Hickey Theology - 3/30/2025

The story of Nicodemus has been rolling around in my head. I wonder if Jesus gave a little chuckle when Nicodemus stated “surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born” (John 3:4) In all fairness to Nicodemus this being born a second time must have been very confusing, again Jesus was so different, nothing like Nicodemus had ever encountered. 

The idea of being born again has been used to condemn people. I read this week where a minister was criticizing, even judging Christians because they have not been BORN AGAIN as if that is a prerequisite in order to even be called a Christian. I struggle when someone comes up to me and ask “ARE YOU BORN AGAIN”. I have been a baptized Christian since I was 8 years old, but I truly wasn’t about to understand God loves for me until I was 17 and re-dedicated my life to Jesus Christ. I guess in a sense I was “BORN AGAIN”. 

We were created with love by a God that calls us to be in relationship with each other, so that we experience what it is like to be loved. There is no greater feeling than to know we are loved. There are many wonderful verses in the Bible about God’s love, but few come close to describing God’s great love as succinctly and powerfully as John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” 

The verse begins with the little conjunction, “for,” which gives us the cause for God’s plan of redemption that Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus. The cause is God’s love. The greatness of God’s love is magnified by the little adverb, “so,” which describes the manner of God’s love. 

It is not just that God loved the world, but that God “so” loved the world that God gave. God’s love for the world is seen clearly enough in God’s creation and provision for it. This little adverb takes God’s love far beyond that for it directs us to what God gave – God’s Son. The tense of the verb, “love” here takes into account all the actions of God’s love and views them as one great central fact. 

For God to love the world, God would also have to love sinners, and even worse, Gentile sinners. The fact that sinners are the object of God’s love is one of the more astounding aspects of it! What a shock to Nicodemus the Pharisee and to all those today that would want to restrict God’s love only to those that meet their own criteria of righteousness. God’s love extends to the sinner. 

The object of God’s love is all Humankind. There is no one who is so sinful that God’s love is not extended to them. While the object of God’s love is amazing, the sacrifice God has made in the demonstration of that love is even more astounding. God loved the sinful world so much that He gave His only begotten Son. The nature of true love is to give of itself, and the greatness of that love is demonstrated by the value of what is given. 

God gave the most valuable and treasured object that exists – God’s only begotten Son. We are born to be loved. But, at the same to because we were born to be loved and loved by God, whose love knows no boundary is not selective and is for all then we who accept that love through Jesus are called to love. 

Now it is clear that the purpose of God’s love in Christ is to save God’s people, and that this salvation is a gift from God, but we are called to share the gift. Good works are the result of faith in Christ. They result from us being saved and born again. Good works do not lead to salvation, but they flow out of the person who is saved. So, we who, are by the grace, mercy and love have been saved, but saved for just eternal life? Is that the only reason we believed? 

We were born to be loved and loved we are, but is this love for us only, to keep to ourselves as something to be hidden away? The gift that God gave to us through Jesus Christ, the sacrifice that Jesus made for us is some-thing to be shared. This love is life-giving. It is meant for all not just some. We can’t, we should not withhold it or keep it to ourselves. The love God has for us and the love we have for God and the ministry is shown in how we give that love, how we share it. 

This is why the outreach that we do is so important, we are the light in the darkness. By loving we can help others that have experienced the pains of life so deeply that they have lost hope, those who have fallen and lost faith. They are all around us and even among us! Through the sharing of God’s love we can help them to be ‘born again’, to find new life. 

We are all born to be loved, but just as important maybe even more so we were born and called to love. Praise be to God. Amen! Grace and Peace 

Grace and Peace,

Shane