You Must be Born Again

If I asked you “are you born again,” what might you say? Its a common Christian phrase. I am a “born again Christian.” But what does that mean? What does it mean to say, I am born again? Well you may know that it means that you are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” In simple terms to be born again means that you were something, and now you are something different. A change has taken place. But the change is nothing external, at least at first. When we are born again we are spiritually born again, we confess with our mouth and belief with our heart that Jesus is Lord, and we are given the holy Spirit as a counselor. There is no other way to get into heaven without being born again. And there is no other way of being born again than through Jesus Christ. Not Jesus Christ the angel, not Jesus Christ the prophet, not Jesus Christ the teacher, but Jesus Christ the son of the Father, part of the triune God. This passage is about being born again and it is told through a fascinating discussion between a leader in the Pharisees named Nicodemus, and Jesus Christ himself. READ John 2:24-3:21

I want to look at what this passage teaches about what it means to be born again. There are four things specifically

The first is that being born again happens is a heart change.

In John 2:23–25 “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Jesus knew that people could see the signs and wonder he did and think, there is something absolutely different about this man. He does things that are supernatural. Nobody else does these things or talks like this man. They even “believed in his name.” “I saw this man Jesus turn water into wine. I saw him heal. He must be something important.” Jesus knew the heart of man. Jesus knows how fickle people can be. Jesus knew that heart of man is wicked Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” You know how quickly people can change on you. When you have things going your way, people love you. Then when things are no longer going your way or you don’t have the things people once, they tend to disappear on you. In John 6 when Jesus feeds the 5,000, the people love him and follow him. He even calls them out for it and says, you’re following me because I fed you. Then we started to preach about who he was and that is is the “bread of life,” it says many of his disciples (not the 12) said “this is a tough teaching, who can accept it?” and they turned back and stopped following him.

Nicodemus is an example of somebody who sees the signs of Jesus but his heart does not except him yet. Nicodemus sees the miracles and has concluded Jesus must be from God. It is logical to him. Jesus does miraculous signs. The ability to do miraculous signs comes from God. Therefore, Jesus must come from God. The problem is not in Nicodemus’ reasoning. This is a heart issue. Nicodemus comes at night. In John night is always a negative thing. He comes under the cover of night. He does not want it to be known publicly that he is going to Jesus. He is worried about being thrown out of the synagogue. But in any case, he does come to Jesus. Nicodemus refers to Jesus as Rabbi. Not the Christ or the Messiah, but basically the same status that he is, a teacher. There are two major problems with how he comes to Jesus. He comes at night because he is doesn’t want others to know he is talking with Jesus. And he only sees him as a Rabbi, a teacher.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus with his own human reasoning about who Jesus is. He does not come with a sense of emergency and desperation that some others do. He does not come and fall on his knees as some others do. Nicodemus make a statement and Jesus replies as if Nicodemus asks a question. Jesus always goes straight to the heart. When we come to Jesus, no matter how we come, Jesus sees straight into our heart and meets us exactly where we are. Jesus replies speaking about spiritual and heavenly things about being born again and this blows Nicodemus mind. His human earthly mind is trying to grasp a heavenly spiritual truth which cannot be done apart from the help of God. He does not understand what being born again means. He thinks about it literally. At one point Nicodemus replies “How can these things be?” The issue is in Nicodemus’ heart. The mind can rationalize whatever it wants to protect the heart. We see in disillusion behavior. Denial of facts. Atheism.

Being born again is a heart issue. Between Nicodemus and Jesus is a collision of man’s thinking and God’s will. Nicodemus is a leader in the community of religious matters. He knows the Law, he knows Israel’s history, he has spent his lifetime studying the scriptures. Knowledge is good but it is not knowledge itself that saves us. Knowledge of scripture is good, but just knowing all of scripture is not enough to save somebody. If our hope rested in just what we know, and Nicodemus, a leader of the religious experts, doesn’t grasp it, what hope is there for the simple folk that heard the words of Jesus. Remember Matthew 11:25 “At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;” All the knowledge in the world about Jesus does not save us is we just submit to him as a teacher. We must bow to him as Lord.

This is about God opening our eyes and revealing himself to us in a way that transcends human understanding. This is not just a mind thing. Its a heart thing. I have found with a lot of friends that I had that were atheists they would argue with me about philosophy and science and how the Bible doesn’t make sense because of scientific reasons or belief in the God of the Bible doesn’t cannot be true because of philosophical reasons, but there real issue I came to find out was not just here (in the mind), it was here (in the heart). There are good answers to their objections, it’c called apologetics. Great arguments of reason for the existence of God, the accuracy of scripture, and even the resurrection of Jesus. The issue was not science or philosophy. The issue is they were in love with their sin. They did not want to submit to God.

John 3:19 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Jesus came into the world as light to give hope to all men. Light often symbolizes truth and Jesus is truth in the flesh. But people don’t want the truth. People love darkness. People love their sin. It says their works were evil. They did evil and they loved the evil that they did. They enjoyed it. To except Christ is to except the light and there is no darkness where there is light. People do not want to let go of their evil. Not only do people not want to let go of their evil, they cannot even comprehend the light. Ephesians 4:18 “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” Man’s mind is in darkness. The darkness in their mind, their lack of understanding, their inability to “get it” to get what Jesus is saying like Nicodemus doesn't get what Jesus is saying, is because their heart is hard. Hardened by sin. We cannot fathom God and our need for God without the grace of God. We love the evil that we do and without the grace of God we would just keep doing the evil works that we are in love with. 2 Corinthians 4:3–4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Scripture paints a very bleak picture of the heart and mind of man to understand the things of God. Not only is our own heart darkened by sin nature but you have “the god of this world,” that is Satan, working to deceive us. You can see in this passage Nicodemus is totally dumbfounded by the spiritual things that Jesus is saying. Jesus says “You are a teacher. You are supposed to be an expert of spiritual things. This is your specialty. And yet you do not know what I am talking about. Why? John 3:11–12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Nicodemus is impressed by the signs and wonders he sees Jesus do, but he does not receive who Jesus is. Jesus is not just a Rabbi. Jesus is truth. Jesus is not just a prophet who is able to do amazing miracles. Jesus in the Christ. The Messiah. The son of the living God. We cannot be born again unless we first recognize who Jesus is.

The second thing is that being born again is by spirit and water.

John 3:5–6 “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.”

Jesus referencing water is not referencing baptism. He is referencing the same thing that baptism represents. When you are baptised you are publically showing that you have been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and risen with Christ. The water shows that in that process we are being cleansed, we are washed by the blood of Jesus, Isaiah 1:18 ““Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” To be born again is to be made clean. If you are born again you are now spiritually clean. The blood of Jesus washes away the sin of your past and of your future.

Jesus says “water and the Spirit.” This something that happens in our heart and there is a mysterious component to it. We can’t take a scan of somebody’s heart and see the change. This is a spiritual thing. John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”” We see the effects. People are changed. When you accept Christ and you have the Holy Spirit there is a joy you did not have before. A peace you did not have before. There is conviction that you did not have before. Some of the sins you used to do won’t be a fulfilling. You go back to the sin and expect the same pleasure but you are left feeling shame. If you used to look for satisfaction from woman and you go back to that, you will end up feeling empty. If you go back to that drug, that substance, the chemical will do their thing. The Holy spirit may not render the chemicals unable to take effect in your brain. But you will find yourself looking for something that is not there anymore. I have experienced it, you go back to a group of friends trying to recapture “the good ol’ days,” but its not the same. It’ll never be the same. What’s changed? You changed. You’re heart changed.

We don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. There is a mystery to how the Holy Spirit works, but we see how it changes people. We have a room full of testimonies here tonight. People who are changed. People who will never be the same again.

The third is that being born again comes from believing in Jesus.

John 3:14–15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” In Numbers 21 as Moses was leading the people of Israel the people began to grumble against God so God sent “fiery serpents” among them and people started to die. Then they cried out to go and repented and God told Moses to make a bronze serpent that he would lift up and the people would look at the serpent and if they were bitten they would be healed. I do not know exactly why it was a bronze serpent that God told Moses to make. But the important symbolism is the serpent being lifted up. Jesus would need to be lifted up on a cross to save us. All those who look upon Jesus as the crucified son of God and believe will be saved.

Now we get to the section of scripture that is the most well known in all of history. John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But lets also look at. John 3:17–18 “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. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The mission of Jesus is not to condemn. John 12:47 “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” But in John 9:39 “Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”” This may seem like a contradiction. There are no contradictions in scripture, just reasons to study more. The main purpose of Jesus coming into the world was not to condemn the world, but to save the world. The world already is condemned in their unbelief. Jesus did not come to further condemn. The world will be judged, but the mission of Jesus was to save.

This is important. The mission of Jesus was not to come down and give us a pep talk of “hey you need to do better.” The moral teachings of Jesus are of infinite value. Jesus told us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, be servants of others, to be first we must be last. But, no matter how well we do those things, doing those things is not what gives us eternal life. The mission of Jesus was to die for our sins. Jesus did not come to condemn, but those who do not believe in Jesus are condemned. What condemns us to hell is our sin. God in His holiness cannot ignore sin, but in his love he sent his son to die for us. That’s the beauty of John 3:16. Our sin is what sends us to hell, and when we reject Jesus, we are rejecting our only means of salvation.

The fourth is that Being Born Again should be evident

John 3:19–21 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.””

Those who love their evil works, those who are in love with their evil lifestyle, have no desire to come into the light. Even for some of you who are struggling with a past lifestyle but are born again, I highly doubt you would say you are in love with that past lifestyle. I would venture to guess that you hate it. Even when you feel a pull back to the old way, the old lifestyle, the old habits and hangups, you hate it. But somebody being born again and still feeling a pull to an old lifestyle of sin is not the saddest thing I can think of for somebody here. The most depressing thing I can think of in this prison is if I were to talk to an inmate who is still in love with his lifestyle and sin and they see no reason to change. Not because I have great concern for them to be a productive member society, but because I have great concern for their soul. And we want to shake them, can’t you see its killing you? Can’t you see how this is going to end for you? A life of meaningless pleasure that ends in hell? But they think we’re the crazy ones. Why? because they are in darkness. They are blind to the light. They are in love with the darkness because that is where they do the sin that they are in love with.

But we are called to be different. We live in the light. This does not mean we walk around with a “holier than though” type complex. This means we are not paranoid. We do not live in shame. We do not live looking over our shoulder because the things we do, we do in the light. There is so much freedom in being obedient to Christ. Free from shame. Free from constant anxiety. Free from being found out for our lies. A saying that has stuck with me is by a pastor named RC Sproul and he says that “I am convinced that the happiest man on earth is the obedient man.” Meaning obedience to Christ.

Conclusion

The main takeaway. To have eternal life we must be born again. To be born again we must believe in Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins as the Son of God, and after 3 days came back to life. There is not other way to born again, by the Spirit, than through a relationship with Jesus Christ. You do not need to be smart. You do not need to be clever. Nicodemus was one of the experts of his day and he didn’t get it at first. This is not about how smart you are in understanding everything Jesus says, you can study your whole life and still have questions. You need to believe that Jesus is Lord. You need to confess and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord. You need to look upon the cross. Leave the darkness of sin and worldly pleasure behind. There is no hope there. There is no truth there. Come to the light. Come to Jesus and accept eternal life. You don’t have to wait until you get to heaven to start experiencing it. Joy and peace and hope is offered to you now.

Pray with me.

Jesus I am a sinner. Jesus I confess that I have been in love with my sin. Jesus I come to your throne and acknowledge you as Lord. Lord of this world and Lord of my life. Lord take my sins away. Lord help me to live each day following you. Thank you Lord that I am born again.