Opening Prayer

Dear Jesus, you came to save us, not to punish us. Open our ears to hear how much you love us. Amen.

Scripture: John 3:1-17

There was a man named Nicodemus. He was a very important religious teacher — one of the most important in all of Israel. But even though he knew a lot about God, there was something he didn’t understand yet.

Nicodemus came to Jesus at nighttime. He said, “Teacher, we know you come from God.”

Jesus said something surprising: “Unless someone is born again — born from above — they cannot see God’s kingdom.”

Nicodemus was confused. “How can someone be born when they’re already grown up? You can’t go back inside your mother!”

Jesus said, “You must be born of water and the Spirit. The wind blows wherever it wants — you hear it, but you can’t control it. That’s how the Spirit works.”

Then Jesus told him about something that happened long ago. When the people of Israel were sick and dying in the wilderness, God told Moses to put a bronze snake on a tall pole. Anyone who looked at it was healed. Jesus said, “Just like that snake was lifted up, the Son of Man must be lifted up — so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”

And then Jesus said the most famous words in the whole Bible: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not die but live forever. God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but to save it.”

What This Means

Nicodemus was the smartest religion teacher in the whole country. He had studied the Bible his entire life. He kept all the rules. If anyone could earn their way to God, it was this man.

But Jesus told him something that knocked all of that over: “You have to be born all over again — and you can’t do it yourself.”

Think about that. Can a baby decide to be born? Can a baby say, “Okay, I’m ready now — here I come”? No! Being born is something that happens to you. Someone else does the work.

That’s what God does in Baptism. When you were baptized, the Holy Spirit gave you a brand-new life. You didn’t choose it or earn it — God did it for you, with water and his Word. Just like you didn’t cause your own birthday, you didn’t cause your new birth. God did.

And why did God do all this? Because he loved the world — not because the world was lovable, but because God IS love. He loved us so much that he gave his only Son. Not to yell at us. Not to make a list of everything we did wrong. But to save us.

Remember the sick people in the wilderness? They couldn’t heal themselves. They couldn’t run to a doctor. All they could do was look up at what God had put on that pole. And when they looked, they lived. That’s what faith is — looking up at Jesus on the cross and trusting that he did it all for you.

Let’s Talk About It

Eberley: Nicodemus was the best religious person in Israel, and Jesus told him it wasn’t enough. Why do you think Jesus didn’t just say, “Good job, keep it up”? What does it tell us about how God saves people — that even the best person still needs to be born from above?

Eberley: Jesus says God sent his Son “not to condemn the world but to save it.” What does that tell us about what God is like? How is that different from what most people expect God to be like?

Sonja: Nicodemus came to Jesus at nighttime. Why do you think he came in the dark instead of during the day? How do you think he felt talking to Jesus?

Sonja: Jesus talked about sick people in the wilderness who got better just by looking at something on a pole. They didn’t have to do anything hard — just look. What does that tell us about how Jesus helps us?

Dahlia & Freddy: Can a baby decide to be born? Who does all the work when a baby is born? That’s what God did for you in Baptism — he did all the work!

Dahlia & Freddy: Did God send Jesus to yell at us or to save us?

Remember This

God loved the world so much that he gave us Jesus — not to punish us, but to save us.

Closing Prayer

Thank you, heavenly Father, for loving us so much that you gave us your only Son. Thank you that you didn’t wait for us to be good enough — you came to save us while we were still lost. Help us to look to Jesus every day, like those people in the wilderness looked up and were healed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Memory Verse

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” — John 3:16