Sunday School Lesson, October 27, 2002

GOD IS SPIRIT

John 3
8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes
from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. [The teacher should feel free
to read the entire Nicodemus passage to jog the children’s memories, but we’ll be focusing on
this part.]

I. Introduction

Last week we studied read a story in Luke about Peter having an encounter with Jesus’ holiness.
Today we turn to the gospel of John. John was a disciple of Jesus and author of one of the four
gospels.

Each of the gospels tells the story about Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection. So why do we
need four separate gospels? It is because each gospel tells the story in a different way.
Sometimes the book will include a few stories about Jesus that were not included in the others.
Other times, the same events are described but the author describes it from a different point of
view, or he adds details that aren’t in the other stories.

And each gospel has an overall emphasis or focus on Jesus that is different from the others. So
Matthew focuses on the fact that Jesus is the King of Kings. We see an emphasis on Jesus’
authority and on his spiritual kingdom. Mark, on the other hand, seems to look more at Jesus as
a servant—the most humble man of all. He was such a servant that he laid down his own life
for everybody else, even though he was a better person than anyone else. Luke fixes our
attention on Jesus’ holiness and perfection. Jesus was 100% pure and did not have even the
tiniest sin in him—even though, for a time, he was a human being just like you and me. And
John’s gospel centers around Jesus’ great love for us.

II. God is Spirit

This passage starts with the story that all the kids should know well by now. Nicodemus was a
Jewish government official and religious leader. Jesus refers to him as a teacher. He has many
flattering words for Jesus. But Jesus is not fooled. He sees that this great religious man lacks the
most important thing of all—salvation. So Jesus tells him that if he wants to “see the kingdom of
heaven”—that is, if he wants to really understand and be a part of God’s project—he has to be
“born again.” Nicodemus asks Jesus how a person can be born again. He did not have an
experience with the Lord, who is a spiritual God. Nicodemus understood God only in terms of
religious rules and religious people.
Jesus explains that salvation is a spiritual gift that comes from heaven. To receive that gift, you
must believe in Jesus. You must look to Jesus as the Son of God who wants to take away your
sins and live inside of you day by day.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God loved the people so much that he gave away his only Son to die on the cross for our sins.
And everyone who believes in Jesus now will not be punished for their sins, but can have eternal
life in heaven.

A. The Wind

What is interesting is that Jesus starts by explaining what Nicodemus had to do to see the
kingdom of God. But then he goes on to describe something that we cannot see with our own
human eyes: being born again by the Holy Spirit. To help Nicodemus understand how
something invisible can change a person inside out, he talks about something we all experience
as real but what we can’t see—the wind.

Especially at this time of year we experience the wind. Can you see the wind? No, but we see
its effects. It helps to blow the red, yellow and orange leaves off of the trees. It carries them
long distances sometimes. A strong wind will knock trashcans into the street. It blows paper
and trash that gets stuck in fences and in treetops. Stormy winds can even blow down trees and
telephone wires. Tornado winds can toss around cars and houses like little toys. A short while
ago we saw tremendous wildfires on the news in Arizona and other places; those fires were made
many times worse because the winds picked up burning debris and caused the fire to spread to
other places.

We can’t touch the wind but we feel it in other ways. Out at the bus stop the cold wind blows in
our face and turns our cheeks red. It messes up our hair. Sometimes it blows dirt into our eyes,
which stings. In the summertime, when it is hot, the wind can even us make us feel good by
cooling us off with a nice breeze. We can smell the wind sometimes because it carries aromas to
us—like the salty air of the ocean breeze or the smells of good food that is cooking.

We don’t even know where the wind comes from. We can say it’s coming from the North or
East, but no one was there to see where the wind started. Did it start in Middletown or
Waterbury and then end up in China? We don’t know.

B. We can’t see God, but we still experience him.

You can’t see the wind, but do you ever question whether it is real? Of course not. Jesus says
that the kingdom of God is like that. Being born again is like that. The Holy Spirit works like
that. We can’t see God, but his Spirit is working all around us.

The Bible says, God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John
4:24)
 1.

So being born again is not like when you were born from your mother. It’s something that
happens inside of you. When we talk about Jesus wanting to live inside of you, inside of your
heart, we don’t mean your heart that’s beating right now. We are talking about a spiritual place
in you. The spiritual reality is somewhat hidden from our minds. We don’t know where the
Holy Spirit is or where he is going. We can’t locate God on a map of the solar system. But we
know he is real because we see the effects of his existence and power.

Most importantly, those who believe in Jesus, feel God’s love in their lives. When we ask the
Lord to take away our sins and invite Jesus to live inside of us, we feel God’s presence. We
experience joy and great peace, like we could never get in the world.

2.

We see the Holy Spirit move in the service, for example, when we see tongues and
interpretation. That’s like the wind blowing. The Holy Spirit shows his presence when there is a
spiritual gift—a vision or dream or revelation—in the Church that speaks to a certain person’s
situation. Sometimes this God, whom we can’t see, changes things in the physical world. For
instance, sometimes he changes people’s bodies when they are healed. That is like the wind that
blows. Just a couple weeks ago, a sister got prayer for a very bad migraine headache, and as
soon as we were done praying for her, the headache disappeared.

3.

When we have Jesus inside of us we are playing a part in God’s kingdom. 1 Peter 2:5 says, “…
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The Church is a
spiritual place, not a building, not just a group of people either. You can be a spiritual building
block in God’s house. With each believer who serves in the Church and follows Jesus day by
day, God is carrying out a great spiritual construction project. Each time you come to church
and pray and sing you are “offering spiritual sacrifices” that please God and help him carry out
his project. Each time you are a good testimony and evangelist in your school, home, or
neighborhood, you help God to build a spiritual house that will last forever. You cannot see it,
but you can see the lives that are being changed by God’s love. You can see the Work of the
Holy Spirit advance into other countries. You can feel God’s presence in our services in a
deeper and deeper way.

This spiritual reality is greater than the earthly reality that we see around us. It is more real. The
things of this world come to an end, but not God’s kingdom, nor those who are a part of it—they
last forever.