“Born Again”
John 3:1-16
If you were to take a walk through a cemetery you would find some interesting words inscribed on various tombstones. One found in Maryland reads: Here lies an atheist; all dressed up and no place to go.
From a cemetery in Georgia this one was found:
Remember as you walk by, as you are now, so was I
As I am now, so shall you be; remember this and follow me.
Someone promptly wrote on the stone:
To follow you I will not consent until I know which way you went.
One more. From the church cemetery of St Mary’s in England. The pastor John Berridge died; was buried there. His tombstone reads:
To the reader: art thou born again?
There is no salvation without the new birth.
I was born in sin, February 1716, remained ignorant of my fallen state until 1730,
Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation until 1754,
Became pastor in 1755; fled to Jesus alone for refuge in 1756,
Fell asleep in Christ 1793.
Today I want us to look at the topic of being born again. And we will answer 4 questions. Who is it for? Where does it come from? How does it happen? How can you know if you have it?
1. Who is it for? Well today, if you use the phrase “born again” you will get several different responses. When Carter was elected president in the 70’s he stated that he was “born again.” Many people thought he was the first to say that; they had never heard the phrase. It’s only in the Bible a total of 3 times. In this text, it is obvious Nicodemus had never heard it as well. He was like, how does that work? Explain that to me. Tell someone you’re born again and they might say:
• Oh, you’re one of those. I’ve heard about people like you. I bet you’re very emotional. Cry all the time. Wave your hands in the air at church. ?
• Oh, you must be one of those people with a really messed up life, you’re really broken; yeah I’ve heard about people like you. A lot of you are former alcoholics or drug addicts; right? I mean, you need this born again kind of religion.
So people today think being born again is only for a certain type of people/person. Bug this text reminds us that is simply not the case. And this is why…
Look at Nicodemus. He is wealthy, high status individual. A member of the Sanhedrin, he was a ruler. Intellectual. A Jewish man; in charge kind of guy.
He was not a broken kind of man. He had his life together. He had a lot of structure in his life. He was a Pharisee. He comes to Jesus; likely has never met him. One thing we know about Nicodemus is that he is open to hearing new ideas; else he would not have approached Jesus. And he speaks with a great deal of respect for him.
Now, being born again does not mean that you need more religion in your life. In fact, in this conversation the new birth is actually a challenge to religion. It’s like saying you’ve got all the religion you need, Nicodemus. Now, you need to be born again. It’s not like you’re ¾ of the way there or ½ there …. In fact nothing you’ve done so far even counts. You’ve got to start over. You must be born again. Now do you see what the good news is----- no matter how good you are; how moral; how pulled together you are; you must start over at ground zero. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again. NO one. So WHO is the new birth for? You! Everyone. There is no salvation without the new birth.
(2) Where does it come from? In v. 3 Jesus says you must be born again to SEE the kingdom. Verse 5 says you must be born again to enter the kingdom. Now, john hardly uses this term “the kingdom of God.” Only 2x—the other gospels use it over 80x. So it’s interesting he uses it here. Now where is the kingdom of God? The Greek philosophers believed that history was not linear; moving in one direction but rather it was cyclical; running in cycles; repeated itself and every so often the world was purged --- burned up—regenerated and then it would start all over again. It made things better; the world was sort of reset. Like a computer. Sometimes problems with your computer can be solved by resetting it; unplug it and plug it back in. In Matthew 19 Jesus says at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his throne we will inherit eternal life. He’s saying the philosophers got it all wrong; there will only be one reset and it will not go back as it was, but rather, all sin, all suffering, all evil, all tears; all of it will be wiped away. When? When the kingdom of God comes in all of its fullness. So where is this new birth from? It’s from the future. The new birth is the power God is going to use to regenerate the world; and He has brought it into the present.
You like time travel stories. Back to the Future. Stories circulated when I was a child that a time machine had been invented. This is like that except this is the reverse. We’re not going back into time; we’re going forward. It’s the future coming to us. It’s God pouring all of this into our heart now and that’s what it means to be born again. Never underestimate the power of God to change us. Peter was abrasive; in his words and actions and he became one of the leaders among the disciples. He was impulsive. Paul was in charge. But these men and women we read about didn’t have anything you don’t have. Never underestimate the power of the new birth to change you completely. There is no fear; no flaw, no guilt the power of God cannot change; there is nothing in your life the new birth cannot make better. The new birth is divine life being implanted in you.
It’s clear to me what Jesus means here. There is a lot of disagreement here about this passage. Some say water/blood means baptism. And that both are required to be born again. But what we see here is two births. One, by water and one by spirit. At the time of the birth of our first child; neither of us really knew how this would all take place. I was working and also going to college full time; she was working; life was busy. We woke up one morning and she said it’s time. How do you know? My water broke. OK. So I thought I better call the hospital and tell them we’re on our way. So I did. I meant to say “my wife’s water broke”, instead I said we need to get to the hospital; my water broke. ?
When an infant is brought into this world they have a new sense. A new sense of the world. Everything changes. They suddenly see all of this; all of these things they have never seen before. You can’t see it all until you’re born. Jesus says the same thing about the new birth. You can’t see it unless you are born again.
(3) Now, how does this happen? Does it happen in the mind or in the heart? Yes. Both. It’s interesting to me when someone has been around the faith for a long time and in their mind they have believed but suddenly their heart is warmed toward God they say you know I’ve believed this all of my life and now it’s actually beginning to become real. I had it in my head, but now it’s in my heart.
It’s like if you were blind; and someone told you the leaves were green; you believe it; but you’ve never seen green before and you have no real idea what it looks like; but you do believe it. Then you get your sight (Paul says faith comes by sight/seeing). And you say, now I believe it. Now I know it. Not just in my head but also in my heart. I can see it.
People say, “I’ve read this a thousand times (scripture) but today it made sense. The lights came on. I always knew God loved me. I’m actually starting to KNOW that. Now, it’s actually real. I always believe God loved me; now I’m actually starting to know that. It’s actually real. Augustine would say the mark of being born again; how you know for sure is that the loves of your life are reordered. Up to that time, you love yourself and you love your spouse. You believe God loves you but it’s just in your head. Meanwhile the main thing that is driving you is to gain the love of this person or to have a successful career and you say of course I’m a Christian; I mean, I go to church.
When God’s love become real to your heart then your job and your family; those things change. You see I must love God more than anything or anyone. I must live God more than my wife or it’s out of order. If I love her more than God, then she can’t get sick; she can’t have a bad day… because I need her too much. Unless I love God more than Denise I’m never going to love Denise properly. The new birth starts to reorder the loves of your heart because all of these things you have read in the Bible or perhaps just heard about suddenly become a reality. But that’s just the heart. There’s also something that goes on in the mind. There is a change in your identity; in who you are. Because your identity is received not achieved. You can’t earn it. God gives it to you. Let me tell you a remarkable story; I don’t know this woman I’m about to describe but heard her story this week and it occurs to me it might be your story as well or similar to yours.
(4) How do you know it has happened? Well John speaks to this in 3:14 he says “just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” Now the background of that story is found in the book of Numbers; after the Exodus took place from Egypt the Israelites set out to go to the Red Sea. But they had been disobedient and because of their disobedience they were basically walking around in circles. So they complained about their situation to God and to Moses and in response God sent "fiery serpents" among them and many died. The people came to Moses to repent and asked him to ask God to take away the serpents. Moses prayed to God, who told Moses, "Make a bronze serpent and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he see it, shall live."
Now, how do you know if you have had the new birth? That question is best answered through a conversion story. You may know of the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. His preaching was so amazing people used to fill the tabernacle and many stood outside by the windows to listen. A real hero of the faith from the 1700’s. When he was just a teenager; struggling to figure out Christianity—one Sunday he wanted to go to church---there was a massive snowstorm and he could only get to a small church nearby; wasn’t a Baptist church, virtually no one there—4-5 people; preacher couldn’t get there that day because of the snow. So one of the members got up and preached—didn’t really know what to do—but read this text from Isaiah 45:22: “look to me and be saved.” And the man began to speak and said think of Jesus saying, “Look to me and be saved.” You know you don’t have to do much to look. You don’t have to be wealthy. You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be bad. But look to Jesus. Don’t look to yourself. Think of Jesus saying, “look at me…I’m on the cross, I died and have been buried; rose from the dead, ascended to the father. Look to me! The speaker then turned to Spurgeon and said, young man, you look miserable. ? And you’re gonna be miserable in life and in death if you don’t do this. If you don’t look to Jesus.
Spurgeon said, you know I was ready for somebody to tell me to do these 50 things, to work for it and I would be saved. I was looking for something to do in order to get salvation. And suddenly he realized he had been looking to himself and he said, I’ve got to repent of trying to save myself. (We do that!) He said I not only had to repent of the thigs I have done that were wrong… all of the bad things I have done but also for all of the good things I have done trying to save myself. Trying to control God. Trying to feel good about myself. I have had to repent of those very things. You may need to as well.
We don’t really get an ending to this story; at least not in this chapter. But in chapter 7 we encounter Nicodemus again and this time rather than asking questions, he is defending Jesus. 7:50. Here Nicodemus is basically protesting because the Jewish leaders were mistreating Jesus. Then, nothing more until John is closing his gospel, Jesus has been crucified and a man comes to prepare (7:38ff.) This man is Nicodemus. The man who couldn’t really understand at first now has come to know Jesus, has been born again and is taking care of the bod of His Savior and His lord. Let me ask you; have you been born again? Have you been changed completely or are you placing your trust and your hopes and your salvation in your own works? The Bible says today is the day. If this were the day you stood before Jesus, what would you say? If you have not been born again, why not today?
