If there’s anything we all should have learned from the year 2020 it is that the world is broken, and that there’s very little any of us can do to fix it. Indeed, From hurricanes in the Gulf to wildfires in California to a pandemic that has swept all over the world, human helplessness has been on full display, even as the problems we face have pushed us to the breaking point.

And the truth is that our spiritual condition is just as dire. As a careful student of the Old Testament, Nicodemus clearly understood that. And that’s why he came to Jesus, to learn from Someone whose miracles proved He was very close to God. Like so many of his countrymen, Nicodemus simply assumed that learning more about God was the best way to get back into God’s good graces.

And in one sense, Jesus did not disappoint him. After all, Jesus’ teaching in this passage contains one of the clearest, most succinct explanations of God’s plan of salvation in the entire Bible: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16).

But Jesus makes it clear that it is not human learning, but God Who should get all the glory for our salvation. After all, it is God Who loves. It is God Who gave His Son as a sacrificial Lamb (1:29). And it is God Who allows people to be born again, born from above by the power of His Holy Spirit, enabling us to see the Kingdom of God (3:3).

No, none of these things are due to our great learning – after all, even Nicodemus, one of the most learned students of the Scriptures, was completely clueless about all of this. And there’s no effort any of us can make that will save ourselves. No, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit comes to us just as the wind does – we hear Him and feel His effects, but can’t possibly direct His movements (3:8). Just as a baby is completely passive in the process of its birth, so we all depend completely on God for our spiritual rebirth.

But the good news is that God is in fact gracious to save even clueless people like Nicodemus, even helpless sinners like us. The good news is that Jesus didn’t come to condemn us, regardless of what we’ve done (3:17). No, He came to save us by dying for us. And He did this just because He loves us so much. So, let’s trust Him to know what we can’t know and to do what we can’t do. Let’s trust in Christ alone to save us.

John 3:1-21 (ESV)

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, 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.”
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?
11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”