You Must Be Born Again

We are going to be continuing in the book John, and we are moving into chapter

3, so if you follow along with me, chapter 3, verses 1 through 21.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who

has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.

Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless

they are born of water and the Spirit.

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit.

You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born again.

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell

where it comes from or where it's going.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

How can this be? Nicodemus asked.

You are Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things?

Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have

seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

I have spoken to you of earthly things, and you do not believe.

How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must

be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes

in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands

condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and

only Son. This is the verdict.

Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for

fear that their deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen,

plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Several years ago, I met for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Iowa with some

of the other pastors from our city.

Our group of pastors was a group of evangelical pastors from solid Bible-preaching churches.

Another pastor joined us that day, however, who was from another denomination

that was quite liberal and did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible.

In fact, on one occasion, in a way of refuting our group of,

evangelical pastors, he wrote an article for the local newspaper that stated

that the Bible was not the true word of God and that it needed to be rewritten,

to reflect what we believe is correct today.

He also went on to say that he would do everything in his power to destroy us

and our churches in that city.

But prior to that article in the newspaper, while he was with us at the lunch

table, we were talking about the scripture and the five core beliefs that we agreed upon as a group,

and specifically talking about Jesus is the only way to salvation and our need,

everybody's need to be born again.

This pastor then said that he'd never heard of such a thing as being born again,

and believed that always led to God. It's interesting that he never heard of that.

Apparently, he didn't read the Bible.

So at that, my Baptist pastor friend told him that we'd be glad to show him how to be born again.

After a few cuss words spit in my Baptist pastor's friend's face,

that liberal pastor left the restaurant.

About two months later after that liberal pastor's letter in the newspaper,

he was forced by his own congregation to leave his church and leave town along

with three of his other liberal pastor friends.

Now you know the rest of the story. That evangelical Lutheran pastor was in

a similar position as Nicodemus when he came to Jesus that night.

Nicodemus was a man who knew the scriptures. He was a man of the Pharisees,

the most influential party of the Jews in that day.

Jesus' reference to Moses in verse 14 indicated that he knew Nicodemus was schooled in the Torah.

Nicodemus was also a good man, well-respected, and religious.

He was a member of the Jewish Rulic Council, a respected member of the community.

He was drawn to Jesus' teaching, calling him rabbi, a teacher who has come from God.

So he recognized that, and claiming that no one could perform the miracles—this

is a quote—no one could perform the miracle signs you are doing if God were not with him.

So Jesus replied, just as my Baptist pastor friend,

repeated to the liberal pastor, he said this, I tell you the truth,

no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

So what are some of the ways you can relate to Nicodemus as he comes to hear

Jesus in the night? perhaps you, like Nicodemus, are familiar with the scriptures.

Maybe you are considered by many to be a good man or a good woman,

well-respected, maybe even an active member of the church.

I was speaking with another friend several years ago who was a member of one of our churches.

I asked him to give a testimony about his relationship with Christ and his experience of being born again.

He said that he had been an attender and member of this church for over 40 years,

and that he'd had a tree experience with God.

He had been climbing a tree by his house to do some trimming,

and a branch broke and he fell to the ground with multiple broken bones and internal injuries.

He said while in the hospital, he said he decided that he'd better attend church

so that nothing like that would happen again.

Hmm. Insurance plan, I guess. This man was a good man, very helpful in the church,

very generous with his time and his finances, but he wasn't solid in his relationship with the Lord.

This man had been a sort of modern-day Nicodemus, having practiced all the right

religion but not having the heart filled with the presence of God.

However, over the course of a few years, he did come to experience the heartfelt

relationship with God. Thanks be to God.

Are you drawn to Jesus? Are you captivated by his miracles? So was Nicodemus. Thank you.

But Jesus wants so much more for us than compliance. He came to give us life.

He came to offer us citizenship in the kingdom of God.

But there's only one way into God's kingdom, and Nicodemus lacked it.

He lacked spiritual life. He lacked the vitality that comes from the kingdom

living. He lacked being born again.

The entrance to that kingdom is not through the knowledge of scriptures,

nor is it through goodness or respectability or even religious activities.

It required more than being drawn to Jesus or even believing in his miracles.

If Nicodemus and us are to see the kingdom of God, if you are to have the vitality

of life that Jesus came to give us, you must be born again. We know that. We've heard that.

How do we experience that? Nicodemus' lack of awareness of spiritual things

is quite evident in his initial response. He said, how can a man be born again when he is old?

Sometimes I'd like to be born again physically so I don't have the aches and pains that I have.

But he said, surely we cannot enter a second time into our mother's womb to be born.

That would be a scary thing. He didn't say that. I said that.

When Jesus spoke of the need for supernatural power, Nicodemus could only think in natural terms.

Jesus explained, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he's born of the

water and the Spirit. So there are two sides to be born again, water and Spirit.

Jesus's entire conversation with Nicodemus was meant to explain that this knowledgeable

and respective Jewish leader had only scratched the service of one of those sites.

You must be born again. You may have heard it called regeneration or experiencing

a new birth. Whatever you want to call it, I want to assure you that it's the

doorway to the kingdom of God.

Like that evangelical Lutheran pastor had not experienced, we all need to experience being born again.

It's the entrance of life into his presence. It's real life.

It is spiritual life and vitality that builds in us hope, love, peace, and joy.

And so Jesus said there were two characteristics to being born again.

The first one is this, the new birth is substantive.

When Jesus says that you must be born again, he's speaking of the natural aspects of being born again.

This was always the objective of Jewish law and tradition.

Men and women sought to be right with God in their own actions,

thinking wrongfully that by their actions alone, they could find peace with God.

If we do enough, we're going to have peace with God.

How's that working out for you?

It was this pursuit that led the Jewish rulers to incorporate all sorts of religious

activity under the normal Jewish life.

In fact, I've heard it's thousands of pages of laws that the Jewish people wrote,

the Jewish leaders wrote, beside what God had given them to,

lead religious life and help you attain spirituality with God.

The God-fearing Jew was consumed with ceremonial washing, religious rites,

and traditional practices that might make them clean and acceptable for God.

And by the way, if you did not ceremonially—if you didn't wash yourself right,

you couldn't come into the temple.

You had to go do it again until you did it right. I don't know who stands there

and says, you got dirt on your hands and your feet. But anyway,

somebody did. They had to do it exactly right and do all the rituals and all

the practices in exactly the right order or it didn't count.

And while there is no righteousness that comes from observing the law,

there is a natural or substantive element to being born again.

Paul talks about this when he instructs husbands to love their wife the way

Jesus loved the church and cleansed the church by the washing with water through the word.

Paul talked about what Jesus said, you have to give up yourself for your bride.

Paul also teaches that same natural element when he exhorts the Romans in Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, 1, to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.

There is a renewal that starts in our mind that is a powerful thing that changes

the way we think and that changes the way we act. Remember that statement?

Thoughts produce feelings. Feelings produce actions. Actions have consequences.

So you see, there are substantive elements of being born that we can see and hear.

To be born again, we must seek after Jesus, we must hear the word of God,

and John's introduction to this gospel included this commentary from John 1, verse 12.

John 1:12

He says, Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God. So if we believe and we trust in

him, we have the right to be called children of God.

The substantive aspect of new birth is receiving and believing.

That makes sense. Makes sense to us. We understand that.

We sense that. In fact, we even sing about it. I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back. It is a mind thing. And I saw you sing along

with me. It is a mind thing.

There's something we put in our heart. We have to make that decision.

There is a physical part of—a physical and mental part of us that makes that

decision to trust in Christ and not turn back.

You see, we understand the natural concept of conversion.

Every religion in the world practices it. We can easily grasp the concept of

believing in something or changing our mind about a matter, that's substantive.

But we also put emphasis, especially in Protestant churches,

we also put an emphasis on what we refer to as the sinner's prayer.

We tell people that you accept Christ when you come to the altar and pray the

sinner's prayer, Lord, I am a sinner.

And you go through the mantra of praying the sinner's prayer.

And after you say that prayer, then everything is going to be hunky-dory.

Well, that's an old term.

Anyway, so we just know that if you say that sinner's prayer and if you do it

right, oh, wait a minute, that sounds like Jewish religion where you had to

do every ritual exactly right.

Well, when I was born again, I didn't go to the altar at church,

and I didn't recite the sinner's prayer.

And people will say, well, then you're not saved. Well, wait a minute.

At Estes Park, Colorado, in a youth service at the age of 17,

I experienced the Lord speaking to me.

This Holy Spirit was convicting me that it didn't matter what anybody else did. He wanted me to be.

His life. It was after asking Jesus to fill me and change me that my life was

transformed and I knew that I was born again.

One of the key verses in my life is found in 2 Corinthians 5,

2 Corinthians 5:17

verse 17, which says this, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

the new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here.

We can live by that statement from Paul. How did people know that I had been born again?

Their testimony to my parents and to our friends was that they saw it written

on my face, and they saw it lived out in my life.

We can know that we are born again by what happens from the inside out. Jesus talks about it.

It's not what goes into your life that spoils what comes out.

If you are taking in good from God, you will spend out what's right.

Jesus birthed new life in me, and they could see it.

But isn't it entirely possible for us to be converted or to say some words and

magically have eternal life and still not mean it?

Do you think the man that thought he would go to heaven because he'd been an

attender and member for 40 years and served on the church board didn't sing,

I have decided to follow Jesus just like the rest of us, or didn't,

count the number of times he'd been in church?

Do you think Nicodemus didn't express in a number of ways of following the letter

of the law that he had decided to follow God? He talked about it. I've grown up with this.

Another man came to Jesus one time and asked what he must do to be saved,

and he was a member of the Jewish ruling class, and Jesus said,

you must give up what you have and sell and give to those who are poor,

and you will be my disciple.

And it says in the scripture that that man left downhearted because he was a wealthy man.

And Jesus said then after that to the disciples, they asked about this guy,

and Jesus said it is harder for him to enter into the kingdom of God than it

is for somebody to go through the eye of a needle.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must also be born of the Spirit.

That's the second characteristics of being born again.

There is not just a substantive element to new birth.

When we learn and believe and follow Jesus, there's a spiritual element to being born again.

John chapter 3, verse 1 through 12, chapter 1, 12, also says that those who

John 3:1–12

were all, excuse me, after that verse says that all who received him and believed

in his name were given the right to become children of God.

After that, John comments that we are children born not of natural descent,

nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God.

Now, here's an interesting thing.

We say that we are adopted into the kingdom of God, and yet this says we're born of God.

So it's kind of a substantive and a spiritual thing.

We are adopted in, but we're also born of God. When Jesus said we must be born

again, that word for again has another meaning from above.

We must be born of water and the Spirit. There's an aspect of being born again that we cannot see.

It's what works out in our hearts and transforms us in our minds.

We cannot see it with our eyes. We can observe the man or woman answering questions.

We can observe them attending a revival meeting. We can observe them reading

the books or even becoming more open to the gospel, but we cannot see what goes

on in their heart and in their mind.

The Spirit of God that completes that new birth, however, we cannot see either.

What we see is like the wind, Jesus explains, blowing where it pleases.

You hear it sound, and you see everything moving, but you don't know where it's

coming from or where it's going.

Jesus would point out that Nicodemus was just a natural man who had only seen

things from a natural perspective.

He was a respected leader, but he did not know about the spiritual things.

Nicodemus didn't really know spiritual life. Jesus referred to the group of

Nicodemus' peers as a brood of vipers. Now, that's a way to win friends and influence people.

Their bite was condemnation, dooming people with their lifeless religion and

loveless self-righteousness. In fact, in this scripture, John refers to them like.

The snakes that were biting the Israelites in the wilderness,

and Moses put a snake on a rod that they would look at if they had been bitten,

and they would be healed.

The same thing Jesus said that God's Son was fashioned into this sort of cross that had a person.

Jesus was lifted up like that bronze snake so everybody who looked on him and

believed in him would receive eternal life.

If you're relying on your own efforts, you cannot afford to have your deeds exposed.

It says in that passage, those who live in darkness don't want to be exposed

to the light because their deeds will be exposed.

You can't afford to confess the folly in your thinking.

But when we come into the light, God exposes all that and reveals it for what it is.

And we realize that the truth is that we are horrible sinners and horribly filthy

without the grace of God, and it is that grace of God that forgives us.

When we come into the light, the condemnation for your sin is lifted.

The lifelessness of your religion is replaced with life in the kingdom.

When we receive and believe in his name, he births into us a new life.

The old has gone, the new has come.

You know, this is not a message that we normally have, a call to worship or

anything like that to. This is just an information of what Christ has done for us.

But even more than that, we need to understand that if there is something in

our lives that we have not been born again, we need to do that.

We need to have God transform us.

Not just in a physical religion of coming to church. Coming to church is not

going to make you any more a Christian.

I've said this before. Coming to church is not going to make you any more of

a Christian than standing in the garage and believing you're a car.

It just isn't going to happen.

Becoming a Christian has to do with your transformation by the water and the

Spirit, being washed by God's blood, and the renewing of your mind into that good and perfect gift.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we close this time of worship, we give you thanks.

Father, these are some of these scriptures that we wonder sometimes,

what are they in? Why did Jesus speak to Nicodemus like this?

And what was the result of that? Father, we know that it's also recorded later

in Scripture, later in John, that Nicodemus was one that came with Joseph of Arimathea to,

prepare Jesus' body for the grave.

We trust that he, like us, was able to be transformed into your image by knowing the Christ.

And Father, we pray that you would help us as we do to not just take it as a

head religion, something to follow and something to obey, but help us to know

the heart religion that transforms us into your image.

In Jesus' name, amen.