Born Again

I was having a discussion this week with someone about what it means to be saved. About the difference between saying you are saved and being saved. One of the things that came up was belief in God. I have had several people tell me they believed in God. Of course Satan himself believes in God and it is not just an opinion, Satan knows for a fact that God exists and he knows that God is in charge and he probably knows more about God than all of us put together, of course Satan is not saved.

It is interesting the answers you get when you ask someone if they are saved. One lady told me of course she was saved, she went to church. Of course going to church doesn’t make you a christian any more than going to a car wash makes you a Chevy. I was once going to door to door with the kids collecting canned goods for the poor the week of Halloween and I talked to one lady who I asked if she was a christian. She said she was a a christian, her grandmother had been very active in the church and her whole family were Christians. She believed that since her grandmother had been saved she had been born into a christian family and therefore she was a christian.

How do you explain what salvation is to someone like that? Salvation is just one part of Christianity, the very first part, but if we cannot explain salvation how can we then explain Christianity? Jesus once explained salvation to a theologian. this man was a very committed to God and to his religion but he did not understand salvation. So he did something very wise, we went to Jesus and asked.

John 3:1–3 NASB95

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus chose a very simple form of explanation, something that everyone knew something about. Everyone knows about hos kids come into the world, in fact every single human being has had direct experience with birth. We have all been born and we know that we are born into the world as a new creation and when we are born we begin our life. We have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make, a lot of things left to do but we are on our way, we have been born.

Nicodemus did not understand, he did not get the reference, it just didn’t make sense to him.

John 3:4–8 NASB95

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into 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 be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

In the Greek the word for wind and the word for spirit are the same word. Jesus was saying to him that this is spiritual birth. You must be born to enter the world and you must be spiritually born to enter the world of spirit, the spiritual world.

John 3:9–18 NASB95

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus that being born again, being saved, being born into the family of God is a spiritual thing. It is a spiritual birth. If you are not born again then you have no spiritual life, your spiritual life has not been born and so you are dead to the spiritual world. Jesus expresses to Nicodemus that these things are spiritual and cannot be understood by someone who does not see the spiritual world. Jesus has seen and lived in the spiritual world and so he is willing to tell us about these things. He uses physical things as examples of spiritual things because we live in the physical world and can understand physical things. Jesus takes what he knows and relates it to something we already understand so that we can try to understand the spiritual things. But he does ask this question, If you don’t believe me about physical things, things you can see and touch and feel and prove, how will you ever believe me about spiritual things which you cannot see and touch and must only take my word about how it works?

We understand physical birth. It is the beginning of your life. Before you are born you are alive, you live and breathe, you eat and sleep, you grow and move in your mothers womb but your eyes are closed and you have no contact with or knowledge of the world. Your life doesn’t really get started until after you are born even though you are alive in the womb before birth. You make no memories, you do not learn, we do not even begin to count your age until after you are born.

In the same way before you are spiritually born your spiritual life has not begun. You are alive in a physical sense and you have a soul that is alive but you have not been spiritually born and your spiritual eyes have not been opened. Your spiritual life has not yet begun. To be born again is to have already experienced physical birth but now you need to experience spiritual birth.

We say that the old man has passed away and all things have become new and it is true. When you went from the womb to the planet outside everything changed. The way you breathed changed, the way you ate changed, what you saw and felt and did changed. You went from a world where there was nothing to see and no light to see it by to a world where there were colors and sounds and experiences that nothing in your life so far had prepared you for. Nothing in the womb could have prepared you for all of the new things you would see and feel and touch and taste in this new life that you had reached by being born out of your mother’s womb.

The spiritual birth is much like that. Nothing in this world can prepare you for the spiritual world, With the holy spirit as your constant guide and companion in this new journey new thoughts and new ways of thinking open up before you. Things you could not see before you now have eyes to see, things you could never have heard before you now have ears to hear. Things deeper and richer and more wonderful than the physical world could ever offer.

If you had a child who didn[t want to come out of the womb and you were tasked with explaining why they should what would yo say. What would you tell someone who had never been born about the world. How do you explain color and beauty and light to someone who had only know darkness. How do you explain what food tastes like or how refreshing a cool glass of water is on a hot day. How would you explain the feeling of snuggling down into a warm blanket on a cold day to someone who has always been at 98.6 degrees. There are no words and no way to explain it.

In the same way there is no way to explain to someone who has never been spiritually born and has always been spiritually blind and deaf what it is like to open your eyes and see the things of God or open your ears and hear what God says. It is so fare beyond the physical life that there are no words or explanations that would do it justice.

To be born again is to be spiritually born like being born the first time is to be physically born. No one goes through life being partially born, although there is a time when you are being born once you are born you are already born. You don’t have to wonder if you are born or figure out if you continue to be born, you have been born. It is a singular event and it has already happened, that part of your life is over.

When you are spiritually born it is a singular event, you are born again one time and once you are born again it is done, it is over, you are here. You have entered into life.

Just like your physical life you were not born mature, you had to grow and learn and you should continue to learn and mature throughout your entire lifetime. When yo are born again you are here but you are an infant, you need to grow and mature and learn and you need to continue doing that your whole life.

Now becoming a christian is really something you work on your whole life. When you are born again you have new life, you are recreated, but a christian is someone who follows christ, literally a christ follower. The first people to use the world Christian were not followers of Christ in fact they considered it a derogatory term for someone who followed Jesus. All of our lives we continue to learn and grow and become better and better at following Jesus, or at least we should. We should always be striving to be better followers of Christ, better Christians. It is a life long journey that continues into eternity. We will continue to follow Christ for all time and be Christ followers.

But we are only born once, we have only one birthday, likewise we are only born again once and we have only one born again day. Being born again is a one time thing that is done and paid for by Jesus Christ, we cannot do it ourselves and we cannot add anything to it or take anything away from it. In fact we have very little to do with being born again, it is not something we do but something that is done to us. That makes sense doesn’t it. Being born physically is not something you do, it is something done to you. Your parents conceive you and your mother gives birth to you, the doctors help her and you are born without you doing much of anything but being there. When you are born again you are born again with Jesus paying the price and God doing the creative work and all you really need to do is be there.

Becoming a Christian is different. You do not instantly become a Christ follower. You do not instantly become spiritually mature and develop the spiritual habits that a Christian should have, you develop them over time. Just like physical birth some mature faster than others. becoming a follower of Christ is about trying and failing and trying again, learning and growing and getting better and stronger and wiser. It is a process just like growing up physically is a process. Being born again is actually a very accurate description of salvation. Maybe that is why Jesus used it as an example. You are born again, you are saved, you a christian and you should be growing in Christ, becoming a better and stronger christian every day by your own efforts and with God’s help, under the direction of the word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

Have you been born again, if you have not you cannot start your journey as a Christian until that has been done. Don’t wait, there is no time like the present, don’t delay the rest of your spiritual life, begin today. If you have been born again then you have everything you need to grow up and become a better Christian, a better follower of Christ. You have parents, people to guide you and help you, a church to provide you a place to grow and serve, the holy spirit to guide you. Everything you need to grow strong and healthy don’t wait, do it today.