"born Again" Series

“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.