Born Again Christian Part 2
Scriptures: Romans 10:8-10; Mark 11:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:23
“But what does it say? ‘The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:8-10)
In Part 1 of this series last week, we answered the questions: (1) “Why does a person need to be born again?” and (2) “How does a person get born again?” In that message I shared with you that when Nicodemus went to see Jesus he believed and was teaching others that being born a Jew was all that was needed to get into heaven. Because it was not a requirement, he did not believe there was a need to have a heart change or a spiritual renewal to get into heaven. He believed he was going to heaven simply because he was born a Jew. Jesus, however, told him this was not the case. He made it very clear that being born a Jew was not enough; that Nicodemus had to be born of the Spirit – he needed to be born from above. This would be a transformation from his sin nature to one of a godly nature. He would cease to be a son of Adam being powerless to sin) and become a son of God (having power/authority over sin). This would happen when he accepted Christ in his heart through faith and experienced a spiritual (heart) change.
As I shared with you last week, today, just as it was with Nicodemus, there are people who believe that they can be saved without experiencing a spiritual change within themselves. We have been taught the “process for salvation” without a change in how we live. There are many people who believe that because they were “baptized” with water that they are going to heaven. There are many that believe because they were baptized (christened) as a baby, they are going to heaven. Many believe that because they are now under grace that they get a pass on everything they do which keeps the door opened for them to enter heaven. What we are hearing taught from many pulpits today is similar to what the Pharisees (Nicodemus) taught which is that you can get into heaven simply by doing “something” and it does not require a change in your spiritual nature – a change in your heart. Because of grace there is no penalty for sin – it’s all covered. This morning in Part 2 of this series we are going to examine the heart. And just in case you haven’t heard it before, if there is no heart change there is no salvation and if there is no salvation there is no being born again and if you have not been born again you cannot enter heaven. I just want to set the stage for where we are going today.
In last week’s message we looked at Romans 10:8-10 as we answered the question “How does a person get born again?” I want to reread verses 9 and 10 again. It says, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; FOR WITH THE HEART a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Now I want you to notice that I emphasized “believe in your heart” from verse 9 and “for with the heart” from verse 10. I am convinced, by how they live and by what they say, that there are people who have repeated Romans 10, verses 9 and 10 and believe that they are born again, but do not truly understand what it means to believe it “with your heart.” And without this understanding, a person can believe he or she is heaven bound and that may not be true. I hope after the message this morning, you will know in your heart that you are born again and heaven bound and will be able to help others understand this when you are outside of these four walls.
Let talk a little about the heart (the spirit of man.) The Bible has a lot to say about the heart. Here are a few examples from the Old Testament.
Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 4:23: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”
In these verses we see that it’s within the heart of man where decisions are formed and the heart is the true testament of who a man is. David’s desire was that the words from his mouth and the meditations of his heart be acceptable to God. Remember, the New Testament tells us that the words we speak are indicative of what is in our hearts. Solomon states that not only are we to trust in God with all of our hearts, but we are also to guard our hearts because out of it comes the issues of life. All of the good and evil deeds that man does are formed, planned and practiced in the heart before they are ever carried out. The heart of man truly determines the actions of man.
When you look at the New Testament, especially some of the things Jesus had to say about the heart, you will find from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and teachings, the heart has always been His focus. Listen to these examples of what Jesus said about the heart:
Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:27-28: “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 6:20-21: “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 22:37: “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Mark 11:23: “Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.”
Jesus reiterates a similar message that we read in the few verses from the Old Testament. He made it clear that everything is generated from our hearts. He stressed that we are to love God with all of our heart. He tells us that our true treasures are stored within our hearts. He tells us that sin starts within our hearts even before it’s acted on. He also tells us that the faith that can move mountains when it is acted on also rests within our hearts and this brings us to Romans chapter 10. Our hearts play the most vital role in our walk with Christ because it is the source of faith in Him and the evidence of what we truly believe. Paul said three things about the heart in Romans 10:8-10. He said “….The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart….believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead…. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness.” Our salvation is a spiritual experience. Being born again is from above. It all starts in the heart, in the spirit of man.
When you read certain passages in the Bible (i.e. Matthew 5:8) the words “heart” and “spirit” are interchangeable because both refer to the “human heart,” the place where you’ll find what a person truly believes. The heart of a person is the spirit of the person. A person is a spirit first. The person is a spirit who has a soul and lives in a body. But the person is a spirit first. That’s important. I want you to think about how we used the word “heart” today. We talk about the “heart of the matter,” what do we mean? We mean that what we’re about to say is the most important part of the issue – the very center of it. In other words, everything else revolves around it. There are times when I tell you I want to speak to your hearts. What I am really saying is that I want to speak to your spirits versus your soul. I want you to hear me with your spirits (hearts) versus with your mind. Likewise, when God speaks about the human heart, He is speaking about the main part of the person, the very center of the person’s being. He too is referring to the person’s spirit. Again, a person is a spirit being first, who also has a soul and who lives in a body. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I want you to notice the order. It’s the spirit, then the soul (or mind) and then the body. We know, from the Bible, that a person is a spirit. I know I continue to say this because we must understand and grasp this truth. The person that we see is not the real person. It is only the “flesh suit,” if you will, that allows the person to live on earth. Since the spirit is eternal, when we die our spirits leaves our mortal bodies and goes into the presence of God (if we are born again) or to hell (if we are not born again) to wait for the final judgment. We must understand that our physical flesh is not who we are – it is just the house we are living in while we are here on earth.
Genesis 1:26 tells us God originally created man in His image and likeness. And we learn from John 4:24 that God is a Spirit. In the beginning, and as it is now, it was our spirits that were like God’s spirit. Our souls and our bodies were not. Genesis 2:7 says “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The King James says “man became a living soul.” When the Lord formed man, He formed him with a soul and with a body. In other words, the soul and body were not the man. The soul and body were formed for one purpose: to house man’s human spirit, which was given to him by God. The soul is comprised of your mind, your will, and your emotions. Now this may sound elementary, but it’s important. With our spirit we contact the spiritual realm; with our soul we contact the intellectual and emotional realm; and with our body we contact the physical realm. Now, I said all of that to say this: man became man once God breathed into him His Spirit. This is important. God’s Spirit gave the body life. No spirit. No life. In the beginning, the soul, or the mind, was never – now hear this – was never supposed to make decisions for man. It was supposed to carry out the decisions of the spirit that God had placed into man.
Think of it this way. The mind is like a computer. It gathers information, processes it, and then acts on its conclusions. God created us in such a way that the information would be supplied by the spirit that God had put inside of man. The information would come from a place of purity and holiness. But when Adam sinned, he corrupted that pure and Holy Spirit and it became filled with a nature filled with sin. Adam now had a spirit that no longer thought like God. Its thoughts were now in agreement with Satan, who orchestrates the things in this world. So, today what we have are people who no longer think like God. They have corrupted spirits that are heavily influenced by Satan and these corrupted spirits are supplying information to their souls and that information is being carried out by their bodies. I’m not going to go on a rabbit trail this morning, but what I just shared with you explains why we’re seeing the increase in violence today in our country. Corrupted spirits are feeding corrupted information to souls who are using their bodies to carry out the violence.
Remember what Jesus told Nicodemus about being born again in John 3:6? He said “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The new birth is a rebirth of the human spirit. It is the rebirth of a spirit that is no longer corrupted. It is the rebirth of a spirit that can once again think like God thinks. And when we think like God thinks, we will begin to see things the way God sees them and then we will begin to receive what we pray for because we are seeing what God sees. And this is exactly what Jesus says in Mark 11:24 when He says “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you.” Jesus meant the very moment we pray! We are to believe we receive all things we desire the moment we pray. Why can we do this? We have the life of God living in us! Now here is the point for all this: we believe with our hearts (spirit) – not our mind (soul)!
To believe with your heart, is to believe with your spirit. It means to act in faith on God’s word regardless what you feel or see. You see, believing with your heart is believing independently of your sense knowledge. Many years ago, Dr. Lilian Yeomans was one of the world’s foremost preachers and teachers in the area of healing. At one point in her life she was addicted to drugs and had become bedridden due to the destruction the drugs had on her body. While bedridden, she began to read the Bible, focusing on all the Scriptures pertaining to healing. She placed those Scriptures in her heart and she was healed. This led her into walking away from her medical practice and going into ministry. I want you listen to something she said. “God delights in His children stepping out over the aching void with nothing underneath their feet but the Word of God.” When we “believe with our hearts,” we are taking a step of faith that what God says will be the result - it will be what actually happens. When we “believe with our hearts” that we are born again, there is nothing in the natural that will confirm it. No flashing lights. No bells and whistles. No warm-fuzzy feelings. No, we believe with our hearts, we believe from that place deep within us, by faith. And if we have truly done this, our confession of faith to be born again will manifest itself in how we think and in how we live. It will be different. Obviously different.
If how we think and how live does not change, then we must ask the question, “Are we really born again?” Jesus says we will know a tree “that is not born again” and a tree “that is born again” by the fruit we produce. Turn with me to Luke 6. We’re going to read verses 43, 44 and 45. “For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar brush. (Now listen closely.) The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” The person will speak that which dominates, or that which fills his or her heart. Now let’s be clear. The soul can do good. And don’t get me wrong, good works are needed. But Jesus is not talking about good works. A person who is not born again can feed the hungry or give the needy clothes and food. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But doing these things is not an indication of a spiritually changed heart. Jesus is talking about the thoughts that fill the person’s heart. A person with an evil heart can do good. But a person with an evil heart cannot produce good fruit. What are the good fruits? Galatians 5:22-23 tells us the following: “But the fruit of the spirit (the fruit of your born again spirit) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Now, I’m not going to break these down today but I will say this: the kind of fruit these verses are talking cannot be produce by a corrupted sin nature.
This verse is telling us that, if we are born again, we don’t need a law hanging over our heads to reward us for acting this way. On the other hand, if a person is not born again, he or she does need a law to keep him or her from doing what is unlawful, and this is what we see in 1 Timothy 1:8-10. “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.” This is not a pretty picture. These are people who need to have, what I call a “synthetic conscience” to keep them from breaking the law because the conscience they have is corrupted by the sin nature. And the only way to keep the sin nature in line is to punish it when it gets out of line. That should never be the case for the person who is born again. Never!
When we “believe with our heart,” we are saying that what we believe is truly a change deep within us that will be seen in new and different ways by what we say, how we live and how we treat people. Jesus said this will be evident in the person who is born again. He said in Matthew 5:14-16. When you are born again “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” New Light, let’s make sure that the world sees the glory of our Father is what we say, how we live and in how we treat others.
As I close this morning I hope you understand that being born again is not a check the box exercise of simply getting baptized and continuing to live your life as if nothing happened on the inside. Being born again means that a change has taken place. We transition from being sons and daughters of Adam with a sin nature to being sons and daughters of God with a Godly nature. In part three of this series we will look at the impact of being born again from the viewpoint of adoption – the formal, legal, process to adopt a child to be your own. This is what God has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that when are born again we become sons and daughters of God by adoption. As I leave you this morning I want you to meditate this week on what it means to be adopted by God and what that adoption gives you access to.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. Also, for use of our social media, you can find us at newlightchristianfellowship on FB. To get our live stream services, please make sure you “like” and turn on notifications for our page so you can be notified when we are live streaming. We also have a church website and New Light Christian Fellowship YouTube channel for more of our content. We are developing more social media streams so please stand by and we will notify you once those channels are up and running. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
