‘Born Again!’      Psalm 23; John 3:1-8

Introduction

• In 2007, Micheal Vick was flying high as an NFL quarterback
• He was admired, people loved the guy but he wasn’t leading a very good life
  • He was engaged in lots of bad things, one namely got him in a lot of trouble
    • Dog fighting
  • Vick was arrested and charged with hosting fighting dog pits, a horrible crime against these animals
  • What Vick did wasn’t particularly awful, it was bad. He needed a change
    • And that’s what he did
      • He decided to change not only his behaviors but himself
    • It worked, Vick is now a highly regarded guy again, doing all sorts of charity work
      • He recognized that there was a problem and he sought out what to do about it.
    • My week
      • I’ve been having problem ith sciatica,
      • I know the next steps to take
      • Sometimes that’s all it takes, is just the willingness to come along before things get better.

Nicodemus

• A Pharisee
  • Religious leaders at the time, they were considered to be HOLY if you know what I mean
    • They were all about maintaining ritual purity to show their love for God
      • But the problem is that they got to thinking that what they were doing made them right with God, it did not
    • The pharisees believed that the more diligently they paid attention to the Jewish Laws, the more favored by God they would be.
    • Nicodemus was likely a pretty good guy, these weren’t like bad people
      • They were just getting things wrong and Jesus came as a teacher to show us all the way to God through Him/
    • He comes by night
      • It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted your friends to know what you were doing
        • The text doesn’t say this but it surely implies it by making it nightfall as Nicodemus comes to see Jesus Christ.
      • The ultimate problem is that Nicodemus didn’t see the full nature of the problem.
      • Paul gets at that problem in Ephesians
        • Ephesians 2:1-3 – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body^[a]and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
          • The problem isn’t that we’re sick and need a mending
          • The problem is we’re dead and we need resurrecting
        • Romans tells us how this sin God to us
          • Romans 5:12 – Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men^[a] because all sinned—
        • The problem that we all have is that, apart from Jesus salvation, is that we are all walking around, living dead men.
          • Sin is like a medical condition
            • We are born with it and stand in need of a cure to overcome it.

Healing Ourselves

• When we learn the nature of our shortcomings, its only natural that we try to provide our own answers
  • As I’ve shared with you in the past, when I try to do this, I hear that song in my head, two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.
• Nicodemus, like all Pharisees, was trying to heal himself but it wasn’t working
  • Isaiah 64:6 – We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
    We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
  • Romans 3:10-12 – None is righteous, no, not one;
    ¹¹ no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
    ¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
• This doesn’t make us awful people, it does make us people in need of a savior and thankfully, that’s just what God has done.
• IT’s like trying to take a ladder up to the moon, it seems like a good idea but it’s never going to work, no matter how tall you make it, it won’t be tall enough to do the trick
  • That’s like us, trying to earn our own salvation, it just doesn’t work so stop trying
• Being born again isn’t for just. The worst of sinners, it’s for everybody
  • The moral need comes to us from Luke where it says Jesus came to seek and save the lost
• The rich young ruler shows that we can’t do this apart from God
  • This is an important lesson to keep in mind, the Spirit blows where it will
    • You can’t make bargains with God like some sort of ethereal fortune weaver.
  • As to being born again, Jesus doesn’t say
    • You should consider being born again
    • You may want to try this new approach
    • Only really bad sinners need to be born again
      • No, he says, EVERYONE MUST BE BORN AGAIN.

We can settle this by the terms of John’s Gospel right now

• Do you believe in Jesus Christ
  • Romans 10:8-9 – “⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
    • John’s gospel makes the knowledge of your salvation instant and ties it to Jesus
      • Do you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead.
        • You really believe thus you may have been born again, already
          • This needs to be a deep-seated feeling, a confidence in Christ that transcends your normal thought patterns.
        • No one enters the Kingdom of God without it
          • That’s what Jesus says, that’s why it’s so important
          • I know, being born again was cause for jokes when I was a younger man
            • I remember a young woman in my class who was a born again Christian, we all made fun of her for her beliefs, believe it or not
          • What born again is not
            • It does not mean you will be perfect.Being born again does not eliminate sin from your life; rather, it begins a process of transformation where you grow in Christ.
            • It does not mean life will be easy.Following Christ does not guarantee a trouble-free life; in fact, Jesus said that His followers would face trials and persecution (John 16:33).
            • It does not mean you will instantly understand everything about the Bible or faith.Spiritual growth is a journey, and even mature Christians continue to learn and wrestle with questions.
            • It does not mean salvation is based on your good works.Being born again is entirely by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), not by personal effort or religious deeds.
            • It does not mean you are exempt from temptation.Christians still battle with sin and must rely on God’s strength to resist temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13)
            • IT does not mean that you will become a jerk and hostile to other people

• Being born again is a complex matrix of things but it should never see one grow in pride or in meanness towards others
  • IF anything, one should be more merciful, more loving, more kind
• Jesus compares the new birth towards the wind
  • You can’t control the wind, you can only see its effects is the point Jesus ius making here
    • Titus 3:5 – he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
      • Are you trusting in your own works or relying totally on Jesus Christ for your salvation?

The Means of the New Birth

• Since the means isn’t us, we need to look more closely to see how God has moved in the past and how God is moving now.
• “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 in Him.”(John 3:14-15, NIV)
  • The Event in Numbers 21:4-9
    • The Israelites were traveling through the wilderness and began to complain against God and Moses, expressing dissatisfaction with the manna and their journey.
    • In response to their rebellion and sin, God sent venomous serpentsamong them, which bit the people, causing many to die.
    • The people repented and asked Moses to pray for them.
    • God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpentand set it on a pole. Whoever looked at the serpent in faith was healed and lived.
  • How Jesus Connects This to Himself
    • The Serpent on the Pole → Christ on the Cross
      Just as the bronze serpent was lifted up for people to look at and be saved, Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life(John 3:16).
    • Healing Through Faith
      The Israelites did not have to do anything but look at the serpentto be saved. Likewise, salvation through Christ comes not by works, but by faith in His sacrifice.
    • The Symbolism of the Serpent
      The serpent represents sin and judgment, yet it also became the means of healing. In a similar way, Jesus took on the judgment for sin(2 Corinthians 5:21), and through Him, we find life.
  • God has formed a way for us through sin into his Kingdom through his Son Jesus Christ
    • This salvation was wrought on the Cross where Jesus hung painfully for over six hours, atoning for all our sin.
  • Again, we’re called to have faith in Jesus
    • Finding faith in Jesus we know that the Holy Spirit is making his temple in our hearts and that we are being sanctified

Sanctification

• This is what happens to us after new birth
• We begin to change
• Remember, this isn’t just like growing up, this is a metamorphosis
  • Like a caterpillar into a butterfly for lack of better words
  • Ezekiel 36:26-27 – And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules
    • New year, new ministries, new spiritual disciplines allow you’re sanctification to reach new heights in 2025

Nancy Story to Close

Griefshare is still a vibrant ministry at that church