The Means of the New Birth
Notes
Transcript
Intro; Often when we talk about something we still may not know the “means” or the actions/method that bring something about or make it work.
[Example] If we were to talk about a vehicle and the way it runs or drives we would be talking in a general sense unless we began to talk about all the components that have to work together all at once for it to start and then for it to move in the direction we desire. Those things are the “means” behind a working vehicle.
In a similar sense it is the same way with the New Birth. We can talk about it as the good news of the Gospel, but we need to understand the “means” behind the Gospel, The New Birth, to truly appreciate and trust it.
Last week we started looking at the New Birth in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus explained to Nic that he must be born again of the Spirit, uncorruptible seed, instead of being born from his mothers womb again, corruptible seed. And we ended by saying that the New Birth is a work of God and not of man.
Text; John 3:9-15
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?
11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Prayer
1. Struggles of Nicodemus; 9-10
1. Struggles of Nicodemus; 9-10
After hearing Jesus explain the New Birth, Nic still struggled with being born of the Spirit.
Did you understand the Gospel the first time you heard it? Probably not. Why?
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Being “born again” transcends human logic. It is a supernatural event/experience. Spiritual transformation is an ongoing journey that invites us to actively engage with the Holy Spirit through regeneration and relying on Christ’s teaching to save us and shape our lives and our witness.
[v.10] Jesus rebukes Nic for being the teacher of the OT to Israel and not understanding this. The OT scriptures reveal the working power of the Holy Spirit concerning the Kingdom of God.
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
28 “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.
29 And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
Jesus is telling Nic that until he lets go of human logic and his legalistic religious system and realize that salvation is a sovereign gracious work of God’s Spirit, he could not be Born Again.
2. Christ’s Credentials; 11-13
2. Christ’s Credentials; 11-13
In these verses Jesus gives Nicodemus His heavenly credentials as “The Means of the New Birth”.
[v.11] When Jesus uses the word “We” and “Our”, he is using them in a divine manner or as deity. [capitalized]
We- [la-leo] speak, to say something; pronoun [first person plural]; used by a speaker to refer to himself and one or more other people considered together or regarded as in the same category.
Our- [anah’ nu; ego] I, we, ourselves; personal pronoun as a possessive determiner; belonging to or associated with the speaker and one or more others previously mentioned or easily identified; used in formal contexts by a royal person [The Trinity of God]
7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.
27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
30 I and My Father are one.”
[v.12] Intellectually, Nicodemus acknowledged Jesus to be a teacher sent from God (3:2), but yet you are unwilling to accept Jesus as God. And without that, you cannot be born again.
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
[v.13] Only One who has been to heaven can tell another what heaven is like and the plans of the Father in the redemption of man. Jesus is saying, “I Am He”!
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
Jesus shows Nicodemus that the “New Birth” comes through spiritual means and one must recognize Jesus’ divine origin as the Son of God and the Means of the New Birth!
3. Faith in the Means; 14-15
3. Faith in the Means; 14-15
Jesus now makes a connection back to the Old Testament Scriptures in a way that should make being born of the Spirit, plain as day to Nicodemus.
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”
6 So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”
9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Israel is wandering in the wilderness heading to the Promised Land. They have just won a crushing victory over the Canaanite King Arad, after asking God for help to do so and now they are complaining again. They are a rebellious, selfish, unthankful, sinful people who were receiving their just reward for the way they treated God.
But God provided a “means of deliverance” from certain death [serpent lifted up]. But it also took a look of faith in God to be delivered from death.
Jesus tells Nicodemus, that to be born again in the New Birth and to be delivered from the sting and death of sin, He must be lifted up [cross] and man must by faith look to Him in salvation!
The sting of the serpent’s bite was death. The sting of sin is death. The whole world has been bitten by sin.
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There was no medical aid for the bite in the wilderness. And the man offers no effective cure for the bite of sin.
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
Many were perishing from the bites and were undeserving of any treatment. Man is perishing from the bite of sin today and we are undeserving of God’s cure.
10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
But God;
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Close;
Just as the serpent in the wilderness was the only means for the healing of Israel, so the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only means for the “New Birth”.
A person can humble himself in a simple act of faith, by looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and be born again to eternal life. Or one can refuse this precious gift and refuse to come to Jesus and be eternally damned to hell! Where their worm does not die and the fire is never quenched!!
Choose Life!
