Born That Men No More May Die

INTRODUCTION

I have always had a deep love for Christmas.

I didn’t become a Christian until I was 14, but I fell in love with Christmas from before I can remember.

I loved the movies.

I loved the traditions.

I loved the presents. Of course. I was a flesh and blood little kid with a dark and foolish heart. I LOVED the presents!

And I loved the songs.

I loved the silly songs like Frosty and Rudolph.

I loved the sentimental songs about chestnuts and silver bells.

And I loved the songs about Jesus being born.

To me it was all just one big Christmas music genre and I didn’t give much thought to the difference between Jesus and Santa.

I just saw it all as CHRISTMAS.

But the first Christmas after I became a Christian, we went to the 5pm service at Red Lane Baptist Church and it was by candlelight. Most of the service was just us singing Christmas hymn after Christmas hymn.

O Holy Night

Angels We Have Heard on High

O Come All Ye Faithful

Joy to the World

Silent Night

We Three Kings

I LOVED IT.

I felt like someone finally told me the meaning of this thing that I loved so much for all these years.

It was my own little Hallmark film moment where I understood the true meaning of Christmas.

I distinctly remember thinking, “Christmas is CHRISTIAN!”

And that night we sang one of my absolute favorite Christmas hymns.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

All four verses of that hymn just makes my heart do backflips, but there is one line in particular that I want to share with you tonight.

“Mild He lays His glory by. Born that men no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them—(DOES ANYONE KNOW IT?)—SECOND BIRTH!”

And that is what I want to talk with you all about tonight.

About how Christmas is Christian—specifically about how Christmas at its heart is about second birth. Being born again.

CONTEXT AND SCRIPTURE

We will be in the book of John tonight.

John doesn’t have a birth story about Jesus the way that Matthew and Luke do.

But it does tell us a lot about His coming and His identity in John 1.

So that is where we will be. We are going to look at John 1:12-13.

John 1:12–13 ESV

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Jesus’ own people, the Jewish people, did not receive Jesus as the Messiah.

As a nation, they crucified Him.

In fact, God judged the city of Jerusalem for this in 70 AD when He allowed the Romans to besiege the city and thousands and thousands died.

But do you know who did not die? The Christians.

They had fled to Pella because of Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 where He tells His people to flee to the mountains quickly and get out of the city when desolation comes on Jerusalem.

But some of the Jewish people did receive Him. And many non-Jewish people received Him also.

And for any who receive Him—according to John, they will become children of God.

They will be re-born and become members of God’s household.

In fact, this is why Jesus was born—so His people could be re-born.

I just want to give you three quick thoughts about these verses tonight and then at the end I really want to challenge you on the issue of faith.

SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE FIRST BIRTH (v. 12-13)

John says that anyone who receives Christ are given the right to be children of God—not born of blood or of the will of man.

That is what your first birth was like.

WITHOUT GETTING INTO SPECIFICS…you all came about because of the will of man.

Your mom and your dad.

I’ll leave it at that for tonight.

Your first birth was also one of blood, in the sense that you are born with your family’s blood in your veins.

You aren’t born in a vacuum. You are born in a line of people.

My father is Mike Howard. His father was Fred. I am born of their blood.

But the birth that is experienced by receiving Christ isn’t brought about by two people that love each other in a marriage covenant or the bloodline of human parents—it is brought about by the saving work of the Lord.

And the fact that we need a new birth from above tells us there is something wrong with the one we have here below.

So this is our first thing to remember tonight:

1. We need a new birth because there is something wrong with our first birth (v. 12-13).

There is something about us from the time of our first birth that requires we would have a second birth.

There is something about our first birth that makes us unclean before God.

There is something about our first birth that actually reeks of death.

And that something is sin.

The Bible says that you were born in sin.

Psalm 51:5 ESV

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

This means that from birth, you are actually separated from God.

Psalm 58:3 ESV

The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

We can know about God.

We can understand things about God.

We might even read the Bible and do some nice things.

But unless you are born again, you are still separated from God because you a sinner.

And that is because you were brought into this world by two sinners and they handed it down to you.

And it has been your nature, from birth, to rebel against God.

That is where all of our ugly thoughts and actions and attitudes come from.

They come to us naturally as a result of our sinful, rebellious heart.

The fact that we are all going to die one day is one of the greatest evidences that our first birth has something wrong with it.

Our first birth gives us physical life, but that physical life will run out and this is a result of sin as well.

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

We need a new birth where we are given life that is eternal. A life that never ends.

Our first birth is not this way. It comes with an expiration date.

NEW BIRTH BY THE WILL OF GOD (v. 13)

But the new birth we need is not something we can will ourselves.

It is not by the will of the flesh or by the will of man.

This is the 2nd thing for us to remember tonight:

2. There is a new birth that is brought about by the will of God (v. 13).

I love Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I think it is the best man-made Christmas story ever written.

I am particularly fond of A Muppet’s Christmas Carol

I have married a woman and sired three children with her.

I have a dog.

Not a single one of them will watch that movie with me. They all think its trash.

But I ride for it and I don’t care who knows it.

But here is what we have to remember about A Christmas Carol. It is a story written by an unbelieving man.

And the message it teaches is, “If you’ve been a humbug, you need to make up for it by being a good person and buying dinner for Tiny Tim.”

There is nothing wrong with repenting of being greedy and becoming a charitable person, but that won’t give you escape from the Death—who is the ghost of Christmas future in the story.

And after death, we face God in judgment.

Hebrews 9:27 ESV

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

And when we stand before God, He will judge us according to His law and no amount of good we do can help us there.

Wrong is wrong and it must be punished.

Our first birth leaves us separated from God in sin and in danger of His judgment when we die. Separated from Him forever and locked out of His Kingdom.

This is why we need a second birth.

JESUS AND NICODEMUS

Jesus communicated similar things to a Pharisee named Nicodemus 2000 years ago.

John 3:3 ESV

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus kind of mocks this.

John 3:4 ESV

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

But listen to what Jesus says to Him:

John 3:5–7 ESV

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

See, when you are born as a sinner, sin is all you know.

Sin is your master and your flesh is enslaved to it.

Even the good you do is poisoned by it.

You don’t just need your heart to change—you need a new heart all together.

We are born in sin and in need of spiritual heart transplants.

But when Jesus says that you must be born of the water and the Spirit, He is actually referring to this amazing Old Testament promise, which says:

Ezekiel 36:25–26 ESV

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 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.

To be born again is to have a new heart—a heart that is no longer enslaved to sin and separated from God.

Your new heart is a heart that is alive to God and can know Him and live for Him by faith.

When God gives us this new heart, it is called regeneration.

Regeneration is the transforming not only of an unlovely object, but of one that resists with all its might the gracious designs of the heavenly Potter.

Arthur Walkington Pink

Titus 3:5 describes regeneration.

Titus 3:5 ESV

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,

This is what Jesus is talking about in John 3 when he speaks to the old, curious Pharisee.

Now you might say, “But what about the sin? I still committed all that sin! I hear you that I get a new heart, but don’t I still need to be forgiven?”

The answer is YES. Yes, you do need to be forgiven.

Which is why John 3:16 says:

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus died so you could have a new heart. Jesus died so that you could be born again. He suffered in your place and bore the weight of your sins.

When He returns, Jesus will judge the world. But He did not come to condemn the world in His first coming—He came to save it.

John 3:17 ESV

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

BORN AGAIN HOPE

Many people are living their lives without hope. Many people are living their lives in a cloud of despair.

I heard this week about a teenager in York County dying because they got into some fentynal.

That is unthinkably terrible.

But why is a teenagers even messing around with that stuff?

Why is anyone seeking to escape reality?

You have to think it is because many are hopeless, whether they admit it or not.

The answer for them, of course, is new birth in Jesus.

New birth by the will of God, brings hope.

1 Peter 1:3 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Hope means that you believe the Gospel for you.

You believe it is true for you.

Do you have hope tonight?

The worst thing you could do when leave church is think, “I’m going to go be a more moral teenager.”

“I’m going to try really hard to not cuss.”

“I’m going to try really hard to be on screens less and read my Bible.”

Listen—there is effort you must make for your spiritual health, but it must start with being born again.

As Christians, we should leave church motivated to serve God more and read His Word and share our faith, but those things are the fruit of our faith.

And we aren’t saved because we do them.

We are saved because we are born again by the will of God, who sent His Son to die in our place.

We are saved because He has made our hearts alive and we believe in Him.

And as saved people, we then produce good works.

You must understand the order of these things.

Born again by the will of God.

Repentance and faith.

Saved by God.

THEN He produces good works out of your life that glorify Him

But if you get it backwards, you will find yourself trying to work for your salvation and you will be miserable.

You will be hopeless—not hopeful.

THE NEW BIRTH IS RECEIVED (v. 12)

So now we go back to John 1 and we look at verse 12 and what does he say there again?

“To all who did receive Him...”

That word “receive” is more than just being friendly with Jesus. John is talking about receiving Christ by faith.

He is talking about believing in Him.

3. The new birth is received by faith (v. 12).

If we want new birth, which gives us a new heart and sees our old life, with all its sins washed away, then we must believe in God’s only plan of salvation.

Jesus did not offer Nicodemus any hope but Himself.

When Jesus’ disciples were in despair in John 14, He only gave them one path to heaven:

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the only Messiah that God provided to atone for our sins.

No one else is going to walk through that door.

The one true Lord has revealed Himself in His Son Jesus Christ and you must agree with Him about how evil your sin is, repent of it and place your faith and trust in God’s Son.

Have you ever asked God for a new heart? Have you asked Him for new birth? Have you asked Him to forgive you of your sin?

If you do, and you are sincere, He will make you a child of God.

What do good fathers do for their children?

They take care of them until they leave this earth.

As long as they can be good to their child, they are good to their child.

Well God is the best Father. There is none better.

He is the Father of lights and there is no shadow of turning in Him.

He is always good.

And He will be good to you for as long as He can be—which is forever.

NOT YOUR PARENTS FAITH

But this is not by the will of flesh or the will of man.

And that means that your parents can’t get you to heaven the way they got you into this world.

They can only believe for themselves.

It is time for you to believe.

It is time for your faith to be your own.

For some of you, if you haven’t yet given your lives to Christ, it is time to get serious and believe.

For others of you—you are a professing Christian, but it is time to act like it.

You can’t just say you believe. Real faith works.

It reads the Word and believes more and more.

It grows in trust of the Lord.

It believes that God’s law is righteous and there is joy in obedience.

It believes that sharing your faith is worth it because God saves through the testimony of people. Teenagers included.

So do you believe? Are you born again?

He was born so that you would be.

Receive the gift of Christ.