You Must Be Born Again!

Scripture: Acts 16:31

Theme: Salvation

Title: You Must Be Born Again!

This sermon focuses on Being Born Again. It explains why we need to be born again and what God has done so that we could be rescued, redeemed and restored into His Image.

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Teaching and preaching about Jesus can get you into a lot of trouble. Enabling people to be free of demonic slavery can get you into a lot of trouble. At least it did for the Apostle Paul and his companion Silas. We find their story in Acts chapter 16. Paul and Silas had traveled to the city of Philippi and were sharing the Gospel of Jesus when all of a sudden things went upside down.

Immediately following an exorcism in which Paul delivered a young slave girl, the two missionaries found themselves being arrested and thrown into prison. The charge against them was that they were teaching customs that at the time the Roman Government had declared as illegal.

Now, of course that was not true. At the time, the Roman Government did not have any stand against people being freed from demonic control. There was nothing on the “books” that stated that a person had to remain under the control of evil.

What had happened was that the man who owned the girl realized that without her demonic gifting his meal ticket was gone. He didn’t care about this young lady at all. All he cared about was that as long as she was controlled by a certain spirit she was able to make him money by telling people their fortunes.

Now, according to him, she was worthless. Paul had removed her special abilities. He falsely accused Paul and Silas and under mob rule the two found themselves beaten, thrown into prison and their feet put into stocks. Now, remember all of this happened because they had dared to preach Jesus and free someone from an evil influence.

However, it is dangerous to mess with God and God’s people. For in the middle of the night the LORD caused a massive earthquake that opened all the prison doors and caused all the prisoners chains to fall off.

In a matter of some 12 hours a demonic woman had been freed, two missionaries had been arrested, beaten and imprisoned and then an earthquake not only opened the doors but opened the chains of all the prisoners. What an amazing 12 hour period of time.

Realizing that everything was a mess and that his life was potentially at stake the prison warden fell at Paul’s feet seeking help. He knew that if any of the prisoners escaped, he would either have to serve out their sentence at the very least or at the very worst he would be killed.

The question he asks the Apostle Paul is a very serious one:

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” – verse 16

Saved from the prisoners? Saved from jail? Saved from potential death? Saved from becoming unemployed? Saved from what?

The Apostle Paul doesn’t talk about Roman Law or how to put the jail back into order but in his heart the jailer’s question leads him to a spiritual answer. Paul knows that deep in this jailer’s heart, he is not concerned about his physical life. This man has been touched by the Power, Presence and Person of the Holy Spirit. This man had come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

“What must I do to be saved?”

This morning, that is what I want to talk to you about.

What must I or rather what must we do to be saved?

Being saved is something that we in the Church appear to talk about a great deal but do we really know what we mean?

Why do we need to be saved in the first place and what are we being saved from?

I. We need Salvation because we humans have sinned – Romans 3:9-12; 23

To know why we need salvation we have to share a background story. The story starts off in the book of Genesis.

Genesis tells us that in the beginning the Lord God Almighty created everything and it was good. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was wrong or sinful. Everything was in order. Everything was good and perfect.

Heaven, God’s home was perfect. In heaven lived all kinds of created beings that God had created. Beings like the seraphim, cherubim, the 24 elders and other heavenly beings. It was all perfect and all things were going well.

Then the Bible says that something went horribly wrong. It started with one of God’s angels, named Morning Star or Lucifer. Lucifer became so impressed with his own beauty, intelligence, power, and position that he began to desire for himself the honor and glory that belonged to God alone. Lucifer didn’t want to serve God. He wanted to replace God. In fact, Lucifer wanted to be God.