Born Again, Battle Ready, Becoming Holy

John 3:1–3 NLT

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

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Introduction

I preached for my friend Jason Mayfield last month.

Jason is a brilliant mind when it comes to all things video, cameras, automation.

I had seen his setup online and his church is smaller than ours but their stream looks unbelievably professional.

I’m pretty smart when it comes to tech and I thought if Jason can do it than I can do it.

I told him I want you to show me your setup…

HE DID…

The complexity and brilliance went over my head quite distinctly.

When people use words that you’re not even sure what they mean…

I had a picture in my mind of what was required…but I found out there was more to it than I had imagined.

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Today I’m preaching to you about a sequence that is necessary if you are going to be all that God has made you to be…

You must be born again

You must be battler ready

You must be becoming holy.

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1. Born Again

We speak a lot in the American church about the fact that Jesus wants to save you.

This is a beautiful reality.

We are in need of saving.

A life apart from Jesus is a life that is.

Destined for hell

Marked by brokenness

Heavy with hopelessness.

But often when we speak of the salvation experience we do so with this methodology…

pray a simple prayer and you will be saved.

It is that simple…but in this simple process we can lose the vastness of what is to take place at the moment of conversion.

When Jesus calls us to be born again…he is not offering a coat of paint to cover our flaws…

He’s calling for a complete and total renewal of our being and existence.

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Parented from above.

The greek phraseology of “born again” can also be…parented from above.

There is the version of you that was born to your parents on earth.

Then there is the born again version of you…

Both version are prone to something called Genetic Inheritance

Genetic inheritance (or heredity) is the biological process by which traits and characteristics are passed from parents to their offspring

If you want to know if you have been born again or not…it’s simple…check your resemblance.

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Who do I resemble?

Does my life look like my Lord?

Does my walk look like His Word?

A born again life is no longer involved in…

Pettiness: gossip, self-absorption, selfish ambition, cynicism

Perversion: homosexuality, bisexuality, gender confusion, heterosexual sin (pornography, fornication, etc…) emotional entanglements that are not of God.

Dishonesty: Lying to yourself, lying to those around you, stretching the truth, omitting pieces of the truth.

If these activities are a part of your regular regiment…you are still operating in a genetic inheritance that is not the finished work of Jesus!

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The Walking Dead

2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

There is nothing like the realization that all of my old habits and behaviors have been washed away by the power of the blood of Jesus.

The shame is gone

The regret is gone

The consequences in eternity are gone.

And this verse paints a beautiful picture that this old man has died…and he has…

But unfortunately…while zombies are real in the physical realm…they are in the spiritual.

After I’ve been born again…I have to stay ready for a fight…with myself.

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2. Battle Ready

I’ve had to fight lots of fights with people since planting this church.

We’ve had to fight for our identity

We’ve had to fight with people who wanted to make being spirit-filled weird

We’ve had to fight with people who wanted to tell outright lies about us.

But the greatest fight I’ve fought since planting this church and honestly since following Jesus is the fight that I fight with myself.

While I’ve been born again every habit that God has delivered me from likes to show up in my thoughts, actions, and motivations even after my transformation.

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I love God’s law…but I break it

This is not unique to me…Paul gets very transparent about the fact that after He accepts Jesus…there is still a very real battle to be had with his flesh.

Romans 7:21–25 NLT

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

I wonder if there are any believers who have experienced an affection change after having followed Jesus.

I love God’s law with all my heart

I want to live right

I want to walk in holiness

But there are moments where find myself falling back into patterns that go against my born again nature.

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Environments of failure

One of hardest environments to win against the old man are the following.

When you’re lonely

When you’re stressed

When you’re bored

Before you knew Jesus…you developed patterns or ways to deal with these emotions.

THOSE PATTERNS OF RESPONSE CREATED NEURoPATHWAYS.

When you feel those things…your brain and as a result your nervous system orient themselves back to the patterns you’ve developed.

So you are able to stay away from that relationship you know is sinful…until it’s late and you’re lonely

You are able to avoid the substances, the alcohol, the nicoteen…until the kids are crazy work is wild and you feel stress

You are able to walk in victory over pornography and sexualized media…until you get bored and no one is around…

The best of intentions are pitted agains the beast of habit. \

Good intentions alone don’t erase old patterns. Our brains tend to return to what is familiar, especially when something in our environment reminds us of who we used to be.

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The key to victory

So how do we battle these things…?

The old church would say we need to pray until we get a breakthrough

That concept is misunderstanding what the issue is.

Salvation requires a miracle…an old life becoming a new life.

Sanctificaiton requires a method...an old habit becoming a new one.

The brain is plastic…so it can be rewired.

When you are introduced the trigger of stress, or loneliness, or boredom…you have an opportunity to rewire your brain.

You will not enact the proper response if you are trying to decide in the moment to do so…you need a gameplan.

When I get lonely…I got a sermon playlist on lock

When I get stressed…I’m gonna grab my journal and go to town

When I’m bored…I’m gonna call my brother or sister and catch up.

Deliverance requires a miracle…Discipline requires a method.

1 Corinthians 9:27 NKJV

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

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3. Becoming Holy

There’s nothing I can do to be saved…There are things I can do to stay free…

For a portion of your Christian journey it’s going to be hard to avoid those old habits.

But I do not believe this is an inevitable life sentence.

Because scripture promises this reality to you and I…we are promised a status of changed.

As I follow Jesus…I am called to consistently and continually look at Jesus…study him.

And as I behold him…there is a guaranteed byproduct of that beholding.

2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

As we behold Jesus…we should begin to look like Jesus.

I anticipate that next week I will talk a little more about that glory…

But I need you to know the coming of the glory…is the consequence of a sequence.

Born again

Battle ready

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Closing Illustration

In 1942 there was a man who was pilot in the famous Doolittle Raid (a response to Pearl Harbor) over Japan during World War II.

His name was Jacob Deshazer.

His plane went down in Japan and he was captured and put in a POW camp for 40 months.

Deshazer recounts how bitter he was and how much he hated the Japanese during his time of confinement.

But somewhere in the midst of his detainment he got his hands on a Bible.

He began reading that bible out of boredom…

He studied the gospels primarily.

As he began to learn more about Jesus…He recounts how he himself began to experience transformation.

The man who had been consumed with bitterness began to change. The soldier who dreamed of revenge started praying for the people who had imprisoned him. By the time he was released from prison, his friends barely recognized him. The circumstances around him hadn't changed, but the person inside him had.

Years later, DeShazer did something nobody expected: he moved back to Japan—not as a soldier, but as a missionary—because he had become like the One he had been beholding.

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Final Note:

Church, that's the promise of the Gospel. You won't become holy simply because you hate your old habits enough. You won't become free because you grit your teeth and try harder. But if you keep putting Jesus in front of your eyes—if you keep opening His Word, sitting in His presence, worshiping His name, and walking with His people—eventually you'll start to look like Him.

Because the glory isn't random.

It's the consequence of a sequence.

Born again.

Battle ready.

And little by little, glory to glory, becoming holy.