Touré Roberts - New Life Night (Baptism Service)

Okay, Matthew, chapter three. This is not an unfamiliar passage of Scripture; it deals with a man named—oh, I’m sorry, I want to go to John three. I’ll come back to Matthew; I’ll end in Matthew chapter three. As I was praying about the context for tonight, this is kind of where I felt we would go. It says, «There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.» We’re going to flow through this quickly. This man came to Jesus by night. See the scene here: this is a religious leader, and he basically sneaks to Jesus at night. This is after Jesus has done miracles, and people are believing in Him. He’s really starting to take off, and He’s walking in such glory and power that He is mystifying people all around Him. They cannot deny, even though, due to their religious upbringing, there were certain things that seemed problematic about Jesus, but they couldn’t deny the glory that was on Him.

Okay, so this ruler—a spiritual leader, this religious ruler by the name of Nicodemus—came to Jesus by night. In other words, he snuck away. Jesus had touched him, but he could not openly go to see Jesus because of his position; he didn’t want to be associated with Him necessarily, as it was politically incorrect in his circle. It was career suicide, communal suicide for him to go and do this, but he could not deny that he had been touched. Do we have any people in here right now who cannot deny that they have been touched? There are some people right here, if you’re honest, you couldn’t tell a whole bunch of people you were being baptized, because only two or three of them would say, «Amen.» Some will look at you like you’re getting ready to turn into one of those crazy Christians, or other religious people—let’s just keep it 100. But you can’t deny that God has touched you, and the reality is there’s no way you would be coming to a theater in West Hollywood with dancing girls on the side and in this tub that you can barely fit in, in some water at night, unless something has touched you. Can we keep it 100? This is not sexy. This is—come on, hello—you’ve been touched, much like Nicodemus.

So he sneaks to Jesus by night, and he comes to Him and says, «Rabbi,» meaning teacher, «we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.» In other words, you’ve touched me, and I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make much sense, and it goes against my culture and everything I’m thinking about, but I cannot deny that God must be with you. He calls Him «teacher,» which is essentially saying, «Teach me.» Jesus answered and said to him, «Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.» It’s very interesting because I think that the word «see» is an accurate translation, but if you get to that Greek word, I won’t say it’s a better translation, but a more consistent translation is «enter.» It says, «Unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.» But «see» is appropriate too because this sort of entering was not one we typically think about; you know, when we transition out of this life, we’re entering into the kingdom. That’s not what He was talking about here. He’s saying you’re going to see in such a way that you can enter in or live in the state of that kingdom.

You follow what I’m saying? In other words, something has to happen to you so that you can perceive, and the moment you can perceive, you can step into. That’s very significant about baptism. So what’s happening is Nicodemus is there; there’s a spiritual transformation that has begun, and Jesus is speaking to it. It’s so profound that he’s willing to risk perhaps being caught with Jesus at night because he can’t sleep. He’s been touched so deeply and profoundly by the Lord, so he sneaks there at night and is like, «Teacher, basically teach me.» Jesus starts telling him, «My hand is on you; Father God’s hand is on you, and you have to be born again.»

Now, it’s interesting—the word «born,» the root word there is «to procreate,» and «again» is interesting because it speaks to being born from above. That word «again» literally means «from above.» So he’s talking—it’s going to make sense in a second. He’s saying, «Unless you are born—unless you are procreated, unless you are born from above, you’re not going to be able to see or enter into the kingdom.» So it makes sense: yes, «born again,» because in a second, we’re going to see that there are a couple of births, right? But this particular birth is a birth from above; it transcends the way you got here through your parents. I want to sit on this for a second. Listen: the birth through your parents is wonderful, but it cannot get…