What It Means To Be Born Again

What It Means to Be Born Again

(Rev. Barry Johnson and Rev. Rodney Johnson)

NOTE: New Light Faith Ministries and Barry Johnson Ministries, founded by Rodney V. Johnson and Barry O. Johnson, respectively, are partnering to offer Bible studies for Christians seeking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. This is a Bible study lesson, not a sermon. The Bible studies teach foundational truths designed to challenge, encourage, and, most importantly, flame the fire of hunger in the Christian who wants to learn more about who they have become in Christ Jesus. The Bible studies you find on this site contain the written version of the lesson. However, these lessons also include a video and an audio file of the study, a PDF version, and a sheet for note-taking. If you would like any of the additional resources for these studies, please email us at newlightfaithministries@gmail.com or bjteachingltr@gmail.com for more information or contact us at the email provided on both of our Sermon Central pages. Please visit our YouTube Channel (Barry Johnson Ministries; New Light Faith Ministries, Inc.) to watch or listen to these lessons as well as other available sermons. Be blessed.

Introduction

Our lesson today will focus on what it means to be born again and we want to state up front that parts of this lesson were adapted from Barry’s pastor (Pastor Jim Martin of Grace Christian Center) teaching on this subject in his series on Christian Foundations. But before we get started, let’s open with a word of prayer.

If you are reading or listening to this message then you are probably a “born again” believer. Although this term is used to define someone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, many people do not understand what “born again” actually means. You see, for many, being born again starts and ends with confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and being baptized. It is for this reason that many people continue to struggle with sin because they believe wrongly that they are powerless to stop sinning. However, this is not the case.

The whole purpose of being born again is about changing the course of our lives, first and foremost from a spiritual perspective, and to do that we have to receive the power to live differently. In this lesson, we are going to discuss what it means to be born again and more importantly, what it means to live the life of a born again Christian. But before we do that, we want to take a look at why it is even necessary to be born again.

If you recall from the book of Genesis after God made Adam and before He made Eve, He told him in Genesis 2:15-17, “(15) Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. (16) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; (17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

Well, you know the rest of the story, Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree and everything went downhill from there. Because of Adam’s rebellion, man lost the holy and sinless life and nature that God had breathed into Him in Genesis 2:7 – “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

We know that God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and therefore had within Him the power and ability to reverse what Adam had done. But because He had empowered Adam with the free will to make his own decisions, God could not do it. He would not override Adam’s free will. Yes, God could have removed the sin nature Adam had taken on and given back to Adam His “life nature” but God had already rendered to man authority over creation and we see this in Genesis 1:26-28 which states, “(26) Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (27) So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”