What Does It Mean To Be Born Again? (Part 1) Series

Now That’s a Good Question: What Does it Mean to Born Again? (Part 1)

John 3:1-8

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

3-13-2022

Easter 1980.

Easter Sunday morning, 1980. Wooddale Church of Christ. I was 12 years old, uncomfortable in my Easter dress clothes, sitting with a couple of friends in the back of the auditorium.

At the end of the message, we sang the hymn, “Just as I Am,” for what seemed like an hour. He kept stopping and saying, “I know there is somewhere here today that needs to be saved.” I didn’t really even know what saved meant. But I knew it would make my mom and dad happy. So I slipped up my hand.

He saw me and locked eyes with me. Pray this prayer. So I repeated a prayer “asking Jesus in my heart” that I didn’t understand word for word. Then I walked down the aisle, signed a card, and in that church, they baptized me right then and there. They gave me a little King James Bible and then he introduced me to the congregation.

Hey, what’s your name, kid? I whispered, “Jeff.” He then introduced me with great fanfare as a brand new Christian and everyone clapped.

There was just one problem. I had no idea what had just happened. I got saved. But I didn’t know what I was getting saved from or what happened to make me need saving in the first place. I was no more a Christian than I would be a NBA basketball player.

My brother was born again at 16 years old. And he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was not a Christian. He said, “I see no evidence of Jesus in your life.” I angrily shouted that I had raised my hand, said a prayer, walked an aisle, signed a card, and been baptized.

He said that all that was true. I had merely gone through a set of religious rituals but I was not born again.

The Bible Doesn’t Say That

Many years later, I was talking a guy at work and he said, “All you Christians ever talk about is being born again but, did you know, that “born again” isn’t in the Bible?

I laughed, picked the Bible off my desk, turned to John 3 and asked him to read the third verse. He was honestly surprised to hear Jesus tell Nicodemus that he had to be born again.

I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “See, you must be born again.” He simply laughed and walked away.

Born Again?

In the 1970s, then President Jimmy Carter said he was a born again Christian. Chuck Colson, Nixon’s hatchet man, came out of prison and wrote a book called, “Born Again.”

Suddenly, the term “born again” was part of the culture. Even Larry Flint, the publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, claimed he was born again.

People started to differentiate themselves by saying, “Well, I’m a Christian but I’m not one of those crazy born again types.”

Born again Christians were seen as radical and as too committed to Jesus and Christianity.

This morning, we will continue our series, "Now That’s a Good Question” with the question, “What does it mean to be born again?”

To even say the phrase “born again Christian” really doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying a three sided triangle or a single bachelor. All triangles are three sided and all bachelors are single and all true Christians are born again.

Turn with me to John 3. We are going study verses 1-8 this week and the rest of the chapter next week.

Prayer

Text in its Context

John was Jesus’ best earthly friend and he wrote his Gospel with an evangelistic agenda:

“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31)

In Chapter two, Jesus attends a wedding in which the wine ran out which could cause considerable embarrassment to the family. Jesus performed His first “sign” by turning water into wine. It’s a word picture of what He will discuss with Nicodemus in chapter three. He turned the dead filthy water of ritual into the sparkling wine of grace and new life.

John then records the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus, overcome with righteous anger over the casual way that people were approaching the Temple and the price gouging of the money changers, makes a whip and drives them out of the Temple.

When the people asked by what authority He did these things, He declared, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19), predicting his death and resurrection.