Scripture: John 3:1-15; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:18
Theme: Redemption – Salvation – Born Again
Title: What does it mean to be Born Again?
What does it mean to be Born Again into the Kingdom of God?
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Picture yourself into what is going on in our passage this morning.
Soon after Passover, you find yourself walking down one of the many streets in the city of Jerusalem. The sun is setting in the west and with each minute it is becoming more difficult to make out the faces of the people walking along the streets.
You are not sure, but you think you just recognized someone across the street that is very important. Someone you wouldn’t think would be in this neighborhood.
Later, you discovered that you were right. The person you thought you recognized was in fact the Pharisee named Nicodemus. He had been quietly and cautiously making his way to where Jesus of Nazareth was staying. It’s being reported that he wanted to have a private meeting with Jesus.
Just who was this Nicodemus and why did he choose this time of the day to meet with Jesus?
Was it because he didn’t want to be seen or was there some other reason?
Who Nicodemus was is quite an easy question to answer.
Why did he come at night? Well, that is not so easy.
First, Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a central member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Those two things in and of themselves were a big deal.
At that time there was a limit on who could join the ranks of being a Pharisee. Only 6,000 men could officially bear the title of being a Pharisee.
Now, that sounds like a great number but when we consider that it is estimated that there were over 2 million Jews in the Palestinian area alone it pretty impressive.
To be a part of that highly selected 6,000, a person had to pledge in the presence of three witnesses that they would do their best to live out the life that God had intended for them according to the Law of Moses.
Again, that doesn’t sound so difficult on the surface. That is until you begin to look at exactly what it meant to live by the Law of Moses. It meant that you were going to live according to the dictates of some 613 specific laws – 365 negative commands and 248 positive commands.
In addition to each of these laws were layered sub section laws and regulations that one had to make sure that they carefully obeyed.
Let’s take the Sabbath law for example. When one reads the 10 Commandments the requirements for the Sabbath day seems quite straightforward –
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)
Simple, yes? But by the time in our story, trying to obey the Sabbath law had become quite a difficult task. Religious leaders in doing their best to obey the Law had sadly made it almost impossible to obey the Law.
Now, they had not done this to hinder or harm anyone. They had this foundational belief that if God’s people could for just one day obey all His commandments perfectly then the people of Israel would become a free and independent nation again. That the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY would raise up a new King David to sit on the throne and that that Israel could be the shinning example for the whole world to see.
It was believed that one of the main reasons for the exile and for the Romans being in power over Israel was Israel’s stubbornness to obey God’s laws. That the way to true freedom was to teach and have the people of God very diligently and obediently live out the Mosaic Law.
All of this caused the Pharisees and scribes to dissect the laws to the 10th degree. They pondered over what the word “work” really meant. Was it work to walk a certain distance or was it work to do one’s dirty dishes on the Sabbath? Was it work to cook a meal on the Sabbath and was it work to pick up one’s clothes or even to help someone get up if they fell?
They started writing all this stuff down and over the years they had not only the Laws of Moses from the Torah but two other major writings that they turned to – the Mishna and the Talmud.
It is reported that one Pharisee who was committed to live a life of holiness spent over two years studying just one of the 24 chapters of the Mishnah to make sure that he was living exactly how God wanted him to live.
Let’s take a simple example involving the ordinary task of tying a knot. Tying a knot on the Sabbath according to the writings could be considered work and therefore forbidden. At the same time tying a knot could be just a simple thing that someone was allowed to do. It all had to do with what type of material you used to tie the knot and the reason for tying the knot in the first place.
Let’s say you wanted to tie a knot for a camel that had gotten loose or to secure a boat or to tie down one of its sails. Tying each of those knots would have been forbidden because such a tie would have been considered work because you would have used some type of regular rope.
However, if a person wanted to tie up the strings of their cap, their girdle or the straps of their shoes that was not considered work and therefore was not forbidden.
That meant if a person wanted to get a cup of water out of a well, they knew that they could not tie any kind of knot nor use just any kind of rope. A common rope would be considered work and therefore they would be in violation of the Sabbath.
However, they could tie their cup or bucket using a woman’s girdle or a shoelace and not be in violation. The same would have been true of securing a loose camel. If you could use a woman’s cap strings to tie it to a post that would have been considered okay.
While we may smile and consider such things as silly the truth remains that this is the life that Nicodemus chose to live and it is the life that he was determined to obey. When it came to living a life of what the Pharisees saw as holy it took great discipline and dedication.
Nicodemus was also a member of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was made up of 70 men that acted as the Jewish Supreme Court. They were modeled after the 70 men that were chosen by Moses in the wilderness to serve as Israel’s first Supreme Court.
So, when we look at Nicodemus, we are looking at a very dedicated, disciplined and determined man to follow all of God’s laws to the very letter.
Now, that gives us a little background on Nicodemus.
So why was he coming to see Jesus and why at nighttime?
Our writer doesn’t specifically tell us, but I think we can quickly think of some good reasons:
1. Nicodemus most likely was not ready to be associated with Jesus. Jesus had recently confronted the Temple moneychangers during Passover (John 2:13-22) and was at odds with many of the Pharisees including some of the Sanhedrin.
And as a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus might have been delegated to investigate, question and examine Jesus. Jesus was becoming a person of interest. More and more people were seeing Jesus as a holy man, perhaps even a prophet and maybe even the long-awaited Messiah.
2. Nicodemus might have simply wanted a private meeting. There wasn’t any official agenda in mind at all. He just wanted some alone time with Jesus to ask him some questions without anyone else being around and nighttime was the best time for that to happen.
3. And it could be that nighttime was just the best time Nicodemus could meet with Jesus. Most of Nicodemus’ daytime hours were either dedicated to the business of the Sanhedrin or having to take care of his own profitable businesses. Nighttime might have been the only time that he could see Jesus.
Whatever it was that drew Nicodemus to Jesus that night we may never know but what we do know is that it is here that Jesus shares the message of what it means to be Born Again or as the words in Greek can be translated – Born from Above.
So, what does it mean to be Born Again?
Let’s take some time this morning to look at all of this in detail.
* Being Born Again is to experience a Spiritual Rebirth through the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
When Jesus started talking to Nicodemus about the need to be born again Nicodemus became confused. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t get ahold of the concept of what it meant to experience a new birth. He thought that Jesus was referring to some type of physical rebirth.
How could someone his age or really any age once again enter their mother’s womb and be born again?
Such an ideal was an impossibility. It didn’t make sense. It was confusing and foolish. Jesus was talking rubbish. This young man from Nazareth didn’t know what he was talking about.
I think we all could understand Nicodemus’ confusion.
Jesus just listened to him and then he started reorientating Nicodemus’ thinking. Jesus told Nicodemus that this new birth was not a physical rebirthing but a spiritual rebirthing –
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
Jesus wasn’t referring to a physical rebirth. He wasn’t talking about somehow being born again through their mother’s womb. He was talking about spiritual rebirth that happens through the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
A spiritual rebirth that happens when we surrender our lives to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
A spiritual rebirth that happens when we surrender our old selves that have been cursed and condemned by sin.
A spiritual rebirth that removes both the penalty and power of sin over our lives.
A spiritual rebirth that opens the door for us to become a whole new Holy Spirit filled human being.
For all of this is what happens when we give ourselves over to the LORD to be made anew, to be born again, to be born through the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
It seems like an impossibility and yet it is there for all of us to experience.
We all have been invited to experience this new life that Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about.
To be Born Again:
+To be able to start anew, fresh and clean.
+To have all your sins gone.
+To experience something that quite literally is out of this world.
+To become this new human being in Christ.
+To have God’s Holy Spirit so transform us that we can then be filled with His Holy Spirit and literally be in spiritual partnership with God. With God writing his laws on our very hearts and lives as was prophesied by the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:25-27).
25I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.
How do we even think about all of that?
How do we even imagine that kind of experience?
The Apostle Paul tries to help us when he pointed to the process of metamorphosis. He pointed to the experience of metamorphosis as an example of what happens to a person who is born again (Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:18).
Just as a lowly caterpillar undergoes a metamorphosis to become a butterfly, we too undergo a spiritual metamorphosis in Christ. We go from being one type of person condemned by our sins and living under the power and penalty of sin to becoming a person who is free of sin, who can enjoy the very presence and power of the Holy Spirit in them.
Now, down through the ages we have added such words as justification, regeneration, adoption and sanctification to help us understand what it means to be Born Again, but the reality is there are really no words to describe its beauty, its breath of transformation or the new life that it leads us towards living.
How is it possible for God to forgive us of all our sin?
How is it possible for us even in these physical earth skins to experience such a newness of heart and life that we become the very vessels that God wants to pour His Holy Spirit?
How is it possible for us in this life to be at peace with God and with others as well.
What Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about here is something that is more radical and special than I think we can fully comprehend.
We all know that there is something wrong in this world. We see it in nature; we see it in the plants and animals around us. And we mostly see it in ourselves and others.
Try as we can, we all know that we can’t fix everything with a list of laws and disciplines. We can’t mentally think our way into a better world. We can’t even technologically develop our world into a place of Paradise.
We all understand that. Throughout history we have tried all kinds of ways to fix the earth and humanity. We tried this philosophy and that philosophy. We tried this set of laws and that set of laws. We have even tried no laws and that was more disastrous than ever.
Jesus knew that.
In fact, that’s why Jesus came to earth in the first place.
He came to tell us the truth.
Jesus came to tell us the only way to help humanity and to fix our problems. Jesus came to tell us that we must experience a new birth.
We need to have our core – our spiritual centers – that part of us that makes us a living soul – we need that part to be transformed. We need to be Born Anew, Born Again or as John writes – Born from Above – Born through the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
Now, that’s a big deal.
It’s far bigger than just saying a few words and having someone hand you a few pages telling you about the church and what it means to be a part of the church.
It’s radical.
It’s out of this world.
It can only happen when we allow God to take our spirit and rebirth it.
It can only happen when we allow God’s Holy Spirit to help us repent – to do a 180 from how we were living and thinking to now allowing the Holy Spirit to be our center. To allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, direct us and make us into the people God wants us to be.
Whew!
Now, let’s take a moment here and reflect just a bit on all that. Just a bit so that we begin to understand the miraculous nature of salvation, of Being Born Again, of becoming a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Salvation – being born again is not:
+Merely the first step in some type of humanistic self-improvement program.
+It does not come about by sheer human effort.
+It is not something that we inherit from our parents or grandparents.
+It is not even passed on through tradition – even the tradition of infant baptism.
While infant baptism does point toward the hope that one will experience what it means to be born again, infant baptism is not a born-again event in and of itself. One cannot be born again without one’s own free will being involved.
+Being born again is a sovereign gift from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Being born again means a new you.
Let me say that again – Being Born Again means there is a new you.
Your core – that which makes you – you – your spirit is made anew by the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit coming to live in you, transform you and guide you.
This is other worldly stuff to think about.
This is a big deal.
This is radical.
This is life transforming.
Words have power and they are no more powerful than when we confess our sins, accept Jesus as our Savior and LORD and allow His Holy Spirit to transform us into a new person.
Nicodemus so needed to hear this. He so needed to understand and accept this.
His heart was dedicated. His mind was fixed on God. He wanted to desperately to live a God centered life and live according to the laws of Moses especially those whom God had given Moses.
But on his best day he understood that he had failed. No matter how many times he tried to put up this roadblock or understand the small intricacies of this law it all led him to understand that on his best day he couldn’t follow all of God’s laws.
It was impossible. It was beyond his ability.
And Jesus agreed. Jesus understood.
After all, that is why He came to our earth in the first place.
He came to rebirth us. He came to help us die spiritually to ourselves, to sin and be reborn in the power and presence of His Holy Spirit.
He came to offer us New Life – Born Again Life.
He came to offer us a new way to live as a new people.
For that is what salvation truly is – it is going from being one kind of human being to becoming another type of human being.
There is nothing that we can do on this earth that will change us and all of creation than being born again in Christ Jesus.
Let me say that again – there is nothing we can do on this earth that will change us and all of creation other than being born again in Christ Jesus.
It’s more than saying a few words as an individual or as a group of people.
It’s more than we can even imagine as we experience it.
It’s asking Jesus to make us a new person – a person that is free of the penalty of sin (Jesus paid for that on the cross) and a person that has power over sin (the Holy Spirit teaches us how to do that).
It is a New Birth that gives us a new direction, a new mind, heart and soul.
It is a New Birth that leads us to being able to live an everlasting life on the New Heaven and New Earth.
It is a New Birth that radically changes how we live life today, tomorrow and for the rest of our mortal lives here on this earth.
It is a New Birth that enables us to enjoy a oneness with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and with other believers as well.
There is nothing that we can ever have that is more precious than Being Born Again.
There is nothing that we can ever do that is more powerful than being Born Again.
This is why Jesus came to our earth.
This is why Jesus went to the Cross for our sins – He paid the penalty for all our sins and He broke the power of sin.
Jesus made a way for us to be free of sin. Jesus made a way for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus made a way for us to be this new human being.
For that is what we are asking for when we ask the LORD to forgive our sins and when we ask the LORD to make us anew.
We are literally asking the LORD to make us into a new human being. A human being that has a new heart, that has a new mind and a new direction.
This morning, have we asked Jesus for this gift – for this experience of Being Born Again?
Have we asked the LORD JESUS CHRIST to remake us, to take away our sin, to break the power of sin over our lives and then to fill us with the Holy Spirit?
Have we asked Jesus to rebirth us – to remake us – to create us into a new person?
On the back of your bulletin is David’s Prayer – Psalm 51
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your unfailing love;
according to Your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You are proved right when You speak
and justified when You judge.
Surely I have been a sinner from birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me…
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me and I will be whiter than snow…
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
Then will I teach transgressors Your ways,
and sinners will turn back to You.
There is also another prayer:
Dear Lord,
I need you. I need to be born again. I bring all my sins before you. I come knowing that I don’t have any power over sin in my life and that I am under the penalty of sin which is death and Hell.
I need You. I need your saving grace. I need to be reborn in you. I want to be reborn in you. I want you to remake me from the inside out. I want You to be my Savior and LORD.
In faith, I receive you as my Savior and LORD. I receive your forgiveness knowing that all my sins have been forgiven today. I receive the power and presence of Your Holy Spirit. I declare that from this day forward that I will do my best to live out the life of a Born-Again Disciple – to live as a New Human Being in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Invitation/Prayer/Blessing
