Sometimes Jesus didn’t make sense

Take a look at this:
“After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to speak with Jesus. ‘Teacher’, he said, ‘we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you.'” (by the way, this happened at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry; he hadn’t really done a lot of miracles yet).

How would I have responded to this? “Thank you. I’m glad you Pharisees are ‘getting it’, that I am sent by God…”

How did Jesus respond? “Jesus replied, ‘I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the kingdom of God.” This sure doesn’t look like he was replying to anything Nicodemus had said. What has this got to do with anything that was just said?

I guess this has something to do with looking at a man’s heart rather than the outward appearance, and being so led by the Holy Spirit that he would say what God told him to say, even if it didn’t seem to make sense. Could I live like that, responding to the heart rather than the outward appearance, and being so sensitive to the Spirit I would act or speak, regardless of whether it truly made sense to me or not? But maybe it would make sense because I would understand the person’s heart and be addressing that issue rather than what is on the outside.