jesus, for coming to earth to show us the right way to live our lives. You taught us so much about what God is like. A God of love, but also a God who has a plan for humankind. A God who will forgive us, if we say sorry when we have gone wrong. You died to gain for us salvation, and you rose again in triumph over the grave. Jesus, our redeemer, to you we say “Thank you”.

And we thank you, Holy Spirit, for the special role you have of helping us to know God better. Thank you that you are willing to come into our lives to enable us to be more like Jesus. You are the Enabler, the Comforter, and the one who reveals to us the truth about God. To you, we offer grateful thanks.

So, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we worship and adore you. Bless our time of worship. May it bring glory to your name, through Jesus Christ, our living Lord and Saviour. Amen

Song – StF 293 – All heaven declares the glory of the risen Lord

Reading         

John 16: 4b-15

Intercessions   

Gracious God, thank you for the life you have given us and for the love you have placed in our hearts. Grant us the help of your Holy Spirit, as we pray for the needs of the world.

God of peace, we hold before you all parts of the world, where people are suffering from violence. We pray for the situation in the Middle East, especially in Gaza and Sudan. We pray again the people of Ukraine, who continue to suffer oppression and bombardment. Lord, please encourage the nations of the world to put pressure on the warring countries to seek political solutions, so that the suffering can be brought to an end.

We pray for people all around the world, who are suffering from the effects of extreme weather, caused by climate change. Lord, please open the eyes of the governments of the world, to see that we have it in our power to control and even reverse global warming, and that if we do nothing, this extreme weather will continue.

Lord, we pray for people in our own country who are anxious about the rising cost of living, and many who are struggling to pay for food and energy. Give to our Government wisdom and compassion to take measures which will help everyone to get through these trying times. We pray for the foodbanks, which are running out of food to pass on to people, that they may find ways to replenish their stocks.

And finally, Lord, we bring to mind friends and families of members of our church, and others, known to us, who have special needs at this time, and for whom we wish to pray. And so, in silence now, we can each offer our own prayers, for those about whom we are concerned. Let us pray together…..

SILENCE

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayers and deal graciously with them. Comfort those who suffer and those who mourn; and bring your healing to the sick.

We ask all our prayers, in and through the name of Jesus, our living Lord and Saviour, who taught us, when we pray together, to say……    Our Father, who art in heaven…….

Song – StF 481 – The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want 

Reading

John 3: 1-12

Song – StF 394 – Spirit of God, unseen as the wind 

Sermon                      

“You must be born again”

There are some Christians who think of themselves as ‘holier than Thou’. I am sure you have come across them. They are proud that they, at least by their own judgement, have a close walk with God. They are sure that they live a good – not to say perfect – Christian life and pride themselves in how pleasing to God their life must be. They know well, and they often quote, the scriptures. They are seen at notable Christian gatherings – yes, we would get them at Easter People every year. And when they speak to anyone about their faith, they always say, sometimes with a hint of arrogance, “I am a born-again Christian” as if to say: “That makes me a proper Christian!” It is as if that is some measure of their own achievement. Like Little Jack Horner who sat in a corner. We know what his stock phrase was, don’t we? “What a good boy am I!” Unfortunately, people like that are seldom seen by others as good Christians. Quite the opposite, they are often thought of as (pardon the phrase) ‘clever devils’!

Because of such people, the phrase ‘born again’ has been brought into disrepute. Would you ever tell anyone you are born again? Do you cringe when you hear others say it? And yet – our reading this morning has reminded us – the phrase was coined by Jesus himself. And with great significance. It was no chance remark, but a point of serious teaching, addressed to one of the foremost scholars of his day. Let’s look again at the detail of the story:
Who was Nicodemus? Well, he was a wealthy man. He is mentioned again in John 19:39, as being the man who came to anoint Jesus’ body when it was taken down from the cross. He came with Joseph of Arimathea, and he brought a huge amount of expensive Myrrh and Aloe to anoint the body. It is said he brought around 75 pounds of it. That’s more than ½ cwt!  He must have been rich to be able to afford all that. He was also a Pharisee. And not just any Pharisee, but a member of the Sanhedrin, the Ruling Council. One of the 70 most important Jews, who held jurisdiction over every Jew in the world. It was they who were called upon to examine and deal with anyone suspected of being a false prophet. He was also very learned. Jesus called him ‘Israel’s teacher’. How ironic that he should come to Jesus to affirm him as a prophet sent from God.

We are told that he came at night. I wonder – was that so that he would not be seen by other Pharisees? Possibly. But it may have been so that he could have a direct conversation with Jesus. In the daytime, the throngs were so pressing, that it would have been difficult to get a word with Jesus. Also, at night it would be quiet, and you could manage to think straight. Whatever the reason, Nicodemus felt it was important that he should speak face to face with Jesus, and be able to hear his answer.

So, he came and he said to Jesus, “We know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.” In his mind, he was convinced of Jesus’ pedigree and he was letting Jesus now that he had his full support. He proved this, later in John’s gospel. We read in Ch 7:50, that he spoke in favour of Jesus to the Council, when the Pharisees were plotting against him.

Jesus’ response was totally unexpected. It was as if he was saying – like Jimmy Cricket, if you remember him – “Come here…there’s more!” And this is the point at which reason, intellect, has to give way to faith. For clever people like Nicodemus, their intelligence can take them so far. But to see and understand the Kingdom of God, takes more than intelligence. It takes the grace of God. It takes faith – only as much as a grain of mustard seed, but faith nonetheless. And it takes the help of the Holy Spirit. Our human eyes have a veil over them, which prevents us from seeing the full truth about God. Our minds are rooted in the things of earth. Our understanding is limited by the boundaries of our experience, which of course, is earthly. It is only when the Holy Spirit removes the veil, that we begin to see in another dimension. The penny drops. The light dawns. We see things from a different angle. The Holy Spirit is the one who, as Jesus says in John 14:17, “reveals the truth about God.” This is why the world cannot understand the things of God. Because the Spirit has not opened their eyes to the truth. Was there a time when the truth became clearer for you, because the Holy Spirit opened your eyes? Billy Graham tells of the first time he went to church after his conversion as a youth. He ran home after the service to tell his parents: “The preacher has at last worked out how to preach a good sermon!” What he did not realise was that his ears had been opened by the Holy Spirit, and at last he understood the truth about God.

So, Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, “You need the Holy Spirit in your life”. But why did he use the phrase ‘born again’? Well, the analogy is with beginning a new life. In effect, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, and his hearers, and (through the Bible) us, that there are three important steps in the life of a Christian:

1. our natural birth
2. baptism in water, and
3. baptism in the Spirit.

We share the first step with all humanity. Every single one of us was born by natural means; we all have a mother and a father. But we come into the world full of human nature. We are born selfish, and by implication, sinful. Through our baptism with water, we are symbolically cleansed of our sin, and the way is opened for us to enter into a full relationship with God. This is the salvation which Christ gained for us by his crucifixion.

But, as human beings, it is impossible for us, in our own strength, to imitate Christ and to live a Christ-like life. To do that, we need the help of the Holy Spirit. We need to take the third step. To make a new start, take off in a new direction, become what Paul described as ‘a new creation’. We need to begin a new existence. This, Jesus calls being born again; born anew; born of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is at work in our lives before we reach this stage. Through what is known as ‘prevenient grace’, which means literally, ‘grace which has come before’.

We are of course unaware that the Holy Spirit is working in us, because we do not understand who he is. Sometimes, with hindsight, we can see how he was at work in our lives at that time.

It isn’t easy to understand new abstract concepts, even if you are a clever as Nicodemus, and to put it crudely, he did not ‘get it’. So, he answered Jesus by saying that it is impossible to enter your mother’s womb and be born a second time. Some scholars say that he wasn’t ridiculing Jesus by his outburst, but rather was demonstrating his own frustration. In his heart, there was a deep, unsatisfied longing. It is as if he said: “You talk about being born anew. You talk about this radical, fundamental change which is so necessary. I know that it is necessary, but in my experience it is impossible. There is nothing I would like more. But you might as well tell me, a fully grown man, to enter my mother’s womb and be born all over again! I can’t do it!” It is not the desirability of change which Nicodemus questioned. That he knew only too well. It is the possibility of change. Nicodemus was up against the eternal problem – the problem of the man who wants to be changed and who cannot change himself.

Jesus knew it was difficult to grasp the concept of the Holy Spirit, and so he used an illustration to try to make it easier. He referred to the wind. Something we are all familiar with. We would all say “Yes, OK, we know the wind.” And yet we have never seen it. And we cannot predict what it is going to do next. Some days it blows. Others it does not. It can blow from the north – as it has done recently, and it can be very cold. And it can blow from the south-west, and bring warm air, as in the Gulf Stream. It can vary its direction and its force, sometimes instantly. But we cannot see it. We can only see its effect. Leaves rustle. Ripples appear on lakes. Or trees are uprooted and houses are flattened to the ground. We believe in the wind and, because we have experienced its effect for ourselves, we have no doubt of its reality.

That is an excellent analogy for the Holy Spirit. We can’t see him. But we can see his effect on people’s lives. And that evidence confirms his reality.

The Holy Spirit is real and active in the world. Sometimes he is recognised. Sometimes he is not. But Jesus tells us that, if we wish to be true partakers in the kingdom of God, then we must accept him into our lives, to be guided, inspired, empowered, instructed, comforted, even disturbed, by him. And when he comes to us, we become a new creation. We are born again.

Think of the difference that yeast makes to a loaf of bread. Without it, you get a flat, dull biscuity slab of unleavened bread. The yeast transforms the dough into the light, airy, delicious bread we most enjoy. Yeast makes the bread complete. The Holy Spirit makes the Christian life complete.

Towards the end of the conversation, Jesus seems frustrated by Nicodemus’ inability, or perhaps reluctance, to get the point. He says: “We speak of what we know, and report what we have seen, yet none of you is willing to accept our message.” Put another way, he is saying: “This is no theoretical thing of which we are speaking. We are talking of what we have actually seen. We can point to person after person who has been re-born by the power of the Spirit.” Dr John Hutton used to tell of a workman who had been a drunken reprobate, before he was converted. His workmates did their best to make him feel a fool. “Surely” they would say, “you can’t believe in miracles and things like that. Surely you don’t believe that Jesus turned water into wine.” “I don’t know,” the man replied, “whether he turned water into wine when he was in Palestine, but I do know that in my own house, he has turned beer into furniture!”

The essence of what Jesus was telling Nicodemus is that: “I have tried to make things simple for you. I have used simple human pictures taken from everyday life, and you have not understood. How can you ever expect to understand the deep things, if even the simple things are beyond you?”

There is a warning here for every one of us. It is easy to sit in discussion groups, or to sit in a study and to read books. It is easy to discuss the intellectual truth of Christianity. But the essential thing is to experience the power of Christianity. When a person undergoes treatment from a doctor; when he or she has to have an operation, or is given some medicine to take, they do not need to know the anatomy of the human body in order to be cured. We all accept the cure, without needing to know how it came about.

It is said that the gap between knowing about God, and actually knowing God is about 12 inches. Being born again is about allowing the knowledge to move from your head to your heart. From theory to experience.

We can all know that we have been born again. We all should know that we have been born again. But it is not something to boast about. It is something to rejoice in. Something to be confident in. It is a state which should be natural to us. In truth, we should not need to tell people that we have been born again. It should be obvious in our attitudes and in the way we live our life.

If you don’t know that you have the Holy Spirit in your life, then you probably have not got him in your life. And I have to say that, in that case, you are not all that God wants you to be, and you are unlikely to be fulfilling all that God has planned for you. “There’s more!”

Re-read the story when you get home and ask God to bring the truth home to your heart. Jesus said “No one can see the kingdom of God, unless he or she is born again.” And later “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he or she is born of water and the Spirit.” So I say to you: Be born again. Begin a new chapter in your life. Ask the Holy Spirit to come into your life – today.

Song – StF 503 – Love divine, all loves excelling

Benediction  

Gracious God, you are the hope of our journey and the light on our way.
Accompany us, as we step forward in faith.
Be close to us, as we seek to witness and serve:
When we flag, give us new energy,
When we are afraid, fresh courage.
When we feel overwhelmed, a sense of your enduring faithfulness.
And let our joy and delight in the gift of your love, shine from us, to inspire hope in others, For Jesus’ sake. Amen